The politics of identity,recognition and multiculturalism: the Kurds in Turkey

The politics of identity and recognition regarding the Kurds in Turkey has gained momentum since 2002 but has never been implemented fully. The rightful critics emphasising the continuity of the State's authoritarian character, however, have not so far analysed if their own normative suggestions are theoretically consistent and sociologically grounded. Based on the Author's fieldwork and contemporary social surveys, this article shows that there are conflicting views within the Kurdish community about the forms that the politics of recognition could take. By exploring the conflicts of interest within the Kurdish community from a bottom‐up approach, the article concludes that the recognition of an authentic Kurdish identity is problematic sociologically. It is also more likely to harm than help the Kurds in the country from a normative perspective. The article explains how the quest for an authentic Kurdish political identity and attempts to generate it actually limit the individual autonomy and exacerbate the disparity between the Turks and the Kurds in the country.     

Introduction: space,place and the geographies of women's caregiving work

The vast majority of caregivers, whether formal or informal, paid or unpaid, are women. Health care restructuring across the West, inspired by a shift from the welfare to neoliberal state, has greatly impacted caregiving. The idea for this collection arose as a result of a special paper session on the geographies of caregiving, held as part of the Association of American Geographers Meeting (Chicago, 2006). In hearing the papers presented, it became clear that geographers are engaged in interesting and innovative research in this area, much of which involves women's caregiving work in particular. As both unpaid informal family caregiving and paid formal practitioner-provided care are mainly addressed in this collection, they are briefly discussed in this editorial. This is followed by a discussion of the geographical contributions to the growing caregiving literature, which provides the foundation for an overview of ongoing and new research directions. The four articles that make up this special issue are then reviewed in brief. Finally, we identify issues that cut across all four articles, leading to a discussion of future research directions.     

Land as fictitious commodity: the continuing evolution of women's land rights in Uganda

In sub-Saharan Africa, colonial influences have altered traditional practices as a way to manage that which Polanyi labeled as ‘fictitious commodities’ of land, labor, and money. Land has now become a highly marketable commodity and an intrinsic part of the global economy. Over the past century, Uganda's land rights have evolved from communal rights to that of male-dominated, individual ownership practices that have excluded women. Despite constitutional provisions, which confer title of both a deceased husband's property rights and equal rights to property within a marriage to a wife, postcolonial patriarchal tradition prevails. This article examines historical changes in land rights in Uganda and discusses the impact of shifts in land rights from communal ownership to individual tenure, altering power structures and attempting to create marketable land title. The Ugandan women's movement's opposition to policies and implementation of laws that exclude women has been unable to facilitate the required changes in unbiased access to land rights, despite apparent victories in revisions to the letter of the law. Situated within contemporary interpretations of tradition and pressures of market demand, this article shows that women's access to landownership and use are restricted by misinterpretation of traditional law and a lack of enforcement of contemporary legal rights. To illustrate the impact of a lack of access to land, this article examines an empirical case study of widowed subsistence farmers in southern Uganda. Women in Uganda continue to lose ground, quite literally, decreasing the possibility of gender equity in terms of land.     

Protagonists and politics in the Italian women's movement: a reflection on the work of Annarita Buttafuoco

This article retraces Annarita Buttafuoco's work as a historian of the women's political movement in Italy through a brief survey of her essays and books. These covered more than two centuries of history, ranging from the echoes of the French Revolution in Italy and the constitution of the Jacobin Republics to the struggles for female suffrage and emancipation in the liberal era down to the period after the Second World War and the founding of the Italian Republic. Emphasizing the originality of both the sources and the methodological approaches she used, the article offers a critical appreciation of Annarita Buttafuoco's research and her role in organizing and shaping collective research projects. It is focused on three specific issues: the history of women as conscious historical subjects, the history of women's political movements not only in their social and political contexts but also in relation to institutional networks and the practices of citizenship.     

The writing is on the wall: the text(ure) of women's toilets in Australia

This article is about public toilets for women. Drawing on data provided by the textual material posted in women's toilets in Victoria, Australia, it is argued that in western nations, toilets represent more than instrumental facilities for the disposal of waste products. Because they also serve as repositories of social anxieties about bodies, gender, cultural and religious differences and health/death, public toilets are sites used to order the disorder of women's bodies and activities. Cultural intolerances have problematised differences in ablution practices and ‘correct’ toilet behaviours are frequently prescribed. As unique examples in the west of cultural and gendered practice, women's toilets offer rich material on the discipline and meaning of gendered space in a range of different environmental settings.     

Irish Protestant migration and politics in the USA,Canada, and Australia: a debated legacy

In the USA, the rediscovery and celebration of Irish Protestant ancestry has extended in recent years to arguments by some scholars, political journalists, and politicians that there exists today an identifiable Scots-Irish socio-political legacy. This essay explores the history and cultural context of Irish Protestant migration and assesses its contemporary ramifications at the national level and in a critical state-level case (Kentucky). To assist in identifying the factors that have fostered or mitigated Irish Protestant identity/ies, comparisons will be made between the American experience and the very different ones of two other major recipient countries: Canada (and the province of Ontario) and Australia (and the state of New South Wales). Source regions, religious affiliation, the timing and magnitude of mass migration, and settlement patterns have all mattered in determining the socio-political roles played by Irish Protestants in the three former British colonies since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even more important have been the local economic and political contexts, including prevailing political party structures and competition. These factors explain why none of the three case countries, the USA included, bears witness to a coherent, identifiable Irish Protestant socio-political legacy.     

Agents of knowledge: Marxist identity politics in the Revisionismusstreit

To be Marxist at the turn of the twentieth century was highly contested. During this crisis of Marxism, identity politics were acute, exemplified by the private and public debate between Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky. With Bernstein's celebrated turn away from the Marxist theory of his day, the grounds for being Marxist were at stake. Was it possible to criticise Marx's analysis of industrial capitalism, his account of historical change and his hard-nosed class politics, and yet still be in a position to carry his name forward? Moreover, the springing-up of another identity, Revisionist, suggested that being Marxist was ambiguous. If one accepted Bernstein's and the Revisionists' point that Marxists had become too orthodox, leaving Revisionists as the true heirs of Marx's critical socialist spirit, then the Marxist identity was so open as to be meaningless. In this article, I contend that the name-calling of this period, the Revisionismusstreit, should be seen as creative. In contrast to politico-ideological perceptions of the Streit, which construe the clash of Marxist and Revisionist as representative of foundational Social Democratic party political realities, I highlight the manner in which being Marxist—the veneration of Marx's and Friedrich Engels's word into a Marxology of sorts by Marxists and Revisionists alike—held a certain epistemic value in its own right.     

Vernacular uses and cultural identity of heritage: trade of antique fragments in the Chinese porcelain capital

This paper documents local uses of artefacts in the vernacular style of Jingdezhen, China as a means for reclaiming local heritage. This is done by examining the use of ancient ceramic fragments by artisans, scholars, shopkeepers and vendors in building location-based cultural identity. Based on ethnographic materials collected from 2012 to 2015, it argues that the vernacular uses of heritage artefacts facilitate the construction of identities for local communities. This is held in contrast to the homogenised identity normally presented by government narratives. Moreover, the paper discusses how the use of vernacular traditions or heritage artefacts function to interweave intricate webs of cultural identities that can be understood in a professional, social or political context.     

West Papua,Indonesia and the Melanesian Spearhead Group: competing logics in regional and international politics

The idea of a shared Melanesian identity has been consolidated over the last three decades or so through the most important subregional organisation in the South-West Pacific—the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). The solidarity of this group has been strained over various issues from time to time, but none is as fraught as the Indonesian occupation of what is commonly known as West Papua, whose indigenous Papuan people are ethnically Melanesian. In addition to recounting the Indonesian takeover of West Papua in the context of the dynamics of decolonisation, the Cold War and early regional development, the article examines the emergence of Melanesian identity and the MSG, before considering more recent developments. These focus on a recent bid by West Papuans for MSG membership, key aspects of Indonesia's role in the Melanesian subregion, and the extent to which these developments highlight competing logics in regional and international politics.     

Underground exploration beyond state reach: Alternative volumetric territorial projects in Venezuela,Cuba, and Mexico

Geographic analyses have centered on how state and capitalist enterprises—often in collaboration with each other—deploy volumetric territorial strategies and processes to achieve their ends, i.e., control in the form of securitization or resource extraction. We invite an exploration of different ways voluminous environments, their flows, and ecosystems can be experienced and represented with analyses of diverse activities of cave explorers in Venezuela, Cuba, and Mexico. These activities call attention to the heterogeneity of volumetric territorial projects. By exploring and mapping subterranean spaces, cavers co-opt some of the techniques of the state and/or capitalist territorialization and commodification. But the experiences of underground exploration and even mapping exceed and sometimes contradict the motivations and effects rightfully associated with these volumetric practices. Not only are these activities deeply affective and embodied, they typically happen beyond state reach. Moreover, following cavers' explorations requires more open conceptions of both territory and voluminous spaces, and the ecological rhythms and flows that constitute them. Doing so leads to the recognition of how cavers experience and enact alternative volumetric territorial projects. In the process, some of these projects forge defiant national imaginaries, literally from below. The possibility and potential of these imaginaries come from the unique quality of subterranean exploration: only those who explore and survey passages underground know their location, extent, and at times, their content. Yet, there are dangers as well: not only are most of these projects far from emancipatory or inclusionary, they can be co-opted by state and/or capitalist enterprises. The implications of this last point are complex and potentially contradictory: while state knowledge and control of caves and karst environments may limit caver access and activities, lack of state knowledge and control may also result in these environments and their contents’ lack of protection.     

Manipulating the metonymic: the politics of civic identity and the Bristol Cenotaph, 1919–1932

The city of Bristol was one of the last major cities in Great Britain to unveil a civic memorial to commemorate the Great War 1914–1918. After Leicester (1925), Coventry (1927) and Liverpool (1930), Bristol's Cenotaph was unveiled in 1932, 14 years after the Armistice. During that lapse, its location, source of funding, and commemorative function were the focus of widespread disagreement and division in the city. This paper examines the nature of these disputes. The authors suggest that the tensions in locating a war memorial may have their origins in historic enmities between political and religious factions in the city. By examining in detail the source and manifestations of these disputes, the authors offer a detailed exemplar of how memory is shaped and controlled in British urban spaces.     

Heritage and ethnic identity: preserving Chinese cemeteries in the United States

This paper critically examines the role of ethnic community in the process of heritage management and preservation. Drawing on two heritage projects dedicated to historic Chinese American cemeteries – the nineteenth-century Chinese Memorial Shrine in Los Angeles, California and Concordia Chinese Cemetery located in El Paso, Texas – this study examines how heritage serves as a central referent in constructing a collective identity that gives continuity and political unity to an ethnic community. Heritage preservation, as a practice connecting the past and present, provides us with insight not only into the historic meanings attached to heritage, but also the contemporary values and ideologies of communities with regard to their efforts in interpreting the past. This paper highlights the relationship between identity politics and heritage, suggesting that heritage becomes a vital means of identity formation which helps articulate cultural traditions in the face of a dominant national culture that essentialises ethnic pasts.     

The politics of wetlandscape: fishery heritage and natural conservation in Hong Kong

The north‐western part of Hong Kong is a marsh with traditional freshwater fish farming; however, this brackish area has been agriculturally diversified to include cultivation of red rice, reeds, shrimp and fish, and has only largely concentrated on freshwater fish farming starting from the 1960s. By looking into the geographical and social changes that have taken place in the brackish area, I will explain how the coastal landscape was changed in the 1910s through the introduction of large‐scale rice production in Tin Shui Wai which has turned into a high‐density residential new town, and the wetland conservation of Mai Po marshes. This article aims at understanding the meanings of intangible as well as agricultural/fishery heritage and the local politics among indigenous communities, conservation groups, the government and developers in post‐handover Hong Kong society. Inland freshwater pond cultivation was actually a major industry in the 1970s since it supplied most of the freshwater fish for the local market. Nowadays, the industry is shrinking because of lack of manpower and high operation costs compared to the mainland. With various kinds of social, economic and physical pressures, the local communities which are located at the buffer areas of the wetland in Mai Po are actually facing the tremendous dangers of losing those fishponds; most importantly, the fishponds have been serving not only as mitigation zone and source of a traditional local food but also as a major food supplier for migratory birds, adding to the conservation value of the Mai Po marshes and Inner Deep Bay in Hong Kong at large.     

Regional spaces, spaces of regionalism: territory, insurgent politics and the English question

Amid the globalization of economic life and a myriad of powerful challenges to Westphalian traditions of political statehood, it is now routinely contended that regions are 'in resurgence'. Nonetheless, much of the debate on this purported regional renaissance is bedevilled by confusion over what scholars and activists mean by regions and an analogous mystification as to why some regions are 'successful', 'lagging' or 'different'. Our paper aims to instil some coherence to this debate by distinguishing between what we term regional spaces and spaces of regionalism . It then draws on this distinction to explore the institutionalization of England's South West region, highlighting some tensions which prevail over its economic future, its political representation, its territorial shape and cultural vernacular. In undertaking this, we demonstrate how the formation of any given regional map is reflective – and indeed constitutive – of an unevenly developing, often overlapping and superimposing mosaic of economic practices, political mobilizations, cultural performances and institutional accomplishments. This prompts us to question the currently fashionable inclination to fully jettison a scalar and/or territorial approach to the theory and practice of spatiality in favour of relational/topological/non-territorial approaches.     

Pastoralism and conservation: The politics and notions of environmental justice under the grazing ban policy in Inner Mongolia,China

Environmental justice is a key concept for understanding the contested relationship between pastoralism and conservation. Our study adopted a political approach to examine conservation, pastoralism, and justice in the context of the grazing ban policy in China. Employing a qualitative, in-depth case study, we investigated the local political actors and processes that lead to environmental (in)justice. The evidence shows how injustice is perpetuated by both centralized and decentralized political processes and how herders use their knowledge and strategies in resistance to the injustice. In addition, the study contributed to a pluralistic understanding of justice by examining the different notions of justice held by the herders. We found that herders perceive injustices through different lenses, namely economic, ecological, and cultural aspects. Further, the similarities and differences between Han and Mongolian herders are discussed in terms of their notions of environmental justice and counteractions.     

In/out of Nigeria: transnational research and the politics of identity and knowledge production

Abstract

This article explores the murkiness of fieldwork and writing that often comes with simultaneous positioning as insider/outsider. I engage with two key themes: First, identity, legitimacy and representation and, second, the gray spaces between theory and reality. The first theme examines the contradictions of being perceived as both an insider and outsider; the complexities of identity and language while at ‘home’ in the field, and the challenges of performing the native informant role while back ‘home’ in Canada. The second theme explores the uncomfortable dilemma of engaging with the ‘Rush to Theory’ from the global south. I will examine how the theories are sophisticated and provocative, yet prove unsatisfactory in terms of having practical applications. I conclude the article by positing that, despite the challenges of doing transnational work, transnational subjects invariably contribute to the creation of a new politics of knowledge production and to the attainment of social justice.     

Introduction: Foreign travel,transnational sex,and transformations of heterosexualities

Transformation of heterosexuality in the context of transnational mobility has been much neglected in the scholarly literature. In this themed issue we bring together four articles to contribute to the debates about negotiations of heterosexual sexual relations and practices between European and North American women and local men at holiday destinations. The focus is on Euro-North American women's performances of heterosexuality as bound up with gender, race, age, and nationality. Each article uses ethnographic methods to demonstrate how transformation of heterosexuality is spatially and culturally contingent and contested in relation to normative expectations of heterosexual love, sex, and romance regulating women's sexuality both in the women travellers' home countries and in the destination of the encounters. More broadly, articles in this themed issue contribute to the emerging literature aiming to re-think heterosexualities.     

Heritage and national identity: Exploring the relationship in Romania

Abstract

Within heritage studies the relationship between national heritage and national identity is frequently taken as axiomatic. The construction of a national heritage is an important part of nation‐building, and historic buildings and monuments can be powerful symbols of a nation's aspirations and identity. Yet this relationship has received relatively little empirical investigation. This paper reports an exploratory study of the heritage/national identity relationship in Romania which focuses on just one Roman monument – Trajan's bridge. For many Romanians the monument is a powerful symbol of their identity representing Dacian and Roman origins, Latinity, and the continuity of Romanian settlement in Transylvania. The monument was also seen by some as an important symbol of Romania's attempt to construct a post‐Communist identity, and to forge closer links with western Europe. However, the meanings of the monument are not shared by all Romanians, and in particular are strongly contested by Romania's Hungarian minority.