Ethnic Cohesion Research Articles

From Peasants into Urbanites, from Village into Nation: Ottoman Monastir in the Early Twentieth Century

The article discusses how the process and timing of urbanization as well as the consequent social cleavages related to the cultural division of labour affected the local politics of Greek and Bulgarian nationalism in the Ottoman provincial town of Monastir (now Bitola) at the turn of the century. It maintains the view that nationalism extensively exploited social divisions and individual aspirations, but could neither ignore the laws of the free-market economy nor hastily forge ethnic cohesion. The argument is supported by a presentation of the Macedonian economy, an examination of the labour market in particular, and an investigation of living conditions in the suburbs of Monastir. The basic source are three personal notebooks with family expenses which belonged to a wealthy Vlach merchant. They are most detailed, comprising some 7,000 entries, and cover day by day the period from September 1897 until October 1911.

Fifty Years of Ethnic Conflict and Cohesion: 1945-94

The diversity of conflict sequences observed among 163 ethnic groups ranging from 1945 to 1994 is portrayed in correspondence with political and socio-economic factors. This diversity comes first from the strong association between mobilization, slight discrimination, migration distress, religion and repression. On a finer detail, discrimination appears to be associated with resistance if it is related to land and power, with war if it concerns social mobility, or with insurgency if it has to do with social customs. Migration from rural to urban and abroad is accompanied by high mobilization and rioting or war when social mobility is at stake. Declining state power and democratization can open the door to violent action. Finally, there is also international diffusion of protest. Locating minority groups in this landscape of correspondence helps to compare and characterize the various particular histories. These range from Lebanon's period of war, or the years of insurgency in Iran or Somalia, to the mixture of verbal opposition and terrorism in Western democracies. Crystallizing protest in India or China is differentiated against the deterioriation of group coherence in the Middle East; sporadic bursts of violence in Africa are contrasted against insurgency and rioting in East and Southeast Asia. The results point to the need for conflict prevention policies to pay more attention to the promotion of equitable social mobility.

Organizing Ethnicity: Three Episodes in the Politics of Italian Associations in Argentina, 1947–1989

This study investigates the interface between national Argentine politics and those of Italian associations during specific periods after the Second World War period. The article suggests that a rhetoric of ethnic unity and cohesion, coupled with a corporatist structure of the main organization, FEDITALIA, was the expression of an internal leadership of accommodation rather than protest. This is evidenced in: (1) “reconciliation” between fascist and antifascist sectors of the Italian community; (2) Perón's speech to the federation of Italian associations in 1954; and (3) the Committee for a Just Peace which was sent to Italy in 1982 in order to influence that country's position in the Falklands/Malvinas war.

Old cities, new pasts: heritage planning in selected cities of Central Europe

Heritage is the contemporary usage of a past and is consciously shaped from history, its survivals and memories, in response to current needs for it. If these needs and consequent roles of heritage, whether for the political legitimacy of governments, for social and ethnic cohesion, for individual identification with places and groups, or for the provision of economic resources in heritage industries change rapidly, then clearly we expect the content and management of that heritage to do likewise. The cities of Central Europe have long been the heritage showcases that reflected the complex historical and geographical patterns of the region's changing governments and ideologies. The abrupt economic and political transition and reorientation of the countries of Central Europe has thus, unsurprisingly, led to many equally abrupt changes in the content and management of urban heritage throughout the region. The uses made of heritage are clearly drastically changing but so also is the way that heritage is currently managed. What is happening, as well as how, is however uncertain and investigated here. The revolutionary eradication of a rejected past, a return to some previous pasts or the beginnings of a new past in the service of a new present are all possibilities. Answers are sought to these questions through the examination of a selection of cases of types of heritage city and their management in the region. These include an archetypical European gem city (Eger, Hungary), a tourist-historic honey-pot (Cesky Krumlov, Czechia), a medium-sized multifunctional city (Gdansk, Poland), a major metropolis (Budapest, Hungary), the relict anomaly (Kaliningrad/ Konigsberg, Russia) and the national cultural centre of Weimar.

Ethnic cohesion and division among American Jews: The role of mass‐level and organizational politics

Mass‐level and organizational politics contribute both to ethnic cohesion and division among American Jews. Political cohesion at the mass level, measured by location on the liberal side of the mass political structure, serves as a structural source of ethnic cohesion for many American Jews who are not characterized by alternative structural and cultural sources of ethnic cohesion, as measured by embeddedness in structural and cultural networks of interaction. However, political divisions among American jews converge with religious divisions and with variations in structural and cultural cohesion and assimilation; consequently, politics provides one of several reinforcing cleavages in the American Jewish community. Individual‐level data from the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey are used to support these claims. A strong linkage exists between patterns of ethnic cohesion and division and the role of politics at the mass and organizational levels. Jewish organizations involved in politics share consensus across a wide range of political issues, contributing to political cohesion. However, political conflicts emerge among organizations representing different Jewish denominations, leading again to reinforcing religious and political divisions. These claims are supported by data collected from the published reports of an umbrella agency which seeks to coordinate political positions among American Jewish organizations

Horace M. Kallen: Pluralism and American Jewish Identity

Horace M. Kallen: Pluralism and American Jewish Identity William Toll (bio) In 1915, Horace M. Kallen, the son of an immigrant rabbi and a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, entered the intense public debate over immigration. He published in the prestigious journal, The Nation, an essay titled “Democracy versus the Melting Pot,” which sketched a philosophy of public life that became the basis for his reputation in the American intellectual community. Since the mid-1890s, many prominent American social scientists—including Kallen’s senior colleagues at Wisconsin, the sociologist, E. A. Ross and the historian, Frederick Jackson Turner—had observed an immigrant working class growing rapidly in dilapidated districts of major cities. These newcomers, they argued, seemed to be unskilled laborers who depended for their livelihood on corporate employers and for leadership on political bosses. In books and magazine articles they argued that Italian and Slavic immigrants constituted a rootless proletariat subverting the nation’s legacy of skilled workers and independent citizens. Ross added that spokesmen for Jews were actively subverting all efforts to limit immigration. 1 For Kallen this xenophobic literature expressed a deep-seated fear of cultural diversity by a social elite losing its authority. Ross, Turner and their colleagues not only misrepresented the people among whom Kallen had been raised, but they ignored America’s constitutional ideals. For Kallen immigrants were complex people struggling to succeed in a new locale. 2 Their inherited cultures, which had given them a parochial but [End Page 57] nevertheless moral vision, were now challenged by the industrial city, while they and their children absorbed America’s democratic practices in the settlement houses and the public schools. Indeed, Kallen noted, “The institutions of the Republic have become the liberating cause and the background for the rise of the cultural consciousness and the social autonomy of the immigrant [groups].” Jews in particular, he noted, welcomed American citizenship, which allowed them to exchange their unique European alienation as “sojourners” for equal status among America’s other newcomers. He concluded that America continually revitalized itself not by forcing everyone to emulate an Anglo-Saxon norm, but by allowing each person to draw on the comforts of his ethnic group, while respecting the tenets of a democratic politics. This evolving relationship between American democracy and ethnic identity he called “cultural pluralism.” 3 Neither academic scholars nor American Jews have appreciated the sophisticated grounding for his defense of pluralism nor how comprehensively he analyzed the dilemmas of constructing a new identity. Perhaps because Kallen lived so long and wrote so much, they have not read broadly enough in his writings to see how he addressed most—though not all—of the criticisms that they came to raise. Academics like the sociologist Orlando Patterson and the literary critic Werner Sollors who have criticized Kallen’s analysis of pluralism have not explored the pragmatic revolution in philosophy out of which it grew or the dilemmas of Jewish identity with which he was struggling. Examining only his essay in The Nation, they argue that he undermined individual choice by attributing ethnic loyalty to a genetically determined “ancestral endowment.” 4 Likewise, the historian David Hollinger has argued that Kallen [End Page 58] not only oversimplified the actual ethnic origins of most Americans but ignored their ability, indeed their right, to choose to identify with a variety of ethnic or cultural groups. 5 For Sollors, Patterson and even Hollinger, Kallen remained locked in a deterministic explanation of ethnic cohesion whose arbitrary demands shackled the personality. Similarly, Jewish scholars have rarely related his voluminous writings on broad topics like religion, individualism, the cooperative movement or even Israel to his writing on identity and loyalty within the American Jewish community. They have accepted Kallen’s pluralism because it defended the status of Jews, giving them parity with Protestants and Catholics as America’s major religious groups. 6 But when these writers discuss diversity within American Jewry, they either refer to denominational differences or discuss a spectrum of Jewish educational and defense activities 7 rather than examining the secular philosophical defense of pluralism that Kallen provided. Yet as a professionally trained philosopher, Kallen synthesized observations from a wide array of topics, so...

Technical Inefficiency Effects Among Paddy Farmers in the Villages of the ‘Office du Niger’, Mali, West Africa

A stochastic frontier production function incorporating a model for technical inefficiency effects (Battese and Coelli, 1995) is applied to field data on paddy farmers from 29 villages in the ‘Office du Niger’ in Mali. Four ‘conventional factors’ (land, labor, fertilizer and machinery) are considered as inputs of production. The technical inefficiency effects in the stochastic frontier were related to firm-specific variables, institutional factors, social organisation, ecological considerations and health factors. Data were obtained from an economic survey conducted during two consecutive agricultural seasons (1989 and 1990) on 844 farms of the Office du Niger. The null hypothesis of the absence of technical inefficiency effects was rejected. A supportive ‘institutional environment’ and a coherent organisation of land use were the best correlates of technically efficiency. The social environment was also found to contribute to technical efficiency of the paddy farmers: within the village, the greater the degree of ethnic cohesion, the greater the efficiency of the farmers. Health status of households had an effect in that ‘healthy’ families tended to be more technically efficient than ‘unhealthy’ ones. Farmers with more extensive sorghum cultivation were less efficient as paddy farmers. These results may help agricultural policy makers formulate strategies. Technical efficiency may be improved by intensifying agricultural training regarding one specific crop and, through the control of parasitic diseases which place a burden on family households.

Authority, Compliance and Rebellion in Second Generation Cultural Minorities

This paper investigates the intersections of ethnicity, gender and sexuality by exploring the issues of parental, communal and societal authority, and the degrees of compliance and acceptance or resistance by the second generation. Using the responses of Southern Italian, Croatian, Slovenian, and Yugoslav second generation individuals in Australia, two questions are addressed: to what extent do migrant parents use sexual and marital control of their children as a means of maintaining ethnic cohesion; and to what extent does gender influence the level of parental control and the types of responses made by their children. The respondents were both heterosexual and lesbian female and heterosexual males. The data indicates a considerable level of parental and ethnic community direction and authority in relation to sexuality and marriage. It also indicates considerable levels of acceptance and higher levels of resistance to these codes by the second generation individuals. Finally, it appears that although the discussion is ethno-specific, the issues that arise such as power, identity and the body are wider societal concerns.

Education and Democracy in Frontier St. Louis: The Society of the Sacred Heart

The ideal of universal education is central to American democracy; indeed, the founders of the United States considered it key to the success of the Republican experiment. Because Americans governed themselves, they needed to be educated and virtuous to stem the forces of corruption endemic to a democratic system. Universal education was to ensure the literacy of all young Americans and furnish them with a profound sense of morality and appreciation of their duties as Republican citizens. Moreover, by providing free access to schooling for everyone, universal education would level artificial barriers against social advancement, and thereby contribute significantly to the fulfillment of a major promise of the new democratic state-equality of opportunity.' There has been growing interest in American education and its relation to democracy during the past three decades; much of it, however, has been limited to theoretical studies and the development of public schools. Historical evaluations of private schools and, particularly, Catholic institutions are comparatively rare, the latter focusing chiefly on parishes as strongholds of ethnic cohesion. Most investigations of education in the United States also deal with larger cities or the Northeast. The Society of the Sacred Heart in frontier St. Louis represents a much-neglected entity, Catholic teaching orders that functioned independently from parishes, and an analysis of its work brings to life a less-explored geographical area, the borderlands. A close examination of the female teaching order of the Sacred Heart in addition opens new perspectives on Catholic schooling in the antebellum United States by illustrating the potential role of Europeans and Catholics in the evolution of American democracy. The French sisters belied the nineteenth-century verdict that Catholicism and Republicanism . . . [could] no more amalgamate than oil and water as they pio-

‘Breaking bread’: Metaphor and ritual in Odawa religious practice

The Odawa (Ottawa) Indians of the Great Lakes region metaphorically interpret the meaning of ritual feasts as one focus of social activism and self-determination. The contemporary Gi-Be Feast (‘Ghost Supper’, or Gi-Be Wiikonge) is historically derived from the 17th-century Feast of the Dead and communicates underlying traditional religious values metaphorically. Metaphors that can be delineated within contemporary Gi-Be Feasts include: Time Is A Changer, Life Is Fluid, Purposes Are Destinations, and Events Are Actions. Sharing creates solidarity because such actions voice the traditional value placed on establishing proper relationships to mediate interpersonal distance and overcome a sense of dangerous otherness. By attributing metaphorical meaning to ritual, the Odawa adapt to changing circumstances by reinforcing ethnic cohesion. The Odawa retain, reinforce, and revitalize culture by metaphorically interpreting and applying traditional values to current needs.

"I met him at Normanna Hall": Ethnic Cohesion and Marital Patterns among Scandinavian Immigrant Women

4 "I met him at Normanna Hall": Ethnic Cohesion and Marital Patterns among Scandinavian Immigrant Women* by Janet E. Rasmussen Marriage patterns among immigrants have interested researchers of ethnic history ever since Julius Drachsler's classic work Intermarriage in New York City , published in 1921. 1 A statistical study of the type undertaken by Drachsler generates powerful evidence of the trend toward endogamy, marriage within the ethnic group, among first-generation immigrants. Such an approach fails, however, to convey either the complicated human dynamics that surround choice of a marriage partner or the more subtle signals of cultural adaptation that may exist within endogamous relationships. Oral history interviews offer a vivid and nuanced picture of immigrant courtship and marriage patterns; as a result, a better understanding of the relationship between endogamy and cultural maintenance emerges. It will be seen that Scandinavian women in the Pacific Northwest displayed a high degree of ethnic loyalty in choosing a spouse, yet marriages in the immigrant community bore obvious signs of the new environ- *A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Pacific Northwest History Conference, Helena, Montana, May 18, 1985. The author gratefully acknowledges a grant from the L.J. Skaggs and Mary C. Skaggs Foundation of Oakland, California, in support of the oral history collection on which this discussion is based. 71 72 Janet E. Rasmussen ment. Modes of courtship and wedding celebrations changed in response to the rhythms and resources of immigrant life. Single women also boasted a high degree of autonomy, fostered by economic independence, demographic scarcity, and requisite self-reliance; this autonomy added its own flavor to immigrant courtship. For Scandinavians, adaptation coexisted with ethnic loyalty; changes in attitude and behavior took place simultaneously with the forging of endogamous marriages. Seventy-two women who emigrated as unattached persons and who settled either immediately or eventually in the Pacific Northwest provide the life histories for this discussion of immigrant courtship.2 An additional fifteen informants who married or became engaged to be married prior to emigration offer valuable perspectives on contemporary courtship and wedding customs in Scandinavia. Viewed together , the women immigrants, eighty-seven in all, display the following profile: they were born in the three decades between 1883 and 1914; they migrated across the Atlantic between 1901 and 1931; and they entered into their first marriages between 1907 and 1943. 3 The majority (fifty-three) of the women came from Norway. Ten Danes, ten Finns, and fourteen Swedes are also included. These twentieth-century immigrants from Nordic countries were found through an informal network of persons and organizations. They represent an important, but hitherto unexamined, regional presence.4 The interviews with them will become part of the Scandinavian Immigrant Experience Collection at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington.5 The technique of oral history was selected for three reasons : first, because interviews capture otherwise unavailable information; second, because oral history allows persons directly, and from their own point of view, to relate their own life stories; and third, because this approach mandates the consideration of human experiences in humanistic rather than primarily statistical terms.6 These points emerge as especially compelling when the subject under discussion is women's experiences , for women have too often remained silent about Marital Patterns 73 their lives. The interviews in our project cover a range of topics and attempt to capture the major features of the individual lives, including social background, reasons for emigration, journey to America, settling in, employment, family life, community involvement, and awareness of heritage . Because of the unique nature of each narrative, topics are discussed more fully in some cases than in others and central points are occasionally overlooked. Before proceeding with detailed description and analysis of the oral sources, a brief review of the pioneering work on the relationship between marriage and assimilation is in order. To set forth the marital patterns of European immigrants in the country's largest metropolis, Julius Drachsler screened over 100,000 marriage licenses issued in the five-year period between 1908 and 1912 and tabulated the results for 79,704 marriages with identifiable ethnic composition. He urged the use of quantifiable data, such as that presented in his detailed tables...

The Effects of Racial Group Consciousness On Political Mobilization in American Cities

ACE and ethnic group politics in the U.S. have long been topics of scholarly concern. Some of the debate has focused on the persistence of ethnic group voting in American cities long after many of these ethnic groups have 'assimilated' into the mainstream of American society (Wolfinger 1965). Through ethnic group cohesion, groups such as the Irish and Italians are viewed as having used their numbers to control the political apparatus in large northeastern and midwestern cities in which they first immigrated during the mid to latter portion of the nineteenth century. This control arguably facilitated their 'assimilation' into America's mainstream. Scholars also have attempted to use the ethnic group model to explain Black political empowerment in urban areas. For example, Peter Eisinger argues:

Religious Diversity and Ethnic Cohesion: A Three Generational Analysis of Syrian-Lebanese Christians in Sydney

Researchers have paid little attention to the effect of religious differences on the identities and structures of members of a particular ethnic group. The importance of this is evident when the number of ethnic populations which are fragmented by religion is considered. This article presents a case study of Syrian-Lebanese Christians in Sydney to analyze how religious diversity has influenced ethnic identities and ethnic boundaries across three generations.

Religious Diversity and Ethnic Cohesion: A Three Generational Analysis of Syrian-Lebanese Christians in Sydney

Researchers have paid little attention to the effect of religious differences on the identities and structures of members of a particular ethnic group. The importance of this is evident when the number of ethnic populations which are fragmented by religion is considered. A case study of Syrian-Lebenese Christians in Sydney shows how religious diversity has influenced ethnic identities and ethnic boundaries across three generations. -Author

Montreal's Italians and the Socio-Economy of Settlement, 1900-1930: SomeHistorical Hypotheses

Les schemes d'immigration italienne à Montréal, d'abord composés principalement de séjours passagers, favorisent désormais l'établissement permanent. Cette population a donc changé d'aspect, tant dans sa composition (répartition des sexes, nature des groupes d'âge, etc.) que dans son organisation (préférences domiciliaires, liens de parenté, d'alliance et de paese ou petite patrie). Cette transformation a suscité l'apparition d'une économie familiale caractériisée par le recours à des ressources extérieures au marché pour suppléer aux revenus d'emploi. Cet usage, qu'on n'a pas encore mesuré à cause de son ampleur, semble s'être répandu à tel point parmi les immigrants italiens qu'il constituerait un sous-système socio-économique parallèle au marché officiel. En outre, ce comportement économique accorde aux immigrants italiens plus de latitude dans l'emploi de leur temps et de leur espace et, partant, dans le recours à des valeurs culturelles propres qui constituent une ressource précieuse dans le choix de leurs modes d'adaptation. Une analyse plus précise des aspects socio-économiques de l'établissement permettra de mieux connaître la nature caractéristique de la cohésion ethnique des communautés montréalaises d'immigrants italiens au cours de cette période.

Family History Questionnaires: Two Examples

THE RECENT development of family history projects has sparked great interest among teachers of American history. With the guidance of articles in The History Teacher and the book Generations: Your Family in Modern American History, instructors have explored the many teaching possibilities such projects offer.1 Assigning family histories can be a way of encouraging students not only to learn about their own families but also to personalize history by seeing themselves and their families as historical actors. Researching family histories, students can gain a sense of their families as participants in historical processes such as the great migrations from Europe and Africa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries or rural-urban migration within the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They can also see their ancestors as historical actors, whether as freedmen shaping a new life after emancipation, immigrants forming new patterns of activity in their adopted land, or rural migrants adapting to and creating new urban ways of life. Instructors assigning family histories find they help students understand and use such concepts as social class, social mobility, ethnic cohesion, and assimilation

Religious Sectarianism in the Lebanese Political System

Previous articleNext article No AccessReligious Sectarianism in the Lebanese Political SystemRalph E. CrowRalph E. Crow Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Politics Volume 24, Number 3Aug., 1962 Sponsored by the Southern Political Science Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1017/S0022381600015450 Views: 130Total views on this site Citations: 9Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Alexander Henley Normalization through Religious Representation, Implicit Religion 23, no.44 (May 2022): 363–387.https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.20626Matt Buehler, Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl The international sources of prejudice against Shi‘a in the Middle East and North Africa: Original survey evidence from Morocco, Mediterranean Politics 21 (Sep 2021): 1–29.https://doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2021.1974198Vivienne Badaan, Rudy Richa, John T Jost Ideological justification of the sectarian political system in Lebanon, Current Opinion in Psychology 32 (Apr 2020): 138–145.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.07.033Sanaa Alsarghali Sectarianism and Constitutional Identity, The Review of Faith & International Affairs 18, no.11 (Mar 2020): 97–108.https://doi.org/10.1080/15570274.2020.1729512Mahmood Monshipouri, Jonathon Whooley Minorities and Marginalized Communities in the Middle East: The Case for Inclusion, (Jan 2011): 153–169.https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137001986_9Max Weiss The Historiography of Sectarianism in Lebanon, History Compass 7, no.11 (Jan 2009): 141–154.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2008.00570.xDanilo Di Mauro The Consociational Democracy at Stake: Four Approaches to Explain Lebanon Past and Present, Acta Politica 43, no.44 (Dec 2008): 453–471.https://doi.org/10.1057/ap.2008.15Jame McKay Religious Diversity and Ethnic Cohesion: A Three Generational Analysis of Syrian-Lebanese Christians in Sydney, International Migration Review 19, no.22 (Jun 2018): 318–334.https://doi.org/10.1177/019791838501900206John P. Entelis Reformist Ideology in the Arab World: The Cases of Tunisia and Lebanon, The Review of Politics 37, no.44 (Aug 2009): 513–546.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034670500015084