Making majorities : constituting the Nation in Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Fiji, Turkey, and the United States / edited by Dru C. Gladney.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Gladney, Dru C., editor.

Series:

Contemporary Issues in Asia and the Pacific

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethnicity--Case studies.

Ethnicity.

Majorities--Case studies.

Majorities.

Minorities--Case studies.

Minorities.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 341pages).

Place of Publication:

Stanford : Stanford University Press, 2022

Language Note:

In English

Summary:

Majorities are made, not born. This book argues that there are no pure majorities in the Asia-Pacific region, broadly defined, nor in the West. Numerically, ethnically, politically, and culturally, societies make and mark their majorities under specific historical, political, and social circumstances. This position challenges Samuel Huntington’s influential thesis that civilizations are composed of more or less homogeneous cultures, suggesting instead that culture is as malleable as the politics that informs it. The fourteen contributors to this volume argue that emphasis on minority/majority rights is based on uncritically accepted ideas of purity, numerical superiority, and social consensus. Emphases upon multiculturalism can become ways of masking serious political, ethnic, and class differences merely in terms of cultural difference, and affirmative-action policies can isolate, identify, and stigmatize minorities as often as they homogenize, unify, and naturalize majorities. This book analyzes how minorities are made and marked across cultural, regional, and national boundaries from Hawai‘i to Turkey, a region that encompasses extraordinarily diverse populations and political developments and that is often regarded as composed of relatively homogeneous majorities. This volume details discourses of majority and minority, allowing exploration of a number of questions of more general concern in the humanities and social sciences, including: How does one become officially “ethnic” in many states in Asia? How are understandings of majority and minority cultures created and shaped in specific political and historical contexts? How does the state shape the way people think of themselves? How do people resist, transform, and appropriate these official representations?

Contents:

Frontmatter

Preface

Contents

Contributors

Introduction: Making and Marking Majorities

PART I Japaneseness

I. Culturalism, Racialism, and Internationalism in the Discourse on Japanese Identity

2. A Conceptual Model for the Historical Relationship Between the Self and the Internal and External Others

PART II Koreanness

3. Who Speaks for Korean Shamans When Shamans Speak of the Nation?

4. Constructing and Deconstructing "Koreanness"

PART III Chineseness

5. On Three Definitions of Han Ren

6. Clashed Civilizations?

PART IV Malayness

7· Bureaucratic Management of Identity in a Modern State

8. Ideological Work in Constructing the Malay Majority

PART V Fijianness

9. Aspiring to Minority and Other Tactics Against Violence

10. When 8,870 - 850 = 1

PART VI Turkishness

11. From Ottoman to Turk

12. Minority/Majority Discourse

PART VII Americanness

13. Studying Mainstreams and Minorities in North America

14. The Illusion of Paradise

Notes

References Cited

Index

Notes:

Description based on: online resource; title from PDF title page (Stanford University Press, viewed December 6, 2022).

ISBN:

0-8047-6396-8

OCLC:

1312726638