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  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Understanding the dynamics of transnational formations among Albanian-speaking migrants in Switzerland by bringing in theories of mobility, social inequality and ethnicity
    It is nowadays beyond controversy that transnational phenomena are part of migrants’ reality and that the transnational perspective is indispensable to understand migration processes. However, I argue however that the potential of the transnational perspective could be better exploited by linking it to other social scientific theories contributing hereby to a more general theorization of migration processes. On behalf of an analysis of the different transnational formations that have emerged among Albanian-speaking migrants in Switzerland since the Second World War, I will show that insights from theories of mobility, of social inequality and of ethnicity help to understand these identified different forms of being transnational.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Disentangling Religious, Ethnic and Gendered Contents in Boundary Work: How Young Adults Create the Figure of ‘The Oppressed Muslim Woman’
    (2014) ;
    Duemmler, Kerstin
    ;
    The binary opposition between ‘equal European women’ and ‘oppressed Muslim women’ has become a powerful representation in Switzerland and throughout Europe. Yet little is empirically known about the mechanisms through which actors in their everyday lives (re)produce this prominent construction. In this mixed-method study with young adults in a French-speaking Swiss Canton, we explore how and on behalf of which markers they construct such a bright boundary against ‘the oppressed Muslim woman’. We argue that the Swiss tradition of ethicising and culturalising migrant issues is relevant for the construction of the boundary against Muslims in a way that renders ethnicity salient. However, when it comes to the concrete markers of the boundary – the ‘cultural stuff’ mobilised by the young people to mark the boundary – the local highly secular context has the paradoxical effect that religious contents become more salient than ethnicity. Normative ideas about ‘gender equality’, in contrast, cross both ethnic and religious markers in the same way. We argue that although ethnicity, religion and gender have commonalities in terms of categories of identification and exclusion, they should be treated as different elements when it comes to the social organisation of difference because each of them displays a specific logic.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    "Un Africain restera un Africain: discours ethniques de migrant-e-s d'origine africaine en Suisse
    (2011)
    Navarro, Cécile
    ;
    ;
    Frésia, Marion
    L’affiche des Moutons Noirs et les différentes initiatives lancées par l’UDC sur l’immigration et le régime d’asile ainsi que, plus récemment les déclarations de l’ancien directeur de l’Office fédéral des migrations concernant la criminalité des requérants d’asile nigérians, permettent de saisir la problématisation croissante ces dernières années de la population migrante d’origine africaine en Suisse. Sur la base d’entretiens réalisés avec des migrant-e-s d’origine africaine, le présent mémoire s’intéresse ainsi à la façon dont des individus parlent de leur affiliation avec un groupe socialement dévalorisé. Ancré dans une approche interactionniste de l’ethnicité, il s’agit de comprendre la portée performative de l’existence d’une identité sociale négative appliquée à un certain groupe dans la manière dont des individus sont amenés (ou pas) à reprendre à leur compte cette appartenance. L’analyse discursive montre ainsi que si l’appartenance au groupe peut sembler évidente aux yeux de ses individus, évidence rattachée à une certaine couleur de peau, les sentiments à l’égard de cette appartenance au groupe sont ambivalents et relèvent de phénomènes complexes de distanciation et de revendication. La signification rhétorique de l’appartenance à un groupe "Africain" apparaît ainsi d’abord au sein de dialectiques reprenant et prolongeant la différence établie entre Suisses et "Africains" et entre Suisses et étrangers par rapport à laquelle ces individus se positionnent, notamment en faisant appel à une certaine rhétorique basée sur la notion d’"intégration".
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Deconstructing Mythological Foundations of Ethnic Identities and Ethnic Group Formation: Albanian-Speaking and New Armenian Immigrants in Switzerland
    Scholars generally agree that ethnicity often serves as a vehicle for mechanisms of social inclusion or exclusion and is interwoven with the structures of nation-states. This article aims to contribute to the ongoing debate about ethnicity and highlights the inherent dilemma of essentialism using two empirical case studies—Albanian-speaking migrants living in Switzerland and newly arrived Armenian migrants who left Armenia after independence in 1991. By directing attention to the processes of boundary construction, as well as to the relative and situational character of ethnicity, the paper shows how representations of collective ethnic identities are formed, transformed, reformulated or shifted to other representations of collective identities. By analysing the degree of reification of ethnic identities, it becomes clear that the ladder from 'soft' to 'hard' essentialisation has many steps. Furthermore, the case studies reveal that, in contemporary Switzerland, other categories are relevant for social exclusion or inclusion as well, mainly the type of residence permit and professional qualifications—categories which are also interwoven with ethnicity.