Invisibility and Temporary Residence Status of Filipino Workers in South Korea

This study concerns a group of Filipino immigrant workers–mostly trainees or undocumented workers–in Korea. It deals with the influence of immigration on family members and their relations. The stories of sending babies to the Philippines and talking on the phone show how the concept of transnational motherhood can be applied to immigrant workers in Korea. This study also discusses the meaning of invisibility and temporary residency as a two‐control mechanism of immigrant workers in Korea. Korean society keeps immigrant workers invisible and prevents their becoming members of society in many ways. Therefore, Filipino migrant workers do not belong to either their home country or Korea.     

Ethnic identities and national identities: Some examples from Malaysia

Using examples from Malaysia, this paper emphasizes the importance of relating ethnicity to the power of the state and political processes involving different ethnic groups. Ethnic group formation involves processes that make people identify as an imagined community in a nation‐state. Indeed, the processes that create ethnic and national identities are part and parcel of the same historical processes. It is also necessary to relate national identity to ethnicity, as national identity is imagined differently by different ethnic groups in a nation‐state. The paper describes Malay and Chinese ethnicity as well as the complex ethnic identification and ethnogenesis of the indigenous peoples of Sarawak.     

Governing Migrant Workers at a Distance: Managing the Temporary Status of Guestworkers in Taiwan

This paper explores how a liberal democratic state keeps migrant workers in temporary status by preventing their permanent settlement. Using Taiwan’s guestworker policy as an example, we argue that through expertise discourses and strategies of “governance at a distance” involving private sector, the Taiwan government has formulated policies and implemented measures that effectively kept guestworkers in temporary status. Analyzing Taiwan’s guestworker policy helps us to understand how the state and its collaborators work together to enhance the control capacity over migrants, while at the same time, enabling the state to keep its liberal pretense.     

Oppositional identities and rhetoric in divorce

Using data gathered through participant observation and in-depth interviews, this article considers the phenomenon of non-mutual divorce in terms of the oppositional identities that divorcing partners establish through discourse. Divorcing partners describe feelings of mutual ambivalence prior to divorce, but they almost always transform themselves into dumpers (initiators/leavers) and dumped partners once their divorces begin. Most importantly, divorcing people establish these identities by invoking a cultural rhetoric of individualism on one side and a cultural rhetoric of commitment on the other. Although the two identities and their associated rhetorics are transitional, emerging only at the moment when one partner declares I want out and subsiding once the divorce is accomplished, they are significant means by which divorcing partners resolve ambivalence, account for their divorces, and impose a general sense of order onto the dissolution process.     

The immigrant family: cultural legacies and cultural changes

"This article examines the way family and kinship patterns change in the process of immigration--and why. Offering an interpretative synthesis, it emphasizes the way first generation immigrants to the United States fuse together the old and new to create a new kind of family life. The family is seen as a place where there is a dynamic interplay between structure, culture, and agency. New immigrant family patterns are shaped by cultural meanings and social practices immigrants bring with them from their home countries as well as social, economic and cultural forces in the United States."     

Health Status of Temporary Migrants in Urban Areas in Vietnam1

The rapid economic growth after economic reform, known in Viet Nam as “Doi Moi”, and the growing scope of urban migration raise specific questions for social policy, including migration and health policies. This paper compares issues of health status and its determinants as they affect temporary urban migrants versus permanent urban migrants and non‐migrants. The analyses utilize multivariate logistic regression and data from the 1997 Vietnam Migration and Health Survey. The results show that temporary migrants staying in guest houses are most vulnerable to health problems. Though most of them are initially healthier, their reported health deteriorates faster than other groups of urban residents. The findings also present important implications for the current migration and health policies in Vietnam: 1) A special attention should be given to temporary migrants in guest houses; 2) Different priorities in health policy should be applied to different groups of migrants and non‐migrants; 3) The current population management policy by registration system needs to be reviewed; 4) Providing clean water is one of the most important ways to improve health of temporary migrants; 5) Targeting educational investments and reducing unemployment would likely to improve overall health; 6) A higher priority on health policies targeting women would likely pay dividends, and; 7) Improving management and collaboration between government offices and interested partners is important to improving health status and reducing inequity.     

When identities collide: masculinity,disability and race

This study is part of a larger project that examined the impact of violently acquired spinal cord injuries (VASCI) on identity among racial and ethnic minority men living in a major American metropolis. Like other individuals who sustain a disabling injury, individuals with a VASCI often struggle with the consequences of the injury vis‐à‐vis redefining their identities and their role in society. For the men in this study the negative association between disability and dependency affected the integration of the injury into their sense of self. The injury and resulting disability violated social understandings of what it means to be a man in their environments. The men noted the injury’s impact on their sense of safety, sexual encounters, body image and choice of intimate partners. Their social context shaped what it meant to be a man, played a role in their injuries and increased the challenges inherent in a life‐changing event.     

Gendered expectations and gendered experiences: immigrant students' adaptation in schools

This chapter draws on longitudinal data to examine the role of gender in immigrant students' educational adaptation. Analyses show that over time girls receive higher grades and express higher future expectations than do boys. Compared with boys, immigrant girls are more likely to be protected from risk factors, such as harsh school environments, by a supported network of teachers, friends, and parents, and to benefit from the shield of ethnicity more than their male counterparts in their pursuit of education.     

Contested communities: the refuge movement and cultural identities in Wales

This paper explores different meanings of community and cultural identity. Women involved in the refuge movement in rural Wales belong to overlapping communities: geographically located rural communities; linguistic and ethnic communities; and the gendered and occupationally based community of Welsh Women's Aid. Language is an important marker of belonging to Welsh rural communities which are under threat from an influx of non-Welsh speakers. Incoming women who are homeless as a result of domestic violence may be perceived as part of this threat. This creates a potential conflict for refuge workers, some of whom are also Welsh speakers, who represent the interests of this group of women but also belong to Welsh-speaking, rural communities. We explore the interrelation between these refuge workers, the various communities to which they belong, and how belonging or not belonging shapes their identities. We conclude that these women, in spite of the conflicting rights and interests of their various communities, negotiate a shared collective identity which owes something to all three.     

Liminal Lives: South Asian Youth and Domestic Violence

This article examines domestic violence experiences among South Asian youth in the United States. The paper uses a broad definition of violence, a continuum which includes aggression, coercion, control, intimidation, assault, to accommodate the meanings suggested by the youth. The main argument of this paper is that the youth’s experiences cannot be adequately explained with reference to individual deviance or traditional cultural norms of ethnic groups. Based on a sociological perspective of gender, this paper argues that these youth are placed between mainstream and ethnic gender regimes and their experience of domestic violence depends on how these regimes work in relation to each other. Thus their liminal social structural position emerges as a significant factor in their experiences of violence.     

Liminal Lives: South Asian Youth and Domestic Violence

This article examines domestic violence experiences among South Asian youth in the United States. The paper uses a broad definition of violence, a continuum which includes aggression, coercion, control, intimidation, assault, to accommodate the meanings suggested by the youth. The main argument of this paper is that the youth's experiences cannot be adequately explained with reference to individual deviance or traditional cultural norms of ethnic groups. Based on a sociological perspective of gender, this paper argues that these youth are placed between mainstream and ethnic gender regimes and their experience of domestic violence depends on how these regimes work in relation to each other. Thus their liminal social structural position emerges as a significant factor in their experiences of violence.     

Introduction: the debates and significance of immigrant transnationalism

This introduction explores reasons for the continuing debate on the subject of transnationalism and persistent scepticism about the significance of the topic. The basis for such disagreements has to do less with the actual existence of the phenomenon than with methodological shortcomings that led to its overestimation in the early literature and the conceptual failure to distinguish between cross‐border activities conducted by major institutions and by private actors in civil society. I explore these various problems seeking to clarify the actual scope of the phenomenon of transnationalism and its novel character. Despite recent findings that point to limited numerical involvement of immigrant groups in transnational activities, the latter remain significant because of their prospective growth and their impact on both immigrant adaptation in receiving countries and the development prospects of sending nations and communities. The evidence presented in the following articles document in detail these various aspects and indicates the multiple forms adopted by this phenomenon among immigrant groups in Europe and the United States.     

Building alliances: Defending immigrant rights in rural Oregon

Political participation in the rural United States has often been narrowly defined within the confines of electoral politics. Increasingly, participants in rural US social movements have highlighted the shortcomings of democracy defined purely in terms of electoral politics in favour of a more participatory model of politics that focuses on the social and cultural rights of those who are often formally or informally excluded from the liberal definition of citizenship. This article highlights the process of claiming rights as cultural citizens in a political context where there are efforts through the formal political system—usually in the form of ballot referendums at the state or local level—to further limit the rights of specific constituencies such as gay, lesbian and transgendered individuals or immigrants. A second focus of this article is on the dynamics of solidarity and alliance building between different kinds of social movements acting in concert to push for cultural rights and then formal rights for each other's constituencies. The article specifically seeks to illustrate how two organizations that share quite different constituencies and agendas can effectively collaborate in regional and state-wide campaigns in the rural state of Oregon, while also honestly discussing their differences and difficulties in working together.