Politics of quantifying people and 2017’s census of Pakistan

Pakistan is a postcolonial multilingual, multicultural, and multireligious state. Different cultural collectivities struggle for the preservation of their social identity and procurement of their fair share in the economic and political resources of the state. Numbers provide these ethnic groups the knowledge about their own strength relative to other ethnic groups and accordingly to make demands. In Pakistan, a decennial is conducted to know the exact number and nature of its demography and accordingly make policies. Pakistan since 1947 till date has conducted six censuses in total and all are mired in controversy concerning the counting of competing ethnicities. This article using case study method and taking 2017's census as a case investigates two fundamental questions: why does the state of Pakistan keep an uncertainty around the numbers, and why do competing ethnic groups never trust the process of counting numbers and call it a manipulated process?     

Broadening the mind: Cross-national activities in social work

Cross-national activities in social work are claimed to be valuable because they 'broaden the mind' of participants. This paper argues that cross-national activities have as a result been uncritically valued, and proposes a more critical analysis. Drawing on examples of the authors' experiences, they argue that cross-national activity often misunderstands difference as cultural. Careful analysis of structural contexts, knowledge and process is crucial to evaluating cross-national work; this paper focuses on structure. Participants, their objectives and their power need to be examined: roles of stakeholders and 'ringmasters' distinguish different positions. To be successful, objectives need to progress towards more mutual, equal and committed participation of partners.     

The Kyana Corroboree: Cultural Production of Indigenous Ethnogenesis

This article analyzes the 1993 Kyana Corroboree of the Noongah Aborigines of Western Australia as a case study of the cultural production and cultural politics of ethnogenesis and indigeneity through public celebration. Kyana is a local example of how indigenous peoples globally experience "ethnic reorganization," an often inchoate, mutable process of social reproduction that encourages the survival of an ethnic group, albeit in an altered form. This article demonstrates how Noongah and Aboriginal ethnogenesis is composed of a mercurial mixture of conflict and concordance, especially in regard to aspirations toward some level of influence over the self-definition of Aboriginality and its symbolic representations.
The organization of contemporary ethnicity and the nature of current ethnic relations reflect contemporary adaptations and continually evolving identities and institutions.—Nagel and Snipp 1993, p. 225
Celebration is a "text," a vivid aesthetic creation that reflexively depicts, interprets and informs its social context. [Celebration] articulates and modifies power relations.—Manning 1983, p. 6     

Unveiling the mantra. The salience of network-based community belonging in understanding the structural and agentic conditions of the migration-development nexus

There is more and more evidence that migration and development cannot be considered as two dimensions, whose nexus emerges naturally as a mantra with reciprocal advantages both in developing and in developed countries. This article investigates the theoretical framework of a migration-development nexus as a double time-dependent process of social change, at the same time embedded both in the long durée of the reproduction/innovation of social practices and in the short durée of an agent's personal reflectivity. I argue that the wide scenario of this interplay is the place for the cultural, symbolic, and moral dimensions of a migrant's membership of a network-based community, which acts as a cultural compass in determining migrants' attitudes towards the development of their home country. Strong community membership can be associated with real engagement in the development issues of members left behind (as part of the collective self), only if we assume that membership and belonging are not necessarily shaped by kinship or ethnic considerations, but vary according to the structural features of migrants' social networks – for example the way in which migrants define networks as their own communities, the results of past community memories, and how they imagine their future community on the basis of current experience and perception. The paper discusses these issues in the light of the structure-agent debate in social sciences and migration studies.     

The barriers to the effectiveness of culturally sensitive practices in health and social care services for Chinese people in Britain

This paper studies the problem that health and social care practitioners, intending to satisfy their ethnic minority users’ cultural preferences, end up providing services against their wishes. In particular it points out that this problem is caused by over-emphasising two key assumptions of ethnic minority groups. The first assumption is that all members of the same ethnic minority group organise their health and social care according to their cultural principles. The second assumption is that their cultural principles are monolithic. Demonstrating that these two assumptions may not necessarily be applicable to all ethnic minority groups, this paper discusses the diverse strategies used by Chinese people in Britain to organise their health and social care, and the differences between their two important cultural principles, Taoism and Confucianism. In order to demonstrate to professionals and the Government that they should not over-emphasise these two assumptions and that they need to pay attention to ethnic minority groups’ diverse needs, the paper suggests that different ethnic minority groups may need to unite to increase their influence in the service provision process. However it also warns that this tactic may lead to the subordination of minority group interests in the articulation of those large groups.

     

Getting to Know the Piece of Fluff in Our Ears: Expanding Practitioners' Cultural Self-Awareness

Israel being a multicultural society with a variety of ethnic groups, the delivery of culturally competent services is a crucial issue in social work practice. This paper describes the outcomes of a training model for cultural competence applied with social work graduate students in Israel. The model, based on work with immigrants' narratives, increased the cultural self-awareness of the trainees. Presented are conceptual and technical aspects of the training model as well as outcomes of an evaluation study. Fifty-one trainees submitted a short account of their personal experiences following the training. The reports indicated expansion in the trainees' cultural self-awareness: awareness of their own and their families' immigration experiences as well as of other transitions in their lives. Training elements that made this outcome possible are discussed.     

The New Malaysian Nationalism: Infirm Beginnings,Crashing Finale

Malaysia waged no heroic war of liberation against its colonial overlord. On the contrary, its indigenous Malay aristocrats, having been favoured as intermediaries under indirect rule, mobilised mass followings against independence, until finally their statuses were renewed. Nor did Malaysia afterward break boldly with the formal democracy and liberal economy in which it had been 'tutored', espousing new socialist defiance and autarkic development. Indeed, even the notion of 'Asian democracy' that Malaysia would one day endorse retained the legitimation of the democratic idiom, while fluctuating policies of import substitution, affirmative action, and evident cronyism were softened by pledges of economic orthodoxy and 'openness'. In cultural terms, Malaysia's ideologues had little access to complex local heritage, inscribed in high literatures, agrarian empires, and the tracelines of grand ruins. Nationalist myth-making had instead to depend on some dispersed royal lineages emanating from dank stockades and river mouths, an aphoristic lore recorded in the Malay Annals, the faint commercial din of the Melaka Sultanate, and an Islam conveyed by merchants and wayfarers from the Indian subcontinent, then palely refracted through local animism, Hinduism, sorcery, and curing. What is more, even to the limited extent that nationalism was generated in Malaysia, it was asserted less on the world stage than between rival ethnic communities. In brief, through the free labour migration policies of British colonial rule, the 'indigenous' Malays came to share their territory with the 'Overseas' Chinese, thereby producing a prototypical 'divided' or 'plural' society. The country was articulated also by smaller collectivities - partly authentic, always constructed - that were variously labelled 'Indian', 'Iban', 'Eurasian', 'Kadazan-Dusun', 'orang asli', and the like. During the process of decolonisation and the first decade of independence, these ethnic communities were managed along consociational lines. Toward the end of the 1960s, however, they erupted in sectarian violence. But either way, whether ethnic sentiments were modulated or uncorked, they diminished Malaysia's prospects for nationalism, at least of a kind that could bind the country together in addressing the rest of the world. Hence, in surveying the record in Southeast Asia, Nicholas Tarling adjudges that while nationalism helped shape the emergence of most of the region's new countries, its impact in Malaysia remained quite 'equivocal'. In short, uniquely in the region, Malaysia possessed little congenial soil in which nationalism might take root. Instead, nationalism was weakened by important continuities between indigenous élites and the colonial power, as well as sharp divisions between indigenous and migrant communities. And yet, atop this infirmity, Malaysia would suddenly bristle during the 1980s to 1990s with great nationalist vigour. At first, this took the form of aspirations to industrialise, made manifest in arousing slogans like 'Look East'. Later, as economic growth gathered pace, Malaysia gained new pride, encouraging still higher aspirations of full socio-economic development, enshrined in a declaration of 'Vision 2020'. And finally, though growth rates slowed toward the end of the decade, the new nationalism altered in tone, but did not fade. Instead, it reverberated in deep nationalist resentments, the prime minister railing against the architecture of international finance while invoking new refrains of Malaysia boleh ('Malaysia will overcome'). One notes also that globalisation posed no impediment to these latest nationalist expressions, its putative homogenising processes instead enabling Malaysia to highlight the distinctiveness of its policy responses. The paper begins with a discussion on nationalism, enumerating briefly some debates over its origins and character. Next, it sketches the ethnic forms of nationalism that emerged in Malaysia, enervating any wider loyalty to state institutions and symbols that could be asserted internationally. This paper's main task, however, is to analyse the rise of a broader nationalism over the past decade or so, made possible by the partial moderation of prior ethnic rivalries.     

Coordinated Action in the Massively Multiplayer Online Game World of Warcraft

In tandem with the technological advancement of immersive virtual environments, digital games have evolved into complex social worlds where people play collaboratively to achieve individual‐ and group‐oriented goals. The massively multiplayer online games genre has received international attention for the large numbers of users that commit a significant amount of time and effort to online play. Play styles within such game worlds are diverse, but “raiding” is generally considered among gamers and scholars alike to be the most challenging form of collaborative play. Like other forms of social activity, raiding is predicated on players' abilities to successfully coordinate individual lines of action. Yet the vast majority of raiders are not physically copresent during their collaborative efforts. Using Couch's theory of coordinated action as an interpretive frame, we explore the computer‐mediated process of raiding in the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft by analyzing ethnographic data and audio/visual recordings of gameplay. Our study expands Couch's theory of coordinated action in two ways. First, we demonstrate how individuals and groups simultaneously engage in multiple forms of coordinated activity (e.g., conflict and cooperation). Second, we reveal two semiotic layers of coordinated action—the “subject‐subject” (i.e., intersubjective) layer that is facilitated through the game's user interface, and the “subject‐object” layer that comprises players' interactions with the user interface itself. Our study thus considers the potential of Couch's theory for the study of computer‐mediated communication and nonhumans in interaction.     

The Role of Managers in Critical Incident Stress Management Programmes: A Qualitative Study of New Zealand Social Workers

This paper reports part of a larger exploratory research study of social workers' preferred models of critical incident stress management and experiences of critical incident stress debriefing. Social workers were invited to contribute to the research through an advertisement in the national association's newsletter for Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers. Using a qualitative methodology involving in-depth interviews with 13 social workers, participants were asked about their experiences of critical events encountered within their workplaces over the last five years. Interviews were recorded by audiotape with consent and analysed using thematic analysis. Four main themes emerged: the importance of preparation for critical incidents, the role of relationship between line managers and social workers, specifically the line manager's support immediately after the critical incident, and the availability of peer/colleague networks. An unexpected finding was that social workers interviewed noted that the pre-existing relationship with the line manager influenced their experience of the debriefing process itself. The more engaged and emotionally aware the manager was seen, the more the social worker claimed the debriefing process had been successful from their perspectives. The implications for social workers and their employing agencies are discussed.     

A Preliminary Analysis of Associations Among Ethnic–Racial Socialization,Ethnic Discrimination,and Ethnic Identity Among Urban Sixth Graders

Drawing from cultural ecological models of adolescent development, the present research investigates how early adolescents received ethnic–racial socialization from parents as well as how experiences of ethnic and racial discrimination are associated with their ethnic identity (i.e., centrality, private regard, and public regard). Data for this study were drawn from a multimethod study of ethnically and socioeconomically diverse early adolescents in three mid‐ to high‐achieving schools in New York City. After accounting for the influences of race/ethnicity, social class, gender, immigrant status, and self‐esteem, parental ethnic–racial socialization was associated with higher levels of ethnic centrality (i.e., the extent to which youth identify themselves in terms of their group), more positive private regard (i.e., feelings about one's own ethnic group), and public regard (i.e., perceptions of other people's perceptions of their ethnic group). Ethnic discrimination from adults at school and from peers was associated with more negative perceptions of one's ethnic group (i.e., public regard). In addition, the association of ethnic–racial parent socialization and ethnic identity beliefs was stronger for those who reported higher levels of adult discrimination. Results highlight key ways in which ethnic identity may be shaped by the social ecologies in which adolescents are embedded.     

The treatment needs of victims/survivors of child sexual abuse (CSA) from ethnic minority communities: A literature review and suggestions for practice

One significant finding from an exhaustive literature review on child sexual abuse (CSA) and ethnic minority communities is that victims appear to be at higher risk for suicidality. This may be due to the many barriers to professional help-seeking in this group, most commonly associated with protecting the family's name. This makes their treatment needs particularly critical, after the barriers have finally been crossed. Of all their treatment needs, cultural competency is identified as essential. It asks for non-racist attitudes and practice, self-reflection and awareness, a ‘multicultural framework’ which recognises differences in power between mainstream and minority groups and respects the right to cultural differences, the provision of an interpreter trained in matters to do with sexual assault, choice about having an ethnically matched or non-matched service provider (and thus employment of workers from diverse backgrounds), the routine provision of training in cultural competency by management in service organisations, and mandatory data collection on variables related to ethnicity. A ‘multicultural framework’ is seen to be the most important of these elements, else it could lead to the vilification of collectivist and patriarchal cultures (which ethnic minority communities tend to be), threatening cultural safety. This adds trauma to the victim who has already suffered an abuse of power, and further alienates clients in critical need of clinical intervention.     

THE ROLE OF PARENTS IN THE MAINTENANCE OF SECOND GENERATION VIETNAMESE CULTURAL BEHAVIORS

Although previous research shows that biculturalism is adaptive for the children of immigrants, in the United States there is a great deal of pressure for assimilation. This study examines whether parents who model cultural behaviors and encourage interaction with co-ethnics increase the likelihood that their adult children will engage in cultural behaviors. Data are from a survey of second generation Vietnamese members between the ages of 18 and 30 (N=66) living in Atlanta. Results indicate parents' cultural behaviors (speaking and reading) affect adult children's cultural skills and the ethnic composition of their social networks enhances the likelihood that their children's networks are ethnically based. Moreover, the parents' influence is direct, not mediated by children's social networks. Mothers exert stronger influence than fathers, but respondents' own gender does not predict cultural retention. We discuss results in terms of implications for maintaining ethnic cultures in a context that encourages assimilation.     

Desegregation: The Assimilation of a Minority Population

Abstract

A theoretical model viewing the desegregated elementary school as an instrument for the assimilation of ethnic minority children was tested using a sample of Mexican-American elementary school students. Using Milton Gordon's concepts of structural and cultural assimilation, it was hypothesized that the Mexican-American students who were ingroup oriented (unassimilated) would be less likely to integrate into the Anglo peer group (structural assimilation) and would receive a lower G.P.A. (cultural assimilation). For female students, ethnic ingroup orientation was directly related to Anglo peer group integration, as hypothesized. However, ethnic ingroup orientation was not directly related to academic G.P.A. (cultural assimilation), but rather ethnic attitudinal disposition was indirectly related to academic G.P.A. through Anglo peer group integration. For males, the relationship between ingroup orientation and academic G.P.A. was present, as hypothesized. However, ethnic attitudinal disposition was not related to Anglo peer group integration. The relationship between Anglo peer group integration and academic G.P.A. was present as hypothesized, indicating the level of efficiency in assimilating minority populations.     

Oppositional Consciousness: Its Manifestation and Development. The Case of People with Disabilities*

While resource mobilization theory has advanced our understanding of social movements, two questions require further explanation: (1) How do people come to define their situation as unjust and subject to change through collective action? (2) How is such an “oppositional consciousness” empirically studied? From field research among people with disabilities, I suggest that oppositional consciousness is manifested through the collective actions, symbols, and cultural artifacts constructed by a group. I propose that strong interpersonal ties among group members may not be necessary for an oppositional consciousness to develop. To understand how a dominated group develops an oppositional consciousness, rather than analyzing the strength of its members' social ties, we must examine the context and the nature of these ties: (1) the institutions in which their social interactions typically occur; (2) the socialization process they experience within these institutions; and (3) members' contact with the oppositional ideologies of other dominated groups.     

Myths and Moral Authority in Maluku: The Case of Ambon

Since January 1999, the island of Ambon, located in the province of Maluku (Moluccas) in Eastern Indonesia, has been the scene of a virtual war between Christians and Muslims. Amid its religious underpinnings, two competing nationalistic ideologies have developed, one based on allegiance to an ethnic Moluccan nation and the other to a civic nation of common residence. Attempts to rationalise the underlying sentiment of the masses in these movements have purported rational explanations of the pursuit of common material interests, while others have focused on innate emotions of individual loyalty to their community. The other explanation suggests that identity is constructed as an ideological myth that convinces the individual of the simplicity of otherwise complex situations. In this respect, this paper has focused on the psychological and political appeal of myths of kinship as strengthening ideas of national consciousness and individual loyalty. It is asserted that the construction of new 'us' and 'them' visions of imagined community occur in the context of social, economic and political processes. These disruptive forces place individuals in stress situations and make them susceptible to these ideologies which offer simplistic diagnoses of complex social and political changes.     

Songs of Our Spirits: Possession and Historical Imagination among the Cham in Cambodia

The currently flourishing spirit possession cult among a group of Cham in Cambodia has multiple cultural meanings. On the most explicit level, the ceremonies aim at healing a suffering person whose condition medical treatment has proved insufficient to cure. But since the state of health or illness is intimately connected to the state of the person's primary social relations, both the 'patient' and his or her close kin are all symbolically purified from evil in the course of the ritual proceedings. The mediums are possessed by spirits of members of the royal court of the historical Champa kingdom. Through the representations of the semi-mythical past of Champa, more specifically its royalty and court culture, the possession cult also tells us that healing is a question of bringing present-day Cham into concordance with their ethnic origins, and a question of symbolically reunifying ethnicity and lost national autonomy. It is suggested that the historical imagination displayed in the ceremonies addresses not only the ancient military defeats of the Cham by the Vietnamese, but also the people's more recent sufferings under the Khmer Rouge, and that the cult provides an arena for coming to terms with both ancient and recent experiences of victimisation as well as complicity, suffering as well as guilt, and for expressing ethnic consciousness and pride.     

Nation/Representation: Ethnic Classification and Mapping Nationhood in Contemporary Laos

In this article, I analyse ethnic classifications in contemporary Laos, starting with a brief review of previous policies. I first look at the ideologies that have influenced the Lao ethnic classification, namely those of the former Soviet Union, China and Vietnam. Through an analysis of the construction of the latest official census (August 2000), I suggest a close relationship between ethnic categorisation and the government's nationalist discourse, still strongly influenced by guidelines on the concept of the nation disseminated by Kaysone Phomvihane--the first President of the Lao PDR, now deceased but celebrated at present in Laos as the inspirational figure of the regime. My intention is thus to demonstrate how one technology of power in particular--the Lao population census based on ethnic criteria--attempts to map the nation's 'invisible' ethnicity through a dual process, namely the objectification of the Other ethnic groups' arbitrarily defined cultural features on the one hand, and the erasure of the dominant ethnic group's ethnicity (the ethnicity of the ethnic Lao) on the other. But this technology of power is limited, as the names and the lists of ethnic groups have remained subject to alteration every few years. Twenty years after Kaysone Phomvihane urged for a change in ethnic terminology and classification, the regime has yet to legitimise definitively the total number of ethnic groups in the Lao PDR.     

Multiethnic Parentage

Abstract

Given increasing inter-ethnic contact resulting from migration and refugee movements as well as global economic and political activities, this paper explores the potential for bridging cultural, ethnic and racial divides by people who are not confined to a single ethnicity. Based on a piece of exploratory qualitative research, the paper describes the personal ethnic identity of 13 people of multi-cultural/ethnic/racial parentage, and then draws out links between their identity resolution and their social relationships. From the findings, hypotheses are formulated concerning the relationship between identity resolution and ease of bridging ethnic divides in social contexts. Implications of the findings for social work practice and the challenge of enhancing social cohesion are considered in the concluding section of the paper.