“Is all o’ we one?”: Creolization and ethnic identification in Samuel Selvon’s “Turning Christian”

2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyacinth M. Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Ethnic Identification ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
African Heritage

Samuel Selvon’s fiction reveals the author’s abiding concern with questions of identity and community and his investment in reconciling the seemingly conflicting subjects of creolization and ethnic identification in Caribbean societies, particularly in his native Trinidad. The pervasive and often violent ethnic conflict between Trinidadians of Indian and African heritage is linked to constructions of the nation in which claims to, as well as exclusion from, Creole identities play an important role. In response, Selvon’s fictional interventions position Indian communities (whether peasant, working- or middle-class) in relation to other ethno-racial groups in ways that construct Trinidadian-ness as an inclusive and dynamic negotiation of self and culture across the various communities represented in the nation. Drawing on Kamau Brathwaite’s seminal concept of creolization as well as the work of other theorists (including Mintz, Bolland, and Munasinghe) of Creole identities and the creolization process, the analysis of “Turning Christian” — a short story excerpted from Selvon’s unfinished novel — provides an account of Selvon’s identity politics in this and his other works of fiction.

Sekolah Islam (Islamic Schools) as Symbols of Indonesia's Urban Muslim Identity

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Yanwar Pribadi
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Islamic Schools ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Islamic Identity ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract This article discusses the relationship between Sekolah Islam (Salafism-influenced Islamic schools) and urban middle-class Muslims. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the City of Serang (Kota Serang), near Jakarta, this paper argues that these conservative and puritan Muslims demonstrate their Islamic identity politics through their engagement with Sekolah Islam. The analysis of in-depth interviews with and close observations of parents of students and school custodians (preachers or occasionally spiritual trainers) at several Sekolah Islam reveals that they have attempted to pursue ‘true’ Islamic identity and have claimed recognition of their identity as the most appropriate. The pursuit of a ‘true’ Islamic identity has infused Islamic identity politics, and there is an oppositional relationship between local Islamic traditions and Salafism, as seen in Sekolah Islam. The relationship between Islam and identity politics becomes intricate when it is transformed into public symbols, discourses, and practices at many Sekolah Islam. This paper shows that through their understanding and activities at Sekolah Islam, these Muslims are avid actors in the contemporary landscape of Islamic identity politics in Indonesia. By taking examples from Sekolah Islam in Indonesia, this article unveils social transformations that may also take place in the larger Muslim world.

scholarly journals Gender Role Stereotyping Of Women As Housewives In Conventional Pakistani Society

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Amna Saeed ◽  
Noreen Zainab
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Gender Role ◽  
Physical Abuse ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Multiple Roles ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Social Expectations ◽  
Gender Role Stereotyping ◽  
Status Of Women

This study aims to analyze the short story, The Spell and the Ever Changing Moon (2014) by Rukhsana Ahmad, from the feminist perspective. A close reading of the text reveals that facing everyday challenges and juggling between multiple roles is a common practice for middleclass house wives in Pakistani society. The economic instabilities added with emotional, psychological as well as physical abuse plays a vital role in their oppression and humiliation on regular basis. These roles as assigned to them define their social standing and suffering becomes their destiny. Multiple roles of such women and social expectations outside and inside the house define their way of living. Each and every movement and thought becomes codependent on their social familial roles. Being selfless becomes an obligation and ‘sacrifice’ becomes convention for middle class women who spend their whole lives living under the thumb of their men folk. Moreover, the movement and status of women inside and outside the home is also a major concern addressed in this paper including the concept of home, and its significance in lives of Pakistani women.

Social Identification and Ethnic Conflict

2013 ◽  
Vol 107 (2) ◽  
pp. 294-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
NICHOLAS SAMBANIS ◽  
MOSES SHAYO
Keyword(s):  
Simple Model ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Group Identification ◽  
Social Identification ◽  
Entire Population ◽  
Ethnic Identification ◽  
Empirical Results

When do ethnic cleavages increase the risk of conflict? Under what conditions is a strong common identity likely to emerge, thereby reducing that risk? How are patterns of social identification shaped by conflict? We draw on empirical results regarding the nature and determinants of group identification to develop a simple model that addresses these questions. The model highlights the possibility of vicious and virtuous cycles where conflict and identification patterns reinforce each other. It also shows how processes of ethnic identification amplify the importance of political institutions and traces the effects of national status and perceived differences across ethnic groups. Finally, we demonstrate how a small but sufficiently potent group of ethnic radicals can derail a peaceful equilibrium, leading to the polarization of the entire population. We reexamine several historical cases as well as empirical correlates of civil wars in light of these results.

Jewish New Age and the Middle Class: Jewish Identity Politics in Israel under Neoliberalism

Sociology ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 575-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Kaplan ◽  
Rachel Werczberger
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
New Age ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
Class Reproduction

This article asks why middle-class Israeli seculars have recently begun to engage with Jewish religiosity. We use the case of the Jewish New Age (JNA) as an example of the middle class’s turn from a nationalised to a spiritualised version of Judaism. We show, by bringing together the sociology of religion’s interest in emerging spiritualities and cultural sociology’s interest in social class, how after Judaism was deemed socially significant in identity-based struggles for recognition, Israeli New Agers started culturalising and individualising Jewish religiosity by constructing it in a spiritual, eclectic, emotional and experiential manner. We thus propose that what may be seen as cultural and religious pluralism is, in fact, part of a broader system of class reproduction.

Epilogue

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Sueyoshi
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Short Story ◽  
White Men ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Popular Magazine ◽  
Male Sex ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Overland Monthly ◽  
Exact Definition

In 1921 San Francisco’s first investigation into an all-male sex ring on Baker Street ended with the exoneration of more than thirty men due to confusion around the exact definition of the word “fellatio,” since one could not legally be prosecuted of a crime that could not be clearly defined. In the same year, a Japanese “homo-sexual” appeared in a short story in the popular magazine Overland Monthly, signaling an additional projection of the city’s newest sexual curl onto Asians. In detailing how the “Oriental” became a key vehicle through which white men could forge same-sex sexuality, this chapter closes the book’s argument on how middle-class whites’ pursuit of their own self-fulfillment constructed Chinese and Japanese stereotypes.

Containing Ethnic Conflict: Repression, Cooptation, and Identity Politics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ceren Belge ◽  
Semuhi Sinanoğlu
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
War Literature ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Turkish Government ◽  
Civil War Literature ◽  
Material Goods ◽  
The Government

Why do states target some civilians with collective punishment while coopting others with material goods during an ethnic civil war? This article examines how the Turkish government calibrated its repression and cooptation policies towards the Kurdish population during the counterinsurgency of the 1990s. In contrast to the situational conflict dynamics emphasized by the civil war literature, we explain the distribution of cooptation and repression with the state’s identity policy: government policies were more punitive in areas that displayed strong Kurdish linguistic/political identity, or high tribal concentration, while they were more cooptative where the government had fostered a Sunni-Muslim Kurdish identity. The study is based on a novel dataset that includes information about displacement, tribal concentration, and violent events from archival sources.

Women, Class, and Identity Politics

2019 ◽  
pp. 23-34
Author(s):  
Martha E. Gimenez
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Critical Theories ◽  
Conflicting Demands ◽  
Women's Experience ◽  
Working Class Women ◽  
Different Characteristics ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
General Conditions

The question of the oppression of women, the critique of which constituted feminism as an academic and political pursuit, has been feminism's enduring source of strength and appeal, yielding numerous critical theories and perspectives. This has produced continual conceptual shifts defining an evolving feminism, such as the shift from women to gender and from inequality to difference. It has also involved shifts from theorizing the general conditions of women's experience—oppressed at home and in the workplace, while juggling the conflicting demands of both—to theorizing the implications of the claim that, while gender may be the main source of oppression for white, heterosexual, middle-class women, women with different characteristics and experiences are affected by other forms of oppression as well. A possible way for Marxist feminism to remain a distinctive theoretical and politically relevant perspective might be to return to class, in the Marxist sense, theoretically reexamining the relationship between class and oppression, particularly the oppression of working-class women, within capitalist social formations.

Navigating the ethnic boundary: From ‘in-between’ to plural ethnicities among Thai middle-class migrant women in Hong Kong

2021 ◽  
pp. 144078332199875
Author(s):  
Isabella Ng ◽  
Herbary Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Host Community ◽  
Ethnic Identification ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Ethnic Boundaries ◽  
Younger Generation ◽  
One Year

The article examines the self-ethnic identification of Thai middle-class migrant women in Hong Kong. It looks into how different generations of Thai middle-class migrant women identify themselves differently in the host community. Drawing on a one-year ethnographic study and interviews with 20 participants, we found that the process of self-ethnic identification evolves from in-between ethnicity for the older generation to plural ethnicities for the younger generation. The way they perceive themselves, as we argue, determines how they navigate the ethnic boundaries in the host community. The results suggest that the older generation oscillates between being Thai and Hong Konger whereas the younger generation go beyond the dual ethnic identification and in so doing, they disrupt, transgress, or even subvert the ethnic boundaries set between the Thai and the Hong Kong people in the era of globalization with increasing mobility and the use of information and communication technologies.

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