Ethnic Recognition Research Articles

A Review of Content-Based Video Retrieval Techniques for Person Identification

The rise of technology spurs the advancement in the surveillance field. Many commercial spaces reduced the patrol guard in favor of Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) installation and even some countries already used surveillance drone which has greater mobility. In recent years, the CCTV Footage have also been used for crime investigation by law enforcement such as in Boston Bombing 2013 incident. However, this led us into producing huge unmanageable footage collection, the common issue of Big Data era. While there is more information to identify a potential suspect, the massive size of data needed to go over manually is a very laborious task. Therefore, some researchers proposed using Content-Based Video Retrieval (CBVR) method to enable to query a specific feature of an object or a human. Due to the limitations like visibility and quality of video footage, only certain features are selected for recognition based on Chicago Police Department guidelines. This paper presents the comprehensive reviews on CBVR techniques used for clothing, gender and ethnic recognition of the person of interest and how can it be applied in crime investigation. From the findings, the three recognition types can be combined to create a Content-Based Video Retrieval system for person identification.

김억 시론의 조선적 정체성과 자유시의 인식 -시형론의 문제를 중심으로-

김억 시론의 조선적 정체성과 자유시의 인식 -시형론의 문제를 중심으로-

Ordenamiento en disputa y espacialización de la injusticia en Colombia

Este artículo analiza las relaciones entre ordenamiento territorial y reconocimiento étnico a partir de las experiencias de dos comunidades afrodescendientes localizadas en el valle plano del río Cauca, Colombia: El Hormiguero y El Tiple. Se ilustran las tensiones del Estado colombiano, surgidas entre el reconocimiento diferenciado de derechos a las poblaciones étnicas y los mecanismos para ordenar el uso y la apropiación de la naturaleza. La metodología empleada tuvo un enfoque cualitativo de tipo etnográfico y archivístico, donde se privilegió la interacción con las comunidades organizadas en torno a los Consejos Comunitarios y la revisión del extenso archivo normativo que sustenta el ordenamiento territorial municipal. El análisis comparativo de los casos de El Hormiguero y El Tiple demuestra una forma institucionalizada de injusticia espacial dada la imposición de facto de intereses económicos privados sobre el ordenamiento de los territorios. Injusticia que ha privado a las comunidades afrodescendientes de los derechos étnicos adquiridos, como el reconocimiento, el territorio y la consulta previa, libre e informada.Ideas destacadas: artículo de investigación sobre el confinamiento de las comunidades afrodescendientes en el valle plano del río Cauca que implica injusticia en cuanto a la distribución de la propiedad y del uso del suelo. La segmentación espacial causada por la expansión de la caña de azúcar ha sido instituida por instrumentos de planificación territorial, incluso negando derechos constitucionales de estas comunidades.

English

Since the pacification of Uganda by the British Imperial Government in 1894, up to the time Nubians were recognized as an ethnic community in 1995, they continue to retain their indigenous ethnic identity, through professing Islam, speaking their traditional language (Ki-Nubi) and practicing their own traditional values, for example traditional dressings and foods. Nubians quest for survival as an ethnic group has been threatened over the time by the incursion of the negative political and social forces right from 1894 to 1995. This situation impacted their existence as an ethnic minority in Uganda. Using a qualitative approach and a historical research design, drawing on both written and oral information, this particular study established that Nubians faced myriads of both political and social challenges from the time of their systematic arrival in Uganda up to when they gained their ethnic recognition. This situation however, did not deter has not deterred the Nubis to identify themselves as an ethnic minority in a multi-ethnic Ugandan society. The Nubis as they are conventionally known devised strategies or methods that helped them survive as an ethnic minority of their settlement. The study concludes that regardless of the social-political challenges facing the Nubis of Uganda, they continue to survive as an ethnic cluster. through Islam which forms part of their culture and not a mere religion. Key words: Nubians, ethnicity, survival, Nubis, traditions, Islam, language, conglomeration, discrimination, minority.

Multiculturalism in Chinese history in Hong Kong: constructing Chinese identity

ABSTRACTTeaching young people to understand and appreciate diversity is crucial in Hong Kong efforts for a just and inclusive multicultural society. History is the main place where the cultural identity and values of Hong Kong society have been reflected on, questioned, and problematized in the curriculum, as changes to this curriculum interface with larger social and political changes of the society. Although diversity is emphasized in Hong Kong history curricula, representations of ethnic minorities provided in education may not always be effective toward multicultural aims. This research explores how multicultural content is expressed in Hong Kong Chinese history textbooks. In particular, we focus on how relationships between Han and minority cultures are represented in the texts, using qualitative content analysis. Based on the analysis, we elaborate three main descriptive codes and themes: (1) only majority perspectives are provided, (2) cultural superiority of the dominant group (the Han), and (3) plural monoculturalism, where minority views are treated as threatened and/or as threatening in relation to the society as a whole. We argue that these codes are in contrast with a multicultural stance that aims to enhance social justice and equity in relation to diversity, through providing balanced perspectives, including positive ethnic minority recognition and support for just forms of pluralistic integration.

Toward a Multi-Causal Model of Successful Conflict Regulation through Territorial Self-Government: Lessons from South Tyrol

Territorial autonomies have been increasingly implemented as tools for the regulation of ethnic self-determination conflicts. Recent literature has primarily focused on the debate about the general conflict-solving potential of territorial self-government in multi-ethnic societies. However, autonomy consolidation is not an entirely endogenous process, but affected by various structural and actor-centered factors. Previous studies have so far given unsatisfactory answers as to the conditions under which reforms of autonomy succeed or fail in post-conflict situations. Building on Social Identity Theory, it is argued that ethnic recognition is the all-important condition for autonomy consolidation, which, however, presupposes specific, favorable framework conditions. A high scope of transferred competencies, weak horizontal inequalities, democratic-inclusive institutions, minority-friendly parties, and international engagement are identified as pivotal factors supporting the process of mutual recognition between ethnic groups. To test our theoretical assumptions, we create a multi-causal process model. We find evidence for the proposed mechanisms in a process-tracing case study on South Tyrols successful autonomy consolidation.

Мова і мислення: від архетипної до етнічної свідомості

Мова і мислення: від архетипної до етнічної свідомості

Ethnic Identity: Narratives of a <i>Quilombola</i> Community in a Video Documentary

Ethnic identity has been a much debated theme in the social and human sciences, because it is inherent in the study of human groups around the world. Thus, this article presents a brief analysis of the film narrative elaborated by the Quilombola community New hope of remnants, Located in the municipality of Wenceslau Guimaraes (Bahia, Brasil), cujas historias permeiam a construcao da identidade etnica em documentarios em video produzidos pelos proprios moradores em sua busca de reconhecimento, com vistas a obtencao de direitos garantidos pelo Estado. The article targets both the narrative elements and the political dimension that involves ethnic recognition within the scope of identity and belonging. We use video documentary film analysis as a method in the light of theorists who focus on discussing Ethnic Identity, Culture, and Communication. Throughout the analysis it is possible to understand the strategies elaborated by the authors of the video documentary, technical weaknesses and lack of neutrality in the elaboration of the script. It was possible to conclude that in making the documentary the community enhances or suppresses their ethnic identities, as well as defines boundaries between who is or is not descended from the founding ancestors to enhance the local culture, as inheritance and belonging. The video documentary, although amateur, is original and achieves the goal intended by the community under study. The present study is therefore relevant for other peoples with similar processes to be inspired by the search for local visibility.

Minorities and mistrust

An enduring debate in the conflict management literature concerns the wisdom of recognizing versus avoiding reference to ethnic identities in institutions to manage ethnic conflict. Understanding why ethnic recognition occurs is crucial for informing this debate. We develop a theory based on functional and political mobilization effects of recognizing ethnic groups. Contrary to reasoning that minority leaders would be most interested in recognition, the theory suggests that recognition consistently favors the interests of leaders from larger, plurality groups, whereas minority leaders face a ‘dilemma of recognition’ between functional gains and mobilization threats. We use mixed methods to test our theory. For our quantitative analysis, we draw on an original coding of recognition in constitutions and comprehensive political settlements from 1990 to 2012. We find that for cases with leaders from plurality groups, recognition is adopted 60% of the time. With leaders from minority groups, the rate is about 40 percentage points lower, even after accounting for many background factors. Additional quantitative tests and a qualitative analysis present more detailed evidence to show that the processes correspond to the logic of our theory. Answering these questions about when and why recognition is adopted is a crucial step in evaluating its effects on conflict.

Supporting Irish traveller entrepreneurship

ABSTRACTIrish Travellers are a minority ethnic group, indigenous to the island of Ireland. Despite the recent historic ethnic recognition by our Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, Traveller participation in the labour market remains exceptionally low, with an overall unemployment rate of 84.3% reported in Census 2011. This article outlines some of the key barriers to Traveller labour market participation and argues that Traveller experiences of the labour market are rooted in and have been shaped by a legacy of racism and discrimination on individual, institutional and structural levels. It argues for a rapid policy response by the State and the development of long-term sustainable strategies to improve Traveller training and employment opportunities.

Social Misfits or Victims of Exclusion? Contradictory Representations of Irish Travellers in the Irish Press

One of the most significant current discussions in discourse studies is the media representation of socially disadvantaged groups (KhosraviNik, 2009; Baker et al., 2008; van Dijk, 1991). The aim of this study is to examine the Irish media’s attitude towards Irish Travellers who have been pushed to the fringes of society with allegations that their nomadic lifestyle is incompatible with industrialised Irish society (Moore, 2012; van Hout, 2011; McVeigh, 1997). The dataset for this paper is comprised of newspaper texts from The Irish Times, The Irish Independent and The Irish Daily Mail printed between January 2012 and September 2014. Data were gathered through the Nexis UK database. Because the newspaper corpora vary greatly in size, the analysis was carried out in two stages. First, corpus software AntConc 3.4.3 (Anthony, 2014) was used to obtain high frequency words in the whole corpus to gain an insight into the discourse topics associated with Travellers. Second, journalistic commentaries from three newspapers on the 2014 Oireachtas report were taken into consideration for the analysis of APPRAISAL resources which show evaluative stance of the writers through ATTITUDE, ENGAGEMENT and GRADUATION categories (Martin and White, 2005). Legitimation strategies which were used to justify evaluative stance were also investigated in this stage. The quantitative analysis shows the dominance of ATTITUDE categories in all corpora. The liberal Irish Times positively appraised Travellers and the Oireachtas Report, and justified their support for ethnic recognition through a moral evaluation of previous discrimination policies. The politically right-centre Independent and Daily Mail had rather negative attitudes, and they legitimized their opposition through moral evaluation and rationalization grounded upon the stereotypical images associated with Travellers.

Há diferenças que fazem diferença? Lutas identitárias e conflitos ambientais nas dinâmicas de expansão capitalista da Amazônia

In a context of territorial disputes, the politicization of identity has represented a way of supporting the peasant populations and traditional communities to stay in their place. The culture as a resource and the resource to the culture has been use as strategies of mobilization to obstruct the dynamics of expropriation that affect these population in so far as the economical fronts advance on the new territories. To try to account for this tangle universe that plasma at the junction between culture, territorial fights, socio-legal recognition and environmental preservation, the article is anchored in fields works conducted in the western region of Para, which over the last decade has been locus of intense conflicts of lands involving new areas of capitalist accumulation and traditional populations, indigenous and peasant populations. From the data collected in the works fields, it will aim to demonstrate how the use of culture in association with the politicization of differences has been tacked by territorial belonging to guarantee the permanence of traditional people in their ancestral places occupied. Then, the article analyzes the decision of the Supreme Court in the judicial case which challenges the continuous demarcation of the Raposa Serra do Sol. This case is paradigmatic to understand the speeches and arguments delivered by the Brazilian main Court regarding the recognition of cultural and territorial rights. The data and analysis collated here, it will aim to demonstrate how the use of culture in association with the politicization of the differences has been brought to guarantee the permanence of traditional people in their ancestral places. Nevertheless, the judiciary, when faced with universalizing categories, as a nation, territory and sovereignty, has operated a particularization of the rights of traditional communities, turning them into a kind of public interest in the second category. Keywords: cultural identity, ethnic recognition, legalization of difference.

AFROARIQUEÑOS: CONFIGURACIONES DE UN PROCESO HISTÓRICO DE PRESENCIA

The aim of this work is to recover and narrate the historical processes regarding the Afro-descendent presence in Arica, a city of Northern Chilean territory. Beyond the intention to build a historical narrative that covers the whole phenomenon, the paper is oriented to highlight aspects of the Afro-Arican history that could help to understand the movements for ethnic recognition that these collectives are articulating nowadays. We start contextualizing the African slavetrade to Latin America, describing the general characteristics of this phenomenon in the region. Afterwards, we will contextualize the presence of black slaves in the Viceroyalty of Peru, to which Arica used to belong. Finally, we will conclude debating some aspects about the Afro-Descendent movements nowadays in the city, specifying their petition for the recognition of an Afro-Chilean ethnicity.

Di che parliamo quando parliamo d’identità?

Even if later compared to other European countries, nowadays Italy can be rightfully defined as a multiethnic country. We can presume that this tendency will be confirmed and strengthened in the future: a future with the present young generation as a protagonist. Thus, it seems obvious to consider the children of immigrants with the great interest they deserve. Not only they allow us to imagine our future, but they also represent an excellent observatory to fine tune the conceptual instruments till now used by sociologists to observe and explain the changes migratory processes have produced in contemporary Western societies. Concepts such as identity and ethnic identity, recognition, difference and inequality temper in the daily experience of adolescents experiencing coexistence practices which from time to time overcome and rebuild boundaries and social barriers, deny and confirm prejudices, shaping future scenarios. In these pages, I’ll focus on the concept of identity. Fully aware of the problematic nature, of the limits and of the explanatory potentialities of the concept, I’ll try to catch the suggestions coming from different fields. Even if different approaches seem to mutually contradict, in truth they shed light on complexity, clarify different aspects of the topic and give the observer the awareness of the unavoidable partiality of his look.

Negotiating Ethnic Recognition Systems in the UK: the soft pan-ethnic identifications of Latin American migrants in the north of England

Despite aiming to provide minority ethnic groups with material equality and protection from discrimination, the British ethno-cultural system of recognition has perpetuated social differentiation which is difficult to transcend. Drawing from interviews with informants and 10 in-depth case studies with Latin American and Latino-British families in the Yorkshire and Greater Manchester regions of the north of England, the paper explores the fraught relationship between these migrants and their multicultural framework of incorporation. Significant here are the contested understandings of the Latin American collective identity, combined with the diversity of migration trajectories, socioeconomic backgrounds and life-course needs of migrants and their children, which contribute to soft pan-ethnic identifications among the participant population. It is argued that, by encouraging migrants and their descendants to seek recognition through absolute ethnic differences, multicultural recognition systems can reproduce colonial categories and fail to respond to the diverse social and life-course needs of migrants.

Urban interventions, memories and conflicts: black heritage and the revitalization of Rio de Janeiro's Port Zone

This paper discusses the creation of an arena for political and moral recognition stirred by the "revitalization" of Rio de Janeiro's Port Zone: the landmarking of Pedra do Sal as a "historic and religious Afro-Brazilian monument" by residents who claimed legal ownership of several properties in the area, affirming that it is an "ethnic territory" and the site is "a remnant quilombo community." The Quilombo of Pedra do Sal became one of the most controversial battles for ethnic recognition in Brazil, because it explored possibilities for broadening the constitutional concept of a quilombo. These possibilities would include, the plea for recognition of an ethnic territory in an urban context; the construction of a history of territorial occupation based on mythological narrative; and a territorial demarcation based on a cultural heritage conceived as the remnant symbol of a generic "black city" and, therefore, without presumed heirs.

When peace prevails on Kasih Hill: the Protestant church and the politics of adat in Minahasa

Proliferating conflicts in the Moluccas, Kalimantan, and Central Sulawesi marked an increasing interest in ethnic politics in post-1998 Indonesia. At the same time, the establishment of the National Adat Alliance (AMAN) in 2003 ushered in a new era of ethnic awareness among the customary law (adat) communities in Indonesia. In order to resolve the religious and ethnic conflicts as well as communal tensions, the central government enacted a Joint Decree that stipulated the creation of the Forum for Religious Harmony (FKUB). In North Sulawesi, however, neither the Protestant Church (GMIM) nor the Minahasan adat community has strongly supported the FKUB. On the one hand, the GMIM wanted to have a conflict resolution and conflict prevention strategy that appeared less ‘religious’ and in so doing the GMIM decided to work closely with a social network called JAJAK. On the other hand, the adat community perceived the proliferating conflicts as detrimental to their struggle for an ethnic recognition. Forging an alliance with the GMIM was impossible due to the history of violent relationship between the church and the adat leaders. The adat activists eventually created the Minahasan Adat Council (MAM). This essay argues that ethnic politics in post-1998 North Sulawesi have been confronted with strong resistance from religious authorities; however, at the same time, religion was able to capitalize on an emerging interest in ethnic movements on the national level.

Normative Approaches to Ethnic Recognition and Accommodation:Their Applicability to the Nigerian Experience

This article explores the central theme in the normative philosophy arguments of Michael Walzer; Charles Taylor; and Will Kymlicka and their applicability to the state building processes and constitutional politics in Nigeria. The main argument of these scholars is that, in a multicultural society, equality and justice; unity and stability are likely to prevail if state building and constitutional processes of a country recognises and accommodates ethnic diversity. Critically applied, the article observes that since liberal democratic values are not well rooted in the Nigerian body politics, the specificity of the Nigerian state would have to be recognised for the normative arguments to be completely applicable. Under the given, the article concludes that, strict application of the normative prescriptions in Nigeria’s multiethnic society could trigger escalating cycles of ethno-political tensions, institutional instabilities, and demand by groups for exit from the Nigerian state. Key words: Ethnic accommodation; Ethnic diversity; Ethnic recognition; National unity; Nigerian experience; Normative approaches; Political stability

Some Critical Notes on the Non-Tamil Identity of the Muslims of Sri Lanka, and on Tamil–Muslim Relations

The ethnic civil war between the Tamil and Sinhalese communities that ravaged Sri Lanka in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and which ended in May 2009 has attracted great interest from scholars of ethnic identity. Both the Tamil and Sinhalese ethnic groups employ language—Tamil and Sinhalese—as their primary ethnic marker to support their distinct ethnic formations. As for the Muslims, while the vast majority living in the north and east share many things with the Tamils there including the Tamil language, Muslims in the south have divergent interests based more on trade and commerce. Under a predominantly southern leadership, the Muslims who speak the Tamil language with some borrowed Arabic words seek a social formation based on religion to win a distinct ethnic recognition—distinct from the Tamil ethnic group. The result has been a deep rift between the Muslims and the Tamils, making a permanent solution to Sri Lanka's problems elusive. These issues have been relatively under-researched. This study looks at Sri Lankan Muslim identity and the Muslims' relations with Tamils. In particular it interrogates some aspects of the identity discourse developed over the years by the south-centred Muslim elites who align with the Sinhalese political class. We argue that the Tamils' northern leadership has been insensitive to Muslims—that they have played into the hands of the Colombo government by persecuting Muslims in their midst on the pretext of responding to government-instigated violence among local Muslim youths.

An equivocal space for the protestant ethnic: US popular culture and martial arts fantasia

This article intends to undo the commodity status of several martial arts films produced in Hollywood and their pretence of ethnic recognition in terms of Rey Chow's concept of “the protestant ethnic”. In The protestant ethnic and the spirit of capitalism, Chow demonstrates how the present-day ethnos materialize themselves through protests. How have martial arts functioned as a noticeable apparatus for both this protest and capitalist interpellation? I will investigate a particular sociopolitical backdrop that conveniently approved martial arts as an ethno-cultural expression. The first half of the article is devoted to explicating the cultural work of Bruce Lee, a “protestant” in Chow's sense. He has constructed a space in which an Asian version of morality, authority, and supremacy can maintain an existence in a particular form intertwined with a sense of ethnic masculinity. The latter half interprets one of the later works that blatantly reshaped the significance of the martial arts film in accordance with a more obvious combination of commercial and security interests of the United States: the Karate Kid series produced through the 1980s. A close reading of the series shows how martial arts films necessarily require the concept of man, as embodied by the human commodity and ambiguous Asian manhood, as a strange but useful mimetic category of its definition of human beings.