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This chapter introduces the main problem of the book: the tensions that exist between cultural rights, and accommodation and formal protection for sexual equality in liberal constitutional democracies. It also discusses the unsatisfactory treatment of this problem within much recent mainstream political philosophy, especially liberal theories of multiculturalism and deliberative democracy theory.

It is no secret that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the prevailing doctrinal approaches to conflict of laws in the United States. The ‘methodologies’ for resolving conflicts problems that compete for judicial attention in the United States coexist uneasily in the Second Restatement, since none has managed to garner sufficient support, and each has been the subject of extensive scholarly and judicial criticism. This chapter suggests that the general dissatisfaction with conflicts as a field in the United States, and its failure to live up to its larger promise, may stem in part from the fact that doctrines and theories fail to address what our moral intuition tells us that conflict problems are about. It takes as its primary example a case of cultural conflict between Native American legal norms and US state and federal law. The conflict between Native American and settler culture is foundational to the political and legal system of which US conflicts is a part, and is arguably the silent background against which questions of the politics of cultural recognition are entertained, defined, or rejected in US cultural, political, and legal life.

This chapter explores the factors that cause and nurture intractable conflict between enduring groups, examines the implications of a focus on peaceful coexistence, and relates this perspective to theories of conflict resolution and reconciliation. The ultimate aim is to address the question about why ethnic and cultural conflict is so prevalent and persistent and suggest approaches to improve intergroup relations. To support its position, the chapter draws on observations and research on peace programs involving ethnic groups consumed by intractable conflict, groups involving immigrants and hosts, and ethnic groups living on the island of Hawaii.

In certain ways, Joseph Raz's distinct version of a liberal moral and political theory seems to be particularly congenial to political conceptions of multiculturalism, understood as political support for a variety of cultural communities. For Raz, notions like personal well-being, freedom or autonomy, leading a successful life are the central elements of normative political theory. Freedom and the chances of leading a successful life are crucially dependent on certain cultural and social conditions. Freedom requires the availability of meaningful options, and such options are provided by group membership, the participation in group cultures or in collective ways of life, and the immersion in ‘social forms’. Another important condition is the fact of pluralism, and more specifically of value pluralism. This chapter discusses the goals or claims of communal groups and cultural conflicts, conflicts arising from cultural differences, special support for cultural groups, and identity politics.

This chapter discusses the impact of demographic change (Southern population growth and Northern population decline) on the form of Christianity that is likely to be practiced in the future and points out that claims that the Southern churches have strayed from older definitions of Christianity are greatly exaggerated. However much Southern Christian types have diverged from older Christian orthodoxies, they have in almost all cases remained within recognizable Christian traditions. The first part of the chapter looks at various aspects of inculturation (interpreting the Christian proclamation in a form appropriate for particular cultures) in relation to determining what are the core beliefs and what are the cultural accidents of Christianity; these aspects include architecture, liturgy and religious language, changes in patterns of worship and their underlying beliefs, and the implications of the emphasis on popular belief and tradition for the veneration of the Virgin Mary in Southern Catholic communities. The second part of the chapter discusses patterns in the emerging Southern churches that go beyond familiar Christian traditions, even as far as a thinly disguised paganism, which is manifested in belief in spirits and spiritual powers (which have their strongest impact on terms of healing and miracles and exorcism) and the concept of spiritual welfare (confronting and defeating demonic forces). The third part of the chapter discusses the cultural conflict over literal interpretations of exorcism and spiritual healing in the Bible, the acceptance by the Southern churches of the Old and New Testaments as documents of immediate relevance, their emphasis on aspects of Christianity that have become unfamiliar, and their revival of ancient customs. Last, the Southern churches – the ‘new’ Christianity – are discussed in terms of their sectarian character, and how this is likely to change in the future as they grow and mature, and become more like the major churches.

This chapter describes the role of the media (e.g., control, transmission of culture, mobilization, create a sense of integration and purpose) and how news are constructed and transmitted. It suggests to view the media as a selective cultural mirror that tries to set agendas and echoes cultural conflicts and gives them substance. Printed media can be divided to various types such as commercial, ideological, entertainment. The discussion focuses on how the various printed media translate complex realities and try to construct and transmit what appears as a meaningful and simplified construction of realities.

This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the myths and realities of gun culture in the U.S. This volume features interviews with three different types of shooters, including the general enthusiasts, shooters involved in cowboy action shooting, and the so-called Generation X shooters. It uses ethnography to study gun enthusiasm and suggests that the gun debate in the U.S. not only has cultural concerns but also cultural conflicts. It argues that we can only begin to have a constructive conversation about the role of guns in contemporary society by directly asking what gun ownership really means to gun enthusiasts and by recognizing and exploring the attraction that so many Americans have to guns.

This essay provides the global context for the local studies that follow: the emergence of Christianity as a world religion, its rising prominence in the global south and east and its waning influence and adherence in the North Atlantic region. Sanneh highlights the cultural repositioning of African Christianity and Asian Christianity away from their old intellectual and political cradle in Europe. These new forms of “world Christianity” are expressed in more languages, cultural traditions and models of faith and practice than ever before, and they are engaged in a growing cultural conflict with European Christianity and its expressions in North America. This interdisciplinary study shows that expounding the story of world Christianity requires new combinations of scholarly skills and experience.

Routines may be seen as something that induces lack of initiative and flexibility. This chapter focuses on various routines that people tend to follow in their day-to-day life. It opens with a discussion of Harold Crick and the monotonous routine that he used to follow for almost twelve years. Mechanical habits such as those that snared Harold make life shallow. Their reliability becomes a problem rather than a resource. Routines are not only survival techniques or perfunctory patterns; as has been shown by more recent scholarly approaches, they also constitute a cultural field full of tensions. Another issue is how their repetitious nature often hides important changes that eventually may transform them into something else. This chapter brings to attention various situations wherein one follows a specific routine. Ethnographies of makeup teach us much about how routines are made and transformed, depending on context. The coming together of a couple is one of those situations where routines all of a sudden become visible arenas of social and cultural conflicts. Later, this chapter draws attention to the multitasking of things that people try to follow to decrease certain overloads in daily life. It also claims that multitasking is a skill that must be acquired, and once learned it is often invisible, it just comes naturally.

This chapter explores different questions as a means of understanding the dismal classroom situation and establishing criteria for positive change. This way Bishop and the Kashaya schoolboard might have a way to think about ideas and suggestions for change. The chapter focuses upon the students' reading of the Slug Woman text. It also exposes cultural conflicts and associated psychological tensions that play an integral role in the formation of chasms leading to student dissatisfaction and alienation. The chapter aims to provide a means for thinking about issues of student reading and response.

This chapter considers cultural conflicts in light of theories of the public sphere. It points out the moments of challenges to the Habermasian idea of the public sphere. In the discussion of Habermas and his critics, the chapter pursues a theoretical assessment of the idea of the public sphere and its relevance to controversies and scandals in the study of religion. It points out the ways in which Habermas's critics make the public sphere a multiple and complex space. In addition, the chapter describes the distinction between the concept of a rule-governed public “sphere” and that of a less contractual, more chaotic public “space”. This is what Habermas calls the “wild sphere”. This chapter also discusses the role of history and sexuality in the debates conducted as part of a shared conversation between members of a religious community and scholars.

This chapter examines how black flight has transformed Parkmont, with particular emphasis on the changes that have occurred in the community as the second wave of black residents has begun to replace the pioneers. It considers how black pioneers differ from black second wavers as well as the distinct circumstances of each group's arrival in Parkmont. It also discusses the nature of the cultural conflicts that have emerged between the two groups, along with the ways in which strained neighbor relations over daily disturbances can give rise to neighborhood dissatisfaction and mobility thoughts among even the most dedicated residents. The chapter shows that the second wave of blacks are seen as a neighborhood problem by both pioneers and white stayers, partly because they are the source of disorderly behavior, school conflict, and crime in the community.

This chapter discusses Dmitrii Mendeleev's “Imperial Turn.” Mendeleev had two productive reactions to his rough treatment at the hands of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences. First came disillusionment with the potential of local scientific societies to overcome personal prejudices. He concluded that perhaps such societies were not the best way to mediate cultural conflict in Imperial Russia. As such, Mendeleev began to reinterpret the legacy of the Great Reforms. From believing that they were about turning state power over to a newly created public sphere, he came to believe that the Reforms' significance lay in the power of the bureaucracy to transcend personal animosity for the greater good. In February 1882, Mendeleev outlined a reform program for an institution he had previously exempted from criticism: the Imperial Academy of Sciences. His second reaction to the Academy affair was to take to heart the image of a rugged individualist given to him by the Petersburg dailies.

Cultural conflicts about the family, such as those concerning abortion and same-sex marriage, have intensified over the last few decades among American Catholics. These conflicts comprise much of the moral polarization that characterizes our public politics, as can be seen in the recent controversy over Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama to give the commencement address. Why are these conflicts resonant among Catholics?This book answers this question by presenting a detailed ethnographic analysis of the local religious cultures in two Catholic parishes: religiously conservative Our Lady of the Assumption Church and theologically progressive St. Brigitta Church. It reveals how two congregational social processes—the practice of central ecclesial metaphors, and the construction of Catholic identities—matter for the ways in which parishioners work out the routines of marriage, childrearing and work-family balance, as well as to the ways they connect these challenges to the public politics of the family.

This chapter discusses a crisis of competence which was precipitated by a malpractice suit and by gender and specialty conflicts. Although the details of this ethnographic account are particular to the medical communities in the Coast Community, the story is familiar to physicians and patients throughout rural America today. Therefore, even though the local crisis was a diagnostic and documentary event revealing the ideological and economic cleavages and the cultural conflicts among the local community of physicians and patients, it also exemplified the reasons why there was a national crisis in obstetrical care.

Chapter 8 accounts for the fluidity of political culture in terms of its discursive dimension. The approach of discursivism has first to be rejected, for it assumes the invariable success of discursive control. The arguments of Chapter 5 show that articulate discourse has a political reach that must always exceed its grasp. Archer’s dualistic theory of culture is found to construe discourse in an excessively abstract manner. In order to capture the causal impact of discourse the theory of ‘meaning finitism’ developed by David Bloor is deployed. This theory argues that discursive agreement creates, through social construction, new objective facts, to which action must adapt. But because these facts are supported only by mutually referring agreement, they are, like the objective conditions of the economic market, subject to unpredictable and chaotic dynamics. The analytic paradigm of the market is then applied to studies of the dynamics of political culture.

This chapter discusses whether surgical palliative care is a paradox. It first examines the cultural conflict that can be observed between surgeons and palliative care. This is followed by a detailed overview of the history of palliation in surgery, which notes the important innovations and personalities involved. Burn care, which is considered as the main surgical metaphor for palliative care, is discussed, along with the problem of suffering and the surgical character. A redefinition of surgical success and surgical ethics in advanced illness is also covered.

This chapter centres on international football and cricket, as well as their limited yet powerful performances of English nationhood during direct competitions with the sporting styles of other cultures. It first studies the cultural meanings of three well-known sporting events: the Adelaide Test Match against Australia, the English football team's defeats by Hungary, and Paul Gascoigne's tears in the semi-final of the 1990 World Cup. It then addresses the questions of masculinity, style and modernity that arose from these contests. The chapter also incorporates wider cultural conflicts about colonial politics and English self-perceptions in domestic games that are structured through social and economic difference.