scholarly journals The Embodied Testimony of Domitila Chungara in The Courage of the People (Jorge Sanjinés, 1971)

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 180
Author(s):  
Isabel Seguí
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Community Members ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Cinema ◽  
The People ◽  
Mise En Scene ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Siglo Xx

Abstract. Awarded in Europe but censored in Bolivia during thirteen years, The Courage of the People (Jorge Sanjinés, Bolivia, 1971) is an outstanding example of Latin American collaborative political cinema. The film is an account of the massacre of St John’s eve in the Bolivian mining settlement of Siglo XX in 1967. But it also situates its background, through the mise-en-scène of representative community members’ life stories. Domitila Chungara was one of the characters selected to represent the collective; in her case, the organized housewives.This article analyses the range of testimonial bodily expressions captured in Domitila Chungara’s participation in the film: her fighting, maternal and suffering bodies. This performance constitutes her first public testimony that, remarkably, is a play-acting testimonio as opposed to the more common transcribed oral accounts that constitute this genre. The self-representation of Chungara and her comrades in the film breaks down the wall of silence that surrounded women’s body-based political practices in the public sphere and gives value to their body-based political culture, instrumental in understanding Bolivian politics in the last century.

scholarly journals Mobilizing Indigenous Languages for Democracy in Nigeria: A Discursive and Sociolinguistic Critique

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benson Eluma ◽  
Yinka Olarinmoye
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Road ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Views ◽  
The Public Sphere

For democracy to become the political culture in Nigeria, the discourse of politics has to be conducted through expressive mechanisms owned by the people. In the absence of popular ownership of political language, the road to disconnect, apathy and disenfranchisement lies wide open. We take the view that the problem of politics is located squarely in the public sphere and that discourse is the activity that characterizes the public sphere. We raise the point that the sociolinguistic environment in the country does not encourage whole masses of Nigerians to talk politics in languages in which they can freely articulate their positions and present their aspirations. We posit that citizens are disenfranchised and rendered inaudible and invisible to the extent to which they cannot undertake political discourse with an appreciable measure of linguistic ease. The benefits of diversity are endangered as many people and entire groups in Nigeria lose the means of expressing their political views and opinions, let alone political projects and programmes. Invoking Bakhtin’s concept of heteroglossia, we make a blanket case for the viability of each and every extant language in Nigeria for political discourse if such usage is actively promoted among their respective communities of users.

Historical Context

2021 ◽  
pp. 40-62
Author(s):  
Gustavo S.J. Morello
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious History ◽  
American Religious History ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Public ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The People ◽  
The Public Sphere

This chapter presents a historical account that helps us to understand Latin America’s religious present. Latin American religious history gives us a better understanding of the Latin American cultural background. Western religious traditions (Catholicism, Protestantism, secularism, evangelism) came to Latin American with different colonial powers: Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. However, Latin America’s religious history also shows the agency of Latin American peoples, the ability to create and recreate practices and locations for religion in the public sphere, as we can find Native and Afro traditions like Umbanda and Santería. The agency of the people, and the influence of religious figures in the public realm, have been part of the Latin American religious experience.

scholarly journals Contested Numbers: Census Controversies and the Press in 1960s Nigeria

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Gerardo Serra ◽  
Morten Jerven
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
The State ◽  
Population Census ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Press ◽  
Distribution Of Resources ◽  
The Public Sphere

Abstract This article reconstructs the controversies following the release of the figures from Nigeria's 1963 population census. As the basis for the allocation of seats in the federal parliament and for the distribution of resources, the census is a valuable entry point into postcolonial Nigeria's political culture. After presenting an overview of how the Africanist literature has conceptualized the politics of population counting, the article analyses the role of the press in constructing the meaning and implications of the 1963 count. In contrast with the literature's emphasis on identification, categorization, and enumeration, our focus is on how the census results informed a broader range of visual and textual narratives. It is argued that analysing the multiple ways in which demographic sources shape debates about trust, identity, and the state in the public sphere results in a richer understanding of the politics of counting people and narrows the gap between demographic and cultural history.

scholarly journals Politics and everyday life in Serbia in 2005: Views of politics, change of social system, the public sphere

2005 ◽  
pp. 45-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivana Spasic
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Political Scene

The paper offers an analysis of the interview data collected in the project "Politics and everyday life: Three years later" in terms of three main topics: attitudes to the political sphere, change of social system, and the democratic public sphere. The analysis focuses on ambivalences expressed in the responses which, under the surface of overall disappointment and discontent, may contain preserved results of the previously achieved "social learning" and their positive potentials. The main objective was to examine to what extent the processes of political maturation of citizens, identified in the 2002 study, have continued. After pointing to a number of shifts in people?s views of politics which generally do not contradict the tendencies outlined in 2002 (such as deemotionalization and depersonalization of politics, insistence on efficiency of public officials and on a clearer articulation of positions on the political scene), it is argued that the process of rationalization of political culture has not stopped, but it manifests itself differently in changed circumstances. The republican euphoria of 2002 has been replaced by resignation, with a stronger individualist orientation and a commitment to professional achievement.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Zachery A. Fry
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Union Soldiers

The introduction offers context for the experiences of Union soldiers by examining mid-nineteenth century political culture. During the war itself, officers and men engaged in a spirited and highly publicized debate over the meaning of loyalty. Republicans came to identify true loyalty as obedience to the wartime measures of the Lincoln administration and vigorous engagement in the public sphere, while Democrats proclaimed loyalty to the Constitution and the cultural norms of an anti-partisan military.

Trials and Tribulations

2020 ◽  
pp. 65-97
Author(s):  
Stephen Lovell
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
The Public ◽  
High Profile ◽  
The People ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
People Movement ◽  
The City

This chapter tells the story of public speaking in Russia from the imposition of greater restrictions on the public sphere in 1867 through to the eve of Alexander II’s assassination in 1881. It shows that in this period the focus of the Russian public switched from the zemstvo to the courtroom, where a number of high-profile trials took place (and were reported, sometimes in stenographic detail, in the press). The chapter examines the careers and profiles of some of Russia’s leading courtroom orators. It also explores the activities of the Russian socialists (populists), in particular the ‘Going to the People’ movement of 1873–4 and later propaganda efforts in the city and the courtroom. It ends by considering the intensification of public discourse at the end of the 1870s: the Russo-Turkish War saw a surge of patriotic mobilization, but at the same time the populist adoption of terrorism seized public attention.

Japanese Buddhism and the Public Sphere: From the End of World War II to the Post-Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Power Plant Accident

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shimazono Susumu
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Hanshin Earthquake

Abstract Until the 1990s, a commonly held view in Japan was that Buddhism had withdrawn from public space, or that Buddhism had become a private concern. Although Buddhist organizations conducted relief and support activities for the people affected at the time of the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995, they were often seen to be out of place, and little attention was given to them by the media. However recently there are areas in which Buddhism can be seen as playing new roles in the public sphere. Religious organizations seem to be expected to perform functions in fields that lie outside the narrow definition of religion. These expectations are becoming stronger among Buddhist organizations as well. In this paper, I describe some areas in the public sphere in which Buddhist groups are starting to play important roles including disaster relief, support of the poor and people without relatives, provision of palliative care and spiritual care, and involvement in environmental and nuclear plant issues.

Ovid, the Res Publica, and the ‘Imperial Presidency’: Public Figures and Popular Freedoms in Augustan Rome and America

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-144
Author(s):  
Nandini B. Pandey
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Information Access ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Property ◽  
Imperial Presidency ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
The People ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Res Publica

Abstract How did Romans perceive the changing relationships among leaders, the people, and the public sphere as their commonwealth (res publica) fell under the control of an emperor? This paper examines Ovid’s uses of the Latin adjective publicus, ‘public, common, open’, to explore strands of implicitly ‘republican’ political thought behind his poetic corpus. Ovid first celebrates Augustus’ material benefactions as common goods for private consumption; then dramatises the tragic consequences of arbitrary domination; and finally, from exile, treats the emperor himself as a public property, subject to his people’s spectatorship and sovereignty of judgment. A final section draws on Ovid’s thinking on privacy, publicity, and information access to explore themes related to America’s ‘imperial presidency’, from the Founders’ emphasis on a free press to the recent interplay of secrecy, celebrity, and ‘sunshine’ laws.

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