Agrarian Capitalism and Poor Relief in England, 1500–1860: Rethinking the Origins of the Welfare State. By Larry Patriquin.

ABSTRACT

Drawing on Paul Ricoeur's notion of narrative identity and on his observations concerning testimony in Memory, History, Forgetting, this article explores the operation of memory under two aspects, that of narrative identity and that of witness. This exercise involves some related discussion both of the history/memory problem and of the relationship between written and spoken traces in engaging the past. The methodological focus for the work is a written text of an unusual kind, comprising an extensive and detailed eyewitness account written, forgotten and re-discovered by the same individual – Lionel Curtis – after an intervening period of half a century.     

Cinema and history: critical reflections

Abstract

Hou Hsiao‐Hsien was invited to Singapore to talk about himself. In the speech, he focused on talking about his family background, his childhood memories, life experiences and how these experiences affected his life, and also how he made his films. Furthermore, as Taiwan had gone through many drastic political and economic changes, especially after the lifting of Martial Law, these conditions influenced Hou’s life and his films, too. That is, Hou’s films presented not only the changes in a rapidly urbanizing rural society, but also the important events of Taiwan’s history. At the end of the speech, Hou also mentioned that realizing the importance of social responsibilities, he would like to get more involved in the public sphere in order to make a difference in society.     

Muslims and others: anecdotes,fragments, and uncertainties of evidence

Abstract

Against the intensified communalization of civil society and the emergence of new modes of racism in contemporary India, this essay juxtaposes different histories of the Other through critical insights into the construction and demonization of the Indian Muslim. Working through anecdotes and fragments, bits and pieces of history, this disjunctive discourse on the Other attempts to trouble liberal assumptions of cultural identity by calling attention to the uncertainties of evidence by which ethnic identities are politicized in diverse ways. While critiquing the exclusionary mode of 'othering', the essay also calls attention to more internalized modes of disidentification and the double-edged benefits of political identity for the underprivileged and dispossessed, whose own assertions of the self invariably complicate official identitarian constructions. The enigmas of the self are perhaps most vivid in the brutal evidence of genocide, where the apparent 'dead certainty' of killing the Other has been interpreted as a means of making 'persons out of bodies' (Arjun Appadurai). Countering this position, the essay argues that ethnic violence is facilitated by the 'dead certainty' of (in)justice, reinforced by the 'banality of violence' legitimized through state-sponsored ethnic cleansing.     

The many faces of expatriate identity

With the advent of globalization, the number of expatriates within the international labor force is continuously increasing. While expatriate acculturation and adjustment receive much empirical and theoretical attention, less attention is afforded to expatriate identities. Expatriates, compared to other migrant workers, have more options to deal with acculturation and identity issues. We conceptualize expatriate identity by linking acculturation and a tridimensional model of identity (personal identity, relational identity, and social identity). We argue that expatriate identity, which is important for psychosocial adjustment and well-being, can take on two forms: a more cosmopolitan perspective, which expatriates develop after much experience in various cultures and a more pragmatic perspective in which expatriates maintain their original identity and make only superficial adjustments to a new context. We provide recommendations for future research as well as implications for organizations.     

National identity in a divided nation: South Koreans’ attitudes toward North Korean defectors and the reunification of two Koreas

This paper examines how national identity is associated with South Koreans’ attitudes toward North Korean defectors and their opinions on the relationship between two Koreas. Using a nationally representative survey, we find that individuals high on ethnic identity are more likely to harbor negative attitudes toward migrants from North Korea and less likely to believe that the reunification between two Koreas is necessary. The findings suggest that alleged common belief in “one nation, two countries” notwithstanding, political division has led South Koreans to regard North Korean citizens as an out-group, who are not clearly distinguishable from non-coethnic immigrants.     

Cultural homelessness, multiminority status, ethnic identity development, and self esteem

This study presents a measure of “cultural homelessness” (Vivero & Jenkins, 1999), a construct developed to explain the experiences of some individuals having early-life immersion in more than one culture. Culturally homeless individuals report pervasive experiences of “being different”: mixed racial, ethnic, and/or cultural heritages within their families of origin and/or between their families and the surrounding sociocultural context, resulting in structural marginality; repeated subjection to contradictory cultural demands; and the acquisition of conflicting frames of reference for their behavior. Ambiguous physical presentation and the complexity of codeswitching across multiple cultural frames of reference at a young age may lead to confused or inappropriate social behavior, resulting in rejection and discrimination by both minority and majority groups, chronic feelings of “not belonging,” self-blame and shame, social and emotional isolation, cultural identity confusion, and the desire to find a “cultural home.” Empirical findings operationalizing this construct show associations of cultural homelessness criteria with gender; risk factors related to multiracial, multiethnic, and multicultural status; ethnic identity; and self esteem.     

Acculturation, well-being and classroom behaviour among white British and British Asian primary-school children in the south–east of England: Validating a child-friendly measure of acculturation attitudes

Using a sample of white British and British Asian primary-school children (N = 386, aged 5–11 years), we measured acculturation attitudes (own and perceived outgroup), correlated constructs (ingroup and outgroup affect and identification) and relevant outcomes (self-esteem, classroom demeanour) in a structured interview to validate a customised, child-friendly measure of acculturation attitudes based on Berry's framework. Scale items measuring desire for culture maintenance and intergroup contact loaded onto the predicted factors, were internally reliable and showed concurrent validity with affect and identification. The predictive utility of measures was demonstrated in associations between children's acculturation attitudes (or perceived discrepancies with those of the outgroup) and outcomes such as self-esteem and teacher ratings of emotional symptoms.     

A model of relationship between collective identity and language in pluricultural and plurilingual settings: Influence on intercultural relations

The introduction of the Spanish Constitution in 1978, together with the development of the Statutes of Autonomy in the autonomous communities, established the co-official status of the regional language alongside Spanish. In one of these communities, Catalonia, located on the north-west boundary of the Lleida province, is the Aran Valley, where three languages coexist: Occitan-Aranese (regional language), Catalan (Catalonia's co-official language) and Spanish. The Valley of Aran is an ideal setting to study the construction of their collective identity and its relation to the language in an intercultural setting. As a result of immigration and the gradual decrease in the population born in the region, intercultural contact takes place among clearly distinct groups.In this work we present an analysis of the development of the Aranese identity and of the role language plays in this process and the way this process influences intergroup relationships. The study is based on a perspective that considers that the influence of language on the creation of collective identity is not a categorical and universal phenomenon [Fernández, M. A. (2000). Cuando los hablantes se niegan a elegir: monolingüismo e identidad múltiple en la modernidad reflexiva. Estudios de Sociolingüística 1 (1), 47–58; Siguán, M. (1996). L’Europa de les Llengües. Barcelona: Edicions 62]. Rather, we view language as a socially constructed means of expressing community membership. In this way, language plays an important part in the formation of Aranese identity, but the meaning given by the population to the language varies according to whether residents identify themselves or not with the Aranese world. At the same time, language also interferes in the relationship between the different groups living in the territory.     

On Geoffrey Benjamin’s deep sociology of the nation-state

What is the unseen presence of the nation-state? What is so mystifying about the state of social theory that has effectively masked the nature of its cultural hegemony? At the time of his initial writing, Geoffrey Benjamin’s ruminations on these themes were novel and theoretically critical. Thirty years on, many of these conceptual mysteries remain unresolved. However, like the advent of governmentality, neo-liberalism and biopolitics, the omnipresence of national imagination and violence of state power still warrant problematization.     

“You are too ethnic,you are too national”: Dual identity denial and dual identification

Ethnic minorities tend to develop dual identities and therefore can face identity denials from two groups. We examine in two studies the relation between dual identity and experiences of dual identity denial as misgivings or a manifested mistrust of one’s group membership from both majority and minority group members. Based on identity integration and threat literature, identity denial represents a threat to dual identity which means that stronger dual identity denial can be expected to be associated with lower dual identity (a negative association). In contrast, based on identity enactment literature, stronger expression of one’s dual identity can be expected to elicit stronger identity denial (a positive association). These two contrasting hypotheses were examined in two studies (Study 1 = 474; Study 2 = 820) among ethnic minorities in the Netherlands. The results from both studies offer greater support for the identity enactment model and illustrate the complexities associated with having a dual identity.     

Is cultural group representation a fair option? Adolescents’ evaluations of forms of decision-making in multicultural Mauritius

Social psychological research on multiculturalism has mostly looked at recognition of differences and much less at equitable participation. The present study investigated adolescents’ fairness judgements of three democratic decision-making procedures (representative democracy, equal group representation, and proportional group representation) and one nondemocratic procedure (cultural group oligarchy) among Hindu (N = 844), Muslim (N = 630) and Creole (N = 310) adolescents in Mauritius. We examined these judgements in two different contexts (i.e. school and national), and in relation to ethnic group identification, age and gender. Results show that representative democracy was viewed as the fairest decision-making procedure and cultural group oligarchy as the most unfair one. The group representation procedures were judged as relatively unfair although there were significant differences by ethnic group, age and gender. Strength of ethnic identification was linked to higher fairness ratings of democratic group representation procedures. The results are discussed in terms of morality, group positions and ideological representations of the Mauritian nation.