- Home
- Globalization in Everyday Life
- Here, There, and Elsewhere
Here, There, and Elsewhere
The Making of Immigrant Identities in a Globalized World
by Tahseen Shams
Published by: Stanford University Press
Series: Globalization in Everyday Life
264 pages, 152.00 x 229.00 mm
Challenging the commonly held perception that immigrants' lives are shaped exclusively by their sending and receiving countries, Here, There, and Elsewhere breaks new ground by showing how immigrants are vectors of globalization who both produce and experience the interconnectedness of societies—not only the societies of origin and destination, but also, the societies in places beyond. Tahseen Shams posits a new concept for thinking about these places that are neither the immigrants' homeland nor hostland—the "elsewhere." Drawing on rich ethnographic data, interviews, and analysis of the social media activities of South Asian Muslim Americans, Shams uncovers how different dimensions of the immigrants' ethnic and religious identities connect them to different elsewheres in places as far-ranging as the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. Yet not all places in the world are elsewheres. How a faraway foreign land becomes salient to the immigrant's sense of self depends on an interplay of global hierarchies, homeland politics, and hostland dynamics. Referencing today's 24-hour news cycle and the ways that social media connects diverse places and peoples at the touch of a screen, Shams traces how the homeland, hostland, and elsewhere combine to affect the ways in which immigrants and their descendants understand themselves and are understood by others.
This chapter introduces a new concept for thinking about the places that are neither the immigrants' homeland nor hostland, but which are nonetheless salient in their identity-making processes. Extending the foundational frameworks of international migration that focus exclusively on the dynamics within or between the sending and receiving countries, this chapter provides an overview of the book's key argument—that contrary to dyadic explanations, how immigrants self-identify and how they are identified by others are shaped by geopolitics unfolding in the homeland, hostland, and "elsewhere." The chapter also outlines the book's methodological justifications and sources of data, namely ethnographic observations, interviews, and social media data of sixty South Asian Muslim Americans in California.
"Elsewhere" does not mean everywhere. Using examples from both contemporary politics and immigration history, this chapter uses a new analytical model—the multicentered relational framework—to show how a faraway foreign place gains salience for an immigrant group and becomes an "elsewhere." Serving as the theoretical spine of the book, this chapter outlines the variations of "elsewhere" and its limitations. The chapter next expounds the three facets of the multicentered relational framework—namely, homeland-hostland, hostland-"elsewhere," and "elsewhere"-homeland—to show how each reveals different dimensions of immigrants' collective identity formation.
This chapter shows how immigrants' homeland ties gain global dimensions based on hostland-"elsewhere" interactions. Using examples of Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and Indian immigrants' homeland politics, it shows that the struggles for nation-building in the sending countries are not insulated within just those societies but are instead shaped by their interactions with "elsewheres," specifically the Middle East and Europe. These struggles are at times mirrored among the immigrant communities in America, while some homeland cleavages lose relevance over time. Yet some other homeland boundaries gain life anew as they take on new, globally informed meanings for the immigrants based on hostland sociopolitics and "elsewhere' dynamics.
This chapter shows how "elsewhere" geopolitics exacerbate social pressures on Muslim and "Muslim-looking" groups in post-9/11 America. Often stereotyped as model minorities based on their race/ethnicity, South Asian Americans, if they are Muslim, are viewed as threats in moments of crisis. Members of this immigrant group often strive to present themselves as "good," "moderate" Muslims and highlighting the universal values they share such as peacefulness. Islamic organizations also highlight the compatibility of Islam with American values by "Islamizing" aspects of American culture on the one hand, and "Americanizing" tenets of Islam on the other. The strategies of individuals can inadvertently lead to political silence, whereas organizational strategies can involve Muslims in U.S. politics, advocating for their interests here and "elsewhere."
This chapter traces how and why "elsewhere" gains salience in immigrants' self-identification, at times more than their homelands. Many South Asian Muslim immigrants interpret their collective position in America using examples of "elsewheres" where Muslims are also a stigmatized minority. These "elsewhere" examples combined with the homeland's colonized past, the post-9/11 U.S. context, and ongoing tensions between the hostland United States and the Middle East reinforce the immigrants' worldview that "the West" is biased against "the Muslim world." This perspective leads them to participate politically in ways they believe will favorably impact not only the condition of Muslims in America but also anticolonial efforts of Muslims in the Middle East. These examples of "elsewhere" orientations demonstrate immigrants' long-distance nationalism and political transnationalism.
Based on analysis of public and participant reactions to six ISIS attacks—two in Europe (Paris and Brussels), two in the Middle East (Beirut and Istanbul), and two in the United States (San Bernardino, California, and Orlando, Florida)—this chapter shows that conflicts in "elsewhere" Europe influence host country perceptions of South Asian Muslims more than the conflicts in the Middle East do. The Islamist attacks in Europe and in the U.S. generated comparable levels of response. Muslims' fear of backlash and the precautions they took for their safety were comparable in each case. Conversely, Islamist attacks in the Middle East generated low levels of reaction, even from Muslims who self-identified with that region. This incongruity is influenced by the media, geopolitics, global discourse on Muslims, and the prevailing public imaginary of the West and the Muslim world.
This book presents several questions for migration and race scholars. Does "elsewhere" influence black Muslim identities, or is it an immigrant phenomenon? Are "elsewhere" effects present for predominantly non-Muslim but racialized "Muslim-looking" groups, like Latino/a? With South Asian Muslim Americans responding to Muslim-related contexts in the Middle East, are places in South Asia with Muslim majorities then "elsewheres" for Arab and Middle Eastern Americans? If not, why? How can the multicentered relational framework be used to analyze immigrant identities outside the U.S. context? This concluding chapter reflects on possible answers to these questions and on the political developments unfolding globally.
Tahseen Shams is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto.
"This brilliantly argued, beautifully written book pushes migration studies in an entirely new direction. Identifying a conceptual space located outside both countries of immigration and emigration and to which the immigrants have no direct connection, Shams provides an entirely novel demonstration of how conflicts stemming from the world's 'elsewhere' places shape the collective identity categories available to immigrants and their descendants. An important work, yielding lessons for both scholars and students to savor and ponder." ~Roger Waldinger, University of California, Los Angeles
"This is a tour de force. Combining nuanced ethnography with multi-sited historical analysis, Shams shows how South Asian immigrants' lives in the U.S. are shaped not only by where they come from and where they go, but also by events in third places they have never been. The surprising centrality of these 'elsewheres' is a breakthrough insight in migration studies." ~David Scott FitzGerald, author of Refuge beyond Reach: How Rich Democracies Repel Asylum Seekers
"A significant body of contemporary migration research assumes that a dualistic focus on the country of origin and host society are appropriate for the creation of cutting-edge accounts of contemporary migration. In her study of South Asian Muslims and their descendants settling in California, Tahseen Shams challenges the adequacy of the homeland/hostland approach by demonstrating that depictions of events in migrants' countries of origin as well as those in regions to which these migrants have no connection—such as Syria, Palestine, Nigeria, and Western Europe—significantly influence their acceptance and adjustment. In so doing, Here, There, and Elsewhere advances our approach for understanding migration, resettlement, and transnational phenomena." ~Steven J. Gold, Michigan State University
"In this well-written and timely ethnographic study, Shams draws on her insider knowledge as a first-generation Bangladeshi-American woman to eloquently illustrate how different generations of South Asian Muslims navigate their identities as Muslims....Moving beyond a simple homeland-hostland binary, Shams' book is a welcoming intervention in both theories of assimilation and transnationalism." ~Cristine S. Khan and Van C. Tran, Social Forces
"[A] significant intervention in how we understand immigrants' lived experiences....Shams effectively uses examples from her fieldwork to convey the utility of the multicentered relational framework to various arenas of South Asian Muslim Americans' identity construction, while leaving analytical space for this concept to be further developed through additional case studies of other immigrant groups within and outside of the U.S.A. This is an important book." ~Adrienne Lee Atterberry, South Asian Diaspora
"This well-written book presents new insights and an alternative model for researching immigrant communities, and contributessignificantly to migration, religious, and ethnic studies. Recommended." ~D. A. Chekki, CHOICE
"Here, There, and Elsewhere is pushing the boundaries of immigrant studies by pointing to the importance of global interconnections in understanding immigrant identity and socialization. It is worthy of serious attention by scholars of immigration and ethnic studies." ~Sangay Mishra, Ethnic and Racial Studies
"Tahseen Shams's Here, There, and Elsewhere: The Making of Immigrant Identities in a Globalized World tells an important story about migrants: how migrant communities are interconnected to a host land and homeland, here and there, respectively. This is a compelling and thought-provoking concept, what Shams terms as an 'elsewhere,' that builds upon existing transnational feminist theories, by which Shams illuminates how a place neither 'here' nor 'there' can shape the migrant experience." ~Annie Isabel Fukushima, American Journal of Sociology
"Shams's groundbreaking multicentered relational framework of Here, There, and Elsewhere: The Making of Immigrant Identities in a Globalized World is a model to understand migrants' identity and their sense of belonging beyond the homeland-hostland dyad and the influence of 'Elsewhere.'" ~Sumiya Mahmud, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology
"Many scholars have attempted to address integration, assimilation, or enculturation as a way to make sense of the immigrant journey of identity shaping and shift in the hostland. Shams allows us to think on a multidimensional plane where identity can be informed by acts of individual agency, such as supporting Palestine, or acts of protection, such as subscribing to the 'good Muslim' script. These examples are influenced by the history and politics of the home and host countries. Shams allows for immigrants to be seen as individuals, without essentializing their stories based on their Muslimness." ~Ashvina Patel, H-Diplo