Durkheim's Theory Of Anomie Among Immigrants

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The complexity of immigration lies in the dilemma faced by both natives and immigrants. Natives find it difficult to accommodate the new groups of people even though the immigrants are contributing economically to their new home, immigrants want to hang on to some aspects of their culture. When this happens conflict is inevitable. Changes in cultures and traditions especially negative changes are attributed to the cultural invasion of foreigners. Thus anomie takes place in two separate places, in the native and the immigrant. The natives are forced to find ways to accommodate immigrants and those who fail to adjust to the new reality and lack the means find themselves engaging in either hostile resistance to immigrants or engagement in crime. The adoption of deviant forms of behavior is justified as a response to the infringement of traditional spaces. …show more content…

The theory propounds that in times of economic development, the search for cheap labor leads countries to open their borders for immigrants. These immigrants come with their own norms and values. These are not compatible with those of the natives and in the search for a balance, crime and deviance become the norm. In the Durkhemian sense, anomie explains much of the behavior of immigrants. According to Durkheim, “it is this anomic state that is the cause, as we shall show, of the incessantly recurrent conflicts, and the multifarious disorders of which the economic world exhibits so sad a spectacle” (Durkheim 5). Conflict in anomic state has to do with economic factors as much as it has everything to culture and tradition. Cultural fights rise when economic means and situations of individuals deteriorate. Cultural differences are often illuminated when individuals fail to see changes in their economic fortune. This development leads to

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