Transnational political practices and integration of second generation migrants

ABSTRACT

Since the last few decades, migration scholars have acknowledged that immigrants and their forebears maintain different forms of ties with their home countries while incorporating into their host countries. The study contributes to the literature by investigating the interplay between transnational political practices and political integration of second generation Ghanaians in Amsterdam. Data for this research are drawn from semi-structured interviews, key informant interviews, informal interviews and participant observation among members of Ghanaian political party branches in the Netherlands. Data collection took place intermittently between 2014 and 2017 in Amsterdam. The study found that second generation migrants participate in multiple fields of politics in the host and home country. Dutch restriction on dual citizenship limits the rights of second generation Ghanaians to fully participate and represent in Ghana’s politics. The study concludes that transnational political practices of second-generation migrants are not invariably contradictory to their political integration in the host nation but citizenship laws of nation states dictates the extent of engagement in transnational political practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Transnational political practices
• political integration
• second generation migrants
• Ghana
• citizenship

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The country of origin is denoted as the sending country of any of their parents.

2 It has to be noted however that second generation migrants are exempted from renouncing their citizenship in any of the cases but it is interesting in this study because all the respondents have only Dutch citizenship.

3 The representation is however limited to the political party as the person cannot vote nor represent in national elections in Ghana.