Perceived Diversity and Acceptance of Minority Ethnic Groups in Two Urban Contexts

“This paper investigates the relationship between perceived ethnic diversity at the neighbourhood level and acceptance of minority ethnic groups.” How does the qualitative perception of a diverse neighborhood  differ in tolerance from the objective actual diversity of an area; and how do these predictors measure future social behavior between these groups?

A Sense of Place page: https://lbwedes.wordpress.com/2016/05/07/perceived-diversity-and-acceptance-of-minority-ethnic-groups-in-two-urban-contexts

Full Text: http://esr.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/04/29/esr.jcw011

Aneta Piekut, Gill Valentine. Perceived Diversity and Acceptance of Minority Ethnic Groups in Two Urban Contexts. European Sociological Review, 2016; jcw011 DOI: 10.1093/esr/jcw011

 

 

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The ‘We’ that Bear the Burden of the European Dilemma: Can ‘We’ Together?

Austerity measures are motivated by need to stop the decline in the European economy, and are preceded by peculiar political statements. For instance, Sweden’s Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, suggested that we will have to work longer to maintain the welfare state…,  Pedro Passos Coelho, Prime Minister of Portugal, when announcing austerity measures,said “People of Portugal, I know you are asking whether all the sacrifices will be worthwhile. I can assure you, they are”..

Someone will have to bear the burden of austerity measures. The first step in our investigation is to arrive at an interpretation of who that is – who the ‘we’ are…and whether the referent can act as a ‘we’.

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A Sense of Place Short Link http://wp.me/pISTJ-i9

Full Text: https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/41995/14_09_lopresti.pdf

Presti, P. L. (2013). We’ that Bear the Burden of the European Dilemma Can ‘We’ Together? Collegium, 14, 182-209.

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Ebola in Perspective: Cultural Anthropology

The essays collected here explore the political landscapes that make the state itself both a vector for and victim of this disease (Abramowitz, Ammann, Batty, Ferme, Harman, Nguyen); they write of the social realities of funeral practices, both their limits and their potential for change (Richards); they write of the media coverage of the disease and the complex ways in which information flows in and around the region (McGovern); they write of the way Ebola discourse has entered popular culture (Benton, Tucker), occult narratives (Bolten), and the diasporic imaginary (Sayegh, Wesley); and they write of the complicated ways it links to the region’s history of violence (Schroven, Soderstrom).

Hoffman, Daniel and Moran, Mary. “Ebola in Perspective.” Fieldsights – Hot Spots, Cultural Anthropology Online, October 07, 2014, http://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/585-ebola-in-perspective

A Sense of Place URL: http://wp.me/pISTJ-i0

Full Articles: http://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/585-ebola-in-perspective

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Communal breeding promotes a matrilineal social system where husband and wife live apart

Abstract: The matrilineal Mosuo of southwest China live in large communal houses where brothers and sisters of three generations live together, and adult males walk to visit their wives only at night; hence males do not reside with their own offspring. This duolocal residence with ‘walking’ or ‘visiting’ marriage is described in only a handful of matrilineal peasant societies. Benefits to women of living with matrilineal kin, who cooperate with child-care, are clear. But why any kinship system can evolve where males invest more in their sister’s offspring than their own is a puzzle for evolutionary anthropologists. Here, we present a new hypothesis for a matrilineal bias in male investment.

A Sense of Place Short Link : http://wp.me/pISTJ-hU

Jia-Jia Wu, Qiao-Qiao He, Ling-Ling Deng, et al. Communal breeding promotes a matrilineal social system where husband and wife live apart
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Vol. 280, No. 1758. (2013), doi:10.1098/rspb.2013.0010

Full Text: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1758/20130010.full

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Migration Map

 Where are migrants coming from? Where have migrants left?

A Sense of Place shortlink: http://wp.me/pISTJ-hP

 

Map: http://migrationsmap.net/

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China’s Migrant Workers: How Far from Being Citizens?

Abstract: Hundreds of millions of farmers have become permanent urban residents. But they do not enjoy the corresponding benefits as citizens. Migration of rural population and labor mobility have become one of the primary elements driving China’s economic growth, but migrant workers have to face economic, social, political and cultural challenges and barriers before becoming real citizens. These changes and barriers include unemployment and poverty of landless farmers, labor resource integration, social inclusion and government administration and so on, among which, the reform and improvement of household registration system, land system, labor system and social security system is becoming urgent for the Chinese government. Thus the migrant workers still have a long way to go before obtaining full citizenship.

A Sense of Place Short Link:  http://wp.me/pISTJ-hC

Full Text: http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ass/article/view/23544/15041

Shuya Zhang, Guoliang Luo (2013) China’s Migrant Workers: How Far from Being Citizens?
Asian Social Science   ISSN 1911-2017 (Print)   ISSN 1911-2025 (Online)
DOI: 10.5539/ass.v9n1p171

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Haunting Modernity: Tanuki, Trains, and Transformation in Japan

Abstract:

This article explores a cycle of legends popular in Japan from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Featuring a deadly confrontation
between a tanuki (“raccoon dog”) and a steam train, these narratives enact a conflict between a traditional animal of Japanese folk belief and a new technology that was rapidly transforming the countryside; they articulate anxiety about, and resistance to, the burgeoning infrastructure of modernity and the changes it would bring to the natural and cultural environments.

Furthermore, as narratives of haunting, in which restless memories of the past disturb the easy flow of the present, these tales allow us to productively consider the relationship between time and place while also gesturing to the way tales of haunting can assume not only an affective quality, but political and ideological shades as well.

Haunting Modernity: Tanuki, Trains, and Transformation in Japan

Foster, ,Michael Dylan  Haunting Modernity Tanuki, Trains, and Transformation in Japan 
Asian Ethnology Volume 71, Number1 • 2012, 3–29
Full access”: http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/4088

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From National Identity to European Identity

Abstract. Since the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, and especially in the past few years, the European Union has been going through a mixed process of expansion and consolidation. In the last ten years alone there were two new waves of accession, the EU launched the single currency and failed attempts have been made to introduce a constitution. With all these transformations taking place, attention is more and more centred on the question whether
a European identity is emerging. This article investigates this issue examining comparatively the patterns of national identity and of European identity formation and focusing on whether the relationship between the two is a zero-sum type. The aim is to show that although national identity is not necessarily an obstacle for the development of European identity, nationalism is.

A Sense of Place Shortlink: http://wp.me/pISTJ-hc

Full Article:  http://www.e-migration.ro/jims/Vol2_no1_2008/JIMS_vol2_no1_2008_CINPOES.pdf

Cinopes, R.  From National Identity to European Identity

Journal of Identity and Migration Studies. Volume 2, number 1, 2008

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Tropes of Fear: the Impact of Globalization on Batek Religious Landscapes

Abstract: The Batek are a forest and forest-fringe dwelling population numbering around 1,500 located in Peninsular Malaysia. Most Batek groups were mobile forest-dwelling foragers and collectors until the recent past. The Batek imbue the forest with religious significance that they inscribe onto the landscape through movement, everyday activities, storytelling, trancing and shamanic journeying. However, as processes of globalization transform Malaysian landscapes, many Batek groups have been deterritorialized and relocated to the forest fringes where they are often pressured into converting to world religions, particularly Islam. Batek religious beliefs and practices have been re-shaped by their increasing encounters with global flows of ideologies, technologies, objects, capital and people, as landscapes are opened up to development.

This article analyzes the ways these encounters are incorporated into the fabric of the Batek’s religious world and how new objects and ideas have been figuratively and literally assimilated into their taboo systems and cosmology. Particular attention is paid to the impacts of globalization as expressed through tropes of fear.

A Sense of Place short link:  http://wp.me/pISTJ-h8

Full Text: http://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/4/2/240

Tacey, Ivan. 2013. “Tropes of Fear: the Impact of Globalization on Batek Religious Landscapes.” Religions 4, no. 2: 240-266.

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Fertility and marriage behavior in Israel: Diversity, change, and stability

Overview: We describe the fertility and marriage behavior of populations in Israel, broken down by nationality, religion, religiosity and nativity-status. Although our main focus is on a detailed presentation of fertility patterns, we also look at marriage behavior, as it is closely related to fertility in Israel..Until now, little has been documented about the basic fertility and marriage behavior of different population groups..The descriptive findings form the basis for a clearer understanding of fertility and marriage patterns in different population subgroups in Israel.

A Sense of Place Permalink: http://wp.me/pISTJ-h3

Full Text: http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol28/17/28-17.pdf

Okum, B. (12 Mar 2013).Fertility and marriage behavior in Israel: Diversity, change, and stability.Demographic Research  (Volume 28 – Article 17 )

Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

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