Negotiating Tradition Becoming American

Salam examines how second generation South Asian Americans assimilate by analyzing their family experiences, their structural circumstances and their adult life choice through the lens of arranged marriage. Arranged marriage, as an analytical frame, uncovers the ways in which gender, autonomy and intergenerational dilemmas shape individual lives. Contrary to popular assumptions about South Asians, the subjects of this study are not bound by the traditions of arranged marriage, but rather their experiences reflect a great deal of variation, negotiation, compromise and a nuanced understanding of "tradition." The findings support similar current research which recognizes how individuals navigate and negotiate family, gender conflicts, and individualism in American society.

This dissertation examines how second generation Indian-American youth in the United States are negotiating and transforming the practice of arranged marriage. The tradition of arranged marriage has been modeled in their families for generations, but these youth are growing up in a cultural context that highly values freedom of choice and embraces autonomy, as well as validates various alternative lifestyles other than marriage. The bicultural identities of second generation Indian-American youth provide a framework for their decisions about future marriage. Little is known about how Indian-American youth view the preservation of cultural and familial marriage traditions. Through the use of a three part survey on the topics of marriage, choice and emotional expression, as well as in-depth interviews, this project explored how Indian-American youth formulate their constructions of marriage, and how they are situated amid many influences of modern western society. A social constructivist approach was utilized to elicit detailed descriptions of the perceptions and insights of the youth subjects, aged 15 to 21. This enabled the formulation of theory grounded in the lived experiences of these youth. Adults aged 30-61 also completed surveys and interviews to provide parental viewpoints in order to discern generational differences. Subjects were located in New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. The primary finding of this research is that second generation Indian-American youth are not completely rejecting or indiscriminately resisting the practice of arranged marriage. They are open to matchmaking, but they desire choice in the process. They embrace traditional family values, consider the guidance of their elders, and desire parental approval and blessing of their future marriage decisions. They negotiate parental rules, expectations and communications in a variety of ways to exert agency in decisions related to participation in premarital social activities. Though the influences of globalism and western culture impact how Indian-American youth shape their opinions and decisions, these forces have not erased their allegiance to Indian traditions.

In the continuing debates on the topic of racial and ethnic identity in the United States, there are some that argue that ethnicity is an ascribed reality. To the contrary, others claim that individuals are becoming increasingly active in choosing and constructing their ethnic identities.Focusing on second-generation South Asian Americans, Bandana Purkayastha offers fresh insights into the subjective experience of race, ethnicity, and social class in an increasingly diverse America. The young people of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Nepalese origin that are the subjects of the study grew up in mostly white middle class suburbs, and their linguistic skills, education, and occupation profiles are indistinguishable from their white peers. By many standards, their lifestyles mark them as members of mainstream American culture. But, as Purkayastha shows, their ethnic experiences are shaped by their racial status as neither “white” nor “wholly Asian,” their continuing ties with family members across the world, and a global consumer industry, which targets them as ethnic consumers.” Drawing on information gathered from forty-eight in-depth interviews and years of research, this book illustrates how ethnic identity is negotiated by this group through choice—the adoption of ethnic labels, the invention of “traditions,” the consumption of ethnic products, and participation in voluntary societies. The pan-ethnic identities that result demonstrate both a resilient attachment to heritage and a celebration of reinvention. Lucidly written and enriched with vivid personal accounts, Negotiating Ethnicity is an important contribution to the literature on ethnicity and racialization in contemporary American culture.

Longstanding Mexican and Puerto Rican populations have helped make people of mixed nationalities—MexiGuatamalans, CubanRicans, and others—an important part of Chicago's Latina/o scene. Intermarriage between Guatemalans, Colombians, and Cubans have further diversified this community-within-a-community. Yet we seldom consider the lives and works of these Intralatino/as when we discuss Latino/as in the United States.In Negotiating Latinidad, a cross-section of Chicago's second-generation Intralatino/as offer their experiences of negotiating between and among the national communities embedded in their families. Frances R. Aparicio's rich interviews reveal Intralatino/as proud of their multiplicity and particularly skilled at understanding difference and boundaries. Their narratives explore both the ongoing complexities of family life and the challenges of fitting into our larger society, in particular the struggle to claim a space—and a sense of belonging—in a Latina/o America that remains highly segmented in scholarship. The result is an emotionally powerful, theoretically rigorous exploration of culture, hybridity, and transnationalism that points the way forward for future scholarship on Intralatino/a identity.

"Communicative interactions in international negotiations on cultural property not only provide information about the emergence and proliferation of arguments, rhetorics, and registers, but also permit valuable insights into actors' positions, strategies and alliances. They significantly influence local and national practices and views related to cultural property debates. What can be gained from a deep analysis of the communicative patterns and strategies that actors engage in - the entailing text and talk of negotiations - is a better understanding of the process itself: how do different actors argue, what kind of strategies and rhetorics do they use, to which instruments and institutions do they refer, and in what way do actors react to each other? An analysis of communicative interactions contributes to the question of how international negotiations work. The analytic inclusion of sociolinguistic practices allows insights into positions, strategies, and perspectives pertaining to cultural property. By looking at not only what actors say, but also at how and in what contexts they do so, it is possible to make more accurate statements about their positions and perceptions in cultural property debates. As these communicative interactions influence outcomes considerably, an approach from linguistic anthropology is not only beneficial for an understanding of specific negotiations, but also for the analysis of broader cultural property issues"--Provided by publisher

Through innovative interdisciplinary methodologies and fresh avenues of inquiry, the nine essays collected in A Peculiar Mixture endeavor to transform how we understand the bewildering multiplicity and complexity that characterized the experience of German-speaking people in the middle colonies. They explore how the various cultural expressions of German speakers helped them bridge regional, religious, and denominational divides and eventually find a way to partake in America’s emerging national identity. Instead of thinking about early American culture and literature as evolving continuously as a singular entity, the contributions to this volume conceive of it as an ever-shifting and tangled “web of contact zones.” They present a society with a plurality of different native and colonial cultures interacting not only with one another but also with cultures and traditions from outside the colonies, in a “peculiar mixture” of Old World practices and New World influences. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Rosalind J. Beiler, Patrick M. Erben, Cynthia G. Falk, Marie Basile McDaniel, Philip Otterness, Liam Riordan, Matthias Schönhofer, and Marianne S. Wokeck.

Describes a method of negotiation that isolates problems, focuses on interests, creates new options, and uses objective criteria to help two parties reach an agreement.

Master the delicate art of balancing competition and cooperation: “A powerful guide that will help you redo something you do every day.” —Karl E. Weick, coauthor of Managing the Unexpected We often assume that strategic negotiation requires us to wall off vulnerable parts of ourselves and act rationally to win. But what if you could just be you in business? Taking a positive approach, this concise book distills years of research, teaching, and coaching into an integrated framework for negotiating genuinely. One of the most fundamental and challenging battlegrounds in our work lives, negotiation calls on us to both compete and cooperate to do our jobs well and achieve extraordinary results. But, the biggest challenge in a negotiation is to be strategic while also being real. Shirli Kopelman, executive director of the International Association for Conflict Management, argues that this duality is both possible and powerful. In Negotiating Genuinely, she teaches how to reconcile the disparate hats you wear in everyday life—with families, friends, and colleagues—bringing one “integral hat” to the negotiation table. Kopelman develops and shares techniques that illuminate this approach—and exercises along the way help you negotiate more naturally, positively, and successfully.

Modern Fashion Traditions questions the dynamics of fashion systems and spaces of consumption outside the West. Too often, these fashion systems are studied as a mere and recent result of globalization and Western fashion influences, but this book draws on a wide range of non-Western case studies and analyses their similarities and differences as legitimate fashion systems, contesting Eurocentric notions of tradition and modernity, continuity versus change, and 'the West versus the Rest'. Preconceptions about non-Western fashion are challenged through diverse case studies from international scholars, including street-style identity in Bhutan, the influence of Ottoman cultural heritage on contemporary Turkish fashion design, and an investigation into the origins of the word 'fashion' in Chinese. Negotiating tradition, foreign influences and the contemporary global dominance of Western fashion cities, Modern Fashion Traditions will give readers a clearer understanding of non-Western fashion identities in the present. Accessibly written, this ground-breaking text makes an essential contribution to the study of non-Western fashion and will be an important resource for students of fashion history and theory, anthropology, and cultural studies.