Assimilation and Resistance

Definition

Assimilation and resistance are, in Hadjiyanni's framing, "two dominant narratives" that structure how immigrants' and minorities' homes are theorized — with "everything in between" as the zone her own theorization occupies:

"Part of the challenge to anyone embarking on this journey is navigating two dominant narratives: assimilation versus resistance, and everything in between. The assimilation narrative operates on the premise that soon enough, defining elements of new immigrants' cultural identities such as language, religion, and food will blend into the American melting pot. Investing in research and understanding of differences is not a worthwhile endeavor. In contrast, the resistance paradigm draws energy from such facts as the over 62 million people in the U.S. who speak a language other than English at home. This scenario conceives of homes as sites of resistance from mainstream values and ideals; private spatialities that enable immigrants and minorities to retain and nourish their sense of difference and construct a transnational identity."

The concept's theoretical work is to refuse both: "The bottom line is that theorizations that account for plurality, the multiplicity of ways by which an individual or a collective can belong, matter." Between the melting-pot narrative (which makes difference research pointless) and the resistance narrative (which fixes the home as difference's fortress), Hadjiyanni positions the constructivist plurality of global constructs and CSD: belonging as layered, identities as multiple, homes as sites where the "choice of who one can become" is exercised.

Key Thinkers

• Tasoulla Hadjiyanni — the concept's framer: the two narratives named, dated by evidence (62 million non-English-at-home speakers), and superseded by plurality-theorizing.
• bell hooks & Amalia Mesa-Bains — the resistance paradigm's intellectual resource (engaged cultural criticisms; the home as site of resistance and "homegrown" belonging), cited in the chapter's notes; not yet paged (see log).

Related Concepts

• Interiors as Global Constructs — the theorization that navigates "everything in between": interiors beyond both narratives' statics.
• Cultural Constructivism — the account of culture both narratives presuppose in static form; constructivism supplies the plurality the narratives lack.
• Domestic Interior — the narratives' site: the home as melting-pot sump (assimilation) or fortress of difference (resistance).
• Bounded Choices — the material constraint both narratives ignore: even resistance requires a home that permits it.
• Postcolonial Identity — the identity-construction kin: the diasporic "places from which to speak" (Hall) against the nation's museum-constructed identity.
• Transbodied Space — the resistance-home's absent-body extension: the transnational identity sustained across locations.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Interiors as global constructs (Hadjiyanni 2018) — the founding source: the two-narratives framing; the assimilation narrative's premise; the resistance paradigm's 62-million-speaker evidence base and "sites of resistance" homes; the plurality supersession ("the multiplicity of ways by which an individual or a collective can belong, matter").

Open Questions

• The chapter names the narratives and locates "everything in between" — but what populates the middle? Is plurality a third narrative, a spectrum, or the recognition that narratives are analytical types individuals traverse case by case?
• The resistance paradigm's home ("private spatialities that enable… retain and nourish their sense of difference") and Ardener's muted groups share a structure: the home as the place where the muted voice sounds. Does the resistance narrative romanticize the private sphere's capacity, or is it an accurate phenomenology of minority dwelling?
• Assimilation "operates on the premise that… investing in research and understanding of differences is not a worthwhile endeavor" — is this a narrative agents hold, or the de facto policy position expressed in housing allocation? How does a design discipline argue against a non-theory?
• The melting pot is an American national narrative: do assimilation/resistance travel to other immigration regimes (the chapter's Minnesota cases are U.S.-specific), or is the pair the general form of majority-culture framing of minority homes?