‘Hong Konger is not a race; it’s a spirit’, claimed a group of ethnic minority advocates of protests against the now-shelved extradition bill and anti-mask law in Hong Kong. The dissociation of Hong Kong identity from race marks the blurring of cultural boundaries between those who are racially Chinese and those who are not. Hong Kong’s political climate appears to play a prominent role in forging a collective identity.
 
Such an identity claim reflects ethnic minorities’ fulfilled desire to be recognised as Hong Konger like the rest of local Chinese people. My co-authored Identities article with Sivanes Phillipson, 'Bordering on sociocultural boundaries and diversity: negotiating Filipino identities in a Hong Kong multi-ethnic school', presents a relevant scenario in an education setting that speaks to the identity tensions amongst minority groups.

Multi-ethnic schools in Hong Kong have been sites where young people from ethnic families negotiate their ethnic identities and belonging. These multi-ethnic schools have traditionally admitted Pakistani, Indian, Filipino and Nepalese students, due to a funding arrangement that aimed to provide focused support for Chinese language learning for ethnic students. The greater number of ethnic minority students that attended these schools, the greater financial support these schools would receive. However, the effects of these arrangements amounted to racialised segregation because of the limited intercultural contact with their Chinese counterparts (Shum et al. 2012).
 
Our study illustrates how ethnic identity negotiations of Filipino students foregrounded school ethos and expectations that explicitly valued cultural diversity, while hoping that students acquire the Chinese language to fit into Hong Kong’s wider society. There were, on the one hand, moments when the Filipino students felt very safe and respected in their multi-ethnic school because of their teachers’ commitment to teaching ethnic minority students. Thus, playing music and speaking Tagalog with peers were important conduits for them to make sense of who they were as Filipinos in their school. On the other hand, however, these students experienced challenges in learning Cantonese — the lingua franca in Hong Kong — including writing and reading Chinese, especially when this expectation was reinforced by the school and public examination.
 
Long-term residents in Hong Kong who are not ethnically Chinese are usually upfront about their status as Hong Kong locals, despite the occasional language barrier. These residents include Hong Kong-educated Filipino youngsters who were born and/or raised in Hong Kong. Parents of these Filipino youngsters typically migrate to Hong Kong as industry professionals, such as musicians, engineers and architects, among others. However, these youngsters constitute a small fraction of the Filipino population in Hong Kong, as the majority of Filipinos in Hong Kong work as domestic workers.

Yet, these youngsters often come to mind when talking about Filipinos in the city (at times in stereotypical ways) who constitute the largest and most visible ethnic population. As domestic workers’ occupational status does not enable them to acquire permanent residence in Hong Kong, these youngsters who reside in the city permanently express identities vastly differently from domestic workers who eventually go back to the Philippines for good.
  
Although the study was conducted before the 2019 Hong Kong protests, its implications invite new questions about the emerging identity politics in Hong Kong:

1. To what extent is Hong Kong identity exclusive to Chinese people in the city?
2. Can we abolish the use of the term ‘minority’ in official documents and media?
3. How might Hong Kong’s eventual reunification with China shape the city’s ethno-racial politics and rhetoric?
4. What roles might schools play in cultivating understandings of cultural diversity in a Chinese city?

 
If being a Hong Konger is a spirit, then this would be an evolving intellectual pursuit of understanding the changing bounds of what constitutes ‘real’ Hong Kong people, and responding to such in ways that transcend limiting and binary identity expressions (e.g. Chinese vs. non-Chinese).
 
Reference: 
Shum, M., F. Gao & W. W. Ki. 2016. School desegregation in Hong Kong: non-Chinese linguistic minority students’ challenges to learning Chinese in mainstream schools. Asia Pacific Journal of Education 36: 533–544. 

Blog post by Jan Gube, The Education University of Hong Kong, China

Read the full article: Gube, Jan & Phillipson, Sivanes. Bordering on sociocultural boundaries and diversity: negotiating Filipino identities in a Hong Kong multi-ethnic school. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. DOI: 10.1080/1070289X.2019.1671678

The 20th century has witnessed many ethnic and religious conflicts, civil wars, massacres and humanitarian crises all over the world from Southeast Europe to Sudan, and from Rwanda to Northern Ireland. Although negative peace [1] is achieved by signed peace agreements or newly-drawn borders in many cases, this does not necessarily bring about reconciliation and harmonious relations between societies. The violent acts of 1915 -- one of the most catastrophic events in the early 20th century -- deeply damaged Turkish–Armenian relations and still has been affecting new generations. Although some peaceful steps have been taken on a diplomatic level to normalise relations, the intractability of the conflict remains.

Past theory on competitive victimhood demonstrates that contested narratives over being ‘the main victim’ of a conflict are significant obstacles in processes of reconciliation. When victimhood becomes a component of a broader collective identity, it can increase the perception of social prejudice, distrust and hatred towards out-groups. Competitive victimhood refers to a situation in which each side in a conflict claims to be the main victim or legitimise its own crimes on the basis of past victimhood (Noor et al. 2008). Moreover, while in-group crimes are downplayed by moral excuses in such situations, out-group crimes are exaggerated by demonising the enemy (Andrighetto et al. 2012). This leads to competition over who has suffered more and who has more right to resort to violence. Although all members of a community have not experienced violence and harm, victimisation becomes a component of collective identity and gets passed down to subsequent generations. 

Moving beyond the diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey [2], my Identities article,  'Competitive victimhood and reconciliation: the case of Turkish–Armenian relations​', focuses on reconciliation between two communities which have very limited interaction due to a closed border, poor diplomatic relations between states, and mutual distrust and prejudices between communities. Drawing upon two separate nation-wide public opinion polls conducted in Turkey and Armenia, and personal interviews, the article explores how narratives of competitive victimhood reveal in the Turkish and Armenian communities.

Furthermore, a theoretical discussion revolves around the relationship between competitive victimhood and reconciliation pyramid, which moves from becoming acquittances with each other’s narratives to a shared narrative and understanding of the past (Auerbach 2009). The empirical analysis displays that Turks seek moral acceptance while Armenians seek recognition. Studying relations between Turks and Armenians on a people to people reconciliation level also demonstrates that the likelihood of reconciliation increases when parties meet and get to know each other’s narratives on a personal level. However, a lack of interaction between the two communities prevents mutual understanding and both groups tend to deny the other’s narratives by supporting official narratives. The analysis also illustrates that Turkish society remembers the massacres and develops empathy on a personal level.

Finally, if the conflicting communities are divided by time and space as in the case of Turkish–Armenian relations, competing victimhood narratives may become even more rooted by decreasing the likelihood of reconciliation. Thus, interaction and acquaintance with competing narratives expose as significant steps to overcome this obstacle and achieve reconciliation between Turkish and Armenian communities. Accordingly, a question unfolds regarding the reconciliation process in general. If interaction and acquaintance with competing narratives may increase the likelihood of reconciliation, why cannot it still be achieved in places like Bosnia-Herzegovina where communities live side by side with a relatively higher level of interaction and acquittance of each other’s narratives?    

References:
Auerbach, Y. 2009. The reconciliation pyramid -- a narrative-based framework for analyzing identity conflicts. Political Psychology 30: 291–317.

Andrighetto, L., S. Mari, C. Volpato & B. Behluli. 2012. Reducing competitive victimhood in Kosovo: the role of extended contact and common ingroup identity. Political Psychology 33: 513–529.

Galtung, J. 1969. Violence, peace and peace research. Journal of Peace Research 6: 167-191.

Noor, M., R. Brown & G. Prentice. 2008. Precursors and mediators of inter-group reconciliation in Northern Ireland: a new model. British Journal of Social Psychology 47: 481–495.

[1] Galtung (1969) defines negative peace as 'the absence of violence', which can be achieved by signed peace agreements between conflicting parties, and differentiates it from social justice and reconciliation, namely positive peace.

[2] Preconditions for peaceful steps, namely the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh for Turkey and recognition of the Armenian genocide for Armenia, pose intractable obstacles to interstate relations.

Blog post by Cagla Demirel, Södertörn University, Sweden

Read the full article: Demirel, Cagla & Eriksson, Johan. Competitive victimhood and reconciliation: the case of Turkish–Armenian relations​. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. DOI: 10.1080/1070289X.2019.1611073

Boxing fans and pundits might be familiar with the term 'undisputed' champion. Reserved mainly for boxers, the 'undisputed' champion is seen as the unquestioned champion of (mainly his) weight division. To achieve this status, he must become champion of the various worldwide boxing organisations. Of course, the boxer must constantly defend this status over and over again in order to maintain his place atop the boxing hierarchy. In other words, being an undisputed champion is fleeting, unpredictable, and always in flux.

In my Identities article, ‘Undisputed’ racialised masculinities: boxing fandom, identity, and the cultural politics of masculinity', the term 'undisputed' is repurposed to theorise and allegorise how it is fraught with contradictions. My findings highlight how the undisputed status of racialised masculinity is constantly struggled over, negotiated and contested by male boxing fans of colour. Based on fieldwork observations during a Manny 'Pac-Man' Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez boxing match in 2011, interviews conducted with 1.5 and 2nd generation Filipina/o Americans, and close analysis of 'Gayweather,' it analyses how male fans of colour seek an undisputed masculinity in complex and problematic ways. 

Undisputed racialised masculinities are fraught with issues of power inequalities including homophobia, sexism and conservative views of belonging to a nation. Employing a queer of colour critique and women of colour feminism, undisputed racialised masculinity is complicated by race, class, sexuality and nation. During ethnographic observations at the Manny 'Pac-Man' Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez weigh-ins for example, homosocial spaces and relations — made up primarily of Latino and Filipino men — produced racially heteronormative ideas of nationalism. These ideas were manifested in homophobic chants (fans chanting ‘puto,’ a Spanish homophobic slur) and heterosexist ideas about who can belong to the imagined national community. 

Filipina/o Americans also deployed homophobia and sexism by devaluing African American boxer Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather’s masculinity. Informants pointed out that Mayweather is Pacquiao’s biggest boxing rival and a gauge with which they measured Pacquiao’s success. They shared that Pacquiao is known to take risks and invite pain. In other words, he isn’t ‘scared’ to stand ‘toe to toe’ with his opponents. In this way, Mayweather’s masculinity works in relation to Pacquiao’s boxing style.

While my article primarily documents how men of colour assert their ‘undisputed racialised masculinity,’ some women challenge this status. During an interview with Louise, a 1.5-generation Filipina American, she brought to my attention the term 'Gayweather' and the discomfort she experienced whenever some of her Facebook friends posted the image. She shared, 'I do feel uncomfortable because yes, Mayweather is Manny’s competitor, but I don’t like the way a lot of people have [given him] that nickname "Gayweather." It just makes me feel really uncomfortable because of the implications that it does have. I’m all for being proud and having support for Manny Pacquiao but when it goes into that and I know they’re doing it just because they’re rooting for Manny. But when it gets to things like that, they’re calling him names that have to do with belittling homosexuals and stuff. It makes me cringe.' In fact, the racialised, gendered and sexualised term circulates on the internet as memes and GIFs by queering Mayweather. This is accomplished by superimposing images onto his body to mark his 'queerness' (e.g. wearing pink dresses and kissing other men). 

In order to combat ‘undisputed racialised masculinity,’ the article concludes by pointing to an ethics and politics of care that asks us to imagine differently. To imagine differently means changing social patterns and relations, to radically alter how we live with each other in order to imagine more egalitarian relations. 

Blog post by Constancio R. Arnaldo, Jr., University of Nevada, USA

Read the full article: Arnaldo, Constancio R., Jr. 2019. ‘Undisputed’ racialised masculinities: boxing fandom, identity, and the cultural politics of masculinity. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. DOI: 10.1080/1070289X.2019.1624068

In the summer of 1998, 300 Kurdish refugees landed at the Ionian coast and received help from the local inhabitants of Riace, a small Calabrian town. Ever since, refugees have been hosted in houses that were abandoned by local emigrants looking for work abroad or elsewhere in Italy, and leaving behind an impoverished ‘ghost town’. Over time, local NGOs and the municipality have developed a comprehensive settlement programme for up to 400 refugees at a time. Refugees, in turn, bring new life into this once-dying town, and the settlement programme is combined with projects aimed at the socio-economic revival of the local community [1]. Curious to find out whether the welcoming attitude towards refugees (Sasso 2012) was genuine and how the support for them was generated, the first author of the Identities article,  'Local identity and the reception of refugees: the example of Riace', decided to live in one of the abandoned houses for a period of 5 months.

Through the ethnographic fieldwork of the first author, we soon found out that there are various economic, demographic and political factors underpinning the success of Riace’s reception programme. The article being discussed aimed to examine how the people in Riace created and enact a local identity of hospitality. In the article, we analysed the type of ‘identity work’ that the Riace inhabitants and local leaders are involved in. Far-right politics and anti-immigration parties often present refugees as a threat to the local identity due to their different cultural or religious background, and a strong national identity regularly goes together with the rejection of newcomers (Bansak et al. 2016). Theoretically, social identities are often conceptualised in terms of group boundaries and processes of boundary drawing (‘who belongs to us’; Wimmer 2009), but they also define specific norms, values and beliefs of ‘who we are as a community’. The case of Riace shows that when the content of the local identity is pro-social and a community defines itself in terms of hospitality, community members are inclined to act, think and feel in that way (Reicher et al. 2010). In agreement with this ‘social identity perspective’, our research demonstrates that a strong local identity can go together with the inclusion, instead of the exclusion, of newcomers.

Historical narratives form the core of Riace’s pro-social identity. People explain their hospitality as a continuation of the town’s traditional welcoming attitude and emigration history, which would make them understand what it feels like to migrate and to receive newcomers within their community. Locals use such narratives as a rhetorical resource to further stimulate the enactment of the local identity of hospitality, for example through family tales, artwork and activities. Furthermore, the local leadership has played a decisive role in promoting and upholding the local identity. The mayor [2] also motivated  locals to participate in the refugee integration programmes, which in turn promoted the idea amongst inhabitants that the programmes reflect local pro-social norms (Haslam et al. 2011). There are still some challenges to the future of Riace as a town of hospitality that relate to available financial resources and competition over local opportunities.

The three periods of fieldwork by the first author in 2015 (5 months), 2016 (2 months), 2017 and 2018 (2 months) made it possible to develop close relationships, which resulted in locals expressing not only the popular image of Riace but also being more critical regarding, for example, alleged corruption in the local refugee organisations. It was crucial to build rapport  as the presence of a foreign researcher studying the ‘successful Riace-model’ can affect the responses of locals. A practical implication of this research is that policies aimed at developing a strong local identity can go together with the inclusion, rather than exclusion, of refugees.

Many (Western) governments currently face the challenge of accommodating refugees while preventing anti-refugee attitudes, racism and xenophobia. While they increasingly seem to opt for stricter immigration policies, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) statistics show that this has not stopped migrants from (illegally) moving to Europe (IOM 2018). Our analysis indicates that it is important to develop a pro-social community identity in which the reception of refugees is not perceived as an identity threat, but rather as a reflection and continuation of ‘who we are’. The successful appeals to a national identity of solidarity and tolerance in Bulgaria (Reicher 2006), Portugal (Vala et al. 2008) and the Netherlands (Smeekes et al. 2012) indicate that this strategy can also work in other settings. Moreover, refugees seem to feel more accepted in settings characterised by pro-social norms. The welcoming image of Riace did, for example, attract refugees living in other towns and asylum centres to move there independently after hearing positive stories within their (informal) social networks (Driel 2018).

[1] In the restoration and sustainability projects, refugees and Italians collaborate to improve the local infrastructure and architecture and to create well-functioning public services such as the garbage collection, all in environmental friendly ways. In the ‘Laboratorio’ or shops, traditional Calabrian handicrafts are produced by refugees and local Italians together. There are for example shops for dressmaking, joinery, pottery and glass-blowing. Finally, the solidarity tourism combines volunteering and tourism in order to stimulate the development of the local community.

[2] Between 2004-2018 Mayor Domenico Lucano was re-elected 3 times, the legal maximum period in Italy. In 2019, after the fieldwork period, a new local government was installed (https://elezioni.interno.gov.it/comunali/scrutini/20190526/scrutiniGI180670640). 

References:
Bansak, K., J. Hainmueller & D. Hangartner. 2016. How economic, humanitarian, and religious concerns shape European attitudes toward asylum seekers. Science 354: 217–222. 

Driel, E. 2018. Refugee settlement and the revival of local communities: lessons from the Riace model. Manuscript submitted for publication (under review). 

Haslam, S. A., S. Reicher & M. J. Platow. 2011. The new psychology of leadership: identity, influence and power. New York: Psychology Press.

International Organization for Migration (IOM). 2018. World Migration Report. October 8. https://www.iom.int/wmr/world-migra tion-report-2018.

Reicher, S., C. Cassidy, I. Wolpert, N. Hopkins & M. Levine. 2006. Saving Bulgaria’s Jews: an analysis of social identity and the mobilisation of social solidarity. European Journal of Social Psychology 36: 49–72.

Reicher, S., R. Spears & S. A. Haslam. 2010. The Social Identity Approach in Social Psychology. In: The Sage Handbook of Identities, edited by M. Wetherell & C. T. Mohanty. London: Sage ,45–62.

Sasso, C. 2012. Riace, terra di accoglienza. Turin: Edizioni Gruppo Abele.

Smeekes, A., M. Verkuyten, and E. Poppe. 2012. How a tolerant past affects the present: historical tolerance and the acceptance of Muslim expressive rights. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 38: 1410–1422. 

Vala, J., D. Lopes & M. Lima. 2008. Black immigrants in Portugal: luso–tropicalism and prejudice. Journal of Social Issues 64: 287–302. 

Wagner, U., O. Christ & W. Heitmeyer. 2010. Anti-Immigration Bias. In The Sage Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination, edited by J. F. Dovidio, M. Hewstone, P. Glick & V. M. Esses. London: Sage, 361–376.

Wimmer, A. 2009. Herder’s heritage and the boundary-making approach: studying ethnicity in immigrant societies. Sociological Theory 27: 244–270. 

Blog post by ​Ester Driel and Maykel Verkuyten, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Read the full article: Driel, Ester & Verkuyten, Maykel. 2019. Local identity and the reception of refugees: the example of Riace. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. DOI: 10.1080/1070289X.2019.1611075