Minority cultures

This newspaper column from 2003 examines how Indians in Trinidad and Tobago are misled, guided by so many fears, the encouragement of feelings of victimhood, and smallness of vision. There is an important contribution for Indians to make to the building of this New World civilisation, which is still in its infancy and only half-made. What is needed is a vision, mission and leadership not griping about “discrimination”, but looking fearlessly to the future.

Although scholars of Somali Studies have engaged themselves in examining the Somali society from several perspectives, colonial and early Somali writers mainly observed the Somali people as homogenous, egalitarian and nomadic pastoral. Themes on multi-ethnicity, multiculturalism, and linguistic diversity were ignored as topics that sully the myth of the selfsame ideology colorfully embroidered in the official historiography. The notion also deluded pioneering Somali scholars from critically studying their people and analyzing colonial writing; at least not beyond the western scholars' knowledge boundary. Accordingly, the Horn of Africa was exemplified as a unique African nation where citizens enjoy equality and share an all-in-one identity: culturally, ethnically, historically, and linguistically. Contrary to that notion, though, the everyday social situation makes the primordial ideology of selfsameness unsustainable. To establish the evidence, this essay discusses about how the Bantu Jareer agrarian community, a section among the different groups of subalterns in the country, views its environment and social space within the boundary of deeply offensive segregation by an extremely suppressive Somali society.

The tribal people are often referred to as 'adivasi' which literally means " dwellers from the beginning. " The Mythologies and Epics of India or for that matter any place is considered to be the records of the very beginning of the civilisations but in the case of India we see a clear omission or misrepresentation of the 'adivasi' people in the same. Manoj Das delineated how the Epics have indeed had an effect on the consciousness of Indian population about the tribal existence. How, then, is this being dealt with in the modern scenario and what are the trends in the recent times to include adivasis in the mainstream literature and the politics of it? The paper would aim to answer these questions. The paper will be divided into two sections titled, 1. Representation in Epics and Mythologies: A clear omission of the tribal characters is seen in the Epics, Mahabharata and Ramayana. While modern research is aimed at delineating the reality of the marginalised characters like the 'vanar sena', the reality behind it would never be found. Etymologically it means people who stayed in the jungle, which is true of the adivasis everywhere, then was the monkey shaped representation an attempt to identify the forest people as a different genus? Similar representations shadow the Mythologies like the figure of 'Asura.' 2. Subversion and Modern Representation: Modern representations include extensive research on the background information of these troubled figures like Asura and Vanar. Further, there is subversion in the representations like the epic figure of 'Draupadi' from Mahabharata is attributed to a tribal woman in " Draupadi " by Mahasweta Devi. Such representations invoke questions and dismantle our existing consciousness of tribal people. Through these, this paper aims to arrive at a conclusion for the need to subvert and challenge these traditional representations in order to arrive at a better understanding of the tribal ethos and existence.

This paper looks at the effectiveness of the policy of non-discrimination towards minorities in the preservation of minority cultural heritage,  constructing a case study within Albania. After defining the key terms used, this paper examines the legal framework of non-discrimination towards minorities in its historical development and looks into the state of preservation of minority cultural heritage on the ground throughout the 2010s combining extensive field-work with interviews with key representatives of ethnic minorities in Albania. The poor state of preservation of minority cultural heritage is mostly attributed to under-financing and the insufficient policy of non-discrimination. As I demonstrate, in the case of minorities with a kin-state in the region, most notably Greece, as well as the heritage claimed by neighbouring states, primarily Turkey, the policy of non-discrimination and the practice of under-financing paves the way for external involvement in the protection of cultural heritage, in pursuit of international political agendas. The paper concludes that more needs to be done for the protection of minority cultural heritage in Albania.

Cruel Tormentor or Good Neighbour? Stereotype of the Turk and Bulgarian State Policy Towards the Muslim Minority in 1878–1912, „Slavonic Review”, 2017, no. 2, s. 261–284. I The paper presents the problem of the influence of positive and negative stereotypes of the Turk on the Bulgarian state’s policy towards the Muslim minority in 1878–1912. The first part of the text analyses the evolution of the negative stereotype of the Turk as the “cruel tormentor” and the positive one of the “good neighbour” in Bulgarian culture from the beginning of the Ottoman period to the turn of the 20th century. The second part focuses on the discriminative aspects of Bulgarian minority policy towards the Muslim population that was mostly implemented at the end of the 1870s and the beginning of 1880s. Part three presents examples of the tolerant attitude of Bulgarian authorities that dominated Sofia’s policy towards the Muslims from the Union from 1885 to the outbreak of the Balkan Wars..

Türkiye’deki azınlıklar üzerine araştırmalarıyla tanınan yazar Rıfat Bali, İstanbul musevileri için Adalar’ın önemini anlattı. Gençlerin artık yaz aylarında İstanbul gece hayatının cazibesine kapıldıklarını belirten Bali, buna rağmen Adalar’a gitme alışkanlığının devam edeceğini vurguladı

Galicia is inseparable from the experience of migration and exile, and as has been extensively examined, mobility has played a major role in Galician culture and society. Most studies have identified the Galician diaspora with Latin America, but other locations such as London have only recently begun to receive critical attention. The aim of this article is to contribute to the development of a new understanding of this phenomenon by focusing on the literary representation of Galician migration in New York, and by taking as a case study Claudio Rodríguez Fer’s short story ‘A muller loba’([1993] 2011). Rodríguez Fer’s text updates the myth of the werewolf (which has a prominent presence in Galician literature) not only by taking this legend to New York, but also by subverting the submissive role played by women in this tradition. Ruth (the protagonist) represents an independent and rebellious femininity, which simultaneously challenges patriarchy, and therefore an essentialist view of the nation, and embodies the resistance of local identities in the global age. By paying special attention to the tension between the local and the global as it is reflected in this short story, and following recent and innovative studies such as those by Colmeiro (2009; 2017), Hooper (2011) and Romero (2012), this article will suggest a more extensive approach to the experience of displacement in the context of Galician migration.

http://www.galicia21journal.org/G/index.php

With this new conversational exercise, carried out within the framework of my writing residency at the Ateliers Médicis in Clichy-sous-Bois (a suburb of Paris), and echoeing a previous conversation with Joachim Ben Yacoub in 2019 (“Decolonial Variations”), I continue my critical exploration of artistic and cultural practices in the margins of institutions, specifically here in the context of a working-class banlieue. Ranging through mangroves of low-intensity cultural forms, fragile and nameless, I try to oppose alternative gestures to the strategy of staging and consuming minority bodies. I also revisit a possible account of my own trajectory, which leads me to examine forms of the wake.

In Hungary, the Roma emancipatory and cultural movement emerged in the 1970s and one of the most significant spaces of this start was a peripheral youth club in the 15th district of Budapest. This writing seeks to retrace the history of the Rom Som Gipsy club between 1972 and 1980 and in parallel, aims to integrate the story of this specific place into the frame of minority heritage studies. By presenting the birth and the functioning of the Rom Som band playing authentic Gipsy music, the Rom Som journal publishing literary texts in Romani language, we are stressing on the innovative and progressive character of the Gipsy club.

It is a remarkable coincidence that the first major works to introduce postcolonialism to Translation Studies (Cheyfitz 1991, Niranjana 1992) were published at the very time when the last known world empire – the Soviet Union – collapsed. Yet, despite the fact that as a large, multilingual and multiethnic empire Russia “has always been a rich source for the study of translation and national identity” (Baer 2016, 50), “Russian colonialism [has] faded from view” (Thompson 2000:2) of Western postcolonial scholars who still tend to “conflate the Russian nation with its empire” (Miner 2001, online). Therefore, it is highly important to revisit the relations between the Russian majority and ethnic minorities from a postcolonial perspective.

Following Baer (2016), we would like to emphasize the intrinsic ambiguity of the Russian imperial project which, unlike European projects of overseas colonization, was primarily “domestic” and thus rather expansionist than colonial.  As far as translation is concerned, it cannot only be seen as an instrument of colonial oppression, but also as a means of preservation of ethnic and cultural minorities capable of “forging the nation and the empire” (Cronin 2006, 103). In the Russian context, the russification of colonized ethnic minorities also implied the necessity to translate the artifacts of minority cultures into Russian culture and language which resulted in several “domestic” translation projects.

In our presentation, we will focus on the peculiarities of the Soviet imperial project of territorial and cultural expansion in the first half of the XXth century. Starting with a historical survey of the political and ideological context shaping and forging the Soviet State in 1918-1950s, we will then outline the main features of the Soviet “culture planning” policy (Witt 2011). From that perspective, we will discuss the role played by translation in the creation of an all-Soviet supra-national identity as well as in the preservation of the cultural heritage of minor Soviet nations.

Through Nicholas Al-Jeloo's exhibition, the general Fairfield community is able to witness the immense pride of the Assyrian people and the celebration of Persistence & Existence. The Assyrians are a key community in Fairfield. This exhibition showcases how the contemporary life of the Assyrian people is deeply rooted in the past and traditions of Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria.

Paradoxical States (of Consciousness) ‒ This volume contains my writings dating from the period between 1990 and 1996. These texts are aimed at critically exploring and developing individual and collective awareness of the paradoxes of post-1989 democracy, the pitfalls of the reorganizing civil society and minority culture, the contradictions associated with the evolving minority political representation, and the anomalies of the dominant discourses of this transitional period.
x x x
A kötet az 1990-1996 közötti időszakban keletkezett írásaimat tartalmazza. Ezek a szövegek az 1989-es fordulatot követően kibontakozó demokrácia paradoxonjainak, az újraszerveződő civil társadalom és kisebbségi kultúra buktatóinak, a formálódó kisebbségi politikai képviselet ellentmondásosságainak, az átmeneti időszakot uraló diskurzus(ok) visszásságainak a kritikai feltárásával, egyéni és kollektív tudatosításával próbálkoznak.

Culture can play a significant role in creating, reinforcing and enhancing ethic community. The paper discusses that issue by focusing on use of a minor language in a literary translation. Use of a minor language – not only in public discourse or in literature, but also in translation, is a political act, especially while considering postcolonial approach. Similar issues are taken into account regarding minor group’s narratives / subaltern narratives in major/dominant language. The Author describes this processes of politicizing translation on the example of Upper-Silesian translations published after 1989.

Nation-state borders are a phenomenon became part of the international relations as well as the everyday lives of people. Even though borders, in theory, are constructed entities state borders directly or indirectly influence identity formation of communities. The Pomaks are Slavic-speaking Muslim population living historically in the Rhodope Mountains region on the Bulgarian-Greek border. In Bulgarian, Greek, and Turkish nation-building processes, Pomak identity was continuously contested by all the three states. For the Bulgarian state, the Pomaks are ethnic Bulgarians who forcefully converted to Islam. Thus, if this process can be reversed, they can become " real " Bulgarians, again. For the Greek state, the Pomaks are descendants of Hellenic tribes who were assimilated by more populous Slavic-speaking populations in the region. In Turkey, the Pomaks are regarded as descendants of pre-Ottoman Turkic tribes, such as Kumans and Pechenegs, who later assimilated by Slavic-speaking populations. In this paper, I discuss how the modern Rhodopean borders were created and how their creation influenced and shaped the construction of Pomak identity in Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey. In the first part, I focus on the making of the modern Rhodope Mountains borders between Bulgaria and Greece. I discuss its evolution from " frontier " from the Roman to the end Ottoman rule. Finally, I discuss how the contemporary Rhodopean borders were established at the end of 19th and 20th centuries during the era of nationalism. In the second part, I evaluate the identity construction processes of Pomaks in Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey. I conclude that making of state borders, directly and indirectly, influenced the construction of Pomak identity boundaries in Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey.

Etiler’deki Maria'nın Bahçesi isimli restoranın sahibi Maria Ekmekçioğlu, İstanbullu bir Rum. Kıbrıs Harekatı’nın ardından Selanik’e göç etmek zorunda kalan ve suyun öteki tarafında özlemle dolu 20 yıl geçiren Ekmekçioğlu “Her akşam yemeğe oturduğumuzda ‘Hatırlıyor musun İstanbul’da..?’ diye başlardı sohbet. Hep nostaljiyle yaşadı Yunanistan’a giden insanlar” diyor

One of the most pressing issues facing liberal democracies today is the politicisation of ethnocultural diversity. Minority cultures are demanding greater public recognition of their distinctive identities, and greater freedom and opportunity to retain and develop their distinctive cultural practices. In response to these demands, new and creative mechanisms are being adopted in many countries for accommodating these differences. This chapter discusses some of the issues raised by these demands, focusing in particular on the difficulties, which arise in North America and Israel when the minority seeking accommodation is illiberal.
Historically, liberal democracies have hoped that the protection of basic individual rights would be sufficient to accommodate ethnocultural minorities. And indeed the importance of individual civil and political rights in protecting minorities cannot be underestimated. Freedom of association, religion, speech, mobility, and political organisation enable individuals to form and maintain groups and associations, to adapt these groups to changing circumstances, and to promote their views and interests to the wider population.
However, it is increasingly accepted that these common rights of citizenship are not sufficient to accommodate all forms of ethnocultural diversity. In some cases, certain ‘collective’ or ‘group-differentiated’ rights are also required. And indeed there is a clear trend within liberal democracies toward the greater recognition of such group-differentiated rights. Yet this trend raises a number of important issues, both theoretical and practical. How are these group rights related to individual rights? What should we do if group rights come into conflict with individual rights? Can a liberal democracy allow minority groups to restrict the individual rights of their members, or should it insist that all groups uphold liberal principles?
These are genuinely difficult questions. Ethnocultural relations are often full of complications, which defy simple categories or easy answers. However, we can make some progress if we draw some distinctions between different kinds of groups, and different kinds of ‘group rights’. In this essay we first make a distinction between two forms of cultural pluralism: multination states and polyethnic states, and then make a further distinction between internal restrictions and external protections. The concept of internal restrictions concerns the rights of a group against dissenting members of the same group; whereas the concept of external protections concerns the rights of a group against the society at large. We proceed by probing the nature of liberal tolerance and then delineate the limits of state intervention.

The monograph is dedicated to the Bulgarian communities in Hungary - the Banat Bulgarians (until 1920), the Bulgarian market-gardeners (until 1960), the Bulgarian students (until 1944) and intellectuals (until 2000). It presents their demographic characteristics and some socio-anthropological aspects of their development in the 19th and 20th centuries: stuctures of sex, age, religion, marriage, labor activity and occupation, literacy and education, as well as their identity, integration and assimilation in the light of quantitative indicators of bilinguism, ethnically heterogeneous families, citizenship etc. Bulgarian population's seasonal labor, child and educational migrations between Hungary and Bulgaria are examined to make a contribution to the history of population movements between the Balkans and Central Europe.

This paper is about the representation of minorities in mass media, and the tension between fully representing the diversity of that group and remaining accessible to the widest possible audience. The case study is the Welsh-language soap opera Pobol Y Cwm, and whether the regional dialects of Welsh are ‘toned down’ to ensure comprehensibility for all Welsh speakers. The first aim of the article is to bring language into the discussion of how minorities are represented in Public Service Broadcasting (PSB). A second and more general aim is to open up a frame for further research into the tensions that arise in representing local diversity and harnessing national/group identity. As a contribution to the sociology of globalisation, this article will be looking for a middle ground between the totalising ‘McDonaldisation’ thesis – where all cultural diversity is eradicated – and equally strong counterclaims about the vigorous reassertion of diversity (e.g. Katz and Liebes, 1990). I argue that neither is correct, and that we are facing a much more gradual and incipient erosion of cultural diversity as local minority cultures are packaged in global media forms; and that this must be understood as a constant ongoing process with a historical trajectory, not an end point that is ever ‘reached’ – either by total homogenisation or by persistent diversity. The case of local dialects in PSB therefore serves as an exemplar of the limitations in showcasing diversity within minorities in mass media.

Minority and majority have become very sensitive issues lately, in the life of the nation and the state, minority and majority issues are often misused to attack and corner a group, organization or religion. This study tries to highlight the minority and majority in Islam and place them according to the Al-Qur'an and As-Sunnah. Islam has provided guidance for the Muslim community both as a majority and as a minority. So it is hoped that in social life a Muslim can still practice his religion and at the same time still be able to do justice to others. The results of this study indicate that when Muslims become the majority, they must still be fair to other groups or religions. Likewise, when Muslims become a minority, they must still be treated fairly, so that they can carry out their religious obligations. Abstrak: Minoritas dan mayoritas menjadi isu yang sangat sensitip akhir-akhir ini, dalam kehidupan berbangsa dan bernegara isu minoritas dan mayoritas sering disalah gunakan untuk menyerang dan menyudutkan suatu kelompok, organisasi atau agama. Studi ini mencoba menyoroti minoritas dan mayoritas dalam Islam dan mendudukkannya menurut Al-Qur'an dan As-Sunnah. Islam telah memberikan panduan bagi masyarakat Muslim baik dia sebagai mayoritas maupun minoritas. Sehingga diharapkan dalam kehidupan bermasyarakat seorang Muslim tetap bisa menjalankan agamanya dan sekaligus tetap bisa berbuat adil terhadap orang lain. Hasil dari studi ini menunjukkan bahwa ketika kaum Muslimin menjadi mayoritas, maka dia harus tetap berlaku adil kepada kelompok atau agama lain. Demikian juga ketika kaum Muslimin menjadi minoritas, maka harus tetap diperlakukan secara adil, sehingga bisa menjalankan kewajiba-kewajiban agamanya.

Parmi des nombreuses minorités qui peuplent le Delta du Danube et la Dobrogea, nous rencontrons aujourd’hui des Lipovènes.

Ces "vieux croyants", comme ils se définissent eux mêmes, ont fui la Russie à la fin du 17e siècle car ils estimaient que les réformes religieuses imposées par Pierre Le Grand pervertissaient la religion.


Visite du village lipovène de Sarichioi un dimanche à la sortie de l’église; rencontre avec des enfants dont Elisa qui nous raconte sa communauté avec ses mots. Ensuite Stephan, un pêcheur se promenant avec son petit fils, sa fille travaille à l’étranger.

Enfin rencontre avec Monica et Ambri, un couple "mixte": Ambri est Lipovène mais Monica ne l’est pas, cette situation est-elle bien acceptée par le reste de la communauté?

Invité

Frédéric Beaumont, géographe, chercheur au laboratoire EEE à l'Université de Bordeau III. Auteur notamment de "Les Lipovènes du delta du Danube. Chronique d'une société théocratique russe des Balkans", Revue Balkanologie, mai 2008. Et de "Nouvelles frontières et enjeux identitaires dans la région du delta du Danube", et "Aux confins de la Nation, pour une sociologie de la frontière" Sous la direction de Pierre-W. Boudreault et Wanda Dressler , L'Harmattan, 2011.

Interviews conducted with leading actors in England asking a range of questions about religious diversity and the legal framework and, in particular, about reasonable accommodation, helped identify a number of areas of concern. There was some doubt about whether specific legal provision should be brought in to guarantee reasonable accommodation. However, there was broad support for having the principle adopted in the practice of employers, whereas some preferred the current informality rather than the principle being enforced through litigation. None of the respondents came up with illustrations outside Judaism, Christianity or Islam. The results are consistent with recent critical studies showing that the assumption in social sciences that religion is a universal has been imported from theology. Religion-based questions only pick out certain phenomena specific to some cultures and an inevitable skew is created when asking such questions because they make sense only within an Abrahamic religious framework. Although enabling the identification of some aspects of culture considered to merit reasonable accommodation on the grounds of religion, the results also pose questions about the adequacy of current standard research methodologies which assume that religion is a universal.

"Three short memos I wrote for the course Culture & Society at Emory University in Atlanta in 2009.

Memo 1: I discuss the terms cultural capital, social reproduction and social mobility through examples in popular culture.

Memo 2: Through the example of Dutch Islamic minority culture I discuss how social problems can be constructed in media and social narrative.

Memo 3: In this memo I provide a sociological critique of the notion that it is simply the “best” cultural creators and/or cultural creations that achieve success."

Una legge importante ed attuale, che ha permesso di conseguire alcuni risultati significativi, che deve essere applicata meglio e che rischia di non essere attuata affatto. A dieci anni dal 25 novembre 1999, quando fu definitivamente approvata al Senato, la legge 482/1999, per ciò che concerne la sua attuazione, presenta un bilancio con luci ed ombre.

Quella proposta è una riflessione sull'applicazione della prima legge statale dedicata alla tutela delle minoranze linguistiche in Italia, con un'attenzione specifica nei confronti del suo impatto sulle comunità friulana, slovena e tedesca della regione Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

Si tratta di una riflessione che tiene conto di una serie di dati sia oggettivi (risorse finanziarie utilizzate, interventi realizzati) che soggettivi (aspettative nei confronti del provvedimento, percezione dei risultati), considera altresì la valenza storica dell’approvazione della prima legge statale di tutela delle minoranze e dei suoi contenuti ed evidenzia alcune contraddizioni teoriche e pratiche, che caratterizzano la legge e la sua (non?) attuazione, nei settori dell'istruzione, dei media e degli usi pubblici delle lingue minoritarie.

M. Stolfo, Una legge da applicare, una legge da difendere, in F. Vicario (ed.), Scuola e amministrazione pubblica. I dieci anni della legge 482 sulle comunità linguistiche d'Italia, Forum, Udine, 2011, pp. 91-103.

Western and Muslim law. Muslim law is itself a complex, pluralistic amalgam of different legal ‘bricks’, and in the context of the struggle for Islam to be acknowledged as a legitimate source of value pluralism in the Western context, the religious aspects of Muslim law, with their doctrinal justifications, are being foregrounded. With the English case as the main focus, I further argue that customs among Muslims are suppressed in this process of ‘shariatisation’. Beyond that, even Muslim doctrines are being placed under the spotlight in various ways. These changes are taking place as a result of Muslims living as nondominant communities in Europe, where they are under the gaze of the dominant culture and are judged to be potential or actual violators of human rights and the rule of law. Relying on Balagangadhara’s (2005) explanation of the ‘dynamic of religion’, I present these processes as an outcome of the collision of two religious cultures, the Islamic and the Western.
An updated and revised version of this paper is published in the Journal of Legal Pluralism (2013).