China's New Voices: Popular Music, Ethnicity, Gender, and Politics, 1978–1997. By Nimrod Baranovitch. [Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2003. xiv+332 pp. £16.95; $24.95. ISBN 0-520-23450-2.]

2004 ◽  
Vol 178 ◽  
pp. 518-519
Author(s):  
Rachel Harris

An enjoyable overview of the world of pop, rock and politics in Beijing, accessible for students of Chinese culture and popular music studies. This is an area that has been exceptionally well covered in the literature, and Baranovitch's claim to originality lies mainly in his focus on ethnicity and gender. The overview of the development of pop from 1978–97 does a useful job of drawing together the various strands, though most of this is very familiar from the writings of Geremie Barmé, Andrew Jones et al. We begin with the introduction of Gangtai (Hong Kong and Taiwan pop) to the mainland, led by Deng Lijun whose ‘coquettish nasal slides,’ Baranovitch rightly suggests, were more truly subversive in China in 1978 than any of the subsequent rock and punk styles. Baranovitch chronicles the rise of the xibeifeng, the Shaanbei folk-infused rock style, linking it into the xungun roots movement and Tiananmen. An interesting section on qiuge or ‘prison songs,’ popular in 1988, explores somewhat less well-known territory. We follow the rise of the commercial, the karaoke craze and Mao fever, and the co-option of at least some of the rebellious rockers by the state. Baranovitch enthusiastically reveals the significance of music in the political arena, and its ability to prefigure, even shape the political.

2021 ◽  

Historians of political thought and international lawyers have both expanded their interest in the formation of the present global order. History, Politics, Law is the first express encounter between the two disciplines, juxtaposing their perspectives on questions of method and substance. The essays throw light on their approaches to the role of politics and the political in the history of the world beyond the single polity. They discuss the contrast between practice and theory as well as the role of conceptual and contextual analyses in both fields. Specific themes raised for both disciplines include statehood, empires and the role of international institutions, as well as the roles of economics, innovation and gender. The result is a vibrant cross-section of contrasts and parallels between the methods and practices of the two disciplines, demonstrating the many ways in which both can learn from each other.


2014 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltán Bajmócy ◽  
Judit Gébert

According to the common sense, experts, backed up by scientific methods, describe the “possible states of the world” in a value-neutral way. Then, in the political arena, delegates build on these proposals, but also consider values and interests. The present paper attempts to revise such an understanding of local economic development (LED) and argues that many of the deficiencies deriving from such a view can be remedied by deliberative participation, which is not merely a theoretical necessity, but also a practical possibility.With regard to the issue of public participation and deliberation, the paper identifies two main approaches in the LED literature: the “political” and the “apolitical”, of which the latter is mainly characterised by economic theorising. We take a closer look at the “apolitical” approach and demonstrate that in fact it is very much political. Therefore, we call for the transgression of the borderline between politics and expertise in LED, and suggest a joint democratisation of these interrelated terrains. We argue that deliberative participation is able to contribute to the quality of both the expert proposals and the working of the politics.


2004 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 57-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna Gabaccia ◽  
Franca Iacovetta ◽  
Fraser Ottanelli

A decade-long project on the migration of Italian laborers around the world during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries points to the methodological challenges, theoretical debates, and some of the rewards of transnational analysis of class, ethnicity, and gender in the making of modern national states. Analyses of internationally mobile laborers historicize current transnational studies, problematize the historiography of national groups, and reveal how profoundly—and usually also how “nationally”—every multiethnic nation-state understood relations among ethnicity, race or color, class, and gender.


Author(s):  
Jorge Diego Sánchez ◽  

Tishani Doshi’s Girls Are Coming out of the Woods (2017) details the gender violences inflicted against women in India and the world to promote consciousness-raising, resistance, and subversion against interlocking systems of patriarchal power based on economy, ethnicity and gender. In this paper I firstly propose that Doshi promotes a transformative mode of resilience that guarantees socio-politic change rather than acceptance and submission. Secondly, I reflect on how Doshi’s description of the fear and gender violences systemically inflicted on women unveil counter-stories that exceed the portrayal of women as victims. Finally, I propose that Doshi’s presentation of resilient bodies embraces the interplanetary possibilities of creating constellations of co-resistance that allow the world to go forward instead of leaning back.


2006 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-43
Author(s):  
Lis Højgaard

Obtaining Power – power, gender and gendered actors in the political arena The gendering of politics in Denmark is no longer manifested in large differences in representation in important political positions or in unambiguous gender specific ways of doing politics or of climbing the political hierarchy. A discourse analysis of interviews with top male and female politicians shows that gender and political are woven together in multifarious ways, while revealing gendered patterns in discursive practices. There are no sharp differences in male and female politicians’ discourses on doing politics, on obtaining top positions in the political hierarchy or on gender and politics. Gendered patterns appear in the way male and female politicians combine discourses on how to get power and in their discourses on the meaning of gender in politics. The interviews revealed three discourses on how to get power: the fight, the party community and the personal stake. These represent distinct ways of characterizing the processes involved in becoming politically powerful. The interviews also revealed two main discourses on the meaning of gender: gender as an explicitly important dimension of political praxis, and gender as unimportant in relation to political praxis. The gendered agents combine these discourses in different ways, which opens different spaces of action and nego-tiation as well as different possibilities for positioning in the political field, possibilities that are reflected by a meta-discourse expressing processes of inclusion and exclusion in the field of politics.


Ars Aeterna ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-13
Author(s):  
Ivan Lacko

Abstract The paper addresses the complexity of social issues in contemporary American society through the prism of its reflection in theatre and literature. The characteristic features of American narratives and performatives are freedom and an almost utopian belief in diversity and social understanding. At the same time, the discussed works present a comprehensive look at social issues using a great variety of forms and genres, and appealing to the aesthetic sensitivity of different groups of recipients. In the face of future problems in the political arena, American art offers an interesting transatlantic perspective on the complexity of 21st-century issues which are relevant all over the world.


Author(s):  
Maren Klein

At a time when multiculturalism as an approach to managing diversity in society has been declared a failed policy in many western countries, Australia still seems committed to the approach as evidenced in public discourse and government declarations. The concept of interculturalism— promoted as a more appropriate approach to dealing with diversity in other parts of the world such as Europe and Canada—seemingly has no place in the Australian context. However, changes in the understanding of the concept, its application and degrees of commitment to it can also be observed in Australia. Not only has the meaning and execution of multiculturalism changed considerably over the years, there has also been vigorous debate and backlash, embodied in the political arena, by the (re) emergence of parties, and more recently, a variety of groupings with a nationalistic and/or nativist focus. More generally, a hardened attitude in public discourses concerning migration, social cohesion and national identity has developed over the last two decades. In the context of these developments, this article will trace the evolution of the Australian concept of multiculturalism and its concrete application focussing on the changes of the last two decades. A comparison of Australia’s purportedly unique type of multiculturalism and concept(s) of interculturalism to explore whether Australia’s nation-building project is indeed distinct from other countries’ diversity experience, or whether there is a place for interculturalism in Australia in an era of increasing mobility will conclude the article.


2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 911-940 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Sanders

Marriage today does not only involve private interests; it is also an important legal and political issue. The question of what marriage means today and whether it should be open to same-sex unions is under debate all over the world. In many countries, for example in Germany and the United States, such questions are not only debated in the political arena, but also in relation to constitutional law. This Article will trace the development of how marriage has been understood in relation to German constitutional law and critically discuss the law's approach to same-sex marriage.


2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Cloonan

Popular Music Studies (PMS) is now taught in over 20 higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK and numerous others across the world. This article outlines the constituent parts of PMS in the UK and questions its status as a discipline in its own right. It concludes by arguing that, having established itself, PMS will need to deal with two key pressures in modern academic life – those of conducting research and widening participation. In the former instance, PMS might have to be pragmatic, in the latter lies potential for radicalism.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Emad A. Abu-Shanab

E-government is a new phenomenon that improves public services provision to citizens, improves public sector performance, and enriches the political arena. Such ambitious objectives are not fully investigated in the literature, where most research focused on the service provision area. Improving public sector's performance is a vital dimension of e-government benefits and addresses the demands for cutting budgets and the financial situations facing many governments across the world. This study explored the e-government literature to summarize the reported contributions of e-government in relation to improving government performance. The second objective is to conduct an empirical test for our propositions based on public employees' perceptions regarding the set of benefits and contributions alleged by research. A sample of 107 public employees filled a survey summarizing the contributions of e-government based on 6 major dimensions. Conclusions and future work are stated at the end.


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