Demography is not my specialty, and I'm new to the study of "neighborhood effects" and geographic clustering by race/ethnicity and language. I'm wondering if there are some (even if more than one) accepted definitions of what it means for an area to be an "ethnic enclave" or a "high density" area (e.g., high Korean population). I'm sure there are many, but are there a few that rise to the top as the most commonly used/cited?
Ideally, these would be either in the form of a calculation I could make based on ACS or Census tract/block level estimates, or a listing of tracts/blocks or ZIP codes that are considered to be enclaves.
I've done some lit review and Googling but can't seem to find the kind of definition I'm looking for. Most of what I find seems to be either qualitative discussions of enclaves or one-off definitions used for specific studies. Just want to be sure I'm not missing any obvious "industry standards."
My study is of California specifically, but any leads would be helpful, even if national or international.
Thanks in advance!
Hello Matt
This is not my subject but I was interested to look into your question. Is this of any help, or is it one of the papers you have already identified? The authors do discuss definition and I was interested in the authors' ZIP code calculation:
Xie, Y., & Gough, M. (2011). Ethnic enclaves and the earnings of immigrants. Demography, 48(4), 1293-1315.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3226926/
Very best wishes
Mary
Hi, Matt. Are there ethnic enclaves/ghettos in English cities?
R Johnston, J Forrest, M Poulsen - Urban Studies, 2002 has a measure that involves the degree of ethnic mixing, which may be the sort of thing you're looking for. It's available for download at http://www.shahrsazionline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/shahrsazionline-9.pdf .
Hi Matt:
Bildan, An International Journal of Somali Studies, publishes articles on social and economic integration of Somalis in ethnic enclaves in the United States, Britain, Australia and other countries. Examples from this Journal are:
P. Harinen, V.S, Haverinen . Contexts of Diaspora Citizenship: Citizenship and Civic Integration of Somalis in Finland and the United States, Bildaan Volume 2
I Ali Staying off the Bottom of the Melting Pot: Somali Refugees Respond to a Changing U.S. Immigration Climate, Bildhaan Vol. 9
These two articles and others on Somali enclaves in the US and other countries are downloodable.
Thanks, all! These look like some really helpful leeds. I've only been able to get into the first.
Mary. I hadn't seen this one yet. Seems like they focus on "economic ethnic enclaves" based on work by Portes (1981) and others. For my project it's less important that the enclave is economically independent, but "culturally independent" if that's such a thing. In other words, places where native language, religion, norms are more prevalent than those of the "dominant' culture (e.g., Wester/US culture in the US context). Some of the sterotypical enclaves I've seen referenced are the "Chinatowns" or "Little Italy's" of major US cities (they use these examples in the article, focusing on who fluid these enclaves can be, geographically-speaking, making them hard to pin down). But then I also hear news stories about how African and Middle Eastern immigrants are now congregating in more rural places because that's where jobs are, where a small community starts and then grows, etc. So if you go into a neighborhood and hear more foreign language than English, more foreign language papers/publications, etc., that's what I'm picturing as an ethnic enclave. That's a bit "language-centric" but it's hard to get data on "social norms" with demographic data.
As I think this through a little more, I think I need to add "linguistic enclave" or "immigrant enclave" to my searchers. Since I didn't even realize they was a distinction between "residential ethnic enclaves" and "economic ethnic enclaves", some of my searches may not have been getting through the between-definition variability. Maybe I'd add "religious enclave" and "immigrant enclave" too, to get at the idea of close ties with a "home" country.
This definitely got me thinking and should help.
Isn't that interesting? I had tended to think of ethnic enclaves in terms of residential ethnic enclaves, but where there was a very specific marker (tribal enrollment, where individuals had a "Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood" (tribal membership card, which are issues by the individual Nations according to their own National rules). So you can calculate the degree of ethnic mixing based on geographic boundaries, population densities, people with CDIB cards, people w/o such cards, within census tracts, etc. These can be used as dependent variables in models for service provision and the like. The idea of an economic ethnic enclave is a way of thinking about the matter that makes sense (areas where an indigenous Nation distributed benefits, perhaps) that could be useful to some of the work I do, but one I'd never even thought about --