Marriage and the maintenance of ethnic group boundaries: the case of Mauritius

Research on how cognitive and cultural biases shape marital decisions in Mauritius suggests that ethnic endogamy will remain the norm and maintain ethnic group boundaries. Results of a pile sorting exercise of Mauritian university students intimates that preferences for ethnic endogamy are paramount and override class-based considerations. Thus, despite socio-economic stratification within each ethnic group, inter-ethnic marriage is not common. Results from in-depth interviews suggest that individuals and their parents prefer to marry within their ethnic group to ensure that their spouse will abide by ethnically-specific norms and conventions, increasing the chances of coordinating reciprocal exchanges within a marriage. The presence of some inter-ethnic marriage does not weaken the boundaries between groups because children of inter-ethnic marriages tend to take on the ethnic identity and corresponding cultural norms of a single parent as a strategy to better negotiate social relations, and to marry someone of that same ethnicity.     

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).     

State and minority in Israel: the case of ethnic state and the predicament of its minority

The connection between ethnicity and democracy has been the subject of much debate among scholars in various disciplines. This article deals with the ethnic divisions and the debate over democracy in Israel. How Israel should be defined, with regard to the democracy-ethnic affiliation nexus, has long been debated by scholars in the field. Some present Israel as a consociational democracy. Some Israeli scholars consider Israel to be a liberal democracy. Others define it as an 'ethnic democracy' that balances the ethnic and democratic components in its dealings with its Arab-Palestinian citizen. In this article I claim that Israel, like many other countries (Romania, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Canada until the sixties, Malaysia) is not a democracy, if our criterion is the ethnic preference it shows for Jews. It is, instead, a textbook example of an ethnic state, applying sophisticated policies of exclusion and discrimination towards the Arab minority. In principle, it invites its Arab citizens to participate in its life; but under no circumstances does it offer them equality. It maintains Jewish superiority in all fields and grants them preference symbolically, structurally and practically.     

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.     

The manipulation of ethnicity: from ethnic cooperation to violence and war in Yugoslavia

The story of the failure of bargaining among ethnic élites and of international diplomacy is well known. What has not been well explained is the spread and support for xenophobic nationalism and ethnic violence among people who had lived cooperatively for thirty-five years. I draw on key ideas of four views on ethnicity and ethnic conflict, and add the concept of cognitive frame in ethnic relations. Yugoslavs possessed two ethnic frames in their minds, an ethnic cooperation and peace frame for normal times, and a crisis frame anchored in World War II memories. Élite contention and mass media propaganda awakened the dormant crisis frame, suppressed the normal frame, and spread insecurity and fear. I explain why ethnic manipulation succeeded, people believed falsehoods, voted for nationalists, how moderates were purged and why men in militias killed innocent civilians.     

A gendered uprising: political representation and minority ethnic communities

This article explores the interface between gender and ethnicity in a microlevel study of a conflict which involved members of a minority ethnic community. Focusing on gender reactions to the unfolding conflict, it explores arguments raised by women in its aftermath. These arguments concern who has the right to define and represent them in public spaces in the future. The specific conflict examined took place in Bradford, UK, in 1995, and involved male Pakistani Muslim youths and the police. In the aftermath, public debate on the issue has centred on community representation in general and the role of male youth in particular. It is argued that the conflict also accelerated a process whereby Pakistani Muslim women are (re)defining intra- and inter-community relationships in the public sphere. This article affirms that the gender analysis being employed by these women to understand the events of 1995 has wider implications for the future management of plural societies, and poses a challenge to the dominance of men in creating, maintaining and managing public spaces.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Testing a model of the relationship between gender,ethnicity, clinical status and impact in older adults from minority ethnic groups

Objective: To identity the relationship between indicators of self‐assessed symptom status, the reported impact of oral conditions and clinical indices, and the extent to which this relationship was moderated by gender and ethnicity. Design: Secondary analysis of data from an oral health survey of minority ethnic groups. Participants: Purposive sample of 376 individuals from minority ethnic groups in the United Kingdom recruited through community groups. Measures: Numbers of decayed, missing and filled teeth. Measures of self assessed symptoms, and impact upon quality of life. Results: Impact of oral conditions upon lifestyle was predicted by the number of missing teeth, the presence of pain on eating certain foods and the presence of toothache in the previous four weeks. Social variables (gender and ethnicity) did not predict impact cither singly or through interaction with symptoms. Conclusions: The findings support a linear model of the relationship between the experience of oro‐facial symptoms and impact on everyday life amongst older adults.     

Colonialism and ethnicity: A theory and comparative case study

This article explores Arab American "invisibility" as a central theme in the historical narrative of Arab immigrants and their descendants in North America. "Invisibility" is primarily addressed in terms of Arab Americans' paradoxical positioning within the US racial/ethnic classification system. The article argues that four central paradoxes shape Arab American identity. The first paradox is that Arab Americans are a complex, diverse community, but are represented as a monolith in popular North American media images. The second paradox is that Arab Americans are simultaneously racialized as whites and as non-whites. The third paradox is that Arab Americans are racialized according to religion (Islam) rather than biology (phenotype). The fourth paradox involves the intersection between religious forms of identity that Arab immigrants bring to the US and racial forms of identity that structure US society. Overall, the article claims that each paradox of Arab American identity reinforces the difficulties associated in classifying this population.     

From sojourners to citizens: managing the ethnic Chinese minority in Indonesia and Malaysia

The raison d'être of the management of the minority ethnic Chinese citizenry in Indonesia and Malaysia is not adequately examined in most studies. In this article, ethnic domination is put forth in explaining the dynamics of ethnic conflict management. New multi-ethnic states often opt for selective nation-building by creating institutionalized ethnic boundaries. Ethnic domination occurs when one ethnic group prevails over another through the systematic marginalization of the dominated group's political influence, cultural reproduction and way of life. Beneath the veneer of assimilation and consociation, the central identity encouraged is that of the indigenous bumi 'imagined community' from which the citizen-Chinese is excluded. Ethnic riots are symptomatic of the failure of incomplete ethnic domination, especially in the economic and cultural realms.     

Defining difference,forging unity: The co‐construction of race,ethnicity and nation in Belize

This article examines competing nationalist projects which compete to constitute a Belizean nation: pluralist nationalism constructs the nation as ethnically diverse; synthetic nationalism attempts to submerge ethnic or racial difference into a shared national identity; hegemonic nationalism works to attach preferentially a single racial identity to the nation and exclude other identities. Within these projects, the homogenizing processes which construct national sameness are integrally related to the individualizing processes which constitute subnational difference: both national sameness and subnational differences are constituted in terms of race, ethnicity, or a conflation of the two. The article explores how the essentialization of racial, ethnic and national identities facilitates their assimilation of one another.     

Coping with ethnicity in South Asia: Bangladesh,Punjab and Kashmir compared

In the anthropological and sociological studies of India the terms ‘tribe’ and ‘caste’, have been in use for almost two hundred years. The related notions of ‘tribalism’ and ‘casteism’ were brought in to replace a static (structural) by a dynamic (organizational, processual) approach. Since the 1970s, ‘ethnic group’ and ‘ethnicity’ have gained currency. After defining the terms, three cases of ethnicity are examined, namely East Bengali Muslim, Punjabi Sikh and Kashmiri Muslim. It is argued that, while the first is a success story, the second seems more like a retreat at present, and the third is at best nascent. The reasons for this difference are explored. Ethnicity, it is argued, is not only characterization of identity, but also a set of strategies to establish a new state. This objective is opposed by competing ethnic groups and the existing state. Ethnic movements therefore involve violence and their outcome is dependent upon a variety of factors and therefore contingent.     

Measuring ethnicity: challenges and opportunities for survey research

Measuring ethnic identity in social surveys has traditionally been problematic, often using a single question and allowing the respondent to choose one category from a pre-defined list. In this paper we discuss the rationale for and limitations of measuring a complex and multi-dimensional concept with a simple, uni-dimensional question. We propose that operationalizing ethnicity as multi-dimensional requires multiple questions to capture the complexity of the concept. Giving researchers a number of different measures enables them to focus on the dimensions of interest to them, and has the potential to open up the rich resources of theoretically robust survey research to researchers from a range of disciplines concerned with questions of ethnic identification.     

Generating power: gender,ethnicity and empowerment in India's Narmada Valley

Current analyses of issues relating to ethnicity and empowerment are silent about the significance of the environment in shaping and being shaped by human relations. For its part, environmental policy research, with few exceptions, has also ignored the dynamics of identity construction and cultural values that inform human relationships with the environment and thus affect environmental sustainability. I address this gap in the scholarship through an analysis of the Sardar Sarovar Project [SSP] in India. I explore the interweaving of the constructions of gender, ethnicity and empowerment and their implications for a new politics of the environment - the politics of environmental justice. I argue that discourses of modernization underpin the arguments of all those who discuss the SSP, whether in favour or against.     

The terms of the debate: Untangling language about ethnicity and ethnic movements

Theoretical debates on ethnicity suffer from a general confusion about the divergent meanings which academics ascribe to key terms. ‘Primordialist’ approaches include biological, psychological and cultural explanations, whose conflation tends to confuse proponents and critics alike. ‘Instrumentalist’ approaches conflate all ethnic movements within a profile of political opportunism, failing to recognize the varying degrees to which underlying social‐institutional incompatibilities may contribute to ethnic conflict. ‘Constructivist’ approaches vacillate between a focus on the influence of intellectual ethnic discourse and an understanding of ethnic identity as developing out of wider bodies of social experience. Greater attention to the varying contribution of ‘deep’ culture to ethnic conflict can clarify why these subschools find such differences among ethnic movements, which can indeed be understood to vary along a spectrum of political functions: at one pole, ethnic movements seek to inflate ethnic sentiment for political purposes; at the other, they seek rather to reconstruct the existing political position of a distinct cultural formation. This distinction can permit more appropriate policy‐making towards the resolution of ethnic conflict, yet raises new challenges to the biases of the researcher.     

Tribal hands and minority votes: ethnicity,regionalism and elections in Iran

Ethnic politics is a serious domestic challenge in Iran. Non-Persian communities are mobilizing to claim their rights and to demand representation in a system that activists claim is biased against minorities and the peripheral regions. Yet the inner workings of contemporary Iranian ethnic politics are largely understudied. This article explores recent evolutions in the role that ethnicity, regionalism and tribalism plays in Iranian domestic politics. It focuses on how these interconnected factors figured in the 2013 presidential and local council elections in Iran in a particular province that has a history of ethnic tensions. Incidentally, these elections brought Hassan Rouhani, a moderate cleric, to power as president. Among his electoral promises was to end the securitization of the minority issue. This article illustrates some of the barriers to a transformative ethnic politics – barriers that political leaders will have to overcome to enact real change.