114.1 Multiplying diasporic identities and living intersected belonging

Wednesday, August 1, 2012: 12:30 PM
Faculty of Economics, TBA
Oral
Ulrike VIETEN , VU Amsterdam, Free University Amsterdam, Netherlands
Multiplying diasporic identities and living intersected belonging: the making and shifting of transnational homes in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands since 1970

It is argued in this paper that regional, local as well as global identifications override national and mono-ethno cultural identities while shaping particular notions of intersecting hybrid identities and multi-layered belonging in three EU countries. Based on interviews with professional and academic key minority activists in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands the impact of ‘New Integrationism’ (Triadafilopoulos 2011: 864) that puts further pressure on visible minorities and diasporic communities to assimilate and express civic loyalty to European nation states on the one hand, and diasporic- transnational community identifications on the other, are explored. Deliberately individuals from different migratory cultural heritage (South Asian Brits; Turkish Germans and Moroccan Dutch) in the three countries were chosen in order to move the debate beyond an ethnification migration context. It is suggested that the positioning of “new” citizens in different European countries is at the forefront of 21st century transnational and cosmopolitan self perceptions. What matters foremost to the contemporary moment is the way diasporic identities are spreading across various migrating communities and taking roots as ongoing routes and routines in different places. If we regard this as a persisting effort it means that any generation of diasporic descent constructs multiple links to distinctive territories engendering new transnational and local social spaces. 

First the different migration and citizenship regimes in Britain, German and the Netherlands are sketched, followed by a brief methodological introduction, also explaining the theoretical framework and then introducing the findings of the study[1].

Bibliography

Triadafilopoulos, T (2011) ‘Illiberal Means to Liberal Ends? Understanding recent Immigrant Integration Policies in Europe’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 37, No. 6, 861-880

 



[1] This is research in progress still.