Re/Making La Negrita: Culture as an Aesthetic System in Costa Rica

In this article, I examine the production of meaning in the veneration of La Negrita, the black Madonna and patroness of Costa Rica. Both an apparition and an icon, La Negrita is a 20-centimeter, dark-colored statue of the Virgin Mary that appeared to a mulata girl on the outskirts of the colonial city of Cartago in 1635. Throughout the ensuing 400 years, La Negrita has been remade in the image of hegemony, even as the experience of her perceived power has challenged that ideological and coercive project. Through an analysis of this historical progression, I argue for a theory of culture as an aesthetic system, where the egalitarianism of experience is always in conflict with the authoritarianism of meaning.     

Ethnicity,region and nation: Valencian identity and the Spanish nation-state

In the exploration of the relationships between ethnicity, national identity, and symbolic building of the region, this article deals with a key issue: the achievements and limitations of the assimilation of culturally heterogeneous populations by European nation-states. The modern Spanish national identity (at times shown as purely political) has included and still includes cultural elements (above all, the spread of the Spanish language). This meant that the ethnicity of the Valencians (a population with autonomous political structures until their violent destruction in 1707) had to be redefined as a regional identity in order to avoid coming into conflict with national identity. This re-working excluded the Catalan language, spoken by most of the inhabitants of the region, from the political sphere. In the long term, this cultural characteristic became stigmatized, which favoured its undercommunication to the extent that a process of language shift was initiated. This case study highlights the historical analysis of ethnic identity and the instability of its integration into national structures.     

"Interracial" Sex and Racial Democracy in Brazil: Twin Concepts?

Racial democracy is maintained in Brazil through both scholarly and popular discourses that consider "interracial" sex as proof of Brazil's lack of a racial problem. In this article, I scrutinize the discourse that asks, "How can we be racist when so many of us are mixed?" I argue that racial discourses are embedded in everyday interactions, but are often codified or masked. "Race" is especially pertinent to sexuality, yet the two have hardly been analyzed together. In fact, it is not the belief in a racial democracy that is at the heart of Brazilian racial hegemony, but rather the belief that Brazil is a color-blind erotic democracy. Using my ethnographic data, I illustrate that "race" is embodied in everyday valuations of sexual attractiveness that are gendered, racialized, and class-oriented in ways that commodity black female bodies and white male economic, racial, and class privilege. [Brazil, race, sexuality, poverty]     

The politics of race and sport: Resistance and domination in the 1968 African American Olympic protest movement

Using the case of the African American Olympic protest movement that grew out of the crisis of the civil rights struggle in the late 1960s, this article is an attempt to argue that work involving identity, culture and popular culture is crucial to the study of race and ethnicity in the contemporary world. A reconstruction of this movement demonstrates, first of all, how a cultural arena like sport can make it possible for otherwise powerless racial and ethnic minorities to draw attention to their cause. Of course, as with most insurgent movements, such initiatives ultimately (and often very quickly) come up against structural impediments that work to reject or absorb their challenge and reinforce the hegemony of the established regime. But the precise nature of the structural constraints operating in this particular case provides profound insight into the construction of social order in liberal democratic settings and the threat posed by cultural politics to this order. More specifically, I argue that athletic protest was overwhelmingly condemned and rejected because it threatened to rupture the homologies between sport culture and liberal democratic ideology that otherwise legitimated a fundamentally individualist, assimilationist vision of racial justice and civil rights in the United States. In more general theoretical terms, then, culturally‐oriented movements expose the ways in which domination itself is deeply structured in and through culture. The article concludes by suggesting that this, especially in an age when capital and power have discovered techniques to insulate themselves against traditional, materialist forms of resistance, is why cultural forums and identity politics have become primary sites of the struggle for hegemony.     

‘Minority’ as a sociological concept

This article considers how a Muslim cultural discourse of ‘propriety’ has influenced Muslim Arab Sudanese ethnic identity in two locations and time periods in an expanding diaspora. Focusing in particular on women and their embodied practices of whitening and propriety in Egypt in the nineties and the United Kingdom a decade later, I argue that the recent turn towards Muslim expressions of Sudaneseness is a form of resistance to racial labelling. While Sudanese have rejected being labelled ‘black’ in Egypt and in the UK, their renegotiation of a Muslim religious identity in the diaspora nevertheless confirms a racialized Sudanese ethnicity. This study contributes to the rethinking of ethnicity in a transnational space where ethnic nationalism and globalized Islamic discourse intersect with local histories and hierarchies of race and gender.     

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.     

God,Fatherland, Home: revealing the dark side of our anthropological virtue

The article uses ethnographic research on right-wing anti-government movements in Bolivia conducted at the height of social conflict and cultural violence in 2008 and 2009 to reflect more generally on the relationship between anthropological research, ethical commitment, and the politics of knowledge. The article first describes the relevant epistemological and political contexts in which engaged anthropology emerged as an important disciplinary current. It then goes on to consider how and why the author's research on right-wing political practice in Bolivia diverged from the disciplinary expectations of engaged anthropology. After reflecting on the implications of this shift, the article concludes by arguing for a methodological recalibration that allows anthropologists to take seriously the ideologies and cultural logics of contemporary right-wing mobilization, particularly social and political movements that are animated by what Edmund Burke described as ‘just prejudice’.     

‘You may not know it,but I'm black’: White women's self‐identification as black*

This article shows ways in which five European American women intertwine and interweave the American discourses of race and ethnicity to talk about themselves as ‘black.’ This black identity both fits with their anti‐racist desires and makes strategic sense in the context of their everyday lives. Importantly, the women do not deny the European side of their heritage, rather they embrace a multi‐racial/ethnic identity. It is argued that the element of choice involved with American ethnic discourse, combined with a general shift toward the allowance of mixed identities, allows this identity construction to be understood as a sensible one. It is further argued that these women's constructions illustrate a type of identity configuration that has become a highly significant option in the United States.     

Some Intellectual Genealogies for the Concept of Everyday Resistance

Concerns with how cultural factors influenced agrarian social change remained an abiding interest in the work of James Scott. I begin by sketching out the context of debates in Marxist theory, development studies, and social and political anthropology that, during the 1980s, turned to relations between ideas, power, and processes of conflict and change in a world of new postcolonial nations and rapid agrarian development. In the article, then, I carefully examine the ideas Scott developed about resistance and hegemony in conversation with the work of E. P. Thompson. Tracing the genealogy of Scott's ideas about hegemony and rural social protest, I comment in some detail on the literature on resistance that arose in anthropology during the 1980s and the role of Scott's Weapons of the Weak (1985) in shaping that literature while interacting with Subaltern Studies (Guha 1982–87), studies of social movements, and examinations of power in interpersonal relations.     

Costa Rica's 'White legend': how racial narratives undermine its health care system

A dominant cultural narrative within Costa Rica describes Costa Ricans not only as different from their Central American neighbours, but it also exalts them as better: specifically, as more white, peaceful, egalitarian and democratic. This notion of Costa Rican exceptionalism played a key role in the creation of their health care system, which is based on the four core principles of equity, universality, solidarity and obligation. While the political justification and design of the current health care system does, in part, realize this ideal, we argue that the narrative of Costa Rican exceptionalism prevents the full actualization of these principles by marginalizing and excluding disadvantaged groups, especially indigenous and black citizens and the substantial Nicaraguan minority. We offer three suggestions to mitigate the self-undermining effects of the dominant national narrative: 1) encouragement and development of counternarratives; 2) support of an emerging field of Costa Rican bioethics; and 3) decoupling health and national successes.     

Cultural and instrumental approaches to ethnic nationalism

This article identifies a set of assumptions that underlie culturalist approaches to ethnic nationalism and it assesses these assumptions from a particular instrumentalist point of view ‐ collective‐choice theory. It is argued that cultural approaches are structuralist, leaving little room for intentional explanations and, when agent‐centred explanations are used, they are typically embedded within a moral economic theory of groups. In contrast, collective‐choice theory is intentionalist and political‐economic in orientation. From the perspective of these different approaches, the article examines a common dilemma of mobilization in nationalist movements ‐ how popular support can be mobilized by activists who, for entrepreneurial or ideological reasons, have formed a nationalist organization. Empirical illustrations are drawn from interwar Brittany and contemporary Quebec.     

The African development dilemma revisited: Theoretical and empirical explorations

This article considers the issue of ethnic diversity in black Africa. In the first part of the article we discuss the various implications and possible consequences of the extensive ethnic diversity that characterizes most African countries, paying special attention to the relationship between the multi‐ethnic state and socio‐economic development. In the second part of the article we delve more deeply into the nature of ethnic diversity in contemporary Africa by examining in detail the cultural differences between two particular ethnic groups, the Kipsigis and Kikuyu of Kenya. Our empirical analyses indicate that some of the historic differences between these groups disappeared during the course of modernization. However, our findings also show that certain traditional aspects of both Kipsigis and Kikuyu culture remain. We conclude by noting the persisting importance of ethnicity as African states continue to struggle with the ‘development dilemma’.     

Responding to racialized divisions within the workforce ‐ the experience of black and Asian police officers in England

Sociological studies of police relations with black and Asian people have mostly been concerned with the differential use of legal and other powers. Social processes that mould the phenomenal forms in which race and ethnicity are perceived have been neglected. In this article, data from interviews with black and Asian serving police officers and resigners are used to discuss the different ways in which they responded to racialized categories sustained within the police workforce. It is argued that the occupational cultural context within which responses to racialization occur is central to such an analysis. The reflective approach of officers to assigned ethnic categories is equally central. Diversity rather than a similarity of responses is found. This, however, does not mean that a wholly situational account of racialized relations is desirable. Further studies of the type described here, undertaken in different occupational and organizational contexts, might identify essential forms and processes of social exclusion.     

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.     

Korean merchants in the black community: Prejudice among the victims of prejudice

The Korean‐black conflict in the black community in Philadelphia, PA, where Korean merchants are actively engaged in small businesses, is examined on the basis of interviews with community leaders and merchants and data from secondary sources. Manifest sources of conflict between these two minority groups stemming from cultural misunderstanding, communication problems, economic competition, and structural changes due to the settlement of a large number of Koreans in the black community are explored, and deeper sources are examined, originating from a historical prejudice on the part of Koreans; Koreans’ status anxiety arising from incongruence between their previous status and their current one; Blacks’ experience with non‐black shop owners or exploiters in the past; and Blacks’ feeling of powerlessness in stopping the influx of both whites and Asian groups into their community. All these sources of conflict may have developed independently before Koreans and Blacks came into contact, and their resolution thus requires an understanding of deeply rooted sources of conflict that include not only those caused by structural change but also those resulting from historical and psychological dimensions of intergroup relations.     

Afropolitan projects: African immigrant identities and solidarities in the United States

This article explores how Africans born or raised in the United States employ ethnicity to understand their racial and cultural identities. I argue that African immigrants engage positive narratives about Africa along with their experiences of anti-black racism to articulate identities as “Africans of the world”. I call this articulation of identity Afropolitan projects. The Afropolitan as an ethnicity is not meant to shield Africans from anti-black racism, but instead helps articulate a particular relationship to this form of inequality. The following analysis derives from a qualitative case study of a voluntary association comprising Ghanaians primarily raised in the United States. I find that the group’s identity is as much about being black, African, and American as it is about being middle-class, Christian, and heterosexual. Through their Afropolitan projects, this group emphasizes solidarities with a global middle-class heterosexual patriarchy while foreclosing solidarities with working class, queer, and other people of colour.     

Diaspora activism in a non-traditional country of destination: the case of Filipinos in the Netherlands

Diasporas have played important roles in democratization in their homelands. But how does diaspora mobilization occur when the country of settlement has a small and isolated ethnic community, the host and homeland governments have weak relations, and the conflict is invisible in the geographies of power? Using case study research, I analyse how solidarity groups in the Netherlands facilitated the emergence and growth of diaspora mobilization for democracy in the Philippines during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. My findings show that in cases where exiles and migrants lack pre-existing economic, political and social ties in the host society, solidarity groups can affect the political opportunity structure in the host country, permitting the promotion of certain claims and demands in the public sphere. Furthermore, diaspora mobilization can develop within the formal organizations or associational networks of solidarity groups.     

Human fetal growth in Costa Rica, 1970-1975

Costa Rica has experienced a marked reduction in infant mortality--both in the neonatal and post-neonatal components--in the last decade. The decline could be related to improvements in the pattern of fetal growth. The present report analyses the birth weight of newborns from a random sample of all births in the Republic of Costa Rica during 1970 and 1975. While the average birth weight in that period was 3100 grams, the prevalence of low birth weight neonates decreased from 9 to 7 per cent in five years. The provinces of Limon and San Jose exhibited the highest frequency of low birth weight. Women 20 to 29 years old had babies with better or optimal body weight. Age, marital status and occupation of the mother appeared correlated with birth weight. A relationship between changes in fetal growth and changes in maternal, perinatal and neonatal mortality is apparent. The present situation of birth weight places Costa Rica among the countries in transition with a clearer perspective to attain an even higher infant survival in the near future. In this regard, several measures oriented toward prevention of low birth weight are recommended.     

Citizenship and Resource Competition in Nigeria

This article discusses the growing tension between constitutionally defined citizenship and socially accepted practices of “we–they dichotomies” as a turbulent component of the national question discourse in Nigeria. It examines the adoption of dual citizenship across the country as well as how this generates violent ethnic conflict. Importantly, while citizenship refers to one’s full membership of a sovereign political community acquired either by birth, naturalisation or any other process legitimised and recognised by the supreme law of the state, indigeneship, on the other hand, is a discriminatory policy employed by local or provincial governments for protecting the rights of their so–called indigenous populations to employment, political power and other resources of the regions or states against domination by alien populations and outsiders. It is argued that while such distinctions have been made possible inter alia by Nigeria’s multi–ethnic character, the ensuing struggles and tensions have been driven by the normless competition over resource allocation. These have especially been the case in instances where ethno–territorial cleavages have been the primary beneficiaries and targets of such resource allocation. This article discusses land as a major economic resource over which heated ethnic conflicts have taken place in Nigeria. Drawing on the conflicts between Hausa–Fulani pastoralists and Yoruba farmers in South–Western Nigeria, it examines the question of how disputed access to land and water has underlain an almost permanent basis of conflict in Nigeria as well as their implications for the country’s fledgling democracy. How does the struggle over land affect the articulation of the citizenship question in Nigeria? How have scarcity and competition over resources affected the contest over citizenship and the forging of nationhood among natives and settlers in South–Western Nigeria? How have colonial framings of socially accepted practices of indigeneship entrenched an understanding of the state in Nigeria as a representation of permanently defined subnational conceptions of ethnic citizenship? What role can the state in Nigeria play towards transforming the multiplicities of traditional societies into coherent political societies as a basis for (i) eliciting deference and devotion from the individual to the claims of the state, and ultimately for (ii) increasing cultural homogeneity, political integration and value consensus? Drawing on data generated from an ethnographic study carried out in South–Western Nigeria between October 2009 and March 2015, this study interrogates these questions.     

Gender and ethnicity at the millennium: from margin to centre

Three decades of feminist academic work have led to claims about its maturity and “coming of age”. This article offers a critical evaluation of feminism’s success, particularly in the context of “race” and ethnicity awareness. Feminism has challenged mainstream thought by making women and gender central concerns, by opening up new fields for study and by breaking down disciplinary barriers. However, the global hegemony of Western feminism means that the range of women’s issues tends to be narrowly and parochially conceived. Women of different ethnicities have had an uphill struggle to redefine feminist terms, benchmarks and understandings. One particular difficulty involves the use of ideas and concepts which are not easily translated into English. Drawing on debates between Western women and Islamist feminists, the article explores some of the problems in understanding terminologies and deciphering definitions about cultures and languages. It argues that the views of non-Western and ethnic minority women must be moved from margin to centre stage.