Geography of belonging: nostalgic attachment,transnational home and global mobility among Romanian immigrants in Spain

This article explores how human global mobility is linked to a sense of home and belonging and outlines ways in which European Union (EU) enlargement could contribute to broader debates about migration, both empirically and theoretically. To accomplish this aim, I use the context of Romanian migration to Spain. Since EU enlargement in 2007, Spain has emerged as a major destination for Romanian migrants. The main argument of the paper is that transformations in the EU over the past 20 years through its open border policy have changed migrant workers into EU movers, and this change affects people's perceptions about sense of home. This analysis is prompted by a qualitative and narrative turn in migration studies, and an emphasis on new mobility pathways in accounting for the embodied dimensions of migration. Key to the paper is an analysis of how people can maintain a sense of home while being on the move. It attempts to demonstrate that migrants' experiences of belonging in their host country may vary greatly depending on the time of movement, the politics of EU borders, the nature of mobility and personal and individual circumstances.     

On Chinese-Sanskrit Comparative Indexing

Heinrich Heine’s ?Two Chinese Scholars“ Revisited

Twenty-five years ago, the author published a treatise dealing with the two Chinese mentioned by Heinrich Heine in The Harz Journey as well as in a private letter. These men served as teachers for Wilhelm Schott, the future first professor of Chinese at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität of Berlin. Since then, a number of scholars turned to this topic and consider the two of them as pioneers of Chinese immigration to Berlin, Prussia or Germany respectively. Most of these scholars interpret certain facts according to their own liking, though there are no sources at all to support their suppositions. The present paper addresses all these misinterpretations. Moreover, newly discovered contemporary reports about the two Chinese are quoted verbatim.     

Transnational artifacts: Grappling with fluid material origins and identities in archaeological interpretations of culture change

There has been a gradual shift in historical archaeology towards interpretive approaches to material culture, including recognition of the potential for multiple functions and meanings in local contexts. It is argued here that artifacts can also maintain multiple, fluid origins and identities that affect our understanding of the nature of cultural persistence and change among migrant, indigenous and other ethnic groups. However, predefined classification schemes are often rigid and do not allow for this kind of fluidity, including the potential for artifacts from one culture to be indigenized into another. Data drawn from recent research on Japanese migrants in British Columbia, in conjunction with an approach rooted in transnationalism and diaspora, are used to highlight the nature of these ambiguities and to suggest methodological and theoretical means of overcoming them. These solutions include the need to develop contextual classification schemes that incorporate multiple artifact identities and to conduct detailed material culture histories that trace shifting origins and identities both before and during periods of migration or displacement.     

论南非早期华人与印度移民之异同

南非的华人和印度人之间既有相同点,又有不同点。一方面,他们生活在一块相对陌生的土地上,遇到了相同的困难,主要表现在种族歧视、经济困境、社会地位和政治权利等方面。作为“亚洲威胁者”,他们被非洲人视为到南非获取当地低工资的入侵者,而被白人当作贫穷的未开化的苦力。在面临生存危机时,他们总是团结起来与当地政府的种族歧视政策作斗争。另一方面,两个社群之间存在诸多差异。作为大英帝国的子民,印度人移民南非比中国人容易,因此比华人多得多;印度人在南非诸种族集团中处于一个比华人更明确的位置;印度人的宗教传统在社会生活中占有重要的地位。更为重要的是,印度早期移民中的不少知识分子极大地促进了印度人社区的整合,同时有利于印度人为获得自身权利而斗争。     

Hybrid identities: American Muslim women speak

Drawing upon postcolonial theorizing on diasporic positionalities and Homi Bhabha's theorization on ‘third space’ and hybridity, this study shows how young American Muslim women engage in their own interpretations of Islam based on their individual needs and situations. Individual in-depth interviews were conducted with 26 respondents in Ohio and Texas in order to gain insights into the identities of American Muslim women with immigrant backgrounds. Respondents emphasized their own ‘research’ on Islam as an important foundation of their faith. The narratives of the American Muslim women showed that they subverted and transgressed dominant meanings, while negotiating new ones through their everyday lived experiences. However, without indulging in an uncritical celebration of interstitial spaces, this study also strives to highlight the power relations implicit in the performances of complex, hybrid identities in the post-9/11 American context.     

Culture,emotional transnationalism and mental distress: family relations and well-being among Taiwanese immigrant women

Immigrant women's vulnerability to mental distress has been recognized in the literature and yet the socio-cultural causes of their distress have rarely been explored. On the basis of a case study of Taiwanese immigrants residing in Chicago, this article illustrates the dynamic contexts within which Taiwanese immigrant women's distress is produced at home and explains the social and cultural factors that engender the women's distress. In this article I argue that Taiwanese immigrant women frequently shift back and forth between Taiwanese and American cultural norms in an effort to apply effective behavioral guidance and justifications to interactions with their spouses, children and in-laws. The term ‘emotional transnationalism’ is used to describe the psychological experience associated with transnational cultural practices. Distress is often generated as these women struggle with feelings of ambivalence and contradictions that confront them in their search for cultural identities. The severity of distress is largely determined by the power hierarchies between women and those with whom they interact. Married women's status as subordinate to their in-laws creates more negative experiences than any other status.     

TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY: DETERMINANTS OF HOME OWNERSHIP AMONG GHANAIAN IMMIGRANTS IN TORONTO

Using information collected in a questionnaire survey, this study investigates the factors influencing the housing tenure of Ghanaian immigrants in Toronto. The study finds that Ghanaian immigrants have a low home-ownership rate compared to the Canadian-born population and other immigrant groups. This is partly attributable to the recency of their migration, their relatively low incomes, and their small household sizes. Analysis also shows that social and personal factors, notably the initial motives of the immigrants, their back-home ties, their desire for home ownership back home, and their intention to return there permanently, are critical in shaping their decisions with respect to home ownership in Canada.
Dans cette étude, nous examinons, à l'aide d'un sondage, les facteurs portant sur les modes de logement des immigrants ghanéens à Toronto. Nous démontrons que les Ghanéens sont propriétaires de leurs logements moins souvent que ne le sont les personnes nées au Canada ou les membres d'autres groupes d'immigrants. Le sondage révèle que la taille inférieure des ménages, les faibles revenus, et les dates d'immigration récentes des immigrants ghanéens sont parmi les causes principales de ce phénomène. L'analyse démontre aussi que des éléments sociaux ou personnels, tels les raisons initiales de l'immigration, les liaisons avec le lieu d'origine, le désir d'être propriétaire dans le lieu d'origine et l'intention ou non des immigrants de retourner au Ghana, sont d'une importance fondamentale lorsque les immigrants ghanéens prennent une décision à l'égard de l'achat d'un logement.     

试论英国崛起中的尼德兰因素

英国的崛起存在外来因素特别是尼德兰因素的参与和推动。从11世纪到18世纪,尼德兰人移居英国经历了四次高潮,这种移民既有尼德兰人逃离内乱或寻求生存和发展新环境的动机,也有英国方面的主观因素,即政府和民众的欢迎态度。对英国崛起有决定意义的重大经济现象,如呢绒工业的发展,乡村毛纺业的兴起,棉纺业的起步,农业革命的进行,工业革命的资金准备,都与尼德兰移民和资本的到来有密切关系。     

Revisiting the Hawaiian Influence on the Political Thought of Sun Yat-sen

In the 19th century, the Hawaiian Kingdom was not merely the leading state of Oceania, but had important influences on East Asia as well. The article argues that Hawai‘i has a special place in the modern history of China because Sun Yat-sen, the future revolutionary and founding father of the Chinese Republic, was educated in the Hawaiian Kingdom, attending two denominational secondary schools in Honolulu in the late 1870s and early 1880s during Kalākaua’s reign. Sun began developing his vision for a modernised China during this time, and as he himself stated, the Hawaiian Kingdom became the first conceptual philosophical model for this vision. A critical examination and analysis of Sun Yat-sen’s early biography and the development of his political thought further demonstrates that Sun’s vision of a technologically modern, yet politically independent and actively anti-imperialist China was close to the reality of the Hawaiian Kingdom he experienced.