Majority-minority Relations Research Articles

Colonial Modernity and the Indian Rebellion of 1857: Unsettling the Nation-State Through Mirza Ghalib’s Dastanbuy

Colonial modernity inscribed hierarchies through regimes of knowledge that reproduced violence by disavowing alternatives. The ‘postcolonial’ nation-state in India is embedded in the logics of majority–minority that perpetuates violence against the citizens of the state who are outside the nation, converting those unable to prove their autochthony into second-class citizens. This article unsettles the permanent majority/minority relations in South Asia through a reading of Dastanbūy by Mirza Ghalib. Ghalib wrote Dastanbuy during the Rebellion of 1857, when the violence of colonial modernity reshaped communitarian relations in Delhi, marking Muslims as ‘outsiders’. This article reads Dastanbuy against this effect of colonial modernity, suggesting that the text unsettles these categories at the time of their making. Accordingly, it recuperates elements from the text to unsettle the naturalised majority-minority relations of the nation-state that colonial modernity births and entrenches. Simultaneously, it uses this as a gateway to engage with non-European concepts and lifeworlds that Ghalib hints towards. Through this, the article historicises Dastanbuy and sees its production as the product of a moment following the Rebellion when religious identities were blurred in the onslaught of extreme colonial violence. In short, the article questions the naturalness of these categories and considers alternate conceptions of non-state-based identitarian relations.

Well-being among Arab teachers in Israel during the COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed-methods study

ABSTRACT Studies on minority-majority relations traditionally focus on the hegemonic group’s influence on everyday experiences. In this investigation, we focused on how Arab teachers in Israel were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic by examining their well-being during that period. The study used a mixed-methods design comprising a cross-sectional survey (N = 299) and in-depth interviews (N = 24) among Arab teachers during the third lockdown in Israel. The quantitative results indicated that giving teachers more support at work boosted their emotional well-being. In the regression model, the following significant factors explained 20% of the variance in perceived emotional well-being: female gender, teaching seniority, digital literacy, job support, and resilience. The qualitative findings showed the importance of extended family, particularly during the pandemic. In addition, all participants reported that their religious faith helped them cope during the crisis. The research findings point to the unique need for resources to promote well-being among Arab teachers working under stress.

“Arab students do not reveal their difficulties”: faculty members’ perceptions of the barriers to higher education among Arab students in Israel

ABSTRACT Minorities encounter barriers to integrating in higher education. However, only a few studies have examined these barriers from the perspective of faculty members. The present study aimed to understand the barriers that Arab students in Israeli higher education face, from the perspective of deans and department heads. Using the naturalistic qualitative approach, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 30 deans and department heads in academic institutions where Arab students are enrolled. The analyses revealed four main themes, providing a holistic framework of barriers to higher education: 1) Socio-political barriers associated with a neglectful policy that produces a sense of victimhood among the minority, peripherality, lack of equal opportunities in the labour market and minority-majority relations in the nationalist context. 2) Institutional barriers related to the institutional policy and interpersonal relationships within the institution. 3) Social barriers related to characteristics of Arab society. 4) Personal barriers including language difficulties, lack of cooperation and passivity and immaturity of Arab students. Our findings show that the participants are not aware that these barriers are multitype and interrelated. Therefore, awareness of cultural competence should be raised in all academic institutions, among both academic and administrative staff, towards adapting teaching and services to minority students.

A Qualitative Study on Threat Perceptions and Attitudes towards Syrian and Kurdish Minority Groups Living in Turkey

In this research consisting of two studies, the threat perceptions and positive and negative attitudes of Turkish citizens who define their ethnic identity as Turkish towards Syrian and Kurdish minority groups living in Turkey were examined with a qualitative method. In Study 1, in which 360 university students between the ages of 18-50 (Mage= 22.53; SD = 4.19) participated, an open-ended question was asked to the participants as to what kind of a threat you think the Syrian minority group living in Turkey could pose to the country and the participants' responses were grouped under 7 categories and 27 themes. In Study 2, in which 406 university students aged between 18-47 (Mage= 22.50; SD = 3.39) participated, the participants were asked two open-ended questions about what they think about the Syrian minority group living in Turkey and the Kurdish minority group living in Turkey, and the answers were grouped under 10 categories and 39 themes. Compared to the Kurdish group, the Syrian group is seen as a more serious threat. In addition, positive attitudes towards the Kurdish group were expressed more frequently compared to the Syrian group. The categories and themes identified in this study, which comparatively examines the views of the two largest minority groups living in Turkey, will provide resources for researchers focusing on minority-majority relations in the country and will be useful for the authorized parties in the process of developing policies that will facilitate the integration of minority groups into society.

Majority-Minority Relations and Targeted Violence

Abstract Using a conflict model to analyse Majority-Minority relations (M-M), this paper focuses on the Hazara community in Afghanistan. Assuming M-M relations are power relations, the struggle for control among divergent ethnic groups has persisted. The Hazaras have historically resided in several provinces and experienced various forms of targeted violence. Millions have fled to other countries to escape persecution. This research diverges from dominant approaches that focus only on ethnicity and religion as the causes of violence against the Hazaras. Instead, the paper examines other factors that have been largely neglected by conflict studies literature. Based on historical data, the study finds that the Hazaras’ geostrategic location in Afghanistan, their alliances with Pashtun tribes, and their struggle for autonomy have been the primary factors contributing to the targeted violence against them. Therefore, while ethnicity and religion may have made the Hazaras vulnerable to violence, they are not the main causes of violence.

State inspection in contexts of cultural and sociopolitical conflict: The case of social services offered to Arab-Palestinian young women in Israel

AbstractInspectors are the executing branch of state regulation. Existing literature focuses on their tasks and operations, mostly with regard to their commitments to the state and their complex relations with inspectees. The present study explores a heretofore-unexamined issue: the playing out of inspection in a sociopolitical context of national conflict and discriminatory majority-minority relations. Namely, it focuses on the work of inspectors of social services overseen by the Israeli welfare state but provided by local or contracted agencies, offered to one of the country’s most oppressed and marginalized populations: Arab-Palestinian young women. The research was based on interviews with 25 national and district inspectors in the field of services for young women in Israel, and reveals numerous barriers hindering effective inspection, resulting from having to inspect the implementation of universalist policy in a context of local needs; and the implementation of welfare policy in a context of national sociopolitical inequality. This is discussed in terms of the severe toll that color-blind and gender-blind policy can have on the feasibility of enforcing regulation, and on the potential to ensure that Arab-Palestinian young women receive adequate social services.

In the wake of Brexit: negotiating diversity and majority-minority relations in the North of England

ABSTRACT Our contribution to this special issue brings the theoretical and empirical orientations of the Becoming a Minority (BaM) project into dialogue with the complex and charged post-Brexit geography of the North of England. We present findings from the UK ESRC funded project Northern Exposure: Race, Nation and Disaffection in ‘Ordinary’ Towns and Cities after Brexit, drawing upon a period of co-productive and ethnographic work with local authority stakeholders, voluntary sector practitioners and community actors in two urban locations in the English North: Halifax and Wakefield. We report on how shifting patterns of diversity and population change interlock with deindustrialised economies, fiscal austerity, the coronavirus crisis, and the predations of ethno-nationalist politics and policy. Amid these dislocations and risks, we find delicate, differentiated, and predominantly informal infrastructures of community governance and intervention attempting to build alliances and resolve tensions: a grounded, local-view that belies the kind of image of the North established in mainstream national understandings of the dramatic politics of Brexit and after. Taking a productive cue from the BaM study, we offer some fine-grained reflections on localised dynamics of diversity experience and the negotiation of inter-ethnic relations albeit in a sprawling urban region beyond the West-European metropolitan core.

‘Islamisation of the Occident’: fear of Islam as a mobilising force of the European new right

Recent research has investigated the emotional underpinnings of support for the political new right. Some of these works focus on the supply-side of support, emphasising specific political styles and discourses, whereas others emphasise the demand-side, highlighting cultural, economic and emotional factors. Lacking from this research, in particular for the European context, is an understanding of how supporters of the new right experience and make sense of pertinent cleavages with regard to emotions. The present study sets out to acquire a more detailed understanding of the emotional narratives of supporters of the new right, in particular with regard to fear and religious cleavages. Using group interviews with supporters of new right parties and movements in Germany, we show that narratives involving fear pertain to the idea of a valued collective ‘We’ that consists of political and cultural elements, and serves as a reference point to collective identity and an antidote to existential insecurities. Further, the collective We is perceived to be threatened by cultural differences and changing majority-minority relations with respect to five domains of social life: demography, liberal democratic order, public majority culture, security and welfare.

Roma tanulók oktatása - pedagógusi attitűdök, típusok

"In this paper I present a chapter of my research on the attitudes of teachers in Roma-majority classrooms and schools. These research findings are part of a broader study. The aim of my research is to typologize the attitudes of teachers based on interviews conducted with them, and to interpret these attitudes in the context of the social environment (educational policy, majority-minority relations) and the school as an organization. Based on interviews with the teachers involved in the research, I have distinguished three main patterns of attitudes: the childcentred, the rule-abiding and the conflicted. In the teachers' attitudes, certain dimensions of these types are blended by different factors. In the schools included in the research, most of the teachers interviewed belong to the “conflicted” category, who are essentially “floundering” in the narrow margins of the centralised education system, trying to take into account the different cultural and social situations of the pupils, while at the same time trying to comply with the curriculum, the regulations and the expectations of the examination system."

PEMIKIRAN FIKIH SOSIAL KH. SAHAL MAHFUDH DAN DAN KH. ALI YAFIE TENTANG RELASI MAYORITAS-MINORITAS DI INDONESIA

Plurality creates friction which there are two poles; majority and minority. Relation both do not always go hand in hand, and often reaches the tension which, strangely, is supported by the legitimacy of the Islamic law itself. So, we need jurisprudence that offers contextualization, accommodating, flexible and prioritize the benefit principle. This jurisprudence models get touch of two charismatic of NU, namely KH. Sahal Mahfudh and KH. Ali Yafie. KH. Sahal Mahfudh reconstruction of mazhab’s patterns and make improvements to the existing jurisprudence concept. While KH. Ali Yafie interpreting verses of the Koran directly by incorporating sociological aspects into consideration. KH. Sahal Mahfudh’s approach emphasized maslahah mursalah and Ali Yafie which rests on the analysis of concrete implications kifayah obligatory on the ideal of majority-minority relations in Indonesia. According to both, the relation whatever to uphold human values are summarized in the maqasid al-Shari’ah. There is no reason to feuding let alone each other down though clearly different religion, and ideology. Friction friction happens to be completed if supported by an intense dialogue. This, according to Sahl Mahfudh a boarding duties and responsibilities. At this point, social jurisprudence exists as a social ethics guidelines that are not partial.

Religion, political parties, and Thailand’s 2019 election: Cosmopolitan royalism and its rivals

AbstractThe political salience of religious issues and identities has been rising in Thailand, and this is increasingly reflected in electoral politics. Thai political parties seek to position themselves in relation to struggles over the location of the ideological centre of gravity, which has pitted defenders of the religio-political status quo—a monarchy-centred civil-religious nationalism—against Buddhist nationalists, on the one hand, and proponents of greater secularization, on the other. In the 2019 general election, political entrepreneurs ‘particized’ these religio-political differences, which has far-reaching implications for majority-minority relations, to an extent that appears unprecedented in recent Thai political history. This argument is developed through an analysis of the platforms, policies, and rhetoric put forward by political parties contesting the election, which concluded an almost five-year period of direct military rule. This analysis suggests we need to pay greater attention to the role of political parties and electoral competition in maintaining and contesting the secular settlement in Thailand.

The Making of Borders and Minorities

Abstract The Peace Treaties of Versailles and Saint German of 1919 provided for a number of plebiscites to be held to determine Germany’s borders with Denmark, Poland and France and Austria’s borders with the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (eventually Yugoslavia). Plebiscites under international supervision were held in Schleswig (1920), Upper Silesia (1920), Allenstein and Marienwerder (1920), Carinthia/Kärnten (1920), and the Saar region (1935). A public consultation was made in the case of the districts of Eupen and Malmedy as well in 1920 regarding the border between Belgium and Germany. Although most of Western Hungary was awarded to Austria in 1919, Hungarian insurrection eventually led to a plebiscite in the Sopron/Ödenburg region as well in 1921. Three of these borders based on self-determination through referenda (Schleswig, Burgenland and Carinthia) still exist. This contribution presents the plebiscites and shows the creation of minorities and the impact of the minority situations. It offers a comparative analysis of history’s impact on contemporary minority-majority relations in the new border regions.

Leaving the Margins

This article presents a qualitative study of nineteen Palestinian female students in Israel. In doing so, it promotes a context-informed approach in social work education, which takes into account power relations, issues of gender, and socio-political and socio-cultural backgrounds. The students participated in a context-informed course held at Ruppin Academic Center in Israel. The findings focus on two contexts in the students’ lives: (1) their socio-cultural background, which includes their family and cultural space; and (2) the socio-political context, which includes majority-minority relations. A discussion on the intersection of these two spheres follows. Whereas students felt the socio-political realm was blind to their identity as Palestinian female students, they felt that the course was like their ‘home’ in terms of language and identity.

Ideological biases in research evaluations? The case of research on majority–minority relations

AbstractSocial science researchers tend to express left‐liberal political attitudes. The ideological skew might influence research evaluations, but empirical evidence is limited. We conducted a survey experiment where Norwegian researchers evaluated fictitious research on majority–minority relations. Within this field, social contact and conflict theories emphasize different aspects of majority–minority relations, where the former has a left‐liberal leaning in its assumptions and implications. We randomized the conclusion of the research they evaluated so that the research supported one of the two perspectives. Although the research designs are the same, those receiving the social contact conclusion evaluate the quality and relevance of the design more favorably. We do not find similar differences in evaluations of a study on a nonpoliticized topic.

The Fruit of the Arts and the Mob

AbstractThis essay considers accounts of the Dreyfus Affair published in the newspaper Thamarat al-Funun (founded 1875) during 1898 to demonstrate how Arab writers addressed the rights of minorities in Europe and examined failed emancipatory projects. Writing about the Dreyfus Affair allowed intellectuals in the Levant to reverse the power relationship between themselves and Europe and to comment on the kinds of politics that would ensure the equality before the law of the Jewish minority in Europe. These debates further illustrate that even before the shift to electoral politics in the Ottoman Empire (after 1908) and in postwar Arab nation-states, Arab writers were preoccupied with the relationship between statecraft and majority-minority relations. They argued that democratic institutions such as parliaments and courts of law were the best venues to safeguard the rights of religious communities whose mere existence was defined as a problem. Bashkin shows how Thamarat al-Funun pointed to phenomena that endangered religious communities, such as fanaticism, racism, abuse of power by the police and the military, and mob politics.

Toward a Global Intellectual History of “Minority”

Abstract The term minority is today applied to describe beleaguered, persecuted, and exiled people whose subordination is preserved or merely “tolerated” by majoritarian politics inherent to modern states. As this introduction indicates, however, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries minority politics became a rubric for sociopolitical emancipation, providing a framework for intellectuals in colonized Asia and Africa to question European powers' treatment of marginalized communities. Bar Sadeh and Houwink ten Cate contend that “minority” has unique value as an instrument for historical analysis that is restricted neither solely to minority-majority relations nor to debates about (political) representation. Instead, the authors propose a global intellectual history of “minority” as a concept and experience, which is explored in the essays compiled in this special section, “Minority Questions.” By examining the diverse genealogies of the concept of minority, the essays that follow provide a valuable contribution to efforts to redress historical wrongs, even as they offer a range of explanations for the enduring legacy and power of this multifaceted concept.

Ethnic minority professionals’ experiences in Singapore’s multicultural workplaces

ABSTRACT Studies on inter-ethnic relations at the workplace have largely focused on racism, discrimination and microaggressions against ethnic minority groups. Drawing on findings from semi-structured interviews with 25 ethnic minority citizen professionals in Singapore’s workplaces, this article extends the current literature on inter-ethnic dynamics at workplaces in two main ways. First, by examining the day-to-day experiences of minorities, it lends empirical flesh to the concept of ‘Chinese privilege’, which has mostly been discussed at the conceptual and macro levels of policy and politics. After all, unlike racism, which entails active discrimination, and microaggressions, which involve indirect insults, the manifestations of privilege are much more subtle. Second, this article interrogates the ways in which ethnic minorities negotiate their relationships with their locally born Chinese majority colleagues at the workplace. It argues that a comprehensive approach to analysing ‘ethnic privilege’ should also encompass a study of the everyday dimension of majority-minority relations. This article bears important implications for the improvement of inter-ethnic relations at the workplace, in particular, in informal professional settings and ‘hidden’ encounters where it is often challenging to legislate inclusive policies.

Religious Minority Identity in the Work of the Advisory Committee of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities: A Multifaceted Challenge in Evolution

The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) of the Council of Europe counts more than 20 years of existence in the European human rights landscape. Normatively, the protection of minority religious identity is embedded in three main articles of the convention: first, under Articles 7 and 8, which outline a general right to freedom of religion, but also under Article 6, which considers religious minority rights for “new” minorities as related to tolerance. The analysis that follows here will unfold in three stages: the first stage will engage with the crucial issue of the scope of protection of the FCNM and how this relates to the protection of religious minority rights contained in the convention in today’s European societies. The second stage will focus on the main relevant articles of the FCNM that concern religious freedom. Starting with Articles 7 and 8 of the FCNM that focus on the religious rights of minorities stricto sensu, the discussion will then extend to Articles 5 and 6 of the FCNM due to their relevance to the exercise of religious rights by minorities in their cultural and diversity management dimensions. This extension is necessary to illustrate the current implications of religious identity for minority–majority relations. Methodologically, the study relies heavily on a detailed survey of the four completed cycles of monitoring, mapping the typology of issues pertaining to religious minorities as encountered by the Advisory Committee to the FCNM (ACFC) in the monitored states. The final stage of the analysis will provide some concluding thoughts on the general contribution of the ACFC towards standard setting on religious freedom in the European context.

Fear of Others: Processes of (De)Securitisation in Northern Ireland

Situated at the junction between the field of ethnic politics, security studies, and migration, this paper analyses processes of (de)securitisation in Northern Ireland. The country is characterised by its violent past, consociational power-sharing institutions, experience with periods of political instability, and the recent arrival of several thousand people from other EU and non-EU countries. As a case study, Northern Ireland epitomises the problems of divided societies and the challenges posed by the presence of competing nationalisms in multinational and ever more diversifying countries. This paper applies the concept of (de)securitisation to analyse the extent to which past conflicts and tensions have been overcome; uncovering who or what is perceived as a threat, according to which terms, and how this affects majority-minority relations. To conduct the analysis, I adopt the Copenhagen School understanding of securitisation as a speech act. I use a qualitative methodology, examining (de)securitising discourses that emerged in the party programmes of the main political forces which won seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2017 and in previous elections since 1998. I look at the evolution and transformation of such discourses since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 to today, bringing to light the different security narratives that characterise Northern Ireland concerning the divisions and relationship among its communities and the broader issue of diversity.

Hindu-Muslim Religious Encounters during the Delhi Sultanate Period

This article is an analytical reconsideration of the nature of the theological and cultural relationship that existed between Muslims and the Hindus in the Delhi Sultanate. It further aims at an examination of the religious attitudes of both communities towards each other. Historical links between Islam and Hinduism in the Indian subcontinent are extended into the very ancient past. Both religions have shared a long history that goes back to the early days of Islam. Religious interaction between Islam and Hinduism is a complex and multidimensional theme. It has its significance in the present world and in fact, it not only involves religious and theological issues but also many current socio-political and anthropological themes like race, gender, nation, and majority-minority relations are linked with the shared past of both communities in the Indian subcontinent. In this article, I explore the nature of the religious or theological interactions between both communities i.e., how Hindus generally and Brahmans particularly perceived and interpreted Islam and Muslims as newcomers to their land and what were the Muslim theological and intellectual perspectives on Indian traditions generally and on Hindus particularly.