Migration, Identity, and Belonging: Anthropological Perspectives on a Multidisciplinary Field of Research
This chapter draws on papers presented at an interdisciplinary conference on migration, each of which showcases a thematic approach to this complex phenomenon favoured in social and cultural anthropology. From an anthropological perspective, the papers of
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This chapter draws on papers presented at an interdisciplinary conference on migration, each of which showcases a thematic approach to this complex phenomenon favoured in social and cultural anthropology. From an anthropological perspective, the papers of this chapter address the dynamics of migration, identity and belonging. The theme of the panel – migration, identity, and belonging – was intentionally framed in a broad way. This allowed for anthropological contributions to the interdisciplinary field of migration studies to be discussed via aspects of migration processes that anthropologists regularly attend to. The contributors were invited to reflect upon and comparatively discuss their own research while critically referring to relevant theoretical paradigms (such as, e.g. transnationalism, integration, diaspora studies, citizenship studies, multiculturalism, (super)diversity, cosmopolitanism, etc.) and, where possible, signposting relevant future trends in research and theory building. Although migration has not framed as a traditional focus of anthropological inquiry, social and cultural anthropologists have long been interested in migration processes, especially the dynamics of cultural and socio-economic transformations (see, e.g. Armbruster 2009). Anthropological contributions to this interdisciplinary field have naturally involved the application, integration and reassessment of different theoretical paradigms, such as modernisation theory, historical-structural approaches, gender-oriented approaches, citizenship theories and theories of ethnicity, to name just a few. A crucial shift within the anthropological work on migration occurred with the framework of transnationalism at the beginning of the 1990s (e.g. Glick Schiller et al. 1992). This approach, which has received sustained levels of debate and criticism since then, attained the status of a paradigm in the anthropology of migration. The paradigm of transnationalism put the research
J. Tosˇic´ (*) Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna, Universit€atsstraße 7, 1010 Vienna, Austria e-mail: [email protected] M. Messer et al. (eds.), Migrations: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, DOI 10.1007/978-3-7091-0950-2_10, # Springer-Verlag Wien 2012
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focus on migrants as active agents situated within socio-cultural transformations in multiple social, cultural and political contexts. Migrants as active agents became dynamic reference points for always-emergent identities, loyalities, and belongings – a research frame which potentially overcomes “methodological nationalism” (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002). The issues of identity and belonging – also dealt with by other disciplines such as, for example, psychology, sociology, gender studies or the interdisciplinary field of citizenship studies – are central to the anthropological approach to migration. At the risk of simplification, one can venture that anthropologists commonly focus on identity and belonging, not as pre-given categories but, rather, as c
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