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Ethnic Differentiation (ethnic + differentiation)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences75%

Selected Abstracts

Genetic Evidence for Complexity in Ethnic Differentiation and History in East Africa

ANNALS OF HUMAN GENETICS, Issue 6 2009
Estella S. Poloni
Summary The Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan language families come into contact in Western Ethiopia. Ethnic diversity is particularly high in the South, where the Nilo-Saharan Nyangatom and the Afro-Asiatic Daasanach dwell. Despite their linguistic differentiation, both populations rely on a similar agripastoralist mode of subsistence. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA extracted from Nyangatom and Daasanach archival sera revealed high levels of diversity, with most sequences belonging to the L haplogroups, the basal branches of the mitochondrial phylogeny. However, in sharp contrast with other Ethiopian populations, only 5% of the Nyangatom and Daasanach sequences belong to haplogroups M and N. The Nyangatom and Daasanach were found to be significantly differentiated, while each of them displays close affinities with some Tanzanian populations. The strong genetic structure found over East Africa was neither associated with geography nor with language, a result confirmed by the analysis of 6711 HVS-I sequences of 136 populations mainly from Africa. Processes of migration, language shift and group absorption are documented by linguists and ethnographers for the Nyangatom and Daasanach, thus pointing to the probably transient and plastic nature of these ethnic groups. These processes, associated with periods of isolation, could explain the high diversity and strong genetic structure found in East Africa. [source]

Mapping Internationalization: Domestic and Regional Impacts

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2001
Etel Solingen
This article introduces a conceptual design for mapping the domestic impact of internationalization. It proposes that internationalization leads to a trimodal domestic coalitional profile and advances a set of expectations about the regional effects of each profile. Aggregate data from ninety-eight coalitions in nineteen states over five regions suggests that between 1948 and 1993 the three coalitional types differed in their international behavior. Internationalizing coalitions deepened trade openness, expanded exports, attracted foreign investments, restrained military-industrial complexes, initiated fewer international crises, eschewed weapons of mass destruction, deferred to international economic and security regimes, and strove for regional cooperative orders that reinforced those objectives. Backlash coalitions restricted or reduced trade openness and reliance on exports, curbed foreign investment, built expansive military complexes, developed weapons of mass destruction, challenged international regimes, exacerbated civic-nationalist, religious, or ethnic differentiation within their region, and were prone to initiate international crises. Hybrids straddled the grand strategies of their purer types, intermittently striving for economic openness, contracting the military complex, initiating international crises, and cooperating regionally and internationally, but neither forcefully nor coherently. These findings have significant implications for international relations theory and our incipient understanding of internationalization. Further extensions of the conceptual framework can help capture international effects that are yet to be fully integrated into the study of the domestic politics of coalition formation. [source]

Ethnic patterns in the phonetics of Montreal English

JOURNAL OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS, Issue 4 2004
Charles Boberg
Most North American cities no longer display strong ethnic differentiation of speech within the European-origin population. This is not true in the English-speaking community of Montreal, Canada, where English is a minority language. Differences in the phonetic realization of vowels by Montrealers of Irish, Italian, and Jewish ethnic origin are investigated by means of acoustic analysis. A statistical analysis of ethnic differences in formant frequencies shows that ethnicity has a significant effect on several variables, particularly the phonetic position of /u:/ and /ou/ and the allophonic conditioning of /ę/ and /au/ before nasal consonants. The unusual tenacity of ethnophonetic variation in Montreal English is explained in light of the minority status of English, and the social and residential segregation of ethnic groups in distinct neighborhoods, which limits their exposure to speakers of Standard Canadian English who might otherwise serve as models for assimilation. [source]

Ethnicity and Evolution of the Biodemographic Structure of Arbėreshe and Italian Populations of the Pollino Area, southern Italy (1820,1984)

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 4 2007
Article first published online: 7 MAY 200
In the present study, we show how, through time, an ethnic mosaic and a changing social and economic context translated into intrapopulation differentiation and a change in genetic barriers between populations. Surname analysis was applied to a sample drawn from two centuries of marriage records in ten Arbėreshe and nine Italian villages of southern Italy to evaluate the evolution of internal differentiation and changes in genetic relationships between populations. Marital Isonymy and subdivision into subpopulations was higher in the Arbėreshe. Genetic barriers coinciding with ethnic boundaries characterized the 1800s. In the second half of the 1900s, ethnic differentiation disappeared. We hypothesize that socioeconomic changes, such as increased outmigration and regional mobility, were the forces that progressively eliminated the ethnic-related genetic differentiation in the region. This study has important implications for an understanding of the relationship between genetic evolution and the cultural milieu involving enforcement of ethnic differences. [source]