‘It's Different Now’: A Narrative Analysis of Recent Irish Migrants Making Sense of Migration and Comparing Themselves with Previous Waves of Migrants
‘It's Different Now’: A Narrative Analysis of Recent Irish Migrants Making Sense of Migration and Comparing Themselves with Previous Waves of Migrants
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“现在不同了”：对近期爱尔兰移民的叙事分析，理解移民并将自己与之前的移民浪潮进行比较
DOI：
10.7227/ijs.23.2.8
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发表时间：
2015
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
L. Ryan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
L. Ryan
本文的主要目的是考虑自经济衰退以来离开爱尔兰的年轻专业人士如何定义他们的移民项目——不仅是个人的，而且是他们这一代人的共同经历。利用叙事分析和“言语行为”的概念，我探讨了这些在英格兰工作的年轻人如何谈论和理解最近的爱尔兰移民。该论文特别探讨了参与者在多大程度上构建了一种“群体”意识，以表达他们作为近期移民的“群体”、“浪潮”或“一代”的共同经历和期望，并以此与之前来自爱尔兰的移民浪潮进行对比。我强调他们对“选择”、“机会”和“流动性”的重视，这与他们对老年爱尔兰移民“被迫”、处于不利地位和“陷入困境”的形象形成鲜明对比。我认为这不仅仅是对过去的过度简化，更重要的是代表了一种理解现在的手段。论文还采用了反思性的方法，将自己定位为研究过程中的一名研究员和一名爱尔兰移民。通过这种方式，我考虑我的问题和评论可能如何影响叙事的构建和分享方式，以及我如何通过特定的社会时间思维方式进行数据分析。
The key aim of this paper is to consider how young professionals, who left Ireland since the economic recession, define their migration project – not just individually but also as a shared experience across their generation. Using narrative analysis and the concept of ‘speech acts’, I explore how these young people working in England talk about and make sense of recent Irish migration. In particular, the paper explores the extent to which the participants construct a sense of ‘cohorts’ to articulate their shared experiences and expectations as a ‘group’, ‘wave’ or ‘generation’ of recent migrants and, in so doing, contrast themselves with previous waves of migrants from Ireland. I highlight their emphasis on ‘choice’, ‘opportunities’ and ‘mobility’ in contrast to their image of the older Irish migrants as ‘forced’, disadvantaged and ‘stuck’. I suggest that this is not just an over-simplification of the past, but more importantly represents a device for making sense of the present. The paper also adopts a reflexive approach and situates myself as a researcher and an Irish migrant in the research process. In this way, I consider how my questions and comments may have influenced how narratives were constructed and shared as well as how I may have approached the analysis of the data through a specific socio-temporal mind set.