Hindutva in the West: mapping the antinomies of diaspora nationalism

This introduction provides a historical background to Hindu nationalism and examines several theoretical and empirical themes that are important for its analysis both in India and the diaspora. It is argued that there has been a relative neglect within the research field of diaspora nationalist movements and the impact they can have on constituting antisecular and absolutist orientations to minorities and majorities both within the diaspora and in the “homeland”. The introduction examines the rise of the Hindutva movement in the 1920s and considers the debates about its relation to ethnic, nationalist, religious, racist and fascist ideologies. We consider how an examination of Hindu nationalism can modify many recent debates on “race” and ethnicity, multiculturalism and “diaspora”. Several themes relating to caste, gender and “Aryanism” are examined. The contents of this Special Issue are contextualized within these debates and a summary of the key themes of the contributions is provided.     

Dharmo rakshati rakshitah : Hindutva movements in the UK

This article explores the relationship between Hindutva networks in the UK and the growth of Hindu nationalism in India since the 1980s. The article begins with a critique of ethnicity-based paradigms in sociological and anthropological disciplines and argues that they can share much epistemological space with ethnic and religious absolutist tendencies that have arisen in South Asian communities. It explores the ideological orientations that were required in the Hindutva movement to ‘make sense’ of Hindu migration and settlement in the West. Detailed discussions are presented of Hindutva views about the role of Hinduism in the global diaspora. The essay focuses on the structure and ideology of the Hindutva movement in the UK, tracing its origins to the patterns of indenture and early migration to east Africa, and looks at the impact of the Hindutva movement in the reorganization of youth and religious communities in the UK.     

Alt-Right with the Hindu-right: long-distance nationalism and the perfection of Hindutva

In the 2016 US Presidential election, a small but vocal group of Hindu supporters of Donald Trump drew international media attention in India and the US for their political mobilizing for the Republican candidate. In this paper, I examine the political campaigns of “Hindus for Trump” and its affiliated groups to analyse the diverse ways in which these diasporic activists engage in and advance a number of distinct nationalist projects simultaneously. Tracing links between the “Hindus for Trump” platform, Hindutva ideology that seeks to redefine India as a Hindu nation, and the racist “alt-right” movement that forms the political base for President Trump in the US, I argue these diasporic activists enact a synergetic nationalism that has productive effects in both “home” and “host” countries. The result is the perfection of Hindutva on the global stage through the very activities that legitimize the isolationist xenophobia associated with the Trump administration.     

Masculinity and nationalism: gender and sexuality in the making of nations

Richard G. Fox (ed.), NATIONALIST IDEOLOGIES AND THE PRODUCTION OF NATIONAL CULTURE, Washington: American Anthropological Association, 1990, 177 pp., $17.00.

Michael Watson (ed.), CONTEMPORARY MINORITY NATIONALISM, London: Routledge, 1990, 277 pp., £35.00.

Christie Davies, ETHNIC HUMOR AROUND THE WORLD, A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990, 404 pp., $39.95.

Elizabeth Fox‐Genovese, WITHIN THE PLANTATION HOUSEHOLD: BLACK AND WHITE WOMEN OF THE OLD SOUTH, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1988, 544 pp., $34.95 and $12.95 (paper).

Darlene Clark Hine, BLACK WOMEN IN WHITE: RACIAL CONFLICT AND COOPERATION IN THE NURSING PROFESSION, 1890–1950, Btoomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989, 264 pp., $35.00 and $12.95 (paper).

Pnina Werbner, THE MIGRATION PROCESS, Oxford: Berg, 1989, 391 pp., $56.00.

Elaine Pinderhughes, UNDERSTANDING RACE, ETHNICITY AND POWER: THE KEY TO EFFICACY IN CLINICAL PRACTICE, New York: The Free Press; London: Collier Macmillan, 1989, 269 pp., £20.00.

Paul B. Pedersen, Juris G. Draguns, Walter J. Lonner, Joseph E. Trimble, COUNSELLING ACROSS CULTURES, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989, (third edition), xii + 402 pp., £14.35 (paper).

Roland Littlewood and Morris Lipsedge, ALIENS AND ALIENISTS: ETHNIC MINORITIES AND PSYCHIATRY, London: Unwin Hyman, 1989, (second edition), xvii + 334 pp., £32.00 and £10.95 (paper).

H. Russell Bernard and Jesús Salinas Pedraza, NATIVE ETHNOGRAPHY; A MEXICAN INDIAN DESCRIBES HIS CULTURE, London: Sage Publications, 1989, 648 pp., £62.00 (Illustrated).     

Emphasizing 'Others': the emergence of Hindu nationalism in a central Indian tribal community

This article is an ethnographic account of the rise of Hindu nationalism in a central Indian 'tribal' ( adivasi ) community. It is a response to the lack of ethnographic attention within wider nationalist discourse to the kinds of social conditions and processes that have contributed to the manifestation of nationalism at the grass-roots level. It is argued that the successful spread of Hindu nationalism in specifically tribal areas is due to the instrumentalist involvement of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a militant Hindu nationalist organization, in local affairs. The outcome of such involvement is the promotion of the threatening 'Other' and the attachment of ethnic group loyalties to a wider nationalist agenda.     

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.     

Religion,ethnicity and politics: Hindu and Muslim Indian immigrants in the United States

This article focuses on the political struggles between Hindu and Muslim Indian immigrant groups in the United States over the definition of "Indianness". Hindu Indian American organizations define India as a Hindu society and are strong supporters of the Hindu nationalist movement in India. Muslim Indian American organizations, on the other hand, view India as a multi-religious and multicultural society. They are striving to safeguard India's secularism and towards this end, have entered into coalitional relationships with lower caste groups. Both types of organizations are working to influence American and Indian politics in line with their respective interests, leading to an exacerbation of the conflict between the two immigrant groups. This article examines the reasons for this development and its implications, both for the development of an Indian American community in the United States and for religion and politics in India.     

DuBois the pan-Africanist and the development of African nationalism

While W.E.B. DuBois's importance as a political activist and writer is well-documented, a ‘DuBoisian’ political theory has proved illusory. I argue that the key to change and continuity in DuBois's work is his pan-Africanism, which he used to develop a broad theory of anti-colonial nationalism. This reading of his legacy emphasizes DuBois's singular role in shaping anti-colonial discourse in the postwar era, especially in Africa, as well as in theorizing African nationalism and the African diaspora. It also allows us to understand the contradiction of the early, liberal DuBois's views on race and his later preoccupation with Communism. I suggest that across both positions, DuBois's actual political arguments remained over-determined by his positionality within the colonial world, producing a set of anti-colonial arguments that while rooted in the economic exploitation of the colonies, appeal to liberal universalizing standards of progress and modernity.     

Hellenism and Jewish nationalism: ambivalence and its ancient roots

This essay sketches the ambivalent relationship of Hebraism and Hellenism from ancient times to the foundation of modern Israel. It analyses classical Greek influence on the Jewish Enlightenment (the Haskalah) and modern Jewish nationalism, particularly as reflected in Hebrew literature. Greece's successful struggle for independence from Ottoman Turkey in the 1820s showed the early Zionists that an ancient nation could be resurrected. Also, the ancient Greek ideal of physical education, revived in nineteenth-century Europe, radically transformed both Christian and Jewish attitudes to the body, giving rise to two related movements, "muscular Christianity" and "muscular Judaism". As the assimilationist attempts of the Haskalah broke down in the late nineteenth century under the burden of anti-Semitism and European racial nationalism, "muscular Judaism" was incorporated into Zionism. Jewish nationalists largely rejected rabbinic spirituality, non-belligerence and the disdain for athleticism which had dominated Jewish life after Rome destroyed the Jewish state in 70 CE.     

As Australia decolonizes: indigenizing settler nationalism and the challenges of settler/indigenous relations

This article explores settler nationalism, focusing in particular upon its relations with indigenous peoples and with ideas of Aboriginality. It is claimed that settler nationalism, as a nationalist form, must be studied in its historical specificity. To this end, the article provides an analysis of historical and contemporary Australian settler nationalism. The central argument is that settler nationalism is driven to give some account of, and to come to terms with, the dispossession of the indigenous. Indigenous claims to land and other indigenous rights in the present undermine, threaten or complicate settler associations with land. The article argues that Aborigines remain as a disturbing problem that settler nationalism must find ways to accommodate. It is argued that a new form of indigenizing settler nationalism provides for one form of such accommodation.     

APEC at the Museum of Anthropology: The Politics of Site and the Poetics of Sight Bite

This paper examines the light shed on processes of globalization and local empowerment by the contestatory events that ensued when the Canadian government appropriated the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology to be the site of the 1997 prime ministerial meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Community. In its determination to assert its traditional ownership of the museum's site the local Musqueam band came into conflict with government officials, intent on presenting a settler narrative of Canadian nationhood to its trading partners. The official spectacle that was staged in the museum by the government is compared with Musqueam's self-presentation to reveal the persistence of stereotypes and the existence of competing historical narratives that accompany and compromise projects of decolonization within the museum community.     

Historical differences in the political experiences of American blacks and white ethnics: Revisiting an unresolved controversy

Influenced by the revival of white ethnicity, a number of scholars began to re‐examine the historical experience of various white ethnic groups by the late sixties and early seventies. A common theme emerges from their historical analysis ‐ the argument that both white ethnics and Blacks faced similar problems adapting to American life resulting from discrimination by the White Anglo‐Saxon Protestant [WASP] mainstream: Many students of the Black experience took issue with this reinterpretation of American history, arguing that Blacks had a subordinate relationship to white society which produced a unique pattern of discrimination. Although scholars on both sides of this controversy have made their positions clear and have provided some supporting evidence, the controversy nevertheless remains unresolved because of the absence of systematic and comparative historical data on Blacks and white ethnics in the same study. The present study attempts to resolve partially this controversy by examining the political experiences of Blacks and three white ethnic groups ‐ Irish, Jews and Italians ‐ during their period of first entry into politics, a period that can greatly influence group political empowerment. The resources each group possessed, and the context and timing of the group's interaction with dominant political elites provide the focus for analysis. The ‘Black exceptional‐ism’ thesis finds strong support in the study. White ethnics were better endowed with relevant resources and experienced much less resistance from the dominant WASP elites than did Blacks. Of great significance was the fact that Blacks were forced to participate in a continuous politics of seeking basic citizenship rights, while white ethnic groups could take their citizenship rights for granted after the early years of immigration to America. Little support was uncovered for the ‘ethno‐racial umbrella’ thesis, which argues for treating race, religion and nationality as part of the same theoretical and policy universe.     

Ethnic nationalism,immigration and political violence: Notes from the Basque case

John Sullivan, ETA AND BASQUE NATIONALISM. THE FIGHT FOR EUSKADI, 1890–1986, London: Routledge, 1988, 299pp., £35.00.     

Protestant identification and political change in Northern Ireland

This article demonstrates the responsiveness of national and religious identifications to political change among Protestants in Northern Ireland. It begins by theorizing identification as a process of working out our ideas of self, others and place. Subsequently, it proceeds to outline how the recent Good Friday Agreement (1998) changes the political landscape from the perspective of a variety of Protestants. Then, based on a narrative analysis of interview data collected in 2000, it maps the main directions of change. Three responses are highlighted, as people come to accept, reject or ignore political developments after the Agreement, and their differing relationships with British national and Protestant religious identifications are discussed. The article concludes by highlighting the underlying dynamics of identification with a view to maximizing the acceptance of political change in Northern Ireland.     

Class,political power,and nationalism in Syria: a historical sociology of state-society relations

In the wake of the present crisis in the Middle East, this paper proposes to locate the processes of state formation and nation building within a larger historical context, recovering the historicity of the crisis. It records the rise and fall of a nationalist developmental project in Syria through an analysis of class relations. It highlights an essential continuity in the nature of class reproduction from the late Ottoman to the early independence period, centered on the conservative nationalism of the mercantile ruling bloc. It associates the rise of a national developmental project with the politicization of the “middle classes,” which occupied a central role in the state apparatus. This class represented the main driving force behind the expansion of the boundaries of political power and the process of nation building. It is the class polarization of society that fuelled the development of a nation-building project and favored the creation of a national populist alliance against the monopoly of traditional ruling classes. However, this alliance was short-lived, and the process of authoritarian demobilization that followed led to the resurgence of personal networks and the end of nation building.     

Changing Islam,changing the world: contrasting visions within political Islam

ABSTRACT

How do political Islamists, movements and thinkers view political change? To what extent do they promote violence as a means of bringing about change? Are they themselves willing to change and adapt to modern political systems? There is a wide array of movements in the Muslim world that grapple with these questions and as a consequence, numerous answers and disagreements. This paper will focus on three cardinal and contested issues: Is violence a legitimate means to bring about change? Is it legitimate to adopt Western political institutions? How should Muslim movements and regimes coexist with ancient political entities such as tribes and ethnic groups? By comparing and contrasting the political outlooks of the Muslim Brothers and the Salafi-Jihadis, the article highlights the ideological gaps between moderate and militant political Islam.     

食品微生物学课程思政探索与实践

课程思政作为一种新的教学理念,近年来被广泛推崇。其核心在于将思政教育融入教学实践活动中,提倡一种"隐形教育"。本文从课程思政的现状入手,分析了思政教育融入"食品微生物学"课程的必要性,重点论述了思政元素的挖掘途径。通过将教材知识点与思政教育有机结合,实现巩固知识、加强思政教育的目的,培养学生的科学精神、人文精神,实现民族文化自信。食品微生物学作为食品科学与工程专业的核心课程,要求理论联系实际。本文通过调查研究总结该课程的实践成效,探索该课程思政教育的专业知识切入点,并为后续食品专业课程思政的有效教学途径进行更深层次的探索提供参考。