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Friday, April 24, 2009

Max Weber fellows to speak at LSE

Eight Max Weber fellows from the European University Institute (EUI), Florence, will visit LSE next week to give a series of talks and to learn teaching skills as part of an initiative organised by Academic and Professional Development (APD) at LSE.

The aim of the visit is for the academics to receive ongoing teacher training from the School's Teaching and Learning Centre and to work with foundation students in the LSE Language Centre.

All Max Weber fellows aim to become 'career' academics and are committed to developing expertise in teaching, as well as building up their research profile. APD is helping them do this by giving them training sessions in Italy as well as offering them this chance to spend a week at LSE.

Nick Byrne, director of the Language Centre, is looking forward to the visit: 'Last year was a real success story and we want to build on it this year. The Max Weber fellows are able to bring their expertise to LSE and we can give them the opportunity to work with a variety of students in different contexts. It's great that Academic and Professional Development at LSE has been able to work with talented academics who are so committed to developing their teaching skills.'

The visiting academics will give talks for four evenings next week:

  • Monday 27 April, 5pm, room NAB115 - Ekaterina Mouliarova will discuss The EU- Russian Relationship
  • Monday 27 April, 6pm, room NAB115 - Ottavio Quirico will talk about A Purely Formal Theory of Law: euclid, law and the school of Athens
  • Tuesday 28 April, 5pm, room S75 - Can Aybek will look at Leaving Parental Home in Germany: a comparison of young adults of German and Turkish origin
  • Tuesday 28 April, 6pm, room S75 - Sami Miaari will discuss Ethnic Conflict and Job Separation
  • Wednesday 29 April, 5pm, room NAB115 - Firat Cengiz on The European Competition Network: structure, management and initial experiences of policy enforcement
  • Wednesday 29 April, 6pm, room NAB115 - Fang Xu will look at Testing for Unit Roots in Bounded Non-Stationary Time Series
  • Thursday 30 April, 5pm, room NAB115 - Ania Cichopek will talk about Comparative Perspective in Postwar Polish-Jewish History: pogroms in Kraków and Topoľčany in 1945
  • Thursday 30 April, 6pm, room NAB115 - Violet Soen on The Challenges of Habsburg Peacemaking during the Dutch Revolt (1567-1598)

These events are free and open to all - to attend simply turn up on the night.

Ends

24 April 2009

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

A map of social theories, 1000-2000 by Alan Macfarlane

Filmed as part of a second year course in social anthropology at Cambridge University in November 2001. For further writings on the social theorists and the background, please see www.alanmacfarlane.com

Lecture on Max Weber (1864-1920)

Lecture to second year undergraduate students at Cambridge University in 2001 by Alan Macfarlane on some aspects of the work of Max Weber. For the background, downloadble version, readings etc. please see www.alanmacfarlane.com

Lecture on Karl Marx (1818-1883)

Lecture to second year undergraduate students at Cambridge University in 2001 by Alan Macfarlane on some aspects of the work of Karl Marx. For the background, downloadble version, readings etc. please see www.alanmacfarlane.com

Lecture on Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

Lecture to second year undergraduate students at Cambridge University by Alan Macfarlane in 2001 on some aspects of the work of Emile Durkheim. For the background, downloadble version, readings etc. please see www.alanmacfarlane.com

Open University Understanding Identity Podcast

Related to Section C of Ethnicity & Race

Open University Open Learning Page (also has gender identity)
http://podcast.open.ac.uk/oulearn/social-sciences/podcast-dd100-social-science-02


The Open University Page & Table of Contents
http://podcast.open.ac.uk/oulearn/social-sciences/podcast-dd100-social-science-02

The iTunes subscription link
http://deimos.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/itunes.open.ac.uk.1983106208

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Globalization & the Media


Watch Globalization & the Media in Entertainment | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Fenton's Ethnicity Notes Chapter 2 & 3 (3 to come later today or tomorrow)

Three settings: USA, UK & Malaysia

USA - view of race grounded in slavery (white & black)
Defense (military) to defend against working slaves & the natives (seen as a threat or obstacles to their expansion)

Enlightenment ideals identified the enlightened races as the "white race" and non-whites being the lower peoples therefore even after the emancipation freed slaves were counted as 6/10 of a person thus ineligible for US citizenship.

The US constitution also defined that only white people were eligible for US citizenship. Subsequent immigrants from Europe (Ireland, Scotland, etc) were looked down upon despite the same skin color, so the earlier settlers identified themselves as Anglos (White Anglo Saxon Protestant, WASP, LOL). Italians were later discriminated against because of their interactions with blacks and their darker tone skin. Exclusions were being made to North Indians who archaeologically were considered "CAUCASIAN".

US blacks is a neo-ethnicity

Ethnicity applied to differentiate from whites. Hispanics conceptualized as an ethnic category independent of a person's racial classification (Mexican, El Salvadorian, Honduras, etc)

Ethnic group/ethnic differences has white connotations in the US.

UK:

In the census, originally white/coloured. The Irish were later included in the census (due to the discrimination they suffered). In 1991 Proxy was used, such as country of origin, origin of parents, origin of the Head of Household.

Race in language less prominent than the USA.

Race - US Ethnic - UK

Malaysia:

Ethnic awareness borne (during the British occupation) borne of three reasons:

1. Chinese & Indian migration marked off from Malays.
2. Racial difference took official & public form (census, news, policies)
3. Proposition by UK for a universalist constitution.

UK acceded to constitution which guaranteed Malays special rights, and also built a definition of Malay in the constitution.

Malay, Chinese, Indian seen differently in two respects:

1. Political Status: Malays represent themselves as indigenous and the true heirs of the land.
2. Culture - line between Muslims/non Muslims marking the Chinese-Malay boundary.

In order to understand the Malay perspective, we have to understand the language and how it breaks down:

In the Malay language "ras" mean race, racial, the difference is that in the English context, it does not convey a sense of people of common origin.

"rakyat" means folk or people w/ a sense of "common folk or people" (closer to the English meaning of race)
Rakyat Malasia - Malaysian people or nation

Warga - family & people
warga negara - people of the state (citizens)

Kaum - lineage group (can also refer to class, social stratification), loosely common descent & group.
Kaum ciha - Chinese community
Kaum warrita - women's group
Kaum Kaum Kecil - minorities (kecil means small), small group
Perkauman - racialism
Kaum tasam - elite/upper class

Orang - meaning persons, this word may also refer to indegineous people aren't Malay or Muslims.
Orang cina - Chinese person
Orange Malayu - Malaysian person
Orange puteli - white person (used during the occupation)
Orange Canada - Canadian person
Orang asing - foreigners
Orang bukam Melayu - non Malays

Keturuman pendatag - descendants of immigrants, non-Malay, non-asli

Pendatang Haram - illiegal immigrants

Bangsa - Originally referred to descent & community of common origin, etymologically morphed to mean ehtnic/ethnicity.

Because of the residents of East Malay, Sarawah, Sabah, North Borneo despite not being indigeneous to Malaysia were in cluded in the independence negotiation thus the word "BUMIPUTERA" - sons or princes of the soil was born, to identify ethnic Malays.

There was speculation whether this word would last, it's alive and well to this day and used in English language periodicals to separate ethnic Malays to non-ethnic Malays.

In summary:

USA - race dynamic center on black/white, due to non-white immigration, it became an issue of whites/non-whites

UK - Simple distinction, black/white did not have same social force as US, ethnicity was not a concern, during the 16th century, religion was the focus, then after uniting Scotland, Wales & later Ireland, religion was still the main focus (Protestant or Catholic anybody?)

In the 1950's race viewed as a spurrious scientific term. Academics took the PC (politically correct) route and started writing "Race & Ethincity" as opposed to just "Race".

Malay - an issue between indigenes & in-comers, Muslims vs. non-Muslims, cultural differences, thus Bangsa was born. Basically for Malays ethnicity was a constitutional/political issue to gain their rights.

Race -> Ethnic group: chain w/in society in response to changing social conditions.

Chapter 3: coming soon

Culture/Race, Ethnicity Chart


 


 

CULTURE


 

ETHNICITY/RACE


 

Religion

Customs & Practices

Culture & Religion

Very much bound

Culture based on tradition and continuity


 

Not tied to race/ethnicity


 

Descent & Common Origin


 

Fenton's Ethnicity Notes Chapter 1

First how they define certain words:

1. Race - A group of persons connected by common descent or origin, a tribe, nation or people regarded as of common stock.

2. Nation - An extensive aggregate of persons so closely associated w/ each other by common descent, language or history as to form a distinct race of people.

3. Ethnic - Pertaining to nations not Christians, pertaining to a race or a nation; having common racial, cultural, religious or linguistic characteristics especially designating a racial or other group within a larger system.

Ethnic -> Race & Nation

Let's look at the etymological (the origin & development of a word) history of the word, "RACE"

1600s - nation or tribe of people regarded as "Common Stock"
late 18th/early 19th century: Race to mean "One of the great subdivisions of mankind."

19th/20th century: Science of classifying mankind into physically defined races which were widely believed to be the basis of differences in ability & temperament in a global racial hieracrchy.

1950's: Race was in retreat (preview of ethnic being born)

Let's review the Etymological & historical use of the word:

Race referred ethnic, nation, & common ground

Ethnic -> nations of cultural character, language, difference, foreignness.

Later Race & ethnic became interchangeable.

Race Thinking (by the Nazis)

1. Possible to classify the whole of humankind into a relatively small number of reaces defined primarily by physical and visible differences.
2. Races share appearance, temperament, ability & moral qualities. (Perhaps this is where stereotyping was born???)
3. "Racial Inheritance" physical & moral qualities of the race were preserved through racial descent.
4. Races were hieracrchically ordered with something referred to as the white race being superior to others.

ONE NOTE: Ethnicity does not equal CULTURE

So the evolution of RACE
19th century was subdivision of mankind, then in the late 19th/early 20th century it was used as a scientific classification of mankind.

Race, Racism, Nations, Nationalism

Nations/National = product of modernism

Anhony Smith in his book "The Ethnic Origin of Nations" (1986):

Nationalism extends the scope of ethnic community from purely cultural and social to economic and political spheres; from predominately private to public sectors. To make any real headway in the MODERN world, ethnic movements must stake their claims in political and economic terms as well as cultural ones, and evolve economic and political programmes...Even dominant ethnic groups must turn a latent, private sense of ethnicity into a public manifest one, if only to ensure the national loyalty of their members against the claims of other groups...Nationalism has endowed ethnicity with a wholly new self-consciousness and legitimacy as well as a fighting spirit and political direction. (Smith 1981, pp. 19-20)

Defining the core and the divergences:

Race refers to the descent & culture communities with two specific additions:

1. The idea that 'local' groups are instances of abstractly conceived divisions of humankind, and
2. the idea that races makes explicit referenes to physical or 'visible' difference as the primary marker of difference and inequality.

Nation refers to the descent and culture communities with one specific addition:

The assumption that nations are or should be associated with a state or state-like political form.

Ethnic group referes to descent & culture communities with three specific additions:

1. that the group is a kind of sub-set within a nation-state.
2. that the point of reference of difference is typically culture rather than physical appearance, and
3. often that the group referred to is 'other' (foreign, exotic, minority) to some majority who are presumed not to be 'ethnic'