This Minority Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Social and Behavioral Sciences will support an underrepresented minority in science in a two year research project which aims to uncover (1) the mechanisms by which ethnic affinity nationality and migration policies have an effect on people's identification and categorization as members of an ancestral homeland state, and (2) the consequences of these practices in implicated contexts. To uncover these mechanisms, the study draws on field observations of application procedures, and semi-structured interviews with applicants, their co-nationals in Argentina, Italy, and Spain, and government agents. To reveal the consequences of identification and categorization practices, it also examines public discourse surrounding claims to ancestral homeland state membership in each country (e.g. in legislative debates and media coverage). The author argues that the process by which affinity policies shape national identifications and categorizations is one of searching organizational archives for officially valid documentation to support membership claims. In terms of consequences, ethnic affinity policies have generated greater heterogeneity in national affiliations and allegiances in Argentina, Italy and Spain than would otherwise be the case. The intellectual merit of this proposal resides in (1) its empirical focus on a relatively unexplored yet theoretically revealing case, (2) a substantive attention to national categorization as seen not only in laws and regulations, but also at the level of bureaucratic encounters (where much policy is actually negotiated), and (3) an emphasis on the largely unstudied consequences of multiple national affiliations on all implicated countries. The broader impact of the project includes (1) solidifying and expanding social scientific networks spanning Latin America, the United States and Europe with benefits to the applicant, sponsoring researchers, and participating minority students, (2) broadening the participation of persons underrepresented at research universities, and (3) disseminating findings not only to interested scholars but also to study participants and to a lay audience interested in how nationality operates to include and to exclude in practical ways. The scholar will study under the sponsorship of a leading scholar in this research area at the University of California, Irvine.
