Demographic trends,pronatalism, and nationalist ideologies in the late twentieth century

This article explores the relationship between demographic trends and nationalist ideologies through an analysis of fertility policies in France, Romania, Singapore and Israel. Each of these countries has sought to increase birthrates through government initiatives. I examine the extent to which pronatalist programmes in these countries reflect ethno-nationalist ideologies, as opposed to more inclusive civic/cultural nationalist visions, and find that policies are moving in a more civic/cultural nationalist direction. Pronatalist policies are less often specifically aimed at dominant racial/ethnic groups and are less oriented towards 'traditional' gender roles. I argue that ethno-nationalist visions of the nation may become less influential, in part due to demographic imperatives.     

Religious expression in public schools: Kirpans in Canada,hijab in France

The present study analyses the status of the Arab minority in Israel, as revealed in Project Renewal, one of the largest and most ambitious programmes implemented in the country during the 1980s. The analysis discloses how conflicts over symbolic issues, such as the definition of the collective's boundaries, found their way on to the Project Renewal agenda, and how they affected the project's dynamics. The article analyses the intensity of the conflicts evoked by the issue of citizen participation in the neighbourhood. It interprets the clashes over neighbourhood representation as essentially resulting from a core conflict, one in which the very boundaries of Israel's moral community appeared to be at stake. The conclusions are based on an analytical distinction between those components of the programme that may be viewed as related to liberal citizenship rights, and those pertaining to republican citizenship rights, that is, elements touching upon the definition of the boundaries of the social collective and the moral community.     

Canada's pluralism in comparative perspective

Hans Kohn's definition of a more "liberal, civic Western" and "illiberal, ethnic Eastern" nationalism has been highly influential in providing a framework for our understanding of different types of nationalism. This article challenges the Kohn framework as idealized and argues that it did not reflect historical reality and is out of step with contemporary theories of nationalism. Its continued use also ignores the evolution from communist to civic states that has taken place in central-eastern Europe during the 1990s. The assumption that Western nation-states were always "civic" from their inception in the late eighteenth century is criticized and a different framework is proposed that sees Western states as only having become civic recently. In times of crisis (immigration, foreign wars, domestic secessionism, terrorism), the civic element of the state may continue to be overshadowed by ethnic particularist factors. The proportional composition of a country's ethnic particularism and civic universalism has always been in tension and dependent not on geography but on two factors: the historic stage of the evolution from ethnic to civic state and nationhood and the depth of democratic consolidation.     

Diverse cities and good citizenship: how local governments in the Netherlands recast national integration discourse

Western European national policies increasingly portray diversity as negative and migrants as ‘others’ who do not belong to the national community. This article examines how local governments articulate alternative discourses of belonging based on residents' shared membership in the civic life of the city. In a Dutch case study, the ways in which local policymakers diverge from exclusionary national narratives are examined. It is argued that discourses about urban citizenship offer opportunities for the inclusion of migrants by drawing new boundaries between ‘good’ citizens and those who are unwilling to participate.     

Contested Citizenship and Social Exclusion: Adolescent Arab American Immigrants' Views of the Social Contract

Drawing from social contract theory, we explore how some adolescent Arab immigrants' (n = 99) sensitivity to the image of their ethnic group as enemies of America colors their interpretation of the social contract. Analyses of data collected in 1997 reveal that those youth who reported that the American media portray Arab people and nations as enemies of the United States are more attuned to personal experiences of prejudice based on their ethnic identity and are more dubious that the tenets of the social contract apply equally across groups. Negative images of Arab Americans were well in place prior to September 11, 2001, a pivotal moment that altered the lives of Arab Americans as well as the discourse on immigration and citizenship.     

Sharing residential space in the 1920s: Racial and ethnic patterns in cities in Michigan

Since 1989, France has endured repeated, contentious debates about the ‘Islamic’ headscarf. In February 2004, French legislators approved a new law prohibiting students from wearing conspicuous ‘religious signs’ in public schools. Contrary to some observers’ assumptions, this measure was not caused mainly by new efforts to combat terrorism or by pro-Christian prejudice. Explaining France's decision to pass this surprising new legislation requires attention to both historical continuities of French political thinking and the changing French and international context. French republican understandings of citizenship and secularism have long made the headscarves issue peculiarly sensitive in France. However, the new law marks a clear departure from previous French policy. Explaining that rupture requires attention to more immediate social and political factors, most importantly: dissatisfaction with the previous policy; effective mobilization of public sympathy by new feminist groups; concern about rising anti-Semitism; and, somewhat paradoxically, developments in international human rights law.     

Borders of violence - boundaries of identity: demarcating the Eritrean nation-state

This article explores the concepts of borders and boundaries in the formation of an Eritrean national identity. The dialectical relationship between the State of Eritrea and its borders towards the Sudan and Ethiopia are addressed in order to analyse how this relationship influences the formation of a 'formal' national identity. The cultural, political, religious and historical configuration of the Eritrean frontiers makes it difficult to demarcate a particular Eritrean identity, distinguishing it from Sudanese ethnic and religious identities or historical-politico and ethnic Ethiopian identities. The Eritrean border conflicts with the Sudan and Ethiopia are used as empirical cases to show how state violence through the mobilization of the multi-ethnic national army is employed in order to manifest a significant other that the 'formal' Eritrean national identity may be contrasted against. The article concludes that the Eritrean boundaries of identity and borders of territory are still in the making, and what they will eventually embrace and contain remains to be seen.     

Immigrant generation,religiosity and civic engagement in Britain

Abstract

Immigrant integration appears to be generational in the USA, and further facilitated by religious involvement. We examine whether similar patterns exist in Britain. We find evidence for secularization across ethnic minority groups, measured by private religious practice and religious salience. Communal religious practice appears robust to generational decline. Ethnic minority members of the second generation exhibit lower social trust; for the 1.5 generation, being more religious is associated with lower trust. However, members of the 1.5 and second generation are more civically involved than the first and religiosity further increases civic involvement. While anecdotal accounts suggest that religiosity has a particularly dissociative effect on the second generation, we find no evidence for this. In sum, successive generations of ethnic minority respondents appear to be secularizing; successive generations are more civically involved than the arriving generation, although less trusting; and immigrant religiosity promotes civic integration.     

Knowing,understanding and practising democratic citizenship: an investigation of the role of religion among Muslim,Christian and non-religious adolescents

The aim of this study is to examine the relation between religiosity and civic competences required to practise democratic citizenship. We compare non-religious, Christian and Muslim adolescents in the Netherlands to see whether (a) there is a relation between religion and civic competences, and (b) whether this differs depending on religious denomination. In the public debate, the reconcilability of Islamic beliefs and democratic citizenship is often questioned, but the relation between the two lacks empirical support. Results from analyses on data of 364 adolescents in the Netherlands indicate that religious adolescents have more developed democratic competences than non-religious adolescents. This is the case both for Christian and Muslim adolescents. The strength of religiosity does not play a role in predicting civic competences. Importantly, no differences are found between the civic competences of Muslim and Christian youth.     

The good Arab: conditional inclusion and settler colonial citizenship among Palestinian citizens of Israel in Jewish Tel Aviv

Dominant majorities often use idealized categories to validate the ‘goodness’ and deservingness of minority citizens. For Palestinian citizens of Israel, this category is the ‘good Arab’. Since its origins in early Jewish settlement of Palestine, it has become a powerful and controversial metaphor in Israeli public discourse. As an experienced condition of limited inclusion, the ‘good Arab’ exemplifies the Palestinian dilemma of accessing socioeconomic opportunities in Jewish Israeli spaces that stigmatize and fend off their ethnonational identity. Combining a historical genealogy of the ‘good Arab’ with ethnographic research among Palestinians in Tel Aviv, this article shows how a historically evolved logic of settler colonial control and indigenous erasure continues to define liberal frameworks of conditional citizenship and inclusion. Theorized through the emerging concept of conditional inclusion, these insights open up new avenues for analysis and comparison in anthropological debates surrounding indigenous struggles, settler colonialism, urban inclusion, and citizenship.     

Collecting ethnic group data for inpatients: is it useful?

Since April last year British hospitals have had to collect data on the ethnic group of every patient. Patients must categorise their own ethnic group using the categories of the 1991 census. Claire Hilton argues that such data collection is unhelpful and will not meet its stated aim of helping to provide equitable access to NHS services for all ethnic groups. Self categorisation is unreliable, and the number of ethnic groups available is inadequate, in particular for the white population. Additional data on the size of each ethnic group in the local population and on rates of illness in particular groups are necessary to assess whether services are being provided equitably. Moreover, ethnicity is a multidimensional concept, and information on patients'' language and cultural and religious practices, as well as their place of origin, is necessary if services are to be culturally sensitive.     

Young Chileans' Views of Citizenship: Findings From the First Generation Born After the Reinstitution of Democracy

Through a qualitative methodology, this study examines meanings attached to citizenship, barriers for citizenship, motivations for civic engagement, and aspirations as citizens in a sample (n = 71) of Chilean youth that grew up during the transition to democracy. The meanings youth attached to citizenship include membership, entitlement to rights and responsibilities, active participation, being informed, and voting. Participants perceived that practices of the political class, the economic system, and social disparities are barriers to exercising citizenship. They challenge the principles of a social order they consider unjust and advance proposals for social transformation that claim for social justice, reducing socio-economic disparities, discrimination, and bringing the political class closer to ordinary citizens. Findings reflect critical and cultural notions of citizenship. Contrasting their actual experiences with their aspirations for citizenship, participants feel politically inefficacious as they perceive they lack the power to influence the sociopolitical system. Implications for sociopolitical development and youth policy are discussed.     

Foreigners or multicultural citizens? Press media's construction of immigrants in South Korea

This paper examines the ways in which new immigrants to South Korea are portrayed and constructed in press media. The influx of labour and marriage migrants from Southeast Asia and China to South Korea since the early 1990s has been significant enough to cause national concerns about diversity and the country's future as a multiethnic society. Mainstream newspapers in South Korea have been a major shaper of the public opinion of diverse groups of immigrants whose presence is becoming increasingly visible in this country with a strong self-image as a mono-ethnic nation. The ways in which these new immigrants, typically lower class, are constructed in public discourses expose the nexus of citizenship, class and ethnicity. Using articles from two major South Korean newspapers between 1990 and 2008 as data, the analysis highlights the economic and historical contexts in which public discourses on new immigrants have been formed and transformed.     

Factors related to traditionalism among Navajo students

Strong communal identities and institutions have survived in the Mexican state of Oaxaca in spite of over 150 years of central state efforts to eliminate them. This article examines why this is so, focusing on the liberal reform period of 1856 to 1911, when state officials mandated the privatization of communal land held under corporate title by Mexico's indigenous communities. In contrast to much of the literature on nations and nationalism, in which local and national identities are held to be in opposition, the article argues that local identities and institutions survived in Oaxaca precisely because villagers employed national identities, discourses, and institutions in their defence. More generally, the article contends that we need to rethink the conventional contrast between local and national identities, in order to better comprehend the politics of nation-building and state formation: local identities (communal, ethnic, regional, religious) can only be understood in terms of how they relate and respond to national identities and state institutions; national identities and state institutions, in turn, are in part constructed by subordinate groups whose understanding of the nation is informed by their own local identities, cultures and histories of political conflict.     

Liberal ethnicity: beyond liberal nationalism and minority rights

This article tries to make the case for a variant of the good life based on a synthesis of liberalism and ethnicity. Liberal communitarianism's treatment of ethnicity tends to fall under the categories of either liberal culturalism or liberal nationalism. Both, it is argued, fail to come to terms with the reality of ethnic community, preferring instead to define ethnicity in an unrealistic, cosmopolitan manner. By contrast, this essay squarely confronts four practices that are central to ethnic communities: symbolic boundary-maintenance; exclusive and inflexible mythomoteurs ; the use of ancestry and race as boundary markers; and the desire among national groups to maintain their ethnic character. This article argues that none of these practices need contravene the tenets of liberalism as long as they are reconstructed so as to minimize entry criteria and decouple national ethnicity from the state. The notion of liberal ethnicity thereby constitutes an important synthesis of liberal and communitarian ends.     

Managing professional service firms in a multi-ethnic context: an ethnographic study

Whether ethnic minority enterprise is a distinctive phenomenon markedly different from the general small firm population continues to be a major point of interest. However, there are two curious omissions within existing debates. First, the management of social relations within the workplace is rarely an explicit focus for research. Second, the increasingly significant small professional or business service sector remains neglected despite its growing importance. This article addresses these issues through an ethnographic study of two firms from different ethnic groups (African-Caribbean and Pakistani) engaged in the provision of specialist business and computer services. Despite the prevalence of a discourse predicated on notions of 'professionalism', ethnic ties were found to be a significant consideration upon issues relating to recruitment, workforce composition and community linkages. To some extent, ethnic identity predicated on religion was an important influence on business outlook for the Pakistani firm. And the African-Caribbean firm also appeared cognizant of the position of the wider co-ethnic community. However, ethnic considerations were not decisive influences within the workplace. Rather, they interacted with market and employment-related issues, thus creating a 'relatively autonomous' labour process.     

Muslim community organizations – sites of active citizenship or self-segregation?

Ethno-religious community organizations in Western countries have often been described as being disconnected from mainstream society, and Muslim community groups have been a special focus of such critique. This article offers a counter-narrative to these widespread allegations. It draws on a synthesis of emerging research on the citizenship-enhancing effects of mosque involvement and on an explorative study involving thirty in-depth interviews with civically active Muslims in Australia and Germany. The article examines the potential of Muslim community organizations to mobilize their member into performing their citizenship through civic and political participation. It offers empirical evidence that many Muslim community organizations, rather than promoting social segregation, act as accessible entry point for Muslims’ civic participation, facilitate cross-community engagement and provide gateways to political involvement. These civic potentials of Muslim community organization have remained underestimated in the public and political discourse on cohesive societies and healthy democracies.     

‘I don't want to see it’: decoupling ethnicity and class from social structure in Jewish Israeli high schools

Social inequality in Israel's education system has often been analysed with top-down structural models. This study inquires, instead, how students understand their position in the stratified structure of opportunities at school. Our quantitative and qualitative data, gathered in Jewish high schools in Israel, indicate that, despite clear ethno-class distribution in academic tracking, students reject the logic of identity politics and consider ‘free will’ to be the main factor determining tracking. In light of the Jewish-Israeli national identity, which rejects class and ethnic divides, the reference point for the system of classification at school shifts to the autonomous individual. Our findings show that students use consumerist and psychological discourses to dismantle ethno-class identities and depoliticize the classification system at school.     

Law and ‘race’ in the citizenship spaces of Myanmar: spatial strategies and the political subjectivity of the Burmese Chinese

As Myanmar undergoes political and societal transition, observers are asking questions about citizenship and ethnic identity. How does one think about citizenship and people's negotiations with law in political-legal regimes that do not subscribe to liberal democratic norms? This paper investigates how law marginalizes the Burmese Chinese minority in Myanmar and the nature of their legal participation. Since law asserts cultural power impacting the way people think and behave, we engage with the concept of legal consciousness to understand how perceptions of legal vulnerability shape political subjectivity ambivalently. The paper highlights the spatial strategies and everyday practices that the Burmese Chinese deploy to navigate oppressive laws, but signals that internal social divisions and geopolitical considerations deter collective action towards rights assertion. It argues that studying the multiple sites and scales through which law is engaged contributes towards recovering citizenship aspirations where engagement with power and authority are articulated differently from Western norms.