National Identity and National Unity in Contemporary East Timorese Literature

Beginning with a panoramic analysis of the role played by East Timorese poets in the struggle for liberation from Portuguese and Indonesian colonial rule, this article examines the extent to which an East Timorese national identity and unity repeatedly featured in the poetry of the 1970s and 80s are represented in contemporary Timorese literary production. By reading the work of the novelist Luís Cardoso, and the poets Abé Barreto and Celso Oliveira, the article also assesses whether the independent nation envisioned earlier by those such as Borja da Costa, Fernando Sylvan and Xanana Gusmão, has been realised. In doing so, critical attention is brought to bear on the intimate relationship between the specific material and political circumstances of East Timor and the literature produced in colonial and postcolonial moments in the nation’s history.

Indigenous rights in Chile: National identity and majority group support for multicultural policies

We examine support for policies affecting indigenous ethnic minorities in Chile. Specifically, we examine the role of national group definitions that include the largest indigenous group—the Mapuche—in different ways. Based on questionnaire data from nonindigenous Chilean students (N = 338), we empirically distinguish iconic inclusion, whereby the Mapuche are seen as an important part of Chile's history and identity on the one hand, from egalitarian inclusion, which represents the Mapuche as citizens of equal importance to the nonindigenous majority on the other. Both forms of inclusion positively predict support for indigenous rights, independent of participants' political affiliation, strength of national identification, and social distance. A second study (N = 277) replicates this finding whilst controlling for right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, blind patriotism, and constructive patriotism. It also finds iconic inclusion to be predictive of a pro-Mapuche position regarding the unrest over the issue of ancestral land in 2009. We conclude that understanding how national identity affects attitudes about minority rights necessitates appreciating the importance of particular meanings of nationality, and not only the strength of identification.

North Korean asylum seekers in the ROK : national identity and social integration

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

British national identity and the dilemmas of multiculturalism

Nationalism and multiculturalism are often perceived as polar opposites with the former viewed as the disease and the latter the cure. Contrary to this view, this article argues that a strong national identity, albeit of a particular kind, is prerequisite to a stable and functioning multicultural society. The article seeks to identify both the causes and the implications of the absence of an overarching, civic national identity in Britain, further to the goal of seeking a meaningful solution. It is our contention that the problem lies in the difficulty involved in reconciling current pressures on British identity with a coherent narrative of British history, especially its imperial past.

Towards a ‘civic’ narrative: British national identity and the transformation of the British National Party

This article examines the ways in which the BNP utilises the elements of British national identity in its discourse and argues that, during Griffin's leadership, the party has made a discursive choice to shift the emphasis from an ethnic to a civic narrative. We put forward two hypotheses, 1: the modernisation of the discourse of extreme right parties in the British context is likely to be related to the adoption of a predominantly civic narrative and 2: in the context of British party competition the BNP is likely to converge towards UKIP, drawing upon elements of its perceived winning formula, i.e. a predominantly civic rhetoric of national identity. We proceed to empirically test our hypotheses by conducting a twofold comparison. First, we compare the BNP's discourse pre- and post-1999 showing the BNP's progressive adoption of a civic narrative; and second the BNP's post-1999 discourse to that of UKIP in order to illustrate their similarities in terms of civic values.

Clash of identities in South Florida: An examination of the complexity of racial and national identity and their impact on ethnic solidarity between black Americans and Jamaicans

Immigrants from the West Indies and other nations challenge the simple United States dichotomy of blacks versus whites. Many apparently black Caribbean immigrants proclaim that they did not know they were “black” until they arrived in the U.S. They seek to maintain their national identity and resist identity and solidarity with Black Americans. In response, many Black Americans respond that the immigrants are simply being naive, that U.S. society demands simple racial identity. Regardless of one's self-identity and personal history, in the U.S., if you look black, you are black, was their thinking. ^ This study examines the contemporary struggle of identity and solidarity among and between Black Americans and Jamaicans living in South Florida (Broward and Miami-Dade counties). Even though the primary focus of this study is to examine the relationship between Black Americans and Jamaicans, other West Indian nationals will be addressed more generally. The primary research problem of this study is to determine why the existence of common ancestry and physical traits are insufficient for an assumption of ethnic solidarity between Black Americans and Jamaicans. ^ In examining this problem, I felt that depth rather than breadth would provide insight into the current state of polarization between Black Americans and Jamaicans. To this end, a qualitative study was designed. A non-random snowball sample consisting of forty-seven informants was selected for this study. Realizing that such a technique presents problems with generalizations beyond the sample, this approach was, nonetheless, the most suitable for the current research problem. One of the initial challenges of this research was the use of the label “black” in discussing Caribbean immigrants. Unlike America, where distinctions based on skin color were at the bedrock of America's formation, this was not the case in the Caribbean. In the Caribbean skin color was an important marker as an indicator of class, rather than of race. Therefore, I refrained from using the label, “black Jamaicans,” but rather used Jamaicans throughout. ^

Citizenship education, national identity and political trust: The case of Sweden

The challenging effects of globalization upon the nation-state have been a recurrent theme in the social science discourse since the 1990’s. Nationally organized education is also seen as challenged by new demands originating from globalization. In this article it is argued that ‘nation-state’ and ‘national identity’ are highly relevant concepts when discussing a citizenship education that seeks to develop a civic ethos with, potentially, a global reach. It is further argued that the understanding of such an ethos would benefit significantly from incorporating the role of political trust since trust has been identified as a main feature of the social capital that makes democracy work. Three themes are brought together: national identity and identification, the importance for democracy of political trust and the challenges citizenship education face when carried out in a national context but intended to manage issues that go far beyond the reach of the nation-state. The importance of citizenship education is discussed using recent research on the Swedish citizenship education classroom.

DOCUMENT CONTROL OF NATIONAL MAPPING AND METRIC STUDIES CHARACTERIZING NATIONAL IDENTITY AND INDIVIDUAL. I STAGE

This is a project of the School of Library, Documentation and Information of the National University, is performed to support the initiative of UNESCO to build the Memory of the World (UNESCO, 1995) and to help provide universal access to documentation. To this end, the School of Library Science students has promoted the realization of final graduation work on documentary control of domestic production. This project has the following objectives:Objectives1. Conduct mapping national documentary through the identification, analysis, organization and access to documentary heritage of Costa Rica, to contribute to the Memory of the World.2. Perform bibliometric analysis of documentary records contained in the integrated databases.This project seeks to bring undergraduate students graduating from the school, in making final graduation work on document control. Students have the opportunity to make final graduation work on the documentary production of Costa Rica on a specific theme or on a country's geographical area.Desk audits aimed at identifying the document using access points and indicate its contents to allow recovery by the user.The result is the production of a new document, other than the original, a secondary document: the bibliography. The records in the database each control documentation completed work will be integrated into a single database to be placed on the website of EBDI, for consultation of researchers and interested users.

National identity in a foreign context: Irish women accounting for their children’s national identity in England

Social psychologists have attempted to capture the ideological quality of the nation through a consideration of its taken-for-granted quality, whereby it forms an unnoticed ‘banal’ background to everyday life and is passively absorbed by its members in contrast to its ‘hot’, politically created and contested nature. Accordingly, national identity is assumed to be both passively absorbed from the national backdrop and actively acquired through national inculcation. This raises the question of how national identity is expressed, transmitted and acquired in a foreign context, where the banal national backdrop is unavailable to scaffold identity and the national resources for identity transmission may be unavailable. The present article addresses this gap by examining the situation of Irish women raising children in England. Critical discursive analyses of the 16 interviews revealed that all women treated their children’s national identity and the issue of transmitting identity as dilemmatic: passive transmission risks children passively absorbing English, but active transmission contravenes the assumed naturalness of national identity and can furthermore conflict with children’s own personal choice. These results point to the complex interaction between the management of national identity and the broader personal and national context within which this occurs.

The discursive construction of Portuguese national identity in the media thirty years after the 1974 revolution

Tese dout., Philosophy, Lancaster University, 2010