Muslims have been shaping the Americas and the Caribbean for
more than five hundred years, yet this interplay is frequently
overlooked or misconstrued. Brimming with revelations that
synthesize area ...and ethnic studies, Crescent over Another
Horizon presents a portrait of Islam's unity as it evolved
through plural formulations of identity, power, and belonging.
Offering a Latino American perspective on a wider Islamic world,
the editors overturn the conventional perception of Muslim
communities in the New World, arguing that their characterization
as "minorities" obscures the interplay of ethnicity and religion
that continues to foster transnational ties.
Bringing together studies of Iberian colonists, enslaved
Africans, indentured South Asians, migrant Arabs, and Latino and
Latin American converts, the volume captures the power-laden
processes at work in religious conversion or resistance. Throughout
each analysis-spanning times of inquisition, conquest, repressive
nationalism, and anti-terror security protocols-the authors offer
innovative frameworks to probe the ways in which racialized Islam
has facilitated the building of new national identities while
fostering a double-edged marginalization. The subjects of the
essays transition from imperialism (with studies of
morisco converts to Christianity, West African slave
uprisings, and Muslim and Hindu South Asian indentured laborers in
Dutch Suriname) to the contemporary Muslim presence in Argentina,
Brazil, Mexico, and Trinidad, completed by a timely examination of
the United States, including Muslim communities in "Hispanicized"
South Florida and the agency of Latina conversion. The result is a
fresh perspective that opens new horizons for a vibrant range of
fields.
Anthropologists widely agree that identities--even ethnic and racial ones--are socially constructed. Less understood are the processes by which social identities are conceived and ...developed.Legalizing Identitiesshows how law can successfully serve as the impetus for the transformation of cultural practices and collective identity. Through ethnographic, historical, and legal analysis of successful claims to land by two neighboring black communities in the backlands of northeastern Brazil, Jan Hoffman French demonstrates how these two communities have come to distinguish themselves from each other while revising and retelling their histories and present-day stories.French argues that the invocation of laws by these related communities led to the emergence of two different identities: one indigenous (Xoco Indian) and the other quilombo (descendants of a fugitive African slave community). With the help of the Catholic Church, government officials, lawyers, anthropologists, and activists, each community won government recognition and land rights, and displaced elite landowners. This was accomplished even though anthropologists called upon to assess the validity of their claims recognized that their identities were "constructed." The positive outcome of their claims demonstrates that authenticity is not a prerequisite for identity. French draws from this insight a more sweeping conclusion that, far from being evidence of inauthenticity, processes of construction form the basis of all identities and may have important consequences for social justice.
Through literary and historical documents from the early sixteenth to late seventeenth centuries-epic poetry, private correspondence, secular dramas, and colonial legislation-Carmen Nocentelli charts ...the Western fascination with the eros of "India," as the vast coastal stretch from the Gulf of Aden to the South China Sea was often called. If Asia was thought of as a place of sexual deviance and perversion, she demonstrates, it was also a space where colonial authorities actively encouraged the formation of interracial households, even through the forcible conscription of native brides. In her comparative analysis of Dutch, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish texts, Nocentelli shows how sexual behaviors and erotic desires quickly came to define the limits within which Europeans represented not only Asia but also themselves. Drawing on a wide range of European sources on polygamy, practices of male genital modification, and the allegedly excessive libido of native women,Empires of Loveemphasizes the overlapping and mutually transformative construction of race and sexuality during Europe's early overseas expansion, arguing that the encounter with Asia contributed to the development of Western racial discourse while also shaping European ideals of marriage, erotic reciprocity, and monogamous affection.
Through innovative interdisciplinary methodologies and fresh avenues of inquiry, the nine essays collected in A Peculiar Mixture endeavor to transform how we understand the bewildering multiplicity ...and complexity that characterized the experience of German-speaking people in the middle colonies. They explore how the various cultural expressions of German speakers helped them bridge regional, religious, and denominational divides and eventually find a way to partake in America’s emerging national identity. Instead of thinking about early American culture and literature as evolving continuously as a singular entity, the contributions to this volume conceive of it as an ever-shifting and tangled “web of contact zones.” They present a society with a plurality of different native and colonial cultures interacting not only with one another but also with cultures and traditions from outside the colonies, in a “peculiar mixture” of Old World practices and New World influences. _x000B_Aside from the editors, the contributors are Rosalind J. Beiler, Patrick M. Erben, Cynthia G. Falk, Marie Basile McDaniel, Philip Otterness, Liam Riordan, Matthias Schönhofer, and Marianne S. Wokeck.
Like many indigenous groups that have endured centuries of subordination, the Berber/Amazigh peoples of North Africa are demanding linguistic and cultural recognition and the redressing of ...injustices. Indeed, the movement seeks nothing less than a refashioning of the identity of North African states, a rewriting of their history, and a fundamental change in the basis of collective life. In so doing, it poses a challenge to the existing political and sociocultural orders in Morocco and Algeria, while serving as an important counterpoint to the oppositionist Islamist current.
This is the first book-length study to analyze the rise of the modern ethnocultural Berber/Amazigh movement in North Africa and the Berber diaspora. Bruce Maddy-Weitzman begins by tracing North African history from the perspective of its indigenous Berber inhabitants and their interactions with more powerful societies, from Hellenic and Roman times, through a millennium of Islam, to the era of Western colonialism. He then concentrates on the marginalization and eventual reemergence of the Berber question in independent Algeria and Morocco, against a background of the growing crisis of regime legitimacy in each country. His investigation illuminates many issues, including the fashioning of official national narratives and policies aimed at subordinating Berbers in an Arab nationalist and Islamic-centered universe; the emergence of a counter-movement promoting an expansive Berber "imagining" that emphasizes the rights of minority groups and indigenous peoples; and the international aspects of modern Berberism.
Lost Histories Ziomek, Kirsten L
04/2019, Letnik:
418
eBook
"A grandson's photo album. Old postcards. English porcelain. A granite headstone. These are just a few of the material objects that help reconstruct the histories of colonial people who lived during ...Japan's empire. These objects, along with oral histories and visual imagery, reveal aspects of lives that reliance on the colonial archive alone cannot. They help answer the primary question of Lost Histories: Is it possible to write the history of Japan's colonial subjects? Kirsten Ziomek contends that it is possible, and in the process she brings us closer to understanding the complexities of their lives. Lost Histories provides a geographically and temporally holistic view of the Japanese empire from the early 1900s to the 1970s. The experiences of the four least-examined groups of Japanese colonial subjects--the Ainu, Taiwan's indigenous people, Micronesians, and Okinawans--are the centerpiece of the book. By reconstructing individual life histories and following these people as they crossed colonial borders to the metropolis and beyond, Ziomek conveys the dynamic nature of an empire in motion and explains how individuals navigated the vagaries of imperial life.".
Modern nation states do not constitute closed entities. This is true especially in Southeast Asia, where Chinese migrants have continued to make their new homes over a long period of time, resulting ...in many different ethnic groups co-existing in new nation states. Focusing on the consequences of migration, and cultural contact between the various ethnic groups, this book describes and analyses the nature of ethnic identity and state of ethnic relations, both historically and in the present day, in multi-ethnic, pluralistic nation states in Southeast Asia. Drawing on extensive primary fieldwork in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Burma, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines, the book examines the mediations, and transformation of ethnic identity and the social incorporation, tensions and conflicts and the construction of new social worlds resulting from cultural contact among different ethnic groups. TOC:Chapter 1: Racializing Chineseness.- Chapter 2: Rethinking Assimilation and Chineseness in Thailand.- Chapter 3: One Face, Many Masks: The Chinese in Singapore.- Chapter 4: Sama Makan tak Sama Makan: The Chinese in Malaysia.- Chapter 5: Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Chinese in Indonesia.- Chapter 6: Half Chinese or Three Quarters Chinese: The Chinese in Contemporary Burma.- Chapter 7: A Love-Hate Relationship: The Chinese in Vietnam.- Chapter 8: Hybridization and Chineseness in the Philippines.- Chapter 9: Conclusion: Whither Chineseness?.- Bibliography
Malaysia is among the most ethnically diverse and culturally rich nations on earth. Yet much of its cultural wealth lies buried beneath the rubric of its main Malay, Chinese and Indian "race" ...categories; the dazzling diversity within and outside these groups remains largely unexplored. This book uncovers some of this fascinating diversity through the stories of five little-known acculturated ethnic groups in Peninsula Malaysia. The author, a Malaysian sociologist, delivers an insightful and lucid study of these groups, with some surprising findings. These communities illustrate how much more cross-cultural mingling, sharing and co-dependence there is within Malaysian society than we care to recognize, admit or celebrate. This raises various questions: Is a similar process of spontaneous inter-ethnic interaction possible between larger ethnic groups today? How can we foster such acculturation, and can it by itself contribute to ethnic harmony? The author also discovers that despite their long settlement and deep acculturation, segments of these groups are anxious about their future, and pine for an indigenous identity. What are the implications of this trend for ethnic relations, and how can it be resolved? This book traces the acculturation journey of these communities and draws lessons for ethnic relations in one of the most complex multi-ethnic nations in the world. It will appeal to scholars, students, laymen and visitors interested in migration, history, culture, ethnicity and heritage in Malaysia and the region.
On April 23, 2003, to the surprise of much of the world, the ceasefire line that divides Cyprus opened. The line had partitioned the island since 1974, and so international media heralded the opening ...of the checkpoints as a historic event that echoed the fall of the Berlin Wall. As in the moment of the Wall's collapse, cameras captured the rush of Cypriots across the border to visit homes unwillingly abandoned three decades earlier. It was a euphoric moment, and one that led to expectations of reunification. But within a year Greek Cypriots overwhelmingly rejected at referendum a United Nations plan to reunite the island, despite their Turkish compatriots' support for the plan. InThe Past in Pieces, anthropologist Rebecca Bryant explores why the momentous event of the opening has not led Cyprus any closer to reunification, and indeed in many ways has driven the two communities of the island further apart. This chronicle of the "new Cyprus" tells the story of the opening through the voices and lives of the people of one town that has experienced conflict. Over the course of two years, Bryant studied a formerly mixed town in northern Cyprus in order to understand both experiences of life together before conflict and the ways in which the dissolution of that shared life is remembered today. Tales of violation and loss return from the past to shape meanings of the opening in daily life, redefining the ways in which Cypriots describe their own senses of belonging and expectations of the political future. By examining the ways the past is rewritten in the present, Bryant shows how even a momentous opening may lead not to reconciliation but instead to the discovery of new borders that may, in fact, be the real ones.
