This chapter is about the fate of a registration system designed for the exclusion of ‘undesirable’ Indian migrants to South Africa in the first decades of the twentieth century. It traces the bureaucracy's deployment of residence permits, but shows how these were transacted along the networks established by long-established Indian Ocean merchant houses. This illicit economy provoked important reforms in record-keeping. Yet South Africa's immigration offices remained in disarray for another 15–20 years. The gaps were filled by shrewd criminal touting (...) syndicates within the bureaucracy. More stringent record-keeping was finally in place by the mid-1920s due to help from migrant associations, although this hardly meant that insider subversion had been completely smothered. The chapter argues that South African border controls were not successfully coercive, and suggests that performative histories are important in the study of repressive registration regimes. (shrink)

The latent functions of African immigration are often overlooked. Over the years, these functions have produced scenarios worth researching. Many people migrate from Africa to the West looking for greener pastures with the goal of economic upliftment. Amid this venture, however, the African immigrants come along with skills, talents, academic potentials, and religious beliefs. Most African immigrants associate with Christianity and deem it a spiritual mandate from God to impact their sphere of influence during their (...) expeditions. Thus, these groups of immigrants raise churches, form prayer groups, preach the gospel, and create mission fields. The focus of this article is threefold. First, to examine how the religiosity of African Christian immigrants have influenced their lives and in turn impacted the American Christian landscape. Second, how immigration legislation of the United States has revolutionized the lives of African immigrants. Third, how pull and push factors have become a source of motivation for African immigration. (shrink)

How can we ameliorate the current immigration policies toward Mexican people immigrating to the United States? This study re-examines how the development of scenarios assisted South Africa to dismantle apartheid without engaging in a bloody civil war. Following the scenario approach, we articulate positions taken by different interest groups involved in the debate concerning immigration from Mexico. Next, we formulate a set of scenarios which are evaluated as to how well each contributes to the well-being of the populace both of (...) Mexico and of the United States. The South African scenario model has proven to be an effective tool in times of political disagreement. It fosters a common language among competing groups, non-hierarchal communication among groups, and acknowledgement of the concerns of each group involved. (shrink)

addams wrote movingly about how significant her immigrant neighbors’ cultures were, both to the immigrants and to non-immigrant Americans. She lived in one of Chicago’s many densely populated immigrant districts, with Italians, Greeks, Russians, Poles, Bohemians, and Eastern European Jews in the immediate vicinity of Hull House.1 Through countless interactions with these neighbors, Addams developed the empirical knowledge base and the perceptual sensitivities with which to reflect on the role of culture in sustaining and enriching human and community life. (...) Addams spoke and wrote extensively on these issues.Addams had fewer interactions with African Americans. When Hull House opened in 1889, immigrants and their .. (shrink)

marilyn fischer’s careful historiographical treatment of the ideas and life of Jane Addams deepens our understanding of Addams’s important work as a thinker and practitioner. The paper paints a picture of the ideological and sociological landscape of Addams’s world, paying close attention to the relationships Addams had with other prominent thinkers of the day, such as the African Americans W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, as well as the pragmatist Josiah Royce. Fischer seems to have doubled (...) aims in the paper. On the one hand, she makes a set of claims that helps us understand Addams better as a historical thinker. On the other hand, the paper advances another set of claims about Addams’s relation to .. (shrink)

We examine 575 randomly selected articles on Zimbabwean immigrants from the South African Media database to expose discourses of exclusion and the production of the psycho-social condition – moral panic. We use critical discourse analysis, notions of remediation and immediacy to scrutinize discourse structures and other discursive strategies designed to conceal mediation and authorial prejudices, and to make the reader ‘experience’ the actual content. In addition to making the anti-immigrant rhetoric appear legitimate, and the danger immediate and real, (...) we argue that the apparent seamless content is often biased by selection and structured in such a way as to deny voice to immigrants and their advocates. Among other things, we conclude that since the readers’ interpretations are filtered through lenses of subjectivities defined by communicative contexts characterized by job scarcity, poverty, crime and wanting healthcare, the news content heightens anxiety and miseducates more than it enlightens readers on migration issues. Hence there is a danger of SAM becoming unwitting conveyors of the same vices they preach against. (shrink)

In this article, we explore how sub-Saharan African immigrant populations in France have been constructed as risk groups by media sources, in political rhetoric, and among medical professionals, drawing on constructs dating to the colonial period. We also examine how political and economic issues have been mirrored and advanced in media visibility and ask why particular populations and the diseases associated with them in the popular imagination have received more attention at certain historical moments. In the contemporary period we (...) analyze how the bodies of West African women and men have become powerful metaphors in the politics of discrimination prevalent in France, in spite of Republican precepts that theoretically disavow cultural and social difference. (shrink)

with her usual concern with accuracy and clarity, Marilyn Fischer’s explanations are exemplary models of the value of historical scholarship. Concern with context in its many forms is integral to pragmatist philosophy, but the range and depth of Fischer’s research make her papers especially valuable. She helps us understand the extent to which the horizon of understanding is bounded by the particularities of time and place. Careful elucidation of less familiar concrete horizons can give us a better understanding of unfamiliar (...) beliefs and values and illuminate our own pre-suppositions.Such concreteness cuts two ways. It can re-invigorate current debates by challenging our assumptions of what particular texts mean .. (shrink)

The article explores contemporary immigrant politics in Boston, Massachusetts to understand the political coalitions behind the immigrant rights rallies held in the spring of 2006. Many scholars and activists have been anticipating the formation of a Black-brown coalition between African Americans and new immigrants. Were the 2006 rallies a manifestation of such an alliance in formation? While important coalitional work is being done in Boston by the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization and the Massachusetts Immigration and Refugee Alliance, the (...) Black-brown coalition is not the order of the day. Instead, our interviews and field work revealed the emergence of new linkages being forged between immigrant rights and gay rights advocates. Although by no means routinized into an enduring coalition, we suggest that this is the forefront of political change in which the politics of opposition is being re-imagined. (shrink)

Immigrants now compose approximately 12 of the population of the United States and a sizable proportion of the workforce. Yet in contrast to research on other traditionally under-represented groups (e.g., women, African Americans), there are relatively few studies on issues related to being an immigrant in the U.S. workforce. This study examined English-only workplace policies, focusing on reactions to business justifications – explanations that justify managerial decisions as business necessities – for these policies. We contrasted the reactions of (...) individuals coming from immigrant families, where at least one parent was an immigrant to the U.S., with those of persons from non-immigrant families. Results of an experiment indicated that business justifications were successful in influencing the attitudes of non-immigrants toward the English-only policies, but did not influence the attitudes of individuals from immigrant families. Probing the reasons for this effect, a thought-listing protocol suggested that non-immigrants mentioned more of the business benefits of the English-only policy than did individuals from immigrant families. Further, business justifications for the English-only policy led individuals from immigrant families, but not those from non-immigrant families, to view the organization as being less ethical and less concerned with the welfare of its workers. The implications of messages from management being understood differently by different demographic groups are discussed. (shrink)

Based on research conducted over the past two decades, this lecture examines how the feminist political economy perspective can aid us in understanding the experiences of two populations of African women: Zimbabwean women cross-border traders in South Africa and African immigrant women in the northeastern United States. Feminist political economy compels us to explore the impact of the current phase of globalization as well as the roles of intersectionality and agency in the lives of African women. This (...) research stems from fieldwork conducted in Harare and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa, as well as in metropolitan Boston and Philadelphia. Despite the many challenges that African migrant women face in these different venues, they continue to demonstrate much creativity and resilience and, in the process, they contribute to community development. (shrink)

Changes in immigration policy and legislation have the power to shape and alter the gendering of migration in significant ways, and can have a dramatic effect on the lives and relationships of the men, women and families involved. In this paper, we examine the provisions of the new Immigration Act introduced in South Africa in 2002. The Act, which replaces the outdated Aliens Control Act of 1991, gives considerable cause for concern on gender grounds. Foremost, the Act entrenches a system (...) of male-dominated regional labour migration that has its origins in the 19th-century discovery of gold and diamonds. The male bias in the work permit and other employment-based categories along with the limits to family reunification for those entering for work are likely in effect to discriminate against women to a greater extent than men. While similar gender concerns are common to most immigration policy regimes around the world, the particular circumstances of the South African case, where both skilled and unskilled migration streams are heavily male-dominated, makes them especially acute here. This paper contextualizes migration regimes in South Africa and examines in detail the likely implications of the new Immigration Act. (shrink)

Asylum seekers who claim asylum in the United Kingdom flee from a diverse range of threats of persecution, particularly in the MENA (Middle East & North African) region. These threats may comprise of war, tribal violence and trafficking to honour-killings, female genital mutilation and witchcraft. Some of these threats may be alien to Western immigration tribunals as they either do not occur in their respective countries or are not understood, particularly because of the intricate religious and cultural nature of (...) the threat in question. For example, a single woman who has had sexual relations outside of marriage would be regarded as having insulted tribal and familial honour in some regions of MENA countries. Here, the word ‘tribe’, which in Arabic is _‘qabilah’_, has a distinct historical, cultural and lexical meaning that lawyers, judges and policy-makers may not be aware of; the same may be said of _‘nikah’_ (marriage) or _‘Voodoo’_ (a type of witchcraft) and many other terminologies. These terminologies are intimately linked to the experiences of immigration applicants and asylum seekers who desire to express their fear of persecution to lawyers, judges and policymakers. Using two real-life case studies involving a Yemeni immigration applicant and Nigerian asylum seeker respectively and my practitioner experience as a country expert having written 140 reports, I will critically explore the value of a primary, semiotic understanding of key religious, cultural and linguistic dimensions in asylum claims (as opposed to secondary source evidence). I argue that the UK’s immigration tribunal system should place more value on how language is embodied within the MENA regions. I do not wish to just highlight this issue but semiotically analyse immigration and asylum procedure, the arguments of the Home Office and tribunals in accepting or rejecting claims and suggest substantive reform by broadening the nature of evidence. Using Peirce’s framework of semiotics, a sign (representamen) is the fundamental entry point to comprehend an object—an object being the referent of a sign. Once we understand a sign and its object, we arrive at the interpretant which is the sense or meaning derived from the object. This triad relationship of sign, object and interpretant constitutes semiois. Here, I argue that analysing the nature of a sign and what it purports to represent can provide us with a theoretical basis by which to reformulate the mechanisms which judges and lawyers use to understand religious, cultural and linguistic evidence in asylum claims. It is through signs that we can arrive at a deeper meaning and the larger picture of the intricate components of an asylum seeker’s claim thereby accessing their semiotic code. (shrink)

The study is a response to the call for papers that focuses on African issues and, I chose to discuss the issue of migration. Though not a historical document, the Bible records various journeys that the ancient people travelled;1 it narrates people’s relocations from one geographic place to the other. However, migration has never been the main focus of several biblical interpreters who seem to perceive the Bible mostly from a theological lens. Largely, this study is informed by current (...) challenges associated with immigration, highlighting comparative migration experiences that seem embellished under theological themes. For examples, each day we hear about stories of migrants who drown in the sea while trying to cross to Europe or of foreigners, due to xenophobic conflicts over few economic resources, die in numbers in South Africa. This study explores two biblical characters—Abraham and Jesus from a migration perspective, focusing on the pushed or pulled factors embedded under their stories. (shrink)

The “headscarf affair,” Muslim girls wearing veils to school, has generated a storm of controversy in France. This study uses the headscarf affair to explore Muslim immigrant women's views of their place in French society and reveals that even those who disagree with French public opinion often invoke arguments that are more French than North African. Interviews with 41 North African women show that younger, well-educated women defend the headscarf as a matter of personal liberty and cultural expression. (...) Older, poorly educated women either defend or reject the veil but never discuss the issue of secularism. In dismissing the veil, they rely on a different understanding of Muslim womanhood. A third group opposes the veil, arguing that the goal of school is integration. Respondents' answers are interpreted according to structural factors and cultural repertoires, both North African and French. (shrink)

This article introduces a new term, “anti‐blackness supremacy,” in order to supplement existing theological discourse about the ethical life of racism. To a much greater extent than the terms “racism, ” “white privilege” or even “white supremacy,” this term also better positions scholars to address what I identify as the two most pressing problems in anti‐racist discourse: first, the inability to diagnose the relation between classism and racism without reducing one into the other; and second, the tendency to treat racism (...) as a monolithic evil that falls upon all people of color equally and in the same way. The former error has distorted political discourse for decades; the latter misconception intensifies as the United States undergoes demographic shifts in the wake of immigration from Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Both of these errors arise from a pervasive misunderstanding of the slave regime that has set our current racial system in motion. In truth, slavery primarily represents not a mechanism of profit extraction, but a relation of a unique type of power. The term “anti‐blackness supremacy,” I contend, corrects both of these misperceptions, affirming both the singularity of black oppression and its fundamental connection to enslaving power. In so doing, it enables ethicists to disarm an older racial foe while thwarting the ascension of a newer one. (shrink)

This paper seeks to address the problem of strangeness within the context of migration in Africa. I draw on historical realities that inform existing international and African discourses on migration. I hope to show that most African countries have unconsciously bought into international arguments that drive the legitimacy of building walls, visible and invisible, and the promotion of stringent migration policies that minimise the influx of African immigrants. I draw on political and philosophical positions of (...) class='Hi'>African thinkers like Kwame Nkrumah, among others, in my theorisation of strangeness and the need to dispel the potential negative conception of strangeness within Africa’s migration policies. I juxtapose these positions with Western political theories with the hope of emphasizing African humanism as a key conception worth considering when decolonising borders. (shrink)

Solidarity-the reciprocal relations of trust and obligation between citizens that are essential for a thriving polity-is a basic goal of all political communities. Yet it is extremely difficult to achieve, especially in multiracial societies. In an era of increasing global migration and democratization, that issue is more pressing than perhaps ever before. In the past few decades, racial diversity and the problems of justice that often accompany it have risen dramatically throughout the world. It features prominently nearly everywhere: from the (...) United States, where it has been a perennial social and political problem, to Europe, which has experienced an unprecedented influx of Muslim and African immigrants, to Latin America, where the rise of vocal black and indigenous movements has brought the question to the fore. Political theorists have long wrestled with the topic of political solidarity, but they have not had much to say about the impact of race on such solidarity, except to claim that what is necessary is to move beyond race. The prevailing approach has been: How can a multicultural and multiracial polity, with all of the different allegiances inherent in it, be transformed into a unified, liberal one? Juliet Hooker flips this question around. In multiracial and multicultural societies, she argues, the practice of political solidarity has been indelibly shaped by the social fact of race. The starting point should thus be the existence of racialized solidarity itself: How can we create political solidarity when racial and cultural diversity are more or less permanent? Unlike the tendency to claim that the best way to deal with the problem of racism is to abandon the concept of race altogether, Hooker stresses the importance of coming to terms with racial injustice, and explores the role that it plays in both the United States and Latin America. Coming to terms with the lasting power of racial identity, she contends, is the starting point for any political project attempting to achieve solidarity. (shrink)

When I think about America, I think about a great diversity of types of people, from different backgrounds, national origins, races, religions, classes and points of view. The US is made up of descendants of African slaves and recent African immigrants; mid-western farmers and Asian Americans whose families come from nearly every Asian nation; Jewish families from Eastern Europe and Native Americans who have owned our land for centuries before any others. These are only a few of (...) the stories that make up the rich diversity of American society. Diversity is our greatest asset. (shrink)

Collected papers on philosophy of linguistics, sociolinguistics and language planning, including papers on the languages of African immigrants, language policy and planning in post-apartheid South Africa.

In the years 2020–2021, journalists, lawyers, scholars, and civil society actors noticed an unusual spike in the refusal of francophone African immigrants in Québec, Canada. While Immigration, refugee and citizenship Canada’s systemic racism problem were already documented, the novelty appeared to be how standardized and sometimes, “nonsensical” the reasons given to many of the applicants were. This eventually prompted a lawsuit against IRCC in which it was revealed that a new piece of software called “Chinook” had been deployed (...) since 2018, approximately at the same time application refusal started spiking. Online and media-fueled speculations culminated in a broad debate about whether Chinook was an artificial intelligence-based technology. Such controversy, for instance, unfolded during parliamentary consultations in which it was finally disclosed that Chinook was not AI per se., but more of a half-baked automated interface. The present article aims to understand how the performative ambiguity of Chinook informs on the progressive becoming of the Canadian Federal state and its immigration control practices in the current Machine Learning hype. Furthermore, it seeks to understand how the interlacing of public–private partnership, in which the private sector is mobilized to produce AI-driven technology, recursively transforms the exercise of governance and governmentality. We argue, through the Chinook controversy and its unfolding, that there is a shift occurring where AI becomes ever more central in statecraft “anarchitecture” and cybernetic adaptability. (shrink)

This article offers a normative framework for affirmative action. It argues that affirmative action is not about diversity, but correcting historical injustice. The theory’s presumption is that racial groups would perform equally if not for history, because talent and hard work do not vary by race. The article explores the implications of that premise in answering the most provocative criticisms of affirmative action. Should white students pay for historical wrongs? Should African immigrants benefit from affirmative action? Are Asian (...) Americans unfairly disadvantaged? The article proposes proportional representation as a limiting principle of affirmative action, because preferential treatment beyond proportionality contradicts the theory’s presumption of equal performance. The article proceeds to argue that some groups, like Asian Americans, rebut the presumption by fairly outperforming others and should not be penalized. Finally, the article argues that groups should not be classified on race per se, rather on a shared experience of injustice. (shrink)

At the end of this century there are so many occasions, so many residues of the most violent of times, that challenge the very idea of forgivenessNorthern Ireland, Bosnia, the Tutsis and Hutus, the Shiite and Suni Moslems, the settlers and African immigrants in South Africa, indigenous populations against the dominant culture. The open violence and rapaciousness of human enmity can be viewed now in the displacement of masses of people in Kosovo. Said the U.N. High Commissioner for (...) Refugees, Sadako Ogata, about the Kosovo crisis: that this century, as in its darkest hours, should end with the mass deportation of innocent people.”. (shrink)

Within Western European countries the number of women and girls already genitally mutilated or at risk, is rising due to increasing rates of migration of Africans. The article compares legislative and ethical practices within the medical profession concerning female genital mutilation (FGM) in these countries. There are considerable differences in the number of affected women and in legislation and guidelines. For example, in France, Great Britain and Austria FGM is included in the criminal code as elements of crime, whereas in (...) Germany and Switzerland FGM is brought to trial as bodily injury. So far trials only in France and Switzerland in connection with FGM resulted in convictions. France and Great Britain as former Colonial countries serve as an example of countries with a comparably great number of African immigrants. These countries have the best possibilities to intervene preventatively, due to legislation and detailed medical guidelines. For instance, an obligation exists in France to inform administrative and medical authorities if FGM is suspected. FGM so far is not explicitly part of the curriculum for medical training in any of the examined countries. (shrink)

There is a lot of damage that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused and it is too early to know its real cost, especially when governments have difficulties to coordinate effective policies to combat the disease, which avoid the negative impact on the general population and, particularly, groups in situations of greater vulnerability. This work reflects on the impact of COVID-19 on the black Brazilian population, starting with the debates made by specialists in Health of the Black Population and other social (...) agents in the period from April to May 2020. It is a documentary and bibliographic research that focuses on thematic interpretation of content, divided into three parts: first, the delimitation of what is understood in this work by the black population; later, the discussion between the health of the black population and public policies in Brazil; and finally, the systematization of the debate on the impact on the black population of COVID-19, highlighting the issues of inclusion by color / race, gender and housing, lethality, impact on the periphery, social isolation and the problem of precarious black lives. Considerations about necropolitics and black bodies, Indians and African immigrants are addressed; and the proposals for tackling the pandemic made by the Brazilian Association of Public Health (ABRASCO). (shrink)

Results of Belgian municipal elections of 1988 and socio-economic characteristics of municipalities are used to estimate quantitatively the relationship between municipal election outcomes and these socio-economic characteristics. A higher average income bas a negative effect on election results for the Christian-democratic party and for the socialist party and a positive effect for the liberal party. A higher proportion of citizens who depend on public assistance has a negative effect for the Christian-democrats and a positive effect for the socialist party. A (...) higher proportion of citizens with a university degree has a negative effect on election results for the socialist party and a positive effect for the green party. A higher proportion of younger citizens has a positive effect for the Christian-democrats and the green party and a negative effect for the socialist, the liberal and the extreme right wing Flemishparty. A higher degree of urbanisation has a negative effect for the Christiandemocratsand a positive effect for the socialist, the green and the extreme rightwing Flemish party. A higher proportion of Northern-African immigrants in the population has a positive effect for the socialist and the extreme Flemish party and a negative effect for the green party.The explanatory values of the estimated equations are moderate and results have to be interpreted with caution. Closer examination of the data show that the participation at the elections by the extreme right wing Flemish party leads to a proportional decline in votes for the socialist party. (shrink)

In the postcolonial world, and particularly after September 11, a liberal Western norm updates human rights with « sexual democracy » . Intertwined with the norm of antiracism, this « sexual democracy » functions as a formidable trap to those postcolonial subjects who have the misfortune to overstep it : accused of complicity with racism, they are called barbarians and pushed into the background. Zacarias Moussaoui was well aware of this, and played on it; French girls from the North (...) class='Hi'>African immigration are equally well aware, and they negotiate from day to day. (shrink)

This essay explores the meaning of diasporic practice as it has been applied within the contemporary Black Atlantic context. The general focus of this topic has been visible or performative practices that have broad audiences, ranging from diasporic members to the sociopolitically included or the privileged citizen. Moreover, the objects or products of diasporic practice are largely understood to be aesthetic; the literature has highlighted music, dance, art, and religion, for instance. In this essay I argue that a taken-for-granted prerequisite (...) of a hierarchized viewing audience misses passing moments of negotiation that occur in silence or within disciplined exchanges among persons who we identify as diasporic. These practices build community in very powerful ways but may not leave lasting traces or archives; they have to do with fleeting displays of affect such as rage, shame, joy, etc. The ethnographic focus is African immigrant women's constrained work schedules in Lisbon and the ways their labour-time textures the types of community – building practices in which they engage on a daily basis. I address how gendered configurations of migrant labour-time -a condition for governmentality – influence the diasporic process by which a form of racial identification is assumed in the context of Portugal. (shrink)

African hair braiding on Bree Street offers a glimpse into how immigration, black female sexuality and shifts in urban retail economies provide important economic and cultural resources to urban residents and users. As both ontology and epistemology, black hair braiding practices recalibrate local economies, spaces, and aesthetic codes, and thus co-constitute emergent urban identities and a way of knowing the city. The intimate, networked, and fractal nature of black hair braiding spaces disrupts the rigid colonial spatial orders of the (...) city and its architecture. As an epistemology, braiding disrupts the grand narrative of Johannesburg in ‘crisis’, while also disrupting the colonizing and gendered structure of urban studies itself. (shrink)

Although the concept of food sovereignty is rooted in International Peasant Movements across the global south, activists have recently called for the adoption of this framework among low-income communities of color in the urban United States. This paper investigates on-the-ground processes through which food sovereignty articulates with the work of food justice and community food security activists in Oakland, California, and Seattle, Washington. In Oakland, we analyze a farmers market that seeks to connect black farmers to low-income consumers. In Seattle, (...) we attend to the experiences of displaced immigrant farmers from Latin America and their efforts to address their food needs following migration. In both cases, we find that US based projects were constrained by broader forces of neoliberalism that remained unrecognized by local activists. In Oakland, despite a desire to create a local food system led by marginalized African Americans, emphasis on providing green jobs in agriculture led activists to take a market-based approach that kept local food out of the economic grasp of food-insecure neighborhood residents. In Seattle, the marginalization of the immense agroecological knowledge of Latino/an immigrant farmers rendered local food projects less inclusive and capable of transformative change. Taken together, these very different cases suggest that a shift towards food sovereignty necessitates a broad acknowledgement of and resistance to neoliberalism. (shrink)

Theory from the south -- On personhood : a perspective from Africa -- Liberalism, policulturalism, and ideology : thoughts on citizenship and difference -- Nations with/out borders : the brave neo world and the problem of belonging -- Postcolonial politics and discourses of democracy : an anthropological take on African political modernities -- History on trial : memory, evidence, and the forensic production of the past -- Alien-nation : zombies, immigrants, and millennial capitalism -- Beyond bare life : (...) AIDS, (bio)politics, and the neo world order. (shrink)

Targeting high-risk populations for public health interventions is a classic tool of public health promotion programs. This practice becomes thornier when racial groups are identified as the at-risk populations. I present the particular ethical and epistemic challenges that arise when there are low-risk subpopulations within racial groups that have been identified as high-risk for a particular health concern. I focus on two examples. The black immigrant population does not have the same hypertension risk as US-born African Americans. Similarly, Finnish (...) descendants have a far lower rate of cystic fibrosis than other Caucasians. In both cases the exceptional nature of these subpopulations has been largely ignored by the designers of important public health efforts, including the recent US government dietary recommendations. I argue that amending the publicly-disseminated risk information to acknowledge these exceptions would be desirable for several reasons. First, recognizing low-risk subpopulations would allow more efficient use of limited resources. Communicating this valuable information to the subpopulations would also promote truth-telling. Finally, presenting a more nuanced empirically-supported representation of which groups are at known risk of diseases (not focusing on mere racial categories) would combat harmful biological race essentialist views held by the public. (shrink)

African migrants in Brazil suffer the perverse effects of xenophobia, in addition to experiencing racist behaviors. These processes also manifest themselves within the context of kindergarten centers and pre-schools, directly influencing the pedagogical approach, as well as the perceptions and conceptions surrounding being a black African person. In this context, this article aims to present the perception of early education teachers in the city of São Paulo about racialization processes in the sheltering and insertion of black African (...) children of ages between 0 and 5. In order to achieve the aim of this research, interviews were held with early education professionals from both the direct and indirect educational systems, so as to try and comprehend how these agents perceive the sheltering/insertion of migrant black African children. The analysis was made based on theoretical frameworks regarding childhood sociology, studies on migration and race relations. This work intends to enlarge the childhood and migration research fields, as well as research on the processes of racialization of African migrant children aged less than seven. (shrink)

How our everyday interactions as neighbors shape—and sometimes undermine—democracy "Love thy neighbor" is an impossible exhortation. Good neighbors greet us on the street and do small favors, but neighbors also startle us with sounds at night and unleash their demons on us, they monitor and reproach us, and betray us to authorities. The moral principles prescribed for friendship, civil society, and democratic public life apply imperfectly to life around home, where we interact day to day without the formal institutions, rules (...) of conduct, and means of enforcement that guide us in other settings. In Good Neighbors, Nancy Rosenblum explores how encounters among neighbors create a democracy of everyday life, which has been with us since the beginning of American history and is expressed in settler, immigrant, and suburban narratives and in novels, poetry, and popular culture. During disasters, like Hurricane Katrina, the democracy of everyday life is a resource for neighbors who improvise rescue and care. Degraded, this framework can give way to betrayal by neighbors, as faced by the Japanese Americans interned during World War II, or to terrible violence such as the lynching of African Americans. Under extreme conditions the barest act of neighborliness is a bulwark against total ethical breakdown. The elements of the democracy of everyday life—reciprocity, speaking out, and "live and let live"—comprise a democratic ideal not reducible to public principles of justice or civic virtue, but it is no less important. The democracy of everyday life, Rosenblum argues, is the deep substrate of democracy in America and can be its saving remnant. (shrink)

The verb “to conjure” is a complex one, for it includes in its standard definition a great range of possible actions or operations, not all of them equivalent, or even compatible. In its most common usage, “to conjure” means to perform an act of magic or to invoke a supernatural force, by casting a spell, say, or performing a particular ritual or rite. But “to conjure” is also to influence, to beg, to command or constrain, to charm, to bewitch, to (...) move or convey, to imagine, to visualize, to call to mind, or to remember. —Rachael DeLue 2012, para 1.When we create with our Brown hands, feminine energy, and full spirits, we conjure. To exist, survive, and thrive in these bodies is a continuous act of conjuring. Our walks conjure. Our smiles conjure. Our tears conjure. Our laughs conjure. Our words conjure. Our artworks are conjurings. We, a Black/Filipina-American woman, a Dominican-American, and a Black-American woman, are guided by our solidarity with one another and all other Black and Brown female identifying persons whose raced and gendered subjectivities exist both inside and outside of colonization, white supremacy, and patriarchy. We bring to life our colored imaginations and curiosities, and share them with the world. We are united by our need for safety, autonomy as beings, dissolution of trauma, and desire to ask, “What would happen if I…?” Imaginative, curious Women of Color founded the underground railroad, guided captured Africans and Tainos to the mountains, ignited the Civil Rights Movement, organized laborers and immigrants, birthed the #BlackLivesMatter Movement, conceived the #MeToo Movement, and so much more. Like our kindred counterparts, we have an unrelenting urge to examine, question, wonder, desire, speak to, lead, be curious, and “conjure.” As practicing artists and art educators, our critical arts-based practices are grounded in intersectional feminisms like Womanism, Black Feminist Theory, and Chicana Feminist Theory, which allow us to do these very things. (shrink)

John Ogbu has studied minority education from a comparative perspective for over 30 years. The study reported in this book--jointly sponsored by the community and the school district in Shaker Heights, Ohio--focuses on the academic performance of Black American students. Not only do these students perform less well than White students at every social class level, but also less well than immigrant minority students, including Black immigrant students. Furthermore, both middle-class Black students in suburban school districts, as well as poor (...) Black students in inner-city schools are not doing well. Ogbu's analysis draws on data from observations, formal and informal interviews, and statistical and other data. He offers strong empirical evidence to support the cross-class existence of the problem. The book is organized in four parts: *Part I provides a description of the twin problems the study addresses--the gap between Black and White students in school performance and the low academic engagement of Black students; a review of conventional explanations; an alternative perspective; and the framework for the study. *Part II is an analysis of _societal and school factors_ contributing to the problem, including race relations, Pygmalion or internalized White beliefs and expectations, levelling or tracking, the roles of teachers, counselors, and discipline. *_Community factors_--the focus of this study--are discussed in Part III. These include the educational impact of opportunity structure, collective identity, cultural and language or dialect frame of reference in schooling, peer pressures, and the role of the family. This research focus does _not_ mean exonerating the system and blaming minorities, nor does it mean neglecting school and society factors. Rather, Ogbu argues, the role of community forces should be incorporated into the discussion of the academic achievement gap by researchers, theoreticians, policymakers, educators, and minorities themselves who genuinely want to improve the academic achievement of African American children and other minorities. *In Part IV, Ogbu presents a summary of the study's findings on community forces and offers recommendations--some of which are for the school system and some for the Black community. _Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement_ is an important book for a wide range of researchers, professionals, and students, particularly in the areas of Black education, minority education, comparative and international education, sociology of education, educational anthropology, educational policy, teacher education, and applied anthropology. (shrink)

In contrast to most literature on cosmopolitanism, which focuses on its elite forms, this article analyzes how ordinary people bridge racial boundaries in everyday life. It is based on interviews with 150 non-college-educated white and black workers in the United States and white and North African workers in France. The comparison of the four groups shows how differences in cultural repertoires across national context and structural location shape distinct anti-racist rhetorics. Market-based arguments are salient among American workers, while arguments (...) based on solidarity and egalitarianism are used by French, but not by American, workers. Minority workers in both countries employ a more extensive toolkit of anti-racist rhetoric as compared to whites. The interviewed men privilege evidence grounded in everyday experience, and their claims of human equality are articulated in terms of universal human nature and, in the case of blacks and North Africans, universal morality. Workers' conceptual frameworks have little in common with multiculturalism that occupies a central place in the literature on cosmopolitanism. We argue that for the discussion and practice of cosmopolitanism to move forward we should shift our attention to the study of multiple ordinary cosmopolitanisms. (shrink)

In this article we focus on female genital mutilation. We analyse this problem as one of the most important issues of multiculturalism, which is also coming to the attention of the public in Italy as a consequence of the growing number of immigrants from African countries. The fundamental problem is about the acceptability of this practice: can female genital mutilation be permitted and, if so, on what basis? We will try to cope with this as a genuine conflict (...) between culture-relative values and universal values, such as human rights. Some attention will be drawn to Italian law. Finally, the impact on nurses of requests for genital mutilation will be described. (shrink)

This book offers a detailed study of the psycho-politics of governmental manipulation, in which a vulnerable population is disciplined by contorting their sense of self-worth. In many conflict settings a nation's government exerts its dominance over a marginalized population group through laws, policies and practices that foster stark inequality. This book shows how such domination comes in the form of systems of humiliation orchestrated by governmental forces, and draws upon recent findings in social psychology, conflict analysis, and political sociology. Case (...) studies are provided of governmental directives, verdicts, policies, decisions and norms that, when enforced, foster debasement, disgrace or denigration. One case centers on the US immigration laws that target vulnerable population groups, while another focuses on the ethnic discrimination of the central government of Sudan against the Sudanese Africans. By contrast, the book's conclusion focuses on the collective compassion that is exhibited by some people who are immersed in protracted violent conflict. The practices of systemic compassion represent a counter-force to such governmental humiliation. This book will be of much interest to students of peace and conflict studies, sociology, psychology, ethics, philosophy and International Relations. on that is exhibited by some people who are immersed in protracted violent conflict. The practices of systemic compassion represent a counter-force to such governmental humiliation. This book will be of much interest to students of peace and conflict studies, sociology, psychology, ethics, philosophy and International Relations. (shrink)

In contrast to most literature on cosmopolitanism, which focuses on its elite forms, this article analyzes how ordinary people bridge racial boundaries in everyday life. It is based on interviews with 150 non-college-educated white and black workers in the United States and white and North African workers in France. The comparison of the four groups shows how differences in cultural repertoires across national context and structural location shape distinct anti-racist rhetorics. Market-based arguments are salient among American workers, while arguments (...) based on solidarity and egalitarianism are used by French, but not by American, workers. Minority workers in both countries employ a more extensive toolkit of anti-racist rhetoric as compared to whites. The interviewed men privilege evidence grounded in everyday experience, and their claims of human equality are articulated in terms of universal human nature and, in the case of blacks and North Africans, universal morality. Workers' conceptual frameworks have little in common with multiculturalism that occupies a central place in the literature on cosmopolitanism. We argue that for the discussion and practice of cosmopolitanism to move forward we should shift our attention to the study of multiple ordinary cosmopolitanisms. (shrink)

In 1908, American philosopher Josiah Royce foresaw the future. Race questions and prejudices, he said, "promise to become, in the near future, still more important than they have ever been before." Like his student W. E. B. Du Bois in Souls of Black Folk, Royce recognized that the problem of the next century would be, as Du Bois put it, "the problem of the color line." The twentieth century saw vast changes in race relations, but even after the election of (...) the first African-American U.S. president, questions of race and the nature of community persist. Though left out of the mainstream of academic philosophy, Royce's conception of community nevertheless influenced generations of leaders who sought to end racial, religious, and national prejudice. Royce's work provided the conceptual starting place for the Cultural Pluralism movement of the 1920s and 1930s, and his notion of the Beloved Community influenced the work and vision of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement. Communities, whether they are understood as racial or geographic, religious or scientific, Royce argued, are formed by the commitments of individuals to causes or shared ideals. This starting point-the philosophy of loyalty-provides a means to understand the nature of communities, their conflicts, and their potential for growth and coexistence. Just as this work had relevance in the twentieth century in the face of anti-Black and anti-immigrant prejudice, Royce's philosophy of loyalty and conception of community has new relevance in the twenty-first century. This new edition of Royce's Race Questions, Provincialism, and Other American Questions includes a new introduction to Royce's philosophy of loyalty and the essays included in the volume, and a second introduction connecting Royce's work with contemporary discussions of race. The volume also includes six supplementary essays by Royce that provide background for the original essays, raise questions about his views, and show the potential of those views to inform other discussions about religious pluralism, the philosophy of science, the role of history, and the future of the American community. (shrink)

Scholars see Israel as a settler state, comparable with North American, South African and Oceanian cases. But how was Jewish settlement-colonization in pre-Israel Palestine even possible? In the North American, Oceanian and South African cases, European settlers did not encounter diseases like malaria that scholars argue impede settlement. Palestine, however, had high malaria morbidity rates. The disease incapacitated and killed settlers and was one of the most serious threats to Jewish settlement and political economic development. I argue that (...) the exigencies caused by malaria are exactly what fostered Jewish settlement-colonization in Palestine because they prompted the formation of socio-technical arrangements in order to combat the disease. These arrangements included, among other things, people, organizations, scientific knowledge, procedures and larvicides as well as considering the agency of mosquitos and other elements in the environment in disrupting settlement. These arrangements were marshalled by medical-national and political institutions that developed to combat malaria. Only then were Jewish settlers able to effectively colonize Palestine, make their colonies economically viable and make Palestine habitable for future Jewish immigrants. I demonstrate this argument by drawing on archival and library materials that describe the work of an important Zionist Malaria Research Unit (MRU) as well as malaria control efforts in Hefer Valley in the 1930s–1940s, after the unit’s disbandment. Then, I discuss the theoretical implications of this paper to settler-colonial and state-building literatures that, for the most part, neglected the socio-technical nature of state-building and settlement. (shrink)

The comparative utility argument holds that the descendants of African slaves in America are not owed any compensation because they have not been harmed by slavery. Rather, slavery in America was beneficial to the descendants of slaves because they are now able to live in a country that is considerably richer today than any of the African countries from which slaves were taken. In this paper, I show that the comparative utility argument is a red herring with no (...) bearing whatsoever on the question of slave reparations because it conflates two separate wrongs: slavery and forced immigration. The fact that the descendants of slaves now live in America is a consequence of the latter, but not the former. As such, it has no bearing on the legitimacy reparations for slavery. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Community of “Neighbors”:A Baptist-Buddhist Reflects on the Common Ground of LoveJan WillisToday we are all aware that the concept of “race” is a mere construction. There is only one “race”: the human race; to think otherwise is like still believing that the earth is flat. But “racism” is a different matter. It exists as a system of beliefs and prejudices that people differ along biological and genetic lines and (...) that one’s own group is superior to another group. When these beliefs and prejudices are coupled with power—especially the power to negatively affect the lives of those perceived to be inferior—we have a serious problem. And no one should downplay or underestimate the harm that such an ideology inflicts upon everyone who participates in it. According to one African American professor of social work, “America’s history is inextricably bound to this racist ideology. From the codifying of slavery, to the belief in ‘Manifest Destiny,’ to the treatment of ‘illegal immigrants,’ many of America’s actions continue to conflict with its creed that ‘All men are created equal.’”1Over the past decade or so, I have written a number of pieces that focus upon racism in America and racism in so-called American Buddhism.2 Being African American myself, my reasons for this focus may perhaps be clear though not necessarily inevitable. I have written on a number of other topics: Buddhist philosophical discourses and life stories of Buddhist “saints,” for example. In my writings on racism, I have tried to communicate something of the emotional and psychic toll it takes to live in this country as a person of color. In a number of these writings, I have called myself a “Baptist-Buddhist,” and thus this is also one of my “dual belongings,” one of my “multiple identities.”When I speak of racism, I am not concerned with garnering pity, or playing the “race card” of guilt, or telling you, from some assumed position of superiority on the matter, that there is simply no way for you to understand this toll. I certainly cannot speak for all African Americans, or even for most of them. Early on in the process of writing this paper, I emailed Jung and Paul to say that I found the title of the panel both much too broad and much too narrow. “Too broad” because one person cannot possibly channel and/or verbalize the countless instances of suffering endured by African Americans (and more broadly, by persons of color) throughout space and over centuries in this country owing to slavery and its aftermath. And “too narrow” [End Page 97] because, ultimately, we want to do more than just rehash our many sufferings. We don’t want to wallow in victimhood. We want to move on—from the recognition of that immense suffering, seen and unseen—and to go out into the world and act to bring about social, economic, and ecological justice. That’s what we are called upon to do: to form a new community wherein there is compassion and caring for one another, where there is love and peace, nonviolence, reconciliation, and justice.So, even though I am quite frankly tired—as are so many people of color—of being the “token” African American who can add visible “diversity” to a group in order to show that it is now more “inclusive” than before, nevertheless, in this so-called postracial society where we have a black president and the demographic of “person of color” now comprises an actual majority of the United States’ population, I must still rise to say that, sadly, racism is not dead in this country! Its painful vestiges exist, and those vestiges are far from being either innocent or unharmful.I truly believe that—for African Americans, in particular—it is the trauma and the legacy of slavery that haunts us in the deepest recesses of our souls. It is hard to imagine what having been bartered and sold as though mere property does to a human being, what being dehumanized, infanticized, and divested of all rights and liberties does to one’s sense of self-worth and well-being. As... (shrink)

Background:Nursing workforce in Western European health institutions has become more diverse because of immigration and recruitment from Asian, African, and East-European countries. Minority healthcare providers may experience communication problems in interaction with patients and coworkers, and they are likely to experience conflict or uncertainty when confronted with different cultural traditions and values. Persons with dementia are a vulnerable group, and the consequences of their illness challenge the ability to understand and express oneself verbally. The large number of minority healthcare (...) providers in nursing homes underlines the importance to obtain better knowledge about this group’s experiences with the care challenges in dementia care units.Research question:Can you tell about any challenges in the experiences in the encounter with persons suffering from dementia?Participants and research context:Five minority healthcare providers in a nursing home, in a dementia unit. All guidelines for research ethic were followed.Ethical consideration:The participants were informed that participation was voluntary, and they were guarantied anonymity.Method:We used a qualitative method, conducting individual interviews, using a narrative approach. In the analysis, we applied a phenomenological–hermeneutical method, developed for researching life experiences.Findings:One theme and four subthemes: striving to understand the quality of care for persons with dementia. The subthemes: sensitivity to understand the patients’ verbal and nonverbal expressions. To understand gratefulness, understand the patient as an adult and autonomous person, and understand the patient as a patient in a nursing home. Challenges comprise both ethical and cultural striving to understand persons with dementia.Conclusion:To care for persons with dementia in an unfamiliar context may be understood as a striving for acting ethically, when at the same time striving to adapt and acculturate to new cultural norms, in order to practice good dementia care. (shrink)

In this article, I shall evaluate critically the democratic citizenship education project in South Africa to ascertain whether the patriotic sentiments expressed in the Manifesto on Values, Education and Democracy (2001) are in conflict with the achievement of reconciliation and nation building (specifically peace and friendship) after decades of apartheid rule. My first argument is that, although it seems as if the teaching of patriotism through the Department of Education's democratic citizenship agenda in South African schools is a laudable (...) initiative that can contribute toward establishing a definitive break with our apartheid past, the expression of blind patriotic sentiments (such as pledging allegiance to one's country and its citizens only) as articulated in the Manifesto can potentially marginalise others (immigrant communities) as the country endeavours to build its fledgling democracy. My second argument is that the intended democratic form of patriotism of the Department of Education can possibly be undermined by cultivating a culture of ‘safe expression’, which could slow down the country's quest for reconciliation and nation building. (shrink)

Faith has been shown to serve a protective role in the mental health of African Americans and European Americans. However, little research has examined whether any association exists in Asian Americans. Using the National Latino and Asian American Study dataset, we examined the effect of religious attendance on the mental health of Asian Americans in the United States. The present study focused on Chinese Americans because they are the largest Asian American group. The results revealed that almost 80% of (...) the respondents were foreign-born and that their English proficiency had a positive association with their self-rated mental health. Being male correlated significantly to higher levels of mental health self-rating. After controlling for known predictive variables, such as demographics, cultural and immigration variables, more frequent religious attendance significantly predicted higher self-rating of mental health. These findings suggest that faith may have a unique protective role in Chinese Americans’ mental health. (shrink)

Dr Schildkrout probes questions of ethnicity, religion, cultural change and the African national identity in this study of the immigrant community of Kumasi, Ghana's second largest city. She compares first- and second-generation immigrants - those born in their rural homelands, and those born in Ghana - in terms of their orientation to politics, to kinship, and to community participation. The author explores the meaning of ethnic identity for rural- and urban-born immigrants, and establishes certain generalizations about ethnicity (...) based on these comparisons. The book discusses the issues of migration, particularly interregional migration; the position of the 'stranger'; questions of cultural change in modern Africa; the 'generational gap' in the African context; the questions of citizenship and national identity in Africa today, and the emergence of new identities, regional, national and religious. This book has importance not only as a local case study that gives a full description of West African urban life, but also as a theoretical reconsideration of ethnicity that has application outside the African context. (shrink)