Assertion Of Identity Research Articles

Linguistic nationalism in early-colonial Assam: The American Baptist Mission and Orunodoi

This paper will attempt to map the emergence of linguistic nationalism as a direct offshoot of the language debate in early-colonial Assam. In 1836, Bengali was made the language of courts and schools in Assam. Ten years later, the Baptist Mission at Sadiya started publishing a monthly magazine called Orunodoi. Orunodoi gradually became a critical instrument in the effort to reinstate Assamese as the language of the province’s courts and schools. How did the emergent public sphere react to the debate on language? What was the power dynamic between an emergent native intelligentsia, the Baptist Mission and the colonial state in early-colonial Assam? What are the factors that prevented Assamese from being reinstated as the language of courts and schools in Assam until 1873? Was the debate on language merely about imposition of a ‘foreign’ language, or was the discourse more fluid with concerns like language standardisation operating as undercurrents? Can the language debate in early-colonial Assam be isolated as the first assertion of a sub-national identity based upon cultural and linguistic ‘uniqueness’? Through an analysis of some articles published in Orunodoi, read along with private letters and official correspondences of the American Baptist Mission in Assam, this paper will attempt to address some of these questions and recover the context of the debate around language in nineteenth-century Assam.

The Lockdown of Koti Intimacies

This article considers the way the outbreak of coronavirus and the subsequent lockdown have egregiously impeded the intimate life practices of Kotis, people who possess a distinct gender-variant identity in India. The Kotis, who subsist mostly on begging or sex work through cross-dressing, counter the hegemonic heteronormative ‘bodyscape’ that fetishizes bodily differences and reinforces normative intimate practices. Using narratives and documentary evidence on their lives, this article elaborates how Koti livelihoods and the intimate practices circumambient of such livelihoods are withering away because of the pandemic. Tragically today, they are branded as ‘corona transmitters’, and their intimate practices are stigmatised as ‘infectious’. A restraint on their physical movement and gathering in public spaces due to the pandemic has ramifications not only for their livelihood, but also for their intimate practices and identity assertions.

The Concomitant Subversion of the Gender Binary through the Assertion of Transgender Identity: A Study of Manobi Bandyopadhyay’s A Gift of Goddess Lakshmi

In their attempt at gender identity assertion, the transgendered simultaneously subvert the gender binary norm. The reclamation of one’s gender identity aids the transgender individual to correct the biological mishap that results in a female psyche trapped in a male body and vice versa. The intense psychological conflict and the horrific transphobic violence from family and society, often drives the transgendered to suicide. Lisa R Miller and Eric Anthony Grollman in “The Social Costs of Gender Non-Conformity for Transgender Adults: Implications for Discrimination and Health” claim that the 2008 NTDS (the National Transgender Discrimination Survey) proves that frequent stigmatization and assault often drives the identity minorities towards substance abuse, alcoholism and/or suicide (Sociological, 826). However, the accomplishment of gender identity transforms the hitherto diffident individual to express oneself fully and articulate his/her personality in its entirety. Manobi Bandyopadyay’s A Gift of Goddess Lakshmicharts her struggle to become the woman in her mind in the face of ridicule and harassment from the academic circle. Her determination and persistence to assert herself paved her way to become the first transgender principal in India. Therefore it may be assumed that the subversion of normative dichotomy of gender results in the establishment of the transgendered’s true gender, which assists in the expression of one’s personality.

Black Youth: Self-making, Creativity and the Assertion of Hybrid Black Identities

ABSTRACT Development during adolescence and early adulthood is profoundly exhilarating and transformative, especially given emerging physical, emotional and intellectually capabilities. Psychoanalytic theories of development assume culture as benign and as not being an impediment to good-enough development. This is not the case for Black youth development, especially for those of low income. Their age-appropriate joy of life and insouciance must be tempered by caution and vigilance given the racist and impoverished communities in which they live. Some are able, with adequate protection and nurturance from family and community, to sculpt a hybrid self that is savvy, resilient and creative around self-making. Such a supported and protected self is also impactful on the larger world. These states exist in tension with a self-regulatory capacity to avoid dangerous regressions in expressing the rage at their cultural oppressions or the temptations of mindless consumption in pursuit of pleasure. They draw on inter and intra-generational legacies that speak to managing and sometimes re-signifying trauma narratives as protective and inspirational. Such Black self-worth by youth fashions hybrid, caring and innovative selves.

Madhesis’ Consciousness of Geopolitics of the Tarai: A Resource for the Collective Identity Assertion

This article examines the broader political and economic historical contexts within which the centralTarai was incorporated into the Nepali state since the so called national unification in the second half of the eighteenth century and subsequently how the relationship between the successive rulers and the Madhesi people has been remaining confrontational. Based on the data drawn from the historiography of Nepal vis-à-vis the central Tarai and the perceptions and experiences of Madhesi people regarding their identity issues, it is argued that historically evolving geopolitics of the centralTarai and the contingent Madhesis’ self-consciousness have provided the cause and context for organizing and mobilizing them for the assertion of distinct collective identity. The strategic geopolitical location and significant cultural distinction and economic strength of the central Tarai provided Madhesi people a leverage in the struggle for the recognition of their distinct identity.

Creation and legacy of historic silences in anthropological traditions: An ethnohistorical re-analysis of nineteenth-century Coast Salish genealogy, leadership, and territoriality

ABSTRACT We scrutinize previously untranslated field notebooks of Franz Boas that relate to the lower Fraser River region of coastal British Columbia, and contextualize the historical and social position of his principle interlocutor, siyá:m George StsEē’lis. In doing so, we reposition the available documentary evidence about this siyá:m for a different perspective on his people’s history than has been written. The central themes emerging from our study provide new insights into genealogy and inheritance, marriage alliances, and the nature of leadership during a socially tumultuous time. These insights in turn are the key to interpreting conflicting anthropological narratives that continue to undermine an indigenous communities’ assertions of identity, history, and territorial rights.

Formation Specifics of Language Personality in a Multicultural Environment

The article considers the specificity of modern linguistic personality formation in KabardinoBalkaria, a social space of which develops as a multidimensional and multifaceted multicultural environment characterized by the expansion of the boundaries of cultural communication; updating the cultural significance of belonging to the Russian world; the intensification of tendencies towards the assertion of national identity; the proliferation of ideas and views faith communities; expansion of the modern media discourse, activation of the processes of information intensity and mass digital accessibility, which generally forms the media culture of society, etc. It is noted that in the multicultural space of the Republic, the culture of Russian society with the basic culture of the Russian people, the national cultures of the titular peoples (Kabardins and Balkars), and religious (mainly Islamic) culture occupy dominant positions that determine the cultural preferences of the modern language personality, the formation and development of which is significantly influenced by social, ethnic and psychological factors.

Cubist Fashion in the Newspapers

ABSTRACT This feature reprints several early twentieth-century newspaper articles purporting to be accounts of cubist fashion shows. As well, it presents a short analysis of what those articles might mean. These articles reveal that the predominant reaction in the daily press to cubism was not so much vitriol as an arch skepticism, a skepticism which in these pieces was also a polemical analysis of cubism and fashion's dominant attributes. These writers turned to parody rather than just straightforward analysis, a move which allowed for a reduction of cubism and fashion into several impoverished ideas and an exaggerated display of how those ideas were embodied. For these writers, cubism's and fashion's arbitrary claims for significance were articulated through pretentious theoretical principles and assertions of group identities. Mistakenly dependent upon a motivating theory, cubism (and, by implication, fashion) was more mechanical than human; motivated by bogus utopian impulses, such as suffragism; and premised on a mistaken sense of its newness as development—rather than its newness as simple and arbitrary change.

Longing for evidence-based traditions

In Native North America, clinical/healing spaces are caught up in political struggles for autonomy. In Canada’s Northwest Territories, where rates of alcohol consumption are substantially higher than national averages, there are ongoing attempts to align therapeutic practice with traditional Aboriginal modes of healing and well-being. This Think Piece traces the ‘therapeutic trajectory’ of alcohol treatment in and out of this subarctic region. I show how the language of ‘evidence-based practice’ affords both gains and losses with regard to the assertion of collective identity and values vis-à-vis the state. Against the backdrop of the closure of the region’s sole residential treatment program, I contrast a conversation with a clinician responsible for implementing culture-based programs with the experiences of Destiny, a young Dene woman who, in the absence of local treatment options, spends time in clinics some one thousand kilometers away from her home community. In her movements away from the place to which she is indigenous, Destiny activates different forms of Aboriginal care than those intended by state and community actors. These divergent perspectives speak to the enmeshment of addiction with the perils and politics of liberal forms of recognition.

The State, Ethnic-consciousness and Violence: Revisiting the identity formation and identity assertion among the Bodos

The State, Ethnic-consciousness and Violence: Revisiting the identity formation and identity assertion among the Bodos

The horizontal in Frege’s Begriffsschrift

This paper addresses an issue with the sign ‘ ’ in Frege’s mature version of Begriffsschrift, i.e., the version in ‘Function and Concept’ and Grundgesetze. The sign is a performative for asserting in that writing down ‘ ’ is equivalent to asserting that p. Frege further says that writing ‘ ’ is also equivalent to identifying the reference of ‘p’ with the truth-value True. It looks as if he holds that asserting that p consists in identifying the True with the reference of ‘p’. Frege’s commitment to it, however, seems to encounter a number of tensions. This paper aims to show that these tensions can be avoided by endorsing a non-assertive conception of identification under which making an identification is not making an identity assertion. The suggested reading leads to an entirely different understanding of the compositionality of the sign ‘ ’ as well as Frege’s conception of assertion and judgment.

Contemporary Bushman Art: The Work of the !Xun Artist Flai Shipipa

Contemporary !Xun artists of South Africa’s Northern Cape Province have produced art that has been described as nostalgic and primitive. Yet the content of these artworks highlights astute political commentary, asserting belonging and immediacy in a political milieu where historically Bushman groups have been ostracized and delegitimized. The !Xun artist Flai Shipipa has created art that is a hybrid spiritual expression with inferences to Bushman cosmology and Christianity. Through this religio-political imagery Shipipa’s canvases are a tangible cultural record of assertions of identity, authenticity, belonging, faith, ambiguity and memory.

Made Visible: Contemporary South African Fashion and Identity curated by Kathryn Gunsch

Made Visible: Contemporary South African Fashion and Identity curated by Kathryn Gunsch

ФОРМУВАННЯ ТА УТВЕРДЖЕННЯ НАЦІОНАЛЬНОЇ ІДЕНТИЧНОСТІ ГРОМАДЯН ТЕРИТОРІАЛЬНИХ ГРОМАД ЯК ЧИННИК ЗГУРТОВАНОСТІ УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ ПОЛІТИЧНОЇ НАЦІЇ

The problem of formation and assertion of national identity of residents of territorial communities remains urgent even on the 30th year of building of an independent, democratic, sovereign state of Ukraine. After all, we are seeing a new social phenomenon in Ukraine – decentralization and formation of territorial communities. The article is devoted to the problem of acquiring and preserving the national and cultural identity of the individual not only in society but also in each territorial community.The article analyzes the reasons for the removal of a certain part of citizens from the affairs of society, the passivity of a part of Ukrainians, which made it possible to justify the need for educational work in territorial communities. After all, educational work is needed to activate citizens to show interest in unity for the benefit of change, which will contribute to social protection and support against the threat of moral and psychological alienation of the individual from work, initiative to contribute to the changes in ethnic, cultural and social development in modern Ukraine.It is emphasized that the educational work is to combine ethnic, social, spiritual, political, historical interests on the basis of inter-ethnic harmony, thereby eliminating contradictions, ensuring the rights of each person as a representative of the Ukrainian political nation, which is formed at the present stage by enabling each person to become an «acting entity» of building a democratic Ukraine.It is proved that an important factor in the consolidation of Ukrainian society at the current stage of decentralization are national and universal human values and identification of Ukrainian citizens with them, and this will promote unity with the purpose of efficiency of state formation in the diversity of views, thoughts, ideas, actions.The conclusion is made about the need for further improvement of ethnopolitics in Ukraine, while preserving ethnic and national identity, which will thus contribute to the transformation of society on the path to democratization and European integration.

Rural community unbound: Trans-locality, rural-to-rural connections and the formation of inter-regional surname associations in China

Abstract Rural communities are not restricted to bounded territories but increasingly reproduced by intensified rural connections with the outside. Extant research tends to suggest that the production of rural community unbound relies on the movement and activities of mobile groups while ignoring the trans-local practice of community-making by local villagers who stay in the countryside. This paper draws on ethnographic insights on the formation of inter-regional surname associations in contemporary China, a contemporary form of Chinese lineage communities which is relatively unknown both in and outside China. By adopting a trans-local approach, it explores how rural lineage members and groups initiate the alliance with their same surname fellows in different rural localities to forge trans-local communities. Such rural-to-rural alliance is consolidated through various meanings and practices, producing the idea of a big ‘family’. This trans-local community not only enables rural members to enhance their mobilities and cultural and socio-economic capital but is also grounded in lineage groups' assertion of territorial identity, power, and social status. With a nuanced analysis of the trans-local agency of local villagers, this paper contributes to understanding the production of trans-local communities and trans-local rurality based on rural-to-rural connections. It also offers insights into the reconstruction of rural people's identities in contemporary China.

Revisiting the Marginal Man: Bridging Immigration Scholarship and Mixed-Race Studies

Immigrant and multiracial populations have both attracted attention for their significant impact on the demographic makeup of the United States. The anticipation of their continued growth raises important questions about how their increasing representation may alter the racial hierarchy. Although immigration scholarship frequently interprets intermarriage and multiracial identity as markers of assimilation, a large disconnect exists between the fields of immigration and mixed-race studies. This article bridges the gap between the two areas of scholarship by tracing their sociological origins to a shared theoretical progenitor: the marginal man. Through narrow interpretations of the resolution to experiences of marginality, the assimilation paradigm has largely failed to take into consideration the implications of multiracial identity, examining it only as transitive state assessed primarily through parental identification or within existing frameworks of immigrant identity. Based on interviews with 26 multiracial adults who have at least one immigrant parent, this study examines the meaning, content, and salience of multiracial identity for analyses of assimilation. Although much scholarship is concerned with the eroding and expanding boundaries of whiteness, this research analyzes how both part-white and nonwhite multiracial children of immigrant experiences contribute to understanding the role of multiraciality in blurring, crossing, or disrupting the boundaries that divide racial groups. The findings indicate that multiracial identity assertion was a mechanism for study participants to claim connection and belonging to multiple ethnoracial groups, rather than be rendered marginalized, distant, or partial with respect to their immigrant heritage(s).

Colorblind and multicultural diversity strategies create identity management pressure

AbstractColorblind and multicultural diversity strategies may create identity management pressure, leading minorities to assert or distance from their racial identity. In two experiments (N = 307, 279), Asian and Asian American participants in the United States completed racial identification measures, contemplated employment at a company expressing a multicultural, colorblind, or control strategy, and completed measures assessing ingroup similarity and comfort in the company. In the colorblind condition, participants who were strongly identified with their racial ingroup downplayed similarity to the ingroup and expressed less comfort relative to multicultural and control conditions. Participants who were weakly identified reported more similarity (but inconsistently) and more comfort in the colorblind relative to multicultural and control conditions. Thus, diversity strategies convey different meanings to strongly and weakly identified Asian individuals, with the former responding to colorblindness with identity distancing and the latter with identity assertion. Multiculturalism does not alter the typical pattern expected, with strongly identified asserting their identity more than weakly identified.

Taking Cultural Goods Seriously: Geographical Indications and the Renegotiation Strategies for the Korea‐EU FTA

AbstractGiven the possible renegotiations of the Korea–European Union FTA, this study focuses on the geographical indications (GIs) system included under the Korea–EU FTA and proposes a strategy for Korea to utilize GIs effectively. GIs have been gaining greater importance as a way to safeguard cultural goods in the global trade market against the impact of globalization. For Korea to utilize GIs to its advantage, the EU’s strategy during the Korea‐EU FTA negotiations can be a useful reference. That strategy is one that is centered on the protection of the EU’s GI products in other countries, rather than in the Korean market. This ‘roundabout strategy’ of the EU is one which Korea can apply in order to realize its goal to differentiate its own products from those made by its neighboring countries, Japan and China. The lesson Korea can learn from the EU’s roundabout strategy is that GIs based on locality and traditions can not only play a role as a source of potential economic revenues but also as an effective assertion of national cultural identities which are often overshadowed by the prominence of the larger region.

Contested Borders and Borderlands in Northeast India: (IL)Legitimate Claims of Naga Identity Assertion

Borders are not to be understood merely as lines where one society or state ends and another begins, but they reflect of how societies get constituted and configured through them. Societies do not constitute borders, but borders constitute societies. The article revisits the northeast as a ‘borderland’, as a land with many visible and invisible borders. It is an attempt to probe into the complexities of ethnic boundaries by the enforcement of arbitrary dividing lines without cognisance of the local context. The article also endeavours to set a discourse on the proposed Naga ‘Framework Agreement’ (FA) which requires a deep-seated understanding of its historicity and unique cultural identity. It intends to question the possibility of Nagas nurturing a common supra-national or transnational structure that offers an accepted platform to their life patterns and customs. Very crucially, the article also attempts to explore the several nuanced exemplary models seen elsewhere, amongst those geographically bordering people with analogous but delicately diverse cultures.

‘We will march side by side and demand a bigger table’: anger as dignity claim

Martha Nussbaum’s (2016) account of anger limits its utility in part due to its vengeful and narcissistic aspects; she notes that even when anger rightfully identifies a harm or unjust act, it too frequently represents a desire for retribution or status degradation of the offender. I think this viewpoint is incomplete, because it reduces human relations and status to a zero-sum tussle: I can only gain status if you (at least theoretically) lose it. While Nussbaum does not explore a connection between human dignity and anger, I argue that feminist political uses of anger are often premised on exactly this sort of idea. To be specific, the use of dignity that is present in feminist political anger is not of the zero-sum variety (women gain status through men’s loss of status), but as a claim of worth. Feminist political anger argues that women count too, and women deserve dignity and respect: first, as a kind of personal or bodily dignity, and second as an assertion of political identity or autonomy. It is the absence of their dignity and recognition that is the injury; their rage is an assertion of presence, a demand for dignity and recognition. This demand does not require the lessening of another’s dignity.