Political Identity Formation Research Articles

‘MBOKA MUNDELE’: AFRICANITY, RELIGIOUS PLURALISM AND THE MILITARIZATION OF PROPHETS IN BRAZZAVILLE AND KINSHASA

ABSTRACTIn recent decades, Kinshasa and Brazzaville have given rise to movements of prophecy, messianic fervour and revival (Pentecostalist in nature) in the field of religion. The patterns of liberation and deliverance that can be discerned here reflect forms of identity politics in which Africanity, in the ethnic and national sense, is not only a major issue, but a component that is increasingly associated with armed conflict. These processes express a radical paradigm shift that we place within the context of the relationship between Africanity and religious pluralism that has become evident in these two religious areas in recent years. The term ‘Mboka Mundele’ (the village or country of the Whites) points to an experience of ‘colonial modernity’, and allows us to describe in objective terms the current urban context in which these ‘businessmen of God’ emerge. Fernando Kutino, Ntoumi, Yaucat Guendi and Ne Muanda Nsemi are four major politico-religious figures who embody an ideology of Africanity related to complex types of ‘magic’ and processes of pluralization.

Redemptive politics: racial reasoning in contemporary France

ABSTRACTThe recent ‘postcolonial turn’ in France, and the concomitant concern for various forms of identity politics that accompany it, signal a shift of considerable importance within a social order that has historically been built on an ideal of transcending difference. Much of this movement is concentrated in and on the troubled French suburbs that, for the past two decades, have become both the focus and source of considerable anxiety about the state of French society generally and the republican social contract in particular. In this article, Epstein focuses on the paradigms of American racial history and multicultural approaches to difference that constitute a part of this debate. These rhetorical practices allow a discursive space from which to consider racial matters that are otherwise difficult to address in France, at the same time that they position race, in a marked departure from the French republican ideal, as a meaningful basis from which to think through problems of social justice. These phenomena need to be considered within the context of a rapidly shifting global economy that has diffused the potential for social integration promised by the republican social contract, and reflect efforts to locate readily identifiable sources of disenfranchisement when the far less visible reasons for lack of opportunity have moved off-shore.

Communication and political identity formation: Dubrovnik’s first ambassadors to the Sublime Porte

Communication and political identity formation: Dubrovnik’s first ambassadors to the Sublime Porte

Russian as a commodity: medical tourism and the healthcare industry in post-Soviet Lithuania

ABSTRACTThe focus of this paper is on Lithuania, where government policies continue to limit the use of Russian in education, the public space and the media, while the local economy has recognized proficiency in Russian as a commodity. This is particularly salient in the healthcare industry that grew significantly in the past years with patients from post-Soviet countries seeking treatment at local hospitals and private clinics. Marketed for their ‘European’ standards and competitive prices, promotional discourses refer to proficiency in Russian and familiarity with Russian culture and customs among medical staff. This commodification of Russian challenges perceptions on the value of language in the formation of political and cultural identities, pointing towards a paradigmatic shift and renegotiation of language attitudes in countries of the former USSR.

Paradox of multiculturalism: invisibility of ‘Koreanness’ in Chinese language curriculum

China’s diverse minorities (shaoshu minzu) with various languages and cultures have much experience with the push and pull of homogenizing forces and indigenous cultures, representing a context-specific paradox of multiculturalism. Within the framework of Fei Xiaotong’s duoyuan yiti geju (plurality within unity), attempts have been made by the Chinese government in the provision of education for its ethnic minorities in order to balance ethnic diversity and national unity with an assumed pluralistic nature. Taking curriculum as a form of identity politics, this study provides insights into the role of the Chinese language curriculum in molding its minority readers’ identity that is embodied in an ambivalence of national-ethnic identity configuration. This study relies on the content analysis of official syllabus and 12 volumes of Chinese language textbooks for ethnic Korean children throughout the six years of primary schooling. It concludes that the language curriculum serves to reinforce its minority readers with a sense of nationalism, thereby rendering ethnic minority culture and value systems that can contribute to the development of ethnic identity under multiculturalism, almost invisible. The study’s findings call for a shift of focus in curricula from the indoctrination of the Chinese culturalism for social control to an increasing emphasis on a variety of cultural knowledge and the fostering of critical thinking and application of the cultural knowledge in an inclusive society.

Collaborations and Performative Agency in Refugee Theater in Germany

ABSTRACTThe article contributes to an understanding of the formation of political identities of asylum seekers within the context of theater in Germany. Thus, this article demonstrates the ways in which the identity of the refugee as a political activist is accomplished through performative exercise for the German audience. In doing so, the refugee-activist does not aim simply toward assimilating within German society, but rather her/his identity is formed within a context of unjust European and German asylum laws. Much scholarship has focused on the concept of networks and citizenship in the context of immigrant and refugee protests, but the notion of performative agency within the realm of refugee theater has been less discussed. This article, by exploring the performative agency of refugees, contributes to an understanding of refugee political activism in spheres other than camps and the streets. In doing so, the article contributes to consider alternate modes of refugee activism such as the cultural sphere. Data are drawn from the viewing of seven performances in Germany of refugee activists from the global South as well as from interviews with the theater team.

Debating American Identity: Southwestern Statehood and Mexican Immigration by Linda C. Noel (review)

Reviewed by: Debating American Identity: Southwestern Statehood and Mexican Immigration by Linda C. Noel Miguel A. Levario Debating American Identity: Southwestern Statehood and Mexican Immigration. By Linda C. Noel. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2014. Pp. 264. Notes, bibliography, index) Linda Noel’s Debating American Identity is a comparative study that brings to light the fluid and highly complex strategies of political and cultural identity formation in New Mexico and Arizona during the first third of the twentieth century. Noel focuses on four national immigration debates of exclusion, assimilation, pluralism, and marginalization that erupted after the United States’ expansionist wars of the nineteenth century. National political leaders and anti-immigration groups voiced their reluctance in admitting New Mexico and Arizona into statehood due to their ethnic Mexican and American Indian populations and cultural differences. People of Mexican descent and their mixed heritage disrupted the nativist concept of a homogenous Anglo-Saxon citizenry unified through the English language and customs. As Noel points out, New Mexico and Arizona’s political and social elite formulated differing strategies, pluralism and marginalization respectively, in seeking statehood. The evolving nature of their political strategies and cultural identities is outlined in three parts that follow a trajectory of accommodation and assimilation as political, economic, and social landscapes shifted in the early decades of the twentieth century. New Mexicans and Arizonians were concerned that their territorial status would lump them with the island territories acquired after the Spanish-American War and delay their admittance into statehood since exclusionists adamantly wanted to preserve national homogeneity and unity. The principal strategies of exclusion and assimilation were argued at the national level forcing the former Mexican territories to adapt or risk prolonging their territorial status. New Mexico’s political elite adopted a pluralistic strategy of inclusion that would demonstrate the better [End Page 331] qualities of Americanism, such as European ancestry and class, while allowing New Mexicans to preserve key cultural qualities, such as the Spanish language. On the other hand, Arizona adopted a marginalization approach that reflected the political and economic base dominated by Anglo transplants into the territory. Debating American Identity effectively contrasts the political strategies by Arizona and New Mexico. The political, economic, and social context of each territory yielded to the differing approaches of pluralism by New Mexico and marginalization by Arizona. New Mexico had a bigger and much more politically active Hispano population that was economically versatile. The conflation of middle-class status and an emphasis on Spanish ancestry projected an acceptable image of prosperity and modernity sufficient for statehood. In contrast, Arizona did not house a large Mexican population and Anglos almost exclusively dominated its territorial politics. Marginalization served as a more effective approach towards statehood. In other words, an effectively controlled and marginalized Mexican community coincided with national ideas of Anglo-Saxon homogeneity and unity. Noel effectively portrays the differing political strategies by New Mexico and Arizona seeking statehood. On the other hand, a closer review of the political debate in Washington could shed light on the effectiveness of the differing strategies. Noel does offer some insight to the consequences of marginalization and pluralism after 1912, but it should be understood that these concepts of identity and culture are highly politicized. Nevertheless, Noel offers a keen analysis of demographic change in both states in the 1920s and 1930s and its effect on the ideas of Spanish heritage and class difference. Overall, Noel tackles an incredibly difficult and complex history with great nuance and clarity. Defining American Identity contributes to the ongoing scholarly discussion of the fluidity and potency of political and cultural identity. Readers are privy to a better understanding of the heterogeneity of the American Southwest by reviewing New Mexico and Arizona’s respective political strategies to obtain statehood and their approach to identity formation. Defining American Identity makes a significant contribution to the studies of identity, race, southwestern history, and Mexican American history. Miguel A. Levario Texas Tech University Copyright © 2014 The Texas State Historical Association

Appealing to the Female Vote: Dutch political parties and the approach of women voters in general election campaigns, c.1922–1980

This article explores the effects of female enfranchisement on the nature of political identity formation in Dutch election campaigns between 1922 and the early 1980s. It argues that women voters played a key role in the imagination of the Netherlands as a ‘pillarised society’ in which political constituencies were represented as stable and based on ‘objective’ characteristics like class and religion. The continuous representation of women as politically ignorant and indifferent served to maintain a self-identity that made women susceptible to ‘be educated’ and ‘learn to understand’ their political identity. The second feminist wave did much to upturn dominant representations, but older discourses proved persistent. The call to take women more seriously as members of the demos, again resulted in a separate treatment of women in political propaganda, with organisations like MVM and the parties' (rebranded) women's clubs, as well as commercial women's magazines now playing a key role in their ‘political education’.

Elizabeth Finnis: Reimaging marginalized foods: global processes, local places

An insightful and stimulating read, this edited volume by Finnis, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Guelph, explores the intellectual trajectory of marginality through contemporary food systems. From the distribution of alpaca meat in Peru to the arrival and consumption of pom in the Netherlands, each essay seriously considers and ultimately defends why the study of marginalized foods matter. In a time where once marginal food items are more frequently incorporated into mainstream consumption behaviors, the contributors successfully establish the importance of conversations around the renegotiation and representing of marginal cuisines and the populations who originally prepared them. The reimagining of marginal foods effectively becomes a site full of unexpected consequences and possibilities as social, political, and economic processes collide with the everyday lives of individuals. Emphasizing the symbolic aspects of food, from the outset, Finnis identifies her project as one focused on the interaction between marginalized or low status food and mainstream markets. With a strong anthropological orientation, Finnis has put together a collection of ethnographic work based upon themes of political economy, appropriation, culture, identity formation, and consumption. The strength of each case study is the recognition and engagement with the nuances that arise as individual, group, government and non-governmental actors participate in symbolic and physical movements around the ways food is experienced and understood in a particular locale. Contributing to existing discourse by seriously considering foods and cuisine from the Global South, this selection of works is somewhat limited by moments of ambiguity in relation to its theoretical framework. The issue of temporality runs throughout the collection but is most prominent in the chapters that explore the dissociation of a particular cuisine from its original producers. In ‘‘Highland Haute Cuisine: The Transformation of Alpaca Meat’’, Lisa Markowitz unravels the ongoing transformation of alpaca meat from a disparaged ‘‘Indian food’’ to an upscale item consumed by elites. While Markowitz does not cite the connection to Bourdieu, his theory on how tastes both reflect and perpetuate social difference and inequality is incredibly relevant (Bourdieu 1984). In keeping with Bourdieu’s tradition, Markowitz describes the ways in which avoidance of alpaca meat was legitimated by a desire to maintain the social hierarchy between Indians and white-mestizo Peruvians. The indigenous Andean peasant farmers who raised and sold alpaca meat were thus labeled with similar unsanitary and diseaseridden connotations that initially accompanied the meat itself. Over the course of a few years however, the same identification with Indians that once made the meat undesirable for upper and middle class populations transformed it into a much sought after ‘‘authentic food of the Incas’’. According to Markowitz, the shifts in meaning were made possible by timing, a period of national economic growth in Peru (Devaux et al. 2009), and the involvement of nongovernmental organizational (NGO) actors who were able to capitalize on the expansion of Peruvian culinary tourism. But while the study of alpaca meat reads as positively contributing to the livelihood of peasant farmers, other chapters suggest that similar strategies do not lead to as favorable an outcome. Lois Stanford’s chapter, ‘‘When the Marginal Becomes the Exotic: The Politics of Culinary Tourism in Indigenous T. Cain (&) Department of Sociology, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA e-mail: tcain@bu.edu

Book review: Jean-Paul Marat: Tribune of the French Revolution, by Clifford D. Conner

Clifford D. Conner Jean-Paul Marat: Tribune of the French Revolution, Pluto Press: London, 2012; Xiii + 178 pp.: 9780745331935, 12.99 [pounds sterling] Clifford Conner's highly readable study of Jean-Paul Marat is part of an ongoing series on 'Revolutionary Lives', covering subjects ranging from Gerrard Winstanley to Hugo Chavez. Aimed at the general reader, the series attempts to show the relevance of revolutionary figures by 'putting their actions and achievements in context'. Conner is right to emphasise Marat's political acumen as a journalist and politician, and to highlight his social agenda, promoting basic rights and welfare, at a time when these were mostly ignored by fellow radicals in favour of political reform. His central theme--that Marat was not simply a radical icon, but also one of the French Revolutions leading figures, whose interventions were critical to advancing its interests--is most welcome, and convincingly argued. However, whilst Conners work plugs a long-standing lacuna, it marks a missed opportunity for a fresh re-evaluation of the life of one of history's least understood radicals. First, and perhaps most disappointingly, given the paucity of English-language accounts of Marat's life--two in the last 100 years, one by the same author--this short book (178 pp.) appears to be a heavily abridged and revised version of an earlier work (1988: 285), with the first (pre-revolutionary) half, and many of the quotes that allowed us to hear Marat's voice, removed. Some of these cuts, such as Conner's astute observation that Marat was principally motivated by his 'amour de gloire--a notion closely modeled on the classical idea of a drive for recognition through public service (1998: 45)--significantly weaken our understanding. For those who wish to know more, Conner has generously uploaded the excised material on the web at . This recycled approach, alas, comes at the expense of engagement with important scholarship published during the last 15 years, and leaves Conner's book stuck in an ideological groove from which revolutionary studies have largely moved on. Besides opening new windows on aspects of Marat's political thought, recent historiography has widely influenced discussions on the impact of revolutionary journalism on public opinion, the transformation of the public sphere, the formation of political identities, and the creation of a range of political discourses, including representation, republicanism, conspiracy and human rights. Most surprisingly, while Conner tips his hat to previous French biographers, he fails to acknowledge the achievement of Jacques de Cock and Charlotte Goetz, whose heavily annotated 10-volume edition, Oeuvres Politiques de Jean-Paul Marat (Pole Nord, 1989-95), provides the benchmark for any investigation of his revolutionary career. Second, given the opportunity to reassess his material, it is a shame that many inaccuracies remain. For example, Conner confuses Marat's pamphlets with his placards (wall posters). Marat's poster campaign, telling Parisians who to vote for, amongst other things, did not come about until after the fall of the monarchy in the summer of 1792. He also suggests that Marat was 'thrilled' by Diderot's criticisms of his first work (De l'Homme), when in fact they were only published posthumously in Elements de Physiologie, in 1830. While Marat certainly revelled in publicising Voltaire's stinging criticism of this work long after the event, it seems strange to assert that he enjoyed it at the time, as an ambitious newcomer hoping to be taken seriously by the Parisian establishment. Some sweeping generalisations, too, tend to undermine Conner's wider argument regarding Marat's contribution. His insistence that 'without Marat, the French Revolution may well not have resulted in the social transformation of France, Europe and the world' seems a bit much, as does his assertion that under the influence of 1980s revisionism, historians ceased to see any value in the Revolution's most radical phase, and thus stopped paying much attention to Marat's role. …

LEO T. S. Ching, Becoming “Japanese”: Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity Formation

LEO T. S. Ching, Becoming “Japanese”: Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity Formation

In Search of an Identity: Voluntary Foreign Citations in Discordant Constitutional Settings

Accounts of voluntary judicial reference to foreign sources in noncanonical settings are rare. The general literature on the subject stresses the importance of factors such as global convergence and inevitability of engagement with foreign jurisprudence; judicial prestigeor legitimacy-enhancing factors; and structural features (e.g. constitutional provisions that call for foreign citations, linguistic permeability, a legal tradition or trajectory of legal education that affects a given apex court's ability and willingness to cite foreign jurisprudence). Whereas these accounts provide illuminating explanations for the rise and variance in the practice of global judicial dialogue, they leave out a crucial factor: the socio-political context within which constitutional courts and judges operate, and how this affects whether and where the judicial mind travels in its search for pertinent foreign sources to reference. In the realm of voluntary reference to foreign law in transitional or discordant constitutional settings, judicial choices as to what to cite and what not to cite cannot be understood in isolation from the views of constitutional courts and judges with respect to the “identity” dimension—the attempt to define who “we” are as a political community, and to articulate in a public way what “our image” or “place” in the world are or should be. Instances of strategic, ad-hoc judicial recourse to foreign law are obviously inseparable from the concrete political settings within which they take place. In post-authoritarian or newly created constitutional settings, such choices can signal a judicial commitment to breaking with a nation's less-than-dazzling past or to belong to a certain group of polities. Such choices may likewise help courts and their backers advance certain worldviews and policy preferences that may be otherwise contested in majoritarian decision-making arenas. Importantly, the foreign references that peak courts in discordant constitutional settings (e.g. Israel, Pakistan, Malaysia, India) select, reject or ignore reflect the judicial position vis-a-vis the nation's contested collective identity quandaries. These judicial picks may thus be a channel for and an indicator of constitutional and political identity formation.

El gasconismo: surgimiento de una cultura política regional

En el presente artículo se analiza una cultura política regional de izquierda: el gasconismo en Nayarit (en alusión a Alejandro Gascón Mercado, figura emblemática de la izquierda de este estado de México durante cerca de tres décadas). Esta cultura política se convirtió, gracias a la exitosa e influyente gestión del Partido Popular Socialista al mando del XXVI Ayuntamiento deTepic (1972-1975), en una matriz simbólica que alimentó la constitución de las identidades políticas de izquierda no sólo entre los miembros del partido político en que surgió, sino también entre amplias franjas de la población del municipio y del estado. Así, en un segundo momento del análisis, se estudiarán los componentes y las operaciones de la configuración identitaria a la que la cultura gasconista dio vida.

Between History and Heritage: Post-Colonialism, Globalisation, and the Remaking of Malacca, Penang, and Singapore

AbstractThe three cities of Malacca, Penang and Singapore share a century-long history as the British Straits Settlements, with similar multicultural traditions and urban morphology of dense shophouse districts. In the post-colonial period, these have been the basis for the production of heritage for urban renewal, civic identity formation, and international tourism. Yet, each city has approached the production of its history as heritage in different ways. The differences have been specified in terms of whether heritage production has been led by the state, market or civil society, and criticised as ideology or ambivalently interpreted as formative of identity in the face of globalisation. As colonial port-cities integrating into or becoming a new nation-state, I argue that the production of heritage in the three cities is driven by the politics of post-colonial identity interacting with the political economy of urban redevelopment. I argue that the production of heritage is one facet in the production of space and an increasingly important one in globalising Asian urbanisms. We can specify the differences in production of heritage space in the three cities in terms of the orientation of imagination and the ends of production. I show that the three city-states have been interpreting its history for heritage production in either Asian or cosmopolitan imaginations and configuring its heritage production for either political identity formation or economic product development, or a mix of both. The differences, I demonstrate, are caused by the differing politics of post-colonial identity and economic development involving the three cities.

Legible Identities and Legitimate Citizens

The article analyzes how conjunctures between Indian activism for gender/sexual rights, the governmental state and transnational developmental agencies create bounded and exclusionary rubrics of gender and sexual identification. I argue that such institutional linkages serve to consolidate rubrics of legible identification that legitimize certain forms of gender/sexual difference for inclusion within developmental programs and citizenship, while other forms of subjecthood and community formation are rendered unintelligible or illegitimate. Drawing from ethnographic research conducted in eastern India between 2007 and 2012, the article focuses on male-assigned gender variant same-sex desiring subjects and their interpellation within identitarian categories like transgender and MSM (men who have sex with men). While the globalization of transgender as a form of political identity has promised greater rights and governmental inclusion for gender variant persons, it entails a broader MSM-transgender schema of identification based on a standardized divide between cisgendered homosexuals and male-to-female transgender persons. Various expressions of lower class/caste gender/sexual variance are rendered illegible in this rubric, delegitimizing associated subjects who are left without access to constitutional rights and protections and/or treated as exploitable populations within the development and HIV-AIDS industries.

“Political Identity” of Muslim Youth in Western Diaspora: Towards an Integrative Research Agenda

This paper outlines the general principles of a comparatively inclusive analytical framework for the investigation of political identity formation among young Muslims in Western societies. “Political identity”, in general, as a multidimensional social phenomenon with multiple social modalities, has been undertheorized in the mainstream literature. Based on a critical review of the current primary literature, the paper proposes a more broadly applicable definition of “political identity” in terms of its five interrelated components. It argues that the current and growing literature around the topic lacks a necessary comprehensive view. The poverty of current literature on “political identity” appears more conspicuous when it comes to study the youth among ethno-religious minorities in diaspora. The paper then discusses the basics of a new “integrative”, “interdisciplinary” approach to studying the “dynamics and multiplicity of identity construction” among Young Muslims in the West. A sociological account of these multiple dynamics is required to theorize their interdependence as part of its inclusive research agenda.

Doing Their Own Thing

Doing Their Own Thing

Ethos and Logos in Israeli Citizenship: Discourse Analysis of Civic Studies Textbooks

This study examines the notion of citizenship as a form of political identity in a multi-national and multi-ethnic state such as Israel. In an effort to understand the strategies by which citizenship of Palestinians and Jews in Israel is defined, this research analyses civic studies textbooks currently used in Israeli public schools. The study asks whether the notion of citizenship is drawn from universal or particularistic- ethnic principles; what the boundaries of the demos are, and how citizens' economic, social, political and civil rights are defined. It focuses on the analysis of the ethos of citizenship and the internal Logos that sustain it as a coherent discourse in civic studies textbooks. Theoretically, the study examines basic concepts of citizenship and nationhood in a multi-ethnic society such as Israel. It re-examines ethnic groups' right to self-determination against individual and collective minority rights based on universal principles. This case adds to the understanding of the complex relationship between the particularistic and the universal forms of political identity, nationalism and citizenship.

Threats and solutions: multiculturalism, religion and educational policy

The purpose of this article is to discuss how the interplay between multiculturalism, religion and education is described in Finnish national policy documents. The research question was as follows: How is the interplay between multiculturalism, religion and education portrayed in Finnish national policy? The data examined in this study included the national policy documents from 1998 to 2009. The qualitative analysis proposed five policy concerns with regards to multiculturalism, which were political radicalisation, ethnic relations, active citizenship, identity formation and human dignity. Religion seemed to be portrayed in a different manner in the different areas of concern. In the policy documents, religion is generally viewed both as a threat and as a solution in an increasingly multicultural society. In future, studies should be carried out concerning the intertwining of religion, power and nationality in school everyday practices.

Mass media as a factor of formation of the Russian political identity in modern conditions

In article such technologies of the hidden management by mass consciousness in a context of formation of political identity of the Russian citizens are considered: political mythology, horror‑ management, building a positive image of the policy through the images – the mediators, the spiral of silence, a hidden comparison. Features are shown, to possibility of use of technologies of the hidden management by mass consciousness for creation of political preferences at the population Thus such management in information space in modern conditions is based on system of ideas, values, ideals.