The Minorities at Risk Data Generation and Management Project (MAR) is a University of Maryland, College Park

University of Maryland, College Park

The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...

 based research project that monitors and analyzes the status and conflicts of politically-active minority

Minority group

A minority is a sociological group within a demographic. The demographic could be based on many factors from ethnicity, gender, wealth, power, etc. The term extends to numerous situations, and civilizations within history, despite the misnomer of minorities associated with a numerical statistic...

 ethnicities and religious sects

Sect

A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...

 in all countries with a current population of at least 500,000. The project is designed to provide information in a standardized format while retaining a neutral point of view in order to aid comparative research

Comparative research

Comparative research is a research methodology in the social sciences that aims to make comparisons across different countries or cultures. A major problem in comparative research is that the data sets in different countries may not use the same categories, or define categories differently .-...

 and contribute to the understanding of conflicts involving relevant groups. While MAR is comparable to the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization

Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization

The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization , formed in 11 February 1991, in The Hague, is an international organization of political organisations and governments representing self-proclaimed "indigenous peoples, minorities, and unrecognised or occupied territories". The organization...

(UNPO), it differs both in purpose and scope. Whereas the UNPO advocates change to benefit the minorities at risk and is quite small in terms of information for the public to view, MAR provides accurate information on more than 284 groups, (the MAR database and codebook as well as detailed historical chronologies) available to educate researchers, public officials, journalists, students, activists, and anyone interested.

MAR tracks groups on political, economic, and cultural dimensions thereby going into much greater depth than the average UNPO report. The project also maintains analytic summaries of group histories, risk assessments, and group chronologies for each group.

External links

• MAR Project
• Minority Group Assessments -- MAR Project website