Diaspora, Hybrid Identity, and the Politics of Recognition: Negotiating Cultural Citizenship, Transnationalism, and the Crisis of Belonging Among Second-Generation Migrant Communities
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Abstract
Second-generation migrants—those born or largely raised in their parents' country of immigration—occupy a uniquely complex social position that has emerged as one of the central sites of contemporary sociological inquiry into identity, belonging, and citizenship. Caught between the cultural worlds of their parents' origin communities and the societies in which they are formed as social subjects, second-generation diaspora communities navigate an ongoing process of identity negotiation that defies the binary logics of assimilation theory and cultural essentialism alike. This article develops a theoretically integrated analysis of hybrid identity formation, the politics of recognition, and the crisis of belonging among second-generation diaspora communities, drawing upon Stuart Hall's cultural theory of diasporic identity, Homi Bhabha's concept of the 'third space,' and Charles Taylor's philosophy of the politics of recognition. Through systematic qualitative review of empirical literature and secondary analysis of comparative survey data on second-generation identity and belonging, the study examines four interrelated dimensions of the diaspora experience: (1) the formation of hybrid cultural identities through the negotiation of competing cultural repertoires, linguistic practices, and value systems in the 'third space' between origin and host-country cultures; (2) the politics of recognition and misrecognition, wherein second-generation individuals simultaneously seek recognition from host-society institutions as full citizens and from heritage communities as authentic cultural members; (3) transnational belonging and its digital mediation, wherein digital communication technologies have reconfigured the spatial and temporal dimensions of diaspora community formation, enabling new forms of long-distance belonging and collective identity; and (4) the crisis of belonging experienced by segments of the second generation who find themselves suspended between worlds, lacking full recognition in either their parents' origin communities or the host society. The study argues that second-generation diaspora experience represents a paradigmatic case of the 'unfinished business of modernity'—the ongoing tension between the universalist promises of liberal citizenship and the persistent particularisms of cultural difference, racial categorization, and structural inequality that prevent their fulfillment.
Keywords
Diaspora; second-generation migrants; hybrid identity; politics of recognition; transnationalism; cultural citizenship; belonging; Hall; Bhabha; Taylor
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