‘Two Ukraines’ Reconsidered: The End of Ukrainian Ambivalence?

By Mykola Riabchuk

Volume 15, Issue 1, pages 138-156

Abstract

The 2014 Russo-Ukrainian war, euphemistically called the ‘Ukraine crisis’, has largely confirmed, on certain accounts, a dramatic split of the country and people’s loyalties between the proverbial ‘East’ and ‘West’, between the ‘Eurasian’ and ‘European’ ways of development epitomized by Russia and the European Union. By other accounts, however, it has proved that the Ukrainian nation is much more united than many experts and policymakers expected, and that the public support for the Russian invasion, beyond the occupied regions of Donbas and Crimea, is close to nil. This article does not deny that Ukraine is divided in many respects but argues that the main – and indeed the only important – divide is not between ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, or Russophones and Ukrainophones, or the ‘East’ and the ‘West’. The main fault line is ideological – between two different types of Ukrainian identity: non/anti-Soviet and post/neo-Soviet, ‘European’ and ‘East Slavonic’. All other factors, such as ethnicity, language, region, income, education, or age, correlate to a different degree with the main one. However divisive those factors might be, the external threat to the nation makes them largely irrelevant, bringing instead to the fore the crucial issue of values epitomized in two different types of Ukrainian identity.

Read the full article here.

Nationalism, Exclusion and Violence: A Territorial Approach

By John Robert Etherington

Volume 7, Issue 3, pages 24-44

Abstract

Nationalism can be understood as a doctrine of territorial political legitimacy, in the sense that demands for national self-government necessarily involve claims over a given territory. Such claims are ultimately justified by establishing a relationship of mutual belonging between the nation and ‘its’ territory. This makes nationalism intrinsically exclusionary and potentially violent, since purely civic nations become impossible in practice. Shared political and social values on their own fail to bind nation and territory together, and as such the nation’s ‘home’ might be anywhere, and thus, in a world of competing political claims over territory, nowhere. Ethnic elements of national identity are therefore necessary if an exclusive relationship is to be established between the nation and ‘its’ territory. These arguments are illustrated by analysing a series of nationalisms that have been traditionally considered to be ‘civic,’ such as those found in the United States, Canada and England.

Read the full article here.

From the Bronx to the Wilderness: Inari-Sami Rap, Language Revitalisation and Contested Ethnic Stereotypes

By Juha Ridanpää and Annika Pasanen

Volume 9, Issue 2, pages 213-230

Abstract

This article discusses how rap music operates as an emancipatory ‘tool’ in the processes of language preservation and the deconstruction of ethnic stereotypes. It focuses on Amoc, the first ever rap musician to use the Inari Sami language, a minority language spoken in Northern Finland with only approximately 350 remaining speakers. The case as a whole is understood as a confrontation between two opposite discursive worlds. Rap music is perceived as a representation of urbanity, whereas the ethnic Sami culture is understood as a nationally ‘othered’ discourse based on old subordinating stereotypes of primitive people living in nature, beyond civilisation. In this context Amoc represents a bridge-builder between these two contrary worlds. This article discusses how Sami rap, as a modernised artistic practice, functions as an emancipatory ‘tool’ deconstructing the stereotypical ways of approaching ethnic heritages and thereby helping to sustain and revitalise the minority language of the Inari Sami group.

Read the full article here.