The Balkanization Metaphor in the Analysis of U.S. Immigration

Abstract

Recent social commentary and social science research invokes the term “balkanization” to describe geographical trends in contemporary U.S. society. For example, William Frey describes “demographic balkanization” as a “spatial segmentation of population by race‐ethnicity, class, and age across broad regions, states, and metropolitan areas . . . driven by both immigration and long distance internal migration patterns” (1996:760). We take issue with the use of the balkanization metaphor for two reasons. First, we cite alternative evidence against the proposition of immigration‐driven ethnic fragmentation in the U.S. The bulk of our argument, however, attends to the expression itself. Given that the term balkanization is associated with ethnic territorial conflict, we assert that the balkanization metaphor carries with it an implicit and deeply negative commentary on current immigration to the U.S. For us, the deployment of the term balkanization sounds a false alarm that warns of a Yugoslavian fate for the U.S. produced by an immigrant‐induced break‐up of a unified nation with a common culture. That warning resounds with normative and defective assumptions about space, immigrant assimilation, and the future prospects for U.S. society. Additionally, balkanization, like any other metaphor, creates an image that directs future research and social policy. This depiction is not neutral; it limits the imagination and distorts our vision of contemporary trends in U.S. economic and cultural life.

Introduction: the language of inclusion and exclusion in the context of immigration and integration

“…The target domains are mostly conceptual ones (belonging) (Lakoff 1987). According to Ellis and Wright (1998), literary metaphors surprise and stimulate imagination. With overuse they become banal and lose impact.…”

Replacing the nation in the age of migration: negotiating South Asian identities in Toronto

“…This view renders the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) as composed of antagonistic tribalisms clearly demarcated in city space. The guard's view of the GTA as the locus of unknown threats emanating from immigrant neighborhoods recalls the tropes of balkanization in which suspicion, violence, and segregation are presented as the likely future of the nation (Ellis and Wright 1998). While Canada is often celebrated for what Cole Harris (2001) has called postmodern patriotism in which Canadian nationalism is predicated on difference between at least the English, French and First Nations people, it has also been shown that this discourse of Canada's lack of nationness in fact occludes domination and oppression through multiculturalism (Teelucksingh 2006).…”

La movilidad intraurbana de los extranjeros en Barcelona

“…La relación entre movilidad de autóctonos y extranjeros ha dado lugar a dos aproximaciones teóricas contrapuestas: por un lado, la hipótesis sustentada en Frey, sobre la existencia de lo que se ha denominado como White flight, según la cual la entrada de inmigración extranjera favorece el proceso de suburbanización (Frey, 1995(Frey, y 1996; hipótesis contestada por Ellis y Wright, según los cuales los procesos de suburbanización generan nuevas oportunidades residenciales que son aprovechadas por la población inmigrante (Ellis y Wright, 1998). Para la movilidad dentro de una gran ciudad, recientemente, Stillwell y McNulty, han estudiado los cambios residenciales internos dentro de la ciudad de Londres, encontrando un proceso de dispersión desde las áreas de mayor concentración de minorías étnicas hacia las áreas con menor peso de éstas, situación válida para la mayoría de grupos considerados (Stillwell y McNulty, en imprenta).…”