Ethnic Conflict

""This anthropological study describes a specific form of mediation, as it is practiced in Ethiopia (Northeast Africa) by members of the Oromo and Amhara ethnic groups. It introduces elders as male household-heads in their advanced ages, who settle conflicts and arrange marriages for the members of the junior generations. There are not only 'easy' cases dealt with, which one might assume to be too 'unimportant' for state courts or other juridical institutions but also aggravated cases that may affect the wider group or that have inter-ethnic dimensions. The study uses specific case studies of marriage, bride abduction, physical injury and homicide for illustration. Within the book, reference is made to speech-act-theory and the 'new ethnographic' approach related to it. Both rhetoric strategies and non-verbal means of communication are discussed, such as postures, gestures, spatial arrangements, numerical symbolisms, or the deliberate use of certain kinds of dress and of material objects. Special attention is paid to the use of ritual in mediation procedures. The book brings to light significant regularities that are inherent to the different types of elders' proceedings. Peculiar elements and phases can be distinguished that re-occur in all types of processes analysed in the study. This cannot exclusively be explained by reference to 'process', as a general idea of people negotiating law. It moreover hints to the existence of a formal 'procedure', which follows its own rules. Accordingly, a change of perspective 'from process to procedure' is suggested in the book's programmatic title.

http://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title_2776.ahtml

Book Order US:
http://www.amazon.com/From-Process-Procedure-Aethiopistische-Forschungen/dp/3447066113/

Book Order Germany:
http://www.amazon.de/Process-Procedure-Mediation-Formality-Ethiopia/dp/3447066113/
http://www.buchhandel.de/detailansicht.aspx?isbn=9783447066112""

"First issue of new academic journal. Studia Turkica Mongolica Tibetica Manchurica Sibirica Russica et cetera.

Tartaria Magna is a peer reviewed e-journal in Russian. Editors accept papers and reviews in English and provide Russian translation. We may consider publication of the papers and reviews that have been published in other journals within the period of 3 years. More info: www.tartaria-magna.ru"

"TV report transcript: Producer Larry Clamage spent three weeks on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, in search of the formula for peace on Earth. Larry reports that the diverse ethnic communities of Coney Island Avenue are not trouble-free.
Dr. Jerry Krase, a sociology professor, has been riding the Coney Island Avenue bus to work for more than 30 years, which helped him to arrive at an incredible theory about people's acceptance of other people. Dr. Krase claims his bus ride actually contains part of that formula. He explains, in own words."

In the face of crusades, conversions, and expulsions, Muslims and their communities survived to thrive for over 500 years in medieval Europe. This comprehensive new study explores how the presence of Islamic minorities transformed Europe in everything from architecture to cook- ing, literature to science, and served as a stimulus for Christian society to define itself. Combining a series of regional studies, Brian Catlos com- pares the varied experiences of Muslims across Iberia, Southern Italy, the Crusader Kingdoms, and Hungary to examine those ideologies that informed their experiences, their place in society, and their sense of themselves as Muslims and as members of multi-confessional societies. This is a pioneering new narrative of the history of medieval and early modern Europe from the perspective of Islamic minorities; one which is not, as we might first assume, driven by ideology, isolation, and decline, but instead one in which successful communities persisted because they remained actively integrated within the larger Christian and Jewish soci- eties in which they lived.

"A representative survey, which was conducted by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KMIS) in all regions with the exception of Crimea as a part of its Omnibus survey from April 29 till May 11, 2014 for my academic study on political regionalism in Ukraine, provides the latest and exclusive data on separatism in the one of the largest European countries in the midst of both a major internal conflict and the biggest post-Cold War conflict between the West and Russia. The survey shows that only the minority of residents of Ukraine (14%) support different forms of separatism, while the majority (53%) favors preserving the current status of their region within unitary Ukraine but with expanded powers. The survey results confirm that the majority of residents of Donbas now back different forms of separatism (54% overall and 61% excluding undecided). There is also significant but varying levels of support for separatism in three neighboring Eastern regions (15%) and in the South (10%). In all other major historical and geographic regions of Ukraine, separatist feelings are marginal or not detectable by the national poll. Specifically, the survey confirms that Rusyn separatism in Transcarpathia lacks significant public support, but the number of the respondents there was insufficient to determine the level of separatist attitudes among its Hungarian minority. This poll shows that the separatist attitudes do not necessarily mean preference for outright secession from Ukraine and formation of independent state or joining another state, which basically means Russia. Autonomy as a part of federal Ukraine is preferred by many separatists, including in Donbas. But regional autonomy with introduction of a federal system of government has currently no visible support in Western Ukraine and it has a marginal support in the Center. Minorities of the respondents in all regions back preserving the current status of their region with existing powers in unitary Ukraine. Preserving current status of their regions within unitary Ukraine but with expanded powers has a majority support in all regions, with the exception of Donbas.
     
The survey also indicates that the presidential elections scheduled for May 25 are unlikely to resolve the lack of the central government legitimacy in Donbas. Some 70% of the respondents in this region say that they either would not go to vote or do not know/unsure which candidate to support. Just 5% residents of Donetsk and Luhansk Regions express the intention to vote for Petro Poroshenko, an oligarch who previously switched his allegiances between the Party of Regions and pro-Western nationalist parties. He currently leads the presidential race with 33% of the national support, which puts him far ahead of other candidates. 

The survey results show that views expressed by the Russian government and media concerning widespread popular support for separatism in all Eastern and Southern Ukraine are unfounded. Crimea and Donbas are not representative of the entire South-East, because they have the much larger ethnic Russian populations and history of separatism. Overall, ethnic Russians in Ukraine are split on the issue of separatism. Similar percentages of ethnic Russians and people with mixed Russian and Ukrainian descent support preservation of the current unitary system (40%), mostly with expanded powers and different separatist options (44%), including joining Russia (18%). In contrast, only 24% of Russian speakers, who include many ethnic Ukrainians, favor secession from Ukraine or regional autonomy in federal Ukraine. 

However, the survey also confirms that the representation of separatism in Donbas by the Ukrainian and the Western governments and the media as small groups of armed Russian agents and local “terrorists,” who lack popular backing in this region, and therefore can be defeated by force is mistaken. In this case, crucial policy decisions in Ukraine, the US, Canada, the EU countries, and Russia are based on misunderstanding or lack of understanding of the regional Ukrainian politics and public preferences. An autonomous Donbas in a unitary state could be a model acceptable by people in different regions. The experience with similar models adopted in  Gagauzia in Moldova and in Crimea in the beginning of the 1990s suggests that this compromise solution might work, even though it cannot guarantee preserving country’s unity in the long run.
 
The survey also shows that during the current conflict, like in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the “Orange Revolution,” it is incorrect to view public opinion in Ukraine concerning separatism as static. This poll, which indicates significant rise in separatist attitudes, was held from April 29 till May 11, 2014 in the midst of the mass burning of pro-Russian separatists in Odessa by the Right Sector and football ultras, the killings of pro-Russian protesters in Mariupol and Krasnoarmisk by special government battalions organized with participation of this far right organization, and unrecognized referendums supporting self-proclaimed republics in the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions. And last but not least, it demonstrates the need for academic research of such politically controversial but crucial issues in the Ukrainian and global politics. There were political scientists specializing in Ukraine who were warning about possibilities of civil war and break-up of one of the largest European countries before and soon after the current crisis began in November of 2013. "