Ethnic Migration in Central and Eastern Europe: Its Historical Background and Contemporary Flows

By Roel Jennissen

Volume 11, Issue 2, pages 252-270

Abstract

This article aims to describe the historical background of international ethnic migration in Central and Eastern Europe. The rise and fall of the Habsburg Empire in Central Europe and the Ottoman Empire in Southeastern Europe has been the underlying cause of many ethnic migration flows in Central and Eastern Europe in the post‐communist era. Moreover, the German Ostkolonisation, border changes after the two World Wars, and interstate migration in the former Soviet Union caused a large pool of potential ethnic migrants. In addition to the description of this historical background, this article contains a description of important contemporary ethnic migration flows that originate from the aforementioned historical developments, and a discussion of future developments of ethnic migration in Central and Eastern Europe.

Read the full article here.

Creole Hegemony in Caribbean Societies: The Case of Suriname

By Ruben Gowricharn

Volume 15, Issue 2, pages 272-291

Abstract

Evaluating the representation of the East Indian communities in the national political identity of Caribbean countries, and building on the discussion waged in Guyana and especially Trinidad and Tobago, this article elaborates on the example of Suriname. It argues that the Surinamese example differs from that of other countries in the region with respect to the ample opportunity the Indo‐Surinamese community had to change their exclusion from political representation. A second distinguishing feature of Suriname is the uncontested Creole preponderance. Theoretically, the article differentiates the Gramscian concept of hegemony into contested, resisted, and accepted hegemony in order to capture the relations between the Indian communities and the national political identity. The article argues that part of the difference between these Caribbean countries, and more specifically, part of the self‐restraint on the political agency of the Indian community in Suriname, can be attributed to these countries’ ideologies and specific demographic and political constellations.

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A Chinese Malaysian in Taiwan: Negarakuku and a Song of Exile in the Diaspora

By Keng We Koh

Volume 8, Issue 1, pages 50-79

Abstract

This article examines the controversy surrounding a Chinese Malaysian student’s use of the Malaysian anthem in a rap song criticising the corruption of Malaysia and its marginalisation of the ethnic Chinese. Race and religion have been crucial in the imagining of and contestations over the Malaysian nation. They became taboo subjects in the public sphere after the 13 May racial riots in 1969. Language, education, and the mass media became important fields of contestation between the Chinese communities and the Malay‐dominant government. With the growing state control of traditional public media such as television, radio, and newspapers, the internet thus became an important space for the stifled public sphere. Concomitantly, dissatisfaction with the dominant party coalition has led increasingly to the growth of a multi‐ethnic opposition that encompasses the different ethnic groups. Wee’s songs and the political backlash resulting from the government’s attempts to suppress it exemplify the convergence of these forces. They also tell us something about the ways in which ethnicity, diaspora, and nationalism intertwine in the imaginings and world‐view of a Chinese Malaysian student who felt himself displaced by the national education system. Taiwan, an important cultural and political node in the Chinese overseas imagination, constituted escape, opportunity and an important cultural and political influence but he remains oriented towards his homeland. His songs show how his identity is framed within the local (Muar), the ethnic (vis‐a‐vis the Malays on the one hand and the other Chinese linguistic communities on the other) and the nation (Malaysia and vis‐à‐vis Singapore).

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Due to the Thanksgiving celebration in the US, this week’s featured weekly article composes of two publications: a book review of Native Americans in the present-day US, and an article on Native Americans in present-day Canada.

Alex Alvarez’s Native America and the Question of Genocide

By Guy Lancaster

Volume 15, Issue 2, pages 377-379

Introduction

Alex Alvarez’s latest book, which questions the blanket application of genocide to the Native American experience, risks being viewed as an exercise in historical whitewashing. After all, Adam Jones (2010), in his textbook on genocide, declared actions against Native Americans as constituting perhaps the most extensive case of genocide in history, while Ben Kiernan (2007) and Mark Levene (2005) prominently featured violence against indigenous Americans in their own respective historical overviews of genocide. Many scholars consider the case settled. However, Alvarez compares and contrasts the variety of official policies and vigilante actions towards Native Americans, in order to illustrate that the issue of intent – so critical to the definition enshrined in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide – cannot be so readily proven in every case.

Read the full review here.

Colonialism, Gender and the Family in North America: For a Gendered Analysis of Indigenous Struggles

By Darcy Leigh

Volume 9, Issue 1, pages 70-88

Abstract

This paper explores the case for a feminist, gendered analysis of anti‐colonial Indigenous struggles in two stages: It considers the historical and contemporary relationship between colonialism and gender, moving from pre‐colonial Indigenous life through colonisation and assimilation to explore Indigenous life today. It then discusses the problems and possibilities that the intersection of colonial power and gender presents for Indigenous struggles. The paper focuses on Indigenous communities in North America, engaging in particular with Inuit in Nunavut. It suggests that a gendered analysis is critical to understanding colonial power and is therefore vital to thinking about anti‐colonial Indigenous struggles; that an Indigenous Feminism may be able to move beyond the limits of dominant, Liberal and European feminisms as well as those of Indigenous resistance strategies.

Read the full article here.

The European Crisis and Cultural Intimacy

By Michael Herzfeld

Volume 13, Issue 3, pages 491-497

Introduction

Europe finds itself caught in a moment of supreme embarrassment. The self‐appointed home of enlightened rationality now finds itself hoist by the petard of its own rationalist criteria. The euro may be on its last legs, the European Union is at the very least disturbingly dyspeptic, and its constituent countries repeatedly assert their fealty only as a means of insisting on their own cultural and territorial sovereignty.

Read the full article here.