scholarly journals Highland Asia as a field of anthropological study

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-36
Author(s):  
Jelle J P Wouters
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Magical Realism ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Historical Imagination ◽  
Anthropological Study

Zomia, in the sense exulted by James C. Scott (2009) as an abode of purposeful political anarchy and anti-stateism, is not an emic conceptualization, not a particular place or an incantation of a collective identity referred to or professed by particular populations of humans. As a spatial and social reality, or as a word-concept, Zomia, then appears an exercise in scholarly magical realism (evidence is ‘thin’, ‘limited’, and ‘ambiguous’, as Victor Lieberman (2010: 339) puts it more discreetly). It is a form of geographical and historical imagination that nevertheless has begun to ‘escape’ the narrow corridors of the academy and into public discourse where it now lives a life of its own. It is an original imagination no doubt – an optic that stimulates fresh scholarship – but one simultaneously cannot escape that Zomia-disciples are letting their imagination run away with them.

scholarly journals StandUpMigranten: The Role of Television Comedy for the Discourse on Migration in Germany

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin R. Herbers
Keyword(s):  
Political Discourse ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Fortress Europe

Dominant positions shape political discourse. They are brought forth by politicians and journalists alike, and impact social reality. With regard to migration discourse, strong images of repulsion, such as ‘Fortress Europe’, perpetuate a highly conservative stance. Nevertheless, these images can be subverted through comedy. The paper reviews the German television comedy show StandUpMigranten, which revolves around topics of immigration to Germany. Comedy subverts stereotypical depictions of immigrants and discusses them against the backdrop of comedy theory and its role in public discourse. 

scholarly journals Terms of Engagement: Re-Defining Identity and Infertility On-line

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 431-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elzbieta Korolczuk
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Specific Element ◽  
The Public ◽  
Sick People ◽  
Digital Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
On Line ◽  
Identity Based

This article focuses on the identity work that takes place on the biggest Polish Internet forum for infertile people (www.nasz-bocian.pl). It is an example of a wider trend of “digital groupings created by and for those who struggle with the physical and emotional burden of a disease or disability, and through blogs, chats and forums contact others who have similar experiences, while staying anonymous. Participating in on-line discussions often leads to various forms of social engagement, both on-line and off-line. The sick, their family members, partners and friends cooperate in order to change the public discourse, as well as the regulation and financing of research and the treatment of certain diseases. Emergence and proliferation of such digital groupings raise questions such as: what ails these communities? How the collective identity is constructed on-line? This article examines “boundary work, which is a specific element of collective identity construction processes. The analysis concerns how the borders are established between the different sub-groups within the digital community, and how this process involves producing novel forms of identity based on a fragmented “socially legitimized childlessness. It focuses on a sub-forum” Conscious Childlessness and is based on qualitative analysis of the posts placed there. This sub-forum was established by users who do not necessarily share the dominant collective identity around which the social mobilization on infertility in Poland coalesces. They refuse to see themselves as sick people, or as patients, attempting to construct a new collective identity based on the idea of choice and the pursuit of happiness.

scholarly journals “A Moment of Science, Please”: Activism, Community, and Humor at the March for Science

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 46-57
Author(s):  
Hauke Riesch ◽  
Photini Vrikki ◽  
Neil Stephens ◽  
Jamie Lewis ◽  
Olwenn Martin
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
Alternative Facts

In April 2017, scientists and science sympathizers held marches in the United Kingdom as part of a coordinated international March for Science movement that was held in over 600 cities worldwide. This article reports from participant-observation studies of the marches that took place in London and Cardiff. Supplemented with data from 37 interviews from marchers at the London event, the article reports on an analysis of the placards, focusing on marchers’ concerns and the language and images through which they expressed those concerns. How did the protesters articulate their concerns and objectives, and how were these articulations used to build a community? The placards did not represent a clear, focused, and unifying message; they instead illustrated disparate concerns ranging from human-induced climate change, Trump and “alternative facts,” and local UK specific political issues concerning the country’s exit from the European Union. Our analysis shows that placards gave a playful and whimsical character to the march, with slogans displaying significant amounts (and moments) of humor, often formulated through insider jokes, scientific puns, or self-deprecating appropriation of negative stereotypes about scientists. We analyze the march through the social movement literature and as a collective identity-building exercise for an (emergent) community of scientists and sympathizers with long-term aims of establishing a louder voice for scientists, and experts, in public discourse.

scholarly journals What the membership has taught? National identity construction in Lithuanian public discourse after accession to the European Union

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-173
Author(s):  
Andrius Švarplys
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
Eastern European Countries

‘Europe’ and ‘Russia’ have historically been the most remarkable landmarks, playing geopolitical, cultural, and moral guide-role in the construction of national collective identities in the Central Eastern European countries, including Lithuania. This ‘civilizational identity’ helped to unite Lithuanian political elites as well as society towards the direction to West and Europe after the collapse of Soviet Union. The question article addresses is: does the factual belonging to the European Union after the 1st May, 2004 give the impulse to re-define ‘Europe’ and ‘Russia’ as the old essentials of collective identity of Lithuanians? The article presents the research based on monitoring of national public discourse (five Lithuanian national newspapers) in 2004-2007, i.e. enjoying three years of membership in the European Union and NATO. The main result is that the role of Russia in the Lithuanian collective identity has not changed and still continues to play the major threat. The membership in the European Union and NATO has not solved Lithuanian security problem. According to the perceived threat, Russia has started to penetrate softly into Lithuania’s economy (especially energy sector) and has silently begun to make an impact to the domestic political parties and political elite. The traditional role of Europe, however, is slowly but gradually shifting from mythical ‘Paradise’ image to more critical understandings about divided Europe and selfish member-states. Already being in the EU and NATO, Lithuania should balance sometimes unfriendly westerners’ reluctance to understand the situation and help against Russia with the economic power that Russia uses as a political instrument against Lithuania on the international arena, as well as in domestic politics. This results in the feelings of „lost and forgotten” between Europe and Russia. Nevertheless, Europe continues to earn a positive meaning in national collective identity of Lithuanians, but all these trends in public discourse show that the state and society have only just started to realize its interests and learn how to handle the major challenges through the cooperation within the European Union, i.e. to build integrational European identity.

Public discourse, political legitimacy, and collective identity: Cases from Iraq, Brazil and China

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (s1) ◽  
pp. 560-585
Author(s):  
Max Hänska ◽  
Ahmed Bahiya ◽  
Fernanda Amaral ◽  
Yu Sui
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Communication Space ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Government

AbstractThrough the examination of recent developments in Iraq, Brazil and China, this paper explores the role of public communication in a) generating, corralling, and buttressing political legitimacy, and b) negotiating, demarcating, and reproducing collective identities. The transformation of Iraq’s public sphere after the fall of the Ba’ath regime saw it shift from a tightly controlled and unified communication space to unencumbered yet fragmented spheres split along ethno-sectarian lines, buttressing sectarian politics and identities. The emergence of subaltern publics in Brazil’s favelas empowered residents to express public dissent, assert their voice, and develop pride in their community. Chinese efforts to control online public discourse provide the government with ways of managing its perceived legitimacy and foster patriotic fellowship online. Legitimation and the affirmation of identity interact and support one another in public discourse, as we illustrate.

The Song Is Still a ‘Weapon’: The Portuguese Identity in Times of Crises

Young ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-31
Author(s):  
Paula Guerra
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Social Intervention ◽  
Heuristic Principle

This article examines a set of Portuguese songs that ‘sing’ the economic, financial and social crises in Portugal in the post-2008 period. This work underlies a heuristic principle: to demonstrate how artistic manifestations—in this case, the songs in several (sub-)genres of popular music—are themselves a means and an object of social intervention, demarcating a specific, defined space in the acknowledgment and revelation of social problems, and in the contestation, deconstruction and accusation of problems that deal with social reality. We demonstrate that these songs seek to denounce and sometimes incite social change with the aim of creating transformation. They are therefore signs of a specific space—identity producers—and not just an echo of social reality. Insurgent songs instigate readings, narratives and deconstructions of reality, and they are simultaneously significant elements of a collective identity.

Intellectuals and cultural trauma

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Eyerman
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Social Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Trauma ◽  
Specific Group ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Intellectual Labor ◽  
The Media ◽  
Martin Luther King

As opposed to the intelligentsia, a historically specific group, and the professions, those who perform intellectual labor, the intellectual is here understood as the performance of a social role, one which involves the articulation of ideas communicated to a broad audience. This implies at least two distinct ways of speaking about and studying the intellectual. The first is to look at the way various social actors take on the task of articulating ideas in public discourses. The second is to study how particular persons aspire to the intellectual, a role whose meaning they inherit as part of a tradition which must be interpreted and reinvented. Through an analysis of six assassinations, the article shows how intellectuals can act as carrier groups in what is called a cultural trauma, a public discourse in which the foundations of collective identity are brought up for reflection. The six assassinations are Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy in the United States, Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands and Olof Palme and Anna Lindh in Sweden. The article concludes with reflections on the changing nature and position of the intellectual in contemporary society, especially in the light of the prevalence of the media and the new digital age.

The Pride and Prejudice of the Western World

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 261-275
Author(s):  
Karl Ivan Solibakke
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Oral Narrative ◽  
Western World ◽  
Pride And Prejudice ◽  
Informal Practices ◽  
The One ◽  
Interpretive Communities

The article examines controversies arising from the perception of the instruments of cultural memory and the logic of their transmissibility. On the one hand we have a carefully selected, temporally and geographically orchestrated body of texts, the Great Books, which are an enduring testament to the authority of Western intellectual artifacts. On the other hand, Jacques Derrida’s Archive Fever locates a furtive transformation of collective memory in the informal practices exemplified by oral narrative and public discourse. Not only do both models rely on archives as a functional instrument of collective identity, but they also value them as institutions circumscribing social and cultural conventions. However, when synchronizing the traces embedded in oral discourse and written documents, the repositories are frequently subject to manipulation by interpretive communities. Recognizing the processes underlying archives and artifacts is essential to comprehending how canons and canonic practices impact Western cultural memory.

scholarly journals Post-Soviet Russian Identity Building and Politics of Memory: Scientific and Public Discourse

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (69) ◽  
pp. 407-423
Author(s):  
Svetlana Akhundovna Tatunts ◽  
Anastasia Mikhailovna Ponamareva
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Social Space ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Building Process ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Russian Identity

The aim of the study was to examine the positions of various social groups, reflecting the controversial and contradictory aspects of the process of identity construction in post-Soviet Russia and the factor of memory politics. The article reveals the characteristics of the post-Soviet identity-building process and the related politics of memory under the century-end systemic transformation that has launched a new existential project in Russia. Collective identity is formed in a new social space: the global dichotomy of globalization and localization. Methodologically, it is a documentary research close to the analysis of discourse. The process of transition from the Soviet Union to post-Soviet space and the construction of the new state on the ruins of the socialist empire will keep the problems of a new identity and the politics of memory relevant soon. It is concluded that thirty years after the liquidation of the socialist project, the crisis of collective identity in Russia and the "battle for history" and a new Russian national unity are not over. However, persistent social atomization and conflict-triggering narratives of various socio-cultural communities and ideological groups persist.

scholarly journals ALTERNATIVE AND NON-OBJECTIVE MUSLIM MALAY WORLDVIEWS IN DINA ZAMAN’S “KING OF THE SEA”: THROUGH THE LENS OF MAGICAL REALISM

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Ida Baizura Bahar ◽  
Nor Kamal Nor Hashim
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Magical Realism ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Fictional Narrative ◽  
Supernatural Beliefs

Literary reviews on King of the Sea (2012), a collection of nine short stories, by the Malaysian author Dina Zaman (b. 1969), have highlighted the theme of the supernatural through issues on the diversity of the Muslim Malay way of life. The text is a fictional narrative on the Muslim Malay beliefs and practices in the phenomenon of supernatural existence and how the influence of beliefs in the supernatural is inherent in the Malay culture. While literary critics agree that the stories are weaved with aspects of the magical to make it more culturally acceptable as a social reality, Bradley (2012: 206), however, contests this view by describing it as Dina’s transient and elusive attempt at magical realism although he concedes that there exist some vague impressions of it. Here, magical realism is understood to be fantastical elements which are miraculous, yet seen as ordinary, and ordinary as miraculous where the reality is not abandoned but is extended. Focussing on Dina’s depictions of supernatural beliefs among the Muslim Malay characters, this paper aims to discover how the alternative and non-objective Muslim Malay worldviews are demonstrated by the author in King of the Sea using the understanding of magical realism as conceptualised by Maggie Ann Bowers (2004). The findings show that Dina depicts the alternative and non-objective Muslim Malay worldviews of the Muslim Malay characters as grounded in their beliefs in the local Malay superstitions, myths and legends reflected through literary elements which are indeed characteristics of magical realism.

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