scholarly journals Oka Day as an institution of power: kingship, chieftaincy and the community day in contemporary Yorubaland

Africa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 91 (5) ◽  
pp. 790-809
Author(s):  
Allen Hai Xiao ◽  
Sunday Abraham Ogunode
Keyword(s):  
Community Development ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Spatial Thinking ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Social Clubs ◽  
History Narratives

AbstractThis article provides a case study of a Nigerian community day celebration as a constellation of power dynamics in which kingship, chieftaincy and local politics are intertwined. Complementing the interpretations of the community day as a festival and a community development initiative, this research approaches Oka Day as an institution of powers that is invoked by the king but also incorporates chiefs, social groups, invited guests from beyond Oka and local audiences. Indebted to geographies of powers, we take nuanced power practices seriously, illustrated as twisted spatialities of powers embodied in architecture, rituals and oral history narratives. The new framing of powers makes two contributions to the existing interpretations of chieftaincy in Africa: it sheds light on chiefs’ subtle and strategic practices in response to the ‘powers of reach’ exercised by the king and through the organizational institution of Oka Day; and it also demonstrates how actors beyond the locality, including politicians, social clubs and diasporic groups, are drawn into the institution of Oka Day while mediating the powers of reach. Drawing from an analysis of spatialities of powers, we suggest that a spatial thinking facilitates our understandings of the ‘microphysics’ of kingship and chieftaincy in contemporary Yorubaland.

Remembered resilience: oral history narratives and community resilience in agroforestry systems

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 252-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Osterhoudt
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Ecological Factors ◽  
Community Resilience ◽  
Agroforestry Systems ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Symbolic Resources ◽  
Shared History ◽  
History Narratives

AbstractIn this article, I consider how local oral history narratives provide smallholder farmers with both material and symbolic resources in adapting to climate change. I draw from the case study of an agrarian village in Madagascar that was struck by a destructive category 3 cyclone. In the weeks following the storm, oral history knowledge occupied an increasingly visible role within the community, as younger farmers interacted with elders to hear tales of past storms. Through these shared accounts, people discussed specific techniques on how to cope with environmental uncertainty. They also created a sense of shared history, which provided individuals across generations an entry point into the local historical record. Overall, the process of sharing oral history accounts can contribute to community resilience, with resiliency encompassing not only technical or ecological factors, but also the more affective realms of shared legacies, hope and belonging.

Fostering Democracy? Associations and Local Politics in Nineteenth-Century The Hague

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-58
Author(s):  
Jan Hein Furnée
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Local Democracy ◽  
Social Clubs ◽  
Robert Putnam ◽  
The Hague ◽  
Residential Capital ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This case study of the Dutch residential capital of The Hague explores the relationship between nineteenth-century associational life and local politics, testing the well-known argument of scholars such as Robert Putnam, that high numbers and high levels of participation in local voluntary associations are often positively correlated with processes of local political democratization. A quantitative analysis of (double) membership in the city's most prominent social clubs and cultural associations, and a qualitative analysis of the political culture within these clubs, offer a better understanding regarding why the impact of a vibrant local associational culture on local democracy has not always been as positive as political scientists have often tended to assume.

Water Problems and Community Development: A Case Study of Igbo-Ora Community of Oyo State, Nigeria.

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 001-008 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. I. Ikhile ◽  
◽  
Kofo A. Aderogba ◽  
Clement O. Ogunnowo ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Community Development ◽  
Water Problems

Case Study: Rome's House of Memory and History: The Politics of Memory and Public Institutions

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Portelli
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
Political Events ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ambitious Program ◽  
The City

This article centers around the case study of Rome's House of Memory and History to understand the politics of memory and public institutions. This case study is about the organization and politics of public memory: the House of Memory and History, established by the city of Rome in 2006, in the framework of an ambitious program of cultural policy. It summarizes the history of the House's conception and founding, describes its activities and the role of oral history in them, and discusses some of the problems it faces. The idea of a House of Memory and History grew in this cultural and political context. This article traces several political events that led to the culmination of the politics of memory and its effect on public institutions. It says that the House of Memory and History can be considered a success. A discussion on a cultural future winds up this article.

Case Study: The Southern Oral History Program

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacquelyn Dowd Hall ◽  
Kathryn Nasstrom
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
American South ◽  
New Era ◽  
Chapel Hill ◽  
Integral Role ◽  
The American South ◽  
And Gender ◽  
History Department ◽  
The University

A case study of the southern oral history program is the essence of this chapter. From its start in 1973 until 1999, the Southern Oral History Program (SOHP) was housed by the history department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), rather than in the library or archives, where so many other oral history programs emerged. The SOHP is now part of UNC's Center for the Study of the American South, but it continues to play an integral role in the department of history. Concentrating on U.S. southern racial, labor, and gender issues, the program offers oral history courses and uses interviews to produce works of scholarship, such as the prize-winning book Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World. The folks at the Institute for Southern Studies tried to combine activism with analysis, trying to figure out how to take the spirit of the movement into a new era.

scholarly journals Locating Power in Platformization: Music Streaming Playlists and Curatorial Power

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512093329
Author(s):  
Robert Prey
Keyword(s):  
Structural Dynamics ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Music Market ◽  
Music Streaming ◽  
Platform Economy

Where does the “power” of platformization reside? As is widely recognized, platforms are matchmakers which interface between different markets or “sides.” This article analyzes platform power dynamics through three of the most important markets that Spotify—the leading audio streaming platform—is embedded within: the music market; the advertising market; and the finance market. It does so through the lens of the playlist. Playlists can be seen as a central example of how platforms like Spotify employ curation or “curatorial power” to mediate markets in the attempt to advance their own interests. At the same time, playlists are an outcome of the conflicting pressures and tensions between these markets. As such, they provide a lens through which to view broader structural dynamics within the platform economy. As this case study of Spotify demonstrates, platform “power” is an always unstable and shifting outcome of the ongoing attempt to coordinate between various markets and actors.

Functional and sociocultural attitudes of code-switching and its relation to the meaning-making process: The case of dubbing Kim Possible into Arabic

2021 ◽  
pp. 136700692110194
Author(s):  
Rashid Yahiaoui ◽  
Marwa J Aldous ◽  
Ashraf Fattah
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Sociocultural Attitudes ◽  
Switching Patterns ◽  
Switching Functions ◽  
Switching Type ◽  
Lebanese Arabic ◽  
Research Questions

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The aim of this study is to investigate the sociolinguistic functions of code-switching and its relation to the meaning-making process by using the animated series Kim Possible as a case study. Design/methodology/approach: This study employs Muysken’s taxonomy to draw on code-switching patterns in lexico-grammar in relation to human behavior. The study also uses the functional approaches of Muysken and Appel and Gumperz as binary investigatory frameworks to locate interlingual and intralingual code-switching particularities and to elaborate on code-switching functions. Data and analysis: The analysis encompasses 48 episodes. Firstly, we extracted and transcribed code-switching occurrences in light of Muysken’s typology episode-by-episode and categorized them according to their code-switching type (interlingual or intralingual). Secondly, we quantified the occurrences according to their syntactic form to make more systematic claims about code-switching patterns. Next, we triangulated the patterns by examining the context of utterances and extralinguistic factors in the original series vis-à-vis the dubbed version to draw upon information beyond the structure or grammar. Findings/conclusions: The Arabic dubbed version was able to communicate the characters’ cosmopolitan diversity, which correlates with the series’ sense of linguistic modernity and humor. At the same time, the Arabic version was able to portray the extralinguistic reality of Lebanon and its multi-linguistic tapestry. Originality: This research is original because it focuses on Lebanese-Arabic, a dialect seldom discussed in the context of translation. The research also examines language variations in the context of dubbed discourse, where code-switching is integrally pertinent to visual-signs and the cultural background of characters. Significance/implications: The study recognizes the intricacy of code-switching as a reflective phenomenon of social reality and power dynamics; therefore, it contributes in the fields of translation and sociolinguistics.

scholarly journals From the ghetto to the Gulag, from the ghetto to Israel: Soviet collaboration trials against the Shargorod ghetto’s Jewish Council

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Occupied Territories ◽  
Oral History Interviews ◽  
Mitigating Circumstances

Beginning in 1944, Soviet authorities arrested former Jewish Council members of different ghettos and put them on trial for collaboration with the Axis powers. This case study examines the 1944 trials of Meir Teich and Isaak Sherf, two leading figures of the Shargorod ghetto’s Jewish administration. Drawing on trial documents, oral history interviews and memoirs, this article focuses on two aspects: how Soviet courts selectively accepted support for the partisans as mitigating circumstances, and how survivor networks among the witnesses influenced the trials. These aspects are discussed in the context of the (re-)Sovietization of formerly occupied territories, in this case Transnistria, the Romanian occupation zone.

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