From Registers to Repertoires of Identification in National Identity Discourses: A Comparative Study of Nationally Mixed People in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom

By Anne Unterreiner

Volume 15, Issue 2, pages 252-271

Abstract

As nationally mixed people have parents born in different countries, they can potentially identify with multiple national reference groups, allowing the researcher to study national identification processes. The analysis of approximately one hundred people of nationally mixed background living in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom highlights different registers of identification. There are important differences in how nationally mixed people articulate them, which leads to the identification of different national repertoires of identification. In France, a strong French national identity was emphasized, whereas German national identity seems more fragile because it depends mainly on cultural socialization. In the United Kingdom, non‐national identities are developed in a context where the national community is not clearly defined, while ethnicity is publicly recognized. The register and repertoire of identification concepts thus allow the researcher to analyse identity discourses and then explain national differences through international comparison.

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Generating Martyrdom: Forgetting the War in Contemporary Algeria

By Judith Scheele

Volume 6, Issue 2, pages 180-194

Abstract

Nationalist displays and rhetoric invoking the Algerian war of independence from France (1954–1962) are omnipresent in contemporary Algeria. Yet personal memories of the war of independence are conspicuously absent locally, although the war generation is still alive, and although all current power‐holders and their contenders tend to refer to the war as the supreme source of political legitimacy. This article explores this apparent paradox with special reference to Kabylia, a Berber‐speaking area in northeastern Algeria. It argues that the local absence of war history is crucial for its functioning as a national myth; that this local indeterminacy allows for an implicit and constant re‐negotiation of local hierarchies although they superficially refer to moral absolutes; but that it also imposes an inherently restrictive model of political legitimacy and protest.

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Ethnic Politics, Political Elite, and Regime Change in Nigeria

By Henry Ani Kifordu

Volume 11, Issue 3, pages 427-450

Abstract

Since the 1960s, intermittent social conflicts in Nigeria appear mostly linked to ethnic groups’ differences. Considering the importance of regime change in social and political stability, this article critically analyses the historic and dynamic role of the core political executive elite in the political system’s stability. The article argues that ethnic politics persist in Nigeria based on the nature of interactions between political institutions, institution‐builders, and society. It asserts a contradictory link between deep‐rooted elite interests and popular preferences in ways that undermine orientations towards democracy. The empirical focus is on the composite nature of the core political executive elite analysed through their ethnic and educational backgrounds. It is observed that, although ethnic shocks are variously motivated, the atypical shape and inequity in power and role distribution at the highest levels of executive office‐holding stand out as a salient source and target of antagonism by ethnic groups. This finding has a paradoxical implication: deep‐seated economic and political interests of the elite play a diversionary role from the real causes of ethnic conflicts in Nigeria.

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Removing the Right to Have Rights

By Nisha Kapoor

Volume 15, Issue 1, pages 105-110

Introduction

Since the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2002 came into force, it is estimated that at least fifty‐three people have been stripped of their British citizenship, with forty‐eight of these cases occurring since 2010 under the coalition government (Galey and Ross 2014). In 2006, legislation was passed to make possible the removal of citizenship from someone if it was deemed that to do so would be ‘conducive to the public good’ (Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, 56(1)), and last year a new clause was approved which effectively means naturalized Britons can be made stateless if there are ‘reasonable grounds for believing’ citizenship can be acquired from another country (Immigration Act 2014, 66(1)). Essentially what we have witnessed since the beginning of the twenty‐first century is the gradual extension of state powers to remove citizenship, where the premise upon which it can be withdrawn has become more and more expansive and the fundamental rights which it provides for have become ever more precarious.

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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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