"What's in a Lunchbox?": A Story About New Zealand Ideals of Health, Social Class and Ethnicity Told Through Sandwiches and the Children Who Eat Them

<p>Through an ethnographic investigation of school lunchboxes, this thesis explores if and how difference and Otherness is understood by children. In three urban New Zealand primary schools I examine how children construct, affirm and/or challenge social inequalities and issues of inclusion by looking at the contents, concepts, narratives and activities related to the consumption and sharing of their lunch food. Literature dedicated to social class (Bourdieu, 1984) and identity (Rikoon, 1982; Stern, 1977) has documented the way in which food is creatively used to reaffirm unity and belonging within minority groups (Camp, 1979; Abrahams & Kalcik, 1978). In contrast to this approach, I review the role of food as a ‘safe space’ (Mercon, 2008: 5) where diversity may be allowed to symbolically exist for the purpose of affirming the unity of the nation state, while ultimately muffling deeper social differences. The thesis thus questions the assumption that food, identity and social cohesion are conceptually linked. My overall argument centres on the “humble” sandwich, which I claim is constructed as the core, dominant component of the lunchbox, mutually constituting nutritional, social class and ethnic tropes, practices and values. I assess the discourses, behaviours and symbolism that historically situates the sandwich as iconicaly or emblematically “Kiwi”, contending that via the creation of a dychotomized system (i.e. healthy, good, skinny, well-behaved, energetic, Kiwi versus junk-food, bad, fat, naughty, sick, Other) children are enculturated into the logics of work and socialized to be compliant with structures of inequality. Thus, while the sandwich appears equally accessible to all, the differences in its production can result in practices of class based distinction (Bourdieu, 1984) and ethnic exclusion (Hage, 2003). However, my analysis also reveals that children are not mere subjects of structure, but that they reproduce, challenge, mediate, and re-shape these discourses and behaviours.</p>

"What's in a Lunchbox?": A Story About New Zealand Ideals of Health, Social Class and Ethnicity Told Through Sandwiches and the Children Who Eat Them

<p>Through an ethnographic investigation of school lunchboxes, this thesis explores if and how difference and Otherness is understood by children. In three urban New Zealand primary schools I examine how children construct, affirm and/or challenge social inequalities and issues of inclusion by looking at the contents, concepts, narratives and activities related to the consumption and sharing of their lunch food. Literature dedicated to social class (Bourdieu, 1984) and identity (Rikoon, 1982; Stern, 1977) has documented the way in which food is creatively used to reaffirm unity and belonging within minority groups (Camp, 1979; Abrahams & Kalcik, 1978). In contrast to this approach, I review the role of food as a ‘safe space’ (Mercon, 2008: 5) where diversity may be allowed to symbolically exist for the purpose of affirming the unity of the nation state, while ultimately muffling deeper social differences. The thesis thus questions the assumption that food, identity and social cohesion are conceptually linked. My overall argument centres on the “humble” sandwich, which I claim is constructed as the core, dominant component of the lunchbox, mutually constituting nutritional, social class and ethnic tropes, practices and values. I assess the discourses, behaviours and symbolism that historically situates the sandwich as iconicaly or emblematically “Kiwi”, contending that via the creation of a dychotomized system (i.e. healthy, good, skinny, well-behaved, energetic, Kiwi versus junk-food, bad, fat, naughty, sick, Other) children are enculturated into the logics of work and socialized to be compliant with structures of inequality. Thus, while the sandwich appears equally accessible to all, the differences in its production can result in practices of class based distinction (Bourdieu, 1984) and ethnic exclusion (Hage, 2003). However, my analysis also reveals that children are not mere subjects of structure, but that they reproduce, challenge, mediate, and re-shape these discourses and behaviours.</p>

When decentralisation undermines representation: ethnic exclusion and state ownership in DR Congo's new provinces

African regimes commonly use strategies of balanced ethnic representation to build support. Decentralisation reforms, often promoted in order to improve political representation and state access, can undermine such strategies. In this article we use the example of the DR Congo to show the extent to which the multiplication of decentralised provinces is upending a political system largely based until now upon collective ethnic representation in the state. Not only are Congo's new provinces more ethnically homogeneous than their predecessors, but many of them have also witnessed political takeover and monopolisation by the province's dominant ethnic group. In addition, the increased number of Congolese who now find themselves non-autochthonous to their province of residence heightens their vulnerability and the potential for local conflict. Decentralisation, whose intent was proximity to governance, might well end up excluding more Congolese from the benefits of political representation. The article uses original empirical evidence on provincial ethnic distributions to support its claims.

A Century of Saints

This chapter chronicles the emergence of Santa Ana’s distinct Latinx majority religious ecology. The diversity of Latinx religious communities significantly shapes Santa Ana as an ethnic space. The author delineates how the religious ecology navigated today by Santaneros is tied to histories of local religious institutions and to patterns of racialized, ethnic exclusion. Ethnic identities that residents have had to contend with today are rooted in patterns of negotiations and struggles that Mexican-identified individuals have long contended with. Religion, the author argues, has often been used by whites in the construction of exclusionary boundary markers against Latinxs. Likewise, religious differences among co-ethnics have been salient points of in-group distinction. Nevertheless, Latinx majority religious communities have provided Mexican immigrants in Santa Ana with opportunities to exercise agency and leadership.

Networks, Informal Governance, and Ethnic Violence in a Syrian City

ABSTRACTIn cross-national studies, ethnic exclusion is robustly associated with the onset of violent challenge to incumbent regimes. But significant variation remains at the subnational level—not all members of an excluded ethnic group join in challenge. This article accounts for intra-ethnic group variation in terms of the network properties of local communities, nested within ethnic groups, and the informal ties that regimes forge to some segments of the ethnically excluded population. Mobilization within an excluded ethnic group is most likely among local communities where members are densely linked to one another and lack network access to state-controlled resources. Drawing on a case study of the Syrian city of Homs in the 2011 uprising, this article demonstrates how the Syrian regime’s strategies of managing the Sunni population of Homs shaped patterns of challenge. On the one hand, the state’s toleration of spontaneous settlements on the city’s periphery helped to reproduce dense network ties. On the other hand, the regime’s informal bargains with customary leaders instrumentalized those ties to manage local populations. These bargains could not withstand the regime’s use of violence against challengers, which meant that these same local networks became crucial factors in impelling and sustaining costly antiregime mobilization.

Restoring the State's Power to Defame: The Legal Life of Character in the Era of Roosevelt and Trump

While the abstract equality of citizens before the law is imagined as protection from arbitrary, subjective legal judgments of an individual's character, I argue that judgments of character play a pivotal yet unexamined role regulating access to citizenship in American law. Through a comparative analysis of President Trump and President Theodore Roosevelt, I show how their seemingly personal obsession with libel law reveals a deeper interest in consolidating the state's power as sole arbiter of character in order to weaponize the “good moral character” requirement in immigration and naturalization law as an instrument of racial and ethnic exclusion.

On Shaky Ground: Black Authenticity at Predominantly White Institutions

This study investigates the ways in which social context affects processes of black authenticity, resulting in shaky ground for authentic blackness among black college students at predominantly white institutions (PWIs). Because of normalized whiteness, black PWI students are negotiating authentic blackness in social contexts that limit black expression and identity through external pressure from nonblack students, in addition to experiencing intraracial pressures from black peers. These students must walk a thin line: they have to avoid being labeled as either “too black” or “inauthentically” black by nonblack students while simultaneously working to be seen as “black enough” by black peers, which highlights the precarity of black authenticity at PWIs. I use interviews and qualitative surveys of 44 black students at two PWIs and one historically black university (HBCU); the data from the HBCU are used to highlight contrasts between two school types. Results indicate that, as a result of tighter boundaries around blackness drawn by both black and nonblack peers, black PWI students experience behavioral constraints, limited options for ethnic identification, and believe that HBCU students see them as less authentically black. Conversely, HBCU students did not describe similar behavioral constraints or ethnic exclusion, and made no claims of inauthentic blackness for black PWI students. Overall, results suggest that the social contexts of PWIs significantly affect black students’ experiences with black authenticity.

TERRITORIAL AND ETHNIC EXCLUSION IN THE METROPOLIS OF LYON

This study is dedicated to identifying residential areas of the Metropolis of Lyon, which combines territorial and ethnic exclusion. In the framework of this study, territorial exclusion is understood as the territorial isolation of residential areas from the main residential area of the agglomeration due to the presence of various kinds of territorial barriers: water bodies, industrial and commercial areas, parklands, large highways. Ethnic exclusion in this study is understood as a partial exclusion from society (social exclusion) of population groups that are ethnically different from the main part of the population. The share of immigrants in the population of the communes and the share of social housing in the total housing stock of the communes of the Metropolis of Lyon were used as markers of ethnic exclusion. A comparison of territorially isolated residential quarters and data on the share of immigrants and the share of social housing revealed social housing quarters that combine signs of ethnic and territorial exclusion of the population: Mas-du-Taureau in the commune Vaulx-en-Velin in the north-east of the Metropolis of Lyon, Parilly and Terraillon in Bron in the east, Minguettes in Vénissieux in the south of the metropolitan area. During the interview, these social housing complexes were called by experts as the most disadvantaged and criminalized in the Metropolis of Lyon, which confirms the author’s hypothesis about the importance of territorial exclusion in the emergence and development of ethnic exclusion.

Mniejszości narodowe w Polsce – zarys historyczno-prawny

Poland has a centuries long tradition of being a tolerant country, manifested as well by the symbolic offi cial name: Poland of Both Nations (1569–1795). Poles, Lithuanians and numerous national minorities lived side by side in the territory of the Polish Republic and today their descendants are Polish citizens. During the time of partitions Poles maintained strong national community feelings, which subsequently helped in the building of the Second Polish Republic. The reborn Poland was again a multi-national state, however, certain nationalistic feelings started to emerge. After World War II as a result of the extermination of minorities and mass resettlements, the historical multinational character disappeared and the minimal set of rights granted to minorities in the Constitution of 1952 had led to their ethnic exclusion. After March 1968, the rights of minorities had become drastically limited. This continued till the Third Republic of Poland when the policy of the Communist authorities promoting the building of Poland for the Poles had been abandoned and the new government pursued to preserve and protect national and ethnic minorities. Today, members of minorities have the same rights as ethnic Poles, and their rights are guaranteed in the Constitution of 1997 and other legislative acts including the most important one, i.e. the Act on National and Ethnic Minorities and the Regional Language of 2015, which defi nes national and ethnic minorities and determines the competences of the State bodies in the area of enforcing minorities rights. These solutions have secured Poland an opinion of a model state when it comes to the protection of minorities rights. There are nine national minorities offi cially recognised in Poland. Each has a diff erent situation resulting from historical conditions, circumstances, national stereotypes, relationship with the States of their origin and the position of the Polish minority in this State. Two main problems which minorities in Poland are facing today is their shrinking populations and threats to their culture from the Polish and global cultures. Immigration might be a possible remedy but low economic attractiveness of Poland fails to attract new immigrants which means that in the future Poland may practically become a one-nation state.