The thesis examines the complex process of integration of Indonesian Muslim immigrants in London into the larger minority Muslim community and, more broadly, secular British society using an interpretive framework of the role of religion in diaspora. The integration process of Indonesian immigrants in London is considered within the multilevel context of the strengths and weaknesses of British multiculturalism and the prevalence of secularisation in British society on the one hand, and, on the other, the diasporic institutionalisation of Islam in the UK and the internal differentiation and fragmentation of the Muslim community in London. Combined with the pursuit of their ethno-religious tradition, the integration of Indonesians in London follows a multi-linear path either through the foundation of ethno-religious associations, assimilation into the broader Muslim community or adaptation to secularised British society. These multiple integration paths have ultimately polarised the religious and secularised trajectories of Indonesian immigrants in London into three groups: the traditionalists who pursue their ethno-religious tradition; the revivalists who lean toward the universally standardised Sunni Islamic traditional and the secularists who display secularised or individualised religiosity. In the context of these three different religious trajectories, the thesis examines the different positions taken by Indonesians in London towards their moderate Islamic tradition transplanted from the home country contextualised by the multicultural religious traditions of the Muslim diaspora. The study also describes different forms of social relations between Indonesians and fellow Muslim immigrants in London by examining the applicability of the normative idea of Muslim unity, the Ummah, amid persistent internal ethnic and religious sectarian diversity and fragmentation within the multicultural Muslim community

This thesis analyses several aspects of the performance, welfare and reception of immigrants in the UK. The thesis is organised into three parts and contains the introduction and six chapters. In the introduction, we provide the motivation and estabhsh the background for the analysis performed in the thesis. We discuss recent trends in migration in the UK and describe the data sources used for the analysis. In part one we analyse the economic performance of immigrants, and how this is affected by the level of proficiency in the host country language. We also investigate the association between ethnic concentration and language fluency. In chapter two, the effect of language proficiency in English is investigated as a determinant of wages and employment probabihties, taking into account econometric issues such as endogeneity and measurement error. This is followed by chapter three, which investigates the association between immigrants' language proficiency and ethnic context. In part two, chapter four presents an analysis of health inequalities between ethnic minority immigrants and the native population in England. A model of migration decisions is developed that includes health as a determinant of migration. According to this model, if health and income are positively correlated, immigrants are likely to be positively selected in terms of health. This discussion illustrates the problems deriving from the available measures of health. Part two deals with issues of "reception". In chapter five, the impact of immigration on the UK labour market is investigated. We use aggregate information at regional level. The analysis concentrates on employment and wage effects of immigration. Finally, chapter six provides an analysis of the association between ethnic concentration, attitudes of the majority population and the probability of ethnic minorities experiencing racial hostility.

This investigation examines the relationship between social capital acquisition and personal identity development. It traces the evolution of social capital building in two migrant communities and assesses its consequences for the identity development of their members. Drawing on ethnographic data, the Irish community in Munich and the German community in Dublin are explored. The Munich based organisation Irish-German circle of friends is a vital source of social capital. Social trust created among the core members of the Irish community is the prime driving force of its development. The identity of Irish migrants in Munich who are in close contact with the organisation has mainly been reshaped by numerous performances of Irish culture such as the local St. Patrick's Day Parade. Irish migrants adj ust their identities during cultural and religious rituals. In some cases, their belonging is expressed as hybrid since identification with the local Bavarian setting is combined with an enactment of Irish culrural difference. Social capital acquired by Irish migrants has impacted on their multi·layered identities as identity-affecting riruals are established in dense networks of mutual support. In contrast, the case of the Lutheran congregation in Dublin illustrates another driving force of community development. This faith-based community of local German migrants is bound together by the common Lutheran values. German-born Lutherans in Dublin tend to conserve their initial religious identity during spiritual rituals enacted in German. The social cohesion in the church council makes such identity-shaping rituals a reality. My contribution to community research is the case based description of two driving forces enabling community development. Based on evidence from two migrant communities, I argue that conservation of initial identity layers among migrants depends to a certain degree on the social capital acquired in their local community of origin.

This study examined the impact of socio-cultural change on Albanian parents' social representations of their children's schooling. Psychological research on the ways that parents mediate their children’s learning and development in situations of societal change is still scarce, yet understanding parents’ social representations is of crucial importance as they play a key role in their children’s education. Drawing on cultural psychological approaches of Bronfenbrenner, Vygotsky and Moscovici, individual learning and development involves the consideration of mutual relationships between micro and macro socio-cultural settings, which co-constructs psychological development. Previous research examining parents' representations of their children's schooling in situations of educational change revealed the influence of past experiences to make sense of the current schooling of their children (O'Toole & Abreu, 2005). The current study will go a step further as the educational changes experienced by Albanian parents involved both a radical change on schooling practices, but also a radical macro-political change. To gain in-depth insight into these relationships three macro-settings that expose Albanian parents to changes in educational practices were investigated. The first setting involved the impact of changes due to political and social change in the Albanian education system. The second setting involved changes due to migration to foreign country, and the third involved changes due to returning to the home country (i.e. Albania). Data was collected using narrative-episodic interviews (Flick, 2006). The empirical work with emigrants was conducted in the United Kingdom and with the non-emigrants and returned emigrants in Albania. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was utilized to examine the transcribed data from the individual interviews. The key findings of this study shed light on three key aspects of parents’ social representations: First, the means parents used to talk about education differed based on their cultural experiences. Due to their scope of experiences, parents’ social representations were partially similar and different. Their previous experience with education was compared to present situation to make sense of their views. Non-emigrant parents compared Now, the transition after the fall and the time they were in school (during Communism). Emigrant parents compared Now Abroad, to the present Albanian education system by observing at distance, prior to migration and their schooling during communism. Returned emigrant parents gave meaning to their situation Now in Albania by comparing their experience with education abroad, prior to migration and during communism. Second, the analysis showed that these comparisons were expressed in parents´ accounts of school practices and behaviours revealing underlying constructions of their children and children as learners. Parents' comparisons focused on the school systems, teachers, roles, relationships and children's projected future, revealing constructions of children as learners that changed over time. At time, their constructions overlapped with parents' own constructions and at other times constructions were different. Third, this study contributes to a better understanding of how social representations act as mediators in parents' understanding of children's schooling showing that they evolve according to specific experiences. As parents evolve and change so do their views of what is good schooling.

My thesis examines how ethnicity matters to ordinary Romanian migrants living and working in London. Contrary to tendencies to overemphasise ethnicity in migration research, I do not assume the relevance of ethnicity but instead start from a (non- ethnicised) social network approach that allows me to appreciate how migrants' various social relations are understood and experienced in ethnic and/or non-ethnic ways. The study has two broad aims: first, to explore the migrants' social relations both at destination and transnationally, and second, to assess the extent to which ethnicity informs the experience of these varied social relations. The research is based on 40 in-depth interviews with Romanians in high-skilled and low-skilled occupations, sampled through a balanced number of ethnic institutions and non- ethnically marked routes. I discuss four types of social relations in four separate chapters. First, I show how Romanians forge ties and socialise with migrants of different origins. Second, I examine migrants' professional ties with locals and their role in occupational attainment. Third, I look at how migrants relate to coethnics and coethnic institutions in London. Fourth, I examine the role and experience of migrants' cross-border social connections. I find that ethnicity is not the main framework through which migrants make sense of their social relations. Rather, Romanians' non-native (but not necessarily ethnic minority) status in London shapes their interactions with locals, other migrants, and life opportunities more profoundly than does their understanding of themselves as Romanians. Similarly, I find that the migrants' cross-border social ties have little ethnic substance. Although not primarily or permanently salient, ethnicity does sometimes inform the migrants' interactions and actions in compelling ways. However, contrary to the common rhetoric of ethnic identities and solidarities, ethnicity primarily emerges in my case as a negative discourse of avoidance and resentment towards 'Romanians'. I further identify various positive facets of ethnicity, for example as an instrumental resource or as an ingredient of cosmopolitan socialisation. Whilst challenging the overethnicisation of migrant experiences, my research thus offers a balanced assessment of ethnicised and non-ethnicised experiences of migrants' different social ties.

This study critically analyses an assumption that Ghanaian marriages, while in Britain, become difficult and that many do not survive. This is blamed on, the Impact of Britain's Western culture. Many migrant marriages apparently endure stressful deterioration that often leads to separation, abusive loveless co-habiting and sometimes divorce whilst resident in Britain. It consequently evaluates and discusses some practical issues facing Pastoral Ministry and counselling concerns of marital relationships especially of the Ghanaian Adventist migrants. It also discusses participant views on the Ghanaian migrant Seventh-day Adventist Churches' leadership approach and their implication on members' marriages including ethical issues regarding offenders' active participation in the church. This research was limited to a cross-section of the Ghanaian Seventh-day Adventist Christians in Britain for manageability and focus. It is anticipated that patterns found could be repeatable where Ghanaians are found elsewhere in the Western civilisation. This project objectively explored the above assumption to question, investigate and determine possible causative factors to help move from assumption to referable data and thereby inform and improve pastoral care ministries. The study concludes that Ghanaian Adventist Christian Migrant marriages actually endure occasional multifaceted destructive problems of unrealistic expectations from a community of relatives, friends, in -laws and the church as well as the couples themselves.

Despite the salient role that ways of seeing and categorizing difference have acquired for the ordinary integration framework of contemporary Britain, research on how sparse immigrant populations and un/marked migrants and ethnic minorities negotiate these issues remains underdeveloped. This thesis contributes to illuminating the intersections between socio-cultural and embodied in/visibility and migrants' and their young descendants' experiences of incorporation by focusing on the case of Latin Americans in the north of England. The research comprised interviews with stake holders and other informants and a multiple case study with ten Latin American and Latino-British families in the Yorkshire and Greater Manchester regions. The fieldwork with the families included all the household members over 8 years of age (totalling 30 participants) and combined a range of person-centred qualitative methods (text and visually based), involving multiple individual and group research encounters. The thesis argues that the socio-cultural invisibility of this population in the north of the country is eo-produced and sustained by a lack of official attention and soft Latin American/Latino panethnic identifications. Also significant here is the fraught relationship between these migrants and the system of ethno-cultural recognition which operates in their host society. Invisibility and visibility emerge as signifiers of sameness and difference through the everyday embodied experiences of the adult and young participants. These are negotiated with 'passing' and 'coming out' strategies aimed at acquiring mainstream membership, avoiding enforced racialization (othering) or re-defining notions of commonality based on principles of cultural diversity. Nonetheless, conditions of socio-cultural invisibility constrain the extent to which both adults and young people can reproduce forms of Latin Americanism locally, displacing tasks of intergenerational cultural transmission to the transnational sphere of the extended family. Thus, young participants display narratives of potential delayed belonging to their inherited homelands in order to legitimate their claims to their locally uncommon cultural background.

Modern life is constantly being affected by increasing forms of mobility. These mobilities allow for people to carry out activities that form and maintain relationships and networks on a social and obligatory basis. Complex mobility systems have enabled greater movement for many at local, national and international levels. Migration theories have been influenced by the mobilities paradigm and have led to the creation of new terminology such as ‘transnational migrants’. Both the needs of post-Second World War labour shortages and the political and economic climate of Pakistan (after partition in 1947) led to significant post-colonial Pakistani migration. This directed attention to life in the UK and resulted in and created new mobility dynamics. In terms of the research on which this thesis is based, face to face interviews took place, with a total of twenty eight interviewees that were carried out in two parts with the Pakistani diaspora living in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne who migrated up until the 1970’s. Evidence from the interviews supports the notion of the Pakistani diaspora holding on to its values and solidarity. Nevertheless a fluidity of identities has become the norm for this diasporic group and the concept of transnational citizenship has become a reality. Examples of social integration and identity formation are documented as are the political and health issues of main concern. Finally, the leisure and tourism activities have been analysed. A theme that is central to the group was health and as the natural ageing process sets in there are motility issues that affect their lifestyle significantly and health care needs. Network capital, mainly the telephone has therefore become more prominent in interviewees lives whereas social capital has reduced as a result of immobility. It is concluded that diverse mobilities have enabled the Pakistani diaspora links to be maintained locally, nationally and internationally as well as the religious requirements to be met.

The focus of this research is on well educated, middle-class Iranian migrant women who left their homeland at least ten years ago and are now living in the UK. The purpose of this research is to consider the first generation (who individually decided to migrate to the UK) and the second generation (the daughters of the first generation who had no other choice but to live in the country that their parents had selected) of Iranian migrant women according to intergenerational differences in their experiences of the migratory process. This study explores how Iranian women migrants (first and second generation) understand their gender roles in their homeland (Iran) and in their host country (Britain), therefore mapping the impacts of migration onto their gendered subjectivities. Based on in-depth interviews, this research focuses on the reasons why the first generation Iranian women migrated to the UK, their views on their gender roles within the family and host society, and their attachment to cultural values. Iranian migrant women left their homeland and had to rebuild their lives in a new country. I examine whether their perceptions of gender roles have changed as a result of migrating to a new country. The study attempts to show the extent to which the Iranian women migrating to the UK were affected by the issues surrounding women's status in response to political developments in their homeland during the 1979 Revolution in Iran. I also seek to uncover if these Iranian women import the traditional roles into their new society, in particular how their views about women's status differ from those they held in Iran. By exploring the migration process among two generations of Iranian women in the same family, the thesis seeks to reveal the gap between the family cultures with regards to protecting the Iranian values, and the effect of the host country's culture on the actual practices of migrant women which lead to shaping their identity. It also examines the extent to which these migrant women have kept their cultural values and transferred them to their daughters.

Thesis (M.Dev.) --University of Limpopo, 2013 / The focus of the study was on the impacts of undocuments on the provision of housing, job opportunities and health in Limpopo Province: A case study of Polokwane Municipality and the measures taken by the government to deal with illegal immigrants. The study was qualitative in nature and concentrated on illegal Zimbabweans and South Africans residing in Western burg(RDP side),Greenside,Lethuli Park,buite and bok streets, Department of health and Social welfare, Department of Labour and the Department of Housing. The area of study was Polokwane Municipality under the Capricorn district. The research findings confirmed that illegal immigrants have negative impacts on the provision of housing, job opportunities and health facilities in Limpopo Province as many respondents indicated that illegal immigrants were residing in RDP houses, all of them have access to health facilities and most of them were employed but only pay tax through the purchasing of goods and commodities for use and resale in the country and back in Zimbabwe.