Abstract
This introductory chapter outlines the volume’s main contents, identifying some key ideas that contribute to recent debates on migration, minorities and national categorization as well as the shifting meanings associated with the politics of kinship in this scenario. Specifically, we present and discuss two main fields of reflection: on one hand, the strain of national efforts to classify and govern internal differences and, on the other, dimensions of belonging on the basis of kinship, intimacy and ancestry. We conclude by introducing the individual chapters. Our aim is to sketch an intersectional perspective that grants equal attention to both the logics of national governmentality in the sphere of migration and minorities, and the myriad ways individuals and collectivities end up tangling with overwritten identity categories through practices and politics of identity and belonging, intimacy and relatedness. In this investigation, we focus our analysis on the boundary within understood as less an established line of demarcation or given classification and more an ongoing process of identity construction and social exclusion that takes place among the various actors, levels and spaces that make up the national fabric, itself shown to be intrinsically ambivalent, contradictory and subject to constant redefinition.
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Notes
- 1.
The conference, titled ‘Changing Population: Migration, Reproduction and Identity,’ was held at the University of Trento, Department of Sociology and social Research, on June 3–4 2014 (http://web.unitn.it/en/sociologia/evento/34709/changing-population-migration-reproduction-and-identity). As the call for papers indicated, we invited participants to consider the ‘politics of reproduction put in motion by both national governments, as they distinguish between citizens and non-citizens, and migrants and their descendants, as they affirm, negotiate or refrain from constructing their own definitions of family, kinship, genealogy and belonging.’
Several sessions addressed the themes raised by the call for papers from different perspectives. After having analyzed the over 70 abstracts we received and the 36 papers selected, it became obvious that the interrelated issues of national boundaries and politics of kinship represented thick, innovative and fruitful research strands deserving of exploration. The essays contained here emerged as the most coherent and significant examples of such explorations.
This book is thus the fruit of a collective effort involving multiple scholars in various ways. We would especially like to thank Paolo Boccagni, Nicholas Harney, David Kertzer, Bruno Riccio, Giuseppe Sciortino and Pnina Werbner, whose precious scientific contribution paved the way for the conference and the development of this volume. We would also like to thank Serena Piovesan for the organizational support she provided during the conference and Angelina Zontine and Chiara Masini for proofreading the text. Thanks also go to the three anonymous reviewers for their invaluable suggestions.
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Decimo, F., Gribaldo, A. (2017). Nation, Migration and Kinship through Identity Categorization. In: Decimo, F., Gribaldo, A. (eds) Boundaries within: Nation, Kinship and Identity among Migrants and Minorities. IMISCOE Research Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53331-5_1
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