The Contradictions of COVID-19 and the Persistence of Western Hegemony

Politikon ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Alexei Anisin
Keyword(s):  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 29-76
Author(s):  
Juan Carlos Moreno García

Abstract Globalization, the decline of Western hegemony, and the rise of new political and economic actors, particularly in East Asia, are concomitant with the emergence of more encompassing historical perspectives, attentive to the achievements and historical trajectories of other regions of the world. Global history provides thus a new framework to understanding our past that challenges former views based on the cultural needs, values, and expectations of the West. This means that humanities and social sciences are subject to intense scrutiny and pressed to adapt themselves to a changing cultural, academic, and intellectual environment. However, this process is hindered by the gradual loss of their former prestige and by the increasing influence of economics in the reorganization of the educational, research, and cultural agenda according to market-oriented criteria. The result is that the mobilization of the past increasingly conforms to new strategies in which connectivity, trading, and diplomatic interests, as well as integration in dynamic flows of wealth, appear of paramount importance. Egyptology is not alien to these challenges, which will in all probability reshape its very foundations in the foreseeable future.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eimi Tagore-Erwin

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the influence that globalization has had on the development of the contemporary Japanese art production. The study also aims to expand the global narrative of Japanese art by introducing concepts behind festivals for revitalization that have been occurring in Japan in recent years. Design/methodology/approach Guided by Culture Theorist Nira Yuval-Davies’ approach to the politics of belonging, the paper is situated within cultural studies and considers the development of contemporary art in Japan in relation to the power structures present within the global art market. This analysis draws heavily from the research of art historians Reiko Tomii, Adrian Favell, and Gennifer Weisenfeld, and is complemented by investigative research into the life of Art Director Kitagawa Fram, as well as observational analyses formed by on-site study of the Setouchi Triennale in 2015 and 2016. Findings The paper provides historical insight to the ways that the politics of belonging to the western world has created a limited benchmark for critical discussion about contemporary Japanese art. It suggests that festivals for revitalization in Japan not only are a good source of diversification, but also evidences criticism therein. Research limitations/implications Due to the brevity of this text, readers are encouraged to further investigate the source material for more in-depth understanding of the topics. Practical implications The paper implies that art historiography should take a multilateral approach to avoid a western hegemony in the field. Originality/value This paper fulfills a need to reflect on the limited global reception to Japanese art, while also identifying one movement that art historians and theorists may take into account in the future when considering a Japanese art discourse.


2018 ◽  
pp. 131-143
Author(s):  
Astrid Nonbo Andersen

Enrique Dussel is one of the most prominent Latin American thinkers and a founding father of the Philosophy of Liberation. Dussel is known for his long political engagement in Latin American Politics and for his harsh critique of Western hegemony on the global stage – both the political and the philosophical. In this interview with Dussel these themes are discussed as well as some of Dussel’s own notions, such as pluriversality and transmodernity.


This article introduces some of the questions, activist and theoretical concepts featured in the special issue “Fucking solidarity: Queering Concepts on/from a post-Soviet Perspective”. It reflects on the usage and applicability of the term queer and queer concepts within post-Soviet and postsocialist spaces, by playfully using the “fucking” as critical term, to emphasize queer’s original potential to offend and disrupt within English language. It reflects on the possibilities of queer and feminist solidarities across the East/West divide that do not fall into the trap of (Western) hegemony or anti-Western sentiments. Framing queer solidarity as “working together,” it looks for the possibilities of egalitarian mutual support across national and cultural borders. Finally, it gives an overview of the texts collected in the special issue.


Author(s):  
Judy Iseke-Barnes ◽  
Deborah Danard

This chapter explores how representations of indigenous peoples on the Internet and other media are contextualized according to an outsider worldview, and that much of the information about indigenous peoples accessed through virtual media lack the original context in which to position the information. This means that the information is completely distanced from the indigenous peoples whom the information is purported to represent. This is problematic when representations of indigenous peoples are defined by dominant discourses which promote bias and reinforce stereotypes. With the increase of technology and the race to globalization, symbols are being reconstructed and redefined to connect and create a global identity for indigenous peoples. The consequences of this further the current practices of erasing and reconstructing indigenous history, language, culture and tradition through control and commodification of representations and symbols. This removal from history and community ensures continued silencing of indigenous voices. Although these misrepresentations continue to frame the discourse for indigenous peoples in Canada, it is time for indigenous peoples to reclaim and resist these representations and for outsiders to stop creating social narratives for indigenous peoples which support western hegemony.


2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 1207-1220
Author(s):  
Blake Stewart

In recent years the rise of far-right politics in North America and Europe has called into question the stability and cohesion of the so-called liberal international order. Scholars and commentators have argued that this swelling configuration of reactionary social forces threatens the future of western hegemony within a 21st century global capitalism. This essay reflects on the role of transnational organizations, organic intellectuals and elite actors in shaping the modern far-right movement. This essay will discuss the rise of a transnational ideology of the contemporary far-right which I call ‘far-right civilizationism’. This far-right ‘hegemonic project’ seeks to challenge the centrist global governance model of ‘neoliberal cosmopolitanism’, which has been dominant in the West since the end of the Cold War. The reactionary worldview of far-right civilizationism represents an alternative elite grand strategy for world order, purposed to refurbish elite hegemony during a period of profound structural crisis.


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