The Politics of Ethnic Consciousness [Hardcover]

The Politics of Ethnic Consciousness criticizes essentialist and unitary notions of ethnicity and shows the complex interaction between historical processes, recent political developments and competing views within and about ethnic groups. Welcoming the social constructionist turn, the editors disagree with its overemphasis on the arbitrary character of ethnic identification and the neglect of political economy. Contributions on such diverse regions as Brazil, Ghana, Macedonia and Sri Lanka, examine the multivocal process of the construction and reconstruction of ethnic identities through time.Acknowledgements - Notes on the Contributors - From Political Mobilization to the Politics of Consciousness: An Introduction; H.Vermeulen & C.Govers - Creating Ethnic Identities in North-Western Ghana; C.Lentz - Changing History. The Role of History in Ethnic Identity Management among Slovenes and Italians in Trieste; E-N.Kappus - Ethnicity, Language and Politics in Northeast Turkey; C.Hann - Ethnicity as a Political Tool for Indigenous Peoples in the Amazon and Circumpolar Basins; F.Morin & B.S.d'Anglure - The Making of Egyptians in Kosovo and Macedonia; G.Duijzings - The Struggle between the Lion and the Tiger. The Relevance of Inter- and Intra-ethnic Conflict for the Construction of Ethnic Identities in Sri Lanka; P.Kloos - Tensions between the Ethnic and the Post-Ethnic. Ethnicity, Change and Mixed Marriages in Mauritius; T.H.Eriksen - The New Politics of Black Identity and the Internationalization of Black Culture in Bahia, Brazil; L.Sansone - Citizenship, Nationality, and Levels of Ethnicity in Israel. With Thoughts on the Comparison of 'Ethnicity' and 'Minority'; D.Handelman - Polish Tartars. Ethnic Ideology and State Policy; K.Warminska - Index