Culture and Belonging in Divided Societies
Culture and Belonging in Divided Societies

Author: Marc Howard Ross

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2012-02-28

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 081220350X

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From cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper to displays of the Confederate battle flag over the South Carolina statehouse, acts of cultural significance have set off political conflicts and sometimes violence. These and other expressions and enactments of culture—whether in music, graffiti, sculpture, flag displays, parades, religious rituals, or film—regularly produce divisive and sometimes prolonged disputes. What is striking about so many of these conflicts is their emotional intensity, despite the fact that in many cases what is at stake is often of little material value. Why do people invest so much emotional energy and resources in such conflicts? What is at stake, and what does winning or losing represent? The answers to these questions explored in Culture and Belonging in Divided Societies view cultural expressions variously as barriers to, or opportunities for, inclusion in a divided society's symbolic landscape and political life. Though little may be at stake materially, deep emotional investment in conflicts over cultural acts can have significant political consequences. At the same time, while cultural issues often exacerbate conflict, new or redefined cultural expressions and enactments can redirect long-standing conflicts in more constructive directions and promote reconciliation in ways that lead to or reinforce formal peace agreements. Encompassing work by a diverse group of scholars of American studies, anthropology, art history, religion, political science, and other fields, Culture and Belonging in Divided Societies addresses the power of cultural expressions and enactments in highly charged settings, exploring when and how changes in a society's symbolic landscape occur and what this tells us about political life in the societies in which they take place.

Social Movements in Violently Divided Societies
Social Movements in Violently Divided Societies

Author: John Nagle

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-02-26

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 1317508009

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Violently divided societies present major challenges to institutions seeking to establish peace in places characterised by ethnic conflict and high levels of social segregation. Yet such societies also contain groups that refuse to be confined within separate forms of ethnic community and instead develop alternative modes of action that generate shared identities, build trust and foster consensual, peaceful politics. Advancing a unique social movement approach to the study of violently divided societies, this book highlights how various social movements function within a context of violent ethnic politics and provide new ways of imagining citizenship that complements peacebuilding. By analysing the impact of social movements on divided societies, this book contributes to debates about the complexity of belonging and identity, and constructs a nuanced understanding of political mobilisation in regions defined by ethnic violence. In turn, the book provides important insights into the dynamics of social movement mobilisation. Based on the author's extensive research in Lebanon and Northern Ireland, and drawing on numerous examples from other divided societies, this book examines a range of social movements, including nationalists, victims, sexual minorities, labour movements, feminists, environmentalists, secularists, and peace movements. Bringing together social theory and case studies in order to consider how grassroots movements intersect with political institutions, this book will be of interest to students, scholars and policymakers working in sociology and politics.

Belonging
Belonging

Author: Montserrat Guibernau

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-10-11

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 0745671683

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It is commonly assumed that we live in an age of unbridled individualism, but in this important new book Montserrat Guibernau argues that the need to belong to a group or community - from peer groups and local communities to ethnic groups and nations - is a pervasive and enduring feature of modern social life. The power of belonging stems from the potential to generate an emotional attachment capable of fostering a shared identity, loyalty and solidarity among members of a given community. It is this strong emotional dimension that enables belonging to act as a trigger for political mobilization and, in extreme cases, to underpin collective violence. Among the topics examined in this book are identity as a political instrument; emotions and political mobilization; the return of authoritarianism and the rise of the new radical right; symbols and the rituals of belonging; loyalty, the nation and nationalism. It includes case studies from Britain, Spain, Catalonia, Germany, the Middle East and the United States. This wide-ranging and cutting-edge book will be of great interest to students and scholars in politics, sociology and the social sciences generally.

The Great Reimagining
The Great Reimagining

Author: Bree T. Hocking

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2015-02-01

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 178238622X

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While sectarian violence has greatly diminished on the streets of Belfast and Derry, proxy battles over the right to define Northern Ireland’s identity through its new symbolic landscapes continue. Offering a detailed ethnographic account of Northern Ireland’s post-conflict visual transformation, this book examines the official effort to produce new civic images against a backdrop of ongoing political and social struggle. Interviews with politicians, policymakers, community leaders, cultural workers, and residents shed light on the deeply contested nature of seemingly harmonized urban landscapes in societies undergoing radical structural change. Here, the public art process serves as a vital means to understanding the wider politics of a transforming public sphere in an age of globalization and transnational connectivity.

Cultural Contestation
Cultural Contestation

Author: Jeroen Rodenberg

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-07-04

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 3319919148

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Heritage practices often lead to social exclusion, as such practices can favor certain values over others. In some cases, exclusion from a society’s symbolic landscape can spark controversy, or rouse emotion so much so that they result in cultural contestation. Examples of this abound, but few studies explicitly analyze the role of government in these instances. In this volume, scholars from a variety of academic backgrounds examine the various and often conflicting roles governments play in these processes—and governments do play a role. They act as authors and authorizers of the symbolic landscape, from which societal groups may feel excluded. Yet, they also often attempt to bring parties together and play a mitigating role.

City Limits
City Limits

Author: Stephanie Schwerter

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2022-01-13

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 1501380443

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Belfast, Beirut and Berlin are notorious for their internal boundaries and borders. As symbols for political disunion, the three cities have inspired scriptwriters and directors from diverse cultural backgrounds. Despite their different histories, they share a wide range of features central to divided cities. In each city, particular territories take on specific symbolic and psychological meanings. Following a comparative approach, this book concentrates on the cinematographic representations of Belfast, Beirut and Berlin. Filmmakers are in constant search of new ways in order to engage with urban division. Making use of a variety of genres reaching from thriller to comedy, they explore the three cities' internal and external borders, as well as the psychological boundaries existing between citizens belonging to different communities. Among the characters featuring in films set in Belfast, Berlin and Beirut, we may count dangerous gunmen, prisoners' wives, soldiers and snipers, but also comic Stasi-members, punk aficionados and fake nuns. The various characters contribute to the creation of a multifaceted image of city limits in troubled times.

Divided Society
Divided Society

Author: Paul Hainsworth

Publisher: Pluto Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 9780745311951

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The ongoing troubles in Northern Ìreland have largely overshadowed the presence of over 40 ethnic and religious minority groups in the Province. This study of these groups focuses on the issues of racism, anti-racism, sectarianism, representation in the media, and the law.

Ethnographies of Neoliberalism
Ethnographies of Neoliberalism

Author: Carol J. Greenhouse

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9780812241921

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What happens when citizens are refashioned as consumers? Drawing on diverse disciplines and ethnographies from five continents, this collection considers neoliberal reform from the standpoint of people's self-understandings as social and political actors.

How is Global Dialogue Possible?
How is Global Dialogue Possible?

Author: Johanna Seibt

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2014-12-11

Total Pages: 488

ISBN-13: 3110385589

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Intercultural dialogue is often invoked in vague reference to a method that can build cross-cultural understanding and facilitate global policy-making. This book clarifies the theoretical foundations of intercultural dialogue and demonstrates the practical significance of intercultural value inquiry, combining the perspectives of philosophy, conflict research, religious studies, and education.

Transparency, Power, and Control
Transparency, Power, and Control

Author: Christoph A. Hafner

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-02-24

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 1317006674

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This book brings together academics and practitioners from a range of disciplines from more than twenty countries to reflect on the growing importance of transparency, power and control in our international community and how these concerns and ideas have been examined, used and interpreted in a range of national and international contexts. Contributors explore these issues from a range of overlapping concerns and perspectives, such as semiotic, sociolinguistic, psychological, philosophical, and visual in diverse socio-political, administrative, institutional, as well as legal contexts. The collection examines the ways in which 'actors' in our society - legislators, politicians, activists, and artists - have provoked public discourses to confront these issues.