scholarly journals One Facet of Ethnic Categorization, Ethnicization and Ethnic Activism in Nepal

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 10-19
Author(s):  
Pradeep Acharya

Ethnicity and identity. particularly for Nepal with diverse human and cultural groups, has become more important in the context of number of ethnic upsurges accompanying macro-level social movements in Nepal, resulting in a radical transformation in the political system. Given the context, this paper aimed to reflect one of the many dimensions of ethnic activism in historical context focused on one of Nepal's least studied ethnic groups, the Paharis. Further, the paper also attempted to connect the categorization of human groups with the politics of identity. The paper is prepared by extensive reviews supplemented by a number of in-depth interviews among the given community around Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Kabhrepalanchok, and Sindhupalchok district. The paper concludes that Pahari ethnicity and activism have their own trajectory within the broader ethnic movement and activism that became apparent after 1990, followed by the movement initiated by other ethnic groups.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evanilde Bekkout

This paper presents an autoethnographic analysis of identity and belonging. I describe some of my own experiences as a member of the Brazilian and Portuguese communities in order to propose that multicultural individuals need to navigate among the many identities they relate to, which make them live at the margins of cultural groups rather than limiting them to one exclusive culture. I examine the period I lived in the Brazilian community and why I do not fit there; and why I fit in the Portuguese community although I do not feel that I fully belong there. Then, I argue that a multicultural individual needs to live at the margins of cultural communities in order to move among different communities; and conclude that more work on multicultural identity is needed to understand how multicultural individuals handle belonging without identifying themselves with specific groups. The sequence of personal experiences presents a progressive development of identity and belonging culminating with an argument that this project can be enlarged into a qualitative study of identity and belonging in ethnic groups to examine multicultural identity in ethnographic studies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Flavius Floris Andries

The issue of dualism in the South Halmahera government policy on managing cultural diversity in the Bacan Sultanate is an interesting phenomenon to study. Saruma, the multicultural icon used to manage diversity in the Bacan Sultanate, is not reflected in governmental policy or society, in general. This study focused on three research questions: 1) What is the socio-historical context of the Bacan Sultanate from which the concept of Saruma emerged? 2) Why has the South Halmahera government failed to apply the concept of Saruma in its policy on managing diversity? 3) What are the impacts of this dualism on the people? This qualitative research employed observation techniques to understand the community’s dynamics. In-depth interviews were conducted to obtain data concerning the people’s social lives as well as the government’s policy and its impact on society. A literature review was undertaken to understand related research and to formulate a theoretical framework as an analytical device. The results showed that in spite of the cultural authority owned by the Sultanate, the absence of political authority has led to a failure to implement its Saruma concept in managing the cultural diversity. The change of political system from representation to participation has also led to transactional politics, which benefits the majority but disadvantages the minority, and the traditions of domination and hegemony, in turn, have discriminated against the minority, endangering their identity.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evanilde Bekkout

This paper presents an autoethnographic analysis of identity and belonging. I describe some of my own experiences as a member of the Brazilian and Portuguese communities in order to propose that multicultural individuals need to navigate among the many identities they relate to, which make them live at the margins of cultural groups rather than limiting them to one exclusive culture. I examine the period I lived in the Brazilian community and why I do not fit there; and why I fit in the Portuguese community although I do not feel that I fully belong there. Then, I argue that a multicultural individual needs to live at the margins of cultural communities in order to move among different communities; and conclude that more work on multicultural identity is needed to understand how multicultural individuals handle belonging without identifying themselves with specific groups. The sequence of personal experiences presents a progressive development of identity and belonging culminating with an argument that this project can be enlarged into a qualitative study of identity and belonging in ethnic groups to examine multicultural identity in ethnographic studies.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy Babcox

Every Olive Tree in the Garden of Gethsemane is a suite of photographic images of each of the twenty-three olive trees in the garden. Situated at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, the Garden of Gethsemane is known to many as the site where Jesus and his disciples prayed the night before his crucifixion. The oldest trees in the garden date to 1092 and are recognized as some of the oldest olive trees in existence. The older trees are a living and symbolic connection to the distant past, while younger trees serve as a link to the future. The gnarled trunks seem written with the many conflicts that have been waged in an effort to control this most-contested city; a city constantly on the threshold of radical transformation.


This volume addresses the relationship between archaeologists and the dead, through the many dimensions of their relationships: in the field (through practical and legal issues), in the lab (through their analysis and interpretation), and in their written, visual and exhibitionary practice--disseminated to a variety of academic and public audiences. Written from a variety of perspectives, its authors address the experience, effect, ethical considerations, and cultural politics of working with mortuary archaeology. Whilst some papers reflect institutional or organizational approaches, others are more personal in their view: creating exciting and frank insights into contemporary issues that have hitherto often remained "unspoken" among the discipline. Reframing funerary archaeologists as "death-workers" of a kind, the contributors reflect on their own experience to provide both guidance and inspiration to future practitioners, arguing strongly that we have a central role to play in engaging the public with themes of mortality and commemoration, through the lens of the past. Spurred by the recent debates in the UK, papers from Scandinavia, Austria, Italy, the US, and the mid-Atlantic, frame these issues within a much wider international context that highlights the importance of cultural and historical context in which this work takes place.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 506
Author(s):  
Su-Hsin Lee ◽  
Yin-Jen Chen

Indigenous peoples often face significant vulnerabilities to climate risks, yet the capacity of a social-ecological system (SES) to resilience is abstracted from indigenous and local knowledge. This research explored how the Tayal people in the Wulai tribes located in typhoon disaster areas along Nanshi River used indigenous knowledge as tribal resilience. It applied empirical analysis from secondary data on disaster relief and in-depth interviews, demonstrating how indigenous people’s endogenous actions helped during post-disaster reconstructing. With the intertwined concepts of indigenous knowledge, SESs, and tribes’ cooperation, the result presented the endogenous actions for tribal resilience. In addition, indigenous knowledge is instigated by the Qutux Niqan of mutual assistance and symbiosis among the Wulai tribes, and there is a need to build joint cooperation through local residence, indigenous people living outside of their tribes, and religious or social groups. The findings of tribal resilience after a typhoon disaster of co-production in the Wulai, Lahaw, and Fushan tribes include the importance of historical context, how indigenous people turn to their local knowledge rather than just only participating in disaster relief, and how they produce indigenous tourism for indigenous knowledge inheritance. The paper contributes to contemporary tribal resilience research as well as cooperation actions among tribes through indigenous knowledge, all of which exhibit social, nature, and economy resilience from their own indigenous knowledge to address the possibility of governance and disaster adaptation.


1997 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna de Groot

This piece uses a feminist approach to explore various aspects of ‘commodification’ in the lives and work of those teaching and researching in UK universities, and in particular its gender dimensions. After setting a historical context for the radical transformation of UK universities during the 1980s, it considers how this transformation was experienced by academics in terms of alienation, anxiety and accountability. Key features of that experience are loss of autonomy and control to the external power of competition and managerialism, insecurity and casualization in employment, and exposure to increasing judgemental scrutiny. For women academics job insecurity and discrimination continue to be disproportionately important, although some of the challenges to old established academic convention and practice have opened up real possibilities to progress more pro-women agendas. In the future they will confront quite depressing developments in the reconstruction of academic identities and labour, but have the legacy of the gains/insights of feminist analysis and politics over the last twenty years with which to do so.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 1092-1094 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheri Berman

Among the many scholarly attempts to reckon with the causes and consequences of Donald Trump’s rise, few have attracted popular attention on the scale of Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s How Democracies Die. Seldom do books by political scientists make it onto the New York Times best sellers list, but this one has, a testament to its broad influence. Levitsky and Ziblatt situate Trumpism within a broader comparative and historical context in order to assess its similarities to and differences from democratic breakdowns elsewhere, particularly in Europe and Latin America. Their broad argument is that modern slides into authoritarianism are not the result of revolutions or military coups, but rather the consequence of a steady erosion of political norms and the assault on such fundamental democratic institutions as an independent judiciary and a free press. In short, contemporary democracies die not as a result of men with guns attacking from outside the system, but rather because elected leaders from inside that system slowly undermine them. Judged from this standpoint, the authors argue that American democracy is now in real danger, and they offer a range of suggestions for saving it. How convincing is Levitsky and Ziblatt’s analysis of democratic breakdown, and how well does it apply to the American case? How useful are the solutions that they offer for rescuing American democracy? We have asked a range of prominent scholars from across the discipline to consider these questions in the present symposium.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-132
Author(s):  
Umar Dantani ◽  
Peter Nungshak Wika ◽  
Muhammad Maigari Abdullahi

Abstract The paper examines the politics of security deployment by the Federal Government of Nigeria to Jos, metropolis. A cross-sectional study was conducted and Public Opinion Theory adopted. Methodologically, mixed methods of data collection were conducted that involved the administration of 377 questionnaires to adult respondents, six In-Depth Interviews with religious and community leaders while three Key Informant Interviews with security personnel working with Special Task Force. The survey reveals that, the deployment of Mobile Police from 2001-2010 and the formation of Special Task Force in 2010 has generated mixed reactions and divergent perceptions among the residents of Jos metropolis. Majority of the ethnic groups that are predominantly Christians were more contented with the deployment of the Mobile Police whereas ethnic groups that are dominantly Muslims questioned the neutrality, capability, performance and strength of the Nigerian Police Force in managing the crises. The study recommends that, security personnel should display high degree of neutrality in order to earn the confidence of the residents and change their perceptions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-73
Author(s):  
Saleem Dhobi

This article analyzes Updike’s 9/11 novel, Terrorist to explore the implications of stereotyping and cultural bigotry in US society in the aftermath. The novelist demonstrates the problematic in the cultural integration of minorities particularly Muslims and Jews as represented by Ahmad and Jack Levy. The primary motto of the article is to analyze the novel from the perspective of the protagonists Ahmad and Jack who suffer the cultural and social exclusion in American society. Ahmad is the victim of cultural bigotry and Jack Levy faces discriminatory practices at school. The isolation and marginalization of Ahmad and Jack respectively imply the ethnic crevices prevalent in the US society. The author demonstrates that the dominant cultural groups: European and African Americans do not accept the religious minorities: Muslims and Jews. Consequently, Muslims who are overtly the targets of cultural hatred and marginalization in the aftermath of the 9/11 as portrayed in the novel become hostile toward the Western culture. The efforts for integration of religious minorities are cosmetic as exemplified in the cases of Ahmad and Jack in the text. The writer makes a balance in representing both dominant and Muslim cultures to demonstrate the problems pertaining to ethnic groups at their failure in accommodating differences. The cultural separation and hatred prevalent in US society become obstacles even for those like Jack who seek to integrate. The paper eventually demonstrates the possibility of integration of religious minorities when both mainstream Americans and people of religious minorities conform to accepting the differences.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document