ZARYS KONCEPCJI SPOŁECZNEGO ZAKOTWICZENIA: INNE SPOJRZENIE NA TOŻSAMOŚĆ, ADAPTACJĘ I INTEGRACJĘ IMIGRANTÓW

The proposed concept of social anchoring contained in this article allows issues of immigrant identity, adaptation, and integration to be combined. It allows limitations to the idea of integration and the subjective defining of identity to be overcome, and it also includes the socio-psychological resources that an individual can use to adapt to a changed social reality. The author begins by considering the meaning of identity for the analysis of contemporary society and the reasons for the problematic nature of the idea; she presents the colloquial and metaphoric uses of the concept of anchoring. She then proposes that anchoring should provisionally be defined as an individual’s search for essential points of reference and support that will allow him or her to achieve a relative socio-psychological stability in the environment. She points out various types of anchors: from legal-institutional (for instance, citizenship) and economic (for instance, material resources), through ties to a specific place (for instance, the place where one was born), to personal anchors (such as physical characteristics, physical practices, individual traits, and values), cultural aspects (for instance, language), and-most importantly from the sociological viewpoint-social anchors (contained in relations with friends and family). Although the proposed concept of social anchoring has emerged mainly from studies concerning the adaptation and integration of migrants, it should have application to more general sociological analyses.