Book reviews

Peter G. Gowing & Robert D. Mc. Amis (ed.)

The Muslim Filipinos: Their History, Society and Contemporary Problems,

Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House, 1974, pp. 311.

Cesar Adib Majul

Muslims in the Philippines,

Manila: Saint Mary's Publishing, 1978, pp. 392.

T.J.S. George

Revolt in Mindanao: The Rise of Islam in Philippines Politics

Kuala Lumpur; Oxford University Press, 1981, pp. 294.     

Muslims in Fiji: a brief survey

Chaitwat Satha‐Anand

Islam and Violence: A Case Study of Violent Events in the Four Southern Province, Thailand, 1976–1981.

Monographs in Religion and Public Policy. No. 2., Department of Religious Studies, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, 1986, pp.54 (bibliography).

Malise Ruthven

Islam in the World

London: Oxford University Press, 1984, Price $10.95

Mumtaz Ahmad (Ed.)

State Politics and Islam

Indianapolis: American Trust Publications, 1986.160 pp. n.p.

Akbar S. Ahmed

Discovering Islam: Making Sense of Muslim History and Society

London, Routledge &; Kegan Paul, 1988, pp.253.

David Gilmartin

Empire and Islam — Punjab and the Making of Pakistan

Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1988, pp. xii+258.

Kail C. Ellis, ed.

The Vatican, Islam, and the Middle East

Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1987, pp 344.     

Book reviews

Michael Rywkin

Moscow's Muslim Challenge – Soviet Central Asia

Armonk (N.Y.): M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1982, pp. 200; $25.00

E. Allen Richardson

Islamic Cultures in North America: Patterns of Belief and Devotion of Muslims from Asian Countries in the United States and Canada, New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1981, 64 pp. $3.95.

Muhammad Imran

Position and Prospects of Islam in Latin American Lahore: Malik Sirajuddin & Sons, 1979, Price n. m.     

Book review

Ethnicity, Race and American foreign policy: A History Alexander DeConde Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992, 270 pp., $40.00 cloth; $15.95 paper.     

Book reviews

William G. Lockwood

European Moslems: Economy and Ethnicity in Western Bosnia

New York, Academic Press, 1975, pp. 241; $18.50 (Bibliography 10)

Muslim Communities In Non‐Muslim States

London, Islamic Council of Europe, 1980, pp. 169 $5.00     

Fassil Demissie on Building the Colonial Edifices in Algiers Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontation: Algiers under the French Rule by Zeynep Celik

Ahmed, Akabar (1992) Postmodernism and Islam, London: Routledge. Gellner, Ernest (1992) Postmodernism, Reason and Religion, London: Routledge.     

State Power,Violence, Crime and Everyday Life: A Case Study of Soweto in Post-Apartheid South Africa

This article was subsequently retracted from publication for the reasons outlined in Social Identities 10.1: Retraction     

Book review

The Jama Mapun. A Changing Samal Society in the Southern Philippines

Eric Casino

Quezon City (Philippines), Ateneo De Manil University Press, 159 pages; $12.00, $7.75 (paper)     

Towards pluralistic and grassroots national identity: a study of national identity representation by the Kurdish diaspora on social media

ABSTRACT

This study examines the distinctive roles that social media play for the diasporic Kurds in regard to the political and nationhood process. It attempts to understand how the notion of Kurdayeti [Kurdish nationalism] has been affected by the growth of Kurdish social media. It argues: although the Kurdish political activism has been accelerated by the rise of social media and the ethnic identity discussions have become much more visible, the idea of a unified imagined Kurdish nation has been affected by the existing socio-political fragmentations among the Kurds and transformed into a participatory and pluralistic imagined community.     

The Smooth Transition: Spain's 1978 Constitution and the Nationalities Question

Nationalist movements have played a key role in Spain's democratic transition, contributing decisively to frame the Spanish state in its present shape. This article will focus on the role of Constitution-making in providing the legitimacy needed in democratic transitions affected by the rise of sharp ethno-national conflicts. Among the contributing factors to the Transition's success the following are stressed: the Monarchy as a cohesive unitary symbol; the neutralisation of the Army's influence in political life; and a pragmatic, civic, a-nationalist leadership in Madrid.     

Beyond Islamophobia? The role of Englishness and English national identity within English Defence League discourse and politics

ABSTRACT

Unsurprisingly, most scholarship on the English Defence League (EDL) focuses on the Islamophobic nature of the group's politics. This has found that, whilst the group presents a more moderate, public-facing image, the EDL's backstage discourse is a far less nuanced brand of Islamophobia and cultural racism (Allen, C. (2011). Opposing Islamification or promoting Islamophobia? Understanding the English Defence League. Patterns of Prejudice, 45(4), 279–294; Kassimeris, G., & Jackson, L. (2015). The ideology and discourse of the English Defence League: ‘Not racist, not violent, just no longer silent’. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 17, 171–188). A more fundamental area of EDL ideology has been left unexamined, however: what notion of ‘England’ is the EDL trying to ‘defend’? Using content analysis of EDL online discourse, this article examines how the EDL articulates, represents, and uses English national identity within its discourse and politics.     

Mad Max: The Car and Australian Governance

This article argues that the car is an intimate aspect of the governance of Australia. The term 'governance' is defined as the techniques used to know, order and manage individuals. The film Mad Max II: The Road Warrior is used as a prism to separate out the roles that the car performs in governance. Three roles are identified: the car as identity, the car as myth and the car as power. Applying this framework to Australia reveals the car's complex involvement in Australian governance, from the knowing and ordering of others, to collective myths of possession and future prosperity, to the knowing of place from space, to the removal of indigenous children. The significance of the car means Australia can be characterised as the petrochemical, chrome-plated cyborg republic of Oz.     

Almost the same stories: narrative patterns in EU treaty referendums

ABSTRACT

The article analyses narratives that favoured or opposed European integration in three referendum debates held during the constitutional process of the 2000s: in France and the Netherlands in 2005 (Constitutional Treaty) as well as the first vote in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty in 2008. In all debates examined, speakers used similar narratives of European integration. While most narrative patterns have transnational character, however, they are also remarkably country-specific. They depend on the specific cultural context and the social positions of the speakers articulating them.     

Discourses of Identity at the Spanish/Portuguese Border: Self-Identification Strategies of Centre and Periphery

This article examines the self-identification strategies that officials of two border towns use to characterise their respective localities. These strategies are considered relative to four theoretical paradigms used to analyse identity: centre-periphery, regionalist, essentialist and non-essentialist. Clear differences are revealed between the two towns, despite their similar geographical location at the periphery, general demographic features and shared history. In one case, the evidence suggests that the identity is centred locally and affirmed through daily behaviour or 'practices', while in the other, that the identity focus is regional and essentialist in nature.     

Vastu compliance: the gentrification of India’s sacred spaces and the mobilities of ideas

ABSTRACT

This article examines the mobilities of ideas in the context of sacred spaces in India and transnational flows of trends and services. Mobile subjects on the global stage are still bound by immobile concerns, such as their homes. In this article I examine the anxieties of India’s globally mobile middle and elite classes through their efforts to make their gated multi-storey residences compliant with an ancient form of spatial spirituality: vastu shastra. Now common in advertisements for luxury apartments, I argue that vastu compliance is a form of liquid spirituality that is part and parcel of the privatisation of the urban landscape and the replacement of fixed or local sacred spaces and those that dwell around them: homeless or ‘occupying’ mendicants. In between these two polar opposite mobile subjects of the elite and the mendicant are vastu consultants who derive a living from their knowledge and practice of a form of liquid spirituality growing in popularity around the world.     

Indigenous identity construction: enacted upon us,or within us

ABSTRACT

This commentary essay questions, theorizes, explores and grapples with the phenomenon of the creation of racial, social and cultural identity: in childhood as Native American identity is negotiated from others; and in adulthood as Native identity is constructed from within. ‘Indigenous Identity Construction: Enacted upon Us, or Within Us?’ is a commentary piece focused around Native American identity and how it is formed both through childhood and into adulthood. I analyze and interpret my experiences and understanding of my identity formation as an indigenous person- which usually is left out of the socio-political notions of modernity. Conceptualizations from ‘othering’ racial identities are discussed along with indigenous ontologies constructed within land and water. Through metaphorically revisiting past racializing incidents this piece continues working through the idea of othering and induction into whiteness in childhood, but also focuses on how indigenous identities might be constructed and sustained in adulthood. Efforts to model the indigenous assertion of self-determination and decolonizing the mind was used to re-present thoughts on the construction of Native American identity     

Ambiguous 'Culture': Contrasting Interpretations of the Basque Film Ama Lur and the Relationship Between Centre and Periphery in Franco's Spain

This article focuses on the last decades of the Franco dictatorship in Spain. Two apparently distinct issues are brought together here: the discussions of the National Council of the Movement, which was dependant on Spain's single political party, regarding the possibility of defining a cultural policy to counteract separatist tendencies; and discussions of the possible interpretations of the Basque film Ama Lur (1968). Both exemplify the ideas of the authorities about how to handle the cultural dimension of the challenges represented by peripheral nationalist movements. The aim of this study is to shed light on the questions of how and to what extent attempts by the Francoist authorities to use culture as a political tool worked.     

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.     

Making ethnic boundaries in the society of religious renaissance: Islam and everyday ethnicity in post-Soviet Tatarstan

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the conflict between closely intertwined specific ethnic and universal religious practices that affect the formation and maintenance of ethnic group boundaries in the society of simultaneous Islamic and ethnic renaissances: contemporary post-Soviet Tatarstan. I argue that the negotiation of this conflict produces both reinforcement and erosion of the titular ethnic group boundaries. I pay special attention on ethnicity performance and ethnicity consumption practices. Thus, I conclude that practices of performing and consuming ethnicity serve as effective mechanism of boundary formation not just between various ethnic groups in the multi-ethnic republic but also inside the group itself.