scholarly journals Ethnicity as a Historical Process: An Appraisal on Patterns of Ethnogenesis in Nepal

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-39
Author(s):  
Pradeep Acharya

Ethnicity is a social and historical process, which carries changes and continuity simultaneously in different dimension of ethnic identity among the ethnic groups. Historical forces in terms of their social, political and economic dimension shape how ethnic identity is defined and created as well as recreated in contemporary society. Given the discussion this paper focuses on how the members of an ethnic group define themselves as a social group over time according to the social and political field in which they are in. The study has aims to describe the historical chronology of the transformation of Pahari identity over time in Nepal. Further, the paper particularly attempted to see how the political system of the country shapes the creation and recreation of identity among the members of the given ethnic group. The study is based on primarily on number of in-depth interviews of the members of the given ethnic community living in middle hills in and around around Kathmandu valley accompanied by available empirical literatures on ethnicity based on Nepal and abroad. The paper concludes that ethnicity and ethnic identity are not a stable entity rather it transforms as per social and political environment of the contemporary society.

2020 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-338
Author(s):  
Justice Richard Kwabena Owusu Kyei ◽  
Lidewyde H. Berckmoes

Literature on political vigilante groups has centred on the violence and conflict that emanate from their activities. This article approaches political vigilante groups as political actors who engage in political mobilisation and participation and therewith also contribute to nation state building. It explores how such groups participate in Ghana’s democratic governance and asks whether violence is an inevitable characteristic. The article builds on individual in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with political vigilante group members in Kumasi and Tamale in 2019. Findings show that political vigilante “youth” appeared to refer primarily to the social position attributed to non-elite groups in the political field. Political vigilante groups are multi-faceted in their organisational structures, membership, and activities both during electoral campaigns and during governing periods. While some groups revert to violence occasionally, the study concludes that political vigilante groups, in enabling different voices to be heard, are also contributing to democratic governance.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (6) ◽  
pp. 424-441
Author(s):  
Shuang Liu ◽  
Sharon Dane ◽  
Cindy Gallois ◽  
Catherine Haslam ◽  
Tran Le Nghi Tran

This study explores different acculturation pathways that older immigrants follow, and the social/cultural identities they claim (or do not claim), as they live and age in Australia. Data were collected from 29 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with older immigrants (65+ years) from nine cultural backgrounds. We used participants’ self-defined cultural identity to explore how these cultural identities were enacted in different contexts. Mapping self-defined cultural identity with narratives about what participants do in relation to ethnic and host cultures, we found three dynamic acculturation pathways: (a) identifying with the ethnic culture while embracing aspects of Australian culture, (b) identifying with Australian culture while participating in the ethnic culture, and (c) identifying with both cultures while maintaining the way of life of the ethnic culture. These pathways show that acculturation strategies are not necessarily consistent with self-defined identity, within the same individual or over time. Rather, the participants’ narratives suggest that their life in the settlement country involves ongoing negotiation across people, culture, and relationships. The findings highlight the importance for acculturation research to be situated in the context in which immigrants find themselves, to capture the nuances of these dynamic acculturation experiences.


2000 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nazli Kibria

This article examines the dynamics of race and ethnic options for those racially labeled “Asian” in U.S. society. Drawing on sixty-four in-depth interviews with second-generation Chinese and Korean Americans, I look at how Asian racial categorization and its dynamics shape informal, everyday social encounters between Asians and non-Asians. These dynamics suggest an ethnic bind — a sense of uncertainty and conflict about the meaning and significance of ethnic identity and practice, stemming from the multiple and contradictory pressures surrounding it. The second-generation Chinese and Korean Americans experienced pressures both to cultivate their Chinese and Korean membership and to downplay or minimize it. For those labeled “Asian,” the ethnic bind is part of the social terrain on which ethnic identity is produced, with ethnic options emerging out of the contests and negotiations surrounding them.


2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gisèle Sapiro

This paper focuses on the relation between translation and identity through the case of translators from Modern Hebrew literature into French. The conditions of acquisition of linguistic skills and the paths that lead to the translational practice are analysed on the basis of a study of the social properties and trajectories of the translators, which reveals the population’s double historical process of specialization and of femininization. The way translators represent their activity to themselves, as expressed during in-depth interviews, is then placed in the context of the translators’ trajectories and habitus, following Daniel Simeoni’s suggestion. The question of translation’s role in the construction of individual and collective identity is thereby raised.


Adam alemi ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 90 (4) ◽  
pp. 106-113
Author(s):  
D.S. Kaliyev ◽  
◽  
A. Ventsel ◽  

Ethnicity, nationality, and ethnic identity remain to be unresolved issues that need to be addressed. It is thus important to compare different approaches to understand the nature of ethnic phenomena and to identify appropriate techniques to understand the essence of «nation-building» concept. First, the article discusses the concepts of nation, ethnicity, changes in ethnic identity where the concepts of ethnos and nation are further explained. Second, the nature, dynamics and factors of the processes of ethnic identity are analyzed. Third, the author seeks answers to questions of why some ethnic identities change, while others remain unchanged. Fourth, ethnicity in conflict, the role of «belonging to a certain ethnic group» is considered. Finally, past and present debates of the primordialist and constructivist approaches to nation-building are described. The main methodology of the article is a comparative analysis of the theoretical literature of foreign and domestic research through the lenses of primordialism and constructivism. The paper argues that there is no reason for all ethnic groups to reach the level of a nation, that constructive theory has advantages at the highest level of integration between nations and ethnic groups in the 21st century, and that ethnic identity is adaptable and changeable over time. The results of this work contribute to further studies and scientific works related to the nation-building in Kazakhstan.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Budi Santoso

Language is an arbitrary system of sound used by members of a social group to cooperate, communicate, and identify one self. The paper discusses the use of language to identify personal identity, social class, ethnicity, and nationality. Language can determine the identity of an individual and a group. Language is also used to identify or to show the personal identity of a person. Furthermore, language shows the social class of a person. A person who comes from the low level class has a different language style from those of the higher level class. As ethnic identity, language can be used to denote ethnicity or the membership of a person or group in a certain ethnic group. Language can also become the national identity as well. Thus, every country has its own national language


Revista Foco ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 180
Author(s):  
Raphaela Reis Castro Silva ◽  
Isabela Grossi Amaral

Qual é a relação entre o conceito de trabalho e a ciência administrativa? Ou melhor, qual é sentido do trabalho na (ou para) sociedade atual? Essas são as questões que orientam esse ensaio teórico. Essa reflexão nos parece fundamental para a formação do administrador, a fim de que seja possível compreender a função social da ciência da administração no contexto atual da sociedade contemporânea, e principalmente sua atuação crítica e cidadã. O ensaio busca construir pontes entre o surgimento da Teoria Administrativa, a ideia do trabalho nas várias etapas da evolução do ocidente e o conceito atual do trabalho, objetivando promover e estimular um pensamento crítico acerca do sistema das relações de trabalho ao longo do tempo situando historicamente as perspectivas que a ciência da administração sobre, como forma de compreensão dos fenômenos existentes na sociedade e nas organizações. Nesse movimento, percebe-se que a conjuntura atual do trabalho vem se caracterizando pela precarização, informalidade, sobretrabalho, entre outros problemas que aumentam a exclusão social e fazem dos trabalhadores suas principais vítimas, tendo como aporte conhecimentos desenvolvidos dentro da área de administração. Essas transformações significativas apontam para ressignificações dos sentidos do trabalho na (ou para) sociedade atual influenciando nas relações concretas das formas de ser, nas identidades dos sujeitos incluídos e excluídos desse sistema, e também nas formas de ensino e formação desses profissionais, sempre permeadas por discursos ideológicos em consonância com sua época e com a classe que detém, de certa forma, o poder vigente. What is the relationship between the concept of work and administrative science? Or rather, what is the meaning of the work in (or for) the current society? These are the questions that guide this theoretical essay. This reflection seems to us fundamental for the formation of the administrator, so that it is possible to understand the social function of the science of administration in the current context of contemporary society, and especially its critical and citizen performance. The essay seeks to build bridges between the emergence of the Administrative Theory, the idea of work in the various stages of the evolution of the West and the current concept of work, aiming to promote and stimulate a critical thinking about the system of labor relations over time historically the perspectives that the science of the administration on as a way of understanding the phenomena existing in society and in organizations. In this movement, one can perceive that the current situation of work is characterized by precariousness, informality, overwork, among other problems that increase social exclusion and make the workers their main victims, having as contribution knowledge developed within the area of administration. These significant transformations point to the re-signification of the meanings of work in (or for) society influencing the concrete relationships of the forms of being, the identities of the subjects included and excluded from this system, and also in the forms of education and formation of these professionals, always permeated by ideological discourses in line with their times and with the class that holds, in a certain way, the prevailing power.


2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 276-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrina Jurva ◽  
Inga Jasinskaja-Lahti

Previous discursive research on ethnic identity has suggested the complex and multi-faceted nature of accomplishing membership in an ethnic group. In this paper, we explore how ethnic identity claims may be used as a resource in accounting for behavior seen as open to the group, namely a planned migration to one's ancestral homeland. A discursive psychological approach is used to analyze focus group data with potential ethnic return migrants, specifically, adults with Finnish roots who intend to migrate to Finland. Ethnic identity was accomplished in subtle ways by drawing on one's roots and a familiarity with Finnish culture, as well as by accomplishing a preference for Finland. Working up Finnish ethnic identity in these ways allowed participants to account for the planned migration, which was typically constructed as a natural, inevitable and/or long- and highly-desired action. The findings highlight the importance of considering the social action of ethnic identity talk, particularly in light of previous studies that have found ethnic return migrants' pre-migration ethnic identities to be pronounced.


2019 ◽  
pp. 177-191
Author(s):  
Amit Ahuja

Ethnic identity, scholars remind us, is only one among the wide repertoire of identities to which an individual has access. Still, the marginalized struggle to break free of a single stigmatized identity. This chapter returns to Dalits’ choice of social identities. It argues Dalits’ ability to adopt new social identities is highly constrained because their social exclusion and material deprivation are self-reinforcing. When Dalits are able to choose alternate social identities, other groups do not recognize these identities. Dalits’ experience with stigma illustrates that it is difficult for a marginalized ethnic group to leverage political equality to remedy social inequality because the social stigma associated with a marginalized ethnic identity changes slowly.


2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 215
Author(s):  
Raihani Raihani

Banjarese, an ethnic group in South Kalimantan, were estimated to have migrated to Tembilahanand its surroundings in the 19th century following the defeat of the Banjar Sultanate bythe Dutch colonialists. The religious intellectualism rooted in the Banjarese tradition has untilnow resulted in the production of ‘ulema (religious scholars) even in new places to which theyhave migrated. Using in-depth interviews with several figures in Tembilahan, this preliminarystudy sheds light on how Banjarese ‘ulema in the area have contributed to the transformationof society. This study is important as there has not been solid research-based informationabout this important topic publicly available. It found that Banjarese ‘ulema have played animportant role in educating people through formal and informal ways to be religiously committedand socio-economically active. They have demonstrated dynamic relations with society, butsome of them were not immune from political and material temptations. It seems that the fartherthey stay away from such temptations, the more charisma they develop, and the more the opportunities they may have to contribute to the social transformation of Tembilahan society


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