Suchergebnisse

This article examines how political conflict shapes ethnonational identities in contexts where a national group coexists with territorially concentrated ethnic minorities and qualifies the view that conflict polarizes identities. An often overlooked fact is that large numbers of citizens in these contexts identify simultaneously with both groups. Based on the research about cross-pressures, we claim that dual identifiers react differently to conflict than exclusive identifiers. We predict that political disputes harden and polarize identities, but only among citizens at the extremes. Heightened conflict should not alter the identity of dual identifiers, but lead them to withdraw from politics. The setting of our study is Catalonia, a territory with numerous dual identifiers and an intense nonviolent political conflict. Results from two survey experiments, qualitative interviews, and public opinion surveys confirm that heightened political conflict only produces polarization at the extremes, but dual identifiers do not exhibit this reaction. Our findings have implications for policy interventions, as they suggest that strengthening dual identities may assuage the polarizing effects of conflict.

AbstractNovel forms of regional identities emerge in response to global competitive pressures and challenges to the nation‐state. Regions have to react and position their identity in relation to the rescaling of statehood. Especially, the growing autonomy of regional administrations makes support from local stakeholders more important. Communicating a specific regional identity is one of the instruments regional administrations use for mobilising support. However, at the same time old, traditional regional identities become more fluid. Regional identity traditionally focuses on shared past and specific social and cultural characteristics. Especially globalisation and individualisation undermine this traditional thick regional identity. Regional administrations have to adjust their communicated regional identity. By communicating the image of a future oriented region that can face the challenges of global competition, they increasingly use a thin regional identity. This paper analyses different case studies from the Netherlands and Germany.

Geographies of children and young people is a rapidly emerging sub-discipline within human geography. There is now a critical mass of established academic work, key names within academia, growing numbers of graduate students and expanding numbers of university level taught courses. There are also professional training programmes at national scales and in international contexts that work specifically with children and young people. In addition to a productive journal of Chidren's Geographies, there's a range of monographs, textbooks and edited collections focusing on children and young people published by all the major academic presses then there is a substantive body of work on younger people within human geography and active authors and researchers working within international contexts to warrant a specific Major Reference Work on children's and young people's geographies. The volumes and sections are structured by themes, which then reflect the broader geographical locations of the research