Genealogy

14 pages, 251 KB

Open AccessArticle

Strategies for Heritage Language Maintenance: Mitigating Language Attrition Among Anaañ—English Bilinguals of Southern Nigeria

by Victoria Enefiok Etim and Jude Terkaa Tyoh

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 72; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020072 (registering DOI) - 19 Jun 2026

Viewed by 154

Abstract

Language embodies traditions, values, and collective identity, bridging gaps between generations and geographies. Maintaining consistent language policies at home and in communities remains challenging, with research showing that only a few families have explicit rules about language use and few enforce them regularly. [...] Read more.

Language embodies traditions, values, and collective identity, bridging gaps between generations and geographies. Maintaining consistent language policies at home and in communities remains challenging, with research showing that only a few families have explicit rules about language use and few enforce them regularly. The study explores strategies for heritage language maintenance (HLM) to mitigate language attrition among Anaañ bilinguals residing in the Akpabuyo and Calabar South Local Government Areas of Cross River State, Nigeria. The study draws on social identity theory, which links language use to identity, motivation, and group affiliation, thereby influencing language maintenance. Using a qualitative approach, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 40 participants, selected purposively from Anaañ speakers in the study areas. Thematic analysis is employed to identify patterns and themes, revealing approaches for heritage language maintenance to curb language attrition. Findings reveal that despite some Anaañ speakers’ negative attitude towards their HL, others value it, keep it alive, and are ready to pass it to the future generations. This will preserve cultural identity and foster a sense of pride, belonging and shared values among Anaañ people, especially those residing in Southern Cross River State. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language, Education, and Genealogy: Heritage Language Maintenance in Families, Communities, and Schools)

11 pages, 217 KB

Open AccessArticle

The Fate and Struggles of the Mexican Americans in the Age of Trump

by Kieran E. James and Sheikh A. Tanzil

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 71; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020071 - 16 Jun 2026

Viewed by 430

Abstract

Although Marx’s industrial reserve army (IRAL) theory suggests that Mexican Americans should be acknowledged by the capitalist class and perhaps resented by the white working class and middle class who compete with them in the labor market, the ideology and discourse of Trump [...] Read more.

Although Marx’s industrial reserve army (IRAL) theory suggests that Mexican Americans should be acknowledged by the capitalist class and perhaps resented by the white working class and middle class who compete with them in the labor market, the ideology and discourse of Trump and his supporters has labelled them as an illegitimate foreign body which pollutes the racial and cultural purity of America. In fact, this discourse has overshadowed earlier discourses that pointed to their contributions to local economies. Even capitalist business owners and major shareholders may give their commitment to this newly reinvented, but actually very old, discourse even when it goes against earlier ideas and their own self-interests. If anything, the discursive pattern of vilifying Mexican-descended people ensures their persistence—in the mind of capitalists—as a potential IRAL. We connect our ideas to related sociological events such as the establishment of “whitopias” and the whitening of the gated communities. Full article

10 pages, 175 KB

Open AccessArticle

Living with Nuclear Bodies: The Spirituality of Fermentation

by Seoyoung Kim

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 70; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020070 - 12 Jun 2026

Viewed by 206

Abstract

Nuclear contamination challenges assumptions that harm can be contained through technological control, political borders, or bodily separation. Across the Asia-Pacific, radioactive exposure moves unevenly through racialised, gendered, and colonial histories, rendering some bodies more vulnerable to ecological violence than others. Nuclear regimes continue [...] Read more.

Nuclear contamination challenges assumptions that harm can be contained through technological control, political borders, or bodily separation. Across the Asia-Pacific, radioactive exposure moves unevenly through racialised, gendered, and colonial histories, rendering some bodies more vulnerable to ecological violence than others. Nuclear regimes continue to depend upon theological logics of purity, sacrificial exclusion, and protected innocence. This article develops a spirituality of fermentation through Asian eco-feminist theology and the Korean practice of sakhim. Fermentation becomes a practice of sustaining wounded life through endurance, permeability, and communal care. From this spirituality of fermentation, I develop the concept of Vital Fluidity as an ethical and theological framework for understanding how life continues through shared vulnerability, where bodies, nourishment, and histories remain deeply entangled. The article contributes to intersectional debates in theology, religion, gender, and ecology by approaching contamination through relation rather than separation. Under nuclear conditions, ethical responsibility emerges through practices that hold grief, contamination, memory, and nourishment together within shared existence. Fermentation therefore becomes a practical theological model for living with nuclear bodies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Sacred and the Secular: Race, Gender, and Religion in Historical Context)

16 pages, 353 KB

Open AccessArticle

The Sacred and the Secular in Race, Gender and Religion Since the 19th-Century Southern African Missionary and Colonial Epochs: A Decolonial Perspective

by Themba Shingange

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 69; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020069 - 5 Jun 2026

Viewed by 258

Abstract

The conceptualisations of the “sacred” and the “secular” are shaped by diverse entities in different epochs and spaces of society. Again, these conceptualisations often exhibit power dynamics, epistemic privileges, and the classification of people using the notions of human and non-human zones. In [...] Read more.

The conceptualisations of the “sacred” and the “secular” are shaped by diverse entities in different epochs and spaces of society. Again, these conceptualisations often exhibit power dynamics, epistemic privileges, and the classification of people using the notions of human and non-human zones. In Africa, the historic intersectionality of the empire, mission, and conversion shaped, and continues to shape, the nuances of the sacred and secular in race, gender, and religion. Thus, this article used a desktop approach to analyse both the primary and secondary literature to explore the nuances of this phenomenon in this historic intersectionality and how its legacies continue to dominate the contemporary context. The preliminary findings showed that the historic missionary/colonial conceptualisations of the sacred and secular on race, gender, and religion remain the fulcrum of the contemporary narratives and their consequences. Thus, the article argues that decoloniality can serve as a lens in exploring this phenomenon and as an option to transform the current status quo. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Sacred and the Secular: Race, Gender, and Religion in Historical Context)

22 pages, 355 KB

Open AccessArticle

Decolonial African Agency and Same-Sex Relations: Beyond the Religious-Secular Divide

by Josias Tembo

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 68; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020068 - 1 Jun 2026

Viewed by 1430

Abstract

In this article, I show how discourses of African tradition, human rights, and African indigeneity circumscribe and curtail the emancipatory potential of discussions of same-sex relations in Africa. The terms of the debate on both sides—those who claim that same-sex relations are ‘un-African’ [...] Read more.

In this article, I show how discourses of African tradition, human rights, and African indigeneity circumscribe and curtail the emancipatory potential of discussions of same-sex relations in Africa. The terms of the debate on both sides—those who claim that same-sex relations are ‘un-African’ and the critics who rightly challenge this view—are circumscribed by what I call the religious-secular divide. This divide continues to entrap discussions of African humanity and agency within racial-colonial strictures of tradition/religion and secularity/modernity. Instead, by engaging with the work of Amilcar Cabral and Aimé Césaire, I develop a notion of decolonial or emancipatory African agency and a way of understanding African humanity as an alternative basis for engaging with the question of same-sex relations in Africa, African traditions, and African indigeneity, and with questions of African humanity and decolonial agency more generally. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Secularism and Race-Religion Entanglements)

8 pages, 182 KB

Open AccessArticle

White Skin, Black Masks: Blackface Minstrelsy

by Therese Smith

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 67; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020067 - 31 May 2026

Viewed by 302

Abstract

In this article, I explore Blackface Minstrels as a burlesque representation of African Americans. Black minstrelsy was an American nineteenth-century entertainment sensation that was subsequently exported to Europe and sustained there. While it would be impossible in this article to give an overview [...] Read more.

In this article, I explore Blackface Minstrels as a burlesque representation of African Americans. Black minstrelsy was an American nineteenth-century entertainment sensation that was subsequently exported to Europe and sustained there. While it would be impossible in this article to give an overview of the history of blackface minstrelsy, it is necessary to first tease out some of the characteristics of the genre, at particular historical moments, in order to reach an understanding of the genre’s popularity, how it sat in its social (and primarily race-sculpted) landscape, and examine some of the inherent contradictions therein. I scrutinise in particular blackface minstrelsy’s reception by Irish audiences, probing the politics of representation therein involved. To this end, I also investigate issues of social and cultural visibility in an Irish landscape that was remarkably homogeneous racially until at least the 1990s. As two core documents in this regard, I firstly examine the BBC’s ‘Black and White Minstrel Show’, created by George Inns in 1958, which ran from 1958 to 1978, in black and white, ironically, until 1967, and thereafter in colour. The second document that I examine is the very successful Irish Lyons Tea Company’s advertisement from the 1980s, which featured stick-figure black-and-white minstrels in stereotypical makeup and ‘standard minstrel Kentucky dress’ singing and dancing to a simple but memorable jingo. Full article

32 pages, 7227 KB

Open AccessArticle

Patrilineal Genetic Ancestry of Moroccan Jews

by Raquel Levy-Toledano, Wim Penninx, Michael Waas, Goran Runfeldt, Michael Sager, Paul Maier and Adam Brown

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 66; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020066 - 31 May 2026

Viewed by 8881

Abstract

This Y-chromosome study of Moroccan Jews, the largest conducted to date, analyzes the patrilineal origins of 288 men of genealogically verified Moroccan Jewish descent through the Avotaynu DNA Project, identifying 111 distinct founder lineages. The long-standing hypothesis of large-scale Berber Judaization has not [...] Read more.

This Y-chromosome study of Moroccan Jews, the largest conducted to date, analyzes the patrilineal origins of 288 men of genealogically verified Moroccan Jewish descent through the Avotaynu DNA Project, identifying 111 distinct founder lineages. The long-standing hypothesis of large-scale Berber Judaization has not previously been tested at full Y-chromosome resolution; our findings provide the first systematic evidence against it. Approximately 71% of founder lineages and 80% of individuals trace to haplogroups common in the Middle East. Only 4.5% of founder lineages are of autochthonous North African origin. Iberian-origin lineages account for 11% of Moroccan Jewish founder lineages reflecting sustained demographic and cultural exchange between Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula over many centuries. Split dates between Moroccan and Ashkenazi or Sephardic subclades cluster between the 5th and 8th centuries CE, suggesting that the ancestral lineages of contemporary Moroccan Jews were already present across the Mediterranean basin during late Antiquity and the early medieval period. Analysis of 190 distinct Moroccan Jewish surname roots identifies 29 polygenic and 30 monogenic surnames, and demonstrates that the linguistic origin of a surname, including surnames of Maghrebi morphology, does not necessarily reflect its bearer’s Y-chromosome ancestry. Unlike Ashkenazi Jews, Moroccan Jews show no evidence of a founder effect or genetic bottleneck, and display a remarkable patrilineal diversity. Among the individual lineages documented here are the first paleogenetic link between a contemporary Moroccan Jewish patriline and a victim of the 1348 Tàrrega pogrom, an Iberian/Ashkenazi split traceable to tenth-century al-Andalus, and an unexpected connection between a predominantly Moroccan Jewish lineage and the Saint Thomas Syrian Christian community of Kerala. Moroccan Jewish patrilineal heritage is overwhelmingly Middle Eastern in origin and has been preserved with remarkable continuity across two millennia of diaspora, persecution, and migration. Full article

► Show Figures

Figure 1

14 pages, 237 KB

Open AccessArticle

Negotiating Women’s Ritual Authority and Identity in Contemporary Mourning Practices Among the Tsonga: A Decolonial and Genealogical Perspective

by Motadi Masa Sylvester

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 65; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020065 - 29 May 2026

Viewed by 358

Abstract

This article examines how women’s ritual authority and identity are negotiated in contemporary mourning practices among the Tsonga. Although African scholarship has increasingly addressed gender, widowhood, and ritual life, limited attention has been paid to mourning as a gendered space in which women’s [...] Read more.

This article examines how women’s ritual authority and identity are negotiated in contemporary mourning practices among the Tsonga. Although African scholarship has increasingly addressed gender, widowhood, and ritual life, limited attention has been paid to mourning as a gendered space in which women’s authority is simultaneously exercised, regulated, and contested. The article addresses this gap by analysing mourning not as a static cultural residue, but as a dynamic ritual field shaped by kinship, seniority, obligation, memory, and social change. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative document analysis of recent scholarly literature, ethnographic studies, and theoretically relevant texts on Tsonga mourning, African ritual practice, kinship, and gender. The analysis is guided by a decolonial perspective, which recentres African epistemologies and lived ritual meanings, and a genealogical perspective, which traces how authority, identity, and obligation are transmitted and reworked across generations. The article argues that Tsonga mourning practices position women as custodians of ritual continuity while also subjecting them to moral discipline and social regulation. Its contribution lies in bringing together African gender studies, ritual studies, genealogy, and decolonial scholarship to show how mourning remains a vital site for the ongoing negotiation of gender, belonging, and cultural authority. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring Gender Roles and Identities in African Rituals and Culture)

15 pages, 241 KB

Open AccessArticle

Plurality of the Secular: Uncovering African Forms of Secularity

by Donald Mark C. Ude

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 64; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020064 - 29 May 2026

Viewed by 276

Abstract

The article argues that existing conceptualizations of secularity ought to be expanded to embrace a plurality of practices and forms of life within African societies. In other words, secularity must be understood as a plurality of historically situated forms of life rather than [...] Read more.

The article argues that existing conceptualizations of secularity ought to be expanded to embrace a plurality of practices and forms of life within African societies. In other words, secularity must be understood as a plurality of historically situated forms of life rather than a single Western conceptual template. Two interconnected objectives define the article. The first is to show shows how the concepts of “deprivatization,” “conditions of belief,” and “postsecularity,” drawn from José Casanova, Charles Taylor, and Jürgen Habermas respectively, may contribute to a pluralistic conception of secularity. The second is to furnish concrete instances of secular forms of life in African societies by exploring the Igbo socio-religious world, underlining its secularity. In foregrounding African forms of secularity, the article not only challenges Western hegemonic appropriation of the secular category and its implicit race-religion nexus, but also contributes to ongoing efforts to rethink, ‘decolonize,’ and deracialize secularity as a global category of social analysis. Ultimately, the future of secularity lies in ongoing, decentered contestations and conversations across multiple worlds. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Secularism and Race-Religion Entanglements)

18 pages, 290 KB

Open AccessArticle

This Dangerous Bone Cannot Be Swallowed: Ethnopragmatic Significance of Religiously Based Personal Names Among Agwagune People

by God’sgift Ogban Uwen, Itang Egbung, Stephen Magor Ellah and Josephat Adoga Odey

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 63; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020063 - 26 May 2026

Viewed by 381

Abstract

This article examines the ethnopragmatic significance of religiously based personal names among the Agwagune people of Biase in Cross River State, Nigeria. Insights from a socio-onomastic framework are used to account for the situational, socioreligious and sociocultural contexts of Agwagune naming practices that [...] Read more.

This article examines the ethnopragmatic significance of religiously based personal names among the Agwagune people of Biase in Cross River State, Nigeria. Insights from a socio-onomastic framework are used to account for the situational, socioreligious and sociocultural contexts of Agwagune naming practices that reinforce the people’s belief systems and worldview. Using participant observation and semi-structured interviews, data were generated during a nine-month fieldwork session involving 30 participants who were knowledgeable in the traditional religious socio-onomastic tradition. Our findings show that Agwagune people draw from their symbolic linguistic resources to bestow personal names that become messaging instruments that express traditional religious affiliations, sociocultural practices and indigenous belief systems. The personal names bear ethnopragmatic relevance that manifests in the veneration of deities and traditional worship; significations in rituals and religious festivals; mysteries of death, reincarnation and commemoration; traditional familial hierarchies; and the sociocultural connection between the people and their physical and spiritual universe. Aside from contributing to the global discourses on socio-onomastics from the perspectives of a micro-minority ethnolinguistic group, the study is also relevant because it serves as documentary material for an endangered and transitioning socio-onomastic practice that characterizes the people’s cosmology, belief systems and lived experiences that are gradually being replaced by Christian orientations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Names as Heritage: Tracing Family and Community Identity Through Naming)

14 pages, 265 KB

Open AccessArticle

Islam, Modernity, and the ‘Problem-Case’ of Religion

by Nasar Meer

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 62; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020062 - 26 May 2026

Viewed by 395

Abstract

This article examines how social science has recurrently positioned Islam as a problem-case for European narratives of modernity, simultaneously comparable as ‘a religion’ yet cast as the religion that ‘doesn’t fit’ secularisation, differentiation, and liberal public-reason expectations. Moving beyond the view that social [...] Read more.

This article examines how social science has recurrently positioned Islam as a problem-case for European narratives of modernity, simultaneously comparable as ‘a religion’ yet cast as the religion that ‘doesn’t fit’ secularisation, differentiation, and liberal public-reason expectations. Moving beyond the view that social science merely misdescribed Islam, this article argues that Islam has often been made to carry an explanatory burden internal to Europe’s self-narration, a limit-case through which stalled secularisation, anxious liberalism, and contested universals are rendered intelligible and governable. The article returns to canonical texts that helped establish such comparative imagination, including Hegel’s philosophy of history, Weber’s typologies of religious ‘bearers,’ and Gellner’s account of Islam as a comprehensive ‘blueprint’ of social order, to show how durable contrast effects were installed and later reactivated in contemporary debates on secularism, gender, security, and belonging. Drawing on Asad’s critique of the category ‘religion’, the article theorises ‘disruption’ as a recurring genre through which Islam is made exceptional, disruptive to secularisation theory, to accounts of modern differentiation, and to liberal self-understanding. It concludes by appealing to a reflexive sociology of religion that historicises its own categories, compares entanglements rather than civilisations, and treats Muslim intellectual traditions as theory-producing interlocutors rather than merely empirical ‘data’. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Secularism and Race-Religion Entanglements)

20 pages, 8327 KB

Open AccessArticle

The Role of Ghanaian Traditional Leaders in Indigenous Environmental Stewardship: Challenges and the Way Forward

by Isaac Nortey Darko and Noah Boakye-Yiadom

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 61; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020061 - 21 May 2026

Viewed by 483

Abstract

Introduction: This article examines the roles of chiefs and traditional leaders in fostering environmental sustainability, collective responsibility, and accountability in Ghana. It argues that chieftaincy functioned as a key institution for regulating human relationships with land, natural resources, and social order in [...] Read more.

Introduction: This article examines the roles of chiefs and traditional leaders in fostering environmental sustainability, collective responsibility, and accountability in Ghana. It argues that chieftaincy functioned as a key institution for regulating human relationships with land, natural resources, and social order in precolonial governance systems. By grounding environmental stewardship in customary authority, moral obligation, and spiritual legitimacy, chiefs helped sustain communal balance and cohesion. Methods: The article uses a conceptual and historical-interpretive approach to analyze the chieftaincy institution’s normative, political, and spiritual functions in environmental governance. It draws on interpretations of precolonial governance structures, customary practices, and indigenous cosmologies to examine how chiefs exercised authority and shaped collective conduct. Results: The analysis shows that chiefs, with their councils, established and enforced rules, norms, and sanctions that promoted sustainable community life. Their authority included custodianship of land, social order, and sacred obligations. As representatives of ancestors and intermediaries between the human and spiritual realms, chiefs reinforced a moral framework in which environmental harm was seen as both a social offence and a disruption of divine and ancestral balance. The nonpartisan nature of chieftaincy provided a unifying platform for guiding communities toward shared responsibilities, regardless of political differences. Discussion: The article concludes that chieftaincy historically served as an important mechanism for environmental stewardship and ethical governance in Ghana. Chiefs were positioned as custodians of a balanced relationship between people, land, and spiritual order. Revisiting these indigenous governance principles offers insight into how traditional authority can contribute to contemporary discussions on sustainability, accountability, and community-based environmental governance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Genealogies of Indigenous Knowledge: Intergenerational Transmission and Sustainable Livelihoods in Africa)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

13 pages, 246 KB

Open AccessArticle

Was John Wesley Inclusive?

by Daniel Pratt Morris-Chapman

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 60; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020060 - 17 May 2026

Viewed by 532

Abstract

Over the last forty years British Methodism has moved increasingly toward becoming an inclusive Church. Indeed, today, the concept of inclusion may accurately be described as a hallmark of British Methodism. However, while the Methodist Conference has formally identified principles governing its practice [...] Read more.

Over the last forty years British Methodism has moved increasingly toward becoming an inclusive Church. Indeed, today, the concept of inclusion may accurately be described as a hallmark of British Methodism. However, while the Methodist Conference has formally identified principles governing its practice in this area there has been limited discussion as to how far these developments cohere with the church’s doctrinal standards which are officially related to John Wesley’s writings. This paper explores the continuity and discontinuity between Wesley’s theology and the commitment to inclusion characteristic of his spiritual descendants. In particular, it probes Wesley’s actual practice in relation to the admission and expulsion of members and evaluates whether or not his conception of holiness really serves as a warrant for the conception of inclusion, practically operative in contemporary British Methodism. In exploring these questions the paper explores whether or not John Wesley really was as Inclusive as contemporary British Methodists imagine. Full article

20 pages, 286 KB

Open AccessArticle

Kaupapa Māori: A Māori Approach to Transformative Change

by Leonie Pihama, Margie Kahukura Hohepa, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Graham Hingangaroa Smith, Jenny Lee-Morgan, Matt Roskruge and Herearoha Skipper

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 59; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020059 - 13 May 2026

Viewed by 1129

Abstract

This article discusses the role of Kaupapa Māori in transforming Māori educational experiences within Aotearoa (New Zealand) over the past forty years. Since the initial articulation of Kaupapa Māori from the mid-1980s, there has been an exponential growth in its development and application [...] Read more.

This article discusses the role of Kaupapa Māori in transforming Māori educational experiences within Aotearoa (New Zealand) over the past forty years. Since the initial articulation of Kaupapa Māori from the mid-1980s, there has been an exponential growth in its development and application across Aotearoa (New Zealand). There has been extensive documentation that it was within the education sector that Kaupapa Māori initiatives were developed and initiated by Māori in response to the failure of mainstream conventional education to provide for Māori children. That response was formalized through the establishment of Te Kōhanga Reo (Māori Language Nests) and Kura Kaupapa Māori (Māori Immersion Schools), which were led by Māori. Since then, there has been an increased utilization of Kaupapa Māori theory as a foundation for understanding, explaining and critiquing key issues facing Māori and Aotearoa more broadly. In the research project “Kaupapa Māori: Creating an Indigenous Model for Systems Change”, we undertook a series of interviews (n = 80) with Māori people involved in a range of sites who utilize Kaupapa Māori as the foundation in their lives, both personally, as whānau (extended family), and in their work. A key question posed was: What are the success factors within Kaupapa Māori that can inform innovative models for systems change that will transform inequities experienced by Māori? This was asked to gain insights into how Kaupapa Māori have created transformative and meaningful change across a range of sectors and sites. Where the wider project included participation from across a broad range of social contexts, this article looks at key themes that arose from how kaikōrero (participants) saw transformative change occurring through being a part of Kaupapa Māori educational developments. Kaikōrero shared multiple ways in which transformation occurred for individuals, within their whānau (extended families), through intergenerational changes and impacts at community and systems levels. Full article

15 pages, 246 KB

Open AccessReview

The Colonisation of the Sacred Self: African Spirituality, Colonial Christianity, and the Moral Psychology of Lived Experience

by Yaw Ofosu-Asare

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 58; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020058 - 11 May 2026

Viewed by 1383

Abstract

This paper argues that the colonial introduction of Christianity in Africa must be understood as a reordering of personhood, moral feeling, and the conditions under which lived experience becomes intelligible, rather than as a change in formal religious affiliation alone. Drawing on scholarship [...] Read more.

This paper argues that the colonial introduction of Christianity in Africa must be understood as a reordering of personhood, moral feeling, and the conditions under which lived experience becomes intelligible, rather than as a change in formal religious affiliation alone. Drawing on scholarship in African philosophy, religious history, European intellectual history, and African psychology, the paper traces how missionary Christianity reclassified African spiritual worlds, recoded suffering and misfortune, and disrupted the transmission of spiritual knowledge across generations. Crucially, it situates this encounter within the longer history of Christianity’s own disenchantment: the suppression, within dominant Protestant and Enlightenment traditions, of enchanted practices that had characterised European Christianity for over a millennium. The missionary traditions that condemned African spirit mediation, ancestral veneration, and ritual healing were carriers of a tradition that had practised structurally analogous things before disciplining them out of its own self-understanding. The paper shows that colonial religion produced layered forms of subjectivity in which ancestral obligation, Christian doctrine, communal personhood, moral anxiety, and therapeutic pluralism coexist in tension. The concept of ontological compression is proposed to name the condition under which parts of the self become unsayable within authorised vocabularies, a condition rendered doubly intense by the fact that the compressing tradition had already performed this narrowing upon itself. Rather than treating African spirituality as residue, superstition, or cultural background, the paper proposes that it should be approached as a living philosophical and psychological archive through which many people continue to interpret suffering, relation, responsibility, and reality itself. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Genealogies of Indigenous Knowledge: Intergenerational Transmission and Sustainable Livelihoods in Africa)

17 pages, 268 KB

Open AccessArticle

Women’s Marginalization and Agency in NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names: Transnational Genealogies, Politics of Space, and Colonial Legacies Through FCDA and Third Space

by Khalid Ahmed, Hassan Mahmood, Farah Kashif, Aasia Nusrat and Ruqia Saba Ashraf

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 57; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020057 - 7 May 2026

Viewed by 704

Abstract

This study examines women’s marginalization and agency in We Need New Names by situating the novel within broader frameworks of transnational genealogies, spatial politics, and colonial migration legacies. Utilizing Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA), based on Lazar’s gender ideology and discourse approach in [...] Read more.

This study examines women’s marginalization and agency in We Need New Names by situating the novel within broader frameworks of transnational genealogies, spatial politics, and colonial migration legacies. Utilizing Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA), based on Lazar’s gender ideology and discourse approach in (de)constructing gender identities and gender equality, along with Homi K. Bhabha’s Third Space Theory, this study analyses how diaspora displacement and colonial past influence gendered identities. Through a qualitative and interpretive analysis of select textual episodes, the study reveals how spatial displacement, linguistic fragmentation, and cultural hybridity both inhibit and facilitate female empowerment. Women counter marginalization using everyday tactics such as silence, storytelling, embodied resistance, and discursive bargaining, turning marginal spaces into spaces of resistance. This paper makes a theoretical contribution to migration studies, spatial inequality, and decolonization by exploring gendered identities in transnational and postcolonial settings. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Transnational Genealogies: The Politics of Space, Migration, and Identity in Colonial and Postcolonial Contexts)

18 pages, 364 KB

Open AccessArticle

Self-Fashioning of Colonial and Renunciatory Masculinity: The Making of the ‘Underdeveloped’ Ego in “One Out of Many”

by Suhail Ahmad

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 56; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020056 - 7 May 2026

Viewed by 800

Abstract

This paper examines the colonial and postcolonial construction of the underdeveloped Hindu male ego in V.S. Naipaul’s “One Out of Many”, focusing on immigrant Santosh—who migrates from Bombay to Washington—as a site where gender, caste, and race intersect. Using Stephen Greenblatt’s technique of [...] Read more.

This paper examines the colonial and postcolonial construction of the underdeveloped Hindu male ego in V.S. Naipaul’s “One Out of Many”, focusing on immigrant Santosh—who migrates from Bombay to Washington—as a site where gender, caste, and race intersect. Using Stephen Greenblatt’s technique of New Historicism as a methodological tool, it argues that Santosh’s posture, psychological and sexual crises epitomize colonial and psychoanalytical discourses that feminized Hindu masculinity through martial race ideology and psychoanalytic tropes. The paper shows how Naipaul employs, in the novella, colonial period’s circulating Hindu symbolic motifs such as Kali, Prayashchittam (purificatory rituals), bronze gods, and brass plates to reinforce images of Hindu men as guilt-ridden, impure, sexually deficient and lacking assertiveness, and gift of vison. The paper further argues by excavating an archived letter of Sudhir Kakar how Naipaul in India: A Wounded Civilization appropriated Sudhir Kakar’s psychoanalytic approaches to undermine Hindu masculinity. It concludes that Santosh is less a universal immigrant and more a culturally historicized projection of colonial, and psychoanalytical discourses on emasculation. Full article

11 pages, 197 KB

Open AccessArticle

Sifting Dust: Postcolonial and Hybrid Identities in the Novel Dust

by Loreen Maseno and Sophia Chirongoma

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 55; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020055 - 6 May 2026

Viewed by 653

Abstract

The writing scene in East Africa has witnessed a rise in the emergence of contemporary literature. One example is Dust, a 2014 novel by the Kenyan Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, who, in 2003, was awarded the Caine prize for African writing. The novel Dust [...] Read more.

The writing scene in East Africa has witnessed a rise in the emergence of contemporary literature. One example is Dust, a 2014 novel by the Kenyan Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, who, in 2003, was awarded the Caine prize for African writing. The novel Dust has been reviewed from various angles. Dust introduces two female characters, Akai and Ajany, who are both connected to a key character in the novel: Odidi Oganda. How do the characters Akai and Ajany exemplify forms of hybrid identity shaped by colonial and diasporic contexts? This essay is about these two female characters who provide adequate material with which to explore hybrid identities during the colonial period and in the diaspora. Both experience trauma, which impacts their associations in their local communities and in the diaspora. Akai is tremendously affected by colonialism. She is a contract laborer impregnated by a British colonial settler who later attempts to kill her. Ajany moves in with an abusive man, whom she stabs to death in self-defense right before fleeing Brazil as a fugitive. This essay uses a Postcolonial Feminist lens to explore how these two characters propagate cultural resilience, challenge nationalist narratives, and demonstrate resistance. It employs the method of Narratological Text Analysis in order to present Akai and Ajany in their particular contexts. For analysis, the essay adopts a dialectical type of literary theorising. Full article

27 pages, 550 KB

Open AccessArticle

“I Worked Really Hard to Know Who I Am”: A Qualitative Study of Identity Development in Latter-Day Saint Women in Midlife

by Chenae Christensen-Duerden, Sarah M. Coyne, Loren Marks, Erin K. Holmes and Ashley Larsen Gibby

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 54; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020054 - 30 Apr 2026

Viewed by 1177

Abstract

Although identity development is often framed as a task of adolescence, identity continues to evolve across the life course. Midlife, in particular, involves significant role change, reflection, and meaning-making, yet women’s midlife identity development within religious contexts remains understudied. Using life course and [...] Read more.

Although identity development is often framed as a task of adolescence, identity continues to evolve across the life course. Midlife, in particular, involves significant role change, reflection, and meaning-making, yet women’s midlife identity development within religious contexts remains understudied. Using life course and narrative identity frameworks, this qualitative study examined how women navigate identity shifts during midlife within a family-centered faith context. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 women aged 38–69 who identified as practicing members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in six countries. A grounded theory analysis revealed three interrelated processes, identity disruption, re-evaluation, and revision, while anchoring identity in core sources of meaning. Faith and purpose provided continuity across transitions, supporting coherence, resilience, and growth. These findings challenge deficit-based models and position midlife as a generative period of ongoing identity development. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Narratives of Impact: The Influence of Family Stories on Personal Meaning)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

14 pages, 234 KB

Open AccessArticle

The Shona Perceptions on Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) Tests and Implications on Gender Relations, Parenthood and Identity in Zimbabwe

by Beatrice Taringa

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 53; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020053 - 29 Apr 2026

Viewed by 684

Abstract

Africa is historically celebrated as the cradle of humankind. However, there is doubt on whether she is maintaining her own originality and position as the motherland and fatherland of all humanity. Although globalisation has impacted all continents and states, its negative effects seem [...] Read more.

Africa is historically celebrated as the cradle of humankind. However, there is doubt on whether she is maintaining her own originality and position as the motherland and fatherland of all humanity. Although globalisation has impacted all continents and states, its negative effects seem to be skewing towards African and in particular Zimbabwean Shona families. This paper examines how DNA testing has impacted on some of the Shona families in Zimbabwe. The Shona community in Zimbabwe is culturally porous and receptive in terms of traditional, religious, linguistic and cultural values. They embraced Western democracy that is premised on human rights principles, constitutionalism, and citizenship, which, however, do not guarantee their belongingness. As some of the Shona families in Zimbabwe drifted away from the traditional cultural belief system campus, they got into a foreign and alien worldview that is dictated by the host in the name of technology. This has led to excessive reliance on foreign systems that are appearing like global standards yet they are disempowering them and causing them emotional and social distress. The reliance is a result of neocolonialism, linguistic and cultural imperialism that needs decolonisation. Thus, the paper adopts a qualitative approach based on an illuminating multiple case study design of six purposively selected scenarios aired on the The Closure DNA Show programme broadcasted on Zimbabwe Television (ZTV). The Afrocentric paradigm serves as a lens to uncover some of the perceptions of Shona families in Zimbabwe on DNA testing and its implications on parenthood, the family unit, and identity. The findings reveal that DNA testing is perceived as gender divisive and a destroyer of the family unit and exposing children to vulnerability, while it is also perceived positively as a way of (dis)affirming identity, which is crucial among the Shona. The paper recommends that other television programmes be screened based on their implications on gender relations, the family unit and identity. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Genealogical Communities: Community History, Myths, Cultures)

10 pages, 197 KB

Open AccessArticle

Theological Reflections and Dialogues in South Africa: God, Ancestors, and the Supernatural Powers

by Hundzukani P. Khosa

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 52; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020052 - 29 Apr 2026

Viewed by 614

Abstract

With a focus on how both traditions influence identity, memory, and lived spirituality in African contexts, this article examines the theological and cultural interactions between Christianity and African Traditional Religion (ATR). This study highlights the ongoing interaction between ATR and Christianity as two [...] Read more.

With a focus on how both traditions influence identity, memory, and lived spirituality in African contexts, this article examines the theological and cultural interactions between Christianity and African Traditional Religion (ATR). This study highlights the ongoing interaction between ATR and Christianity as two significant systems ingrained in African life, notwithstanding the continent’s religious diversity. In Africa, religion and culture are inextricably linked, influencing social customs, moral standards, and a sense of community but also constantly changing due to personal experience. African spiritual systems were frequently disregarded by missionary Christianity in the past, which led to conflicts that still exist in modern African Christianity. The importance of ancestors, rituals, and supernatural beliefs all of which are still fundamental to the worldviews of many African Christians are areas where these conflicts are especially noticeable. This article makes the case for a positive theological approach that acknowledges ATR as an essential tool for African Christian identity rather than as a rival or subpar system, drawing on the idea of inculturation. The article illustrates how African spirituality serves as a storehouse of collective memory and identity over generations by delving into issues of ancestry, ritual, and spiritual mediation. Additionally, it offers a liberative and dialogical theological concept that promotes understanding between Christianity and ATR. Such an approach not only bridges spiritual divides but also contributes to the development of a contextually grounded liberation theology that affirms indigenous knowledge systems while remaining open to global theological discourse. Full article

23 pages, 1257 KB

Open AccessArticle

Life Expectancy and Survival Patterns in a Multigenerational Romanian Family (1900–2024): A Descriptive Study Based on Synthetic Cohort Life Tables

by Madalina Iordache, Ioana Chelu, Daniel Dicu and Ioan Gaica

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 51; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020051 - 25 Apr 2026

Viewed by 795

Abstract

This study aimed to estimate life expectancy at birth and survival patterns within a multigenerational family from Romania (102 individuals), whose members lived across the period 1900–2024. Life expectancy was estimated using abridged synthetic cohort life tables, and the results were interpreted through [...] Read more.

This study aimed to estimate life expectancy at birth and survival patterns within a multigenerational family from Romania (102 individuals), whose members lived across the period 1900–2024. Life expectancy was estimated using abridged synthetic cohort life tables, and the results were interpreted through survival curve analysis. Life expectancy at birth was estimated at approximately 84 years for females and 80 years for males, while the overall life expectancy for the total family population was 81 years, representing a weighted estimate derived from sex-specific life tables, with weights corresponding to the proportion of females and males in the studied population, rather than a simple arithmetic mean, following standard demographic practice. The resulting survival curves exhibited a clear Type I survival pattern, characterized by low mortality at younger ages and an increasing concentration of deaths at older ages. When contextualized using recent Eurostat data, the life expectancy estimated for the analyzed family exceeds current national-level values reported for Romania and is close to the European Union average, particularly for females. These findings indicate a favorable survival profile at the familial level and illustrate the usefulness of life tables for investigating longevity patterns in small populations. Full article

► Show Figures

Figure 1

22 pages, 1119 KB

Open AccessArticle

Racialized Surveillance and Voting: Connecting Government Monitoring to American Muslim Electoral Participation

by Aaron Rosenthal and Saher Selod

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 50; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020050 - 24 Apr 2026

Viewed by 790

Abstract

Objectives: Government surveillance of American Muslims has grown following 9/11, yet little scholarship has analyzed how this activity impacts political participation. We examine racial and ethnic variation in American Muslims’ experiences of state surveillance, as well as the connection between those experiences [...] Read more.

Objectives: Government surveillance of American Muslims has grown following 9/11, yet little scholarship has analyzed how this activity impacts political participation. We examine racial and ethnic variation in American Muslims’ experiences of state surveillance, as well as the connection between those experiences and voter turnout. Methods: Using a survey of 1000 American Muslims, we identify racial and ethnic patterns in being singled out in airports and by the police. We then analyze how being stopped in these venues shaped turnout behavior in the 2016 presidential election. Results: Black Muslims are more likely to encounter surveillance from the police, while Muslims who identify as Asian report the highest degree of monitoring in airports. We find that police encounters are linked to decreased electoral participation, but being singled out by airport security is not tied to a change in turnout. Conclusions: These findings provide a more detailed and comprehensive understanding of who is impacted by surveillance in the US and how that surveillance shapes American democracy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Global Racialization, Class and the Politics of Nation: Tensions and Articulations in the Twenty-First Century)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

14 pages, 231 KB

Open AccessArticle

The Colonial Present: How Transnational Genealogies Shape Migration, Space, and Identity Today

by Nomatter Sande

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 49; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020049 - 21 Apr 2026

Viewed by 793

Abstract

There is a correlation between colonial histories and contemporary migration practices, and this paper examines these transnational enduring connections. Using a qualitative thematic synthesis of existing interdisciplinary sources, this paper argues that the politics of space, migration, and identity in the present cannot [...] Read more.

There is a correlation between colonial histories and contemporary migration practices, and this paper examines these transnational enduring connections. Using a qualitative thematic synthesis of existing interdisciplinary sources, this paper argues that the politics of space, migration, and identity in the present cannot be fully comprehended without tracing their colonial genealogies. The findings demonstrate that colonial migrations in all forms (forced, enslaved, or settled) formed transnational genealogies that determine who moves, who is stopped, who belongs, and who is an outsider. The paper concludes that understanding current migration politics, spatial inequalities, and identities requires an appreciation of transnational genealogies that connect the past to the present. The paper suggests that colonial history is more than a background but a framework that sets the conditions within which migration occurs today. This paper contributes to showing that family functions as a neglected site where genealogies are transmitted and contested across generations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Transnational Genealogies: The Politics of Space, Migration, and Identity in Colonial and Postcolonial Contexts)

33 pages, 433 KB

Open AccessArticle

“That Sense of Belonging … That Comes from Within”: Beyond Legal Permanence: Aboriginal Understandings of Cultural Connection, Belonging and Child Wellbeing, and Cultural Adaptation in Child Welfare Reform

by Wendy Hermeston

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 48; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020048 - 21 Apr 2026

Viewed by 829

Abstract

Permanency planning, an approach to the placement of children in out-of-home care, is central to child and family system practice, policy and law. Using the example of legislative reforms in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, this article explores how privileging legal permanence leads [...] Read more.

Permanency planning, an approach to the placement of children in out-of-home care, is central to child and family system practice, policy and law. Using the example of legislative reforms in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, this article explores how privileging legal permanence leads to ongoing failures to account for Aboriginal worldviews and child-rearing practices. Drawing on qualitative research, including Yarning Circles and semi-structured interviews that I conducted with Aboriginal community members in NSW, the findings contribute to limited evidence on permanence from Indigenous perspectives, revealing how familial and cultural connectedness shape belonging and social and emotional wellbeing and highlighting the importance of children’s ongoing connections with extended Aboriginal family, community and culture. Aboriginal understandings of permanence align more closely with cultural, relational and physical domains than with the construct of legal permanence that predominates in permanency planning approaches. Prioritizing legally permanent care arrangements above other domains poses long-term risks to Aboriginal children’s social and emotional wellbeing, demonstrating the need for “deep-level” cultural adaptation in child welfare law, policy and practice. The findings have implications for decolonizing child protection and repositioning Aboriginal conceptualizations of permanence as the foundation for legislation, policy and practice—reforms that must be Indigenous-led, culturally grounded from the outset, and anchored in full implementation of principles embedding self-determination and Indigenous children’s fundamental rights. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Social Connectedness and Cultural Adaptation on Mental Health)

20 pages, 388 KB

Open AccessArticle

Names as Archives: A Comparative Analysis of Lineage and Settlement Histories Through Dàgáárè and Yorùbá Anthroponymy

by Ănúolúwapọ̀ Adéwùnmí Adétọ̀míwá, Elvis Banoeye Batung and Hasiyatu Abubakari

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 47; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020047 - 16 Apr 2026

Viewed by 1100

Abstract

This study investigates the role of naming practices as cultural repositories that preserve family, lineage, and community identity. It explores how anthroponymy encodes histories of ancestry, migration, settlement, and sociopolitical organisation in two West African societies, Dàgáárè-speaking communities and Yorùbá communities. Adopting a [...] Read more.

This study investigates the role of naming practices as cultural repositories that preserve family, lineage, and community identity. It explores how anthroponymy encodes histories of ancestry, migration, settlement, and sociopolitical organisation in two West African societies, Dàgáárè-speaking communities and Yorùbá communities. Adopting a comparative onomastic ethnographic approach, this research analyses names among the two selected cultures. Data is drawn from interviews, school registers, attendance sheets, and cultural practices, with emphasis on how names record genealogical descent, settlement histories, occupational roles, spiritual affiliations, and ethical expectations. In Dàgáárè and Yorùbá culture, bal/baloo yoe (clan names) and lineage names identify descent from founding ancestors, document migration and settlement, mark ritual responsibilities, memorialise historical events, and regulate kinship and marriage through totemic and spiritual identities. This study argues that names in Dàgáárè- and Yorùbá-speaking societies operate as cultural texts that preserve and transmit heritage across generations. The significant implications extend to linguistics, anthropology, and heritage studies, where names can be leveraged as tools for cultural preservation and historical analysis. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Names as Heritage: Tracing Family and Community Identity Through Naming)

25 pages, 397 KB

Open AccessArticle

Towards Solidarity with Abya Yala: African Feminist Perspectives on Body–Land as Praxis

by Ruth Ratidzai Murambadoro and Carol Lynne D’Arcangelis

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 46; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020046 - 15 Apr 2026

Viewed by 847

Abstract

This article juxtaposes the Indigenous communitarian feminist concept cuerpo-territorio and the African proverb musha mukadzi drawing on ethnographic research with Zimbabwean women activists in the context of land reform, thereby expanding the scope of both concepts. Our entry point is Zimbabwean women’s struggles [...] Read more.

This article juxtaposes the Indigenous communitarian feminist concept cuerpo-territorio and the African proverb musha mukadzi drawing on ethnographic research with Zimbabwean women activists in the context of land reform, thereby expanding the scope of both concepts. Our entry point is Zimbabwean women’s struggles for land in the Third Chimurenga, or post-2000 Fast-Track Land Reform Programme. Despite egalitarian promises, land redistribution efforts have favored political elites and men, reinforcing colonial capitalist practices of extraction and accumulation. Our comparative exercise reveals musha mukadzi as a political discourse that enables Indigenous women to reclaim their body–land relationship through struggles for land reform and beyond. In the process, we identify four key resonances between musha mukadzi and cuerpo-territorio, namely, an ontological similarity expressed through Indigenous women’s commitments to and responsibilities for re/generating the network of life; a common appeal to ancestral (feminist) wisdom to enhance ongoing struggle; the political mobilization of the concepts by Indigenous women to seek liberation from patriarchal, neo/colonial oppression; and, their conceptual utility as feminist analytics. Finally, we lay the foundation for further work on the possibilities of transnational feminist solidarity between Indigenous women in Africa and Abya Yala. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Body–Land Relationships)

14 pages, 254 KB

Open AccessArticle

Race, Class, Gender, and Language in Bulawayo’s We Need New Names

by Khalid Ahmed, Hassan Mahmood, Sardaraz Khan and Aasia Nusrat

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 45; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020045 - 14 Apr 2026

Viewed by 1072

Abstract

This study analyses NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names through the framework of intersectional feminism, a concept introduced by Kimberlé Crenshaw that examines how multiple identities, such as race, gender, and class, intersect to shape distinct experiences of marginalization. Bulawayo’s narrative, centred on [...] Read more.

This study analyses NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names through the framework of intersectional feminism, a concept introduced by Kimberlé Crenshaw that examines how multiple identities, such as race, gender, and class, intersect to shape distinct experiences of marginalization. Bulawayo’s narrative, centred on the protagonist Darling, reveals the complex social forces she encounters as she navigates cultural and geographic transitions. Through a blend of English and Shona, the text reflects cultural duality and the tensions of migration, including acculturation and displacement. The episodic structure mirrors the fragmentation inherent in Darling’s African upbringing and her transcontinental journey. The analysis situates the novel alongside contemporary works such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, highlighting shared thematic concerns with identity, oppression, and the migrant experience. Ultimately, the study argues that Bulawayo’s representation of intersecting identities enriches the novel’s engagement with gender, race, class, and the transformative potential of language in articulating minority experiences. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Transnational Genealogies: The Politics of Space, Migration, and Identity in Colonial and Postcolonial Contexts)

35 pages, 1266 KB

Open AccessEssay

Towards a List of Clans and Families in Scotland—Identity Politics, Cultural Appropriation and Romantic Idealism

by Bruce Durie

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 44; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020044 - 14 Apr 2026

Viewed by 1684

Abstract

The question of which Scottish surnames constitute a Clan and which do not is hotly contested. It is wrongly felt, especially in the Scots-abroad communities, that Clan is somehow of higher status than “Family” or “House” and/or applies to everyone of Scottish heritage. [...] Read more.

The question of which Scottish surnames constitute a Clan and which do not is hotly contested. It is wrongly felt, especially in the Scots-abroad communities, that Clan is somehow of higher status than “Family” or “House” and/or applies to everyone of Scottish heritage. Opinions and assertions are on a spectrum between two absolutes: (a) “everyone in Scotland is in a Clan, and everyone should wear kilts and tartans”; to (b) “Clans disappeared in the 18th century and there is no point clinging to a Romantic notion with no modern relevance”. Historically, the Clan is a phenomenon of the Gaelic-speaking Highlands and Islands and was not found as a social structure in the Lowlands; the Southern Uplands (Scottish Borders) are a special case. The “everyone” persuasion leads to cultural nonsenses such as Lowland-ancestry Scots abroad forming “Clan” Societies and adopting Highland dress. Scots overseas are looking for an authoritative statement as to whether their surname constitutes a Clan, a family, or some other nomenclature. Yet, there is no official or agreed historically based list of who are Clans and who are not. There is no such list—or a formula by which an answer can be derived. This essay is intended as a step towards that. Also, the non-historical concept of “Septs” is dismissed. Full article

► Show Figures

Figure 1

21 pages, 288 KB

Open AccessArticle

In the Space Between Words: Speech–Silence Dynamics, Religio–Racial Formations, and Christian–Muslim Relationships in The Netherlands

by Deniz Aktaş

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 43; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020043 - 10 Apr 2026

Viewed by 755

Abstract

In Western Europe, and particularly in The Netherlands, speech is rarely neutral: to talk is to participate morally and civically, while silence is frequently marked as evasive, passive, or suspect. The capacities for speech, for being heard, understood, and responsive, are widely regarded [...] Read more.

In Western Europe, and particularly in The Netherlands, speech is rarely neutral: to talk is to participate morally and civically, while silence is frequently marked as evasive, passive, or suspect. The capacities for speech, for being heard, understood, and responsive, are widely regarded as hallmarks of autonomous, transparent, free-thinking, and sovereign subjectivity, celebrated as expressions of a shared progressive modernity. These ideals of subjectivity are routinely placed in tension within the so-called secular–religious binary framework, in which the compatibility of non-secular sensibilities or non-Christian religions, especially Islam, with such Dutch societal values is persistently and heavily problematized. Within such accounts, speech becomes a criterion Muslims in Europe are then expected to meet, not merely by speaking but by doing so in ways deemed proper and intelligible. To complicate and deepen understanding of these dynamics, this article draws on ethnographic insights from (secular) Christian–Muslim couples in The Netherlands, looking at how the dynamics of speech–silence function within intimate contexts, where they take place, where they break down, and ultimately where their limits lie. Attuned to the cacophony of multivocal gestures, whether in acts of refusal, the quiet eloquence of silence, or the directness of vocal protest, the article reveals the intricate and consequential interplay between these dynamics and the structuring and affective forms of secular and religio-racial norms in everyday life. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Secularism and Race-Religion Entanglements)

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

Genealogy, Volume 10, Issue 2 (June 2026) – 36 articles

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI