BiblioVault - Books about Ethnicity

Gendering Ethnicity in African Women’s Lives

Edited by Jan Bender Shetler

University of Wisconsin Press, 2015

Do African men and women think about and act out their ethnicity in different ways? Most studies of ethnicity in Africa consider men’s experiences, but rarely have scholars examined whether women have the same idea of what it means to be, for example, Igbo or Tswana or Kikuyu. Or, studies have invoked the adage “women have no tribe” to indicate a woman’s loss of ethnicity as she marries into her husband’s community. This volume engages directly the issue of women’s ethnicity and makes stimulating contributions to debates about how and why women’s movements have a unifying role in African political organization and peace movements.
Drawing on extensive field research in many different regions of Africa, the contributors demonstrate in their essays that women do make choices about the forms of ethnicity they embrace, creating alternatives to male-centered definitions—in some cases rejecting a specific ethnic identity in favor of an interethnic alliance, in others reinterpreting the meaning of ethnicity within gendered domains, and in others performing ethnic power in gendered ways. Their analysis helps explain why African women may be more likely to champion interethnic political movements while men often promote an ethnicity based on martial masculinity. Bringing together anthropologists, historians, linguists, and political scientists, Gendering Ethnicity in African Women’s Lives offers a diverse and timely look at a neglected but important topic.

[more]

Genetics and the Unsettled Past

The Collision of DNA, Race, and History

Wailoo, Keith

Rutgers University Press, 2012

Our genetic markers have come to be regarded as portals to the past. Analysis of these markers is increasingly used to tell the story of human migration; to investigate and judge issues of social membership and kinship; to rewrite history and collective memory; to right past wrongs and to arbitrate legal claims and human rights controversies; and to open new thinking about health and well-being. At the same time, in many societies genetic evidence is being called upon to perform a kind of racially charged cultural work: to repair the racial past and to transform scholarly and popular opinion about the “nature” of identity in the present.

Genetics and the Unsettled Past considers the alignment of genetic science with commercial genealogy, with legal and forensic developments, and with pharmaceutical innovation to examine how these trends lend renewed authority to biological understandings of race and history.

This unique collection brings together scholars from a wide range of disciplines—biology, history, cultural studies, law, medicine, anthropology, ethnic studies, sociology—to explore the emerging and often contested connections among race, DNA, and history. Written for a general audience, the book’s essays touch upon a variety of topics, including the rise and implications of DNA in genealogy, law, and other fields; the cultural and political uses and misuses of genetic information; the way in which DNA testing is reshaping understandings of group identity for French Canadians, Native Americans, South Africans, and many others within and across cultural and national boundaries; and the sweeping implications of genetics for society today.

[more]

Geographical Identities Of Ethnic America

Race, Space, And Place

Kate A. Berry

University of Nevada Press, 2001

Twenty distinguished geographers examine the ways in which place fashions, recreates, and contextualizes human identity in North America. This volume discusses themes of population and habitat, displacement and circulation, resources and economic survival, through the experiences of several ethnic minorities. It covers such topics as Samoan communities in urban Southern California, South Asian migration to Canada, Native American health-care systems, and public housing for African Americans. Supported by statistical tables and graphs, maps, and photos that reflect a wide range of theoretical and historical approaches, the essays examine such topics as immigration, housing, and landscapes, complemented with discussions of religious ceremonies, women and marriage-mate selection, resource conflicts, health care, and social networking.

[more]

Global Philadelphia

Immigrant Communities Old and New

Edited by Ayumi Takenaka and Mary Johnson Osirim

Temple University Press, 2010

The racial and ethnic composition of Philadelphia continues to diversify as a new wave of immigrants—largely from Asia and Latin America—reshape the city’s demographic landscape. Moreover, in a globalized economy, immigration is the key to a city’s survival and competitiveness. The contributors to Global Philadelphia examine how Philadelphia has affected its immigrants’ lives, and how these immigrants, in turn, have shaped Philadelphia.

Providing a detailed historical, ethnographic, and sociological look at Philadelphia’s immigrant communities, this volume examines the social and economic dynamics of various ethnic populations. Significantly, the contributors make comparisons to and connections between the traditional immigrant groups—Germans, Italians, the Irish, Jews, Puerto Ricans, and Chinese—and newer arrivals, such as Cambodians, Haitians, Indians, Mexicans, and African immigrants of various nationalities.

While their experiences vary, Global Philadelphia focuses on some of the critical features that face all immigrant groups—intra-group diversity, the role of institutions, and ties to the homeland. Taken together, these essays provide a richer understanding of the processes and implications of contemporary immigration to the area.

[more]

Grounds for Difference

Rogers Brubaker

Harvard University Press, 2015

Offering fresh perspectives on perennial questions of ethnicity, race, nationalism, and religion, Rogers Brubaker makes manifest the forces that shape the politics of diversity and multiculturalism today. In a lucid and wide-ranging analysis, he contends that three recent developments have altered the stakes and the contours of the politics of difference: the return of inequality as a central public concern, the return of biology as an asserted basis of racial and ethnic difference, and the return of religion as a key terrain of public contestation.

“Grounds for Difference is a subtle, original, and comprehensive book. All the hallmarks of Brubaker’s earlier work, such as the conceptual clarity, the theoretical rigor—grounded in a well-researched and well-informed analysis—the crisp writing style, and the impeccable sociological reasoning are displayed here. There is a wealth of original ideas developed in this book that requires much careful reading and unpacking.”
—Sinisa Malešević, H-Net Reviews

“This is an imposing collection that will be another milestone in the literature of ethnicity and nationalism.”
—Christian Joppke, University of Bern

[more]