Κατανοώντας και διδάσκοντας την ανθρώπινη διαφορετικότητα

Σ’ αυτό το δοκίμιο αναλύεται η φύση των ανθρώπινων διαφορών εξετάζοντας τις έννοιες «φυλή» και κουλτούρα. Αφού οριστούν οι έννοιες της εθνότητας και της εθνικότητας, θα εξετάζεται η σχέση μεταξύ εθνοτικής και εθνικής ταυτότητας. Στη συνέχεια αντιπαρατίθενται διαφορετικές μορφές του εθνικισμού - τη μορφή του εθνοτικού εθνικισμού, όπως υφίσταται στα Βαλκάνια, από τη μια μεριά, και τον αστικό εθνικισμό και τη σχέση του με τον πλουραλισμό και την πολυ - πολιτισμικότητα όπως υπάρχει σε ατελείς μορφές στην Αυστραλία, τον Καναδά και τις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες, από την άλλη. Έπειτα θα συζητούνται οι έννοιες του ρατσισμού, του εθνοκεντρισμού και των στερεοτύπων. Τέλος, θα κλείνει με ορισμένες σκέψεις σχετικά με το πως η εκπαίδευση μπορεί να καλλιεργήσει και να ενθαρρύνει την ανεκτικότητα και την εκτίμηση του διαφορετικού και κατ’ αυτόν τον τρόπο να συντελέσει στην εξάλειψη του μίσους και της βίας που βρίσκονται σε έξαρση στον κόσμο σήμερα

Three Countries, Two Lakes, One Future: The Prespa Lakes and the Signing of the Prespa Agreement

In this essay, I examine the history of the meaning of Prespa in order to understand its significance as the site for the signing of the agreement that bears its name. At certain times, Prespa has occupied positions of great political importance; at others, it has seemed to lie forgotten at the margins of the Balkans. I consider Prespa as the capital of the Bulgarian Empire, the site of the construction of the borders of new Balkan states, the capital of “Free Greece” during the Greek Civil War, the site of the Transboundary Prespa Park, and finally the place where the Prespa Agreement between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia was signed. I propose re-imagining the border between Greece and the Republic of North Macedonia by adopting metaphors from the ecological unity of the Transboundary Prespa Park. In this way it would be possible to recognize Macedonia itself as a truly transboundary place

The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World

Greeks and Macedonians are presently engaged in an often heated dispute involving competing claims to a single identity. Each group asserts that they, and they alone, have the right to identify themselves as Macedonians. The Greek government denies the existence of a Macedonian nation and insists that all Macedonians are Greeks, while Macedonians vehemently assert their existence as a unique people. Here Loring Danforth examines the Macedonian conflict in light of contemporary theoretical work on ethnic nationalism, the construction of national identities and cultures, the invention of tradition, and the role of the state in the process of building a nation. The conflict is set in the broader context of Balkan history and in the more narrow context of the recent disintegration of Yugoslavia.Danforth focuses on the transnational dimension of the “global cultural war” taking place between Greeks and Macedonians both in the Balkans and in the diaspora. He analyzes two issues in particular: the struggle for human rights of the Macedonian minority in northern Greece and the campaign for international recognition of the newly independent Republic of Macedonia. The book concludes with a detailed analysis of the construction of identity at an individual level among immigrants from northern Greece who have settled in Australia, where multiculturalism is an official policy. People from the same villages, members of the same families, living in the northern suburbs of Melbourne have adopted different national identities.https://scarab.bates.edu/books/1007/thumbnail.jp