Labour of love: Secrecy and kinship among Ghanaian-Dutch and Somali-Dutch in The Netherlands

This paper examines the productive role of secrecy in the nexus of transnational mobility, kinship, and intimate relations among Ghanaian-Dutch and Somali-Dutch in the Netherlands. Whereas secrecy is typically understood as one person concealing knowledge from another, implying the latter’s passivity, we argue that secrecy depends on mutually constitutive interactions. Secrecy is explored as the result of an interaction between those who obscure knowledge in creative ways and those who maintain a not-knowing. The paper analyzes how people negotiate moral expectations regarding sexuality, respect, and loyalty, while also manoeuvring to fulfil their personal aspirations. Especially in kinship relations, when people are bound to each other by moral and social obligations, the management of secrecy often makes people mutually dependent. Secrecy is revealed as skillfully choreographing relations by the ebb and flow of information where kinship, respect, or love and (not-) knowing reinforce another.ASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde

Socioeconomic Achievement Among Arab Immigrants in the USA: The Influence of Region of Origin and Gender

Based on the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) data derived from 2001–2013 samples of the American Community Surveys, we examine the impact of region of origin and gender on socioeconomic achievement variation among Arab immigrants in the USA. Region of origin includes North Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Sudan), Levant (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq), and the Arabian Peninsula (Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen). This examination is particularly important given the prevailing scholarly consensus that Arab immigrants are collectively portrayed as socioeconomically successful. Our analyses suggest two key findings. First, we find that region of origin is not a consistent predictor of earnings. While Arab immigrants from North Africa earned significantly less than those from the Levant, this was only true for males. No significant effect is found for region of origin in all other comparisons (both overall and when the analysis is restricted to males or females). Second, and by contrast, gender, net of other variables is a powerful predictor of earnings (both within regions and across regions)

Researcher positionality in cross-cultural and sensitive research

The status of the insider and outsider is an important concept for cross-cultural and sensitive research. In recent years, the concept of placement of the researcher has received much attention. Until a few generations ago, researchers who shared the same cultural, social, and linguistic background with those of the research participants mainly conducted research. However, over the last two decades, we have started to witness researchers who have different characteristics to that of the research participants conduct research in health and social sciences. In current times, this has led to the debates of insider versus outsider status of the researchers, as the way research participants “place” the researchers, and vice versa, is vital for the success of any research. In this chapter, we shall introduce the concept of researcher positionality. We will look at the debates on researcher positionality in cross-cultural and sensitive research and discuss “placing” issues such as gender, age, culture and ethnicity, social class, and shared experiences