Migration and Identity: A Research Agenda

1
Migration and Identity A Research Agenda

• Marius I. Tatar
• Research Centre on Identity and Migration Issues
  - RCIMI
• University of Oradea, Romania
• www.e-migration.ro

2
Conceptual framework Migration and Identity

• During the 1970s and early 1980s bipolar
  framework (Rouse, 1995)
• Basic assumption concerning migration people
  moved between places that were fundamentally
  distinct, that it was impossible for them to
  sustain significant involvements at a distance
• 2 major trajectories of international migration
• circular/short term migrants people remained
  oriented towards their home place and stayed only
  for short periods in the host country before
  returning home
• linear - people oriented more or less gradually
  to the host country and tended to permanent
  resettlement

3
Conceptual framework Migration and Identity

• During the 1970s and early 1980s bipolar
  framework
• Basic assumption concerning identity identities
  were fundamentally localized, that is they
  developed and gained their meaning in relation to
  the circumstances prevailing within a single,
  bounded territory or place.
• 2 major trajectories of identity
• Circular migrants were held to retain identities
  associated with their place of origin
• Linear migrants resettled in the host country
  were seen as abandoning old identities and
  gradually developing new ones
• Multiple identities, especially those that
  challenged the idea of loyalty to a single
  sovereign state, were treated as markers of
  transitional status

4
Conceptual framework Migration and Identity

• Beginning with the 1990s transnational
  community framework (Rouse, 1995)
• Migrants through continued movement back and
  forth and the concomitant circulation of money,
  goods and information, have linked the various
  places so tightly that they have come to form new
  kinds of social space - multi-local social
  settings that span the boundaries of the
  nation-states involved.
• Emergence of transnational communities or
  migrant circuits that link various villages,
  towns and counties to the various outposts that
  their inhabitants establish abroad
• These transnational communities serve as the
  main setting in which migrants organize their
  lives

5
Conceptual framework Migration and Identity

• During the 1990s and 2000s transnational
  community framework (Rouse, 1995)
• Many (im)migrants have in fact developed
  multi-local and transnational affiliations.
• In some cases, they are said to have acquired
  multiple identities, combining old and new
  identities in a broadened repertoire of possible
  associations
• In others, to have developed new kinds of
  singular identity appropriate to life in the
  multi-local settings that now frame their lives
• Multiple and transnational affiliations are not
  seen as transitional status nor as pathologies
  but as responses to varied pressures people face

6
Constructing migrant identities

• Identity is a set of perceptions about
  ourselves as individuals or as a group in
  relation to
• other individuals or groups
• our position in the social system(s).
• Identity refers to a process of drawing
  difference, of distinguishing oneself from others
  (Brettell Sargent, 2006)
• Migrant identities are constructed through the
  process of mobility in ways that incorporate and
  blend experiences of multiple places
  simultaneously (Silvey Lawson, 1999)

7
Constructing migrant identities

• Immigrants are often definedas legal or illegal,
  citizen or alienlargely by the state, which
  plays an important role in the political and
  cultural production of migrant identities in the
  public sphere (Brettell Sargent, 2006)
• Tensions of exclusion and inclusion characterize
  migrant efforts to situate themselves in the host
  community/country and define their identities.
• Identities are constantly in the making, flexible
  and fluid, constructed in relation to the
  changing contexts provided by migration (Brettell
  Sargent, 2006).

8
Migration and Identity A Research Agenda

• A research agenda on migration and identity can
  be set up around several policy issues (adapted
  from Sriskandarajah, 2006)
• Admission
• Entitlements
• Integration
• Impacts

9
Migration and Identity A Research Agenda

• Admission Who can enter a society and what are
  the rules of the entry?
• Admission criteria can have important
  consequences for migrant identities as they
  influence the types of migrants
  encouraged/discouraged to enter the host country
• Asylum seekers, refuges vs. voluntary migrants
• Highly skilled vs. low skilled
• Seasonal vs. permanent migrants

10
Migration and Identity A Research Agenda

• Entitlements what rights/services migrants have
  access to?
• Migrant identities can be shaped by
• the availability of host society to grant equal
  citizenship rights to migrants
• the positions/jobs to which migrants have access
• the availability of basic entitlements such as
  health care and education
• generosity of migrants entitlements also impacts
  the choices made by a highly mobile, highly
  skilled and well-informed pool of migrant labor

11
Migration and Identity A Research Agenda

• Integration how effectively do migrants
  integrate into the host society?
• The relationship between migrants and the host
  society exclusion vs. inclusion, social and
  spatial segregation, perceptions of unfairness
  amongst both host society and migrants
• How to manage ethnic, cultural and religious
  diversity?
• How to avoid prejudice, discrimination and
  racism?
• How effectively are group specific rights (i.e.
  minority rights) protected?

12
Migration and Identity A Research Agenda

• Impacts what is the effect of migration on host
  and home country and also what is the perceived
  effect concerning, but not limited to
• Economic development
• Remittances
• Brain-drain/Brain-gain
• Increasing/decreasing population aging
  population
• Employment/Unemployment
• Increased criminality, etc

13
Migration and Identity A Research Agenda

• University of Oradea
• Research Centre on Identity and Migration Issues
  RCIMI
• www.e-migration.ro
• Journal of Identity and Migration Studies JIMS
• www.jims.e-migration.ro

14
References

• Brettell, C. B. Sargent, C. F. (2006).
  Introduction. Migration, Identity, and
  Citizenship Anthropological Perspectives.
  American Behavioral Scientist, Volume 50, Number
  1 , September 2006, 3-8
• Rouse, R. (1995). Questions of Identity
  Personhood and Collectivity in Transnational
  Migration to the United States. Critique of
  Anthropology Vol. 15(4) 351-380.
• Silvey, R., Lawson, V. (1999). Placing the
  Migrant. Annals of the Association of American
  Geographers, 89(1), 121-132.
• Sriskandarajah, D. (2006). Migration Madness
  Five Policy Dilemmas, Studies in Christian
  Ethics, 19.1 (2006), 2137