Primordialist and constructivist authors have debated the nature of ethnicity “as such” and therefore failed to explain why its characteristics vary so dramatically across cases, displaying different degrees of social closure, political salience, cultural distinctiveness, and historical stability. The author introduces a multilevel process theory to understand how these characteristics are generated and transformed over time. The theory assumes that ethnic boundaries are the outcome of the classificatory struggles and negotiations between actors situated in a social field. Three characteristics of a field—the institutional order, distribution of power, and political networks—determine which actors will adopt which strategy of ethnic boundary making. The author then discusses the conditions under which these negotiations will lead to a shared understanding of the location and meaning of boundaries. The nature of this consensus explains the particular characteristics of an ethnic boundary. A final section i...

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The Making and Unmaking of Ethnic Boundaries: A Multilevel Process Theory 1

The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam’s latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam’s central argument: that “ social capital” —defined as “ social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them” (p. 19) — has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to “ reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.” As an example of how the current “ war on terrorism” could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says “ permanently marked” the generation that lived through it and had a “ terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.” 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

Th is article defi nes multispecies ethnography and links this scholarship to broader currents within academia, including in the biosciences, philosophy, political ecology, and animal welfare activism. Th e article is organized around a set of productive tensions identifi ed in the review of the literature. It ends with a discussion of the “ethnographic” in multispecies ethnography, urging ethnographers to bring a “speculative wonder” to their mode of inquiry and writing.

Animals, Plants, People, and Things: A Review of Multispecies Ethnography

Major paradigms in immigration research, including assimilation theory, multiculturalism, and ethnic studies, take it for granted that dividing society into ethnic groups is analytically and empirically meaningful because each of these groups is characterized by a specific culture, dense networks of solidarity, and shared identity. Three major revisions of this perspective have been proposed in the comparative ethnicity literature over the past decades, leading to a renewed concern with the emergence and transformation of ethnic boundaries. In immigration research, “assimilation” and “integration” have been reconceived as potentially reversible, power-driven processes of boundary shifting. After a synthetic summary of the major theoretical propositions of this emerging paradigm, I offer suggestions on how to bring it to fruition in future empirical research. First, major mechanisms and factors influencing the dynamics of ethnic boundary-making are specified, emphasizing the need to disentangle them from o...

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Herder's Heritage and the Boundary-Making Approach: Studying Ethnicity in Immigrant Societies*

Health inequities are widespread and persistent, and the root causes are social, political and economic as opposed to exclusively behavioural or genetic. A barrier to transformative change is the tendency to frame these inequities as unfair consequences of social structures that result in disadvantage, without also considering how these same structures give unearned advantage, or privilege, to others. Eclipsing privilege in discussions of health equity is a crucial shortcoming, because how one frames the problem sets the range of possible solutions that will follow. If inequity is framed exclusively as a problem facing people who are disadvantaged, then responses will only ever target the needs of these groups without redressing the social structures causing disadvantages. Furthermore, responses will ignore the complicity of the corollary groups who receive unearned and unfair advantage from these same structures. In other words, we are missing the bigger picture. In this conceptualization of health inequity, we have limited the potential for disruptive action to end these enduring patterns. The goal of this article is to advance understanding and action on health inequities and the social determinants of health by introducing a framework for transformative change: the Coin Model of Privilege and Critical Allyship. First, I introduce the model, which explains how social structures produce both unearned advantage and disadvantage. The model embraces an intersectional approach to understand how systems of inequality, such as sexism, racism and ableism, interact with each other to produce complex patterns of privilege and oppression. Second, I describe principles for practicing critical allyship to guide the actions of people in positions of privilege for resisting the unjust structures that produce health inequities. The article is a call to action for all working in health to (1) recognize their positions of privilege, and (2) use this understanding to reorient their approach from saving unfortunate people to working in solidarity and collective action on systems of inequality.

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The coin model of privilege and critical allyship: implications for health.

Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity

Alliances: Re/Envisioning Indigenous-Non-Indigenous Relationships

Barrington Walker (ed.), The History of Immigration and Racism in Canada: Essential Readings (Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 2008), 304pp. Paper. £22.99. ISBN 9781551303406. Maria A. Wallis and Siu-ming Kwok (eds), Daily Struggles: The Deepening Racialization and Feminization of Poverty in Canada (Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 2008), 307pp. Paper. £22.99. ISBN 9781551303390. These two books focus on different aspects of racism in Canada. One takes a historical perspective and the other deploys sociological approaches to examine contemporary Canada. They are both based upon previously published material and are organised as undergraduate student texts, with introductory chapters, succinct overviews of each section, annotated guides to further reading, and lists of relevant internet sources. The publisher's website (http://www.cspi.org) provides a link to sets of questions for tutors or students which might provide a basis for essays or class discussion. Barrington Walker's collection on immigration and racism is organised on broadly chronological lines with its first section beginning with the pre-European period and running to about the end of the eighteenth century and its last section bringing the reader to the end of the twentieth century. At the outset Walker argues that 'issues of race and immigration are not merely obscure sub-fields in Canada's social and cultural histories, but are integral to understanding the country's history as a whole' (p. 11). Part I begins with a chapter by Olive Dickason about the history of the Indigenous peoples prior to contact with Europeans. Other chapters include accounts of slavery in English Canada during the late eighteenth century (Robin Winks) and the experiences of Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia. Part II is thematically organised around the concepts of racialisation and space, including a chapter on the segregation of black students in Canada West in the nineteenth century and another on government responses to Chinese immigrants. Part III begins with a chapter outlining the ways in which the Canadian government allocated land for farming by First Nations and then impeded their agricultural development. The remaining three chapters cover urban developments and include discussion of the political context of industrial action and anti-semitism. The key metaphor for Part IV is 'gatekeeping', in particular with regard to immigration policies at the beginning of the twentieth century. Two chapters here, with contrasting arguments, analyse the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. Part V, on the postwar era, is mainly about the experiences of women workers in the latter part of the twentieth century. Dionne Brand draws upon oral history to recount the experiences of Black women (1920s to the 1940s), while Franca Iacovetta covers the transitions of immigrants from agricultural southern Italy to postwar Toronto, and Daiva Stasiulis and Abigail Bakan provide a comparative analysis of West Indian and Filipina women's experiences of domestic work in Toronto. …

The History of Immigration and Racism in Canada: Essential Readings/Daily Struggles: The Deepening Racialization and Feminization of Poverty in Canada

The employment pattern of young people is particularly significant for the economic, social and cultural vitality of urban Aboriginal communities. This study of young women entrepreneurs focuses upon the role of social capital in transitions to self-employment. It considers how social capital operates through networks within and between groups, has effects which are positive and negative in youth transitions, assists personal development and contributes to the community. The complex transitions of young women into self-employment occur at the same time as educational careers and family responsibilities are developing. Support for young Aboriginal people seeking self-employment is provided through a number of government-supported programmes. Focus group discussions, with young women whose businesses are predominantly in creative and cultural industries, reveal the role of social networks within Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities in their development and demonstrate their commitment to giving somethi...

Young urban Aboriginal women entrepreneurs: social capital, complex transitions and community support

Julie Cruikshank, Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005), xii + 328 pp. Cloth. $85. ISBN 0-7748- 1186-2. Richard Daly, Our Box Was Full: An Ethnography for the Delgamuukw Plaintiffs (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005), xix + 384 pp. Cloth. $85. ISBN 0-7748-1074-2. Paper. $29.95. ISBN 0-7748-1075. James I. Reynolds, A Breach of Duty: Fiduciary Obligations and Aboriginal Peoples (Saskatoon: Purich Publishing Ltd, 2005), xxv + 336 pp. Paper. £38. ISBN 1-8958- 3025-7. Kerry Wilkins (ed.), Advancing Aboriginal Claims: Visions/Strategies/Directions (Saskatoon: Purich Publishing Ltd, 2004), 320 pp. Paper. $38. ISBN 1-8958-3024-9. Andrew Woolford, Between Justice and Certainty: Treaty Making in British Columbia (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005), ix + 248 pp. Cloth. $85. ISBN 0-7748-1131-5. It is about ten years since completion of the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. In the intervening years, litigation, the treaty process and other negotiations have continued slowly. The background to these proceedings includes scholarship by anthropologists, sociologists, lawyers, and others, independently and on behalf of Aboriginal peoples. These five books are contemporary markers of understanding of Aboriginal knowledge and traditions and indicators of the legal context of negotiations. They reveal the contributions of social research to legal and political decision-making, provide accounts of discussions of strategies for promoting Aboriginal rights and raise questions about ways forward for Aboriginal communities. Do Glaciers Listen? considers Aboriginal views of agency and change in the environment, bringing together themes from social anthropology, history and environmental studies in its analysis of local knowledge, colonial encounters and environmental change. The period of human encounter analysed by Julie Cruikshank coincides with the later phases of the 'Little Ice Age' (1550-1850). The territory it covers is the Yukon and Alaska. Cruikshank is critical of instrumental usage of 'Traditional Ecological Knowledge', raises questions about how people relate to the natural world, and makes cautionary comments about policies for environmental protection. As Cruikshank makes clear, colonial exploration and settlement in northwestern North America occurred at the same time as the environment was changing. There were contrasts between European conceptions of division between nature and culture and those of indigenous peoples, whose 'oral traditions frame glaciers as intensely social spaces where human behaviour, especially casual hubris or arrogance, can trigger dramatic and unpleasant consequences in the physical world' (p. 11; emphasis in original). She argues that the contrasting views of the environment in oral history of local people and the historical records of the colonisers have consequences for current debates about the environment, climate change, and indigenous peoples' rights. Life histories from elderly Aboriginal women who lived in southern Yukon Territory treat glaciers as active and dynamic. These accounts are compared to those by European scientists and travellers, with illustrations from maps, photographs, and drawings. The consequences of different views of the environment and associated policies are made clear. Cruikshank remarks, for example, that recent designation of areas occupied by Aboriginal people as national parks has 'disenfranchised indigenous hunters at the stroke of a pen' (p. 253). Land rights and boundary issues are at the heart of Daly's ethnographic account of the lives of the Gitksan and Witsuwit'en peoples of northwest British Columbia. Whereas Cruikshank's study is about relations between indigenous peoples and Europeans, Daly's project raises questions about relations between indigenous peoples, particularly with regard to differing Nisga'a and Gitksan- Witsuwit'en concepts of landholding and contested territory. …

Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination/Our Box Was Full: An Ethnography for the Delgamuukw Plaintiffs/A Breach of Duty: Fiduciary Obligations and Aboriginal Peoples/Advancing Aboriginal Claims: Visions/Strategies/Directions/Between Justice and Certainty: Treaty Making in British Columbia

Roy Todd

Papers

Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity

Alliances: Re/Envisioning Indigenous-Non-Indigenous Relationships

The History of Immigration and Racism in Canada: Essential Readings/Daily Struggles: The Deepening Racialization and Feminization of Poverty in Canada

Young urban Aboriginal women entrepreneurs: social capital, complex transitions and community support