Natives Against Nativism

Examining the intersection of Palestine solidarity movements and antiracist activism in France from the 1970s to the present For the pasty fifty years, the Palestinian question has served as a rallying cry in the struggle for migrant rights in postcolonial France, from the immigrant labor associations of the 1970s and Beur movements of the 1980s to the militant decolonial groups of the 2000s. In Natives against Nativism, Olivia C. Harrison explores the intersection of anticolonial solidarity and antiracist activism from the 1970s to the present. Natives against Nativism analyzes a wide range of texts—novels, memoirs, plays, films, and militant archives—that mobilize the twin figures of the Palestinian and the American Indian in a crossed critique of Eurocolonial modernity. Harrison argues that anticolonial solidarity with Palestinians and Indigenous Americans has been instrumental in developing a sophisticated critique of racism across imperial formations—in this case, France, the United States, and Israel. Serving as the first relational study of antiracism in France, Natives against Nativism observes how claims to indigeneity have been deployed in multiple directions, both in the ongoing struggle for migrant rights and racial justice, and in white nativist claims in France today.

An in-depth analysis that demonstrates how and why there has been a resurgence of nativist logic. It was once thought that liberalism and globalization would consign nativist logics to the fringes of societies and eventually to history. But if it ever left, nativism has well and truly returned, spreading across nations, across the political spectrum, and from the fringes back into the mainstream. In The Return of the Native, Jan Willem Duyvendak, Josip Kesic, and Timothy Stacey explore how nativist logics have infiltrated liberal settings and discourses, primarily in the Netherlands as well as other countries with strong liberal traditions like the US and France. They deconstruct and explain the underlying logic of nativist narratives and show how these narratives are emerging in the discourses of secularism (a religious nativism that problematizes Islam and Muslims), racism (a racial nativism that problematizes black anti-racism), populism (a populist nativism that problematizes elites), and left-wing politics (a left nativism that sees religious, racial, and populist nativists themselves as a threat to national culture). By moving systematically through these key iterations of nativism, the authors show how liberal ideas themselves are becoming tools for claiming that some people do not belong to the nation. A unique analysis of the most fundamental political transformation of our days, this book illuminates the resurgence of the figure of the "native," who claims the country at the expense of those perceived as foreign.

In Home Rule Nandita Sharma traces the historical formation and political separation of Natives and Migrants from the nineteenth century to the present to theorize the portrayal of Migrants as “colonial invaders.” The imperial-state category of Native, initially a mark of colonized status, has been revitalized in what Sharma terms the Postcolonial New World Order of nation-states. Under postcolonial rule, claims to autochthony—being the Native “people of a place”—are mobilized to define true national belonging. Consequently, Migrants—the quintessential “people out of place”—increasingly face exclusion, expulsion, or even extermination. This turn to autochthony has led to a hardening of nationalism(s). Criteria for political membership have shrunk, immigration controls have intensified, all while practices of expropriation and exploitation have expanded. Such politics exemplify the postcolonial politics of national sovereignty, a politics that Sharma sees as containing our dreams of decolonization. Home Rule rejects nationalisms and calls for the dissolution of the ruling categories of Native and Migrant so we can build a common, worldly place where our fundamental liberty to stay and move is realized.

“The age of transnational humanities has arrived.” According to Steven Salaita, the seemingly disparate fields of Palestinian Studses and American Indian studies have more in common than one may think. In Inter/Nationalism, Salaita argues that American Indian and Indigenous studies must be more central to the scholarship and activism focusing on Palestine. Salaita offers a fascinating inside account of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement—which, among other things, aims to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. In doing so, he emphasizes BDS’s significant potential as an organizing entity as well as its importance in the creation of intellectual and political communities that put Natives and other colonized peoples such as Palestinians into conversation. His discussion includes readings of a wide range of Native poetry that invokes Palestine as a theme or symbol; the speeches of U.S. President Andrew Jackson and early Zionist thinker Ze’ev Jabotinsky; and the discourses of “shared values” between the United States and Israel. Inter/Nationalism seeks to lay conceptual ground between American Indian and Indigenous studies and Palestinian studies through concepts of settler colonialism, indigeneity, and state violence. By establishing Palestine as an indigenous nation under colonial occupation, this book draws crucial connections between the scholarship and activism of Indigenous America and Palestine.

This book historicises and analyses the increasing incidence of xenophobia and nativism in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. It examines how xenophobia and nativism impact the political cohesion and social fabric of states and societies in the regions and offers solutions to aid policy formation and implementation. Rather than utilising an overarching framework, individual theory is applied to chapters to analyse the diverse connections between xenophobia and nativism in the regions. The book explores the economic, nationalistic, political, social, cultural, and psychological triggers for xenophobia and nativism and their impact on an increasingly interconnected and interrelated world. In addition to the individual and comparative examination of these triggers, the book outlines how they can be decreased or altered and argues that Pan-Africanism and the unity of purpose among diverse groups in the western hemisphere is still an ideal to which Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean can aspire. This book will be of interest to academics in the field of African history, African Studies, Caribbean and Latin American studies, cultural anthropology and comparative sociology.

Comparative study of contemporary nativist literary and cultural movements in China and Taiwan.

Analysing US immigration and deportation policy over the last twenty years, this book illustrates how US immigration reform can be conceived as a psychological, legal, policy-driven tool which is inexorably entwined with themes of American identity, national belonging and white nativism. Focusing on Hispanic immigration and American-born children of Mexican parentage, the author examines how engrained, historical, individual and collective social constructions and psychological processes, related to identity formation can play an instrumental role in influencing political and legal processes. It is argued that contemporary American immigration policy reforms need to be conceptualized as a complex, conscious and unconscious White Nativist psychological, legal, defence mechanism related to identity preservation and contestation. Whilst building on existing theoretical frameworks, the author offers new empirical evidence on immigration processes and policy within the United States as well as original research involving the acculturation and identity development of children of Mexican immigrant parentage. It brings together themes of race, ethnicity and American national identity under a new integrated sociopolitical and psychological framework examining macro and micro implications of recent US immigration policy reform. Subsequently this book will have broad appeal for academics, professionals and students who have an interest in political psychology, childhood studies, American immigration policy, constructions of national identity, critical race and ethnic studies, and the Mexican diaspora.

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, Humboldt-University of Berlin (Amerikanistik), course: American Immigration Policies, language: English, abstract: Although Americans are proud of their country as an Immigrant Nation and consider it as a refuge for all opressed people of other nations, they are very strict about the fact whom they allow to enter. They acknowledge that America’s strenght has derived from the diversity of its citizens but nevertheless most often people that differ too much in their cultural or ethnic background from the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant ideal are left out. The contradiction in this behaviour was described by Steven Vincent Benet when he said “Remember that when you say “I will have none of this exile and this stranger for his face is not my face and his speech is strange,” you have denied America with that word.” Americans have furthermore always mystified the foundation of America and left out of the narrative certain events like for example the exploitation of slaves, the brutality against the Native Americans and the annexation of Mexico etc. Their liberal myth of pilgrims who out of love for freedom and equality formed a democracy therefore differs from the actual history of America. Ali Behdad refers to this fact as Historical Amnesia2 and points out that it is essential for the self-image of Americans who consider themselves hospitable and unbiased and who regard America as always been open for immigration. My thesis is that the driving forces behind these phenomena have always been xenophobic fears which brought forth nativism. In my opinion therefore these phenomena can be better understood if one realizes the nature of xenophobia and the resulting nativism. In this paper I will describe what xenophobia is and I am going to give a general overview over its mechanisms and how it leads to nativism. I will show that it can effect the cultural development of a nation and the social interactions between people on a personal level. Moreover I am going to illustrate that people and nations define themselves and get a stronger feeling of cohesion and membership by defining who the outsider is. I will use the United States of America as a classical nation of immigrants as an example for the influence xenophobia can have on the cultural development of a nation. To illustrate and analyze xenophobic and nativistic attitudes between people in a normal day to day live I will also refer to the film "L.A. Crash" in which those behaviours are portrayed very well.