Desde hace algunos años, en la cuenca del río Cenepa (departamento de Amazonas, Perú), los comuneros awajún están luchando en contra de la actividad minera en la Cordillera del Cóndor, territorio donde se encuentran las cabeceras de los ríos que atraviesan su territorio. En las comunidades se ha revitalizado el mito de Kumpanam, un antepasado asociado a un cerro ubicado en los alrededores de las instalaciones de la compañía minera. En este artículo, quiero mostrar cómo el mito de Kumpanam cobra un nuevo significado en la actual coyuntura social y ambiental de la zona. El nuevo discurso indígena sobre Kumpanam brinda elementos para conceptualizar las interrelaciones entre «historia» y «mito». / In the last years the Awajún people, settled in the Río Cenepa watershed (Department of Amazonas, Peru) are struggling to defend their land from the impact of the mining activities in the Cordillera del Condor mountains. The myth of Kumpanan, an ancestor associated to the homonymous pick, located in the mining area, has been revitalized, with a new meaning, mirroring the current social and environmental contingency of the area. This contributes to rethink the linkages existing between «history» and «myth».

This document is based on a recent study on the relation between ethnicity, culture, «race» and ancestry among Afro-Peruvians. Findings show that while construction of the «black» or Afrodescendant identity in Peru holds the cultural dimension as a central component, it mainly - and fundamentally- revolves around the idea of the existence of a «black race». According to these «racialized» identity criteria, the boundaries of an Afro-descendant «we» cover only those with certain phenotypic markers that Afro-Peruvians themselves consider as defining membership in the «black race». The phenotypical «evidence» of «blackness» thus appears as a kind of «necessary condition» for the «black»/Afro- Peruvian identity. This form of self-identification poses a threat to the political discourses and projects of Afro-Peruvian organizations seeking to build a «de-racialized» Afrodescendant identity, one that is linked to a historical memory of the African diaspora which, nonetheless, seems to hold a weak presence among our country’s people of African descent. / El documento se basa en una reciente investigación sobre la relación entre etnia, cultura, «raza» y ancestralidad entre los afroperuanos. Los resultados permiten concluir que si bien la construcción de la identidad «negra» o afrodescendiente en el Perú tiene como un eje centra la dimensión cultural, principalmente —y de modo fundamental— gira en torno a la idea de la existencia de una «raza negra». Según estos criterios identitarios «racializados», las fronteras de un «nosotros» conformado por los afrodescendientes sólo abarcan a aquellas personas que tienen ciertos marcadores fenotípicos considerados —por los propios afroperuanos— como definitorios de la pertenencia a la «raza negra». La «evidencia» fenotípica de la «negritud» aparece así como una suerte de «condición necesaria» para la identidad «negra»/afroperuana. Esta forma de autoidentificación representa un desafío para los discursos y proyectos políticos de las organizaciones afroperuanas que procuran construir una identidad afrodescendiente «des-racializada» y vinculada a la memoria histórica de la diáspora africana —la cual,sin embargo, parece tener una débil referencia entre los afrodescendientes de nuestro país—.

Ultimamente tem se disseminado em alguns terreiros umbandistas do Sudeste o culto aos encantados, uma classe originalmente atinente a cultos do Norte e Nordeste. A literatura acadêmica a seu respeito se restringe a estudos antropológicos ou sociológicos. O surgimento da categoria de encantado em outras religiões e lugares, bem como hipóteses sobre este fato, ainda não foram estudados do ponto de vista etnopsicológico. Esta pesquisa objetiva contribuir para sanar esta lacuna. Para esse efeito, realizou-se um levantamento bibliográfico do que tem sido dito a propósito do termo, procurando constâncias entre vários contextos da sua ocorrência e contrastes do seu emprego. Além disso, realizou-se um estudo de caso no Templo de Umbanda Caboclo Flecha de Ouro. Para colher estes dados, utilizou-se o método psicanalítico (atenção flutuante, relação transferencial e contratransferencial) aplicado ao âmbito etnográfico (escuta participante). Deu-se ouvidos as histórias e as narrativas a respeito dos encantados, participou-se dos cultos, realizaram-se entrevistas com médiuns e entidades, utilizou-se diário de campo e observaram-se características do espaço físico e a dinâmica ritual. A análise dos dados foi realizada considerando as características da noção de encantamento que se repetiram e contrastando-as com os resultados do levantamento bibliográfico. A elaboração da encantaria nesse terreiro teve a participação de uma médium que já havia tido contato com os invisíveis da Mina num terreiro que frequentara anteriormente, mas a presença deles é narrada como sendo anterior e atender a um propósito específico neste contexto umbandista. Contribuiu também para a construção da noção de encantamento deste terreiro o estudo tanto da literatura a respeito dos encantados como atinente a tentativa de sistematização doutrinária da umbanda. A análise indica que os encantados surgiram nesse terreiro para desarranjar categorias saturadas de significado, cristalizadas,   ou,   nas   palavras   da   encantada   guia   do   terreiro,   para   bagunçar.   A   introdução   da categoria tem o sentido de restaurar e resguardar a aptidão da umbanda para dar abrigo ao aspecto misterioso do contato com o sagrado e a abertura para o desconhecido e inusitado. Com o surgimento da encantaria, ao que tudo indica, o panteão umbandista passa a ter literalmente infinitas possibilidades de entidades e linhas espirituais, e todas as pré-existentes podem ser ressignificadas, possibilitando a ampliação e a aprofundamento dos sentidos de categorias espirituais potencialmente saturadas de significado. Deste modo, neste contexto, assegura-se a possibilidade de expressar nuances e sutilezas anímicas tanto de vivências individuais como psicossociais. / The cult to the encantaria (enchanted being), originally related to cults in the North and Northeast regions in Brazil, has lately been propagated in some umbandista houses in the Southeast too. Academic literature concerning the theme is usually restricted to anthropological or sociological studies. Manifestations of the encantados category have not already been studied from an ethno-psychological point of view. This research aims to help filling that gap. Thus a bibliographic study concerning the term has been developed in order to find out both similarities in its occurrence and contrasts in its use in different contexts. Templo de Umbanda Caboclo Flexa de Ouro was the locus of a case study. Data collecting was based on the psychoanalytical method (fluctuating attention, transferential and countertransferential relation) applied to the ethnographic field (hearing participation). Besides giving ear to stories and narratives concerning the encantados, the following procedures were also used: cult participation, interviews involving mediums and entities, field journal, observation of physical space and ritual dynamic features. Data analysis was based on the contrast between the enchantment concept characteristics which frequently appeared, and the results obtained by means of bibliographical study. The encantaria manifestation in the studied terreiro occurred through a medium who had already been in contact with Mina invisibles in another house that she once used to frequent. But according to reports, these entities purpose in this umbanda context is specific, and they had already been present formerly. Both literature study concerning the enchanted and the search for umbanda doctrine systematization have contributed to build up the enchantment concept in this terreiro. Analysis has indicated that the enchanted emerged in the place to unsettle highly meaningful established categories or, according to the terreiro enchanted guide, to make disorder. The category introduction carries the meaning of restoring and guarding umbanda capability of giving shelter to the mysterious aspect involved in the contact with the sacred, and of being opened to the unknown and unusual. The encantaria emergence, as evidence shows, not only enables umbanda pantheon to assume literally uncountable entities and spiritual lines, but also to re-signify all pre-existent ones, besides allowing the enlargement and deepening of potentially meaningful spiritual category senses. Finally, the possibility of expressing animic nuances and subtleness of individual and psychosocial liveliness is assured.

O objetivo desta dissertação é explorar as construções de narrativas históricas, culturais, de classe, de gênero e de geração produzidas pela comunidade okinawana brasileira. Por meio de suas várias expressões dança, performance, publicações , mas também de suas formas de sociabilidade, intentamos entender as diferentes maneiras como esse grupo se produz nos seus jogos paradoxais de inclusão e de exclusão social. Procuramos avaliar, ainda, como todos esses processos estão conectados a uma certa brasilidade, mas como também (e ao mesmo tempo) o grupo reforça, sempre, discursos de diferença e autonomia. A metodologia do trabalho se insere no debate sobre antropologias nativas e lida com seus impasses. / The main goal of this dissertation is to explore how the historical, cultural, but also class, gender and generation narratives are built by the Brazilian Okinawan community. Through its various expressions dance, performance, publications and also thought other forms of sociability, we tried to understand the different ways that this group creates to understand and to deal with social inclusion and exclusion. We tried to portrait how this road is connected with a certain brazility and, at the same time, how they reiterate speeches that mark difference and autonomy. The methodology of this work is based on the debate known as native anthropology, and deals with its challenges.

The Republic of Ghana is the legacy of the colonial amalgam of multiple, and previously distinct, ethnic homelands. The Trans-Volta Togoland became the Volta Region of Ghana following a Plebiscite in 1956. The dominant ethnic group in this region; the Ewe, has long maintained a claim of neglect of the Volta Region and the marginalization of its people in this postcolonial state. Protests in the street and at media houses ensued against the State. This qualitative case study explores the undercurrents of this conflict in the context of the Ewe group’s identity and their experiences of neglect and marginalization in the postcolonial state. The main objective of the study was to understand why the Ewe group has not revolted despite the perceptions of deprivation. This study focused on the Ewe group in the Volta Region of Ghana a as sub-colonial construct that has managed its perceptions of deprivation without revolting against the host State.

L’étude porte sur un acte de re-dénomination essentiel, celui de donner un nouveau nom propre à un peuple en situation minoritaire. Cette communauté francophone de Louisiane est désignée par un paradigme ethnonymique d’une vingtaine de variantes orthographiques qui peuvent se réduire à quatre séries concurrentes : Cajun, Cadien, Acadien, Cadjin puis à la paire ethnonymique problématique Cajun/Cadien. C'est cette fluctuation dénominative que nous examinerons car chaque signifiant ethnonymique est associé à des représentations spécifiques qui construisent des identités ethno-linguistiques du groupe différentes voire concurrentes. Ce processus de redénomination censée revaloriser l’image communautaire est certes légitime dans un contexte d’étiolement linguistique et culturel mais ce Babel nominatif, cette « maladie du nom propre » appelée « dystropie ethnonymique » a un double coût, métapsychologique et sociologique, subjectif et identitaire. Nous assistons à un « forçage symbolique » car un « re-nom propre » pour être subjectivé ne devrait pas être imposé mais devrait plutôt opérer comme un désignateur référentiel, un désignant de reconnaissance communautaire, identitaire, et également un signifiant subjectivé qui appartient à ce que Jacques Lacan nomme « lalangue », parlant le sujet de l'inconscient et du désir. C’est par une opération de subjectivation que le sujet cajun/cadjin pourra s’identifier comme sujet cadien et ce processus semble aujourd’hui dynamisé en Louisiane par la renaissance d’une écriture poétique qui promeut l’ethnonyme Cadien par le biais d’un dispositif d’énonciation inter-subjectif chargé d’affects, qui ouvre le lecteur à une possible identification ethnonymique. / The study relates to an essential act of re-designation, to give a new proper name to people in a minority situation. This French-speaking community of Louisiana is indicated by an ethnonymic paradigm of a score of spelling variants which can be reduced to four concurrent series: Cajun, Cadien, Acadian, Cadjin, then with the problematical ethnonymic pair Cajun/Cadien. It is this denominational fluctuation which we will examine because each ethnonymic meaning is associated with specific representations which build ethno-linguistic identities of the group which are different and even competing. This process of redenomination which is supposed to revalorize the community’s image is certainly legitimate in a context of a withering language and culture but this nominative Babel, this “disease of the proper name” called “ethnonymic dystropia” has a double cost, meta-psychological and sociological, subjective and identity. We are witnessing a “symbolical forcing” because a “re-naming of one’s self” must be subjective and not imposed, it should rather have an effect as a reference designator, an indication of a community recognition and of an identity recognition, and also an indication of a subjective meaning which belongs to what Jacques Lacan calls “lalangue” which is the subject of the subconscious and desire that is speaking. It is by an operation of subjectification that the cajun/cadjin subject will be able to identify itself as a cadien subject and this process seems to be energized today in Louisiana by the rebirth of a poetic writing which promotes the ethnonym Cadien by the means of a system of inter-subjective enunciation full of affect, which opens the reader to a possible ethnonymic identification.

The objective of this study is to examine the role of the political élite in the analysis of the causes of conflicts and insecurity as well as the determination of threats to national security in the Third World with particular reference to West Africa using Côte d’Ivoire as a case study. To achieve this aim, the study employed a conceptual framework of national security that highlighted the concept of security and the distinction between the traditional notions and widening views of security as manifested in the post-Cold War approaches to the subject. The differences between the various levels of security, namely national security and state and regime security were examined. A distinction was made between minimal and maximal states on the one hand, and strong and weak states on the other which enabled the application of the concepts to Third World countries, including Africa. The concept of threats and vulnerabilities and how subjective elements of threat assessment blurred the difference between national security and regime security, were also analyzed including the causes of armed conflicts in developing countries and in Africa specifically. Based on these concepts, the study analyzed the political, socio-economic and security conditions of the Ivory Coast in the period before and during French rule, including the post-independence era. The aim of the historical analysis was to highlight the critical role played by the élite in the identification of threats to national security. This role invariably identified with the protection of élite interest or regime security and often reflected a subjective view of threats to security, the management of which created high levels of insecurity leading to the armed conflict in Côte d’Ivoire in 2002. The study established that the preservation of élite interests and power is the root cause of conflicts in Africa and West Africa. Subsequently, élite cohesion becomes critical to the security of the state as élite disunity leads to manipulation of objective threats or risks that generates insecurity that not only transcends borders, but also creates a security dilemma for states as well as conditions for irredentism. / Dissertation (MSecurity Studies)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Political Sciences / unrestricted

The intent of this thesis is to analyze the varying perceptions among Hispanic (Spanish-speaking) and Anglophone communities regarding vaccines and more specifically infant immunization practices, in order to identify common or diverging patterns of communication, information dissemination, and narrative discourse. Currently, medical messaging and health policy is largely formulated without thorough attention to the different ways diverse or minority ethno-linguistic communities may interpret the information, thereby leading to deficiencies in effective communication practices between individuals and healthcare providers or policymakers, and outright opposition between informal and formal public health messaging. This evaluation was conducted in order to broaden the current knowledge and information regarding the views of these groups, focusing on minority communities, in order to inform more thorough, inclusive, and research-supported medical messaging and outreach. During, the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for more thorough and comprehensible communication has become clear and, therefore, through the use of this study as a foundational element in drafting communication, one could improve the quality and reach of vaccine-related messaging. In effect, this stands to help educate the public and increase overall community safety. The data was retrieved via extrapolation of information regarding people's perceptions of vaccines and their usage in the community as cross-referenced from social media, blog sites, and other online sources of discourse or information distribution. The key motifs that most prevalently influenced the perceptions included persuasion by personal anecdotes, ethico-religious arguments, figurative analogies, scattergun argumentation, and perceptions of genocide.

In South Africa Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) have to contend with the typical adversarial relations with a host government. In addition, MNEs operate in an environment regulated by a government policy of Redress, aimed at changing the wealth profile of the country to reflect the ethnic demographics. Policies such as Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment, Affirmative Action and Preferential Procurement are interventionist and place additional burden on the MNEs. Implementations of these regulations are often the source of conflict between MNEs and the local government. Ethno-cultural distance aggravates the strained relations between the MNE and host government. The policy of Redress effectively legislates the incorporation of local third parties that are ethno-culturally related to government into the competitive strategies of MNEs. Joint ventures with locals are an acknowledged strategy to enter foreign markets, providing for legitimisation and access to networks. The choice in strategy when dealing with the home government of either a relational or transactional approach is transferable to the MNE host government environment. Political levels have proven to be inaccessible but successful business transactions with government are abundant. The transactional approach dominates as a result of the failure to establish any relations with the host government, negating the pursuit of the relational approach. Third parties play an enabling role in successful transactions, ranging from providing access to government employees up to securing the deal and transacting with the MNE at arms-length. The absence of any social capital in successful transactions requires re-evaluation of the role of social capital in bridging barriers in business relations. Possible explanations are in the linking that the social capital of the third party with the government and MNE employees respectively has, an extremely low threshold for social capital in successful transactions, the force exerted by the need for the products or services, or, most probable, the profit motive. The distance between the government and MNE is extreme as a result of the historical strife between the ethnic groups in the country and the policy of Redress. The connotation with the social environment deters the active pursuit of social capital to gain competitive advantage. / D.B.L.

This ethnography examines the processes in which rooted but overlapping forms of cosmopolitan engagements implicate the Tausug imagination of collectivity. It investigates Tausug expression of connection and belonging as they find themselves entangled into global cultural flow and caught up in the state and secessionist politics of attachment. Utilising methodological and theoretical approaches engendered by visual and material anthropology, the ethnography locates rooted cosmopolitan imagination in the works and lives of creative but marginalised and often silenced Tausug cultural agents engaged in street-based production, circulation, and consumption of popular music and dance videos on compact discs. The ethnography follows these cosmopolitan expressions as they are being imagined, embodied, reproduced, and shared by and across Tausug communities in the Zamboanga peninsula, the Sulu archipelago, and beyond through the digital spaces of the internet and cross-border flow of the videos. How the translocality of imaginaries reflected on the videos play out in everyday life and the broader politics of representation are demonstrated here as vital to the understanding of Tausug imagined community as an open, flexible, and dynamically engaging Muslim society despite long-standing political turbulence and economic uncertainty in their midst. Saliently, the thesis argues that Tausug cosmopolitanism cannot be reduced into a phenomenon driven by the expansive currents of Western-led globalisation. Rather, Tausug cosmopolitanism constitutes both continuity of and departure from past forms of translocal connections of Zamboanga and Sulu, which as a region was once integrated to a pre-colonial Southeast Asian emporium and continually through varying ways of connectedness. Old and new global processes come into play in shaping the everyday production of Tausug imaginaries inevitably rendering Tausug identity formation as a trajectory rather than an unchanging fact of being. Drawing from the Tausug ethnographic experience, the thesis contends that rooted cosmopolitanism does not necessarily constitute a singular condition but rather a contested and distinctively multifaceted phenomenon.