Ethiopia: the Victory of the Sidama in the Longer Than a Century’s Struggle for the Self-determination

For the first time in the history of domestic Ethiopian studies, the article analyzes in detail the successful struggle of one of the Ethiopian peoples’, the Sidama, for self-determination. On the 20th of November, 2019 a truly historic event took place in Ethiopia: one of the country’s many ethnic communities, the Sidama, achieved self-government. At a referendum about 98% voted in favor of the creation of the Sidama state. This provoked a chain reaction in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Region: already 13 ethnic communities – Wolaita, Gamo, Gurage, Kaffa and others – are demanding the creation of their own states. Centrifugal processes in the country have become noticeably more active. The present paper is divided in four sections. The first section, “Who are the Sidama?”, offers a detailed description of the Sidama and emphasizes the vitality of traditional social and cultural institutions, including ethnic stratification and the continued presence of castes of artisans. At the same time, it is noted that globalization and urbanization are introducing significant changes in the life of the Sidama. The second section, “The Sidama under ethnic federalism”, analyzes the positive and negative aspects of ethnic federalism and the reasons for the discontent of the Sidama, as well as the causes of Sidama’s grievances and conflicts over power and resources with other ethnic communities, which ultimately led to their struggle for self-government. The third section, “The Sidama’s struggle for self-government”, provides a detailed account of the Sidama’s struggle against the policy of Amharization during the imperial period, the discrimination in Derg rule (1974–1991) and, since 1991, during the period of ethnic federalism. The fourth section, “Referendum”, is devoted to a detailed description of this important event in the life of the Sidama and their victory: the difficulties and obstacles to organizing the referendum, the attitude of the federal government, the referendum itself and victory. Finally, in the fifth section, “The impact of the creation of the Sidama state on the situation in the region”, the author analyzes the Constitution of the new state. The creation of the new 10th state on the ethnic basis means the strengthening of ethnic federalism in Ethiopia. It is important to stress that the author has conducted several e-mail interviews with Sidama scholars and journalists – active participants in the Sidama movement for self-determination – on the topic of post-referendum events.

New AMS dates for the Middle Iron Age in the Mapungubwe landscape

Research in the Limpopo Valley has documented over 500 Middle Iron Age sites (AD 900–1320) relevant to the origins of Mapungubwe – the capital of the first indigenous state in southern Africa. Fifteen new accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates from 11 of these archaeological sites establish the boundaries of the ceramic facies that form the culture-history framework for such diverse topics as land use, ethnic stratification, population dynamics and rainfall fluctuations. Mapungubwe was abandoned at about AD 1320.

Drivers of health policy adoption: a political economy of HIV treatment policy

Why do some countries rapidly adopt policies suggested by scientific consensus while others are slow to do so? Through a mixed methods study, we show that the institutional political economy of countries is a stronger and more robust predictor of health policy adoption than either disease burden or national wealth. Our findings challenge expectations in scholarship and among many international actors that policy divergence is best addressed through greater evidence and dissemination channels. Our study of HIV treatment policies shows that factors such as the formal structures of government and the degree of racial and ethnic stratification in society predict the speed with which new medical science is translated into policy, while level of democracy does not. This provides important new insights about the drivers of policy transfer and diffusion and suggests new paths for practical efforts to secure adoption of ‘evidence-based’ policies.

Employment Integration at Any Cost?

This chapter discusses Germany's 2016 Integration Act, specifically the “Flüchtlingsintegrationsmaßnahmen” [Refugee Integration Measures], or abbreviated, the FIM program, as a case study to explore how integration measures affect social mobility of persons seeking protection. The chapter draws on interviews with 28 persons seeking protection (including refugees, otherwise protected, and asylum-seekers) and 10 representatives of non-governmental organizations working in the context of forced migration in Stuttgart and Regensburg, Germany. The collected data speaks to perceptions, challenges, and opportunities of the FIM program, as well as experiences of discrimination. By analyzing this empirical data and situating it in discourse on social mobility, the author shows that employment integration ‘at any cost', as exemplified by the FIM program, reinforces social disintegration and ethnic stratification.

THE DEGREE OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: EMPIRICAL RESEARCH IN BALTIMORE CITY

The purpose of this study is to investigate influential factors that affect the levels of community engagement. Factors include community-level characteristics as well as demographic features of individuals in the community of Baltimore City. The study examines various community factors that affect the level of community engagement in the urban area, such as the level of homeownership, socioeconomic factors such as income and education, and demographic factors such as race, age, and sex. Findings from the study indicate that various factors from the social-cum-ethnic stratification influence the degree of community engagement in this urban area. Specifically, communities with high income levels and high levels of homeownership are more likely to induce residents to participate in their community. With regard to demographic factors, African-Americans and persons over the age of 65 years old are more willing to engage in community activities.

Multilingualism in Luxembourg: (Dis)empowering Cape Verdean migrants at work and beyond

This paper explores the entanglement of language with issues such as discrimination and the reproduction of social hierarchies. It unpacks this interplay to show how the use and abuse of language serve as the main mechanism of inclusion, exclusion and limitation of migrants in the labour market, contributing to certain migrant groups and their descendants remaining in the bottom stratum of society. It investigates how language use can both empower and disqualify migrants, creating ethnic pools of work. This paper draws on interviews with a successful middle-aged Cape Verdean man, Pedrinhu, to illustrate this language impact. He came to Luxembourg at a young age and his sports skills helped him to be fast-tracked to acquire Luxembourgish citizenship. He talks about his migration trajectories, his sociolinguistic life and his job interactions with Cape Verdean workers at a private employment enterprise where he now holds a high position. He seeks “to empower” Cape Verdean migrants, challenging some of the institutionalised linguistic demands of the state employment agency he collaborates with; at the same time, he is aware of the reproduction of inequality and the ethnic stratification of his enterprise. The paper concludes by highlighting the ambivalences of multilingualism and empowerment interventions in accessing resources, such as work, in the condensed migration contexts of Luxembourg.

More than a Sorting Machine: Ethnic Boundary Making in a Stratified School System.

This article examines the structural conditions that shape ethnic boundary making in the school setting. While previous work has focused on the ethnic composition of student bodies, this study places schools in their institutional and local contexts. The authors argue that the formation of identities and networks varies across local areas depending on the extent of ethnic stratification across schools. Empirically, the authors turn to the case of Germany, where the role of schools as producers of categorical inequalities is particularly obvious. The analysis links large-scale survey data on adolescents’ identification and networks with administrative geocoded information on local stratification across secondary schools. The authors find that minority students in schools with identical ethnic compositions show different inclinations to identify as a majority group member and to form friendships with majority peers, depending on the local extent of ethnic stratification across schools. To place these findings in a cross-national perspective, the authors identify scope conditions of these mechanisms of boundary making and discuss their presence in other countries and school systems. The results support recent theories of immigrant incorporation and offer a more contextualized understanding of ethnic boundary making in schools.

Group Threat, Racial/Ethnic Animus, and Punitiveness in Latin America: A Multilevel Analysis

The group threat perspective has been tested with regard to a variety of social control outcomes, including public support for punitive crime control policies. However, little work has explored possible interactive effects between macro-level racial/ethnic contexts, individual-level racial/ethnic animus, and race/ethnicity on punitive attitudes, and none of this research has been conducted outside the United States. The current study is the first to examine these interrelationships in Latin America, which is characterized by notable racial/ethnic stratification and recent movements toward authoritarian criminal justice strategies. Analyses of data from the AmericasBarometer survey collected in 633 municipalities within 10 countries ( N = 16,782) reveal that (1) racial/ethnic animus is consistently predictive of support for harsher punishments, (2) the effect of being White on punitiveness is conditioned by Indigenous population size at the municipal level, and (3) the interactive effects of being White and holding anti-Black animus are further moderated by municipal-level percent Black/Mulatto.