Newsletter of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism
Winter 2011/12
Dear members and friends of ASEN, We are happy to present the Winter 2011/12 issue of The Ruritanian. In this issue you will find details of the 22nd Annual ASEN Conference, as well as details of external conferences. Members will also read an article on Scottish independence by Dr Murray Stewart Leith and about our featured book, Nationalism, Globalization, and Africa by Michael Amoah. You will also find a list of recently released or upcoming books and details of upcoming ASEN seminars. As always, please let us know if you have any conferences or upcoming books of interest, or any comments or suggestions about the newsletter in general.
–The Newsletter Team
Amanda Munilla, Editor Aameer Patel, Zara Rabinovitch, Anastasia Voronkova and Aisling Wootten, Associate Editors
In this issue: • Nationalism, Globalization, and Africa by Michael Amoah (MEMBERS ONLY)
• Nationalism in the News: Scottish indepenence – Unionists, Nationalists and nationalists (MEMBERS ONLY) • 22nd Annual ASEN Conference: Nationalism, Ethnicity and Boundaries • Upcoming ASEN seminars • Recent and upcoming books • Member profile: Durukan Kuzu
Call for Submissions Banal Xenophobia in 21st Century Europe SEN Journal: Online Exclusives, the website of Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism (SEN), is currently calling for contributions on the theme of banal xenophobia in twenty-first century Europe. Since the publication of Michael Billig’s Banal Nationalism in 1995, the field of ethnicity and nationalism has seen a growth in scholarship on the manner in which national and ethnic identities manifest themselves in everyday life. We seek to develop upon this research by shifting the focus from everyday nationalism to “banal xenophobia.” Possible topics to be covered under this theme include, for instance, the banality of xenophobia both in terms of its presence in everyday life (in language, the media, legislation and the built environment), factors that facilitate banal xenophobia (such as
ASEN Events Winter 2011/12
ASEN (group)
institutions, public and popular culture, elites or masses) and its acceptability (to governments or civil society groups) in Europe today. In keeping with SEN’s editorial policy, SEN Journal: Online Exclusives encourages submissions from a broad range of disciplines with particular attention to up-and-coming scholars, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students working in the field. Submissions should comply with the website’s submission guidelines (available at www.bit.ly/ senguidelines) and should not exceed 1,000 words. The deadline for submissions is 1 March 2012. All submissions and enquiries should be sent to sen@lse.ac.uk Visit SEN Journal: Online Exclusives at www.senjournal.wordpress.com
ASENevents (channel)
This newsletter contains the contributions from writers who are experts in their fields but whose views do not necessarily represent those of ASEN.
ASEN, London School of Economics (LSE), Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE
asen.newsletter @lse.ac.uk 1
Nationalism, Ethnicity and B
oundaries
The 22nd Annual ASEN Conference, 27-29 March 2012 at the London School of Economics Keynote Speakers: Rogers Brubaker, Miguel Centeno, Mary Fulbrook, Richard Jenkins, Michele Lamont, Wendy Pullan Workshops with: Michael Banton & Jon Fox; Jennifer Todd, Andrew Finlay & Duncan Morrow; Liam O’Dowd & James Anderson Funded by the LSE Annual Fund and the Government Department, LSE. For more information, please visit: www.lse.ac.uk/asen
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22nd Annual ASEN Conference Nationalism, Ethnicity and Boundaries
he 22nd Annual ASEN Conference “Nationalism, Ethnicity and Boundaries” is fast approaching. The conference will take place at the LSE from the 27–29 March, 2012 and will feature an exciting range of keynote addresses and workshops. One central concern of this year’s conference is the origins, formulation, enforcement and conflicts related to national boundaries. Disputes arising from claims over boundaries both originate and intensify nationalist assertions and actions in pursuit of such claims. The second thrust of the conference is social and symbolic boundaries and how they influence nationalist behaviour within nation-states. Citizenship rules, symbolic representations of the national, practices of discrimination highlight and enforce many kinds of boundaries which often cut across the physical boundaries of nation-states and national homelands. A third focus-point of the conference is the fluidity of boundaries. Boundaries are fluid and what at one time is a boundary which gives rise to fierce conflict can at another time either be forgotten or transformed into a site of agreement and reconciliation. These are important issues in the fields of ethnicity and nationalism, and this conference will offer an opportunity for academics to share and discuss the most recent scholarship in this emerging area of study in the fields of ethnicity and nationalism. Below are some highlights from this year’s conference programme. Plenary session 1 featuring Rogers Brubaker and Mary Fulbrook Rogers Brubaker’s talk will analyse nationalising projects and processes in relation to ethnonational boundaries in Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. Brubaker is Professor of Sociology and UCLA Foundation Chair at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has published extensively on citizenship and nationalism with a focus on western and more recently Eastern Europe. Mary Fulbrook will discuss a possible conceptual framework for understanding what is often loosely termed ‘collective memory’. Seeking to escape both an unduly restrictive national framework and unwarranted assumptions about the transmission of ‘cultural memory’ her talk will suggest an approach focussing on communities of experience, connection and identification. Fulbrook is Professor of German History at UCL. Winter 2011/12
Plenary session 2 featuring Richard Jenkins and Wendy Pullan Richard Jenkins’s plenary will focus on the apparently simple question “What are Boundaries?” He will draw on his own research over the last thirty years to develop a model of boundary complexity that seeks to avoid the reification of boundaries that Barth, for example, has warned against, without lapsing into postmodern hyper-fluidity.’ Jenkins is Professor of Sociology at the University of Sheffield. Wendy Pullan will consider cities that have experienced prolonged and intense levels conflict and will ask if they are qualitatively different from other urban centres that are not characterised by such strife. In doing so, she will question what sort of spatial qualities may be attributed to cities in conflict. Pullan is Senior Lecturer in the History and Philosophy of Architecture at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on meaning and change within urban conditions, both historical and contemporary. She directed the ESRC funded ‘Conflict in Cities: Architecture and Urban Order in Divided Jerusalem’ and is the Principal Investigator for ‘Conflict in Cities and the Contested State’ a research project which focuses on divided cities as key sites in territorial conflicts over state and national identities, cultures and borders.
Plenary session 3 featuring Michele Lamont and Miguel Centeno Drawing on collaborative research, Michele Lamont’s plenary will contrast strategies for responding to stigmatisation across national contexts and discusses their impact on group boundaries in Brazil, Israel and the United States. Lamont is the Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and Professor of Sociology and African and African American Studies. A cultural sociologist, Lamont specializes in the sociology of inequality, race and ethnicity, the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of higher education, sociological theory and comparative and qualitative sociology. Miguel Centeno’s talk will focus around the decade-long call to de-centre national territory as the exclusive geographical unit of work on nationalism, applying this insight to the specific case of the United States. Centeno is Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton University. Starting out as an expert in Latin America his more recent work has focused on various aspects of globalisation such as global flows, the legacies of empire but also current events like the Arab Spring. >> 3
>> This year the conference will also feature three interactive workshops.
Avoiding ethnicity through boundaries and categories Professor Michael Banton and Dr Jon Fox (University of Bristol) The aim of this workshop is to think about how it is possible to capture the variation in ethnicity found in the empirical world without imposing it where it is not. Two fruitful approaches will be explored: one premised on ethnic boundaries, and the other on ethnic categories. The first focuses on processes of boundary maintenance that produce and reproduce ethnicity; the second on cognitive habits and practices that invoke and confirm an ethnic view of the world. ‘Ethnic’ boundaries in complex conflicts: assessing concepts and theories in practical research. Northern Ireland and beyond Professor Jennifer Todd (UCD), Dr Andrew Finlay (TCD) and Dr Duncan Morrow (University of Ulster) The aim of this workshop is to think about how it is possible to capture the variation in ethnicity found in the empirical world without imposing it where it is not. Two fruitful approaches will be explored: one premised on ethnic boundaries, and the other on ethnic categories. The first focuses on processes of boundary maintenance that produce and reproduce ethnicity; the second on cognitive habits and practices that invoke and confirm an ethnic view of the world. State borders and nationalism – difficulties analysing national borders: the Irish border as a case study Professor Liam O’Dowd and Professor James Anderson There are at least two main approaches to issues of state borders and ethnic and national belongings. The first approach concentrates on a particular border and its relations with particular ethnicities or nationalities. The second approach focuses primarily on the general nature of state borders, their development and specificity, and their structural relations with wider questions of socio- economic development and democracy. This workshop will attempt to address these approaches by looking at some general historical and theoretical questions about borders. There is still time to register for this year’s conference! Register at www.bit.ly/asen22reg A preliminary copy of the programme is available at www.bit.ly/asen22prog
Winter 2011/12
External Conferences Belonging: Cultural Topographies of Identity University College Dublin, Ireland, 8–9 June 2012 Paper proposals of no more than 250 words, along with a brief bio/blurb, should be sent by 14 March 2012 to alison.menezes@ucd.ie or to gillian.pye@ucd.ie. Religious Difference and Conflict Conference Stranmillis University College, Belfast, UK, 5–7 September 2012 Enquiries and proposals for papers (up to 300 words) should be submitted by email to Arts-Prot-RC-Project@open.ac.uk by 19 March 2012. Peace and Conflict: An Interdisciplinary Conference University of Coventry, UK, 18–20 September 2012 Abstracts of approximately 300 words should be submitted by 31 March 2012 to crs2012coventry@gmail.com. Languages and Cultures of Conflicts and Atrocities Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, 11–13 October 2012 The conference encourages papers which seek to understand how to represent war, racial and ethnic conflict, genocide and other atrocities. Sessions will be organised in English and French. Authors of selected papers will be invited to contribute to a publication after the conference. Please submit your proposal of around 300 words and a brief bio by 15 May 2012 to jaeger@umanitoba.ca. War, Civil Conflict, Security and Peace: Probing the Boundaries Salzburg, Austria, 7–9 November 2012 Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words to graeme@inter-disciplinary.net and to war9@inter-disciplinary.net by 4 May 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by 3 August 2012.
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Recent and Upcoming Books Nationalism and Globalisation: Competing or Complementary? Edited by Daphne Halikiopoulou and Sofia Vasilopoulou Routledge, September 2011 Religion, Ethnicity and Contested Nationhood in the Former Ottoman Space Edited by J. Rgen Nielsen, December 2011, Brill Academic Publishers Federalism and Ethnic Conflict in Ethiopia: A Comparative Regional Study Asnake Kefale, December 2011, Routledge Riot Politics: Hindu-Muslim Violence and the Indian State Ward Berenschoft, December 2011, University of Columbia Press The Quest for Statehood: Korean Immigrant Nationalism and U.S. Sovereignty, 1905–1945 Richard S. Kim, December 2011, Oxford University Press Shifting Grounds: Nationalism and the American South, 1848–1865 Paul Quigley, December 2011, Oxford University Press Governing Ethnic Conflict: Consociation, Identity and the Price of Peace Andrew Finlay, December 2011, Routledge The Birth of Albania: Ethnic Nationalism, the Great Powers of World War I and the Emergence of Albanian Independence Nicola Guy, December 2011, I. B. Tauris Rule Britannia: Nationalism, Identity and the Modern Olympic Games Mathew Llewellyn, December 2011, Routledge Pathways from Ethnic Conflict: Institutional Redesign in Divided Societies Edited by J. Coakley, December 2011, Routledge
Gandhi and Nationalism: The Path to Indian Independence Simone Panter-Brick, January 2012, I. B. Tauris Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in the South Caucasus: Nagorno-Karabakh and the Legacy of Soviet Nationalities Policy Ohannes Geukjian, January 2012, Ashgate Good Fences, Bad Neighbors: Border Fixity and International Conflict Boaz Atzili, January 2012, University of Chicago Press A Political History of the Two Irelands: From Partition to Peace Brian Walker, January 2012, Palgrave Macmillan Constructing Irish National Identity: Discourse and Ritual During the Land War, 1879–1882 Anne Kane, February 2012, Palgrave Macmillan What is a Palestinian State Worth? Sari Nusseibeh, February 2012, Harvard University Press Artwriting, Nation, and Cosmopolitanism in Britain Mark Cheetham, February 2012, Ashgate Ethnicity, Nationalism and the European Cold War Robert Knight, February 2012, Continuum Publishing Whiteness and Racialized Ethnic Groups in the United States: The Politics of Remembering Sherrow Pinder, February 2012, Lexington Books Islam and Ethnicity in Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia Günter Schlee and Abdullahi Shongolo, February 2012, James Currey Publishing Political Leadership, Nations and Charisma Edited by Vivian Ibrahim and Margit Wunsch, March 2012, Routledge
Upcoming Seminars Uncertain Masculinities: Youth, Ethnicity and Class in Contemporary Britain Date: Wednesday 7 March 2012, 18:15–20:00 Venue: Room 1.04 Kingsway, LSE Speaker: Professor Mike O’Donnell
Christian Polish Women – Dedicated Rescuers of Jews During World War Two Date: Wednesday 14 March 2012, 18:00–20:00 Venue: Room 1.04 Kingsway, LSE Speaker: Dr Joanna Michlic
Mike O’Donnell is Emeritus Professor of Sociology. He teaches at the Westminster University and has published widely on the sociology of youth, masculinities, and social movement activism.
Joanna Michlic is Visiting Senior Fellow at the International History Department at LSE. She is a social and cultural historian and Director of HBI (HadassahBrandeis Institute) Project on Families, Children, and the Holocaust at Brandeis University.
Presented by ASEN and the LSE Government Department, this seminar is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. For any queries contact Durukan Kuzu by email asen.seminars@lse.ac.uk or call 0207 955 6801. Winter 2011/12
This seminar is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. For any queries contact Durukan Kuzu by email asen.seminars@lse.ac.uk or call 0207 955 6801. 5
Member Profile What is your name and where are you from? I am Durukan Kuzu and I am from Turkey. I am a PhD candidate in the Government Department at the LSE and co-chair of ASEN. What are you currently studying? For my PhD I am working on typologies of nationalism and their implications for the applicability of ethnocentric multiculturalism in contemporary politics. As it is very difficult to categorise real world cases into one or another type of nationalism, I am rather focussing on types of state nationalisms that turned cultural groups into national minorities with problems varying from violations of human rights to ethnic conflicts. Solutions of ethnocentric “liberal” multiculturalism like self-determination, devolution of power along the lines of ethnicity, cultural rights or minority rights for ethnic groups beyond human rights, have long been discussed by academics and policymakers but their capacities and likelihood to further freedom, equality and peace have varied from one case to another. There has not been enough analytical and systematic research to explain this variety. In my view successful application of liberal theories is contingent on contextual circumstances beyond de-securitisation of state-minority relations. This is what I am researching for my PhD with evidence from particularly the case of Kurds in Turkey compared and contrasted to the cases of Corsicans in France, Flemish in Belgium and Muslim Turks in Greece. What led you to study nationalism? The history of my home country Turkey, where the nationalist ideologies and movements have been the source of both admirable solidarities and the most detestable brutalities at the same time. So the concept of nation itself and the ways it has been created and used by nationalist ideologies and movements have always been the things I doubt, and that doubt that has always projected on my studies. And here I am in ASEN, the place to be for those who want to purse their interest in ethnicity and nationalism. What do you plan to do after your PhD? My plan is to stay in academia and to keep searching for conditions that affect the prosWinter 2011/12
pects of creating truly liberal multicultural societies. I want to start a project to test my arguments in as many cases as possible. If you ruled the UK for a day and could implement any change or new policy, what would it be? My answer to this of course would be very reductionist and independent of feasibility, but I would probably like to lift the boundaries all over the world and try to make everyone feel more obliged to reciprocate to the needs of the poorer. Of course this is just a dream in a world where greedy human beings would keep fighting for more! What is your favourite place in London? Hampstead Heath in spring, Richmond in summer, the British Museum in winter and Portobello Road in autumn Do you think Scotland will become independent in the next five years? It may depend on how attached people feel to the UK, but I think it depends more on the calculation of the costs and benefits of independence. If the citizens of Scotland believe that it will be in their interests to become independent they will vote for it, but I don’t think that it’s very likely to happen in five years. A recent Scottish referendum poll showed that Scots back the union on this question by a 33 per cent margin. They must be thinking about how the agricultural sector in Scotland will live on when it can no longer sell its goods in the rest of the UK as domestic produce, or how their shipyards will survive without Royal Navy contracts, or whether Scotland will be allowed to borrow in sterling or set money supply or interest rates after independence. These questions must be the source of concern for the majority of Scots who continue to support the union. This is me trying to be rational, but who knows how the public is going to be informed, and perhaps somehow convinced of the case for independence. It is also claimed and shown in polls that some English are rather more enthusiastic about Scottish independence than Scots and if this really is the case then the breakup of the union appears to be more a case of when than if.
Members, raise your profile! Email us: Asen.Newsletter@lse.ac.uk 6
The 18th Annual Ernest Gellner Nationalism Lecture
LANGUAGE, RELIGION and the POLITICS of DIFFERENCE Rogers Brubaker
Professor of Sociology and UCLA Foundation Chair, University of California, Los Angeles.
26 March 2012
17:30 at the Hong Kong Theatre, London School of Economics. Free and open to the public. Info at: www.lse.ac.uk/asen
Peter Lang Oxford Pavlos I. Koktsidis Strategic Rebellion: Ethnic Conf lict in FYR Macedonia and the Balkans 2012, pb, 261 pp, 978-3-0343-0148-0, £ 35.00 An analytical account of the socio-economic roots of ethnic conf lict, the opportunities for violent mobilization and the success of strategic coercion in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Cezary Obracht-Prondzynski and Tomasz Wicherkiewicz (eds) The Kashubs: Past and Present 2011, pb, 299 pp, 978-3-03911-975-2, £39.00 A systematic exploration of the most important aspects of Kashubian identity – national, regional, linguistic, cultural and religious – from both historical and contemporary perspectives.
Mícheál Ó hAodha and John O’Callaghan (eds) Narratives of the Occluded Irish Diaspora: Subversive Voices 2012, pb, 221 pp, 978-3-0343-0248-7, £32.00 An examination of the role of language in the formation of identity and community, looking at the relationship between various members of the Irish diaspora and their homeland.
Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and James Muzondidya (eds) Redemptive or Grotesque Nationalism?: Rethinking Contemporary Politics in Zimbabwe 2011, pb, 422 pp, 978-3-03911-976-9, £50.00 ‘This is important reading for anyone interested in understanding the perilous interplay of “dismantling and building” that has shaped Zimbabwean nationalism’s many transformations.’ — Jocelyn Alexander, University of Oxford
Ben Wellings English Nationalism and Euroscepticism: Losing the Peace 2012, pb, 285 pp, 978-3-0343-0204-3, £37.00 A study of the origins of contemporary English nationalism, identifying its roots in Britain’s troubled relationship with European integration since the end of Empire in the 1960s.
Catherine McGlynn, Andrew Mycock and James W. McAuley (eds) Britishness, Identity and Citizenship: The View From Abroad 2011, pb, 354 pp, 978-3-0343-0226-5, £42.00 An exciting contribution to contemporary and historical debates about Britishness in the UK and abroad that reveals the political and cultural dynamism of this concept.
Gordon Ramsey Music, Emotion and Identity in Ulster Marching Bands: Flutes, Drums and Loyal Sons 2011, pb, 334 pp, 978-3-0343-0742-0, £44.00 A detailed ethnography of three County Antrim f lute bands.
Andreas Hess Reluctant Modernization: Plebeian Culture and Moral Economy in the Basque Country 2009, pb, 207 pp., 978-3-03911-908-0, £30.00 ‘Andreas Hess examines the ritualized contexts in which a culture shapes people’s basic definitions of lifestyle, identity and social allegiance. The results go well beyond the Basque case.’ — Joseba Zulaika, Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada
Available from www.peterlang.com Peter Lang AG ◆ International Academic Publishers Moosstrasse 1 ◆ P.O. Box 350 ◆ CH-2542 Pieterlen ◆ Switzerland Tel: +41 32 376 17 17 ◆ Fax: +41 32 376 17 27 ◆ info@peterlang.com ◆ www.peterlang.com