Iraqi Perceptions of Out‐groups: Effects of Ethnicity,Religion, and Location

At the Iraq “liberation” in 2003, many asked, “Could Sunni, Shi'a and Kurdish factions be brought together, or is it likely that ethnic conflicts would lead to civil war?” This pilot project addressed: 1) How do Iraqis' self‐reported ethnic/religious identities (their membership in their personal in‐groups) relate to their perceptions of other unlike groups (out‐groups)?, and 2) How does a place of residence relate to Iraqi perceptions of out‐groups? My team collected 479 surveys of Iraqi opinions in Iraq, Jordan, and The Netherlands, asking for perceptions of Those Other Groups, their out‐groups. I found that background items of religion, ethnic origin, and location, taken by themselves, did not relate strongly to respondents' attitudes towards out‐groups. But, some combinations of background items did give significant differences in perceptions towards other groups. For example, moderate Arabs (with respect to ethnic importance) in Iraq were the group most opposed to foreigners, and were the group most opposed to expatriate Iraqis returning to Iraq. In this paper I explain important terms (out‐group and wiki); report on my findings in the midst of a period of regime change in Iraq; mention the use of an alternate way to disseminate research findings over the internet via a wiki; and describe follow‐up projects on social capital among Iraqis. My hope is that this will contribute to a base from which researchers and fieldworkers can develop theories to explore and explain elements of civil society in Iraq and other societies. This paper presents the following major sections: Abstract; Introduction; Purpose; Background; Methodology; Results; Conclusions; Further; Work; Appendixes; and End Notes     

Book reviews

Nationalisms and Sexualities. A. Parker, M. Russo, D. Sommer & P. Yaeger (Eds), 1992. New York, Routledge. 384 pp., £40.00 hardback, £12.99 paperback. ISBN 0–415–90432–3 hardback, 0–415–90433–1 paperback.

Sexuality and Space. B. Colomina (Ed.), 1992. New York, Princeton Papers on Architecture, Princeton University School of Architecture, Princeton Architectural Press. 389 pp., $14.95 paperback. ISBN 1–878271–08–3.

Racialized Boundaries: race, nation, gender, colour and class and the anti‐racist struggle. F. Anthias & N. Yuval‐Davis, 1992. London, Routledge. 226 pp., £40.00 hardback. ISBN 0–415–01813–7.

Refusing Holy Orders: women and fundamentalism in Britain. G. Sahgal & N. Yuval‐Davis (Eds), 1992. London, Virago. 244 pp., £8.99 paperback. ISBN 1–85381–219–6.

Different Places, Different Voices: gender and development in Africa, Asia and Latin America. J. H. Momsen & V. Kinnaird (Eds), 1993. London, Routledge. 322 pp., £40.00 hardback, £12.99 paperback. ISBN 0–415–07538–6 hardback, 0–415–07563–7 paperback.

Gender, Development and Identity: an Ethiopian study. H. Pankhurst, 1992. London, Zed Books. 216 pp., £29.95/549.95 hardback, £12.95/$19.95 paperback. ISBN 1–85649–157–9 hardback, 1–85649–158–7 paperback.

‘Viva’: women and popular protest in Latin America. S.R. Radcliffe & S. Westwood (Eds), 1993. London, Routledge. 270 pp., £40.00 hardback, £12.99 paperback. ISBN 0–415–07312‐X hardback, 0–415–07313–8 paperback.

Seeking Common Ground: multidisciplinary studies of immigrant women in the United States. D. Gabaccia (Ed.), 1992. Westport, CT, Praeger. 272 pp., $55 hardback, $17.95 paperback. ISBN 0–313–27483–5 hardback, 0–275–94387–9 paperback.

The Women Outside: meanings and myths of homelessness. S. Golden, 1992. Berkeley, CA, University of California Press. 319 pp., $25.00 hardback. ISBN 0–520–07158–1.

The Transformation of Intimacy: sexuality, love and eroticism in modern societies. A. Giddens, 1992. Cambridge, Polity Press. 212 pp., £19.50 hardback. ISBN 0–7456–1012–9.

Situating the Self: gender, community and postmodernism in contemporary ethics. S. Benhabib, 1992. Cambridge, Polity Press. 266 pp., £45.00 hardback, £11.98 paperback. ISBN 0–7456–0998–8 hardback, 0–7456–1059–5 paperback.

Made from this Earth: American women and nature. Vera Norwood, 1993. Chapel Hill, NC, University of North Carolina Press. 368 pp., $37.50 hardback, $17.95 paperback. ISBN 0–8070–2062–8 hardback.     

Shifting narrative strategies: How monument advocates change their stories in response to conflict over time

This paper expands the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) by employing an exploratory case study approach to examine the construction of narratives temporally. A large-N Twitter dataset concerning the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments controversy is utilized to examine the question: how does the use of narrative strategies change over time? Through the application of change-point analysis, we determine time points of significant shifts towards use of the devil-angel shift, scope of the conflict, and causal mechanism strategies. Overall, we find that organizations do not vary their use of narrative strategies over the course of a policy conflict but instead demonstrate discrete changes in response to certain policy events. Based on our findings, we conclude with suggestions for refining and expanding NPF hypotheses. Specifically, we recommend a more contextual analysis of shifts in narrative strategy use in response to specific events over time.     

10,000 years of human predation and size changes in the owl limpet (Lottia gigantea) on San Miguel Island,California

To investigate potential human impacts on California Channel Island shellfish stocks over the past 10,000 years, we measured 1718 owl limpet shells from 19 archaeological components on San Miguel Island. Inhabiting the middle intertidal zone of Pacific Coast rocky shores, owl limpets are slow-growing mollusks that can live for 30 years and reach lengths of over 100 mm. Recent ecological studies indicate that owl limpets are highly susceptible to heavy human predation, which results in reduced mean shell sizes among Lottia populations along the coasts of Alta and Baja California. On San Miguel Island, we identified a significant trans-Holocene reduction in mean owl limpet size, beginning more than 6500 years ago and accelerating at least 4400 years ago. Fluctuations in limpet size show no clear correlation with changes in sea surface temperature and marine productivity, suggesting that increased predation by growing human populations was primarily responsible for the reduction in Lottia size over time. Our results provide further evidence that prehistoric peoples significantly influenced nearshore fisheries long before the development of the commercial and industrialized fisheries of historic times.     

The U.S. Public Health Service and smoking in the 1950s: the tale of two more statements

During the 1950s, the United States Public Health Service prepared two statements on the link between smoking and lung cancer that have not been recognized by other historians. This article employs extended discussions of these two statements as vehicles to explore both internal developments at the federal health agency and larger questions surrounding the disciplinary emergence of chronic disease epidemiology. The primary cast of characters includes Surgeons General Leonard A. Scheele and Leroy E. Burney, Lewis C. Robbins (a lower-ranking Public Health Service officer, who had chief responsibility for the agency's smoking-related programs from 1958 through 1962 and who left behind a daily professional diary), and Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) editor John H. Talbott. These men, and others, are seen grappling (at varying levels of engagement) with the appearance of what we now recognize as a profoundly different way of understanding chronic disease causation, which centers on survey-taking and statistical analysis of risk factors.