Suchergebnisse

Almost all Western countries have recently implemented restrictive changes to their citizenship law and engaged in heated debates about what it takes to become "one of us". This article examines the naturalization process in Canada, a country that derives almost two thirds of its population growth from immigration, and where citizenship uptake is currently in
decline. Drawing on interviews with recently naturalized Canadians, I argue that the current naturalization regime fails to deliver on the promise to put "Canadians by choice" at par with "Canadians by birth". Specifically, the naturalization process constructs social and cultural boundaries at two levels: the new citizens interviewed for this study felt that the naturalization
process differentiated them along the lines of class and education more than it discriminated on ethnocultural or racial grounds. A first boundary is thus created between those who have the skills to easily "pass the test" and those who do not. This finding speaks to the strength and appeal of Canada's multicultural middle-class nation-building project. Nevertheless, the interviewees also highlighted that the naturalization process artificially constructed (some) immigrants as culturally different and inferior. A second boundary is thus constructed to differentiate between "real Canadians" and others. While not representative, the findings of this study suggest that the Canadian state produces differentiated citizenship at the very moment it aims to inculcate loyalty and belonging.

In Timor-Leste, the lia na`in (lian = word; na`in = lord, master) – leaders of customary practice – are becoming key to tradition, to "kultura" (culture), an emerging area of public cultural policies. Traditionally associated with the local communities and the mountains, they are the ones that know and pronounce the words that uncover the origin of the world, and the relationship between mankind, nature, and ancestors. Since 20 May 2002, when political power was handed from the United Nations to the Timorese authorities, several episodes have illustrated that the involvement of the lia na`in has shifted from their traditional local contexts to national ones. From small-scale sociopolitical agents, the lia na`in became a resource as buffers of conflict or of reconciliation, as council members of the suco, the smallest administrative division, and as actors in national state ceremonies, taking part in the process of (re)creating the nation's cultural identity. The purpose of this article is to discuss the role assigned to lia na`in in state affairs and the nation, particularly the role concerning conflict resolution. The argument, I propose, is that the participation of the lia na`in, as a ritual authority, in state-sponsored ceremonies has become a major resource of credibility to the new national authorities. (ASEAS/GIGA)

This study examines the linkages between relative deprivation and identity politics in a postcolonial state. It further investigates the relationship among these variables and nation-building challenges in the postcolony. It is a case study of the Nigerian state in West Africa, which typically harbours the attributes of postcoloniality and indeed, large measures of relative deprivation in her sociopolitical and economic affairs. The study is also an interrogation of the neo-Biafran agitations in Nigeria. It has been attempted in the study to offer distinctive explanations over the problematique of nation-building in the postcolonial African state of Nigeria, using relative deprivation, identity politics and the neo-Biafran movement as variables. In framing the study's theoretical trajectories and in historicizing the background of the research, ample resort has been made to a significant range of qualitative secondary sources. A particularly salient position of the study is that it will actually be difficult to locate on the planet, any group of people whose subsequent generations (in perpetuity) would wear defeat on the war front, as part of their essential identity. Hence, relative deprivation was found to be more fundamental than identity politics in the neo-Biafran agitations in Nigeria. However, the compelling issues were found to squarely border on nation-building complications in the postcolony.

In 1948, the Viennese city councilor in charge of cultural affairs commissioned a painting of the legendary Austrian football team of the early 1930s, the so-called "Wunderteam." Paul Meissner, the creator of the painting, chose to depict the team entering the pitch at Stamford Bridge football ground in London in 1932. Even though it was not publicly accessible for decades, the painting achieved the status of an iconic image in Austria's collective memory. Seeking to understand why particularly this group portrait gained such prominence, the article pursues a set of questions. First it looks at the event itself and analyses the contemporary visual media coverage of the game. In a second step, it discusses the painting, its composition, and what it reveals about the political agenda postwar Austria sought to set.

This article presents a methodological approach to the study of nation-building in everyday life in the post-Soviet region. Although bottom-up and informal mechanisms of creating identity have been acknowledged in the literature and methodology of nationalism studies, they have seldom been applied to studies in the post-Soviet countries. This article discusses the strengths and limitations of such an approach, using the example of two studies - on consumption and national identity in Ukraine and on music and nationbuilding
in Estonia.