Inter ethnic Relations

The early ethnological works of Alfred Métraux are analysed bearing in mind his first fieldwork trip to the Chiriguano, in 1929. The paper discusses personal, academic and professional features of Métraux’s ethnological experience, the nature of the 1929 trip and his concrete relationships with the Chiriguano groups and individuals. Next, we analyse his ideas on material culture as a privileged means of understanding the synthesis of Andean, Chaco and Amazonian cultural influences. Finally, the dilemmas and limitations of his analytical approach regarding Créole cultural influence and social and cultural change are discussed. [Key words: Alfred Métraux, Chané, Chiriguano, material culture, change.]
Se analiza la etnología temprana de Alfred Métraux a la luz de su primer viaje de campo a los chiriguanos, en 1929. Se discute el perfil personal, académico y profesional de Métraux, las peculiaridades de su trabajo de campo en 1929 y sus relaciones concretas con los indígenas chiriguanos en el terreno. Se examinan luego sus ideas sobre la cultura material como campo experimental privilegiado para rastrear procesos de síntesis de influencias culturales andinas, chaqueñas y amazónicas, así también sus dilemas y límites a la hora de interpretar el factor de la influencia criolla y el proceso de cambio social y cultural en un sentido amplio. [Palabras clave: Alfred Métraux, Chané, Chiriguano, cultura material, cambio.]

Firstly, the Roman Catholic «prehistory» of contact between the Panoan groups of Bolivian Amazonia and Jesuit, Franciscan and lay clergy missionaries is described. The paper then analyses the continuity of the evangelization process by diverse evangelical denominations, describing three missionary experiences with the Chacobo since 1955 to the present day. Finally, general insights are proposed relating the anthropological problem of religious conversion.

Throughout the history of mankind, preference and preservation of one's kin or kind has been evident, an up-close observation of this behaviour birthed such theories as kin selection, social identity theory, realistic group conflict theory and reciprocal altruism. The sense of ''weness'' and ''theyness'' has largely precipitated most devastating wars and conflicts that have besieged the world, though incompatible goals or scarce resources are usually fronted as responsible. Such wars and conflicts have been called by different names like racism, xenophobia, nationalism or ethnocentrism. The term xenophobia has particularly gained wide recognition most especially in the wake of South-Africa’s crisis in the past. Nigeria has equally experienced such conflicts in the past and still does, however the magnitude of the violence in Nigeria has been played down due to the term used to describe such violence; sometimes it is called prejudice or discrimination or sometimes ethnocentrism or hegemony. This paper makes the argument that the phenomenon of xenophobia exists in Nigeria, may be more common than we realise and also may be an adaptive mechanism employed by people for personal and group survival. Examples of xenophobic acts in Nigeria are discussed and theoretical explanations for their existence and perpetuation are addressed, together with recommendations of managing their occurrences.

This contribution investigates the action of the Spazio Popolare Neruda, a housing squat where dozens of families of different nationalities cohabit, in the neighborhood of Valdocco. Turin's district of Aurora (where Valdocco is located) is close to the historical center and focus of rapid gentrification processes; it is also characterized by the historical presence of a high percentage of foreigners and by rapid social change. The article proceeds by analyzing the difficult post-industrial transition of the neighborhood, mainly characterized by the loss of industrial working class identity and by international immigration. The attention is then brought on the use of space made by residents, highlighting how the spatial proximity between the different inhabitants corresponds to a deep social distance. We then proceed with the analysis of the strategies and the practices adopted by the inhabitants of Neruda and the housing rights movement, aimed on the one hand at opposing everyday life segregation through mutual and cultural activities, and on the other hand at claiming housing rights and the right to the city. To conclude the article brings forward the opposition to the urban regeneration policies, deemed as responsible for a selective inclusion and exclusionary operation, however promoted by the combination of rhetorics of participatory governance and urban decorum.

The argument offered in this book is that new technology, as opposed to traditional media such as television, radio, and newspaper, is working against the national grain to weaken its imagined community. Online activities and communications between people and across borders suggest that digital media has strong implications for different articulations of identity and belongingness, which open new ways of thinking about the imagined community. The findings are based on transnational activities by Kurdish diaspora members across borders that have pushed them to rethink notions of belonging and identity. Through a multidisciplinary and comparative approach, and multifaceted (online-offline) methodologies, the book unveils tensions between new and old media, and how the former is not only changing social relations but also exposing existing ones. Living in two or more cultures, speaking multiple languages, and engaging in transnational practices, diaspora individuals may have created a momentum that discloses how the imagined nation is diminishing in this digital era.

คณะผู ้ เขี ยน รศ.ดร.ปรี ดี พิ ศภู มิ วิ ถี , ดร.นฤพนธ์ ด้ วงวิ เศษ ดร.ตรงใจ หุ ตางกู ร, ดร.สมรั กษ์ ชั ยสิ งห์ กานานนท์ จั กรี โพธิ มณี , นั ทกฤษ ยอดราช, ธานิ นทร ลิ มปิ ศิ ริ Sakorn-Buri_Book_Final 0320.indd 1 3/20/2561 BE 15:04 สาครบุ รี จากวิ ถี ชาวบ้ าน การเปลี ่ ยนผ่ านวิ ถี ชี วิ ตท้ องถิ ่ นในลุ ่ มน� ้ าท่ าจี น จั งหวั ดสมุ ทรสาคร บรรณาธิ การ ดร.นฤพนธ์ ด้ วงวิ เศษ คณะผู ้ เขี ยน รศ.ปรี ดี พิ ศภู มิ วิ ถี , ดร.นฤพนธ์ ด้ วงวิ เศษ, ดร.ตรงใจ หุ ตางกู ร, ดร.สมรั กษ์ ชั ยสิ งห์ กานานนท์ จั กรี โพธิ มณี , นั ทกฤษ ยอดราช, ธานิ นทร ลิ มปิ ศิ ริ พิ มพ์ ครั ้ งที ่ 1 เดื อนมี นาคม 2561 จ� านวนพิ มพ์ 1,000 เล่ ม ออกแบบปกและรู ปเล่ ม สกลชนก เผื ่ อนพงษ์ พิ สู จน์ อั กษร ธานิ นทร ลิ มปิ ศิ ริ ประสานงานการผลิ ต ธนิ ตตา ธนสิ ริ กุ ลวงศ์ รู ปภาพประกอบหนั งสื อ พั ชรี วรรณ์ เบ้ าดี , นฤพนธ์ ด้ วงวิ เศษ, ตรงใจ หุ ตางกู ร, สมรั กษ์ ชั ยสิ งห์ กานานนท์ , จั กรี โพธิ มณี , นั ทกฤษ ยอดราช, ธานิ นทร ลิ มปิ ศิ ริ , นพพล เมฆมาก, ปั ณวั ตน์ ผ่ องจิ ต สาครบุ รี จากวิ ถี ชาวบ้ าน การเปลี ่ ยนผ่ านวิ ถี ชี วิ ตท้ องถิ ่ นในลุ ่ มน� ้ าท่ าจี น จั งหวั ดสมุ ทรสาคร ( ) Sakorn-Buri_Book_Final 0320.indd 2 3/20/2561 BE 15:04

While on the surface a heavily dialogical and tremendously funny novel, Green Grass, Running Water (1993) presents readers with one of those unlikely turnarounds in postcolonial history in which a human collectivity on the verge of extinction finds new ways to resist the colonizer’s epistemological and spiritual prerogatives. Author Thomas King, a writer of Cherokee, Greek and German ancestry, makes that resistance effective by engaging in the active recuperation and comic use of Native Americans’ endangered cultural heritage. This is by no means an easy task because, as Said (1993: xiii) reminds us, “the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming and emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism, and constitutes one of the main connections between them”. It is probably for this reason that King has chosen to highlight the comic potential of his fiction at the
expense of other more subversive purposes that it, no doubt, also serves (see Gzowski 1999: 65). Certainly, one of the most remarkable effects of his use of humor is, as several scholars have maintained (Goldman 1999; Daxell 2003), its capacity to reconcile the stark facts of tribal annihilation with the tradition of continuance and bonding so common among Native American cultures. As a result of this ‘reconciliation of opposites’, instead of representing his culture as superior
to others, King is seen to find a balance between cultures by exposing the truth and the falsity in all of them. In this reading of the novel, its greatest achievement would lie in its ability to help readers from very diverse backgrounds to cross borders into different cultural traditions and to find out for themselves their virtues and shortcomings (Cf. Matchie and Larson 1996; Andrews 2002). Or to use Fee and Flick’s (1999: 132) words to describe the same phenomenon, “the reward for following King’s merry chase is the pure pleasure of getting the point or the joke, the pleasure of moving across the border separating insider and outsider”.

This article provides an account of the migratory history from the 1960s until today of the Baka groups now living along the River Ivindo in northeastern Gabon. Important sites and routes in the migratory processes of these Baka, their clan members, and ancestors are documented and causes for staying or leaving, past and present are detailed. The historical analysis shows there to be three principal factors in Baka migrations and mobilities: firstly, toma, following family or friends; secondly, the type and quality of the inter-ethnic relations; and, thirdly, the search for a better life defined by economic parity and freedom from violence. This long-term study evidences the extended periods of Baka staying in one location when they feel at-ease, suggesting that particular social values guide Baka migratory movements, and highlighting the significance of the 'social environment' in conceptualising (Baka) migration. Furthermore, Baka sedentism, at least in northeastern Gabon, is shown to be more widespread and self-generated than previously assumed.

Forthcoming in African Study Monographs (2017), Vol.38, No.2., June issue

This article argues that Fredrik Barth views ethnic structures both in primordialist and constructivist terms. Primordialist, because ethnicities are persistent structures, despite trans-border movement; and constructivist, because cultures' boundaries can be crossed, with an open-ended scenario. Barth's work is situated in the mid-20th century, when globalization wasn't so strong.

This essay will attempt to examine the factors behind escalation of the conflict, why the conflict is still there, and how initiatives are evaluated to resolve the conflict. Knowledge from a recent excursion to Bosnia and Herzegovina (Sarajevo, Mostar, Srebrenica) will be used to complement discussions and arguments. Notably, local discourses sometimes did not coincide with academic’ perceptions.

Ключевые слова: этническая политика, конфликт, Ферганская долина, межэтнические браки В этой статье я буду рассматривать сложившуюся после событий в городе Ош ситуа-цию сквозь призму динамики отношений внутри этнически смешанных семей, на примере той поддержки и контроля, которые обеспечиваются отношениями родства и свойства, и того, каким образом эти последние сохраняют или изменяют свои фор-мы в результате конфликта. Я детально изучу эти узы, которые затрудняют вспышки конфликта и благодаря которым потенциальные (этнические) враги становятся непо-средственно связанными между собой. Я утверждаю также, что хотя патрилинейные родственные связи не являются частью политической системы, все-таки вопрос о национальности делает рискованным заключение межэтнических браков.

Until the conclusion of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, there were roughly 750,000 Jews living in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria and Palestine/Israel. A comparative electronic survey of some 900 journals reveals that when scholars referred to these individuals collectively during the last 200 years they employed some twenty different signifiers. The question I address is simple yet potentially foundational: which collective signifier can define and capture most productively, inclusively and comprehensively the socio-political and cultural experiences of those who comprised the Arab Middle East's ten indigenous Jewish minority communities prior to their dispersal (in the post-1949 armistice period)? I propose that the signifier ‘Arabized-Jews’ exhibits explanatory properties that outweigh those of its alternatives both quantitatively and qualitatively. As such, ‘Arabized-Jews’ denotes Jews who were culturally and/or linguistically Arab yet who did not self-define primarily as Arab, let alone in political terms. In exploring the dialectic interface between ethno-politics, terminological formations and the production of meaning, this article suggests that it makes sense for contemporary scholars to employ ‘Arabized-Jews’ to refer collectively to Jews across the modern Arab Middle East.

Abstract
This chapter provides a descriptive-analytical introduction to the settlement and development of the Hindustani Muslim community in Suriname, who, together with the Javanese, constitute the bulk of the country’s Muslim population. Islam was first brought to Suriname by African slaves during the transatlantic slave trade and “reintroduced” by indentured Indian migrants in the nineteenth century, as was the case in the wider Caribbean region. Although Islam is a universal religion based on the Quran and Hadith, Muslim beliefs and practices vary as they embrace local cultures. Muslims in Suriname brought with them practices from their home country, and these too varied to some extent according to ethnic, language, class and regional origins. There were many cultural similarities between Muslim and Hindu migrants who, despite tension from time to time, particularly in the 1930s and around the partition of India in 1947, largely developed as one ethnic group in Suriname. The establishment of a united Hindustani political party in 1949 attests to this. Religion and culture are never static and the attempts by reformists from the 1960s to “purify” Islam by eradicating it of its Hindu and Indian practices, has impacted on Muslim identities. Even as some Hindustani  Muslim became more secular in their outlook, others embraced these ideas and this is evident in their dress, consumption habits, beliefs and practices. To date, however, there is no serious rooting of fundamentalism of the radical Islamic State kind and Muslims continue to live in harmony with other racial, ethnic, and religious groups in Suriname

This article considers the turbulent period in Croatian history between the collapse of the ‘old’ Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the creation of new states. The beginning of the period was marked by the partial liberalization of political circumstances in the Monarchy, and ended with the closure of Croatian and Serbian institutions in the city of Zadar in 1921. The collapse of the Monarchy was followed by the Italian military occupation of part of the eastern Adriatic coastline. Zadar was among one of the first places to be taken. The new circumstances affected both political and social life in Dalmatia. The article focuses especially on the small, well-positioned Serbian city community. Just before the First World War, it collaborated closely with the Italian community, but during the war, and particular in the post-war years, it worked more closely with the Croatian elite in the city, in response to Italian pressure. After the Italian occupation, both the Croatian and Serbian communities were exposed to political reprisals and uncertainty. As a result, most of the Serbian community left and almost all their institutions in Zadar were abolished.

El objetivo general de esta tesis ha sido analizar las relaciones entre la diversidad cultural y los conflictos sociales y considerar por qué se dice que algunos conflictos sociales son intrínsecamente culturales. He propuesto abordar esto a través de lo que llamo un “estudio de caso extendido multi-escalar” de la construcción social de un problema y sus soluciones. Una aproximación innovativa que esclarecen los múltiples procesos locales y globales intrínsecos al fenómeno, cuyo punto de partida ha sido una etnografía urbana de una ciudad en el norte de Cataluña. He analizado la transformación simultáneamente local y global de las migraciones y de las sociedades, conectando a los procesos locales de producción de espacio y la creación de lugar con los procesos de migración, crisis económica y transformación social, para finalmente analizar las respuestas de las asociaciones, ONGs y grupos sociales a estos cambios. Los conflictos sociales son aquí concebidos como una herramienta analítica favorable que permite un entendimiento más profundo de la compleja transformación social que la migración, como fenómeno, es parte de, pero también afectado por, a la vez que lo impulsa y articula culturalmente. Me he enfocado particularmente en la interacción entre movilidad y asentamiento, a través de un lente geográfico-histórico, y en los procesos socio-culturales a diferentes escalas de las cuales forman parte y en las cuales juegan un rol importante. Así como el modo en el cual tienen un impacto local y global a través de los vectores de producción y reproducción.

First published in the American Chronicle, Buzzle and AfroArticles on 2nd May 2010

Republished in the portal of the exiled Oromo Parliamentarians

https://www.oromoparliamentarians.org/English/News_Archive/Oromo%20Action%20Plan%20for%20the%20Liberation%20of%20Oromia.htm

The present article is not an original, new text; it consists in the merge of eight articles first published in 2008. The text has been slightly modified, edited and updated. As the series was not completed, I will further expand in forthcoming articles in order to extensively describe the types of actions needed to be undertaken by independent average Oromos in view of the liberation of Oromia and the ultimate destruction of the monstrous colonial tyranny of Abyssinia, the world´s most racist and inhuman state. The present article consists of 21 units, as per below:

1. The Search for Oromo Leadership

2. A New Oromo Leadership: A Global First

3. Weaknesses of the Traditional Political Leadership

4. Identification of the Oromo Nation in 2010

5. Who is the enemy of the Oromos?

6. Local – Regional-level Foes

7. Authentic Oromos and Fabricated Amharas; the Total Opposition

8. Direct and Indirect Colonialism

9. Differentiation among Colonial Rulers

10. Anglo - French Colonial Establishment: Arch-enemy of the Oromo Nation

11. Millions of Oromo Leaders Organized in Independent Groups

12. Present Oromo "Leaderships" and their Inertia

13. Key Figures to Be Considered by All the Oromos

14. Biyya Oromo Independent – Whose Work Is It?

15. Groups of Oromo Liberation Activity – GOLA

16. Ground work

17. GOLA Security – Impenetrability

18. GOLA – Commitment

19. GOLA – Function

20. Basic Directions for GOLA Projects and Endeavours

21. Collection of Information Pertaining to the Oromo Nation

The Croatian Studies Review is a peer-refereed multidisciplinary journal with an international editorial board, published jointly by: the Croatian Studies Centre, Macquarie University, Australia; the Centre for Croatian Studies, University of Waterloo, Canada; and the Centre for Croatian Studies Abroad, University of Split, Croatia. It focuses on issues dealing with Croatian culture, language, linguistics, history, literature, migration, identity, Croatians in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatian minorities in European countries (Hungary, Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Italy) and Croatian communities in other European countries as well as overseas countries. Preferred language is English. Papers may also be accepted for publication in Croatian, French, Italian and German after consultation with the Editor-in-Chief. Volumes are usually topical. Papers outside the volume-topic and book reviews are also welcome.

Dos suizos, dos libros, una única obsesión: la explotación del “oro negro” de la selva amazónica, en la época del auge cauchero en el Oriente de Bolivia. Con apenas unos meses de diferencia, Franz Ritz y Ernst Leutenegger trabajaron en la misma barraca gomera durante la primera década del siglo XX, y ambos publicaron luego sus recuerdos en su país natal. Son estos relatos que, traducidos por primera vez al español, nos propone descubrir aquí Lorena Córdoba. La mirada más entusiasta de Ritz y la visión más melancólica de Leutenegger evocan ambas tópicos de la fiebre cauchera en la selva boliviana: la dura vida en las barracas; la ley del más fuerte en un mundo donde el Estado está ausente; los enganches tramposos, las deudas hereditarias, la explotación de los indígenas. Sin embargo, estos relatos permiten ir más allá de los clichés y matizar en gran parte las visiones en blanco y negro sobre esta época crucial para la economía boliviana, la paulatina incorporación del Oriente al país y el destino también de los pueblos indígenas amazónicos. Con su lectura, la Historia gana en humanidad, en matices enriquecedores, en profundidad y credibilidad.

A sedentary Lapp population existed in central Sweden
up until the turn of the century, 1900. Genealogical
studies have made it possible to trace them back a number
of generations. It appears that these Lapps in general
are the descendants of an earlier unrecognized Lapp
population that during the centuries has settled in northern
Svealand and southern Norrland outside of the area
regarded as Lapland.
These sedentary Lapps are known as parish Lapps
(sockenlappar) and originated from an itinerant Lapp population
which became sedentary because of the intervention
of the authorities during the 1720's. Earlier the
Lapps had wandered in small household group s in the
forests of central Sweden and made their living as hunters,
using reindeer as pack and dairy animals. These
itinerant forest Lapps, whose origin is shrouded in mystery
and whose way of living is only fragmentarily
known, lived side-by-side with the settled peasantry with
who m they developed a relationship ofreciprocal dependency.
The Lapps lived in the forest where they did not
compete with the peasants. They supplied the peasants
with hand-made craft products which we re fashioned
from the natural materials of the forests. An important
task was also the slaughtering of horses for the peasants.
The authorities attempted again and again during the
seventeenth century to force the forest Lapps of central
Sweden further north. When the provincial authorities in
the 1720's took measures to gather up the seattered Lapp
households and force them to move northwards, the
peasantry reacted by submitting petitions in favor of the
Lapps. Even the Lapps themselves appealed to the authorities
to be allowed to remain, referring to fact that they
no longer understood the language of the northern Lapps
and that they were born and raised in central Sweden.
The provincial governor in Gävle therefore issued a decree
allowing the Lapps to remain in the area that then
made up Västernorrlands län under the condition that
they became sedentary. Thus the central Swedish Lapps became settled by being entered into the tax rolls as
parish Lapps. The pattern for the integration of the
Lapps in to society was similar to that of the parish
craftsmen. The parish Lapps we re employed by the peasants
to carry out various services for them, particularly
the slaughtering of horses which the Lapps customarily
performed for the peasants. The Lapps we re accepted by
the general parish meeting in the same manner as the
craftsmen. During the eighteenth century, at least, they
we re supplied with . letters enabling them to ply their trade (forsvarsbrev ) by the offices of the provincial governor.
Even the system of paying the parish Lapps was the
same as that for the craftsmen. The Lapp was yearly
entitled to certain foodstuffs from the peasantry, and
when his services were used, he was paid according to a
schedule established by the parish officials (sockenmännen).
The sedentary parish Lapps were found in the provinces
included in the area that comprised Västernorrlands
län prior to 1762, that is, Ångermanland, Medelpad,
Jämtland, Hälsingland, and Gästrikland (not including
Härjedalen). Parish Lapps were also eventually
found in more than ten bordering parishes in southeastern
Dalarna as well as a few parishes in northern Uppland.
U sing the parish records and other administrative material
together with the ethnographical records, it has
been possible to gain insight intp certain aspects of the
life and living conditions of the parish Lapps in eighteenth
and nineteenth century Sweden. As a marginal
ethnic group, they left few tracks otherwise. The material
from the written ethnographical records shows that the
parish Lapps largely functioned in a manner which
roughly corresponded to that ofsomhern Sweden's horse
slaughterers (rackare). Putting horses to death was named
in nearly all of the ethnographical records as a task which
fell to the lot of the parish Lapps. Furthermore, they put
to death, skinned, and gelded dogs and cats. The parish
Lapps buried the cadavers of animals that had died and
sometimes also took care of the remains of suicide victims.
Not only did the parish Lapps support their households
by performing these jobs, but they also produced
certain handicrafts for safe. As did their itinerant forefathers,
they made various types of baskets, woven backpacks,
sieves, fishtraps, ropes etc. Hunting also continued
to be important for the subsistenee of the Lapps,
even if it occasionally led to conflicts. Thanks to the economic specialization of the Lapps
whereby they had the monopoly on a number ofvarious
services, they could survive as a separate ethnic group
into the second half of the nineteenth century. As long as
their services and goods were in demand, they maintained
their own social bands and endogamous marriage
pattern. Because they were regarded by those around
them as a distinct ethnic group, their separateness allowed
the Lapps to perform service~ which the peasants
could not. During the second half of the nineteenth century
new values made increasing in roads in the countryside. The bia s against the slaughtering ofhorses began to
disappear, and peasants learned to slaughter their own
horses. A certain dem and for horsemeat even appeared.
~ore and more industri al products began to find their
way from the cities into the countryside and compete
successfully with the handicraft products of the Lapps.
Thus the Lapps we re forced into the same labor market
as other categories in the lower strata of society. At this
point the Lapps had als o gone through an extensive
acculturation. I t was no longer possible for the Lapps to
maintain their structure as a distinctive group, and
mixed marriages became more Common. People in their
immediate surroundings als o ceased to identify them as
Lapps. The final integration occurred at the tum of the
century when the term "Lapp" disappeared from the
parish records. When the census of 1910 still designated
som e persons as Lapps within the area in which the
parish Lapps were formely dispersed, it was a question of
older persons who were parish Lapps. When they died,
the last representatives of the central Swedish Lapp population
disappeared. The numerous place names that
begin with Lapp- within the area where they once lived
are all that remains today to serve as reminders of these
people.

This study is aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of primary schoolchildren’s experience of multiracial relationships. Its objectives were to examine: (i) children’s perceptions of self and other (ii) their intra- and inter-racial friendships and (iii) ways in which these are played out in their daily school lives. The focus was on primary school children as schools exert a strong socialisation influence on children’s identity, attitudes and values, and primary school represents the first formal educational experience in the Singapore national school system. We were interested in young children’s perceptions of themselves and others in relation to multiracial relationships. How do children define themselves and others? Who are considered in-group and out-group in children’s minds? What factors come into play when children decide whom to befriend? To treat with respect? To marginalise? How do these colour a child’s experience of school? And to what end in the teaching and learning about life?

El artículo analiza la explotación de hevea brasiliensis en la región amazónica boliviana y la relación establecida entre dicha industria y la etnicidad regional. Dicha actividad puede rastrearse desde la mitad del siglo XIX en adelante, cuando se registran los primeros contactos entre el frente cauchero y los diferentes grupos étnicos que habitaban la zona. A través del análisis de diversas fuentes de misioneros, exploradores, políticos y de los mismos caucheros, el objetivo del trabajo es dar cuenta de las múltiples relaciones que los diferentes actores sociales trabaron en dichos encuentros desde el punto de vista de la larga duración. Se trata de cuestionar la visión tradicional sobre las sociedades indígenas y su presunta actitud pasiva frente al colonizador, contemplando en cambio un abanico de respuestas multiformes y situacionales que incluyó los tratos comerciales, los enfrentamientos armados, las relaciones amistosas e incluso de compadrazgo entre otras tantas opciones posibles.

The 6 million people forming the Laotian population are officially divided into 49 ethnic groups. How can we explain this huge diversity of people ? How do they live together ? How does the State manage this diversity ? Based on the existing literature and on personal field research, I am presenting in this paper a general and synthetic perspective of the ethnic question in Laos. In doing so, I defend the idea that ethnicity should be conceived not as a given, but as a product resulting from a particular process that I will clarify here. This analysis will allow me to propose a socio-political perspective on ethnic and cultural issues.

Abstract: The Nigeria civil war (1967-1970) provoked by declaration of Biafra republic had indelible imprint on Nigeria state. The post war efforts for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of the Igbo secessionist into the post-civil war Nigeria through the (3Rs) policy of rehabilitation, reconstruction and reconciliation (the 3Rs) to promote national unity and nationalism have failed to yield desire result. In recent times, specifically in post 2015 general election, there have been new waves of agitations for the Biafra republic by both Movement for Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra and Indigenous People of Biafra on one hand and for Niger Delta republic by Niger Delta Avengers on the other, added to terrorism and militancy that are already threatening Nigeria fragile state. The calls for restructuring have been louder particularly from the southern part of Nigeria. Keywords: Civil war, Secession, Self-determination, Nationalism and Restructuring

The urban centre of Vancouver, British Columbia has been a fecund research site for the study of capital, state, and social movement relations over the past three decades. In this article, we summarize the findings of our research program spanning that politically volatile period, and we reflect on the formidable, but not insuperable, obstacles to challenging the authority of global capital. We conclude that a 'transformative politics' articulated through a neo-Gramscian approach and rooted in a generative 'globalization-from-below' is the most promising basis for counter-hegemony today.

One of the most salient features of the Medieval Mediterranean is that it was a zone of intense interaction and long-term co-habitation of members of various ethno-religious communities whose relations are usually conceived of as fundamentally adversarial. Nevertheless, Christians, Muslims and Jews not only lived alongside each other but amongst each other in both the Christian- and Muslim-ruled Mediterranean, even during the era of the Crusades. Typically, such relationships have been presented as either fundamentally hostile, or cordial, and as related to the “tolerance” that host cultures were inclined to demonstrate as a consequence of their own religious orientation. By contrast, this paper takes a phenomenological approach by focusing on a specific manifestation of this interaction: the emergence of out-group political elites in confessionally-defined societies. Through the medium of three case studies – a powerful Jew in Islamic Spain, a powerful Muslim in Norman Sicily and a powerful Coptic Christian in Fatimid Egypt – it demonstrates that the status of minority elites was related to concrete political circumstances grounded in the particular environment of the region, and that, in spite of cultural differences that might have distinguished them, these societies developed near-identical strategies for engaging with minority elites. The language of religious polemic, exclusion and marginalization was not absent, but it tended to serve as a post factum rationalization for repression, rather than a cause, and tended to be deployed decisively only in certain circumstances. This provides new insights not only into Muslim-Christian-Jewish relations, but the nature of Mediterranean history and society.

Consociational democracy has increasingly been adopted as a useful approach for conflict transformation in ethnic and violently divided societies. Its ultimate purpose is to turn former rivals into governing allies by providing power-sharing arrangements. Through theoretically driven process tracing, based on Kosovo as a case study, this article explores whether and how consociationalism has affected peace-and state-building. By examining its application through institutional design, it investigates citizenship policy and the role of the European Union on fostering a multi-ethnic society. The article argues that the existing corporate consociational model has institutionalised ethnicity challenging democracy and statehood, and did not promote a shared identity. Therefore, to overcome ethnic division and strengthen state legitimacy, the paper proposes a modification of consociational democracy into a liberal type promoted by a more persuasive role of the EU.