scholarly journals Othering, identity formation and agency

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sune Qvotrup Jensen

The article examines the potentials of the concept of othering to describe identity formation among ethnic minorities. First, it outlines the history of the concept, its contemporary use, as well as some criticisms. Then it is argued that young ethnic minority men in Denmark are subject to intersectional othering, which contains elements of exoticist fascination of the other. On the basis of ethnographic material, it is analysed how young marginalized ethnic minority men react to othering. Two types of reactions are illustrated: 1) capitalization on being positioned as the other, and 2) refusing to occupy the position of the other by disidentification and claims to normality. Finally, it is argued that the concept of othering is well suited for understanding the power structures as well as the historic symbolic meanings conditioning such identity formation, but problematic in terms of agency.

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ngo Quang Son ◽  
Nguyen Thi Phuong

Traditional culture of ethnic minorities is the material and spiritual values that are accumulated and preservedin the whole history of ethnic minority development. In thatcommon cultural flow, every ethnic minorities group in ourcountry has its own characteristics in traditional culture.That identity is expressed firstly in language. Language is animportant element of the ethnic minorities character, therefore,the loss of language is the loss of a great asset, thereby leadingto the erasure of art literature, religious beliefs and the custom,customary law.Therefore, in the context of modern life, preserving andpromoting the cultural and linguistic identity of ethnicminorities is an urgent task. In particular, pay specialattention to the method of cultural preservation through thedevelopment of Information, Education and CommunicationModel in ethnic minorities languages in schools and localcommunities.


2001 ◽  
Vol 176 ◽  
pp. 105-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Noon ◽  
Kim Hoque

The article examines whether ethnic minority employees report poorer treatment at work than white employees, and evaluates the impact of three key features — gender differences, formal equal opportunities policies and trade union recognition. The analysis reveals that ethnic minority men and women receive poorer treatment than their white counterparts. In addition, there is evidence to suggest that ethnic minority women receive poorer treatment than ethnic minority men. Equal opportunities policies are effective in ensuring equal treatment, but the presence of a recognised trade union is not. White men and women in unionised workplaces enjoy better treatment than their white counterparts in non-union workplaces, but the same is not true for ethnic minorities. By contrast, there is very little evidence of unequal treatment in non-union workplaces.


10.1068/d347t ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wun Fung Chan

To counter accusations that ethnic minorities in Britain are a problem, there is an emerging discourse that has begun to celebrate diversity as an asset, which contributes towards the nation's cultural and economic vitality. However, although this reevaluation of ethnic differences has proved to be a useful defence of the presence of ethnic minorities, the types of contributions and their significance have been left unexplored. In this paper I closely examine one such contribution, a Chinese pagoda, which was given to the City of Birmingham by an ethnic entrepreneur. By carefully analysing the views of the gift giver, planning documents, and public discourse on the pagoda, I argue that the different narratives—which encompass the themes of representing an ethnic community, hospitality, and gift giving—are discontinuous. In doing so, I illustrate some of the limits to Birmingham's hospitality and mark out a series of informal obligations of citizenship that are written into Birmingham's public space. I conclude by suggesting that if a gift of hospitality is to be given it is necessary to consider the other of the ethnic minority as an asset, citizenship, and presence.


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sune Qvotrup Jensen

The article argues that interactions in qualitative interviews and ethnography can be analyzed as relations between intersectional social positions. It draws attention to the importance of class and geographical location in such analysis. It further argues that such interactions work through typifications, that they have a power dimension and that they entail processes of identity formation. The identities being offered through these processes can, however, be negotiated or resisted. The article then analyses such interactions as they were experienced in two research projects the author participated in: His PhD project about young marginalized ethnic minority men, and the collective project INTERLOC which focused on the interplay between gender, class, ethnicity and ‘race’ in an underprivileged Danish suburb. It is demonstrated that relationality influences the assumptions research participants have about the researcher. It is also demonstrated that the research encounter entails powerful mechanism of identity formation. The informants, however, sometimes resist these processes resulting in blurred and unstable, sometimes antagonistic, power relations. It is finally argued that analyses of such interactions can provide central insight into the subject studied.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-35
Author(s):  
Nikolay F. Bugay ◽  

The proposed article, based on new archival documents identified in the archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, with the involvement of researchers in the history of ethnic minorities on the territory of the USSR, Russia, reveals the role and place of the Laz ethnic minority in the south within Abkhazia and Georgia. Laz, as an ethnic minority, have undergone all those difficulties of transformation, including negative ones. Destructive measures were taken against them by the Government of the USSR – forced resettlement, deportation. Mohamed Vanlishi, Laz by nationality, being a member of the government of the Adjarian ASSR, minister, writer, sent a letter to L. Be-ria, the content of which touched Beria's feelings. The Lazes were returned from the special resettlement to their own homes. This side of the life of the ethnic minority of Georgia – Laz was reflected in the documents of "Stalin's special folder" The publication mentions many of the current representatives of the Laz in different periods of the his-tory of Georgia and Abkhazia and ethnic minorities living on their territory. The life of the Laz was also influenced by the policy carried out in Georgia to implement the "crys-tallization of society", pursuing the formation of statehood with one ethnic community, one culture. Introduction. The development of the problem itself in the scientific works of the author and other researchers is briefly stated. This is also a kind of reaction to complaints from the Laz themselves that the history of the ethnic minority is not being paid enough attention to. Little is known in the historiography of the Laz and their leaders, who led various kinds of movements for freedom and justice, the solution of social problems in society, the involvement of the Laz in party and state building. The content of punitive measures taken against Laz is partially revealed, the reasons and possibilities to overcome the built system in relations between the state and society, ethnic minorities are shown. Methods. The content of the article is based on different research methods. First of all, the method of historicism, a sequential presentation of the series of events that charac-terize the content of historical events, their relationship with accompanying events. It is also important to use the prosopographic method of presenting material about the main political figure of the Laz, representatives of the highest authorities. By using the narrative method, the ethnic community of the Laz is more widely represented and its participation in solving many issues in national state policy, the interaction of the ethnic community itself in the system of interethnic ties. The use of the information method is of particular value for building up an event series. This method is also quite applicable to the analysis of national processes taking place in the region where the Laz live. In the presentation of the article, the method of comparative historical analysis was also ap-plied. Results. This article was based primarily on archival documents about the holes, identi-fied in the archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This allowed a broader charac-terization of the Laz as an ethnic minority. Along with the well-known materials, show the settlement of Laz in the territory of the regions of residence. The documents of the archive make it possible to reveal the role and place of the Section for the Study of the National Question created in the structure of the Communist Academy. The forms and methods of work in the Communist Academy in the study of the history of the national question and ethnic minorities have been clarified.


1970 ◽  
pp. 123-131
Author(s):  
Peter Dragsbo

In the discussions of the representation of the numerous “new” ethnic, religious, gender and cultural minorities, the “old” national and ethnic minorities sometimes seem to be a little forgotten. Thus, some of the crucial questions of these minorities in relation to museums are rarely discussed. One of these is the tendency of many minority museums to formalize stereotypes of the minority, a so-to-say self- “folklorization”. At the same time respecting the importance of a minority to master its self-presentation through museums, the museums have a common challenge to include the outside world, being aware that every minority is also a product of historical processes, short and long distance influences, meeting and mixture of cultures, changing identities and shifts in self-symbolization. Also, the minorities must accept that majority museums have a right and duty to tell the history of the minorities, thus cooperating with the minority in reducing the “othering” on both sides, accepting that both sides, freed from any bias, can communicate also the “unpleasant” stories of the other part.


Author(s):  
Ruth Bush

This essay demonstrates the need to unpack the colonial and postcolonial history of the Sorbonne in order to better understand this institution’s symbolic meanings and in turn their epistemic implications for francophone universities on the African continent. The contribution explores these issues through analysis of two speeches by Léopold Sédar Senghor (one given at the Sorbonne, the other at the inauguration of the University of Dakar) and the landmark event of Cheikh Anta Diop’s viva at the Sorbonne in January 1960. Underpinning the discussion is a defense of humanistic concepts of education, borrowed and adapted by Senghor from Michel de Montaigne.


2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 762-787 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Krysko

By 1946, Cuban–US relations had become strained over radio. Broadcasting from each nation repeatedly crossed borders and interfered with radio reception in the other country. The 1946 North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA) attempted to remedy that problem. This account of the impassioned reactions and heated rhetoric surrounding the 1946 NARBA underscores the enduring strength of national and regional identities in a globalizing world. Encounters with US radio programming in Cuba inspired Cubans to fight for distinctly Cuban radio interests. The resulting 1946 NARBA, which imposed new restrictions on US broadcasting to benefit Cuba, provoked farmers from California and Arizona, who – as those who believed they were the most affected by the new restraints imposed on US radio – railed against their government’s acquiescence. Their reactions, in fact, were deeply entangled with the complex history of US identity formation, which had from the nation’s earliest years privileged specific regional loyalties that coexisted alongside both local and national ones. It is, in sum, a story that shows how in certain contexts audiences can and will resist globalizing influences by leaning on their existing national, regional, and local identities that provide meaning in their world.


2019 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Junghyun Hwang

The Salem witch-hunt, invoking the “red hunt” analogy of the McCarthy era, has been a persistent metaphor for persecution, a symbol of fanatic excess in policing the community boundaries. In American cultural history, however, Salem is regarded American only insofar as it proves un-American—as an exception to American exceptionalism. In particular, Tituba, the only non-white “witch” of the trials to whom the unleashing of the hysteria itself has often been attributed, embodies what is negated in Salem against which Americanness is to be affirmed. Maryse Condé’s 1986 novel, I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem recuperates Tituba from this darkness not only to reconfigure American identity but ultimately to reconsider human subjectivity. In Condé’s Salem, New England Puritanism showcases the primal scene of American identity formation, in which the personal, national, and religious subjectivities are fused to form the American self as the autonomous self-possessed individual. Tituba, in contrast, exemplifies an alternative subjectivity as an embodied being constituted in relation to others. Similar to Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical subject, Condé’s Tituba highlights the primacy of the other in the formation of the human subject, ultimately rupturing the totality of history with a counter-history of silenced voices or the infinity of the other.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 251-280
Author(s):  
Giorgi Bobghiashvili ◽  
Graham Donnelly

Georgia is the most ethnically diverse state in the South Caucasus. Since independence, it has been blighted by violent secessionism and Russian invasion, the roots of which are invariably described as having stemmed from this diversity; the lack of integration of its ethnic minorities; and the recurrent failures of Georgian governments to adequately balance the nationalizing tendencies of constructing a newly independent state on the one hand and the needs and desires of its multinational citizenry on the other. In the first part of this report, we look at the roots of the present minority situation in Georgia, noting the main minority groups and the issues concerning them, before moving on in the second part to consider the issue of minority governance. We also provide a review of the most significant developments in 2014–2015 before commenting on the prospects for the coming year.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document