Queering the Politics of Global Sexual Rights?

By Leticia Sabsay

Volume 13, Issue 1, pages 80-90

Abstract

To be ‘politically queer’ at the beginning of the 1990s indicated opposition to the policing of identity and heteronormativity, and adherence to a politics that transcended liberal‐legal claims. More recently, queer activism and scholarship have largely focused on contesting the emergence of homonormative forms of nationalism and institutionalized rights‐based LGBT politics. However, to define a political intervention as queer on the condition that it explicitly adheres to one or other specific political project is possibly to overstate the case. The ‘queer signifier’ has travelled far beyond its local origins and, as a consequence, has shifted meanings in significant ways. In this essay, I consider current tensions concerning what it means to be politically queer, focusing on queer responses to the formation of sexual rights‐bearing subjects, and critically analyse the notion of sexual rights on which contemporary international mainstream sexual politics is based. Through this analysis I aim to draw attention to the entanglement of the normalization of sexual identities at a national level with current sexual neocolonial projects. Since the signifier ‘queer’ has spread in many different directions, I argue that it is precisely cultural translation that makes key alliances against both universalist and nationalist queer positions possible.

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**This week we are featuring two articles that have recently received high Almetric scores.**

Banal Nationalism, Football, and Discourse Community in Africa

By Bea Vidacs

Volume 11, Issue 1, pages 25-41

Abstract

The article argues that despite the continuing relevance of ethnicity, the idea of the nation has taken root among Africans. This is due to a combination of factors, including the universal ideology of the nation‐state, the impact of the existence of such national borders on the imagination, and the influence of national symbols and icons, which naturalise the idea of the nation. Applying Michael Billig’s notion of banal nationalism to Cameroon, the article focuses on linguistic practices as well as on popular appropriations of national symbols as contributing factors to the creation and maintenance of national consciousness. The analysis of a call‐in radio program broadcast on Cameroonian national radio during the 1994 FIFA World Cup illustrates that football created a discourse community that reinforced the idea of the nation both explicitly and implicitly. By participating in the debate, journalists and listeners alike – regardless of the tenor of their remarks – reinforced and further contributed to imagining the Cameroonian nation.

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Does Electoral Proximity Enhance National Pride? Evidence from Monthly Surveys in a Multi‐ethnic Society – Latvia

By Ryo Nakai

Volume 18, Issue 3, pages 198-220

Abstract

This research focuses on how elections affect national pride, one of the core components of an individual’s sense of nationalism. Recent studies have found that elections can be crucial moments in enhancing nationalistic sentiment. I conducted an in‐depth survey of research polling in Latvia, where the ethnic majority–minority structure is clear and issues of nationalism have long been salient. It therefore offers an interesting case for observing whose national pride can be changed over the short term during the electoral season. Survey research conducted repeatedly both before and after the general election produced the following findings: 1) an electoral enhancement effect on national pride exists, regardless of ethnic majority or minority status; 2) the pride of those who support the party of the incumbent prime minister is enhanced as elections get closer, but that of radical right party supporters is not. These results shed light on yet another aspect of the connection between elections and nationalism.

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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.

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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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