The Rastafari movement arose in Jamaica in the 1930s and spread from that small island to a variety of areas around the world. Having emerged as a response to colonial legacies, racialization, and racial oppression, the movement of marginalized black Jamaicans transcended its local Caribbean borders and became a way of life for people of very diverse cultural origins. Rastafari, born within a tradition of resistance in Jamaica, helped its adherents reconstruct their “black consciousness” and African heritage. The worldview of the Afro‐Caribbean diaspora challenged established colonial views in the struggle for social justice. Also for many people in the West, this worldview became a source of spirituality as well as a philosophy criticizing Eurocentric assumptions of superiority. The Rastafari philosophy spread in Europe, producing a multicultural phenomenon. I focus on Rastafari in Germany, its peculiarities and similarities to, as well as its differences from, the Jamaican movement. This study poses questions about identity in the Rastafari movement in Germany and explores crucial issues in Rastafari, such as identity transformation, identity work, selfidentification, representation, cultural resistance, and globalization. My argument is that “Africanness” and “black consciousness” can be adjusted and interpreted in a European context as a cluster of ideas and symbols that offer German Rastafarians identification and embody social justice.
Introduction: Belarusian IdentitiesBelarus, a post-Soviet state in the heart of Eastern Europe, is characterized by the complexity of historical and cultural impacts. Before it became independent in 1991, Belarus belonged to and was culturally infl uenced by diff erent regions, such as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian Empire and, fi nally, the Soviet Union. 364 The Russifi cation policy of the Russian Empire marginalized the Belarusian language, and the process of marginalization continued in Soviet Belarus. Offi cially, Belarus has two state languages -Belarusian and Russian. However, Russian is widely used, while Belarusian remains marginalized: only a minority of Belarusians speak the language in everyday life. This minority often evokes controversial reactions: it is either politicized and linked with opposition or associated with rural people. 365 Diff erent scholars describe Belarusian national identity as "malleable" 366 or as "less well developed" than in neighboring states. 367 It is evident, however, that two diff erent conceptions of national identity exist in Belarus. Nelly Bekus describes these opposing discourses as "the offi cial and the alternative Belarusianness." 368 This model suggests that the nation, which is ethnically Belarusian in the vast majority, is split into two diff erent 364 Cf. Thomas M. Bohn, Victor Šadurskij, and Albert Weber, eds., Ein weißer Fleck in Europa: Die Ima gination der Belarus als Kontaktzone zwischen Ost und West (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2011), 9-12. 365 The latter are also often associated with the so-called Trasyanka, a mixed Belarusian-Russian variety of the language.
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