scholarly journals Growing Up to Belong Transnationally: Parent Perceptions on Identity Formation Among Latvian Emigrant Children in England

Author(s):  
Daiga Kamerāde ◽  
Ieva Skubiņa

Abstract As a result of the wide availability of social media, cheap flights and free intra-EU movement it has become considerably easier to maintain links with the country of origin than it was only a generation ago. Therefore, the language and identity formation among children of recent migrants might be significantly different from the experiences of children of the previous generations. The aim of this paper is to examine the perceptions of parents on the formation of national and transnational identity among the ‘1.5 generation migrant children’ – the children born in Latvia but growing up in England and the factors affecting them. In particular, this article seeks to understand whether 1.5 generation migrant children from Latvia construct strong transnational identities by maintaining equally strong ties with their country of origin and mother tongue and, at the same time, intensively creating networks, learning and using the language of the new home country. The results of 16 semi-structured in-depth interviews with the parents of these children reveal that the 1.5 generation Latvian migrants are on a path of becoming English-dominant bilinguals. So far there is little evidence of the development of a strong transnational identity among 1.5 generation migrant children from Latvia. Instead, this study observed a tendency towards an active integration and assimilation into the new host country facilitated by their parents or occurring despite their parents’ efforts to maintain ties with Latvia. These findings suggest that rather than the national identity of the country of origin being supplemented with a new additional national identity – that of the country of settlement – the identity of the country of origin becomes dominated by it instead.

Author(s):  
Iveta Jurkane-Hobein ◽  
Evija Kļave

Abstract The proportion of the Russian-speaking population in Latvia increased dramatically during the Soviet period from 12% in 1935 to 42% in 1990 due to organised labour migration within the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, especially since the end of the 1990s, many Russian-speaking Latvians have migrated to Western countries. Very little is known about the national identities of these Russian-speaking Latvians. By analysing 30 life histories of Russian-speaking migrants from Latvia in Sweden and Great Britain, this study aims to analyse the transnational identities of Russian-speaking Latvians abroad. The analysis shows that the migrants’ own migration patterns in addition to the migration history of their families create interlinked and sometimes conflicting layers of transnational identity. Drawing on the interviews, three main processes in the identity formation were distinguished: aspiring to a Latvian identity, claiming an unrecognised Russian-speaking Latvian identity and developing transnational ‘non-belonging’.


Pedagogika ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-38
Author(s):  
Aldona Mazolevskienė ◽  
Sigita Montvilaitė

The article discusses the importance of fostering national identity in preschoolers living abroad and difficulties related to it, also, there is disclosed national identity’s expression of Lithuanian children living in foreign countries. Moreover, the article seeks to substantiate the problem of national identity formation in emigration with reference to research carried out abroad. The aim of this research is to expose the peculiarities of preschool children’s formation of national identity in emigration. The objectives of the research are the following: to ascertain ethnic consciousness of emigrants’ preschool age children; to explore aspects of identification with Lithuanians nation; to learn about the attitude of the parents growing up preschool age children towards Lithuanian identity’s nurturance in emigration. In 2010 there was carried out research which proved that children and their parents quite positively think about possibilities of ethnic identity formation in emigration. The research carried out in 2012 highlighted pretty skeptic attitude of emigrant parents towards Lithuania and Lithuanian identity considering the formation of their children’s ethnic identity.


Author(s):  
Alistair Fox

The conclusion reaffirms the essential role played by cinema generally, and the coming-of-age genre in particular, in the process of national identity formation, because of its effectiveness in facilitating self-recognition and self-experience through a process of triangulation made possible, for the most part, by a dialogue with some of the nation’s most iconic works of literature. This section concludes by point out the danger posed, however, by an observable trend toward generic standardization in New Zealand films motivated by a desire to appeal to an international audience out of consideration for the financial returns expected by funding bodies under current regimes.


Author(s):  
Melita Kuburas

Twenty years since the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region first began, 610,000 people are still internally displaced in Azerbaijan, living in poverty and in wretched housing conditions. The causes of violence in the ongoing ethnic conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which began in the late 1980s and has since resulted in 30,000 deaths, can mainly be analyzed using a constructivist framework. However, elements of a primordialist approach to national identity were also used by mobilizers totrigger political and social uprisings. This paper presupposes that the constructivist theories on identity formation and territorial claims offer a better explanation as to why the war over Nagorno-Karabakh broke out in the 1990s, and why, in 2010, the two parties are no closer to a resolution and the Nagorno-Karabakh region remains in limbo.   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v6i1.208


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunyoung Park ◽  
Lasse Gerrits

AbstractAlthough migration has long been an imperative topic in social sciences, there are still needs of study on migrants’ unique and dynamic transnational identity, which heavily influences the social integration in the host society. In Online Social Network (OSN), where the contemporary migrants actively communicate and share their stories the most, different challenges against migrants’ belonging and identity and how they cope or reconcile may evidently exist. This paper aims to scrutinise how migrants are manifesting their belonging and identity via different technological types of online social networks, to understand the relations between online social networks and migrants’ multi-faceted transnational identity. The research introduces a comparative case study on an online social movement led by Koreans in Germany via their online communities, triggered by a German TV advertisement considered as stereotyping East Asians given by white supremacy’s point of view. Starting with virtual ethnography on three OSNs representing each of internet generations (Web 1.0 ~ Web 3.0), two-step Qualitative Data Analysis is carried out to examine how Korean migrants manifest their belonging and identity via their views on “who we are” and “who are others”. The analysis reveals how Korean migrants’ transnational identities differ by their expectation on the audience and the members in each online social network, which indicates that the distinctive features of the online platform may encourage or discourage them in shaping transnational identity as a group identity. The paper concludes with the two main emphases: first, current OSNs comprising different generational technologies play a significant role in understanding the migrants’ dynamic social values, and particularly, transnational identities. Second, the dynamics of migrants’ transnational identity engages diverse social and situational contexts. (keywords: transnational identity, migrants’ online social networks, stereotyping migrants, technological evolution of online social network).


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galia Sabar ◽  
Adam Rotbard

Based on extensive qualitative research, this paper focuses on lament ceremonies Eritrean asylum seekers in Israel performed in public parks in 2008–2014.1 Specifically, we expose social and political structures of this diaspora, including mechanisms of survival in a context of harsh living conditions, a fragile legal status and a hostile environment. Following Werbner’s analysis of diasporas as chaordic entities, having no single representation and fostering multiple identities, we show how chaordicness underlies this diaspora’s ability to survive and thrive in Israel, and to embrace the unique Eritrean trans-local nationalism. We highlight how these public religious rituals were transformed into contested sites of identity formation following Israeli struggles against them. Finally, we shed light on the role that such ceremonies play in shaping transnational identities, as well as how disenfranchised communities of asylum seekers aim for visibility and recognition in the public sphere.


wisdom ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-161
Author(s):  
Tetiana URYS ◽  
Tetiana KOZAK ◽  
Svitlana BARABASH

National culture, especially literature, contains invaluable nation-building potential and is an effective factor in influencing the development of the national identity of the individual and the ethnic group as a whole. In the process of forming literary works, the author’s consciousness and subconscious play an im­portant role, so they are not only one of the best ways of expressing a creative personality and a form of its reaction to events occurring in the outside world, but also one of the most important means of forming the national identity of the recipients. Therefore, such a literary work contains a modus of national identity. The main content of this concept in the literature is revealed in the article. Its theoretical components and their functional aspects in the text are defined and analysed. The modus of national identity is formulated as a way of realising the identity of one with his nation through certain aesthetic elements and structures at all levels of literary work as an artistic system. Such element-dominants are motives, artistic imagery, lyrical character as the main expression of the author’s thoughts, as well as archetypes, symbols and place names.


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