The National Majority as a Local Minority
Authors:   , Lazëri Marina 
Published: September 2024

This dissertation engages with the implications of an important demographic transformation of our time, namely demographic shifts across large and mid-sized European cities where the population without a migration background – dominant at the national level – becomes a local numerical minority. These so-called majority-minority cities provide a site where the relationship between the national and the local context is important for how people without a migration background perceive and experience their own group position as a local minority. Using a variety of data sources and methods, this dissertation seeks to answer the research question: ‘What is the interplay between the nationally dominant position and the local numerical minority position of people without a migration background living in majority-minority Western European cities?’

Firstly, the dissertation turns to national identity as a key element of the national context and investigates how national identity boundaries are drawn in a local majority-minority context. Chapters 2 and 3 explore the way in which people without a migration background that are a local minority define national identity, and whether confrontation with being a minority affects the way in which they construct national identity.

Secondly, in this dissertation the national context is used as the backdrop in which minority experience for people without a migration background takes place. The work investigates how people without a migration background experience becoming a minority by asking how they see and react to their position as a local minority. Chapters 4 and 5 look at who feels like a minority when they are nationally dominant, and under which circumstances people without a migration background are more inclined to feel like a minority and perceive ethnic threat.

In answer to the research question, throughout this work three main themes emerge on the way in which the nationally dominant position of people without a migration background interplays with their local minority position. The first theme has to do with how people’s nationally dominant position remains a driving force for the way in which they relate to their position as a minority. This is also one of the main contributions of the dissertation, as it adds an under-researched perspective to the literature on majority-minority contexts. The second theme is centered on sharp ethnic boundaries, which are drawn by some of the people without a migration background that become a minority, in line with literature on increased ethnic threat when exposed to diversity. The third theme echoes some of the more recent literature on majority-minority and superdiverse contexts, namely the one showing familiarity and comfort with ethnic diversity in majority-minority contexts.

This dissertation contributes to a growing literature on majority-minority contexts by providing insight into the role that larger societal and national processes play in local living experiences. At the same time, this work can provide policymakers with insight into the workings of majority-minority settings and interethnic relations therein.