In what ways has occupation influenced identity?

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Request for Question Clarification by politicalguru-ga on 04 Jul 2006 00:31 PDT

Which occupation, whose identity?

In many languages, the names of occupations have become family names,
certainly a form of identification.
A list of such English occupations would be much longer than these few
that occur to me at the moment:  smith, miller, arrowsmith, fletcher,
wright, wheelwright, weaver, spinner, farmer, shepherd, singer, cantor
(maybe not English), priest (hmm?), sexton, ...

As the Romans said:  "Nomen est omen."

Oh, funny Mayoarin, I though of "occupation" as one land taking over
another's territory (say, in Iraq or Palestine), and you thought of
profession...

And that form of occupation did not in the least occur to me!
Of course, a Politicalguru naturally would think in those terms, and
probably correctly.
Seems to me that around the world that kind of occupation has seldom
and only very slowly changed the invaded populaces' sense of identity,
perhaps even strengthened it.
For $2.00 ($1.50) I don't know if you want to try to answer about
that, but I would be very interested.

Cheers (and keep your fingers crossed this evening ("Halt die Daumen!").

I'm pretty sure occupation by any invaders doesn't really redefine the
whole identity of people but rather mix the new identity with the old
one. This influence can occur in almost every way.

There is many exemple of this in history.

Romans, when they conquered many countries came with civil
technologies that were pretty advanced so the peolple would rapidly
see that the invasion was mostly positive. Also, Romans were smart
enough to bring the counquered's gods in their pantheon along their
own so the peolple would not revolt over religious fanatism. This
helped redefine the identity of the conquered but the conquerer also
mixed their identity.

Great-Britain conquered many countries to expand their power.
Of those conquered you can count the native americans. You can clearly
say that native americans are still a distinct culture even today. But
Native american also gave many influences to their european
conquerors. For exemple, many europeans smoke.

Another good example would be the conquest of Quebec during the 7 year
war in 1759. Even today, people from Quebec still speak mostly french.
They are catholic and they try to make a point of their distinct
culture. On the other hand, they must admit they have a culture very
integrated with the english-canadians and americans.

As you can see occupation can touch almost every aspect of a cultural
identity. In most cases, when a culture conquer another culture, a mix
occur and some part of both culture come together to form a new one.
In any case, the full integration of a culture would probably be a
very long process (think millenium)

I hope this helps

wisearchangel-ga on 07 Jul 2006 09:34 PDT said: 	  	

 " I'm pretty sure occupation by any invaders doesn't really redefine .."

  You are right, the wise one.

  It does not redefine it but it does change it - profoundly.


  I happen to live in a small country, which was invaded and occupied 
  repeatedly - over the centuries.

 (I can write about it, if our first-time-asker explain what he means)

 It may be quite useful for our US audience to hear what it feels like to
 be occupied by a hostile power 

(be it 

American Revolution - Insane King George III of England
The Complete History of The American Revolution and the Revolutionary War.
www.americanrevolution.com/KingGeorge3rd.htm


OR  
nazi occupation ( search term ) 

The Nazi Occupation of Poland
Occupation of Denmark - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany - Wikipedia, the free
Survival and Resistance: The Netherlands Under Nazi Assault

http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/netherlands.html

or communist occupation ( search term )
MAP OF TIBET AND ADJACENT AREAS UNDER CHINESE COMMUNIST OCCUPATION
Historians to reconsider Russian occupation of Eastern Europe ...
Naimark was astonished to find in the Russian Communist Party archives
confirmation of ...


or ( US occupation -- a new search term )
US occupation
Hawaiian Kingdom - The US Occupation
www.hawaiiankingdom.org/us-occupation.shtml

IRC | Noam Chomsky: The Future of Iraq and US Occupation
The Future of Iraq and US Occupation. By Noam Chomsky | January 2005.
Printer-friendly Version. Noam Chomsky discusses the future of Iraq at
IRC's 25th ...
www.irc-online.org/content/chomsky/2005chomsky-iraq.php

Having lived under the foreign rule - 
I can testify that it affects one's identity and outlook:  

 " I never was thinking of shooting anyone - until my country was invaded" 

  (of course in our best interest - is there any other reason ever ?)

  In the end, I did not. I left - which was perhaps a better solution,
   I immigrated to US - and I am horiffied to see what 'my new country' ,
   is doing under neocon rule.