Dr Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels, Director of the MA International Migration at BSIS, publishes a new book this month: ‘Migrants or Expatriates? Americans in Europe’.
This book grew out of the realization that Americans engaged in political transnationalism, but that their transnational behavior could not easily be explained by existing explanations – primarily emerging from research with South-North migrants. One of those explanations is reactive transnationalism – an engagement in the country of origin because of a lack of acceptance in the host country. The research for this book demonstrated, however, that one reason Americans were engaging in American politics was a variant of reactive transnationalism. Identified and, to some extent, stereotyped as Americans during periods of less popular US foreign policy, they reacted by becoming involved in American politics. In short, there was less difference in their motivations for political engagement from other migrants than might, perhaps, be anticipated.
The second point of departure for the book was the observation that Americans in Europe are almost never referred to as “migrants,” but rather as “expatriates”. This book engages with that dichotomy, problematizing the term “expatriate” as well as presenting American interviewees’ and survey respondents’ feelings of identification with the terms “migrant” or “expatriate”. The results are somewhat surprising. Ultimately, the book challenges assumptions about overseas Americans and, in so doing, challenges assumptions about migrants, more generally.
New publication (Feb 2014): Migrants or Expatriates? Americans in Europe, http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=
Further information about Dr Klekowski von Koppenfels is available at http://www.kent.ac.uk/brussels/staff/profiles/brussels/koppenfels.html