scholarly journals Street-Level Multiculturalism: Cultural Integration and Identity Politics of African Migrants in Hong Kong

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-57
Author(s):  
Terence Chun Tat Shum
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Cultural Integration ◽  
African Culture ◽  
African Migrants ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Conscious Process ◽  
African Drum

Abstract Multiculturalism is about co-existence of diverse cultures. Current literature on multiculturalism mostly uses a top-down approach to examine how the governments adopt different policies to manage cultural diversity. However, how the migrants use their own culture including music to enhance integration is often neglected. This paper uses the experience of African migrants in Hong Kong to reveal an alternative account of multiculturalism. Based on in-depth interviews and participant observation with African drummers, this paper examines the role of African drum as a means of cultural integration. It raises the concept of “street-level multiculturalism” for analysing how African migrants experience and negotiate cultural difference on the ground. It argues that African drum music promotes intercultural contact by arousing curiosity and creating friendly atmosphere. Africans’ engagement in identity politics is based on their marginal status. Their ability to negotiate their African culture and their Hong Kong experience is a politically conscious process.

scholarly journals The shifting landscape of African-Pentecostalism in Kenya

2022 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julius M. Gathogo
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Theological Education ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
African Culture ◽  
African Heritage ◽  
Research Article ◽  
General Practices

I define African Pentecostalism as the Pentecostal thread that embraces some elements of African culture, without necessarily admitting it. It embraces some elements of the African heritage consciously or unconsciously. This research article sets on the premise that African Pentecostalism is the ideal phrase when referring to Pentecostalism in Africa. This drives us to consider the uniqueness of Pentecostalism in Africa rather than generalising its presence. This article seeks to demonstrate that African Pentecostalism in the 21st-century Kenya has undergone paradigm shifts in various dimensions, which includes leadership structuring, political orientations, modes of disciplining, eschatological concern, structural make-up, economic domain, health concern, ecumenical relations, gender relations, identity politics, theological education, poverty concern, use of science and technology, and general practices. Has the religious outfits that referred the earthly concerns as temporal tents and largely focused on the ‘eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands’ (2 Cor 5:1) appreciated the necessity of God’s kingdom and will-being ‘done on earth, as it is in heaven’ (Mt 6:10)? In light of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), has the ecclesiastical model that was too conservative become liberal in nature? The methodology includes interviews with selected people who are connected to this topic, participant observation and through an extensive review of the relevant literature.

scholarly journals The Sociability of West African Migrants among Russians in Moscow

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-156
Author(s):  
Исаак Олумайова Они
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
West African ◽  
Host Community ◽  
Host Society ◽  
African Migrants ◽  
The Social ◽  
African Community ◽  
Research Show

This paper focuses on the social relationships of West African migrants living in Moscow. It investigates the factors to which West African migrants are exposed that promote or limit their social involvement in the new environment in which they find themselves. Although the African community in Russia is rather small, it is gradually increasing. It is, therefore, the aim of this research to examine the effect of the host environment on their perception of the society and how they try to blend in, or not, with social activities there. The article is based on qualitative methods, namely eleven interviews and participant observation of West African migrants. This research revolves around themes such as their communicative language skills, formation of networks among the host community, and sociability. Findings from the research show that West African migrants in Moscow have been attached to their ethnic landscapes, which has limited their sociability in their host society. Since sociability is not mono-directional, the state needs to do more to create both public awareness of the need to recognize and accept the presence of other races and also to create regulations that will guide the smooth integration of migrants in the country.

“The American Outlaws Are Our People”: Fox Sports and the Branded Ambivalence of an American Soccer Fan at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup

2021 ◽  
pp. 152747642110532
Author(s):  
Charlotte E. Howell
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
World Cup ◽  
Sports Media ◽  
Progressive Politics ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Sports Programming ◽  
American National Identity ◽  
American Media

Drawing on fan studies, sports media studies, media industries studies, and participant observation of the American Outlaws, this essay analyzes specific aspects of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup as televised by Fox Sports in the wider context of soccer’s evolving place within the American sports media marketplace. American media companies have increasingly positioned soccer as an upscale sport in the U.S. In addition to representing an affluent and cosmopolitan taste culture, the representation of the American Outlaws as part of Fox Sports’ programming and branding flattened the frictions of class, national identity, politics, and race that shaped American soccer discourse in the summer of 2019. This essay explores this flattening and the underlying tensions between televising a tournament based in American national identity that allows for a more mass audience appeal and the more niche-based framing of soccer—including the progressive politics of women’s soccer—in U.S. sports media.

Cross-cultural Encounters in Urban Festivals: Between Liberation and Domination

2020 ◽  
pp. 120633121989703
Author(s):  
Lasse Koefoed ◽  
Maja de Neergaard ◽  
Kirsten Simonsen
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Cultural Distance ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The Body ◽  
Voluntary Organizations ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
Negotiation Of Identity ◽  
Aesthetic Politics

This paper is part of a wider research project on Paradoxical Spaces: Encountering the Other in Public Space that explores how cultural difference is practiced and negotiated in different public spaces in Copenhagen. The present case focus on encounters at two urban festivals: Kulturhavn (Cultural Harbur) and Smag Verden (Taste the World)—both multicultural and both initiated by the Municipality of Copenhagen. The festivals are seen as sites for ongoing dialogue and negotiation of identity and belonging. The celebration, performances, and pleasure of festivals can empower the body, break down social and cultural distance, and for a moment suspend everyday life. They are related to laughter and freedom, but can also be exclusive, alienating, and a vehicle of the inserting of the hegemonic order. The aim of the paper is to discover how the festivals work as social and material mediators of cross-cultural encounters—how they give rise to different modes of encounters and how they balance between liberation and similarities. They are both organized by the municipality of Copenhagen, who invite voluntary organizations and cultural associations every year to participate in organizing the two festivals. They both cover a broad range of cultural activities such as dance, music, food, sport, and theatre, and they share the vision of celebrating the cultural diversity of the city. We chose these two festivals in order to explore variations in the way the festivals are experienced and encountered; the focus of the analysis is on how festivals with many similarities in location and formal conditions can give rise to rather different modes of encounters. The aim of the paper is to explore how the festivals work as social and material mediators of cross-cultural encounters. How do the two festivals give rise to different modes of encounters? How do they balance between liberation and domination in a differential way? Drawing on empirical material obtained through participant observation and framed by theoretical conceptualization of cross-cultural encounters, multicultural festivals, and aesthetic politics, the paper explores embodied encounters at the two festivals. It focuses on the role of the festivals as social and material mediators of encounters and negotiation of identities. The paper concludes on the paradoxical character of the festivals, involving antagonistic embodiments of performance, pleasure, and politics.

scholarly journals Surveillance cultures, chains and holes in street level networking: dealing with drug users in Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Porto Alegre (Brazil)

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 497-511 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafaela Rigoni
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Drug Users ◽  
Illicit Drugs ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Surveillance Culture ◽  
Porto Alegre ◽  
Systematic Screening ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Surveillance Cultures

If surveillance is understood as a complex multi-dimensional process, then collaboration between health, social and law enforcement sectors can be viewed as a part of the surveillance culture of particular societies and urban settings. Policies towards illicit drugs usually build on a two-track approach—public health and public order—with different objectives that have to be negotiated daily by street level workers in the light of their differing beliefs on drug use. This paper brings examples of collaboration and non-collaboration among workers from social, health and law enforcement agencies in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Porto Alegre, Brazil in their daily interactions with drug users, to analyze the types of surveillance arising from these negotiations. The study utilizes results from 80 in-depth interviews with street level workers and 800 hours of participant observation carried out from February 2010 until March 2011, equally divided between the two cities. Different cultures of surveillance produce diverse state-citizen approaches in terms of coercion, care, and rights. In Amsterdam, close collaboration and information exchange among workers produce a ‘chain’ surveillance culture: an intensive screening allows drug users to have more access to care, yet, at the same time this can produce excessive control over users’ lives. In Porto Alegre, by contrast, insufficient collaboration produces a surveillance culture of ‘holes’: less systematic screening and lack of information sharing allows users to slip out of care, and of workers’ surveillance sight. Historically, though coming from apparently opposite extremes in terms of drug surveillance (respectively permissive and controlling), both Amsterdam and Porto Alegre in practice show surveillance cultures which combine care and order. Combinations, however, vary according to different assemblages between actors concerned with transforming drug users’ lives.

Social Policy, Cultural Integration and Faith: A Muslim Reflection

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dilwar Hussain
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
British Society ◽  
Cultural Integration ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Big Society ◽  
Economic Reality ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
The Uk

This article is a reflection on some of the discussions around faith and public life, within the context of Muslim communities and their interaction with public policy. It looks at the gap between popular debates on Muslims and the actual lived socio-economic reality of most people of Muslim background, and then goes on to look at aspects of identity formation and Muslim identity politics in the UK. It also considers the idea of integration and looks briefly at emerging Islamic discourses that are grappling with some of the challenges presented by modern British society. Finally, the article explores the role of faith in the public sphere and if it can help to build social capital and play a role in ideas such as the Big Society. The article concludes by emphasising the need to move beyond identity politics and communitarianism and asks where the real divides in society are – between religious and ideological groups or within them?

All I get is an emoji: dating on lesbian mobile phone app Butterfly

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 816-832 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Tse-Shang Tang
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Mobile Apps ◽  
Social Networking Site ◽  
Bisexual Women ◽  
Mobile Media ◽  
Dating Apps ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Bisexual ◽  
Conservative Values

Unlike mobile apps for gay men, lesbian dating apps have been slow to catch on as a habitual space to look for friends and lovers. This study adopted a qualitative approach to investigate the social expectations and romantic longings of Chinese lesbians and bisexual women aged 35 and above in establishing same-sex relationships using mobile media. In-depth interviews were conducted with 12 Chinese lesbians and bisexual women, and participant observation was carried out on the Hong Kong-based lesbian social networking site Butterfly. The aim of the study was to explore the social meanings of intimacy created, negotiated and changed among Chinese lesbians and bisexual women. I argue that although social media presents ample opportunities for love and intimacy, the prevailing conservative values and cultural norms surrounding dating and relationships in Hong Kong are often reinforced and played out in their choice of romantic engagement.

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