State power and the role of education in the constitution of natives’ subjectivities: the Druze in Israel

Collective identities are largely conceived as the essence of human subjectivity, the basis of moral collectivities and the code by which people tend to relate to histories and current affairs. Michel Foucault, notwithstanding, argued that identities are the product of power relations. Through various techniques, such as the classification of populations to certain categories, the hierarchical ordering of these categories, the allocation of differential treatment to those who occupy the various categories and the association between belonging to particular categories and certain jobs and means of living, regimes establish group identities. This process of sorting out, we argue, is the beginning of a laborious endeavor whose final goal is to institutionalize the new identities in the consciousness of the wider public as natural. Education is thought to constitute an essential tool by which regimes inculcate the young generations with constructed identities. Despite that, hegemonic discourses are not stable; rather, they are constantly challenged by all sorts of groups who speak in the name of silenced histories or moral claims. In line with these insights, we aim in this article to trace the Israeli methods employed to constitute the Druze as a distinct ethnic category, which is different not only from the Muslims, a faith community to which they affiliated until 1961, but also from the Palestinian-Arab minority. Particularly, we aim to look at the role that the educational system has played in the constitution of Druze separate identity.     

Identification,the exercise of democracy and the fear of the Other – the June EU referendum in the UK

ABSTRACT

The focus is the oscillation among leave voters in the EU referendum from the exercise of rights - an act of dis-identification – towards the assertion of identity as members of a British community. This was mediated by voters acting in an association of citizens calling on the equalising agency of the British people whilst claiming membership of a locally circumscribed community, perceived as injured, through entanglement with the Other prominent among them Europeans. Hence the recovery of the injured community as the object of the denunciators’ desire for identity coupled with the fear of the Other. Predicated on this was the resumption of class, gender and ethnic roles reflected in division among voters. The denunciation of togetherness with Europeans served leave voters to substitute the exercise of rights with a longing for identity. Instrumental in this was the lack of deliberation in the plebiscite to articulate the will of individual voters through a general will. The ‘direct power’ exercised enabled many to cast away their role as citizen in an attempt to claim their privileges as members of a racially and culturally demarcated British community. Paradoxically, the voters’ unashamed disavowal of their agency as citizens by seeking to restore a divided social world as the source of their identity was represented as an exercise in democracy. To some playing on words was supplemented by the use of force removing the gap between the discursive exclusion of the Other and the continued physical presence of bearers of different races and culture.     

An Exploration on the Realization of the Approach for Harmonious Ethnic Relations from the Perspective of“the Pattern of Diversity in Unity” Theory

1 .The “Pattern of Diversity in U-nity ” is a true reflection of the Chinese Nation ’ s ethnic relations     

Modern Muslim Thought in the Balkans: The Writings of Mehmed ef. Handžić in the El-Hidaje Periodical in the Context of Discrimination and Genocide

Abstract

The withdrawal of the Ottoman Empire from the Balkans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries left a significant impact on the population of the region, especially on the Muslims. Muslim intellectual life was strongly influenced by the arrival of a new political and social order and cultural and religious value system. During this period, Balkan Muslims painfully and irreversibly became an administrative part of Europe. The aim of this paper is to examine the main themes which characterized the writings of Bosnian Muslim intellectuals in the post-Ottoman period, particularly on the eve of and during the Second World War. This work examines the writings of Mehmed Hand?i?, a prominent Bosnian scholar that were published in the El-Hidaje Periodical from 1939 to 1945. The paper brings the scholar's views and commentaries on a variety of topics such as the impoverished Muslim state, the history of Islam and Muslims, and patriotism and nationalism from the Muslim point of view. In most ofHand?i?’swritings the focus is on Muslim intellectual responses to the new political and social changes as well as challenges of the ongoing Second World War. However, hiswritings and reflections continue to have far-reaching effects on Bosnian Muslims and remain relevant to the Bosnian Muslim situation at the beginning of the twenty-first century as the world observes the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre in 2015.     

Family–school relationships in immigrant children’s well-being: the intersection of demographics and school culture in the experiences of black African immigrants in the United States

This article explores the types of family–school relationships that promote academic, socio-economic, and social and emotional well-being of black African immigrant children in the United States. The data are ethnographic, drawing on one year of participant observation and interviews at two elementary schools. The findings are also set within the context of an analysis of data from the New Immigrant Survey. The article identifies mechanisms by which relationships between black African immigrants and schools are created and argues that intersections between demographics and school culture are central, particularly as related to the possibilities for relational power, which can allow parents and school staff to transcend persistent inequalities of race and discrimination.     

Communities of belonging in the temporariness of the Danish Asylum System: Shalini’s anchoring points

Refugees often find themselves in a protracted situation of temporariness, as applications for asylum are processed, deportations negotiated and possible extensions of temporary protection status considered within the context of increasingly restrictive governmental policies across Europe. Through the case of a young Sri Lankan woman who arrived in Denmark as an ‘unaccompanied asylum-seeking minor’ and spent five years within the Danish asylum system, this article explores how she experienced moving through different legal categories and the institutional settings associated with them. I argue that, by engaging in social relations in the localities where she was situated, she developed places of belonging that could serve as ‘anchoring points’ providing some measure of stability in her otherwise unpredictable and precarious life situation. This case suggests that, even under conditions of protracted temporariness and legal uncertainty, individuals are able to create important anchoring points and develop communities of belonging that can serve them in a difficult process of belonging to Denmark.     

Muslims in Europe: the lost tribe of Islam?

The Muslim presence in Europe has caused the Christian churches to focus their attention on a number of issues arising out of this presence and the following article is a review of three papers put out by church organizations. Starting chronologically from the earliest paper to the most recent, I have first summarized the contents of each paper before analysing and commenting on them collectively. The three Church Research Papers on Muslims in Europe are Witness to God in a Secular Europe, Conference of European Churches, Geneva 1985, The Image of Islam in German School Textbooks by Udo Tworuschka, Muslims in Europe. No. 32, 1986, and Islamic Law and its Significance for the Situation of Muslim Minorities in Europe, Report of a study project, Muslims in Europe, No. 35,1987.     

The Impact of Change within the “Cultural Context” of the Contemporary Art of Qiang Paper Cutting-Based upon an Investigation of the Art of Paper -Cutting in Mao County

The original meaning of “cultural context” refers to the socio -cultural background relating to language communication .The cultural context of the Qiang art of paper -cutting in Mao county discussed i...     

Gypsy students in the UK: the impact of ‘mobility’ on education

This paper argues that Gypsy students in primary and secondary education in the UK are marginalised because of ambiguous understandings of their ‘mobility’. Drawing on research conducted on the south coast of England, it examines Gypsy families’ experiences of education. Despite often describing their identity in relation to travelling or mobility, few families’ lifestyles were characterised by actual movement or nomadism. Teachers and educationalists meanwhile cite the need to deliver a ‘mobile’ rather than a ‘sedentary’ education for Gypsy students. The Department for Communities and Local Government recently defined Gypsy ethnicity in direct relation to a nomadic lifestyle. This is problematic as the association between Gypsy ethnicity and nomadism is itself questionable and may be better understood in more nuanced terms reflecting the relationship between identity and ‘mobility’. This paper argues that ‘mobility’ is understood to define Gypsy difference in a way that excludes students.     

Icons vs satirical inversions: Islamic rule and the ‘death of the author’ – the murder of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in Paris

The satirical inversions of the images of the Prophet Muhammad by the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists that brought the wrath of two gunmen to their authors, projected a world in which the reader is recognised as an autonomous subject. Consequent on this autonomy is the restricted power of the author who used to derive it from the re-enactment of sacred Truth. Multiple and diverse readers, on the other hand, owe their authority from the right of the individual to reason and judge independently, which places them at arm's length from the author. The inverted images drawn by the cartoonists represented a departure from the Prophet's traditional iconic images whose resemblance to the referent left little room for variation among their faithful viewers driven to identify with the Messenger of Allah either by desire to imitate or for fear of punishment. The fixed iconic ‘reading’ by the faithful was mediated by the homogeneous Muslim Community (Umma) whose members were unable to use words to objectify among an association of citizens their internal sense of injury as an excess. As a consequence, this injury caused by the readers operating outside the Community called for the use of force by its members in retaliation (qisas) for the infidels’ reading as sanctioned in the sacred text. The more entrenched the membership of the Umma, largely the product of reading the sacred text – where the author retains his traditional power – the more inclined were the members to resort to brutal force to restore the traditional power of the author.     

Cracks in the Façade: Whiteness and the Construction of 9/11

This article analyses whiteness and Americanness in relation to the drama and trauma of 9/11/01. It argues that drawing upon the history of whiteness, and its psychological and psychic legacy, provides fresh perspective on US national responses to the events of September 11, 2001. It examines the semiotic frames by means of which that day, and those events, are named, and the impact of a white hegemony upon those articulations. Secondly, it argues that there are circulating at present in the United States, five ‘analytical clusters’, all incomplete and to some degree overlapping, intended to explain how and why the air attacks took place. Thirdly it demonstrates that a terrain of ‘unnameability’ came into being along with the events of ‘9/11’. Yet, it argues, critical work at the boundaries of that terrain has signalled both the instability and tenacity of the hegemonic system itself.     

Fabricatingthe Glory of the “Sun King”：The Divine Kingship and the Shaping of Nation-State in The Fabrication of Louis XIV

Louis XIV ( September 1638—Sep-tember 1715 ) , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King, was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France from 1643 until his death.His reign of 72 year...     

Contained mobility and the racialization of poverty in Europe: the Roma at the development–security nexus

ABSTRACT

This paper starts from the observation that, since the collapse of eastern European state socialism, the Roma have become the subject and target of Europe-wide development programs and discourses, while, at the same time, they have been problematized in terms of social, public and national security. Due to the ways in which development and security have ambiguously come together in Europe’s recent history, I will argue that the living conditions of the poorest among the Roma have not only worsened, but also, and more fundamentally, the divide between Europe’s rich and poor has become seriously racialized and almost unbridgeable. I explain how the bio- and geopolitical conditions under which development and security have merged in Europe’s engagement with the Roma have led to a situation in which the official aim of Roma-related development programs – the improvement of their living conditions and life chances – tends to result in a dreadlock.     

Disobedient subjects – constructing the subject,the state and religion in the European Court of Human Rights

In this article, I analyse how the law participates in the (re)production process of the subject, the state and religion, and how the law's indefiniteness allows various constructions of them all. In the first part of the article I discuss the Islamic headscarf cases of the European Court of Human Rights as examples of how the discursive constructions of the state and the subject can be challenged by means of disobedience. Here the focus is particularly on Turkey and on France, where the principle of secularism is largely regarded as the basis of the republic and of the national identity. The law provides an arena where the disobedient subject and the state can challenge and re-establish the prevailing conceptualizations of the subject. In the second part of the article I address the Court's alleged Islamophobia. I explore how the constructions of the state and the subject contribute to the way religion is framed in the Court's argumentation in relation to the freedom of religion guaranteed under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The analysis shows that religion can be framed as a personal belief system, a cultural tradition, or politics which, in turn, affects the course of legal argumentation. I conclude that the Court can plausibly be accused of Christian bias, but that this conclusion is often based on insufficient analysis of the Court's case law. This article contributes to the interdisciplinary discussion on the headscarf bans from the socio-legal perspective. The aim is to explore what, besides providing legal solutions, the law does.     

On the Erasure of race in control culture discourse: a case study of Trayvon Martin’s role in the Black Lives Matter movement

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we analyze an emergent cultural clash between: (a) how media outlets and other control culture institutions have portrayed events related to Black Lives Matter, and (b) the complex reality of Black Lives Matter movements as they have developed through embodied, intersectional, and always socially situated forms of direct collective action. In focusing specifically on American mainstream media coverage of the killing of Trayvon Martin, we argue that, given the history of white supremacy in America, such journalistic accounts generally fail to provide an adequate socio-historical context for emergent social movements in the vein of Black Lives Matter. In framing such movements, at worst, as anti-American terrorist organizations, though more regularly as social constellations of misplaced anger, American control culture institutions have consistently reinforced a certain set of logical contradictions found across broader discussions about race throughout the history of America. Finally, drawing on the theory of play proposed by Gregory Bateson, we outline how a form of subverting mainstream journalistic framing techniques is enacted and embodied creativity through the communally oriented tactics successfully deployed by social movements like Black Lives Matter.     

From ‘Russianness’ to ‘Israeliness’ through the landscape of the soul: therapeutic discourse in the practice of immigrant absorption in Israel with ‘Russian’ adolescents

This article explores the increasing incorporation of professional therapeutic knowledge and practices into the state-led apparatus of absorption of new immigrants in Israel. Singling out this phenomenon is the seemingly unexpected alliance between the therapeutic ethos, which leans on individualist, a-national and universal values, and state-led absorption practices, based on a Zionist, collectivist and local ethos. According to the Zionist ethos, the newcomer ‘returning to an historical homeland’ is expected to become part of a territorially bounded collective entity and to adopt a new national identity that will predominate over other identities. The therapeutic ethos undermines moral authorities promoting collective redemption through identification with community goals and challenges a patronizing attitude towards new immigrants. Analysing the rhetoric and practice of Na'aleh – a decade-and-a-half-old project for adolescents immigrating from the former Soviet Union, characterized by a ‘therapeutic absorption policy’, this article examines the meaning of ‘therapeutic’ absorption in shaping a new Israeli citizen within the current social context. In order to clarify the historical uniqueness of this phenomenon, Na'aleh's absorption paradigm is compared to Youth Aliyah – the project that absorbed youngsters in a distinctly different ideological period of Israeli history (early 1940s), particularly with regard to the status of Zionism. A locus of comparison is the perceptions of the absorbing personnel and the absorbed immigrants in both ventures. The main claim of this article is that the psychologizing of the absorption apparatus both challenges and fortifies the traditional role of statist Zionism under global, postmodern conditions, typified by the erosion of the nation-state and questioning the moral status of its constitutive ethos. Therapeutic absorption transforms the newcomer into the object of therapeutic intervention rather than assimilative education. However, it simultaneously enables the ‘Russian’ teenagers from a ‘pre-therapeutic society’ to internalize a ‘therapeutic habitus’, which grants them the skills and competency to become a ‘local’ and to attain symbolic goods significant in their new social environment. Therapeutic personnel, characterized by emotional skills and cultural proximity to the absorbed pupils, rather than ideological identification with Zionist project, serve as a newer version of traditional agents of Israeli socialization, by virtue of their own unique course of absorption in Israel that blends the process of ‘becoming Israeli’ with socialization into a professional/therapeutic culture.     

New Identity/Identities Formulation in a Post‐Nomadic Community: The Case of the Bedouin of the Negev

Research conducted by the author in the mid‐1990s found that while the bedouin culture and lifestyle in Israel's Negev Desert has been altered significantly as community members were resettled in stone houses, surrendered their camels for automobiles and entered the wage labour workforce, an expressed ‘bedouin’ identity remained strong. Indeed, it was found that rather than integrate the bedouin into the Jewish‐Israeli social mainstream, coerced settlement only served, if anything, to Arabise and Islamicise communal identity. Using evidence gathered in 2000 in the planned bedouin town of Segev Shalom/Shqeb, this study serves as a follow‐up analysis of more recent changes found in bedouin identity formulation. The data will reveal that ‘bedouin’ identity remains, but that it is on the slow decline. In its place, two new identity/identities matrices have formed: the Arab/Palestinian/Muslim matrix and the bedouin/Israeli matrix. It will be shown that these expressed identity/identities matrices are not randomly chosen or expressed, but rather have evolved out of the social, economic and political environments within which the settled Negev bedouin community is situated.