Placing the second generation: A case study of Toronto

We examine the social mobility of the second generation in the Toronto metropolitan area by analyzing whether the adult children of immigrants live in more affluent and desirable neighbourhoods than the first generation. Using 2016 census microdata, we compare the social characteristics of census tracts where immigrants and the second and third-plus (3+) generations concentrate. The index of dissimilarity indicates the degree of residential separation among generations and for five ethno-racial second-generation groups: Chinese, South Asian, Black, Southern European, and Northern and Western European. The empirical findings show that the neighbourhoods where the first generation is over-represented are less affluent than those where the second and 3+ generations concentrate, with the largest improvements in social status occurring between the first and second generations. Although they frequently live in more distant suburban neighbourhoods than the first generation, the second generation still tends to live in inner and outer suburbs more than the exurban 3+ generation. For the second generation, the degree of residential concentration varies across ethno-racial groups with persistent segregation marking the residential locations of racial minorities. The findings highlight the variegated geographies and social mobility of the second generation in Canada's largest metropolitan area.     

One Europe or Many? Reflections on becoming European

Europe is being re-defined as a result of the combined effects of a complex set of processes. What sort of Europe is emerging from them? What criteria are being deployed to define Europe, Europeans and Europeanness and their respective boundaries? Such questions are considered via exploring a number of themes about and through Europe. They centre on the ways in which, and criteria by which, geo-political and economic spaces in Europe have been defined and divided. These practical cartographic processes are linked to changes in systems of, and the construction of new scales of, governance and regulation. As both supra-nationalism and the emergence of an EU 'super-state' and sub-nationalisms challenged the authority of the national state, new multi-scalar complex systems of governance and regulation resulted. These in turn are related to questions of singular and multiple identities, discussing these in the context of the possibilities for the emergence of a European civil society. Recognizing that the future map of Europe will not be determined by Europeans alone, the legacies of the division within Europe between NATO, the Warsaw Pact and neutral states and implications of the neo-imperialist geo-political ambitions of the USA state and military-industrial complex are then explored. Finally, some conclusions are drawn.     

Intra-group interactions and inter-group violence: Sikh mobilization during the partition of India in a comparative perspective

Theories of ethnic conflict posit ethnic mobilization by elites as a necessary condition for ethnic war. What is less well understood is why ethnic mobilization succeeds in some instances, but not in others. This article examines this question using a case that is yet to be systematically explored from this perspective: Sikh mobilization during the partition of British India in 1947. During the period February–July 1947, there were two clear instances in which a section of Sikh elites tried to mobilize group members. While the first attempt at mobilization in March failed to elicit sufficient mass participation, the second attempt, in July, was more effective and created the preconditions for the violence that ensued in August. What explains this variation in mobilization outcomes? We contend that this difference can be traced back to key changes in elite strategy from March to July. In March, mobilization failed because the Sikh elites who were committed to the path of violence left the onus of the mobilization on a small group of extremists and mass sentiments, ignoring serious intra-community differences based on class and caste inequalities. By contrast, in July, they emphasized the issue of land dispossession and gave credible indications of their resolve to use violence to defend individual rights to land. These actions produced greater compliance because of the specific capacity of anti-land dispossession politics to blur intra-group social inequalities and heighten inter-group tensions based on land dispossession.     

A 28,000 year old excavated painted rock from Nawarla Gabarnmang,northern Australia

We report new archaeological excavations from northern Australia revealing part of a charcoal design likely to be c. 28,000 years old (and chrono-stratigraphically constrained within the period 15,600–45,600 cal BP) on a small rock slab fallen from the ceiling at the rockshelter of Nawarla Gabarnmang in Jawoyn country, Arnhem Land. This represents the oldest confirmed pictograph in Australia.