The ‘European Turks’: identities of high-skilled Turkish migrants in Europe

Using exceptionally rich qualitative data coming from the FP7 EUCROSS project on the ‘Europeanization of the Everyday Life’, this paper focuses on high-skilled and highly transnational Turkish migrants who reside in the UK, Romania and Italy. The article analyses participants’ discursive constructions of Europe and Europeanness and shows how specific images and symbols of Europe and Turkey influence their own relationship to Europe. We argue that understanding Turkish migrants’ identification with Europe requires a comprehensive analysis of the development of a Westernization discourse in Turkey that has framed people’s identities. This discourse symbolizes the desire for being part of the Western world, and especially Western Europe, but, at the same time, the fear of being dominated by the very same world. We show that we need to grasp the values, images, symbols and discourses that underline transnational practices to understand the making of European identity among migrants.     

The Estonian song celebration (Laulupidu) as an instrument of language policy

There is an established body of literature surveying the role of language policy in identity construction. This paper exposes an angle that has been understudied. It suggests that national song festivals may be seen as a tool of ‘implicit’ language policy in Estonia. Informed by expert interviews and ethnographic, this study explores the tensions arising from the dual function of the festival. On the one hand, it sustains the language as the central ethnic-national attribute of Estonians. On the other hand, the ‘affective solidarity’ stemming from joint singing could support a stronger civic attachment to the language and state (by Russian-speaking minorities).     

The ambivalent Apostle of 1953: a liminal reading of the centenary of José Martí

This article has common Cuban motifs at its core: the prevalent obsession with the notion of collective identity, the ideological and psychological importance of national anniversaries, and the omnipresence of the archetypal patriot José Martí. It approaches all from a particular theoretical perspective, however, and thus presents a new reading of the so-called ideario martiano and of the Cuban “national narrative” at a critical moment of the island’s historical trajectory: 1953, the centenary of Martí’s birth. Taking its lead from cultural anthropology (and particularly from the work of Victor Turner), this article presents the half-century since independence in 1902 as a post-colonial “rite of passage” punctuated by a series of turning points, or “limens,” within which the sense of national identity was exposed to sustained scrutiny by public intellectuals and activists. The article provides evidence of such intense collective introspection in 1953 when commemorations of Martí’s centenary stimulated a re-examination of the Republic in the light of his luminous example. Importantly, this turning point is also exposed as a battleground on which antagonistic interpretations of martiano heroism, Republican history, and national identity faced each other in exegetical strife.     

Double-layered ethnic politics in Malaysia: national integration,ethnic unity and social stability

Each ethnic community has an ethnic-based political party both within the government coalition (Barisan Nasional: BN) and within the opposition coalition (Pakatan Rakyat and Pakatan Harapan). Therefore, Malaysia’s political structure can be described as double-layered ethnic politics. In this political structure, the BN government has been forced to adopt a fluctuating policy framework for nation building. As a result, double-layered ethnic politics impedes the development of national integration. Paradoxically, this phenomenon contributes to the maintenance of social stability as this political structure effectively prevents the establishment of a robust ethnic unity that may lead to ethnic conflicts.     

民族旅游与族群认同、传统文化复兴及重建--云南民族旅游开发中的"族群"及其应用泛化的检讨

民族旅游在云南旅游中占有越来越重要的地位。云南各少数民族在旅游开发的特定场景中 ,族群意识借助于民族身份的再认同被强化 ,甚至比以往更强烈 ,并在与民族旅游发展的互动中不断传承、延续、发展。在这一过程中 ,云南的民族旅游推动着各少数民族传统文化的复兴和民族身份、民族精神的再建构得以不断展现 ,而且为族群文化的复制、再造和再生产提供了前所未有的场景和舞台。     

当代文论精神症候与文化空间拓展

在东西方文化冲突日益严重的今天,全球化语境中的中国文化精神和身份立场问题,成为汉语文学的重要问题,其基本症候表征为“六多六少”:线性时间观多而境界空间观少、西方话语踪迹多而中国身份少、解构话语多而建构精神少、大众消费话语多而注重文化精品少、热衷于非文学多而关注汉语文化圈的文学少、肉身意义关注多而知识个体的立场关注少。我们应该在中西文论对话基础上,坚持发现东方与文化输出,坚持人类只有在体用之争方面,走向人类之体、世界之用。     

“Clamoring Blood”: The Materiality of Belonging in Modern Ainu Identity

The tension between silence and vocalization, embrace and rejection, of Ainu ancestry has been a key factor in negotiating Ainu subjectivity since Ainu territories were colonized in 1869. As early as 1799, expressions of Ainu ethnicity were alternately cloaked and exaggerated as Japan vacillated between assimilation and segregation policies in eastern Hokkaido Ainu communities. Officially recognized as Japan's indigenous peoples in 2008, Ainu subjectivity has become increasingly politicized as the state and other stakeholders seek to define Ainu ethnicity for future legislation. Today Ainu belonging is frequently gauged by bodily metaphors of a vocalized blood. Cultural sensibility and blood are often conflated in Ainu discourses of identity: Ainu revivalists report that a sensation of “clamoring blood” (J: chi ga sawagu) inspires them to revisit ancestral memories and begin fashioning Ainu identities. Historically, intra-Ainu relations were not bound to blood but instead embodied in material expressions, such as invisible cords for women and crest-like emblems for men, symbols that enabled flexibility where needed. Since the twentieth century, the hyper focus on blood raises the specter of colonially imposed rhetorics of eugenics, assimilation policies, and specifically, the problem of race. Relatedness in the Ainu community is not exclusively defined by “consanguineal relations”; rather, a long history of adopting ethnic Japanese children and non-Ainu into Ainu families renders complex the question of identity. This article assesses how immutable notions of racial difference intersect with self-determination and current articulations of Ainu identity.     

‘Hold that Pose!’ Photography and kabuki in Kitano Takeshi's Kikujiro

This article examines Kitano Takeshi's film Kikujiro (Kikujirō no Natsu, 1999) from two directions: first, as an as an experiment in moving versus still photography, and second, as an exploration of time, memory and Japanese identity. I argue that it is in Kitano's cinematic use of elements from the kabuki drama that the two aspects come together. Kitano plays upon the conventions of both kabuki and film media to highlight the significance of the ‘still shot’ as it functions in human memory. By presenting moments of the story in the format of a child's photograph album, Kitano is able to explore ideas of ‘adult’ and ‘child’ as equally arbitrary constructions. Throughout Kikujiro, Kitano draws on a rich tradition of film, drama and television convention in order to explore the idea of where identity comes from – does it come from the past, the present, or do we make it up ourselves? Kitano places emphasis on the still mie pose to heighten emotion and draw attention to the present moment. By contrasting this method against that of photography, Kitano juxtaposes past and present modes of expression, enabling him to interrogate notions of time and the supposed timelessness of art. Finally, Kitano's critical use of the past locates identity not in some distant, unobtainable myth of the nation, but in the lived experience of each individual as a human being.     

Reading twentieth century urban black cultural movements through popular periodicals: a case study of the Harlem Renaissance and South Africa’s Sophiatown

There exists a long history of debate among scholars in the humanities and social sciences regarding the potential of literature and popular culture to be socially transformative and to generate collective identities that empower a community. This transformative power of literature and popular culture, particularly in terms of the value granted to oppressed peoples seeking expression or catharsis, represents perhaps the truest value of cultural production. Its long-term contributions to the resilience of racially oppressed communities both in the USA and worldwide cannot be overstated. In Sophiatown and during the Harlem Renaissance, two periodicals, Drum and The Crisis, allowed black writers and readers alike to share in the formation of new modes of identity that spoke back in a firm voice to the long-standard stereotypes of blackness that permeated white-dominated popular culture. In both South Africa and Harlem, these publications gave voice to a distinctly black and urban culture, resisting notions of the “tribal” or “plantation” black subject. These movements were historically significant both within the study of black culture and literature and within the trajectory of socially transformative political movements.     

Press and ethnic polarization in post-2001 Afghanistan: the 2014 presidential election experience

This article analyses the contents of three newspapers affiliated with the Tajik-dominated Jamiat and Shura-e-Nezar factions that were deployed during the 2014 presidential election to publicize ethno-political polarization for instrumental ends. The practice of nurturing ethnic identities serves as a microcosm of the broader context in which identity politics, besides coalition-building, rent-seeking, and patrimonial interdependencies, has become a key feature of post-2001 politics. This article focuses on how these factions used these newspapers to polarize ethnic cleavages to win legitimacy for themselves and defamation for their Pashtun-dominated rival factions – Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin and the Taliban. It will be years before the ethnic mujahedeen and muhajereen and the new generation reach a mutually binding and working condition that facilitates the country's long-term stability. Reaching this condition is critical because the future of Afghanistan lies in the commitment of its people to form a united community that resolves disputes in the manner of a democratic nation.