Changing patterns of mobility,citizenship and conflict in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Mobility and migration are inherent ingredients of Indonesian cultures. In an archipelago with thousands of islands of various size, character and nature, mobility is an important means to make a living and to survive by migration. The right to free movement in Indonesia is constitutionally granted. It can create mobility and give expression to equal citizenship rights at the same time as it can trigger the enforcement of borders among cultural groups and the ethnification of local and regional politics. Mobility thus always comes along with immobility. Physical mobility of one group of people might cause immobility of another group or it might create cultural and political immobility in the same group. In places such as Eastern Indonesia, people have developed reciprocal means to integrate newcomers. Whereas the immigrants are usually disadvantaged citizens with regards to land and customary rights, those living in the area for generations have nonetheless become integral parts of quite peaceful local settings, one way or the other. The advancement of decentralization, democratization and direct elections of political representatives can lead to political empowerment, the promotion of ethnicity as election capital and changing patterns of belonging. This paper illustrates these ambivalences by looking at mobility in Indonesia more generally and how changing national policies and laws lead to reinterpretations of mobility patterns and trigger changes in relations between local population groups and existing mechanisms of cultural and political inclusion and exclusion. Butonese migrants in Maluku will here serve as a case study.     

Concepts of national identity and the readiness for conflict behaviour

This article examines the process of national identity formation among ethnic minorities in the Crimea – specifically, the moderation effects of concepts of national identity on interrelations between conflict indicators and readiness for conflict or compromise for two ethnic minorities in Crimea. Based on a survey in the Crimea, results show that concepts of national identity moderate the effects of ethnic identity, ethnocentrism and economic deprivation on individual conflict behaviour. Research show that civic concept of national identity significantly reduces readiness for conflict among ethnic minorities. The position of a minority within the nation regulates impact of ethnic and multicultural concepts on readiness to fight with other groups.     

Nationalism versus civilisations: an assessment of alternate theories on the future of ethnic identity and conflict

The end of the Cold War has caused a reassessment of the future basis for conflict and identity. While Samuel Huntington predicts that super-national ‘civilisations’ are becoming the basis for identity and conflict, many dispute this arguing that either past ethnic and national bases for identity and conflict will remain the norm or that world integration and interdependence will cause the world to unite. This article examines an aspect of this debate using data on ethnic conflict from the Minorities at Risk data set, as well as data collected independently. Specifically, it assesses whether post-Cold War ethnic conflict, and by inference ethnic identity, is more influenced by civilisational or ethnic variables. The analysis shows that separatism, a nationalist variable, is considerably more strongly associated with ethnic rebellion than are civilisational differences. Furthermore, in the multi-variate analysis civilisational differences are, if anything, associated with less ethnic rebellion. Also, separatism and various political variables more strongly influence ethnic rebellion than do civilisational differences. Thus, this study strongly supports the contention that, at least as of the late 1990s, identity continues to be based on national end ethnic factors rather than civilisational ones.     

Exile,gender and identity: the short stories of Afghanistani author Maryam Mahboob

The last two decades of the twentieth century witnessed the largest migration of the Afghanistani population in modern history. More than six million people migrated to neighbouring countries, and to North America, Europe and Australia. Among them were almost all of Afghanistan's female authors; some eventually returned, but others chose to remain in diaspora. Some stopped writing, while others have continued. Maryam Mahboob was the first Afghanistani female author to leave Afghanistan (in 1981). Her major works since then have dealt chiefly with the issues of women living in ‘Outlandia’. Having been treated as second-class citizens in Afghanistan, how do Afghanistani migrant women perceive their social status in a new environment? How has migration affected the lives of Afghanistani women of different generations? Have they assimilated with the new culture and adopted new identities, or have they retained their cultural identities and stayed in closed communities? How do these women perceive their ‘new home’ vis-à-vis the ‘old home-land’. What does it mean to be a female author from a Third World Islamic society living and writing in the First World? Why does Mahboob still write overwhelmingly about themes from her place of origin and in her native language, after so much time abroad?     

Will to love,will to fear: the emotional politics of illegality and citizenship in the campaign against birthright citizenship in the US

Anti-immigration activists argue that the broad inclusivity of the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment is a national security concern that enables criminalized migrant mothers to give birth to citizens who can later harm the US through violence and resource consumption. Seeing this argument as representative of the problem of inclusivity inherent to citizenship in a liberal democracy, this essay asks how the children of undocumented and temporary migrants are constructed as what Mae Ngai calls ‘alien citizens.’ Drawing from Sara Ahmed's affective economy of emotion, I find that affect and emotion figure prominently in how citizens are made ‘alien.’ Specifically love and fear function as pivot points in the anti-birthright citizenship argument, wherein the ‘real citizen’ is ‘willed’ to love and be loved by the nation and to fear the nation's Others. Moreover, the emphasis on national feelings does not evacuate white supremacy or heteronormativity from its imagination of citizenship, but instead displaces these loci of power into feeling and affect. Thus, this essay claims that the birthright citizenship argument illustrates how national love and fear work in tandem to uphold, naturalize, and expand the racial and sexual exclusions inherent to citizenship in a nation-state.     

Hybridity,ethnicity and nationhood: legacies of interethnic war,wartime rape and the potential for bridging the ethnic divide in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina

ABSTRACT

Relying on the biographical narrative Leila, a girl from Bosnia and the recorded narratives by adolescents born of wartime rape in Bosnia and Herzegovina we illustrate the difficulties and symbolic implications associated with negotiating hybrid identities in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina against the dominant post-conflict discourse based on ‘pure’ ethnicities. We argue that in today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina, hybrid identities are marginalized by official politics and societal structures as a legacy of the war. However, they simultaneously embody the symbolic tools through which ethnic divisions could be overcome, envisioning and recalling a multi-ethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina as a supra-national designation.     

论"族格"——试探民族平等与民族自治、民族自决的哲学基础

文章提出"族格"的概念,认为族格是自然赋予的,即天赋的每个民族无论大小强弱都具有平等的权利和尊严."人格"是"族格"的哲学基础,族格是人的群体的抽象人格,在多民族国家里,少数民族完整的"人格"的实现离不开"族格"的保障."族格"包括民族政治权利的平等和文化上的多元.文章以从自然法权推导出的族格理论揭示了民族平等、民族自治、民族自决理论等的哲学渊源,阐释了正确的民族理论和民族政策. "族格"理论对于正确认识和处理民族问题提供了新的视角,对于构建国家、民族之间和国家内部各民族之间的和谐关系具有一定的理论价值.     

疾疫的救治、防控与乡村社会的变迁——青海省黄南藏族自治州牧区个案研究

历史上,现今青海省黄南藏族自治州的牧区存在鼠疫、性病、伤寒、天花等疾疫流行的情况,那里的藏族和蒙古族主要依靠社会力量(其中包括民间藏医、寺院以及人们在日常生活方面的行为规范和约束)对疾疫进行救治,国家和地方政府对当地疾疫的防控干预不多。中华人民共和国成立后,当地医疗卫生事业得到很大的发展,疾疫状况有了明显的改善。调查研究表明,近几十年黄南牧区疾疫救治与防控的进步,不仅表现为由民间自发防控向国家政府行为的转化,还表现为由治疗向预防的发展以及疾疫防控的法制化。它在某些方面改变了民众对传统社会组织与宗教的依赖程度,反映出国家力量对边远民族地区基层社会的管理在不断深入和强化。