Boris Nieswand - Theorising Transnational Migration

Theorising Transnational Migration

Routledge Research in Transnationalism

1 New Transnational Social Spaces

International Migration and Transnational Companies in the Early 21st Century

Edited by Ludger Pries

2 Transnational Muslim Politics

Reimagining the Umma

Peter G. Mandaville

3 New Approaches to Migration?

Transnational Communities and the Transformation of Home

Edited by Nadje Al-Ali and Khalid Koser

4 Work and Migration

Life and Livelihoods in a Globalizing World

Edited by Ninna Nyberg Sorensen and Karen Fog Olwig

5 Communities across Borders

New Immigrants and Transnational Cultures

Edited by Paul Kennedy and Victor Roudometof

6 Transnational Spaces

Edited by Peter Jackson, Phil Crang and Claire Dwyer

7 The Media of Diaspora

Edited by Karim H. Karim

8 Transnational Politics

Turks and Kurds in Germany

Eva stergaard-Nielsen

9 Culture and Economy in the Indian Diaspora

Edited by Bhikhu Parekh, Gurharpal Singh and Steven Vertovec

10 International Migration and the Globalization of Domestic Politics

Edited by Rey Koslowski

11 Gender in Transnationalism

Home, Longing and Belonging among Moroccan Migrant Women

Ruba Salih

12 State/Nation/Transnation

Perspectives on Transnationalism in the Asia-Pacific

13 Transnational Activism in Asia

Problems of Power and Democracy

Edited by Nicola Piper and Anders Uhlin

14 Diaspora, Identity and Religion

New Directions in Theory and Research

Edited by Waltraud Kokot, Khachig Tllyan

and Carolin Alfonso

15 Cross-Border Governance in the European Union

Edited by Olivier Thomas Kramsch and Barbara Hooper

16 Transnational Connections and the Arab Gulf

Edited by Madawi Al-Rasheed

17 Central Asia and the Caucasus

Transnationalism and Diaspora

Edited by Touraj Atabaki and Sanjyot Mehendale

18 International Migration and Security

Opportunities and Challenges

Edited by Elspeth Guild and Joanne van Selm

19 Transnational European Union

Towards a Common Political Space

Edited by Wolfram Kaiser with Peter Starie

20 Geopolitics of European Union Enlargement

The Fortress Empire

Edited by Warwick Armstrong and James Anderson

21 Rethinking Transnationalism

The Meso-link of Organisations

Edited by Ludger Pries

22 Theorising Transnational Migration

The Status Paradox of Migration

Boris Nieswand

Theorising Transnational Migration

The Status Paradox of Migration

Boris Nieswand

First published 2011
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the UK
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2011 Boris Nieswand

The right of Boris Nieswand to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Printed and bound in the United States of America on acid-free paper by IBT Global.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nieswand, Boris.

Theorising transnational migration : the status paradox of migration / by

Boris Nieswand.

p. cm. (Routledge research in transnationalism ; 22)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. ImmigrantsCultural assimilation. 2. ImmigrantsSocial conditions. 3. Transnationalism. 4. Emigration and immigrationSocial aspects. I. Title.

JV6342.N54 2011

304.8dc22

2010053378

ISBN13: 978-0-415-58455-5 (hbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-203-81043-9 (ebk)

Figures, Tables and Maps

FIGURES

TABLES

MAPS

Acknowledgments

First, I would like to express my special gratitude to Gnther Schlee, who had the initial project idea and supervised the Ph.D. thesis out of which this book has developed. The department of Integration and Conflict at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle provided a vibrant intellectual environment for my work. Moreover, I would like to thank Nina Glick Schiller, Stephen Reyna, Steven Vertovec, Richard Rottenburg, Dereje Feyissa, Jrn Eichler, Andrea Riester, Olaf Zenker, Markus Hhne, Christiane Falge and Heike Drotbohm for their intellectual contributions, their help and their encouragement. Without them and their inspiration this book would not be the same. Moreover, I feel deeply indebted to the generosity and kindness of my Ghanaian informants and friends, who gave me insight into their lives and helped me to conduct my research in Ghana and Germany. Among many who supported my work I would like to single out Isaac Appiah Kubi, Victor Boadum, Gideon Alabami Kayar and Stephen Kofi Owusu, who contributed most substantively to the success of this study.

Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge the institutions that have supported my doctoral thesis. First of all, I want to thank the Max Planck Society and the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale for their generous financial and logistical support of my research. In addition, I would like to thank the Graduate School Asia and Africa in World Reference Systems at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg for providing me with a six-month writing-up scholarship and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity which supported me in reworking my Ph.D. thesis into a book. In this context, special thanks go to Astrid Finke, Jutta Turner, Christiane Kofri, Fanny Hocker, Birgitt Sippel and Diana Aurisch, who helped me edit the manuscript at different stages of the work.

And last but not least, I want to thank my daughter Judith and my family for helping me to keep one foot on the ground.

Integration is a major political idiom in the discussion about migration and its consequences for Western Europe. Societal transformations like the ageing of Western societies, the demand for qualified labour, migration-related ethnic and cultural diversification of national populations, growing internal inequalities, the crisis of multiculturalism and last but not least the imagined threat of Islamist terror attacks have initiated new political debates and policies on how migrants and minorities should be incorporated. In this context integration is first and foremost understood as a relationship of migrants with the receiving society and its institutions. The migrants connections to their countries of origin or other cross-border relationships are rarely conceptualised as relevant aspects of migrants integration into society.