The Politics of Identity and Mimetic Constructions in the Philippine Transnational Experience

By Sharon Orig

Volume 6, Issue 1, pages 49-68

Abstract

As Filipinos traverse transnational space, the Filipino ethnic identity becomes enmeshed in a politics of identity. Filipinos witness how their identities are eroded, subordinated and, sometimes, corrupted. Identity politics relegates Filipinos to second-class citizens whenever other nationalities view Filipinos as racially inferior or as they sexualise and objectify the Filipino image. Racial prejudice at large may lead Filipinos to expunge their own ethnic identity and crave for an identity that is not their own. Identity issues are therefore relevant to Filipino migration. When reflecting on identity politics, it is crucial to consider the unique experiences relevant to a people’s race and nationality. Literature has the capacity to take snapshots of the ethnic and nationalistic experience and transpose them into creative writing. These writings inevitably reflect the interplay of politics, nationalism, and ethnic identity in the migrant experience. Migration narratives thus become important in unearthing the identity politics that transpire on a global scale. This paper describes some of the issues concerning Filipino ethnic identity in global transnationalism as established from three contemporary narratives.

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Ethno-Religious Identity and Sectarian Civil Society: A Case from India

By Sarbeswar Sahoo

Volume 8, Issue 3, pages 453-480

Abstract

This paper analyses the role of Rajasthan Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad (RVKP), an ethnic Hindu(tva) organisation, among the tribal populations in south Rajasthan. It argues that the RVKP has been able to enhance its legitimacy and expand its socio-political support base among the tribals through a well-articulated and planned process of ‘ethnification’. This process has been carried out in four basic ways: (1) utilising development projects as means to spread the ideology of Hindutva, (2) bringing religious awakening and organising mass re-conversion programmes, (3) redefining indigenous identity and characterising certain communities as ‘the other’, and (4) with the support of the various state institutions. The paper concludes that by ethnicising indigenous identity, the RVKP has not just created a ‘culture of fear and violence’ in the tribal regions but also threatened the secular democratic ethos of Indian society.

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Elite Strategies in a Global World: A Typology of Polish Patriots

By Joanna Kaftan

Volume 11, Issue 2, pages 194-213

Abstract

This study focuses on how Polish elites view the relationship between Polish identity and Poland’s place in the world. Samples of priests, politicians, and intellectuals were interviewed in 1999 and 2009. A typology of four ideal types is proposed: ideological nationals, pragmatic nationals, pragmatic transnationals, and ideological transnationals. This typology can be viewed as a continuum of elite emphasis ranging between national and transnational themes. This continuum of emphasis can be seen when examining elite responses to questions concerning NATO membership, EU membership, Polish identity, and Polish democracy. This study finds that while the majority of Polish priests and politicians wished to emphasise national over transnational themes, intellectuals stressed transnational themes. Nevertheless, most acknowledged the inseparable nature of these themes when they talked about the contemporary Polish nation.

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State or Diaspora: Jewish History as a Form of National Belonging

By Yitzhak Conforti

Volume 15, Issue 2, pages 230-250

Abstract

This study addresses the writing of Jewish history as a form of national belonging in Israel and in the Diaspora. Simon Dubnow laid the foundation for Jewish national historiography in the beginning of the twentieth century. Beginning in the 1920s, Zionist historians in Palestine emphasized the centrality of the Land of Israel in Jewish history, while Jewish historians in the Diaspora preferred an elliptical model, which recognized two national centres – ‘Babylon and Jerusalem’. In the 1930s, a debate broke out between two principal Jewish historians, Salo Baron and Yitzhak Baer. While Baer stressed the Zionist conception of Jewish history, Baron emphasized the world dimensions of Jewish history. Similarly, during the 1950s a dispute arose between Jewish scholar Simon Rawidowicz and David Ben-Gurion. For Rawidowicz, a Jewish centre in the Diaspora was parallel in significance to the State of Israel. By contrast, for Ben-Gurion only a Jewish nation-state could provide true Jewish national belonging. In this article, I analyse both arguments and draw conclusions for the current relationship between Israeli historical awareness and the use of Jewish history in the Diaspora.

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A Sacred Bastion? A Nation in Itself? An Economic Partner of Rising China? Three Waves of Nation-Building in Taiwan after 1949

By Hsin-Yi Yeh

Volume 14, Issue 1, pages 207-228

Abstract

Agreeing with the constructivist approach to nationalism, this article argues that the prevailing ambiguous attitude towards nationality among people in Taiwan is a reflection of different waves of nation-building − each led people to imagine a distinct nation − and the mixture of these waves during past decades. Whereas all nations are artificially imagined, ‘the style in which they are imagined’ should be examined. This article aims to distinguish three waves of nation-building in Taiwan after 1949 and address the issue of superimposition of contradictory elements in producing nation-ness to highlight that nation-building is a path-dependent process. Three suppositions can be derived from the investigation of Taiwan’s case. First, people are not empty vessels and the new national imagination has to compete and coexist with vestiges and crystallizations of former imaginations. Second, the content of a single nation-building programme may be reinvented according to the external and/or internal environment. Third, depending on the social atmosphere, official nationalism may adopt a different method to instil the national imagination.

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