Author Archives: Hannah Atkins

Reflecting on the Right to Seek and Enjoy Asylum on World Refugee Day

“We’ll come united” by ekvidi is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Blog Editor’s Note

By Barbara Gornik, Science and Research Centre Koper

World Refugee Day has been designated by the United Nations to honour refugees around the world. This day is dedicated to raising awareness of the rights of refugees and the challenges they face as individuals who have been forced to flee their home countries to escape persecution. The issue is more important than it may seem at first sight; from the perspective of understanding the modern societies, it is nothing less than fundamental for it uncovers the underlying values of contemporary political communities, and clearly points to the principles that guide us as a society. The refugee debate is about the relationship we have to individuals as human beings as, to rephrase Arendt (1976), refugees are persons who have at some point in their life lost all other specific relationships – except that they were still human.

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About Us

Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism (SEN) is a fully-refereed journal on ethnicity, identity and nationalism, published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism (ASEN). The sources and nature of ethnic identity, minority rights, migration and identity politics remain central and recurring themes of the modern world. The journal approaches the complexity of these questions from a contemporary perspective and, based on the latest scholarship, draws on a range of disciplines including political science, sociology, anthropology, economics, international relations, history and cultural studies.

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We, The Dwellers of the Ivory Towers

“university” by barnyz is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Blog Editor’s Note

By Barbara Gornik, Science and Research Centre Koper

Yes, we are. We publish books, whose readership is admittedly limited; we write scientific articles that are mainly read by a small circle of colleagues from the field; and indeed, we present papers at scientific conferences that are usually reserved for insiders in the academic world. We are undeniably dwellers of the ivory towers.  

The symbol of the ivory tower, as is commonly known, often associated with us, academics at universities, who are believed to be disconnected from the rest of the world in pursuing our careers. It is generally assumed that we we live separate from the reality of most people’s lives, in intellectual isolation from the real world. Undoubtedly such an opinion is not entirely wrong. In fact, we have to write numerous peer-reviewed articles to sustain our careers; we often publish in journals that are rarely read by laypeople and we continually use a scientific and highly specialized language that may not be well understood by the general public. The considerable amount of time we devote to particularized scientific production in order to succeed in our careers drives us further into the isolation of ivory towers and thus further away from active participation in life in society.

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Featured weekly article: ‘My Brother’s Keeper’? Inter‐ethnic Solidarity and Human Rights

‘My Brother’s Keeper’? Inter‐ethnic Solidarity and Human Rights

By Alison Brysk and Daniel Wehrenfennig

Volume 10, Issue 1, pages 1-18

Why and how do communities that have been victims of human rights abuse advocate for new, unrelated victims of ethnic persecution? Scattered but persistent inter‐ethnic solidarity challenges materialist views of ethnic communities as interest groups, and highlights the importance of social learning and communicative action. In order to trace some promising pathways of inter‐ethnic solidarity, we examine human rights campaigns on behalf of other beleaguered groups by American Jews, Northern Irish Catholics, and African‐Americans. We find that necessary conditions of a structural base and social capital are activated by bridging narratives of human rights that promote Other‐identification among unrelated groups. Analysis of such campaigns has the potential to improve our understanding of ‘rooted cosmopolitanism’ as an alternative to competitive nationalism and a situated basis for universalist humanitarianism.

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Featured weekly article: Education as an Instrument of Nation‐Building in Postcolonial Africa

Education as an Instrument of Nation‐Building in Postcolonial Africa

By Redie Bereketeab

Volume 20, Issue 1, pages 71-90

The article examines the role of education in nation‐building in postcolonial Africa. The postcolonial African nationalist leaders faced formidable challenges in building new nations out of disparate ethnic, religious, cultural, and linguistic groups, particularly as regards the two intimately related processes of deconstruction and construction. While deconstruction entailed dismantling the structures, institutions, and power relations of the colonial period, construction entailed replacing them with relevant national institutions, structures, authorities, and mechanisms. Education was to advance the process of construction and transformation as a pedagogical instrument for cultivating a national identity by fostering integration and cohesion. One of the nationalist leaders’ biggest mistakes, however, was to adopt a homogenizing strategy of nation‐building. The paper subscribes to the conception of heterogeneity as a nation‐building strategy, where ethnic and civic (sub‐national and national) layers constitute the nation. The overall focus of the article is a conceptual and theoretical analysis of the nexus between education and nation‐building in postcolonial Africa. The central argument is that education plays a decisive role in nation‐building in Africa. Eritrea is selected as an empirical case study to advance this argument.

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