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 brings together some of the most radical voices in geography to explore the interface of space, politics and identity in the formulation of a new cultural politics.

Issues of identity are central to many historical and current debates in Australia. This superb collection of essays represents a significant rethinking of received ideas on identity, and reveals how issues of identity lie at the heart of Australian political thought, and form the foundation of Australian society and culture. It provides a comprehensive introduction to the political discourse surrounding Australian identity through key themes including identity theory, the manipulation of identity for political ends, gender and sexuality, immigration and national identity, citizenship and Aboriginality, and literature and film. The book rejects many of the assumptions underlying contemporary political debates, including the promulgation of a singular national identity in historical fact or as a political goal. This is a thought-provoking study of identity, its links with nationalism, and its potentially divisive effects.

This book explores the relationship between state formation and political identities in the context of Sudan's conflict. Idris examines how hierarchy was historically constructed and politically institutionalized in the Sudan, acknowledging the centrality of the historical legacy of slavery and colonialism in Sudan's postcolonial crisis

Ireland and the Balkans have come to represent divided and (re)united communities. They both provide effective microcosms of national, ethnic, political, military, religious, ideological and cultural conflicts in their respective regions and, as a result, they demonstrate real and imaginary divisions. This book will specifically focus on the history, politics and literature of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Northern Ireland, while making comparative reference to some of Europe’s other disputed and divided regions. Using case-studies such as Kosovo and Serbia; Lithuania, Germany, Poland, Russia and Belarus; Greece and Macedonia, it examines ‘space’, ‘place’ and ‘border’ discourse, the topography of war and violence, post-war settlement and reconciliation, and the location and negotiation of national, ethnic, religious, political and cultural identities. The book will be of particular interest to scholars and students of cultural studies, history, politics, Irish studies, Slavonic studies, area studies and literary studies.

Identity, Narrative and Politics argues that political theory has barely begun to develop a notion of narrative identity; instead the book explores the sophisticated ideas which emerge from novels as alternative expressions of political understanding. This title uses a broad international selection of Twentieth Century English language works, by writers such as Nadine Gordimer and Thomas Pynchon. The book considers each novel as a source of political ideas in terms of content, structure, form and technique. The book assumes no prior knowledge of the literature discussed, and will be fascinating reading for students of literature, politics and cultural studies.

How are national identities constructed and articulated through music? Popular music has long been associated with political dissent, and the nation state has consistently demonstrated a determination to seek out and procure for itself a stake in the management of 'its' popular musics. Similarly, popular musics have been used 'from the ground up' as sites for both populist and popular critiques of nationalist sentiment, from the position of both a globalizing and a 'local' vernacular culture. The contributions in this book arrive at a critical moment in the development of the study of national cultures and musicology. The book ranges from considerations of the ideological focus of cultural nationalism through to analyses of musical hybridity and musical articulations of other kinds of identities at odds with national identity. The processes of global homogenization are thereby shown to have brought about a transitional crisis for national cultural identities: the evolution of these identities, particularly with reference to the concept of 'authenticity' in music, is situated within broader debates on power, political economy and constructions of the self. Theorizations of practice are employed after the manner of Bourdieu, Gramsci, Goffman, Gadamer, Habermas, Bhabha, Lacan and Žižek. Each contribution acts as a case study to characterize the strategies through which differing modes of musical discourse engage, critique or obscure discourses on national identity. The studies include discussions of: musical representations of Irishness; the relationship between Afropop and World Music; Norwegian club music; the revival of traditional music in Serbia; resistance to cultural homogeneity in Brazil; contemporary Uyghur song in Northwest China; rap and race in French society; technobanda from the barrios of Los Angeles, and Spanish/Moroccan raï. In this way, the book seeks to characterize the ideological configurations that help to activate and sustain hegemonic, ambivalent and dissident articulations of national identity and musical practices.

In small plural societies, cultural differences can be exaggerated, exploited and intensified during political contests. The survival of these societies as democracies - or even at all - hangs in the balance.

The New Politics of Identity pursues many of the central issues raised in the author's Rethinking Multiculturalism focusing in particular on their consequences for global politics. Parekh develops a theory of identity that combines respect for diversity and applies this theory to a range of key current debates on national identity.

Dance is the art least susceptible to preservation since its embodied, kinaesthetic nature has proven difficult to capture in notation and even in still or moving images. However, frameworks have been established and guidance made available for keeping dances, performances, and choreographers’ legacies alive so that the dancers of today and tomorrow can experience and learn from the dances and dancers of the past. In this volume, a range of voices address the issue of dance preservation through memory, artistic choice, interpretation, imagery and notation, as well as looking at relevant archives, legal structures, documentation and artefacts. The intertwining of dance preservation and creativity is a core theme discussed throughout this text, pointing to the essential continuity of dance history and dance innovation. The demands of preservation stretch across time, geographies, institutions and interpersonal connections, and this book focuses on the fascinating web that supports the fragile yet urgent effort to sustain our dancing heritage. The articles in this book were originally published in the journal Dance Chronicle: Studies in Dance and the Related Arts.