Ethnic Loyalties Research Articles

Consoling Ghosts: Stories of Medicine and Mourning from Southeast Asians in Exile by Jean M. Langford (review)

Jean M. Langford, Consoling Ghosts: Stories of Medicine and Mourning from Southeast Asians in Exile. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013. 304 pp.Consoling Ghosts is a beautifully written and sensitively portrayed conversation not just about the conflict in beliefs between Southeast Asian emigrants (Khmer, Lao, Hmong, and Kmhmu) and the American institutions with which they must necessarily interact, but one that gradually builds and circles through many areas of understanding and subjectivity. Langford begins with the initial premise that she is not concerned with refugees or immigrants, but instead emigrants, in order to minimize initial assumptions by the reader as to the nature of these emigrants' experience. Centering on the common belief that the spirits of the dead are real and that daily life is engagement with the dead as much as with the living, she goes on to question many fundamental presumptions of psychology, medicine, and even anthropology. Assuming that spirits are real and a part of daily life for the emigrants brings into question several ethical and philosophical assumptions of Western practitioners, such as the idea that patient autonomy trumps family wishes regarding a patient's informed awareness of dying, and the nature of trauma therapy. Southeast Asia-long recognized as a place where ethnicity only carries analysis so far, where ethnic allegiances are strategic and situational, and where commonalities in beliefs and sensibilities bridge political and religious divisions-once again becomes the backdrop for an appreciation of regional similarities. Langford's narrators present the reader with stories that are painful, horrifying, and also inspiring and baffling. Yet, she skips from a Lao narrator to one that is Khmer without making an effort to draw boundaries, other than to identify the narrator. This is intentional, as she describes, recognizing that although this switch may be confusing, it is appropriate, as it allows for the recognition of certain commonalities of world perspective that underlie these cultures and that stand in contrast to those of mainstream American society. In addition, the emigrants from Southeast Asia also share the experience of years of devastating warfare and political genocide (in many ways supported and encouraged by their new hosts), and the consequent minoritization and poverty inherent to living in a marginal position in the US. The emigrants confront the biopolitics surrounding the everyday occurrences of death and dying in hospitals, through hospice, or in the funeral industry, which are organized to value a certain kind of dying and death, often opposed to those with which the Southeast Asian emigrants are accustomed. The same issues have occurred with Vietnamese immigrants, and the author alludes to this in examples. Yet, this is not the prosaic examination of a simple contrast, because Langford's own moments of autobiographical experience, carefully laced throughout the work, suggest a more complex and nuanced comparison. Nor are the narrators speaking with one voice; rather, they present varying levels of skepticism and explanation. Furthermore, deaths of loved ones in the US, under the auspices of an institutionalized death industry, are often as traumatic as the deaths from war and genocide in Southeast Asia. Thus, the violence that emigrants experience is not only the violence of war, but also the violence of marginalization and minoritization. The issues are as complex and confusing as dying itself-a point Langford makes strongly-despite American efforts to sanitize and organize.As part of their experience as emigrants, Southeast Asians confront various dislocations-geographical and spiritual-and are forced to wrestle with the consequences in their relations with each other and with the dead. The relationship of trauma to a concept of time and healing becomes central. From the standard US perspective, the healing of trauma, parallel to the exorcism of ghosts, requires going back in time and witnessing the trauma in order to be released from it. …

Muslims and Jews in France: history of a conflict

Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Chapter One. Colonial Policies, Middle Eastern War, and City Spaces: Marseille in 1948 15 Chapter Two. Decolonization and Migration: Constructing the North African Jew 35 Chapter Three. Encounters in the Metropole: The Impact of Decolonization on Muslim-Jewish Life in France in the 1950s and 1960s 59 Chapter Four. The 1967 War and the Forging of Political Community 80 Chapter Five. Palestine in France: Radical Politics and Hardening Ethnic Allegiances, 1968-72 100 Chapter Six. Particularism versus Pluriculturalism: The Birth and Death of the Anti-Racist Coalition 125 Conclusion 153 Abbreviations 157 Notes 159 Index 241

“Tiffany Does Not Have a Solid Language Background, As She Speaks Only English”: Emerging Language Ideologies Among California Students

Californians often take for granted a split between ethnic and linguistic identities, expecting immigrants to maintain strong ethnic identities while becoming monolingual in English. However, recent immigration has led to increasing diversity at California universities, with no majority ethnic group and many students bilingual. This study explores the language ideologies of diverse university students through an analysis of 100 essays written by undergraduates in an introductory Linguistics class. Specifically, the study asks what language ideologies are constructed when California students write about the language backgrounds of other people, and whether these ideologies appear connected to the writers' own backgrounds. Results show strong tendencies for students, regardless of ethnolinguistic background, to support home language maintenance as an index of ethnic pride and loyalty. The article concludes by discussing the implications of these results for the pedagogy of introductory Linguistics classes.

Nations: the long history and deep roots of political ethnicity and nationalism

What are the origins of nationalism and why is it capable of arousing such intense emotions? In this major study, Azar Gat counters the prevailing fashionable theories according to which nations and nationalism are modern and contrived or 'invented'. He sweeps across history and around the globe to reveal that ethnicity has always been highly political and that nations and national states have existed since the beginning of statehood millennia ago. He traces the deep roots of ethnicity and nationalism in human nature, showing how culture fits into human evolution from as early as our aboriginal condition and, in conjunction with kinship, defines ethnicity and ethnic allegiances. From the rise of states and empires to the present day, this book sheds new light on the explosive nature of ethnicity and nationalism, as well as on their more liberating and altruistic roles in forging identity and solidarity.

Contesting exclusion in a multi-ethnic state: rethinking ethnic nationalism in Nigeria

On the surface, ideas of a Nigerian state with common citizenry, free from ethnicity, religious bigotry and regionalism were pursued by Nigerian nationalists. Generally, a state united in common political practices, equal opportunities and under the same law was envisaged. However, the process leading to independence was characterised by ethnic nationalism. In the decolonisation era, group interest was reified and elevated above national struggle for self-government. The post-colonial project of constructing a common citizenry with the same aspirations, one Nigerian identity with a cosmopolitan outlook instead of ethnic loyalty, therefore largely eluded the country. Over the last five decades, the deepest attachment has increasingly been that of ethnic and regional consciousness. Ethnic nationalism has increasingly won support in an atmosphere of greed and clientelism. Several complex crises are currently manifesting themselves in ethnic forms. The situation has been exacerbated by political and economic exclusion, which has awakened forces and organisations that fight for ethnic and regional aspirations. This paper deals with the issue of group identification during the colonial period, especially from 1945. It also explores the extent to which the pattern of nationalist struggle defined the crucial issues of ethnic crises in post-colonial Nigeria. Finally, it examines the dimensions of the contest for citizenship.

The politics and aesthetics of commemoration: national days in southern Africa

The contributions to the special section in this issue study recent independence celebrations and other national days in South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They explore the role of national days in state-making and nation-building, and examine the performativity of nationalism and the role of performances in national festivities. Placing the case studies in a broader, comparative perspective, the introduction first discusses the role of the state in national celebrations, highlighting three themes: firstly, the political power-play and contested politics of memory involved in the creation of a country's festive calendar; secondly, the relationship between state control of national days and civic or popular participation or contestation; and thirdly, the complex relationship between regional and ethnic loyalties and national identifications. It then turns to the role of performance and aesthetics in the making of nations in general, and in national celebrations in particular. Finally, we look at the different formats and meanings of national days in the region and address the question whether there is anything specific about national days in southern Africa as compared to other parts of the continent or national celebrations world-wide.

The politics and aesthetics of commemoration: national days in southern Africa

The contributions to the special section in this issue study recent independence celebrations and other national days in South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They explore the role of national days in state-making and nation-building, and examine the performativity of nationalism and the role of performances in national festivities. Placing the case studies in a broader, comparative perspective, the introduction first discusses the role of the state in national celebrations, highlighting three themes: firstly, the political power-play and contested politics of memory involved in the creation of a country's festive calendar; secondly, the relationship between state control of national days and civic or popular participation or contestation; and thirdly, the complex relationship between regional and ethnic loyalties and national identifications. It then turns to the role of performance and aesthetics in the making of nations in general, and in national celebration...

The Effect of Corruption on Development in Nigeria

This paper investigates the effects of corruption on Nigeria’s developmental efforts. The work utilizes data through secondary sources and relies on the extractive theory as a framework of analysis to explore incidences of corruption and its effects on Nigeria’s developmental strides. It identifies the causes of corruption to include poverty, pressure from families, community ethnic loyalties among others. The paper also understudies the Power Sector and Family Support Programme (FSP) to highlight the effects of corruption on government policies at development. Finally, it recommends among other strategies the implementation of stiff penalties such as execution of corrupt people, leadership recruitment by merit and the provision of basic amenities for the people as solution to the corrupt nature of the Nigerian society.

Review: War & the Politics of Identity in Ethiopia: the making of enemies & allies in the Horn of Africa

War and the Politics of Identity in Ethiopia: the Making of Enemies & Allies in the Horn of Africa by Kjetil Tronvoll. New York, NY: Boydell and Brewer, 2009. xiv + 239 pp. ISBN 978 1 84701 612 6. In War and the Politics of Identity in Ethiopia, Kjetil Tronvoll takes on the delicate subject of identity and politics in the Eritrea-Ethiopian context. He painstakingly examines the diverse views and sometimes contradictory comments of the Tigrinya- speaking people of Tigray in explaining the latest war with their friendly-neighbor- turned-foe Eritrea. Tronvoll makes clear from the outset the scope of his study; this book, he states, is not “about the origin or the bilateral politics of the Eritrean-Ethiopia war. Neither does it address the effect of the war as seen from the Eritrean point of view, nor how it has impacted upon Eritrean identities” (p. 3). Also, the book does not discuss the regional and international aspect of the Eritrea-Ethiopia border war and the ensuing peace process. The book is instead about finding answers to basic questions on the effect of war on identity formation. The main questions are whether the bilateral war enhanced the ideology of nationalism, thereby creating a homogenous effect on the population at large, and, more importantly, whether the war helped to create a triumphant single-enemy image, solidifying the various close ethnic loyalties to a nationalist rhetoric. In trying to tackle these intricate and intertwined issues, Tronvoll focused on the two-year border war between Eritrea and Ethiopia in 1998-2000. The primary sources that Tronvoll collected during the two-year period of active war and immediately afterwards, though useful, require a careful reading of the sentiments and aspirations of the people at the time of the interviews. This is important because those times were characterized by nationalistic ethos and government propaganda directed at the warring parties and the people of the two countries, who were highly polarized. Emotions were running high and very few on either side of the border were immune to the mainstream arguments of each country’s government’s accusation and dehumanization of the “other.” Those sentiments died out as time went by and people started to ask critical questions. Tronvoll starts off by giving a historical background to how the May 6, 1998 border incident led to a full-fledged border war between the two formerly friendly governments. The war continued on and off until the

Emergence of the Rhetoric of a Unified Ummah among American Muslims: The Case of Metropolitan Chicago

This essay analyzes the rhetoric of a unified ummah among Islamic groups and organizations in metropolitan Chicago. The essay traces ummah rhetoric in the histories of three Muslim population groups: (1) Bosnians, where the clash between ethnic loyalties and the ummah ideal played out in the American court system; (2) Arabs, where solidarity has only gradually expanded beyond Palestinian identity; and (3) African-Americans, whose expressions of Islam have been significantly shaped by the racial history of the USA. The essay also reviews ummah rhetoric in selected contemporary Islamic organizations, including local mosques in metropolitan Chicago. Five analytical points are derived from the Chicago case to explain when, why, and how ummah rhetoric emerges (or does not emerge) among American Muslims generally: (1) minority status; (2) the larger American socio-historical context; (3) the socio-historical context of a particular Muslim group; (4) the application of Islam's traditional resources; and (5) the role of local Muslim community leaders.

Toward a “Post-National” Community in Pakistan and the Failures of the Modernist Bildungsroman

This essay reads Kamila Shamsie's Kartography and Uzma Aslam Khan's The Geometry of God as resisting “Pakistani” as a function of hegemonic historiographies through the modernist bildungsroman and postmodernist bricolage. Yet narrative failure to mobilize voices from different subject positions within polyphonic conversations toward imagining “post-national” communities reproduces “Pakistani” as largely violent, chaotic and exclusionary, a constant conflict zone at sites of territorial and ethnic loyalties and gender roles which results in the reinforcing of a homogenized nation. This reinserts Pakistan within discourses on failing third-world countries, Islamic fundamentalism and gender oppression, the very referential frames these narratives had set out to counter.

On ethnicity and development imperative: a case study of North-East India

‘North East India’ composed of different ethnicity is plagued with ethnic assertions and regionalism with that of centuries of alienation. Development is one big issue that need to be address in the region. The North East India after decades of independence is still lagging behind in term of socio, economic, education, political, cultural and social development. A deeper study reveals that movement for separate homeland, regionalism, tribalism, ethnic clash, crime, mass poverty, etc in the region are caused by backwardness of the region. The distinct geo-ethnic and socio-historical characters of North-East India constitute the hotbed of ethnic strife and extreme radicalism. The solution lies partly in resolving the conflict between primordial ethnic loyalties or ‘ethno-nationalism’ and the ‘nationalism of the nation state’, and partly a conscious and voluntary effort to resist corruption and unholy alliance between the militants and the politicians in the region. In any case, ethnic reconciliation would result in the reduction of ethnic violence of all kinds and would eventually restore law and order in the region. When the civil governance in the region will be spared from combating militancy or appeasing the militants, the whole energy of the government would be for strengthening the institutions of local self-government, which act as potential agents of development in the conflict-ridden states of the North-East India.

Crossing Party Lines: The Effects of Information on Redistributive Politics.

Many lament that weak accountability and poor governance impede economic development in Africa. Politicians rely on ethnic allegiances that deliver the vote irrespective of performance, dampening electoral incentives. Giving voters information about candidate competence counters ethnic loyalty and strengthens accountability. I extend a canonical electoral model to show how information provision flows through voter behavior and ultimately impacts the distribution of political spending. I test the theory on data from Sierra Leone using decentralization and differential radio coverage to identify information's effects. Estimates suggest that information increases voting across ethnic-party lines and induces a more equitable allocation of campaign spending. (JEL D72, D83, J15, O17, Z13).

Harnessing the Dragon: Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurs in Mexico and Cuba

AbstractChinese communities resident in Mexico and Cuba face a common problem: their dealings with business partners in China are perceived as a threat to national interests. In Mexico this concern emanates from manufacturers unable to compete with Chinese imports, and is evident in antagonistic news media and acts of hostility against Chinese businesses. In Cuba it stems from the state's stewardship over economic sovereignty, and is evident in efforts to assimilate Havana's Chinatown and its entrenched informal sector into a centralized scheme of commercial regulation. Interviews with policy makers, local officials and Chinese entrepreneurs indicate that the “rationalization” of Chinese ethnic allegiances for the greater public good is a critical step towards alleviating tensions. I conclude that both countries can leverage benefits from overseas Chinese communities, but to do so they must support their entrepreneurial activities, harness their networks to promote targeted imports and exports, and develop more culturally sensitive regulations.

In-group loyalty or out-group avoidance? Isolating the links between pathogens and in-group assortative sociality

The target article gives two explanations for the correlation between pathogens, family ties, and religiosity: one highlights the benefits of xenophobic attitudes for reducing pathogen exposure, the other highlights the benefits of ethnic loyalty for mitigating the costs when a person falls ill. Preliminary data from traditional societies provide some support for the former explanation but not the latter.

Crossing Party Lines: The Effects of Information on Redistributive Politics

Many lament that weak accountability and poor governance impede economic development in Africa. Politicians rely on ethnic allegiances that deliver the vote irrespective of performance, dampening electoral incentives. Giving voters information about candidate competence counters ethnic loyalty and strengthens accountability. I extend a canonical electoral model to show how information provision aows through voter behavior and ultimately impacts the distribution of political spending. I test the theory on data from Sierra Leone using decentralization and differential radio coverage to identify informationis effects. Estimates suggest that information increases voting across ethnic-party lines and induces a more equitable allocation of campaign spending.

'But we didn't live in those times’: Canadian students negotiate past and present in a time of war

Abstract This article examines the ways in which students reason about past and present in relation to questions of ethnic identities and loyalty to the state in a time of war. In digitally recorded discussion groups of three, they studied documents from the largely German–Canadian town of Berlin, Ontario, which, responding to images of the German enemy, changed its name to ‘Kitchener’ in 1916. It examines how students make sense of the documents; how they use traces of the past to explore issues in the contemporary world; and what patterns of difference emerge in respect of their own ethnic identities and immigration histories. It concludes that, even with well-selected historical materials, most students need attentive guidance in the difficult tasks of drawing meaningful interpretations from them.

Counting as Citizens: Recognition of the Nubians in the 2009 Kenyan Census

This article uses the case of the Nubians in Kenya as an ethnic minority, and the 2009 Kenyan census as a particular form of recognition, to engage in a particular aspect of the debates surrounding the politics of recognition: the perceived competitive nature of the relationship between national and subnational groups, in this case ethnic groups. Using data obtained during a 6-month qualitative study conducted over the census period, this paper evaluates the response of some members of the Nubian community to their participation in the census, focusing on its most controversial question, ‘What tribe are you?’ The article concludes that the dynamic between ethnic and national identities and allegiances, when the former are recognized, can be the site of agency, participatory citizenship, and therefore also democratic equality, action and interaction.

Migration, Time, and Religioethnic Identification Among U.S. Jews1

This article examines changes between 1985―1990 and 1995―2000 in relationships between migration and religioethnic identification among U.S. Jews. The results of multivariate analyses of the 1990 and 2000 National Jewish Population Surveys show that Jewish background characteristics have lost their significance as determinants of internal migration and, especially, migration across state boundaries. Concurrently, migration no longer constitutes a serious threat to group continuity and erstwhile negative effects on major religious and social behaviors have disappeared. When the two surveys were integrated into one data set, it was found that time enhances the inclination of Jews to move and strengthens their religious and ethnic commitments (though not their commitments to informal Jewish networks). The results are discussed in reference to three competing perspectives of migration-identification relationships—selectivity, disruption, and heightening—and in the wider theoretical context of religious and ethnic processes in the contemporary United States.

Contextual Factors Contributing to Ethnic Identity Development of Second-Generation Iranian American Adolescents

The data drawn from interviews with 55 second-generation Iranian American adolescents revealed that pride in ancient Persian culture, the adolescents’ physical characteristics, perceived stereotypes, and community point of reference all combined to affect ethnic identity as well as to reinforce a sense of ethnic loyalty. The contextual factors that influenced ethnic identity retention were family connectedness, language, community ties, ethnic pride, engagement in cultural activities and traditions, and cultural beliefs including mannerisms and an emphasis on education. Females were more likely than their male counterparts to retain the Persian language and to engage in Persian entertainment. Furthermore, the majority of the participants self-identified themselves as Persian instead of Iranian, due to the stereotypes and negative portrayals of Iranians in the media and politics. Adolescents from Jewish and Baha’i faiths asserted their religious identity more than their ethnic identity.