PERFORMING SOMALI IDENTITY IN THE DIASPORA

Somali refugees who fled the collapse of their homeland and resettled in the US narrate ‘who they are’ within a bewildering entanglement of cultural differences layered with diasporic tensions. This analysis examines the storytelling of a young woman refugee to Lewiston, Maine, who embodies the performative tensions that animate Somali identity at this intense historical moment and in this dense cultural space. I follow her unfolding counter/narrative dance within the confluence of gazes – feminist, colonialist, multiculturalist, and academic – which dialogically inform the possibilities of her identity as she contests definitions of Somali ethnicity, feminism, blackness, and Islam. Her storytelling circulates and reworks two dominant narratives used to explain Somali identity: identity-as-culture and identity-as-religion. Performance analysis of her storytelling makes evident that Somali culture and Islamic religion are co-articulated as well as inescapably liminal and localized by the bodily differences of gender and race in the diaspora. I problematize the narrative event as a dialogic, co-constructed, and transnational encounter in which the narrator reads and talks back to regulating discourses at the same time that I question my own complicity in dominant designs. The narrative performance and analysis display a Somali ethnicity fleshed out, critically inflected, and creatively nuanced by the diaspora which inserts an emerging Somali story in US immigration narratives.     

GLOBALIZATION: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE WITHIN THE SPACE ECONOMY OF LATE CAPITALISM

This article analyses the process of globalization from the perspective of a 'political economy of space' where the interactions of the processes of capitalist accumulation within contexts of geographic and social space has profound shaping effects upon the nature of politics, economics and society more generally. The argument will show that contemporary globalization has two dimensions: outward into geographic space, and inward into culture and society. The focus then moves to culture and information technology within the space economy of late capitalism and argues that a crisis of finite geographic space has led to the deepening of the commodificationary processes of capitalist accumulation into the 'identity-spaces' of culture and society. For hugely popular 'cyber-gurus' such as Howard Rheingold and Myron W . Krueger, the development of information technologies such as the Internet-derived 'virtual communities' are spaces where new forms of democracy and 'being' can emerge. This article argues that 'cyberspace' and 'virtual communities' are deeply dystopic and alienated spaces, and cyber-Utopian dreams of other, possible worlds made virtual through information technology are at best naive, when it is realised that the information revolution that evolved from the processes of a particular type of globalization, has conceived and developed technologies with primarily profit, productivity, surveillance labour-saving and escapism in mind.     

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AS CONTESTED GROUND IN AN ERA OF GLOBALIZATION: WORKER PERCEPTIONS AND SATISFACTION IN THE USPS

Many prior efforts have examined the personal characteristics of workers or the structural features of an organization that impact job satisfaction. By contrast, we examine organizational culture in the context of "high-performance work systems." We analyze the organizational culture of the United States Postal System, as it is presented in key organizational documents and perceived by workers. It is argued that a viable theory of job satisfaction in the modern workplace must treat worker perceptions, which spring from an organizational culture that is both prescribed and lived.     

'SALSA NO TIENE FRONTERA': ORQUESTA DE LA LUZ AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF POPULAR MUSIC

This article discusses key dynamics in the globalization of popular music, more specifically the interplay between technology, social and commercial structure, and meaningful sound forms. It analyses Orquesta de la Luz, an all-Japanese salsa band, as an example of the transgression of ethnic, geographical, linguistic and national boundaries of Latin American music. The band demonstrated the intertwined nature of the global and the local, in addition to the historical formation of modern Japanese culture. Their worldwide fame derived from their musicianship, their synchronicity with the world music boom, and finally the diffusion of digital technology in popular music production and consumption. This article argues that economic and technological conditions are as much constitutive of the band's unique practices as are aesthetic ones. It then goes on to question the dichotomies, ‘universalism vs. particularism’ and ‘creativity vs. copy’. This discussion builds towards an examination of the relationship between purist aesthetics (hyperrealism) and the Japanese concept/method of learning; it also explores the notion of cultural authenticity that located the activities of the band. Paradoxically, Orquesta de la Luz demonstrated that Japanization does not necessarily imply synthesis with vernacular elements for purist musicians. Theoretically, this ‘becoming Other’ reveals a parallel capacity for self-exoticization and self-orientalization with respect to Japanese identities. Orquesta de la Luz's musical search for the roots of otherness is closely tied with the feeling among many Japanese youth for the loss of Japan's ‘genuine’ cultural identity. Another focus of this study, then, is to shed light on the relevance of exoticism in the band's foreign reception and to assess their Latino image in the Japanese context.     

COLONIALISM,AMERICANIZATION, AND INDIGENOUS IDENTITY: A RESEARCH NOTE ON CHAMORRO IDENTITY IN GUAM

ABSTRACT

This study explores baseline dimensions of identity among Chamorros in Guam, as a case in point of indigenous identity consciousness, in the context of U.S. colonialism, territorial relations, and Americanization. Despite the adverse effects of colonization and Americanization pressures, ethnographic findings suggest that Chamorros are conscious of their indigenous identity with respect to reference-group interaction, political awareness, cultural attitudes, and self-identification. Implications of these preliminary findings for future research on this understudied topic and population are discussed.     

GLOBALIZATION,CULTURE WARS,AND ATTITUDES TOWARD SOCCER IN AMERICA: An Empirical Assessment of How Soccer Explains the World†

This study examines the “culture wars” using the lens of attitudes toward soccer. Despite soccer's increasing popularity in the United States, anti‐soccer rhetoric is fairly common. In his widely read book, How Soccer Explains the World (2004), Foer contends that the “culture wars,” including divisions over soccer, are better explained by reactions to globalization than social class or political ideology. Using data from a survey of Nebraskans, we find that attitudes about cultural globalization are the best predictor of soccer sentiment. Contrary to popular claims about the “culture wars,” most respondents were moderate in their attitudes toward both soccer and globalization.     

MODEST WOMEN,DECEPTIVE JINN: IDENTITY,ALTERITY, AND DISEASE IN EASTERN SUDAN

This article examines the cultural construction of difference, danger, and disease among the Muslim patrilineal Hadendowa-Beja of eastern Sudan and focuses on the ways in which gendered discourses, together with symbolic and ritualistic practices, diagnose historical relationships of power, powerlessness, and social conflict. In particular, I show how the female body, viewed as a “fertile womb-land,” is the locus of anxieties about foreign dangers and diseases, which are perceived to be threatening to collective identity and well being. By using “foreignness” as a double-edged category linked to both power and danger, I examine how Hadendowa's feminization of social vulnerability draws attention to their own political history of exclusion and displacement.     

ALIEN-NATION: IMMIGRATION,NATIONAL IDENTITY AND TRANSNATIONALISM

This article examines recent anti-immigration initiatives, like California's Proposition 187, in light of the contemporary processes of economic and political reorganization that seem to have undermined the viability of the nation state (i.e. the globalization of the market economy and the end of the cold war). It argues that anti-immigration discourse works on a symbolic level to recuperate a coherent sense of national identity in response to the social and psychic ‘alien-nation’ caused by the global penetration of capitalism. The study compares two similar yet distinctly different moments of mass immigration- Chinese immigration in the late nineteenth century and ‘illegal’ immigration in the late twentieth- to determine (1) why these mass migrations have elicited legal regulation when others have not, and (2) what might be done to disrupt the re-emergence of a paradigm of legislated exclusion in the current case. It concludes by examining the conditions of possibility for collective political action within a mass-mediated public sphere. Specifically, I ask how resistance to the historical paradigm of legislated exclusion might best be mobilized from within a public sphere dominated by visual media that not only personalize the political, but also exacerbate the inequalities of access to public life endemic to liberal democratic political theory.     

INNOCENT VIOLENCE: SOCIAL EXCLUSION,IDENTITY, AND THE PRESS IN AN AFRICAN DEMOCRACY

The violent attacks on African immigrants and refugees in marginal settlements surrounding South Africa's largest cities in May 2008 occasioned a rush of mostly well-intentioned attempts by journalists, public intellectuals, and government officials to discover the causes and find the cures for the outbreak. This article interrogates the glosses of “xenophobia” and “social deprivation” that were all too quickly applied to explain the attacks in public representations of this sorry episode in South Africa's post-apartheid history. The account of the focal events is based on a thorough sifting of press reports; victims', perpetrators', and police testimonies; government and civil society spokespersons' interventions; and field research. Rather than providing a monovocal, hierarchical argument for one or another analysis emerging from the reportage, this article juxtaposes complex and conflicting local accounts, justifications, forces, and circumstances to provide an intriguing if ultimately at this early stage irresolvable image of these tragic events. The implications for South African social identities, institutions, and democratic order, however, are at the end all too clearly illuminated.     

VICTIMHOOD,IDENTITY, AND AGENCY IN THE EARLY PHASE OF THE TROUBLES IN NORTHERN IRELAND

This article explores the representation of victimhood in political discourse and the relation between victimhood, identity, and political agency. The empirical material is drawn from the early days of the Northern Ireland conflict and covers the debate on internment that was in operation from August 1971 until December 1975. Both those supporting and those opposing internment drew on images of victimhood—images that were vital in the construction of legitimacy and political agency. First, the rendering of detailed stories of individual suffering and victimhood produced compassion and empathy—features legitimising the different approaches. Second, the construction of victimhood involved mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, creating “we-them” dichotomies, producing “collectives of victimhood,” which in many cases worked as a platform from which political agency could be voiced. And third, the construction of victimhood produced political truths. The victim was given a particular status embodying a particular moral integrity to determine the truths about “what had really happened,” a status that made the victim a vital agent in the political battle for “the hearts and minds.” The article stresses the importance of studying the representation of victimhood within particular historical contexts and demonstrates the complex and ambiguous effects of the representations of victimhood in violent political conflicts. The examination shows that victimhood has both humanising and dehumanising effects and, depending on the contextual framework, victimhood can create confidence, empowerment, and agency, but also disempowerment and passivity.     

NARRATIVES AND THE CONSTITUTION OF A COMMON IDENTITY: THE KAREN IN BURMA

This research was conducted in an informal school located in Thailand at the border with Myanmar (Burma) and supervised by the Karen National Union (KNU). The KNU has claimed and fought for political autonomy and independence from the Burmese government for more than a half century. The authors examine how, in their narratives about what it means to be Karen, future Karen leaders try to deal with challenges to a sense of Karen unity and “groupness,” and to the legitimacy of the Karen struggle. One important challenge is the substantial cultural, religious, linguistic, and geographical internal diversity. Establishing a coherent Karen identity among the different subgroups is a continuing struggle for Karen leaders. Another is the negative labeling of the KNU as stubborn people and violent terrorists. These labels endanger the political project, the international reputation, and the local attractiveness of the KNU.     

THE RISE AND FALL OF A LOCAL HERO: MEMORY,IDENTITY AND POWER IN RURAL AUSTRIA, 1945-1960

The article questions abstract concepts like lieux de mémoire, invented tradition and imagined communities linked to a concrete field of research. It reconstructs structures and practices of the cultural representation of mythical narrations in symbolic and social spaces. The case of a rural community in Austria after World War II shows that the encoding and decoding of a heroic saga is embedded both in the macro structures of the economic and political reconstruction of the Second Republic and the micro structures of the local festive culture. In the late 1940s, the supply of the narration, a variation of the German National myth of Herman the Cheruskian, met the demand of the majority of the villagers, above all the male inhabitants. In the 1950s, the market of cultural representations had changed: the hero of village memory became a relic of village history.     

RIVERINE CROSSINGS: GENDER,IDENTITY AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF NATIONAL MYTHIC NARRATIVE IN THE CRYING GAME

The Crying Game's central, tragic theme of warrior/lovers caught between their love for one another and loyalty to their respective factions has significant roots in early Celtic mythology. The elegaic theme of potential lovers forced into ill-fated combat that frames the film's events also, significantly, bears the weight of the film's most unambiguous political commentary, when Fergus speaks directly to the picture of Jody in Dil's apartment, telling him: ‘You should have stayed at home.’ This sad remonstration, which clearly lays responsibility for the chain of causality that has led to so much suffering not with Jody, but with the British state, is similar in quality to Cu Chulainn's lament as he contemplates his meeting with Ferdia. When we listen carefully for ways in which Celtic mythical themes underlie and nuance the film's events, different rhythms emerge, accenting different beats.     

MAKING IT TRADEABLE: VIDEOTAPES,CULTURAL TECHNOLOGIES AND DIASPORAS

In this commentary I address some of the key ideas presented in Kolar-Panov's paper titled ‘Video as the diasporic imagination of selfhood: a case study of the Croatians in Australia’ which was published in Cultural Studies 10: 2, 1996. My own research, conducted during the same period, on the same group of migrants and in the same country, found very little evidence to support some of the assertions made in the paper. I therefore challenge the author's main assumptions about the impact of video technology on the formation of diaspora identities and address some of the theoretical issues behind the notion that video technology is the first widespread postmodern communication medium. I highlight the intrinsic similarities between telecast and video technologies and show how Kolar-Panov's argument tends to slide into both technological and social determinism.     

SCIENTOLOGY “ETHICS”: DEVIANCE,IDENTITY AND SOCIAL CONTROL IN A CULT-LIKE SOCIAL WORLD

Qualitative research at the macrosocial level can be facilitated by examining the more fully articulated social worlds existing within advanced societies. Based on the author's field research, Scientology's structure, culture, and comparability to American capitalist society are discussed and “Ethics,” its institution of social control, is shown to involve a paradigm in which conduct flows from social identity and deviance is defined in terms of a progression of stages of identity loss through reference group confusion. A hypothetical case shows how each stage is treated through specific intervention formula designed to reverse the process. “Ethics” is shown to closely parallel symbolic interactionist theories of deviance. Its differences from symbolic interactionism are ascribed to the inherent contradiction between the individualistic and system-centered orientations permeating American capitalist society.     

Reordering Public and Private in Iranian Cyberspace: Identity,Politics, and Mobilization

The capacity of cyberspace to bypass some of the spatial divisions that underpin social inequality endows it with political significance. This article examines some of the ways in which cyberspace has contributed to redrawing the boundaries between public and private and some of the consequences of this for people, things, and ideas in Iran and the Iranian diaspora. It shows how cyberspace influences a wide range of political phenomena including political mobilization and censorship, intergenerational communication, identity formation, sexuality, sense of belonging, and forms and location of symbolic capital. The relationship between net users in the diaspora and cyberspace involves a circuit of reorderings of one's understanding of the diaspora, one's contact with it in cyberspace, of one's own ideas on the basis of what one finds there, and of social relationships established and maintained in cyberspace. Paradoxically, the very richness and diversity of the ideas and opinions found in Iranian cyberspace may undermine the idea of there actually being a single Iranian diaspora.     

GLOBAL STRUCTURES OF COMMON DIFFERENCE,CULTURAL OBJECTIFICATION,AND THEIR SUBVERSIONS: CULTURAL POLITICS IN AN AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND SCHOOL

This article adds to Richard Wilk's work on the emergence of “global structures of common difference,” that organize diversity through objectification of culture. Using cases from an Aotearoa/New Zealand school in 1997–1998, this article reveals a limit to the hegemony of global structures of common difference in daily life. By focusing on the indigenous Māori culture and newly arrived Asian's culture, this article shows (1) how variously positioned individuals did not necessarily subscribe to global structures of common difference—defying, evading, critiquing, ignoring, and circumventing them—and (2) to what degrees people objectified cultural differences and with what effects when global structures of common difference shaped cultural differences.