Le grillon-taupe est un insecte paradoxal : beaucoup de contes ou de documents d’archives du folklore lituanien, ou d’autres pays, témoignent de l’étrangeté de cet animal. Tandis que sa neuvième et venimeuse pensée est capable de tuer d’une morsure, une fois formulée huit autres pensées, le mystère de la magie l’utilise pour guérir l’âme et le corps. Plusieurs noms lui sont donnés qui vont du symbole de chance à la figure de la mort.

This volume features new perspectives on the implications of cross-linguistic and cultural diversity for epistemology. It brings together philosophers, linguists, and scholars working on knowledge traditions to advance work in epistemology that moves beyond the Anglophone sphere. The first group of chapters provide evidence of cross-linguistic or cultural diversity relevant to epistemology and discuss its possible implications. These essays defend epistemic pluralism based on Sanskrit data as a commitment to pluralism about epistemic stances, analyze the use of two Japanese knowledge (...) verbs in relation to knowledge how, explore the Confucian notion of justification, and surveys cultural differences about the testimonial knowledge. The second group of chapters defends "core monism"--which claims that despite the cross-linguistic diversity of knowledge verbs, there is certain core epistemological meaning shared by all languages--from both a Natural Semantic Metalanguage and skeptical perspective. The third cluster of essays considers the implications of cultural diversity for epistemology based on anthropological studies. These chapters explore real disparities in folk epistemology across cultures. Finally, the last two chapters discuss methods or perspectives to unify epistemology despite and based on the diversity of folk intuitions and epistemological concepts. Ethno-Epistemology is an essential resource for philosophers working in epistemology and comparative philosophy, as well as linguists and cultural anthropologists interested in the cultural-linguistic diversity of knowledge traditions. (shrink)

This article focuses on the ethno-biological expedition to the Amazon headed by Ettore Biocca between November 1962 and July 1963. Biocca, a parasitologist by training, assembled a multidisciplinary team to carry out an ethno-biological study of Amazon natives. The expedition work covered the natives' customs, myths, chants, diseases and the hallucinogenic compounds and curare they used, and took into account plants and animals common to the Amazon environment. This article aims to contribute to the understanding of the 20th-century (...) Western approach to the Amazon people and its cultural importance. It sets out to show how Biocca's encyclopaedic work related to the centrality of Amazonia and its peoples in scientific and cultural debates on modernity and Western culture in the 1960s, and how it connects to Cold War anxieties about the disappearance of ‘uncorrupted’ peoples. (shrink)

This volume features new perspectives on the implications of cross-linguistic and cultural diversity for epistemology. It brings together philosophers, linguists, and scholars working on knowledge traditions to advance work in epistemology that moves beyond the Anglophone sphere. The first group of chapters provide evidence of cross-linguistic or cultural diversity relevant to epistemology and discuss its possible implications. These essays defend epistemic pluralism based on Sanskrit data as a commitment to pluralism about epistemic stances, analyze the use of two Japanese knowledge (...) verbs in relation to knowledge how, explore the Confucian notion of justification, and surveys cultural differences about the testimonial knowledge. The second group of chapters defends "core monism"-which claims that despite the cross-linguistic diversity of knowledge verbs, there is certain core epistemological meaning shared by all languages-from both a Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) and skeptical perspective. The third cluster of essays considers the implications of cultural diversity for epistemology based on anthropological studies. These chapters explore real disparities in folk epistemology across cultures. Finally, the last two chapters discuss methods or perspectives to unify epistemology despite and based on the diversity of folk intuitions and epistemological concepts. Ethno-Epistemology is an essential resource for philosophers working in epistemology and comparative philosophy, as well as linguists and cultural anthropologists interested in the cultural-linguistic diversity of knowledge traditions. (shrink)

Authentique zoologue, Aristote fait de l’homme un animal parmi d’autres au sein des êtres naturels. Les travaux scientifiques, cependant, malgré des rapprochements, mettent déjà en évidence sa singularité, tandis que l’animal non humain, considéré comme dépourvu de raison malgré des nuances, est exclu du champ de l’éthique dont la bestialité marque la limite. La vertu se conquiert en grande partie contre la part animale de l’homme mais l’animal en est incapable au sens strict. L’animal n’a guère valeur de modèle et (...) la lecture d’Aristote fournit peu d’arguments immédiatement exploitables en faveur de sa protection. (shrink)

Der Entwurf einer Biologie ist eine der erstaunlichsten Leistungen des Aristoteles. Offensichtlich ist er Teil eines umfassenden Konzepts, die gesamte Natur in ihrer Vielfalt und allen ihren Details zu erforschen und ihre Strukturen zu erklären. Wenn innerhalb dieses Entwurfs, der alle Bereiche am Himmel und auf Erden umfasst und etwa 50 % der erhaltenen Texte des Aristoteles ausmacht, die zoologischen allein ein Drittel einnehmen – eine kleinere botanische Schrift über die Pflanzen ist nicht erhalten ; in umfassender Weise bearbeitete die (...) Botanik Aristoteles’ Schüler Theophrast –, so hängt dies damit zusammen, dass in diesem Sektor der Natur durch Beobachtungen, Sektionen und Ursachenforschung die größten Ergebnisse zu erzielen waren. Bezogen auf das Gesamtkonzept hat also die Biologie bzw. die für Aristoteles im Vordergrund stehende Zoologie eine Pilotfunktion, die sie mit Einschränkungen auch in der Entwicklung der modernen Naturwissenschaft beibehalten hat. (shrink)

Identyfikacja z grupą etniczną lub narodową jest o tyle skomplikowanym zagadnieniem, że obejmuje szereg zjawisk decydujących o różnorodności kultur. Szczególnie istotny jest mechanizm oddzielający „swoich” od „obcych”, a więc konstytuujący wszelkie sfery aktywności, które z jednej strony są oczywistością kulturową, a z drugiej mogą być przyczyną wartościowania innych przez pryzmat tego, co jest możliwe do zaakceptowania. Stawiam tezę, że o tożsamości kulturowej decyduje ethnos, a dokładniej jego cztery elementy strukturalne : język, obyczaje, historia oraz religia. Stanowią one odrębne systemy, których (...) porządek wynika z korelacji zachodzących na poziomie interpretacyjnym. Szczególnie ważna w tej strukturze jest religia, która zabarwia emocjonalnie pozostałe elementy wierzeniami w istnienie rzeczywistości pozaempirycznej, a sądy i przekonania obowiązujące w grupie etnicznej lub narodowej czyni podstawowymi dla ukonkretnienia tożsamości kulturowej. (shrink)

Nombre de naturalistes du XVIIIe siècle sont des clercs. Ils ont investi cette science à des fins apologétiques.

For most of the twentieth century, anthropologists understood themselves as ethnographers. The art of anthropology was the fieldwork-based description of faraway others—of how social structures secretly organized the living-together of a given society, of how a people had endowed the world surrounding them with cultural meaning. While the poetics and politics of anthropology have changed dramatically over the course of a century, the basic equation of anthropology with ethnography—as well as the definition of the human as a social and cultural (...) being—has remained so evident that the possibility of questioning it occurred to hardly anyone. In After Ethnos Tobias Rees endeavors to decouple anthropology from ethnography—and the human from society and culture—and explores the manifold possibilities of practicing a question-based rather than an answer-based anthropology that emanates from this decoupling. What emerges from Rees's provocations is a new understanding of anthropology as a philosophically and poetically inclined, fieldwork-based investigation of what it could mean to be human when the established concepts of the human on which anthropology has been built increasingly fail us. (shrink)

Despite being far higher than, for example, Christianity, the claims of cosmopolitanism and universality, the desire to disassociate from national factors, Islam is still fully embedded in the conventional system of ethno-confessional syncretism, which, without disclosing in detail processes can be reduced to the following main components.

In the article, the vocabulary related to the wedding ceremony in the Pamiri languages is discussed. In particular, vocabulary reflecting the wedding ceremony in Ishkashimi language is almost unknown. In the Pamiri languages are still preserved all the traditional wedding ceremonies. The vocabulary associated with them is well-kept in full and is indigenous and sometimes borrowed. For the most, the terminology applied in the ritual is borrowed. Often the term is borrowed from Badakhshan dialect of the Tajik language. At the (...) same time, some Tajik words are used in specific meaning that is typical only to the dialect of Badakhshan and Dari language of Badakhshan in Afghanistan. This is mainly the vocabulary associated with traditional ways and procedures of the wedding ceremony. Some other words, such as sarbьzьrg ’to give respect, attention to mourners’, can be observed only in classical Persian literature. In view of the Islamization of the region the Arab terms are frequently used in rituals; they are associated with official terminology applied during the marriage process and designate its legal aspects. There are also Turkic lexis that was included into the dictionary because of language and cultural contacts in the region. It is significant that in the lexicon predominate metaphorical and descriptive ways of designation of the ceremonies. Remarkable specific vocabulary with original meaning is of particular use in the local minor Iranian languages in comparison with such major written national languages as Tajik language of Tajikistan and Dari Afghanistan. For example, in Ishkashimi language the word dumod is used only in the sense of ‘son-in-law‘, and in the meaning of ‘bridegroom‘ - only Å¡amard. Since the marriage and wedding ceremony has a special place in the spiritual culture of the people, the symbolic function is included into almost all the rites and ritual objects of it. During the ceremony, people wish of fertility, happiness, coming together and family well-being for the whole family and for the newlyweds. Thus, the terminology associated with these rites is preserved for a long time in the language; equally strong are numerous ritual prohibitions related to marriage. (shrink)

This essay offers a critical reading of Japan’s attempt to craft a modern identity. Eschewing the conventions of most scholarly writings, however, the essay builds on a personal history of political and intellectual engagement with key figures in post-war Japan to outline a counter-narrative about the ethno-politics of contemporary Japan. In distinction to both Orientalist and Occidentalist versions of Japanese modernity, the essay draws attention to the invidious return of notions of ethnic supremacy in Abe Shinzo’s con­temporary state project (...) and the occlusion of a long-standing tradition in Japan of pluralistic co-existence among diverse communities. In drawing attention to the occlusions shaped by the entanglements of Japanese colonialism and state-building with American hegemony, this essay attempts to locate practices of exclusion within Japan (and vis-à-vis its Asian neighbors) in an account of what the essay contends is a civilizational project, best thought of as “Smart Occidentalism”, dominant in in contemporary Japan. (shrink)

This article examines the extent to which ethno-religious conflicts have affected sustainable development in Nigeria. The destruction of lives and property by reckless ethnic and religious extremists has been a challenging key factor to sustainable development in Nigeria. This article aims to reflect on the ethno-religious conflicts in Nigeria from an epistemological point of view, ascertain the major causes of these conflicts and seek solutions to address the root causes. The article concludes that religious intolerance among Nigerians from (...) different religious groups is the result of the misinterpretation of religious teachings of the leaders of terrorist groups to their followers and that ethno-religious conflicts in Nigeria affect sustainable development as they lead to loss of lives and destruction of property, among others. It is also indicated that the effects of ethno-religious conflicts in Nigeria lead to an increase in the unemployment rate, withdrawal of foreign investments and education imbalance. The article concludes by arguing that ethnicity and religious crises are unhealthy for the nation’s sustainable development and that no price paid in the direction of resolving these conflicts can be considered to be too much. It is recommended that religious leaders form the minds of Nigerians with the teaching of love and peace, as it is proclaimed in their various religious books and beliefs.Contribution: This article brought to light the major factors instigating continuous ethno-religious conflict in Nigeria that has led to much social unrest. Theological reflection of the influence of religion in promoting peaceful coexisting environment was analysed. This work would be of immense benefit to religious bodies, government, civil society and students. (shrink)

Flags are conceptual representations that can prime nationalism and allegiance to one’s group. Investigating children’s understanding of conflict-related ethno-national flags in divided societies sheds light on the development of national categories. We explored the development of children’s awareness of, and preferences for, ethno-national flags in Northern Ireland, Kosovo, and the Republic of North Macedonia. Children displayed early categorization of, and ingroup preferences for, ethno-national flags. By middle-childhood, children’s conflict-related social categories shaped systematic predictions about other’s group-based preferences (...) for flags. Children of minority-status groups demonstrated more accurate flag categorization and were more likely to accurately infer others’ flag preferences. While most Balkan children preferred divided versus integrated ethno-national symbols, children in the Albanian majority group in Kosovo demonstrated preferences for the new supra-ethnic national flag. We discuss the implications of children’s ethno-national flag categories on developing conceptualizations of nationality and the potential for shared national symbols to promote peace. (shrink)

Islam in the Ukrainian territory has more than a thousand years of history. The first Muslims who systematically lived or roamed the lands of present-day Ukraine were the steppes. Thus, the burial of the ancestors of modern Ossetian-Apans according to the Muslim rite in the eastern Ukrainian archeologists date from the VII-VIII centuries. Initial knowledge of Islam was also learned from the neighboring Bulgaria. The first written mention of the permanent stay of Muslims in Ukraine dates back to the XI (...) century, when the princes of Kiev had a cavalry of Muslim Pechenegs. Having established itself in Crimea in the XIII century, the Tatar ulus for Khan Uzbekistan officially recognized Islam as the state religion. During the entry of Kievan Rus into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, many Muslim Tatars were brought from Crimea under martial law by order of Prince Vytautas. (shrink)

A retrospect into ethos, this study examines the impact of individualism, collectivism, ethical idealism and interpersonal trust on negotiators' attitudes toward questionable negotiation tactics in Greece. A thousand survey questionnaires were administered to Greek employees, of which 327 usable responses were collected. Our findings empirically corroborated a classification of three groups of negotiation tactics, namely, pretense, deception and lies. Individualism–collectivism and ethical idealism were found to be related, and interpersonal trust was found to be unrelated, to attitudes toward questionable negotiation (...) tactics. Emphasizing the non-US and non-Western European nature of the empirical data collected, the originality of this research further stems from the development of a comprehensive research framework about questionable negotiation tactics in Greece. (shrink)

In the course of his short literary life, Liu Na'ou travelled across four geographical areas: Taiwan, Japan, Shanghai and Beijing, as well as five cultural domains: Taiwanese, Japanese, French, English and Chinese. The transnational facet of Liu's modernist writing is not merely literary or cultural but political and historical. The earliest modernist writing in China was initiated on the basis of the colonial experience of Taiwan and the semi-colonial modernity of Shanghai. It became a “contact zone” in which various cultural (...) and political influences to contest with each other, signaling a process of power shifting in East Asia in the early 20th century. This article aims to reflect on theoretical issues ranging from nationalism, cosmopolitanism, colonialism and semi-colonialism, to the colonial modernity of East Asia, drawing upon Liu's modernist writings in 1928. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the interaction that language and economy have in society versus an ethnocentric approach that sees other languages as challenges instead of an opportunity. The paper analyses the role that bilingualism has in the economy and how economy can impact the promotion of flexible language policies in order to open new markets. Throughout the discourse a strong focus is placed on the dilemma: can language impact and make economy beneficial? The study aims to explore how multicultural societies (...) which often have one dominant language can benefit by opening language diversity to the business habitat with a specific focus on particular linguistic and economic developments in the Balkans after the fall of Yugoslavia. In the second part this global issues are analyzed in the local context. The study brings examples from Macedonia on how the private sector is much more advanced and innovative compared to the state institution. During this discourse few corporations active in Macedonia are analyzed in order to size the positive impact that flexible usage of language has on the economy and how state institutions can replicate this positive model. Other factors such as culture and the neurolinguistics studies have been considered as well. (shrink)

The processes of globalization, embraced with such eagerness in the 1990s, started being reviewed a decade later, having revealed a vicious underside. Behind the diverse masks of globalization hide murderous identities that promise different types of violence. During Brexit, the referendum in June 2016 that was to decide whether the United Kingdom left the European Union or stayed in it, Britain rejected what the EU represents—a common identity—to pursue a road on its own—a separate identity.1 Significantly, one of the elements (...) that analysts regarded as central to Brexit was immigration. According to a recent book by Nidesh Lawtoo, immigration is one of the main rhetorical tropes of the new political... (shrink)

Born in 1918, Poland - the Second Commonwealth - was a multinational and multi-denominational state. In 1931, out of 32, 1 million of its Poles were 65%. The largest national minority was Ukrainians, followed by Jews, Belarusians, Germans. Other national groups accounted for about 1% of the total population.

For some thirty years, a handful of architects has been trying to call into question the primacy that the history of architecture has given to monumental buildings. The representatives of this trend want to get away from the short chronology, common since the Italian Renaissance, and react against the dominant international functionalism that has too little respect for the local cultural contexts. It is under the influence of this “vernacular” approach that the small traditional structure became as legitimate an object (...) of research as the well-known buildings. This approach, innovative and audacious as it was, broke with a Utopian vision of a large part of modern architecture. It led the architects concerned to turn toward non-European countries and to focus their attention on the connections between indigenous housing patterns and cultures. From this decentralization ethno-architecture was born by which we understand the study of preindustrial, “traditional” habitats and housing. Inspired by Panofsky, Eliade, and Lévi-Strauss and familiar with the social sciences, these researchers appropriated the conceptual tools of anthropology. They opened up important fields of research in Asia, Oceania, the Middle East, and Africa and reaped a rich harvest of ethnographic materials. It quickly became clear to them that the so-called “traditional” house developed, in imitation of palaces and temples, from the culture of a given population and that it was informed by the religious images of the inhabitants as much as by its most sacred buildings. (shrink)

Ethno-pragmatics as device to understand the culturally Other is essential when we believe that there is a nexus of intimate relationships between languageand culture. The whole idea of ethno-pragmatics is to understand local life-worlds in the wake of celebrating particularism in inter-cultural communication. Ethnopragmatics basically appreciates language practices in terms that make sense to the people concerned, whether in terms of indigenous values, beliefs, attitudes, social categories or emotions, and so on. Understanding cultural keywords is pertinent in (...) class='Hi'>ethno-pragmatics. These living words provide the best key to a culture’s values and assumptions, and they are embedded in the cultural scripts of the society/community. With the above positioning, we suggested that ethno-pragmatics be the device for intercultural communication intelligence (ICQ). In this work we employed a cultural script quest in order to capture/understand the tapestry of Malay culture. Bahasa (“language”) is one of the main Malay cultural keywords. The Malays relate bahasa to various norms and beliefs that encompass their life-world. Bahasa is molecularly related to their emotions, sense-making and aesthetics. As an illustration, we provide ICQ-at-work with halus as a technique of utilizing bahasa for successful speech-acts. Specifically, we narrate on Malay “indirectness” as a way of having conversation with the culturally Other. (shrink)

This is an advocacy essay that documents the undignified and inhumane conditions of social inequality to which the members of "Al-Akhdam" minority group are subjected in the Republic of Yemen. By focusing on the interaction between culture and collective violence, it examines the exclusionary socio-cultural and economic practices by which Al-Akhdam are denied basic human rights. In so doing, the article locates the root cause of such practices in ethnic prejudices; the Al-Akhdam are persecuted on account of their being of (...) African-descent in a country with an Arab-majority. Finally, the article advocates the protection of the collective human rights of the Al-Akhdam minority and proposes cogent measures for restoring social justice through the implementation of specific actions, including international condemnation of their persecution; official recognition of the violence meted to them; national international recognition and promotion of their rights; cessation of Yemeni government-supported policy of Al-Akhdam forced labor; formal extension of constitutionally-guaranteed economic and social rights and the establishment of a program designed to integrate them into the mainstream of Yemeni society. This list of concrete steps represents a practical advocacy plan for fostering changes in the conditions of Al-Akhdam in Yemen through numerous venues, including the Yemeni government, the United Nations, and local and international human rights NGOs. It is hoped that this documentation will significantly elevate international awareness of, and instigate responses to, the ethno-cultural violence being perpetrated against Al-Akhdam in Yemen. (shrink)

Department of Philosophy and Religions, Faculty of Arts, University of Benin, Benin City. Nigeria.

This paper is intended to contribute to the discussion of the differential level of adoption of Big Data among research communities. Recognising the impracticality of conducting an audit across all forms and uses of Big Data, we have restricted our enquiry to one very specific form of Big Data, namely general purpose taxonomies, of which Mosaic, Acorn and Origins are examples, that rely on data from a variety of Big Data feeds. The intention of these taxonomies is to enable the (...) records of consumers and citizens held on Big Data datasets to be coded according to type of residential neighbourhood or ethno-cultural heritage without any use of questionnaires. Based on our respective experience in the academic social sciences, in government and in the design and marketing of these taxonomies, we identify the features of these classifications which appear to render them attractive or problematic to different categories of potential user or researcher depending on how the relationship is conceived. We conclude by identifying seven classifications of user or potential user who, on account of their background, current position and future career expectations, tend to respond in different ways to the opportunity to adopt these generic systems as aids for understanding social processes. (shrink)

The comparative study of Romanian and Hungarian Neopagan organizations with an ethnocentric or "Ethno-pagan" ideology is an exploratory research aimed at mapping the similarities and the differences between these religious minorities, with a highlight on their level of institutionalization, their core values and degree of political mobilization. Zalmoxian groups and organizations promote the revival of Romanian spirituality through a process of reconnection to its ancient, supposedly Dacian and Thracian roots; by the same token, Hungarian Shamanist movements are aimed at (...) recovering a supposedly lost spirituality, built-in into the deepest layers of Hungarian language and cultural practices. A web rhetoric analysis of these organizations is carried out in order to assess audience involvement, communication style and the use of multimedia tools to convey their messages. (shrink)

Through a case study, this paper contributes to answer the call to inquiries set by John Dewey in the conclusion of his Theory of Valuation. To move on to ethnography, some requirements explained by Alfred Schutz have also been followed: the study of choices, transactions, and evaluations must be confronted with real situations in real temporality, not with puppets set in motion by social scientists. The present case study is based upon a thorough ethnography of evaluation in a Spanish Moroccan (...) community milieu, conducted in Andalusia and Morocco from 2007 to 2010. The observation discipline, which leads to an original kind of ethnographic data, has been called ethno-accounting by the author, as the point is to take into account what people do actually take into account, instead of claiming to assess things and situations directly. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungIn dem Beitrag wird die These vertreten, dass die für Deutschland typische „biologische Perspektive“ (Lynn Nyhart) mit ihrem Interesse am lebenden Tier nicht nur die naturkundliche Praxis während der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts in vielfältiger Weise beeinflusste, sondern auch die Illustrationen der populären Zoologie, wie etwa in Brehms Thierleben, prägte: Die Zeichner bevorzugten als Modelle nun lebende Tiere, die sie in den zoologischen Gärten studierten; dabei stellten sie diese häufig in ihrer natürlichen Umgebung dar, die sie aus Mangel (...) an eigener Kenntnis aber imaginieren mussten. Ein weiteres beliebtes Genre in der populären Zoologie waren die Darstellungen von kämpfenden Tieren, die nicht zuletzt durch ihre Dramatik ins Auge fielen. Die ersten Tierfotografen orientierten sich an diesen Merkmalen der zoologischen Illustrationen und gaben ihren Aufnahmen mit Hilfe von Manipulationen, Inszenierungen und Retuschen den Eindruck von natürlicher Umgebung und Dramatik. Dennoch betonten sowohl Zeichner als auch Fotografen die Naturtreue und – darauf beruhend – den wissenschaftlichen Wert ihrer Abbildungen. Sie prägten damit eine „biologische“ Tierfotografie, die es nach der Jahrhundertwende engagierten Amateuren ermöglichte ein populäres Werk der heimischen Tierwelt zu schaffen, das breite Anerkennung fand. (shrink)

Throughout the 20th century, an enormous amount of intellectual fuel was spent debating the merits of a class of skeptical arguments which purport to show that knowledge of the external world is not possible. These arguments, whose origins can be traced back to Descartes, played an important role in the work of some of the leading philosophers of the 20th century, including Russell, Moore and Wittgenstein, and they continue to engage the interest of contemporary philosophers. Typically, these arguments make use (...) of one or more premises which the philosophers proposing them take to be intuitively obvious. Beyond an appeal to intuition, little or no defense is offered, and in many cases it is hard to see what else could be said in support of these premises. A number of authors have suggested that the intuitions undergirding these skeptical arguments are universal – shared by everyone who thinks reflectively about knowledge. In this paper we will offer some evidence indicating that they are far from universal. Rather, the evidence suggests that many of the intuitions epistemologists invoke vary with the cultural background, socio- economic status and educational background of the person offering the intuition. And this, we will argue, is bad news for the skeptical arguments that rely on those intuitions. The evidence may also be bad news for skepticism itself – not because it shows that skepticism is false, but rather because, if we accept one prominent account of the link between epistemic intuitions and epistemic concepts, it indicates that skepticism may be much less interesting and much less worrisome than philosophers have taken it to be. (shrink)

Liberal nationalists advance two claims: (1) an empirical claim that nationalism is functionally indispensable to the viability of liberal democracy (because it is necessary to social integration) and (2) a normative claim that some forms of nationalism are compatible with liberal democratic norms. The empirical claim is often supported, against postnationalists’ view that social integration can bypass ethnicity and nationality, by pointing to the inevitable ethnic and cultural particularities of all political institutions. I argue that (1) the argument that (...) class='Hi'>ethno-cultural particularity demonstrates the need for nationalist integration depends on an implausible reification of national identity at the level of social theory, and that (2) this reification ironically serves to undermine liberal nationalists’ normative claim. (shrink)

This paper discusses how the theory of evolutionary Asiacentrism and the Peking Man findings at the Zhoukoudian site stimulated Chinese intellectuals to construct Sinocentric ethno-nationalism during the period from the late 1920s to the early 1940s. It shows that the theory was first popularized by foreign scientists in Beijing, and the Peking man discoveries further provided strong evidence for the idea that Central Asia, or to be more specific, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Mongolia, was the original cradle of humans. Chinese (...) scholars in the late 1930s and 1940s appropriated the findings to construct the monogenesis theory of the Chinese, which designated that all the diverse ethnic groups within the territory of China shared a common ancestor back to antiquity. (shrink)