Critical Post-Colonial Studies: Opening Up the Post-Colonial to a Broader Geopolitical View

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Albrecht
Keyword(s):  
Academic Language ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial Studies ◽  
Continuity Thesis ◽  
The One ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Impact

The new framework of critical post-colonial studies adds the innovative feature of a broader geopolitical view to an existing branch of critique that challenges the postcolonial regime of knowledge as a whole, simultaneously taking into account the impact of the “traveling concepts” of postcolonial theories on contemporary thought. A radical scrutiny of its core tenets questions postcolonial studies’ perception and representation of colonialism that are selectively confined to the areas of the West and the formerly colonized non-West. The new research field of critical post-colonial studies, by contrast, deploys a multidirectional framework that strives to unthink the quasi-Manichean reverse division of the world into a devalued West and an upgraded non-West characteristic of the postcolonial mainstream. Critical post-colonial studies is thus not intended to be yet another subdivision of the wide academic field of postcolonial studies but one that departs from a broadening of the geopolitical space and shows how this inevitably inflects conventional understanding of the postcolonial. Important steps for a critical dismantling of mainstream postcolonial studies are a conceptual disengagement of the mechanisms of “othering” and a disentanglement of the components of the specific postcolonial continuity thesis. Discarding these and other restrictions makes room for the urgently needed paradigm shift in postcolonial scholarship and for the fashioning of a new academic language of critical post-colonial studies that, on the one hand, meets the needs of the multidirectional conditions of imperialism and colonialism and their various semantics and is, on the other hand, able to grasp universal patterns in different geopolitical and historical conditions.

scholarly journals A Review of Robert Shaw, The Nocturnal City. London: Routledge, 2018, 126 pр.

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (48) ◽  
pp. 239-251
Author(s):  
Fedor Veselov
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Night Time ◽  
Urban Theory ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Artificial Lighting ◽  
The Public ◽  
Critical Urban Theory ◽  
New Research ◽  
The City

This review focuses on the book The Nocturnal City written by the British social geographer Robert Shaw. The author’s major objective is to put the night at the center of the research agenda in urban studies, to contribute to urban theory in general, and to open up a new research field — nightology. The theoretical ambition for Shaw is an attempt to establish a dialogue between planetary urbanism (critical urban theory) and the post-structuralist understanding of the city (assemblage thinking). The author employs the conceptual model of ‘three ecologies’ developed by Felix Guattari; it considers the city as consisting of three interconnected layers: ‘self — society — earth’. Another important analytical tool is the post-colonial metaphor of the night as a frontier, which Shaw develops, considering specificities of the nocturnal city: infrastructures of artificial lighting and cleaning, the night-time economy, the changing aesthetics of cities at night and the experience of night-time at home, beyond the public space. The book does not offer a ready-made solution to theoretical problems and reveals just a little of the empirical diversity of nocturnal cities, but it is recommended as an introduction to a new field — nightology (especially for the Russian social sciences) — and as an elaboration of the discussion around the compatibility of critical urbanism and assemblage thinking in urban theory.

scholarly journals The Impact of New Ways of Working on Organizations and Employees: A Systematic Review of Literature

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karine Renard ◽  
Frederic Cornu ◽  
Yves Emery ◽  
David Giauque
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
New Ways Of Working ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Research Stream ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

A new research stream emerged in the 2000s dedicated to flexible work arrangements in public and private organizations, called “new ways of working” (NWW). This article aims to examine NWW from both a theoretical and empirical perspective, focusing on outcomes of this new concept and the debate between “mutual gains” vs. “conflicting outcomes.” Through a literature review, it examines this research field’s innovation and its rather vague theoretical foundations. Findings demonstrate that NWW definitions are diverse and somewhat imprecise, leading to fragmented research designs and findings; the research stream’s theoretical foundations should be better addressed. Findings also highlight the current lack of empirical data, which therefore does not allow any real conclusions on NWW’s effects on employees’ and organizations’ well-being and performance.

scholarly journals Quality of Life Indicators of University Students in Hungary

2013 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
László Edvy
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
University Students ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Major Conclusion ◽  
Common People ◽  
Quality Of Life Indicators ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Better Than

Abstract Quality of life is a new research field in the postmodern world. Results show that there are several factors beyond the material world which have an impact on our happiness and which can be influenced and developed by us. To transfer the knowledge that can help improve quality of life requires authentic channels. One of these channels could be the stratum of educated intellectuals as an influential group of society, but they are authentic only if their quality of life is really better than nonqualified population’s quality of life. We investigated this issue in Hungary. On the basis of empirical research, we compared university students’ quality of life indicators with those of common people of similar ages. The objective of this paper is to present the relevant results of this research, which show that a) the examined indicators of quality of life are not more favorable with university students than the same indicators with the non-student population; b) the quality of life indicators of female university students are worse in some respects than those of non-student women; c) the impact of some psychological factors is stronger with university students than with common persons. The major conclusion of this paper is that an appropriate intervention is needed in health education programs at universities in order to contribute to the improvement of students’ quality of life.

scholarly journals Impact of Foucauldian Discourse on Feminism and Postcolonial Studies

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Keyword(s):  
Power Relations ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial Studies ◽  
Complex Process

Foucault’s concept of power and its working in a complex process for the formation of identity and the mobilization of resistance has been of paramount interest over the years to individuals and groups located in unfavorable positions in power-relations. That knowledge and power work together in an exclusionary formation signified in the concept of discourse have inspired feminists and theorists of colonial and post-colonial studies to rework discourse theories to map out new identities and programs of resistance. Although Foucault’s ideas are appropriated by critical schools for various reasons, such appropriation still requires a measure of clarification, since there is no unified position among the schools themselves. In this paper, We, therefore, attempt to show how themes of exclusion, identity, and resistance-very seminal to Foucault’s critical oeuvre, are received and modified by feminist thinkers and theorists of colonial and post-colonial studies.

scholarly journals Impact of Foucauldian Discourse on Feminism and Postcolonial Studies

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Keyword(s):  
Power Relations ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial Studies ◽  
Complex Process

Foucault’s concept of power and its working in a complex process for the formation of identity and the mobilization of resistance has been of paramount interest over the years to individuals and groups located in unfavorable positions in power-relations. That knowledge and power work together in an exclusionary formation signified in the concept of discourse have inspired feminists and theorists of colonial and post-colonial studies to rework discourse theories to map out new identities and programs of resistance. Although Foucault’s ideas are appropriated by critical schools for various reasons, such appropriation still requires a measure of clarification, since there is no unified position among the schools themselves. In this paper, We, therefore, attempt to show how themes of exclusion, identity, and resistance-very seminal to Foucault’s critical oeuvre, are received and modified by feminist thinkers and theorists of colonial and post-colonial studies.

Impact of Foucauldian Discourse on Feminism and Postcolonial Studies

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Keyword(s):  
Power Relations ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial Studies ◽  
Complex Process

Foucault’s concept of power and its working in a complex process for the formation of identity and the mobilization of resistance has been of paramount interest over the years to individuals and groups located in unfavorable positions in power-relations. That knowledge and power work together in an exclusionary formation signified in the concept of discourse have inspired feminists and theorists of colonial and post-colonial studies to rework discourse theories to map out new identities and programs of resistance. Although Foucault’s ideas are appropriated by critical schools for various reasons, such appropriation still requires a measure of clarification, since there is no unified position among the schools themselves. In this article, I, therefore, attempt to show how themes of exclusion, identity, and resistance-very seminal to Foucault’s critical oeuvre, are received and modified by feminist thinkers and theorists of colonial and post-colonial studies.

Seizing the Center

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomáš Petrů
Keyword(s):  
Primary Objective ◽  
New Order ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Early Modern Era ◽  
The Impact

This article intends to cast light on historical continuities between pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial organized violent crime in Indonesia and its connection to the country’s rulers. The core argument is that Indonesia and the polities which once existed in its territory have a long history of cooperation between the ruling elites and the criminal world. The early-modern era bandits, called jago, and the modern gangsters, known as preman, arguably represented an important pillar of the power of political regimes in Java from the pre-colonial Javanese kingdoms to the Netherlands East Indies’ colonial state to Soeharto’s New Order. In post-Soeharto Indonesia, political liberation combined with the impact of jihadist Islam(ism) has created conditions in which a number of leather-clad gangsters have turned into vigilante defenders of Islam, who are sometimes co-opted by influential interest groups and sometimes sent back to the political periphery after falling out of favor. While the primary objective of this paper is to analyze the issue of oscillation between incorporation, co-optation, and utilization of criminals and radical Islamic groupings by the powerful, on the one hand, and their elimination, on the other, the paper also looks into how Indonesian historiography has depicted these influential bandits/gangsters/vigilantes and how historiographical sources tend to legitimize them to create an authoritative nationalist narrative.

scholarly journals The Ethnic Ecocritical Animal: Animal protagonists and ethnic environmentalism in contemporary Sino-Mongolian literature and art

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-49
Author(s):  
NIMROD BARANOVITCH
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Inner Mongolia ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Environmental Politics ◽  
Environmental Movement ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial Studies ◽  
Nomadic Pastoralist ◽  
Mongolian Grassland ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Drawing on ideas from ecocriticism, literary animal studies, and post-colonial studies, as well as anthropology and cultural studies, this article examines the representations of animals in contemporary Sino-Mongolian literature and art, and the various connections between these representations and issues related to ethnic and environmental politics. I propose that the intensive engagement of Chinese-Mongolian writers and artists with animals is related first and foremost to the central role that animals, both wild and domesticated, have traditionally played in Mongolian nomadic pastoralist culture. However, I also argue that it is closely connected to two interrelated processes that are currently taking place in Inner Mongolia: the severe degradation of the Inner Mongolian grassland and the rapid sinicization of China's Mongols. I suggest that in the context of this environmental and cultural crisis, the engagement with animals reflects anxiety about the fate of the Inner Mongolian grassland, the fate of real animals, which, for centuries, have been closely associated with this landscape and Mongolian nomadic culture, and, most importantly, the fate of Mongolian culture itself. I also argue that Sino-Mongolian writers and artists use literary and artistic animals to construct and assert Mongolianness as part of their search for an ‘authentic’ ethnic identity, and to comment critically on the impact that Chinese domination has had on the Inner Mongolian grassland, its indigenous human and non-human inhabitants, and Mongolian culture and identity. Finally, I propose that through their ethnic environmentalism, Chinese-Mongolian artists and writers have made an important contribution to the development of China's environmental movement.

scholarly journals Post-Colonial Rome, and Beyond

2021 ◽  
pp. 309-320
Author(s):  
Andrew Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Roman Archaeology ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial Studies ◽  
Colonial Theory ◽  
The Impact

Roman archaeology is one of the major subfields of archaeology in which post-colonial theory has flourished, and not just in relation to the role of the past in the present, but also as a means to approach the interpretation of the Roman world itself. The region of North Africa was a major focal point for some of the earliest post-colonial studies on the Roman Empire, and has remained an arena of investigation for scholars influenced by the Anglophone debate on post-colonial theory, which emerged in the 1980s and flourished in the 1990s, often with a focus on Roman Britain. Religion is both a key source of evidence and an obviously important theme in understanding cultural change, interaction and power, and thus it has likewise been of interest to scholars from within and beyond the region. Here, I give an overview of the work of some of the influential Roman archaeologists working within the post-colonial tradition. I also consider the complex intersections of ancient and modern, and of Britain and North Africa, found in this body of work, and evaluate the impact this tradition of thought continues to have on Roman archaeology going forwards.

scholarly journals Rosyjski literaturocentryzm w kontekście postkolonialnym

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 281-302
Author(s):  
Tomasz Nakoneczny
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Russian Literature ◽  
Russian Culture ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Research Discipline ◽  
Colonial Studies

The development of postcolonial studies as a research discipline to a large extent depends on their representatives’ ability to overcome their own post-colonial conditions. This particularly applies to researchers representing imperial cultures. Russian post-colonial studies develop their own cognitive categories in relation to the issue of Russian and Soviet imperialism, while avoiding many potential inspirations contained in the book by Ewa Thompson “Imperial Knowledge: Russian Literature and Colonialism”, which became an important reference for postcolonial research in Poland and Ukraine. The author of the article outlines the shaping of Russian literaturocentrism, and then, tries to answer the question of whether and to what extent it can be a useful issue for research on the imperial determinants of Russian culture.

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