Ethnic groups and multicultural studies Books

Book SynopsisThe Kora: A Contextual Reclamation of the African Perspective is a collection of readings curated to facilitate a dynamic interest in African American studies and African American history. The anthology emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of the discipline, impressing upon readers that the discipline of African American studies is fluid, portable, and practical.The text begins with a reading that provides readers with a contextual foundation in African American history. Additional units address Black religion and institutions, sociology and psychology, economics, creative production, and education. Individual articles explore traditional belief systems, the social construction of race, themes in African American literature, the experiences of African American studies in public elementary schools, and more. Each unit ends with critical reflection, which can serve as guideposts for in-person or virtual discussions or as writing prompts for personal reflections on the subject matter. Providing students with practical examples of Afrocentric approaches to Afrocentric research, The Kora is an excellent supplementary resource for courses in African American studies.

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Book Synopsis'This fine study of the Sikhs in Britain is a splendid addition to the field. Not only does it provide an invaluable mapping of the community's origins and development which should make it a standard work of reference for years to come, but in its sophisticated interrogation of the sociological and political tensions which have marked that development it makes a uniquely informed wider contribution to the ongoing debates about the nature of "multicultural" Britain'. Professor Christopher Shackle, SOAS, University of London 'This book is of very great importance for anyone who wishes to understand the crucial role of Sikhs in defining the possibilities of multiculturalism in Britain at a time when the very notion is under attack from many sources. It should be essential reading for policy makers as well as students.' Professor John Rex, Professor Emeritus at the University of Warwick 'This work is a major review of the history and issues affecting Sikhs in Great Britain since the Second World War. Balanced and extremely well documented...it marks an important contribution to Sikh and multicultural studies'. - Professor Norman G. Barrier, Professor of History University of Missouri 'This is an important book which details the coming to self-consciousness of the Sikh community in Britain under local, national and transnational exigencies'. Professor Uday S. Mehta, Department of Political Science, Amherst College 'This book comes at a time when new limits to multiculturalism and to free speech are being drawn and these wider debates are brilliantly interwoven with an account of the public and private lives of Sikhs. The book is politically charged, but sensitive, humane and open-minded at the same time.' Robin Cohen, ESRC Professorial Research Fellow, University of Warwick. 'This first major account of the development of the British Sikh community is very welcome. Scholarly, analytical and deeply empathetic, it is a major contribution.' Professor Judith M. Brown, University of OxfordTrade Review'This book is of very great importance for anyone who wishes to understand the crucial role of Sikhs in defining the possibilities of multiculturalism in Britain at a time when the very notion is under attack from many sources. It should be essential reading for policy makers as well as students.' John Rex, Professor Emeritus, University of Warwick. 'This is a very welcome and timely publication. The authors have been truly innovative in collating and analysing the vast amount of data produced in relation to the Sikh community since Maharaja Duleep Singh first arrived in Britain in 1854. The presence of analysis based on hard facts...makes this a compelling and authoritative volume...This volume is certainly stimulating in its style and content, and is a very welcome addition to the academic literature regarding one of the largest and most identifiable segments of the minority ethnic populations in Britain.' Jasjit Singh, University of Leeds, Political Studies Review 'A wonderful portrayal of Sikh life in Britain.' Association of the Study of African Caribbean and Asian Culture and History in BritainTable of Contents Introduction 1. The Sikhs of Punjab 2. Punjabi Society and Sikh Migration 3. Settlement, Demography and Social Profile 4. Gurdwaras and Community-building 5. Homeland Politics: Class, Identity and Party 6. British Multiculturalism and Sikhs 7. Employment and Education 8. Family, Gender and Sexuality 9. Punjabi, Bhangra and Youth Identities Conclusion

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Book SynopsisThe majority of scholarly and activist opinion by and about Indigenous women claims that feminism is irrelevant for them. Yet there is also an articulate, theoretically informed and activist constituency that identifies as feminist. This book is by and about Indigenous feminists, whose work demonstrates a powerful and original intellectual and political contribution demonstrating that feminism has much to offer Indignenous women in their struggles against oppression and for equality. Indigenous feminism is international in its scope: the contributors here are from Canada, the USA, Sapmi (Samiland), and Aotearoa/New Zealand. The chapters include theoretical contributions, stories of political activism, and deeply personal accounts of developing political consciousness as Aboriginal feminists.Trade Review‘The book certainly achieves its goal of creating a space for the voices of Indigenous feminists ... is a brilliant piece to use in discussions around the power relations that have forged our common histories and that are present in all societies with an Indigenous presence today' Nadine Charron, Policy Research GroupTable of Contents Introduction: From Symposium to Book - Joyce Green Part I: What is Indigenous Feminism? 1. Taking Account of Indigenous Feminism - Joyce Green 2. Aboriginal Women on Feminism: Exploring Diverse Points of View - Verna St. Denis 3. Metis and Feminist: Reflections from the Margins - Emma Larocque Part II: Aboriginal Feminist Analysis and Theory 4. Sami Women and Feminism: Strategies for Healing and Transformation - Rauna Kuokkanen 5. Native American Feminism, Sovereignty, and Social Change - Andrea Smith 6. Gender, Essentialism, and Feminism in Samiland - Jurunn Eikjok translated by Gunhild Hoogensen 7. Indigenous Feminism as Resistance to Imperialism - Makere Stewart- Harawira 8. Balancing Strategies: Aboriginal Women and Constitutional Rights in Canada - Joyce Green Part III: Aboriginal Feminist Activists and Sister-Travellers 9. Looking Back, Looking Forward - Shirley Green 10. Maori Women and Leadership in Aotearoa - Kathie Irwin 11. Yes, My Daughter, We Are Cherokee Women - Denise Henning 12. My Home Town Northern Canada South Africa - Emma LaRocque 13. Culturing Politics and Politicizing Culture - Shirley Bear 14. An Aboriginal Feminist on Violence Against Women - Tina Beads with Rauna Kuokkanen 15. Colleen Glenn: A Metis Feminist in Indian Rights for Indian Women - Colleen Glenn with Joyce Green 16. Woman of Action: An Interview with Sharon McIvor - Sharon McIvor with Rauna Kuokkanen

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Book SynopsisDeveloped in response to the events of September 11, 2001, these 14 articles from prominent Muslim thinkers offer a provocative reassessment of Islam's relationship with the modern world. Confronting issues such as racism, justice, sexuality and gender, this book reveals the real challenges faced by Muslims of both sexes in contemporary Western society. A probing, frank, and intellectually refreshing testament to the capacity of Islam for renewal, change, and growth, these articles from fifteen Muslim scholars and activists address the challenging and complex issues that confront Muslims today. Avoiding fundamentalist and apologetic approaches, the book concentrates on the key areas of debate in progressive Islamic thought: "Contemporary Islam," "Gender Justice," and "Pluralism." With further contributions on subjects as diverse and controversial as the alienation of Muslim youth; Islamic law, marriage, and feminism; and the role of democracy in Islam, this volume will prove thought-provoking for all those interested in the challenges of justice and pluralism facing the Muslim world as it confronts the twenty-first century.Trade Review"A significant and welcome efforet providing an analytic overview by some contemporary progressive Muslim scholars. The book offers a very incisive critique and highlights the compelling need for a wholesome and rational approach to the issues." * Islamic Studies Journal *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The times they are a-changin’ – a Muslim quest for justice, gender equality and pluralism Omid Safi Part I PROGRESSIVE MUSLIMS AND CONTEMPORARY ISLAM 1 The ugly modern and the modern ugly: reclaiming the beautiful in Islam Khaled Abou El Fadl 2 In search of progressive Islam beyond 9/11 Farid Esack 3 Islam: a civilizational project in progress Ahmet Karamustafa 4 The debts and burdens of critical Islam Ebrahim Moosa 5 On being a scholar of Islam: risks and responsibilities Tazim R. Kassam Part II PROGRESSIVE MUSLIMS AND GENDER JUSTICE 6 Transforming feminism: Islam, women and gender justice Sa‘diyya Shaikh 7 Progressive Muslims and Islamic jurisprudence: the necessity for critical engagement with marriage and divorce law Kecia Ali 8 Sexuality, diversity and ethics in the agenda of progressive Muslims Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle 9 Are we up to the challenge? The need for a radical re-ordering of the Islamic discourse on women Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons Part III PROGRESSIVE MUSLIMS AND PLURALISM 10 Muslims, pluralism, and interfaith dialogue Amir Hussain 11 American Muslim identity: race and ethnicity in progressive Islam Amina Wadud 12 Islamic democracy and pluralism Ahmad S. Moussalli 13 How to put the genie back in the bottle? “Identity” Islam and Muslim youth cultures in America Marcia Hermansen 14 What is the victory of Islam? Towards a different understanding of the Ummah and political success in the contemporary world Farish A. Noor Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisThis anthology reconsiders the social, political and intellectual meanings of multiculturalism in the West, particularly Britain. In introducing a new conceptual language for thinking about it, the volume stresses the importance of distinguishing between the multicultural as a signifier of the unsettled meanings of cultural differences, and multiculturalism as the signfied of attempts to ‘fix‘ their meaning in national imaginaries. The book also casts the debates about multiculturalism in the contexts of globalization, post-colonialism and what Barnor Hesse calls ‘multicultural transruptions‘ - which he sees as resurgent, irrepressible multicultural issues which unsettle the racialized meanings of social norms and the cultural habits of national politics. Divided into two parts, the first considers a variety of diaspora formations ranging from the Muslim Umma and Black Britain to the Chinese foodscape and Transatlantic Black sporting performances. It examines their transnational impact on how cultural differences are lived and poses questions for how we participate in and think about Western societies. The second part on cultural entanglements focuses on media constructions of the ‘Asian Gang‘ in Britain, gender and sexuality in ‘ragga music‘, and the ambivalences of Black/White identities in post-Apartheid South Africa. The contributors explore the consequences of understanding cultural identities as cross-cut by other identities and entangled with wider social issues, rather than simply existing as distinct, celebratory and free-standing. The conclusion by Stuart Hall makes a timely reassessment of the multicultural question for the social cohesiveness and political future of liberal democracies. Un/Settled Multiculturalisms offers a fresh and reinvigorated challenge to those who continue to ignore the complex political and theoretical implications of living in the contested post-colonial fall-out of Western ‘multicultural-scapes‘.Trade Review'A provocative collection that unsettles precisely those issues too readily taken for granted, renewing the vigor of multicultural debates in genuinely original and productive ways.' David Theo Goldberg, University of California Humanities Research InstituteTable of Contents Part I: Conceptual ReflectionsIntroduction: Un/Settled Multiculturalisms - Barnor Hesse Part II: Diaspora Formations 1.Beyond Westphalia: Nations and Diasporas - the case of the Muslim Umma -S. Sayyid 2. Reading Within A Diasporic Boundary: Transatlantic Black Performance And The Poetic Imperative - Brett St. Louis 3. Chinese Takeaways as Diasporic Habitus - David Parker 4. Diasporicity: Black Britain's Post-Colonial Formations - Barnor Hesse Part III: Cultural Entanglements 5. (Dis)Entangling the 'Asian Gang': Ethnicity, Identity, Masculinities - Claire Alexander 6. Ragga Music: Dis/respecting Black women and Dis/reputable Sexualities - Denise Noble 7. Colonial Entanglements - Roiyah Saltus-Blackwood 8. Some Kind of White, Some Kind of Black: Living the moments of Entanglement in South Africa and its academy - Zimitri Erasmus Part IV: Political ConsiderationsConclusion: The Multicultural Question - Stuart Hall

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Book SynopsisIncreasingly, women and minorities are entering fields where white male power is firmly entrenched. The spaces they come to occupy are not empty or neutral, but are imbued with history and meaning. This groundbreaking book interrogates the pernicious, subtle but nonetheless widely held view that certain bodies are naturally entitled to certain spaces, while others are not.Drawing on case studies from within the nation state, including Westminster and Whitehall, the art world, academia and everyday life, this book uncovers the hidden processes that undermine female and/or racialized bodies in spaces marked by masculinity and whiteness. How are positions of authority racialized and gendered? How do people manage their femininity and/or blackness while in a predominantly white male context? How do spaces become naturalized or normalized, and what does it mean when they are disrupted?Answering these questions and many more, this book is the first to examine the meaning of diversity in organizations in its absolute complexity. It argues that a thorough engagement with difference requires a rigorous investigation of how institutional cultures become normative. It is only when we see and name this invisible central point of reference, which is so often taken for granted, that we can we truly unsettle long established links. Uniting social, cultural and political theory, and engaging with a range of substantive material from a variety of institutions, this book is a timely contribution to wide-reaching debates on race, gender and space.

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Book SynopsisBlackness and the Dreaming Soul is an account of a long journey of self-discovery involving an ever deepening awareness of the causes of our current alienation from each other and the natural primordial world. It is an alchemical venture, exploring the darkness of the human psyche: being black and trapped in a white culture, as well as being white and caught in an ambush of denial. Written without bitterness and recrimination, Blackness & the Dreaming Soul is neither pure biography nor philosophical manifesto, but grows out of the author's childhood as the great grandson of a slave in British Guiana. The book chronicles his career during a long sojourn in Britain, as a World War II RAF officer (two years spent as a prisoner of war in Nazi Germany), qualifying as a barrister at law, to a career in show business spanning stage, film, radio and TV. In the late 50s, Cy's was the first black face to appear regularly on television, singing the news in calypso. Blackness & the Dreaming Soul transcends attempts at categorization.It is a reconstruction of the way we make our reality, a journey leading the author to a holistic outlook beyond the frustrations that have dogged his life, beyond anger, beyond division and polarity, to a vision of unity in diversity in which all things are connected; man and nature, earth and cosmos. In the 1970s, Cy Grant was chairman and co-founder of DRUM, the first black arts centre in Britain. In the 80s, he was Director of CONCORD multicultural Festivals, celebrating British cultural diversity when the idea of multiculturalism was not so popular. Cy is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Roehampton, a member of the Scientific & Medical Network and author of Ring of Steel, pan sound & symbol, the story of the evolution of the Trinidad Steelpan. "Blackness & the Dreaming Soul does not pull its punches - it has its finger smack on the pulse of what is eating away at the very heart of civil society in Britain" Professor Gus John

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