Race, Ethnicity, Indigenous Peoples and Politics

L21(a) - Social Movements, Women's Mobilizations and Minority/Majority Relations in Conflicts and Settler Colonial Contexts

Date: Jun 5 | Time: 03:30pm to 05:00pm | Location:

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Joanne Heritz (Brock University)

Israel’s Counter-Hegemonic Social Movement Industries: Rida Abu Rass (Queen's University)
Abstract: There is no scholarly consensus around a single theoretical framework to describe Palestinian non-governmental mobilization within Israel. Past studies tend to situate Palestinian organizations within the civic sphere. While some classify the Palestinian civic sphere as ethnocentric, others emphasize its emancipatory and liberal characteristics. Both approaches distinguish Palestinian organizations from others; they agree that Palestinian organizations form an ethnic civic sphere, but they disagree on its primary characteristics. Based on extensive fieldwork in Israel, including 35 remote and in-person interviews with 36 Palestinian and Jewish activists, this paper challenges these assumptions, arguing that Palestinian organizations within Israel are part of a network of a binational social movement. This approach reconciles some past scholarly differences and, more broadly, bridges theoretical gaps between the ethnic politics, social movements, and civil society literatures.

“Ethno-patriarchal” Struggles in Karachi: Examining the role of Mohajir Women and Empowerment through an intersectional lens: Saad Khan (University of Winnipeg)
Abstract: This chapter examines the ways in which women from the Muhajir ethnic community in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi adopted traditional male roles during a period of violent conflict from 1992-1995 and whether the adoption of such roles resulted in a change in patriarchal dynamics and female empowerment. Employing a qualitative research methodology, the role of Muhajir women during the conflict is examined through an intersectional lens as Muhajir women were on the peripheries of both the public and private domains, being women as well as being part of an ethnic community whose fundamental human rights were usurped by the state. It is argued that a holistic analysis of women on the peripheries of societies rife with ethnopolitical conflicts must necessarily adopt an intersectional framework for analysis as a uni-dimensional framework such as economic empowerment, at best, would provide an incomplete explanation of issues causing the conflict and, at worst, will perpetuate systems of oppression. The chapter concludes by offering recommendations that may be utilized by grassroots activists in Karachi as well as PACS practitioners in broader yet similar settings in their quest for achieving sustainable peace and social justice.

Shifting Boundaries of Belonging: The Demographic Transformation of Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts: Nabeel Al Jahan (George Brown College)
Abstract: The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh, once predominantly indigenous with over 97% of the population in 1941, now sees its indigenous communities reduced to a minority at 49% by 2021, following a dramatic demographic shift. This change is largely the result of state policies from the late 1970s and 1980s, during which consecutive military-backed governments resettled hundreds of thousands of Bengali Muslims from other parts of Bangladesh into CHT, partly as a strategy amidst armed conflict with indigenous groups. This resettlement—alongside the displacement of indigenous people due to the 1960 construction of the Kaptai Dam—uprooted tens of thousands and intensified the demographic and political presence of Bengali Muslims. Today, with a Bengali Muslim majority, the indigenous people face increasing incidents of violence and exclusion, often under the shadow of implicit military support. This paper explores how these demographic shifts affect the CHT’s social and political fabric, raising critical questions of belonging and sovereignty: Who now truly belongs to CHT—the indigenous communities with ancestral ties, or the Bengali Muslims who are now the region’s majority? By analyzing the roots and repercussions of this demographic transformation, the paper will probe the potential futures for both communities and the implications for representation, inclusion, and inter-community relations in CHT.