Prof.

Jean Jackson Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ethnic and National Identity Brief description: An introduction to the cross-cultural study of ethnic and national identity. We examine the concept of social identity, and consider the ways in which gendered, linguistic, religious, and ethno-racial identity components interact. We explore the history of nationalism, including the emergence of the idea of the nation-state, as well as ethnic conflict, globalization, identity politics, and human rights. Comprehensive description: This subject looks at the evolution of the concepts of ethnic and national identity over time, in both social science and everyday life. Students are introduced to the substantial cross-cultural variation in how personhood and social identity are conceptualized. We explore the history of notions about what constitutes a nation, in the sense of a people, looking at what the term meant prior to the European nation-state and imperial projects of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and at what it means in the present era of multiculturalism, postmodernity, globalization, and transnational trends such as migration. We examine how both ethnic and nation-state nationalism create narratives about the past that are intended to help solve present-day problems. We also look at the related concepts of race, religion, gender, and culture, examining how each one entails the others. We also study how ethnic and national identity in the West are seen in terms of shared biological legacies, shared histories, and shared cultural content, conceived in terms of 1) shared patterns of behaviormusic, dress, food styles, embodied habits (e.g., posture), etc., and 2) inner qualities such as character, personality, or talent. Language ideologies are also briefly discussed, with an emphasis on how linguistic features (lexicon, phonology) serve non-linguistic purposes, for instance, signaling ethnic or national identity. Requirements: In addition to written work, students are expected to keep up with all assigned readings (approximately 150 pp. a week for the books; 100 pp. a week for articles). Students must attend class and participate; this part of the course, coupled with Reader Responses, will account for 10% of the grade. Students who miss more than 3 classes will lose credit. Students write 3 papers, each counting 30%. Weekly Reader Responses: consist of a few sentences describing your reaction to one of the readings for that session. Do not provide an analysis or summary, give us your response to it. These should take no more than 10 minutes to write and post on the class Stellar Forum site before class meets either on Tuesday or Thursday. While these are not graded, they are required. There is no final examination. Papers: you will write three papers, 7 or more pages (roughly 2000 words) each. You must rewrite the first two papers in light of the comments you receive. The revised draft
Ethnicity Syllabus 3 2008 5/26/09

2 is the version that will be graded. Rewriting the third paper is optional, but highly recommended. You will also be expected to participate in class discussions and presentations. If a student does not regularly volunteer, she or he will be randomly called upon to speak. Students will present their third paper in class. Five videos will be shown. The first class hour will be lecture, followed by 1/2 hour discussion Required Books (available at the Coop): Peter Wade, Race, Nature, and Culture. Pluto, 2002 Dru Gladney: Ethnic identity in China: The making of a Muslim minority nationality. Harcourt Brace, 1998 Joane Nagel, American Indian Ethnic Renewal: Red Power and the Resurgence of Identity and Culture. Oxford, 1997 Other readings are posted on the class Stellar site A previous version of this subject is available at: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Anthropology/21A-226Spring2005/Syllabus/index.htm 1. 2. Tues. Feb. 5 Thurs. Feb. 7 Introduction to the study of ethnic and national identity: the stakes, and why the stakes are so high Ethnic identity I

Read: Begin Gladney 1-23 Nagel 3-13 Thomas Eriksen, 2002. What is ethnicity? In Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives (2nd ed.). London: Pluto Press: 1-17. 3. Tues. Feb. 12 Ethnic identity II

Read: Gladney 25-54 (29) Nagel 19-33 (14) 4. Thurs. Feb. 14 Ethnic identity III: the Hui

Read: Gladney 57-132 (75) Tuesday Feb. 19 no class (Monday schedule of classes)

5.

Thurs. Feb. 21

Nation and nationalism I

Read: Eriksen, 2002. Nationalism. In Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives (2nd ed.). London: Pluto Press: 96120 (24) Simon Harrison, 1999. Identity as a scarce resource. Social Anthropology 7 (3), 239-251. (21) 6. Tues. Feb. 26 Nation and nationalism II

Video: The Master Race Read: Finish Gladney 135-176 (41) 7. Thurs. Feb. 28 Ethnicity, state, nation

Read: Eriksen, 2002. Ethnic identity and ideology: 59-77 (18). Ethnicity in history: 78-96 (18). In Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives (2nd ed.). London: Pluto Press. David Maybury-Lewis, 2002. Ethnic groups. In Maybury-Lewis, Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Groups, and the State. Boston: Allyn and Bacon: 47-79 (32) Optional: Jack David Eller, 1999. Ethnicity, culture, and the past In Eller, From Culture to Ethnicity to Conflict: An Anthropological Perspective on International Ethnic Conflict. Ann Arbor: U Michigan Press: 7-48. State, nation, culture

8.

Tues. March 4

Read: Louisa Schein, 1997. The consumption of color and the politics of white skin in post-Mao China. In The Gender Sexuality Reader. Roger Lancaster and Micaela Di Leonardo, eds. New York: Routledge: 473-86. (9) Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson, 1992. Beyond culture: space, identity and the politics of difference. Cultural Anthropology 7 (1): 6-23. (14) David Maybury-Lewis, 2002. The state. In Maybury-Lewis, Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Groups, and the State. Boston: Allyn and Bacon: 105-130 (25) 9. Thurs. March 6 Culture: definitions

4 Read: Ara Wilson, 1988. American catalogues of Asian brides. In Johnnetta B. Cole, ed., Anthropology for the Nineties, Introductory Readings. New York: Free Press: 114-124 (written for this volume). (10) Nagel, Constructing culture, 43-54; Deconstructing ethnicity, 60-72. (23) Richard Handler, 1985. On having a culture: nationalism and the preservation of Quebecs patrimoine. In George W. Stocking, Jr., ed., Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material Culture. Madison, U. Wisconsin Press: 192-215. (17) FIRST DRAFT OF FIRST PAPER DUE 10. Tues. March 11 Video: Gacaca Read: David Maybury-Lewis, 2002. Genocide and ethnic cleansing. In Maybury-Lewis, Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Groups, and the State. Boston: Allyn and Bacon: 81-103 (22) Lynn Stephen, 2000. The construction of indigenous suspects: militarization and the gendered and ethnic dimensions of human rights abuses in Southern Mexico. American Ethnologist 26(4): 822-42. (17) Ethnic conflict I

11.

Thurs. March 13

Ethnic conflict II

Read: Eller: The Kurds: Frustrated Nationalism. In Eller, From Culture to Ethnicity to Conflict: An Anthropological Perspective on International Ethnic Conflict. Ann Arbor: U Michigan Press: 143193 (50) Liisa Malkki, 1992. National geographic: the rooting of peoples and the territorialization of national identity among scholars and refugees. Cultural Anthropology 7 (1): 24-44. (14) FIRST PAPER RETURNED, WITH COMMENTS 12. Tues. March 18 Race I

Read: Wade, Defining race, 1-15, Existing approaches to race, 16-36; Historicising racialised natures, 37-68. (52) 13. Thurs. March 20 Race II

5 Read: Wade, Genetics and kinship: the interpenetration of nature and culture, 6996; Race, nature and culture, 97-111; Embodying racialised natures, 112-122. (54) REWRITE OF FIRST PAPER DUE March 24-28 Spring Vacation 14. Tues. April 1 Race III

Video: Stolen Generations: Genocide and the Aborigines Read: Michael Dyson, The plight of Black men. In Margaret Andersen, Patricia Hill Collins, eds., 2001 Race, Class and Gender. Belmont: Wadsworth: 146-155 (9). Originally from Michael Dyson Reflecting Black: African-American Cultural Criticism, 1993. Minneapolis: U Minnesota Press, pp. 182-94. Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation. In Lisa Heldke, Peg OConnor, eds., 2004: Oppression, Privilege, & Resistance: Theoretical Perspectives on Racism, Sexism, and Heterosexism. New York: McGraw-Hill: 115-142 (20) Originally published in Omi & Winant, 1994, Racial Formation in the United States. Routledge.

15.

Thurs. April 3

Ethnic identity, nationalism and gender

Read: Marisol de la Cadena, 1995. Women are more Indian: Ethnicity and gender in a community near Cuzco. In Brooke Larson, Olivia Harris and Enrique Tandeter, eds., Ethnicity, Markets and Migration in the Andes: At the Crossroads of History and Anthropology. Durham: Duke University Press: 329-348. (19) Carol Smith, 1996. Race, class, gender ideology in Guatemala: modern and anti-modern forms. In Brackette Williams, ed., Women Out of Place: The Gender of Agency and the Race of Nationality. New York: Routledge: 50-78. (21) FIRST DRAFT OF SECOND PAPER DUE 16. Tues. April 8 Ethnic identity, state, and sexuality

Read: Joane Nagel, 2003. Sex and nationalism: sexually imagined communities. In Joane Nagel, Race, Ethnicity and Sexuality: Intimate

6 Intersections, Forbidden Frontiers. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 140-176. (27) Ann Stoler, 1991. Carnal knowledge and imperial power: gender, race and morality in colonial Asia. In Micaela Di Leonardo, ed., Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era. Berkeley: U California Press: 13-31. (18) Geraldine Heng and Janadas Devan, 1995. State fatherhood: the politics of nationalism, sexuality, and race in Singapore. In Roger Lancaster and Micaela Di Leonardo, eds., The Gender Sexuality Reader, New York: Routledge: 107-121. (9) 17. Thurs. April 10 Religion, ethnicity, the nation

Read: Aihwa Ong, 1990 State versus Islam: Malay families, womens bodies, and the body politic in Malaysia. American Ethnologist 17(2): 258-276. (18) Susan Kahn, 2000. Jewish and Gentile sperm: Rabbinic discourse on sperm and paternal relatedness. In Reproducing Jews: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel. Durham: Duke U Press: 87-111 (24) SECOND PAPER HANDED BACK, WITH COMMENTS 18. Tues. April 15 Language, culture, ethnicity

Read: Rodolfo Stavenhagen 1990. Language and social identity. In William A. Haviland and Robert J. Gordon, eds., Talking About People: Readings in Contemporary Cultural Anthropology. Mountain View: Mayfield: 41-43. Originally published in United Nations Work in Progress 13 (2), Dec. (3) Peter Whiteley, 2003. Do language rights serve indigenous interests? Some Hopi and other queries. American Anthropologist 105(4): 712-722. (8) Jacqueline Urla, 1993. Contesting modernities: Language standardization and the production of an ancient modern Basque culture. Critique of Anthropology 13 (2): 101-118. (15) Uli Linke, 2003. There is a land where everything is pure: Linguistic nationalism and identity politics in Germany. In Donald Moore, Jake Kosek, and Anand Pandian, eds., Race, Nature and the Politics of Difference. Durham: Duke U Press:149-173 (24) 19. Thurs. April 17 Culture recovery

Read: Nagel: American Indian population growth: changing patterns of Indian ethnic identification, 83-105; The politics of American Indian

7 ethnicity: solving the puzzle of Indian ethnic resurgence, 113-141. (56) FINAL DRAFT OF SECOND PAPER DUE Tues. April 22 no classPatriots Day 20. Thurs. April 24 Culture: appropriations, heritage, selling culture

Video: White Shamans and Plastic Medicine Men Read: Nagel: Red Power: reforging identity and culture, 158-178; Renewing culture and community, 187-205. (38) Dagmar Wernitznig, 2003. White shamanism. In Wernitznig, Going Native or Going Nave?: White Shamanism and the Neo-noble Savage. New York: U Press of America: 1-27 (23) OPTIONAL FIRST DRAFT OF THIRD PAPER DUE 21. Tues. April 29 Human rights, collective rights

Read: Ellen Messer, 2002. Anthropologists in a world with and without human rights. In Jeremy MacClancy, ed., Exotic No More: Anthropology on the Front Lines. University of Chicago Press: 319-334. (15) Jennifer Schirmer, 1996. The looting of democratic discourse by the Guatemalan military: implications for human rights. In Elizabeth Jelin and Eric Hershberg, eds., Constructing Democracy: Human Rights, Citizenship, and Society in Latin America Boulder: Westview: 85-97. (11) Nagel: Reconstructing federal Indian policy: from termination to selfdetermination, 213-228; The problematics of American Indian ethnicity, 234-248. (29) 22. Thurs. May 1 New Social Movements

Read: Kay Warren and Jean Jackson, 2003. Introduction: studying indigenous activism in Latin America. In Warren and Jackson, eds., Indigenous Movements, Self-Representation, and the State in Latin America. University of Texas Press: 1-46 (29) Balakrishnan Rajagopal, 2003. Recoding resistance: social movements and the challenge to international law. In Rajagopal, International Law from Below: Development, Social Movements and Third World Resistance. Cambridge: Cambridge U Press: 233-271 (38) OPTIONAL FIRST DRAFT OF THIRD PAPER HANDED BACK WITH COMMENTS

23.

Tues. May 6

Transnationalism, globalization and culture

Read: Katherine Verdery, 1998. Transnationalism, nationalism, citizenship, and property: Eastern Europe since 1989. American Ethnologist 25 (2): 291-306. (15) Daniel M. Goldstein: Human rights as culprit, human rights as victim: rights and security in the state of exception. In Mark Goodale and Sally Merry, eds., The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law Between the Global and the Local. Cambridge: Cambridge U Press: 49-77 (25). Optional: 24. Thurs. May 8 Arjun Appadurai, 199l. Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. Public Culture 2 (2): 1-24. (24) Summing up

Video: Genocide: The Ultimate Terrorism Read: Li, Tania, 2000. Articulating indigenous identity in Indonesia: resource politics and the tribal slot. Comparative Study of Society and History 42 (1): 149-179. Herbert Lewis, 1993. Jewish ethnicity in Israel: ideologies, policies, and outcomes. In Judith Toland, ed., Ethnicity and the State. New Brunswick: Transaction: 201-229. (25) Optional: Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, 1991. Anthropology and the savage slot. In Richard Fox, ed., Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present. Santa Fe: School of American Research: 1744. (24)

FINAL DRAFT OF THIRD PAPER DUE 25. Tues. May 13 Summing up: review of theory

Read: Eriksen, 2002. Identity politics, culture and rights 143-161; The nonethnic: 162-178 In Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives (2nd ed.). London: Pluto Press (34) Eller, Anthropology, Ethnicity and the representation of culture. In Eller, 2002. From Culture to Ethnicity to Conflict: An Anthropological Perspective on International Ethnic Conflict. Ann Arbor: U Michigan Press:pp. 49-94 (45) 26. Thurs. May 15 Student reports

Video: Without Due Process: Japanese Americans and World War II

No reading for today.