"The idea for editing this book originated during an international conference titled ""Regional Development: The Challenge of the Frontier,"" held in December 1993 at the Dead Sea and which was organized by the Negev Center for Regional Development at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. In this conference we noticed that little has been said about the impact of Israel's complex mosaic of ethnic groups on the shaping of the country's social and spatial frontiers. We have therefore endeavored to bring together a number of perspectives on the evolution of ethnic frontiers in Israel and the role they play in shaping the cultural landscape of this country. Yet we later realized that ""frontier"" is too limited a term, and that it may through various processes have turned into a mosaic of spatial, social, economic, and political peripheries. More specifically we attempted to present the process of frontier development as perceived by Israel's ethnic and national minorities. We therefore invited contributions from various other Israeli experts on these issues: geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, and political scientists, which have now become the main body of chapters in this book. We trust that they are representative of the main dimensions of the subject."
Open-access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295804088 China's exploitation by Western imperialism is well known, but the imperialist treatment within China of ethnic minorities has been little explored. Around the geographic periphery of China, as well as some of the less accessible parts of the interior, and even in its cities, live a variety of peoples of different origins, languages, ecological adaptations, and cultures. These people have interacted for centuries with the Han Chinese majority, with other minority ethnic groups (minzu), and with non-Chinese, but identification of distinct groups and analysis of their history and relationship to others still are problematic. Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers provides rich material for the comparative study of colonialism and imperialism and for the study of Chinese nation-building. It represents some of the first scholarship on ethnic minorities in China based on direct research since before World War II. This, combined with increasing awareness in the West of the importance of ethnic relations, makes it an especially timely book. It will be of interest to anthopologists, historians, and political scientists, as well as to sinologists.
The purpose of this book is to examine the strategies and practices of the Han Chinese Nationalists vis-à-vis post-Qing China’s ethnic minorities, as well as to explore the role they played in the formation of contemporary China’s Central Asian frontier territoriality and border security. The Chinese Revolution of 1911, initiated by Sun Yat-sen, liberated the Han Chinese from the rule of the Manchus and ended the Qing dynastic order that had existed for centuries. With the collapse of the Qing dynasty, the Mongols and the Tibetans, who had been dominated by the Manchus, took advantage of the revolution and declared their independence. Under the leadership of Yuan Shikai, the new Chinese Republican government in Peking in turn proclaimed the similar "five-nationality Republic" proposed by the Revolutionaries as a model with which to sustain the deteriorating Qing territorial order. The shifting politics of the multi-ethnic state during the regime transition and the role those politics played in defining the identity of the modern Chinese state were issues that would haunt the new Chinese Republic from its inception to its downfall. Modern China's Ethnic Frontiers will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese history, Asian history and modern history.
Focusing on the Ming and Qing eras, this book analyses crucial moments in the formation of cultural, regional and religious identities. It demonstrates how the imperial discourse is many-faceted, rather than a monolithic agent of cultural assimilation.
"Frontiers and Ghettos is based on the idea that when it comes to ethnopolitical conflict, lousy is better than horrible. How outcomes better than horrible arise, despite ideological imperatives, hatreds, and predatory opportunities, is brilliantly analyzed in this empirically rich, vividly written, and provocative comparison of Serbian and Israeli policies toward Croatians, Muslims and Palestinians. A terrific book!"—Ian S. Lustick, author of Unsettled States, Disputed Lands "Abusive governments try to avoid leaving fingerprints on acts of repression, often using paramilitaries or death squads for deniability. James Ron reveals that territorial boundaries can serve a similar function. Abuse is more likely, he shows, as one crosses the frontiers of established state power, obscuring the signature of official action. This original and insightful book encourages us to expose cross-border involvement in human rights violations and re-establish official accountability."—Kenneth Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch "With terrifying lucidity, Ron uses the experiences of Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Israel, and Palestine to examine how a state's definition of the boundary separating its favored population from a different people authorizes, channels, or inhibits its use of force. This veteran participant-observer uses first-hand observation tellingly."—Charles Tilly, author of Durable Inequality "Frontiers and Ghettos represents a major step forward in social science's effort to understand state violence. James Ron shows that while all states use violence, they do so differently in their well-policed interiors and at their margins. This book is powerful, timely, and important for both scholars, policy-makers, and those who would advance respect for human rights."—Craig Calhoun, President, Social Science Research Council "James Ron has written a strikingly clear and convincing study of the factors affecting controlled and uncontrolled state-directed violence in the current period, with an analysis that adds substantially to the sociology of the state. His book will be important for all those concerned—for scholarly reasons and for broader ones—with modern confrontations of world norms, state power and human rights. And its gripping accounts will be important for those concerned with the specific violent conflicts it examines, in Serbia and Israel."—John W. Meyer, Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, Stanford University "This ingenious and courageous comparison of the types of violence used by nationalist regimes should transform the way we think about borders and state sovereignty. In demonstrating that even the most unsavory governments can be sensitive to international norms and the appearance of legality, Ron also strikes a serious blow at standard policy prescriptions -- from imposing sanctions and isolation on offending regimes to offering autonomy packages and soft borders for ethnic minorities. This book deserves wide circulation and serious reflection."—Susan L. Woodward, author of Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War "As the horrific escalation of violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories grips international headlines, the inability of commentators to locate these tragic events in a comparative analytical frame is striking. This book is an impressive exception. Ron's elegant comparative analysis of Serbia and earlier periods of Israeli-Palestinian conflict makes the dynamics of the present conflict and its future possibilities comprehensible in a way that few others have managed to do. It is a signal contribution to our understanding of modern state violence."—Peter Evans, Eliaser Chair of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley
This book offers an analysis on contemporary Israeli democracy, examining in particular society and politics from the perspectives of the different ethnic groups outside of the Ashkenazi mainstream. The book explores the political expressions of the secondary groups in Israel (Mizrahim, Religious, Russians and Palestinian-Arab) and how these groups where treated by the Ashkinazim as a threat to its hegemony over the state. Looking at the instability created by the struggle of these marginal groups against the state, and the discrimination policy practiced by the Ashkenazi 'hegemonic ethnic state' regime against the other, non-Ashkenazi, groups, the book illustrates how this has contributed to the failure to establish an ‘Israeli people’. Ethnic Politics in Israel will be of great interest to students and researchers in the fields of Middle East, Palestinian, Arab, Jewish and Israeli studies, political science, sociology and psychology.
The purpose of this book is to examine the strategies and practices of the Han Chinese Nationalists vis-à-vis post-Qing China’s ethnic minorities, as well as to explore the role they played in the formation of contemporary China’s Central Asian frontier territoriality and border security. The Chinese Revolution of 1911, initiated by Sun Yat-sen, liberated the Han Chinese from the rule of the Manchus and ended the Qing dynastic order that had existed for centuries. With the collapse of the Qing dynasty, the Mongols and the Tibetans, who had been dominated by the Manchus, took advantage of the revolution and declared their independence. Under the leadership of Yuan Shikai, the new Chinese Republican government in Peking in turn proclaimed the similar "five-nationality Republic" proposed by the Revolutionaries as a model with which to sustain the deteriorating Qing territorial order. The shifting politics of the multi-ethnic state during the regime transition and the role those politics played in defining the identity of the modern Chinese state were issues that would haunt the new Chinese Republic from its inception to its downfall. Modern China's Ethnic Frontiers will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese history, Asian history and modern history.
The book addresses critically the question: "What is the societal impact of urban and regional planning?". It begins with a theoretical discussion and then analyses, through a series of case studies, the intentions, contents, struggles and consequences of urban and regional planning. It shows that plans and policies often defy the commonly perceived role of advancing equality, justice, development and amenity, by causing social problems, marginalisation and inequalities. The book looks at planning from a critical distance, without a priori belief in its necessity or usefulness. The 12 chapters, written by renowned international scholars, demonstrate the multiplicity of social and political struggles over the contested terrain of spatial policies. The book focuses on four key areas where the impact of planning is explored: the community power, gender relations, ethnic tensions, and social polarisation, while comparing three societies: Australia, Israel and England. Audience: This volume is mainly intended for faculty and students of academia, but also for urban professionals and policy-makers. The book is relevant to fields such as urban and regional planning, geography, political science, urban studies, urban sociology, urban anthropology, ethnic and gender relations.
Through the Lens of Israel illuminates Israeli history through the use of the author's unique state-in-society approach, and, at the same time, refines, develops, and expands that approach. The book provides a window for the formation of Israeli state and society during the twentieth century, while using the Israeli experience to ask how social scientists can better investigate and understand other societies as well. Three central themes of Israeli history are at the core of the analysis—state formation, society formation, and the mutually constitutive roles of state and society. By analyzing how Israel's state and society continually reconstruct one another, Migdal addresses larger questions with resonance far beyond Israel: How do particular societies and states end up with their distinctive character? How are the rules that shape everyday behavior determined? Who gains from these rules and who loses? And how and when do these rules and patterns of privilege change?
Nationality and Ethnicity in an Israeli School: A Case Study of Jewish-Arab Students explores the intersection of ethnicity, nationality, and social structure which is experienced through schooling and its effects on the performance of disadvantaged students. The book sheds light on the ramifications of the multilayered ethnic-class identities and explores the role of nationality in the reproduction of a depoliticized ethnic hierarchy in school and society. It offers an ethnographic case study of one Israeli high school that adopted critical pedagogy in order to empower underprivileged students that belonged to second and third generation of immigrant Jews from Arab countries. It also analyses the ways in which educational gaps are reproduced through the dominant national culture and identity and discusses the educational consequences of multiethnic school settings. The book will appeal to students, researchers and academics in the fields of sociology of education, education policy, peace education, Israeli studies, and critical pedagogy studies.
