Minority Identities: Maintenance, Transmission and Revitalization

This article examines the dynamics of the Feitao ritual, a traditional practice of the Maonan ethnic minority, within the broader context of globalization and heritagization in China. It addresses the challenge of preserving the cultural identity and memory of ethnic minorities amidst economic development imperatives, a dilemma common to many late-developing countries. By focusing on transforming the Feitao ritual from a communal practice to a performative spectacle, this study unravels the intricate process of heritage ecology within minority rituals. Utilizing a combination of ethnological fieldwork and interviews, this article explores the perceptions and approaches toward the post-heritagization of the ritual among the Maonan community members and policymakers. It also emphasizes on the evolution of the ritual into a significant tourist attraction, showcasing the performative transformation of religious practices by an ethnic minority in China. The central argument of this article is that this ritual is formed in ecological interactions; it also symbolizes a self-defense for the rights and a pursuit of recognition for a minority group. It has been a vital medium for the Maonan people to construct and uphold a positive self-perception. This study endorses a faith-aware and community memory-focused approach to preserve the cultural heritage of ethnic minorities. The authors contend that this approach is essential to safeguard the cultural memory and identity of minorities in developing countries like China against the homogenizing forces brought by globalization in China.

Ethnic tourism has been employed as a development strategy in many minority communities where options for development are often limited. This research explores the impacts of ethnic tourism development on minority people and their identities in an ethnic community in Lugu Lake, Yunnan, China. Findings reveal that active involvement in tourism and commercialization of Mosuo cultural traditions have resulted in the consolidation of a collective Mosuo identity for economic, social and cultural purposes. Local villagers actively express their identity and re-create their dress, dances and religion to satisfy tourists' desires for authenticity. Tourism has reinforced elements of Mosuo culture, giving it new prestige in the Han-dominated society, but it has also brought numerous changes to Mosuo communities. It is argued that the preservation of minority culture and identity should be enhanced if long-term sustainable development of tourism is to occur and the evolving nature of ethnic identity is to be recognized.

Intersectionality is useful as both a theoretical framework and tool for practical analysis. This is particularly the case in the experiences of minority women holding multiple minoritised identities and interacting with power structures that have historically and contextually marginalised them. This chapter considers the self-representation of Sámi wom*n through colonial legacies of forced assimilation and lasting colonial gender dynamics; their engagement with environmental activism through decolonial representations; and the development of inter-Sami and inter-indigenous solidarity. Through an in-depth discourse analysis on three Sámi wom*n content creators on Instagram, the analysis shows how they utilise the digital realm towards self-representation and cultural survival while challenging dominant and mainstream narratives about their culture. This contribution aims to show how intersectionality can provide a critical framework to connect digital self-representation and minority identity. Ultimately, it aims to capture the digital processes of identity production in intersectional terms, namely in relation to minority and indigenous identity(ies), representation, discourse, and power.

Despite the psychosocial strain of homonegative religious attitudes, many people with minoritized sexual identities also hold religious identities and benefit from integrating their sexual minority and religious identities. However, for research and clinical practice to advance, a reliable and valid measure of sexual and religious identity integration is needed. The present study reports on the development and validation of the Sexual Minority and Religious Identity Integration (SMRII) Scale. Participants were comprised of two subsamples for whom sexual and religious identity is particularly salient (Latter-day Saints and Muslims) as well as a third subsample of the general sexual minority population—totaling 1,424 individuals (39% POC, 62% cisman, 27% ciswoman, 11% trans/non-binary/genderqueer). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the 5-item scale measures a single unidimensional construct. This scale demonstrated good internal consistency in the total sample (α = .80) as well as metric and scalar invariance along relevant demographics. The SMRII also evidenced strong convergent and discriminant validity, significantly correlating with other measures of religious and sexual minority identity typically between r = .2 and r = .5. Taken together, initial findings indicate that the SMRII is a psychometrically sound measure that is brief enough to be utilized in research and clinical settings. Public Significance Statement: This article introduces the Sexual Minority and Religious Identity Integration Scale (SMRII) as a reliable and valid assessment of the degree to which individuals integrate their sexual minority and religious identities. This five-item measure is brief enough to be utilized in both research and clinical settings.

Buddhist Fundamentalism and Minority Identities in Sri Lanka. Tessa J. Bartholomeusz and Chandra R. de Silva. eds. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. 212 pp.

In a multinational state, the regional identity of national minorities is of dual nature. The development of an ethnical regional identity is akin to personal education. It depends on the degree of well-being, quality of the relationship. Scales of ethnical regional identity are complex formations dependent on the intensity of pressure of the national state and the level of claims of regional ethnic groups. The research subject is factors that form characteristics of ethnical regional identities of the peoples of Yakutia and Bretagne. Various cultural and social factors play a decisive role in forming ethnical regional identity of national minorities living in the multinational state, shaping its mobile dual character. The correlation of the influence of socio-cultural factors on personality creates a dual positive and negative ethnical regional identity. The shared experience brought many fraternal peoples together, determined the Yakut regional identity. The historical past, components of the complex ethnical concept “Yakutia” are the source of the positive part of the ethnical Yakut regional identity.

Race, Legal Representation, and Lawyer Ethics

The purpose of this article is to address the links between minority culture, education and identity in the context of Palestinian Arabs in Israel (PAI). In an effort to demonstrate the unique socio-political status and cultural orientation of the PAI, the historical background of Palestinians in Israel is provided as well as a description of the educational system in Israel, with emphasis on Arab sector education. Against this background, I examine: (1) issues of education and identity among PAI and (2) the potential for identity conflict. Since the majority of teachers in the Arab sector are women, issues of gender relations are also discussed. The narrative methodology is recommended for further research on the way in which Palestinian Arab teachers, as potential agents of social change, relate to the broader cultural context in which they live and how identity issues are managed and expressed in the context of professional roles. The author of this article is a Palestinian Arab teacher in the Israeli educational system. This provides an opportunity for an in-depth analysis of the phenomena presented from an “insider” perspective.

The concept of citizenship is currently the subject of extensive, and often heated, debate on the part of policy makers and social scientists. Many of the key concerns encapsulated in the idea of citizenship—collective identity, solidarity, pro‐social behaviour, group boundaries, intra and intergroup conflict—also represent longstanding concerns on the part of social and community psychologists. However, at present, very little psychological theory or research directly addresses the subject of citizenship. The aim of this Special Issue is to explore how the construct of citizenship might contribute to social psychological understandings of social conflict and solidarity and, conversely, to consider how existing social psychological theories and methods might contribute to contemporary understandings of citizenship. The authors of the six articles in the Special Issue apply a range of theoretical perspectives (self‐categorization theory, social identity theory, rhetorical psychology, the theory of social representations) and methods (experiments, surveys, interviews, ethnography) to examine situated understandings of citizenship in a variety of domains (civic and political participation, immigration attitudes, minority identities, nationalism). Despite their different approaches, the authors display a common concern to recognize complexity, contradiction and contestability as inherent, and often productive, features of the everyday construction and performance of citizenship. As a consequence, social psychological perspectives may have the potential to restore the damaged reputation of the citizen currently apparent in much policy and social scientific discourse. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper examines an Anglophone Bruneian novel, The Last Bastion of Ingei (2016), by Aammton Alias, as postcolonial speculative fiction. Employing the double lines of enquiry provided by the Orientalist colonial gaze and ideology of progress, I discuss symbolic and materialist aspects of the violent processes of othering experienced within the Bruneian nation. The novel delineates the way that a colonial mindset undermines indigenous and minority identities. I contend that the hybridity of human-hantu relations functions as a strategy of resistance by collapsing demarcated boundaries between self and alien other. A further revival of the cultures of indigenous Malays, non-indigenous Ibans, and Penans within Brunei exhibits the extent to which the novel's project of decolonization is promoted. Furthermore, a dystopian world of conflict is rejected in an ultimate desire for utopian peace and happiness as the novel calls for a suturing of social and racial divisions. To this end, a unified nation is yearned for via speculative scenes of reconciled relations of its family members. Hence, I argue that this novel offers a valuable critique of the conditions of postcolonial identity through contested powers, spaces and voices through its speculative narrative plot.

About the Contributors

The 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games revived memories related to the Circassians’ forced migration from their Caucasus homeland into the Ottoman Empire after 150 years. In that year, I conducted a considerable oral history project to understand the collective memories of Circassians in Turkey. The main focus of this study is, however, the social construction of the Circassian minority in Turkey. I examine their oral historical narratives related to their immigration, reception and resettlement, and instrumentalization. It is as important to place emphasis on the protected, multiplied and renewed sociocultural values of Circassians as it is to confront the history. I will examine the relationship between their diasporic identity and minority identity as well as their preferences in identity reproduction.

The advent of religious toleration in England at the end of the seventeenth century has long interested political theorists as well as intellectual and literary historians. Many have argued that toleration is, or ought to be, a movement from below, born of the desire to be free. By contrast, a careful reading of John Locke and the latitudinarian tradition indicates that toleration originates in raison d'état arguments, and that the question of state power can be neither historically nor analytically detached from it. Toleration is among other things a linguistic program, and it turns out that the discourse of toleration mistrusts the ambiguities of literary language. Two poems by John Dryden, Religio Laici and "To the Pious Memory of the Accomplished Young Lady Mrs Anne Killigrew," push against the limits of toleration discourse; the first, written while Dryden was still an Anglican, limns the emptiness of a formal commitment to "common quiet"; the riotous figuration of the second, written the year of his conversion to Catholicism, points to what Charles Taylor has called the "awkwardness" of a multicultural polity trying to balance its commitments to majority and minority identities.

BackgroundThe leading cause of cancer death for women worldwide continues to be breast cancer. Early detection through timely mammography has been recognized to increase the probability of survival. While mammography rates have risen for many women in recent years, disparities in screening along racial/ethnic lines persist across nations. In this paper, we argue that the role of local context, as identified through spatial heterogeneity, is an unexplored dynamic which explains some of the gaps in mammography utilization by race/ethnicity.MethodsWe apply geographically weighted regression methods to responses from the 2008 Public Health Corporations’ Southeastern Household Health Survey, to examine the spatial heterogeneity in mammograms in the Philadelphia metropolitan area.ResultsWe find first aspatially that minority identity, in fact, increases the odds of a timely mammogram: 74% for non-Hispanic Blacks and 80% for Hispanic/Latinas. However, the geographically weighted regression confirms the relation of race/ethnicity to mammograms varies by space. Notably, the coefficients for Hispanic/Latinas are only significant in portions of the region. In other words, the increased odds of a timely mammography we found are not constant spatially. Other key variables that are known to influence timely screening, such as the source of healthcare and social capital, measured as community connection, also vary by space.ConclusionsThese results have ramifications globally, demonstrating that the influence of individual characteristics which motivate, or inhibit, cancer screening may not be constant across space. This inconsistency calls for healthcare practitioners and outreach services to be mindful of the local context in their planning and resource allocation efforts.

Two studies were conducted to investigate a revised and extended version of the Lesbian and Gay Identity Scale (Mohr & Fassinger, 2000): the 27-item Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Identity Scale (LGBIS). This revision features more inclusive and less stigmatizing language than the previous version and includes 2 new subscales assessing identity affirmation and centrality. In Study 1, an exploratory factor analysis (n = 297) and a confirmatory factor analysis (n = 357) supported an 8-factor solution assessing acceptance concerns, concealment motivation, identity uncertainty, internalized homonegativity, difficulty with the identity development process, identity superiority, identity affirmation, and identity centrality. Predicted associations with measures of identity-related constructs and psychosocial functioning provided preliminary validity evidence for LGBIS scores in a college student population. Study 2 (N = 51) provided evidence of the test-retest and internal consistency reliability of LGBIS scores. These studies suggest that the LGBIS may offer researchers an efficient means of assessing multiple dimensions of sexual orientation minority identity.