What’s Texas Without the Twang?
Art-project “Depersonalization”. Kiev, Ukraine. Some rights reserved by Ruslan Kapral. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Economically-driven migration is hardly something new; people have been traveling the world in search of better economic opportunities since time began. But the pace of this back-and-forth is increasing, and many barriers are coming down. What does this mean for us?
The Future Challenges team works together to choose each topic that we discuss. We gather proposals from our network, select a general topic from these proposals, draft several important questions, and then vote together on the final question.
This content package deals with the cultural stress that arises as economic realities and a globalized world drive many people far afield in search of opportunity. As our communities change, we change as well. Are these changes for better or for worse? What is gained and what is lost? Our team voted for the following question:
Migration brings new faces to our cities every day, and it takes others away. Successful economies worldwide lure young job-seekers, while many social and economic factors keep (or drive) others home. How are identities changing as a result of this mass migration? How are we as individuals altered by these new interactions? Are our identities and the things that make us unique getting washed away? Or are we becoming cultural mash-ups, but still as unique as ever?
Future Challenges authors are in 65 countries in the developed and the developing world. Take your pick from the Local Views on the right, and explore the ways in which writers from around the world think about this critical issue.
Tags: cultural identity, cultures, globalization, identity, integration, job markets, migration
Tom Fries
Most recent Local Views on ‘What's Texas without the twang’
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The Scandinavian Twist – Swedes Working in Norway
Written by Anikó Mészáros
on September 10, 2013. Only very rarely does it happen that the way two nations see each other takes a complete U-turn. But this has happened in Scandinavia. As a Hungarian currently working in Norway, I find this fascinating and I’ve tried to understand how such a turn is possible. For centuries, Norway has been […]
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Poland’s “Little Italy” is a sign of the times
Written by Di Bello Emanuele
on September 2, 2013. Wroclaw is a city with a complicated historical background: in the course of its one thousand year history, the capital of the Lower Silesian District –Voivodeship- has been under Bohemian, Austrian, Prussian and German control, before re-becoming Polish in the aftermath of World War II. With its past, this city […]
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The Resurgence of Regional Languages in Pakistan
Written by Maria Farooq
on July 3, 2013. Language and identity are so intimately linked that a person’s accent can also reveal which part of the world they come from! For instance, if she is speaking English or Urdu, a Pashto-speaking person can very easily be recognized as belonging to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province or any other […]
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El $ueño americano: La historia de un reencuentro
Written by Antonio Filipok
on July 3, 2013. (Fotos familiares del autor de este texto. Puede hacer click en cada una para verlas en tamaño grande). Abstract: Many Colombians, motivated by different reasons, have migrated to the United States in recent years. In my family’s case, the decision to migrate led to a long separation, and an emotional […]
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Nepal’s Unproductive Migrants
Written by Bhumika Ghimire
on June 10, 2013. Discussion on migration in the Nepali context is more often focused on the economic aspect. Looking at how much the country relies on remittances received from migrant laborers, this may not seem so strange. In his post in the UK Guardian on what motivates migrant workers, Jonathan Glennie remarked that: […]
on June 10, 2013. -
Higher ed., higher costs
Written by Jamie Stark
on June 9, 2013. Budget battles in Wisconsin highlight Millennials’ rough start in the working world By Jamie Stark While college is often considered a prerequisite for success in the American workforce (perhaps now more than ever), it is no longer a safety blanket in the journey toward financial stability and comfortable living. Recent […]
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Keep calm Brits, the Romanians are coming!
Written by Andreea Vasile
on June 6, 2013. It’s been seven years since Romania joined the European Union and even though this event sounded like arriving in the promised land, this wasn’t quite the case. Great Britain didn’t give work permits to Romanian citizens as the government was afraid of what they called a potential … “invasion”. We’re […]
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Leaving yourself behind: does migration tear you from your roots?
Written by Geeta Ramakrishnan
on May 14, 2013. Imagine a dimly lit room, a rural interior in Eastern India. This is where the elderly Bijoya gazes out through the railings of her cracked window, waiting eagerly for Bardhan, her only son whom she hasn’t seen since he left home to study abroad 25 years ago. As his posh […]
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Polish economic migrants: Thank you for having us!
Written by Artur Kacprzak
on May 9, 2013. I want to say a big ‘thank you’ to all of you: English, Scottish, Irish, Dutch, Belgians, Germans, Americans, Swedes, Norwegians, Spaniards, Italians and all other nations for receiving my countrymen. Maybe you know, maybe not, and maybe this is the moment to tell you how much we owe you. My friends, my family, my parents, […]
