Susanne Wessendorf - Second-Generation Transnationalism and Roots Migration

SECOND-GENERATION TRANSNATIONALISM AND ROOTS MIGRATION

Series Editor:
Anne J. Kershen, Queen Mary, University of London, UK

Studies in Migration and Diaspora is a series designed to showcase the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary nature of research in this important field. Volumes in the series cover local, national and global issues and engage with both historical and contemporary events. The books will appeal to scholars, students and all those engaged in the study of migration and diaspora. Amongst the topics covered are minority ethnic relations, transnational movements and the cultural, social and political implications of moving from over there, to over here.

Also in the series:

Cultures in Refuge
Seeking Sanctuary in Modern Australia
Edited by Anna Hayes and Robert Mason
ISBN 978-1-4094-3475-7

Whiteness and Postcolonialism in the Nordic Region
Exceptionalism, Migrant Others and National Identities
Edited by Kristn Loftsdttir and Lars Jensen
ISBN 978-1-4094-4481-7

European Identity and Culture
Narratives of Transnational Belonging
Edited by Rebecca Friedman and Markus Thiel
ISBN 978-1-4094-3714-7

Migration, Citizenship and Intercultural Relations
Looking through the Lens of Social Inclusion
Edited by Fethi Mansouri and Michele Lobo
ISBN 978-1-4094-2880-0

Ethnicity and Education in England and Europe
Gangstas, Geeks and Gorjas
Ian Law and Sarah Swann
ISBN 978-1-4094-1087-4

Cross-Border Lives

SUSANNE WESSENDORF
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Germany

First published 2013 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Copyright 2013 Susanne Wessendorf

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.

Susanne Wessendorf has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Wessendorf, Susanne.

Second-generation transnationalism and roots migration : cross-border lives. -- (Studies in migration and diaspora)
1. Children of immigrants--Social conditions. 2. Ethnicity in children. 3. Adult children of immigrants--Attitudes. 4. Adult children of immigrants--Family relationships. 5. Immigrants--Cultural assimilation. 6. Return migration.
I. Title II. Series
305.9'06912-dc23

Wessendorf, Susanne, 1973-

Second-generation transnationalism and roots migration : cross-border lives / by Susanne Wessendorf.

p. cm. -- (Studies in migration and diaspora)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4094-4015-4 (hbk) -- ISBN 978-1-4094-4016-1 (ebook) 1. Transnationalism. 2. Children of immigrants. 3. Immigrants--Cultural assimilation. 4. Ethnicity. 5. Emigration and immigration--Social aspects. I. Title.

JV6035.W29 2013

305.9'06912--dc23

2012031361

ISBN 9781409440154 (hbk)

ISBN 9781315607962 (ebk)

Steven Vertovec

It has been fascinating to observe the development of a major sociological concept over just a few decades. Although, as many scholars have pointed out, sustained border-crossing phenomena among migrants have existed in various forms throughout history, the concept of transnationalism only really appeared on the social science scene in the early 1990s. Since then, the concept has been scrutinized, attacked, elaborated, qualified and revised in various ways. All that is good, and to be expected when any new-ish idea emerges in the literature. Overall, I think the most profound development, however, is a recent one. That is, transnationalism has by now become an almost taken-for-granted notion in migration studies across disciplines. An intellectual generation has been schooled since the concept has emerged and been debated. They comprise a new cohort of scholars for whom the significance of transnational linkages among migrants is anticipated in research design. Once, not long ago, social scientists were still making the case for the importance of looking at transnational ties; young scholars now take transnational practices as given, and proceed to do more interesting things than proving their existence and describing their manifestations. Transnationalism at once a body of theoretical understanding and a methodological approach is now mainstream.

Susanne Wessendorf is one such young scholar who received her training while transnationalism became established as a common framework for migration research. With the battle for conceptual acceptance largely over, she has been able to examine further, more complex dynamics generated by migrants (and, as described in this book, their descendants) transnational practices and orientations. A common acceptance of transnationalism also means that scholars such as Wessendorf do not have to focus exclusively on the transnational (one critique of the transnational approach to migration studies is that it can tend toward reifying cross-border practices or focussing on them to the point of excluding other conditions and processes). Indeed, through rich ethnography Wessendorf demonstrates how transnational connections are indeed strong among many of her informants but also how transnational links are just one set of mutually conditioning ties and orientations among those within several intersecting social fields comprising peoples lives.

By recognizing the transnational, and acknowledging that it is but one domain of influence on individuals self-images and activities, what emerges in Wessendorfs study is a spectrum of potential ethnic identifications among members of a second generation population. In this way her work marks an important contribution not just to theories of transnationalism but also to theory surrounding ethnicity (a notion around which there exists a massive literature, but one still somehow struggling to escape a sense of boundedness) and the second generation (a topic which, although having moved well beyond a between two cultures approach, is still dogged by rather staid notions of hybridity or hyphenated-identity). Wessendorf accomplishes this complex depiction particularly by observing the interactions between local and transnational experiences in light of individuals life course and developing relations to family and peer-groups. The work represents an important reminder that influences on social identity are complex, on-going, and from many sources. Moreover, particular influences have variable effects given ones (self-ascribed or other-attributed) social position alongside ones stage and process of personal development. Wessendorf helpfully guides us through myriad possibilities by proposing a spectrum of identifications and social affiliations.