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Blurring the Boundaries of Diversity: Racial Mixture, Ethnic Ambiguity, and Indigenous Citizenship in Settler StatesDr. Lauren Basson. The concept of diversity depends on the assumption that individuals are members of different groups defined according to race, ethnicity, gender, religion and other ascriptive criteria. How do we conceptualize diversity, however, when we are confronted with people who do not fit into the prevailing racial and ethnic categories that define their society? What do the experiences and challenges of people with ethnic or multiracial identities undefined by the state suggest about the meaning of diversity? What do they suggest about the nature of citizenship and nationhood in multiethnic settler states?
My paper will address these questions by focusing on indigenous citizens of settler states whose racial or ethnic status does not correspond to conventional categories. All indigenous citizens expose and test the limits of citizenship in settler states. They reveal discrepancies between national narratives that stress the principles of democracy and equality, and state policies that foster an unequal distribution of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Indigenous citizens whose racial or ethnic status does not correspond to conventional categories pose additional challenges to standard definitions and practices of citizenship. This paper will focus on two distinct case studies: "mixed blood Indians" in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century and Negev Bedouin in contemporary Israel. U.S. policymakers debated about whether so-called mixed bloods were Indian or white, while Israeli authorities treat the Negev Bedouin as neither Jewish nor entirely Arab. I will examine how the struggles of these indigenous peoples for equal rights of citizenship within their respective states have challenged conventional assumptions about what it means to be American and Israeli. My research concerning the challenges posed by Negev Bedouin to conventional definitions of Israeli citizenship will be based on interviews with key Bedouin professionals and Israeli officials, and analysis of government documents, NGO reports and Israeli press coverage. My paper will consider what prevailing discourses about the status of "mixed blood Indians" in the United States and Negev Bedouin in Israel reveal about the meanings of diversity and citizenship in two settler states at critical historical moments when the territorial boundaries of those states remained in question. Presenters Dr. Lauren Basson
(Israel)
Kreitman Post-Doctoral Fellow Department of Politics and Government Ben Gurion University I completed my Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Washington in 2002 and am currently a Kreitman post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Politics and Government at Ben Gurion University, Israel. My research interests include race and ethnicity, citizenship and nationhood, indigenous politics, and comparative politics.
Keywords
(30 min. Conference Paper,
English)
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