Ethnic Conflict Research Articles

Riot and Rebellion in Mexico: The Making of a Race War Paradigm by Ana Sabau (review)

Riot and Rebellion in Mexico: The Making of a Race War Paradigm by Ana Sabau (review)

Alexander Barder on Global Racial Hierarchization and International Relations

Only within recent years has race become a common analytical framework within mainstream international relations (IR) theory. Alexander Barder argues in his book Global Race War: International Politics and Racial Hierarchy that the dominant paradigms of international relations are rooted in historical racial hierarchies and power relations. The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs (GJIA) discusses the implications of this theory not only for political hotspots but also for International Relations courses as microcosms of imperial ideology.

Adoption of hand tractor technology in terrace farming: Evidence from the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH), Pakistan

Adoption of improved agricultural technologies can help achieve the two Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of no poverty and zero hunger by 2030. This study investigates the determinants of farmers' adoption of hand tractors in the HKH region of Pakistan using binary logit model. We also examine what facilitates and what impedes the adoption of hand tractor adoption using key informant interviews. Results show that household head education, farming experience, knowledge of hand tractor use, access to credit, extension contact, and trust in technology positively affect the adoption of hand tractor; however farm size is negatively related. The findings reveal that ethnic conflicts, political conflicts, elite capture in decision making, unavailability of functional community-based entities, weak extension-farmers contact, as well as weak inter- and intra-community linkages are key barriers affecting hand tractor adoption. Similarly, observed changes on neighbors’ fields, experiencing hand tractor on trial basis, communication networks, risk observations, and trust propensities motivate hand tractor adoption in the study region. Thus, to effectively disseminate improved agricultural technologies, policymakers should consider these factors.

Impacts of Ethnic Conflict on Formal Education in Ghana: A case study of Chereponi District in North-Eastern Ghana

Purpose: The study set out to explore the impact of conflict on educational activities.
 Methodology: The study employed a mixed method design where both qualitative and quantitative data was collected.The target population for this study was limited to the stake holders of education in district because they had adequate knowledge about what constitute educational activities and how these are affected by the conflict. These included Teachers, current students, School Management Committee (SMC) members and Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs).
 Findings: It was also revealed that the impact of the conflict on educational activities were school closures, absenteeism of both teachers and students, movement of teachers to other districts, disruption of examinations and child rights abuse. During the conflicts GES schools were shut down over a year so no academic activities took place during the period. Pupils remained at home with their parents for safety reasons.
 Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study recommends that the Ministry of Youth and Local Government may liaise with the National House of Chiefs and the Northern Regional House of Chiefs to employ the indigenous methods of conflict resolution within the district to resolve the conflict between the Chokosis and the Konkombas. The Government of Ghana may formulate policies that will forbid any warring factions from targeting educational facilities or education employees and students so as to prevent instances where communal clashes disrupt academic activities.

Alternative discourse for constituting subjecthood of women: A case for an autonomous feminist discourse in Kashmir in India

The article is centrally concerned with mapping out the autonomy of the feminist subject in India using the case study of Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 35A. It argues that the autonomy of the feminist subject in India has been subsumed within various other discourses, due to which the feminist subject of the discourse is still denied the necessary space. The article uses the case study of Jammu and Kashmir and argues that women face triple jeopardy being subjected to multiple counter-discourses to their autonomy. Feminism and autonomy in Kashmir cannot be defined in isolation; gender power relations intersect with the ethnic conflict of partitions as well as the militarization of Kashmir. It accounts for women's positions throughout history, including the ancient monarchical system, which resulted in a syncretic Kasmiriyat tradition, the Dogra regime with its alliances and misalignments with British rule, and the violence of the Indian subcontinent's partition. Based on multiple variables, the article employs a two-pronged approach. The first approach is to carry out the discursive analysis of the autonomy of the feminist subject in India and Jammu and Kashmir. The second approach considers the narrative of Kashmiri women through detailed interviews to determine how they define their autonomy. Using these two approaches, an attempt is made to investigate the implications of the abrogation of Article 35A in terms of conceptualizing a case of autonomous space for Kashmiri women as democratic citizens of India.

La segregazione etnico-religiosa nel sistema educativo in Irlanda del Nord

La segregazione etnico-religiosa nel sistema educativo in Irlanda del Nord *
 Ethnic-religious segregation in the education system of Northern Ireland
 ABSTRACT: After many years of conflict, Northern Ireland still appears today as a deeply divided society that bears the marks of centuries of ethnic hostility with a strong religious connotation. The context in which, more than any other, the segregationist tension between the two communities, Protestant and Catholic, is still clearly perceivable is the education system, which is characterized by a significant separation of students according to their religious affiliation. The paper aims at reconstructing the origins and outlining the focal points of such an education system, which was recently brought to the attention of the Northern Ireland Supreme Court, with reference to discrimination against students belonging to other religions or beliefs.
 SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa - 2. Le origini del conflitto politico-religioso - 3. Le persistenti difficoltà politiche e le ricadute sui rapporti interconfessionali - 4. La segregazione scolastica - 5. Profili di discriminazione religiosa nell’accesso alla scuola - 6. La discriminazione nell’insegnamento della religione: la recente pronuncia della High Court of Justice of Northern Ireland - 7. Conclusioni.

Under the Banner of Islam: Turks, Kurds, and the Limits of Religious Unity, by GÜLAY TÜRKMEN

Using the Kurdish conflict in Turkey as a case study, Gülay Türkmen’s book investigates why, in a “post-secular” world, religion often falls short as a means of resolving ethnic conflicts among coreligionists. More specifically, the book probes why the “Muslim fraternity” project launched by the Islamist-leaning Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in the early 2010s was unable to bridge the ethnic divide between Turks and Kurds, both of whom are predominantly Sunni Muslims. Focusing on the role of religious elites as potential mediators in religiously homogeneous ethnic conflicts, Türkmen bases her work primarily on interviews with Turkish (n = 18) and Kurdish (n = 44) religious leaders. In addition, she utilizes analysis of newspaper articles and participant observation in “Civil Friday Prayers” organized by clerics affiliated with the Kurdish movement.1 Drawing on these data, Türkmen argues that the variation in how Turkish and Kurdish religious elites conceptualize religious and ethnic identities constitutes an important reason why they have failed to unite “under the banner of Islam” and mobilize mass support for the peace process.

Kajian Historis terhadap Perkembangan Resolusi Konflik Etnis dan Agama di Bosnia-Herzegovina

Politically and geographically, Bosnia is often a victim of the Western political divisive propaganda and extremist Islamic movements. This has left Bosnia and Herzegovina embroiled in ethnic and religious conflicts between Bosnians, Serbs and Croats for decades. This journal article explores the history of ethno-religious conflict in Bosnia, and how the government has created a peaceful, multi-ethnic and religious European Muslim nation amid radical siege of "propaganda". It is intended to explain how Movement and Western Politics. This research is a historical study using a data collection method called literature survey. The main sources are magazine articles and YouTube channels interviewing living witnesses to the Bosnian conflict and contemporary Bosnians. Sources have been criticized for their objectivity, particularly in filtering Western "opinions," analyzed with a political-historical approach, and finally concluded at the stage of historiography. Findings show that post-peace Bosnia has failed to declare itself an Islamic state, with politics used by irresponsible political parties to provoke decades of ethnic and religious conflict in Bosnia. ``Three M'' ideology: Multicultural. multi-ethnic; became a rallying cry to unite modern-day Bosnia in the face of its grappling with collapse. All religious adherents are free to practice their faith, and each of the three major ethnic languages has been declared the official language of the country

Threat Modelling and Detection Using Semantic Network for Improving Social Media Safety

Social media provides a free space to users to post their information, opinions, feelings, etc. Also, it allows users to easily and simultaneously communicate with each other. As a result, threat detection in social media is critical for ensuring the user’s safety and preventing suspicious activities such as criminal behavior, hate speech, ethnic conflicts and terrorist plots. These suspicious activities have a negative impact on the community’s life and cause tension and social unrest among individuals in both inside and outside of cyberspace. Furthermore, with the recent popularity of social networking sites, the number of discussions containing threats is increasing, causing fear in various parties, whether at the individual or state level. Moreover, these social networking service providers do not have complete control over the content that users post. In this paper, we propose to design a threat detection model on Twitter using a semantic network. To achieve this aim, we designed a threat semantic network, named, ThrNet that will be integrated in our proposed threat detection model called, DetThr. We compared the performance of our model (DetThr) with a set of well-known Machine Learning algorithms. Results show that the DetThr model achieves an accuracy of 76% better than Machine Learning algorithms. It works well with an error rate of forecasting threatening tweet messages as non-threatening (false negatives) is about 29%, while the error rate of forecasting non-threatening tweet messages as threatening (false positives) is about 19%.

Can conflicts unite a nation?

Despite the global commitment to fostering peace, the world suffers from violent conflicts. Related literature connects intrastate ethnic conflicts to polarization, but the relationship between the other types of conflicts and polarization is unclear. I build a simple model showing that conflicts initiated by an external aggressor can reduce the political polarization of a country. Furthermore, using regional panel data from Georgia and Ukraine, I assess how violent conflicts in the form of foreign state supported territorial disputes are related to the region-specific political support for the winner in presidential and parliamentary elections. The analysis suggests that differences in political preferences across regions decrease after a conflict. Finally, I confirm a negative association between conflicts and political polarization using country-level data from around the world. A shift in political preferences away from left-wing public policies is an important channel for a decline in political polarization after a violent conflict.

Patrimonio per la Pace in un Mondo Pieno di Conflitti

Despite studies highlighting UNESCO's role in building a world in peace, the link between cultural heritage, human rights and social relations may also trigger social and/or ethnic conflicts. The contribution reveals these dynamics through an investigation of the events that took place during the 40th Committee of the World Heritage Center, held in Istanbul in July 2016 in which the the Armenian archaeological site Ani was inscribed in the UNESCO list. On the same occasion, in an unofficial way, there were discussions on the interventions of the Turkish army in another site registered in the 2015 list "Cultural landscape of the Diyarbakır fortress" characterized by a predominantly Kurdish population. Activist groups denounced the destruction of Kurdish heritage and memory by the Turkish army accusing UNESCO of taking an indifferent position. The contribution highlights the consequences that precede and follow the processes of registration in the UNESCO World Heritage Site list.

Pastoralism and the Struggle for Survival in Laikipia

This article is about the unceasing ethnic conflicts in Laikipia West constituency, Laikipia county. The interethnic conflict has continued to be witnessed between Kenya and its neighbouring countries since the colonial era to date in Kenya, mainly in the arid and semiarid areas amongst pastoral communities. Laikipia West constituency has been experiencing perennial conflicts that have been worsening over time. The conflicts have often led to the disruption of social and economic activities and people migrating from their residential areas in search of safer places to settle in. Ethnic conflicts in the constituency can be traced back to 1895 when the white settlers began establishing their homes in Laikipia county. Prior to British colonial rule, the area in Laikipia was under pastoralism by the Maasai and Samburu communities. With the coming of the colonialists, most of the lands were seized and the pastoral communities living in these areas were displaced. Some immigrants resulted in establishing ranches, while other immigrants resulted in irrigation systems leading to the horticultural boom in Laikipia in the 1980s. The first part of this article will seek to unearth the root causes of inter-ethnic conflict in Laikipia, while the effects of the perennial conflicts are examined in the later part. This study employed the conflict theory by Marx, which purports that the existence of different social classes is the continuous source of inevitable conflict and change in the social structure occurring through political upheavals affecting class composition.

What’s in a Name? An Ethnosemantic Study of Muslim Mosque Names in Southern Thailand

Religious faith tends to vacillate in multicultural societies where religion influences social behavior and culture. However, this study has found a vividly different experience in Thailand’s four multicultural southern border provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, and Songkla. These areas are notable for their high level of political and religious violence. This study is conducted via an ethnosemantic approach to find out how the Islamic faith culture echoed from their mosque names remains stable in those four provinces where religious and ethnic conflict is a daily experience. The sample comprises 1,637 Muslim mosque names of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, and Songkla. Muslim mosque names used in those four provinces were collected and analyzed. It was found that Muslim mosques in the four multicultural provinces are named through varied naming strategies with Arabic, Malay dialect, and Thai, respectively and four syllabic names are mostly found. In terms of meaning, the mosque names are directly related to God (called Allah in Arabic) as well as Allah’s last savant, Prophet Muhammad. Those names are also related to good deeds, virtue, and harmony. The meanings of the names show Muslims remain faithful to Allah and his last savant despite the surrounding turmoil. However, some Thai names which are not Muslim names were also found in the study. This variant is probably due to the language contact phenomenon occurring in these four provinces.

Stephen A. Swails: Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction by Gordon C. Rhea

Reviewed by: Stephen A. Swails: Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction by Gordon C. Rhea Holly A. Pinheiro Jr. Stephen A. Swails: Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction. By Gordon C. Rhea. Southern Biography. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2021. Pp. xvi, 189. $29.95, ISBN 978-0-8071-7626-9.) The American Civil War remains one of the most discussed and written-about historical periods, highlighting the relevance of the era even today. Additionally, the war has drawn generations of sustained interest from academics and the public in investigating the conflict’s multidimensional impacts. Thankfully, a bevy of scholars, including Gordan C. Rhea, remain committed to illuminating the lived experiences of Black soldiers during the Civil War era. Rhea, like other scholars, also recognizes that it is essential to explore Black soldiers’ lives in totality—before, during, and (potentially) after their time in the U.S. Army—while also including the perspectives of their [End Page 161] families and communities. Taking this approach provides nuanced avenues for historical analysis. As Rhea notes, even with the wealth of scholarship on the long Civil War era, there are still very few biographies in which a Black soldier is the central figure of the monograph. Rhea’s well-written and informative biography of Stephen A. Swails is an invaluable contribution to the historiography, as the author amplifies the historical voice of a Black servicemember and simultaneously disrupts the scholarly hyperfocus on white male figures (usually military officers and politicians). This approach allows readers to understand and discuss the lived experiences of Black soldiers like Swails, who composed 10 percent of the U.S. Army forces after 1862 and made profound and lasting impacts on American history. Sadly, despite these contributions, Black soldiers remain on the fringes in many historical examinations of this period. Throughout the book, Rhea details how Swails and other Black people experienced various forms of anti-Blackness that adapted over time and across regions. For Swails, those experiences included witnessing a large-scale race riot in antebellum Columbia, Pennsylvania, and dealing with racial discrimination (and fighting for his life) while holding political office in the Palmetto State after the Civil War. By tracing Swails’s life across an extended period, Rhea skillfully proves that Black soldiers fought for racial and social equality long before and long after they donned military uniforms. The book’s straightforward chronological structure spans eleven chapters that highlight how Swails’s and his family members’ lives intersected with numerous important historical events. For example, Rhea describes how Swails’s impressive rise from the rank of private to second lieutenant in the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry corresponded with an extended separation from his first wife, Sarah, and their two children. By including the familial experiences of Black soldiers, Rhea reifies the point that ignoring the home front silences the voices of important historical figures. The book touches on several historical topics, including an account of Swails’s fight against racial and political violence in South Carolina that many people should consider reading. In one of the most powerful portions of the book, Rhea details how Swails’s life remains important today to the numerous South Carolinians who continue to honor his legacy, including Congressman James E. Clyburn. For these and many other reasons, Gordon C. Rhea illustrates that scholarly attention needs to continue centering on the lives of Black historical figures to establish a more inclusive understanding of American history. Holly A. Pinheiro Jr. Furman University Copyright © 2023 The Southern Historical Association

African American Workers and the Appalachian Coal Industry

African American Workers and the Appalachian Coal Industry

Invited Commentary: From Unacceptable to Intolerable

Invited Commentary: From Unacceptable to Intolerable

Religiosity: Conflict Resolution in the Hikayat Prang Cumbok

This study interpreted the religiosity aspect of the Hikayat Prang Cumbok as a method of resolving social and ethnic conflicts in Aceh. What were the problems explored by the value of religiosity that caused the emergence of social conflicts in Aceh, and what concepts of religiosity were the alternative resolutions for resolving these social conflicts? The data collection method used was the manuscript study method. The data was taken from the text of the Hikayat Prang Cumbok because this saga is powerful in telling the reality of social conflict in Aceh. The data were analyzed in descriptive qualitative. The results of the study showed that the aspect of religiosity that appears in the Hikayat Prang Cumbok can be seen in three forms: (1) social religiosity, (2) divine religiosity, and (3) universal religiosity. The religiosity aspect of conflict resolution in this saga is based on reasons of faith and morality. Aqeedah is related to the relationship with Allah (hambluminallah), while morality is related to the relationship between humans (hambluminannas) and humans and the universe. From these three things, it can be seen that morality towards humans and the universe cannot be separated from morality towards God.

“Let’s Draw a Line between Dos and Don’ts”: Pakistani Journalists’ Perspectives about the Ethics of Conflict-Sensitive Reporting

In conflict-ridden countries, the news media has a pivotal role to perform as an active advocate of human rights and societal peace, as well as a facilitator of conflict mitigation and resolution through the gathering and dissemination of non-partisan information. While today the world witness armed conflicts in more forms than ever before, some countries are more sensitive to conflict and violence—such as Pakistan. The country is recognized as one of the riskiest places for working journalists by virtue of recurrent political, ethnic, and religious conflicts. The Pakistani journalists work in a climate of fear and risks and with opposing groups seeking to influence the news media, which creates more difficulties for them to report unbiased and accurate news to the public. The practice of ethics has become more challenging for the Pakistani journalists because the country lacks an effective and standardized code of conduct to report on conflict. Therefore, drawing on the theory of the conflict triangle by Galtung, this study seeks the Pakistani journalists’ perspectives about the ethics of conflict sensitive reporting. In doing so, this study uses the quantitative method of survey and the qualitative method of in-depth interviews. The study uses descriptive analysis to present the survey findings in the form of percentage and thematic analysis to present the findings of interview data.

Ethnic Conflict and UN Peacekeeping Operations in Cote d’Ivoire

The article critically examines the effectiveness of the UN (peacekeeping) Operation mission in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI). In doing so, it elucidates the challenges associated with employing Chapter VI and Chapter VII (i.e., non-military coercion [Article 41] and forcible military action [Article 42] to resolve the ethnic conflict amongst the disputed parties. In particular, it considers the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as ‘forcible military action’ and argues that the implication of the framework has resulted in effective peace enforcement (i.e., UNOCI completed its mandate in June 2017). The article also illuminates several underlying factors that led to violent conflict eruption in Côte d'Ivoire. The analysis has been presented through the Hourglass model and conflict triangle to realize the engagement of R2P encompassing relevant stakeholders for sustained peace in a conflict-ridden country.

Life of Women Adversely Affected by Communal Frenzy in Felanee by Arupa Pathangia Kalita

The adverse consequences of war and violence are always more on women and children. Men are always the active participants in violence, and women are invariably observed as the passive receiver of the same. Women have to face the harmful effects of war and violence in the form of lost husbands and loss of self-respect. This paper explores the life and struggle of a single woman who lost her husband during the ethnic conflicts. Arupa Patangia Kalita is a famous Assamese novelist who lives in Darrang, Assam. Her novel Felanee was originally written in Assamese in 2003 and translated by Deepika Pukan in 2011. The story of Felanee reveals the awful experiences of a woman, Felanee in the midst of ethnic riots and frenzy atmosphere in Assam. The events mentioned in the novel relate to the real lives of the people living there. Through her protagonist, the writer describes some of the adverse experiences of people during ethnic conflicts, especially the women living in such places. At the time of Felanee’s birth, she was thrown into damp to die but somehow, she survives and starts her battle against all odds. The paper reveals how women sustain their families, especially children, while facing many troubles due to ethnic violence and bloodshed. It also explores how they are marginalized in society and how they support each other in difficult times. Felanee has to face all the brutal consequences of the communal frenzy. She lost almost everything she had, including her loving husband. She was once a queen, but after the riots, she was forced to live like a laborer.