scholarly journals Deep in the Brain: Identity and Authenticity in Pediatric Gender Transition

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sahar Sadjadi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Clinical Practices ◽  
Gender Transition ◽  
Gender Nonconforming ◽  
Scientific Substantiation ◽  
Contemporary United States ◽  
Cultural Attachment ◽  
The Brain

Based on an ethnography of clinical practices around gender-nonconforming and transgender children in the United States, this article explores the cultural and scientific notions of identity that shape this field. It examines the practice of diagnosing true gender identity in the clinic and situates the search for the foundation of identity in the inner depths of the self, and in children as harbingers of authenticity, as part of a broader cultural history. It addresses the scientific substantiation of the faith in innateness (“born this way”) and interiority (“from within”) of identity, as well as their political appeal. This article challenges the often taken-for-granted association of science with materialism—and the distribution of matter-idea along the nature–culture axis—by demonstrating the idealism that drives the siting of identity in the brain. Finally, it questions the assumption that it is the appeal of nature and biology that underlies the cultural attachment to entities such as the gene and the brain as locations for the origin of identity in the contemporary United States. Rather than the nature–culture dyad, this article argues that the internal-external dyad more accurately captures and explains this cultural attachment.

Some Economic Aspects of the Brain Drain

1979 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-14
Author(s):  
Harry G. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Brain Drain ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Aspects ◽  
National State ◽  
The One ◽  
Professional People ◽  
The Brain

The concept of “brain drain” is in its origins a nationalistic concept, by which is meant a concept that visualizes economic and cultural welfare in terms of the welfare of the residents of a national state or region, viewed as a totality, and excludes from consideration both the welfare of people born in that region who choose to leave it, and the welfare of the outside world in general. Moreover, though the available statistics are far from adequate on this point, there is generally assumed to be a net flow of trained professional people from the former colonial territories to the ex-imperial European nations, and from Europe and elsewhere to North America and particularly the United States. The concept thus lends itself easily to the expression of anti-colonial sentiments on the one hand, and anti-American sentiments on the other. The expression of such sentiments can be dignified by the presentation of brain drain as a serious economic and cultural problem, by relying on nationalistic sentiments and assumptions and ignoring the principles of economics—especially the principle that in every transaction there is both a demand and a supply—or by elevating certain theoretical economic possibilities into presumed hard facts.

The Global White Snake as Digital Activist Project

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-124
Author(s):  
Liang Luo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
The United States ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Green Card ◽  
Permanent Resident ◽  
Resident Alien ◽  
Human World ◽  
Contemporary United States

There is a long oral tradition and written record for the legend of the White Snake. As a woman, her “original sin” is being a snake. She is a snake who has cultivated herself for hundreds, if not thousands, of years to attain the form of a beautiful woman. Living as a resident “alien” (yilei) in the “Human Realm” (renjian), the White Snake has always been treated with suspicion, fear, exclusion, and violent suppression/exorcism. The White Snake is an immigrant to the human world, whose serpentine identity made her a “resident alien,” the legal category given to immigrants in the United States before they receive their “Green Card” and become a “permanent resident.” The implication of being a snake woman in the human world took on new meanings when the COVID-19 pandemic worsened the existing xenophobia, fear, and suspicion toward minority populations in the contemporary United States and throughout the world. Inspired by the Chinese White Snake legend, the three Anglophone opera, film, and stage projects from Cerise Lim Jacobs, Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri, and Mary Zimmerman, energetically engage with issues relevant to minority activism in the United States and more broadly, through digital media and digital platforms.

Fighting Poverty in the United States

2020 ◽  
pp. 73-103
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnic Discrimination ◽  
Immigration Status ◽  
United State ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Poverty Measures ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
Racial And Ethnic Discrimination ◽  
Contemporary United States

A major thread that runs through the fight against poverty in the United States is its connection between the history, values, and beliefs and interventions designed to combat poverty. Certain factors determine the characteristics of poverty in the United State of America: racial and ethnic discrimination, age, gender, residence, employment, inter-generational mobility, and immigration status. This chapter, therefore, seeks to examine the historical implications to poverty, the values and beliefs about poverty and the poor, legislative interventions, conceptual clarifications and poverty measures, realities of poverty in the contemporary United States, and potential policy solutions.

New Opportunities, the Brain Drain, and the Guptas

2019 ◽  
pp. 33-54
Author(s):  
Jennifer B. Saunders
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Brain Drain ◽  
Extended Family ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Community ◽  
The Family ◽  
Key Players ◽  
History Of ◽  
Race And Religion ◽  
The Brain

This chapter provides information about the significant contexts of the Hindu American community’s narrative performances. Reviewing reasons behind why people immigrate, it begins with general theories of immigration and then concentrates on the specific reasons why Indians left India during the period after 1947. The chapter then shifts its focus to the context in the United States as a receiving site for immigrants from India with particular attention to race and religion, two dominant themes in American immigration that have contributed to the Guptas’ experiences and the dynamics of their community-making activities. This leads to a discussion of the significance of religion for migrants in the United States before introducing the more specific religious context of the Guptas’ community. Finally, the chapter expands its lens to their transnational extended family with family trees, a description of their social community, and a specific history of key players in the family.

GRAHAM E. FULLERAND REND RAHIM FRANCKE, The Arab Shiעa: The Forgotten Muslims (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999.) Pp. 290. $49.95.

2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 644-646
Author(s):  
Kamran Aghaie
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Practical Representation

As a historian interested in Shiעi communities in Arab countries, I could not help but be disappointed by the lack of social and cultural history in this study. However, this is not a negative reflection on the book. What may at first seem like a weakness to readers such as myself, who are more interested in social and cultural history, is actually a necessary part of the authors' formulation of their argument. The book is intended to be a very practical representation of the Arab Shiעi with political analysis that has immediate policy implications for the Shiעi themselves, the Arab regimes that rule over them, and the United States. As a monograph dealing with policy issues related to the Arab Shiעi, this book is very successful and is of special interest to scholars, activists, and policy-makers dealing with issues related to the Arab Shiעi.

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