No description available.

No description available.

Au Kurdistan d’Irak, de nombreuses tribus ont toujours participé activement à la vie politique. Cette recherche étudie l’impact de cette organisation tribale sur la situation géopolitique du Kurdistan irakien, ce qui mène à analyser les transformations ayant mené au mode de gouvernance régional (fédéré) récemment mis en place, et donc le lien entre social et politique, société et Etat, tribu et gouvernement. S’appuyant sur de nombreux entretiens, l’étude utilise aussi des concepts issus de plusieurs champs : anthropologie, sociologie, histoire, géopolitique. Après une présentation générale (“Grand Kurdistan” et identité kurde, fait religieux), elle fournit un tableau détaillé des tribus : structure sociale et économique, relations avec le mouvement national et l’Etat, phénomène jash (milices tribales pro-gouvernementales). Elle retrace ensuite les processus politiques ayant conduit de la genèse du mouvement national kurde en Irak à l’émergence récente d’un Gouvernement Régional du Kurdistan (GRK) signe anglais (KRG). Elle analyse enfin les nouvelles perspectives géopolitiques ouvertes par la chute du régime Saddam Hossein en 2003 et la constitution fédérale irakienne de 2005, abordant les conflits entre gouvernements central et régional (gestion des ressources, territoires contestés, statut des peshmerga), et propose en conclusion un tableau des relations présentes des tribus au politique, et en particulier au GRK. / In Iraqi Kurdistan, numerous tribes have always actively participated in political life. This research studies the impact of this tribal organization on the geopolitical situation of Iraqi Kurdistan, which leads to a study of the transformation process leading to the regional (federal), recently set up, mode of governing, and of the link between social and political situations, society and State, tribe and government. Based on numerous interviews, the study also uses concepts from several fields: sociology, anthropology, history, geopolitics. After a general introduction (“Great Kurdistan” and Kurdish identity, including religious fact), it provides a detailed picture of the tribes: social and economic structures, relations with the national movement and the State, jash phenomenon (pro-government tribal militias). It then describes the political processes leading from the genesis of the Kurdish national movement in Iraq to the recent emergence of a Regional Government (KRG). Finally it analyses the geopolitical perspectives brought about by the fall of the regime, and the federal Constitution of 2005, dealing with the conflicts between central and regional governments (resources management, disputed territories, peshmerga status). The conclusion gives a try at a picture of the new relations of Kurdish tribes to the political field, and particularly to KRG.

With forty-nine officially recognized ethnic groups, Kenya has long struggled with ethnic politics and tribalism. Ethnic tensions within the country often erupt and lead to violence during high political seasons, significantly impacting the economy and threatening national stability. In Kenya’s three major cities, where pluralism is more likely than in smaller towns, ethnic tensions exist submarinally as potential harm to social wellbeing and ever-present danger to communal flourishing. This study is a digitally conducted ethnographic study of city-living Kenyans investigating how they navigate citizenship and negotiate belonging and exclusion to make sense of the tribalism challenge in their daily existence. Affirming Kenya as a national combination of indigenous communities, the study acknowledges the moral processes that contribute to public presence and performance between several active centers of belonging and exclusion, namely: indigeneity and cosmopolitanism, ethnicity and nationality, and ultimately, individual and community. Contemplating the impact of living in these liminalities for Kenyan city-dwellers, the study attends to the nature of kin-making and boundary-forming that transcend communal commitments and are navigated on social media and other online platforms. As argued in this research, the digitization of kinship temporarily lifts closed boundaries to allow for moral deliberation and negotiation over social challenges. The study thus affirms that communitarian formations and malfunctions in the public sphere make room for Kenyans to reclaim, rearticulate, and reassign both the ethnic and national aspects of their identity. Identifying social activism as an avenue, which supports the forbearance of kinship ties for social change, the research addresses the digital public sphere’s role in facilitating an arena for moral accountability, subjective morality, and communal reasoning towards moral transformation. / 2026-03-07T00:00:00Z

As politics in the world becomes all the more polarized it is important to look at how and why groups and factions are formed in today's society. In addition; one of the fastest growing medias in history, that of Digital Games, only becomes more and more influential the larger the budget and the greater the market. Therefore seeing how factions work in games and what, if any, effect it has on real life becomes just as vital as studying the phenomena in reality. It is also useful to see how we portray different kinds of factions, how the developer uses faction-related mechanics to guide the player and what a player chooses to do when interacting with groups and factions in games. The methods we used was primarily focused on diffraction because we wished to see what the different components of factions were and how one can, perhaps, switch them up. There are many aspects of what makes factions in games tick and the best method for identifying them, separating them and then re-applying them to discover new approaches and perspectives is, we decided, diffraction. Ultimately the conclusion we reached is that when it comes to factions in games communication is key and it is vital for any developer to know how to make use of it. Not just how to facilitate it, but also how to limit it. For while communication is, in general, good it could be detrimental to anyone wanting to create separate distinct player-driven factions. This is because a faction that has grown in a vacuum is going to be more distinct and unique than one grown together with another. When two factions can not communicate you get two separate entities, but when they can you get one entity with two different flavours to it, as World of Warcraft has quite clearly demonstrated. But even in single player games communication is vital, but this time between the developer and the player. Factions in this regard helps the player with categorizing that which they encounter in the world as well as better understanding said world in general. For instance, if a character belongs to a faction it is reasonable to assume the character supports the ideals of said faction. This helps both in assisting the player to quickly grasp the nature of the character, but also gives the potential for a bigger surprise if one chooses to undermine it later on in the narrative. / Medan världens politik blir allt mer polariserad så är det viktigt att se närmre på hur och varför grupper bildas i dagens samhälle. Samtidigt; en av de snabbast växande medierna i historien, digitala spel, blir bara mer och mer inflytelserik desto större budgeten och marknaden blir. Därför är det viktigt att se hur faktioner fungerar i spel och vilken, om någon, effekt det har på verkliga livet. Det är också användbart att se på hur vi väljer att porträttera olika sorters faktioner, hur utvecklare använder sig av olika faktionsbaserade mekaniker för att leda spelaren och hur spelaren väljer att interagera med grupper och faktioner i spel. Metoderna vi använde var mest fokuserade på diffraktion vilka olika delar faktioner består av och hur man kanske kan om-ordna dem. Det finns många aspekter av faktioner i spel som får dem att fungera och vi kände att diffraktion var den bästa metoden för att identifiera, separera och möjligen återapplicera dem, samt även för att hitta nya perspektiv och möjligheter. Slutsatsen vi nådde är att när det gäller faktioner i spel så handlar allt om kommunikation och det är viktigt för en spelutvecklare att bli bekant med hur man bäst utnyttjar det. Inte bara hur man uppmuntrar och förenklar kommunikation men även hur man begränsar den. Även om kommunikation, i allmänhet, är bra, så kan det vara en nackdel om man vill skapa separata och unika spelar-drivna faktioner. Detta beror på att faktioner som skapas i ett vakuum kommer att vara mer distinkt och unik än en som skapats sida-vid-sida med en annan. När två faktioner inte kan kommunicera skapas två separata entiteter, men om de kan kommunicera får du en entitet med två separata grenar, vilket World of Warcraft lyckats demonstrera ytterst bra. Men även i Single Player spel är kommunikation viktigt, fast denna gången mellan spelaren och utvecklaren. I detta fall hjälper faktioner spelaren att kategorisera det de ser och möter i spelvärlden samt att förstå världen bättre i allmänhet. Till exempel; om en karaktär tillhör en faktion så är det logiskt att anta att den karaktären står för samma värderingar och mål som den faktionen. Detta hjälper spelaren att snabbt få ett tag om de viktiga aspekterna av karaktären men hjälper även till att skapa en större förvåning om man senare väljer att underminera detta via ett förräderi eller liknande.

This thesis is an analysis of two concurrent processes - the liberalisation of the economy and the expansion of the tertiary education system - by the National Islamic Front (NIF)/National Congress Party (NCP) in Khartoum, Sudan. It is based on 18 months fieldwork conducted between 2008 and 2010, combining qualitative material from interviews, focus groups and field notes with a questionnaire administered to 300 employees in 14 organisations and 100 other individuals on public transportation. This questionnaire was adapted from Mark Granovetter’s survey of job information in the United States. The thesis makes both theoretical and empirical contributions. It examines the extent to which liberalisation has developed ‘markets’ by looking at communication in the labour market from the point of view of university graduates and managers in different fields. In contrast to Granovetter’s theory of ‘the strength of weak ties’ (SWT), it shows a trend of strong and strengthening ties in the Sudanese labour market. It argues that the combination of politically motivated liberalisation and the drastic expansion of education has plunged Sudan into a state of ‘hyperinflation’ of its qualifications, making public information about candidates untrustworthy and encouraging managers to use more personal sources of information to evaluate candidates. A simultaneous privatisation and internationalisation of opportunity has ensued. Educational expansion and liberalisation have dissolved the national cognitive space of the labour market and have forced actors to construct their own private economic spaces and to draw on transnational spaces in order to deal with uncertainty. The thesis therefore demonstrates an incongruity between ‘liberalised markets’ and the ‘markets’ envisioned by economic models (spaces of communication and coordination between strangers). It concludes by arguing that the retreat of both state and market has contributed to the ethnic fragmentation of Sudan under the NCP.

Kenya har i många sammanhang varit den ledande nationen i Östafrika men när det kommer till en gemensam nationell identitet ligger landet långt efter sina grannländer. Gällande t ex kultur, traditioner eller vem man gifter sig med har istället den etniska identiteten en större betydelse för de Kenyanska medborgarna. Betydelsen av stamtillhörighet har genom historien bidragit till oroligheter mellan olika etniciteter inom landet, den senaste och mest förödande uppstod i och med presidentvalet i december 2007. Stamtillhörighetens betydelse ligger till grund för denna uppsats; vi undersökte den kommunikativa meningen av identitetsskapandet i interpersonell kommunikation och massmedia bland unga vuxna i Nairobi. Vi ville med andra ord ta reda på hur man genom diskurs skapar konstruktioner och uppfattningar om sin identitet. Teorier vi valt att basera vår studie på är Newcomb’s triangulära kommunikationsmodell och Westley och McLean’s masskommunikationsmodell. Vi diskuterar relationen mellan kommunikation och makt, socialkonstruktivism och de teoretiska begreppen identitet, etnocentrism och förställda gemenskaper. Metoder vi använt oss av är kvalitativa gruppintervjuer och innehållsanalys. Resultatet är analyserat utifrån ett diskursanalytiskt perspektiv. Vi kom fram till att den kenyanska identitetsdiskursen kännetecknas av betydelsen av den etniska tillhörigheten, vilken är mer central än den nationella tillhörigheten

This Bachelors thesis has been written with the goal to learn how five Namibian newspapers are portraying ethnic minorities. A secondary goal has been to earn knowledge in how Namibian journalists think when writing about ethnic minorities. The analysed newspaper, Informanté, Namibian Sun, New Era, The Namibian and Windhoek Observer, are all written in English and has their head offices in the capital of Namibia, Windhoek. Both editors and reporters have been interviewed from these five newspapers.Two methods have been used in this thesis. Quantitative content analysis of articles found in newspapers during three weeks in November, 2011, a total of 55 articles were found containing the names of minorities. A qualitative method of interviews was then conducted with reporters and editors at the newspapers that were part of the research.The main theories of the thesis are Denis McQuail‟s version of agenda-setting, McQuail‟s theory on communicator-audience relations and Teun A. van Dijk‟s theory about the media‟s role as a reproductive part in the construction of stereotypes.The results show that 12.3 % of the analysed articles are mentioning ethnic minorities. In these, persons from the minorities seldom play an active part. The most featured minority was the Herero. Politics is the dominant subject in articles mentioning ethnic minorities, followed by racism/tribalism and tribal culture.In the interviews with the Namibian journalists, it is evident that there is a great will to emphasize the issues of the ethnic minorities. Most journalists regard their role as important in influencing people and therefore have a responsibility towards their readers.

The main objective of this thesis is to analyse the relationship between tribalism and modernity in Afghanistan. Focusing on Pashtuns, who constitute the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, the thesis traces their transformation from a tribal confederacy into a central state that introduced modernity to Afghanistan. In this regard, the thesis is, basically, a discussion of the struggle for power between two institutions in Afghanistan: the tribe and the state. In an effort to reveal the relationship between the two, the thesis looks at the modern strategies and ideologies used by the Afghan state to beat the power of tribalism. Nationalism and Socialism, in this regard, come up as two modern ideologies that are discussed in relation to Pashtun Tribalism. Questioning the concepts of Afghan Nationalism and Pashtun Nationalism as well as their relation to Pashtun Tribalism, the thesis discusses the concept of a tribe within the frame of modern border demarcation, nation-building efforts and modernist reform programmes. Passing on to the discussion on Socialism, the thesis then addresses the question of tribe in relation to the idea of class struggle, a communist party, a modern coup d&rsquo / &eacute / tat and a communist revolution. Contrasting the concept of tribe with such modern notions, the thesis finally reveals how tribalism managed to survive within these modern ideologies by articulating into them in various ways.

This research focuses on the impact of the moral community (or social context) on the formation of conscience and its implication for moral responsibility. It is an interdisciplinary approach to theological reflection that is particularly attentive to psychological, philosophical, sociological, and neurobiological viewpoints showing how these have either distorted or broadened our understanding of conscience in its relation to community and social responsibility, or its formation in relationship to our moral development. It stresses reciprocity of conduct (for we are "responders") and the complementarities of internal and external sanctions. It insists that the influence of conscience on behavior is undermined by a fixation on its cognitive aspect at the detriment of the feeling aspect such that retrieving the latter will broaden our appreciation of its deep but subtle influence. While admitting the richness of African <italic>communalism<<</he basis for a healthy formative process, it also sees in it a perplexing paradox given the socio-political realities of venal leadership and systemic corruption that de-colors the African landscape. Focusing on Nigeria, it identifies "tribalism" as a socio-moral "pathology" (an institutionalized self-interest) that not only distorts the traditional process of moral formation but has evolved as a core driver of systemic corruption. It claims that globalization enables "external powers" to impact local moral orientation. It links "local tribalism" and "international tribalism" as "pathologies" based on kinship of disordered self-interest. It exposes how the latter influences local moral disorientation in a way analogous to how the local moral community impacts the malformation of individual conscience and thus influencing irresponsibility. Its recommendations include: a "glocalized" moral reform aimed at "updating" conscience formation process and overcoming tribalism; a paradigm shift in foreign policy agenda towards a new ethic; and a "three-stage-process" that focuses on deconstructing unhealthy belief systems and building "active" moral communities as part of a robust long-term strategy against systemic corruption and deeper socio-moral transformation. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Theology / PhD; / Dissertation;