ABSTRACT Migration is individually and collectively a challenging but also a transformative praxis and process. In my proposal, I present these in the context of transnational migration of two multigenerational families whose pioneers originally migrated from Turkey to Germany. Based on my long‐term multilingual and multi‐sited ethnographic doctoral research project on identity processes of multigenerational ‘guest worker’ families, I inquire here on the example of the family Cem and, as a post‐doctoral field research, the refugee family Azad, the identity works and coping strategies from the grandchildren's perspective in transgenerational, transcultural and transnational space. As carriers and currently the last ring in the chain of the cultural, religious and social heritage of family (migration) knowledge, they represent as actors in present in their identity work the individual, family and societal transformation in process in transnational migration space. What makes this family migration research specific in addition is the ethnic–cultural–religious–social marginalised status or intersectional outsider positionality of the two families in their national origin and diasporic context, firstly by their original affiliation to the religiously Alevi faith and linguistically the Zazaki or rather Kurdish‐speaking community. In that case, the first family Cem is originally a Zazaki speaking Alevi ocak family from East Anatolian Dersim region. And the second family Azad is originally a Kurdish‐speaking Alevi talip family from south‐east Anatolia. In the transnational interconnection in and between Turkey and Germany as states of nationality and countries of migration with originally homogenous dominant identity concepts, the family members get into a paradoxical insider and outsider, a double minority and intersectionally discriminated situation or rather positionality. As a result, this research shows that the family members studied are dealing and coping in intersectional and transnational regarding social situations and conditions on the one hand living in cultural and identity plurality and diversity in originally ethnic–cultural–religious homogeneous constructed national states and on the other hand confronted with othering, marginalising and discrimination, this not only outside their families and communities but also inside. Exemplarily on these two families, I would like to present and discuss in this work especially from the perspective of the diasporic grandchild generation the challenging and conflictual but also creative and transformative practices, coping strategies and processes of identity and empowersharing work with a focus on Alevi knowledge, belonging and being in move and change in transnational and transgenerational family, community and migration spaces. Out of their experiences and negotiation practices and processes in insider and outsider positionalities emerges as third the transsider positionality ‘in‐between‐spaces’. Exemplarily, I introduce and discuss this here as an individual, familial and social empowersharing practice in process against the background of the central question of transmitting, appropriating, refusing and redefining and by that transforming Alevi knowledge, being and belonging.
This article examines how Greekness is constructed and negotiated by a member of the Greek second generation in Italy, a population largely absent from contemporary diaspora scholarship. Through a biographical and socio-anthropological approach grounded in long-term ethnographic fieldwork, the study shows how belonging emerges not as inherited essence but as an ongoing, practice-based process. To capture this dynamic, the article introduces the concept of performative anchoring practices, referring to the embodied, affective, relational and symbolic actions through which individuals stabilise identity within conditions of hybridity and partial cultural recognition. Findings reveal how family memory, linguistic socialisation, mobility, dance, intimate relationships and everyday urban routines in Athens interact with ambivalent relations to formal diaspora institutions. By tracing these multilayered practices across the life course, the article illuminates the shifting infrastructures of Greek diasporic belonging in Italy and contributes new insights into second-generation identification within contemporary socio-anthropological research.
ABSTRACT The Lampung community is one of the ethnic communities in Indonesia that is often viewed by many researchers as a community that is vulnerable to violence, even though this is not always true. This negative view is often associated with piil pesenggiri (honour and dignity), which is always fought for by the Lampung community, but is often given negative connotations. Many researchers forget that the Lampung people's understanding of honour and dignity cannot be separated from their cultural values, namely angkon muwakhi (adopted siblings), which is a bond of brotherhood formed by the Lampung community to strengthen their honour and dignity. This article aims to describe the results of our anthropological study of adopted siblings (angkon muwakhi) as a cultural value of the Lampung ethnic community in accepting non‐Lampung ethnic groups into a bond of brotherhood. Our study shows that the more diverse the ethnic groups integrated into the bond of brotherhood, the stronger the recognition of a person's honour and dignity. Therefore, the bond of brotherhood is not only a unifying tool between ethnic groups in minimizing conflict, but also a smart medium for strengthening their honour and dignity as Lampung people.
This paper examines the shifting dynamics of naming conventions in Tanzania, focusing on the interplay between traditional, religious and modern names. Using a mixed-methods approach, it analyses demographic data from 1244 questionnaires collected from students at local universities in Iringa, Tanzania. The study explores factors influencing the preservation or decline of traditional names based on the impact of historical and cultural contexts and patterns in the transition to modern or foreign names. Findings indicate that urbanization, globalization and religious influences have contributed to the decline of naming using traditional names after birth, particularly in urban areas, while pastoralist and clan-based communities show resilience in maintaining them. Additionally, individuals from the mentioned communities appear to have two names: both traditional and religious names. Rather than fading, indigenous identity is dynamically behaving as the population adapts to global influences while preserving cultural elements. This research highlights how naming practices or conventions reflect broader societal shifts, contributing to discussions on cultural identity in a globalized world. Future studies should track these trends over time and examine the role of digital and social media in shaping naming conventions.
This paper examines mediated discourses on the state of implementation of language in education policy using a critical incident as a reference. Employing Thompson's modes of ideology, we perform an ideological critique of purposively sampled cross-media discourses spawned by the failed attempt of a Zimbabwean government deputy minister to enforce L1 instruction in early childhood classes in his predominantly Ndebele-speaking Bubi constituency. We conceptualize this incident as a microcosm of the persistence of a Gukurahundi ethnonationalist ideology, whose attempt to instal Shona hegemony precludes the implementation of constitutionally decreed multilingualism and the associated language in education policy. The analysis reveals that the discourse on tribalism was deployed as a diversionary and dissimulative narrative that eschewed an interrogation of structural failures and politically expedient neglect of constitutional and policy imperatives. Additionally, the reification of ethno-nationalist ideology renders it impossible to realize equitable multilingualism in postcolonial Zimbabwe. Importantly, the ideological critique demonstrates that cultural engineering, in addition to constitutional and policy guarantees, is needed for the successful realization of mother tongue instruction in Zimbabwe.
Migration has played an important role in the transformation of tangible and intangible cultural heritage across regions, including in the Global South, especially among postcolonial nations, due to their longstanding people-to-people contacts leading to socio-economic and historical-cultural transferences over time. In the case of India, global migratory forces have irreversibly transformed its tangible and intangible sociocultural landscape into a form of syncretism reflected in our civilizational ethos of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam'. In this context, this paper explores the role of international in-/outmigration in historical and contemporary times toward the evolution of India's regional cultural identities using a case of Chettiars' migration from the hinterlands of Chettinad in present-day Tamil Nadu, which is in the south of the Indian subcontinent, to the far-flung nation state of Burma/Myanmar in the northeast, including their subsequent return, primarily during the 19th and the 20th centuries. Using the 3i Framework (Interests, Ideas and Institutions), the study explains the role of cross-border migration in shaping the tangible and intangible heritage of Chettinad, as reflected in its architecture, cuisine and social customs.
The study of human behaviour can be analysed with the help of two techniques: one regressive and the other narrative. The regressive technique is more liable to produce faulty analyses of human behaviour than the narrative technique. This article sets itself the task of buttressing the argument for using a narrative technique with the replication of some of the findings in Erin Jenne's Ethnic Bargaining: The Paradox of Minority Empowerment. Lessons to be drawn from such a replication suggest that the researcher must be wary of tethering her empirical research to testing or creating theories. A focus herein is upon ethnic politics in Hungary, Romania and Slovakia after 1989. In order to avert the possibility of committing error (in human enquiry), recourse shall be taken to Nicolas Malebranche's philosophy of science.
In 1950, a group of young Bahraini intellectuals began publishing a magazine entitled Sawt al-Bahrain (Voice of Bahrain). It was the second periodical in the country's history and the first to be completely controlled by Bahrainis. Its goal was to promote a patriotic and nationalist agenda and create a space for the dissemination of ideas amongst the nascent intelligentsia in Bahrain and the broader Gulf region. The magazine came to be distributed in most major Gulf coastal cities, Riyadh, Mecca and Medina, Cairo, Baghdad, Basra, the Levant, Sanaa, Tunis, Zanzibar, Karachi and London. It was thus not simply a local publication concerned solely with Bahrain, but rather built bridges between Bahrain and the broader Arab world. Using Sawt al-Bahrain as a case study, this paper highlights how educated Bahrainis articulated their political identity and contended with modernity through the press. It also draws a connection between the magazine and Bahrain's reformist movement in the 1950s. This paper follows Benedict Anderson in considering the role of the intelligentsia in the colonial world to be 'central to the rise of nationalism.' Additionally, the paper expands on Anderson's arguments on the relationship between print media and nationalism. Anderson portrays the consumption of print media as a one-way process in which individuals, through the act of reading the newspaper, become part of the 'imagined community' of the nation. This paper analyses how those same readers can also become producers of media. By publishing Sawt al-Bahrain, the Bahraini intelligentsia inserted themselves within the Arab press scene as interlocutors. They engaged with Arab peers and showcased their belonging to the larger Arab nation, as well as their understanding of what it means to be modern Arab citizens.
This study is focusing on the colonial governmentality techniques practised by the Turkish state under the guise of national security, which have subjugated Kurdish cities to a state of emergency for decades. The most widespread example of these practices implemented under the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalk & imath;nma Partisi, in Turkish, AKP) governments in the name of national security or 'counterterrorism' is the rapid increase in the number of high-security military outposts (Kalekol) and checkpoints. This paper focuses on the interaction between deforestation activities and hydroelectric power plant (HEPP) constructions with Kalekols in conflict-ridden regions where a low-intensity war is ongoing and the right to national self-determination based on democratic autonomy is being demanded.
This paper investigates how counter-insurgency operations in Pakistan's former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) after 2001 fueled a neo-nationalist movement by creating conflict with sensitivities of ethnic Pashtun population. The triangulation of qualitative data collected from three groups of participants explains the emergence and sustained influence of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM). The data identify legal and institutional weaknesses that allowed the neo-ethno-nationalism to grow in FATA. The thematic analysis of the interview data and personal observations framed and identified major and subthemes on the theoretical premise of the Clausewitz Trinity. This research work engages semistructured interviews, informal discussions with military personnel and personal observations to collect data to answer the three research questions from June 2023 till December 2024. The findings of this work suggest that PTM emerged as a neo-nationalist movement as a reaction to perceived state use of military means against Taliban and not only because of ethnic identity. The major theme identified which makes this work novel is that PTM as a neo-nationalist ethnic movement demanded rights for Pashtuns within Pakistani constitutional Framework of 1973. A subtheme emerged that PTM turned into a leading socio-political actor through populist rhetoric against state laws and institutions 'popular constitutionalism' via social media and radio.
This article explores the meanings of refugeeness among Kurdish residents of the self-managed Lavrio refugee camp in Greece in the aftermath of the 2015 reception crisis. Focusing on how Kurdish camp residents make sense of their political identities and on how they distinguish themselves from those they call 'non-political refugees', the article (a) shows how the 2015 reception crisis triggered a broader ideological shift from a 'refugee' to a 'migrant' crisis, producing the figure of the undeserving migrant; and (b) argues that Kurdish camp residents reclaim their refugeeness as a permanent political condition rooted in collective memory and the Cold War archetype of the persecuted political refugee. Doing so, they mobilize refugeeness as a political resource to distinguish themselves from the depoliticized '2015 refugee', secure the legitimacy of their presence and assert their right to remain amid the threat of eviction from the Lavrio camp.
This paper explores how US Chinatowns preserve Chinese culture, language and identity by maintaining an intergenerational transfer system and tourism. It fills a post-pandemic diaspora research gap with a mixed-methodology design (surveys, n = 100; interviews, n = 15; visual analysis, ethnographic observation in San Francisco, New York and Chicago). Quantitative analysis reveals that formal organizational membership is the strongest predictor of cultural maintenance (p < 0.001), suggesting that institutional structures are more vital than casual engagement. This paper presents the argument that sustainable cultural preservation must rely on the local community-based and intergenerational participation as opposed to outside tourism, and it includes the suggestion to the policymakers and cultural heritage planning in the multicultural urban settings.
Migration is individually and collectively a challenging but also a transformative praxis and process. In my proposal, I present these in the context of transnational migration of two multigenerational families whose pioneers originally migrated from Turkey to Germany. Based on my long-term multilingual and multi-sited ethnographic doctoral research project on identity processes of multigenerational 'guest worker' families, I inquire here on the example of the family Cem and, as a post-doctoral field research, the refugee family Azad, the identity works and coping strategies from the grandchildren's perspective in transgenerational, transcultural and transnational space. As carriers and currently the last ring in the chain of the cultural, religious and social heritage of family (migration) knowledge, they represent as actors in present in their identity work the individual, family and societal transformation in process in transnational migration space. What makes this family migration research specific in addition is the ethnic-cultural-religious-social marginalised status or intersectional outsider positionality of the two families in their national origin and diasporic context, firstly by their original affiliation to the religiously Alevi faith and linguistically the Zazaki or rather Kurdish-speaking community. In that case, the first family Cem is originally a Zazaki speaking Alevi ocak family from East Anatolian Dersim region. And the second family Azad is originally a Kurdish-speaking Alevi talip family from south-east Anatolia. In the transnational interconnection in and between Turkey and Germany as states of nationality and countries of migration with originally homogenous dominant identity concepts, the family members get into a paradoxical insider and outsider, a double minority and intersectionally discriminated situation or rather positionality. As a result, this research shows that the family members studied are dealing and coping in intersectional and transnational regarding social situations and conditions on the one hand living in cultural and identity plurality and diversity in originally ethnic-cultural-religious homogeneous constructed national states and on the other hand confronted with othering, marginalising and discrimination, this not only outside their families and communities but also inside. Exemplarily on these two families, I would like to present and discuss in this work especially from the perspective of the diasporic grandchild generation the challenging and conflictual but also creative and transformative practices, coping strategies and processes of identity and empowersharing work with a focus on Alevi knowledge, belonging and being in move and change in transnational and transgenerational family, community and migration spaces. Out of their experiences and negotiation practices and processes in insider and outsider positionalities emerges as third the transsider positionality 'in-between-spaces'. Exemplarily, I introduce and discuss this here as an individual, familial and social empowersharing practice in process against the background of the central question of transmitting, appropriating, refusing and redefining and by that transforming Alevi knowledge, being and belonging.
This paper examines the evolution of modern Chinese nationalism, highlighting the predominance of Han(sic) nationalism and Zhonghua Minzu (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic) nationalism in contemporary Chinese historiography. Employing text analysis as the principal research methodology, this study analyses Chinese history textbooks from several mainstream publishers in Hong Kong since the 1960s. This paper focuses on the representation of race and ethnic identity in Hong Kong's textbooks, underscoring the central role of the Han in Chinese historical narratives. This explores how notions such as 'Sinicization (sic)(sic)' and 'cultural superiority' have historically framed the Han's 'assimilation' and 'incorporation' of other ethnic minorities, thereby shaping the nationalistic concept of Zhonghua Minzu as articulated by modern China and constructing a narrative akin to the 'Han Man's Burden'. This paper argues that Hong Kong's Chinese history textbooks reflect dual forms of Chinese nationalist consciousness: Han nationalism and Zhonghua Minzu nationalism. Over time, Zhonghua Minzu nationalism has supplanted Han nationalism as the prevailing nationalist ideology within the Chinese history curriculum. The historical and national perspectives of the new curriculum reflect Hong Kong's education and ideology, which are increasingly aligned with those of mainland China.
This study investigates the phenomenon of the frontiersmen, that is, the Czech minority border communities, as a part of the discourse of the Czech nationalist movement. Via the example of the Czechoslovak National Democracy party, it traces the frontiersmen on two levels. In the first section, the study reconstructs the functions and significance that the nationalists attributed to Czechs living within a linguistically mixed (predominantly German-speaking) region of Czechoslovakia. The second part seeks an answer to the question concerning the position the frontier phenomenon occupies within the myth-symbol complex of the Czech national identity and the philosophy of history. The conclusion is dedicated to evaluating the possibilities of viewing the frontiersmen as a specific variant of a national minority.
Despite enduring decades of advocacy, Alevi communities in T & uuml;rkiye find themselves in a constant state of anticipation for acknowledgment from the Turkish state. Previous studies have long documented the marginalized status of Alevis within Turkish society and their ongoing struggle for recognition; however, they have overwhelmingly framed the problem around the state's refusal to recognize cemevis as places of worship. This article extends the debate by asking: What if recognition is also considered at the ontological level? Through an ontological lens, I examine the multifaceted exclusionary dynamics of non-recognition shaped by the contested status of jiares, sacred sites for Dersim Alevis and their entanglements with state-citizen relations in Tunceli-Dersim, T & uuml;rkiye. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, I demonstrate how the Turkish state's refusal to acknowledge the alternative ontologies and worlding practices of Dersim Alevis constitutes a form of ontological violence that marks the existential limits of equal citizenship. Ultimately, the contestation around the jiares exposes how Turkish citizenship continues to operate through non-secular exclusions and underscores the urgent need for an ontological pluralism that secures the right to exist.
This research examines the kinopolitical dimensions of Kurdish seasonal agricultural labour mobility in South-eastern Turkey and extends across various agricultural areas. Focusing on rural transformation and climate change. Using Nail's (2015) kinopolitical framework, labour mobility represents a structural circulation within an unstable agrarian regime rather than mere economic migration. For Kurdish workers, this motion functions as an enforced flow, driven by structural shifts that limit agency and reinforce precarious conditions. The study synthesises extensive secondary data sources, reinterpreting existing reporting through a kinopolitical lens to reveal systemic displacement patterns within traditional migration statistics. This approach identifies these workers as mobile subjects within broader struggles, clarifying their socio-environmental vulnerabilities. In Turkish regions with chronic infrastructural neglect, climatic pressures act as structural multipliers of vulnerability. Movement emerges through the convergence of ecological instability and institutionalised dispossession, making labour circulation a functional necessity for agrarian accumulation. The research emphasises vulnerabilities resulting from the intersection of environmental crises and systemic socio-political forces, including restrictive labour policies. Focusing on kinopolitical dynamics, this study highlights the ecological and structural factors contributing to the ongoing marginalisation of Kurdish seasonal agricultural workers. Consequently, labour circulation serves as a stabilised circuit for cheap labour supply, driven by the inescapable intersection of environmental crises and structural inequality in Turkey's destabilised agrarian environment.
The article examines the discursive continuity of Iranian nationalism across successive political systems through the case of the Persian Gulf naming dispute. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and qualitative content from digital platforms, the study highlights a symbolic convergence between state, opposition and popular narratives, both inside and outside Iran. Being state-permitted, this digital nationalist expression channels deep-seated affect and reinforces a coordinated narrative of national identity. The Persian Gulf thus emerges not only as a simple hydronym but also as a shared affective and ideological platform linking pre- and post-revolutionary elites with digital publics in a moment of symbolic consensus.
This study aims to map and analyse the development of academic studies on Chinese Indonesians before the removal of the term 'Cina' and its replacement with 'Tionghoa' in 2014. Using a bibliometric approach, this study examines 292 documents indexed in the Scopus database between 1968 and 2013. The research results show that publication production developed unevenly. The number of publications, which was relatively low and sporadic during the early New Order era, increased significantly in the late 1990s in line with political changes, the economic crisis and the strengthening of public discourse on ethnic relations. These findings suggest that academic knowledge production before 2014 was still influenced by state terminology and discourse institutionalised through the term 'Cina', which contributed to the framing of ethnic Chinese as a problematic category. This study asserts that the shift in terminology is not merely a linguistic correction but has the potential to mark an epistemic transformation. However, identity politics and populism in 2017 proved that negative sentiments and stereotypes towards Chinese Indonesians still exist.
