Contesting exclusion in a multi-ethnic state: rethinking ethnic nationalism in Nigeria

On the surface, ideas of a Nigerian state with common citizenry, free from ethnicity, religious bigotry and regionalism were pursued by Nigerian nationalists. Generally, a state united in common political practices, equal opportunities and under the same law was envisaged. However, the process leading to independence was characterised by ethnic nationalism. In the decolonisation era, group interest was reified and elevated above national struggle for self-government. The post-colonial project of constructing a common citizenry with the same aspirations, one Nigerian identity with a cosmopolitan outlook instead of ethnic loyalty, therefore largely eluded the country. Over the last five decades, the deepest attachment has increasingly been that of ethnic and regional consciousness. Ethnic nationalism has increasingly won support in an atmosphere of greed and clientelism. Several complex crises are currently manifesting themselves in ethnic forms. The situation has been exacerbated by political and economic exclusion, which has awakened forces and organisations that fight for ethnic and regional aspirations. This paper deals with the issue of group identification during the colonial period, especially from 1945. It also explores the extent to which the pattern of nationalist struggle defined the crucial issues of ethnic crises in post-colonial Nigeria. Finally, it examines the dimensions of the contest for citizenship.     

Israeli existential anxiety: cultural trauma and the constitution of national character

The present paper extends recent studies of national character – suggesting that the Israeli case revolves around a set of deep cultural codes which constitute various empirical manifestations. Broadening on this re-emerging paradigm, the study provides a specific case study of a major trait of Israeli national character, namely existential anxiety and fear of annihilation. It does so while advancing the idea that cultural trauma sets a context for Israeli national character. The analysis shows that Israelis constantly reference persistent and endemic existential fears of annihilation. They do so while tying together four levels: the mythological predicament, historical evidence, contemporary threats and future risks.     

Testing citizen identities: Australian migrants and the Australian values debate

In this paper I explore how recent public debates about Australian values impact on the everyday lives of migrants preparing to become naturalised Australian citizens. Framed through the perspective of governmentality, I combine textual analyses of government documents relating to the Australian citizenship test with ethnographies of recently-arrived migrants in order to demonstrate how political practices related to the conferral of Australian citizenship link and interconnect with the production of migrant subjectivities. In this way, I explore what aspiring citizens think about Australian values and how they contest, accept and negotiate these demands on them to adopt the Australian way of life. The analysis suggests that migrants in this study presented multiple and complex ways of being model Australian citizens. They drew on popular national myths about Australianness promoted in citizenship test resources but they also produced alternative subjectivities that promoted identification with everyday multiculturalism as central to living a happy and prosperous life in Australia.     

Fratricide identities: the land conflict between indigenous Leco and peasant unions in Apolo,Bolivia

This article explores processes of identity-building and claims-making by rural social groups in the context of recent multicultural and plurinational reforms in Bolivia, focusing on an analysis of the narrative apparatus that underpins a paradigmatic land conflict between an indigenous organization and a peasant union in the Bolivian Amazon. The institutional shift that characterized the country after Evo Morales’ election has been reflected and absorbed at the local level. Here, however, the new claims for recognition cannot be understood only through the –often abused – lenses of ‘resistance struggle’, ‘cultural oppression’ and ‘political discrimination of minorities’. In fact, these claims are the result of a complex interaction between institutional changes, and social actors’ ability to respond to them, proposing powerful narratives that provide society and individuals with new shared meanings and mechanisms of self-identification.     

Institutions,inculcation, and black racial identity: pigmentocracy vs. the rule of hypodescent

This research paper investigates the effect political institutions have on black racial identity. In particular, I study individual inculcation in contexts where political institutions institutionalize either of two forms of racial social structures – a pigmentocracy (the Dominican Republic), or the rule of hypodescent (the US South), and the effect such inculcation has on black racial identity. I sampled 101 respondents from the Dominican Republic and 102 from the state of Mississippi, USA. Consistent with the basic assumptions of my hypotheses, respondents in the Dominican Republic study sites showed a weaker degree of identification with blackness vis-à-vis something ‘whiter’. Nevertheless, respondents in the Dominican Republic sites demonstrated a stronger identification with blackness than what most conventional observers would have anticipated. Respondents in the Mississippi study sites showed a stronger sense of identification with blackness. Surprisingly, however, Mississippi respondents demonstrated a larger degree of neutrality than expected in their belief of being of a mixed racial heritage rather than just a black African heritage.     

Culture and identity: two different notions

A clear, precise conceptual distinction between ‘culture’ and ‘identity’ is an essential precondition for analyzing social processes. The anthropological concept of ‘identity’ has been built up over time and enriched by studies on interethnic relationships, ethnic borders and ethnicity. The objective of this essay is to add to an already well-defined concept of culture by incorporating decisive contributions from theories on the nation. Culture and nation are not only highly complex theoretical notions with a long history; they both deal with heterogeneous and conflictive entities. The essay asserts that culture and identity allude to analytically different aspects of social processes. No relationship between the two can be presupposed or generalized to fit all cases. It is necessary to analyze cultural and identitary aspects separately.     

Law and Identity in Spatial Contests

Law has had a traditional reference to land, conceived as territory, in the notion of a jurisdiction, where the law of the land applies equally to all individuals. Recent critiques of this view have suggested that a plurality of laws may apply in particular places. How this spatial pluralism impacts on dominant views of law is considered through two instances in which law has interacted with competing conceptions of place and territory in relations between European and Indigenous Australians. Space, law and identity are seen to constitute each other in complex forms. Indigenous beliefs and practices challenge the claims to universality of Western conceptions of law and space deriving from Roman law and spatial practices.     

The multiethnic state-building dilemma: national and ethnic minorities' identities in the Crimea

This article examines the process of national identity formation among ethnic minorities in the Crimea – specifically, how a new common identity develops in the system of existing identities, what meaning group identities have for different minorities group and how this process influences attitudes and stereotypes toward the ingroup and outgroup. Based on surveys in the Crimea, results show that formation of a common national and regional identity leads to developing of positive stereotypes toward members of other groups, who now are involved in a new group identity, but also is connected with formation of negative attitudes and stereotypes toward other groups. The meaning of identity depends on its position in the system of identities and can be used as a criterion for early warning of conflicts.     

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.     

Living up to the father: The national identity prescriptions of remembering Atatürk; his homes,his grave,his temple

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's commemoration in Turkey often reminds Western observers of a personality cult. Looking at national identity-narratives emerging from the stage-management of his homes and final resting place, this article argues that ‘Atatürk’ has become shorthand for Turkish national identity and his commemoration represents, as a result, much more than a personality cult. Moreover, I show that although the sites in question provide the state with an excellent tool for national socialisation, they also reflect shared national assumptions and cherished symbols. Commemoration entails a sense of safety and protection, but also a warning against straying from Atatürk's path and legacy that have, after all, stood the test of time.