"族群"及其相关概念在西方的流变

对族群以及与它相关的一些概念在西方的变化作了一个简要追溯.通过追溯和考察,得出的认识是(1)族群这个概念的兴起是与民族的普遍疆域制度化,种族、部落等"东方学"概念的衰退相连带的.(2)族群与民族的区别主要在于政治诉求和政治承认上.(3)我国的55个少数民族拥有区域自治权利,因而不应该轻易把他们改称为族群.     

开创新"橘"面发展好"渡河" ——记湖北省民族团结进步创建示范单位远安县洋坪镇马渡河村

马渡河村位于湖北省宜昌市远安县洋坪镇西北部,因古时村内渡口常用马匹代船载人过河而得名.全村版图面积8.97平方公里,辖5个村民小组,共有604户1860村民. 近年来,马渡河村在各级党委、政府和民宗部门的指导下,以铸牢中华民族共同体意识为主线,团结全村各族群众,紧紧围绕"共同团结奋斗、共同繁荣发展"的主题,以建设民族团...     

土家族嫁衣"露水衣"溯源及其形制特征

土家族嫁衣"露水衣"有广义和狭义之分,广义上的"露水衣"包含了一套露水衣、一双露水鞋、一方露水帕、一把露水伞,追溯其来源,有来自民间传说故事中的解释,或源于"借寿添福"民俗、或源于辟邪挡煞巫术.     

毛南族传统宗教仪式"求花还愿"透视

通过叙述"求花还愿"仪式的表现形式,追溯其起因及其还愿礼俗中的新旧交替现象,展现毛南族传统文化的宗教陈迹,显示具有崭新内涵的社会风俗的传承.     

《我的渡口》入围国际影展

以典型人物"义渡艄公"万其珍为原型的电影《我的渡口》,入围第37届加拿大蒙特利尔国际电影节主竞赛单元,成为首部登上国际影展平台的鄂产电影. 《我的渡口》由恩施土家族苗族自治州建始县委、县政府与湖北电影制片厂联合拍摄.该片根据建始县三里乡大沙河渡口老艄公万其珍一家三代,为乡亲免费摆渡,百年不止的故事改编,刻画了一群朴实、感人的湖北好人.     

人与动物同舟共济--"感恩的动物忘恩的人"解析

"感恩的动物忘恩的人"(AT160)是一个在中国各民族居住地区广泛流传并具有世界影响的著名故事类型.文章揭示出它富于现代意义的文化内涵,追溯了它由汉译佛经脱胎而出,演化成口头故事的过程.     

敦煌的“团”组织

敦煌汉、藏文文献中经常出现一个表示某种组织的称谓词——"团",团有"团头"。对此,论者多有涉及,诸说并出,或谓寺院寺户的常设组织,或谓行业组织,或谓吐蕃统治下的敦煌基层组织,或谓临时生产组织,不一而足。"团"之称谓,源于北朝府兵制,唐代府兵制瓦解后,"团"这一称谓的含义发生了变化。敦煌文献中的"团",为表示某项集体行动的临时团体,无论僧俗两界,均有不同的"团"组织的记载,而非寺户的常设组织,更非敦煌的基层民户组织。     

"三美"论关照下的山西农业大学校训翻译探究

本文以"三美"原则为理论指导,探讨山西农业大学校训的英译表达.文章指出该校校训具有形式对仗、音步整齐、意义丰富的特点,在翻译之时,当以达意、谐音、齐形为终极追求,再现原文的美.     

民俗志:文化书写的历史——基于"民俗志"概念及其书写范式的研究

"民俗志"作为文化书写的实践活动,并不是自现代民俗学科建立以来才产生的,在我国"民俗志"书写传统古已有之,它存在于我国卷帙浩繁的史志文献中,是一种"有实无名"的民俗志;自20世纪90年代"民俗志"概念被正式提出,经过十多年的写作实践和理论研究,民俗志已经进入了对其书写范式的反思阶段.本文首先追溯了我国史志文献民俗志的书写传统及其写作程式,并进而对"民俗志"概念作了发生学上的研究,提出在新形势下应当实现现代民俗志书写范式的转换,并对现代民俗志书写的可能形式和多种类型进行了分析和阐述.     

羊皮筏子·古渡·大桥

2012年的春天,在中卫沙坡头旅游景区,我们见到了传说中的"羊皮筏子"。曾经是横渡黄河的主要交通工具,如今成为旅游景点的娱乐项目,真是让人不由得感叹今非昔比。此时还未到旅游旺季,沙山下方的黄河古渡口,偶尔有少许穿着救生衣的游客好奇而兴奋地乘坐羊皮筏子顺流而下,身旁的快艇一闪而过,击起无数浪花。还有一排排     

Religion as nationalism: the religious nationalism of American Christian Zionists

The term ‘religious nationalism’ is often theorized, at worst as antithetically conjunctive where religion is defined as the allegiance to God and nationalism is the allegiance to the nation, and at best as instrumental. I argue here that this fusion of religion and nationalism takes place most convincingly if we understand religion as adherent performance rather than solely as a theological container of tenants. I illustrate this through American Christian Zionist performances and discourses regarding their self-imagined identity as being in a national diaspora for Israel. I argue this religious nationalism is possible because Christian Zionist performances of a national allegiance to Israeli Jews are grounded in an apocalyptic narrative of the future.     

彝族社会中"尔普"形式的变迁

凉山彝族社会中的“尔普”(份子钱 )是一种礼物交换形式。对“尔普”的研究和分析 ,可有助于人们理解凉山彝族社会。“尔普”本来是维系彝族传统社会宗族内部亲属组织的纽带 ,由于文化变迁的原因 ,后来发展出了跨宗族的“尔普”新形式 ,又由于族群互动的原因 ,还产生了跨越族群的“尔普”形式。“尔普”形式的变迁是族群互动下的一种文化变迁形式 ,其动力来源于彝、汉两族的互动关系。彝族社会中“尔普”的变迁形式是人类学关于族群互动下的文化变迁理论的鲜活事例。     

Migrant Balancing Acts: Understanding the Interactions Between Integration and Transnationalism

In this article, we explore ways of understanding the interactions between migrant integration and transnationalism, based on a review of quantitative and qualitative literature. Integration is taken as the starting point, and the assumption that integration and transnationalism are at odds with one another is questioned. When considered as constituents of a social process, we argue that there are many similarities between integration and transnationalism. A typology for understanding these interactions is developed, based on an acknowledgment of migrants' agency in straddling two societies—as a balancing act. This typology is presented as a tool to enable migration scholars to move beyond simply acknowledging the co-existence of transnationalism and integration and towards an analysis of the nature of interactions between the two—understood in relation both to particular places and contexts and to the human beings involved and their functional, emotional and pragmatic considerations.     

Theorising the power of citizenship as claims-making

I advance a conceptual approach to citizenship as membership through claims-making. In this approach, citizenship is a relational process of making membership claims on polities, people and institutions, claims recognized or rejected within particular normative understandings of citizenship. Such a conceptual shift moves scholarship beyond typologizing—enumerating how citizenship is (or is not) about status, rights, participation and identity—to identifying the mechanisms through which claims on citizenship have power. This framework requires a relational approach and attention to dynamics of recognition within contexts of structured agency. Immigrants and their children can make claims to modify the normative content of citizenship, affect recognition evaluations and change the allocation of status and rights. But they are also constrained by legal structures, a society's institutional practices, and prevailing public perceptions. Citizenship as claims-making may require a reassessment of boundary approaches and a turn to metaphors of positionality, as well as more serious commitment to mixed-methods research. The stakes of understanding citizenship's power, as practice and status, are especially high right now. Yet based on existing scholarship, it is not entirely clear how much citizenship matters, in what ways, for whom, or why. This is the challenge for future scholarship.     

Performing race in the Barranquilla Carnival: the case of the Negritas Puloy de Montecristo

ABSTRACT

In the city of Barranquilla, Colombia, carnival is a main source of identity. Since the 2003 UNESCO proclamation of this carnival as an Intangible Cultural Heritage, the celebration has gained national and international attention, while the city has developed a whole cultural market around it. This essay traces the evolution of a popular costume and street performance that carries racial stereotypes and as such, has become almost emblematic of carnival time itself. La Negrita Puloy de Montecristo is now the only female symbol of the Barranquilla Carnival. It is argued in this essay that as long as blackness is performed during the regulated time of carnival, lived by the city as an illusion of racial integration and black pride, the consciousness of inequality stays dormant and inequality continues being a quotidian practice in a supposedly tri-racial nation that was funded on the principles of mixture. This essay is the product of a research project that lasted a year and combined ethnographic and archival work. Las Negritas Puloy de Montecristo perform exclusion annually, as they intend to paradoxically perform inclusion. This very popular carnival manifestation seems to be a sign that only as stereotype can the sexualized black woman participate in the public sphere. As the mulata, she is a sexual object. As a slave, she is forgotten. Thus, she can dance.     

Nuclear fetishism,the fear of the ‘Islamic’ bomb and national identity in Iran

The paper's focus is the concurrence in the Islamic Republic of Iran between the state's enrichment of uranium, internationally feared as a potential Islamic atomic bomb, and the identification of the radio-active material by many Iranians as a national cultural object. In contrast to the Islamic virtues imposed by the state that had created an autarkic image of Iranians in the global context, nuclear technology offered them the opportunity to become cosmopolitan consumers of nuclear energy, a global product that also represented the ‘excellence’ of Iranian scientists’ and engineers’ competence. Instrumental in this re-invention of national identity outside the political space was a reified (fetishised) conception of the nuclear object as a utility – nuclear energy. The enhanced utilitarian use of nuclear material mystified (metamorphosed) both the oppressive relation of Iranian people with their Muslim rulers and their incongruous relation with the rest of the world. The mystifying impact of nuclear production on their national and international relations served Iranians to draw on their role as internationally recognised bourgeois agents (burghers) by subsuming (neutralising) their brutalised relation with the Muslim rulers within the instrumental relation of producers/consumers of the nuclear product. Thus, in their exclusive demand for the right to emulate the non-Iranian producers/consumers of nuclear energy as a global product, Iranians acted in their capacity as burghers. A burgher is defined here, following Hegel, as the agent of civil society whose primary concern is to pursue his/her own interest by using the needs of others as the means to satisfy his/her own. The rationality that governs the action by burghers is ‘the suitability of means to their ends’. By adopting the rationality of a burgher, Iranians abandoned their quest for citizenship. The rights of citizen, in contrast with the cosmopolitan right of burgher to emulate producers/consumers, were geared to the exercise of individual autonomy within the political space, as a domain of contested representations. The paper examines the inadequate mediation of modern institutions that has historically postponed the nationalisation of Iranian society and has delayed the emergence of the Iranian nation as a political community. Looked at from this standpoint, nuclear production offered to Iranians the opportunity to avoid a hazardous route of taking part in a political construction of Iranian identity by acting as citizens and instead draw on their fragmented bourgeois identity to define the nuclear product as ‘national’. This identification matched their Muslim rulers’ interest to represent the enriched uranium internationally as a national, as opposed to Islamic, achievement without having to face the Iranian nation as a political community. The consequence was the Iranians’ failure to deal with nuclear technology and the question of public safety both as a national and international issue which could only be addressed if Iranians had acted in their capacity as citizens.     

Ruination: partition and the expectation of violence (on Allan deSouza's Irish photography)

This essay takes as its occasion a series of photographs on the Irish border region by Allan deSouza. The photographs are the motive for a set of interconnecting reflections on the conditions of violence and on its relation to state formation; on violence and the forms of history; and on the place of melancholy as a relation not only to the past, which inevitably it is, but as no less a kind of opening to a future. These concerns link three works by Walter Benjamin: ‘Critique of Violence’ (1920–21); The Origin of German Tragic Drama (1924–25); and the ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ (1940). The link runs between the insistence of violence in the historical foundations of the state; the function of historicism in enabling that disavowal through a rarely acknowledged mythic/symbolic aesthetic that is encrypted in it; and the counter-discourse of historical materialism that Benjamin holds in tension with melancholy. Ireland is a state marked by the virtual and the actual violence of partition. Subject to all the injunctions and institutions of modernity, to its emerging forms of state and policing as well as to its techniques and technologies of military reduction, Ireland remains a location in which the failure of projects of modernity is only too easily exemplified. Ireland's is a history in ruins, a history of ruins. Ruins are the signs of a history of incompletion and ‘ruination’ that is normally read by conventional historians as the fatality of a culture resistant to modernity and driven to return time and again to its own atavisms. Benjamin's insight is to read in ruins and in violence not merely the consequences of a past malevolently active in the present, but openings onto an alternative configuration to that suggested by historicism and modernity.     

Postcolonial guilt and national identity: historical injustice and the Australian settler state

In nations with a record of historical injustice, guilt about the past is deeply implicated in both efforts towards reconciliation and the construction of national identity. This is as true in notionally postcolonial nations, where past injustice is often denied or avoided, as it is in situations where conflict and injustice have been more recent, overt or visible to the rest of the world. Taking the Australian case as an example, this article considers the dimensions of historical collective guilt, and explores the implications of that guilt for contemporary national identity in postcolonial nations. It argues that until a nation is able to deal with social psychological barriers to addressing historical injustice, it is likely to construct and maintain a narrow and defensive form of nationalism.     

The other Chinese: identity work and self-orientalization of Chinese host country nationals in multinational corporations

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on an in-depth case study of narrative identity work to explore heuristically the role of host country nationals in the reproduction of orientalist discourses in multinational corporations (MNCs). Based on this analysis, it presents an identity strategy termed the other Chinese. The other Chinese claims to be in-between the West, that is constructed as superior modern and rational, and China, that is constructed as backwards and chaotic. This in-betweenness allows the other Chinese to take the role of a mediator between locals and expatriates, and at the same time claim superiority towards normal Chinese. Thus, this identity construction is a creative act of hybridization and localization, but it is not subversive to existing power structures in the MNCs. However, as we show, the construction of the other Chinese is not inextricably bound to the field of the MNCs, but is based on a hybrid and creative entanglement of various sources such as class positions and public discourse in China, in which the MNCs only occupy an insignificant role. It is, therefore, to be understood as an aspect of identity construction in China relevant for MNC identity, rather than an aspect of the transnational field of the MNCs.