Linking Essentialist and Constructivist Ethnicity

Abstract

This article argues that the essentialist and the constructivist positions within theories of ethnicity are in fact compatible if one introduces a concept here called “internalized fluid capacities”, connoting that which is inherently (genetically) dispositional – and in that sense biologically “anticipated” – but which remains to be developed into observable social characteristics through sociocultural impact. This perspective is based on the genetic capacity to mold or “instruct” the development of an organism from its embryonic state and onwards by using prior stages as points of departure for further instructions. In this way, certain fluid capacities become imprinted in individuals and collectivities through reinforcing interaction with the ambient society. These capacities may then harden and develop into apparent “essentials”, forming a group's collective self-image. The article concludes with the suggestion that this explanatory model can be usefully applied to the debate around Swedish governmental definitions of Saamihood.     

Forty-Third Annual Congress,Darlington and Bishop Auckland, 1886

Abstract

Although the wall-paintings in the three first floor bedrooms and the connecting passage at Ellys Manor House, Great Ponton (SK 927 304), have been known to exist for a considerable time and are amongst the most extensive and important of their period in the country, very little has been written about them and no attempt has been made to co-ordinate the information that is available.     

The problem of power: Partial electrification in Northern Uganda

This article considers the relation between infrastructural development and precarious work in the context of the electrification of a village in Northern Uganda. The case of a welder illustrates how partial electrification creates precarious conditions for work and how flexibility and creativity are used to mitigate its effects. In looking beyond precarity at the strategies employed by small-scale business owners in Northern Uganda, this article aims to shed light on how people relate to infrastructural realities and play an active role in shaping the affordances and impact of infrastructures in the Global South.     

Presidential Coequality: The Evolution of a Concept

The assertion that the presidency is coequal in power to the other branches in the American system of government is often heard, has been suggested by all recent presidents, and has even made its way into political science. But tracing the history of the concept demonstrates that this assertion is an invention of quite recent vintage. Those who wrote and favored the Constitution did not make such claims, nor did early presidents. Even Andrew Jackson's famous and, to his generation, shocking assertion of coequality coincident with his censure was not really a claim of equal power between branches. According to our systematic analysis of presidential rhetoric it was Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford who initiated and popularized the idea of interbranch coequality. They did so to defend themselves in two episodes of substantial presidential vulnerability: Watergate and the ensuing midterm elections. Subsequent presidents have elevated something that would have seemed wrong and absurd to any founder into a blithe truism. This belief harms governance by creating both artificially high expectations for the president and a presumption of institutional stasis. The “second constitution” based on popular beliefs about interbranch relations continues to evolve, as much a product of happenstance as of rational design.     

Book reviews

Psychological Dimensions of Near Eastern Studies. Edited by L. Carl Brown and Norman Itzkowitz. Princeton, N.J.: The Darwin Press, 1977. 382 pp. $16.95.

The Little Black Fish and Other Modern Persian Stories. By Samad Behrangi. Translated by Mary and Eric Hooglund, with a Biographical‐Historical Essay by Thomas Ricks. Washington, D.C.: Three Continent Press, 1976. 133 pp. $14.00.

Artists for the Shah: Late Sixteenth‐Century Painting at the Imperial Court of Iran. By Anthony Welch. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1976. xvi + 233 pp.

Edebiyat, a Journal of Middle Eastern Literatures, Vol. 1. Edited by William L. Hanaway, Jr. Philadelphia: Middle East Center, University of Pennsylvania, 1976.

An Introduction to Ottoman Poetry. By Walter G. Andrews, Jr. Minneapolis and Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1976. x + 195 pp.

Development of the Iranian Oil Industry: International and Domestic Aspects. By Fereidun Fesharaki. New York: Praeger; London: Martin Robertson, 1976. 315 pp. $19.50.

Islamic History, a New Interpretation: I. A.D. 600–750 (A.H. 132). By M. A. Shaban. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971 (paperbound edition, 1976). viii + 197 pp.     

Soils and Earthen Building Materials Used for the Buddhist Temple Complex

This article presents a comprehensive study of the local soils and historic earthen building materials used in Nako temple complex in Western Himalayas. On-site and laboratory investigations followed a holistic approach to characterize materials and identify historic manufacturing formulas. The interdisciplinary and novel methodology used for analysis of the earthen building materials combine geological, chemical, mineralogical, geotechnical, and mechanical approach. The results presented in this article enable a better understanding of material culture and advance the study of damage and decay processes found in the temple buildings. In addition, a suitable conservation and preservation strategy is presented.     

Threading a needle: Kazakhstan between civic and ethno‐nationalist state‐building

This paper examines the state‐building project in Kazakhstan since independence in 1991. It argues that both civic and ethno‐nationalistic tendencies in state‐building can be identified but that it is not any particular trajectory of nationalism in Kazakhstan that is of significance so much as the tensions between two very different trajectories. We argue that, at least to date, the government has succeeded in managing these tensions quite effectively both at the policy level and in its relations with different ethnic groups and neighbouring states. Whether Kazakhstan can continue to manage these tensions in the post‐Nazarbayev era is one of the most significant questions facing the country.