Primordial Identity Research Articles

A Primordial Ethnic Evaluation of Gurkhas of India

The Gurkha people also known as Nepali people, renowned for their valor and loyalty in the world, have a longstanding historical presence in India. This paper through an in-depth analysis of historical recordsexamines the multifaceted ethnicidentity aspects of the Gurkha community's existence in India, encompassing their historical evolution, socio-cultural significance, and contemporary challenges.The research further investigates the contemporary challenges faced by the Gurkha community and uses a primordial lens to evaluate the unique identity and contributions of the Gurkha people in India. The Gurkhas' primordial identity fosters unity and cooperation, transcending geographical boundaries and creating a global shared identity. The concept of primordial ethnicity is crucial for understanding ethnic dynamics and cultural heritage's role in shaping their resilience. The Gurkhas' condition is influenced by historical experiences, economic opportunities, and political recognition, offering valuable insights into primordial ethnic identity.

Understanding the 2022 Kenyan presidential election outcome: insights from Key’s critical elections theory

ABSTRACT The ethnicisation of election and the concomitant diffusion of violence has been widely explored in the literature on Kenyan presidential elections. However, the critical character of the elections has been understudied, especially as it concerns the depth and intensity of involvement occasioned by the realignment of political actors. Oftentimes, this has resulted in the emergence of fundamental changes in power dynamics. This study drew insights from Key’s critical elections theory to analyse the 2022 Kenyan presidential election. Relying on primary and secondary sources, the study contends that the election exhibited critical characteristics owing to the economic crisis and the accompanying hardship on Kenyans, which united the poor electorate behind then-candidate William Ruto. The election revealed a sharp alteration in the pre-existing cleavage within the electorate and a profound readjustment in power relations as Key’s theory posited. This was amply demonstrated by Raila Odinga’s alliance with Uhuru Kenyatta, his old political foe, and Ruto’s populist campaign tenor – hustlers versus dynasties. We argue that the hustler narrative transcended primordial identity because it resonated with the poor electorate irrespective of their ethnicity. Therefore, it is the dynastic realignment and Ruto’s pro-poor campaign strategy that effectively set the tone for a critical election. We concluded that despite the seemingly subpar performance of President Ruto, he is still the candidate to beat in the 2027 presidential election if Odinga wins the African Union Chairmanship election in 2025. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on presidential elections in Africa.

The King’s Men and His Kinsmen

Politics of patronage based on primordial identity is not a new phenomenon in Nigeria. The impact of such patterns of politicking has been obviously untoward. This study interrogates the apparent manifestation of ethno-clannish patronage in the politics of political appointments under Muhammadu Buhari’s civilian administration (2015-date). Relying on a descriptive analysis of secondary data, as well as a selective application of prebendal theory, the study observes that members of Buhari’s ethno-communal grouping tend to have been favored rather disproportionately in terms of the allotment of political appointments at the federal level. The study posits that such an ethno-clannish posture smacks of the politics of exclusion, which negates the spirit of national integration. The study further contends that not only had President Buhari favored his kinsmen and tribesmen in his appointments, but he has also appointed many of his family relations into strategic positions, thus entrenching nepotism in the process of statecraft. The study submits that such an approach to statecraft holds negative implications for good governance and national integration in Nigeria.

Legal Politics to Build a State of Happiness: An Idea in a State Based on the 1945 Constitution

This research was conducted with the intent and purpose of answering two problem formulations, namely: what caused Indonesia to lag behind other countries, and secondly, how the legal politics in developing a country of happiness in Indonesia. The research method uses the method of legislation approach and comparison with literature studies. Based on research, several factors that cause Indonesia to lag behind other countries, namely: convoluted bureaucratic culture, a state administration that is not responsive to the needs of society, a national education system that is unable to produce quality graduates, unstable political conditions, Corruption, Collusion, and Nepotism are rife, and the development of primordial identity politics. Legal politics in developing a state of happiness is based on the purpose of a state based on the 1945 Constitution, namely: realizing a state of happiness. That is the idea of a state that must be realized in the life of the state in Indonesia which is mandated by the country's founders. Various efforts have been made in realizing this, but until now have not given satisfactory results. Indonesia is still far behind other countries. Of the 156 happiest countries chosen, Indonesia ranks 92. That means the government has not succeeded in giving happiness to its people.

Identity Crisis and Inter-Ethnic Conflicts in Northern and Upper East Regions of Ghana

The paper examines conflicts in Northern and Upper East regions of Ghana from the perspective of identity crisis in an ethnically heterogeneous section of the country. Notwithstanding the long periods of co-existence among the heterogeneous ethnic groups the melting pot effect has not emerged as attachment to primordial identity lines still prevail. This is most manifested between the traditionally acephalous societies and the chiefly societies. The relationship between these two societies has been antagonistic, especially as the acephalous societies seem to be besieged with identity crisis. The rejection of the chiefly hegemony is at the root of the identity conflicts. The cases examined in this paper illustrate two of such ‘wars of emancipation’ but with differential results. Whereas the Kusasi had been ‘successful’ in wrestling out of the chiefly hegemonic control of the Mamprusi, the Konkomba have not been all that successful against their antagonists. In both situations, however, the acephalous societies tend to slough off their past ‘anarchic’, systems to adopt and/or adapt the chiefly political culture. This adaptation has become the mode of assertion to redress the low social categorisation of the acephalous societies. It is concluded that observance of peace in two areas continue to be tedious as primordial cleavages are still alive. It is thus recommended, among others that the National Peace Council should work with stakeholders to sustain peace.
 Keywords: Identity, Conflict, Kusasi, Mamprusi, Konkomba

Caste at work: study of factors influencing attitudes toward affirmative action in India

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the relevance of caste identity in applied settings. The authors do this within the larger framework of affirmative action programs (AAPs) or “reservations” in India. The paper explores the interplay of a primordial identity like caste with the modern institutions representing equality – a context unique to India.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reports the findings of two experimental studies collecting data using Mechanical Turk.FindingsThe first study finds that an individual hired under the AAP is perceived poorly on his/her competence and reward worthiness. The second study finds support for the influence of an individual’s conception of modern casteism and his/her caste identity as factors in shaping attitudes toward AAP.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper lays the groundwork but does not explore the contours of casteism in contemporary India. Understanding of this construct as well as the impact of factors as region, education, urbanization, religion, nature of employment, etc. on caste dynamics should be considered by future research.Practical implicationsThe paper uncovers some similarities between Indian and Western findings, but it also demonstrates key differences between findings related to race-based AAPs in the West and the caste-based AAP in India. This understanding will guide discourses on diversity management in under-researched countries like India. The findings can sensitize organizations to the need for addressing unconscious biases related to caste.Social implicationsThe paper underscores the continuing relevance of caste in modern India and the negative perceptions of lower castes. The paper finds that individuals with an appreciation of the subtle forms of casteism are sympathetic to programs that promote social equality. In modern social contexts this nuanced operationalization of casteism can be a relevant indicator of caste dynamics.Originality/valueThis is the first empirical study to examine caste-based AAP in India in an applied study and unpacks the psychological underpinnings of the attitudes toward AAP.

Populisme di Indonesia Kontemporer: Transformasi Persaingan Populisme dan Konsekuensinya dalam Dinamika Kontestasi Politik Menjelang Pemilu 2019

AbstractThe rise of populism is a contemporary global phenomenon occurred in many part of the world, including Indonesia. The rising populism in the country has been epitomized by the emergence of two populist candidates, Jokowi and Prabowo, in the 2014 presidential election and recurring in the 2019 simultaneous election, which brings about new complexities in the dynamics of contemporary political contestation. The uniqueness of such competing populist politics is that both exploit the rhetoric of nationalism and social justice combined with the traits of respective candidates, in contrast to the conventional pattern of populists in other nations. This article attempts to analyze the transformation of competing populisms in two different elections and discusses its consequences to electoral politics, including the elaboration on populist’s working pattern in contestation processes and factors underlying the return of populism in Indonesia’s politics. Employing concept of populism in eclectic way and elite adjustment thesis, this paper demonstrates how populist politics is only instrumented as a vehicle of entrenched elite and oligarchic interests by pragmatically exploiting various aspects ranging from primordial identity, clientalistic relations, achievements and personalities of each candidates, instead of offering greater prospects for substantially political transformation and democratic deepening for the years to come.Keywords: Populism, Indonesia’s Election, Elite Adjusment, Identity Politics, Oligarchy, Democracy

Nilai-Nilai Perdamaian Pada Masyarakat Multikultural

This article intends to describe a necessity for the presence of peace amidst the diversity of society. This diversity is now an inevitable, especially the depletion of cultural boundaries, and ethnic identity which fuses in the context of globalization. One of the potentials in this diversity is the emergence of conflicts of interest and conflicts in the name of primordial identity. The offer of a multicultural approach will recognize the potential and legitimacy of diversity and socio-cultural differences of each ethnic group. In this view both individuals and groups of various ethnicities can join the community, engage in societal cohesion without having to lose their ethnic and cultural identity, while at the same time still obtaining their rights to participate fully in various fields of community activities.

Reincarnation beliefs among Israeli Druze and the construction of a hard primordial identity

Most of the literature on reincarnation among the Druze attempts to shed light on its history and on those who believe in it. In this paper, we will argue that the Druze’s belief in reincarnation serves as one of the central components in defining their ethno-religious identity. Our study is based on an analysis of 30 semi-structured interviews with Israeli Druze university students. Findings suggest that the belief in reincarnation plays an important role in the lives of the Druze and it appears to serve as the most outstanding component in the young Druze’ definition of their primordial identity.

Diskriminasi Muslim dalam Birokrasi Studi pada Pemerintahan Kota Jayapura

This article explains the phenomena of discrimination of Papuan Muslims in the local government in Jayapura Municipality of Papua. In the practice of bureaucracy especially the determination of officials, Papuan Muslims are not involved, even though they are indigenous Papuans. Conditions provide an explanation that there are problems that accompany Muslim travel in Jayapura. This study finds out that of the total 43 units of Regional Working Units (SKPD) which 5 are led by Muslims, while non-Muslims lead others. This composition is unequal of the population in this region, which has a 45% proportion of Protestants and, 41% of Muslims. This paper emphasizes three important points: first, special autonomy for Papua not only affects how regional sentiments are strengthened, but also impacts the treatment of particular groups, especially Muslims. Second, the determination of office in the government is strongly influenced by the similarity of primordial identity, especially ethnicity and religion. Third, from some positions held by Muslims, none of them are from Papuan Muslims.

ENVIRONMENT, NATIONALISM AND SUSTAINABILITY: RACIAL MINORITIES OF GANGES DELTA

Ganges Delta region of South Asia fosters a harmonious construct of deceptively similar primordial identity markers shared by the people of India and Bangladesh. The unique cultural syncretism is a product of common history shared by the two. 1947 partition of India led to territorial demarcation broadly on religious lines and created West-Pakistan (Present day Pakistan) and East-Pakistan (Present day Bangladesh). In 1971 people of East Pakistan re-affirmed their allegiance to Bengali culture, language and intelligentsia and became independent nation. However Environmental calamities such as high tides, storm surges, rise in sea level altogether hampered Bangladesh’s growth. Bangladeshi migrants in search of better prospects, and taking advantage of deceptively similar identity markers and porous borders, entered India. This led to Assam Movement of 1971 voicing apprehension of Assamese that gradual alteration of demographic complexion of State of Assam and rise in Bangladeshi settlers might severe Assam region from rest of India. Considering climate change induced migration, population growth and Nationalism in South Asia this paper seeks to devise sustainable government policies which transcend precincts of national territories and appreciate need of present generation without jeopardizing interest of future generation. Keywords: Climate change, National Identity, Illegal Migration, sustainable government policy

Contours of India - Nepal Relationship and Trans-Boundary Rivers Water Disputes

India and Nepal share about 1800 square kilometres of porous border, inhabit the majority of their members from the same religious group and have symbiotic interdependent on each other; yet they are engaged into disputes over many issues. It is always alleged by Nepal that India does not consider it as a sovereign country rather as one of its own administrative unit. The basis of this allegation is behaviour of Indian establishment and its epistemic community towards Nepal. The political tensions between the two countries have kept on surfacing at intermittent period and have influenced the water sharing arrangements between the two countries. Nepal alleges that as a powerful country, India exploits Nepal’s natural resources for its own benefit. As a result many of the transboundary river water treaties have not been activated, some have been sternly opposed by the people from the catchment areas, and a few’s future is hanging in the air. To overcome these problems and its dependency on India, many times Nepal has invited other countries to develop its hydropower sector. Amidst all existing differences the two countries share inextricable relationship because of geographical location and shared primordial identity.

The Wolves of War: Evidence of an Ancient Cult of Warrior Lycanthropy

Archaeological evidence indicates that naturally occurring megalithic structures that resemble mushrooms throughout the region identified as Thrace in antiquity were the foci of religious observances, sometime with the fungal likeness of the stone structures intensified by human intervention. Thrace was considered the probable origin of Dionysian rites. Wine was recognized in antiquity as the product of fungal growth and the drink was a cultivated version of wild intoxicants, among which was the mushroom. The rituals in celebration of the deity commemorated his primordial identity as resident in these wild plants and mediated his evolution into the intoxicant grown upon the cultivated grapevine, and the wine itself was fortified beyond its alcoholic content by the addition of these wild antecedents of viticulture. The legendary wine of Thrace was particularly potent through the addition of a psychoactive mushroom. The rituals of the women known as bacchants enacted the fantasies of root-cutters in commemoration of the deity in his persona that predated viticulture. This fungal persona represents the same intoxicant that was known to the Persians as haoma and represents the spread of an Indo-European sacrament into the Classical world, with its association of lycanthropy and the bonding of warriors into brotherhoods as packs of wolves, better known in its manifestation in late antiquity among the Nordic peoples as berserkers. In Greece, Apollo originally presided over such wolf packs, but as he evolved into Classical theology as a member of the Olympian family, Dionysus assimilated that association, inasmuch as he better represented the mediation with the past through his magical drink that combined both the wild and the cultivated intoxicants. This freed Apollo from the burden of the past, allowing him to become transmuted from wolf to light, the basis of pseudo-etymological derivations of his identity in antiquity.

Contemporary Religious Fundamentalism

Religious fundamentalism in the South Asian region has assumed serious proportions in the last few decades. Sri Lanka, India Pakistan and to some extent Bangladesh face this problem. It is therefore necessary to examine this problem in detail.The question that crops up is what is religious fundamentalism? Why does it get aggravated so as to express itself violently. At the same time the difference between ethnicity and religious fundamentalism too should be clarified. Thus we first come to the issue of ethnicity. Ethnicity, anthropologists and Sociologists maintain, is a feeling of primordial identity with one’s social religious, linguistic or cultural group.

Being sick of politics: The production of dengbêjî as Kurdish cultural heritage in contemporary Turkey

Over the last decade the art of dengbeji [Kurdish minstrelsy] has come to be understood as the paradigmatic form of Kurdish heritage and dengbejs concomitantly as the authentic carriers of Kurdish “culture.” This article seeks to outline some of the complexities and paradoxes of this ongoing process of Kurdish heritage production as it occurs at the intersection of growing liberal multiculturalist and continuing repressive forms of governance in Turkish Kurdistan. I argue that the production of Kurdish cultural heritage as it unfolds on a highly politicized terrain relies on an understanding of heritage as a marker of collective primordial identity, which goes hand in hand with an idealization of culture as a sphere of prepolitical pristine authenticity. Moreover, this article also seeks to shed light on some of the specifically gendered dynamics involved in contemporary Kurdish heritage making by asking what promises the evocation of dengbeji as explicitly distinct from politics may hold for a number of female dengbejs.

Negotiation of identity and internal contradictions: the Terengganu and Kelantan Peranakan Chinese foodways compared

This study explores the Terengganu and Kelantan Peranakan Chinese foodways with special reference to two types of foods: daily and ancestral prayer foods. The principal focus is to illustrate the negotiation of identity through foodways as well as internal contradictions arising from this process of identity negotiation. These two groups of Peranakan Chinese are largely the product of acculturation by the local Malays through socio-cultural interactions, though the Kelantan Peranakan Chinese are also acculturated by the local Thai community. Their daily and ancestral prayer foods display contrasting identities that stem from the negotiating of their acculturated and primordial identities. The former displays a strong local cultural influence, while the latter displays a strong Chinese cultural influence. However, despite the pervasive influence of localisation in their daily foods, elements of hybridisation are visible in some occasionally prepared food items. Meanwhile, localised and hybrid food items are included in their ancestral prayer foods, which are supposed to express their primordial Chinese identity. These internal contractions illustrate the complexity of the negotiation of identity through foodways within a cross-cultural context.

Transformations in ethnic population composition in Russia in 1989–2010

The evolution of ethnic structure in post-Soviet Russia is analyzed from a territorial perspective, based on the population census results in 1989, 2002 and 2010. The stability of the ethnic structure of the Russian megacore and indigenization of national subordinate entities of the Federation are considered with due regard to the differences in migration during the two inter-census periods and the socioeconomic situation in the entities of the Russian Federation. According to data from the population census in 2010, the differences in the level of polyethnicity, related to the history and the patterns of regional development, settlement specifics, and migration processes of the past two decades, are analyzed for the rural and urban population. Special attention is paid to the new trends—an increase in the number of people who did not give an unambiguous answer to or decline to answer questions on their ethnic identity. Along with serious errors while carrying out the population census, their reasons may be due to complications in the ethnic identity structure that is taking place in Russian and national regions in different ways. The presented level of urbanization of the main ethnicities indirectly characterizes the prospects for keeping the traditional primordial ethnic identity for various ethnic groups.

Embracing segregation: The rise of a religious educational system in Israel (Shas)

The paper focuses on the emergence of a new religious-ethnic cducational stream in Israel, Maayan Hachinuch Hatorani, ("The Wellspring of Torah Education"). It was founded in 1984 and is controlled by the 1eadership of Shas, a movement of religious renewal and Sephardic-Oriental identity. Discriminatory policies, implemented by the ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi establishment, brought the leaders ofthe Shas movement to inítiate a new system capable of responding to the hardshipof a marginalized population. Shas schools, functioningwithin and being supported by the Ministry of Education, also became socializing agents for children and parents that were far from religious lifestyle. Thus, through the creation of strategies for the transmission of knowledge and behavior, the new stream challenges the secular national project, and contributes to the formatíon of a new cultural sphere.In this paper we explore how a religious movement embraces education to foster ~ocial mobilization and group solidarity. The research is an ethnographic study that was conducted between 2000-2005 in three cities in Israel. By transforming cultural boundaries and institutionalizing norms that contradict in sorne respects the principies underlying the relationship between govemment and mass schooling, Shas's education systcms contributes to forge an Ultra-Orthodox Israeli Judaism based on an ethnic type of primordial identity. The case contributes to understand the challenges that religion holds to modem systems of education and to analyze new developments in Judaism.

Loss of a Primordial Identity Element for a Mammalian Mitochondrial Aminoacylation System

In mammalian mitochondria the translational machinery is of dual origin with tRNAs encoded by a simplified and rapidly evolving mitochondrial (mt) genome and aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRS) coded by the nuclear genome, and imported. Mt-tRNAs are atypical with biased sequences, size variations in loops and stems, and absence of residues forming classical tertiary interactions, whereas synthetases appear typical. This raises questions about identity elements in mt-tRNAs and adaptation of their cognate mt-aaRSs. We have explored here the human mt-aspartate system in which a prokaryotic-type AspRS, highly similar to the Escherichia coli enzyme, recognizes a bizarre tRNA(Asp). Analysis of human mt-tRNA(Asp) transcripts confirms the identity role of the GUC anticodon as in other aspartylation systems but reveals the non-involvement of position 73. This position is otherwise known as the site of a universally conserved major aspartate identity element, G73, also known as a primordial identity signal. In mt-tRNA(Asp), position 73 can be occupied by any of the four nucleotides without affecting aspartylation. Sequence alignments of various AspRSs allowed placing Gly-269 at a position occupied by Asp-220, the residue contacting G73 in the crystallographic structure of E. coli AspRS-tRNA(Asp) complex. Replacing this glycine by an aspartate renders human mt-AspRS more discriminative to G73. Restriction in the aspartylation identity set, driven by a rapid mutagenic rate of the mt-genome, suggests a reverse evolution of the mt-tRNA(Asp) identity elements in regard to its bacterial ancestor.

Epilogue: Multicultural Relations in Fiji — Between Despair and Hope

Since the events of May 19, 2000 public and scholarly interest in Fiji has dramatically swelled. In Australia there was a veritable deluge of media attention from the moment when George Speight and his armed men strode into Parliament House in Suva and took Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and members of Parliament hostage. Although that media deluge slowed to a trickle over subsequent months and years, there has been a steady stream of scholarly works flowing from within and without Fiji, which have attempted to analyse that coup and to reflect on its aftermath.1 Although two papers in this volume focus on the events of that year on the basis of embodied witness, this volume is less an analysis occasioned by the urgency and drama of those events, than it is a distilled reflection on the configurations of the place of Fiji before and after. It offers a series of distinctly anthropological analyses, based on long-term fleldwork in Fiji, with indigenous, Indo-Fijian and Banaban interlocutors. Many of the papers were first conceived for a session on Fiji organized by Elfriede Hermann and Anette Schade at the meetings of the European Society for Oceanists in July 2002. But all have been extensively revised and they now engage in a spirited collective conversation, framed by the editors' insightful introduction. In that introduction, the editors avow Fiji to be multicultural in fact, although multiculturalism as value is hotly contested. They acknowledge the tensions and violence inherent in ethnic relations in Fiji but insist that even violent relations are perforce relations (Hermann and Kempf this volume). The dominant discourses of race and primordial identity may seek to naturalize such relations, but such discourses are palpably the creations of culture and of history. Relations between indigenous Fijians, Indo-Fijians and Banabans are not the natural outcomes of autochthony or migration, of certainties flowing from precedence in dwelling. Their mutual relations have been formed in the turbulent cultural politics of colonialism and its long, enduring wake. The mutual relations of these three peoples are even now shadowed by the absent presence of the British, the foreigners, the whites. The editors adroitly use Stuart Hall's (1986, 1996) and James Clifford's (2001) approach to ethnic identities not as frozen essences but as fluid identifications, the articulations of creative subjects, responsive to context and transformation. Hall's (1986) dual sense of articulation again proves crucial here: articulation is both an expression, in words, gestures, images and a situational connection, a joining which might be unhooked in future moments. This conceptual apparatus proves flexible enough to negotiate the continuities and the ruptures, the affinities and the differences of contemporary Fiji. The editors focus on three relations: the relations of past and present, the relations of people and land and the relations between people. I will sustain that triple focus here, but explore the terrain of the papers from a slightly different angle.