Notes on a cultural sociology of immigrant incorporation

Abstract

I lay out a scheme for understanding immigrant incorporation as social solidarity achieved through the application of widely shared meanings, categories of perception, moral distinctions and manners of speech pertaining to social membership. The inclusion of immigrants is accomplished through the symbolic construction of community boundaries that include newcomers, the reification of symbolic distinctions in identifiable practices, and the censure and exclusion of problematic elements of diversity. This cultural sociology of immigrant incorporation draws upon Alexander's work on the multicultural mode of incorporation in the civil sphere, Bakhtin's thinking regarding centripetal and centrifugal forces in language, and Foucault's conception of discipline. Empirical material from Sweden and the United States supports the theory.