Concept Of Ethnicity Research Articles

Towards reflexive ethnicity: Museums as sites of intercultural encounter

In a highly globalised world with increasing ethno‐nationalistic tensions and conflicts, the importance of intercultural education has never been greater. The challenge remains, however, as to whether educating for mutual respect and social cohesion can be achieved through traditional modes of schooling or whether additional approaches that are not necessarily school‐centric are required. Drawing on in‐depth qualitative data including video diaries, narrative interviews and focus groups with Australian secondary school students and semi‐structured interviews with teachers, this paper discusses such an endeavour in which a museum exhibition on identity and belonging is employed as an interactive space for meaningful encounter among students and as a form of professional learning that enlivened teaching practice. Using the concept of reflexive ethnicity, this paper examines whether cognitive and affective encounters outside the ‘school gate’ create opportunities for critical learning about ethnicity that can complement and enhance school curricula and classroom learning. More importantly, the paper explores how the possibility of building on such activities to create and sustain teaching practice can challenge entrenched static notions of ethnicity. The paper concludes that reflexive encounters with ‘difference’ within an interactive museum space can unsettle prejudice and provide a deeper and more meaningful understanding of ethnic identity that goes beyond rote classroom learning.

Ethnicizing sexuality: an analysis of research practices in the Netherlands

ABSTRACTEthnicity is a frequently used measure in research into youth and sexuality in the Netherlands, a country known and admired for its favourable sexual health outcomes. This paper critically examines the production of knowledge about sexuality and ethnicity in the Netherlands. It traces the concept of ethnicity through four research practices (rationales of taking up ethnicity and compiling research populations; determining ethnicity; statistical calculations and making recommendations). It shows how the notion of ethnicity is flexible, slippery and changeable, yet at the same time becomes solidified and naturalized in relation to sexuality. The paper is based on a literature review of youth and sexuality in the Netherlands.

Ethnicizing citizenship, questioning membership. Explaining the decreasing family migration rights of citizens in Europe

Citizenship does not equal belonging. In this paper, we investigate how the disjunction between the ‘imagined community’ and the formal citizenry impacts on citizens’ rights. In particular, we analyse decision-making on the family migration rights of citizens in France, Germany and the Netherlands. Our analysis shows that in these three countries, notwithstanding their different migration and citizenship regimes, the reduction of citizens’ family migration rights is based on the same discursive mechanism: the ‘membership’ of citizens of migrant origin who marry a partner from abroad is called into question. As they are excluded from membership of the imagined community, their entitlement to family migration rights is decreased. Ethnic conceptions of national community, intersecting with gender and class, play a crucial role in shaping the rights attached to citizenship in Europe today.

The Evolution of Ethnicity Theory: Intersectionality, Geopolitics and Development

Ethnicity has become prominent in popular and scholarly thinking over the last 50 years. In the late 1960s a few key works stimulated the growth of a complex body of literature, now defined by four main theoretical approaches. New insights are also emerging. Chief among these is the importance of integrating intersectionality into ethnicity theory. The Institute of Development Studies (IDS) has also made important contributions to this literature and its application to development studies. This article identifies three new frontiers in the study of ethnicity. First, theoretical effort is required to unpack how ethnicity intersects with other forms of identity. Second, as demonstrated by IDS’ contributions, further research is required on the impacts of ethnicity upon development and vice versa. And, finally, the geopolitical landscape emerging since 9/11 has stimulated major shifts in conceptions of ethnicity. These shifts and the resulting new framings of identity (ethnic and otherwise) beg investigation.

Discursos interculturales y prácticas asimilacionistas: algunas contradicciones en el sistema educativo español

En este artículo se analiza el grado de coherencia entre el discurso legal, teórico y formal acerca de la gestión de la diversidad y la realidad de las prácticas pedagógicas en las instituciones educativas formales. Con este fin se aborda una revisión teórica de las distintas leyes educativas, de los discursos del profesorado y de las prácticas pedagógicas a partir de investigaciones precedentes. El principal resultado apunta a la existencia de algunas contradicciones: el concepto de asimilación cultural al mismo tiempo que se desprecia, tanto en la legislación educativa como en el discurso explícito y consciente del profesorado, acaba siendo el adoptado en la mayoría de las prácticas educativas. Este hallazgo conduce a algunas conclusiones respecto a la necesidad de repensar y redefinir el concepto de asimilación cultural desde la perspectiva de la igualdad y de una concepción crítica de la etnicidad y de la identidad.

MODERN LINGUISTIC APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF ETHNIC SYMBOLS (based on the German language)

The article outlines the different aspects of study of German ethnic symbols: semiotic, literary, cognitive and lingvocultural. In the article have been viewed the common features and basic differences between the ethnic symbols, linguistic sign, metaphor, metonymy, allegory and concept and proved the effectiveness of using lingvocultural approach to the study of these interdisciplinary units. Each ethno-cultural community has its own symbols, which should be called ethnic symbols. Ethnic symbols are the structural and semantic units of language, that reflect in their semantics socio-cultural characteristics, stages of development, worldview of particular ethnic community and represent the state and trends of the language development. The semantics of symbol-words is characterized for implicit: the existence of a symbolic background, that indicates the value of the designated ethnocultural concepts, and symbolic competence of speakers, which determines the frequency of use, interpretation of words of certain lingvo-society. Lingvocultural consideration of ethnic symbols makes it possible to understand the relationship of words and other linguistic units, to formulate a model of ethno-cultural consciousness of the folk and the role of language in the formation of the ethnic mentality, national picture of the world.

Identification and ethnic diversity underlie support for multicultural rights: A multilevel analysis in Bulgaria

Bulgaria is historically a multicultural society, composed of the Bulgarian (ethnic) majority and a number of ethnic minorities among which Bulgarian Turks and Roma are the largest. Both minority communities are stigmatized in contemporary Bulgaria, though to different degrees and for different reasons. Ethnic minorities' rights to preserve their culture, customs, and language are a topic of contentious debate. The purpose of this study was to examine individual- and context-level antecedents of the ethnic Bulgarian majority's support for multicultural rights of ethnic minorities. Multilevel regression analyses were conducted with International Social Survey Programme ISSP 2003 data (N=920 in 28 Bulgarian districts). At the individual-level, an ethnic conception of the nation and anti-Roma symbolic prejudice were negatively related to support for multicultural rights, whereas national identification was positively related to the support of these rights. Over and above individual-level effects, and in line with recent extensions of intergroup contact theory, the percentage of Bulgarian Turks within districts was positively related to support for multicultural rights. Importantly, support for multicultural rights was particularly high in districts characterized by ethnic diversity, that is, in districts with high proportions of both Bulgarian Turks and Roma. The beneficial effects of ethnic diversity and theoretical implications of findings are discussed.

Identity, subjectivity and natural resource use: How ethnicity, gender and class intersect to influence mangrove oyster harvesting in The Gambia

Environmental policies have paid increasing attention to the socio-cultural dimensions of human–environment interactions, in an effort to address the failures of previous ‘top-down’ practices which imposed external rules and regulations and ignored local beliefs and customs. As a result, the relationship between identity and resource use is an area of growing interest in both policy and academic circles. However, most research has treated forms of social difference such as gender, ethnicity and class as separate dimensions that produce distinct types of inequalities and patterns of resource use. In doing so, research fails to embrace key insights from theories of intersectionality and misses the key role of space and place in shaping individual and group subjectivities. In this paper we investigate how multiple types of identity influence resource use and practice among a group of women oyster harvesters in The Gambia. We find that oyster harvesting is shaped by the confluence of an aversion to stigmatised waged labour; gendered expectations of providing for one’s family; and an historically informed and spatially bounded sense of ethnicity. Drawing on the concept of contact zones, we show how new interactions and intra-actions between previously isolated groups of oyster harvesters have broadened conceptions of ethnicity. However, we find that new subjectivities overlay rather than replace old clan alliances, leading to tensions. We argue that new contact zones and emerging subjectivities can thus be at once uniting and divisive, with important implications for natural resource management.

Commentary on Tripp's “Comparative perspectives on concepts of gender, ethnicity, and race”

Aili Tripp’s research utilizes a comparative historical framework to analyze why strategies promoting women’s rights, political power, and peace have worked in some contexts but not in others. Much depends on whether a given culture views gender relations in terms of “equality” or “difference.” Those societies which value equality within gender relations tend to emphasize diversity and the importance of identity, particularly in terms of racial and ethnic difference among women, while those which focus upon difference—the idea that women are inherently different from men—emphasize similarities among women as a group. Although this typology is valuable, it does not work well in all historical contexts. In this essay, I focus on Africa and some of the limitations of using “difference” to understand African women’s empowerment.

Between Jewish Tradition and Modernity: Rethinking an Old Opposition. Essays in Honor of David Ellenson ed. by Michael A. Meyer, David N. Myers (review)

Reviewed by: Between Jewish Tradition and Modernity: Rethinking an Old Opposition. Essays in Honor of David Ellenson ed. by Michael A. Meyer, David N. Myers Robert M. Seltzer (bio) Michael A. Meyer and David N. Myers, editors, Between Jewish Tradition and Modernity: Rethinking an Old Opposition. Essays in Honor of David Ellenson. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2014. xiv + 360 pp. Reviewing a Festschrift presents a special problem: contributions by colleagues, friends, and/or former students of the person being honored can cover a wide range of topics only tangentially connected to each other. Should the reviewer dwell on the achievements of the honoree or look for elements that the collected essays might have in common? This was not a problem in reviewing Between Jewish Tradition and Modernity, a collection of articles of high quality, interest, and value. All of the authors of essays in this volume pay homage to David Ellenson. Raised in a modern Orthodox family in Newport News, VA., he received his BA from the College of William and Mary, his MA in Jewish Studies at the University of Virginia, his PhD from Columbia University, and rabbinic ordination from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion where, after several years as a faculty member, he served as president from 2002 to 2014. In his college days influences on him included sociologists of religion Max Weber, Peter Berger, and Jacob Katz. His first book was Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer and the Creation of Modern Jewish Orthodoxy (1990). His many studies on Judaism in Israel and America are in the dense nine pages of Ellenson’s bibliography appended to the volume. A personal note: his oeuvre includes “Zion in the Mind of the American Rabbinate during the 1940s,” which appeared in the collection The Americanization of the Jews, that I edited with Norman S. Cohen (1995). The essays in Between Jewish Tradition and Modernity are arranged under four sub-headings: Law, Ritual, Thought, and Culture. Together they constitute a mosaic of topics connected to American Jewish religious life in the last half century, such as post-denominationalism, the impact of the counterculture, new conceptions of ethnicity, changing styles of worship, the growing importance of feminism, and the State of Israel. To be sure, there are pieces that do not fit tidily into this mold, such as Jonathan Sarna’s essay on a mid-nineteenth-century controversy over whether it was appropriate to erect a statue of the New Orleans Jewish philanthropist Judah Touro in view of traditional anti-iconic Jewish teachings. Zvi Zohar examines a responsum from early twentieth-century Salonica on converting the non-Jewish partner of an intermarriage (a forerunning of widespread occurrence in contemporary American Judaism). Michael Marmur discusses the early writings of Abraham Joshua [End Page 161] Heschel before he arrived in Cincinnati to teach at the Hebrew Union College and went on to the Jewish Theological Seminary. Rachel Adler critiques Rav J. B. Soloveichik’s equivocations on feminism. As noted, however, most of the pieces deal with more recent developments. Arnold Eisen critiques the venerable Zionist trope of shelilat hagalut expressed in a talk by A. B. Yehoshua. Adam S. Ferziger discusses how the presence of Reform Judaism has sharpened the self-image of Orthodoxy in Israel whereas, conversely, Jack Wertheimer notes how the complexity of American Judaism has affected “Orthodox Outreach Workers.” Notably missing from the collection is concern for Jewish theology, perhaps a result of the list of contributors but also of the paucity of major new theologies of Judaism. Premodern/modern is a critical distinction in the history of science, technology, economics, ideologies, philosophy, art–and in Judaism. As Arnold J. Band notes in his essay on S.Y. Agnon, the relation between what we think of as tradition and modernity is dialectical. Affecting each other, they repeatedly reshaped Judaism as a whole. A central feature of the modern is repeated change. In the Festschrift this appears in Steven M. Lowenstein’s depiction of the separate paths taken by modernizing German and Dutch Jewry. This theme is driven home in Wendy Zierler’s discussion of the avant-garde film Momento, which illustrates how the pre-modern past is repeatedly rewritten. Similar...

台湾原住民族“猎首”习俗的心灵疗愈因子—以泰雅族为例

本研究透过文献分析探讨早期台湾原住民族(泰雅族及太鲁阁族)之“猎首”习俗之动机、仪式与禁忌，并从中发掘隐含的心灵疗愈因子与其精神生活、族群观念与社会制度之间的关系。在探索的过程中，研究者发现原住民族的“祖灵信仰”教导其族人个人美德，人际行为，以及在家庭与社会的伦理准则。其中，泰雅族男子所承袭的“猎首”习俗，不只代表其依祖先所留下的gaga (规范与戒律)，同时也是展现其个人勇气，能力，荣誉的象征。此外，泰雅族人透过重复性的“猎首”与仪式，提醒自己在族群中的角色，并且通过实践伦理和善尽责任来维系，转化或重整家族的秩序。他们仰赖祖灵的“神判”与庇佑来避免不幸之事端或可能导致的族群混乱或发展上的停滞。对泰雅族而言，“猎首”为“祖灵信仰”的一部分。身处艰困的环境当中，“猎首”习俗不仅为族人减缓生存压力，提供积极的生活态度，满足心灵上所需要的安定与和谐，还为他们提供预测未来，理解生命，以及找寻人类存在之终极意义的途径，同时，也借此维系与保存了部落的文化、传统与价值观。最后，期许本文能够促进读者对原住民族传统文化与多元文化保存议题的关注与讨论，并在不断追求科学与人文的融通中，消弭人们彼此之间的割裂与疏离，回归道德与心灵的圆满。 This study analyzes literature to discuss the motives, rituals and taboos of the head-hunting cus-toms of the Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples during early times. Through such analysis, we aim to explore the relations between the implicit spiritual healing factors of the head-hunting customs and spiritual life, ethnic concepts and social systems of the Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples (the Atayal tribe, specifically). During the research process, we realize that the spiritual beliefs of the Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples bring about personal virtues, standards for interpersonal behavior, and the ethical criterion for family and social life. Among the head-hunting customs, the ones inherited by the Atayal men not only represent the gaga (norms and precepts) of their ancestors, but are also a display of personal courage, ability, and honor. Moreover, the Atayal people are reminded of their roles in their communities through repeated head-hunting customs and ceremonies. Through practicing their moral standards and fulfilling responsibility, they are able to maintain, convert, or reform family order. They rely on ancestral ordeal and blessing to avoid unfortunate incidents, confusion or stagnation in development. For the Atayal people, the head-hunting custom is a part of their ancestral belief. In difficult environments, head hunting customs are not only able to reduce survival pressure, but are also able to provide a positive attitude towards life, meet stability and spiritual needs, predict the future, and help the practitioners find a way to understand the ultimate meaning of human existence. Furthermore, it is able to maintain and conserve the culture, traditions and values of the tribes. Finally, we expect this study to help people pay attention to the traditional culture of the Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples and multicultural preservation issues. Through the constant pursuit of integrating the scientific and humanistic studies, it is possible to eliminate the fragmentation and alienation between individuals, and help each individual achieve moral and spiritual content.

Editor’s Note

Editor’s Note Dafina-Lazarus Stewart, Senior Associate Editor (bio) It is not our common practice to publish “special issues” of the Journal of College Student Development, as our first commitment is to disseminating authors’ accepted manuscripts in a timely and efficient manner. The articles included for this issue were guided through the manuscript review and revision process independently and queued for publication by our previous Senior Editor, Dr. John Braxton and his team of associate editors. However, as our Senior Editor, Dr. Debora Liddell, reviewed the manuscripts being queued for this September 2016 issue, she recognized that the domestic feature articles had a common focus: racially and ethnically minoritized students in US higher education. Even Alazzi and Al-Jarrah (International Research) report their findings related to Southeast Asian students who were ethnic and national minorities in their Jordanian universities. Given my established focus on issues of race and ethnicity in higher education, it was my pleasure to accept Dr. Liddell’s invitation to pen the Editor’s Note to introduce this issue. These six feature articles present an opportunity to consider five key issues and questions related to the study of racially and ethnically minoritized students in postsecondary educational institutions: 1. the continued need to attend to issues of race and ethnicity in higher education; 2. the continued greater use of qualitative methodologies to study racially and ethnically minoritized populations in higher education; 3. the place for quantitative methodologies and critical and poststructural research paradigms in the study of racially and ethnically minoritized populations in higher education; 4. the relevance and utility of appreciative approaches for racially and ethnically minoritized populations; 5. the relative paucity of studies focused on Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) students in US higher education. The Pervasiveness of Race and Ethnicity As noted by higher education historian, Craig Steven Wilder (2013), issues of race and colonialism have dogged colleges and universities in the US since their inception in 1636. More and more institutions have been forced by student activists in recent months to confront and consider the consequences of their ties to the Transatlantic Slave Trade, US colonialism, and the persistent effects of institutionalized racism (Wong & Green, 2016). However, institutional racism and White supremacy are not past history, but rather are “brick walls” (Ahmed, 2012) that continue to bruise and (mis)shape students’ current experiences. Moreover, higher education is becomingly increasingly global. Increased promotion of international study abroad, aggressive recruiting [End Page 629] of international students, and the long-term effects of current migration by refugees the world over will only contribute to greater racial and ethnic heterogeneity in postsecondary and tertiary institutions around the world. Therefore, the institutional climate, policies, and practices that press upon these students will gain in importance, not decrease. Far from anticipating a time where race and ethnicity will be allowed to fall off our radar, we are witnessing its continued relevance. More studies that center a racial and ethnic analysis are needed, not less. In addition, empirical study of what race and ethnicity mean to students and how they articulate these concepts is important. This is vital across group identities, but perhaps even more pressing for multiracial students in order to combat monoracist conceptions of race and ethnicity. Museus, Lambe, Yee, and Robinson’s article in this issue continues the push forward in this arena. Contrary to transhistorical notions that race has always existed, we must treat it as ever-evolving, dynamic, and reflective of specific environments, chronologies, and communities (Stewart, 2016). Continued Relevance of Qualitative Methodologies As noted by Torres, Jones, and Renn (2009) in the JCSD Golden Anniversary issue (vol. 50, no. 6), the foregrounding of marginalized populations has led to increased reliance on new theoretical approaches as well as qualitative methodologies for understanding their identity development and their experiences on campus. The feature articles in this issue also display this heavy leaning toward methodologies, such as phenomenology (Hannon, Woodside, Pollard, & Roman, this issue) and data collection methods involving individual and focus group interviews (Museus, Lambe Sariñana, Yee, & Robinson, this issue). Muñoz’s contribution also demonstrates the utility of critical race theory and particularly LatCrit as appropriate theoretical perspectives through which scholars can interpret...

CAUCASIAN MINORITIES OF KRASNODAR REGION: CLASSIFICATION AND CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIAL REPRODUCTION

The article analyzes the retrospective transformation of ethno-demographic structure of the population of Krasnodar region from the perspective of representation, dynamics and characteristics of reproduction of Caucasian ethnic groups in the post-Soviet period. On the basis of census data in 1989, 2002 and 2010 describes the general trends, and compares the demographic development of the Caucasian ethnic groups in the region. The concept of Caucasian ethnicity used in its geographical rather than linguistic or cultural and historical significance. The authors classify living in the Caucasus region, minority, into several groups: indigenous peoples of the region, internal diaspora indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation, the Diaspora peoples who have their own national state or ethnic core outside of Russia. A comparison of the natural reproduction and migration of Caucasian ethnic groups in the region, analyzed the regional dynamics of migration as a factor of change in the population of the Caucasian diaspora. At the same time the features of the regional identity of the Caucasian communities, causes the appearance of new forms of ethnic identification. On the example of "Circassian issue" through the process of ethnic mobilization in modern conditions, and on the example of the Turkish community analyzes the problem of ethnic segregation in the province, spread ethnophobia, which resulted in mass re-emigration. At the end of the article presents forecast of development of processes of ethno-demographic reproduction of Caucasian minorities in the Krasnodar Territory.

Is there a positive link between corporate governance and board diversity? Lessons from Asia

One of the long term research questions for the multi-disciplinary study of corporate governance, has been the link between good governance and share price or other measures of value. This has been quite difficult to establish in either the legal or finance or management disciplines, but there appears to be clear evidence of corporate sustainability where quality governance practices are applied consistently. Isolating out individual factors, such as board structures, specific cultures and corporate policies, has been particularly difficult as there are so many permutations. There currently exists a significant volume of global research on the role of gender, as a part of the board composition and there are positive returns, with some caveats. This paper begins to examine and question as to whether there are positive links to a broader concept of board diversity, including gender, age and ethnicity. There have been a number of developments across Asia, including Japan, China, Singapore and Hong Kong, which provide a different paradigm from the traditional Australian comparisons with United Kingdom, America and even Europe. The hardest question is whether we should have targets or mandatory quotas.

ETHNICITY AND GREEK HISTORY: RE‐EXAMINING OUR ASSUMPTIONS

Abstract The study of ethnicity has become particularly popular over the last twenty years. This article explores certain unexamined assumptions concerning ancient ethnicity and points out certain important blind spots of modern research, focusing in particular on Jonathan Hall's contributions to the debate. Greek historians have devoted little time to thinking about the groups to which the concept of ethnicity is applicable: by exploring together the similarities and differences between poleis, regional, trans-regional, and Panhellenic ethnicities, some startling conclusions emerge. Furthermore, Greek historians have devoted little time to explaining why the concept of ethnicity is a better conceptual tool than that of nationality. But the concept of ethnicity tends to elide the question of an organised community and its shared activities in the formation of identity, with major resulting consequences. Instead of an essentialist definition of ethnicity, like that of Hall, I sketch an alternative framework that approaches ethnicity not as a static entity but as an open-endedprocess, in which the diverse Greek ethnicities moved variously within a spectrum, ranging between a collective and a communal pole.

Do we need them? When immigrant communities are perceived as indispensable to national identity or functioning of the host society

AbstractThis study proposed a new perspective to look at the consequences of the formation of immigrant communities in globalized societies, by investigating the impact of two forms of group indispensability on majority attitudes towards immigrants. Specifically, it explored whether perceived indispensability of different immigrant groups to the national identity and their contributions to the functioning of the host society are related to the development of more positive attitudes towards them. We also explored whether such effects would be mediated by the inclusion of immigrants within the national common identity and whether these effects would be stronger among host country members with a stronger civic than ethnic conception of national citizenship. Results supported these predictions among a sample of native Portuguese citizens (N = 118). As predicted, these effects were driven by perceptions of different types of indispensability for three immigrant groups in Portugal, who differed in their historical relations with the host society.

Some general issues of a system analysis of ethnic problems

The article claims that the two established traditions of discussion of ethnic issues, both the Russian Theory of ethnos and the Western concepts of ethnicity, were not able to offer convincing scholarship results. The major reason for the existence of the current state of affairs is related to the constraints imposed by the disciplinary (ethnographic and anthropologic) approaches toward the development of the ethnic theories. To eliminate the identified deficiencies, it is suggested to use the ideas of the system paradigm, which defines the ethnic group as a complex formation able to reproduce itself (autopoiesis) by means of self-reference that is based on self-observation. In this context, a high theoretical potential is demonstrated by the Theory of Ethnos of Sergei Shirokogoroff, who in the 1920s–1930s suggested to use an interdisciplinary approach toward understanding of the issue of an ethnic diversity of humankind. Synthesis of these disciplines was implemented on the basis of ideas, which preempted a number of provisions of a system paradigm, such as ethnos as a process, which involves ethnic groups, and Psychomental Complex it is important to add as a foundation for cultural adaptation and preservation of ethnic groups. These findings demonstrate a necessity to use Shirokogoroff’s theory to address the existing ethnic challenges with consideration of ethnic policies of different states.

The Tibetanization of Henan’s Mongols: ethnicity and assimilation on the Sino-Tibetan frontier

The Sino-Tibetan frontier is typically portrayed as a large, complex, and diverse transitional region between Tibetan and Chinese cultural realms. The concept of Tibetanization is often deployed to classify the ethnically ambiguous ‘interstitial’ populations of this area. This article critically examines the concept of Tibetanization through a study of the Mongols of Henan County, Qinghai Province, a population repeatedly described as Tibetanized. A survey of local folkways reveals that Henan Mongols do, indeed, share many cultural practices with neighboring Tibetans. However, an examination of the historical processes underlying these similarities fails to identify anything that could be described as Tibetanization. Based on this finding, I problematize some of Tibetanization’s unexamined theoretical assumptions relating to concepts of ethnicity and assimilation. I conclude by asking what a critical reading of Tibetanization and the Sino-Tibetan frontier tells us about contemporary ethnopolitics in China and the academic practices that strive to represent them.

Ethnicity Considerations in Diagnosing Glucose Disorders.

Morbidity and mortality from diabetes and its complications are increasing in populations globally. Different ethnic groups have varying degrees of risk. The concept of ethnicity encompasses numerous factors relevant to health including genetics, socioeconomics and health behaviours. Ethnicity-related discordance in the glycaemic markers used to diagnose diabetes and to identify those at risk of diabetes has been reported. Furthermore, many ethnicity- and country-specific diabetes risk prediction models have been developed. This review provides a thorough discussion of the impact of ethnicity on how diabetes is detected and the evidence for and against ethnicity-specific approaches to diagnosis.

Written Manuscripts in Ancient Kipchak Language of 13-15th Centuries and their Research Problems in Kazakhstan

To date there are many different hypotheses about the socio-ethnic background of Egyptian Mamluks. Lately, research has been taking place that only connects the ethnic origin of Mamluks who ruled the lands of Egypt and Syria during XIII-XV centuries and sultans of that era such as Baybars, Qalauin, Qaitabai to only a single present-day nation’s history and that only connects the language of written medieval manuscripts of XIII–XV centuries, when Mamluks were in power, with only one present-day nation’s language. In order to understand who were the Egyptian Mamluks and to clarify the ethnic composition of Kipchak and Circassian Mamluks attention should be paid to their language which is a component of the ethnic conception. And to figure out the language of the Mamluks who ruled Egypt and Syria during XIII-XV centuries a comprehensive study of the language of the manuscripts must be carried out. In our opinion, the ancient medieval manuscripts written in Kipchak language should be considered as a common heritage of all Turkic people. Taking into account, that language materials in ancient Kipchak language had been preserved in present day Kipchak language, we can say, that the written manuscripts in Mamluk-Kipchak language have a great role in research of social, ethnic, political-social, literary-cultural, total civilizational and linguistic histories of the modern Turkic people, particularly Kazakhs, Karakalpaks, Nogais, Tatars, Bashkirs, Qarays, Karachay-balkars, Kumyks, Crimean Tatars, Crimeans, Kyrgyz and people of the Altai of Kipchak group. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n5s1p575