Title: Local lives : migration and the politics of place /
Authors: Bönisch-Brednich, Brigitte; Trundle, Catherine.
Publisher: Ashgate Pub.,
Year: 2010
Subjects: Immigrants Cultural assimilation; Emigration and immigration Social aspects; Space perception Social aspects.
Abstract: Local Lives contests dominant trends in migration theory, demonstrating that many migrant identities have not become entirely diasporic or cosmopolitan, but remain equally focused on emplaced belonging and the anxieties of being uprooted. By addressing the question of how migrants legally and symbolically lay claim to owning and belonging to place, it refocuses our attention on the micro-politics and everyday rituals of place-making, that are central to the construction of migrant identities. Exploring immigrants' interactions with house spaces, property rights, environmental conservation, landscape, historical knowledge of place, ideas of 'local community' and place-specific 'traditions', this volume shows how, in a fluid world of movement, locality remains a deeply contested and symbolically rich place to situate identity and to constitute the self. Thematically organised and presenting a diverse range of empirical studies dealing with migrant communities in Hawaii, Britain, France, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, the Dominican Republic and Albania, Local Lives reorients research in migration and transnational studies around locality. As such, it will appeal to social scientists working on questions relating to landscape, identity and belonging; race and ethnicity; and migration and transnationalism.
Contents: I. Migrants and the politics of land ownership. 1. Migrant routes and local roots: negotiating property in Dhërmi/Drimades of Southern Albania / Nataša Gregorič Bon -- 2. Against the gated community: contesting the ugly American dream through rural New Zealand Dreams / Catherine Trundle -- 3. Past imperfect: displacing Hawaiians as host ina drop out community in Hawaii / Lucy Pickering -- II. Landscapes of belonging. 4. 'We are not expats: we are not migrants; we are Sauliacoise': laying claim belonging in Rural France / Michaela Benson -- 5. Ambiguous foreigners: neighbours share more than geographical space / Jacqueline Waldren -- III. Houses and homes: Intimate migrant place. 6. A reluctant locality: the politics of place and progress in Santo Domingo / Erin B. Taylor -- 7. Little Anglo-India: making Australia local at St. Joseph's hostel / Robyn Andrews -- Contesting urban place. 8. Invoking a community of engagement: mobility and place in small English town / Karen O'Reilly -- 9. Negotiating religious expression and citizenry belonging: Bosnian experiences in Suburban Melbourne / Lejla Voloder -- 10. Migrants on campus: becoming a local foreign academic / Brigitte Bőnisch-Brednich. Epilogue: The cosmopolitan justice of a direction home / Nigel Rapport.