Remaking Identities

For centuries conquerors, missionaries, and political movements acting in the name of a single god, nation, or race have sought to remake human identities. Tracing the rise of exclusive forms of identity over the past 1500 years, this innovative book explores both the creation and destruction of exclusive identities, including those based on nationalism and monotheistic religion. Benjamin Lieberman focuses on two critical phases of world history: the age of holy war and conversion, and the age of nationalism and racism. His cases include the rise of Islam, the expansion of medieval Christianity, Spanish conquests in the Americas, Muslim expansion in India, settler expansion in North America, nationalist cleansing in modern Europe and Asia, and Nazi Germany’s efforts to build a racial empire. He convincingly shows that efforts to transplant and expand new identities have paradoxically generated long periods of both stability and explosive violence that remade the human landscape around the world.

An ethnography of a housing project in Cairo, which demonstrates how the modernizing efforts of the Egyptian government runs headlong into the traditional customs of the area's low-income residents. Brings new meaning to the phrase "global and local."

Rather than emphasising boundaries and territories by examining the ‘integration’ and ‘acculturation’ of the immigrant or the refugee, this book offers insights into the ideas and practices of individuals settling into new societies and cultures. It analyses their ideas of connecting and belonging; their accounts of the past, the present and the future; the interaction and networks of relations; practical strategies; and the different meanings of ‘home’ and belonging that are constructed in new sociocultural settings. The author uses empirical research to explore the experiences of refugees from the successor states of Yugoslavia, who are struggling to make a home for themselves in Amsterdam and Rome. By explaining how real people navigate through the difficulties of their displacement as well as the numerous scenarios and barriers to their emplacement, the author sheds new light on our understanding of what it is like to be a refugee.

Remaking the Nation presents new ways of thinking about the nation, nationalism and national identities. Drawing links between popular culture and indigenous movements, issues of 'race' and gender, and ideologies of national identity, the authors draw on their work in Latin America to illustrate their retheorisation of the politics of nationalism. This engaging exploration of contemporary politics in a postmodern, post new-world-order uncovers a map of future political organisation, a world of pluri-nations and ethnicised identities in the ever-changing struggle for democracy.

This book presents a landmark in-depth study of how mass media contributes to the making and remaking of male identity. It concludes that, unless addressed, the effects of negative discourse on the self-identity and self-esteem of men, are potentially devastating and that the longer-term and wider social implications will also be costly.

A Companion to Museum Studies captures the multidisciplinary approach to the study of the development, roles, and significance of museums in contemporary society. Collects first-rate original essays by leading figures from a range of disciplines and theoretical stances, including anthropology, art history, history, literature, sociology, cultural studies, and museum studies Examines the complexity of the museum from cultural, political, curatorial, historical and representational perspectives Covers traditional subjects, such as space, display, buildings, objects and collecting, and more contemporary challenges such as visiting, commerce, community and experimental exhibition forms

Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity is an exploration of Latinas on the periphery of both Latina culture and mainstream culture in the United States. Whether they are deliberately rejected or whether they choose to reject sexist, classist, or racist practices within their cultures, the subjects of these articles, essays, short fiction, poems, testimonios, and visual art demonstrate the value of their experience. Ultimately, the outsider experience influences what the larger culture adopts, demonstrating that a different perspective is key to remaking Latina identity. Outside perspectives include those of queer, indigenous, Afro-Latina, activist, and differently-abled individuals. By challenging stereotypes and revealing the diverse range of narratives that make up the Latina experience, Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity will expand and deepen notions of the Latina identity for students and researchers of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Remaking Madrid is the first full-length study of Madrid's transformation from the dreary home of the Franco dictatorship into a modern and vibrant city. It argues that this remarkable transformation in the 1980s helped secure Spain's fragile transition to democracy and that the transformation itself was primarily a product of "regionalism"-even though the capital is typically associated with "Spanishness" and with "the nation." The official project to distance Madrid from its dictatorial past included urban renewal and administrative reform; but, above all, it involved greater cultural participation, which led the revival of the capital's public festivals and the development of a modern cultural outpouring known as the movida madrileña. The book also explains the ultimate failure of regionalism in the capital by the end of the 1980s and asks whether or not Madrid's inclusive form of "civic" identity might have served as a model for the country as a whole.