FRINK Linked Data Fragments server

Matches in SemOpenAlex for { <https://semopenalex.org/work/W4383218180> ?p ?o ?g. }

• W4383218180 endingPage "127" @default.
• W4383218180 startingPage "125" @default.
• W4383218180 abstract "Atalia Shragai's recent book, Cold War Paradise: Settlement, Culture, and Identity-Making Among U.S. Americans in Costa Rica, 1945–1980, explores the migration of US citizens to Costa Rica against the backdrop of the Cold War and the rise of global counter-cultures. Although a large body of scholarship examines migration from different parts of Latin America to the United States, this book mines the life histories and experiences of US Americans in Costa Rica to uncover a different immigration story, one that belongs to an increasing number of “lifestyle immigrants” (p. 21) to understand both their individual and collective process of identity construction in their adopted homeland. Shragai presents a multi-layered cultural and social history that adds much-needed nuance to a growing body of literature on global migration and diaspora studies.The author skillfully weaves together oral histories and ethno-graphic fieldwork with a close reading of the long-running English-language newspaper the Tico Times to explore the personal and discursive work of identity formation among the ordinary US Americans who chose to migrate to Costa Rica. Nonetheless, that identity work also reflected long histories of unequal geo-political power relationships between the United States and Central America, which in turn, produced multiple, overlapping, and ambiguous personal identities among the US American migrants in Costa Rica. For example, many of the author's interview subjects rejected the term “immigrants” to identify themselves (p. 19), despite overwhelming evidence that they were, in fact, highly privileged immigrants in Costa Rica as a function of their US citizenship and racial whiteness. Tellingly, many never sought Costa Rican citizenship. Instead, they engaged in identity work as they searched for other ways rather than national belonging through which to construct new lives: through profession, marriage to Costa Rican nationals, relationships to nature and spirituality, or perhaps even as objectors to US foreign policy (e.g., the US–Vietnam War). Personal ambiguity over their new identities in Costa Rica also compromised possibilities for a cohesive collective identity as US Americans in Costa Rica and resulted in a highly fragmented and divisive colony of foreigners.Not only were their relationships with their new adopted homeland marked by ambiguity about their immigration status, but their relationships with each other and as an identifiable group of foreign US Americans were often complicated and riven by differences not easily overcome. The book offers a strong focus on the intersections between gender and identity work, as over half of Shragai's interview subjects were women. Although the experience of becoming US American women in Costa Rica provided them social mobility and freedom from certain US gendered expectations, they also had to negotiate their submission to a new set of gender roles within Costa Rican society. These contradictions, confirmed through the author's qualitative interview data, show that the experience of identity formation for US American women differed greatly from that of their male counterparts. The author's attention to issues of gender within the US American community in Costa Rica adds a deeper and much-needed analysis to existing studies of US American migrant communities. Furthermore, the author shows how fashioning new identities as US American women in Costa Rica and forming communities around that identity functioned through inequitable systems of inclusion and exclusion within the many US American social and philanthropic clubs, such as the US Women's Club.The author contributes a nuanced ethnographic approach through personal interviews, noting that interviewees engaged in identity work and developed new strategies of emplacement in different ways, including through material culture and relationships with the natural environment. In particular, the author is at her analytical best in the chapters on how her interview subjects’ refusal to self-identify as immigrants reproduced the politics of US imperialism abroad, as well as a chapter on how US Americans also perpetuated older tropes of frontier conquest in their problematic identification of the United States as a source of culture employed to “civilize” Costa Rica, framed in opposition as “nature.” Nonetheless, the book struggles to draw larger conclusions about the US American experience in Costa Rica, given the fractured and divisive nature of the US American community (indeed, it even seems questionable that a genuine community can be said to exist). The lack of a larger conclusion leaves the reader with questions about how to apply the book's fascinating ideas about identity-making and emplacement in other contexts of global migration. Despite the general weakness of the book's conclusion, it makes an important contribution to our understanding of the process of personal identity construction in novel global contexts." @default.
• W4383218180 created "2023-07-06" @default.
• W4383218180 creator A5023016044 @default.
• W4383218180 date "2023-07-01" @default.
• W4383218180 modified "2023-09-27" @default.
• W4383218180 title "Cold War Paradise: Settlement, Culture, and Identity-Making Among U.S. Americans in Costa Rica, 1945–1980" @default.
• W4383218180 doi "https://doi.org/10.5406/19364695.42.4.10" @default.
• W4383218180 hasPublicationYear "2023" @default.
• W4383218180 type Work @default.
• W4383218180 citedByCount "0" @default.
• W4383218180 crossrefType "journal-article" @default.
• W4383218180 hasAuthorship W4383218180A5023016044 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C107993555 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C121332964 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C136764020 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C144024400 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C145097563 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C158886217 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C17744445 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C199539241 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C24890656 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C2549261 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C2777063073 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C2778061430 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C2778355321 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C2778611045 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C2778880830 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C2781437521 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C41008148 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C52119013 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C70036468 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C94625758 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConcept C95457728 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C107993555 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C121332964 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C136764020 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C144024400 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C145097563 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C158886217 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C17744445 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C199539241 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C24890656 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C2549261 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C2777063073 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C2778061430 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C2778355321 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C2778611045 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C2778880830 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C2781437521 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C41008148 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C52119013 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C70036468 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C94625758 @default.
• W4383218180 hasConceptScore W4383218180C95457728 @default.
• W4383218180 hasIssue "4" @default.
• W4383218180 hasLocation W43832181801 @default.
• W4383218180 hasOpenAccess W4383218180 @default.
• W4383218180 hasPrimaryLocation W43832181801 @default.
• W4383218180 hasRelatedWork W2015256540 @default.
• W4383218180 hasRelatedWork W2041965643 @default.
• W4383218180 hasRelatedWork W2075458493 @default.
• W4383218180 hasRelatedWork W2802470370 @default.
• W4383218180 hasRelatedWork W3106689479 @default.
• W4383218180 hasRelatedWork W3139946351 @default.
• W4383218180 hasRelatedWork W3193792779 @default.
• W4383218180 hasRelatedWork W3212660061 @default.
• W4383218180 hasRelatedWork W4285729408 @default.
• W4383218180 hasRelatedWork W75313642 @default.
• W4383218180 hasVolume "42" @default.
• W4383218180 isParatext "false" @default.
• W4383218180 isRetracted "false" @default.
• W4383218180 workType "article" @default.