Migrating Identities and Perspectives: Latin America and the Caribbean in Local and Global Contexts

Book excerpt: This Fall 2009 (VII, 4) issue of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge entitled “Migrating Identities and Perspectives: Latin America and the Caribbean in Local and Global Contexts,” focuses on the complexity of identity formations experienced by migrants in the world-system, with a regional focus on Latin America and the Caribbean which have been at the heart of many recent scholarly debates in migration studies and the subsequent emergence of transnationalism. The collection can be therefore understood as an attempt to establish an intellectual dialogue between different academic disciplines, as well as theoretical perspectives. Among the various themes of this issue is the importance of context, as illustrated through the use of comparisons, and the application to the domestic migration context of theoretical approaches commonly used to explain international migration. Another theme that emerges among these papers is that of integration, or in the case of deportees—a very specific group of immigrants—reintegration. A crucial aspect of incorporation is identity formation, often central to migration research and highlighted in a variety of ways in the papers. Contributors include: Terry-Ann Jones (also as journal issue guest editor), Eric Mielants (also as journal issue guest editor), Per Unheim, David Carment, Carlo Dade, Dwaine Plaza, Cédric Audebert, Heike Drotbohm, and Mohammad H. Tamdgidi (also as journal editor-in-chief). Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge is a publication of OKCIR: The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics). For more information about OKCIR and other issues in its journal’s Edited Collection as well as Monograph and Translation series visit OKCIR’s homepage.