Toward Assimilation and Citizenship

"This book surveys a new trend in immigration studies: the turn away from multicultural and postnational perspectives toward a renewed emphasis on assimilation and citizenship. Most scholarship in the past decade, enticed by the discovery of "globalization" has argued that multiculturalism has replaced assimilation as the dominant mode of immigrant integration and that "postnational" or "transnational" identities and allegiances have devalued or even rendered obselete traditional citizenship. This volume challenges the orthodoxy in two directions, one discussing changing state policies, the other discussing migrant practices and adjustments. With respect to state policies, the book argues that citizenship has remained the dominant membership category in liberal nation-states. Moreover, the scope of multicultural policies has either been exaggerated in public and academic perception, or - where such policies were once in place - there has recently been a covert or overt move away from them. With respect to migrant practices and adjustments, the book argues that migrants are simultaneously assimilating and transnationalizing."--Jacket.