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This contribution to the symposium focuses on those facets of Martin Bulmer's work that sought to analyse the role of race and ethnicity in the development of sociological research. It highlights, in particular, his continuing interest through much of his scholarship with the work of the Chicago School and of key figures within it in the development of both conceptual and empirical research agendas in this field. This interest was intimately linked to his long-standing curiosity about the origins of sociological research and the links between sociology and social and public policy. The paper also explores Bulmer's engagement with questions about race and ethnicity. It also highlights his contribution to the development of the journal Ethnic and Racial Studies as a key forum for the publication of empirical and theoretical research on race and ethnic issues, linking the contributions of diverse national scholarly traditions together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michael Banton's paper provides fascinating insights into his long-running intellectual disagreements with John Rex, the other major post-war figure in the sociology of ‘race relations’. Published work and personal recollections are supplemented by a series of communications by letter to flesh out the precise nature of these debates. They reveal differing views on the ontological status of ‘race’, race relations and racism, as well as a number of criticisms of Rex's work. He argues that Rex was wrong to put so much faith in the ability of classical sociology to address these concerns, and that there was a disjuncture between theory, methods and substance in his empirical work. There is also a suggestion that Rex played down the significance of racism. The greatest difference between them, however, lay in their divergent views on the role of sociology and the sociologist. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This is a report on the British Sociological Association Race and Ethnicity Study Group Conference ‘Mapping the Field: Contemporary Theories of Race, Racism and Ethnicity’, which took place at Newman University on Friday 31 January 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Across a crisis-stricken Europe battles rage for post-neoliberal hegemony, with "race" and "austerity" as central signifiers. One of the places where the frontlines are most pregnant is Sweden; long perceived as a role model for its welfare state, cultural equity and social equality. Sweden is, however, facing social conflicts following in the tracks of a deep transformation in terms of welfare cuts, racialization and growing social polarization, targeting in particular a disadvantaged migrant and post-migrant population. On that background, the paper focuses on the upsurge of mutually antagonistic popular movements - "racist" and "anti-racist". We use Sweden as an exemplary case of Europe's present Polanyian moment, reminiscent of the 1930s. Yet, current upheavals expound, the authors claim, a different configuration of crisis and racism as well as a dissimilar utopia for the imagineering of nation and community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals are claiming greater scope for choice in their racial identities. But how they are seen and classified by others is not necessarily changing in a similar way. Racial appraisals are the way that people classify the race of others, both particular individuals and larger groups. In this paper, I make a case for the study of racial appraisals as a field of sociological inquiry. I map out the different analytical levels and methodological approaches for this field and discuss how these can be used to understand observed race, norms of racial classification, and societal norms of the racial order. I present an example of how societal norms and logics of racial classification can be analysed in real time through survey research, using 2015-16 data on 866 White Americans’ reactions to Rachel Doležal’s racial identity claims. I present an agenda for studying changes in racial boundaries and classification norms through the longitudinal tracking of racial appraisals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significance of the concept of the social situation for analysis of the structure and process of ethnic relations has gained credence in recent social anthropological approaches to ethnicity. This focus on analysis at a lower level of social organization than the overall society is congruent with an increased concern with subjective and perceptual notions of ethnicity. It is at this level of abstraction that the variable meanings of ethnicity, the differing criteria for ascription of ethnic identities, the fluidity of ethnic boundaries, and the varying relevance of ethnic and other social identities are most apparent. A situational approach to ethnicity manifests the essential variability in its significance for social relations in different social contexts and at different levels of social organization. Such a perspective avoids the problem of reification of the concept of ethnic group that follows from its identification with an objectively defined cultural inventory or with common normative patterns of behavior that are assumed to be consistently adhered to. This paper is a review and synthesis of the ideas of social anthropologists who have all explicitly emphasized the relevance of social situations for the analysis of ethnicity and ethnic relations.

This paper argues that both Michael Banton and John Rex were ‘children of empire’, albeit in starkly different ways, and that these differences were at the core of their querulous exchanges over their long careers. The larger issue, however, concerns the impact of colonialism on sociology, especially in its formative years, and conversely, the role of sociology in providing erudite justification for colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a plural society approach to class and ethnic political mobilization. Plural society theorists endorse the strong structural orientation characteristic of all variants of class analysis, and routinely treat the class structure as an independent element affecting political mobilization. Many of key elements of the conceptual stock-in-trade of analytical sociology, such as conceptions of consciousness, interest, and the incorporation of social groups, are not inherently restricted in their applicability to classes. The article, working in the tradition of plural society analysis, has applied these concepts directly to ethnic groups. Marxists history is the history of class struggle, to plural society theorists it is the history of the struggle and accommodation of both classes and ethnic groups, the two being carefully distinguished. The theory of political incorporation helps to explain the overall pattern and character of political mobilization in plural societies. The paper is projected for both class and ethnicity, without prejudice against either while highlighting the whole area of political struggle in contexts of structural ambiguity, which reductionist theories tend to neglect or distort. This is a positive step towards the proclaimed goal of sociology of politics which is both structurally responsive and does justice to the genuinely autonomous and creative nature of political alliance-building, struggle and negotiation among diverse contending parties.

The field of race relations represents a well established and increasingly popular area of sociological investigation. Its popularity, however, if it is to be assessed in terms of its success in the field of social policy, seems somewhat unjustified. Race relations as a theoretical field with quite explicit political ramifications has made very little impact. The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the reasons behind this current impasse. These will become evident, it is hoped, through a consideration of attempts to conceptualize race relations in sociological theory. In order to identify deficiencies here, the author has selected for particular consideration philosopher Max Weber's contribution to the sociological study of race relations. Race may be defined, like any other concept, only in terms of further forms of conceptualization. As it appears in current research it can be shown to be the product of three quite distinct conceptual forms: those of action, system and culture, which may in turn be discerned in Weber's own theoretical enterprise. Each of these forms the basis of three quite independent explanations of race differences. The article emphasizes on the relationship between a sociological concept of race and one that takes account of real biological differences. In certain respects the ambiguous relation between these forms illustrates most effectively those problems of conceptual coherence. Race theory in sociology in its more eclectic moments relies on all three conceptual forms identified above; at other times on one alone.

An introduction is presented in which the authors discuss various reports within the issue on topics including the flow of refugees across the Mediterranean, the status of Chinese migrant workers and modern sociology.

The article focuses on unwillingness of Canadian state to control the circulation of immigrants and racialization of Caribbean farm law. During late 1970 and early 1980 a large number of workers from Caribbean countries entered into Southwestern Ontario. The workers are employed under state administered labor contracts. The contracts specify a period of employment to commence on the day of the arrival of workers in Canada. The contract can be terminated between six weeks to eight months after their entry. After the termination date of the contract the worker had no legal right to remain in the country. Later there was unwillingness on the part of the state to control the circulation of immigrant workers into and out of farm labor positions. The increasing reluctance to recruit immigrants to fill farm labor vacancies was a matter of conflict between the state and growers. Ontario growers began to consider the possibility of using migrant contract labor from the Caribbean. The proposals by growers and the Caribbean governments took two forms. One was to bring Caribbean workers, who were temporarily employed in the U.S. to Canada for several months and then send them back to the U.S. The other was to import workers directly from Caribbean and then return them back to Caribbean. The Canadian state considered requests on the part of Ontario growers to make use of migrant Caribbean labor. The labor would not be granted the right of permanent settlement. The admittance of persons allowed for permanent settlement was structured by a process of racialization. Racialism is an ideological process involves description of group boundaries and the attribution of social significance to inherent and biological or phenotypical characteristics.

An introduction is presented which discusses the symposium section of the journal on the article "John Rex’s Main Mistake," by Michael Banton on topics, including race and ethnicity in Great Britain and British sociology.

This article engages with Luthra, Soehl and Waldinger's (2018) Origins and Destinations to consider the future of comparative work on the experiences of second generation immigrants. I highlight the strengths of the book in bringing clarity to existing theoretical debates and in using fitting methods to identify empirical patterns in surveys from New York and Los Angeles. I discuss the future avenues for research inspired by this work that include considering cumulative effects of group-level factors and employing inductive approaches to identifying heterogeneity among second-generation immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In what follows I provide a review of Charles Mills' text, Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism. In four points I critique and build upon Mills' contributions on (1) the multidimensional character of race, (2) the faith in liberalism to alleviate racial injustices, (3) the place of patriarchal tendencies in philosophy, and (4) the "white space" of sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zulema Valdez and Tanya Golash-Boza offer an integrative framework for the sociology of race and ethnicity to bridge a divide undergirding different, yet related perspectives in the field. Their work provides an initial roadmap for linking the cultural perspectives often taken in the study of ethnicity to the structural perspectives utilized in the study of race. The authors put these perspectives in dialogue with one another to elucidate the strength of integrating commonly used approaches in each area, while avoiding the pitfalls of relying only on one paradigm. Behind much of sociology’s theoretical developments to understand racial and ethnic groups’ experiences in US society, and in relation to global discussions of race and ethnicity as well, are influences of identity and ideological processes inflected and reflected by whiteness. This comment reflects on how these processes can shape future conversations considering the intertwined cultural and structural processes framing group experiences and life chances. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article documents the first decades of the work of the Aboriginal Protection Board in Victoria, Australia in the mid-nineteenth century, as it oversees the establishment of mission stations to gather up Aboriginal peoples and provide protection from settler violence. It augments existing accounts of white settler governance of Aboriginal peoples by examining the social and historical conditions for the emergence of separations and distinctions between Aboriginal peoples through shifting governmental versions of the ‘Aboriginal problem’. The production of race-based categories of persons is highlighted in the State's management of the Aboriginal children through the mission systems and their effects on Aboriginal ties to community and identity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is an appreciation of the contributions to ethnic and racial studies and to British sociology in general of Michael Parker Banton. It reviews his career and also his major publications, including also arguments against him made by his principal critics and his responses to these. It points out the specificity of his contributions and argues for his unique importance in defining and developing the field of ethnic and race relations in British sociology during the second half of the twentieth century and into the present century. It also mentions his many contributions to public life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Banton and Rex's differences in their analysis of race and ethnic relations rest not so much on the contrast between ‘prophet’ and ‘scientist’, but rather on two quite different perspectives on the nature of sociology itself. Each in their own way has much to offer the field, which explains their continuing relevance to this area of study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay takes a step towards establishing a more informed dialogue about race/class dynamics in structuring the life chances of blacks in contemporary America by revisiting William Wilson's declining significance of race thesis, the most important sociological theory that addresses this issue. Specifically, it explicates the thesis and critiques labour market analyses that purport to examine it. Too often mis-specifications of the parameters of the thesis and the absence of seriously engaging its historical and structural-level subtleties have produced erroneous interpretations including, most conspicuously, that Wilson denies any role to prejudice/discrimination in structuring life chances of blacks. I maintain that better capturing the parameters of Wilson's argument and engaging its subtleties is critical to moving forward in establishing an informed and more consensually held understanding of race/class dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science progresses by the discovery and correction of mistakes in the interpretation of data. John Rex sought ‘to distinguish among the various studies made by sociologists those which are distinguishable as race relations studies’. He examined them from the standpoint of classical sociological theory. His main mistake was his continued but unsuccessful attempt to synthesize two quite different kinds of sociological knowledge. He underestimated the importance of differences in the criteria for the validation of causal explanation and for the projection of historical trends. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While ‘ethnicity and everyday life’ is a familiar collocation, sociologists concerned with racism and ethnicity have not engaged very much with the extensive body of social theory that takes the ‘everyday’ as its central problematic. In this essay, I consider some of the ways in which the sociology of the everyday might be of use to those concerned with investigating ethnicity and racism. For its part, however, the sociology of the everyday has tended to be remarkably blind to the role played by racism and racialization in the modern world. It is thus no less crucial to consider how the experiences of racialized groups might help us rethink influential accounts of the everyday. To this end, I provide a discussion of pioneering texts by C. L. R. James and W. E. B. du Bois, both of whom were driven by their reflections on racism and resistance to recognize the everyday not as an unremarked context, but as, precisely, a problematic one. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues for a public sociology of ‘race’ that can respond to Weber's injunction that sociology should ‘meet the demands of the day’. While the author's version of these demands – for a society of autonomous individuals and groups, living as equals – is utopian, the main argument offered here is that a sociology of ‘race’ should be a modified version of Burawoy's ‘public sociology’. Adopting Bauman's notion of a sociology of interpreters, a further suggestion is that this type of sociology needs to be reflexive and affective. Based on an analysis of his own sociological education in the late 1960s, his participation in social and political movements in which ‘race’ was key, and with brief reference to the sociology of ‘race’, the author argues that the emotions that circulated in each arena need to be examined, acknowledged and incorporated if theoretical and practical progress is to be made. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

My aim in this contribution is to clarify in which way social scientific measurements of immigrant integration operate as a form of ‘social imagination’, that is, of the routinized and professionalized visualization of social life. Through such measurements, images of ‘society’ are produced that feed into larger social imaginaries. My discussion takes as an example Dutch discourse and research on integration. Crucial to the constitution of society in the Netherlands and many other Western European countries is what I call a culturist discourse that has many similarities to racism. This discourse demarcates the boundaries of society by rendering objectively observable the non-integrated who are considered to reside ‘outside society’. The image of society thereby produced is that of a morally cleansed realm: social problems are relegated to the domain ‘outside society’, consisting of persons in need of integration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented which discusses sociological theories on race, including what are referred to as race formation theory and systemic racism theory (RFT). An overview of the perspectives of the racial theorists and authors Michael Omi, Howard Winant, T. Alcott Parsons, Joe Feagin and Sean Elias, is provided.

This study advances literature on the role of cultural tastes in racial identity and work on race in Brazil. I ask how racial categories and cultural tastes co-constitute each other in meaningful patterns and how these patterns reveal the racialized meanings of cultural objects. Using correspondence analysis, I identify taste clusters and then compare these patterns across three racial classification schemas in Brazil. Across all schemas, there is a distinction between blackness and whiteness in terms of the cultural tastes that constitute identities. This holds across symbols of national identity, foreign-influenced genres and Brazilian popular culture. The strength of underlying racial meaning offers a second axis of variation – between ‘strong’ (primordial, fixed, strictly bounded) versus ‘soft’ (descriptive, ambiguous, porous) racial identities. Some symbols of national identity carry more primordially laden and invariable racial meaning than do others and thus associate with two distinct types of black identity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the major goals of the international community's intervention into the Balkans is the rebuilding of “viable multiethnic societies”. Such societies require support from a population that builds inclusive social capital. I applied social network theory to interethnic relations to help identify the conditions under which minorities could embark on this arduous task in divided, war-torn societies, like Bosnia-Herzegovina. Analysis of data from interviews and participant observation indicate that institutions support positive interethnic relationships when they help people to address practical concerns; allow for individual norms and repeated, mutually dependent interethnic interaction; are rooted in local culture; and are difficult for people to avoid. Nominally mixed urban workplaces and certain types of civic organizations, not advocacy groups or neighbourhoods, meet these criteria. These findings urge scholars working on the role of civil society in rebuilding divided post-conflict societies to look more closely at venues beyond voluntary organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much research into community, racism and racialization has been conducted in metropolitan urban settings. It is only recently that race in rural areas has received some attention. A key theme of existing research on race in rural areas has focused on the issue of racial violence. Drawing on interviews with a variety of ethnic minority groups in East Kent the article will focus on broader issues of race and ethnicity in a semi-rural area. The study explores the meaning of race, ethnicity and belonging in the partially rural setting of East Kent, UK. The article will raise issues around the intersection of the regional and global, the problematic notion of ‘community’, and the fluidity of racialization in a setting in which many ethnic minorities were transitory and mobile. We conclude by highlighting the ways in which community, racism and racialization are embedded in differentiated discourses and processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents evidence from a detailed qualitative study to demonstrate the significance of personal knowledge to black people's understanding of police/black relations. It explains how the stories told by respondents to illustrate their views revealed that previous explanations of the relationship have over-stressed the role of the black community and underplayed the importance of personal experiences in helping to form the perspectives of black people. The article outlines three central assumed truths contained within the stories, each of which leads to the conclusion that policing is irrefutably racialized. It is argued that the stories are underpinned by a dominant narrative of racialized policing which has grave implications for efforts to address the mistrust of the police evident among the black population. In highlighting the social role of stories, the article draws attention to their analytical significance in sociological analysis. It also draws attention to the importance of increasing the focus on the experiences and views of those on the receiving end of criminal justice in order to improve our understanding of everyday processes of racialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews and analyses new approaches in the sociology of Israel's Palestinian citizens which began to develop in the early eighties. After comparing their common basic assumptions and those of more traditional perspectives, the central theoretical controversies between the newer approaches are examined. These controversies are discussed along three analytical axes: 1. the basic factors which explain the emergence and institutionalization of the ethno-national hierarchy (ideological principles and distributive conflicts); 2. the significant social actors in the shaping of majority-minority power relations and the social arenas in which this process takes place (state and civil society); 3. the use of general analytical frameworks which allow comparative research as opposed to the emphasis on the idiosyncrasy of the Israeli case. The article concludes by suggesting some new research topics and perspectives that might shed light on the dynamics of the subordinate status of Palestinian citizens in Israeli social formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses political mobilization of North Africans immigrants in France. As foreigners, first-generation immigrants have generally been excluded from the political process in France. Under French nationality laws, however, most of their children acquire French citizenship and with it full political rights. During the 1980s younger members of the North African community have become particularly active. Initially, their energies were channeled mainly into pressure groups and protest organizations. More recently, emphasis has switched to the electoral arena, with voter registration campaigns and concerted efforts at placing ethnic- minority candidates on the lists of the main parties. These efforts were rewarded with the election of several hundred local councilors from North African backgrounds in 1989. Though voter registration and electoral candidatures are of course the first steps in the political process, their role is limited after entering the corridors of power. Clearly, there is much still to be played for in relations between the North African community and the political institutions of France.

This article focuses on the French Indian community concentrated in the Union Territory of Pondicherry in South India and their dilemma in being citizens without territory. Neither the French government nor the Indian government is keen on resolving this situation. Pondicherry was merged with India in the year 1950. In 1956, the Treaty of Cession of the French Establishments of Pondicherry was signed, granting the people of Pondicherry the option of French citizenship. The most paradoxical feature of this community is that it combines economic inactivity with upper income class status with only five percent of the community being employed. The private educational institutes teach in French but these institutes face a lack of French instructors, outdated curriculum and budgetary autonomy. The French government is supporting these institutes by offering training and scholarship programs for French instructors and founding the Central University of Pondicherry. There are also private institutes teaching French in Pondicherry. The four other types of organizations that are a part of the French legacy are research, vocational, religious and charitable organizations. The electorate is conservative and Gaullist. Pondicherry participation in French national elections includes the characteristics of abstentionism, illiteracy, gender, parochialism and semi-enfranchisement.

The article focuses on development of inter-ethnic relations in an old district of Rotterdam, the Netherlands between 1970 and 1985. Large number of immigrants have settled in the Netherlands, little systematic research has so far been undertaken concerning inter-ethnic relations in residential areas. Talking about ethnic tolerance, it has become a natural and accepted situation to have neighbors of different ethnic origins. An infrastructure has been established which should facilitate future developments quite different from those one might anticipate in a district where Dutch residents lived in isolation from people of different ethnic origins. A further potential source of conflict in the area is the fact that while ethnic tolerance has been achieved in the residential situation, many Dutch families are less tolerant when it comes to education. Though the conflicts could be minimized through balanced leadership. The success which has been achieved in the Old West in this respect clearly seems to indicate the usefulness of multi-variable analysis to researchers, policy-makers and people concerned with community organization in situations in which indigenous and immigrant populations come into contact. On the basis of the personal factors involved in leadership, people can be motivated, situations can be defined and obstacles can be eliminated. In this way these new groups can become relevant enough to assume importance as a focal point for peoples sense of identity. Consequently processes of reference groups, reference persona and conformity with group norms can be enlisted in aid of ethnic tolerance. These processes provide a far more practical line of approach to the establishment of ethnic tolerance in residential situations than any attempt to change attitudes or values.

The article discusses three factors, responsible for violence between Assamese Hindus and Bengali Muslims during the year 1980 in India. The first factor is ethnic and ethnically based actions that are determined by political, economic and cultural factors. Second factor is religion and third is state. The state is crucial in two ways: it shapes the boundaries of struggle and it introduces new set of interests for negotiating process between two conflicting parties. During 1983 elections, the massacres that took place in Assam were the culmination of five years of political, social and economical changes. The important issue that helped in intensifying the tension was influx of legal and illegal emigrants from Bangladesh and Nepal. The Assamese were deeply concerned about the threat of Bengali Muslims emigrants to their cultural and linguistic patrimony. The combination of political, economic forces, culture and religion provided the basis of an intense ethnic conflict which continued for five years in Assam.

The article discusses a post-industrial phenomenon of nationalism in Scotland and Wales. The revival of territorially-based ethnicity in western societies over the past 25 years has led to a proliferation of theories about why this unexpected phenomenon has occurred. One theory with special applicability to the ethnic revival is post-industrialism. The significance of ethnic conflict in postindustrial societies depends upon the values of the masses and elites in those societies and how these values translate themselves into enduring political cleavages. There are difficulties in confronting Ronald Inglehart, a sociologist's post-industrial theory with appropriate data. Findings reveal is support for Inglehart's argument that post-industrialism is related to ethnic nationalism. Nationalist supporters are distinguishable from other people in their greater potential for protest. It is surprising that this protest potential has not been utilized as a resource by Scottish and Welsh National parties. Despite two decades of resurgent ethno-nationalism in Scotland and Wales, exactly how and why nationalist supporters differ from ordinary voters remains to be determined. The theory of post-industrialism may provide at least part of the answer.

The article focuses on efforts of sociologists to establish the concept of minority groups, as a subject for sociological study. To demarcate a field of scientific enquiry, the subject under study must be defined clearly. Louis Wirth defined minorities as a group of people who, because of their physical or cultural characteristics, are singled out from others in the society in which they live for differential and unequal treatment, and who therefore regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination. There are several problems with L. Wirth's formulation. C. Wagley and M. Harris restricted the category to subordinate segments of complex state societies without providing satisfactory criteria to distinguish complex state societies from other centralized polities such as chiefdoms and stateless societies. Subsequent definitions by Wagley and Harris, R.A. Schermerhorn and Hans van Amersfoort all share Wirth's presumption that minority disadvantages ultimately derive from differences of race and ethnicity and perhaps exclude alternative approaches to their comparative study. However, four formulations of the minority concept given by the sociologists involve progressive reduction in its scope. The structural approach for the study of disadvantaged collectivities, the positions of women and immigrants in Switzerland, and of Afro-Americans in South Africa and the southern part of the U.S., 20 years back is compared. In consequence, the status and treatment of minorities in state and international law remain ambiguous. So long as the category remains undefined, and so long as minority is used to refer to various kinds of disadvantaged collectiveness, it will elude precise and inclusive definition.

In the decade of 1970-80, immigration came as a complete surprise to Dutch society. The government statistical offices that were responsible for the task of informing the Dutch Parliament about these matters did not have the correct information and in fact had no idea about what was going on. When, after 1975, migration was included as a factor in the official population forecasts, this happened in such a way that it implied international migration as a totally new phenomenon. With such a fundamental lack of knowledge it is hardly surprising that politicians let themselves be guided by ideological and political considerations. There was little systematic interest in migration and that meant that the degree of attention paid to the issue varied. After a period of great concern, from 1975 to 1980, interest diminished. In the elections of 1982, the Centrum Partij was able to successfully exploit the question of immigration and win a seat, but in the elections of 1986, as the salience of the issue rapidly declined, the seat was lost again.

The study of race relations involves the history of the contacts between peoples who consider themselves to be of different racial groups. Frequently, this history is a bloody one, it involves colonialist exploitation, discrimination, prejudice and goes back to the buying and selling of people as slaves and corresponding attitudes about the worth and dignity of people from other parts of the world. Each of the racial situations that exists today has its own peculiar history and no understanding can be achieved without taking these particular historical factors into account. But there is a common theme throughout, namely the uneven distribution of power between racial groups and in general it has been the white races that have during the last five hundred years or so been successful in their efforts to dominate other peoples. This has in part been due to technological supremacy but also in large measure to the peculiar zeal for aggressive domination that has characterized the white man and his culture.

There are two polarized views on the record of race relations as a facet of British colonial administration. Both are advanced in the context of the quite justifiable case that colonial contact by definition meant cultural contact and that accordingly the very exercise of colonial administration was at the personal level unarguably an instance of race relations in action. The favorable school concentrates on the inescapably face-to-face nature of colonial administration. The District Officer's job was quintessentially one of human relations, interaction with, as it were, prince, peasant and politician. Because these human relations were nearly always set within the salt-water context of the typical colonial situation, they were at the same time automatically race relations. Leaving aside the limited scope for social intercourse with men and women of their own race ranging from groups of compatriot settlers and scores of Secretariat colleagues on the one hand to no more than a handful of his own countrymen on the other where personal relations while still of primary importance could in no way be classified as race relations, the District Officer who did his job properly was practicing race relations.

The nature of racial and ethnic groups can be better understood by relating them, on the one hand, to the difference between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft as conceptualized in classical sociological theory and on the other, to the theory of collective action. Homo sapiens is a communal animal. No individual can develop his or her potentialities without the supports that come from socialization within a family group. It is impossible to separate communal from social action, as two kinds of action, because many actions result from multiple motivations. Communal and social motivations are intertwined, and they change, but such case studies do demonstrate the vulnerability of any analysis which is restricted to gesellschaftlich action. Since the motives for ethnic group formation and maintenance are mixed, the sociologist should not attempt to determine whether particular actions are rational or irrational, but may have to consider whether different social systems and situations generate different kinds of rationality. There may then be constraints upon both the availability of alternatives and the process of individual selection.

The article presents information on the use of economists models in Sociology. Michael Banton's book "Racial and Ethnic Competition," is a masterly and stimulating treatment of his subject matter which will repay careful reading and re-reading. When one begins to admit that all actions may not be rational in the sense of procedurally rational one is faced with the decision of what to do with the other types of behavior. By introducing elements of realism into "Rational Choice Theory," RCT one detracts from the powerful simple RCT. These elements make RCT's main virtue, that of prediction, a much more difficult exercise. Banton has to reckon with these consequences of such a move. RCT has been criticised for being individualistic that is, that the theory deals with and pertains wholly and only to individuals often referred to as methodological individualism, it would be of no importance for the analysis of a large number of non-individual level issues therefore. Within the economics discipline this criticism has been voiced loudly by radical and Marxist economists.

The purpose of this essay is threefold, first to provide a brief synthetic overview of contemporary economic, social and political adaptations of North American Indians, second, to relate such adaptations to changes in cultural identity and emerging acculturative, assimilative and separatist postures through the larger society, and third to offer a theoretical rationale for such behavior which combines the frameworks of political ethnicity, political economy of underdevelopment, and cultural evolution. While the focus of discussion will be the Indian population of the United States, parallel developments in neighboring Canada cannot be ignored. The U.S. and British Canadian cultures have provided broadly similar environments for Indian people. Although their systems of government are quite different, both countries developed land cession arrangements for displacing natives from valuable lands, and the subsequent development of reservations and reserves has perpetuated racial segregation, administrative paternalism and lower-class status for Indian people. Moreover, the Indian policies created by the two countries have exhibited many parallels, with Canada often lagging behind the U.S. by two decades or more in dealing with such issues as citizenship, land claims, per capita grants in education, lifting of alcohol prohibitions, and even the termination of federal responsibility.

The article presents information on analysis of ethnic polarization in South Africa. With the advent of black majority rule in Zimbabwe, Angola and Mozambique, coupled with the Soweto riots of 1976, as well as the increased military activity across the Angolan/Namibian border, it would now seem that a resolution of this country's very complex problems cannot be too far off. Within South Africa, it is obvious that a polarization of attitudes has occurred. For example, during the 1981 general elections for Whites, the ruling National Party lost ground to both the left and the right, while enraged students at the University of Witwatersrand burned the national flag during anti-Republic day protests. Also, on the campus of the University of Cape Town left and right-wing students clashed over the Republic Day celebrations, while students at the predominantly Indian University of Durban-Westville were involved in a prolonged boycott of lectures. It is agreed that peaceful change is required within the predominantly conservative white electorate. There are proposals to amend constitution to create environment for peaceful change. Negative economic growth with resultant high levels of employment gives rise to racial and general rioting. There are several suggestions to improve the situation like, increased inter-ethnic contact, particularly among the youth of the country, possibilities of role of media in controlling the riots and encouraging national integration.

The article presents information on a research report on cultural pluralism and respectability in Trinidad and Tobago. In 1957 Daniel Crowley made observations concerning cultural pluralism in Trinidad, he was impressed by what he perceived to be diversity within Trinidadian society and that a society could function with so many individuals adopting so many often contradictory roles and identities. Caribbean social structure is built on two antithetical but diametrically related value systems which are reputation and respectability. Reputation is indigenous, philosophically egalitarian, and embodied primarily by males, while respectability is metropolitan, class consciousness, and embodied primarily by females but partially internalized by men with age. Economic, fraternal, political, and religious institutions in Trinidad are controlled almost exclusively by males, or, more precisely, older males. Young men and women of all ages are categorically denied positions of responsibility. Trinidadian women rarely attain power in church, state, or household. Physical signs of aging are also important for gaining respectable status. Respectable Trinidadians do not strive to appear youthful, as do some respectable men in the United States. Canes, glasses, hearing aids, and grey hair serve as badges of respectability. The quest for respectability does serve many functions in Trinidadian society. It is a symbolic system that unites blacks, East Indians, Chinese, and creole elites, and may play no small part in promoting island harmony. Common bonds of respectability, for example, sometimes take precedence over ethnic differences. Still, respectability does have its darker side. It is a carryever of the colonial mentality, it does not reflect the true position of women and young men in Trinidad's social structure.

The study of racial and ethnic groups in American cities has a long history. Chicago School of urban sociology has been focusing on racial and ethnic groups since the 1920s. Most studies emanating from the Chicago school have viewed racial and ethnic groups from the perspective of human ecology. From this point of view, sharing of residential space is discussed in case of Michigan. As past studies revealed how the black population and foreign born whites often were in competition for the same shabby tenements and back-street houses, it was found that social relations are inevitably correlated with spatial relations and physical distance with social distance. The extent of residential segregation between blacks and ethnic groups tends to vary and it can be observed that no individual ethnic group was consistently the most segregated from blacks, nor was any single ethnic group consistently the least segregated. Thus, gross generalizations about the proximity of foreign-born whites to black neighborhoods should not be made. As per the finding in Chicago a propensity exists for certain white ethnic groups to share residential space with blacks more readily than other white ethnic groups. It was found that lend support to the often stated hypothesis that some white ethnic groups were more resistant than others to racial integration. So there is no rationality in saying that the relationship of foreign-born white communities to non-white communities is their physically contiguous nature.

The article focuses on the issue of meaning and values in cross-cultural contacts. An individual can be regarded as a cultural value in that he has both content and meaning. The study of content is concerned with the individual's biological and psychological characteristics. According to the humanistic theory of culture, it is the group's system of ideological values that co-ordinates all other cultural and social systems. Individuals from minority groups, who have acquired the majority culture as well as their own, readily interact at both primary and secondary level with members of the "dominant" group and its 'assimilated associates,' while still retaining their 'ethnic' meaning, where this is deemed relevant to the situation or context. Cultural assimilation of a minority is pursued vigorously but without any attempt to foster social bonds or structurally absorb the culturally assimilated ethnics.

The article focuses on factors related to traditionalism among Navajo students in North America. Navajo people, one of the largest Native American tribes in North America, are beset with a number of serious economic and social problems, which include poverty, alcoholism, and lack of education. In response to these problems, both government and social service agencies have attempted to isolate major factors which contribute to the Navajos economic and social marginality. Central to the policies of these agencies is the concept of assimilation. Many authorities responsible for setting Indian policies believe that the traditional values of the Navajo people often impede their movement through the institutions of Anglo society, thereby nullifying many economic and educational opportunities. Professionals in both academics and government support two perspectives namely the culture of poverty and the assimilation theories for Navajo's problems. According to assimilationist perspective, more exposed a Navajo to the Anglo culture the less traditional he will be. It was found that more traditional Navajo students have never progressed to upper classes. It was observed that female are more susceptible to assimilative forces than male Navajos. There are possibilities that early socialization leads to an internalization of some basic orientation aspects of the culture.

The article focuses on value systems and race relations in North Ireland and the U.S. In recent years, social researchers interested in the Northern Ireland problem have come up with a great deal of attitudinal and anecdotal data about the beliefs and opinions of Northern Irish people. Values were selected for study because rather than being concerned with reactions to specific objects and situations as attitudes are, values are more concerned with ones world-view or ethos and ones normative aspirations of the desirable. Values are related to desired modes of behavior (instrumental values) and desired end-states of existence (terminal values). Social anthropologists have argued that values are the most fundamental aspects to be found in any culture, and are the elements most central to patterns of human behavior. Thus, value differences and similarities would seemingly represent a most appropriate means of examining communal groups and cultures. Description of the structure of positive human value systems for a sample of fifteen-year-old Northern Ireland adolescents, some cross-cultural comparisons between the value systems of majority and minority groups in the United States and Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland conflict theoretically as a classic problem of race relations and social inequality among majority and minority racial groups. Highlighting major dimensions of value systems in Northern Ireland, are key aspects of positive human values of Ulster youth and value systems of American and Ulster respondents.

Many English people were surprised to discover that the new Prime Minister of Jamaica is of Lebanese origin. When they learn that the President of Colombia and the Vice President of the Dominican Republic are also of Levantine stock, they demand how it is that these people arrived in the Caribbean and why their presence has received so little attention from historians and social scientists. Why did these people leave their native land? Which sections of the population left? How were they received in their new homeland? What has been their subsequent history? By answering these questions, an attempt is made to account for the striking contrast between the situation of the Levantines in the Dominican Republic, who have frequently married Dominicans of other ethnic origins and have become deeply involved in the social and political life of the country, and those who have tended to marry within their own ethnic group and have generally steered clear of political involvement. A consideration of the Levantines in the Caribbean also raises the question of why small ethnic minorities frequently become successful entrepreneurs.

The article studies the relationship between war and ethnicity. Although there is vast literature on both, scholars have devoted little systematic attention to their interrelation. Even in the recently expanding field of the effects of war on society, the factor of ethnicity is hardly mentioned. This serious omission stems not only from the inherent difficulty of generalizing about the vast historical and sociological field, but also from the tacit prevalence of a particular view of the interrelation, a view that is only now receiving a partial scrutiny. Here the prevalent view which sees warfare as largely the product of society and of its out-group hostilities is challenged, and instead the view that war has been a powerful factor in shaping certain crucial aspects of ethnic community and nationhood is argued. The influence of war has, however, been uneven; it has affected some aspects of ethnic community more than others. Moreover, that influence has been both direct and mediated; and in some ways, the indirect influences have been both more interesting and pervasive.