Migration, Family and the Welfare State explores understandings and practices of integration in the Scandinavian welfare societies of Denmark, Norway and Sweden through a comprehensive range of detailed ethnographic studies. Chapters examine discourses, policies and programs of integration in the three receiving societies, studying how these are experienced by migrant and refugee families as they seek to realize the hopes and ambitions for a better life that led them to leave their country of origin. The three Scandinavian countries have had parallel histories as welfare societies receiving increasing numbers of migrants and refugees after World War II, and yet they have reacted in dissimilar ways to the presence of foreigners, with Denmark developing tough immigration policies and nationalist integration requirements, Sweden asserting itself as a relatively open country with an official multicultural policy, and Norway taking a middle position. The book analyses the impact of these differences and similarities on immigrants, refugees and their descendants across three intersecting themes: integration as a welfare state project; integration as political discourse and practice; and integration as immigrants and refugees quest for improvement and belonging.

This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Since the 1990s, biometric border control has attained key importance throughout Europe. Employing digital images of, for example, fingerprints, DNA, bones, faces or irises, biometric technologies use bodies to identify, categorize and regulate individuals' cross-border movements. Based on innovative collaborative fieldwork, this book examines how biometrics are developed, put to use and negotiated in key European border sites. It analyses the disparate ways in which the technologies are applied, perceived and experienced by border control agents and others managing the cross-border flow of people, by scientists and developers engaged in making the technologies, and by migrants and non-government organizations attempting to manoeuvre in the complicated and often-unpredictable systems of technological control. Biometric technologies are promoted by national and supranational authorities and industry as scientifically exact and neutral methods of identification and verification, and as an infallible solution to security threats. The ethnographic case studies in this volume demonstrate, however, that the technologies are, in fact, characterized by considerable ambiguity and uncertainty and subject to substantial subjective interpretation, translation and brokering with different implications for migrants, border guards, researchers and other actors engaged in the border world.

Since the 1990s, biometric border control has attained key importance throughout Europe. Employing digital images of, for example, fingerprints, DNA, bones, faces or irises, biometric technologies use bodies to identify, categorize and regulate individuals' cross-border movements. Based on innovative collaborative fieldwork, this book examines how biometrics are developed, put to use and negotiated in key European border sites. It analyses the disparate ways in which the technologies are applied, perceived and experienced by border control agents and others managing the cross-border flow of people, by scientists and developers engaged in making the technologies, and by migrants and non-government organizations attempting to manoeuvre in the complicated and often-unpredictable systems of technological control. Biometric technologies are promoted by national and supranational authorities and industry as scientifically exact and neutral methods of identification and verification, and as an infallible solution to security threats. The ethnographic case studies in this volume demonstrate, however, that the technologies are, in fact, characterized by considerable ambiguity and uncertainty and subject to substantial subjective interpretation, translation and brokering with different implications for migrants, border guards, researchers and other actors engaged in the border world.

Looking at the development of cultural identity in the global context, this text uses the approach of historical anthropology. It examines the way in which the West Indian Community of Nevis, has, since the 1600s, incorporated both African and European cultural elements into the framework of social life, to create an Afro-Caribbean culture that was distinctive and yet geographically unbounded - a "global culture". The book takes as its point of departure the processes of cultural interaction and reflectivity. It argues that the study of cultural continuity should be guided by the notion of cultural complexity involving the continuous constitution, development and assertion of culture. It emphasizes the interplay between local and global cultures, and examines the importance of cultural display for peoples who have experienced the process of socioeconomic marginalization in the Western world.

Children's Places examines the ways in which children and adults, from their different vantage points in society, negotiate the proper place of children in both social and spatial terms. It looks at some of the recognized constructions of children, including perspectives from cultures that do not distinguish children as a distinct category of people, as well as examining contexts for them, from schools and kindergartens to inner cities and war-zones. The result is an insight into the notions of inclusion and exclusion, the placement and displacement of children within generational ranks and orders, and the kinds of places that children construct for themselves. Based on in-depth ethnographic research from Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, Australia and New Zealand, it challenges Eurocentric theories of childhood.

Children's Places examines the ways in which children and adults, from their different vantage points in society, negotiate the proper place of children in both social and spatial terms. It looks at some of the recognized constructions of children, including perspectives from cultures that do not distinguish children as a distinct category of people, as well as examining contexts for them, from schools and kindergartens to inner cities and war-zones. The result is an insight into the notions of inclusion and exclusion, the placement and displacement of children within generational ranks and orders, and the kinds of places that children construct for themselves. Based on in-depth ethnographic research from Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, Australia and New Zealand, it challenges Eurocentric theories of childhood.

Contents:
Introduction: Mobile Livelihoods: Making a Living in the World
Part 1: Mobile Livelihoods - Regional and Historical Perspectives
1. Ninna Nyberg Sorenson Representing the Local: Mobile Livelihood Practices in the Peruvian Central Sierra
2. Bodil Folke Frederiksen Mobile Minds and Socio-Economic Barriers: Livelihoods and African-American Identifications among Youth in Nairobi
3. Carla Freeman Mobility, Rootedness, and the Caribbean Higgler: Production, Consumption and Transnational Livelihoods
Part 2: Livelihoods Extended
4. Karen Fog Olwig A 'Responsible' Livelihood: Mobility and Identity in a Caribbean Family
5. Carla Tamagno 'You Must Win Their Affection...: Migrants' Social and Cultural Practices between Peru and Italy
6. Karsten Paerregaard Business as Usual: Livelihood Strategies and Migration Practice in the Peruvian Diaspora
7. Vered Amit The Moving 'Expert': a Study of Mobile Professionals in the Cayman Islands and North America
8. Jorge Duany Irse pa'fuera: the Mobile Livelihood of Circular Migrants Between Puerto Rico and the United States
Part 3: Livelihoods and the Transnational Return
9. Transnational Livelihoods and Identities in Return Migration to the Caribbean: the Case of Skilled Returnees to Jamaica
10. The Final Move? - Displaced Livelihoods and Collective Returns in Peru and Guatemala

Culture has been subject to critical debate in anthropology during the past decade and this is related to a shift in emphasis from the bounded local culture to transnational cultural flows. At the same time that cultural mobility is being emphasized, the people studied by anthropologists are recasting culture as a place of belonging as they construct local identities within global fields of relations.
So far, much of the analysis of the role of place in culture has been carried out at a level of theoretical debate. Siting Culture argues that it is only through rich ethnographic studies that anthropologists may explore the significance of place in the global space of relations which mould the lives of people throughout the world. By examining the concept of culture through case studies from Europe, Africa, Oceania, Latin America and the Caribbean it probes the methodological and theoretical implications of the divergent scholarly and popular concepts of culture.
Siting Culture will be essential reading to the many students of culture who are looking for ways of siting culture in the diffuse and complex theoretical space of present day anthropology.

eBook available with sample pages: HB:0415150019

Culture has been subject to critical debate in anthropology during the past decade and this is related to a shift in emphasis from the bounded local culture to transnational cultural flows. At the same time that cultural mobility is being emphasized, the people studied by anthropologists are recasting culture as a place of belonging as they construct local identities within global fields of relations.
So far, much of the analysis of the role of place in culture has been carried out at a level of theoretical debate. Siting Culture argues that it is only through rich ethnographic studies that anthropologists may explore the significance of place in the global space of relations which mould the lives of people throughout the world. By examining the concept of culture through case studies from Europe, Africa, Oceania, Latin America and the Caribbean it probes the methodological and theoretical implications of the divergent scholarly and popular concepts of culture.

This title focuses on the post-emancipation period in the Caribbean and how local societies dealt with the new socio-economic conditions. Scholars from Jamaica, the Virgin Islands, England, Denmark and The Netherlands link this era with the contemporary Caribbean."

Migration, Family and the Welfare State explores understandings and practices of integration in the Scandinavian welfare societies of Denmark, Norway and Sweden through a comprehensive range of detailed ethnographic studies. Chapters examine discourses, policies and programs of integration in the three receiving societies, studying how these are experienced by migrant and refugee families as they seek to realize the hopes and ambitions for a better life that led them to leave their country of origin. The three Scandinavian countries have had parallel histories as welfare societies receiving increasing numbers of migrants and refugees after World War II, and yet they have reacted in dissimilar ways to the presence of foreigners, with Denmark developing tough immigration policies and nationalist integration requirements, Sweden asserting itself as a relatively open country with an official multicultural policy, and Norway taking a middle position. The book analyses the impact of these differences and similarities on immigrants, refugees and their descendants across three intersecting themes: integration as a welfare state project; integration as political discourse and practice; and integration as immigrants and refugees quest for improvement and belonging.

This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

'The greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration', stated the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1990. Since then there has been considerable concern about the large-scale population movements that might take place because of climate change. This book examines emerging patterns of human mobility in relation to climate change, drawing on a multidisciplinary approach including anthropology and geography. It addresses both larger, general questions and concrete local cases, where the link between climate change and human mobility is manifest and demands attention - empirically, analytically and conceptually. Among the cases explored are both historical and contemporary instances of migration in response to climate change, and together they illustrate the necessity of analyzing new patterns of movement, historic cultural images and regulation practices in the wake of new global processes.

'The greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration', stated the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1990. Since then there has been considerable concern about the large-scale population movements that might take place because of climate change. This book examines emerging patterns of human mobility in relation to climate change, drawing on a multidisciplinary approach including anthropology and geography. It addresses both larger, general questions and concrete local cases, where the link between climate change and human mobility is manifest and demands attention - empirically, analytically and conceptually. Among the cases explored are both historical and contemporary instances of migration in response to climate change, and together they illustrate the necessity of analyzing new patterns of movement, historic cultural images and regulation practices in the wake of new global processes.

The book takes as its point of departure the processes of cultural interaction and reflectivity. It argues that the study of cultural continuity should be guided by a notion of cultural complexity involving the continuous constitution, development and assertion of culture. It emphasises the interplay between local and global cultures, and examines the importance of cultural display for peoples who have experienced the process of socioeconomic marginalization in the western world.
"Global Culture, Island Identity" looks at the development of cultural identity in the global context, using the approach of historical anthropology. It examines the way in which the West Indian community of Nevis has, since the 1600s, incorporated both African and European cultural elements into the framework of social life, to create an Afro-Caribbean culture that was distinctive and yet geographically unbounded - a "global culture." The historical anthropological perspective offers new insight on global cultura

Mobile Bodies, Mobile Souls engages the complex relationship between family, religion and migration. Following '9/11', much research on migrants in western societies has focused on the public and political dimensions of religion. This volume starts out 'from below', exploring how religious ideas and practices take form, are negotiated and contested within the private domain of the home, household and family. Bringing together ethnographic studies from different parts of the world, it explores the role of religious ideas and practices in migrants' efforts to sustain, create and contest moral and social orders in the context of their everyday life. The ethnographic analyses show how religious practices and imaginaries both enable engagement with new social settings and offer a means of connecting and reconnecting with people and places left behind. Offering a comparative perspective on the varying ways in which religious practices and notions of relatedness interconnect and shape each other, the book sheds new light on a comtemporary global world inhabited by mobile bodies and souls.

"This study covers 300 years of St. Johnian history from the plantation economy of the early 1700s through the peasant economy of the late 1800s inclusive of the present tourist-based economy. The author employs archival records as well as field data, arguing that most anthropologists have shied away from supporting their interpretation with historical research . . . her treatment of the impact of tourism is outstanding, demonstrating that the establishment of a national park on the island has been a mixed blessing. . . . A significant contribution to ethnology."--Choice "Olwig presents two refreshing perspectives on life in a Caribbean community: the development of an Afro-American way of life and an appreciation of the dignified ways in which St. Johnians use an ideology of exchange to help them shape a distinctive sense of themselves. This is a well-balanced, rich, and very solid contribution to Caribbean studies, creatively combining history and ethnography."--Richard Price, Johns Hopkins University Dr. Olwig teaches anthropology at the University of Copenhagen.

Caribbean Journeys is an ethnographic analysis of the cultural meaning of migration and home in three families of West Indian background that are now dispersed throughout the Caribbean, North America, and Great Britain. Moving migration studies beyond its current focus on sending and receiving societies, Karen Fog Olwig makes migratory family networks the locus of her analysis. For the people whose lives she traces, being "Caribbean" is not necessarily rooted in ongoing visits to their countries of origin, or in ethnic communities in the receiving countries, but rather in family narratives and the maintenance of family networks across vast geographical expanses.The migratory journeys of the families in this study began more than sixty years ago, when individuals in the three families left home in a British colonial town in Jamaica, a French Creole rural community in Dominica, and an African-Caribbean village of small farmers on Nevis. Olwig follows the three family networks forward in time, interviewing family members living under highly varied social and economic circumstances in locations ranging from California to Barbados, Nova Scotia to Florida, and New Jersey to England. Through her conversations with several generations of these far-flung families, she gives insight into each family's educational, occupational, and socioeconomic trajectories. Olwig contends that terms such as "Caribbean diaspora" wrongly assume a culturally homogeneous homeland. As she demonstrates in Caribbean Journeys, anthropologists who want a nuanced understanding of how migrants and their descendants perceive their origins and identities must focus on interpersonal relations and intimate spheres as well as on collectivities and public expressions of belonging.

The question of integration has become an important concern as many societies are experiencing a growing influx of people from abroad. But what does integration really mean? What does it take for a person to be integrated in a society? Through a number of ethnographic case studies, this book explores varying meanings and practices of integration in Denmark. This welfare society, characterized by a liberal life style and strong notions of social equality, is experiencing an upsurge of nationalist sentiment. The authors show that integration is not just a neutral term referring to the incorporation of newcomers into society. It is, more fundamentally, an ideologically loaded concept revolving around the redefining of notions of community and welfare in a society undergoing rapid social and economic changes in the face of globalization. The ethnographic analyses are authored by anthropologists who wish to engage, as scholars and citizens living and working in Denmark, in one of the most contentious issues of our time. The Danish perspectives on integration are discussed from a broader international perspective in three epilogues by non-Danish anthropologists.

The question of integration has become an important concern as many societies are experiencing a growing influx of people from abroad. But what does integration really mean? What does it take for a person to be integrated in a society? Through a number of ethnographic case studies, this book explores varying meanings and practices of integration in Denmark. This welfare society, characterized by a liberal life style and strong notions of social equality, is experiencing an upsurge of nationalist sentiment. The authors show that integration is not just a neutral term referring to the incorporation of newcomers into society. It is, more fundamentally, an ideologically loaded concept revolving around the redefining of notions of community and welfare in a society undergoing rapid social and economic changes in the face of globalization. The ethnographic analyses are authored by anthropologists who wish to engage, as scholars and citizens living and working in Denmark, in one of the most contentious issues of our time. The Danish perspectives on integration are discussed from a broader international perspective in three epilogues by non-Danish anthropologists.