scholarly journals Hegemonic Past: Exclusion of Subaltern Histories in NCERT Textbooks

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-21
Author(s):  
Swarali Patil

History textbooks are always a site of contestation. Therefore, present political struggles for maintaining hegemony or overthrowing it play on the site of history. History as discipline has always been dominated by androcentric values. Therefore, feminist historiography was emerged which not only criticized existing androcentric historiographies but suggested new ways to do history. This article tries to analyze inclusions and exclusions within history textbooks. In the first part of the article I will try to analyze why certain histories never became part of the textbook and what are the sources that are used to write history. In this article I will analyze VIII standard NCERT history textbooks in India (Central level Government textbooks) through caste and gender lenses. In 2005 the theme of NCERT History textbooks changed from ‘our past’ (singular) to ‘our pasts’ (plural). However, this change does not reflect in the content of the textbook. I am using content analysis as a method to analyze pictures and texts. I will also try to contextualize the text within time and space. The exclusion and inclusion of history in the textbooks depends on the contemporary caste, patriarchal hegemony in our society. The dominant mainstream history has become part of these textbooks, but subaltern history is excluded from it. In this article I will also talk about the Dalit histories, Dalit women histories and tribal histories which are silenced as ‘other’ and remained part of counterculture but did not become part of these mainstream textbooks. In the later part of the article, I will try to look in what way the histories are altered to fit in a particular framework especially the histories of subalterns. At the end I will focus on how textbooks always build the idea of hegemonic nation and nationalism in students mind. Therefore, through this article I will analyze the ways through which the ‘other’ is being silenced in history textbooks.

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (188) ◽  
pp. 487-494
Author(s):  
Daniel Mullis

In recent years, political and social conditions have changed dramatically. Many analyses help to capture these dynamics. However, they produce political pessimism: on the one hand there is the image of regression and on the other, a direct link is made between socio-economic decline and the rise of the far-right. To counter these aspects, this article argues that current political events are to be understood less as ‘regression’ but rather as a moment of movement and the return of deep political struggles. Referring to Jacques Ranciere’s political thought, the current conditions can be captured as the ‘end of post-democracy’. This approach changes the perspective on current social dynamics in a productive way. It allows for an emphasis on movement and the recognition of the windows of opportunity for emancipatory struggles.


2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-36
Author(s):  
А. Г. БОДРОВА

The paper considers travelogues of Yugoslav female writers Alma Karlin, Jelena Dimitrijević, Isidora Sekulić, Marica Gregorič Stepančič, Marica Strnad, Luiza Pesjak. These texts created in the first half of the 20th century in Serbian, Slovenian and German are on the periphery of the literary field and, with rare exceptions, do not belong to the canon. The most famous of these authors are Sekulić from Serbia and the German-speaking writer Karlin from Slovenia. Recently, the work of Dimitrijević has also become an object of attention of researchers. Other travelogues writers are almost forgotten. Identity problems, especially national ones, are a constant component of the travelogue genre. During a journey, the author directs his attention to “other / alien” peoples and cultures that can be called foreign to the perceiving consciousness. However, when one perceives the “other”, one inevitably turns to one's “own”, one's own identity. The concept of “own - other / alien”, on which the dialogical philosophy is based (M. Buber, G. Marcel, M. Bakhtin, E. Levinas), implies an understanding of the cultural “own” against the background of the “alien” and at the same time culturally “alien” on the background of “own”. Women's travel has a special status in culture. Even in the first half of the 20th century the woman was given space at home. Going on a journey, especially unaccompanied, was at least unusual for a woman. According to Simone de Beauvoir, a woman in society is “different / other”. Therefore, women's travelogues can be defined as the look of the “other” on the “other / alien”. In this paper, particular attention is paid to the interrelationship of gender, national identities and their conditioning with a cultural and historical context. At the beginning of the 20th century in the Balkans, national identity continues actively to develop and the process of women's emancipation is intensifying. Therefore, the combination of gender and national issues for Yugoslavian female travelogues of this period is especially relevant. Dimitrijević's travelogue Seven Seas and Three Oceans demonstrates this relationship most vividly: “We Serbian women are no less patriotic than Egyptian women... Haven't Serbian women most of the merit that the big Yugoslavia originated from small Serbia?” As a result of this study, the specificity of the national and gender identity constructs in the first half of the 20th century in the analyzed texts is revealed. For this period one can note, on the one hand, the preservation of national and gender boundaries, often supported by stereotypes, on the other hand, there are obvious tendencies towards the erosion of the established gender and national constructs, the mobility of models of gender and national identification as well, largely due to the sociohistorical processes of the time.


2013 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 33-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boumediene Medjahdi ◽  
Assia Ltreuch-Belarouci ◽  
Rémy Prelli

Français. Un inventaire des ptéridophytes a été entrepris dans les forêts de la région de Tlemcen. L’inventaire de ces populations constitue une étape importante pour le développement des stratégies de conservation des ressources génétiques et de la diversité de ces populations sur l’ensemble de leur aire de distribution naturelle. Nous avons ainsi effectué le recensement et l’identification des fougères existantes dans la région de Tlemcen. Au total, plusieurs stations dont les caractéristiques écologiques diffèrent d’un site à un autre ont été prospectées, cela a permis l’identification de 26 taxons (dont 5 exceptionnellement rare). La création de réserves naturelles forestières renforcée par une protection réglementaire des espèces les plus menacées est nécessaire pour le maintien de ces communautés si particulières. English. An inventory of Pteridophyta was begun in the forests of the Tlemcen region. The inventory of these populations constitutes an important stage for the developement of the strategies of preservation of the genetic resources and the diversity of these populations on their whole area of natural distribution. We so made the inventory and the identification of the existing ferns in the region of Tlemcen. On the whole, several stations the ecological characteristics differ from a site in the other one were canvassed; they allowed the identification of 26 taxes (among which 5 exceptionally rare). The creation of forest nature reserves strengthened by a statutory protection of the most threatened species is necessary for the preservation of these particular communities.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shlesha Singh ◽  
Mrinalini Pandey

Organizations are these days realizing the importance of women in the workforce and to tap that talent, organizations are now-a-days putting extra efforts. Workplaces were designed keeping men in mind and which has been intercepting women from continuing the competitive jobs and career along with the family responsibilities. On the other hand, there are various workplace barriers which are adding to the other problems. Women face several barriers at the workplace like sexual harassment, glass ceiling and gender stereotype.


Author(s):  
Patrick Colm Hogan

The introduction first sets out some preliminary definitions of sex, sexuality, and gender. It then turns from the sexual part of Sexual Identities to the identity part. A great deal of confusion results from failing to distinguish between identity in the sense of a category with which one identifies (categorial identity) and identity in the sense of a set of patterns that characterize one’s cognition, emotion, and behavior (practical identity). The second section gives a brief summary of this difference. The third and fourth sections sketch the relation of the book to social constructionism and queer theory, on the one hand, and evolutionary-cognitive approaches to sex, sexuality, and gender, on the other. The fifth section outlines the value of literature in not only illustrating, but advancing a research program in sex, sexuality, and gender identity. Finally, the introduction provides an overview of the chapters in this volume.


Author(s):  
Jane Caputi

The proposed new geological era, The Anthropocene (a.k.a. Age of Humans, Age of Man), marking human domination of the planet long called Mother Earth, is truly The Age of the Motherfucker. The ecocide of the Anthropocene is the responsibility of Man, the Western- and masculine-identified corporate, military, intellectual, and political class that masks itself as the exemplar of the civilized and the human. The word motherfucker was invented by the enslaved children of White slave masters to name their mothers’ rapist/owners. Man’s strategic motherfucking, from the personal to the planetary, is invasion, exploitation, spirit-breaking, extraction and toxic wasting of individuals, communities, and lands, for reasons of pleasure, plunder, and profit. Ecocide is attempted deicide of Mother Nature-Earth, reflecting Man’s goal to become the god he first made in his own image. The motivational word Motherfucker has a flip side, further revealing the Anthropocene as it signifies an outstanding, formidable, and inexorable force. Mother Nature-Earth is that “Mutha’ ”—one defying translation into heteropatriarchal classifications of gender, one capable of overwhelming Man, and not the other way around. Drawing upon Indigenous and African American scholarship; ecofeminism; ecowomanism; green activism; femme, queer, and gender non-binary philosophies; literature and arts; Afrofuturism; and popular culture, Call Your “Mutha’ ” contends that the Anthropocene is not evidence of Man’s supremacy over nature, but that Mother Nature-Earth, faced with disrespect, is going away. It is imperative now to call the “Mutha’ ” by decolonizing land, bodies, and minds, ending rapism, feeding the green, renewing sustaining patterns, and affirming devotion to Mother Nature-Earth.


Author(s):  
Melissa Shani Brown ◽  
Nichola Lucy Partridge

AbstractIn this article we consider the representation of the character Cole in Bioware’s Dragon Age: Inquisition (Electronic Arts, San Mateo, 2014), focusing upon how his asexuality is treated by other characters and its significance within his narrative arc. As well as contributing to the discussion of the representation of sexualities and gender within games, we seek to add to the ‘representational archive of asexuality’ (Cerankowski and Milks, Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives, Routledge, Abingdon, p 40, 2014), including games as media depicting and defining asexuality through fictional characterisation. We argue that it is particularly through humour that Cole is marked as being ambiguously set apart from the other characters in the game, and is infantilized as a ‘boy’ rather than a young man. Within a party of diverse genders, sexualities and indeed species, Cole’s absent interest in sex is treated as though it were something strange and in need of being overcome for Cole to become fully ‘human’. Beyond the scope of this game, this raises further questions for the representation of asexuality within media culture, and broader cultural discourses concerning whether asexuality is conceived of as being within the bounds of both masculinity and human normality.


2003 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 145-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Fernández ◽  
W. Herrera ◽  
T. Harmony ◽  
L Díaz-Comas ◽  
E. Santiago ◽  
...  

Neurofeedback (NFB) is an operant conditioning procedure, by which the subject learns to control his/her EEG activity. On one hand, Learning Disabled (LD) children have higher values of theta EEG absolute and relative power than normal children, and on the other hand, it has been shown that minimum alpha absolute power is necessary for adequate performance. Ten LD children were selected with higher than normal ratios of theta to alpha absolute power (theta/alpha). The Test Of Variables of Attention (TOVA) was applied. Children were divided into two groups in order to maintain similar IQ values, TOVA values, socioeconomical status, and gender for each group. In the experimental group, NFB was applied in the region with highest ratio, triggering a sound each time the ratio fell below a threshold value. Noncontingent reinforcement was given to the other group. Twenty half-hour sessions were applied, at a rate of 2 per week. At the end of the 20 sessions, TOVA, WISC and EEG were obtained. There was significant improvement in WISC performance in the experimental group that was not observed in the control group. EEG absolute power decreased in delta, theta, alpha and beta bands in the experimental group. Control children only showed a decrease in relative power in the delta band. All changes observed in the experimental group and not observed in the control group indicate better cognitive performance and the presence of greater EEG maturation in the experimental group, which suggests that changes were due not only to development but also to NFB treatment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (8) ◽  
pp. 983-993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Asif ◽  
Muhammad Aslam ◽  
Saima Altaf ◽  
Sajid Mustafa

AbstractObjectivesChildren from different countries and with different ethnic backgrounds have a distinct pattern of central fat deposition. Therefore, it is essential to develop population-specific percentiles of waist circumference (WC), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) and waist-to-height ratio exponent (WHtR (exp)) for the evaluation of central obesity. The objective of this study was to develop age-and-gender-specific smoothed WC and WHtR percentile curves for the Pakistani children and adolescents aged 2–18 years.MethodsA cross-sectional data-set from a multi-ethnic anthropometric survey was considered. A sample of 10,668 healthy subjects (boys = 51.92%; and girls = 48.08%), aged 2–18 years was studied. Height (cm) and WC (cm) of each subject was measured under standard procedure and WHtR & WHtR (exp) were calculated. Age-and-gender-specific smoothed curves were obtained using the lambda-mu-sigma (LMS) method and compared with percentile curves obtained from different countries.ResultsExcept few early ages, the WC values increased with age in both sexes. Both boys and girls had approximately similar WC during 6–11 years of age and after age of 11, the boys had larger WC than the girls had. For WHtR, the centile curves showed a continuous decrease by 16 years of age and then increased gradually. WHtR of the girls in various ages were having similar or higher than those of the boys. In comparison of WC 50th and 90th percentiles with other countries, it was found that except few ages, the Pakistani children had larger WC than the other reference populations and the results of WHtR were also comparable to the other nations.ConclusionsWe present new reference data of WC, WHtR and WHtR (exp) using a representative sample of the Pakistani children aged 2–18 years. These reference values can be used provisionally for early detection of central obesity and its associated risks in the Pakistani children.


2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mårten Lagergren ◽  
Noriko Kurube ◽  
Yasuhiko Saito

Population aging is expected to increase long-term care (LTC) costs in both Japan and Sweden. This study projected LTC costs for 2010 through 2040 for different assumptions of population change, LTC need by age group and gender, and LTC provided per level of need and cost in Japan and Sweden. Population data were taken from the official national forecasts. Needs projections were based on epidemiological data from the Nihon University Japanese Longitudinal Study of Aging and the Swedish Survey of Living Conditions. Data on LTC provision by need and cost were taken from nine Japanese municipalities collected by assessments in the LTC insurance system and from surveys in eight Swedish municipalities. Total initial costs were calibrated to official national figures. Two projections based on two different scenarios were made for each country from 2010 to 2040. The first scenario assumed a constant level of need for LTC by age group and gender, and the other assumed a continuation of the present LTC need trends until 2025. For Japan, this resulted in a projected cost increase of 93% for the one and 80% for the other; for Sweden it was 52% and 24%, respectively. The results reflected differences in population aging and health development.


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