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Dahinden, Janine
Nom
Dahinden, Janine
Affiliation principale
Site web
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Professeur.e ordinaire
Email
janine.dahinden@unine.ch
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Résultat de la recherche
Voici les éléments 1 - 5 sur 5
- PublicationAccès libreGender representations in politics of belonging: An analysis of Swiss immigration regulation from the 19th century until today(2017)
; The literature increasingly recognises the importance of gender in defining the boundaries between national societies and migrants. But little is still known about the history and changes of mechanisms that shape the role of gender as category of difference. Based on a critical case study of Switzerland, this article examines how gender is implicated in the politics of migrant admission and incorporation and underlying notions of ‘the other’. Drawing on theories of boundary work, we show that gendered representations of migrants are mobilised by different actors to advance their claims and calls for certain forms of immigration control and migrant integration. Since the late 19th century, gendered representations of Swiss nationals and migrant others shift from classical gender ideas to culturalised post-colonial interpretations of gender roles and, most recently, to normative ideas of gender equality. As part of these changes, migrant women moved from the periphery to the core of public and political attention. Concomitantly, categories of difference shift from the intersection of gender and social class to an intersection of gender, culture and ethnicity. Local particularities of Switzerland – the idea of ‘overforeignisation’ and the system of direct democracy – play a significant role in shaping categories. But Switzerland’s embeddedness in transnational fields emerges as equally important. The article expands on recent research and illuminates how changing dynamics of categorisation and othering facilitate the construction of nations and national identities in a transnationalised world. - PublicationAccès libreDisentangling Religious, Ethnic and Gendered Contents in Boundary Work: How Young Adults Create the Figure of ‘The Oppressed Muslim Woman’(2014)
; - PublicationAccès libreCities, Migrant Incorporation, and Ethnicity: A Network Perspective on Boundary Work(2013)n this article, I am interested in the different types of boundaries emerging in a city characterized by a highly diverse population. The analysis of the personal social networks of 250 inhabitants of a small Swiss City—different types of migrants as well as non-migrants—supplemented by data from qualitative interviews brings to light the important categories for the creation of boundaries and the place of ethnicity among them. The inhabitant’s network structures display specific network boundaries that are translated into symbolic and also social boundaries: four different clusters emerge among the population, pointing to their stratified social positioning in this city. Hereby an interplay of nationality, education, local establishment, mobility type, “race,” and religion are the most important structuring factors. It becomes clear that the common ideas of assimilation cannot grasp the complexity of the “categorical game” at place in this city when it comes to migrant’s incorporation.
- PublicationAccès libreAre we all transnationals now? Network transnationalism and transnational subjectivity: the differing impacts of globalization on the inhabitants of a small Swiss city(2009)I ask in this article how the inhabitants - migrants and non-migrants - of a specific geographical space, a small Swiss city in French-speaking Switzerland, live out different forms of transnationalism. Transnationalism is for this purpose defined and operationalized on two dimensions: I make a distinction between network transnationalism and what I call transnational subjectivity. The first dimension includes the transnational social networks; the latter refers to the cognitive classifications of a person's membership and belongings in transnational space. Analysis of the personal social networks of 250 inhabitants of this city, supplemented by data from qualitative interviews, brings to light four different ideal types of how transnationalism is lived. It reveals that these morphologies are closely related to questions of social positioning as well as processes of integration, locally or in transnational space.
- PublicationAccès libreDeconstructing Mythological Foundations of Ethnic Identities and Ethnic Group Formation: Albanian-Speaking and New Armenian Immigrants in Switzerland(2008)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.