Suchergebnisse

In an earlier article I argued that British "African Asians" cannot legitimately be described as an "ethnic" community. This argument was made by means of a critique of sections from the 4th PSI Survey. I show that the attitudinal responses of British "African Asians," as evidenced in the Survey, do not reveal any special emphasis on the components of ethnicity (religion, skin color, "extra-British" origins, "racial" grouping), & that parental roles in marital decision making -- thought by the Survey's authors to be important in maintaining "ethnic" boundaries & their attitudes toward "mixed marriages," -- are now little different from the majority of Britishers. My chief objection to the "ethnicity" paradigm, incorporating the notion of "ethnic identities," is that it inhibits those whom it embraces from inclusion within alternative conceptions: marking individuals & communities as "ethnically" special robs them of parity with their "non-ethnic" neighbors. In this article, in opposition to the current vogue for "ethnic" labeling, & in sympathy with Robert Miles's well-known position, I contend that British Gujarati Hindus (who form a majority of British "African Asians") should be considered in the same analytical light as any other group of British citizens. The focus of the article is on those members of the Gujarati Hindu Patidar caste (commonly having the surname Patel) that settled first in East Africa & then in GB. I argue that their caste identity, the dynamics of their migrations, & changes to their socioreligious culture are all fully explicable by non-"ethnic" political sociology. Adapted from the source document.

In his discussion of the peace movement, Artur Meier ( International Sociology 3: 77-87) put forward a number of interesting sociological arguments and outlined a programme for future research. Using CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) as a case study and drawing upon an accumulation of British research, this paper follows Meier's research recommendations and attempts to answer some of Meier's questions. It is shown that, contrary to Meier's beliefs, CND is a remarkably homogeneous and class-bound mass social movement. It is argued that a focus on the component parts of the peace movement necessarily leads to the political sociology of nation-states.