To count or not to count? Insights from Kenya for global debates about enumerating ethnicity in national censuses

There is an impasse on the question of whether or not to enumerate identity groups in national censuses, given their potential to variously facilitate dominance and an emergence from marginalisation. In this paper, we theorise the impasse in Kenya as relating to a colonial history of the strategic use of ethnicity to divide and rule; a demographic makeup with both some large ethnic groups and many small ones; and the local social construction of ethnicity, which allows significant latitude for collapse, disaggregation and change of group identities. This case corrects the dominance of Europe and the Americas in census studies and offers insights for assessing the political stakes of counting, namely, the need to bring past and present into conversation; to consider the varied political effects of demography; and to consider the particular significance and meaning of ethnicity and race in context.

Aging LGBT Adults’ Access to Social Resources According to LGBT Identity and Sociodemographics

Research suggests that social resources positively influence the health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) aging adults, but their access to social resources may vary according to LGBT identity. Using data from Aging with Pride: National Health, Aging, and Sexuality/Gender Study (N=2,536), multivariate models tested how access to social resources varied by LGBT identity and whether the effect of LGBT identity showed additional variations by sociodemographic characteristics (i.e., age and education) among aging LGBT adults. Lesbian respondents had larger social networks than gay respondents, while gay respondents had smaller networks than transgender respondents. Lesbian respondents had more social support and community belonging than other identity groups. Bisexual male respondents and transgender respondents had less support than gay respondents and bisexual male respondents reported less community belonging than gay respondents. Education and age moderated the association between LGBT identity and social support. Findings highlight the importance of considering social support separately from social network size with the understanding that large social networks do not necessarily provide ample social support and this distinction was particularly relevant for transgender respondents who had larger social networks, but less social support than gay respondents. Results also suggest that feelings of LGBT community belonging vary among LGBT identity groups. Health and human service professionals should not only consider the sexual and gender identity of their aging LGBT clients, but also consider the clients’ additional sociodemographic characteristics when assessing their access to social resources.

Rocking the Boat:The Participation Rhetoric Exposed: Why Should People Living in Poverty Have a Voice and Space at the United Nations?

<p>Poverty is one of the most serious issues of our time, and the major seat of the poverty eradication discourse is at the United Nations. The term participation has increasingly featured in the high level poverty discourse in recent years, as well as in development practice. However, in contrast to other identity groups, such as women, indigenous people and people with disabilities, the participation of people living in poverty in high level UN processes is not given priority. They are not seen as an identity group in their own right, rather they are subsumed into others. Furthermore, any participation is assumed to be acceptably realised at the local level, with little priority placed on the facilitation of participation in transnational or global institutions such as the UN. NGOs are assumed to be able to represent the poor, a situation which is problematic and serves to further marginalise people living in poverty. As NGOs translate and represent, they effectively silence people living in poverty. In the absence of the poor, perceptions held by the general public and by decision makers about the poor continue to hamper the debate and restrict possible solutions. Furthermore, the exclusionary statistics-dominated language of UN debate and procedural restrictions present barriers to people living in poverty being meaningfully involved in the poverty discourse. Additionally, the overuse of statistics in these debates serves to abstract and dehumanise the poor. This thesis makes the normative argument that people living in poverty should have a place and space at the United Nations, as do other identity groups. Their participation represents an opportunity to force the debate beyond statistics, and expose the harsh realities of ongoing suffering resulting from the world's failure to act. Their testimony and input could provide an effective catalyst for mobilising political will. Drawing on critical theory, I argue that regular participation and testimony of the poor has the potential to pierce the political facade within which the powerful at the UN make decisions, with scant realisation of the often devastating consequences for the currently invisible poor. The conclusion drawn from this argument is that the poor must be allowed to be leaders of their own liberation and to reclaim their dignity.</p>

Rocking the Boat:The Participation Rhetoric Exposed: Why Should People Living in Poverty Have a Voice and Space at the United Nations?

<p>Poverty is one of the most serious issues of our time, and the major seat of the poverty eradication discourse is at the United Nations. The term participation has increasingly featured in the high level poverty discourse in recent years, as well as in development practice. However, in contrast to other identity groups, such as women, indigenous people and people with disabilities, the participation of people living in poverty in high level UN processes is not given priority. They are not seen as an identity group in their own right, rather they are subsumed into others. Furthermore, any participation is assumed to be acceptably realised at the local level, with little priority placed on the facilitation of participation in transnational or global institutions such as the UN. NGOs are assumed to be able to represent the poor, a situation which is problematic and serves to further marginalise people living in poverty. As NGOs translate and represent, they effectively silence people living in poverty. In the absence of the poor, perceptions held by the general public and by decision makers about the poor continue to hamper the debate and restrict possible solutions. Furthermore, the exclusionary statistics-dominated language of UN debate and procedural restrictions present barriers to people living in poverty being meaningfully involved in the poverty discourse. Additionally, the overuse of statistics in these debates serves to abstract and dehumanise the poor. This thesis makes the normative argument that people living in poverty should have a place and space at the United Nations, as do other identity groups. Their participation represents an opportunity to force the debate beyond statistics, and expose the harsh realities of ongoing suffering resulting from the world's failure to act. Their testimony and input could provide an effective catalyst for mobilising political will. Drawing on critical theory, I argue that regular participation and testimony of the poor has the potential to pierce the political facade within which the powerful at the UN make decisions, with scant realisation of the often devastating consequences for the currently invisible poor. The conclusion drawn from this argument is that the poor must be allowed to be leaders of their own liberation and to reclaim their dignity.</p>

Fragmented Societies and a Fragmenting International System: Implications for Peacemaking

The cases of peacemaking in Kosovo and Sudan/South Sudan yield insights into the interplay of international politics, relations among political elites, and reconciliation among identity groups. A durable, positive peace requires an approach by peacemakers that encompasses all these dimensions. Complicating matters, the readiness of states to adhere to rules and norms built up over decades has declined in recent years. Absent a concerted effort to (re)build them, the work of peace mediation will become more challenging and the odds of success incalculably longer. This, in turn, will corrode the ability of external powers, competing via proxy, to work together even on unrelated matters in different parts of the globe.

Naive, connected, and counselor tween girl identity groups: Consumption practices and social identity constructions within consumer culture

This research identifies the relationship between consumption practices and the construction of social identity among tweens in a Brazilian context. Using consumer culture theory and social identity theory, we employed 80 h of observation, 9 interviews, and projective techniques with fifteen girls. Three social identity groups were acknowledged: naive, connected, and counselors. These groups revealed different identity projects, such as the integration and maintenance within the social group of current belonging, the access to the social group with the greater distinctions, the generation of differentiable and positive distinctions (both intra- and intergroups), and the expression and consolidation of identity and its respective consumption practices. This research contributes to the consumption literature that relates to consumer identity projects. The findings reveal a current resignification of girlhood and exposes tweens’ consumption practices as a direct mechanism of the expression and construction of their social identities. These are mechanisms of social identity construction as mediated by group relations through the processes of access, maintenance, integration, differentiation, and distinction.

Transgender Adolescent Suicide Behavior

OBJECTIVES Our primary objective was to examine prevalence rates of suicide behavior across 6 gender identity groups: female; male; transgender, male to female; transgender, female to male; transgender, not exclusively male or female; and questioning. Our secondary objective was to examine variability in the associations between key sociodemographic characteristics and suicide behavior across gender identity groups. METHODS Data from the Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors survey (N = 120 617 adolescents; ages 11–19 years) were used to achieve our objectives. Data were collected over a 36-month period: June 2012 to May 2015. A dichotomized self-reported lifetime suicide attempts (never versus ever) measure was used. Prevalence statistics were compared across gender identity groups, as were the associations between sociodemographic characteristics (ie, age, parents’ highest level of education, urbanicity, sexual orientation, and race and/or ethnicity) and suicide behavior. RESULTS Nearly 14% of adolescents reported a previous suicide attempt; disparities by gender identity in suicide attempts were found. Female to male adolescents reported the highest rate of attempted suicide (50.8%), followed by adolescents who identified as not exclusively male or female (41.8%), male to female adolescents (29.9%), questioning adolescents (27.9%), female adolescents (17.6%), and male adolescents (9.8%). Identifying as nonheterosexual exacerbated the risk for all adolescents except for those who did not exclusively identify as male or female (ie, nonbinary). For transgender adolescents, no other sociodemographic characteristic was associated with suicide attempts. CONCLUSIONS Suicide prevention efforts can be enhanced by attending to variability within transgender populations, particularly the heightened risk for female to male and nonbinary transgender adolescents.

England, Scotland, and Wales Compared

Chapter 6 shifts our focus beyond England and compares English attitudes with those of other identity groups across Britain. We show that many of the attitudes that attach to Englishness in England attach to Britishness in Scotland and Wales. This serves to underline the key point that Britishness means different things in different parts of Britain. The views of the predominantly or exclusively British in England do not align with those of the predominantly or exclusively British in Scotland and Wales. At least on some of the issues explored in this book, they are in fact closer to the views of those in both countries who feel predominantly or exclusively Scottish and Welsh.