Suchergebnisse

Abstract This paper examines how different 'contexts of reception' in Toronto and NYC shape the size, programmatic domain (social, cultural, economic, political), and geographic scope of action (local vs. transnational) of non-profit organisations serving the Pakistani immigrant community. Existing literature tends to employ a one-sided focus on the role of state-policies in determining the prevalence of immigrant organisations. This literature is also divided into two epistemic camps, one focusing on organisations promoting settlement/incorporation and others on transnational organisations. This study addresses these limitations by examining how state-policies, socioeconomic incorporation, community characteristics and societal attitudes combine to shape the composition of an immigrant group's collective organisational space – comprised of incorporation and transnationally-oriented organisations. Data come from a new original database of the universe of Pakistani non-profit organisations based in Toronto and New York and from qualitative data gathered in both cities. Contrary to our expectations and previous research, we find that state-sponsored multiculturalism is not associated with a larger or more transnational Pakistani organisational space in Toronto. Rather, the size, programmatic domain and geographic scope of Pakistani organisational spaces are determined by the intersection of state-policies and the immigrant community's socioeconomic incorporation ­– where the more affluent New Yorker Pakistani community is associated with a larger and more transnational organisational space. Findings also reveal tensions between locally- and transnationally-oriented organisations in both cities, reflecting growing fragmentation between affluent cosmopolitan, immigrant elites and the impoverished segments of the Toronto and NYC Pakistani communities.

No abstract available.
ECA Estudios Centroamericanos, Vol. 57, No. 648, 2002: 879-900.

AbstractInternational migrants' cross-border political activities challenge singular notions of national citizenship and political belonging. Yet most sociological studies of migrants' transnational political engagement are based on single national groups in the USA, and limit themselves to examining how assimilation and contexts of reception determine migrants' propensity to engage with homeland politics—thereby under theorizing the influence of origin countries. This study moves beyond this approach by recognizing the multi-directionality of migration, and testing the applicability of existing theoretical approaches across two different origins and receiving contexts. We compare a sample of Colombian and Dominican migrants in Spain and Italy, analyzing how contexts in countries of origin, as well as migrants' social networks across borders, interact with assimilation and contexts of reception to determine migrants' political transnational engagement. Findings reveal migrants' transnational political engagement in Spain and Italy appears to be a highly selective process dominated by a small minority of well-educated males from high social status in origin. Findings also suggest immigrant incorporation and transnational political engagement form a dialectical relationship operating at different scales that is simultaneously complementary and contradictory. Contextual conditions in origin countries explain observed much of variation in Colombian and Dominican migrants' transnational political engagement.