Displacement,integration and identity in the postcolonial world

Defining the relationship between displaced populations and the nation state is a fraught historical process. The Partition of India in 1947 provides a compelling example, yet markedly little attention has been paid to the refugee communities produced. Using the case of the displaced ‘Urdu-speaking minority’ in Bangladesh, this article considers what contemporary discourses of identity and integration reveal about the nature and boundaries of the nation state. It reveals that the language of ‘integration’ is embedded in colonial narratives of ‘population’ versus ‘people-nation’ which structure exclusion not only through language and ethnicity, but poverty and social space. It also shows how colonial and postcolonial registers transect and overlap as colonial constructions of ‘modernity’ and ‘progress’ fold into religious discourses of ‘pollution’ and ‘purity’. The voices of minorities navigating claims to belonging through these discourses shed light on a ‘nation-in-formation’: the shifting landscape of national belonging and the complicated accommodations required.     

World War II and the development of global indigenous identities

The indigenous rights movement emerged in the last quarter of the twentieth century, establishing a newly conceptualized identity claimed not on the grounds of shared culture, language or ancestry but on shared experience as native peoples marginalized by colonial expansion. This article examines how the Second World War created conditions favouring the emergence of indigenous identity as a global concept. Using a comparative perspective, this paper considers two ways in which war conditions affected indigenous peoples: by highlighting issues of citizenship, loyalty and military service; and by altering how combatant powers evaluated indigenous cultures. While the experiences of particular groups varied widely, the wartime era focused attention on both policies of assimilation and assertions of distinctiveness, creating a fluid context for change. A global, comparative perspective offers insight into the role of the war era in understanding the relationship between indigenous activism and the international order.     

Images of Jewish identities in Lithuanian literature of the twentieth century: Grigorii Kanovich and Markas Zingeris

This paper deals with the identity concept of two Lithuanian Jewish writers, Grigorii Kanovich and Markas Zingeris. Kanovich, as a member of the Holocaust generation, writing in Russian, depicts his protagonists as spiritual and hardworking people with strong self‐confidence, resting on religion and custom. By means of the narrative technique of memory, Kanovich creates a literary resurrection of the Lithuanian Jews as a people which was almost completely exterminated during the Holocaust. Omnipresent pictures of cemetery and grave transform the Lithuanian space into a metonymy of death and, grotesquely, to the only place of home, being the “shelter” for the killed bodies of the Lithuanian Jewry. Markas Zingeris, growing up in post‐war Soviet Lithuania, represents the concept of open identities, changeable in time and place. Calling himself a Lithuanian writer who has been raised within a Lithuanian, Jewish, and, not least, Soviet milieu, Zingeris depicts his protagonists in in‐between situations. Writing in Lithuanian, speaking several languages fluently and working as translator, Zingeris embodies the cosmopolite. At the same time, though, he is a writer of collective memory. He comments on the apparent loss of the great utopia of an autonomous identity with ironic melancholy, pointing instead to the rich variety of hybrid identities.     

Constructing the nation: Ethnicity,race, modernity and citizenship in early Indonesian thought

This article examines the ways in which some early twentieth-century Indonesian thinkers conceptualised the state they had so recently imagined, and particularly how they attacked the vast problem of accommodating ethnic difference within the framework of that new state. Notwithstanding the highly promising beginnings of Indonesian self-appreciation in the early twentieth century and an extraordinarily successful cooptation and, as necessary, subjugation of local and regional expressions of ethnicity to the notion of a united Indonesia, there developed at the same time the new and strange concept of an ‘Indonesian race’. That concept represented a regressive reluctance to dispense completely with pre-modern notions of culture and belonging, and created a damaging feature of the understanding of Indonesian citizenship that endures to this day.     

Picturing social work,puzzles and passion: exploring and developing transnational professional identities

ABSTRACT

Exploring and in turn developing professional identity is a challenge faced by social work programmes, nationally and internationally. This paper developed from the authors’ shared research interest in how social workers and students of social work develop and express their professional identities. We report findings from a workshop designed to explore how a group of social workers from different countries conceptualised social work identity, including the effects of transnational and cultural contexts. Our starting point drew on theoretical concepts developed in Wiles’s research, in which the term professional identity is used to convey multiple meaning, and the method developed in Vicary’s research which uses drawing to elicit data. We found that a collective identity is shared across national boundaries albeit, and ironically, that this shared identity has components that are not cohesive and are continually being redefined. In the participants’ own words, the notion of social work identity is always just out of reach conceptually, or ‘over the horizon’. Tensions in identity were also revealed, alongside a sense of passion or deep commitment. These findings complement and add to the existing literature on exploring and developing professional identity in social work.     

The Rohingya of Myanmar: theoretical significance of the minority status

The Rohingya of Myanmar have been experiencing a range of human rights violations including state-sponsored genocide and ethnic cleansing. Many argue that the genesis of the crisis lies in the denial of their legal status and granting citizenship would offer a solution. This article argues that apart from such legal dynamics, significant theoretical aspects of this crisis require analysis. From a theoretical perspective, the Rohingya’s identity as a minority is important as it leads to their persecution. This article demonstrates that their minority identity has been (re)constructed over time. Four factors such as (i) development of Burmese nationalism; (ii) politicisation of identity for Burmese majority; (iii) taking away of the citizenship of Rohingya; and (iv) ethnic divisions in Myanmar society have played significant roles in (re)constructing their identity as a minority. They give rise to a type of citizenship in Myanmar, which fails to include the religious minority within its ambit.     

Multitudinous identities: a qualitative and network analysis of the 15M collective identity

The emergence of network-movements since 2011 has opened the debate around the way in which social media and networked practices make possible innovative forms of collective identity. We briefly review the literature on social movements and ‘collective identity’, and show the tension between different positions stressing either organization or culture, the personal or the collective, aggregative or networking logics. We argue that the 15M (indignados) network-movement in Spain demands conceptual and methodological innovations. Its rapid emergence, endurance, diversity, multifaceted development and adaptive capacity, posit numerous theoretical and methodological challenges. We show how the use of structural and dynamic analysis of interaction networks (in combination with qualitative data) is a valuable tool to track the shape and change of what we term the ‘systemic dimension’ of collective identities in network-movements. In particular, we introduce a novel method for synchrony detection in Facebook activity to identify the distributed, yet integrated, coordinated activity behind collective identities. Applying this analytical strategy to the 15M movement, we show how it displays a specific form of systemic collective identity we call ‘multitudinous identity’, characterized by social transversality and internal heterogeneity, as well as a transient and distributed leadership driven by action initiatives. Our approach attends to the role of distributed interaction and transient leadership at a mesoscale level of organizational dynamics, which may contribute to contemporary discussions of collective identity in network-movements.     

Parent,carer, person: future plans and the identities of parent carers for people with disabilities

Parent carers are often central in future planning for their children with disability; however, little is known about the implications of planning for parents’ futures and aspirations. In understanding these, parents’ own identities are important, but how these identities intersect with their planning is not well understood. This study explored how parents were positioned in discussions about planning. Interviews with parents and planning service staff highlighted three positions among parents – carer, parent, and person – representing multiple, intersecting identities. These impacted on and were impacted by planning in particular ways. Understanding these processes may assist programmes to support parents more effectively.     

Political participation beyond borders: a comparative analysis of Turkish youth living in home country,Germany and Belgium

Drawing on data from a large-scale international study [PIDOP – Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation. 2009–2012. Accessed August 10. http://www.fahs.surrey.ac.uk/pidop/index.htm], the present research examined psychological and demographic factors related to civic and political participation among adolescents and young adults (from 16 to 26 years of age) with a Turkish origin and residing in Belgium (n?=?153), Germany (n?=?204) and Turkey (n?=?253). MANCOVA and one-way ANOVA were employed to address how types of civic, direct and online participation differ by socio-demographic variables. The results indicate that citizenship status was not related with the types of participation, while age, gender and country were significantly related with the type of participation in various degrees. Interaction between all the variables showed that older (20–26), foreign national, male Turkish German sample is significantly more involved in civic participation activities. Results are discussed in light of the naturalization processes of migrant groups abroad and extensive religious involvement of Turkish German sample.     

Positioning,strategizing, and charming: how students with autism construct identities in relation to disability

Contrary to views that young people with the label of autism are incapable of engaging in collective cultural practice, this article examines how they construct identities through social interactions to belong, compete, and participate. In a multi-sited ethnography of high school students with disabilities, we focused on two students as they move across contexts of school, debate team, and home. Over two years of interviews and participant observation, these students demonstrated nuanced efforts to distance themselves from the ‘autistic’ label. These acts of positioning illuminated how they negotiate identities with the knowledge their interactions shape how people perceive their participation in different contexts. By following them across informal and formal environments, we could see how they transition across multiple social worlds and appreciate the combined power these contexts have on youth identity.     

Teaching culture beyond nationalist boundaries: national identities,stereotyping, and culture in language education

The authors take a critical language pedagogy approach to examining a 2011 controversy over disparaging comments towards Mexicans made by commentators of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s automotive show Top Gear. In particular, they focus on the characterization of groups and individuals according to their nationality and examine the ubiquity of nationalism and its ability to shape our conception of culture and in turn our understandings of others as members of ‘X national culture.’ The fact that humor is often a justification for national stereotyping and that these stereotypes are also connected to racist discourse are also explored. In the second part of the article, the implications of the stereotyping debate for language classrooms are considered. The authors argue that the controversy itself can be used as a tool for critical engagement that helps students deconstruct the underlying nationalist paradigm in L2 classrooms and build greater intercultural awareness.

Español: Los autores examinan, desde una perspectiva de la pedagogía crítica del lenguaje, la controversia que surgió en el 2011 debido a los comentarios nocivos hechos hacia los mexicanos por los locutores del show automotriz del BBC, Top Gear. En particular, se enfocan en la caracterización de los grupos e individuos de acuerdo a su nacionalidad, y examinan la ubiquidad del nacionalismo y su capacidad para darle forma a nuestra conceptualización de la cultura y, a su vez, nuestra forma de ver a otros como miembros de una ‘cultural nacional X’. Los autores también exploran el hecho de que a menudo se utiliza el humor como una justificación para los estereotipos nacionales, y que estos estereotipos también están conectados al discurso racista. En la segunda parte del artículo, se consideran las implicaciones para la enseñanza de idiomas del debate sobre los estereotipos. Argumentan los autores que la controversia en sí se puede utilizar como una herramienta para promover una postura crítica que ayude a los alumnos a deconstruir el paradigma subyacente del nacionalismo en el salón de lenguas extranjeras y fomente la conciencia intercultural.     

The identities and social roles of people with an intellectual disability: challenging dominant cultural worldviews,values and mythologies

Intellectual disability is commonly conceptualised as stigmatised identity with which one has to live. However, within the literature the notion of a damaged identity is contested. The aim of this research was to explore the social construction of intellectual disability, with an emphasis on the identities and social roles of people with an intellectual disability. Informed by a contextualist perspective, this research was conducted within a participatory framework. The co-researchers involved in this research were 18 members of an advocacy agency. Photovoice and conversational interviewing were used to collect data and causal layered analysis was used to deconstruct the data. Analysis of the interactions that emerged across the causal layers revealed a complex dynamic of worldviews which served to construct people with an intellectual disability as incompetent, inherently different and not quite human. For genuine, transformative change to occur, developing an awareness and understanding of social processes, such as dehumanisation, is crucial.     

Negotiating identities: the lives of Pakistani and Bangladeshi young disabled people

Research has generally amalgamated minority ethnic (all called 'Asian' or 'black') disabled young people's experiences and failed to acknowledge the multiple aspects of Asian and black disabled identities, for example how the combined attributes of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, culture, class and disability shape their perspectives and experiences. In an attempt to address this issue my doctoral research explored the experiences and perspectives of 13 young Pakistani and Bangladeshi disabled people. By drawing on the substantive and theoretical findings which emerged from my analysis in this paper I shall consider how multiple aspects of identity, such as ethnicity, disability and gender, affect this population's identity and self-image and how this makes their experiences different from white disabled young people and other minority groups' experiences.     

Youth cultures and the rest of life: subcultures,post-subcultures and beyond

Recent debate on the conceptualisation of youth cultures has been characterised as an irreconcilable stalemate between materialist defenders of a version of subcultural theory derived from the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) and post-subcultural theorists who favour more individualised understandings. This article suggests that, beneath this facade lies a more complex and reconcilable debate and that it may be time to move beyond the polarising presence of the CCCS as primary reference point for the discussion. Turning to substance, I go on to examine how enduring areas of disagreement within the debate can be resolved, establishing ways forward with respect to the interplay between spectacular groupings and individual pathways and the contextualisation of youth cultures, including with respect to material and structural factors. I advocate greater emphasis on the study of collective youth cultures as part of broader biographies as a way forward that can draw together these substantive strands and bring together insight from across the subcultures/post-subcultures debate.     

Castells' Catalan routes: nationalism and the sociology of identity

Castells' analysis of the rise of a global network society and information age is underpinned, paradoxically, by a nationalist vision with organic links in a Gramscian sense to Catalan nationalism. This leads to various weaknesses in his theory, especially an over-emphasis on language and nation at the expense of class. Exploring the specifically Catalan origins of his work, and testing its adequacy there, helps us to understand Castells' broader approach. Discussion of Castells has perhaps overlooked his commitment to nationalism because the sociology of identity sometimes unwittingly adopts what Billig has called a banal nationalist perspective. A stricter distinction between the different meanings of the term identity would help sociology to avoid arguments, such as that of Castells, that risk becoming determinist, teleological or both. The article concludes by asking whether the 'sociological imagination' has been alert enough to its banal nationalist form, facilitated by its intimate relationship with the state, its concern for policy relevance and methods of data gathering.     

Witness Citizenship: The Place of Villa Grimaldi in Chilean Memory1

The rebuilding of democracy on the former site of a bloody dictatorship continues to be a work in progress in contemporary Chile. Since 1990, the importance of Villa Grimaldi, and other key cultural sites like it, cannot be dismissed as mere sideshows to the “real business” of democratic state‐making.The conversion of a former torture complex to a peace park raises a provocative question both around the function of cultural memory and memorialization: What is the role of a former concentration camp turned memorial park in Chile’s process of democratization? I argue that public memorials like Villa Grimaldi Peace Park can be important complements to the incomplete process of transitional justice in nations that have experienced grave human rights violations. Such sites provide significant forms of sociability, which I call “witness citizenship” (human rights participation, generational transmission, and other forms of civic action) that deepen the reach of democracy, especially in the social spaces where truth commissions and institutional processes have not been able to reach.     

My life is a mess: self-deprecating relatability and collective identities in the memification of student issues

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we investigate memes about student issues. We consider the memes as expressions of a new networked student public that contain discourses that may fall outside the mainstream discourse on higher education. The paper is based on content analysis of 179 posts in the public Facebook Group ‘Student Problem Memes’, combined with a nine-month media watch and a discussion workshop with 15 students. Through self-deprecating humour, students create an inverse attention economy of competitive one-downmanship, where the goal is to display humorous failure instead of perfect appearance. Our analysis shows that students use humour to express, share, and commiserate over daily struggles, but also that the problems related to work/study balance and mental health, are experienced as a persistent feature of student living. We also analyse limitations of meme-based publics, emphasizing processes of inclusion and exclusion through specific vernaculars of visual and discursive humour where issues related to gender, race, orientation, class, and ability are sidelined in favour of relatable humour.     

Olfactive frames of remembering: theorizing self,senses and society

By analysing sensorial aspects of social memory and emotions, this paper theorizes the social significance of olfaction and other senses towards reconfigurations of self and social interactions through embodied identity work. The research question that this paper addresses is: how is the self perceived through memories that are mediated by smells? Olfactive frames of remembering are employed in order to explicate sensory meta‐narratives including sensory relations (pertaining to familial and other ties), sensory memory, time and space, and sensoryscapes. This article also elucidates upon the various moral, cultural and aesthetic codes that may be discerned in biographical narrations of social actors drawn from narrative interviews. Furthermore, it highlights a need to consider sensorial‐bodily experiences in qualitative inquiry and thereby conceptualize how actors articulate their sense of self, and how they reformulate their experiences and relationships with others vis‐à‐vis emotional discourses of happiness, sadness and nostalgia in the maintenance and continuity of selfhood. The paper therefore contributes to sensuous scholarship by explicating how smells and memories operate in conjunction toward shaping self‐identity and social relations.     

Citizenship beyond politics: the importance of political,civil and social rights and responsibilities among women and men1

Previous research has suggested that men are more engaged as citizens than are women. Yet, little is known about gender cleavages across a variety of citizenship norms. To what extent do men and women define citizenship differently? To address that question, this study examines the importance men and women assign various citizenship rights and responsibilities using 2004 ISSP data from 18 Western, industrialized nations. Using a disaggregated approach to understanding definitions of citizenship, we examine political, civil, and social rights and responsibilities. After controlling for a variety of demographic and attitudinal influences, we find that men and women are not different in their views regarding the importance of political responsibilities. However, women do view political rights as significantly more important than do men. Further, in comparison to men, women view both civil and social responsibilities and rights domains as significantly more important.     

Intertextual stancetaking and the local negotiation of cultural identities by a binational couple1

Recent approaches to stance emphasize the dialogic nature of stancetaking, drawing attention to turn‐by‐turn negotiation of stance. This study expands that view by focusing upon cases where the stancetaker responds not to a stance in the immediately prior turn, but to prior stances in the ongoing relationship between interlocutors, to construct distinct identities. The data come from a sociolinguistic interview conducted with a couple who constructed contrasting identities through stances related to cultural differences. I examine the linguistic strategies this couple uses to take divergent stances: constructed dialogue; verb tense; and time adverbials. I introduce the term constructed stance in parallel with constructed dialogue. Analysis of stances taken by attributing a stance to oneself or another through constructed dialogue supplements previous research by demonstrating how a longitudinal dimension can be introduced even with a single interaction as data source. This underscores how local stances can contribute to more enduring identities.