Incorporation beyond identity: co-ethnic immigrants in Serbia

Abstract

In contrast to studies that examine cases of immigrant incorporation where the newcomers differ culturally from the established residents, this study controls for the ethnic identity of immigrants by considering the case of former refugees in Serbia who fled violent conflicts in the early 1990s. It also disaggregates the incorporation concept into three dimensions – social, political and economic. Based on the original survey of 1,200 respondents, this article shows that the three dimensions of incorporation do not move in unison. Immigrants incorporate economically and politically to a greater degree in neighbourhoods where the proportion of immigrants is larger, while they incorporate socially to a lesser degree in those same neighbourhoods, as evident in the tendency to form interpersonal networks consisting mainly of other immigrants.

Keywords:

• immigrant incorporation
• social identity
• interpersonal networks
• Southeast Europe
• Serbia
• refugees

Acknowledgements

I thank Melani Cammett, Zsolt Lazar, Pauline Jones Luong, Roger Petersen, Alan Zuckerman, Susan Woodward, Jasna Čapo Zmegac, Sukriti Issar, Jeremy Johnson, Sarah Marhevsky and several anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. This research was approved by Brown University's Human Subjects Committee IRB on 6 May 2008.

Notes

1. See also ‘Ethnically Privileged Migrants in Their Homeland’ and Strangers Either Way: The Lives of Croatian Refugees in Their New Home by Jasna Čapo Žmegač.

2. I recruited and trained thirty-three research assistants from the Faculty of Sociology at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia.

3. The sampling method that is most similar to the method I chose is the two-stage sequential sampling method (Salehi and Smith 2005, pp. 85–6; Brown et al. 2008).

4. Survey question: How many of your VERY close friends are persons who moved to Serbia after 1991? (1, Nobody; 2, Few; 3, Many; 4, All)

5. Slava is an annual family patron saint celebration in Serbia, where closest family members and friends are invited.

Survey question: How many times in the past 12 months have you been invited to Slava (i.e. family patron saint) or Imendan (i.e. nameday)? (1, Never; 2, Once or twice; 3, Three or four times; 4, More than five times)

6. Survey question: If you had a choice, persons of which of the following groups (refugee/local) would you like as a neighbour/boss/spouse? (Please, circle the number in the cell that corresponds to the appropriate degree: 1, yes, very gladly, 2, yes, I don't have anything against it, 3, I am indifferent, 4, rather not, 5, not at all)

7. Survey question: How many of your neighbours do you consider as VERY close friends? Friends are VERY close if you maintain regular contact with them, talk about private matters, and would turn to them first in case you need help with a more serious problem, such as an illness or the loss of a job. (1, Nobody; 2, One or two people; 3, Three or four people; 4, Five or more)

8. Survey question: How often do you vote in national elections? 0, I never voted; 1, I missed more than two elections; 2, I missed one or two elections; 3, I voted every time

9. Survey question: Has a political party ever contacted you? (0, No; 1, Yes)

10. 1 USD = 82 RSD on 3 September 2010.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mila Dragojević

MILA DRAGOJEVIĆ is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at University of the South.