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Ethnicity, nationality, and ethnic identity remain to be unresolved issues that need to be addressed. It is thus important to compare different approaches to understand the nature of ethnic phenomena and to identify appropriate techniques to understand the essence of «nation-building» concept. First, the article discusses the concepts of nation, ethnicity, changes in ethnic identity where the concepts of ethnos and nation are further explained. Second, the nature, dynamics and factors of the processes of ethnic identity are analyzed. Third, the author seeks answers to questions of why some ethnic identities change, while others remain unchanged. Fourth, ethnicity in conflict, the role of «belonging to a certain ethnic group» is considered. Finally, past and present debates of the primordialist and constructivist approaches to nation-building are described. The main methodology of the article is a comparative analysis of the theoretical literature of foreign and domestic research through the lenses of primordialism and constructivism. The paper argues that there is no reason for all ethnic groups to reach the level of a nation, that constructive theory has advantages at the highest level of integration between nations and ethnic groups in the 21st century, and that ethnic identity is adaptable and changeable over time. The results of this work contribute to further studies and scientific works related to the nation-building in Kazakhstan.

Persatuan dan kesatuan bangsa sangat penting dalam sebuah negara bangsa (nation state). Indonesia dihadapkan pada persoalan heterogenitas suku, bahasa, ras, agama, dan kedaerahan yang menjadi tantangan dalam membangunan budaya politik nasional. Oleh karena itu tujuan artikle ini adalah untuk mengkaji ikatan primordial dalam proses national and character building. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif dengan metode studi literatur. Sementara teknis analisanya menggunakan analisis isi. Kebutuhan data diambil dari berbagai sumber, baik buku, jurnal, maupun dokumen cetak dan digital. Temuan penelitian menunjukan bahwa (1) Primordialisme menjadi unsur yang paling penting dalam kenakaragaman bangsa dan berperan dalam menumbuhkan patriotisme, namun menjadi tantangan ketika membangun budaya nasional, (2) negara melakukan berbagai upaya dalam mempersatukan keragaman memalui berbagai kebijakan seperti monitisasi ideologi yang cenderung mengarah ke totaliter. Hal tersebut berimplikasi pada marginalisasi dan eliminasi yang menghambat kebebasan yang penting dalam membangun kreativitas dan inovasi dalam negara demokrasi. Unity and diversity is the most urgent thing in a nation-state (nation-state). Indonesia is faced with the problem of ethnic, linguistic, racial, religious, and regional heterogeneity which is a challenge in building a national political culture. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine primordial bonds in the process of national and character building. This study used a qualitative approach with a systematic literature method. While the technical analysis used content analysis. Data needs were taken from various sources, books, journals, and documents, both printed and digital. The research findings show that: (1) Primordialism is the most important element in the diversity of the nation and play a role in fostering patriotism, but it becomes a challenge when building a national culture. (2) The state makes various efforts to unite diversity through various policies such as ideology uniformity which tends to lead to totalitarian. This has implications for marginalization and elimination that hinder freedom which is important in building creativity and innovation in a democratic country.

The paper begins by outlining the key elements of the primordial approach to nations and nationalism central to which is the belief that national attachments and relations can be attributed to crit...

The momentum of local elections is difficult to separate from primordial politics in the form of local culture in a region. The factors of ethnicity, ethnicity, religion, and cultural practices and rituals have a significant influence on the substance of holding local elections. This article discusses primordial political methods as part of local democracy in traditional Kedde techniques in West Sumba and the Ata (servant)/Maramba (Tuan) culture. A cultural technique has an impact on local elections. The Kedde culture is a space for politicians to gain electoral support. The Ata/Maramba culture threatens political rights and participation due to extreme patron-client relations because it covers all aspects of life, especially local elections of politics. With this reality, local democracy in the regional elections has further reduced the democratic values ​​put forward by David Beetham, namely public control and political equality. This research aims to open the horizons of local democracy in the context of local elections and is expected to contribute to the evaluation of the implementation of local elections. This research shows that aspects of local traditions and culture and the Ata/Maramba tradition are actually used as a means of gaining electoral support, which in reality is contrary to liberal-style democracy. So, it is suggested to change the format of asymmetric local elections based on socio-cultural which can prevent potential violations.

This article unfolds sociology’s contribution in helping to understand the emergence and development of nationalism. It engages with nationalism studies and identifies three debates that have significantly shaped this field of research. Against this background, the article explores the question of how sociology can contribute to an understanding of nationalism’s present and future. Using the most recent and ongoing debates in studies of nationalism, the article pinpoints three propositions that jointly form the core of an emerging analytical framework. This framework breaks with the civic–ethnic and primordial–constructivist distinctions that have held dominant positions within nationalism studies, and directs attention towards the roles of, and interactions between, institutions and agency in nationalism. The article explores the potential of this analytical framework by applying it to the arts. It highlights the roles of, and interactions between, institutions and agency in this area, focusing on the Nordic countries in Europe.

The article focuses on the theoretical and methodological status of the concept of religion in the essentialist interpretation of ethnic community by analyzing the material of foreign researches. The key effort is to reveal whether the essentialist views on ethnic communities are compatible with the constructivist paradigm of religion. The essentialist approach to the notion of an ethnic community now develops in the frame of primordialism, which can be divided into two main directions: cultural and socio-biological. Proponents of the former concentrate on a detailed description of cultural differences between ethnic communities, with cultural diversity being accepted only to describe the essence of a particular ethnic community. Sociobiological primordialists deny cultural features’ status at the face of biological evolution. The common theoretical assumption of primordialisms turns out to be the essentialist vision: an ethnic community is endowed with the essence defined by a number of attributes, including religion. The constructivist approach, however, suggests that religion has no referent in reality and its notion is defined conventionally and empirically. Accepting this approach would deprive religion of its essence. Rendering the essence of religion relative, therefore, means blurring the boundaries defining the essence of an ethnic community. This consequence clearly contradicts the essentialist approach to an ethnic community. Thus, embracing an essentialist approach to ethnic community leads to the need to adopt the essentialist interpretation of religion.

In this paper, we investigate the nexus between ethnicity and violent conflict in the Congo. We make three interlocking arguments. First, we argue that ethnicity is a defining political resource in...

The article presents the evolution of language origin’ sociological reflection. The transformation of language phenomena interpretation in the context of objective, semiotic, structural and discourse theories is displayed. The correlation between discourse practices and post-industrial information society development is shown. Special attention is paid to language sociological interpretation of P. Bourdieu. The concepts introduced by him, namely: habitus, linguistic capital, linguistic field market, practical sense characterize language development, conditioned by educational, and social status communicators’ characteristics. Under globalization polilinguism phenomenon as policultural contemporary society characteristics, actualizing socio-cultural specifics of global society members acquires special significance. Constructionism and primordialism demonstrate different points of view on polilinguism phenomenon and are used in the context of comfort and benefits of their followers. Nevertheless, these approaches coincide in recognition of this concept significance to better peoples’ lives quality. Polilinguistic habitus of a contemporary individual acquires new dispositions, adequate to global context. Polilinguistic capital functions of polilinguistic market/fields providing the access to world-wide knowledge and possibilities of getting, percepting, and producing information. Polilinguistic discourse practices most fully correspond to cyberspace social reality as information polilinguistic market at the global scale. Uneven presentation of information content in various languages eliminate democratic essence of cyberspace and becomes the obstacle for users for getting the full access to information. It is especially important for minor languages speakers. The absence or lack of polilinguistic capital leads to polilinguistic injustice and information inequality, depriving people of social lifts possibilities and provoking social conflicts. The problem resolution is seen, particularly, in introducing the thee language education model and creating information content in wider variety of languages.

A theory of nationalism should explain the evidence provided by the historical record, but also provide unexpected insight. The modernist theory of nationalism, espoused among others by Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm, provides a surprising chronology of nationalism’s modernity. The modernization theory of nationalism has attracted extensive criticism from Anthony Smith, who proposed instead a theory he called “ethnosymbolism.” This article considers Smith’s critique of Anderson and then his critique of Hobsbawm, finding that Smith’s objections to modernist theorists rest on mischaracterizations, fallacies, and contradictions. Smith’s approach caters to the primordialism rampant in public opinion, providing scholarly respectability to popular misconceptions. Scholars of nationalism should look instead to Rogers Brubaker for guidance.

This meta-study examines the nature of past and current theoretically informed debates on sectarian politics in the Middle East and identifies the biggest challenges and possible directions for the future study of sectarianism. Contrary to the conventional narrative about a “sectarian journey” torn between a flawed primordialist and instrumentalist approach in between which a new superior “third way” is needed, the article shows that both primordialism and instrumentalism are rare in the academic debate on sectarianism, quite similar to the broader ethnicity/nationalism debate. However, this has not resulted in a “new conventional wisdom” about how to proceed. Thus, the article identifies a cacophony of suggestions for how the much aspired-to third way should look like. Against this background, the article suggests that it is time to go beyond the ritual calls to “get beyond primordialism and instrumentalism.” Instead, it is time to devote more attention to examining the multiple already existing suggestions for “third ways”. Rather than highlighting a single third way as superior, the article contributes to this move in two ways: it shows how the various third ways can be grouped into three “beyond strategies” (the New Saviour, the Baby and the Bathwater, and the LEGO eclectic strategies) and outlines a number of meta-theoretical issues to consider in order to move the debate forward.

Nihonjinron, the particularistic discourse on Japanese national identity, successfully dominates the Japanese panorama even now, thanks to the influence of academic and popular literature, mass media, Japan’s powerful cultural industry, politics, and a widespread, genuine interest in “Japaneseness” among the Japanese themselves. The works of professor Watanabe Shōichi represent an outstanding example of Nihonjinron literature and of its temporal continuity. From the second half of the 1970s until well into the 2000s, Watanabe has been surprisingly prolific in the nihonjinron field, enthusiastically propagating the establishment’s ideology. In this respect, his essays provide a significant insight into three main aspects of the Nihonjinron: the role of language as the highest expression of national identity; the existence of a widespread set of peculiar Japanese expressions conveying its ideological framework; its deep-rooted primordialist core. In the construction of a lexical and conceptual dichotomy between the stratum of the supposed “native lexicon” and that of “foreign loans” which compose the Japanese language and in the emphasis on the uniqueness of the Japanese language as a vehicle of Japanese primeval spirit, Watanabe shows the primordialist system of beliefs surrounding the concept of the “Japanese nation” (naturalness, organicity, continuity, timelessness, mythical-ness, sameness, perennial-ness) which firmly underlines the entire Japanese identity discourse.

Iran – Saudi Arabia’s rivalry hasbeen behind conflicts and instabilities in the region. However, the politicalnature of this rivalry is often over-simplified by mainstream media outlets.Similarly, a major part of literature on identity politics in Iran – SaudiArabia’s rivalry has mainly provided a comprehensive and descriptive account oftheir history as well as current conditions with ethnic and sectarianidentities as roots and origins of regional instabilities; or focused mainly onthe politicization and manipulation of Sunni and Shia Islam by actors in theirstruggles for power.Synthesizing the theories onidentity politics already in existence, namely Primordialism, instrumentalism,and social constructivism, this research constructed an integrated theoreticalmodel. In this model, sectarian identity - one essence intrinsic to MiddleEastern societies and constructed alongside regional history – is not onlymeasured by its tremendous influences on political processes; but also comparedin the usage of political actors of all levels in political practices., Ortadoğu bölgesindeki çatışma ve istikrarsızlıkortamının ardında İran - Suudi Arabistan rekabeti bulunmaktadır. Bununlabirlikte bu rekabetin politik doğası, çoğunlukla ana akım medya tarafındanaşırı derecede basitleştirilmiştir. Benzer biçimde İran – Suudi Arabistanrekabetinin içindeki kimlik politikaları üzerine yazılmış literatürün büyük birkısmı bölgesel istikrarsızlıkların kökeni ve kaynağını ağırlıklı olaraktarihlerinin genel ve betimleyici bir hesabını sunmuş veya oyuncuların iktidarmücadeleleri içerisinde Sünni ve Şii İslam’ın politikleşmesine vemanipülasyonuna odaklanmıştır. Halen mevcut olan kimlik politikaları üzerine teorileri sentezleyen, yaniPrimordializm, araçsallık, ve sosyal inşacılık, bu araştırmanın teorik modelinioluşturmaktadır. Bu modelde, mezhepsel kimlik – Ortadoğu toplumlarının ve yanısıra bölgesel tarihin bir gerçeği olarak – sadece politik süreçler üzerinemuazzam etkileri ölçülmedi, ayrıca politikuygulamalarda her düzeydeki politik aktörlerin kullanımıyla karşılaştırılmıştır.

The paper analyzes the tetralogy of novels by Dokiia Humenna “Children of the Milky Way” in the context of the postwar Ukrainian diaspora fiction. The researcher raises such issues as the genre nature, narrator’s position, problem of the relationship between the categories of time and space, and the alternative autobiography of the novel. The process of writing the novel is considered as an attempt to normalize the writer’s own traumatic experience, caused by two decades of totalitarian terror and repressions. Dokiia Humenna’s novel is regarded in the context of such genres as family chronicle and ‘novel of generations’, which was updated in Ukrainian literature of the post-war period as an attempt to overcome the threatening tendencies of the entropy. At the same time, considering the fact that the novel was written on the verge of fiction and documentaries, the researcher suggested reviewing the work in the context of testimonial literature. It is emphasized that ideas of generational consciousness and generational dimension of time shape the novel, and the concept of generation is associated with categories of ancestry, memory, trauma, and identity. The generation of Ukrainian 1920s, which Dokiia Humenna considers as her own, emerges in the novel as a complex and heterogeneous socio-cultural phenomenon, represented by historical fi gures that became symbols and signs of their time (Mykola Khvylovyi, Mykola Zerov, and others), by literary stories of their alter ego, and fictional characters, sometimes based on several real prototypes. The myth of primordialism is one of the most important in the novel. It is represented by the archetype of a hamlet, a patriarchal micromodel of Ukraine, traditional in classical Ukrainian literature. In addition, the author of the paper raised a question about the presence of the writer’s alternative autobiographies in the novel, which might be the ways of constructing her own identity.

The foundation of this study is political anthropology to see the phenomenon of ethnicity in local politics in the era of democratic decentralization. The study focused on ethnic cleavages in the form of strengthening social units that appear through descendant and clan sentiments at the moment of the Pemilukada (Local Executive Election). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand the phenomenon of ethnic cleavages which highlights descendant and clan sentiments in four districts in north of Tapanuli in the Pemilukada . Local politics at the time of democratic decentralization was not only used to expand the four cultural areas, namely Silindung, Humbang, Toba and Samosir, but also strengthen descent and clan sentiments in the Pemilukada. Although, the population in these four regions is a Toba ethnic group, its members destabilize and negate each other. This phenomenon originated from the domination of Silindung from the colonial era to the Reformation. Through Pemilukada , the descent and clan sentiments are used to blockade other candidates as well as mobilize selecting candidates from similar groups and clans. The promise of Pemilukada is channeled through a monopoly to fill government positions from one lineage group and clan. The approach of this problem is used Dunning and Harrison's theory about Cross-Cutting Cleavages and Ethnic Voting. The data collection was carried out through in-depth interviews with subjects, namely descendants and clans in four districts in north of Tapanuli. The results of the study show that: (i) ethnic cleavages occur because of the utilization and mobilization of social units namely descent and clan groups in the moment of Pemilukada , (ii) the strengthening of descent and clan group sentiments in Pemilukada is the impact of competition and contestation which are packaged as political capital for gained power, and (ii) political actors redefined ethnicity as 'Orang Toba' to smaller identities namely descendants and clans in each cultural region. The Toba ethnic groups are more loyal to their descendants and clan identities than their identities as 'Orang Toba' . Although the political analysis of the flow was considered less relevant as a result of the strengthening of the issue of interest in the Pemilukada , but the strengthening of division in ethnicity became a strong indication of ethnic cleavages and the game of primordialism during the Pemilukada .

Analyzing ethno-national conflicts is usually not easy in that not all quantitative scientific tools are useful to the student of a conflict based on primordial elements. The burden of studying the outcome of a conflict is all the more complex given that the two conflicting groups might be at two different stages of their political development at any given time during the course of the conflict. In the case of the fate of the [Eastern Christian] Assyrian community in early independent Iraq, the political rationale for decisions taken by each party was drawn from different sociological, historical and political realms. Decisions in times of conflict and their political and historical ramifications are not always rational, since they draw upon primordial/communal considerations rather than the accurate reading of the overall true strategic scene.The violence was an outcome of a combination of primordial differences and rational choice. The Iraqis sought to establish a new sovereign state with minima...

The causes of inter-ethnic conflict are complex as they are deeply rooted into the socio-cultural beliefs of the society. This study was guided by the Primordialism theory. The study employed descriptive research design. The study utilized both primary and secondary data. Data collection was done using questionnaires, interviews and Focus Group Discussions. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Packages for Social Scientists (SPSS 17). Data were presented in tables, bar graphs and pie charts. The findings of the study revealed that the conflicts in Nyakach and Sigowet Sub-counties were attributed to cattle rustling, political incitement and retaliatory attacks with the key perpetrators of the conflicts being politicians, youths and cattle rustlers. The conflicts were recurrent and largely affected the communities. Additionally, the recurrent conflicts were largely witnessed along the borders of the two sub-counties. The study concluded that both socio-cultural factors and politics had a lot of bearing on conflicts and as such members of the community and political players were key stakeholders if the conflicts were to be averted in the long term.

The article presents proven methodological approaches of traditional ethnic entrepreneurship forms study. The author stands on the positions of primordialism and considers the of ethnic entrepreneurship phenomenon on the base of fractal and network organization concepts. Ethnic entrepreneurship manifestations in the urban and rural environment are proposed to be considered in an organic relationship, as a process, that allows ethnos adaptation potential realization at all levels of social organization of ethnic minorities (from “households” to large trading firms), on the one hand. And, to integrate the primary institutions of the ethnos (fractals) into the system of regional and interregional economic (market) ties without the threat of losing ethnic identity, on the other hand. Special attention is paid to the ethnic economy place in the structure of ethnic processes (migration, adaptation, integration, consolidation, assimilation). This methodological approach allows us to consider ethnic entrepreneurship as a traditional economy structural element and a sociocultural phenomenon in statics. So, it is in dynamics, - as a manifestation of a multicomponent, hierarchically coordinated and latent (in form) process. According to the author, the actual ethnic economy should be attributed to the ethnic processes group. This allows you to expand the subject field of research in the field of social and applied anthropology (ethnology) significantly; to reach the level of scientific forecasting of the mechanism of interaction and interdependence of ethno-political and socio-economic processes.

Being granted of various religions and ethnicity, the people of Pematang Siantar could live harmoniously and free of religious-ethnic conflicts. The source of this paper is gained from a research applying anthropological-qualitative methods. The objective is to understand concept and thought, as well as to look at and observe the spirit of multiculturalism developed by the people of Pematang Siantar in maintaining their harmony. The data collection applies techniques of observation and deep interview, whereas the data is analysed interpretively by applying techniques of triangular analysis together with emic and etic perspectives. The result demonstrates that the harmony within the pluralistic society of Pematang Siantar could be maintained for within the people life, there have been developed collective awareness of plurality. Nevertheless, the society keep developing critical attitudes through the movement of multiculturalism that has been socially reproduced by applying internal perspective, namely the development of tolerant habit, the conservation of kinship system and tradition, the rejection of primordialism, and the application of the politic of multiculturalism.

In the article, the authors pose a question: to what extent can we speak of social work practice in support of refugees in post-socialist Southeastern Europe given that in the region, which was part of the Balkans Humanitarian Corridor in 2015 and 2016, state-supported social work practice is very limited and very prescriptive at the same time? The vocal anti-refugee sentiment in Central and Southeastern Europe that accompanied the migrants can be said to stem from the nineteenth-century primordialism: the one-state, one-nation ideology that also was embedded in the very construction of post-socialist states after 1991. Consequently, refugees are seen as the ultimate danger to everything “ours,” to women, men, and children of purportedly pure-blooded ethnonational origin, threatening “our” transgenerational sense of cultural and pseudobiological homogeneity. The rising post-socialist ethnonational primordialism, intertwined with conservative neopatriarchal ideologies, directly affects human rights observance and social work education and practice. The predominantly government-funded social workers generally are neither trained nor encouraged to work with refugees, while the popular and party politics of hatred is directed toward those who support refugees, social workers included. Anti-refugee sentiment, culturalization, and neopatriarchy are rationalized with arguments of fear and care; protecting the cultural and biological homogeneity of native residents leads to processes that turn care into violence, and ultimately into coercive care.

This chapter inventories the initial conditions of possibility for the establishment of a proxy colonial settler polity, whose trajectory of emergence and transformation is retraced in the subsequent chapters. Accordingly, it depicts the initial human-environment relations that prevailed during the pre-modern period of Soqotra’s history prior to its incorporation into a state-led modernization process and its subsequent enclosure within a United Nations-designed biodiversity conservation zoning plan and ecotourism economy. The term ecological primordialism is coined to highlight the primacy of the environment as the enabling and constraining context for the constitution of the Soqotran community.

This chapter examines the main theoretical perspectives on identities with reference to Caribbean including analyses of the strengths and limitations of each approach. It argues that the deepening of integration and the primacy of intra-regional migration in this project necessitate a closer examination of the role of CARICOM, particularly as it presents new sites for identity constructions. CARICOM is important for identity construction because it determines membership, rules, policies, practices and policies which affect the lived experiences of citizens. The chapter also examines theoretical explanations of the link between migration and integration. An interpretive approach which gives meaning to primordial, instrumental and constructed elements of identities is advanced as a productive tool for conceptualizing and studying Caribbean identities.

Besides its multiple harms, corruption undermines the rule of law and impedes the effective functioning of criminal justice institutions. It involves both elites in bending rules and laws as well as police at the bottom of the hierarchy asking for bribes. We analyze corruption intentions within the framework of Brennan and Pettit’s “economy of esteem,” using three main conceptual frameworks: attachment to kinship groups, materialistic orientations, and deterrence. We draw on data from a survey of 530 university students in Ghana to examine predictors of corruption intentions of prospective elites. Our prospective elites were more inclined to resort to influence peddling rather than to pay bribes directly. We find that attitudinal patterns indicative of esteem predict intentions to engage in corrupt exchanges across different agencies and contexts—police, procurement for government, and abuse of power—as well as different types of action, whether bribe payment or nepotism. In contrast, citizenly pride (and self-esteem) motivates integrity across all types of corrupt exchange. Deterrence, in terms of certainty, had a more consistently negative impact on intentions to engage in nepotism than in bribe paying and acceptance, with public procurement being the exception; no effect was found for stigma, and only police nepotism was an exception to the otherwise non-significant effects of severity.

Many of the explanations of Somali society, its state and the conflict in the country centre on the clan system and contain elements of primordialism or instrumentalism. Yet the assumptions underpi...

For several decades, the field of nationalism studies has seen an extended debate about explanations of nationalism and about the process of nation formation. An impressive set of labels has been coined to describe alternative approaches. One of the theories that has enjoyed unusual longevity is the approach known as primordialism, which stresses the deep historical and cultural roots of nations and nationalism and assumes their quasi-objective character. This resilience is surprising because of the difficulty of marshalling evidence to support such a theory, and because of the line-up of critics who dismiss it. This article explores the recent debate about primordialism. It suggests that authentic versions of primordialism are extremely hard to find in the academic literature, and that primordialism may better be viewed as an ingredient in nationalism than as an explanation of nationalism.

As of 2005, the mainland Chinese government has implemented ‘favor-granting policies’, the purpose of which is to offer economic benefits in exchange for Taiwanese people’s recognition of their pol...

This article depicts the initial human–environmental relations that prevailed during the pre-modern period of Soqotra’s history prior to its incorporation into a state-led modernization process and its subsequent enclosure within a United Nations-designed conservation zoning plan and ecotourism economy. The term ecological primordialism is coined to highlight the primacy of the environment as the enabling and constraining context for the constitution of the Soqotran community. It entails a symbiotic relationship between an ecosystem and a human social system, which structured the contingent relations between the raw materials for livelihood making and community formation: people, resources and space. The article elucidates how Soqotrans managed this mostly constraining human–environment nexus through a series of adaptive practices: their taxonomic appropriation and practical domestication of the island’s environmental resources; their transformation of the landscape into a domain of livelihood; their organization of dispersed settlements into a socio-political unit; their demarcation of the island into geographical zones of cultural differentiation; and their establishment of mutual aid institutions that simultaneously regulated resource use while integrating all islanders into relations of social kinship. The article concludes with a cautionary tale about the use of anachronistic human–environment relations as the basis of conservation policy.

This paper focuses on the impact of current nationalism studies on national narratives disseminated through secondary education. The paper draws on interviews and focus group discussions with 31 teachers in Slovakia as a case study and asks to what extent these teachers’ understandings of national identity reflect primordialism, constructivism or ethno-symbolism. It also explores the teachers’ awareness of these mainstream paradigms. The findings defy the straightforward categorisation of the teachers’ views into these paradigms and suggest that nationalism studies have a limited impact, as the teachers’ understandings remain unchallenged. The paper concludes with the implications for educational research and practice.

This article implements systemism to identify what is known so far about ethnic conflict, along with the most and least useful developments. Systemism is an approach that relies on diagrams to convey causal mechanisms in a more complete and logically consistent way. On the positive side, it is possible to point out greater awareness of the nexus of international and domestic conflict. Overreaction against primordialism and in favour of constructivism stands out on the negative side. Assessment of the field guided by systemism argues in favour of a research agenda focusing on causal mechanisms involving ethnic diversity, local armed conflict, and diffusion of ethnic conflict, with investigation based on mixed methods.

Identity assertions and conflicts in South Asia are addressed and analysed with a focus on the seven polities of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The complexity behind the emergence of multiple identities as individuals and collectivities, their connection with primordialism and constructivism and hierarchies within identities is discussed. Primary issues that foment conflicts are elaborated upon and analysed in the context of South Asia: the role of the nation-state, the question of identity and equity, identity as a source of inclusion and exclusion and the identity of dominated minorities as a source of insecurity for the ‘nation.’ It is argued that the intersectionality of stratified, heterogeneous, hierarchical and plural societies leads to conflicts specific to South Asia. The central argument that the fundamental problem that besets South Asia is the disjunction between empirical reality and the model of nation-building, adopted from West Europe. Further, the second dimension of disjunction is that of the autonomy of individuals and group identity. It is argued that South Asian states are not nation-states but should be designated as national states which should acknowledge and celebrates cultural diversity and equality between identity groups to decrease conflicts emanating out of identity assertions.

National resources for national defense in principle include human resources, natural resources, artificial resources and national infrastructure for national defense. The existence of resources and infrastructure will be a systematic implementation of development programs if proactive citizens support and participate in defense efforts of the state as well as in supporting the construction of national logistics reserves. SWOT analysis is used in addition to seeing the red thread between the two problems, also determining both internal and external factors for effective extraction strategies. Through a combination of comprehensive study literature and library research, it is hoped that analysis will lead to discrete efforts involving government programs in embody one of these 2021 state defense policies. The interplay of resources, the use of methods to determine the correct strategy goals is believed to direct the strategy to the right programs. The results of this study, internal factors in the strategic perspective can be elaborated with several external factors, namely the Opportunity aspect, namely the stability of stable civil-military relations, the potential for Natural Resources & Artificial Resources and the availability of Sarpras and Infrastructure as well as threats including high law violations, terrorism and radicalism and primordialism which are still high. These efforts are optimized to produce a solution strategy in solving the problem of developing defense resources and building national logistical reserves. The strategy determined based on SWOT calculations and weighting is in Quadrant I which means a favorable situation so that the strategy implemented is to fully support government policy.

To explain ethnicity, scholars have come to an endless discussion providing a wide spectrum of ethnicity throughout the world. Various perspectives have been suggested to comprehend the notion of ethnicity. To this point, there are three most well-known perspectives to explain this term, namely primordialism, instrumentalism, and constructivism approach. Most scholars commonly apply one approach to dissect a case study related to ethnicity. Few have ombined two approaches, for each approach seems to contradict one another. However, this paper suggests that those three approaches can be simultaneously applied if critically used to discern certain case studies related to ethnicity in Southeast Asia. This argument will be elaborated into the analysis of ethnic identity for the minority and majority groups in Indonesia and Thailand.

North American archaeologists must reconsider their implicit adherence to the culture history paradigm. The long-standing role of this approach to situate archaeological remains in space and time is far outweighed by the negative impacts of its underlying assumptions about the correspondence of biological and cultural groups, intragroup uniformity, discrete spatial boundaries, primordialism, and sequential change. These discredited assumptions divert attention from variability, privilege certain research questions and interpretations, hinder dialogue with other disciplines, and facilitate the misuse of archaeology for political purposes. We recommend alternative perspectives that recognize the importance of space-time context, accommodate the complexity of new suites of archaeological data, and are more consistent with what we now know about past and present social relations.

This study investigates dynamics among national cultures in Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, with special emphasis on the characters’ national memories, ones that are activated by the global crisis of World War II. The displaced characters, situated in the foreign lands of wartime Europe, generate such memories for cultural and ideological purposes. This essay explores the manner in which their memories, implicated with founding myths and elitist genealogy, expose serious contradictions in national histories. Gravity’s Rainbow critically undermines the characters’ desire to return to the pristine national origin and reformulates their genealogy when it powerfully generates the memory of imperialist aggression and modernizing, technological violence. This study also grapples with the questions of primordialism and genealogy in the national myths of the colonial other, especially the type of primordialism called “nativism.” Their myths interrupt imperial national imagination and criticize destruc...

In relation to the existence of State Civil Apparatus, at least there are two issues that must be observed in the implementation of Regional elections, namely the issues of participation and neutrality of State Civil Apparatus. The phenomenon that occurs during this time is the involvement of the State Civil Apparatus in attendance is still minimum (low). Moreover, it is believed that there are many Civil Apparatus State who is not neutral in the organization of Regional Elections. In this regard, this study aims to analyze the participation and neutrality of State Civil Apparatus. The method utilized in this study is qualitative. The result of the study shows that in general the participation of State Civil Apparatus in Surabaya is adequately good, but the neutrality of State Civil Apparatus has not implemented well enough. There are at least three (3) main factors influencing the participation of Civil State Apparatus, namely the factors of leadership exemplary, commitment to employees, and employee development. As for the neutrality of the State Civil Apparatus, among others, is influenced by the factors of the ambition of employee, primordialism, and working environment of employees.

The birth of modern Czech culture can be traced back to the period of the National Revival (or Renascence). This movement of cultural and political emancipation from Austrian domination started in the 1780s with the efforts of antiquarians and philologists and was gaining momentum in the first half of the 19th century under the influence of Romantic historicism. As in other European countries, Romantic historicism in the Czech lands was characterized by "primordialism" (Smith 5). The effort of the nationalists to appropriate Shakespeare as the artist who "would paint for us the heroes of the ancient times" (Chmelensky 383) is confronted with another approach to the past depicting the life of the ancient Slavs as a glorious origin of national culture. In the forged medieval manuscripts Rukopis kralovedvorsky (The Manuscript of Dvur Kralove, 1817) and Rukopis zelenohorsky (The Manuscript of Zelena Hora, 1818) the medieval past is the absolute value establishing the "eternity" of Czech culture.Although The Manuscripts refer to specific events in the history of the Czech lands, the evocation of these events is not their main purpose. The events are represented in an eschatological manner, as the moments of revelation of the eternal truth. For instance, in the opening poem of The Manuscript of Dvur Kralove, entitled "Oldrich and Boleslav," the liberation of Prague from the Polish sway is depicted as the final battle in Armageddon. The Manuscripts thus stress the analogy between the mythical events of the Apocalypse or the Resurrection and the historicism of the national emancipation movement. This feature can be described as a kind of ideologization of historical time, the invention of historical narratives in accordance with the demands of the emancipation movement. These narratives are frequently repeated (for instance in the frescoes and statues decorating the building of the National Theatre in Prague), and thus formalized and ritualized (Hobsbawm 4).As a result, in The Manuscripts there is no trace of a careful construction of the value system of the imaginary cultural epoch, as we can see in James Macpherson's and Hugh Blair's Dissertations introducing The Poems of Ossian (1765). All stages of historical development are evaluated only with regard to the present needs of the movement. Historical time is reduced into a linear sequence of events, all marked either + or - (Otruba 239). The subjectivity inventing the culture is deliberately diluted in an abstract, objectified totality of language. The Manuscripts are conceived as products of collective oral tradition and, at the same time, as demonstrations of the creative nature of an imaginary, ancient Czech language constructed out of disjointed elements of all Slavonic languages. This patchwork representing the wholeness of language serves as a substitute for the totality of cultural epoch ("the era of Ossian") in Macpherson's and Blair's Dissertations.With the wholeness of language, the territorial integrity of the Czech state becomes an important issue. This is mainly evident from the longer fragment ("Libussa's Judgement") included in The Manuscript of Zelena Hora which names the lands and seats of some chieftains attending a session of the diet. In this way the imaginary territory of the ancient state of Bohemia is delimited, including even the parts settled by German colonists during the later Middle Ages. This effort to appropriate a historical space by a linguistic activity is frequent in the literature of the Czech nationalist movement.The representation of history in Shakespeare's 2 Henry IV is based on completely different principles, which do not have anything common with the nationalist primordialism. It can be described, again in Anthony Smith's terms, as "perennialism" (3: 27ff). History is present continuously "in all men's lives." It figures "the natures of the times deceas'd" as future potentialities of historical development. (2 Henry IV 3:1:75-79) Shakespeare's approach to history follows the Renaissance typology, where the past events prefigure the future ones, but at the same time, it abstracts from the metaphysical framework of this typology, the Divine Providence. …

This article is a theoretical and historiographical essay about the criticisms and alternatives to modernism in Nation and Nationalism Studies. It outlines a general overview of classical modernism and its versions as a point of departure. Subsequently, the main alternative trends are developed according to the works of both classic and recent authors. First, primordialism and perennialism are distinguished, and their explanations regarding the antiquity of national phenomena are outlined. Second, it addresses ethno-symbolic contributions and their intermediate proposals between the previous trends and modernism. The article finishes with the new approaches developed during recent years, which try to overcome debates on whethernations are modern or not, and suggests new lines and topics of research.

The rise of ethnic struggles in various parts of the world, particularly in the post-colonial period, is an intriguing phenomenon. Having the consciousness of primordial origins, indigenous communities have pursued ethnic mobilizations along different lines in order to achieve the goals of social and economic uplift. This paper focuses on the Rajbanshi, one such community living in northeast India, as they offer an opportunity to study history and ethnic identity formation as the dynamics behind their current situation. From the standpoint of applied anthropology, processes of social change and activism intended to improve the lot of Rajbanshi communities are evaluated. Given their obscure origins, cultural diversity and divided political struggle, the Rajbanshi are far from achieving their goal of pursuing better lives. Strategies of Sanskritization and ‘sons-of-the-soil’ indigeneity have not reaped the desired results in terms of social and economic development. Furthermore, discourses rooted in...

In an era of increasing scepticism of racism and primordialism, national narratives have urgent reasons to move from arbitrariness to motivation. Memorials to blood sacrificed have long valorized many nations, and sanctified their senses of destiny. In Singapore, prosperity and growth have fuelled the nation, but claims of sacrifice motivate and even justify its independent existence. Lee Kuan Yew was a principal architect of the national narrative, including the creation of a monument (1967) memorializing the civilians killed by Japanese occupiers during World War II—not only the thousands of Chinese caught up in a purge early in the occupation but also the Malays, Indians, and Eurasians who perished, a fourfold sacrifice for the nation. Following his death in March 2015, the Singaporean public viewed Lee’s own life as a sacrifice to them, creating a debt that they must redeem by maintaining the nation he helped to build, a nation established not by race, heritage, accident, or exclusion but by duties embraced within mutual commitment.

The purpose of this research is to examine the expert opinions on the territorial and border issues in the CAR. The border issues are of key importance in Central Asia Relationships (CAR). The border between the region states, carried out in the Soviet period, excluding local religious, cultural, ethnic and economic specificity, are increasingly turning to the conflict zones. In the context of the existing situation it requires careful attention, both from officials and the scientific community of the region. Priority basis of the paper were Central and Western experts survey, conducted by the authors and introduced into scientific use. In the course of research, the common ground and knots of contradictions were identified in the expert's approaches on the issue. This fact indicates the complexity of solving the underlined issues in the short term.

This article explores the programmatic policies used by the incumbent in Temon Kulon Village, Kulon Progo Regency, Yogyakarta, during the village chief election. It finds that, even as identity politics (particularly religion) have become an increasingly important part of Indonesian politics, some village chiefs attempted to apply programmatic politics. Although most commonly associated with higher levels of government (including municipal elections) and political parties, in this case programmatic politics was applied within a village where local traditions and culture remained strong. This article also shows that identity politics is used not only to mobilise support against non-Muslim incumbents; it is also used to contest elections through a cultural primordialism. Through analysis of qualitative and quantitative data, as well as a series of interviews and observations, this article shows that religious fundamentalism can be moderated through a combination of programmatic politics and local political identities.