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Building on the evidence of social impacts generated by sport events, there is a need for research to identify strategies suitable for maximizing event benefits for disparate interest communities. This paper investigates the opportunities and strategic means for sustaining and leveraging social event benefits arising from intercommunity sport events in the ethnically divided Sri Lanka. Following an interpretive mode of inquiry, findings are derived from the analysis of two focus groups and 35 in-depth interviews with Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim and international event stakeholders. To maximize event benefits, findings suggest that event organizers and host communities focus strategically on children as catalysts for change; increase ethnically mixed team sport activities; provide event-related sociocultural opportunities; combine large-scale events with regular sport-for-development programs; and engage in social, cultural, political and educational event leverage. By implementing these strategies and tactics, intercommunity sport events are likely to contribute to local capacity building and inclusive social change, which can have flow-on effects to the wider community. These findings extend the academic literature on strategic event planning, management and leverage, as they provide a focus on community event leverage for social purposes in a developing world context--an area which has thus far received limited empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration has become a significant issue in many countries and it has been highly debated topic in economic and social policy areas. Only recently, the impact of migration on the culture, norms, values and development of creative society had begun to catch the attention of policymakers and researchers. Migrant contributions to the society are seen not only as significant component to economies and their labour markets, but also as an important factor in stimulating creativity and innovation. This paper analyses this inter-relatedness and presents empirically-based arguments in support of the position that a migration can be regarded as the main prerequisite for the creation of a knowledge economy and as providing the potential for development of creative and inclusive society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using ethnographic data on Boston's Haymarket Square, this paper demonstrates how public space and a market opportunity can generate solidarity among people of different ethnicities in the form of a cosmopolitan canopy, and how a single ethnic tradition can nurture an open, public multi-ethnic environment. The paper illustrates how Haymarket vendors' treatment of ethnic and racial difference is actively deployed in the construction of new groups that largely transcend such distinctions. This article outlines the mechanisms by which a cosmopolitan canopy is sustained, and how it serves a constructive social function within the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New migration flows to Mexico are challenging long-established sociocultural configurations. So far, most studies on immigrants in Mexico have focused on singular ethno-national groups rather than paying attention to the intermingling of people. This paper presents an examination of diversification processes occurring in Guadalajara, Mexico. We contend that these are particularly strained because of the continuing frictions with which the country has to deal due to its already-existing diversity. The many forms of discrimination and racism that many Mexicans are subjected to by their co-nationals are often extended to new arrivals. The increasing complexity of migrant inflows challenges established forms of prejudice in everyday interactions. We argue in this paper that the use of superdiversity as a lens to study diversification processes allows us to better understand the changing dynamics currently taking place in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks comparatively at the process of social change and its impact on local community cohesion in two Melbourne suburbs, ‘Northburb’ and ‘Greenburb’. The two localities are geographically close, part of the same local government area and both highly ethnically diverse, but considerably different in terms of their socio-economic and ethnic profiles. Based on ethnographic data collected through individual interviews, focus groups and participant observation in 2012–2013, the paper shows how the process of deindustrialization and the switch to service economy over the past decades took distinctly different turns in the two localities. Our data suggest that the processes of social change seem to have diminished local community cohesion in both localities. In Northburb, gentrification has contributed to socio-economic polarization, while Greenburb has lagged behind in socio-economic indicators and experienced ethnic fragmentation due to a considerable influx of new immigrant groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper uses analysis of interview transcripts and notes from participant observation to explore white reactions to the introduction of diversity management in a large public sector workplace in Glasgow. The paper analyses white talk about racial equality in a social context where the shaming, exclusion and demonization of disadvantaged groups including migrants, asylum seekers and the poor have ensured that issues of entitlement and race are highly charged. It is suggested that in such contexts diversity management is being wielded as a new kind of civility by middle-class people invested in the objectification of poor whites. This represents a form of class conflict over belonging within the body of whiteness that risks reinforcing rather than redressing racial resentments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Canada's accelerated expansion of international university enrollments from the perspective of 72 international students and graduates from 29 countries, who participated in semi-structured interviews conducted in the four provincial capitals of Canada's Atlantic region. Addressing the emerging campus diversity and incoming students' immigration potential, this research illustrates that students encounter campus dynamics and immigration policy landscapes shaped by long-spanning histories of race and ethnic relations, by current multi-scalar iterations of economic development, and by regional reorganizations of immigration and higher education in Canada. In turn, the ways students experience and negotiate their positions within these contexts is directed by multigenerational projects of geographic and social mobility, to include key lessons learned about the possibility of long-term settlement in Canada. Set in less populous urban centers in Canada's Atlantic provinces, the outcomes reported here also provide an opportunity to explore international students' experiences outside Canada's large metropolitan areas and more predictable sites of education internationalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, neighbourhood studies on ethnic diversity and social trust have revealed inconclusive findings. In this paper, three innovations are proposed in order to systemise the knowledge about neighbourhood ethnic diversity and the development of social trust. First, it is proposed to use a valid trust measure that is sensitive to the local neighbourhood context. Second, the paper argues for a conception of organically evolved neighbourhoods, rather than using local administrative units as readily available proxies for neighbourhood divisions. Thirdly, referring to intergroup contact theory and group-specific effects of diversity, the paper challenges the notion that ethnic diversity has overwhelmingly negative effects on social trust. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyzes the mediating impact social network (instrumental & expressive) ties on the relation between workplace diversity and well-being of employees. A sample of 113 was collected from private sector organizations belonging to ICT and finance industries located in Delhi-NCR region of India. Diversity was found to be positively associated with well-being. Using linear regression program PROCESS it found that competence trust significantly mediated the relation between diversity and well-being, while benevolence, integrity and predictability trust were found not to be significant mediators. Implications for the policymakers have been suggested to take into consideration the interpersonal trust in order to effectively implement the policies aimed at promoting the wellbeing of the employees while maintaining a healthy diversity in the organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses disaster resilience in the context of disaster risk reduction. It focuses on how the Nepali state, through disaster risk reduction and resilience strategies, is reinventing the ‘diversity’ question in Nepal. Disaster risk management and disaster risk reduction are being used to create a specific form of national identity that paradoxically both segregates and excludes ethnic and traditional communities through a variety of strategies of paternalism and inclusivity. The emerging state-led use of exploiting and capturing ethnic and indigenous ‘traditional knowledge’ is part of the government’s disaster risk strategy. This is sanctioned by multilateral bodies, which further legitimates subtle practices of exclusion through state-led monitoring. This has wider implications for contested narratives on Nepali democracy and federalism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper challenges the idea that living in a ‘problem’ neighbourhood strains neighbour relations, by examining the relation between narratives of dissociation and practices of neighbouring. Several studies have suggested that confrontations with ethnoracial diversity, disorder and stigma would cause residents to withdraw from interacting with their fellow-residents. Based on a mixed-method study in a ‘problem’ and a ‘problem-free’ neighbourhood, the paper shows that, while narratives of dissociation may suggest withdrawal, such talk does not necessarily reflect in practices of neighbouring. First, negative neighbourhood talk can go together with efforts to connect with fellow-residents. Secondly, perceptions of diversity or disorder do not matter much when neighbour relations evolve around chance encounters and norms of good neighbouring. Inferring practices from narratives risks reproducing images of deprived neighbourhoods as dysfunctional and applying a double standard in explaining distant neighbour relations, while misrecognising the ways in which residents do maintain neighbourly relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Histories are re-writing what Sherna Berger Gluck famously called the ‘master historical narrative’ of the US WLM, especially in historicizing the efforts of feminists of colour. This paper echoes this by exploring how white feminists embraced racial justice politics, particularly during the early 1970s, when it is often assumed that white feminists failed to enact racial justice. In historicizing the efforts of white anti-imperialist feminists in greater Boston, I maintain that the ‘master historical narrative’ wrote not only black, Chicana and multiracial feminisms out of history, but that it skewed our understanding of the race politics of white, US feminists. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper aims to quantitatively uncover ethnic diversity in multi-ethnic Land of Papua, an Indonesian region with a large inflow of migration and rising ethno-based movement, consisting of the Provinces of Papua and West Papua. It produces statistics on ethnic diversity in the Land of Papua, utilizing the tabulation provided by Statistics-Indonesia based on the raw, 100 per cent, data set of the 2010 population census. It uses three measurements of ethnic diversity. First is ethnic fractionalization index, showing the degree of ethnic heterogeneity. Second is ethnic polarization index, examining the existence of few relatively large ethnic groups of almost the same sizes. Third is a comparison of percentages between migrant and Papuan groups. It finds that the Land of Papua is ethnically very heterogeneous, but not polarized. West Papua is more heterogeneous, but Papua is more polarized. However, seen from a dichotomy between migrants and Papuans, West Papua is very polarized. In-migration may have increased the probability of having ethnic conflicts in the region but does not change the probability of the intensity of the conflicts. Therefore, ethnic conflicts should be anticipated whenever making programmes that involve in-migrants or entice people to migrate into the Land of Papua. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper gives a retrospective of the events in the Balkans in the last 20 years. Hence, it indicates the problems, the progress and the challenges in terms of respecting and promoting diversity. The Western Balkans has always been a very interesting region with many challenges during different historical periods. If we take into consideration all the differences and diversities in this region, then this shouldn't strike us as surprising. During history the Balkan region has always been a crossroads of many events, conflicts, changes and destructive occurrences. In order to understand the connection between ethnic and the religious diversity, as well as the future of the Western Balkan countries in terms of Euro-Atlantic integration, we need to provide some information about the political, economic and social changes in these countries during the past, especially in the last two decades. To get a better understanding of all the processes and events we need to take a look at the 90s of the last century. This period was one of the most important turning points in international relations. By the end of the Cold War there were two blocks within the societies - The Western (capitalist) and the Eastern (communist), and an agreement for the Balkans to be a balance between these two blocks. This fact was important for the promotion of the concept of the nation-state, which refers generally to both of the blocks. However, changes such as the dissolution and breakdown of the USSR and Yugoslavia, as well as the official Eastern bloc fiasco, brought an increase in the individual identity of the citizens living in these countries. This was the beginning of a new era to be characterized by conflicts, wars, refugees, humanitarian crises, a large number of casualties and injured people, because of the idea that the emerging countries, especially from the Balkan region, should be nation-state countries, i.e. composed of a nation thereby ignoring the ethnic and religious differences or the unrecognized diversity of the citizens of different ethnic groups living in these countries. The establishment of the Euro-Atlantic integration concept as a key national and state priority of almost every country in this region led to the understanding of differences as an asset, and not as an obstacle for the faster integration to the EU and NATO. This fact undoubtedly contributed to the establishment of the criteria for membership, and in particular to the promotion of the rights and freedoms of minorities as most important for the integration process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the slow but steady transformation in how Coptic identity has been articulated and expressed since the mid-1990s. In the past, Copts were careful not to challenge a particular narrative of national unity, which formally included Copts in the Egyptian nation (‘religion is for God, and the nation is for all’), but which in practice imposed a kind of public invisibility on them. Today, a growing number of activists are seeking a public identity for Copts, a form of the ‘politics of recognition’ and the ‘right to difference’. This is a controversial approach within the Coptic community, as well as between the Copts and the Muslim majority and the Egyptian state, and to some extent has required new vehicles for Coptic self-organization and expression, outside the older ‘neo-millet’ institutions that had governed Coptic life for decades. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Even in divided societies, people from different ethnic backgrounds engage each other and an overwhelming majority of this cross-ethnic interaction does not yield conflict, but rather cooperation. Whereas the literature focuses on ethnic diversity as an impediment to cooperation, this study aims to test whether social networks can overcome the challenges posed by ethnic diversity in collective action. This paper’s contribution is to examine the impact of social ties vis-à-vis ethnic difference on cooperative behavior. I analyze data collected from surveys and behavioral economics experimental play of 188 rural Malawians. I find ethnic difference (or sameness) does not influence whether subjects choose to trust their game partner but being socially connected to a game partner increases the odds that a subject will cooperate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the determinants of ethno-religious intermarriage in Quebec over a century as an indication of integration in a province where minority/majority relations are distinct from the rest of Canada. Drawing on previous work by Kalmijn and others outside of Canada, we distinguish between cultural preferences and structural factors and continue a long tradition of such studies within Canada by using the manuscript censuses. We use data from 1881 (entire census), 1911 and 1941 censuses (newly available CCRI samples), to examine ethno-religious intermarriage among couples who were married at the time of the census for three successive generations thirty years apart. Using multilevel analysis we try to distinguish between the role of individual level determinants such as the ethno-religious identity, knowledge of French and English, level of education and immigrant status as well as characteristics of the areas in which these couples lived, such as type of milieu (rural and urban), sex ratio and degree of cultural diversity, separately for men and women. We confirm the importance of contextual variables both on their own and in addition to spouses' characteristics. The models are relatively stable over the entire period and point to the importance of structural factors as well as the ethnic diversity of the area at the contextual level; cultural preferences also play a role, most especially among the Jewish. British Catholics (mostly Irish) show a particularly high propensity to marry across language and religious lines, reflecting their special position in Quebec society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for a pluralistic, experientially constructed self-concept of autonomy that is embodied in self-feelings and is motivational!) defined. Such a motivational model of autonomy is proposed in place of the commonly accepted personality-based model, grounded in the analytic tradition in psychology. Using the self-concept approach of the interpretative school as a springboard, the paper reconceptualizes autonomy as constructed within specific social conditions. On the basis of female experience, autonomy is conceived of as a self-authoring experience emanating from the struggle to meet one's needs and achieve one's significant goals. The notions of struggle and significant goals are suggested as key concepts viable for a motivational theory of autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International migration contributes to increasing cultural diversity in many European cities. Historically, migration studies have focused on the integration of immigrants foregrounding race/ethnicity and identity issues, limiting our understanding of intercultural diversity. A new paradigm focusing on relational patterns among groups is emerging, highlighting the importance of mutual relations, interactions and influences among residents of different origins and backgrounds, including the experience of both immigrants and autochthonous populations. The notions of superdiversity and conviviality have significantly contributed to this debate. This paper discusses how both were methodologically operationalized in multi-sited ethnographies carried out in Lisbon and Granada, during 2009–2012. Superdiversity and conviviality are the main theoretical frameworks used to understand how interculturality is lived and experienced at the local level. We reflect on their strengths and weaknesses, unpacking common assumptions about race, ethnicity and culture, specifically looking at the negotiation of difference in intercultural events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The population complexity associated with superdiversity brings a wide range of challenges for social welfare providers. Commentators have outlined concerns about the ability of service providers to meet the welfare needs of ever diversifying populations and point to potential problems in identifying the nature of need in rapidly changing superdiverse neighbourhoods as conventional approaches to consultation based around ethnicity become practically impossible. Using data collected in the West Midlands, which explored maternity service needs from the perspectives of new migrants and maternity professionals, some key barriers to effective welfare delivery in superdiverse areas are explored. The paper outlines the emergence of two challenges important in shaping new migrant access to maternity care in an era of superdiversity – novelty and newness – and proposes further research to examine the extent to which these challenges are faced in other social welfare services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the suburban night through the recent cultural phenomenon of the Summer Night Market in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. Night markets have existed in China since the 8th century, and have followed Chinese migration, first to Southeast Asia, and more recently, to Canada. Richmond, because of significant Asian settlement in the 1990s, is known as the ‘new Chinatown’ ethnoburb of Metro Vancouver. Its night market is a weekend evening event where predominantly Asian vendors sell clothing, food and a range of other products to the Chinese community and others attracted by the spectacle or seeking a bargain. The Richmond night-time landscape contrasts sharply with the 24/7 cultures of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China. But the Richmond market makes possible a cultural use of night-time space – for strolling and meeting at night – in a suburban landscape that is quiet after 18:00 h. In the last three years, the market has been re-branded as a multicultural, rather than Chinese, space. We explore the role of this market in the night-time leisure culture of Metro Vancouver, through themes of the changing nature of the suburbs, suburban night places, and the (messy) question of authenticity in an age (and place) of ongoing migration and super-diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The increasing ethnic diversity of the UK has been mirrored by growing public awareness of multicultural issues, alongside developments in academic and government thinking. This paper explores the contested meanings around ethnic identity/ies in community settings, drawing on semi-structured interviews with staff from Children's Centres and allied agencies conducted for a research project that examined the relationship between identity and the participation of parents/carers in services in northeast England. The research found that respondents were unclear about, especially, white ethnic identities, and commonly referred to other social categorizations, such as age, nationality, and circumstances such as mobility, when discussing service users. While in some cases this may have reflected legitimate attempts to resist over-ethnicizing non-ethnic phenomena, such constructions coexisted with assumptions about ethnic difference and how it might translate into service needs. These findings raise important considerations for policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the contact hypothesis by assessing differences in generalized trust among participants of Turkish non-profit organizations and ethnically mixed organizations in Amsterdam. Most voluntary sector research takes the contact hypothesis at its core and assumes that the concentration of ethnic minorities in non-profit organizations is detrimental to learning generalized trust. These studies assume that diversity within organizations is better for developing generalized norms without examining participation in ethnically homogenous organizations. I address this gap in the literature by analysing the variance of generalized trust among organizations and their participants. I achieve this through the analysis of purposively designed survey data. The findings suggest that a contact mechanism at voluntary organizations is problematic and should not be asserted uncritically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A persistent theme in the British and international debates about immigration and diversity is the controversial claim that living in diverse areas has negative consequences for intergroup attitudes and community relations. In the present paper we test this claim by investigating the impact of neighbourhood diversity and self-reported intergroup contact on orientations (outgroup attitudes and social distance) toward one religious outgroup: Muslims. Respondents were both White British majority (N=867) and non-Muslim ethnic minority (N=567) residents of neighbourhoods in England which varied in their proportion of ethnic minority residents. We tested both direct and indirect (via intergroup contact) effects of diversity on outgroup orientations toward Muslims. Results show that individuals living in more ethnically diverse areas-regardless of whether they are White British members of the majority or non-Muslim members of ethnic minorities-have more positive contact with Muslims, with positive consequences for intergroup relations with Muslims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasingly diverse character of London's multicultural landscape has shaped how migrants interact with(in) the different spaces of the city. This process entails both settled and incoming migrants' participation in place-making; a mutual imbrication that might promote the long-settled migrants' evocation of a lost terrain. This article unpacks that process by looking at the Latin American social football scene of South London, specifically a space known asla cancha(the pitch). This was founded by Chilean political refugees during the 1970s and it has incorporated Latin American ‘economic’ migrants and ‘local’ Britons through time. Starting from the evocation of a lost ‘golden age’ ofla cancha, the paper unpacks this space's contested, complex and changing nature. It presents diaspora space, community and belonging as lived processes. Through this depiction, the assumptions of homogeneous and isolated migrant communities are challenged, as are the diaspora's nostalgic claims that also emerge from them. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Studying the racially and ethnically diverse Muslim minority population in any US city must take into account the racialized landscape prevailing in the city. Milwaukee is a highly racially segregated city, where residential patterns have been shaped by decades of immigration by various ethnic and racial groups, and by restrictions on residential housing, as well as industrialization, deindustrialization and suburbanization. This paper presents findings of an ethnographic research along with the results of a household survey of Muslims in Milwaukee in the context of Milwaukee's urban landscape. Muslims in Milwaukee are racially, ethnically and linguistically diverse. Their patterns of residence and of worship suggest the influence of not only segregation and the typical patterns of ethnic immigration but also clustering and dispersal. Patterns of residences also show the influence of not only Muslim leadership and organization but also of the racialized landscape of the city. Our survey provides a portrait of a community negotiating racial and ethnic differences and solidarities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A night out in the metropolis can offer a plethora of hedonistic experiences in urban spaces such as waterfront districts, shopping boulevards and cultural precincts. In stark contrast to this post-modern spectacle of contemporary nightlife are the mundane night-time activities that pervade the everyday spaces of ordinary people. Here, we are confronted with a tapestry of a different material culture—one that has evaded the lacklustre and homogeneous pattern of urban bars, pubs and clubs. This paper will illuminate the sociospatial dimensions of everyday (night)life in the neighbourhood of Toa Payoh Central, Singapore, and will demonstrate the resilience of urban informality in an increasingly formal and regulated global city like Singapore. It is contended that everyday (night)life has a significant role to play in the making of vibrant and liveable cities by helping to foster social sustainability in the forms of accessibility, tolerance, diversity and participation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper I respond to Samantha Vice's prescriptions for living morally as a white person in South Africa today. I allow that her 'How do I live in this strange place?' (2010) is convincing when read - probably against intent - as a descriptive account. It fails, though, in its attempt to provide an attractive set of moral prescriptions. I set out an argument against both shame and silence, focussing primarily on shame as I contend that the need to withdraw or keep silent follows from feeling ashamed. I argue that shame is experienced as a diminution of the self, whereas guilt is experienced as a burdening of the self by wrongful behaviour; the diminution of the self in shame experiences is intrinsically harmful, and instead of enabling the self to be moral, actually inhibits the moral instincts of a person by cutting the self off from other selves. In a group context this type of severance has unhealthy moral features, as well as negative consequences for inter-group relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary policy approaches to ‘cultural diversity’ are increasingly focusing on ‘the urban’, marking a considerable departure from configurations like biculturalism and multiculturalism in which the space of the nation was viewed as the key arena for the making of diverse and cohesive societies. In this context, this paper analyses the Intercultural City Project (ICP), a multicity planning initiative developed by the private consultancy Comedia, focusing on the ICP’s deployment in Auckland, New Zealand, where it was used to rethink issues surrounding diversity and urban planning. The analysis focuses on three key issues that emerge in the ICP: the targeting of cultural diversity and interaction; the rescaled ‘urban’ version of diversity; and the connections between this model of diversity and neo-liberal urban policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Italy is home to a population of second-generation children of first-wave migrants who are forming and becoming involved in various associations. If the first immigrant associations tended to struggle for recognition through engaging in social activities based on Italian associational structures, the second-generation associations tend to address fully the issue of citizenship and to cross local and sometimes national boundaries. This kind of strategy has proven crucial for youth that were schooled and socialized in Italian society but who encounter difficult prospects in social mobility and in seeing citizenship rights been granted. In their struggle, they contest and critique the representation that targets them as forever migrants, to enhance their access to economic resources, social participation and political representation. With this purpose in mind, they are also well connected through online networking. However, various members of these associations seem interested in realizing a practised citizenship within local everyday life more than on paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why does ethnic violence occur in some places but not others? This paper argues that the local ethnic configuration below the national level is an important determinant of how likely conflict is in any particular place. Existing studies of ethnicity and conflict focus on national-level fractionalization or dominance, but much of the politics surrounding ethnic groups' grievances and disputes takes place at a more local level. We argue that the existence of multiple ethnic groups competing for resources and power at the level of sub-national administrative regions creates a significant constraint on the ability of states to mitigate ethnic groups' grievances. This in turn increases the likelihood of conflict between ethnic groups and the state. In particular, we argue that diverse administrative regions dominated by one group should be most prone for conflict. Using new data on conflict and ethnic group composition at the region level, we test the theory and find that units with one demographically dominant ethnic group among multiple groups are most prone to conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture is a dynamic phenomenon which could experience radical changes that may gradually lead to serious damages. It may become weak or lose its validity as a result of internal social change, which could be due to overshadowing outside influences (Ogunbameru, 2000; 560). One of the effects of such changes or influences is the gradual extinction of some aspect of our traditional arts and crafts. The tradition of Aso-Oke (Yoruba hand-woven textiles) for clothing among the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria is thus an example of such changes and influences via the introduction of Western values, and internal social-cultural changes. This paper therefore traces the evolution of traditional aso-oke production and its uses among the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria, reveals the factors that are responsible for its declining patronage; suggests a revival of its traditional uses, and advocates for an alternative usage of Aso-Oke. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]