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Why borders don’t help – An engaged anthropology of the US-Mexican border

Published on October 31, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, globalisation, migration, Northern America, Us and Them, websites

“Anthropologists Should Participate in the Current Immigration Debate” was the title of an earlier entry. Josiah McC. Heyman is one of the engaged anthropologists. He wrote several newspaper articles about the US-Mexican border where he showed that more border enforcement will not deter people from coming to the United States, but rarther make them more likely to settle and less likely to return home.

In his op-ed The Border Control Illusion (MS Word document!)he writes:

What can we do when our current ideas don’t work? We can question our assumptions. In this case, the assumption is that BAD THINGS come from outside of the country and that WE inside the U.S. have nothing to do with them. The border could be a safe protective wall that keeps all danger away, if we could just make it big, tall, and tough enough.

(…) Migration is woven into the interior of the United States. It is part of the construction, agriculture, and services we all use, directly and indirectly. It is part of family reunification and community consolidation. Migration cannot be stopped by the border because it is already on the inside–not just the immigrants living among us, but part and parcel of our own culture and economy. We must think differently, very differently.

>> visit his homepage (incl. several articles)

Elsewhere on the web:

Josiah McC. Heyman: Class and classification at the U.S.-Mexico border (Human Organization, summer 2001 / FindArticles.com)

Josiah McC. Heyman: The Anthropology of Power-Wielding Bureaucracies (Human Organization, winter 2004 / FindArticles.com)

Visual anthropology: Documenting the economic exodus from Mexico

Ethnographic Research: Gated Communities Don’t Lead to Security

For free migration: Open the borders!

"Anthropologists Should Participate in the Current Immigration Debate" was the title of an earlier entry. Josiah McC. Heyman is one of the engaged anthropologists. He wrote several newspaper articles about the US-Mexican border where he showed that more border enforcement…

Second generation migrants blog more about race and ethnicity

Published on October 31, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, cyberanthropology, fieldwork / methods, globalisation, internet, migration, technology

Anthropologist Jesse de Leon shares some of his results from his field work among Filipino bloggers and their expression of Filipino identity on blogs.

He found five major categories of Filipino bloggers: Cosmopolitans, the Philippine Elite, Im/migrants, Second Generation Diasporic Filipinos, and Younger Filipinos in the Philippines. They blog about different topics. The way he used linking in his research has especially caught my attention. You somehow express your identity the way you use links on your blog.

Jesse de Leon writes:

Second Generation Diasporic Filipinos rarely link to blogs written by the preceding groups nor leave comments. More than the other groups, these Filipino bloggers discuss race and ethnicity. Im/migrants also discuss such things, but these topics seem especially relevant to the Second Generation, judging by how much they blog about race and ethnicity. I’ve noticed the same in my interviews.

Finally come Younger Filipinos in the Philippines. Generally, they don’t link to blogs written by Second Generation Diasporic Filipinos, even though they’re the same age and often have similar interests. They’re far more likely to link to blogs written by the other groups.

>> read his whole post on Sarapen

He has also published his first outline of his thesis. Very impressive. I wish I was so organised… (sometimes at least…)

Anthropologist Jesse de Leon shares some of his results from his field work among Filipino bloggers and their expression of Filipino identity on blogs.

He found five major categories of Filipino bloggers: Cosmopolitans, the Philippine Elite, Im/migrants, Second Generation Diasporic…

New blog: Sarapen. Online anthropology on Filipino bloggers

Published on July 8, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, cyberanthropology, fieldwork / methods, globalisation, internet, migration, Northern America, Us and Them, websites

(via Livejournal Anthropology Community) Jesse de Leon, Master’s student in Social Anthropology, has started blogging on his research on Filipino bloggers – a very interesting blog about migration, transnationalism, identity and internet research. In his second post he explains:

I’m what’s known as a 1.5 generation immigrant: someone who immigrated as a child old enough to remember the country they were born in. In my case, I immigrated to Canada from the Philippines when I was ten years old. I consider myself as having grown up in both countries. I know that if I had grown up entirely in the Philippines, I would be a different person than what I am today.

It’s therefore understandable that I’m interested in issues of migration, transnationalism, and identity. I’m particularly interested in what identity is like for other Filipinos who have migrated. Do they consider themselves as being completely Filipino? Or do they see themselves as being Canadians now (or American, or Australian, or so on)?

(…)

Now, this is all well and good, but lots of other people have examined these issues. What am I doing that’s new? Well, I’m investigating Filipino migration and identity, but I’m investigating them through blogs. Specifically, I’m looking at how Filipino bloggers talk about these issues. I’m also looking at how Filipino bloggers don’t talk about these issues.

>> visit Sarapen. Online anthropology on Filipino bloggers

His blog is hosted at edublogs.org – a free blog host that he recommends.

(via Livejournal Anthropology Community) Jesse de Leon, Master’s student in Social Anthropology, has started blogging on his research on Filipino bloggers - a very interesting blog about migration, transnationalism, identity and internet research. In his second post he explains:

I’m…

24 minutes visual anthropology about (trans)nationalism on the Danish-German border

Published on June 27, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Europe, globalisation, migration, Us and Them, Visual Anthropology

Anthropologist and blogger Johannes Wilm has published a fascinating video about the annual meeting of the Danish minority in a small village in Northern Germany called Ascheffel. Is it possible to be both German and Danish? Why are there so many Germans who send their kids to the Danish school? As he shows, there is both nationalism and much transnational history among the participants of the annual meeting.

>> watch the video

The cultural nationalism of citizenship in Japan and other places

Published on June 26, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, globalisation, migration, Us and Them

As in several European countries, Japanese citizenship is still defined by decent. Inspired by the recent immigration debates in the US, anthropologist Sawa Kurotani reflects about the “cultural nationalism” of Japanese citizenship and concludes: “As long as this biologically and culturally produced Japaneseness continues to be the basis of Japanese citizenship, the mobility between citizen and noncitizen categories will be minimal.”

He explains:

Japanese self-analysis of their national character is widely known as nihonjinron (literally, discussion or theory about the Japanese), which centers on the unique characteristics shared among the Japanese that are the product of both biology and culture. The essence of Japanese identity is passed down through the “blood,” and is nurtured through the early process of socialization to make one truly “Japanese,” so the theory goes. This is why so many Japanese stubbornly refuse to accept a non-Japanese who attains near-native fluency in Japanese or who are able to grasp subtle cultural nuances: How can a gaijin (foreigner) without blood ties or proper upbringing possibly understand anything Japanese?

(…)

When Japan began to admit a large number of foreign workers into the country in the 1980s, the overwhelming preference was given to descendants of Japanese who emigrated to Brazil and Peru. Japanese seemed to believe that their Japanese blood made them “Japanese,” despite their socialization as Brazilians and Peruvians, and they were truly surprised when they later found out otherwise. This instance gives us a sense of how powerful the belief in “Japanese blood” is.

(…)

Japan is now one of the few developed countries that do not allow dual citizenship. This is not a major problem in the world of “one citizenship per person per lifetime,” which is, perhaps, the world in which the majority of my compatriots still live. But, it is about time that we acknowledge that the myth of “homogeneous society” is just a myth, and that an increasing number of Japanese nationals are experiencing transnational/multicultural lives outside Japan, while more and more non-Japanese are choosing to live and work in Japan.

>> read the whole article in The Daily Yomiuri (updated with copy)

Kenichi Mishima: Japan: Locked in the Self-assertive Discourse of National Uniqueness?

“Germans stick to the ethnic definition more than any other European nation”

“Germans&Japanese less sensitive about race”

“Anthropologists Should Participate in the Current Immigration Debate”