Becoming Achaean in Italy

2021 ◽  
pp. 32-84
Author(s):  
Mark R. Thatcher

This chapter examines the Achaeans of southern Italy through case studies of two communities, Croton and Metapontion. It first examines the creation of Achaean ethnicity, which occurred not through a single shared process but rather through a series of conflicts between different Greek communities in Italy. Croton articulated its ethnic and polis identities in intertwining ways, through a series of foundation myths, coins, and a prominent cult of Hera, which worked together to claim ethnic origins both in the northern Peloponnese and from the Homeric Achaean heroes and, at the same time, to define a distinctively Crotoniate polis identity. Metapontion followed a similar process but with different materials and shaped by different circumstances, since its identity was defined partly by outsiders using it for their own purposes. The two cities did not form a single unified ethnic group but rather used Achaean ethnicity to articulate their identities separately.

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andre Zida ◽  
John N. Lavis ◽  
Nelson K. Sewankambo ◽  
Bocar Kouyate ◽  
Kaelan Moat ◽  
...  

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryôta Nishino

This article examines how middle school history textbooks published between 1951 and 1995 explain the origins of the Japanese as an ethnic group (minzoku). The analysis shows that despite the relatively long period from which the sample of textbooks was taken, these texts continue to emphasize two categories of Japanese identity: a biologically heterogeneous people through prehistoric immigration and a unified language. Building on the latter theme, the textbooks continued to treat the innovation of the kana as a quintessential development underlying the Japanese cultural achievement. The analysis reveals that the narrative tone shifted from being emotive in the early 1950s texts to somewhat muted in later decades.


2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Johnson

AbstractFor Mandinga in Guinea-Bissau and Portugal, life-course rituals are currently provoking transnational debates on ethnic and religious identity. In Guinea-Bissau, these two identities are thought to be one and the same—to be Mandinga is to 'naturally' be Muslim. For Mandinga immigrants in Portugal, however, the experience of transnationalism and the allure of 'global Islam' have thrust this long-held notion into debate. In this article, I explore the contours and consequences of this debate by focusing on the 'writing-on-the-hand' ritual, which initiates Mandinga children into Qur'anic study. Whereas some Mandinga immigrants in Portugal view the writing-on-the-hand ritual as essential for conferring both Muslim identity and 'Mandinga-ness', others feel that this Mandinga 'custom' should be abandoned for a more orthodox version of Islam. Case studies reveal an internal debate about Mandinga ethnicity, Islam and ritual, one that transcends the common 'traditionalist'/'modernist' distinction. I suggest that the internal debate, although intensified by migration, is not itself a consequence of 'modernity' but has long been central to how Mandinga imagine themselves as both members of a distinct ethnic group and as practitioners of the world religion of Islam.


2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-118
Author(s):  
Yuval Tal

Abstract This article explores how, through discussions about immigrant assimilation in fin de siècle Algeria, French republicans contemplated and wrote into law the ethnic traits of French national identity. Republicans assumed that the North Mediterranean immigrants who settled in Algeria shared ethnic origins with French settlers and consequently asserted that France should work to “fuse” the two groups. Assertions about immigrants' ethnicity took different forms. In the colony they appeared either at the margins of colonial administrators' attacks against immigrant communal organization or in literary representations of French-Mediterranean fusion. In the metropole republican legislators portrayed immigrants as innately prone to becoming French and thus supported the 1889 nationality law that naturalized them. The passing of the 1889 law prompted the creation of an explicitly ethnorepublican assimilatory model. The model's proponents combined sociological and eugenicist principles to both socialize immigrants into the nation and promote the transfer of their Mediterranean “vigor” into French bodies. Cet article examine les efforts des intellectuels et des dirigeants républicains pour assimiler les immigrés européens en Algérie à la fin du dix-neuvième siècle. Il affirme que les identités communautaires et la prépondérance démographique des immigrés ont poussé l'élite républicaine à envisager leur capacité ethnique à s'assimiler à la société française, et montre que l'idée que les Français et les immigrés avaient la même origine ethnique a façonné les débats sur l'assimilation nationale et a influencé la formation des lois républicaines fondamentales. En Algérie, des affirmations à propos de l'identité ethnique des immigrés européens apparaissaient en marge des discussions politiques sur leur organisation communautaire et dans les romans des écrivains algérianistes. En métropole, des législateurs républicains supposaient que la « ressemblance ethnique » entre Français et immigrés assurait l'assimilation rapide de ces derniers et ils ont soutenu la loi de 1889 sur la nationalité qui les a naturalisés. A l'issue de la législation de 1889, une vision de fusionnement des colons français et des membres de la « race méditerranéenne » en Algérie s'est développée. Ses partisans ont combiné des principes sociologiques avec des principes eugéniques dans le but d'incorporer les immigrés européens dans la nation et de faire transporter leur « vigueur » dans les corps des Français.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Stefano Baschiera

This article will offer an overview of the ever-changing relationship between the crime genre – understood as a global, transnational phenomenon – and European art cinema, with its national specificities. After a historical contextualization, this contribution focuses on the mode of production and circulation of contemporary European crime cinema by looking at two case studies of the contemporary national productions of Spain and Northern Ireland. The goal is to grasp the shifts occurring in this relationship, so understanding both the role played by the ‘auteur’ label in the distribution, commercialization, and appreciation of European crime cinema and how easily-marketable crime storylines promote the creation of new modes of authorship.


Author(s):  
Jennifer Shutek

This paper argues that images, and specifically agricultural images, play a significant role in the imaginings of the Israeli and Palestinian communities. Agriculture has symbolic and material value among Palestinians and Israelis, and contributes to identities and land claims made by Zionist and Palestinian organizations. Anderson’s discussion of nation building emphasizes the primacy of print in the imagination of a community; this paper highlights non-textual elements of nation building via case studies of the creation and dissemination of propaganda posters by the Jewish National Fund and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. A survey of propagandistic agricultural images reveals the shared symbols used by Palestinians and Israelis in forging identities and exclusive claims to land. Despite being common symbols from a shared past, agricultural images are crucial in creating and perpetuating a divide between Israelis and Palestinians, and in arguing for organic links between each group and the land of Palestine-Israel.


Reputation ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 216-240
Author(s):  
Gloria Origgi

This chapter presents case studies of the way reputations are built at the university. If there is an institution that feeds on reputation, it is the academy. Prestige, notoriety, standing, and reputation reign supreme within its halls. Professors and scholars are not only more motivated by symbolic rewards than by economic interest. They also spend a great deal of time designing institutions whose primary purpose is the creation, maintenance, and evaluation of each other's reputation and eminence. Such rankings are sometimes even treated as if they were the most dependable hallmarks of the truth itself. The chapter shows how the very idea of an academic reputation changed radically after new systems for calibrating reputations came into their own.


Author(s):  
Christopher C. Fennell

These case studies of the Virginia and Illinois regions have been presented with diverging themes of ethnicities and racism. At a practical level, analytic concepts of ethnicities can be employed effectively to understand some places, times, and populations. One should expect change in these social networks, often within just a few decades. For other times, locations, and communities, the impacts of racial ideologies make the analysis of racism a more productive approach. That contrast of ethnicity and racism arises in larger-scale debates concerning the usefulness of these two conceptual frameworks. Researchers have frequently examined the question of whether an analytic concept of racism is better replaced by concepts of ethnic group relations. No consensus has emerged over decades of debates. Scholars in some regions are affected by “post-racial” political agendas that influence them to depart from the terminology of racism in favor of alternative concepts of ethnicities. Such initiatives have impacted researchers in South Africa. They often frame their research within the broader social context of the post-racial policies of the Mandela presidency and later administrations. The U.S. certainly has not entered such a post-racial era.


Author(s):  
Lesley S. J. Farmer

This chapter explains how case studies can be used successfully in higher education to provide an authentic, interactive way to teach ethical behavior through critical analysis and decision making while addressing ethical standards and theories. The creation and choice of case studies is key for optimum learning, and can reflect both the instructor's and learners' knowledge base. The process for using this approach is explained, and examples are provided. As a result of such practice, learners support each other as they come to a deeper, co-constructed understanding of ethical behavior, and they make more links between coursework and professional lives. The instructor reviews the students' work to determine the degree of understanding and internalization of ethical concepts/applications, and to identify areas that need further instruction.


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