Full Description
What does it mean to "fit in?" In this volume of essays, editors Günther Schlee and Alexander Horstmann demystify the discourse on identity, challenging common assumptions about the role of sameness and difference as the basis for inclusion and exclusion. Armed with intimate knowledge of local systems, social relationships, and the negotiation of people's positions in the everyday politics, these essays tease out the ways in which ethnicity, religion and nationalism are used for social integration.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Difference and Sameness as Modes of Integration
Günther Schlee
Chapter 1. Distances and Hierarchies: The Struggle over Ethnic Symbols in Nepal's Public Spaces
Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka
Chapter 2. Identity through Difference: Ambivalences of the Social Integration of Mauritania's Former Slaves
Urs Peter Ruf
Chapter 3. Identification with the State and Identifications by the State
Günther Schlee
Chapter 4. Politics of Belonging and Identity Transformations in Northern Côte d'Ivoire and Western Burkina Faso
Youssouf Diallo
Chapter 5. Tanguiéta: Identity Processes and Political History in a Small African Town
Tilo Grätz
Chapter 6. Transnational Practices and Post-Soviet Collective Identity
Claus Bech Hansen and Markus Kaiser
Chapter 7. Living Together: The Transformation of Multi-Religious Coexistence in Southern Thailand
Alexander Horstmann
Chapter 8. Three Dyads Compared: Nuer/Anywaa (Ethiopia), Maasai/Kamba (Kenya), and Evenki/Buryat (Siberia)
Günther Schlee
Chapter 9. Ruling over Ethnic and Religious Differences: A Comparative Essay on Empires
Günther Schlee
Epilogue
Günther Schlee, Alexander Horstmann, and John Eidson
Bibliography
Index
