Negotiating optimum distinctiveness: cognitive tendencies toward primordialism among Mapuche youth

In recent years primordialism, as a model for understanding people's essentialist perceptions of ethnic similarity and difference, has returned to social scientific debates with a new degree of respectability and theoretical rigour. This article provides further evidence for why primordialism is prioritized by ethnic minorities as a cognitive mechanism for maintaining group distinctiveness, drawing on data gathered among indigenous youth in Chile. In the absence of traditional cultural tenets such as indigenous language and knowledge among the majority of the sample, criteria for membership are premised on perceived essentialisms of blood and surname. The result of categorizing others under primordial terms, however, is that it facilitates a space in which individual preferences of ethnic expression and distinctiveness can be negotiated. This brings the dichotomization of primordialism and constructionism under further scrutiny, suggesting that they may be compatible in the everyday practices of social life.     

Patterns of minority and majority identification in a multicultural society

There has been increasing investigation of the national and ethnic identification of minority populations in Western societies and how far they raise questions about the success or failure of multicultural societies. Much of the political and academic discussion has, however, been premised on two assumptions. First, that ethnic minority and national identification are mutually exclusive, and, second, that national identification forms an overarching majority identity that represents consensus values. In this paper, using a large-scale nationally representative UK survey with a varied set of identity questions, and drawing on an extension of Berry's acculturation framework, we empirically test these two assumptions. We find that, among minorities, strong British national and minority identities often coincide and are not on an opposing axis. We also find that adherence to a British national identity shows cleavages within the white majority population. We further identify variation in these patterns by generation and political orientation.     

Introduction: Patterns of generational change: convergent,reactive or emergent?

Abstract

The aim of this special issue is to map the extent of generational change among Britain's ethnic minority population and to understand some of the underlying processes involved. Is there greater integration across generations, or has the ‘new second generation’ in Britain remained isolated from the mainstream, perhaps as a result of the prejudice and discrimination from the white British that they have encountered or because of desires to maintain ethnic values and resist western practices? We also ask whether processes of generational change have proceeded at the same pace and direction in different domains – notably cultural, social, structural and political – and whether it has proceeded at the same pace among different minorities.     

西南地区文化多样性时空格局

我国西南地区少数民族类别众多,各民族在历史发展中形成了许多优秀的文化传统和独特的生态意识。本研究以县级行政区为基本研究单元,基于民族类别及其人口定量测度了西南地区的文化多样性指数,并比较了1990年、2000年与2010年的动态变化。西南地区文化多样性指数具有明显的空间异质性,整体上呈现西北低东南高的格局。虽然文化多样性指数在时间序列上有一定程度的增加,但总体上县域尺度的文化多样性水平偏低。此外,随着空间尺度的扩大,文化多样性指数逐渐增加,即西南地区整体上表现为"大杂居,小聚居"的分布格局。省域尺度上,文化多样性的差异总和与各组分差异均随时间的推移而减少,同时,其民族构成的相似性趋于增加,表明西南地区各民族人口的分布更加融合,民族交融成为趋势。在西南地区的生态环境背景下,文化多样性的空间分布与平均坡度密切相关。研究探讨了民族融合的社会历史背景,分析了阶梯过渡带具有较高文化多样性的原因,并呼吁加强对西南地区优秀传统文化的重视与保护。     

Nationalism and the ‘idiocy’ of the countryside: The case of Serbia

The mobilization of the countryside has direct consequences for political discourse about national values and in times of social crisis, the ‘conservatism’ of the countryside has the potential to assume an aggressive, offensive posture. When rural mobilization is accompanied by religious revival, group loyalty and so‐called ‘traditional’ values are sacralized. When rural mobilization, ethnic mobilization, and religious revival occur simultaneously, it signifies that the society is undergoing profound destabilization. Examining the case of Serbia, this article argues that while Serbia is, in cultural and social terms, predominantly rural in character, Titoist Communism imposed the values of the city on that culture, while the 1987 coup by Slobodan Milosevic represented, among other things, the triumph of the countryside over the city in Serbia.

This article begins by characterizing the countryside in cultural terms, provides documentation of the importance of rural traditions in Serbian society, documents the rural character of the Serbian national movement, connecting its ideology and behaviour with populist appeals, and examines the contribution made by the Serbian Orthodox Church to the mobilization of the Serbian countryside.     

State mutability and ethnic civil society: the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel

This article identifies the phenomenon of ethnic civil society activism as mobilization that seeks to empower an ethnic community and challenges the institutional order. The case of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel is discussed and is used to reveal the conditions under which disaffected minorities pursue the path of ethnic civil society. The study finds that an analytical framework that stresses the mutability of state structures and changes in broader state-society relations provides a better explanation than existing theories of ethnic conflict. State-society characteristics conducive to this type of mobilization are a well-institutionalized state that can prevent deviation from the state's foundational rules and a counterbalanced dispersion of authority that limits regime capacity to control society.     

UNO … . What happened to autonomy? Politics and ethnicity on Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast

Current debates surrounding the ethnic mobilization of indigenous groups are explored with reference to Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast region. The Autonomy Project, promoted under the revolutionary government of the 1980s, inspired new forms of regional multi‐ethnic forms of mobilization and, in so doing, eschewed nationalistic claims associated with the resurgence of ethnicity elsewhere. The fate of the principle of ethnic autonomy is subsequently examined in the wake of the defeat of the Sandinistas in the elections held in 1990. Evidence suggests that domestic political conditions as well as international political and economic pressure have been crucial in undermining the autonomy process. This, in turn, has had important consequences for ethnic identity formation in the region, since a combination of pressure from international agencies, the United States government and multinational companies in conjunction with the UNO alliance have undermined educational and employment as well as political initiatives built around old and new ethnic groupings. Examples of bilingualism and initiatives to control and protect the region's resources are shown to have suffered directly as a result of the increased activity of multinationals, the privatization programmes of the Chomorro government and efforts to bypass local political structures. A local radio station, which also played a role in promoting multi‐ethnicity in the region, was similarly under threat. In conclusion, and drawing on wider debates, it is argued that Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast provides an important example of the interpenetration of local and global pressures in the development of ethnic politics. The analysis of changes on the Atlantic Coast during the period of the revolution and after the defeat of the Sandinistas in 1990 allows us to assess their impact on changing forms of cultural and ethnic identity in the region. The article argues that the scope for ethnic autonomy, including new and empowering forms of regional multi‐ethnic identity, is seen to be profoundly contingent on political circumstances which themselves cannot be considered independently of wider international and economic conditions.     

Social mobility of ethnic minority students in Laos

Idealistically speaking, schools are engines for upward social mobility. Education for ethnic minorities in Laos was set up to achieve nationalist, political, economic and sociocultural goals of ‘equity’ and ‘equality’. It was hoped that education would shift ethnic minorities from a lifestyle based on superstitious beliefs to a modern one, so that they could participate and enjoy ‘equality’ through educational equity. The purpose of this paper is to provide a case study of how equality as a promise in education has impacted on students’ upward mobility, particularly the political discourse of the ‘big man’. This paper explores social mobility provided by national education for ethnic minorities through boarding schooling. It finds that such education has yet to reposition ethnic minorities into the ethnic Lao sociocultural hierarchy. As a result, regardless of their educational success, students are still ranked as ‘ethnic minorities’ and as being ‘poor’ in the eyes of urban students, middle class and rich students, and the ethnic Lao elite.     

Age at first birth and disadvantage among ethnic groups in Britain

This article examines the relationship between age at first birth and poverty among ethnic minorities in Britain. It is well known that ethnic minorities, particularly Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, have very high rates of family poverty and early fertility. Because it has been established that early motherhood is associated with a high risk of poverty and other disadvantages, it is tempting to link Pakistani and Bangladeshi poverty with their early family formation patterns. We find, however, that age at first birth had little effect on the poverty experienced by ethnic minorities. While the disadvantaged outcomes of teenage motherhood within the white community appear to be associated with the young women's departure from the dominant social norm, when early fertility is the norm in a minority community, it does not lead to any further disadvantage beyond that experienced by the ethnic group as a whole.     

Analytical and folk concepts of race and ethnicity

Prejudice is found in all societies, but it is a particular problem in immigrant societies. In this article we use Bogardus's social‐distance scale to identify patterns of ethnic prejudice in Australia and test four explanations to account for it: personality, socio‐psychology, social structure, and social contact. The data are a national sample of the Australian‐born and of three immigrant groups: Maltese, Lebanese, and Vietnamese. The results show that ethnic prejudice is not unidimensional and that there are at least two dimensions, which we label social prejudice and cultural prejudice. The analyses indicate that Australians and longer‐resident Maltese emphasize the social dimension of prejudice; the newly arrived Vietnamese emphasize the cultural dimension. For Australians, prejudice is rooted in personality factors; but for immigrants, none of the four explanations is significant. The results point to the interaction between personality factors and social learning within the society as the most important determinant of ethnic prejudice.     

Theorizing citizenship in British settler societies

This article discusses citizenship in states with a history as British 'dominion' settler societies, focusing on questions of ethnicity and national identity. After noting the shortcomings of T. H. Marshall's widely used citizenship model, the key differences between English and British settler society citizenship experience are outlined, drawing on illustrative material from Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The main settler/English state differences highlighted, are the presence of aboriginal peoples with distinct juridicial and political statuses; a characteristic set of relationships between successive flows of British migrants and subsequent generations of local-born settlers, and the shift in societies of immigration towards more extensive forms of ethnic and national pluralism within a 'post-settler' conception of multicultural nationhood in a globalized world. Finally, the article suggests settler and post-settler society citizenship is best conceptualized and described by examining the linked processes of what is called the aboriginalization (of aboriginal minorities), the ethnification (of immigrant minorities) and the indigenization (of settler majorities).     

European influence on diversity policy frames: paradoxical outcomes of Lyon's membership of the Intercultural Cities programme

This paper examines the formulation of policy frames towards new minorities in France by analysing Lyon's membership of the European Commission's and Council of Europe's Intercultural Cities programme (ICP). Here, with culture accounting for 20% of Lyon's budget, emphasis is placed on the adoption of the Charte de Coopération Culturelle to use cultural institutions to implement difference-orientated policies. Critically, important issues emerge with this strategy. The effort to engage new minorities is hampered by significant apathy from cultural institutions in Lyon, and the limited geographical area of Lyon included in the ICP. Finally, institutions who engage with promoting interculturality co-opt existing organizations, with negative implications for the treatment of diversity in the city. This illustrates the problems with a European framework fostering a policy frame based on recognition for minorities in a context that has yet to fully embrace such policies at the national level.     

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.     

Belonging to the nation: generational change,identity and the Chinese diaspora

This study reviews developments in the ethnic and national identity of the descendants of migrants, taking ethnic Chinese as a case study. Our core question is why, in spite of debates worldwide about identity, exclusion and rights, do minority communities continue to suffer discrimination and attacks? This question is asked in view of the growing incidence in recent years of ‘racial’ conflicts between majority and minority communities and among minorities, in both developed and developing countries. The study examines national identity from the perspective of migrants' descendants, whose national identity may be more rooted than is often thought. Concepts such as ‘new ethnicities’, ‘cultural fluidity’, and ‘new’ and ‘multiple’ identities feature in this examination. These concepts highlight identity changes across generations and the need to challenge and reinterpret the meaning of ‘nation’ and to review problems with policy initiatives designed to promote nation-building in multi-ethnic societies.     

Preferential policies and the movement of the disadvantaged: The case of the Scheduled Castes in India

This article examines the effect of state actions on the political behaviour of disadvantaged minorities. Most studies of political mobilization fail to inquire about the role of the state in the formation and maintenance of political groups. This article describes the process through which the polity constructs new forms of group awareness and political action among previously inarticulate, unorganized sections of society. More specifically, it is about the political mobilization of an oppressed minority in India, the Scheduled Castes ‐ a group composed of distinct caste groups with specific cultural and occupational characteristics but lumped under a single category by the state. Through a longitudinal study comparing two periods in a state's political history I show how progressive state intervention in the form of preferential policies increased the political organization and activism of this oppressed minority. The analysis is based on a survey of government documents; coding of newspaper reports; interviews with politicians, administrative and police officials, grass‐roots activists and organizational leaders of the movement.     

Multiculturalism,culturalism and public incorporation

In the name of ‘multiculturalism’, Western societies have witnessed since the 1980s a proliferation of discourses concerning the general place of minorities, programmes designed to foster equality, institutional structures created to provide better social services, and resources extended to ethnic minority organizations. Despite much goodwill and not inconsiderable evidence of progress in local and national initiatives concerning minorities, however, such developments have often in effect excluded minorities from, rather than facilitated their engagement with, the majority public domain. In significant ways this has been because many public policies and wider political discourses surrounding multiculturalism tend to employ ill‐defined ideas and implicit notions ‐ particularly regarding ‘culture’ ‐ which, when operationalized, function socially and politically to separate and distance members of given minorities. These ‘culturalist’ underpinnings found in a variety of multi‐culturalist initiatives can be seen to echo or to parallel views espoused in the so‐called ‘new cultural racism’. Examples on the level of local government authorities in Britain are cited. Clearly, initiatives promoting all forms of equality for minorities must be encouraged while ‘culturalism'‐in‐multi‐culturalism must be overcome. Instead of attempting to redefine ‘culture’ for policy‐makers, the author suggests that in rethinking and restructuring modes of public incorporation affecting minorities (roughly following certain key ideas of M.G. Smith on plural societies, John Rex and Bhikhu Parekh on the public domain), we may be able to begin to move beyond some currently exclusive and divisive aspects of institutionalized multiculturalism. Certain modes of local government interface in the British city of Leicester which have been co‐developed by local government authorities, by a complex range of local Islamic organizations, by a uniquely successful Muslim representative federation, and by prominent Muslim individuals are examined by way of suggesting one new model of public incorporation.     

The limits of post-national citizenship: European Muslims,human rights and the hijab

Innovative approaches to citizenship emerged in the 1990s. Post-national theory suggested that European minorities no longer needed national citizenship because supra-national political structures such as the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) offered them protections. Denationalized citizenship held that universal human rights were now available at the national level too as the Council of Europe's member countries had to incorporate human rights principles within their own jurisdictions. New forms of claims-making among European Muslims were cited as evidence of this trend as religious claims, especially relating to the hijab, began to be made through human rights litigation. This paper demonstrates the limits of post-nationalism through a discussion of the outcomes of such claims. While European Muslims are indeed mobilizing around human rights, there is no evidence – at the level of litigation – that this has helped them to win recognition of their religious or cultural rights. This paper explores the reasons for this.     

The Relationship between Cultural Anxiety and Ethnic Essentialism: The Mediating Role of an Endorsement of Multicultural Ideology

Many studies have explored the social consequences of ethnic essentialism in recent decades. In addition, a few studies have focused on the impact of perceived cultural context on ethnic essentialism. However, it is not clear why perceived cultural context can lead to changes in ethnic essentialism. In the present study, we hypothesized that the cultural anxiety of ethnic minorities may trigger a strong endorsement of and support for a multicultural ideology, thereby affecting beliefs about ethnic groups. To address the issue, 226 Tibetan and 102 Hui college students from Mainland China completed our questionnaires. The results across the two samples showed that (1) cultural anxiety was positively associated with both the endorsement of a multicultural ideology and ethnic essentialism, (2) cultural anxiety and the endorsement of a multicultural ideology positively predicted ethnic essentialism after controlling for demographic variables, and (3) cultural anxiety had both a direct effect on ethnic essentialism and an indirect effect on ethnic essentialism through the endorsement of a multicultural ideology. Our findings suggest that when ethnic minorities experience cultural anxiety, they might endorse a multicultural ideology and adopt essentialism to affirm their ethnic identities.     

An example of de‐Tai‐isation? Longue durée ethnic change in a mountainous area of southern China

Inspired by Grant Evans’ work Tai‐ization: Ethnic Change in Northern Indo‐China, this article explores aspects of historical ethnic change in the Yunkai and Yunwu Mountain Ranges, a small upland region intersected by the boundary of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces in southern China over the period 600–1700 C.E. The discussion begins with some of the early linguistic evidence for populations of Tai speakers in the region and what is known of their political and cultural systems, then moves on to consider how Chinese military conquests of the eighth century coupled with the migration of Sinitic and Mien peoples from the eleventh century onwards altered the ethnic composition and political landscape of the region. This is followed by an examination of different exonyms used in Chinese texts for populations of southern China from the fifteenth century onwards and how these might have related to linguistic groupings and identities on the ground, demonstrating that historical usage of Chinese exonyms now connected with Tai or Mien speakers is not always a reliable indicator of a corresponding presence of historical Tai or Mien‐speaking populations. Further research drawing on a number of disciplines is required on a localised level in order to determine when Tai and Mien languages were abandoned in the region and how the inhabitants of the area shifted from the status of named Others to ordinary Chinese subjects.     

The intolerance of a tolerant people: Ethnic relations in Denmark

The Danes have traditionally seen themselves as an enlightened and tolerant people, regarding with contempt those who, like many white Americans or South Africans, hold negative attitudes towards ethnic or racial minorities. This positive self‐image was confirmed during World War II when in an impressive rescue operation almost all Danish Jews (the only sizeable minority group in Denmark at the time) were helped to safety in neutral Sweden. During the 1960s and 1970s Danish society ‐ until then one of the most homogeneous societies in Europe ‐ became increasingly more heterogeneous through the influx of economic migrants ‐ ‘foreign workers’ ‐ mainly from Turkey, Pakistan and Yugoslavia. For the first time the Danes have had to deal with ethnic minorities whose culture, language, religion and physical appearance differ significantly from the majority's. On the basis of a comprehensive attitude survey, it appears that the Danes today are less tolerant towards ‘foreign workers’ than might have been expected on the basis of their past record. This article considers whether this intolerance can be explained in terms of (1) the structure of present‐day Danish society; (2) the general characteristics of the respondents (age, gender, etc.), or (3) the social and cultural characteristics of the new minorities. It is suggested that ethnic prejudice exists latently even in apparently tolerant societies and tends to surface when a ‘suitable’ target group becomes available.