In recent years, the United States (US) has seen an influx of refugees from the Syrian Crisis, highlighted by a public declaration from then President Obama that 10,000 refugees would be admitted. National surveys suggested that roughly half of US citizens were uncomfortable with this decision. This study serves as an extension of these previous surveys by further elucidating the underlying causes of this discomfort. As such, this study explores Americans' perceptions of Syrian refugee resettlement as well as Syrians' perceptions of America using face to face interviews and content analysis. Analyses revealed conflicting meanings of immigration for both Syrians and Americans as well as co-occurring compassion and fear directed towards Syrian refugees. In addition, Syrian refugees perceived their American resettlement as an opportunity for engagement with society and to contribute socially and economically, while also noting their marginalization and stigmatization in their transitional countries. Americans expressed a lack of understanding of the legal status of Syrian refugees, often equating them with undocumented and illegal migrants. Americans held oppositional attitudes towards Syrian refugees, expressing both empathy towards and fear of terrorism. This study extends the literature on immigration through a more dynamic exploration of attitudes of both refugees and citizens in America, capitalizing on the distinct advantages of qualitative approaches.

No abstract

This article reports the findings of an ethnographic study of families with members involved in the armed struggle for Kurdish nationalism led by the Kurdistan Workers' Party. Based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews and observations with a theoretical sample of six families in the area of Yü ksekova, detailed discussions were held with twelve members of families with children, partners, or siblings involved in the conflict. Ethno-national exceptionalism plays a significant role in determining the motivations of political violence among groups, but with the additional background of the perceptions and realities of systematic racialization, de-territorialization, disenfranchisement, and cultural exclusion that affect certain Kurdish groups. The findings in this article offer critical sociological and anthropological accounts of the localized drivers of ethnonationalism, and the motivations for and the experiences of conflict among families with members involved in the armed conflict and the ''Kurdish question'' in Turkey.

This study examines migration, ethnicity, stratification, and the informal economy by focusing on Waste Paper Pickers (WPPs) as an informal occupational group in Istanbul. I conducted a yearlong fieldwork project among WPPs in Istanbul, collecting ethnographic, observational, participant observational and interview data to develop a description of the everyday lives of WPPs and how they organize their daily work routines. This paper identified most WPPs as immigrants enmeshed in family, friend and compatriot relationships and examined differences and similarities among WPPs.Three main factors account for immigrants entering this occupation: (1) kinship / relative / friend and compatriot relations, (the WPPs’ social capital); (2) the easy entry to this occupation; and, (3) the ‘mafia’ or hiring WPPs on daily basis. Rather than only one type of WPP, they can better be understood as falling into five different types. WPPs in each type differ in their work, the way they work, the money they earn, and their relations with local people. Among my informants, some WPPs can be seen to fit into more than one type while others fall only into one. These types are: (1) Old-hand WPPs, (2) Beginner WPPs, (3) Drunk WPPs, (4) Hired WPPs, and (5) Seasonal WPPs.

In the book, Mass Religious Ritual and Intergroup Tolerance: The Muslim Pilgrims, Alexseev & Zhemukhov (2017) highlighted the association between religiosity and tolerance by conducting an empirical study focusing on whether engagement with the highly religious ritual -Hajj (pilgrimage) in Islam promotes inter-group tolerance. By implementing Durkheimian perspective into the tolerance literature, the authors have written a high caliber book by examining both pilgrimaged and non-pilgrimaged Muslims from Russia's North Caucasus region's tolerance of out-group members. The authors found that pilgrimaged Muslims returned home with more tolerant views towards out-groups. In addition, the authors used their findings to explain variations of Muslim integration to the United States and European countries and to provide a new perspective of Latino/a integration to the US. This book is a collaboration by two scholars with different backgrounds; Mikhail A. Alexseev (a political scientist) and Sufian N. Zhemukhov (a historian). The study is funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.This study has been conducted in various places, in Hajj (Saudi Arabia), in Russia's North Caucasus and the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic, where Islam, nationalism, and dissatisfaction with Russian power mingle. The majority of the Muslim population in Russia's North Caucasus region have implemented Islam into their everyday lives, and Islam has become a salient identity for most members of the Muslim population, particularly after the long suppression and control of the Soviet Union.The book is divided into three parts. In the first part, Alexseev and Zhemukhov focus on the history of the Muslim population in Russia's North Caucasus region and then highlight the importance of the Hajj for the Muslim population by looking at the Hajj process through ethno-national, historical, and religious interconnections. Alexseev and Zhemukhov explain the organizational steps of the study and their exploratory interviews with local young participants in Kabardino-Balkaria and Adygea. In this section the authors highlight the importance of the exploratory interviews and their impact on the organization of their study. In the second part of the book, the authors explain the hajj model of social tolerance by developing their theoretical framework to clarify what they mean by the term Pilgrims' Paradox. In the third part of the book, the authors attempt to implement the Hajj model of tolerance to explain the integration of Muslims in the United States and European countries. The authors also examine whether repositioning, re-categorization, and re-personalization processes apply in other settings, such as integration of Latino population to the United States.In the first chapter of the book, Alexseev and Zhemukhov explain the importance of Hajj from both a religious perspective and a socio-historical background of the region. The Hajj, in both Russia's North Caucasus and in the Kabardino-Balkaria, has been u...