Minority Studies

Executive Summary Until 20 years ago, Greece was considered largely a mono-ethnic, mono-cultural and mono-religious country, a true 'nation-state'where the dominant nation, notably people of ethnic Greek descent and Christian Orthodox religion accounted for approx. 98% of the total population. The dominant definition of the nation was ethno-cultural and religious, while civic and territorial elements were of secondary importance in defining who is Greek. This view of the nation as a community of descent and culture was reflected ...

"ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: The present conceptual review explores intercultural healthcare —defined as the integration of traditional medicine and biomedicine as complementary healthcare systems— in minority and underserved communities. This integration can take place at different levels: individuals (patients, healers, biomedical healthcare providers), institutions (health centers, hospitals) or society (government policy).
BACKGROUND: Contemporary ethnobotany research of traditional medicine has primarily dealt with the botanical identification of plants commonly used by local communities, and the identification of health conditions treated with these plants, whereas ethnopharmacology has focused on the bioactivity of traditional remedies. On the other hand, medical anthropology seems to be the scholarship more involved with research into patients’ healthcare-seeking itineraries and their interaction with traditional versus biomedical healthcare systems. The direct impact of these studies on public health of local communities can be contested.
AIM OF THE REVIEW: To compare and discuss the body of scholarly work that deals with different aspects of traditional medicine in underserved and minority communities, and to reflect on how gaps identified in research can be bridged to help improve healthcare in these communities.
KEY FINDINGS: The literature covers a broad range of information of relevance to intercultural healthcare. This information is fragmented across different scientific and clinical disciplines. A conceptual review of these studies identifies a clear need to devote more attention to ways in which research on traditional medicine can be more effectively applied to improve local public health in biomedical resource-poor settings, or in geographic areas that have disparities in access to healthcare.
CONCLUSIONS: Scholars studying traditional medicine should prioritize a more interdisciplinary and applied perspective to their work in order to forge a more direct social impact on public health in local communities most in need of healthcare."

Essays by: Stefan Lechner, Andrea Bonoldi, Mariuccia Salvati, Andrea di Michele, Anna Treves, Giorgio Mezzalira, Angelo d'Orsi, Carlo Romeo, Enzo Collotti, Cinzia Villani, Carlo Cresti, Samantha Schneider, Helga Dittrich-Johansen & Alessandra Spada

The Buryats of Mongolia represent the largest part of the Buryat ethnos abroad. The topic of Buryat diasporas in Mongolia, regardless of whether it concerns territories of Mongolian Buryats settlement or causes of Buryat emigration, is still terra incognita of Mongolian studies in Russia. This article, based on field ethnographic materials gathered in different regions of Mongolia and in Ulaanbaatar from 2005 to 2010, is an attempt to shine a spotlight on various manifestations of diaspora life of Buryats in Mongolia.

Drawing from a wide range of archival and secondary Greek, Bulgarian, Ottoman, and Turkish sources, Islam and Nationalism in Modern Greece, 1821-1940 explores the way in which the Muslim populations of Greece were ruled by state authorities from the time of Greece's political emancipation from the Ottoman Empire in the 1820s until the country's entrance into the Second World War, in October 1940. The book examines how state rule influenced the development of the Muslim population's collective identity as a minority and affected Muslim relations with the Greek authorities and Orthodox Christians.

Greece was the first country in the Balkans to become an independent state and a pioneer in experimenting with minority issues. Greece's ruling framework and many state administrative measures and patterns would serve as templates in other Christian Orthodox Balkan states with Muslim minorities (Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Cyprus). Muslim religious officials were empowered with authority which they did not have in Ottoman times, and aspects of the Islamic law (Sharia) were incorporated into the state legal system to be used for Muslim family and property affairs. Religion remained a defining element in the political, social, and cultural life of the post-Ottoman Balkans; Stefanos Katsikas explores the role religious nationalism and public institutions have played in the development and preservation of religious and ethnic identity. Religion remains a key element of individual and collective identity but only as long as there are strong institutions and the political framework to support and maintain religious diversity.

HUNGARIAN–ROMANIAN RELATIONS
AND THE GERMAN MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS IN THE 1920s
By Réka Marchut
SUMMARY
Due to their mutually exclusive nature, the aims of Hungary and Romania were diametrically opposed in the inter-war period. The relations between the two countries were significantly infl uenced by the politics of the European great powers, into whose ranks Germany had been reintegrated by the late 1920s. While the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs exerted no great influence on the evolution of Hungarian–Romanian relations, it occupied a key place in the foreign aff airs of both countries. From this perspective, it is important to see clearly how those in charge of the direction of German foreign affairs regarded Hungary and Romania and the issues that bought them into opposition, and
what the key questions were in their bilateral relations that appeared important enough to raise the attention of the German politicians. Such are the question to which the paper seeks to offer answers.

This dissertation investigates the patterns in the public language use of first-language Arabic speakers in the UK, as well as the intimidation experienced by this group and how it affects their language attitudes towards Arabic and their use of Arabic in public. Through the use of online questionnaires and personal interviews, this study looked at where participants choose to use Arabic and English, their levels of comfort speaking Arabic in various public spaces and any intimidation they have experienced for speaking Arabic in public. The findings show that participants feel particularly uncomfortable speaking Arabic in ‘transit spaces’ such as on public transport and in public transport hubs (e.g. airports, train stations) and that participants will often switch from Arabic to English in public spaces to avoid unwanted attention. Intimidation is found to have a profound effect on participants’ public use of Arabic but, surprisingly, it had very little effect on language attitudes towards Arabic.

In recent years, Kurdish political parties in Turkey have expressed their
strong opposition against the unitary state model and demanded a solution
that includes non-territorial autonomy, with cultural and linguistic
rights for Kurdish people, as well as territorial autonomy arrangements
with administrative, legislative and judicial power-sharing especially
in the areas mostly populated by Kurds. This article concentrates on the demand of Kurdish political parties for judicial power-sharing in the context of a possible autonomy
arrangement for Kurds in Turkey. Though such a claim is closely
linked to broader questions on the laws of Kurds, an under-researched the topic that deserves further in-depth work, this chapter focuses on the
implications of the demand by the Kurdish political opposition for judicial
power-sharing.

غدت المواطنة الإسرائيليّة من المنظور الفلسطيني  تحتوي على حلقتين مركزيتيّن: الأولى - وهي نواتها - تشمل الحقوق السياديّة، وهي حصريّة لليهود؛ والثانية - وهي ثانويّة ومرنة - تحمل يسيرا من الحقوق المدنيّة والاقتصاديّة "غير السياديّة" (وهي فرديّة بالتعريف والممارسة). من المهم التشديد أنّ للحلقتين إطاراً واحداً - إطار "المواطنة الاسرائيليّة" - وأنّ الفصل بين استحقاقات كل منهما يجري من داخل هذا الإطار. بهذا المعنى، فإن وجود هذا الإطار ضروري لفهم كيفيّة إقصاء المواطنين العرب من المواطنة الجوهريّة وذلك عبر دمجهم في اطار مواطنة خدمات وامتيازات متفاوتة في الاقتصاد الإسرائيلي (inclusive exclusion أو exclusion by inclusion).

מנקודת מבט פלסטינית נראית האזרחות הישראלית כבעלת שני ממדים: הממד הראשון – הגרעיני – כולל את הזכויות הריבוניות והוא בלעדי ליהודים; ואילו השני – משני וגמיש – כולל כמה זכויות אזרחיות וכלכליות "לא ריבוניות" (אינדיבידואליות בהגדרה ופרקטיקה). ראוי להדגיש שלשני הממדים יש מסגרת אחת – מסגרת "האזרחות הישראלית" – ושההפרדה בין נגזרותיו של כל מימד נעשית מתוך אותה מסגרת. במובן הזה, קיומה של המסגרת חיוני להבנת אופן הדרתם של האזרחים הערבים מהאזרחות המהותית, באמצעות שילובם באזרחות של שירותים והטבות שונות ומשתנות בכלכלה הישראלית (ע״י inclusive exclusion  או exclusion by inclusion).

The collective fight for self-determination among indigenous peoples around the world has made headlines over the past few years. The exploitation of indigenous territories by settler-states has revived nationalist feelings among the groups, including the Sami, whose territories spread across four states.

This thesis aimed to explore how Sami national identity is constructed, shaped and promoted through Sami political discourse on land and natural resources and how, consequently, other categories of identities are created. Based on a critical discourse analysis of selected documents produced by Sami politicians in the Nordics between 2016 and 2018, I analyzed and critically discussed the Sami politicians’ discourse on land and territory. The theoretical framework of this thesis is based on social constructivism, as well as the concepts of identity and nationalism. A post-colonial approach is held throughout the paper, setting the context of Sami nationalism in the Nordics.

They were two main research goals, the first was to uncover how Sami politicians construct Sami collective identity in discourse about land and natural resources. I argue that Sami collective identity is constructed by associating the Sami people with common spatial narratives, including a common homeland, Sápmi. Reattributing Sápmi to its original inhabitants through discourse is a way to shape Sami national identity beyond the Western definition of state borders. The practice of traditional livelihoods is also identified as a marker of Sami identity, raising the question of Sami people living outside of Sápmi and unable to practice traditional livelihoods for subsistence. Sami collective identity is built through common experiences linked to colonization, marginalization, and assimilation, and a common will to achieve self-determination in their respective states. The second research question was linked to the construction of the “Other”. One of the main findings was that the notion of distinctiveness, required for the construction of the nation, is built through common characteristics associated with indigenous peoples (a deep and distinct relation to land, and rights inscribed in international declarations), and through the attribution of territories and social practices to the Sami, which exclude the “Other”. I argue that the construction of Sami collective identity takes characteristics from Western theories of nationalism, while including an indigenous approach based on collective rights.

Előadásom célja röviden bemutatni azt a munkát, amely az Amerikai Magyar Református Egyház  (AMRE) újonnan alapított misszió gyülekezeteiben történik és amelynek, mint a Missziói Lelkigondozói Szolgálat utazólelkésze, 2012 és 2015 között magam is részese lehettem.
Előadásomban rövid történeti bevezetés után az újonnan alapított gyülekezetek és a bennük végzett szolgálat sajátságairól adok általános képet, végül pedig a Las Vegasi gyülekezet alapításának részletes bemutatásán, mintegy esettanulmányon keresztül nyújtok mélyebb betekintést a gyülekezetalapítás részleteibe.

The purpose of this essay is neither to suggest that the present crisis could be reduced to a simple list of various minority issues nor to critique the idea of minority per se. Similarly, although inevitably centred on the collective and community levels, the study does not intend to underrate the tension existing between individual and group dimensions and the importance of assessing such dynamics in order to fully appreciate the significance of current minority issues. Quite the contrary: since the future stability of the MENA region will inevitably be based on new understandings of most of the concepts bound to this political grammar of diversity and demography, it seems necessary to proceed in efforts to research its historical and conceptual roots as well as its normative implications and institutional adaptations in the attempt to explain why the idea of minority, both as a concept and institution, has become so pivotal again in today’s regional and international politics.

Apart from linguistic competence broadly understood as social, system-ic, communication and pragmatic competence, attention should be paid especially to the cultural competence. In this state of mind, one can fully identify with the language and culture of the second language community and perceive in it. He or she feels the presence of a cultural and linguistic image of the world in a given language. When child is a bilingual and the family is very small, their dominant language is the family minority language. This happens when parents decide to use only that language at home. When children start school, or while at nursery, and spend more time outside their home, school language becomes a dominant language. This process can be reversed when the parents consciously work on fixing the child's first language. However, not everything depends on external factors and stimulation of parents. Apart from the individual predisposition of children and to be competent in both languages, the impacts on maintaining the first language rely on the children's neighborhood, their family and later members of the minority language community, as well as organizations dedicated to maintaining the ethnic culture of their members.

The tribal people are often referred to as 'adivasi' which literally means " dwellers from the beginning. " The Mythologies and Epics of India or for that matter any place is considered to be the records of the very beginning of the civilisations but in the case of India we see a clear omission or misrepresentation of the 'adivasi' people in the same. Manoj Das delineated how the Epics have indeed had an effect on the consciousness of Indian population about the tribal existence. How, then, is this being dealt with in the modern scenario and what are the trends in the recent times to include adivasis in the mainstream literature and the politics of it? The paper would aim to answer these questions. The paper will be divided into two sections titled, 1. Representation in Epics and Mythologies: A clear omission of the tribal characters is seen in the Epics, Mahabharata and Ramayana. While modern research is aimed at delineating the reality of the marginalised characters like the 'vanar sena', the reality behind it would never be found. Etymologically it means people who stayed in the jungle, which is true of the adivasis everywhere, then was the monkey shaped representation an attempt to identify the forest people as a different genus? Similar representations shadow the Mythologies like the figure of 'Asura.' 2. Subversion and Modern Representation: Modern representations include extensive research on the background information of these troubled figures like Asura and Vanar. Further, there is subversion in the representations like the epic figure of 'Draupadi' from Mahabharata is attributed to a tribal woman in " Draupadi " by Mahasweta Devi. Such representations invoke questions and dismantle our existing consciousness of tribal people. Through these, this paper aims to arrive at a conclusion for the need to subvert and challenge these traditional representations in order to arrive at a better understanding of the tribal ethos and existence.

Dr Navras Aafreedi, an Indo-Judaic scholar, teaches at the Presidency University, Kolkata, He specializes in the history of small communities of foreign origin in India. In a pioneering attempt, he has sought to bring the studies of Judaic traditions closer to Islamic scholarship in the subcontinent by writing about this subject in Urdu. Through his work, Aafreedi has sought to establish a corelation between the two cultures - Judaic and Arab. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Tel Aviv University, Woolf Institute, Cambridge and the University of Sydney.

The portrayals of Palestinian exiles in the English-language novels of Susan Abulhawa and Susan Muaddi Darraj present distinct imaginings of the cross-generational implications of Palestinian displacement in the US context. While Abulhawa maintains the tenor of Third World anti-colonial discourses in her writings, Darraj’s novels generate new challenging cosmopolitan dimen- sions to the Palestinian narrative. However, this encounter between the unfulfilled national voice and the language of the former colonizer is not straightforward. The instrumental roles played by the British Empire and the US in shaping the history and today’s circumstances of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict struc- ture the ways that Palestinian narratives are formulated in the English language. While these historic circumstances offer a legitimate basis for supporting the employment of the national narrative in literature, such a narrative can become increasingly insensitive to the diverse cultural and social settings that are developing among the Palestinian communitas around the globe.

This essay  discusses the rogue citizen and his/her interrelation with the sovereign within a democratic state, which, in most cases, constitutes his/her exclusion defined as marginalization, stigmatization  and ultimately dispossession from his/her political bios, via a policy of dishonoring his/her body and violating his/her personal privacy or his/her human qualities.  The texts that I am  discussing are Sophocles’ Antigone, Anne Carson’s Antigonick and the documentary Ruins, directed by Zoe Mavroudi. The reason why I am bringing together three texts taken from different historical settings and belonging to different genres is to discuss the manifestation of certain antinomies between the sovereign and the citizens in democratic states, which question the validity of democracy as an institution in favor of dēmos. All three texts reflect upon the failure of democracy in voicing the opinions or serving the rights of the citizens, attributing them the roles of political actors, performing in the theatre of the absurd and feeding constantly an untrustworthy relationship between the democratic state and its citizens, a performance aiming at a lie or a fantasized purpose. Through a constant disorienting policy of the state towards the people’s realization of their common good, which neglects humanitarian principles or justifies war policies against other nations as an internalized desire of citizens who struggle for a “noble cause”, today’s democratic states in the West build up their whole notion of democracy by fully de-democratizing it.
The aforementioned discussion will shed light on modern political and social issues, such as how the ongoing tendency of modern political structures, especially in Europe and the U.S.A. to perform policies of political, social or racial exclusion within the context of an assumed democratic state, in order to sustain a specific political profile or to serve purposes responding to imperialistic or postcolonialist aspirations, has ultimately led to the exhaustion of democracy because of recurrent, absolute violations of human rights. Is this a Western - directed profile of the modern political Eurocentric sovereignty or can it be translated via the ancient Greek tragedy into an aporia, connected with the paradoxical performance of rebellious citizenship and its “antinomical relation to democracy as a dynamic of the transformation of politics?” (Balibar 2).

In this paper, I intend to present a brief history of Maltese people in order for the reader to be familiarized with the ethnic identity's origins. It should be noted that such a " history " will focus on key points, relevant to this paper. Then, I will transition to the current demographics of Maltese lives within the United States. It is important that we look at instances of Maltese social integration, which will note some traditions of Maltese people. In addition, economic and educational details pertaining to Maltese assimilation will be discussed. Ultimately, this paper will provide a brief look at the emigrating people of Malta and their place among the cultural complex of the United States as Maltese-Americans.

The Mantra of Multiculturalism (MC) has failed flat. 9/11 was only an indicator how even while we live together in the same landscape, our political/cultural ideologies are far deeper to be uprooted by mere liberal rhetoric. This short essay argues that instead of citizenship equality, MC had given birth to a hyphened ethnoreligious identity as Tamil-Canadian or Canadian-Muslim. It shows that liberal discourses with hidden agendas of modern segregations (by hegemony) are far too inadequate to address the structural injustice of the dominant ‘us’ and subaltern ‘other’. Essay calls for a  deterritorializing of our public square for liberal Citizenship over identity of Culture.

Abstracts in ENGLISH, ITALIANO, DEUTSCH:
The financial provisions of the special Statutes can be modified through a procedure different from the one required for constitutional review. According to art. 104 of the T-AA/Südt. Statute, these provisions can be modified by an ordinary State law upon a joint request of the Government and, within the limits of respective competences, of the Region or autonomous Provinces (the so called agreement-based approach).
Such provisions create a more advantageous financial system if compared to the one foreseen by the Constitution for ordinary Regions; the modification of Title V of the Constitution in 2001 attributed to them a financial autonomy concerning incomes and expenses (art. 119 of the Constitution). Their resources are now made up of: own taxes; co-partnership to the revenue of State taxes; proceeds coming from the equalization fund (to which Regions with less tax capacity per inhabitant have access); additional resources and special interventions of the State to improve economic development, social cohesion, the exercise of individual rights and for purposes different from the standard exercise of functions). The determination of basic principles of coordination of public finance and tax system are reserved to the State.
For the implementation of the new art. 119 of the Constitution, law n. 42/2009, conferring a mandate to the Government for the adoption of a legislative decree, dedicates some previsions (art. 27) to special Regions as well, binding them to the fulfilment of the targets of equal distribution and solidarity, to the internal “stability agreement” and to the respect of European obligations. For its realisation, in compliance with the agreement-based approach, an itinerary to be carried out through the bilateral cooperation between the State and the single bodies with special autonomy has been foreseen.
The T-AA/Südt. Region, together with its two autonomous Provinces, has signed, on 30th November 2009, an agreement with the Government (Agreement of Milan) which, after having been transposed into the Budget Law for 2010, almost completely modified Title VI of the Statute.
The Agreement has reinforced the financial autonomy of the autonomous Provinces by establishing that the return to the Provinces of 9/10 tax yield refers to all taxes levied within the territory of the province and by recognizing a broader imposing power (articles 73 and 80 of the Statute). On the other hand, the autonomous Provinces and the Region renounced to all additional government contributions previously foreseen (substitutive amount of VAT tax for the import, the variable quota assigned to the autonomous Provinces by the State for the fulfilment of statutory objectives, participation to allocations foreseen by national laws) and, in order to satisfy solidarity needs, they have agreed on the voluntary assumption by the autonomous Provinces and the Region of the full financing of some State function.
The so-called Stability Act (“legge di Stabilità”) for the year 2014 (Law no.147/2013) changed Art. 80 of the Autonomy Statute. As a result, since January 1st., 2014 the autonomous Provinces enjoy the exclusive competence (instead of the concurring competence) in the field of local taxes.
On 1st January 2015 a further agreement between the autonomous Provinces, the Region and the State has entered into force. It is enshrined in the Stability Act for the year 2015 (Law no. 190/2014), which has again changed the financial provisions of the Statute (Title VI). As a consequence, the autonomous provinces commit themselves to contributing with funds and sharing the burden of the State’s public debt in exchange for stronger guarantees for their future revenues.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ITALIANO:
L’autonomia finanziaria – Monica Rosini e Oskar Peterlini
Le norme di carattere finanziario contenute negli Statuti speciali possono essere modificate con una procedura diversa da quella di revisione costituzionale. Secondo l’art. 104 St. T-AA/Südt., tali norme possono essere modificate con legge ordinaria dello Stato su concorde richiesta del Governo e, per quanto di rispettiva competenza, della Regione o delle Province (cd. principio pattizio).
Tali previsioni hanno realizzato un regime finanziario più vantaggioso rispetto a quello previsto dalla Cost. per le Regioni ordinarie; la modifica del Titolo V Cost. del 2001 ha attribuito loro autonomia finanziaria di entrata e di spesa (art. 119 Cost.). Le loro risorse sono oggi costituite da: tributi propri; compartecipazioni al gettito di tributi statali; proventi derivanti dal fondo perequativo (a cui accedono le Regioni con minore capacità fiscale per abitante); risorse aggiuntive ed interventi speciali dello Stato per promuovere sviluppo economico, coesione sociale, esercizio dei diritti della persona e per scopi diversi dal normale esercizio delle funzioni). Resta riservata allo Stato la determinazione dei principi di coordinamento della finanza pubblica e del sistema tributario.In attuazione del nuovo art. 119 Cost., la legge delega n. 42/2009 dedica alcune previsioni (art. 27) anche alle Regioni speciali, vincolandole al conseguimento degli obiettivi di perequazione e di solidarietà, al patto di stabilità interno e all’assolvimento degli obblighi europei. Per l’attuazione è stato previsto – nel rispetto del principio pattizio – un percorso da realizzare in collaborazione bilaterale tra lo Stato e i singoli enti ad autonomia speciale.
Il T-AA/ Südt., unitamente alle sue due Province autonome, ha così siglato il 30 novembre 2009 un accordo con il Governo (cd. Accordo di Milano), che, recepito dalla l. finanziaria 2010, ha riscritto quasi totalmente il Titolo VI St.
L’Accordo ha rafforzato l’autonomia finanziaria delle Province autonome.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DEUTSCH:
Die Finanzautonomie – Monica Rosini und Oskar Peterlini
Die in den Sonderstatuten enthaltenen Finanz-Bestimmungen werden nicht mit dem für Verf.s-Revisionen vorgesehenen Verfahren, sondern mit einem eigenen Verfahren abgeändert. Gemäß Art. 104 des Autonomiestatutes der Region T-AA/Südt. können diese Bestimmungen auf einvernehmlichen Antrag der Regierung und, je nach Zuständigkeit, der Region oder der Provinzen mit einfachem Staatsgesetz geändert werden. Statt des erschwerten Verf.s-Verfahrens gilt also der Grundsatz des Einvernehmens.
Mit diesen Maßnahmen wurde ein Finanzsystem realisiert, das im Vergleich zu dem von der Verf. für die Regionen mit Normalstatut vorgesehenen System vorteilhafter ist. Die Änderung des V. Titels der Verf. im Jahr 2001 hat allen Regionen eine Finanzautonomie bei Einnahmen und Ausgaben zuerkannt (Art. 119 der Verf.). Ihre Mittel werden heute vorrangig aus Beteiligungen am staatlichen Steueraufkommen und in geringerem Maße aus eignen Steuern gebildet. Für die Regionen und Lokalkörperschaften mit geringerem Steueraufkommen pro Kopf kommen noch zusätzliche Mittel aus einem Ausgleichstopf dazu. Um die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung, den sozialen Zusammenhalt und die soziale Solidarität zu fördern, wirtschaftliche und soziale Ungleichheiten zu beseitigen und die effektive Ausübung der Personenrechte zu fördern, bestimmt der Staat weitere Mittel für bestimmte Gebiete.
Das Ermächtigungsgesetz Nr. 42/2009 über den Steuerföderalismus setzt den Art. 119 der Verf. um und widmet auch den Regionen mit Sonderstatut einige Vorgaben (Art. 27), mit denen sie zur Verfolgung der Ziele des Ausgleichs und der Solidarität, des internen Stabilitätspaktes und der Erfüllung der europäischen Auflagen verpflichtet werden. Um diese Ziele zu erreichen, wurde ein einvernehmliches Verfahren zwischen Staat und Sonderautonomien vorgesehen.
Die Region T-AA/Südt. und die autonomen Provinzen haben dem zu Folge am 30. November 2009 ein Abkommen mit der Regierung geschlossen (Mailänder Abkommen), das nach Aufnahme in das Finanzgesetz 2010 den VI. Titel des Statuts fast völlig neu geschrieben hat.
Das Abkommen hat die Finanzautonomie der autonomen Provinzen gestärkt, sie gleichzeitig aber auch zur Kassa (der Solidarität) gebeten: Ihr bereits vorgesehener Anspruch auf 9/10 der Steuern wurde auf das gesamte Steueraufkommen ihres Gebietes ausgedehnt, ihre Steuerbefugnisse wurden erweitert (Artikel 73 und 80 des Statuts). Im Gegenzug haben die autonomen Provinzen und die Region auf alle in der Vergangenheit vorgesehenen zusätzlichen Einnahmen verzichtet (Ersatzbetrag für die MwSt. auf Importe, veränderlicher Anteil, Beteiligungen an Mitteln, die in nationalen Verteilungsgesetzen vorgesehen sind). Um den Anforderungen zur Solidarität gerecht zu werden, haben sie darüber hinaus die Finanzierung einiger staatlicher Aufgaben übernommen.
Mit dem Stabilitätsgesetz 2014 (Gesetz Nr. 147/2013) wurde der Artikel 80 des Autonomiestatutes geändert. Demzufolge genießen die autonomen Provinzen seit 1. Januar 2014 die ausschließliche (bis dahin konkurrierende) Zuständigkeit im Bereich der Lokalsteuern.
Mit 1. Jänner 2015 ist ein weiteres Abkommen zwischen den autonomen Provinzen, der Region und dem Staat in Kraft getreten, das mit dem Stabilitätsgesetz des Staates für das Jahr 2015 (Gesetz Nr. 190/2014) umgesetzt wurde, und erneut die Finanzbestimmungen des Statutes abgeändert hat. Darin verpflichten sich die Autonomien zu einer kräftigen Beteiligung an der Zinslast des Staates für die öffentlichen Schulden, im Tausch für stärkere Garantien zur Stabilität der künftigen Einnahmen.

U radu se ukazuje na neke sociolingvističke pojave u govoru kajkavaca iz Boke, sela u srednjem Banatu, koje su indukovane kontaktom štokavskog i kajkavskog idioma. Navedeni su najvažniji činioci koji određuju stepen etnolingvističke vitalnosti ove kajkavske zajednice, a zatim se razmatraju pojave kao što su dvosmerna interferencija, modifikacija govora uslovljena sagovornikom i temom, kao i činjenica da se kajkavski naročito dobro čuva u citatima.

This new four-volume collection from Routledge brings together the major works of scholarship concerned with the ‘language isolates’ of the world. ‘Isolated’ languages are languages without any known relatives, languages which are not demonstrably part of any ‘language family’, with Etruscan, Basque, and Ainu being arguably some of the best-known examples of such ‘linguistic orphans’. The language-specific materials collected here are arranged geographically, and each language-chapter is preceded by a short introduction to the linguistic situation of the language(es) involved and, if not given in anthologized works themselves, to the current state of research and past and present scholarly debates. The volumes are preceded by a problem-oriented general introduction, which deals with the basic concepts and methodological principles of language classification, the present state and the nature of ongoing controversies, an epistemiological typology of language families, and, in the light of this, a theoretical justification of the concept of isolates as well as the choice of languages covered in the volumes.

Some of the gathered works are general introductions to their object language (in terms of sociolinguistics, attestation, documentation, history of scholarship, guides to published studies, overviews of linguistic characteristics), others highlight and discuss particularly salient and interesting typological characteristics of an isolate (some of them are breakthrough studies for the understanding of a particular language), and others focus on the very status of the language under discussion as an isolate in the first place. Some isolated languages are still very much alive; at least one of them, Korean, is a major national language. The majority of the languages and small families covered here are endangered, and some will certainly cease to be used during the coming decades. Thus, isolated languages are particularly interesting objects for students of language endangerment, but they are also prime research objects for linguistic descriptionists, for, when they are gone, not only will another of the 6,000 or so human languages have disappeared, but, in those cases, whole linguistic lineages (and their ways of coping with the world) will be gone forever.

Keynote lecture delivered at New Scotland Yard, London, UK. Held 3 December 2014 at the international seminar Crime and Punishment: Gypsies, Travellers and Roma in the Criminal Justice System. Organized by IDRICS, Bucks New University and The University of Warwick

This article examines the historical process of the demise of Gaelic in Ireland due to the policies developed by England, and compares this to the process Kurdish is currently undergoing in Turkey. This comparison accentuates the threat that Kurdish is facing and demonstrates that it is in danger of being eradicated. Through highlighting the similarities in the policies used by both England and Turkey to eradicate ethnic threats through assimilation, and the speed in which this process is happening in Turkey, this article determines that Kurdish has reached an important stage and that the actions over the next few decades will decide its future.

Molti ricercatori concordano nel rintracciare nella guerra civile, e nel conseguente intervento umanitario occidentale, l’inizio di un processo di costruzione identitaria da parte delle minoranze etniche che abitano l’area meridionale della Somalia. L’affermazione identitaria dei Somali Bantu o jareer si fonda sulle discriminazioni e violenze subite per mano dei clan somali, ed è stata rafforzata dall’attenzione mostrata dalla comunità internazionale: la possibilità di accedere alla distribuzione di beni di prima necessità, altrimenti irreperibili nel contesto di guerra civile, ha infatti trasformato l’appartenenza identitaria, scarsamente sentita in precedenza, in un vantaggio di prim'ordine. Il paper intende fare luce sulla rilevanza che la questione identitaria ha assunto nelle dinamiche socio-politiche, in tre modi: con una prospettiva storica delle minoranze; attraverso l’analisi del materiale accademico prodotto negli ultimi anni e reperibile sui principali database online; infine, valutando le implicazioni per l’attualità. Lo scopo del paper è quello di presentare la questione delle minoranze come l’ultima conseguenza, in ordine di tempo, dell’intervento internazionale in Somalia, ed individuarne tendenze future.
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Many researchers agree in tracing in the Civil War, and in the following Western humanitarian intervention, the beginning of a process of identity construction among the ethnic minorities that inhabit the southern regions of Somalia. The affirmation of identity by the Somali Bantu is based on the discrimination and violence suffered at the hands of Somali clans, and was reinforced by the attention shown by the international community: the ability to access the distribution of essential goods, in a context of scarcity as that of the civil war, has transformed the membership identity, barely felt earlier, in a primary advantage. The paper aims at shedding light on the importance that the issue of identity has acquired in the socio-political dynamics, in three ways: first, with a historical perspective on minorities; secondly, through the analysis of the academic papers published in recent years which have been retrieved on the main online databases; finally, by assessing the implications for the current political affairs. The purpose of this paper is to present the issue of minorities as the ultimate consequence, in order of time, of the international intervention in Somalia, and possibly identify future trends.

The paper discusses linguistic purism in the Serbian academic discourse. Initially, the problem of purism as a theoretical notion, a language planning device, and linguistic ideology is analyzed. Consequently, it is argued that Serbian academic linguistic tradition is not characterized by ethnically or nationally oriented purism, but rather by the ’Standard language ideology’. This type of purism implicitly or explicitly takes standard as the only variety worth of being called ’language’ and its norm as the authoritative cannon in comparison to which all linguistic expressions and features are evaluated and measured. This is showcased on  the academic discourse related to the Serbian journalistic language in Hungary.

Key words: purism, Serbian, standard, minority language, Serbian-Hungarian language contact, bilingualism, Serbs in Hungary