Emigration among Ethnic Arab Christians and Their Identity Crisis - Dissertation Example

? What impact does emigration among ethnic Arab Christians from the Middle East to the U.S. have on their identity crisis Introduction The term identity crisis was first put forward by a well known psychologist Erikson in 20th centuray. Ethnicity is a variable that plays a significant role in shaping up human affairs and societies (Horowitz 630; Erikson 11-22). An ethnic group is a group of people sharing heritage, culture, religion and language.It is a tool that helps people stumble across their identities, worldwide. In other words, ethnicity is an important determinant of an identity. Ethnicity limits the interaction between the members of culture, at macro level (Suarez-Orozco 168). For some people, the term Arab Christian is a very strange phrase . This is because Arabism has long been strongly associated with the faith and culture. Arab Christians facing inferior treatments in Arab states started migrating to European countries. The primary reasons behind the migration of Arab Christians were the presence of Western missionaries and the Christian oppression under the rulers of Ottoman empire. The early Arab Christian migrants were illiterate and very poor (Jamal 211). By profession, a vast majority of immigrants were composed of farmers, landowners, and merchants. The majority could not read and write Arabic, which shows that they were not formally educated in schools (Kayyali 53) . A vast majority of Arab Americans are Christians, comprising of several orthodox sects like presbyterians and catholics, etc. (Clauss-Ehlers 199). The values and norms of the children of Arab Christians are different than those of the Christians living in the western countries. They rely on family for guidance instead of relying on interior factors. They are settled in America because they migrated in order to acquire wealth in their their mother country. Globalization and growing international migration has increased the complexity of the boundaries attached with varying religions in Europe. These boundaries reveal that globalization has connected the religious diversities with the cultural diversities (Beyer 1). However, if we open the chapters of history we will find out that Christians were the ethnic group of Arabian peninsula before the arrival of Islam. The dominance of the Muslim Arabism greatly threatened the existence of Arab Christians (Cragg 215). The phenomena of globalization and emigration played a vital role in the mitigation of an Arab Christian tribulation. This is because, globalization has transformed our ways, cultures and relationships, by making the movement of goods and services faster across the borders. In addition to this, the exchange of data and information has also been facilitated by globalization. Globlization, along with the increasing rate of migration, is widely changing our identities and cultural belongings (Suarez-Orozco160). It has redefined the terms of political and cultural borders, in fact, it has eliminated the concepts of borders by making the world a global village. Today, the cultures are rapidly mixing into each other, worldwide, by removing the religious and racial barriers. An identity crisis, that is the by-product of ethnic and cultural differences, has reduced to a great extent. This is because the awareness and conscience levels of the people has improved with the increasing rate of education. People do not have to fight against the factors that intensify an identity crisis for Arab Christians who are migrating from the Middle East to the U.S in the hope of improved lifestyle and standard of living. In addition to this, the policies of the US government for Arab emigrants also affects the identity crisis. The community of Arabs are under reformation because the policies of American government are regulating the flow of Arab immigrants. Arab Americans are widespread throughout the USA and are very diverse in their national identities, linguistics, ethnic, and tribal traits (Haddad 20). Arab immigrants come to the United States in waves and the first wave of emigrants were comprised of Christians, Muslims, and Druze. The group of Christians was further composed of Greek Orthodox, Maronites and Melkites, etc. from the Levant (Kayyali 48). Arab origin Christian in Unites States are originally from Lebanon, Palestine and other Arab countries and constitute a small but very prominent minorty in the United States, in all spheres of life. They have attracted many researchers to work on this topic, by their increasing contribution to the American society. The multi-cultural societies are hard to manage because of their differences. In addition to this, the government policies also make it complex by intervening in the communal life. There are many factors that laid the foundation of Arab immigrants. The role of Christian missionaries is gigantic in this context (Kayyali 54). Arab Christians have long been entangled in their identity crisis, which further resulted in immigration on a large scale. In fact, it would be pertinant to say that emigration and globalization helped Arab Christians to solve the impasse of their identity. In this paper, an attempt is made to pin down the key impacts of globalization and emigration on an identity crisis of ethnic Arab Christians by defining the main variables like an identity crisis, globalization, and the concept of emmigration. Literature Review The two broad categories of an identity crisis are: motivation crisis and legitimation crises. In the former type of an identity crisis, people struggle to obtain their goals and values in the absense of the guiding commitments while in the later case the people try to handle several conflicting commitments (Baumeister 408). The conversion of singular identity into a plural one may arise an identity crisis because they can change the thinking pattern and style of the group and individual (Marcia 553). Historically, two approaches are employed to define the constitution and development of the concept of an identity (Hall 398). It was defined as the combination of shared and familiar derivations that include religious, territorial, political, linguistic and ethnic attributes along with many others features with the group of the people According to this approach, cultural identity is a composition of two selves: one that shares common culture, and the other that is related to the ancestry, which is hidden. The intrinsic and essential elements make this analysis challenging. This is because they make one realize that they are born with their identity (Hall 394). This approach of an identity deems individuals as stable and separate entities because of an identical harmony (KOC 6). Opposite to this approach, the second approach, which is known as the discursive approach, is defined as a process that never ends. This approach identifies the fact that an identity has a past and always keeps on changing along with the historical, cultural and societal transformations and developments (Hall 395). It is also influenced by modernity, globalization, and technological advancements worldwide (KOC 3). This approach does not deem an identity as a biologically given feature but that a person employs it at varying points of time (Gergen 21). In this way identity is not a resource to be possessed but to be used. The purpose of both approaches is to explain the concept of identity by employing different techniques. An identity, usually, is a product of power and representation (KOC 2). This power can be negative or positive depending on varying factors like diversity, being hybrid, marginalization, etc (Hall 400; Bhabha 53 ; Woodward 55; Gilroy 342). In traveling cultures, an identity is the name of mobility instead of a specific geographic location (Clifford 102). Ethnicity plays a key role in the crisis of an identity. The phenomenon of ethnic crisis is persistant and the international enviornment has played a key role in its emergence and remission worldwide (Horowitz 632). Although ethnic allegiances are deemed as wartime alliances, they are, actuality, responsible for wars WorldWar I and II are the key examples in this context. Arab Christians are one of the oldest ethnic groups because the history of Chirstianity is deeply associated with the Arabian world. Arab Christianity is one of the long lived groups that is being shaped up with the flux of changing socio-politico and economic circumstances all over the Arab world (Cragg 213). The study of Arab Christianity is revitalizing from the past few years due to the rapidly changing political circumstances like the Lebanese War in the Middle East (Maila 1998) .Arab Christians are a composition of a varying ethnic group that are widespread in all Arab countries. Some Arab Christian like to call themselves Arab, whilst the others are indifferent in this context. Arab Christians have to go through various phases of identity evolution. A vast areas of Arab from Egypt to Mesopotamia were dominated by Christianity (Maila 23). The number of Christians was less in the tribes of South Arabia. The Arab immigrants to the United states are divided into two distinct periods: Arab-Christian period and Muslim Arab period (Kligman 29) . The time period of the former phase was from the 1870’s to 1940’s, while the later phase was a post-WWII period. The emigrants of both periods were basically from Lebanon, and Jordan, etc. Initially, they came to the USA in the hope to acquire enough finance to support their families back home. But the continuously deteriorating Syrian economy during 1800’s and 1900’s made them settle in the USA permanently (Kligman 26). The Arab emigrants were settled across the USA by 1910. Although Arab immigrants assimilated over the time, the politics of the Middle East after WorldWarII changed their identity (Kligman 21). The recent Arab Americans were more adher to Arab language, culture and identity than the first and second generation immigrants which is why they do not assimilate easily. The ways of Arab Americans are different than those of native Americans. This is because of their strong roots in Arab ethnicity. Although this gap is bridging up with the passage of time it still does exist. Before coming to the U.S, Arab immigrants did not know much about America (Kayyali 49) . What they knew was that it was a financially rich country. They attracted other Arab Americans by telling them stories, which instigated more people to migrate. The phenomenon of globalisation has a key role in the formation of the concept of identity. The spread of information technology has greatly influenced the status of an identity (Castells 1; Turkle 73). The technology is capable of conveying and representing social and cultural elements along with a variety of information. This information and elements are capable of shaping up the society (KOC 2006). Technology brings social changes and also has a great impact on the people (MacKenzie and Wajcman 10). This is because it shapes up the consciousness of people through various ideologies and values (Postman 51). It streamlines the society as an object of control (Pacey, 159). Technology is the cause behind globalisation of culture, science, and economy (KOC, 9). This is because it has transformed the fundamental concepts of traditional values, locality,social and cultural differences among communities. In fact, it affects our relationships from their roots (Giddens 20). The extent of globalization is very wide as it includes international business and economic integration between countries, along with transformation of social and cultural dimensions. Globalization is a composition of key disjunctures between politics, culture and the economy (Appadurai 32). Research Methodology The research question will be analyzed by employing various qualitative methods. The qualitative research methodologies are one of the widely used research techniques employed by numerours social scientists (Strauss 13). The methods of qualitative analysis are elementary, rudimentary and need to be developed explicitly thrroughout the community of social sciences. The methods of qualitative research are different as compared to the methods employed by the researchers of grounded-theorists-sociologists,and ethnographers,etc . The qualitative researchers are more scientifically rigorous and conscious while addressing scientific and practical problems. Qualitative analysis is a composition of abstraction, systematization, and explicitness. Initially, the analysis is usually implicit but with the on-going investigations it becomes more explicit and systematic. The final conclusion depends on the purpose of the investigation and varies along with the level of abstraction. The conclusions can be descriptive at the lowest levels and at the highest levels they can be very general (Strauss14). There are several methods to conduct the qualitative research but in this research, ethnographic research methods will be employed along with the evaluation research technique . For this purpose, data on various variables like Arab immigrants and the level of their identity crisis will be collected from different academic journals and other online and offline literature. The nascence of ethnographic methodologies is associated with the encount of the European emperior powers with the indigenous authority (Crespin 283). They started using these methods in order to find out the true picture of customs and the modes of the livelihood of the indigenous people. This is why they are employed to conduct research on the impacts of emigration on the identity crisis of Arab Christians. Ethnographers collect data with the help of documents, artifacts, pictures, and whatever seems relevent for the research. Ethnography is a composition of methods having direct or sustained social contact with human agents without disturbing the human experience. The credit of inventing modern anthropoligical methods of fieldwork and participant observation goes to Malinowski, who was a Polish man (O’Reilly 7). The qualitative research methodology of ethnographic research is composed of following steps: data collection, data analysis,validiation of analysis, typology development, typology validation, and final write-up (Crespin et al. 284). These steps are illustrated below: The scientific approach of ethnography is hired to investigate and observe the cultural and societal patterns worldwide (Schensul et al.750) . These methods help in discovering questions like what and why people do, what they do? Evaluation research is a commonly used type of applied research. It is employed to check whether the objectives of an activity has been achieved or not. It can be quantitative or qualitative, depending on your preference. This is because it involves surveys, historical document, and field observation. In addition to this, the audience of this type of research can be academic or non-academic ,depending on the type of the problem. The strongest feature of the evaluation approach is its design(Neuman131; Caro 221). The possibilities of fallibility and variabilty of informal evaluations give birth to the formulation of standardized and formal evaluative judgments. Today, several approaches to formal evaluation methodologies are being employed extensively. Various factors are working behind the popularity of this method, but political reasons are primary as compared to others (Neuman 130). Evaluation methodology is different from the traditional social research methods. This is because, unlike traditional research methods, it requires political dexterity, group skills, managment abilities,and many other skills to conduct research. In an evaluation process, the researchers first identify the variable factors affecting the issue/question/program, after which a strategy are devised to achieve the objectives of the research.Thus the primary issue of the research is what to evalute.The selection of an appropriate evaluation strategy is a very tactful task because an inappropriate technique would not be able to attain objectives of the research(Neuman122) . Aims and objectives of the study: The research objectives should be very clear in order to conduct research in the best possible way. And in this research the primary objective is to analyse the effects of emigration on the identity crisis of the Arab Christians who are moving from the Middle East to the USA. Another key objective of the research is to pin down the factors behind this migration. So, all the research work will be done in the light of various academic journals and past research works conducted on this topic. In this connection, a help is also taken from a wide range of sociology and psychology books from the library.The conceptual framework of the research methodology is illustarted in the figure below Rationale for the chosen topic: This project will greatly contribute the cross-cultural theory, along with various other crucial enthropologic concepts. The purpose of the cross cultural theory is to increase the communication level between different cultures all over the world, and our project faciliates the communication between the people of diverse cultures by pinning down all the possible factors that are responsible for the large scale immigartion of Arab Christians. As stated in the discussion above, the poor financial conditions of Arab countries made a vast majority of Arab Christians migrate to the USA in the hope of better financial opportunity. Along with the financial reasons, the rapidly changing political circumstances of the Middle East also made them migrate to the USA. Arab Christians had to face the bias of the political leaders in some cases, which is way Arab Christian migrated to the USA, in search of their identity. The role of European missionaries is also very gigantic in this connection because they used to draw a picture of the dream homeland and of the opportunities to both Arab Christian and Muslim. As a result, people started migrating to the dreamland so that they could earn wealth for their families backhome. Another very crucial reason behind emigration, which is discussed in this paper, is the policy of USA for emigrants, especially after 9/11 attacks. Before this attack the policy was not strict,but this incidence change the pattern of the world. The detailed list of all these factors will then help in removing the gap that has developed between the Arab Muslims and Christians. Along with this, it also helps in sorting out the growing identity crisis among Arab Christians, due to the rapidly changing socio-politico and economic circumstances all over the world. An identity crisis is a key hurdle in the way of smooth communication between people belonging to various cultures. This crisis often has to be faced by minorities like Arab Christians, which further causes various social disorders at macro level. Putting briefly, this project will be exteremly beneficial to increase cross-culural communication by suggesting the practices that could create social and ethnic harmony among the people irrespective of religion, caste, and color etc. Work Cited Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at large. Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1996: 32. Print. Baumeister, Roy F., Shapiro, Jeremy P., and Tice, Dianne M. “Two kinds of identity crisis”. 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