Internalized Orientalism: Toward a Postcolonial Media Theory and De-Westernizing Communication Research from the Global South

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-428
Author(s):  
Anas M Alahmed
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Communication Theory ◽  
Global South ◽  
Media Theory ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Communication Research ◽  
The South ◽  
Civil State ◽  
Egyptian Revolution

Abstract This article applies the concept of internalized orientalism to explain how news representations reflect the power struggles and power relationships within postcolonial nations of the global South through Orientalist discourses. Introducing the concept of internalized orientalism to postcolonial media studies has the potential to de-westernize communication research by depicting the interplays of representations within the South. In this article, I analyze internalized orientalism as a communication theory by studying media representations of the Egyptian revolution in terms of four themes: (a) inability of southern people to rule themselves, (b) religious versus civil state, (c) social conflicts and the patriarchal state, and (d) dehumanization of people and reducing human agency. I argue that internalized orientalism demonstrates how media representations reflect a Western production of knowledge of the global South in the global South, working toward reproducing neocolonial power. At the same time, I argue, internalized orientalism offers a lens for understanding the politics of representations and knowledge production from the South.

Theorizing Dependency Relations in Small Media

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 370-387
Author(s):  
Brian Semujju
Keyword(s):  
Field Data ◽  
Global South ◽  
Media Theory ◽  
Dependency Theory ◽  
The South ◽  
Community Media ◽  
Media System ◽  
Media System Dependency ◽  
Western Intellectual ◽  
The Individual

Abstract The paper questions the pervasive western intellectual universalism which disregards Global South imaginations for generalized approaches. Using field data from Uganda about Community Audio Towers (CATs), the western-generated community media theory is interrogated, accentuating its failure to account for the intricate relationship between the individual, society, and small media. To cover the gap, the Small Media System Dependency theory is herein introduced as a geocultural response to lack of theory from the South.

scholarly journals The human network revisited: responses to Brynnar Swenson’s “The human network: social media and the limit of politics”

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-148
Author(s):  
Ignas Kalpokas ◽  
J.D. Mininger ◽  
Viktorija Rusinaitė
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Media Theory ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Egyptian Revolution ◽  
Lacanian Psychoanalysis ◽  
Psychoanalytic Discourse ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Baltic

ABSTRACT This article combines contributions from three authors, each of whom writes in scholarly response to Brynnar Swenson’s “The Human Network: Social Media and the Limit of Politics,” originally published in the Baltic Journal of Law & Politics 4:2 (2011): 102-124. Ignas Kalpokas reads Swenson’s theories of revolt and social change alongside a robust theory of sovereignty drawn from Carl Schmitt, while also expanding Swenson’s interpretations of the media representations of the Egyptian revolution and the 2011 riots in England by an appeal to theories drawn from Lacanian psychoanalysis. J.D. Mininger also draws from psychoanalytic discourse as he revisits a key interview given in Swenson’s account of the media interpretations of the London riots of 2011. Viktorija Rusinaitė addresses Swenson’s provocation about the limits and status of politics, turning to media theory and the concept of politics found in the work of Jacques Rancière.

scholarly journals Beyond a standardised urban lexicon: which vocabulary matters?

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-434
Author(s):  
Shreyashi Dasgupta ◽  
Noura Wahby
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Global South ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
The South ◽  
Complex Power ◽  
Global Patterns

Urban vocabulary has been influenced by global patterns of modernity, capitalism and anglophone academia. These lexicons are increasingly standardised and shape dominant conceptual approaches in city debates. However, contemporary urban theories indicate a shift toward understanding the ‘urban’ and ‘cities’ from multiple perspectives. An emerging urban vocabulary is being built to capture the significance of place, complex power dynamics and changing geographical landscapes. This special issue presents diverse perspectives on how urban lexicons can be decentred from anglophone thought, operate as organising urban logics, serve larger political projects, and shape and are reshaped by grounded urban practice. Articles from the Middle East and South Asia discuss the margins of vocabulary and how vocabularies located in the global South enable us to think through dilemmas of knowledge production. We contribute to debates on decolonising power and authority in urban thought by expanding on how to theorise from the South.

The Image of BRICS and the Global South Othered Creativity

2020 ◽  
pp. 409-427
Author(s):  
Diana Sfetlana Stoica
Keyword(s):  
African Country ◽  
Global South ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Cultural Environment ◽  
The South ◽  
The North ◽  
Global Character ◽  
Creative Products ◽  
The Way

This chapter is an invitation to look over some creative products of media representations and communication, especially present in African country commercials, and analyze them from a potential BRICS ideology's dissemination point of view. The aim of this research is to finally conclude that there are very few differences between the North and the South, speaking about creativity, along with realizing a frame of paradigms on the global character of this concept. However, perceptions are subdued to the translation of creativity movements and the summing up of images created by these perceptions are paving the way to the conceptualization of Othered creativity. The Othered creativity is a concept proposed to frame the representations of an Otherness, subject to images that have been displaced from one cultural environment and re-proposed in another one.

Southern theory and how it aids in engaging Southern youth

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anye-Nkwenti Nyamnjoh ◽  
Robert Morrell
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Global South ◽  
The South ◽  
Relational Concept ◽  
Political Project ◽  
Geopolitical Context

Southern theory is as an evolving body of thought that places the Global South, understood as a relational concept and category, at the center of theoretical and methodological debates in knowledge production. It challenges the provinciality of what is traditionally understood as theory by mobilizing the South, frequently undertheorized, as an important epistemological resource in order to explain and transform the geopolitical context of theory production. In marshalling otherwise marginalized experiences and knowledges and presenting them as legitimate intellectual resources, Southern knowledges are recognized, repositioned, and centered. Southern theory thus takes the form of an epistemic and political project. In this analysis, these themes are unpacked by employing Southern theory as a transnational lens with which intersecting issues of youth, gender, and disability can be engaged.

Fluid Multilingual Practices among Youth in Cameroon and Mozambique

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torun Reite ◽  
Francis Badiang Oloko ◽  
Manuel Armando Guissemo
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Urban Youth ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
The South ◽  
African Cities ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
The Social

Inspired by recent epistemological and ontological debates aimed at unsettling and reshaping conceptions of language, this essay discusses how mainstream sociolinguistics offers notions meaningful for studying contexts of the South. Based on empirical studies of youth in two African cities, Yaoundé in Cameroon and Maputo in Mozambique, the essay engages with “fluid modernity” and “enregisterment” to unravel the role that fluid multilingual practices play in the social lives of urban youth. The empirically grounded theoretical discussion shows how recent epistemologies and ontologies offer inroads to more pluriversal knowledge production. The essay foregrounds: i) the role of language in the sociopolitical battles of control over resources, and ii) speakers’ reflexivity and metapragmatic awareness of register formations of fluid multilingual practices. Moreover, it shows how bundles of localized meanings construct belongings and counterhegemonic discourses, as well as demonstrating speakers’ differential valuations and perceptions of boundaries and transgressions across social space.

scholarly journals Family multilingualism from a southern perspective: Language ideologies and practices of Brazilian parents in Norway

Multilingua ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Lomeu Gomes
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Global South ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Interview Data ◽  
Language Practices ◽  
Epistemic Justice ◽  
Intercultural Encounters ◽  
Race Ethnicity

AbstractThis article derives from a three-year ethnographic project carried out in Norway focusing on language practices of Brazilian families raising their children multilingually. Analyses of interview data with two Brazilian parents demonstrate the relevance of examining intersectionally the participants’ orientation to categorisations such as social class, gender, and race/ethnicity. Additionally, I explore how parents make sense of their transnational, multilingual experiences, and the extent to which these experiences inform the language-related decisions they make in the home. Advancing family multilingualism research in a novel direction, I employ a southern perspective as an analytical position that: (i) assumes the situatedness of knowledge production; (ii) aims at increasing social and epistemic justice; (iii) opposes the dominance of Western-centric epistemologies; and (iv) sees the global South as a political location, not necessarily geographic, but with many overlaps. Finally, I draw on the notions of intercultural translation and equivocation to discuss the intercultural encounters parents reported. The overarching argument of this article is that forging a southern perspective from which to analyse parental language practices and beliefs offers a theoretical framework that can better address the issues engendered by parents engaged in South–North transnational, multilingual practices.

scholarly journals Southernizing and decolonizing the Sociology of Language: African scholarship matters

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (267-268) ◽  
pp. 259-263
Author(s):  
Stephanie Rudwick ◽  
Sinfree Makoni
Keyword(s):  
Related Problem ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
Global South ◽  
The South ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Short Article ◽  
Language Studies ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
Sociology Of Language

Abstract In this short article we call for decolonization strategies in the Sociology of Language through a focus shift towards the global South, in particular Africa and a heightened attention to “race” as a significant category. We highlight three primary points that require critical attention in a decolonized Sociology of Language: (i) the identification of northern sociolinguistic theories which have been masked as universal and a critical shift towards theoretical frameworks emerging from the South; (ii) the acknowledgement of “white” privilege and “white fragility” in language studies and its related problem of ignoring “race” as a significant category, in scholarship as well as among authors/editors; and (iii) the under-representation of (especially female) scholars of colour in sociolinguistic research.

scholarly journals Decolonizing regional planning from the Global South: Active geographies and social struggles in Northeastern Brazil

2021 ◽  
pp. 026377582110246
Author(s):  
Federico Ferretti
Keyword(s):  
Regional Planning ◽  
Global South ◽  
Northeastern Brazil ◽  
Planning Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Literature ◽  
The South ◽  
Political Conservatism ◽  
Colonial Histories ◽  
Resisting Oppression

This paper addresses the engagement of critical geographers from Northeastern Brazil with regional planning, aiming at transforming society by acting on their region’s spaces. Extending and putting in relation literature on planning theory in the Global South and geographical scholarship on decoloniality, I explore new archives showing how the planning work that these geographers performed from 1957 to 1964 was an example of the ‘South’ re-elaborating and putting into practice notions arising from ‘international’ literature, such as that of ‘active geography’, and pioneering critical uses of instruments, such as mappings and statistics, that have often been associated with technocracy and political conservatism. Connected with peasants’ struggles and with a theoretical framework that is cognisant of the colonial histories and insurgent Black and indigenous traditions in the Northeast, these geographers’ works show that there is no ‘Southern Theory’ without a concrete engagement of scholars with social and political problems, one which is not limited to ‘participation’, but aims at challenging the political powers in place. Although not devoid of contradictions that are analysed here, the experiences of these Southern geographers acting in and for the South can provide precious insights into current (Northern or Southern) scholarly programmes aimed at resisting oppression.

scholarly journals The gendered politics of researching military policy in the age of the ‘knowledge economy’

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Sergio Catignani ◽  
Victoria M. Basham
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Publicly Funded ◽  
Gendered Politics ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Gendered Power ◽  
Army Reserves ◽  
Multiple Challenges

Abstract This article explores our experiences of conducting feminist interpretive research on the British Army Reserves. The project, which examined the everyday work-Army-life balance challenges that reservists face, and the roles of their partners/spouses in enabling them to fulfil their military commitments, is an example of a potential contribution to the so-called ‘knowledge economy’, where publicly funded research has come to be seen as ‘functional’ for political, military, economic, and social advancement. As feminist interpretive researchers examining an institution that prizes masculinist and functionalist methodologies, instrumentalised knowledge production, and highly formalised ethics approval processes, we faced multiple challenges to how we were able to conduct our research, who we were able to access, and what we were able to say. We show how military assumptions about what constitutes proper ‘research’, bolstered by knowledge economy logics, reinforces gendered power relationships that keep hidden the significant roles women (in our case, the partners/spouses of reservists) play in state security. Accordingly, we argue that the functionalist and masculinist logics interpretive researchers face in the age of the knowledge economy help more in sustaining orthodox modes of knowledge production about militaries and security, and in reinforcing gendered power relations, than they do in advancing knowledge.

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