Archive for the 'Book' Category

Migrant Women Act by Olga Bursian is available as part of the On Diversity series.

Migrant Women Act shows the creativity and ingenuity of migrant women in shaping their own destinies during resettlement. It also shows the vital role of public services in enabling these competencies to flower. Olga Bursian documents the stories of thirty migrant women from the former USSR, Vietnam, Lebanon, the Philippines and the Horn of Africa, by exploring their socialisation into non-Western understandings of the human being, of normal society and what is worth doing in life. The women speak about how they acted through displacement and resettlement overturning popular stereotypes about their cultures. The stories reveal their generosity, resilience and audacity in the face of multiple layers of unequal social relations and negative representations. The book includes a review of the role of public services in successful resettlement, even for the most resilient women. Open entitlement to these services for new citizens was the hallmark of multiculturalism prior to the reversals begun by the Howard Government in the mid 1990s. Olga Bursian uses wide ranging sources to back a rigorous policy and program analysis, pitched at professionals and decision makers. She has lived and worked across diverse cultures and was inspired to document the unbounded resilience of migrant women.

The book provides a broad engagement with migrant youth including work that encompasses new, second and third generation migrants, refugees and Muslims.

In the introduction, Mansouri addresses Vertovec’s concept of superdiversity (p. 12) and argues that this new era of diversity is more complex than census data and recourse to country of origin enable us to identify. The works that follow support this argument and also contribute to an understanding of this complexity. One of the clear contributions this work provides is that of situating migrant youth in a new epoch to that of their parents, an age where media enables youth to create and engage with global communities.

The review concludes

On the whole, the book is a timely addition to the field of minority youth studies and includes a balanced collection of conceptualisation, research and analysis. The issue of migrant youth health as an important issue is given context. A connection is made between the subtleties of social inclusion, well-being and friendships, and educational success, criminality and ill health.

Excerpts of the review are from: Hoellein, Timothy J. , O’Connor, Paul James , Shiobara, Yoshikazu , Murdoch, H. Adlai , Maddy-Weitzman, Bruce and Mehta, Monika(2011) ‘Book Reviews‘, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 32: 1, 91 — 106.

Youth Identity and Migration: Culture, Values and Social Connectedness edited by Fethi Mansouri is available from the On Diversity imprint.

Making the Difference: The Critical Success Factors for Diversity Management by Grethe Van Geffen is now available from the On Diversity imprint.

Once upon a time organisations could work with employees who all looked like Mister Average. Their life style, values, expectations and working ways were predictable; it was easy to recruit and reward them. Managers that were able to manage Mister Average, were able to perform 90% of their business timely and effectively. However, Mister Average doesn’t exist any more. A great diversity of employees have made their entrance into the organisations of the 21st century.

Organisations find it difficult to make the change from ‘general’ management to diversity management. Where to start and what actions will show the best effect? The secret of success lies not in a scattered approach but in structural policies.

This book presents the methods and tools to work on structural policies, based on the ten critical success factors of diversity management. Readers will gain the most recent insights and find the way to set priorities and seize the opportunities that diversity offers – when it is managed well!