Transboundary conservation and militarized interstate disputes

Advocates of transboundary conservation argue that borderlands can be a source of cooperation between neighboring states that previously engaged in conflict. It has been stated that, by opening negotiation channels based on environmental issues, jointly managed cross-border protected areas can promote and reinforce harmonious relations between contiguous states. We explore this assertion by empirically testing how transboundary protected areas (TBPAs) are related to militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) between contiguous states. Through the use of global data on protected areas and MIDs, we find that TBPAs tend to be established between countries that have previously been engaged in MIDs. We also find some evidence that TBPAs can be related to a more peaceful co-existence between neighboring countries in Africa, Middle East, and Asia.     

Waging a war to save biodiversity: the rise of militarized conservation

This article examines the rise in militarized approaches towards conservation, as part of a new ‘war for biodiversity’. This is a defining moment in the international politics of conservation and needs further examination. The claims that rhinos and elephants are under threat from highly organized criminal gangs of poachers shapes and determines conservation practice on the ground. Indeed, a central focus of the 2014 London Declaration on the Illegal Wildlife Trade is the strengthening of law enforcement, and recent policy statements by the US government and the Clinton Global Initiative also draw the link between poaching, global security and the need for greater levels of enforcement. Such statements and initiatives contribute substantially to the growing sense of a war for biodiversity. This article offers a critique of that argument, essentially by asking how we define poachers, and if militarized approaches mean conservationists are becoming more willing to engage in coercive, repressive policies that are ultimately counterproductive. Further, this article examines how the new war for biodiversity is justified and promoted by referring to wider debates about intervention in a post‐Cold War era; notably that the international community has a responsibility towards wildlife, especially endangered species, and that military forms of intervention may be required to save them.     

The disciplinary politics of antagonistic nationalism in militarized South and North Korea

After the Korean War (1950–53), the two militarized Koreas governed each and every member of society in similar ways through their disciplinary politics of antagonistic nationalism. The existing studies of state formation in the two Koreas have neglected an aspect of state power that was neither necessarily top‐down nor violent from above but also reproduced from below. In both South and North Korea, especially from the 1960s to the 1970s, state power had internal dynamics that penetrated the day‐to‐day activities of most citizens and led them to actively accept and participate in nationalist rule. This article explores an understudied aspect of the two Koreas' state power that was disciplinarily diffused in people's everyday practices through reproduction of aggressive nationalism from below and the organic construction of the individual body and nation.     

Dominant ethnicity: from minority to majority

ABSTRACT. This article argues that the world is in the midst of a long‐term transition from dominant minority to dominant majority ethnicity. Whereas minority domination was common in premodern societies, modernity (with its accent on democracy and popular sovereignty) has engendered a shift to dominant majority ethnicity. The article begins with conceptual clarifications. The second section provides a broad overview of the general patterns of ethnic dominance that derive from the logic of modern nationalism and democratisation. The third section discusses remnants of dominant minorities in the modern era and suggests that their survival hinges on peculiar historical and social circumstances coupled with resistance to democratisation. The fourth section shifts the focus to dominant majorities in the modern era and their relationship to national identities. The article ends with a discussion of the fortunes of dominant ethnicity in the West.     

The anthropology of ethnicity

Frances Henry, ed. Ethnicity in the Americas. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1976. vii + 438 pp. Bibliographical notes and index. $22.50.     

The new ethnicity: Old wine in new bottles

Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan, eds. Ethnicity: Theory and Experience. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976. 531 pp. Tables and index. $5.95 paper.

Abdul A. Said and Luis R. Simmons, eds. Ethnicity in an International Context. New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1976. 241 pp. $12.95.     

The varieties of urban ethnicity

Almirol, Edwin B. Ethnic Identity and Social Negotiation: A Study of a Filipino Community in California. New York: AMS Press, 1985. vii + 296 pp. including appendices, references, and index. $47.50 cloth.

Baskauskas, Liucija. An Urban Enclave: Lithuanian Refugees in Los Angeles. New York: AMS Press, 1985. vii 4–173 pp. including references, appendix, and index. $35.00 cloth.

Gerber, Stanford Neil. Russkoya Celo: The Ethnography of a Russian‐American Community. New York: AMS Press, 1985. vii + 131 pp. including appendices, references, and index. $29.50 cloth.

Laguerre, Michel S. American Odyssey: Haitians in New York City. London: Cornell University Press, 1984. 198 pp. including references and index. $29.95 cloth, $9.95 paper.

Wheeler, Wayne. An Analysis of Social Change in a Swedish‐Immigrant Community: The Case of Lindsborg, Kansas. New York: AMS Press, 1986. 386 pp. including appendix, references, and index.     

Warriors and blacksmiths: Mediating ethnicity in East African spears

Ethnoarchaeology offers some ability to transform contemporary forms of social constitution into a method for interpreting prehistoric social patterns and for understanding the coevolution of symbolic and utilitarian technologies. In north-central Kenya, one social caste of Lokop pastoralist actors (warriors) interacts with another (blacksmiths) to build a technology for socially constituting gender and social age. Three aspects of this process can help to direct analogous archaeological research in prehistoric contexts. First, this case reiterates that symbols for and symbolic acts of gender and social age continually help actors to constitute or negotiate their places within varied social fields. It is clear, however, that the connection between social prestige—essentially the goal of Lokop personal adornment—and real economic or political power is not necessarily direct. For Lokop herders, foreign traits of spear morphology are the stylistic raw material for constituting internally defined social fields. Ethmic distinctions are more pasively constituted, almost as an epiphenomenon. Second, the constituative significance of material symbols may be grasped without appealing to or understanding the cultural meaning of forms (in an emic sense) from only the archaeological evidence. In fact, prehistorians should not concern themselves with attempts to reconstruct the meaning of cultural phenomena. Rather, archaeological inquiry should attempt to infer the meaningfulness of formal traits within a specific social context, based on significant material patterns in the archaeological record. Third, the items of meaning themselves are constituted with their own material means of production, and these systems may be interpreted through economic models more familiar to archaeology. The Lokop case encompasses producers and users both as specialists. Blacksmiths rely on their marginal positions in herding society to make them the brokers of morphological traits. Warriors, also accustomed to marginal status, effectively collaborate with blacksmiths to set up their own future place as elders. For archaeological applications in prehistory, the exchange and processing of raw materials should reconstitute economic hierarchy in a very clear manner.     

Language,ethnicity and religion: a complex and persistent linkage

ABSTRACT. Among the markers of ethnonational identity, language and religion have figured with equal prominence. In many cases, religion has been the bedrock of nation‐building; and even today, it is difficult to separate a number of national identities from their religious matrices. Religious identity is based on, and perpetuated in, narratives expressed in a specific language. Language and religion are related; in our secular age, however, that relationship is no longer consistent. The two may feed upon one another; language may substitute for religion; or religion may trump language. This article explores the varying relationships between language and religion.     

Racism, ethnicity and multiculturalism in contemporary Europe: a review essay

This essay examines the specificities of contemporary European racism. In particular it compares and contrasts recent expression of racism with nineteenth century expressions of racial exclusion and racial hatred. Building on arguments from two important recent collections on the upsurge of racism in western Europe, it seeks to develop a political geography of racism, one that could supplement political and sociological theories of race and racism in contemporary Europe. In so doing it links recent expressions of racism to the politicisation of migration, the tightening of community and political borders, and the development of a new politics of exclusion and new geographies of closure which seek to control exogenous minorities in, and exclude ‘foreigners' from, Fortress Europe. In examining the racial geographies of countries as divergent as France, Britain, Spain, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands, it provides a critical overview of social processes and ideological developments that have led to the recent resurgence of racism in western Europe.     

Self and other in ethnicity and bureaucracy

Tambiah, S. J., Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1986. xi + 198 pp. including chapter references and Index. $17.95 cloth.

Raby, Namika, Kachcheri Bureaucracy in Sri Lanka. Foreign and Comparative Studies/South Asia Series. No. 10. Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Syracuse University 1985. 188 pp. excluding chapter references and index. $12.00 paper.     

Some remarks on ethnicity in medieval archaeology

Recent critiques of the culture‐historical approach to ethnicity have denounced the idea that archaeological cultures are ‘actors’ on the historical stage, playing the role that known individuals or groups have in documentary history. But the critique has gone as far as to claim that, because archaeologists supposedly have no access to the meaning of cultural traditions, medieval ethnicity cannot be studied by archeological means. Ethnicity should be banned from all discussions, if medieval archaeology is to make any progress in the future. The paper examines the theoretical malaise at the root of this scepticism verging on nihilism. The understanding of the archaeological record not as an imprint, but as a text allows for much learning about meaning in the past. Symbols, style and power are the key concepts that currently guide anthropological research on ethnicity as a ‘social construction of primordiality’. As several archaeological examples show, medieval ethnicity was a form of social mobilization used in order to reach certain political goals. Ethnic identity was built upon some pre‐existing cultural identity, in a prototypic manner.     

The study of ethnicity in historical archaeology

Despite increasing interest in the archaeological study of ethnic groups few historical archaeologists have addressed the broad question of how such groups form and change. This paper presents a theory of ethnic group formation and change drawn from both anthropological and sociological research. The theory is based on the examination of the relationship of three variables: competition, ethnocentrism, and differential power. Of these variables, the differential distribution of power is given the most weight in determining changes in ethnic boundary maintenance. The development of ethnic boundaries in southern Arizona between 1854 and the early 1900s provides an example of the interrelationships among these variables. Consideration of archaeological material from this time period illustrates the necessity of archeaological data for testing the proposed theory. Further suggestions are made for the testing of the proposed theory, using historical and archaeological data.     

The mosque in the suburbs: Negotiating religion and ethnicity in South London

The geography of religi on for UK residents of South Asian origin is inexorably linked to the politics of the built environment. In particular, the siting, or expansion, of places of worship for minority-religious groups has often been bound up with the negotiation and contestation of the politics of identity. In this paper we explore the historical unfolding of a complex politics of identity and difference across one particular site of religious worship. The building in question is the London Fazl Mosque, London's first mosque. The paper focuses on two periods in the architectural, social and religious life of the site: its initial planning, opening and use in the London suburbs of the 1920s; and the community's more recent--and ultimately unsuccessful--attempts to extend the mosque in the 1990s. Across these two periods we draw out the ways in which notions of similarity and difference were employed by mosque-users, other local residents, the press and local and central government bodies in their discourse relating to the mosque. In particular we are concerned with how the mosque has meant different things to different religious, ethnic and social groups across the period under study, and how the mosque's relative ability to conform to associative aesthetic valuations throughout its history effectively sanctioned as well as condemned building works. Pour les résidents du Royaume-Uni d'origine sudasiatique, la géographie de la religion est inexorablement liée à l'environnement architectural. En particulier, le choix de sites ou l'expansion de lieux de culte pour les groupes religieux minoritaires ont souvent été reliés à des débats identitaires. Dans cet article, nous explorons l'évolution historique d'un jeu complexe de politiques de l'identité et de la différence par le biais d'un édifice religieux. Le site en question est la mosquée Fazl, la première ayant été bâtie à Londres. L'article se concentre sur deux périodes de la vie architecturale, sociale et religieuse de ce site: sa planification initiale, son ouverture, et son utilisation dans la banlieue de Londres pendant les années 1920, ainsi que les efforts plus récents--éventuellement sans succès--d'agrandir la mosquée pendant les années 1990. À travers ces deux périodes, nous exposons comment des notions de similaritéet de différence ont été mises de l'avant par les usagers du lieu, les autres résidents du quartier, la presse et les institutions gouvernementales centrales et locales dans leurs discours respectifs sur la mosquée. Nous cherchons en particulier à dégager comment la mosquée acquière une signification différente selon chaque religion, ethnie ou groupe social impliqué pendant la période sous étude. Nous cherchons aussi à dégager comment la capacité relative de la mosquée à se conformer à des valeurs esthé tiques associatives au cours de son histoire a servi à supporter de même qu'à condamner les travaux de construction. La geografía de la religio´n para los habitantes del Reino Unido naturales de Asia Sudoriental es inexorablemente vinculada a la política del entorno construído. En particular, la ubicación, o la expansión de los edificios de culto para los grupos de religiones minoritarios muchas veces ha estado estrechamente vinculado con la negociación y la contestación de la política de identidad. En este papel, examinamos el desarollo histórico de la compleja política de identidad y diferencia en un sitio de culto determinado. El edificio en cuestión es la mezquita Fazl, la primera mesquita de Londres. El papel enfoca a dos períodos en la vida arquitectural, social y religiosa del sitio: su planificación, inauguración y empleo iniciales en el barrio londinense en los años 20: y los intentos más recientes de la comunidad de ampliar la mezquita en los años 90, los cuales no resultaron exitosos. Através de estos dos períodos destacamos las maneras en que las nociones de semejanza y diferencia fueron empleadas por las personas que frecuentaban la mezquita, otros residentes locales, la prensa y cuerpos de los gobiernos local y central en sus discursos sobre la mezquita. En particular nos interesa lo que significaba la mezquita para los diferentes grupos religiosos, étnicos y sociales en las épocas bajo investigación y como la manera en que la mezquita cuadraba con las valuaciones estéticas asociativas durante toda su historia efectivamente sancionaba, tanto como condenaba, su construcción.     

Ivoirian identity constructions: ethnicity and nationalism in the prelude to civil war

ABSTRACT. The recent and unresolved conflict in Côte d'Ivoire has received little attention in the English‐speaking world. Where it is discussed, the instrumentalist view of ethnic conflict predominates. This is a linear and structural argument. It examines how pre‐given ethnic groups gained political voice in clashes over control of economic resources, and were subsequently manipulated by political elites with personal agendas. This paper questions the coherence of group identity and instead emphasises the agency of individuals. It argues that the meaning of ethnic identity was transformed as social and economic grievances led to conflict between political groupings. This approach accords individual Ivoirians more responsibility for determining the boundaries of ethnic and nationalist exclusion, and for participating in the ensuing violent conflict.