State and Diaspora Policies on Ethnicity and Political Engagement

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The panel covers contending intellectual currents in the impact of state policy on the development of ethnic communities in the United States and worldwide. Under consideration is the extent to which government policy can contribute to the preservation of ethnic identity and culture, or to acculturation and assimilation. The panel also examines minority mobilization, which contributes as a factor in countering the backlash of anti-democratic, anti-immigrant nationalism. The forces of ethno-nationalism and nativism can play a role in political destabilization. The panelists’ original research contributes to an ongoing conversation (Hollifield 2018, Brand 2006) about the role of the state. On the domestic level, government policies shape civic and cultural consciousness and political activism. The discussion also focuses globally on the role of the state, whether towards engaging its diaspora communities, or in relations with other countries with dispersed populations.

The co-authored paper by Marinova, Ahmed, and James focuses on mobilization of Arab- and Muslim-Americans as minorities facing the discriminatory Travel/Muslim Ban of 2017. Mobilization of 12 organizations in metropolitan Detroit is examined. While research on right-wing populism and xenophobia’s anti-immigrant focus generally expects such groups to be monolithic, passive actors, these entities emerge as complex and active against the Travel Ban. The active minority response to anti-immigrant sentiment tells the story anew – examining groups’ politicization and internal organization, interactions and alliances between Arab Muslims, Arabic-speaking Christians and other Muslim/Arab and Latino groups.

Harris Mylonas looks at four countries—Canada, Mexico, Sweden, and South Korea—which have different policies toward diaspora communities. He seeks to explain the variation in their policies regarding diaspora engagement. The paper emphasizes that state policies toward diasporic communities also depend on the role that each community plays in the receiving country relative to its potential role in the homeland, as well and the balance of power between the receiving and sending states, among other factors. The research contributes to understanding how states reconcile national security, economic development, and ethnic solidarity when engaging their diasporas.

Mneesha Gellman explores how states, such as Mexico and the US state of California, through their educational policy, can shape language access, intercultural competency formation and affect civic and cultural participation among the youth. Her research draws on original fieldwork with youth in public schools in Oaxaca, Mexico and in California. This multi-methods-based project is rooted in a collaborative methodological framework that actively engages community members as stakeholders at each phase of the research process. Capturing both depth and breadth across five schools in two countries, the paper documents ways that access to language learning serves as a component of intercultural competency development and translates into different forms of participation.

Kevin Taber examines the relationship between ethnicity and political activism among African migrant communities in the United States. The paper looks at under-studied sources of varying ethnic heterogeneity within single-nation-of-origin African migrant communities in the United States, and how these shape the formation of their voluntary associations, commitments to democratic norms within them, and their domestic and transnational political activism. It will first explain how changing demographic and migratory patterns have shaped the very nature of associations formed by African migrant populations across several different U.S. “host” cities, leading to a new typology of groups that are characterized along a spectrum of “ethno-localism(s).” The paper will then show how variation along this spectrum is associated with changes in the balance of domestically/transnationally focused political activities in which they engage. Finally, the relationship between “ethno-localism(s)” and commitments to democratic norms are discussed, both domestically within organizations and transnationally in their interactions with elites and institutions in their nation(s) of origin.

Insights by the panelists help contribute to ongoing discourses on the relationship between government policy and the status of ethnicity; diaspora engagement, and diaspora responses to such state policies.

Sub Unit

• Division 52: Migration & Citizenship

Individual Presentations

• Arab- and Muslim-Americans in Metro Detroit: Resistance to the Travel Ban - Nadejda K. Marinova, Wayne State University; Raed Shehab Ahmed, The Iraqi University; Patrick James, University of Southern California

• Diaspora Management Logics - Harris Mylonas, George Washington University

• Education as Citizen Formation: Language Politics in California and Mexico - Mneesha Gellman, Emerson College

• Political Activism and Democratic Norms in African Migrant Communities in the US - Charles Kevin Taber, Indiana University

Chair

• Simon Payaslian Boston University

Discussant

• James F. Hollifield Southern Methodist University