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.     

The Burning of Sampati Kuer: Sati and the Politics of Imperialism,Nationalism and Revivalism in 1920s India

Sati, the immolation of a Hindu widow on her husband's funeral pyre, is a rare, but highly controversial practice. It has inspired a surfeit of scholarly studies in the last twenty years, most of which concentrate on one of two main historical sati ‘episodes’: that of early‐colonial Bengal, culminating with the British prohibition of 1829, and that of late twentieth‐century Rajasthan, epitomised by the immolation of Roop Kanwar in 1987. Comparatively little detailed historical analysis exists on sati cases between these two events, however, a lacuna this paper seeks to address by exploring British and Indian discourses on sati as they existed in late‐colonial India. The paper argues that sati remained a site of ideological and actual confrontation in the early twentieth century, with important implications for ongoing debates about Hindu religion, identity and nation. It focuses on the intersection between various colonial debates and contemporaneous Indian social and political concerns during the controversy surrounding the immolation of Sampati Kuer in Barh, Bihar, in 1927, emphasising resonances with postcolonial interpretations of sati and the dissonance of early nineteenth‐century tropes when reproduced in the Patna High Court in 1928. Thus, while Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid have suggested that ‘ad hoc’ attempts to piece together a ‘modern’ narrative of widow immolation began in the 1950s, this paper will suggest that various contemporary discursive formations on sati can be observed in late‐colonial India, when discussions of sati became entwined with Indian nationalism and Hindu identity politics and evoked the first organised female response to sati from an emergent women's movement that saw it as an ideological, as well as physical, violation of women.     

Women,Nationalism and the Philippine Revolution

Abstract. Filipino women participated actively in the Philippine Revolution (1896–1902), performing a wide range of tasks essential to sustaining the revolutionary challenge against Spanish and American imperialism. Though largely omitted from mainstream histories of the nationalist revolution, women's involvement has been recorded in several marginalised texts. However, these texts have invariably used a limiting format based on presenting biographies of outstanding women. This article suggests an alternative approach, by situating the history of revolutionary Filipino women within a comparative framework. The article outlines key ideas of feminist writers who have analysed women's participation in nationalist struggles from an international perspective. Drawing on these ideas, some new approaches to women in the Philippine Revolution are suggested.     

Nationalism,civil society,and the revolution of 1989

Relying heavily on the work of Edward Shils, this paper argues that a robust sense of national identity among the peoples of East Central Europe played a crucial role in the revolutions of 1989 and the subsequent emergence of civil society in the region's countries.