Ethnic Minorities and the Politics of Identity in Iran

The present review essay is of a novel format: two authors working in the same field introduce each other's works, and then pose a number of questions to each other. The aim is to facilitate dialogue between scholars occupied with similar issues, theories, methods or problems, and to share their discussions with others. Here, Alam Saleh, Lecturer in Middle Eastern Politics, University of Exeter, and Rasmus Christian Elling, Assistant Professor of Iranian Studies, University of Copenhagen, introduce each other's recent books on ethnic minorities, identity and nationalism in post-revolution Iran. These introductions are then followed by questions and answers in relation to the topics covered by the books.     

Nationalism,Ethnicity and Religion: Fundamental Conflicts and the Politics of Identity in Tanzania

Abstract. This article explores the competing relations between ethnic, religious and racial identities in contemporary Tanzania at a time of rapid socioeconomic change and in the face of the declining authority and legitimacy of the state. During nearly four decades of one-party rule the state has pursued policies - educational, linguistic, developmental, etc. - aimed at constructing a secular national identity capable of uniting diverse social groups under the banner of African socialism. However, economic retrenchment in the 1980s and political liberalisation in the 1990s has contributed directly to a series of upheavals leading many Tanzanians to redefine the structures of common difference and to a fracturing of national identity. This article seeks to understand the reasons for the upsurge of conflict and cultural fragmentation in the 1990s.     

Archaeology and Nationalism: Excavating the Foundations of Identity

Margarita Diaz-Andreu and Timothy C. Champion Nationalism and Archeology in Europe. P. Graves-Brown, S. Jones, C. Gamble (eds.) Cultural Identity and Archaeology: the Construction of European Communities. P. Kohl, C. Fawcett (eds.) Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology.     

地理书写与国家认同:清末地理教科书中的民族主义话语

清末地理教育在传授知识的同时,也成为知识分子借以建立国家认同的工具。清末由国人编著、出版的地理教科书,通过对中国在世界上的位置、中国的自然资源以及近代西力东侵背景下中国所遭受的屈辱与苦难三方面内容的叙述,对中国的国家形象和学生的国家认同进行塑造。清末的"史学革命"在时间维度上重塑了中国形象,而民族主义思想影响下的地理教科书则在空间维度上建立起个人对国家的认同。     

Zionism and Irish Nationalism: Ideology and Identity on the Borders of Europe

This paper is a comparative cultural history of Zionism and Irish nationalism, focusing on themes of race, gender and identity. It seeks to highlight the strong similarities of both nationalist projects: to show how Zionists and Irish nationalists were both heavily invested in state-building projects that would disprove European racist stereotypes about their respective nations and yet, paradoxically, were also part of the general history of European nationalism. Both Zionism and Irish nationalism sought to create idealised images of the past and claimed to be rebuilding a glorious ancient society in the future as a means of escaping a degraded present. Both movements saw language revival as a key means of carrying out this ‘return to history’. And both emphasised martyrdom as a way to build up prideful ideals of devotion to the nation and used sport, militaries and agriculture as forms of nationalist social engineering. Despite their claims to the contrary, neither national movement was truly unique.