Displacement, emplacement and migrant newcomers: rethinking urban sociabilities within multiscalar power

Abstract

This article contributes to the discussion of the everyday sociabilities that arise between migrant newcomers and local urban residents. We highlight the proximal, workplace and institutionally based social relations that newcomers and locals construct through finding domains of commonality, noting that in such instances differences are not constituting factors for the development of urban sociabilities. The urban sociabilities we describe emerge within the contingencies of a disempowered city in which all residents face limited institutional support and social or economic opportunities. Concepts of multiscalar displacements and emplacements are highlighted as useful for setting aside a communitarian bias in urban and migration studies and analysing urban sociabilities in ways that situate migrants within discussions of urban social movements.

Keywords:

• emplacement
• cities
• sociabilities
• migrants
• multiscalar
• displacement

Acknowledgement

We are grateful to Burt Feintuch and Gunther Schlee for their support of this research. Researchers included Dr. T. Guldbrandsen, P. Buchannan, H. and H. Simwerayi, F. Alhassun, M. Messenger and G. Boggs. We also thank our many respondents, who because of confidentiality agreements have been given pseudonyms.

Notes

1. Openness to commonality rather than to difference can be called situated cosmopolitanism, a topic explored elsewhere (Glick Schiller 2014; Glick Schiller, Darieva, and Gruner-Domic 2011, see also Frykman 2015; Nashashibi 2007). Although some respondents used the term ‘friendship’, not all used this term to encompass the range of sociabilities combining mutual support and positive affect.

2. This may well have changed. The global financial crisis of 2008, rising unemployment, the subprime mortgage crisis that further displaced many city residents, including migrants, have made Manchester less welcoming to refugees. The Obama administration mass deportations affect the daily sociabilities and trust possible by both authorised and unauthorised migrants.

Additional information

Funding

We would like to thank the following funders for their generous support: the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (Program on Global Security and Human Sustainability), the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, The James H. Hayes and Claire Short Hayes Professor of the Humanities, University of New Hampshire, and the President’s Excellence Award, University of New Hampshire Professor, Department of Anthropology.