The 'Parekh Report' - national identities with nations and nationalism

‘Multiculturalists’ often advocate national identities. Yet few study the ways in which ‘multiculturalists’ do so and in this article I will help to fill this gap. I will show that the Commission for Multi-Ethnic Britain’s report reflects a previously unnoticed way of thinking about the nature and worth of national identities that the Commission’s chair, and prominent political theorist, Bhikhu Parekh, had been developing since the 1970s. This way of thinking will be shown to avoid the questionable ways in which conservative and liberal nationalists discuss the nature and worth of national identities while offering an alternative way to do so. I will thus show that a report that was once criticised for the way it discussed national identities reflects how ‘multiculturalists’ think about national identities in a distinct and valuable way that has gone unrecognised

Genome-wide trans-ancestry meta-analysis provides insight into the genetic architecture of type 2 diabetes susceptibility.

To further understanding of the genetic basis of type 2 diabetes (T2D) susceptibility, we aggregated published meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies (GWAS), including 26,488 cases and 83,964 controls of European, east Asian, south Asian and Mexican and Mexican American ancestry. We observed a significant excess in the directional consistency of T2D risk alleles across ancestry groups, even at SNPs demonstrating only weak evidence of association. By following up the strongest signals of association from the trans-ethnic meta-analysis in an additional 21,491 cases and 55,647 controls of European ancestry, we identified seven new T2D susceptibility loci. Furthermore, we observed considerable improvements in the fine-mapping resolution of common variant association signals at several T2D susceptibility loci. These observations highlight the benefits of trans-ethnic GWAS for the discovery and characterization of complex trait loci and emphasize an exciting opportunity to extend insight into the genetic architecture and pathogenesis of human diseases across populations of diverse ancestry

Cheeky Witnessing

Feminists witness legal worlds as they observe, document, and share nothing less than the reproduction of life itself. The world of the abortion trail, where people and things move across borders to change life’s reproduction, has generated a rich plurality of feminist witnessing. In observing how feminist activists improvise with sources, figures and objects of legal consciousness on the abortion trail, this paper seeks to contribute to critical understanding of that plurality, particularly as it emerges in diaspora space. Focusing on Murphy’s concept of immodest witnessing, with its attention to bodies, protocols and apparatuses as constituents of knowledge, the paper thinks with the diasporic feminist activist performance group, Speaking of I.M.E.L.D.A., about how they used self-examination, collective collaboration, and knowledge-sharing on the trail to repeal of Ireland’s Eighth Amendment. The paper argues that their improvisation with legal consciousness of reproductive choice enacts ‘cheeky witnessing’. Cheeky witnessing has three dynamics as a method of observation. First, it is messy and irreverent in innovating with names to display the mixed genealogies of sources of feminist knowledge. Second, cheeky witnessing generates novel subject-figures, such as migrant cleaners, who make knowing connections between different reproductive labourers as observers of the trail in diaspora space. Third, cheeky witnessing places funny objects, knickers in this instance, so as to join up particular public locations and make them more, if unevenly, comfortable for sexual and reproductive bodies. Cheeky witnessing show us how committed and partial practices play a role in speaking across interests and experiences, in stretching the legal imagination, and in sustaining the everyday grind of making a better world

Scottish survey of diabetes services for minority ethnic groups

BACKGROUND: In the UK, all ethnic minority groups have higher rates of diabetes than the general population. Although there have been a number of projects to assess diabetic care amongst minority ethnic groups in the United Kingdom, little is known about the extent to which the needs of ethnic minority groups are actually met by the National Health Service (NHS) Scotland. Therefore we conducted this study to understand of the current situation for diabetes care available to minority ethnic groups in Scotland. METHODS: We conducted this cross-sectional study in all health boards in Scotland. A questionnaire was designed based on expert comments. It was completed by Local Health Care Cooperatives (LHCC) managers, chairs, diabetes specialist nurses and public health practitioners. RESULTS: 57 of questionnaires were returned (response rate = 69.5%). Of these LHCCs, 71% responded that diabetes was part of their LHCC plan. However 69% answered that ethnic group was not recorded by community services and GPs, and 80% of LHCCs did not monitor trends of complications of diabetes by ethnic group. CONCLUSION: Improvement is needed in quality, completeness, and availability of minority ethnic group data for diabetes at a national level, particularly if NHS Primary Care Organisations are to be responsible for providing diabetes care as laid out in the Scottish Diabetes Framework

Minority youth, crime, conflict, and belonging in Australia

In recent decades, the size and diversity of the minority population of contemporary western societies has increased significantly. To the critics of immigration, minority youth have been increasingly linked to crime, criminal gangs, anti-social behaviour, and riots. In this article, we draw on fieldwork conducted in Sydney, Australia's largest and most ethnically diverse city, to probe aspects of the criminality, anti-social behaviour, national identity, and belonging of ethnic minority youth in Australia. We conclude that the evidence on minority youth criminality is weak and that the panic about immigrant youth crime and immigrant youth gangs is disproportionate to the reality, drawing on and in turn creating racist stereotypes, particularly with youth of 'Middle Eastern appearance'. A review of the events leading up to the Sydney Cronulla Beach riots of December 2005 suggests that the underlying cause of the riots were many years of international, national, and local anti-Arab, anti-Muslim media discourse, and political opportunism, embedded in changing but persistent racist attitudes and practises. Our argument is that such inter-ethnic conflict between minority and majority youth in Sydney is the exception, not the rule. Finally, we draw on a hitherto unpublished survey of youth in Sydney to explore issues of national identity and belonging among young people of diverse ethnic and religious background. We conclude that minority youth in Sydney do not live 'parallel lives' but contradictory, inter-connected cosmopolitan lives. They are connected to family and local place, have inter-ethnic friendships but are often disconnected to the nation and the flag. © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V

Review debate: we need human rights not nationalism 'lite': globalization and British solidarity

The article explores the relationship of multiculturalism to social solidarity. The multicultural nature of Britain is accepted as a welcome reality but certain problems in relation to the development of multiculturalism in Britain are acknowledged. Various approaches to buttress or replace multiculturalism are reviewed. These are: a strengthened and/or reconstituted nationalism (`Britishness'); human rights; and social equality. The issue of citizenship recurs throughout. It is argued that a combined emphasis on human rights and greater social equality offer a better basis than nationalism for strengthening solidarity in Britain, especially in the longer term. Sociological theory offers a fruitful if strangely neglected starting point for understanding social solidarity. I draw critically on Durkheim and Marx to obtain some objective perspective on this controversial matter. Copyright 2007 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution

Interaction between FTO gene variants and lifestyle factors on metabolic traits in an Asian Indian population

Background Lifestyle factors such as diet and physical activity have been shown to modify the association between fat mass and obesity–associated (FTO) gene variants and metabolic traits in several populations; however, there are no gene-lifestyle interaction studies, to date, among Asian Indians living in India. In this study, we examined whether dietary factors and physical activity modified the association between two FTO single nucleotide polymorphisms (rs8050136 and rs11076023) (SNPs) and obesity traits and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Methods The study included 734 unrelated T2D and 884 normal glucose-tolerant (NGT) participants randomly selected from the urban component of the Chennai Urban Rural Epidemiology Study (CURES). Dietary intakes were assessed using a validated interviewer administered semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Physical activity was based upon the self-report. Interaction analyses were performed by including the interaction terms in the linear/logistic regression model. Results There was a significant interaction between SNP rs8050136 and carbohydrate intake (% energy) (Pinteraction = 0.04), where the ‘A’ allele carriers had 2.46 times increased risk of obesity than those with ‘CC’ genotype (P = 3.0 × 10−5) among individuals in the highest tertile of carbohydrate intake (% energy, 71 %). A significant interaction was also observed between SNP rs11076023 and dietary fibre intake (Pinteraction = 0.0008), where individuals with AA genotype who are in the 3rd tertile of dietary fibre intake had 1.62 cm lower waist circumference than those with ‘T’ allele carriers (P = 0.02). Furthermore, among those who were physically inactive, the ‘A’ allele carriers of the SNP rs8050136 had 1.89 times increased risk of obesity than those with ‘CC’ genotype (P = 4.0 × 10−5). Conclusions This is the first study to provide evidence for a gene-diet and gene-physical activity interaction on obesity and T2D in an Asian Indian population. Our findings suggest that the association between FTO SNPs and obesity might be influenced by carbohydrate and dietary fibre intake and physical inactivity. Further understanding of how FTO gene influences obesity and T2D through dietary and exercise interventions is warranted to advance the development of behavioral intervention and personalised lifestyle strategies, which could reduce the risk of metabolic diseases in this Asian Indian population

Assessment of the health of Americans: the average health-related quality of life and its inequality across individuals and groups

BACKGROUND: The assessment of population health has traditionally relied on the population's average health measured by mortality related indicators. Researchers have increasingly recognized the importance of including information on health inequality and health-related quality of life (HRQL) in the assessment of population health. The objective of this study is to assess the health of Americans in the 1990s by describing the average HRQL and its inequality across individuals and groups. METHODS: This study uses the 1990 and 1995 National Health Interview Survey from the United States. The measure of HRQL is the Health and Activity Limitation Index (HALex). The measure of health inequality across individuals is the Gini coefficient. This study provides confidence intervals (CI) for the Gini coefficient by a bootstrap method. To describe health inequality by group, this study decomposes the overall Gini coefficient into the between-group, within-group, and overlap Gini coefficient using race (White, Black, and other) as an example. This study looks at how much contribution the overlap Gini coefficient makes to the overall Gini coefficient, in addition to the absolute mean differences between groups. RESULTS: The average HALex was the same in 1990 (0.87, 95% CI: 0.87, 0.88) and 1995 (0.87, 95% CI: 0.86, 0.87). The Gini coefficient for the HALex distribution across individuals was greater in 1995 (0.097, 95% CI: 0.096, 0.099) than 1990 (0.092, 95% CI: 0.091, 0.094). Differences in the average HALex between all racial groups were the same in 1995 as 1990. The contribution of the overlap to the overall Gini coefficient was greater in 1995 than in 1990 by 2.4%. In both years, inequality between racial groups accounted only for 4–5% of overall inequality. CONCLUSION: The average HRQL of Americans was the same in 1990 and 1995, but inequality in HRQL across individuals was greater in 1995 than 1990. Inequality in HRQL by race was smaller in 1995 than 1990 because race had smaller effect on the way health was distributed in 1995 than 1990. Analysis of the average HRQL and its inequality provides information on the health of a population invisible in the traditional analysis of population health