scholarly journals The Ideology of a Nation of Immigrants and the Issue of Employment in Aviva Chomsky’s “They Take our Jobs”! And 20 Other Myths about Immigration.

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 2026-2035
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Ngor NDIAYE

This study explores the postulate studied in Aviva Chomsky’s “They Take our Jobs"! And 20 Other Myths about Immigration. It examines the assumptions and arguments that fuel the public discourse about U.S. immigration. As noted by Chomsky, those arguments are based on myths that should be deconstrued to better understand the rationale behind the anti-immigrant rhetoric which is reflected by stereotypes such as immigrants take American jobs, drain down wages, or represent a threat to the social order and national security. On the basis of these arguments and information drawn from diverse sources, we have shown how from a nation of immigrants, America has become a country where immigrants take American jobs. Thus, the idea of the nation of immigrants refers specifically to immigrants of European ancestry, in particular those from northwestern Europe. The latter, also known as the WASP, represent the American mainstream culture and their hegemony is widespread to the point of influencing other sectors where decision-making processes echo the legacy, the values and expectations of the white community. Starting from these arguments, it can be stated that Anglo-Saxonism is fundamentally based on the domination of other communities and the institutions and ideologies of the United States reflect this reality.

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-24
Author(s):  
Guy Davidov ◽  
Maayan Davidov

Research on compliance has shown that people can be induced to comply with various requests by using techniques that capitalise on the human tendencies to act consistently and to reciprocate. Thus far this line of research has been applied to interactions between individuals, not to relations between institutions. We argue, however, that similar techniques are applied by courts vis-à-vis the government, the legislature and the public at large, when courts try to secure legitimacy and acceptance of their decisions. We discuss a number of known influence techniques – including ‘foot in the door’, ‘low-balling’, ‘giving a reputation to uphold’ and ‘door in the face’ – and provide examples from Israeli case law of the use of such techniques by courts. This analysis offers new insights that can further the understanding of judicial decision-making processes.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 788
Author(s):  
Seung-Won Song

This article examines perceptions of jin rituals in Tidore in order to explore how Austronesian perceptions of founders’ cults, arrival-order precedence, and stranger-kingship operate in determining social relations. Tidore origin narratives are significant historical texts that encode the social order and its power relations and so must be explored in greater depth. I analyzed rituals, origin narratives, and public discourse through interviews conducted with locals and particularly with four sowohi, the ritual specialists of jin worship. Additionally, I observed the public aspects of the jin ritual of inauguration of the sultan. The jin are the ancestral spirits and “true owners” of Tidore. Both the jin and sowohi are associated with the land and thus are the autochthonous leaders on the island. The sultan belongs to the stranger-king category, which was formed by later immigrant groups. During jin rituals of worship, the jin bless the sultan through the sowohi, who serve as mediums; this symbolizes the autochthonous flow of blessings to later immigrant groups. The rituals are also a recollection of a more primordial social order of heterogenous groups, which is based on the arrival-order precedence on Tidore.


Author(s):  
Adam Habib

AbstractThe author interrogates the empirical experience of #FeesMustFall—which is extensively detailed in the book Rebels & Rage from which this article flows—with a view to understanding social movements and in turn enhancing the effectiveness of social justice struggles in the future. He discusses the value of social mobilization in effecting change, but demonstrates that this is only sustainable if the protest is structured within certain strategic and ethical parameters. He then proceeds to interrogate the issues of violence, the framing of the struggle and outcomes, the decision-making processes associated with the protest, and the importance of ethical conduct by leaders and activists. He concludes by underscoring the legitimacy of the social justice struggles but insists that these have to be more effectively conducted if they are to culminate in the establishment of a more humane social order.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernanda Duarte ◽  
Rafael Mario Iorio Filho

AbstractJudicial institutions which provide legal mechanisms for conflict resolution play an important role in maintaining the social order of complex societies. Weaknesses in the performance of their duties can contribute to social conflict developing into outright violence that will be beyond the management of law and the courts. In this sense it is strategic to study the judicial system and the decision-making processes of its judges if one wants to understand the ways conflicts are dealt in a certain place and time. In this article we focus our attention on the role of the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court as custodian of the Constitution and the discourses that its decision-making construct when dealing with human rights issues. Specifically we set out to understand how the opinions of Brazilian Supreme Court Justices are constructed when deciding cases concerning freedom of religion. The timeline considered covers 31 years, from 1988 to 2019, a period that begins with the promulgation of the new constitution in 1988 (which symbolically reinstated democracy in the country after the end of the period of military rule that began in 1964) up to the present day. We begin by presenting the legal definition of freedom of religion in Brazil which constitutes the normative background of the discussion. We then discuss our project, stressing the methodological approach we have adopted and finally we present our data findings. We identified 39 cases in total of which 11 were selected and analyzed using the methodology of Semiolinguistic Discourse Analysis in order to define the semantic field related to freedom of religion in Brazil. Even though the number of cases is not large it is possible to identify some features of Brazilian legal culture which are also recurrent when dealing with religious freedom. One of these features is the absence of consensus-building logic in the Justices’ opinions—we attribute this to what we term the disputatio mindset—which contributes to continuing institutional instability and legal insecurity. Our findings suggest that these Supreme Court decisions frequently lack the strong level of rational consistency that lower courts require if they are to identify clear guiding principles that can control the outcomes of new cases


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 1163-1191
Author(s):  
JONATHYNE BRIGGS

AbstractThis article examines how the work of Bruno Bettelheim remained influential in debates concerning the meaning of autism as well as its treatment in France well after it was marginalized in the United States. The persistence of Bettelheim's work among French audiences speaks to how the French understanding of autism diverged from its conception in the United States thanks to the social and cultural interest in psychoanalysis in French society and the perceived effectiveness of his form of treatment. The conflation between Bettelheim and the psychoanalytic approach to autism meant that advocates for other approaches needed to rebut his influences well into the 1980s and 1990s, which further reinforced his position as a prime representative for the problems of psychoanalysis for parents. The durability of Bettelheim's presence in these debates also underscores the perceived relationship between disability and motherhood in the case of autism and how Bettelheim buttressed that assumption for the French rooted in anxieties about the dangers of bad mothering. Bettelheim's ideas solidified the intersection of intellectual ascendance and social acceptance of psychoanalysis in France and anxieties about motherhood during the emergence of autism within the public discourse.


2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
L. Lee

Dr. C.K. Clarke (1857-1924) was one of Canada’s most prominent psychiatrists. He sought to improve the conditions of asylums, helped to legitimize psychiatry and established formal training for nurses. At the beginning of the 20th Century, Canada experienced a surge of immigration. Yet – as many historians have shown – a widespread anti-foreigner sentiment within the public remained. Along with many other members of the fledgling eugenics movement, Clarke believed that the proportion of “mental defectives” was higher in the immigrant population than in the Canadian population and campaigned to restrict immigration. He appealed to the government to track immigrants and deport them once they showed signs of mental illness. Clarke’s efforts lead to amendments to the Immigration Act in 1919, which authorized deportation of people who were not Canadian-born, regardless of how many years that had been in Canada. This change applied not only to the mentally ill but also to those who could no longer work due to injury and to those who did not follow social norms. Clarke is a fascinating example of how we judge historical figures. He lived in a time where what we now think of as xenophobia was a socially acceptable, even worthy attitude. As a leader in eugenics, therefore, he was a progressive. Other biographers have recognized Clarke’s racist opinions, some of whom justify them as keeping with the social values of his era. In further exploring Clarke’s interest in these issues, this paper relies on his personal scrapbooks held in the CAMH archives. These documents contain personal papers, poems and stories that proclaim his anti-Semitic and anti-foreigner views. Whether we allow his involvement in the eugenics movement to overshadow his accomplishments or ignore his racist leanings to celebrate his memory is the subject of ongoing debate. Dowbiggin IR. Keeping America Sane: Psychiatry and Eugenics in the United States and Canada 1880-1940. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997. McLaren A. Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada 1885-1945. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1990. Roberts B. Whence They Came: Deportation from Canada 1900-1935. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1988.


Water Policy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 622-640
Author(s):  
D. D. Costa e Silva ◽  
H. M. L. Chaves ◽  
W. F. Curi ◽  
J. G. V. Baracuhy ◽  
T. P. S. Cunha

Abstract The current worldwide water resources issue is one of the crucial matters to overcome obstacles to sustainable development. This problem, formerly tackled in a sectored manner, is now pointing towards an analysis directed to treating the watershed as a management unit, with regards to all dimensions of knowledge and, especially, to the public participation in the decision-making processes. As an alternative to measure its performance, it has been sought out to develop indexes aimed to measure its sustainability, but there is still a lack of the use of composed efficient methodologies that also enable public participation in decision-making. This research presents a methodology comprising 15 indexes for the calculation of the Watershed Sustainability Index (WSI), followed by the application of the PROMETHEE multi-criteria analysis method and the COPELAND multi-decision-maker method. The methodology was applied to evaluate the performance of subwatersheds of the Piranhas-Açu watershed, located in the Brazilian northeast semi-arid region. The performance ordering, obtained through the application of the methods, emphasizes that subwatersheds' performances are uneven. It can be noticed that the subwatersheds' performances are still far from ideal in relation to water resources management, even in the ones that displayed satisfactory index levels.


Focaal ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 (59) ◽  
pp. 51-65
Author(s):  
Daiva Repečkait

This article analyzes the public discourse on the riots of 16 January 2009, in Vilnius, when protest against economic shock therapy ended in violent clashes with the police. Politicians and the media were quick to ethnicize the riots, claiming an “involvement of foreign influences” and noting that the rioters had been predominantly “Russian-speaking.” Analyzing electronic and print media, the article identifies a wider tendency, particularly among middle-class Lithuanian youth, of portraying the social class consisting of “losers of the post-soviet transition” as aggressive and primitive Others. A pseudo-ethnicity that combines Rus sian language and culture with lower-class background into a notion of homo sovieticus comes to stand for what is hindering the “clean up” of Lithuania and middleclass aspirations to form a new European identity. As such, the riots serve as a lens that illuminates the way ethnicity is flexibly utilized to shift political loyalties.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document