Dominant ethnicity: from minority to majority

This article argues that the world is in the midst of a long-term transition from dominant minority to dominant majority ethnicity. Whereas minority domination was common in premodern societies, modernity (with its accent on democracy and popular sovereignty) has engendered a shift to dominant majority ethnicity. The article begins with conceptual clarifications. The second section provides a broad overview of the general patterns of ethnic dominance that derive from the logic of modern nationalism and democratisation. The third section discusses remnants of dominant minorities in the modern era and suggests that their survival hinges on peculiar historical and social circumstances coupled with resistance to democratisation. The fourth section shifts the focus to dominant majorities in the modern era and their relationship to national identities. The article ends with a discussion of the fortunes of dominant ethnicity in the West

Sect and House in Syria: History, Architecture, and Bayt Amongst the Druze in Jaramana

This paper explores the connections between the architecture and materiality of houses and the social idiom of bayt (house, family). The ethnographic exploration is located in the Druze village of Jaramana, on the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus. It traces the histories, genealogies, and politics of two families, bayt Abud-Haddad and bayt Ouward, through their houses. By exploring the two families and the architecture of their houses, this paper provides a detailed ethnographic account of historical change in modern Syria, internal diversity, and stratification within the intimate social fabric of the Druze neighbourhood at a time of war, and contributes a relational approach to the anthropological understanding of houses

Lineages of the Islamic State: an international historical sociology of state (de-)formation in Iraq

Existing accounts of the Islamic State (IS) tend to rely on orientalist and technicist assumptions and hence insufficiently sensitive to the historical, sociological, and international conditions of the possibility of IS. The present article provides an alternative account through a conjunctural analysis that is anchored in an international historical sociology of modern Iraq informed by Leon Trotsky's idea of ‘uneven and combined development’. It foregrounds the concatenation of Iraq's contradictory (post‐)colonial nation‐state formation with the neoliberal conjuncture of 1990‐2014. It shows that the former process involved the tension‐prone fusion of governing institutions of the modern state and the intermittent but steady reproduction, valorization, and politicization of supra‐national (religious‐sectarian) and sub‐national (ethno‐tribal) collective identities, which subverted the emergence of an Iraqi nation. The international sanctions regime of the 1990s transformed sectarian and tribal difference into communitarian tension by fatally undermining the integrative efficacy of the Ba’ath party's authoritarian welfare‐state. Concurrently, the neo‐liberal demolition of the post‐colonial authoritarian welfare states in the region gave rise to the Arab Spring revolutions. The Arab Spring however elicited a successful authoritarian counter‐revolution that eliminated secular‐nationalist forms of oppositional politics. This illiberal neoliberalisation of the region's political economy valorised the religionisation of the domestic effects of the 2003 US‐led destruction of the Iraqi state and its reconstruction on a majoritarian basis favouring the Shi’as and hence transforming sectarian tension into sectarian conflict culminating in IS. Thus, IS is, the paper demonstrates, the result of neither an internal cultural pathology nor sheerly external forces. Rather, it is the novel product of an utterly historical congealment of the intrinsically interactive and multilinear dynamics of socio‐political change

Fragmented realities: The ‘sectarianisation’of space among Iraqi Shias in London

How do the spaces we inhabit shape our lived experiences? And how do those lived experiences in turn come to shape and influence our political subjectivity? Such questions are rendered all the more important in studies of migrant or diaspora populations who, by definition, conduct their daily lives in spaces and places that were initially alien to them. The way in which migrants interact with the spaces around them can tell us much about the social, political, and religious engagements they invest in, as well as the very real way in which they experience their local milieu. Through a detailed study of Iraqi Shiis living in London, specifically in the north-western borough of Brent, this article will seek to trace the ways in which religious institutions have carved up the physical and social landscape of north-west London in ways that have enduring effect on the communities with which they engage. The increasing diversification of different religious establishments, I argue, has led to a fragmentation of the city-as-lived, in which the vast majority of practising Iraqi Shiis engage with only small isolated pockets of the urban environment on a daily basis. Moreover, the growing number of specifically Shia schools, charities, mosques, community centres and other such institutions has resulted in what I call a ‘sectarianisation’ of space in Brent, in which individuals hailing from different branches of Islam inhabit different spaces within the city despite often living within metres of each other. Drawing on a mixture of interviews, participant observation, and mapping techniques, I bring together theory and practice in order to sketch out the ways migrant lives can come to be localised in certain spaces, and what that can ultimately mean in terms of their political subjectivity and engagement

JUST[I]CITY

North-east of Braamfontein in Johannesburg lies what used to be an oppressive prison precinct which experienced almost a century of South Africa’s political history. Recently after the introduction of democracy it became a ‘beacon of hope’ what is more commonly known today as Constitution Hill. It hosts the highest court of our democratic nation, the Constitutional Court. A stone’s throw away, Hillbrow. It is a stigmatized neighbourhood plagued by crime and urban squatting and urban decay. This dissertation addresses the ongoing disparities within a continuum to achieve justice. It is assumed that by restoring this unwanted neighbourhood of Hillbrow, the light of Constitution Hill may enlighten this dark part of the city to become a part and productive a contributor to a just city. The Dispute Resolutions Centre will act as a mediator in resolving some of the injustices that face South Africa today, through the procedures of restorative justice. The intention of the project is to fulfill the virtue of justice within the area of the home of the constitution of our democracy.Mini Dissertation MArch(Prof)--University of Pretoria, 2018.WMS ArchitectsArchitectureMArch(Prof)Unrestricte