An interview with the acclaimed Dominican artist Julio Valdez, conducted by Ron Scapp, contributing editor to the Ethnic Studies Review , in which the artist talks about his work by situating it within the personal and social-cultural context in which it was created.

This article offers insights into conceptual, pedagogical, and programmatic crossings and conflicts between the fields of Environmental Studies and Ethnic Studies. It highlights both the important intersections between the two fields and their potential value, while also addressing the challenges posed in the development of programmatic collaborations. Utilizing case studies drawn from the author’s own experiences, the article’s focus is on harnessing the strengths and limitations of both fields to promote transformative knowledge and action at multiple scales.

This article attempts to articulate the different reasons for needing to be diligent and rigorous regarding land claims. Many progressives are inclined to assert that there are multiple perspectives to everything. And, such a position may very well be, in fact, accurate (true). But it may also prove to be not very useful toward considering the complex and multi-layered story of indigenous land claims. What this article highlights is one particular story, the history of a “differend.”

In this article we investigate the role of parental and family characteristics as explanations for gender differences in children’s education using primary data collected from villages in West Bengal, India in 2007–08. We add to existing research by focusing on the importance of parental perceptions by distinguishing between the stated need for education in general and the need for education for girls to investigate the pathways through which girls’ education may be improved. Results show that while girls are being enrolled at the same rate as boys when young, they are being withdrawn at much higher rates as they get older, often for marriage or financial reasons. Multivariate analyses show significant gender bias in education among the older sample (17 years and over) and some important differences among predictors for male and female education for both samples. For the older sample, financial constraints are more important for curtailing a daughter’s education than a son’s education. Among the indicators of parental perception, the expectation of economic independence for girls has a positive effect on girls’ education, but parental expectation of the enhancement of traditional roles (as wives and mothers) through girls’ education has a beneficial effect on boys’ education.

Boko Haram insurgency is the most devastating experience encountered during Nigeria’s fourth republic. It is therefore imperative to investigate the root causes of Boko Haram insurgency in the country. To achieve the objective of the study, a total of ninety members of the Joint Task Force (JTF) operating in Maiduguri in Borno State were sampled through the use of a self-structured questionnaire, and key informants were interviewed in thirty-four cases to concretize data generated through the questionnaire. The study discovered that cultural practices ( x ̄ = 3.311 ), high rates of illiteracy ( x ̄ = 3.167 ), political interests of the elites ( x ̄ = 3.156 ), foreign influence ( x ̄ = 3.144 ), and bad governance ( x ̄ = 3.078 ) were the root causes of Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria. Thus, it is recommended that cultural practices capable of provoking violence should be reviewed and reshaped; leaders should be held accountable for their actions; quality and access to education should be provided; citizenship consciousness on leadership issues should be activated, and Nigeria’s foreign policy principles concerning her neighbors should be redefined to determine how the country will be looked upon in this critical stage of its democratic development.

Although affirmative action in college admissions is constitutionally permissible, several states prohibit it. We investigate whether bans push black and Latino students from in-state public selective colleges to other types of postsecondary institutions, thus contributing to talent loss among these groups. Unlike most other studies, we analyze national data (the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009) so that we can follow students across state lines. We find no evidence that students from ban states shift from one type of selective college to another; that is, from in-state public flagships to in-state private ones or selective colleges in other states. However, the odds of attending a nonselective college, instead of an in-state public selective college, are almost three times higher among blacks and Latinos in ban states compared with their counterparts in states without bans. We argue that bans on affirmative action may contribute to talent loss among black and Latino students.

This article deals with Bartolomé de Las Casas’ contribution to the notion of universal human rights. Though much study has been devoted to Las Casas’ work, what remains understudied is the Spanish philosopher’s conception of religion, which in many ways resembles what Kant called “the religion of reason.” For Las Casas, then, Christianity was conceived more as a rational system of ethics than as a compendium of Biblical and scholastic dogmas. Like the later Enlightenment philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Las Casas believed that all humans belonged to the same universal community of rational beings. By examining Las Casas together with Fichte, this article sheds further light on Las Casas’ anticipatory notions of moral agency, formal freedom, rational religion, and the rights of a free people against the use of coercion—regardless of their race, religion, or culture. They are the ideas underpinning his notion of universal human rights (Paulist and Thomist in nature), and his ethics of the Other, who “is just like me”: a rational, feeling human being, deserving of equal justice and rights.

Burial of human beings in houses or within residential premises is a common occurrence in developing countries. Despite the negative impacts it has on the social and economic lives of the people and society at large, particularly on public health, this norm has continued. However, this area has not been given adequate attention in recent scholarship. Against this backdrop, this article traces the development, appropriation, and misappropriation of burial sites and public cemeteries among the indigenous people of Egba land. It also examines the responses of the government to this phenomenon. This study was done through the use of archival sources, extant literature, media reports, pictographs, and interviews. The study reveals that the misappropriation of burial sites and cemeteries is a result of indigenous belief systems, illiteracy, inadequate lands for burial and cemeteries, cost and proximity of burial sites, and insecurity, among other things. It also finds that the few who appropriate burial sites and cemeteries were educated, enlightened, and averagely wealthy individuals, socially placed individuals. It recommends that governments at both state and local levels, particularly local levels that are vested with the maintenance of burial sites and cemeteries, should be strengthened to adequately appropriate cemeteries and burial sites in Egba land, south west Nigeria, like most indigenous people.

Ethnicity, age, and the feeling of belonging for students can affect their performance in class. A noninteractive or unmingled student who lacks the feeling of belonging to other classmates or a group of students has high potential to perform poorly, especially in classes where teamwork is required and highly desirable. This article surveyed the ethnicity and demographics of 194 students in a fluid power class offered within the School of Engineering Technology at Purdue University. The survey collected the gender, age, and ethnicity of students enrolled in the class at the main campus and at five other remote locations spread over the state of Indiana that are part of Purdue University. All surveyed locations shared the same labs and course learning outcomes. The final scores for the students with different ethnicities, demographics, and ages were analyzed showing the average, minimum, and maximum in each location. The group grades, ethnicity, gender, and age were summarized and sorted into three categories: students enrolled in the main campus, students enrolled at statewide locations while being aggregated in one pool, and students from statewide locations but each location was presented separately. Although “White” students were the dominant group for all considered campuses, statistical analysis of the students’ grades showed that the locations that had slightly more diverse groups had the highest average scores. It was also noticed that the scores and performance of the students depended mainly on their interaction and willingness to mingle with other students. Other factors that can affect the students’ performance such as family background, family obligations and support, school-related factors, and other social factors were not part of this study.

To the degree that Donald Trump represents a disorienting reversal of a supposed state-sponsored promise of neoliberal racial progress typified by the election of the first Black United States president, liberals have been equally committed to reorienting themselves through the explanatory framework of white backlash. This article approaches the white backlash narrative with a healthy skepticism in order to explore its cultural and political uses. Through an analysis of popular discursive representations—a Saturday Night Live sketch, Obama’s first significant political speech since leaving the White House, and two widely read Atlantic articles by Ta-Nehisi Coates—this article critiques the ways in which liberals have sought to rationalize the racially disorienting transition between the Obama and Trump eras through the use of the white backlash narrative. More specifically it argues that in the wake of Trump, the white backlash narrative delimits the Obama era as a period of unfulfilled “post-racial” progress, and the Trump era as a wholly separate, reactionary moment of white supremacy. In so doing, the narrative reaffirms the protection of minoritized populations from formally recognized white supremacist violence in the Trump era, while obscuring neoliberalism’s own regimes of racialized oppression in the Obama era. By revealing such shortcomings of the white backlash narrative, it asks that we envision alternative ways to remember, interpret, and historically index the entanglements between racial neoliberal and white supremacist modalities linking the Obama and Trump eras.

Academic and public discourses often oversimplify the complex historical, social, and discursive forces that have created the current realities in Haiti. These discourses ignore or distort the role that foreign governments and international agencies have played and continue to play in the creation of the Haitian state. They portray the Haitian government as singular and static, corrupt and incapable, and fail to acknowledge changes in leadership and the diversity of individuals who exist within the government. This “single story” about Haiti privileges the international community and overlooks the stories from Haitians who are working to rebuild and reimagine their own country. This article examines the personal stories of Haitians in order to better understand the nature of Haitian leadership in a neocolonial, post-disaster context.

This article attempts to answer the question of why ethnic identity rather than national identity is more likely to be salient after an ethnic majority overcomes a dominant minority rule? Does an ethnic majority succeeding a dominant minority pursue an authentic representative government or does it reinvigorate its own ethnic identity through the pursuit of ethnic politics? Ethnic minority governance inevitably raises questions of legitimacy and inclusivity. Even in secular democracies, where courts protect citizen rights, democracy is far from perfect, but in countries that divide along ethnicity, religion, sector, or tribal loyalty, the history of all-inclusive governance is not encouraging. Typically, minority rule in non-democratic countries tends to despotism and autocracy. Therefore, the policies of dominant minority regimes scarcely differ from those of majoritarian governments, and outcomes can also vary dramatically. By comparing dominant minority rule in three cases—Iraq, Syria, and Bahrain 1 —I analyze how ethnic conflict is prevalent and prolonged in countries where ethnic minorities rule and how the outcome ultimately impacts state national identity. I maintain that ethnic identity issues and ethnic conflict do not resolve with majoritarian rule. In fact, if a majoritarian party assumes power after a dominant minority government, it will likely consolidate its own identity and pursue ethnic politics by way of an ethnocultural form of self-determination. Theoretically, this article contributes to the debate on the incompatibility of ethnicity and nationalism on the one hand, and with nation and state building on the other.

The relationship between Fulani herdsmen and farmers has in recent years become hot-tempered motivated by competitive control of land resources, particularly in central and north-east Nigeria. In Taraba State, the ongoing nomadic migration pattern from the Sahel in quest of pastures has led to violent confrontation between Fulani herdsmen and farming indigenous natives. Using a descriptive approach consisting of documented evidence, in-depth interviews, and focus group discussions, the analysis revealed that conflicts between Fulani herdsmen and indigenous native farmers have culminated in population displacement and destruction of life and property in numerous rural enclaves in Taraba State. Despite the consequences of the conflicts, the Taraba State government was unable to act proactively because of the centralization of command over Nigerian security agencies. Accordingly, the study suggests decentralization of security agencies in Nigeria, especially the police, as the way forward for effective security governance in Nigeria.

Race, war, and geography remain unmarked domains within the historiography of sexuality. This article analyzes the work of Joseph M. Carrier, a seminal figure who helped develop the study of homosexuality. In this article, we examine the ways Carrier incorporated studies of various populations from the Global South, from Vietnamese refugees to Mexican MSM (men who have sex with men). In his attempt to collect knowledge about subaltern groups—first as a RAND Corporation researcher and later as an anthropologist and epidemiologist—Carrier shows us that the genealogy of homosexuality studies is not clear-cut. It is situated across multiple spaces of (inter)disciplinary power and knowledge. By comparing these trans-regional areas of study, we examine the ways in which Western social scientists can draw research from one social context into another.