Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Ethnopolitics'

Master of Arts
In the southwest corner of China, the confluence of cultural diversity and national integration have produced a new kind of voice in the Chinese language: an ethnic voice. Speaking fluently in the Chinese nation’s language and culturally beyond its Han foundations, minority ethnic writers or shaoshu minzu in China are inciting a challenge to the traditional conceptions of Chineseness. In the PRC, the re-imagining of the boundaries between ethnicity, nation, and the globe is being produced in ethnic voices that resist the monopolizing narratives of the CCP and the Han cultural center. Furthermore, in the West where the antiquated conception of China as a monolithic Other is still often employed, the existence of these ethnic voices of difference demands a (re)cognition of its multifaceted and interwoven ethnic, political, and social composition. Three ethnic poets from the southwest are examined in this thesis: Woeser (Tibetan), He Xiaozhu (Miao), and Jimu Langge (Yi). They represent the trajectory of ethnic voice in China along the paradigms of local/ethnic vision, national culture, and global connections. By being both within and outside the Chinese nation and culture, they express a hybrid struggle that exists within the collision of ethnic minority cultures and the Han cultural center. Like the hybridity of postcolonial literature, this is a collision that cannot be reduced to it parts, yet also privileges the glocal impetus of ethnically centered vision. The poets’ voices speak the voice of difference within China, the Chinese language, and Chineseness throughout the world.

Mongols in Northern China fear the end of a distinct cultural identity. Until the late 19th century, cultural differences between Mongols and Han could be seen through differences in each group's traditional way of life. Mongols were nomadic pastoralists. Han were sedentary farmers. Recent economic development, rapid urbanization, and assimilation policies have threatened Mongolian cultural identity. In response to this cultural identity anxiety, Mongols in Inner Mongolia have looked for ways to express their distinct cultural identity. This dissertation analyzes three case studies derived from material cultural productions that represent Mongolian cultural identity. These include pastoralism, the use of Genghis Khan, and the Mongolian language. The analyses of different material cultural artifacts and the application of cultural and political theory come together in this dissertation to demonstrate how Mongolian cultural identity is reimagined through representation. In this dissertation, I also demonstrate how these reimagined identities construct and maintain ethnic boundaries which prevent the total absorption of a distinct Mongolian identity.
Ph. D.

1.MASTER THESIS: “Ethnic policy and its factors“ 2.AUTHOR: Kęstutis Trakšelys 3.OBJECTIVE: Analyse ethnic policy’s phenomenons and factors which influence its purposefulness and independence. 4. Nowadays in our modern life ethnic policy has became very urgent. Various worldwide processes and relationships are global. Integration into EU causes ethnic policy. As a result, each country tries to save its ethnic identity and traditions. Ethnic policy could not be separated from the nation. But we have to find the differences between the ethnic policy and ethnic politics, which is better known as state’s political policy to ethnic groups in its territory. Ethnic policy is an interaction of ethnic groups in political system. Lithuanian nation is our state’s foundation, therefore national authority must prosecute such internal and foreign politics that our nation’s interests should be represented. Politics of our nation depends on citizens’ political mentality and preference. In the future it will be obviously if Lithuania maintains national traditions and can resist to the influence of the other powerful countries. Now we can see the consequences, lots of people emigrate, youth is becoming cosmopolitan, less of them relate themselves with Lithuania. Nation, Its state is an entity, as well. Its a very complicated, social entity. The state, which prosecutes proper ethnic policy and resists the interests of the nation, fosters its... [to full text]

За даними останнього офіційного перепису в Україні проживає близько 130 національностей. Майже 27% громадян України складають представники національних меншин та корінних народів. Тому важко переоцінити роль представників цих категорій населення в українському державотворенні.

In the southwest corner of China, the confluence of cultural diversity and national integration have produced a new kind of voice in the Chinese language: an ethnic voice. Speaking fluently in the Chinese nation’s language and culturally beyond its Han foundations, minority ethnic writers or shaoshu minzu in China are inciting a challenge to the traditional conceptions of Chineseness. In the PRC, the re-imagining of the boundaries between ethnicity, nation, and the globe is being produced in ethnic voices that resist the monopolizing narratives of the CCP and the Han cultural center. Furthermore, in the West where the antiquated conception of China as a monolithic Other is still often employed, the existence of these ethnic voices of difference demands a (re)cognition of its multifaceted and interwoven ethnic, political, and social composition. Three ethnic poets from the southwest are examined in this thesis: Woeser (Tibetan), He Xiaozhu (Miao), and Jimu Langge (Yi). They represent the trajectory of ethnic voice in China along the paradigms of local/ethnic vision, national culture, and global connections. By being both within and outside the Chinese nation and culture, they express a hybrid struggle that exists within the collision of ethnic minority cultures and the Han cultural center. Like the hybridity of postcolonial literature, this is a collision that cannot be reduced to it parts, yet also privileges the glocal impetus of ethnically centered vision. The poets’ voices speak the voice of difference within China, the Chinese language, and Chineseness throughout the world.

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This dissertation is concerned with the Ticuna ethnopolitics configuration from the formation of internal political units in the indigenous social movement, understanding that the idea of political unity among the Ticuna people was never a reality in fact, even when they struggled for the lands demarcation. Actually, what really occurred during all the 1970-1980 decade, while the fight for the lands regularization was a virtual union expressed “by one voice” inside of an indigenous social movement that had consciousness that differences and internal conflicts should give rise to a common objective: the land demarcation. However, with the legal and physical demarcation of the six main Ticuna ethnic territory (Eware I and II, Lago Beruri, Porto Espiritual, Betânia and Vui-Uata-In and/or Nova Itália), the end of the 1990 decade and the early XXI century was followed by the creation of a multiplicy of Ticuna social organizations and political associations, guided to several fields of political action. In many cases, these same organizations and associations began to cash by competing for the same projects and government agreements. However, what is politically produced among Ticuna Indians is currently a set of micropolitics conduced by a multiplicity os Ticuna‟s organizations and associations. Given the disputes by projects and government agreements there was the necessity of institutionalization for the political mechanisms of action (organization and associations), this fact eventually launch the Ticuna leaders and chiefs straight to the field of legal activity, causing a serie of benefits, but on the other side- as in the case of CGTT organization during the health agreement with FUNASA- triggered an indebtedness process, which in many ways affected the prestige of several Ticuna leaders and chiefs that historically had been in the forefront of Ticuna indigenous movement.
A presente dissertação trata da configuração etnopolítica Ticuna a partir da formação das unidades políticas internas ao Movimento Indígena, entendendo que a idéia de unidade política entre os Ticuna nunca foi de fato uma realidade, até mesmo quando da luta pela demarcação dos seus principais territórios. O que efetivamente ocorreu durante anos entre as décadas de 1970-1980 foi uma virtual união que se expressava “por uma única voz” no interior de um Movimento Indígena que tinha consciência de que as diferenças e conflitos internos deviam dar lugar a luta em torno de um objetivo comum: a demarcação da terra. No entanto, com a demarcação física e jurídica dos seis principais territórios étnicos Ticuna (Eware I e II, Lago Beruri, Porto Espiritual, Betânia e Vui-Uata-In e/ou Nova Itália) no ano de 1993, o final da década de 1990 e princípio do século XXI foram seguidos da criação de uma multiplicidade de organizações e associações políticas Ticuna- orientadas para os mais variados campos de ação política. Em muitos casos essas mesmas organizações e associações passaram a se chocar, pois concorriam/concorrem entre si projetos e convênios. Contudo, o que é produzido politicamente entre os índios Ticuna atualmente é justamente um conjunto de micropolíticas operadas por uma multiplicidade de organizações e associações Ticuna. Diante dessas disputas por projetos e convênios, esteve presente a necessidade de institucionalização dos mecanismos de ação política (organizações e associações), fato que acabou por lançar as lideranças e dirigentes Ticuna no campo do exercício jurídico de maneira direta, algo que acarretou uma série de benefícios, mas que por outro lado, como no caso do CGTT no convênio com a FUNASA, desencadeou um processo de inadimplência que em muitas de suas faces acabou por abalar o prestígio de muitas lideranças e dirigentes Ticuna que historicamente estiveram na linha de frente do Movimento Indígena Ticuna.

The thesis studies the representation of prehistory as a part of the making and remaking of ethnic identities in Northern Sweden from the end of the 19th Century until today, thus dealing with archaeology and prehistory in relation to issues such as identity, memory and politics. The thesis takes as its point of departure the constitution of a Swedish national identity and memory in the late 19th Century and subsequent decades, followed by studies of, mainly later, representations of Sámi, Kvenish (“Kvänsk”) and North Bothnian (“Norrbottnisk”) collective identities. The study material consists of texts, primarily analyzed through discourse and narrative analysis. The thesis demonstrates how the constitution of a Swedish national identity in Northern Sweden constructed a dichotomy between an imagined civilized “Swedishness”, belonging to the future, and an imagined primitive Sámi Other, belonging to the past. It is argued that this discursive boundary work has not just situated some persons and their everyday life in a marginal position as a visible Sámi Other, but has also situated a substantial number of the inhabitants of Northern Sweden more or less in liminality and marginality in relation to the national identity structure. This has created a need for people to officially represent a more satisfactory collective identity, which includes a rewriting of the prehistory of the area. The last chapter relates the results to studies of similar cases in colonial and postcolonial contexts outside Europe. The essentialist view of identity and history present in several of the studied representations is also discussed. The thesis emphasizes the importance of a more nuanced view of relationships of ethnicity, domination and subordination, and the associated formation of collective memories, in Northern Sweden. Discourses of ethnicity and domination often function through simplifying dichotomies, but dichotomies alone cannot explain real conditions and consequences of these matters.

Throughout the history of archaeology, the Sámi (the indigenous people in northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in the Russian Federation) have been conceptualized as the “Others” in relation to the national identity and (pre)history of the modern states. It is only in the last decades that a field of Sámi archaeology that studies Sámi (pre)history in its own right has emerged, parallel with an ethnic and cultural revival among Sámi groups. This dissertation investigates the notions of Sámi prehistory and archaeology, partly from a research historical perspective and partly from a more contemporary political perspective. It explores how the Sámi and ideas about the Sámi past have been represented in archaeological narratives from the early 19th century until today, as well as the development of an academic field of Sámi archaeology. The study consists of four main parts: 1) A critical examination of the conceptualization of ethnicity, nationalism and indigeneity in archaeological research. 2) A historical analysis of the representations and debates on Sámi prehistory, primarily in Sweden but also to some extent in Norway and Finland, focusing on four main themes: the origin of the Sámi people, South Sámi prehistory as a contested field of study, the development of reindeer herding, and Sámi pre-Christian religion. 3) An analysis of the study of the Sámi past in Russia, and a discussion on archaeological research and constructions of ethnicity and indigeneity in the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union. 4) An examination of the claims for greater Sámi self-determination concerning cultural heritage management and the debates on repatriation and reburial in the Nordic countries. In the dissertation, it is argued that there is a great need for discussions on the ethics and politics of archaeological research. A relational network approach is suggested as a way of opening up some of the black boxes and bounded, static entities in the representations of people in the past in the North.

This thesis focuses on pro-kurdish activism in Turkey during 2005–2009. It is based on a large number of interviews conducted with activists within the Diyarbakır area. The form of activism that this study seeks to describe is civil and political activism conducted within the legal framework ofTurkey’s judicial system and international law.The purpose of this thesis is to examine what kind of resistance strategies are used by pro-Kurdish political activists in Turkey, focusing on how these strategies are reflected in the language used by the respondents. The main question posed in the thesis is: What resistance strategies are used within the pro-Kurdish movement in Turkey? Two additional questions were also posed in order to make it possible to answer the main question. The first of these is: What external conditions influence pro-Kurdish mobilization in Turkey during the study’s time frame? In order to answer this question a theoretical framework is used that includes theories about ethnopolitical mobilization and political opportunity structures. The second question is: What resistance strategies are reflected in the language used by the pro-Kurdish activists?An important resistance strategy used by the pro-Kurdish activists is to adapt the language used in public communication to the legal and political environment in which they find themselves. They make linguistic choices in order to convey political messages while minimizing the legal consequences of doing so. The resistance strategies reflected in the interviews with the activists also include efforts to build organizations and cooperations at different levels, ranging from the international to the local level. Resistance strategies also include choices regarding what medium and language to use in promoting pro-Kurdish politics.

This study deals with the ethnopolitical mobilization among the Sami in Sweden during the first half of the 20th century. The investigation focus on why this mobilization took place, the demands the Sami made, and the strategies used to achieve these goals. Opposition towards the Swedish Sami policy was the most important reason for the political mobilization among the Sami. Both the formation of the Sami policy at the central administrative level, and the implementation of the policy at the regional and local level by the Lapp administration were criticised. During the first half of the period of investigation the Sami protests focused on policy decisions at central government level. During the later half of the period, it was the actions of the Lapp administration that triggered Sami activity. The central demands brought forward by the Sami movement concerned the position of the Sami in Swedish society. At the beginning of the period the Swedish Sami policy was based on the so called "Lapp shall remain Lapp" ideology. The Sami were looked upon as a reindeer herders by nature, who were weak and could not protect themselves against civilization, which was viewed as a threat to the cultural survival of the Sami. Therefore, they were to be protected by being segregated from the surrounding society. Only the reindeer herding Sami, however, were considered to be Sami which meant that a majority of the Sami population was not included in the Swedish Sami policy. A cultural boundary was drawn, which separated the Sami population into two large segments. Because of this, the main demands of the Sami movement were that the Sami should be granted an equal position in the Swedish society and that the Sami policy should include more aspects than just reindeer herding.Two main strategies were adopted by the Sami leaders to achieve the goals of the Sami movement. The first was to try to create a network of local Sami societies within a national Sami organization. As in Swedish society group interests were represented by a number of different organizations, Sami organizations were a precondition if the Sami were to be able to hold a dialogue with the Swedish authorities. However, during the period of investigation the Sami movement failed in its attempts to form a national Sami organization, which weakened the movement. The second strategy was directed at achieving more limited gains through goal-oriented actions, where the Sami were mobilized for shorter periods behind different demands. This second strategy was more successful during the period of investigation. However, ultimately the creation of a national Sami organization, was found to be a requirement if the Sami movement was to be able to influence the Swedish Sami policy. The formation of Svenska Samernas Riksförbund (National Union of the Swedish Sami) in 1950 was therefore an important step for the Sami movement.

L’objet de cette thèse en science politique est de dégager, à partir de l’histoire politique du Rwanda et de ses influences ou relations extérieures africaines et internationales (notamment avec le Burundi, la RD du Congo, l’Ouganda, l’Allemagne, la Belgique, la France, le Royaume-Uni, les États-Unis, l’ONU, l’UE, l’UA), les causes de l’effondrement de l’État rwandais (lors du génocide de 1994) et les pistes de solutions qui pourraient aider à sa reconstruction et/ou reconstitution. Cela pourrait aussi servir d’exemple à d’autres pays (notamment d’Afrique, d’Asie et d’Amérique latine) qui utilisent l’appartenance ethno-raciale et/ou régionale de la population, la mobilisation des gens sur base de leurs identités réelles ou supposées, la politisation des races ou des différences, la racialisation de la politique, le copinage politique ou tout simplement les ‘’voies négatives’’ de l’ethnopolitique comme fondement intellectuel ou label idéologique du pouvoir. Une réponse durable aux sanglants affrontements et aux crises politiques incessantes qui agitent le Rwanda et le Burundi pourrait être un projet politique autre qu’ethno-racial (basé plutôt sur la paix, la démocratie et le développement humain), la séparation géographique de type "Hutuland" et "Tutsiland" « par des moyens pacifiques et par voie d'accord », (selon les accords d'Helsinki de 1975 de l’OSCE dans le prolongement de la Charte de l’ONU sur le droit des peuples à disposer d’eux-mêmes de 1945, art.1 et de 1966, art.1) dans le scénario de l’ancien Ruanda-Urundi, mais avec chacun une seule communauté, et l’intégration régionale à l’instar de l’Union européenne, tout en respectant le droit international
The purpose of this PhD thesis in political science is to pinpoint, based on the political history of Rwanda and its external influences or relations at african and international level (particularly with Burundi, the DR of Congo, Uganda, Germany, Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, the UN, the EU and the AU), the causes of the collapse of the Rwandan state (during the 1994 genocide) and the potential solutions that could help to rebuild and/or reform it. This could also serve as an example to other countries (particularly those in Africa, Asia and Latin America), which use the ethno-racial and/or regional affiliation of the population, the mobilization of people based on their real or supposed identities, the politicization of races or differences, racialization of politics, political cronyism or quite simply the “negative ways” of ethnopolitics as an intellectual basis or ideological label of power. A sustainable response to the bloody conflicts and endless political crises afflicting Rwanda and Burundi could be a political project rather than an ethno-racial one (based more on peace, democracy and human development), geographical separation in the style of "Hutuland" and "Tutsiland" “by peaceful means and through agreement” (according to the 1975 Helsinki Accords of the OSCE in the extension of the UN Charter on the right of peoples to self-determination in 1945, Art.1 and 1966, Art.1) in the setting of the former Ruanda-Urundi, but each with a separate community and regional integration in a manner similar to that of the European Union, while respecting international law

Thesis (Ph.D.)--State University of New York at Buffalo, 2006.
Title from PDF title page (viewed on Oct. 24, 2006) Available through UMI ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Thesis adviser: Welch, Claude E. Includes bibliographical references.

Why do some ethnic groups mobilize in violent ways whereas some others mobilize by using peaceful methods? And why do some ethnic groups seek integration while some others pursue separatist goals? This dissertation proposes a theoretical framework to answer these questions. It suggests that a state’s ethnic incorporation policies shape both why (centripetal or centrifugal aims) and how (peaceful or violent methods) ethnic groups mobilize. It argues that (1) consocitionalism recognizes ethnic groups and grants a degree of political autonomy to them, yet limits individuals’ political participation via non-ethnic channels of political participation; and, therefore, it leads to peaceful and moderately centrifugal ethnic mobilizations; (2) liberal multiculturalism recognizes ethnic groups, grants a degree of political autonomy to them, and allows individuals to participate in politics via non-ethnic channels; and, therefore, it leads to peaceful and moderately centripetal mobilizations; (3) civic assimilationism neither recognizes ethnic groups nor grants a degree of political autonomy to them, yet allows individuals to participate in politics via non-ethnic channels; and therefore it leads to peaceful and centripetal mobilizations of groups which lack pre-existing ethnic mobilization; but it leads to moderately violent and centrifugal mobilizations of groups which have strong pre-existing ethnic mobilizations; and (4) ethnocracies neither recognize ethnic groups nor grant a degree of political autonomy to them, and they also limit individuals’ political participation via non-ethnic channels. Therefore, they lead to centrifugal and violent ethnic mobilizations. The dissertation uses a mixed method research design. The hypotheses are tested based on the Minorities at Risk data as well as the case studies of ethnic Turks in Bulgaria and Cyprus, and Kurds and the Roma in Turkey. The case studies benefit from an extensive field research in Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Turkey using original interviews with former and current guerillas, guerilla families, political activists, and politicians from each ethnic group under scrutiny and archival research on newspapers and legal documents. The findings indicate that politics of ethnic accommodation are not only an explanation for the causes of different ethnic mobilization patterns, but also a feasible remedy for ethnic disputes spanning all over the world.
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This dissertation aims to illuminate the changing nature of the Kurdish contention in Turkey since the 1990s as well as its ubiquitous dissemination among the Kurdish grassroots through examining the repercussions of political violence and the relocation of the grassroots from rural to urban centers. My understanding of the recent internal displacement of Kurdish citizens in Turkey in the late 1980s, but en masse in 1990s relates the issue to three overarching intertwined trajectories; 1) the end of the cold war, resulting in the changing nature of political violence and of identity politics; 2) the incursion of neoliberalism and the changing paradigms regarding the nature of state-society relations, resulting in a tendency for decentralization and a decline in the welfare functions of the state 3) the increasing salience of new international concerns--particularly international human rights rhetoric--and their influence domestically. Against this backdrop, I examine how the displacement of Kurdish citizens on a large scale has become part of the changing nature of the Kurdish Question, and in turn has started to redefine its contemporary face in Turkey in the 1990s. I argue that following the 1990s, the Kurdish question in Turkey has [re]surfaced as 1) a problem of political legitimacy between the state and (Kurdish) citizens affected by conflict and displacement 2) an ethno-nationalist claim, 3) a poverty and social citizenship problem. I analyze these three propositions in relation to three main processes. First, I propose that new dynamics have been introduced into the state/center-citizen/periphery relations, through which 'legitimate' Kurdish citizens and secure spaces/geographies are distinguished by the Turkish state in contrast to the 'illegitimate,' 'so-called', 'undeserving' and/or 'suspicious' ones. This process, in turn, brought in question the legitimacy of the state in the eyes of the displaced Kurdish citizens. Second, previously existing Kurdish contention has turned into an ethno-political issue, which is entrenched among the Kurdish masses mired in poverty in the urban centers of southeastern Turkey. Finally, the discontents of neoliberal restructuring in the form of poverty, unemployment and social exclusion have converged with the ethnicized discontent prevailing among the Kurdish masses in the city centers in southeastern Turkey.

This thesis seeks to conceptualize a link between the phenomenona of developmentalist state and ethnopolitical mobilization while arguing that the study of post-developmental transition should be based on a complex framework involving crucial social, economic, and political processes. The argument begins with the overview of the approaches of the late/post-Soviet transition, which are critically assessed on the basis of their anchoring in the modernization paradigm. The thesis then turns to the formulation of the alternative theoretical explanation based on the sound theoretical observations from the field of historical sociology. The theoretical debate leads to the formulation of the model involving three causal mechanisms connecting the macro and micro levels. Empirically, the thesis argues that Georgian violent mobilization resulted from the processes that were determined by the functioning and decline of the Soviet developmentalist state. While accepting the dynamics of ethnopolitical mobilization it seeks to answer the question which socio-economic processes breed these mobilizations.

The aim of this diploma thesis is to answer the question why the crisis caused by the Chechen struggle for independence gradually escalated into war, while the rest of North Caucasus remained relatively calm, despite the predictions of many authors. Also to determine to whether extend the repetition of Chechen scenario is nowadays possible. Or in other words what are the odds that a new ethnopolitical conflict will erupt in some other Muslim autonomous republic in the North Caucasus. The answers to these questions are sought via factors causing the emergence of ethnic conflict, as were defined by Svante E. Cornell in his book Autonomy and Conflict: Ethnoterritoriality and Separatism in the South Caucasus - Cases in Georgia. These factors are continually confronted with empirical data, which are provided by the case study of Chechen conflict in the first part of the thesis. Presence or absence of those factors in other Muslim autonomous republics is examined by method of Process Tracing. The data obtained are then processed quantitatively, in the way that presence or absence of the factor in question by a certain score.

Malgré la déliquescence du nationalisme afrikaner causée par la chute du régime de l’apartheid et la prise du pouvoir politique par un parti non raciste et non ethnique en 1994, nous observons depuis les années 2000, un renouvèlement du mouvement identitaire afrikaner. L’objectif de cette thèse est donc de comprendre l’émergence de ce nouvel activisme ethnique depuis la transition démocratique. Pour approfondir notre compréhension du phénomène, nous nous posons les questions suivantes : comment pouvons-nous expliquer le renouvèlement de l’activisme afrikaner dans la « nouvelle » Afrique du Sud ? Comment sont définis les nouveaux attributs de la catégorie de l’afrikanerité ? Comment les élites ethnopolitiques restructurent-elles leurs stratégies pour assurer la pérennité de la catégorie dans l’Afrique du Sud post-apartheid ? Qu’est-ce que la résurgence d’une afrikanerité renouvelée nous apprend sur l’état de la cohésion sociale en Afrique du Sud et sur la mobilisation ethnolinguistique en général ? La littérature sur le mouvement post-apartheid fait consensus sur la disparition du nationalisme afrikaner raciste, mais offre peu d’analyses empiriques et de liens avec les nombreux écrits sur le mouvement nationaliste afrikaner pour comprendre les dynamiques de ce nouveau phénomène et effectue peu de liens avec les nombreux écrits sur le mouvement nationaliste afrikaner. Notre argument est que le nouvel activisme afrikaner est en continuité avec la trajectoire du nationalisme afrikaner, plus précisément avec le courant conservateur. Les entrepreneurs ethnopolitiques suivent les voies tracées par leurs prédécesseurs en reproduisant des stratégies politiques, institutionnelles ainsi qu’une structure idéologique dont les fondements sont semblables à ceux du mouvement nationaliste. Les entrepreneurs ethnopolitiques structurent l’activisme afrikaner selon trois processus. D’abord, ils procèdent au cadrage des nouveaux attributs de la catégorie en faisant notamment de l’autosuffisance communautaire, le cœur de l’afrikanerité. Ensuite, ils essayent d’institutionnaliser une nouvelle catégorie identitaire, qu’ils appellent les minorités discrimines raciales et ethniques. Ce processus de group-making vise à susciter une action collective déployée autant au niveau national qu’international, pour exercer une pression sur le gouvernement de l’ANC, accusée de discriminer les Afrikaners. Enfin, les entrepreneurs ethnopolitiques mettent sur pied un réseau d’organisations ethniques pour assurer la reproduction de l’afrikanerité et assurer la survie ethnique. Ces niches écologiques permettent de se substituer à l’État en offrant aux membres de la communauté des services et en créant des espaces réservés à la routinisation de l’afrikanerité.
The thesis aims at understanding the restructuration processes of the Afrikaner movement following the South African democratic transition. Despite the collapse of Afrikaner nationalism caused by the end of the apartheid regime and the seizure of political power by a non-racist and non-ethnic party in 1994, we have seen a renewal of the Afrikaner identity movement since the 2000s. The aim of this thesis is therefore to understand the emergence of this new ethnic activism since the democratic transition. To deepen our understanding of the phenomenon, we ask the following questions: how can we explain the renewal of Afrikaner activism in the « new » South Africa? How are the new attributes of the Afrikaner category redefined? How do the ethnopolitical elites restructure their strategies to ensure the reproduction of the category within the new national context? What does the resurgence of a renewed Afrikanerity tell us about the state of social cohesion in South Africa and the ethnolinguistic mobilization in general? The literature on the post apartheid movement makes consensus on the death of the racist Afrikaner nationalism but offers little empirical analysis to understand the dynamics of this new phenomenon and the links with the many writings on Afrikaner nationalism are not made. To remedy these empirical shortcomings, our argument is that the new Afrikaner activism is in continuity with the trajectory of Afrikaner nationalism, more precisely with the conservative current. Ethnopolitical entrepreneurs follow the paths traced by their predecessors by reproducing political and institutional strategies as well as an ideological structure whose foundations are similar to those of the nationalist movement. However, continuity means that institutions must adapt to changing contexts in order to persist over time. In our case, the democratic transition has paved the way for institutional adaptation processes and historical awakening. Afrikaner activism is restructured through three processes. Ethnopolitical entrepreneurs are engaged in a framing process of the new attributes of the category in which community self-sufficiency is defined as the heart of Afrikanerity. Then, these elites try to institutionalize a new category as the new foundation of the political action of the movement. This is how ethno-political entrepreneurs mobilize what they call discriminated racial and ethnic minorities. This group-making process aims to stimulate collective action by depicting a frame of injustice to prove that Afrikaners are discriminated against by the government. This political strategy is deployed both nationally and internationally to exert pressure on the ANC government. Finally, ethnopolitical entrepreneurs have set up a network of ethnic organizations to ensure the reproduction of Afrikanerity and ensure ethnic survival. These ecological niches make it possible to replace the State by offering the members of the community services and by creating spaces for the routinization of Afrikanerity.