Marc Howard Ross

Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Ethnic conflict often focuses on culturally charged symbols and rituals that evoke strong emotions from all sides. Marc Howard Ross examines battles over diverse cultural expressions, including Islamic headscarves in France, parades in Northern Ireland, holy sites in Jerusalem and Confederate flags in the American South to propose a psychocultural framework for understanding ethnic conflict, as well as barriers to, and opportunities for, its mitigation. His analysis explores how culture frames interests, structures demand-making and shapes how opponents can find common ground to produce constructive outcomes to long-term disputes. He focuses on participants' accounts of conflict to identify emotionally significant issues, and the power of cultural expressions to link individuals to larger identities and shape action. Ross shows that, contrary to popular belief, culture does not necessarily exacerbate conflict; rather, the constructed nature of psychocultural narratives can facilitate successful conflict mitigation through the development of more inclusive narratives and identities.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Cambridge University Press
• Seitenzahl: 388
• Erscheinungstermin: 13. Mai 2009
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 235mm x 157mm x 27mm
• Gewicht: 781g
• ISBN-13: 9780521870139
• ISBN-10: 0521870135
• Artikelnr.: 22704998

Autorenporträt

Marc Howard Ross is William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor of Political Science at Bryn Mawr College where he has taught since 1968. He has had a long term interest in social science theories of conflict and their implications for conflict management and has done research in East Africa, France, Northern Ireland, the Middle East, Spain, South Africa and the United States. Professor Ross has written or edited six books including The Culture of Conflict (1993) and The Management of Conflict (1993).

Inhaltsangabe

1. Introduction: easy questions and hard answers. What are they fighting about?
2. The political psychology of competing narratives
3. Narratives and performance: ritual enactment and psychocultural dramas in ethnic conflict
4. Loyalist parades in Northern Ireland as a psychocultural drama
5. Where is Barcelona? Imagining the nation without a state
6. Digging up the past to contest the present: the politics of archaeology in Jerusalem's old city
7. Dressed to express: Muslim headscarves in French schools
8. The politics of memory and memorialization in post-apartheid South Africa
9. Enlarging South Africa's symbolic landscape
10. Flags, heroes and statues: inclusive versus exclusive identity markers in the American South
11. Culture's central role in ethnic conflict.

Rezensionen

‘This brilliant and much-needed book does more than convincingly illuminate how cultural narratives, ritual expressions, and enactments contribute to the escalation of ethnic conflicts. Marc Ross strikingly documents how and when new ones can be created that are more inclusive, and so contribute to the de-escalation of conflicts and to the solidity and endurance of conflict settlements.’ Louis Kriesberg, Maxwell Professor Emeritus of Social Conflict Studies, Syracuse University and Founding Director of the Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflicts