Pissing On the Past: The Highland Clearances, Effigial Resistance and the Everyday Politics of the Urinal

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 444-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Saunders ◽  
Rhys Crilley

When and where one can urinate is increasingly politicised around the globe. As an example of bio-political power, the provision, regulation and access to public toilets reflects larger structures in any given society. However, there is another side to micturition, that is the use of urine as a manifestation of bodily power over another/others. This article analyses the politics of the urinal through a close reading of the men’s toilet in The Lismore pub in Partick, Scotland, thus bringing together these two threads via the concept of everyday effigial resistance. In our interrogation of a politicised urinal that asks users to ‘piss’ on historical figures associated with the Highland Clearances, we aim to push International Relations to follow Enloe’s call for the study of ‘mundane practices… and the most intimate spaces’ by considering the most banal aspects of the human condition as part of its remit. Our case study serves as an explicit political intervention, one which through its geographic and geopolitical scales makes an argument for engaging with the mundane, vernacular and vulgar in everyday IR. Pisser sur le passé : les dédouanements des hautes terres, la résistance à l’effigie et la politique quotidienne de l’urinoir

Author(s):  
Filippo Lambertucci

The construction of underground urban transport lines in Rome has provoked in the past years the discovery and the destruction of numerous archaeological sites. The last decade has marked a significant cultural change in Italy in the relationship between infrastructure and archaeology, thanks to the development of new methodologies and successful experiences; thanks to the excavations for the construction, it has been possible to realize the largest archaeological campaigns for decades and open new perspectives to the involvement of findings in the structure of the everyday city. The case study of the new metro station San Giovanni ain Rome offers an example for the conservation of heritage through the tools of narration in a site where the archaeological layers have been removed but can still be perceivable thanks to a narrative system that envelops the passenger in a total experience, with a scientifically museum-like rigorous arrangement of information realized according to the speed of commuters.


2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Saunders ◽  
Jack Holland

We draw on work on popular culture, critical geopolitics, visual politics, affect and the everyday in order to develop a framework for the analysis of the ritual of beer consumption as discursive intervention. Specifically, we argue the need for International Relations to expand theories of visual politics to a broader ‘sensory politics’, incorporating taste, smell, and touch. For our case study, we explore the empirical contestation of dominant geopolitical discourses, critically analysing the production and consumption of two explicitly and intentionally political beers: Norwegian brewery 7 Fjell’s release of ‘The Donald Ignorant IPA’; and Scottish BrewDog’s production of ‘Hello, My Name is Vladimir’. Conceptualising the ritual of these beers’ consumption as affective, effigial, and corporeal discursive interventions, we encourage a move beyond the visual to the sensory, in order to make sense of beers’ (limited) potential for resistance within everyday IR.


Slavic Review ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 345-364
Author(s):  
Marlene Laruelle

In 2018, Russia's last tsar, Nicholas II, was the most popular of all Russian historical figures of the twentieth century; the fame of White officers such as Alexander Kolchak and Anton Denikin was also on the rise. Obviously, broad sympathy for the last Romanov does not imply support for a potential restoration of the monarchy, yet the past few years have seen the activation of several monarchist lobbies, especially around the Russian Orthodox Church and in some well-connected Kremlin circles that seek the ideological hardening of the Putin regime. In this article, I use the case study of the monarchist idea to explore how the Kremlin manages the production of a large and diversified set of ideologies. I explore how the relationship between state authorities, ideological entrepreneurs, and some societal actors such as the Church is articulated along a continuum of permanent complementarity and competition in the production of ideologies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Litvinenko

Over the past decades, internet governance has developed in a tug-of-war between the democratic, transnational nature of the web, and attempts by national governments to put cyberspace under control. Recently, the idea of digital sovereignty has started to increasingly gain more supporters among nation states. This article is a case study on the Russian concept of a “sovereign internet.” In 2019, the so-called law on sustainable internet marked a new milestone in the development of RuNet. Drawing on document analysis and expert interviews, I reconstruct Russia’s strategic narrative on internet sovereignty and its evolution over time. I identify the main factors that have shaped the Russian concept of sovereignty, including domestic politics, the economy, international relations, and the historical trajectory of the Russian segment of the internet. The article places the Russian case in a global context and discusses the importance of strategic narratives of digital sovereignty for the future of internet governance.


2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 532-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Cristina Mendes

The process of screen adaptation is an act of ventriloquism insofar as it gives voice to contemporary anxieties and desires through its trans-temporal use of a source text. Screen adaptations that propose to negotiate meanings about the past, particularly a conflicted past, are acts of ‘trans-temporal ventriloquism’: they adapt and reinscribe pre-existing source texts to animate contemporary concerns and anxieties. I focus on the acts of trans-temporal ventriloquism in Ian Iqbal Rashid's Surviving Sabu (1998), a postcolonial, turn-of-the-twenty-first century short film that adapts Zoltan and Alexander Korda's film The Jungle Book (1942), itself an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's collection of short stories by the same name. Surviving Sabu is about the survival and appropriation of orientalist films as a means of self-expression in a postcolonial present. Inherent in this is the idea of cinema as a potentially redemptive force that can help to balance global power inequalities. Surviving Sabu's return to The Jungle Book becomes a means both of tracing the genealogy of specific orientalist discourses and for ventriloquising contemporary concerns. This article demonstrates how trans-temporal ventriloquism becomes a strategy of political intervention that enables the film-maker to take ownership over existing media and narratives. My argument examines Surviving Sabu as an exemplar of cultural studies of the 1980s and 1990s: a postcolonial remediation built on fantasy and desire, used as a strategy of writing within rather than back to empire.


2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 7-19
Author(s):  
Kenneth Brophy
Keyword(s):  

The Scottish Theoretical Archaeology Group (STAG) conference organisers expressed some doubts about how far theory has changed, and impacted, archaeological establishment and academia in Scotland. In this paper, I will argue that Scotland is certainly not isolated in a theoretical sense, although in the past, Scottish archaeology could be accused of being theoretically conservative, or at least dependent on ideas and models developed elsewhere. A case-study looking at Neolithic studies will be used to illustrate that despite some recent critical historiographies of the study of the period in Scotland, archaeologists in Scotland and those working with Scottish material have been theoretically innovative and in step with wider paradigm changes. The study of the Neolithic in Scotland, it could be argued, has been shaped by theory more than the study of any other period; we are not isolated, but rather part of wider networks of discourse.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 177
Author(s):  
Nur Huzeima Mohd Hussain ◽  
Hugh Byrd ◽  
Nur Azfahani Ahmad

Globalisation combined with resources of oil and gas has led to an industrial society in Malaysia.  For the past 30 years, rapid urban growth has shifted from 73% rural to 73% urban population. However, the peak oil crisis and economic issues are threatening the growth of urbanisation and influencing the trends of population mobility. This paper documents the beginnings of a reverse migration (urban-to-rural) in Malaysia.  The method adopted case study that involves questionnaires with the urban migrants to establish the desires, definite intentions and reasons for future migration. Based on this data, it predicts a trend and rate of reverse migration in Malaysia. 


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-218
Author(s):  
Francis Chuma Osefoh

Some of the renowned world tourism countries have special peculiarities in character in terms of their nature reserves and built environments; that made them stand out for their attractions and visits. These qualities range from conservation and preservation of nature reserves, built environments- epoch architectural supports over the years; historical heritage; political; religious; socio-economic; cultural; and  high technology that enhance culture. The virtues of multi- ethnic groups and multi- cultural nature gave Nigeria a rich cultural heritage, and she is blessed with natural wonders, unique wildlife, and a very favorable climate. More often than not less attention and importance are placed over the nature reserves and built environments to the detriment of tourism in lieu of other sectors. Summarily the country lacks the culture of conservation and preservation of her abundant resources to promote cultural tourism. Case study strategy was applied in the research tours with reports of personal experiences, documentaries and analyses of sites visited in Europe and Nigeria were highlighted with references to their attributes in terms of structures and features that made up the sites as relate to culture and attraction.The task in keeping rural, city landscapes and nature reserves alive stands out as the secret of communication link from the past to present and the future; which tourism developed nations reap as benefits for tourist attraction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 229
Author(s):  
Muhammad Eko Atmojo ◽  
Helen Dian Fridayani

Kulon Progo Regency is one of the districts that has many innovations, one of which is community empowerment in collaboration with a modern shop abbreviated as the shop name owned by the people (tomira). This research was motivated by the achievements of the Kulon Progo district government in carrying out development and innovation in the development of the Kulon Progo region by fully involving the Kulon Progo district community through community empowerment. This initiative was taken by the government of Kulon Progo Regency to improve community empowerment and protect the people of Kulon Progo Regency from various economic threats. Considering that in the past few years many modern shops have mushroomed in each district/city, so this is what makes Kulon Progo Regency move quickly to empower the community by collaborating between MSMEs or cooperative with modern shops. This study uses a qualitative method which case study approach. With the empowerment that has been done, the original products of Kulon Progo Regency or local products can be traded in modern stores so that local products in Kulon Progo Regency can compete with national products in these modern stores. The existence of such cooperation will indirectly improve the image of Kulon Progo Regency and lift the original products of Kulon Progo Regency. The lifting of the original products of Kulon Progo Regency will have a positive impact on the community, where indirectly the economy of the community will increase so that there will be prosperity for the community. Kabupaten Kulon Progo adalah salah satu kabupaten yang memiliki banyak inovasi, salah satunya adalah pemberdayaan masyarakat bekerja sama dengan toko modern disingkat nama toko yang dimiliki oleh masyarakat (tomira). Penelitian ini dilatarbelakangi oleh pencapaian pemerintah kabupaten Kulon Progo dalam melakukan pengembangan dan inovasi dalam pengembangan wilayah Kulon Progo dengan melibatkan sepenuhnya masyarakat kabupaten Kulon Progo melalui pemberdayaan masyarakat. Inisiatif ini diambil oleh pemerintah Kabupaten Kulon Progo untuk meningkatkan pemberdayaan masyarakat dan melindungi masyarakat Kabupaten Kulon Progo dari berbagai ancaman ekonomi. Menimbang bahwa dalam beberapa tahun terakhir banyak toko-toko modern telah menjamur di setiap kabupaten/kota, jadi inilah yang membuat Kabupaten Kulon Progo bergerak cepat untuk memberdayakan masyarakat dengan berkolaborasi antara UMKM atau bekerjasama dengan toko-toko modern. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode penelitian kualitatif dengan pendekatan studi kasus, dengan metode yang digunakan adalah dokumentasi. Dengan pemberdayaan yang telah dilakukan, produk asli Kabupaten Kulon Progo atau produk lokal dapat diperdagangkan di toko modern sehingga produk lokal di Kabupaten Kulon Progo dapat bersaing dengan produk nasional di toko modern ini. Adanya kerjasama tersebut secara tidak langsung akan meningkatkan citra Kabupaten Kulon Progo dan mengangkat produk asli Kabupaten Kulon Progo. Pencabutan produk asli Kabupaten Kulon Progo akan berdampak positif bagi masyarakat, di mana secara tidak langsung perekonomian masyarakat akan meningkat sehingga akan ada kesejahteraan bagi masyarakat.


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