Citation

Croegaert A. Identities 2010; 17(2): 131.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/10702891003734979

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article examines American popular media forms and discussions among three generations of Bosnian refugee-immigrants to the United States (2003-2008) and finds that public presentations conflated Bosnian experiences of civil and domestic conflict. This conflation was made possible in part through a lens refracted by Orientalist and balkanist frames and acted as a powerful filter mediating immigrants' awareness of their statuses in the United States. Women acknowledged gendered family violence as a problem, but they sourced these conflicts to institutions of war and the challenges of local labor markets, rather than rely on culturalist explanations. By focusing on the overlap and disconnect among American public spheres and immigrant private spheres, I demonstrate the need for immigrant studies that attend to the circulation of global representations and to the localized ways in which such frameworks inform migration experiences.