The Configuration of Symbolic Boundaries against Immigrants in Europe
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7598577 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christopher A Bail (Harvard University), Chris Bail (0000-0002-5310-2372, Harvard University Press, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 73 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 37-59 |
| Publication date | 2008-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Sociological Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-1224 • E-ISSN: 1939-8271 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/000312240807300103 |
| OpenAlex | W2039185493 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 289 |
| References cited | 78 |
Recent studies report significant cross-national variation in the conceptual distinctions or “symbolic boundaries” used by majority groups to construct notions of “us” and “them.” Because this literature compares only a handful of countries, the macro-level forces by which certain symbolic boundaries become more salient than others remain poorly understood. This article provides the first panorama of these processes by comparing the relative salience or “configuration” of multiple symbolic boundaries in 21 European countries. I use fuzzy-set analyses of data from the 2003 European Social Survey to create a typology of symbolic boundary configurations. The results indicate that the symbolic boundaries deployed by the general public do not correspond to the official “philosophies of integration” emphasized in the literature. Moreover, the data suggest previous comparisons have focused too heavily on Western Europe, overlooking important variation in other regions of Europe where immigration began more recently. I generate hypotheses to explain this newfound variation using demographic, socioeconomic, institutional, and historical data from quantitative and qualitative sources. The article concludes with examples of how these hypotheses can be combined by future studies toward a theory of “boundary-work
Boundary-work · Cognitive psychology · Construct (python library · Economic geography · European Social Survey · Geography · Immigration · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Salience (neuroscience · Salient · Social science · Sociology · The Symbolic · Typology · Variation (astronomy · Computer Science · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology
Religioznost i stavovi prema imigrantima u Hrvatskoj
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Social Movements
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A (More) Perfect Union? Religion, Politics, and Competing Stories of America
America as a 'Christian Nation'? Understanding Religious Boundaries of National Identity in the United States
Gender and Work
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Assimilatie in de literaire mainstream? - Etnische grenzen in dagbladrecensies van etnische minderheidsauteurs in de Verenigde Staten, Nederland en Duitsland
Attitudes towards immigration at the regional level in Europe in times of crisis
Das Ende des Migrationshintergrundes? Zur Kritik einer Ordnungsvorstellung
A fuzzy-hybrid analysis of citizens’ perception toward immigrants in Europe
Immigration and Public Support for Social Policy
Tension and Transaction
Anti‐foreigner Sentiment
Romanians’ current perception of threat from immigrants in a context of co-ethnic migration
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Durable Ethnicity
Nostalgia and Hope
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A Language-Based Method for Assessing Symbolic Boundary Maintenance between Social Groups
Host Hostility and Nativism
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The exclusionary side effects of the civic integration paradigm
How Muslims respond to secularist restrictions
Attitudes Toward Muslims Among Majority Youth in Norway
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“Not one of us”
Should immigrants culturally assimilate or preserve their own culture? Host-society natives' beliefs and the longevity of national identity
Does Islam play a role in anti-immigrant sentiment? An experimental approach
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Maintaining ethnic boundaries in 'non-ethnic' contexts
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Intersecting Experiences
Regimes semióticos do pertencimento nas metrópoles contemporâneas
From Culture to Claimsmaking
Fuzzy Boundaries
Herder's Heritage and the Boundary-Making Approach
“It Happened When I Was Connecting to the Community…”
Finding Religion
Hacia una sociología de la pobreza
Including Oneself and Including Others
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Religion and politics of belonging in digital times
Differenzierungen und Klassifikationen entlang von Religion und Migration in der Schule. Symbolische Grenzziehung als pädagogische Praxis
Broadening democracy against environmental justice
And Who Is My Brother?” The Scope of Religious Communitarianism in Europe
Histories of Conquest, Diversity, and Social Cohesion in Former Colonial Europe
Race and Social Boundaries
We the (Christian) People
Agenda setting and selective resonance – Black Lives Matter and media debates on racism in Germany
Symbolic boundaries and the negative classifications of the ‘Successful Other’ at the intersection of ethnicity, religion, gender, and refugeeness
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Different names, different discrimination? How perceptions of names can explain rental discrimination
Are we really surmounting the binary? Visualizing race and ethnicity group relations via embedded relational diagrams
Configurations of attitudes toward immigration in Europe
Who are the immigrants that Israeli Jews prefer? The interplay between reasons for migration, religion, and religiosity
From culture to class - legitimate boundary making in German immigration debates on Southern and Eastern Europeans
Polarization in the wake of the European refugee crisis – A longitudinal study of the Finnish political elite’s attitudes towards refugees and the environment
Insights into the Use of Social Comparison in Migrants’ Transnational Social Positioning Strategies
Migrants’ Social Positioning Strategies in Transnational Social Spaces
The impact of regionalism on anti-immigrant attitudes
The Determination of Educational Policy
Why there is less supportive evidence for contact theory than they say there is
Muslims as outsiders, enemies, and others
Contextualizing Anti-Immigrant Attitudes of East Europeans
Civil Religion and National Politics in a Neoliberal Era
Understanding Symbolic Boundaries and Improving Quantitative Analysis of Social Exclusion by Improving the Operationalization of Boundary Work
Religion as Cultural Power
Shifting categories, changing attitudes
Assimilation into the Literary Mainstream? The Classification of Ethnic Minority Authors in Newspaper Reviews in the United States, the Netherlands and Germany
The radicals watched from the sidelines or the ambivalent citizens’ relations to radicalism in a poor Montreal neighbourhood
Mapping Cultural Distances in a Catnet Approach
Boundaries, work and identity practices
From uprising to secession
A two-dimensional boundary
When does religiosity matter for attitudes to immigration? The impact of economic insecurity and religious norms in Europe
Racism and migration in western Europe
Fuzzy-Set Social Science
Nationalism
Limits of citizenship
Purity and Danger
Philosophies of Integration
Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town
Negotiating Identities
Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany
Race Politics in Britain and France
Ethnic groups and boundaries
Human groups and social categories
Money, Morals, and Manners
Western Europe and its Islam
The Dignity of Working Men
Theorizing on Nationalism
Nations and Nationalism
The Return of Assimilation? Changing Perspectives on Immigration and its Sequels in France, Germany, and the United States
Talking culture
The Policy Challenge of Ethnic Diversity
Muslims and the State in Britain, France, and Germany
Immigrants and National Identity in Europe
Identity and Integration
Racism and Anti-Racism in Europe
European Muslims and the Secular State
Nationalist Exclusion and Ethnic Conflict
The Dignity of Working Men
Eldorado or Fortress? Migration in Southern Europe
Nationalism Reframed
Social Identity
Swedish multiculturalism in a comparative European perspective
Reactive Ethnicity” or “Assimilation”? Statements, Arguments, and First Empirical Evidence for Labor Migrants in Germany
Prejudice as a Response to Perceived Group Threat
The Second Generation in Europe
Hungarian Perspectives on Emigration and Immigration in the New European Architecture
European Integration and Immigration from Third Countries
Greek Policy towards Immigration and Immigrants
Bright vs. blurred boundaries
Ethnicity and nation building in the Nordic world
Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position
Purity and Danger
Why Islam is like Spanish
Set Relations in Social Research
Opening and closing borders
Racism, Migration and the State in Western Europe
Popular conceptions of nationhood in old and new European member states
Racial Europeanization
Talking Culture
The Institutional Context of Tolerance for Ethnic Minorities
Nationalism and Ethnicity
The nature of prejudice
Philosophies of Integration
Spanish nationalism
Religion and Incorporation
European Integration and Immigration from Third Countries
Global Modernisers or Local Subalterns? Parallel Perceptions of Chinese Transnationals in Hungary
Qu'est-ce qu'un Francais? Histoire de la nationalite francaise depuis la Revolution
La France raciste
Exclusion in the Liberal State
Meso-level Reasons for Racism and Xenophobia
The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences
Culture in Interaction
Segmented assimilation in France? Discrimination in the labour market against the second generation
Identity and socio-cultural capital
The myth of the civic state
The return of assimilation? Changing perspectives on immigration and its sequels in France, Germany, and the United States
| Unique citing works | 289 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 15,21 |
| Citation span | 2007 - 2026 (20) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 288 |