Volume 30, Number 1, January  2004

Articles
Abstracts

Articles

Antoine Pécoud
Entrepreneurship and identity: cosmopolitanism and cultural competencies among German-Turkish businesspeople in Berlin [Abstract]

Mikael Hjerm
Defending liberal nationalism – at what cost? [Abstract]

Allan M. Findlay, Caroline Hoy and Aileen Stockdale
In what sense English? An exploration of English migrant identities and identification [Abstract]

Anne Alitolppa-Niitamo
Somali youth in the context of schooling in metropolitan Helsinki: a framework for assessing variability in educational performance [Abstract]

Fiorella Dell’Olio
Immigration and immigrant policy in Italy and the UK: is housing policy a barrier to a common approach towards immigration in the EU? [Abstract]

György Csepeli and Dávid Simon
Construction of Roma identity in Eastern and Central Europe: perception and self-identification [Abstract]

Hans van Amersfoort
The waxing and waning of a diaspora: Moluccans in the Netherlands, 1950–2002  [Abstract]

Muhammad Amara and Izhak Schnell
Identity repertoire among Arabs in Israel [Abstract]

Ellie Vasta
Community, the state and the deserving citizen: Pacific Islanders in Australia [Abstract]

Antoine Pécoud
Entrepreneurship and identity: cosmopolitanism and cultural competencies among German-Turkish businesspeople in Berlin
Abstract This article investigates the connections between entrepreneurship and identity in the case of Turkish entrepreneurs in Berlin. It presents empirical material describing how they run their businesses in fields such as finding premises, recruiting staff or targeting a clientele. Shop-owners are shown to rely both on co-ethnic and non co-ethnic resources and it is argued that it is the combination of these two sets of resources that enables businesses to survive. This implies that entrepreneurs live and work in a culturally mixed context and that they have the necessary skills and cultural competencies to handle this complexity. The concept of cosmopolitanism is proposed to address this identity pattern and it is argued that German-Turkish businesspeople display a kind of cosmopolitanism that is characterised by its non-elite, practical and half-conscious dimensions.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Identity; Turkish migrants; Berlin; Cosmopolitanism
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 30 No. 1: 3-20, © 2004 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Michael Bruter
On what citizens mean by feeling ‘European’: perceptions of news, symbols and borderless-ness
Abstract What is ‘Europe’ for citizens? What do people mean when they say that they feel, or not, European? A growing literature by political scientists and journalists tries to assess European identity. Multiple theories of political identities exist, imposing fairly rigid and untested (and, essentially, untestable) assumptions on what they mean. No deductive technique, however, would allow us to let citizens explain the deeper signification of answers to questions on who they are and how they perceive their attachment to varying political communities. This paper, therefore, presents an analysis of a series of focus-group discussions run in France, the UK, and the Netherlands on what citizens believe to be ‘Europe’ and ‘Europeans’. They relate how they believe the media inform them on Europe, and how they perceive the main symbols of the European Union. They explain what matters to them in terms of their direct experience of European integration, and finally, what a ‘European identity’ means to them and whether they think of themselves and of their peoples as European or not. We discover that citizens are relatively cynical with regard to the perceived bias of the media on the European question. We derive impressionistic but somewhat surprising findings on the meaning they attribute to Europe through its symbols, with references to peace, cosmopolitanism and other ‘anti-identity’ values; ultimately, discussants’ predominant perception of European-ness relies, precisely, on the disappearance of internal EU borders. Finally, we can identify two main ‘ways’ for citizens to define a European identity: a predominantly ‘civic’ one, and a predominantly ‘cultural’ one.
Keywords: European identity; European Union; Focus groups; Media; Symbols; Public opinion
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 30 No. 1: 21-39, © 2004: Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Mikael Hjerm
Defending liberal nationalism – at what cost?
Abstract This article sets out to theoretically and empirically examine the liberal nationalist argument of promotion of cultural nationalism as a means of securing individual autonomy. The claim that a specific national identity needs to be promoted in the name of cultural nationalism in order to facilitate free and autonomous individuals is analysed. The article uses data from 21 of the countries participating in the International Social Survey Programme and examines whether cultural nationalism can be promoted without us having to pay a price for such promotion. It concludes that cultural nationalism only can be promoted as long as we are willing to pay the price of derogatory values aimed at individuals not considered as belonging to the nation. Thus, the liberal nationalist argument is put into question.
Keywords: Nationalism; Liberalism; Identity; Xenophobia; Autonomy
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 30 No. 1:, © 2004: 41-57, Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Allan M. Findlay, Caroline Hoy and Aileen Stockdale
In what sense English? An exploration of English migrant identities and identification
Abstract The empirical focus of this article is an analysis of the self-identities of English-born persons living in urban Scotland. The material is theorised relative to the debate between modernist conceptions of identity and post-structuralist notions of identification. The researchers construct a fourfold typology of 'English' migrants that helps to problematise the nature and diverse meanings of 'Englishness'. The search to understand why many English migrants avoid the ‘English’ label in statements of self-identity leads to consideration of work on neo-tribes and problems of identification in fluid societies. A secondary, but also important, aspect of the paper is the exploration of 'accent' as a marker of 'identity'. This proves important in bounding the English service class in Scotland, otherwise an invisible migrant population.
Keywords: Accent; English migrant identity; Identification; Scotland; Service class mobility
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 30 No. 1: 59-79, © 2004 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Anne Alitolppa-Niitamo
Somali youth in the context of schooling in metropolitan Helsinki: a framework for assessing variability in educational performance
Abstract This article presents a framework that emphasises the multiplicity of factors explaining the educational performance of second-generation immigrants. The framework is illustrated by an example taken from the Somali-speaking population of metropolitan Helsinki. The multivariate framework, which is probabilistic rather than deterministic, acknowledges a multitude of factors that interact in a complex manner and affect the school performance of students. Each factor may prove to be a resource or a challenge for educational performance. The various combinations of variables are claimed to produce segmentation in the acculturation paths both within and between ethnic groups. Judging from ethnographic data, many challenges are present in the case of Somali-speaking students.
Keywords: Immigrants; Refugees; Second generation; School performance; Somalis
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 30 No. 1: 81-106, © 2004 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Fiorella Dell’Olio
Immigration and immigrant policy in Italy and the UK: is housing policy a barrier to a common approach towards immigration in the EU?
Abstract The article focuses on the general issue of immigrants’ social integration in the EU through a comparative analysis at the national level of two EU countries: Italy and the UK. It distinguishes between immigration policy and immigrant policy, and it highlights major problems related to both the categorisation of immigrants in receiving countries and immigrants’ social integration. It focuses specifically on housing policy, which bears heavily on the integration of immigrants into the respective societies of receiving countries. It also considers how close EU member-states are to reaching a Common Immigration Policy, especially in view of the fact that the 'Europeanisation' of immigration policy has concentrated mainly on the problem of entry control rather than immigrant policy.
Keywords: Immigration; Immigrant policy; Social integration; Housing policy; EU
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 30 No. 1: 107-128, © 2004 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

György Csepeli and Dávid Simon
Construction of Roma identity in Eastern and Central Europe: perception and self-identification
Abstract Roma people are the most numerous and most disadvantaged of all ethnic minority groups living in contemporary Central and Eastern Europe. The use of the category of Roma varies a great deal in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. While the stereotypes, attitudes and prejudices concerning the Roma minority suggest the presence of a highly homogenised and unified group, the actual population meant by the category of Roma varies according to the nature of the encounter. Moreover, not only do members of the non-Roma majority fail to agree who is Roma and who is not Roma, but there is no match between the results of the outgroup and ingroup categorisation. This mismatch is especially striking in Hungary. Explanatory models presented in this paper show differences in the structure of sociological determinants of categorisation between the three countries studied. As far as the nature of outgroup categorisation is concerned, the study showed that, compared to the general level of prejudice of the population, the anti-Gypsy prejudice is significantly less intense among the non-Roma interviewers in the survey, whose task was to categorise the respondents, but interviewers cannot be considered to have no anti-Gypsy bias altogether.
Keywords: Roma; Discrimination; Categorisation; Poverty; Prejudice; Stereotypes
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 30 No. 1: 129-150, © 2004 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Hans van Amersfoort
The waxing and waning of a diaspora: Moluccans in the Netherlands, 1950–2002
Abstract The decolonisation of the Dutch East Indies put the native soldiers of the colonial army (KNIL) in a difficult position. After a long-dragging conflict over their status after the disbandment of the KNIL, the Dutch government saw no other way out than to bring the last soldiers together with their families to the Netherlands. The group consisted of about 12,500 persons, nearly all Ambonese, who were housed in barracks awaiting their repatriation to Indonesia in the near future. Geographically and socially isolated from Dutch society, the ex-soldiers organised themselves around the ideal of a free republic on the Moluccan islands. After a period of indecisiveness, the Dutch government finally gave up in 1970 the idea of a return to Indonesia and tried to convince the Moluccans that their future lays in the Netherlands. But policy measures aimed at integration were vehemently opposed by Moluccan leaders who feared integration would induce their followers to abandon the political ideal. This deadlock situation led to a decade of violent internal conflicts and terrorist acts against Dutch civilians. After 1980 there came an end to the period of violence. New leaders came to the fore. They had a broader frame of reference and were interested in enhancing the social position of the Moluccans in the Netherlands. So far the situation of the Moluccans in the Netherlands has been described as a singular historic case. In this paper the fate of the Moluccans is analysed in a broader sociological frame of reference as an example of a diaspora; in other words, a settled community, that considers itself to be ‘ from elsewhere’ and whose common and most important goal is the realisation of a political ideal in what is seen as the homeland. By applying the diaspora concept an answer is sought to the question as to how it became possible that, after a decade of violence and terrorist actions, the Moluccans changed into an immigrant population, slowly integrating into Dutch society.
Keywords: Moluccans; Post-colonial immigrants; Diaspora; Integration; The Netherlands
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 30 No. 1: 151-174, © 2004 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Muhammad Amara and Izhak Schnell
Identity repertoire among Arabs in Israel
Abstract This study investigates the structure and components of the Arab identity repertoire in Israel. We analyse the relative salience of each component and the structural relations among the components. In addition we interpret the meanings associated with each component of the Arab identity repertoire in Israel. Our study differs from traditional investigations of Arab identities in Israel in considering identity as a multi-dimensional phenomenon, and in interpreting the meanings that the respondents assign to the relevant identities. Empirically we find that most Arabs in Israel feel strongly attached to at least three identities, none of them dominating the others. The correlations among the identities are low, meaning that they are only marginally affected by the feasibility of alternative identities and more by the type of practices performed in each respective milieu. In this respect it is interesting to see that the Palestinian identity is not associated with citizenship beyond national pride, while the Israeli identity is expected to supply them with a sense of citizenship. Our finding that different groups constitute for themselves different relations among the components of the identity repertoire suggests that our multi-dimensional model supplies a better explanation for the structure of Arab repertoires of identities.
Keywords: Identity repertoire; Palestinians; Arabs in Israel; Druze; Religion
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 30 No. 1: 175-193, © 2004 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Ellie Vasta
Community, the state and the deserving citizen: Pacific Islanders in Australia
Abstract In this paper I explore some of the problems that have emerged around the notion of community as constructed by the state in its attempt to deal with the problem of social exclusion. The paper shows how the idea of community, introduced by a neo-liberal government, is based on a notion of the moral integration of ‘deserving citizens’. I propose that the Australian welfare state is exacerbating the problem of social exclusion by imposing a notion of community contrary to the lived experience of numerous social groups in Australian society. I illustrate this point with examples taken from my research on the social exclusion of a small group of Pacific Islander immigrants in a regional town of Australia.
Keywords: Community; Deserving/undeserving citizens; Pacific Islanders; Social exclusion; Mutual obligations; The Third Way
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 30 No. 1: 195-213, © 2004 Taylor and Francis Ltd)