Israeli existential anxiety: cultural trauma and the constitution of national character

The present paper extends recent studies of national character – suggesting that the Israeli case revolves around a set of deep cultural codes which constitute various empirical manifestations. Broadening on this re-emerging paradigm, the study provides a specific case study of a major trait of Israeli national character, namely existential anxiety and fear of annihilation. It does so while advancing the idea that cultural trauma sets a context for Israeli national character. The analysis shows that Israelis constantly reference persistent and endemic existential fears of annihilation. They do so while tying together four levels: the mythological predicament, historical evidence, contemporary threats and future risks.     

Testing citizen identities: Australian migrants and the Australian values debate

In this paper I explore how recent public debates about Australian values impact on the everyday lives of migrants preparing to become naturalised Australian citizens. Framed through the perspective of governmentality, I combine textual analyses of government documents relating to the Australian citizenship test with ethnographies of recently-arrived migrants in order to demonstrate how political practices related to the conferral of Australian citizenship link and interconnect with the production of migrant subjectivities. In this way, I explore what aspiring citizens think about Australian values and how they contest, accept and negotiate these demands on them to adopt the Australian way of life. The analysis suggests that migrants in this study presented multiple and complex ways of being model Australian citizens. They drew on popular national myths about Australianness promoted in citizenship test resources but they also produced alternative subjectivities that promoted identification with everyday multiculturalism as central to living a happy and prosperous life in Australia.     

Genealogies and Gene-ideologies: The Legitimacy of the Beta Israel (Falasha)

The migration of the vast majority of Beta Israel (Falasha) to Israel has been accompanied by major shifts in the discourse regarding their ‘Jewishness’ and ‘Ethiopian-ness’. This article discusses the adoption of traditions of Danite descent in place of traditions of Solomonic descent and the emergence of genetics as the most important identity marker, replacing reckonings of lineage. The first shift is connected to the migration of the Beta Israel from Ethiopia to Israel; the second to changing concepts of what represents ‘proof’ of identity in the modern and post-modern world.     

Living up to the father: The national identity prescriptions of remembering Atatürk; his homes,his grave,his temple

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's commemoration in Turkey often reminds Western observers of a personality cult. Looking at national identity-narratives emerging from the stage-management of his homes and final resting place, this article argues that ‘Atatürk’ has become shorthand for Turkish national identity and his commemoration represents, as a result, much more than a personality cult. Moreover, I show that although the sites in question provide the state with an excellent tool for national socialisation, they also reflect shared national assumptions and cherished symbols. Commemoration entails a sense of safety and protection, but also a warning against straying from Atatürk's path and legacy that have, after all, stood the test of time.     

A comparative study on national pride among Iranians who live in Canada,those who applied for immigration to Canada and Tehran residents

This study examines the role of national pride on immigration. The main question is whether national pride in Iranian residents of Canada, those who applied for immigration to Canada and Tehran residents is different. A total of 75 Iranian residents who were living in Canada, 99 Iranians who had applied for immigration to Canada and 98 Iranians who were living in Tehran participated in the study and filled out the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) questionnaire. Participants in the three groups were generally matched in terms of their demographic characteristics. Results revealed that in all items, except for two, there were significant differences between groups – that is, Iranian residents of Canada had the lowest national pride, while non-immigrant Iranians had the highest national pride. Although the national pride scores of the immigration applicants were between those of the immigrants and non-immigrants, the former group was more similar to the immigrants. Discussion is focused on explaining the reporting role of different components of national pride in forming one's attitude towards immigration. It is concluded that political dissatisfaction, accompanied by a sense of low levels of social welfare, leads to reduce social attachment and brings up the immigration issues. It is also concluded that one of the most effective and urgent strategies to increase national pride in Iran is to put more emphasis and attention on Iran's culture, art and history.     

‘You Are Germany’– ‘I Am Australian’: The construction of national unity through diversity in select examples from Australia and Germany

This article explores the construction of national unity through diversity by analysing two case studies from Germany and Australia: the television campaign ‘You Are Germany’ and the song ‘I Am Australian’. It places both examples in a broader context of forging national unity through diversity and argues that diversity has occasionally been hijacked as a nationalist argument to advance national identity and unity. This study explores the different aspects of diversity appearing in both cases under study, identifies those parts of diversity being excluded and asks how national unity is being forged through recourse to diversity.     

Performing new identities: the community language of post-crisis Italian migrants in London

ABSTRACT

After the 2008 global crisis, Italy has experienced a relevant resumption of emigration. Tens of thousands of young Italians have chosen London as their favourite destination, giving rise to a new Italian community in the city. This article focuses on the transformation of migrants’ national identity and on a distinctive device of identity expression: language. Sample cases, extracted from a dataset collected for an original doctoral project, are used to explain how the insertion of English elements in speakers’ native language become the expression of the loss of pure national identity and of the renegotiation of transnational and migratory identities.     

试论谭平山在“一大”前后的思想和活动

本文就谭平山“一大”前后研究和宣传马克思主义,建立和发展广东党的组织;创办学校、培养干部,建立工会组织,发展工人运动;建立社会主义青年团,推动青年运动的发展等几个方面作了论述。     

Humanitarian response and stress in Kenya: gendered problems and their implications

ABSTRACT

Stress-related conditions such as burnout and post-traumatic stress disorder are a growing concern in the humanitarian sector. Aid workers themselves report not only that mental health problems are common, but that the support they receive from their employers is insufficient. Problematically, the experience of the international aid worker – particularly those who are white and from the global North – is often foregrounded in explaining what constitutes stress and related mental health problems. This indicates a wider problem of what is required of ‘the perfect humanitarian’ – a personality that is gendered and racialised – and how this influences the different experiences and treatment of national and international staff from aid agencies. This article explores the organisational culture and working conditions of humanitarian settings and their impact on the mental health and well-being of staff. It argues that there is a structural dimension to stress that is less to do with external security threats and more to do with the specific infrastructure, policies, and practices of humanitarian operations, with implications for aid workers which cut across dimensions of race, gender, and nationality.     

Sofiia Andrukhovych’s Felix Austria: the postcolonial neo-Gothic and Ukraine’s search for itself

ABSTRACT

Sofiia Andrukhovych’s 2014 novel Felix Austria (Feliks Avstriia) became Ukraine’s most critically acclaimed and commercially successful work of literature published in the immediate aftermath of the Euromaidan revolution of 2013–14. It combined an ambitious historical reconstruction of daily life in the year 1900 in a mid-size city in the Habsburg-ruled part of Ukraine and an engaging plot skilfully employing multiple devices associated with the Gothic tradition, especially in its latter-day and postmodernist reinterpretations. The novel’s success is especially telling in the context of the rising interest in the Gothic in Ukrainian culture. Told by an unreliable narrator, the novel prompts readers to interrogate their assumptions. In the context of Ukraine, it is particularly subversive in its engagement with the nostalgic myth of the Habsburg Empire as a multi-ethnic utopia of tolerance, and by implication it challenges all imperial myths. The novel’s emphasis on the quest for (self-)discovery strongly resonated with readers in the context of a socio-political crisis, which highlighted the relevance of the distinct postcolonial overtones in its message.