Flying Flags at Weddings in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Nationalism and the Limits of Flag Power

This study examines the practice of ethnic communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina flying a state, entity, religious, or foreign flag at wedding ceremonies in public spaces. The wedding custom is analyzed through the lens of Hannah Arendt’s discussion of the way nationalism in the modern era links family and state. After a tragic war, flag power in this context appears to exacerbate nationalism and ethnic tensions in a polyethnic society trapped in a dysfunctional state structure created by the Dayton Accords. The empirical study finds that flag power does not, in fact, privilege ethnic solidarity over national solidarity to the degree that social and political theory would have us imagine. The national identity of being Bosnian is more likely to be exemplified. A clustered, stratified, random sample of 2,500 subjects over the age of eighteen was drawn from the country’s population, including the two entities, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska and Brčko District. Survey questions involving face-to-face structured questions asked participants whether flags were flown at their weddings, which flags were flown, and attitudes toward the wedding custom. Variations by age, religiosity, education, ethnicity, type of flag flown, and political party affiliation are reported and interpreted.

The Nubian Experience of Egyptian Domination During the New Kingdom

The Nubian experience of Egyptian domination during the New Kingdom (ca. 1500–1070 bce) was complex and variable. Outright rebellion to Egyptian rule is attested but was rare. Instead Nubians employed highly variable strategies of collaboration/assimilation, ethnic solidarity, and the creation of hybridity in order to cope with the Egyptian hegemony. The dynamic and variable entanglement and juxtaposition of Nubian and Egyptian ceramic traditions, foodways, and burial practice established the foundations for the survival of elements of Nubian culture despite five hundred years of Egyptian domination and widespread assimilation north of the Third Cataract. The formation of a new blended or hybrid Nubian identity forged through the colonial experience helped to break down the imperial ideology of Egyptian self and Nubian other. In the end, the accumulation of individual choices by Nubians and their Egyptian counterparts, constrained by larger political and economic dynamics, produced outcomes that transformed both indigenous and colonial society.

Social Life and Everyday Experience of Ethnic People in Urban Setting: An Anthropological Overview of Darai People of Damauli Bazaar

This paper investigates the issues of urban development and the quality of life of Darai people with the process of modernization. It explores the process of urbanization and distribution of land after the planning in urban area. The paper highlights issues of ethnic solidarity, tensions and situation of utilization of modern facilities among the Darai ethnic population of Damauli Bazaar. Findings of this research point out the overall dissatisfaction with inadequate facilities, fear of ethnic tensions, exclusion from social processes and division in ethnic solidarity among the studied population.

New Blacks: Language, DNA, and the Construction of the African American/Dominican Boundary of Difference

Given the current political climate in the U.S.—the civil unrest regarding the recognition of the Black Lives Matter movement, the calls to abolish prisons and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention, and the workers’ rights movements—projects investigating moments of inter-ethnic solidarity and conflict remain essential. Because inter-ethnic conflict and solidarity in communities of color have become more visible as waves of migration over the past 50 years have complicated and enriched the sociocultural landscape of the U.S., I examine the ways that raciolinguistic ideologies are reflected in assertions of ethno-racial belonging for Afro-Dominicans and their descendants. Framing my analysis at the language, race, and identity interface, I ask what mechanisms are used to perform Blackness and/or anti-Blackness for Dominican(-American)s and in what ways does this behavior contribute to our understanding of Blackness in the U.S.? I undertake a critical discourse analysis on 10 YouTube videos that discuss what I call the African American/Dominican boundary of difference. The results show that the primary inter-ethnic conflict between Dominican(-Americans) and African Americans was posited through a categorization fallacy, in which the racial term “Black” was conceived as an ethnic term for use only with African Americans.

Chinese Charity in Early Chinese American History

This chapter examines philanthropic activities in early Chinese American history. It reveals the extraordinary prominence of philanthropy in the daily life of Chinese Americans from beginning of Chinese immigration to WWII. The essay illustrates the enormous magnitude of Chinese American philanthropy in the context of the Chinese diaspora and shows the importance of ethnic solidarity in motivating and mobilizing Chinese Americans to give. Such an examination underlines the limitations of the western romantic notions of philanthropy exclusively and simplistically as an act of “voluntary private giving,” motivated by universal love for others. The features of Chinese American giving in the early years can also help us better understand patterns of Chinese American charity today.