Culture, Identity and Actor Training: Indigeneity in New Zealand's National Drama School

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-88
Author(s):  
PETER ZAZZALI
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Actor Training ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Fulbright Scholar ◽  
Ethnographic Methodology

How can indigeneity be understood through training actors in a colonial context? Do ‘Western’ acting schools misrepresent and exploit indigenous practices and cultural traditions towards reinforcing the settler state? Or does a given school's integration of such praxis and customs demonstrate inclusivity, equity and progressivism? At what point does incorporating indigeneity in actor training become a tokenistic appropriation of marginalized cultures? Drawn from fieldwork as a 2019 Fulbright scholar at Toi Whakaari, New Zealand's National Drama School, I intersect training with culture and society. Using the Acting Program as a case study, I deploy an ethnographic methodology to address the aforementioned questions by investigating Toi Whakaari's bicultural pedagogy while positioning it as a reflection of New Zealand's national identity. I especially explore the school's implementation of Tikanga Māori, the practices and beliefs of the country's indigenous peoples. I argue that while some questions remain, Toi Whakaari integrates Māori forms in a manner that is culturally responsible and pedagogically effective, thereby providing a model from which other drama schools can learn.

PROPER NOUNS IN TRANSLATION OF FAIRY TALES

2020 ◽  
pp. 293-298
Author(s):  
G. M. Fadeeva
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Proper Nouns ◽  
Cultural Adaption ◽  
Northern Russia

Fairy tales were and are passed down through generations wandering from nation to nation, particularly through translation (often via a relay language - Relaisübersetzen). The translation of proper nouns plays a crucial role in preserving the national identity of fairy tales as a linguacultural phenomenon that reflects the national worldview.A translator should take into account the peculiarities of a new recipient, which raises a question about the cultural adaption of fairy tales. These questions are considered on the basis of Russian-German translations of fairy tales including those of the indigenous peoples of northern Russia and the Siberian fairy tales that comprise nationally specific names and aptronyms.

scholarly journals Forging Political Cadres for Re-Peasantization: Escuela de Acción Campesina (Spain)

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 4061
Author(s):  
David Gallar-Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Training Process ◽  
Ethnographic Interviews ◽  
Participatory Workshop ◽  
Global North ◽  
Training Schools ◽  
Ethnographic Methodology ◽  
La Via Campesina

Bolstering the political formation of agrarian organizations has become a priority for La Vía Campesina and the Food Sovereignty Movement. This paper addresses the Spanish case study of the Escuela de Acción Campesina (EAC)—(Peasant Action School), which is a tool for political formation in the Global North in which the philosophical and pedagogical principles of the “peasant pedagogies” of the Training Schools proposed by La Vía Campesina are put into practice within an agrarian organization in Spain and in alliance with the rest of the Spanish Food Sovereignty Movement. The study was carried out over the course of the 10 years of activist research, spanning the entire process for the construction and development of the EAC. Employing an ethnographic methodology, information was collected through participant observation, ethnographic interviews, a participatory workshop, and reviews of internal documents. The paper presents the context in which the EAC arose, its pedagogical dynamics, the structure and the ideological contents implemented for the training of new cadres, and how there are three key areas in the training process: (1) the strengthening of collective union and peasant identity, (2) training in the “peasant” ideological proposal, and (3) the integration of students as new cadres into the organizations’ structures. It is concluded that the EAC is a useful tool in the ideological re-peasantization process of these organizations.

scholarly journals Whose Landscape Is It? Remapping Memory and History in Interwar Central Europe

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Nóra Veszprémi
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Mental Maps ◽  
Habsburg Empire ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Place Memory ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract After the collapse of the Habsburg Empire and the sanctioning of new national borders in 1920, the successor states faced the controversial task of reconceptualizing the idea of national territory. Images of historically significant landscapes played a crucial role in this process. Employing the concept of mental maps, this article explores how such images shaped the connections between place, memory, and landscape in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Hungarian revisionist publications demonstrate how Hungarian nationalists visualized the organic integrity of “Greater Hungary,” while also implicitly adapting historical memory to the new geopolitical situation. As a counterpoint, images of the Váh region produced in interwar Czechoslovakia reveal how an opposing political agenda gave rise to a different imagery, while drawing on shared cultural traditions from the imperial past. Finally, the case study of Dévény/Devín/Theben shows how the idea of being positioned “between East and West” lived on in overlapping but politically opposed mental maps in the interwar period. By examining the cracks and continuities in the picturesque landscape tradition after 1918, the article offers new insight into the similarities and differences of nation-building processes from the perspective of visual culture.

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s Essentials of Hindutva: A Study of Its Philosophical Elements to Hindu Nationalism

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-160
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Hindu Nationalism ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Rhetorical Style ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Jawaharlal Nehru ◽  
Extended Essay

In the early twentieth-century, the concepts of Hindutva, Samyavada or Nationalism and national identity, reconstructed amid currents of globalization and neo-colonialism. During this period, the calls for an independent India reached its height. While, Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru believed modern India’s strength depended on incorporating the solidarities of all Indians as they stood on the precipice of the postcolonial age, Veer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966), an ethnocentric nationalist, held that a strong Hindu nation was the only way to guarantee India’s security against the Muslim other and the British imperialism. Being the philosopher of Hindutva, Savarkar represented the ethno-nationalistic component to Hindu nationalism and looked to cultural motifs in order to unify the “true” people of India. He, therefore, wrote glorified histories of India and its millennia-old cultural traditions in his essays. This article analyzes and historically contextualizes the timing and the rhetorical style of V. D. Savarkar’s infamous extended essay “Essentials of Hindutva”. Received 9th December 2020; Revised 2nd March 2021; Accepted 20th March 2021

Ignoring evidence, producing inequities: public policies, disability and the case of Kaiowá and Guarani Indigenous children with disabilities in Brazil

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rayanne de Sales Lima ◽  
Andréa Borghi Moreira Jacinto ◽  
Rodrigo Arthuso Arantes Faria
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Children With Disabilities ◽  
Task Force ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Intersectoral Collaboration ◽  
Situational Analysis ◽  
Culturally Appropriate ◽  
Indigenous Children

Backround: An inter-institutional task force was brought together in 2018 to evaluate the irregular institutionalisation of Guarani and Kaiowá Indigenous children with disabilities in Dourados, in central-western Brazil.Aims and objectives: We draw on this case study to undertake a ‘situational analysis’ on the existence/absence and the use/non-use of evidence in the evaluation of public policies regarding Indigenous children with disabilities. By critically analysing concrete practices in the context of multilevel intersectoral dialogue and joint action of state bodies and civil society, we aim to highlight the effective and potential gains from using Culturally Appropriate Evidence (CAE) at the intersection of policies on children, Indigenous peoples and people with disabilities.Methods: We used a case study approach to analyse the precedents, development and ramifications of the task force, examine the legal framework regulating the rights of Indigenous children with disabilities, and describe the process of institutionalisation of Indigenous children in the Dourados region in the first two decades of the 21st century.Findings: We identified that inter-institutional and intersectoral collaboration enhances the development of CAE and the instrumentalisation of intersectoral alternatives.Discussion and conclusions: Although entrenched institutional bureaucratic culture, and the absence of mechanisms for participation and consultation with Indigenous peoples, can create obstacles to the formulation and use of these kinds of evidence in public policies, the production of evidence through the articulated and collaborative effort of agents can offer, when there are political conditions for it, the necessary conditions to develop culturally appropriate solutions for complex scenarios.<br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>The participation of policy beneficiaries is a necessary condition for the production of culturally qualified evidence;</li><br /><li>Institutional racism is an obstacle to the formulation and implementation of public policies based on culturally appropriate evidence;</li><br /><li>Intersector and inter-institutional links help to improve public service delivery and public policy implementation.</li></ul>

THE IMPORTANCE OF NATIONAL IDENTITY AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE IN KAZAKHSTAN

2021 ◽  
pp. 64-74
Author(s):  
T ABDRASSİLOV ◽  
Zh NURMATOV ◽  
K KALDYBAY
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Young People ◽  
Short Survey ◽  
The Subject ◽  
International University ◽  
Cultural Features

This study intends to explore the salience of national identity for young people from the perspective of ‘commitment and loyalty’ to their nation. The uniqueness of this study is that it provides the opportunity to observe the salience of civic, ethnic, and cultural features of national identity in Kazakhstan.This article has examined the importance of national identity theoretically and critically reviewed the literature on this theme. For the case study, a small survey was conducted in order to evaluate the role of inclusion in shaping national identity among young students.An academic implication of this research entails further research on the salience of belonging and sense of attachment to national identity among young people in other cosmopolitan cities of Kazakhstan, such as Almaty, Nur-Sultan and Atyrau, where the effect of globalisation is more prevalent and the Kazakh customs and traditions less noticeable in order to make a comparative evaluation.In this context, the authors consider the importance of national identity for young individuals by analysing the theories on nations and nationalism, specifically emphasising the relation between individuals and their nations. Analysis is complemented by a short survey on the subject of national identity, which was carried out among students of the Kazakh-Turkish International University in Turkistan, Kazakhstan.

Changing the date: Local councils, Australia Day and cultures of national commemoration

2021 ◽  
pp. 144078332110445
Author(s):  
Rachel Busbridge
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Moral Vision ◽  
Local Council

In recent years, a small but growing number of Australian local councils have emerged as major actors in the movement to change the date of Australia Day by electing to replace or cancel local events held on 26 January. This article draws on Lyn Spillman’s analysis of the 1988 Australia Bicentenary to make sense of these developments and their implications for cultures of national commemoration in Australia. For Spillman, the Bicentenary marked a shift towards a thinner conception of national identity which was intended to increase buy-in for Australia Day but risked fostering fragmentation. Arguing that local council actions to ‘Change the Date’ can be understood within these fragmentary dynamics, the article shows how the federal politicisation of Australia Day has seen these councils present local vernacular commemorations as preferable to official ones and promote an alternative moral vision of the place of Indigenous peoples in the nation.

A case-study in historical sociolinguistics beyond Europe: Reconstructing patterns of multilingualism in a linguistic community in Siberia

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-251
Author(s):  
Olesya Khanina ◽  
Miriam Meyerhoff
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Language Choice ◽  
Linguistic Community ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
Northern Siberia ◽  
Historical Sociolinguistics

AbstractA collection of traditional and ‘old life’ stories recorded in the late 1940s is used to reconstruct the sociolinguistic situation of the Enets community in Northern Siberia from the 1850s until the 1930s. The Enets had regular contacts with a number of neighbouring indigenous peoples (Nganasans, Tundra Nenets, Selkups, Evenkis, Dolgans) and later with Russian newcomers. The oral histories often comment on language use, and as a result we can reconstruct not only the languages that the Enets people used in this period, but also the contexts in which they used them. The Enets community’s multilingualism was typically characterized by command of key neighbouring languages, with the occasional command of other more (geographically and socially) remote ones. With close neighbours, language choice seems to have had limited social load, while in cases of trade or agonistic contact, the choice of language in interethnic communication seems to have followed a principle of asymmetric convergence towards the language of the party with the greatest contextual social power. The analysis is founded on a database of dozens of communicative events mentioned in the oral stories (over 50 are analyzed). Ongoing fieldwork on the modern sociolinguistic situation suggests that until quite recently there was considerable stability in the sociolinguistic norms governing multilingual interaction among the Enets.

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