The relation between identity and space is strong and generates many conflicts. Most people attach great importance to their local community and its identity. The possibility of change can cause turmoil and become fertile ground for staking new identities. Understanding how these changes can take place is important to the future of community cohesion across the world. This book gives a detailed analysis of how different stakeholders in two Dutch municipalities use and adapt their identity discourses to deal with changing circumstances, situating this work within a wider international context through global comparisons. The growing spatial interdependence and political pressures for municipal cooperation or amalgamation creates not only threats, but also opportunities for stakeholders in local communities to transform their local identities. By studying how local communities attach to local identities, a new conceptual framework can be formed, informed by lively accounts from residents on the rich and varied use of identity in their communities and their concerns over future developments. This is valuable reading for students, scholars and researchers working in geography, politics, sociology and cultural studies.

Discourse on fundamentalism has gained much attention in recent years, particularly in a post-9/11 context where extremist or terrorist threats are more prominent, perilous, and pervasive. This edited volume seeks to spotlight the perspectives of academics and practitioners vis-à-vis global trends in religious fundamentalism and right-wing extremism over the past decade. It presents a collection of works from notable academics and practitioners; including a selection of case studies from Asia to illustrate the contemporary interplay of religion, politics and identity; alongside broader global trends of religious fundamentalism.The chapters that follow attempt to trace the sources and factors that led to the dramatic rise in these powerful forces of faith, which influence societies and politics around the world. Together, they present a carefully curated narrative of the interplay of religion and identity politics globally and across Asia. The prevailing differences in demographics, history and the extent of ethno-religious diversity across country contexts are perused across each chapter, and the ensuing circumstances deliberated upon.As these circumstances change, the ways people interpret their identities, engage in politics, and navigate their religion will also evolve. How we manage the effects of religious fundamentalism must hence begin with an understanding of how religion, identity, and politics interact — and this is what the upcoming chapters seek to illustrate.

In an age of multiculturalism and identity politics, many minority groups seek some form of official recognition or public accommodation of their identity. But can public institutions accurately recognize or accommodate something as subjective and dynamic as "identity?" Avigail Eisenberg and Will Kymlicka lead a distinguished team of scholars who explore state responses to identity claims worldwide. Their case studies focus on key issues where identity is central to public policy. By illuminating both the risks and opportunities of institutional responses to diversity, this volume shows that public institutions can either enhance or distort the benefits of identity politics.

In the last two decades, new political subjects have been created through the actions of the new social movements; often by asserting the unfixed and `overdetermined' character of identity. Further, in attempting to avoid essentialism, people have frequently looked to their territorial roots to establish their constituency. A cultural politics of resistance, as exemplified by Black politics, feminism, and gay liberation, has developed struggles to turn sites of oppression and discrimintion into spaces of resistance. This book collects together perspectives which challenge received notions of geography; which are in danger of becoming anachronisms, without a language to articulate the new space of resistance, the new politics of identity.

This comprehensive volume examines fifteen cases across the world where a violent or semi-violent conflict exists between a national minority inhabiting a region in a larger independent country and the government of that country. It studies the reasons for the growth of national separatism and the failure of attempts to reconcile the dissident regions to the national government. The book outlines the urgent need for a new 'quantumised' status of a kind that could satisfy the national minorities without alienating the governments; such an agreement could allow the national minority home rule powers over internal affairs, while leaving the management of foreign affairs and the international profile of the larger country to the central government. Identity Politics breaks new ground and challenges several accepted views of the minimum requirement for the existence of a state. Ideally suited to courses on security studies, conflict resolution and international relations, the book will also prove useful for peacemakers in national governments and international institutions.

This book assesses the underpinning role ‘references to identity’ played and continue to play as the powerful mobilising force in domestic politics across the East European region stretching from Estonia to Bulgaria. The EU membership of postcommunist states was to ensure stability, prevent conflict and eventually guarantee equality of all citizens regardless of their political preferences or ethnic identities. However, the promotion of such norms and values has been secondary to consolidation of state institutions and the societies they serve around ethnocentric narratives of states’ core ethnic groups. The sequel of financial, then ‘refugee’ crises has further dented the appeal of the EU’s norms across the region. Even the rhetoric commitment to respect cultural diversity and human rights has been promptly replaced with references to identity and interests of politically relevant groups. Yet, nativist and populist rhetoric has been the staple of politics since before the EU accession. The chapters in this edited volume zoom in on politics which forge and live-off their societies’ preoccupation with ethnocentric narratives, vesting national identity with persistent relevance and considerable weight across the postcommunist region. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal, East European Politics.

Dominance, identity and resistance are key themes in this examination of language in global, virtual and local settings. It focuses on world languages, linguistic rights and minority protection. Case studies explore the social strategies employed by migrants speaking non-indigenous tongues and the effect of religion in sensitive political contexts.

In recent social research, ethnicity has mostly been used as an explanatory variable. It was only after it was agreed that ethnicity, in itself, is subject to change, were the questions of how and why it changes, possible to answer. This multiplicity of ethnic identities requires that we think of each society as one with multiple ethnic dimensions, of which any can become activated in the process of political competition - and sometimes several of them within a short period of time. Focusing on Malaysia and Indonesia, this book traces the variations of ethnic identity by looking at electoral strategies in two sub-national units. It shows that ethnic identities are subject to change - induced by calculated moves by political entrepreneurs who use identities as tools to maximize their chances of winning elections or expanding support base - and highlights how political institutions play an enormous role in shaping the modes and dynamics of these ethno-political manipulations. The book suggests that in societies where ethnic identities are activated in politics, instead of analysing politics with ethnic distribution as an independent variable, ethnic distribution can be taken as the dependent variable, with political institutions being the explanatory one. It examines the problems of voters’ behaviour, and parties’ and candidates’ strategy in a polity that is, to a significant extent, driven by ethnic relations. Pushing the boundaries of qualitative research on Southeast Asian politics by placing formal institutions at the centre of its analysis, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Southeast Asian Politics, Race and Ethnic Studies, and International Relations.

Russia Country Study Guide - Strategic Information and Developments Volume 1 Strategic Information and Developments

"The Niger delta region of Nigeria which is at the heart of the country's oil industry, has a long history of struggles for self-determination dating back to the early years of the 20[superscript th] century. In the 1980s and 1990s, these struggles, unfolding as they did within the context of military authoritarianism and structural adjustment, took the form of widespread agitation for greater control by local communities of the revenues accruing to the Nigerian state from exploration and extraction of oil." "This study attempts to capture the transformations in ethnic minority identity politics in the oil-producing areas of the Niger delta. In doing this, attention is simultaneously drawn to the factors informing the shift from peaceful agitation to violent protest as well as the dynamic of decay and renewal in the various ethnic minority movements that are active in the delta. It is suggested that part of the solution to the crisis in the delta will involve not only a thorough-going restructuring of the Nigerian state but also the re-orientation of the mode of operation of the giant oil multinationals in order to make them both more sensitive and accountable to the local communities."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved