SPECTACLES OF ETHNICITY: FESTIVALS AND THE COMMODIFICATION OF ETHNIC CULTURE AMONG LOUISIANA CAJUNS

Drawing on the example of the Louisiana Cajuns, an ethnic group that has been enjoying a wave of popular revival in recent years, this study suggests that changes in the perception of an ethnic identity are related to socioeconomic transformation. We identify the festival as a key aspect of the Cajun revival since the 1960s. An examination of the history, activities, and contemporary spatiotemporal organization of festivals reveals similarities to other aspects of a society of mass consumption. Niche marketing , the structuring of recreation around the modern work week, and the establishment of personal identity through the purchase of symbolically rich commodities are all embodied in present - day Cajun festivals. At the same time, the consumption of ethnic commodities is linked by the consumers with a sense of tradition and descent from a mythic past. The festivals of southwestern Louisiana are, in this sense, invented traditions and, paradoxically, a measure of the assimilation of this particular ethnic group into American culture.     

The shifting ‘stages’ of performance: a study of ‘Chavang Kut’ festival in Manipur

Chavang Kut, a post-harvesting festival in Manipur, represents an important cultural expression of the Chin-Kuki-Mizo group of people. The article looks at the participation of the Thadou community in the celebration by tracing their performative historiography. In the past, the celebration was primarily important in the religio-cultural sense. The rhythmic movements of the dances in the festival were inspired by animals, agricultural techniques and showed their relationship with ecology. Today, the celebration witnesses the shifting of stages and is revamped to suit new contexts and interpretations. The traditional dances which forms the core of the festival is now performed in the out-of-village settings and are staged in a secular public sphere. While used by the state as a political project to bring unity amongst the different communities of Manipur, recent socio-political occasions showed how it is used as a site of contestations against the state.     

MALDITOS: STREET GANG SUBVERSIONS OF NATIONAL BODY POLITICS IN CENTRAL AMERICA

Since the mid-1980s, street gangs known as maras have emerged as a new social entity in Central America. In Honduras, these informal organizations are repeatedly represented in various forms of media as an aberration that is clearly separate from populace and state. Such representations render mareros as entities that possess a radically alien ontology, which is the sole locality of intervention of anti-mara programs. This article analyzes popular media and ethnographic observations to demonstrate that a) rather than being an alien ontology, marero subjectivities are co-constituted through nation and class-forming practices and b) despite such representations, Hondurans of various walks of life routinely subvert attempts to create a tripartite body politic of state-populace-marero. Continued emphasis on the marero as the sole site of intervention and rehabilitation deals with the mara issue at a symptomatic level and fails to address the quotidian processes that give form to this phenomenon.     

‘From mosh pit to posh pit’: Festival imagery in the context of the boutique festival

This paper addresses market-based cultural production in the context of the UK festival field, with a focus on the framing of the festival experience through anticipation. In particular, boutique festivals are discussed as examples of a contemporary cultural ‘product category’ which has emerged and proliferated in the last decade. Through discourse analysis of media representations of boutique festivals, we situate the boutique festival in a broader sociocultural discourse of agency and choice, which makes it meaningful and desirable, and outline the type of consumer it is meant to attract. For the contemporary consumer, the boutique festival is presented as an anticipated experience based on countercultural festival imagery, while simultaneously framing cultural participation through consumption. The paper contributes to a wider debate on the construction of the consumer in the cultural economy.     

Changing Scenarios of Tamilian Culture: Some Thoughts on the Cultural Dimensions of the Ethnic War in Sri Lanka

Although the political and economic implications of the ongoing ethnic war in Sri Lanka have come under varied scrutiny, its cultural dimensions have so far been a neglected area. Ironically, the attitude of the Tamils, the minority ethnic group to the conflict, towards their culture has been rather lukewarm vis-à-vis their concern over political and/or economic rights. This has not, however, resulted in any cultural rigidity whereby Tamil culture remained wholly immune to war conditions. On the contrary, it has been subject to a state of flux. The objective of this paper is to analyse this process of transformation. After a brief analysis of the origin of the ethnic war and the reasons for the diminished interest shown by Tamils in the state of their culture, the paper goes on to examine the nature of cultural changes. It identifies an external as well as an internal dimension in the ongoing process. Of the two, the latter reveals a higher degree of dynamism, leading to a number of changes that have either occurred or are imminent. The reasons for this dynamism and its implications are discussed. The external dimension, on the other hand, has not only failed to react favourably to internal developments but has also threatened to become the fresh breeding grounds for some of the discarded notions of the internal sector. After offering reasons for such an outcome, the paper recognises that the external dimension has its utility in the dissemination of the conflict at a global level. The paper concludes that, notwithstanding the ultimate outcome of the ethnic crisis, there is sufficient opportunity for the Tamil culture to be further strengthened based especially on the mutual contributions of the internal and external dimensions.     

ETHNIC PILGRIMAGES: PEOPLE OF LITHUANIAN DESCENT IN LITHUANIA

A fascinating element in ethnic identity construction and reconstruction processes is the role of homelands. Ethnic identity is dependent in part on whether homelands are constructed as a place or as an idea. This social construction is partially determined by when and how individuals or their ancestors emigrated. The experiences of Lithuanian American economic immigrants, political emigres, and their offspring are explored. For many European Americans (including Lithuanian Americans), traditional measures of ethnicity (such as language retention and endogamy) are not as important as contemporary constructed or invented symbols of ethnic identity (such as ethnic festivals and display of ethnic artifacts). I argue that trips or "ethnic pilgrimages" to the ancestral homelands have received relatively little attention in the ethnicity literature but are central mechanisms of ethnic reconstruction and renewal.     

Indigenous Micro-Ethnicity and Principles of Identification in Southeast Borneo

This article explores the nature of indigenous ethnicity in Borneo and its historical transformation. The principal focus is on Dayak ethnicity beneath the level of generic Dayak identity. Through examples from interior southeast Borneo, I describe a historically dominant pattern of identification with small and localised groups and the emergence of larger ethnic categories. Like elsewhere in Borneo, a condition of pervasive micro-ethnic differentiation was endemic, while larger categories were generally unimportant and mostly evolved only recently. I assess the importance of different underlying principles of collective identification for this pattern—culture, descent, kinship, locality and politics—and examine the importance of state influence for the subsequent development of larger categories. I propose that ethnicity in Borneo, as in most places, is fundamentally political. I discuss how this applies to both past and present forms, and relates to a distinctive significance of locality for collective identification.     

Imagining ‘Burma’: a historical overview

Burma faced independence in 1948 as a deeply divided country. The British had ruled the area, which now was declared the ‘Union of Burma’ under two entirely different administrative systems. ‘Burma Proper’ was basically populated by the ethnic Burmans, Arakanese, Mons and Delta Karens, whereas the ‘Frontier Areas’ were populated by the Shan people, Salween Karens, Kachins, Karennis, Chins and various subgroups of the aforementioned. The same year, as independence was granted, the Union of Burma plunged into a civil war, which still continues. This article discusses the ethnic categories created by the colonial authorities and looks into how these ethnic categories have been – and continue to be – imagined, invented, manipulated and politicised. The article looks into how the Burmese authorities dealt with the ethnic diversity in the first constitution of 1947 by dividing the country into ethnically based ‘states’ and ‘divisions’ and how the international community of today continues supporting these colonial categories.     

Baluch ethnicity and nationalism (1971–81): an assessment

Ethnicity and ethnic conflict have dominated much of the discourse in contemporary politics, as ethnic resurgence has been on the rise the world over in both modernising and developed societies. Ethnic conflict can be studied in terms of a number of variables to explain the processes and dynamics of a particular ethnic movement. This paper seeks to study the Baluch movement in Pakistan mainly in terms of three variables: the nature and pattern of the movement, the role of the state, and the external dynamics, all of which singly and collectively impacted on the rise and decline of the movement. The paper examines the socio‐economic basis for the growth of separatist sentiments among the Baluch and argues that it was the weak nature and essentially fragmented strategies of the movement, the response and policies pursued by the central leadership and the failure of the Baluch to elicit any meaningful external support that contributed to the gradual decline of the movement. The time frame under consideration here is from 1971, when the movement was on its rise, until 1981, when the movement ceased to be an issue in the Pakistani polity.     

Understanding ethnic visibility through language use: the case of Taiwan Hakka

This study investigates how the ethnic visibility of Taiwan Hakka is improved through language use. The usage of a unique Hakka symbolic code <nganggiang stiff neck> is focused on. Based on data from the four Taiwan major newspapers, an analysis with text techniques shows that the code emerges along with social-political developments in Taiwan, with its meaning turning from negative to positive connotation. Its frequency is highly correlated with major political events in Taiwan, with peaks during the two or three years before presidential elections. It illustrates semiotic innovation, extending from Hakka to Hakka non-human, to non-Hakka, and to non-Hakka non-human frames. The salient image it creates increases Hakka ethnic visibility and enhances their ethnic identity. A significant implication is that minority ethnic groups can employ a unique symbolic code, empowering it with positive connotation. Through extensive language use, its representation can raise their ethnic visibility and enhance their ethnic identity.     

Sensorial Place-Making in Ethnic Minority Areas: The Consumption of Forest Puer Tea in Contemporary China

This article examines sensorial place-making through analysing the taste and other sensory experiences of forest Puer tea in its consumption among the urban middle class in mainland China. In the process of creating the ‘terroir’ of forest Puer tea, sensorial experience has been frequently linked to its place of origin. I argue that ethnic minorities who cultivate the tea play a vital part in the imagination of the tea's terroir. Trips by consumers to the mountains where the tea is cultivated, which aim at facilitating a ‘full experience’ of the tea and its culture, have generated a special pattern of interactions between the urban middle class who consume the tea and the ethnic minorities who cultivate it. The consumption of Puer tea, which brings about social imaginary and transcendent economic value, has become a driving force for producing the locality of ethnic minority areas.     

Must‐See TV: South Asian Characterizations in American Popular Media

In the 21st century, representations of South Asians in American popular television have increased significantly. However, there has been very little critical analysis on the ways in which these characters are created and produced. In this review, I use literature from the sociology of race/ethnicity, immigration, and critical media studies to identify the concept of “(ethnic) characterization.” While it may be assumed that these representations are created unconsciously, I suggest that media producers intentionally use particular ethnic characteristics that are identified and discussed in contemporary sociological literature. As a result, I argue that these types of media characterizations are relevant to the discipline of sociology.     

Songs of Our Spirits: Possession and Historical Imagination among the Cham in Cambodia

The currently flourishing spirit possession cult among a group of Cham in Cambodia has multiple cultural meanings. On the most explicit level, the ceremonies aim at healing a suffering person whose condition medical treatment has proved insufficient to cure. But since the state of health or illness is intimately connected to the state of the person's primary social relations, both the 'patient' and his or her close kin are all symbolically purified from evil in the course of the ritual proceedings. The mediums are possessed by spirits of members of the royal court of the historical Champa kingdom. Through the representations of the semi-mythical past of Champa, more specifically its royalty and court culture, the possession cult also tells us that healing is a question of bringing present-day Cham into concordance with their ethnic origins, and a question of symbolically reunifying ethnicity and lost national autonomy. It is suggested that the historical imagination displayed in the ceremonies addresses not only the ancient military defeats of the Cham by the Vietnamese, but also the people's more recent sufferings under the Khmer Rouge, and that the cult provides an arena for coming to terms with both ancient and recent experiences of victimisation as well as complicity, suffering as well as guilt, and for expressing ethnic consciousness and pride.     

移民融合与城市层级的定位——有关移民研究中地方性问题的理论化

本文在新自由主义全球化背景下研究城市重构的理论化,建议用层级比较的方法研究移民的定居问题和跨国联系。通过提出"城市层级"的概念,本文探讨了后工业化城市重构的不同结果与移民融合的不同路径之间的关系。在"地方性"的理论化上,移民问题学者以民族国家和族群为分析的主要单位,而城市重构问题学者则未关注移民的研究。移民路径形成并反过来作用于城市的差异化定位。移民被视为城市层级的缔造者,城市在全球力场下的不同定位,决定着移民在其中扮演的角色。     

STATE INCORPORATION OF MIGRANTS AND THE REPRODUCTION OF A MIDDLEMAN MINORITY AMONG INDOCHINESE REFUGEES

This article examines how state incorporation reproduces a middleman minority group's occupational role after the migration of that group to the United States. An extension of middleman minority theory is developed to explain why ethnic Chinese refugees from former Indochina are overrepresented in intermediary social service occupations in comparison to Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian refugees. Three propositions are developed and tested focusing on the conflict engendered by an intermediary occupation, staff recruitment patterns, and role orientations among different ethnic groups. Data from participant observation and interviews are used to focus on actual behavior in the workplace, whereas most studies of occupational concentration by ethnic groups have examined the sector level.     

The dilemmas of pro-development actors: viewing state–ethnic minority relations and intra-ethnic dynamics through contentious development projects

Studies of ethnic minority peoples in Asia have long focussed on the relations between ethnic minority communities and the modern state and on the role of development in shaping these relations. This paper is concerned with how ethnic minorities respond to the state-led development. While there are numerous studies focussing on the collective agency of ethnic minorities opposing development projects, few studies consider the agency of pro-development actors. Pro-development actors are usually dismissed as co-opted, manipulated, inauthentic, or elite-driven, yet they can offer crucial insights into understanding state–ethnic minority relations and particularly intra-ethnic minority relations. This paper concentrates on pro-dam actors from the Lepcha minority in the Indian state of Sikkim to make four interlinked arguments. First, examining pro-development actors breaks the homogenous view of state–ethnic minority relations and shifts the focus to intra-ethnic relationships. Second, collective agency of ethnic minorities is not fixed in a particular relationship with the state nor does it have a particular position on development. Third, the long-term experience of development is vital in understanding how ethnic minorities manoeuvre and alter their position on contentious projects. Lastly, analysis of pro-development actors creates major dilemmas for researchers which are not easily overcome.     

Migrants and Changing Urban Periphery: Social Relations, Cultural Diversity and the Public Space in Istanbul's New Neighbourhoods

This study examines the dynamics of socio-cultural change in a peripheral neighbourhood in Istanbul, an "edge city" that is ethnically mixed, culturally heterogeneous, socially differentiated and spatially multi-functional. One major focus in the study is the changing nature of social relations in traditional groups. Though kinship, hemşeri (place of origin) and neighbourhood solidarity is still crucial in the lives of the migrants, participation in these groups becomes more voluntary and the ties among members less obligatory. Secondly, the ethnic and religious groupings in the neighbourhood are not always exclusive, authoritarian and patriarchal communities. What generally appears as rigid communitarian fragmentation is often one of cultural diversity for the residents of the locality. The associational pluralism that exists in the neighbourhood enables people to claim multiple ethnic, religious, political and cultural identities. Thirdly, though they compare unfavourably with their middle class counterparts in the city, the new neighbourhoods provide greater opportunities and more public space for interaction among the members of the locality than for instance, the rural communities. The study also questions the often taken-for-granted image of a rigidly polarized city in view of empirical evidence that indicates the multiple and complex economic and political links between the new neighbourhoods and the broader urban society. Finally, isolation from middle class areas in the city does not necessarily lead to the exclusion of the whole peripheral urban population from urban life, urban institutions and urban culture. These become increasingly present in the new neighbourhoods and available for the majority of the residents. The main conclusion is that Istanbul contains a number of such edge cities, which have powerful integrating and urbanizing influences on individuals.     

From Ethnic segregation to impact integration: state schooling and identity construction for rural Tibetans

This paper examines the context of ethnic identity formation in schools for rural Tibetan children. It reviews rural primary education within Tibet and the secondary education for Tibetans in boarding schools across China. Data are presented on policies, student recruitment, curriculum, teachers and the campus environment, as they impact on students' identity formation. Although there is little that is multicultural about the learning process in these schools, these schools do not strictly deny Tibetan culture to Tibetan children. The school architecture, sculptures, photographs, wall paintings and so forth provide representations of Tibetan culture, albeit selectively and interpreted by the state in terms of the ideological themes of national unity, patriotism, revolutionary traditions, civilised behaviour and love of Tibet. The conclusion points to a make‐or‐break opportunity for state education to support a more even‐handed cultural policy, rather than the dichotomy of segregation and impact integration.     

Being Han in a multi-ethnic region of the People’s Republic of China

This article draws on ethnographic material collected in Yangzong county of Yunnan, a province well known for its ethnic diversity. It deals with how the members of this peripheral Han population are categorised by others and by themselves in relation to minority groups and notions of Chinese identity. The specificity of the Han of Yangzong is framed by an ongoing tension between two contrasting points of view: they appear both as a local ethnic minority among others, and, notably by means of ritualised theatrical representations, as the legitimate representatives of the national majority. The Han people of Yunnan, who represent two-thirds of the province’s population, have been largely ignored by contemporary research. However, this study sheds light on the necessary interplay of different levels of identity and asserts the understanding of the category of ‘Han’ as perceived by the Chinese State as well as by the local people.