Singapore Hawker Centers: Origins, Identity, Authenticity, and Distinction

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Tam
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Workers ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Racially Diverse ◽  
Race Identity ◽  
Island State ◽  
Cultural Power ◽  
Low Culture ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Administrative Problem

Foodways in Singapore embody the anxieties of the island-state—namely heritage, race, identity, and authenticity. Hawking in Singapore was initially seen as a nuisance that had to be tolerated and later regulated by both the colonial administration and newly independent government. The relocation of hawkers to centralized food centers marked the imposition of order and hygiene onto a squalid industry. Street peddlers, once an administrative problem, were refashioned into a potent symbol of Singapore's heritage. Hawker food has also been used as a trope of multiculturalism to unite a racially diverse people. The influx of foreign workers from the mid-1980s presented new tensions that shed light on the cultural power of food to articulate inclusion and exclusion. Markers of authenticity, namely historical traditions and artisanal expertise, map haphazardly onto the realities of actual foodways. Finally, a breed of connoisseurs, who grew up in a cosmopolitan nation-state, was birthed in the 1990s. Embracing the low culture of hawker food, local foodies impute new cultural meanings to hawker food that embody the tension between distinction and democracy.

Hannah Arendt Encounters Friedrich von Gentz: On Revolution, Preservation, and European Unity

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Anna Jurkevics
Keyword(s):  
Early Development ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Age Of Revolution ◽  
European Unity ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Early Influences

This article contextualizes Hannah Arendt's complex and sometimes contradictory views on the Prussian statesman and balance-of-power theorist Friedrich von Gentz. A narration of Arendt's encounter with Gentz, to whom she devoted considerable space in her biography of Rahel Varnhagen and about whom she wrote two additional early essays, can illuminate the elusive contours of her international political thought as they developed from her early career to mature works like The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) and On Revolution (1963). I argue that a better grasp of Arendt's encounter with Gentz will shed light on the following: Arendt's complex relationship with conservatism, the early influences on her commitment to European unity and federation, and the early development of her conviction that the pathologies of the nation-state system require a revolutionary, cosmopolitan answer. Moreover, understanding this early encounter and its lasting traces will clarify why Gentz, who himself was active at the height of the “Age of Revolution,” once again became an important interlocutor for Arendt as she explored the possibility of a new age of revolutions in On Revolution.

scholarly journals The Impact of Race on Speech Perception and Accentedness Judgments in Racially Diverse and Non-Diverse Groups

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethan Kutlu ◽  
Mehrgol Tiv ◽  
Stefanie Wulff ◽  
Debra Titone
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Racially Diverse ◽  
Indian English ◽  
Linguistic Ideologies ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Diverse Groups ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Asian Face ◽  
Shed Light

Linguistic ideologies are informed by social stereotyping (Fiske et al. 2007) to maintain the standard variety, which is often interpreted as morally superior to nonstandard varieties (Hill 2008). Consequently, these ideologies racialize nonstandard varieties (Rosa 2016), leading to even more negative stereotypes (Giles & Watson 2013). One outlet of such stereotypes can be observed with accentism. This study examines whether seeing a White or a South Asian face impacts listeners’ perception of American, British, Indian English and to what extent listeners’ social network diversity plays a role in predicting their perception of speech. Results showed that intelligibility scores decreased and accentedness judgments increased for all varieties when speech was paired with South Asian faces. However, listeners who have racially less diverse social network have the highest accentedness judgments. Currently, there is a pressing question to understand how to account for the emergence of different English varieties and their differing pronunciations. Results here shed light on to how these varieties are perceived. The implications will be discussed in light of language teaching and linguistic practices.

“Happy at Last”

2019 ◽  
pp. 124-136
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Q. McCune
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Focused Attention ◽  
Nation State ◽  
National Image ◽  
Nation States ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Sexual Economies

“Branded Beautiful” examines the relationship between individual pop celebrity, the promotion of a national identity, and the use of sexuality while branding each. Barbados promotes itself as a site of controlled abandon straddling performances of modernity while cashing in on imaginaries of “primitive” exoticism. Robyn “Rihanna” Fenty’s pop stardom is built on an ever-changing boldness that often includes in your face sexuality. The relationship between Rihanna and representations of Barbados is fraught with ambiguity. Using Rihanna’s August 2011 LOUD tour concert in Barbados, “Branded Beautiful” argues that the events surrounding the show shed light on the differing sexual economies of pop stardom and national tourism; that such divergences highlight the insecurities of nation-states seeking to make a name for themselves within a global market; and that despite the distinctions it is quite hard for a nation-state to divorce celebrity focused attention from an ideal national image.

Consumer Culture Theory

2015 ◽  
pp. 1977-1988
Author(s):  
Domen Bajde
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
Cultural Resources ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Culture Theory ◽  
Cultural Processes ◽  
Cultural Forces ◽  
Consumer Culture Theory ◽  
Shed Light

Consumer culture theory helps us take note of the cultural forces and dynamics in which technology consumption is entangled. It enables people to articulate the cultural processes (ideological, mythic, ritualistic, etc.) through which cultural meanings become granted to or denied to technological innovations, thus shaping the value of technologies as cultural resources sustaining consumer identities. In its urge to shed light on these aspects, CCT tends to reinforce the gaps and asymmetries between the “socio-cultural” and the “techno-material”, leaving plenty of room for further study. The authors outline the strengths and limitations of CCT to offer several tentative suggestions as to how ANT and CCT might draw on each other to enrich our understanding of technology consumption.

Temp Nations? A Research Agenda on Migration, Temporariness, and Membership

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (9) ◽  
pp. 1389-1403 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Cook-Martín
Keyword(s):  
Research Agenda ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
Foreign Workers ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Temporary Migration ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Migration Regimes ◽  
Selection Of

This article outlines a research agenda to study how, why, and with what consequences systems of migration policy that rely on time-delimited statuses have been tools of nation-state making. Taking a long view and comparing key contemporary cases, I argue that temporary migration regimes have been appealing because they purport to reconcile the disparate interests and preferences of political actors in sending and receiving countries, native and foreign workers, and employers. Such regimes have been a means for the affirmative selection of migrants as workers—an approach that preserves the option of rejecting them as permanent members. The proposed research would uncover the full range of temporal means by which states have shaped populations through migration policy. Substantively, it explores how changes in the ratio of temporary to permanent statuses affect the meaning of political belonging. This would include an examination of how the policing of temporariness requires routine bureaucratic monitoring as well as extreme measures like deportation with consequences for migrants as well as for the communities in which they live.

Consumer Culture Theory

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 10-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Domen Bajde
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
Cultural Resources ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Culture Theory ◽  
Cultural Processes ◽  
Cultural Forces ◽  
Consumer Culture Theory ◽  
Shed Light

Consumer culture theory helps us take note of the cultural forces and dynamics in which technology consumption is entangled. It enables people to articulate the cultural processes (ideological, mythic, ritualistic, etc.) through which cultural meanings become granted to or denied to technological innovations, thus shaping the value of technologies as cultural resources sustaining consumer identities. In its urge to shed light on these aspects, CCT tends to reinforce the gaps and asymmetries between the “socio-cultural” and the “techno-material”, leaving plenty of room for further study. The authors outline the strengths and limitations of CCT to offer several tentative suggestions as to how ANT and CCT might draw on each other to enrich our understanding of technology consumption.

scholarly journals Law, Nation and Race: Exploring Law’s Cultural Power in Delimiting Belonging in English Courtrooms

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Aliverti
Keyword(s):  
Legal Culture ◽  
Social World ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Symbolic Power ◽  
Legal Consciousness ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Power ◽  
The Law ◽  
Shed Light

This article explores the place of law and legality in the formation of British national identity and its reproduction (and contestation) inside the courtroom. It draws on sociolegal scholarship on legal culture, legal consciousness and ‘law and colonialism’ to shed light on the cultural power of the law to forge national subjectivities. The law does more than adjudicating justice and imposing sanctions. Its symbolic power lies in its capacity to construct legal subjectivities, of both individuals and nations. Through the law and its categories, people make sense of the social world and their position in it. The law can articulate national identities by expressing who we are and who we would like to be as a nation. By exploring the place of the law in discourses of British nationhood, this article contributes to our understanding of the ideological role of the law in reifying racial and global hierarchies. It also sheds light on how the boundaries of belonging can be unsettled through law’s power.

scholarly journals Queering Justice: States as Machines of Oppression

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (Summer) ◽  
pp. 48-59
Author(s):  
Nour Abu-Assab ◽  
Nof Eddin
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
The State ◽  
Arab State ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Recent Attention ◽  
Shed Light

In light of the recent attention to the incarceration, surveillance, and policing of non-normative people in the Middle East and North Africa, this article does not seek to offer alternatives to systems of justice. Instead, our argument revolves around the need to turn the concept of justice on its head, by demonstrating that justice within the context of the nation-state is in its essence a de facto and de jure mechanism of policing and surveillance. To do so, this article draws on Michael Foucault’s notion of state-phobia from a de-colonial perspective, intersectional feminist theory, and Hisham Sharabi’s conceptualisation of the Arab-state as neo-patriarchal. This article highlights the need to move away from the post-colonial benevolent imaginary of the state, as a result of people’s desire for self-determination, to a more realistic de-colonial conceptualisation of nation-states that emerged post-colonisation, as sites of oppression. This article will also shed light on the role of civil society in reinforcing the unjust justice sought within nation-state frameworks by drawing on the examples of the recent crackdown on non-normative people in Egypt, and the example of non-normative Palestinians living under occupation. The Egyptian and Palestinian cases are, respectively, one of an allegedly sovereign state that overtly restricts gender and sexual freedom, and another of an occupying state that nominally guarantees gender and sexual rights. These examples are used to demonstrate the theoretical underpinnings of this article, through which we seek to problematise and break binaries of justice versus injustice, and the state versus civil society, in an attempt to queer the concept of justice.

Consumer Culture Theory and the Socio-Cultural Investigation of Technology Consumption

2019 ◽  
pp. 171-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Domen Bajde ◽  
Mikkel Nøjgaard ◽  
Jannek K. Sommer
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
Cultural Resources ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Culture Theory ◽  
Cultural Processes ◽  
Cultural Forces ◽  
Consumer Culture Theory ◽  
Shed Light

Consumer culture theory helps us take note of the cultural forces and dynamics in which technology consumption is entangled. It enables us to articulate the cultural processes (e.g., ideological, mythic, ritualistic) through which cultural meanings become granted to or denied to technological innovations, thus shaping the value of technologies as cultural resources sustaining consumer identities. In its urge to shed light on these aspects, CCT tends to reinforce the gaps and asymmetries between the “socio-cultural” and the “techno-material,” leaving plenty of room for further study. The authors outline the strengths and limitations of CCT to offer several tentative suggestions as to how ANT and CCT might draw on each other to enrich the understanding of technology consumption.

scholarly journals Translation from, to and within the Atlantic Creoles

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Lang
Keyword(s):  
Rare Case ◽  
Translation Theory ◽  
Cultural Power ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Target Languages ◽  
Creole Languages ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract Translation from, to and within the Atlantic Creoles — Translation involving creóle languages suffers the general disadvantage of writing in creoles: low levels of literacy, the lack of standard orthographies, the overwhelming economic and cultural power of the metropolitan languages with which they compete. The pitfalls attendant to translation in any language are thus aggravated when translating to and from creoles, and these adverse sociolinguistic conditions affect the role of créoles as source and as target languages differently. Another possibility is of course that creoles serve as both SL and TL, and that translation be between or among creóles — a rather rare case. These three eventualities raise several issues of translation theory, in particular the role of shared implicature in languages whose cultures are related (Venuti, 1997). At the same time, certain concepts of translation theory explored recently by Robinson (1997) and others, can shed light upon the particular social and political problems faced by these languages.

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