Communication and Identity in the Diaspora

"If my feet are in Amsterdam, my head and heart are in Turkey." This is the dilemma of the Turkish "guestworkers" in Christine Ogan's fascinating new work on the Netherland's migrant population. Ogan explores the explosive impact the Turkish media has had on this particular diasporic community as they struggle to adapt to life in the West and to redefine their personal and collective identity. Never before have people who lived in adopted lands had such immediate and pervasive access to information and entertainment from their birth countries. Communication and Identity documents how these newly available communication media have enabled migrants to maintain a connection with their ethnic culture, a psychological comfort zone that minimizes estrangement from Turkey, and exacerbates the separation from Dutch public life. Not only a superb case study on how the Netherlands' Turkish community defines itself, this remarkable book's message resonates across the wider European debate currently raging on immigration.