Ethnic Boundary Making

Introducing a new comparative theory of ethnicity, Andreas Wimmer shows why ethnicity matters in certain societies and contexts but not in others, and why it is sometimes associated with inequality and exclusion, with political and public debate, with closely-held identities, while in other cases ethnicity does not structure the allocation of resources, invites little political passion, and represent secondary aspects of individual identity.

This book makes a significant interdisciplinary contribution to existing scholarship on ethnicity, conflict, nation-making, colonial history and religious minorities in the Philippines, which has been confronted with innumerable issues relating to their ethnic and religious minority populations. Using Sarangani Bay as a research site, the book zones in on the lives of the Muslim Sinamas and the Christianized indigenous B'laans as they navigate the effects of the ongoing turmoil in the Bangsamoro region in Muslim Mindanao—a multi-faceted conflict involving numerous armed groups, as well as clans, criminal gangs and political elites. This work considers the factors affecting the Muslim Moro people, who have long been struggling for their right to self-determination. The conflict in the Moro areas has evolved over the past five decades from an ethnonationalist struggle between an aggrieved minority and a thorny issue for the central government: a highly fragmented conflict with multiple overlapping causes of violence. The book provides a framework for understanding the ethnic separatism in the case of the southern part of the country, framed by the concept of ethnic boundaries. Providing an excellent blend of theory and empirical evidence, the author confronts how ethno-religious divisions adversely impact the quality of life and unpacks how these divisions challenge multiculturalist policies. Weaving together multiple branches of the social sciences, this book is of interest to policymakers, researchers and students interested in international relations and political science, Asian studies, ethnic studies, Philippines’ history, sociology and anthropology.

This edited volume adds to the literature on Myanmar and its borders by drawing attention to the significance of geography, history, politics and society in the construction of the border regions and the country. First, it alerts us to the fact that the border regions are situated in the mountainous and maritime domains of the country, highlighting the commonalities that arise from shared geography. Second, the book foregrounds socio-spatio practices — economic, intimate, spiritual, virtual — of border and boundary-making in their local context. This demonstrates how state-defined notions of territory, borders and identity are enacted or challenged. Third, despite sharing common features, Myanmar’s borderscapes also possess unique configurations of ethnic, political and economic attributes, producing social formations and figured worlds that are more cohesive or militant in some border areas than in others. Understanding and comparing these social practices and their corresponding life-worlds allows us to re-examine the connections from the borderlands back to the hinterland and to consider the value of border and boundary studies in problematizing and conceptualizing recent changes in Myanmar. “This ambitious project combines sophisticated theorization of boundary-making as a form of social practice and empirical studies of Myanmar’s heterogeneous borderlands, both land and sea. Seeing the country from its edges opens up a provocative and altogether novel vision of the contestations joining diverse peripheries and centre. This volume brings together the leading scholars of the country in a collection that is a must-have for anyone interested in contemporary Myanmar, border studies, and Southeast Asia.” -- Itty Abraham, Head, Department of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore (NUS) “This is the first book to attempt to bring together such a diverse range of Myanmar’s land and maritime border regions for comparison. In doing so, it highlights the diversity of the country’s demographic, social, economic and political make-up when viewed from the margins rather than the centre. It reveals how these border regions help to constitute the nation and how they shape what modern Myanmar is today — they also give strong indicators of what it might become. This is an essential read for anyone in the social sciences interested in borderlands, as well as those requiring a broader understanding of the challenges facing the contemporary Myanmar government as it attempts to usher in social and political cohesion following decades of conflict.” -- Mandy Sadan, Reader in the History of South East Asia, School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS)

Has ethnicity become institutionalized as a political category? Drawing on international studies, including New Zealand, the book shows that this process of public policymaking creates artificial divisions that can become permanent and detrimental as well as being at odds with the social fluidity of modern societies. Preface by Jonathan Friedman.

The Kurdish Movement in Turkey’s growing alliance with Islam One of the fault lines of Turkish politics traditionally has been the divide between religious and secular movements. However, as Zeki Sarigil argues, the secular Kurdish movement in Turkey has increasingly become aligned with Islam. As a result, Islam has become part of the movement’s political discourse, strategies and actions. Ethnic Boundaries in Turkish Politics traces the evolving relations between the leftist, secular Kurdish movement and Islam, from an apathetic and/or antagonistic attitude in the 1970s and 1980s to an increasingly Islam-friendly approach in the 1990s to an attitude of accommodation and the rise of Kurdish-Islamic synthesis in the early 2000s. Based on 104 interviews in several provinces in Turkey (primarily Ankara, Diyarbakir, Istanbul, and Tunceli) between 2011 and 2015 as well as ethnographic data, public opinion surveys and statements from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Kurdish leaders, Sarigil shows how the secular Kurdish movement increasingly has been endorsing Islam and Islamic actors. The reasons for this Islamic opening are global, national, and local; Sarigil demonstrates that a group of strategic and ideological factors have encouraged and/or forced Kurdish leaders to redraw symbolic and social boundaries of the movement. Namely, with the end of the Cold War support for Marxist ideas collapsed, creating increasingly more favorable responses towards religion. In addition, the movement’s need to expand its social basis and popularity; electoral politics; and legitimacy struggles against rival political actors were other major factors, which triggered the Kurdish movement’s boundary expansion (i.e. its Islamic opening). The study also shows that the Kurdish boundary making was not without any tension or contestation. The boundary expansion by Kurdish ethnopolitical elites triggered both internal and external boundary contestations. The movement’s embrace of Islam on a more widespread level has major ramifications for politics in Turkey and in the region. Ethnic Boundaries in Turkish Politics has important insight into the PKK, modern Turkish and Islamic societies and highlights the increasing role of Islam in global politics.

In 2012, the Pew Research Center issued a report that named Asian Americans as the “highest-income, best-educated, and fastest-growing racial group in the United States.” Despite this seemingly optimistic conclusion, over thirty Asian American advocacy groups challenged the findings. As many pointed out, the term “Asian American” itself is complicated. It currently denotes a wide range of ethnicities, national origins, and languages, and encompasses a number of significant economic and social disparities. In Redefining Race, sociologist Dina G. Okamoto traces the complex evolution of this racial designation to show how the use of “Asian American” as a panethnic label and identity has been a deliberate social achievement negotiated by members of this group themselves, rather than an organic and inevitable process. Drawing on original research and a series of interviews, Okamoto investigates how different Asian ethnic groups in the U.S. were able to create a collective identity in the wake of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. Okamoto argues that a variety of broad social forces created the conditions for this developing panethnic identity. Racial segregation, for example, shaped how Asian immigrants of different national origins were distributed in similar occupations and industries. This segregation of Asians within local labor markets produced a shared experience of racial discrimination, which encouraged Asian ethnic groups to develop shared interests and identities. By constructing a panethnic label and identity, ethnic group members took part in creating their own collective histories, and in the process challenged and redefined current notions of race. The emergence of a panethnic racial identity also depended, somewhat paradoxically, on different groups organizing along distinct ethnic lines in order to gain recognition and rights from the larger society. According to Okamoto, these ethnic organizations provided the foundation necessary to build solidarity within different Asian-origin communities. Leaders and community members who created inclusive narratives and advocated policies that benefited groups beyond their own were then able to move these discrete ethnic organizations toward a panethnic model. For example, a number of ethnic-specific organizations in San Francisco expanded their services and programs to include other ethnic group members after their original constituencies dwindled. A Laotian organization included refugees from different parts of Asia, a Japanese organization began to advocate for South Asian populations, and a Chinese organization opened its doors to Filipinos and Vietnamese. As Okamoto argues, the process of building ties between ethnic communities while also recognizing ethnic diversity is the hallmark of panethnicity. Redefining Race is a groundbreaking analysis of the processes through which group boundaries are drawn and contested. In mapping the genesis of a panethnic Asian American identity, Okamoto illustrates the ways in which concepts of race continue to shape how ethnic and immigrant groups view themselves and organize for representation in the public arena.

An invesigation into the manifold uses of ethnicity through the history of southern Bessarabia, a multiethnic region that has been ruled by competing empires and nations, all of which used ethnicity to administer the region's diverse inhabitants.

Taking the possibility of change in ethnic identity into account, this book shows and dismantles the theoretical logics linking ethnic diversity to negative outcomes and processes such as democratic destabilisation, clientelism, riots and state collapse. Even more importantly, it changes the questions we can ask about the relationship between ethnicity, politics and economics.