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.

The Power of Intersectionality to Transcend National Identity in the United States

By Amanda Lawrence

Volume 17, Issue 2, pages 168-176

Abstract

Since the mid‐1800s, when the early women’s movement began in the United States, Women of Colour have been marginalized by white Feminists. The ‘waves of Feminism’ frame the movement by marking changes in American history that benefit white women while excluding the diverse and unequal experiences of Non‐white women. It is necessary to re‐evaluate the history of women in America and the many ways in which Non‐white women shape the Feminist dialogue. White Feminists must be intersectional and expand their understanding of Feminism beyond the realm of gender, to include race, class, religion, sexual orientation, etc., in order for Feminism to successfully achieve its mission to transcend socio‐cultural limitations on women.

Read the full article here.

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.

Read the full article here.

The Shifting Landscapes of ‘Nationalism’

By Anthony D. Smith

Volume 8, Issue 2, pages 317-330

Abstract

The field of study that comprises nations and nationalism is often seen as riven by a conflict between ‘modernists’ and their opponents. In fact, the field is far more fragmented than such a characterisation suggests. From the very first normative critical essays 150 years ago, it has been composed of shifting landscapes in which different approaches and perspectives overlap and cross‐cut each other like intersecting monologues. While there was a short period of engagement in the 1980s, a ‘classic debate’ between modernists, perennialists and ethno‐symbolists who embraced a macro‐analytic framework and a causal‐historical methodology, the familiar landscape has radically shifted to reveal a series of deconstructionist strategies and techniques; and while rational choice theories, among others, continue to embrace causal‐historical analysis, there has been a rejection in many quarters of both macro‐analytic narratives and causal‐historical analysis. The new anti‐essentialist strategies include feminist critiques, the study of everyday nationhood, the hybridisation of national identities, and debates about the ‘ethics of nationalism’ which echo earlier critiques. Above all, there is a new concern with the application of globalising trends to nations and nationalism, and especially with the role of nations without states, and the impact of supranationalism, large‐scale migration and ‘religious nationalisms’.

Read the full article here.