Making Majorities: Constituting the Nation in Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Fiji, Turkey, and the United States (Contemporary Issues in Asia and the Pacific) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0804730482 ISBN 13: 9780804730488

Publisher: Stanford University Press, 1998

Synopsis

Majorities are made, not born. This book argues that there are no pure majorities in the Asia-Pacific region, broadly defined, nor in the West, and challenges the thesis that civilizations are composed of more or less homogeneous cultures. The 14 contributors argue that emphasis on minority/majority rights is based on uncritically accepted views of purity, numerical superiority, and social consensus.

About this title

Synopsis:

Majorities are made, not born. This book argues that there are no pure majorities in the Asia-Pacific region, broadly defined, nor in the West. Numerically, ethnically, politically, and culturally, societies make and mark their majorities under specific historical, political, and social circumstances. This position challenges Samuel Huntington s influential thesis that civilizations are composed of more or less homogeneous cultures, suggesting instead that culture is as malleable as the politics that informs it. The fourteen contributors to this volume argue that emphasis on minority/majority rights is based on uncritically accepted ideas of purity, numerical superiority, and social consensus. Emphases upon multiculturalism can become ways of masking serious political, ethnic, and class differences merely in terms of cultural difference, and affirmative-action policies can isolate, identify, and stigmatize minorities as often as they homogenize, unify, and naturalize majorities.

About this edition

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0804730482
• ISBN 13: 9780804730488
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 364
• Editor: Gladney Dru C.