scholarly journals Postcolonial theory and false dichotomies

HISTOREIN ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 95
Author(s):  
Monika Bobako

The very conceptual framework that structures Chris Lorenz’s argumentation in his book Bordercrossing is based on the contraposition of the two epistemological perspectives, named as “objectivism” and “relativism”, that are both supposed to be overcome in Lorenz’s own analysis. However, this framework is responsible for a number of interpretative inadequacies in Lorenz’s book – mainly because it is unable to grasp the ways in which power relations influence knowledge production processes and to account for the situatedness of any knowledge, including the one produced in a discipline of history.<br />

Author(s):  
Aneta Stojnić

In this paper I shall argue that radical epistemic delinking has a key role in liberation from the Colonial Matrix of Power as well as the change in the existing global power relations which are based in the colonialism and maintained through exploitation, expropriation and construction of the (racial) Other. Those power relations render certain bodies and spaces as (epistemologically) irrelevant. In order to discuss possible models of struggle against such condition, firstly I have addressed the relation between de-colonial theories and postcolonial studies, arguing that decolonial positions are both historicising and re-politicising the postcolonial theory. In my central argument I have focused on the epistemic delinking and political implications of decolonial turn. With reference to Grada Killomba I have argued for the struggle against epistemic violence through decolonising knowledge. Decolonising knowledge requires delinking form Eurocentric model of knowledge production and radical dismantling the existing hierarchies among different knowledge. It requires recognition of the ‘Other epistemologies’ and ‘Other knowledge’ as well as liberation from Western disciplinary and methodological limitations. One of the main goals of decolonial project is deinking from the Colonial Matrix of Power. However, delinking is not required only in the areas of economy and politics but also in the field of epistemology. Article received: June 15, 2017; Article accepted: June 26, 2017; Published online: October 15, 2017; Original scholarly paperHow to cite this article: Stojnić, Aneta. "Power, Knowledge, and Epistemic Delinking." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 14 (2017): 105-111. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i14.218


Author(s):  
Mara Mărginean

Building on several international professional meetings of architects organized in Romania or abroad, this article details how various modernist principles, traditionally subsumed to Western European culture, were gradually reinterpreted as an object of policy and professional knowledge on urban space in the second and third world countries. The article analyses the dialogue between Romanian architects and their foreign colleagues. It highlights how these conversations adjusted the hierarchies and power relations between states and hegemonic centres of knowledge production. In this sense, it contributes to the recent research on the means by which the "trans- nationalization of expertise" "transformed various (semi)peripheral states into new centres of knowledge and thus outlines a new analytical space where domestic actions of the Romanian state in the area of urban policies are to be analysed not as isolated practices of a totalitarian regime, but as expressions of the entanglements between industrialization models, knowledge flows and models of territoriality that were not only globally relevant, but they also often received specific regional, national and local forms.


Author(s):  
Luca Barra ◽  
Massimo Scaglioni

In recent years, the completed transition towards a fully developed multichannel environment and the growth of non-linear offers has brought to the Italian television (TV) landscape unprecedented attention on the ways in which programmes are communicated to the audience and their images and identities are carefully built. The preparation and circulation of promos have therefore grown in importance and relevance in the national TV industry, as new original practices emerged and a long-lasting tradition was challenged by new formats and goals. Building on a set of in-depth interviews with professionals involved in the writing, production and distribution of promos, and analysis of other production materials, the article reconstructs the ‘promotional cultures’ of Italian broadcasters, analysing the main production processes, the different kinds of promos and the various skills involved, and the logics and constraints involved in the making of these ephemeral paratexts that more and more are pervading both the structure of programming flow and the experience of national TV viewers. Thus, the article investigates the professional practices and logics of contemporary commercial and pay TV programme promotion in Italy, defining the role played by national private broadcasters and transnational groups in shaping an Italian promotional space on TV. The ‘Italian style’ of TV show promotion emerges as a constant negotiation between local historical traditions and clichés, on the one hand, and international trends in promo production and aesthetics, on the other, with a solid path shared with other countries and broadcasters, and some peculiar specificities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 168-185
Author(s):  
Sethulego Z. Matebesi

A growing body of literature on urban and grassroots social movements is replete with case studies of citizens mobilizing against infrastructural development projects. These mobilizations, known as insurgent citizenship—the participation in alternative channels of political expression—take different forms and have various impacts. An investigation into the case of the mobilizing agenda of the Greater Bloemfontein Taxi Association (GBTA) against using a costly intermodal transport facility in Bloemfontein is aimed at highlighting the often neglected dilemma of how powerless citizens—for example, taxi owners—respond to state hegemony. Theoretically, the article is grounded in the conceptual framework of insurgent citizenship and, empirically, draws on narratives of a range of participants. The findings provide an understanding of the importance of organizational structure and leadership in the sustained insurgent action by the GBTA. It is argued that the insurgent action by the GBTA is produced mainly by—on the one hand—the conflictual relationship between government policies and practices and—on the other hand—grassroots resistance to their exclusionary and marginalizing effects. Furthermore, the findings elucidate that insurgent practice may be driven by neoliberal principles of competition, profit, and entrepreneurship.


2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-257
Author(s):  
Christian Smigiel

Abstract. This article deals with one of the most controversial topics in urban studies related to mobile capital and mobile people. At first glance this seems to be contradictory since numbers of short-term rentals have decreased dramatically due to the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. However, this paper is not about numbers and statistics. Instead it discusses structural issues regarding governance and power relations which remain important topics (especially) in times of crisis. It provides insights regarding the following issues: firstly, it deconstructs different “myths” that still surround short-term rentals and Airbnb and secondly, it delineates the structural power of Airbnb as a new urban institution. This helps us to understand some of the conflicts over Airbnb and the pitfalls with current forms of regulation on the one side as well as showing the complexity and agency of short-term rentals on the other.


2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Brem ◽  
Björn Ivens

The fields of frugal and reverse innovation as well as sustainability and its management have received tremendous interest in recent times. However, there is little literature on how both fields are related to each other. Hence, this paper gives an overview of research in both areas and provides a view of the relationship between frugal and reverse innovation, sustainability management and performance constructs. The link between frugal and reverse innovation on the one hand and sustainability performance on the other hand is established through a differentiated perspective on dimensions representing different fields of sustainability management, i.e. the sustainability of resources used in value creation, the sustainability of the actual value creation processes, and the sustainability of the outcomes of value creation processes. Moreover, we also argue for a positive link between the three dimensions of sustainability management and a company’s market performance.


2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rasheed S. Al-Jarrah ◽  
Ahmad M. Abu-Dalu ◽  
Hisham Obiedat

AbstractThe purpose of our current research is to see how Relevance Theory can handle one specific translation problem, namely strategic ambiguous structures. Concisely, we aim to provide a conceptual framework as to how the translator should cope with a pervasive ambiguity problem at the discoursal level. The point of departure from probably all previous models of analysis is that a relevance-theoretic analysis would, we believe, require that a “good” translation benotthe one that representsan interpretationof the text, but the one which leaves the door open for all interpretations which the original text provides evidence for. Hence,the role of translator is not to ‘interpret’ but to ‘translate’. If this is true, ambiguity resolution should not be a viable alternative. In other words, what the translator should do is empower the audience with all it takes to let them work out all the explicatures (linguistically inferred meanings) and entertain themselves with the implicatures (contextually inferred meanings) of the original. Direct Translation, along the lines laid down by Gutt (1991/2000), is the method of translation which can, we believe, bring about the desired results because “it tries to provide readers with contextual information that enables them to draw their own inferences” (Smith 2000: 92).


2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 270-288
Author(s):  
César Domínguez

Abstract This article discusses why it is necessary to rebuild comparative literature in terms of a geopolitics of comparison. “Geopolitics” is understood here, following Gearóid Ó Tuathail, to mean a distinctive genre of geo-power which brought about the systemic closure of the surface of the globe. Comparative literature has been part and parcel of this process by extending a Eurocentric concept of “(national) literature” worldwide. A rebuilt comparative literature has, on the one hand, to bring to light significant evidence of the discipline’s history within the historical and geographical context of power relations and, on the other hand, confront the coloniality of knowledge on three levels—locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary. Here only the locutionary level is addressed by examining two journals—Comparative Literature and 1616: Anuario de la Sociedad Española de Literatura General y Comparada / Anuario de Literatura Comparada—from a bibliometric-analysis perspective.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lea Rahman

Climate change is not just one of the main problems of this century, it rather is a matter of justice: It was particularly caused by western industrialized countries and now hits all states bit by bit – regardless of the question of guilt. The author studies how states struggle for solutions and binding rules at the annual Climate Change conferences and which of the proposals have prevailed. Using approaches of the postcolonial theory, she examines which power relations that are tracing back to colonialism still exist at the political, economic and epistemic level.


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