Interpreting a Commemorative Landscape: The Eleventh Corps and Cemetery Hill

An analysis of the memorialization of the land on and around Cemetery Hill on the Gettysburg battlefield as it pertained to the Union Eleventh Corps

Homogeneity in Social Groups of Iraq

Homogeneity in Social Groups of Iraqis Jon Gresham, Farouk Saleh, Shara Majid June 2006 With appreciation to the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies for initiating the Second World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies, this paper summarizes findings on homogeneity in community-level social groups derived from inter-ethnic research conducted during 2005 among Iraqi Arabs and Kurds living in the city of Basra, Iraq, and in the Netherlands. We found that perceptions towards out-groups were not based on religion, ethnicity, class, or location as in traditional individual-focused social networks. Patterns of perception towards out-groups seemed to be rooted in homogeneous social sub-groups with combinations of these factors. This research project used a 192-item survey of two hundred Iraqi business owners and managers in Iraq and in the Netherlands. It measured homogeneity of social group memberships. Survey elements included items drawn from the World Values Surveys (Inglehart), the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (Roper Center), and the Social Capital Inventory (Narayan and Cassidy). Homogeneity, relationship segregation, social trust, and community influence in social networks were estimated through indices reflecting components of social relationships in priority in-groups emerging from factor analysis of survey responses. Other indices included civic participation (socialization), perceptions of threat from out-groups, ethnic and religious identity, social trust, personal security, and contribution to community-based resources. Uniformity of responses to certain items about out-groups corresponded to findings by other authors on segregation and membership in social networks (Burt 1997, Buskins 2005, Inglehart 2004, Narayan and Cassidy 2001, Putnam 1995). This work was an expansion on a study on perceptions of threat from out-groups among Iraqis in five locations conducted in 2003 (Gresham 2004). This paper presents the following major sections: I. Introduction II. Purpose III. Background IV. Methodology V. Results VI. Reporting Process VII. Conclusions VIII. Further Work IX. Appendix X. End Notes *Jon Gresham, European Research Centre On Migration & Ethnic Relations, University of Utrecht, Netherlands Farouk Saleh, University of Tilburg, Netherlands Shara Majid, Erasmus University, Netherlands See other reports at: http://www.CivilSocietyIraq.seedwiki.co

Socialist antisemitism and its discontents in England, 1884–98

Virdee's essay explores the relationship between English socialists and migrant Jews amid the new unionism of the late nineteenth century: a cycle of protest characterized by sustained collective action by the unskilled and labouring poor demanding economic and social justice. Reading this labour history against the grain, with a greater attentiveness to questions of race and class, helps to make more transparent both the prevalence and structuring force of socialist antisemitism, as well as English and Jewish socialist opposition to it. In particular, the essay suggests that the dominant socialist discourse was intimately bound up with questions of national belonging and this directly contributed to a racialized politics of class that could not imagine migrant Jews as an integral component of the working class. At the same time, such socialist antisemitism was also challenged by a minority current of English Marxists whose conceptions of socialism refused to be limited by the narrow boundaries of the racialized nation-state. And they were joined in this collective action by autonomous Jewish socialist organizations who understood that the liberation of the Jewish worker was indivisible from that of the emancipation of the working class in general. With the help of Eleanor Marx and others, these latter strands entangled socialist politics with questions of combatting antisemitism, and thereby stretched existing conceptions of class to encompass the Jewish worker

Civil Society Iraq: Location Influences on Outgroup Perception (June 2004)

A significant research question in the immediate post-war (May 2003) environment of Iraq was: "How do Iraqis’ location affect expressed perceptions of threat from outgroups?" We collected 479 surveys of Iraqi opinions, in five locations (in Iraq, Jordan, and The Netherlands), with a single page instrument. Religion, ethnic origin, like location alone, had little strong bearing on respondents’ expressed attitudes towards outgroups or the government in Iraq. However, certain sets of interacting elements did reflect significant differences in perceptions of threat. For example, Shi’a Muslims of urban Basra had very different expressions towards return of expatriate Iraqis than did Shi’a Muslims of rural Basra. A serendipitous innovation was that of publishing our research process onto a "wiki" web page where visitors could add to or change contents of the documents. The wiki live publishing helped fellow scientists, decision-makers, resource agencies, and Iraq fieldworkers participate in our project. Why Civil Society? The term describes both behavior and social systems and provides an overarching framework from which to explore social interactions in Iraq. Follow-up is warranted. We found, for example, that "moderate Arabs" in Iraq were the most opposed to foreign involvement and were the most opposed to expatriate Iraqis returning to Iraq. This finding is relevant to decision-makers and field workers in relief, development, and reconstruction in Iraq. This paper describes our research process in a post-regime-change environment. I would welcome comments onto the web site: http://CivilSocietyIraq.seedwiki.com

How do Perceptions of Outgroups Indicate Barriers to Civil Society in Iraq?

At the Iraq "liberation" in 2003, many of us asked, "Is there really hope for civil society to emerge from the chaos?" We guessed about how Sunni, Shi'a and Kurdish factions could be brought together, and if it was likely that ethnic conflicts would lead to civil war. Seeking a better understanding of the situation, this project tried to address: "How do Iraqis' ethnic and religious identities relate to perceptions of other groups (outgroups)?" and "how does place of residence relate to those perceptions about outgroups?" I collected 479 surveys of Iraqi opinions in Iraq, Jordan, and The Netherlands. I asked Iraqis for their own ideas about their future, personal and collective, and their perceptions of Those Other Groups, their "outgroups." What did I find? That background items of religion, ethnic origin, and location, alone, did not relate strongly to respondents’ attitudes towards outgroups. But, some combinations of background items did give significant differences in perceptions towards other groups. For example, "moderate” Arabs in Iraq were the group most opposed to foreigners, and were the group most opposed to expatriate Iraqis returning to Iraq. This project, and the follow-up project on social networks of Iraqis, presents one approach from which researchers and fieldworkers can develop theories to explore and explain elements of civil society in Iraq, and beyond. ____ Jon Gresham is a visiting scholar at the University of Utrecht, Netherlands. His work focuses on the Middle East; he worked twelve years there

David Stafford-Clark (1916-1999): seeing through a celebrity psychiatrist

This article uses the mass-media career of the British psychiatrist David Stafford-Clark (1916-1999) as a case study in the exercise of cultural authority by celebrity medical professionals in post-war Britain. Stafford-Clark rose to prominence in the mass media, particularly through his presenting work on medical and related topics for BBC TV and Radio, and was in the vanguard of psychiatrists and physicians who eroded professional edicts on anonymity. At the height of his career, he traded upon his celebrity status, and consequent cultural authority, to deliver mass media sermons on a variety of social, cultural, and political topics. Stafford-Clark tried to preserve his sense of personal and intellectual integrity by clinging to a belief that his authority in the public sphere was ultimately to be vindicated by his literary, intellectual, and spiritual significance. But as his credibility dwindled, he came to distrust the cultural intermediaries, such as broadcasters and publishers, who had supported him

Stuff White People Like #1863

There I sat: sun burning my neck, sweat pouring down my face, watching grown men play at death. I’d been meaning for years to get to Gettysburg to see the reenactment, and this past July, I was lucky enough to be there for the 150th anniversary of the battle. And so there I was, sitting in a grandstand in the middle of a farm in rural Pennsylvania, surrounded by fellow white people, watching a Confederate soldier get shot in the back for pretending to desert in the face of the Union cavalry. He flopped to the ground in front of the grandstand; the announcer gave us paying customers a resounding play-by-play. “They love doing that,” my wife said in my ear, “Very dramatic.” [excerpt