‘Enculturation’, not ‘acculturation’: Conceptualising and assessing identity processes in migrant communities

Following a critique of Berry's model of ‘acculturation strategies’, the paper considers the relationship between heritage culture and ethnic identity. Analysis of processes of development, maintenance and redefinition of identity in contexts of alternative cultural norms contends with the assumption of conscious choice or strategy towards mainstream and heritage cultures. From the perspective of identity issues, enculturation of cultural elements rather than acculturation is often the more significant process. Going beyond critique to consider issues of the persistence of ethnic identity and processes of cultural reformulation, brings attention to the origins of primordialist sentiment within ethnic identity and the possibilities for generating situationalist perspectives. Reference to empirical investigations using Identity Structure Analysis (introduced as a conceptual framework for explicating complex identity processes) provides evidence for different identity processes and structures according to socio-historical context and the greater malleability of situationalists compared with primordialists in their empathetic identifications with alternative cultural groups.     

The role of cultural pressures and group favouritism in shaping Syrian refugees’ identity in the Jordanian work environment

This study seeks to understand the cultural inclusion/exclusion practices that Syrian refugees encounter in the Jordanian work environment, explore whether an ingroup (Jordanian) over outgroup (Syrian refugees) favouritism exists and how such favouritism reshapes Syrian refugees’ social identity in this new environment. Drawing on qualitative-semi structured interviews with 12 Syrian refugees in Jordan, the study highlights different multi-layered cultural exclusion/inclusion practices that Syrian refugees in Jordan face. Through a combined underpinning of social identity theory (SIT) (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and the acculturation framework (Arends-Tóth & van de Vijver, 2006), the study reports how these practices re-shape Syrian refugees’ identity around vocational skills. We go beyond the basic types of discrimination against refugees (e.g., gender, race, religion) to highlight economic and legal restrictions as important promoters of cultural exclusion despite the strong cultural cohesion factors. This highlights the significant role of community and societal practices that can go beyond cultural differences between groups, and extend our understanding of SIT.     

In between home and homeland: Diaspora identity as a cultural hybrid in Mohsen Namjoo’s “Cielito Lindo”

ABSTRACT

Rather than resisting either new or old culture, Iranian musicians in the diaspora embrace both their new host environments and their native homeland, as they create a place between cultural assimilation and preservation, helping to shape new sounds of exile. This essay explores how Iranian musicians embrace the new and the familiar, the traditional and the popular, creating an original cultural hybrid. Questions of cultural identity and the politics of location and displacement are addressed using a theoretical cultural studies framework, incorporating themes of personal and collective nostalgia. This discussion is supplemented by documented narrative experiences from Iranian musicians and artists. Furthermore, the textual and musical analysis of singer-songwriter Mohsen Namjoo’s readaptation of the familiar Mexican ranchera song “Cielito Lindo” uncovers unique nuances and layers of meaning that not only shed light on one musician’s personal journey to exile, but also speak to a greater collective experience of Iranians today who continue to be torn between home and homeland.     

Where I’m from? Third Culture Kids about their cultural identity shifts and belonging

This study explored the affect of Third Culture Kids (TCKs) towards their home and host culture(s) and how this affect may indicate possible cultural identity shifts as distinguished in Sussman’s (2000) cultural identity shift model. To this end, the method of poetic inquiry was used. The poems were concerned with TCKs’ affective experiences (Prendergast, 2009). We also investigated whether TCKs described their belonging in terms of personal relationships rather than in terms of geographical locations.Twenty TCKs, ranging in age from 26 to 70 years and from five ‘home cultures’, expressed their early cross-cultural experiences through the free verse poem of “Where I’m from”. A mixed method approach of qualitative and quantitative research was applied, by combining poetic inquiry using a free verse poem format and clustering these data by means of coding in Atlas.ti. TCKs’ poems were analyzed using belonging, affect, and practices-food-nature-events as key codes.Findings revealed that TCKs expressed stronger positive affect towards their host cultures than towards their ‘home’ cultures, indicating a subtractive cultural identity shift. We also found that TCKs defined their belonging more in terms of personal relationships than in terms of geographical locations. This study shows that TCKs’ sense of belonging seems more related to the question who than where I am from.     

“You are too ethnic,you are too national”: Dual identity denial and dual identification

Ethnic minorities tend to develop dual identities and therefore can face identity denials from two groups. We examine in two studies the relation between dual identity and experiences of dual identity denial as misgivings or a manifested mistrust of one’s group membership from both majority and minority group members. Based on identity integration and threat literature, identity denial represents a threat to dual identity which means that stronger dual identity denial can be expected to be associated with lower dual identity (a negative association). In contrast, based on identity enactment literature, stronger expression of one’s dual identity can be expected to elicit stronger identity denial (a positive association). These two contrasting hypotheses were examined in two studies (Study 1 = 474; Study 2 = 820) among ethnic minorities in the Netherlands. The results from both studies offer greater support for the identity enactment model and illustrate the complexities associated with having a dual identity.     

Beyond the residents–businesses clash – urban movements and cultural struggles in Shida,Taipei (2007–2015)

Between the mid-2000s and the early 2010s, the neighborhoods around National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU), an area widely known as Shida, unexpectedly became a tourist hotspot due to the rapidly expanding night market there. Dissatisfied residents mobilized, and for several years they engaged in intense legal and discursive clashes with area businesses, the Taipei City government, and other groups in the community. Drawing on long-term observation, ethnographic research, and in-depth interviews, this article explains Shida’s spatial change from the perspectives of urban movements and cultural struggles. Specifically, it describes how three groups in Shida became organized around divergent purposes, values, and imaginations of the community. Deploying different cultural resources – ranging from civic culture, subcultural ethics to community building – the groups further enter into complex negotiation with the spheres of politics and economics. Ultimately, there was no consensus reached in the Shida case, and though many lament the passing of the area’s unique culture and many of its businesses, the dynamics between the small-scale mobilizations in Shida generated invaluable critical local wisdoms that acknowledge the desire for multiple communities in a physical locality.     

Social support and cultural distance: Sojourners’ experience in China

Previous research has pinpointed that social support from host, co-national, and other international friends plays a pivotal role in successful adaptation to a new culture, yet research on this topic pertaining to China is inadequate. As such, using a cross-sectional sample of sojourners (N = 199) in major Chinese cities, the current study examines the relationship between sojourners’ self-reports of social support from the three sources and two psychological adaptation variables (i.e., anxiety and well-being) as well as the moderating effect of objective cultural distance. Regression analysis indicates that perceptions of host and international support are significant negative predictors of anxiety and positive predictors of psychological well-being. In addition, cultural distance moderated these predictive associations: host support and international support had a stronger negative association with anxiety and host support had a stronger positive association with well-being for participants whose cultural distance to China was lower compared to those whose cultural distance was higher. This study enhances our understanding of the dynamic interplay between social support and cultural distance in cross-cultural adaptation research within a Chinese cultural context.     

Desiring singlehood? Rural migrant women and affective labour in the Shanghai beauty parlour industry

This article studies rural migrant women working in the Shanghai beauty parlour industry, focusing on how this industry emphasises affective labour and articulates it along lines of migration, gender and seniority. The analysis looks at three types of female beauty workers: apprentices, senior beauticians, and entrepreneurs. Bringing together Hardt and Negri’s (2004) theorisation of affective labour and Yang Jie’s (2011) notion of aesthetic labour, this article investigates how the affective and aesthetic labour demanded from these migrant women affects their minds and bodies, and their position and value in the marriage market. On the basis of fieldwork conducted in Shanghai, the article begins by exploring the ways in which the demand of Shanghai beauty parlour industry for affective labour impacts the ability of rural migrant women to enter into other forms of affective relationships. It goes on to argue that affective labour in this industry is not wholly negative, but modifies bodies and minds in ways that can be both oppressive and enabling, depending on, among other things, the beauty worker’s level of seniority. Finally, the article proposes that, in the beauty parlour industry, there is a reciprocality with affective labour that includes the workers as well as the clients.     

Coming home from a stay abroad: Associations between young people’s reentry problems and their cultural identity formation

Combining a variable- and person-centered approach, the present study explores associations between cross-cultural reentry problems and cultural identity formation (processes and statuses) in late adolescence and young adulthood. The study sample consisted of 510 participants between 16 and 29 years of age who had spent 6–60 months abroad, mainly for educational reasons. Referring to a neo-Eriksonian identity model, three processes of home-culture related identity formation were differentiated: commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment. At the variable-centered level, reentry problems were negatively related to commitment with home culture and positively to exploration and, most strongly, to reconsideration. This pattern was corroborated at the person-centered level. Participants in the moratorium status (low commitment, high exploration, high reconsideration) reported most problems with reentry, whereas participants in the closure status (a pattern inverse to that of moratorium) reported fewest. Participants in the achievement and diffusion statuses ranked in the middle. In all analyses, person-related variables (gender, age, big five personality traits) and sojourn-related variables (length of sojourn, time since return) were controlled for. Implications of the findings for our understanding of (cross-) cultural mobility and identity are discussed and suggestions for future research are outlined.     

Entangled identities and acculturation: Comparing majority and minority adolescents’ multiple identity profiles in Belgium

This study considers recent criticism levelled at Berry’s acculturation model by (1) taking into account more complex expressions of belonging and by (2) testing the importance of regionalism (or the distinction between national and regional (/subnational) contexts) in understanding acculturation patterns. Data of the School, Identity and Society-survey, which contains information on 3510 adolescents from 64 schools selected from the three regions is employed to test specific hypotheses for the Belgian case. Three multiple identity profiles are selected for adolescents from migrant families, and four multiple identity profiles for adolescents from non-migrant families. The findings show that multiple identification for adolescents from migrant families is more often a conflicting than integrated experience. This incompatibility is not present for adolescents from non-migrant families. Small but meaningful variations of these multiple identity profiles occur among the three regions. In Brussels adolescents have a higher chance to be in the integrated identity profile.     

Mondrian as kitchen tiles? Artistic and cultural conceptions of art museum visitors in Belgium

This article investigates the ways in which art museums' visitors define their relationships to art and culture, and how this affects their perceptions of art museums. Existing approaches have traditionally attempted to define the meaning of art museums on the basis of the socio-economic composition of museum audiences. Using mixed methods analysis, with a particular stress on qualitative data about the audiences of the six main museums of modern and contemporary art in Belgium, I argue for the need for a more complex and comprehensive framework to understand visitors' perceptions. I show that people characterized by similar cultural tastes and practices use similar strategies to interpret their relationship to culture, art and museums (the same principles of classification, legitimation and justification). On this basis, I argue that those with a similar cultural profile belong to the same “interpretive community” (Fish, 1980; Hooper-Greenhill, 2000).     

Does teachers’ ethnic bias stress them out? The role of teachers’ implicit attitudes toward and expectations of ethnic minority students in teachers’ burnout

Research on diversity-related burnout has led to a variety of mixed findings. Several factors have been investigated that may come into play in this relationship (e.g., ethnic school composition). In this study, the hypothesis is that the experience of burnout may result from teachers’ own implicit attitudes and expectations towards ethnic minority students, which are usually negative, rather than explicit prejudices, which are found to be positive Two different implicit measures (Implicit Association Test and Relational Responding Task) and a scale to assess ethnic prejudices have been used. Implicit attitudes toward ethnic minority students and implicit expectations of students’ performance were both negative, but only implicit attitudes predicted teachers’ burnout. Explicit prejudice was low and did not predict burnout. These results highlight the role of teachers’ ethnic implicit attitudes towards ethnic minority students in their own well-being. Future research should further investigate this relationship to get a better understanding of how implicit aspects are involved in the development of burnout.     

HOMEless: a case study of private/public inversion and the temporal–spatial exclusion faced by migrant domestic workers

Abstract

This paper is a case study of the shutdown of HOME (the House for Migrant Workers' Empowerment), a cultural and service center for migrant workers. HOME was founded by the Taipei City Labor Bureau (TCLB) and subcontracted to TIWA (the Taiwan International Workers' Association) in 2002, when the Director of the TCLB was the former labor activist Zheng Cun‐qi. For migrant domestic workers, the distinction between sold‐time and free‐time (i.e. the work–rest distinction) is blurred. Most of their supposedly private reproductive activities are temporally squeezed into holidays and spatially forced into public places where they are exposed to the scrutiny of the Taiwanese. This peculiar situation of private/public inversion not only results from, but also serves to reinforce, racial discrimination and class inferiority in their workplace (i.e. the homes of their employers). I use the concept of ‘bracketing’ to describe the spatial‐temporal strategies used by migrant domestic workers against this distorted inversion. I also analyze how employers ‘counter‐bracket’ migrant worker subjects as a counter strategy. HOME once existed as a ‘surrogate home’, providing shelter for migrant workers and allowing them to retain privacy during their days off. TIWA conducted organizing‐oriented cultural and political activities to assist the migrants in forming their own community, and challenged the spatial hegemony of real estate owners in the ChungShan District. However, when Yan Shang‐luan, a well‐known feminist labor research professor, took over the directorship of the TCLB in 2004 Taipei City Labor Bureau. 2004. “‘Minutes of the meeting for the analysis, review, and evaluation of administrative efficiency at the House for Migrant Workers' Empowerment’ ‘’”. 26 August [Google Scholar], she did not appreciate the function of HOME, and decided to close its doors. In analyzing the official rhetoric in the documents of the TCLB, I find that their decision to shut down HOME was a result of their middle‐class temporal‐spatial ‘habitus’. The shutdown became a counter‐bracket measure, which coincided with the real estate interests of the ChungShan local elites.     

Clarifying the link between acculturation experiences and parent–child relationships among families in cultural transition: The promise of contemporary critiques of acculturation psychology

The field of acculturation psychology has been the focus of recent critique, calling into question current conceptualizations of acculturation experiences among families in cultural transition. This paper will consider how these critiques can inform theory and research that aims to clarify the link between the process of acculturation and the quality of parent–child relationships among families in cultural transition. For example, while the concepts of process and change are central to psychological approaches to understanding acculturation, this has not always been successfully reflected in choice of research methodology. Further, some theorists highlight the problem of conflating culture and national identity and of homogenizing culture into a few essentialize traits, psychological characteristics or sets of discourses. This paper will outline how a focus on the dynamic and complex process of acculturation opposes ideas of acculturative experiences as acontextual, ahistorical, and independent with some teleological endpoint. It is suggested that acculturation experiences should be reconceptualized as a dialogic, relationally constituted, and continually negotiated (unfinalizable) process. Finally, it is suggested that narrative and qualitative methodologies represent an especially useful way to highlight the fluctuations in acculturative experiences within a family context, and might offer greater promise in clarifying the link between acculturation experiences and the quality of parent–child relationships among families in cultural transition.     

Access,efficiency and excellence: Measuring non‐economic performance in the English subsidised cultural sector

The requirement to evaluate policies and measure performance in the publicly funded cultural sector in the UK has become increasingly pressing since the early 1980s. This chapter reviews the various attempts to do that. It demonstrates how economic and other quantifiable measures have tended to be emphasised whereas the qualitative aspects of cultural provision, which are more difficult to measure, have tended to be neglected.

The chapter presents the first overview of the subject. It covers developments within what is referred to as the ‘cultural framework’ ‐ the infrastructure associated with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which includes the ‘arts funding framework’. It also looks at developments affecting local authorities’ provision of cultural services.

The chapter draws on various published and unpublished policy documents, and accounts, as well as interviews with individuals involved in the development of performance management in the cultural sector. Their views are presented throughout the chapter to illustrate the points raised.

The chapter opens by examining the history of performance indicators in the sector, and maps the current requirements to measure performance. The second section considers the resistance to measuring the performance of arts organisations and museums. In doing so, it examines critical inheritance of former attempts to measure performance, and the issues raised in relation to current aspirations to do so. The third section presents attitudes to future developments, and is based on speculations by those currently involved in museums, galleries, the arts funding system and the introduction of Best Value as to the kinds of impact that the introduction of performance measurements might have. The fourth and final section draws together a series of observations about the introduction of non‐economic performance in the English subsidised cultural sector.     

Same or different? The “cultural entrepreneurship” and “arts entrepreneurship” constructs in European and US higher education

“Arts entrepreneurship” is beginning to emerge from its infancy as a field of study in US higher education institutions. “Cultural Entrepreneurship”, especially as conceived of in European contexts, developed earlier and on a somewhat different but parallel track. As Kuhlke, Schramme, and Kooyman [(2015). Introduction. Creating cultural capital: Cultural entrepreneurship in theory, pedagogy and practice. Delft: Eburon] note, “In Europe, courses began to emerge in the late 1980s and early 1990s?…?primarily providing an established business school education with an industry-specific focus on the new and emerging creative economy.” Conversely, the development of “arts entrepreneurship” courses and programmes in the US have been driven as much or more from interest within arts disciplines or even from within the career services units of arts conservatories as a means toward supporting artist self-sufficiency and career self-management. This paper looks at the conceptual development of “arts entrepreneurship” in the US as differentiated from “cultural entrepreneurship” in Europe and elsewhere. Its intention is to uncover where the two strands of education (and research) are the same, and where they are different. In addition to a review of existing literature on European cultural entrepreneurship, US data is drawn from a new survey and inventory of US arts entrepreneurship programmes developed for the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru).