School pathways and economic practices of Portuguese Ciganos: some continuities and changes

The main aim of this article is to offer a comprehensive perspective to a better understanding of the actual situation of Portuguese Ciganos.¹ In Portugal, the lack of recognition of Ciganos (Roma) and the sometimes incorrect ‘knowledge’ about them which are reflected in images that are limitative and distorted, suggest inferiority and are full of disdain, all of which negatively affects and restricts the life of Ciganos persons. This article intends to presents some of the main results of two qualitative studies conducted between 2004–2010, one of which sought to get to know Ciganos’ representations of domains, practices and situations perceived as discriminatory, while the other looked at the social integration paths of these persons. These studies produce new knowledge about both individual academic and occupational trajectories, and some of the main intergenerational changes that have occurred among Portuguese Ciganos. In addition, the article offers a new view about some social policies in Portugal and its impacts on Ciganos singularities. In fact, it’s possible to conclude that the universalism of the national social policies has not produced the desired effects in terms of a reduction in levels of poverty, exclusion, discrimination among Portuguese Ciganos.     

试论哈萨克族民间文学中的禁忌民俗

本文通过对哈萨克族民间文学文本的分析,就其中禁忌民俗对于民族认同和社会整合的作用作一阐述。     

Shas and the resignification of the intersection between ethnicity and religion

Current analyses of ethnicity and religion emphasise the subordination of the one to the other in the construction of collective identities. One line of research perceives religion as a resource of political mobilisation, while another conceptualises religion as the essence of ethnicity. As opposed to these analyses, this article explores how these two markers intersect and constitute each other in the process of identity formation. I centre on the ways Shas, an ethno-religious movement in Israel, mobilises hegemonic ethnic and religious markers of Middle East and North African (MENA) Jews in order to construct its collective identity. The analysis of Shas’s newspapers shows how, by suffusing religious traditions with ethnic meaning and marking an ethno-class collective as religious, Shas interweaves ethnicity and religion and resignifies their relation. This identity project is intended to redefine the symbolic boundaries of the Jewish nation and to redeem MENA Jews from their marginality. Intersectional analysis as applied in this article explains why different ethno-class and religious collectives imagine themselves as sharing a common identity, illumines why particular identity markers are chosen out of the numerous existing categories, and provides an explanation for the flexibility of social movements.     

Beating the monochrome: emerging market multinationals and the bricoleur approach to embracing heterogeneity

ABSTRACT

The research aims to analyse the social identities of emerging multinational corporations from India. It looks at whether the difference of geography and ethnicity can be overcome with a multi-dimensionality or bricolage approach as a managerial paradigm – where the manager, as bricoleur, adopts a socially efficient hybrid approach of changing the arrangement of socio-historical rules through negotiation of both past and present practices, rather than assuming a revolutionary or disruptive engineering approach. We present thematic and discourse analyses of the communication (interviews, blogs, press releases, and public statements) made by the top and middle management of 15 Indian MNCs. The findings reflect the strategies adopted by the firms to fit their public image to a particular culture or audience, and the ways firms migrate to a transnational image with changes in its geographical identities.     

To be or not to be an Australian: Focus on Muslim youth

In 2001, 67% of Australians identified themselves as Christians and only 1.5% as Muslims, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Other Australians are Jews, Buddhists and Hindus – to name just a few of the religious minorities. Since 1975 until recently when the Anti-Discrimination Act was legislated, multiculturalism has been the official policy of the Federal Government. Yet in these terror-ridden times, the policy – however interpreted – has well and truly fallen into disfavour. This article discusses both the historical and contemporary dimensions of Muslim Australians’ national identity, focusing particularly on Muslim youth. It examines how one group of Australian-born Muslims exhibited their national identity during the Second World War and how the newly arrived Muslims feel about their identity during the ‘War on Terror’. The article is based on both primary and secondary sources – particularly on oral testimonies.     

Euro-myth: nationalism,war and the legitimacy of the European Union

This article engages with Montserrat Guibernau's argument about the ‘non-emotional’ nature of European identity. In critiquing this argument, this article also advances a broader argument of its own: that we are witnessing an emergent European nationalism. The article suggests that although there are few people who passionately defend European integration today, those that do are increasingly resorting to arguments that depend simultaneously on invoking and rejecting collective memories of intra-European conflict derived from the ‘emotive’ period of European integration in the 1940s to shore up the increasingly challenged legitimacy of the European Union today in its hour of greatest crisis.     

From exile to post-exile: the diasporisation of Swedish Chileans in historical contexts

The main focus of this article is how a set of practices revolve around the formation of an imagined community in dispersion – diasporisation. The study discusses the case of the Chilean diaspora in Sweden and its transformation from an exile context to a post-exile context facing a drastically altered historical situation. This transformation is analysed as a matter of agency where practices are framed differently as a response to the demand perceived in the context. The outcome of this argument speaks in favour of a diaspora concept that focuses on practices and how these are framed in order to mobilise a putative dispersed population.     

从跨界共享到乡土融合:嘹歌复兴与壮族社会变迁研究

以嘹歌文化主要流布地--广西平果县的田野资料为例证,"历时"与"共时"视角并重,描述了迈入21世纪的壮族嘹歌由衰至盛的复兴历程。反思嘹歌文化的发展,文章认为推动乡村优秀传统文化在传承与创新中实现"跨界共享"可以成为乡村文化振兴的有效路径,总结其规律,"传承-创新-再融入"是一重要发展模式。在多元互动的语境下,平衡好文化"向上"与"向下"之间的流向关系,对乡村社会的发展至关重要。     

British Critical Theorists: The Production of the Conceptual Invisibility of the Irish Diaspora

There is a long historical narrative of the relations between Britain and Ireland in which images of the Irish have been mobilised as major changing representational resources for the making of the British nation, identity and culture. Presently, the Irish diaspora in Britain is a major racialised ethnic group. However, it is absent from contemporary British theorists' representations of race and ethnicity. The paper critically explores the dominant racial regime of representation and this accompanying conceptual absence, as illustrated in anti-racist and new cultural theory texts. There is a need to rethink the histories and geographies of social closure and cultural exclusion as defining elements of the politics of race and nation. The paper argues the need to move beyond the Americanisation of British race-relations - the colour paradigm - to a critical engagement with European explanations, focusing on questions of nation, nationalism and migration. This is not an argument for the inclusion of the Irish in the current model of British race relations, but rather seeks to investigate the denial of difference with reference to Irish ethnic minority status and the specificity of anti-Irish racism. I conclude by looking at the question of self-representation in relation to Irish cultural formation and subjectivity, suggesting that in terms of a traditional racial dichotomy of domination/dominated, the Irish are not either/or but both/and.     

论当前我国边疆治理中的民族认同与国家认同整合

我国是一个典型的多民族国家,这种国家的多民族在边疆表现得尤为突出,使得边疆地区的民族认同与国家认同也因此变得十分复杂。伴随着当前我国边疆地区现代化进程的加剧,边疆民族认同与国家认同的矛盾与冲突在一定程度上凸显出来,因此两者之间的整合也变得越来越迫切。在现实的认同整合过程中,必须调整我国当前的民族政策取向、转变边疆治理的思路、切实保障少数民族的正当权益,并通过国族建设实现边疆民族认同与国家认同的和谐共存。     

民族认同与国家认同研究述评

民族认同与国家认同的研究一直以来都是学界关注的重点内容之一,学者们为此进行了不懈的努力,成就卓然。文章通过对目前国内外民族认同和国家认同的相关研究成果进行系统梳理,指出通过引入身份认同理论,把群体或个体的意识和行为同文化和社会结构因素联系起来,从综合性、历时性的动态视角来研究民族问题,并由此总结出民族认同与国家认同变迁的规律或机理,将会更好地服务于现实社会。     

蒙藏关系下的文化变迁和民族认同——以青海省河南蒙古族为例

青海省河南蒙古族与藏族交错而居,两个民族长期相互接触,由于族体规模上的差异和自然条件的原因,在文化传播中主要表现为蒙古族对藏族文化的采借和适应,以致从外部特征似难将当地蒙古族从藏族中分辨出来。但细加考察,蒙古族的客观认同和主观心理归属感仍然清晰可见。在融洽的民族关系中,蒙藏之间仍然保持着融而未合、和而未同的特点。     

Identities in transition: the case of emerging market multinational corporations and its response to glocalisation

ABSTRACT

In this article, we critically review the extant literature and develop a conceptual framework for a sophisticated understanding of the multiple levels of influences that shape the nature and extent of ‘organisational identity’, a topical, multi-disciplinary and important area. We contribute by identifying and noting, both, the common theoretical and practical influences that shape an organisation’s identity especially maintaining the focus in relation to emerging market multinationals and its response to glocalisation. Our review and framework also points to the most common explanations that are evident in this cross-disciplinary field and points to the gaps and novel sets of identity influences that are needed to be unbundled and demystified in this arena, as several of these influences exist in practice, though they are not adequately studied through the lenses of organisational identity. We classify areas for future research based on recent contributions to the field and list identified gaps to invite further scholarship in this critical area of study and practice.     

Globalization and global identification: a comparative multilevel analysis

This paper focuses on the relation between national and global identification and the impact of globalization on this relation. The multilevel approach drew survey data from 89 countries, country-level measures of globalization enabling an examination of globalization effects on the relation between national and global identification. A negative link obtained between national and global identification in most of the countries, the cross-country variation of this link is related to globalization. Countries characterized by rapid globalization exhibit a lower negative relation between national and global identification than those marked by lower levels of globalization change.     

Pushed to Africa: emigration and social change in China

This essay explores the dynamics of recent labour migration from China to Africa through the prism of migrant narratives. Drawing on field research in Ethiopia and China the author links migrants’ motives for, and experiences of, migration to social transformation in China: most notably a shift away from the flurry of optimism and idealism to a mood of careful conformism fuelled by a prevailing yearning for a sense of security and a fear of ‘missing out’ in a competition for resources. Migrants expressed being ‘pushed’ to Africa. Their attitudes stand in relief to the dreams about ‘making it’ that have propelled many Chinese to the West. By examining how these migrants imagine time and space, displacement and emplacement, the author sheds light on the distinct characteristics of Chinese migration to Africa, as well as on the relationship between emigration and social change.     

实事求是、与时俱进,推动西藏社会发展研究

建国60年,国内国际形势已经发生了翻天覆地的巨大变化,各族民众和政府官员也已经出现了显著的代际更替,改革开放以来东部沿海与西部少数民族聚居区的发展差距也在不断扩大,西部地区如西藏自治区的社会经济发展正面临一个新的历史转型期.在这一过程中会不断出现新矛盾和新问题,坚持解放思想、实事求是的唯物主义科学精神,深入实地调查来理解和把握新时代的社会矛盾和民族关系走向,倾听基层民众的心声,同时虚心借鉴我国历史上和其他国家在民族关系方面的经验和教训,不唯上,不唯书,真正做到与时俱进,这是我们当前开展民族问题研究所必须坚持的原则立场.     

Narrating European integration: transnational actors and stories

ABSTRACT

This article introduces the special issue on narrating European integration. Narratives, or stories, are a key mechanism for constructing individual and collective identities, and other politically important elements of discourse. The articles in this special issue go beyond most existing work on narratives. First, they examine the actors and networks, ranging from EU institutions to political parties and social groups, which create, foster and disseminate narratives. Second, they address major narratives and sets of narrating actors of at least a partly transnational nature. Third, the authors transgress disciplinary boundaries, drawing on contemporary history, sociology, political science and cultural studies.     

Scientific justification of social policies: concepts of language and immigrant integration

Population mobility, globalisation, and the Internet contribute to the change of immigration patterns and the emergence of new kinds of identities and integration strategies. It is necessary to re-examine the heuristic significance of this field's key concepts in order to ensure that relevant and theoretically sound knowledge consistently informs integration policies, measures, and programmes. This paper focuses on the concepts of language and maintains that a narrow-utilitarian approach to the issue of language and integration may thrive due to uncritical acceptance of an instrumentalist view on language as a means of communication and/or a social marker together with an essentialist concept of identity that stems from the sociolinguistic tradition. However, this conceptual framework does not correspond to the complexity of the integration process in a contemporary society. The present paper aims to contribute to the field of language and immigrant integration via outlining an alternative approach to language grounded in the ideas of Humboldt, Potebnja, and Vygotsky (language as a creative force, a worldview, and a mediating tool) and discussing its potential for addressing the issue of integration in contemporary conditions.     

Survival and integration: Kachin social networks and refugee management regimes in Kuala Lumpur and Los Angeles

How do refugees establish social networks and mobilise social capital in different contexts throughout a multi-stage migration process? Migrant social network literature explains how migrants accumulate social capital and mobilise resources in and between origin and destination but provides limited answers regarding how these processes unfold during refugee migrations involving protracted stays in intermediate locations and direct interaction with state agents. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork with Kachin refugees in Kuala Lumpur and Los Angeles, I address these gaps by comparing refugee social networks in two sites of a migration process. Distinguishing between networks of survival and networks of integration, I argue that differences in their form and functions stem from their interactions with local refugee management regimes, which are shaped by broader state regulatory contexts. In both locations, these networks and regimes feed off each other to manage the refugee migration process, with key roles played by hybrid institutions rooted in grassroots adaptation efforts yet linked to formal resettlement mechanisms. Considering the refugee migration process as a whole, I show that Kachin refugees demonstrate their possession of social capital gained during the informal social process of migration to advance through institutionalised political processes of resettlement in each context.