scholarly journals Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West: Co-Opting Refugees into Global Capitalism

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sercan Hamza Bağlama
Keyword(s):  
Western Country ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
The Social ◽  
Foreign Land ◽  
Linguistic Level ◽  
Mind Set ◽  
Refugee Experience

In Exit West, Mohsin Hamid fictionally reimagines and universalises migrant/refugee experience by providing a realistic snapshot of the social, cultural, economic and political circumstances in their specific historical forms and reveals the psychology of loss, displacement and unbelonging leading to the victimisation of the protagonists in a foreign land. In order to critically analyse the victimisation of the refugee characters at a linguistic level in relation to the narrative of the West about migration and refugees in the twenty-first century, this study will focus on Exit West and explore the development of the central bias against migrants and refugees construed through metaphorical delegitimisation and discursive stigmatisation within the framework of the dichotomous construction of “them” and “us”. Over the course of the study, through a critical reading of the novel, this study will also discuss that the social, cultural and economic interpellation of the refugee characters into the dominant system in a western country should be taken into account within the context of the depoliticisation process of the refugee “crisis” in the world since apolitical humanist arguments, unable to materialistically articulate the problems, reproduce the binary paradigms of the orientalist mind-set and practically perpetuate the cultural, social, ideological and economic domination of global capitalism.

Bad Credit

2014 ◽  
Vol 126 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annie McClanahan
Keyword(s):  
Credit Rating ◽  
Credit Scoring ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Qualitative Model ◽  
Credit Score ◽  
Love Story ◽  
The Social ◽  
Literary Character ◽  
True Love

This essay reads twenty-first-century credit scoring against eighteenth- and nineteenth-century forms of credit evaluation. While the latter famously draws its qualitative model of credibility from the novel, and the former predictably describes itself as quantitative and impersonal, in fact the credit score, the social person, and literary character remain significantly entangled. Through a reading of Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story, this essay shows what kinds of persons the practice of credit rating produces.

Using Power as a Negative Cue: How Conspiracy Mentality Affects Epistemic Trust in Sources of Historical Knowledge

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (9) ◽  
pp. 1364-1379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Imhoff ◽  
Pia Lamberty ◽  
Olivier Klein
Keyword(s):  
Attitude Change ◽  
Source Credibility ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Social Fabric ◽  
Perceived Credibility ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mind Set ◽  
Positive Effect

Classical theories of attitude change point to the positive effect of source expertise on perceived source credibility persuasion, but there is an ongoing societal debate on the increase in anti-elitist sentiments and conspiracy theories regarding the allegedly untrustworthy power elite. In one correlational ( N = 275) and three experimental studies ( N = 195, N = 464, N = 225), we tested the novel idea that people who endorse a conspiratorial mind-set (conspiracy mentality) indeed exhibit markedly different reactions to cues of epistemic authoritativeness than those who do not: Whereas the perceived credibility of powerful sources decreased with the recipients’ conspiracy mentality, that of powerless sources increased independent of and incremental to other biases, such as the need to see the ingroup in particularly positive light. The discussion raises the question whether a certain extent of source-based bias is necessary for the social fabric of a highly complex society.

scholarly journals A PRECARIZAÇÃO ESTRUTURAL DO TRABALHO NA CIVILIZAÇÃO DO CAPITAL EM CRISE: o precariado como enigma contemporâneo

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 225
Author(s):  
Alba Maria Pinho de Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Work Force ◽  
Social World ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
First Century ◽  
New Work ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Social Basis ◽  
The Social

No contexto da civilização contemporânea do capital, este artigo enfoca a precarização estrutural do trabalho, a expressar uma nova morfologia laboral, na temporalidade histórica da crise estrutural do capital. Salienta a nova forma de precarização ampliada do trabalho, nos marcos da “maquinofatura”, a perpassar experiências de diferentes segmentosde trabalhadores e trabalhadoras, encarnando o estranhamento do “homem-que-trabalha” a manifestar-se na totalidade da sua vida e na cotidianeidade. Demarca a universalidade da condição de proletariedade, como condição existencial de homens e mulheres que vivem sob a ordem burguesa, em tempos de capitalismo global. Analisa a emergência econstituição do precariado como uma camada social da classe trabalhadora que, nesta segunda década do século XXI, se amplia e ganha visibilidade nos países capitalistas considerados centrais. Delineia vias analíticas distintas na busca de explicação do precariado no interior da nova temporalidade histórica do sistema do capital, em meio às suas contradições. Configura esta camada precarizada de trabalhadores na articulação entre faixa geracional, grau educacional e forma de inserção no trabalho e no mundo social, questionando a força emancipatória das lutas desse precariado. Sustenta, como via de estudo, que o precariado está a afirmar-se no cenário brasileiro, constituindo a base social dos movimentos sociais que irromperam, na vida brasileira, em junho e julho de 2013. Por fim, afirma ser o precariado um enigma contemporâneo,a ser desvendado pelo pensamento crítico e radical neste século XXI.Palavras-chave: Crise do Capital, condição de proletariedade, precarização estrutural do trabalho, precariado.THE STRUCTURAL PRECARIOUSNESS OF WORK IN THE CIVILIZATION OF THE CAPITAL IN CRISIS: the precariat as a contemporaneous enigmaAbstract: Within the context of the current civilization of capital, this article approaches the structural precariousness of labor, that tends to express a new work morphology, in the historical timeline of the capital crisis It highlights the new enlarged form of labor precariousness, within the limits of the “machine-facture process”, that brings forth experiences from different segments of workers giving shape to the estrangement of the “man-who-works” that is seen along his daily life. It demarcates the universality condition of the proletariat ,as an existence-related situation of men and women who live under the bourgeoisie, at a time of global capitalism. It analyses the surge and constitution of precariousness as asocial stratum from the working class that is gaining space and visibility in major capitalist countries in this second decade of the twenty-first century. It delineates distinct analytic lines in search of explaining precariousness according to the new historical timeline of capital, amid its contradictions. It configures this precariousness-dominated stratum of workers in the articulation of factors such as age, education and insertion in the work force and the social world, questioning the fighting emancipation force of it. It sustains, as a mean of study, that the proletariat is establishing itself within the Brazilian scenario, shaping up the social basis of social movements that made their way to the Brazilian life in June and July of2013. Finally, it affirms that precariousness of labor is a contemporaneous enigma to be solved by the critical and radical thinking within the current century.Keywords: Capital crisis, proletariat condition, structural precariousness of labor, labor precariousness.

Ishiguro at the Limit: The Corporation and the Novel

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 386-405
Author(s):  
Chris Holmes
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Corporate Personhood ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
Mind Set ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Corporate State

Abstract The early twenty-first century has seen a radical shift in how the aesthetic form of the novel addresses the abstraction of labor and the precarity of minority communities that have come to epitomize neoliberal capital. Novels increasingly attempt to formulate institutions apart from the privatizing drive that seeks to corporatize all civil society. This ambition to differentiate the novel from the primary ideology of this period has been marked by the emergence of a particular mode of critical rejoinder to the pervasive corporatist mind-set, a mode called limit thinking, in which novels draw attention to themselves as texts with which to produce new forms of thinking rather than as storehouses of information or political treatises. The writer Kazuo Ishiguro's novels Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go present limit thinking as a means to offset the prevailing form of totalizing thinking in the West: corporate personhood. That corporate body, with its obvious intentions toward absolute privatization, has been allowed a unique form of embodiment. The imagined body of the corporation has been gifted the presumption of thought. Understanding the limits of the novel—and by contrast the seeming limitlessness of the corporate state of mind—prepares us to understand how the novel resists an epistemological system into which it incorporated and how, in doing so, it shifts the kinds of questions we ask of the novel from those of what does the novel know? to how is the novel thinking?

The value, costs, and meaning of transnational migration in rural Oaxaca, Mexico

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey H. Cohen ◽  
Bernardo Rios ◽  
Lise Byars
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Southern California ◽  
Transnational Migration ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
Southern Mexico ◽  
Shared Identity ◽  
The Social

Rural Oaxacan migrants are defined as quintessential transnational movers, people who access rich social networks as they move between rural hometowns in southern Mexico and the urban centers of southern California.  The social and cultural ties that characterize Oaxacan movers are critical to successful migrations, lead to jobs and create a sense of belonging and shared identity.  Nevertheless, migration has socio-cultural, economic and psychological costs.  To move the discussion away from a framework that emphasizes the positive transnational qualities of movement we focus on the costs of migration for Oaxacans from the state’s central valleys and Sierra regions.   

Analytical Study of Violence Theme in Victoria Schwab’s This Savage Song

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Study ◽  
Research Paper ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Vicious Cycle ◽  
Aggressive Approach ◽  
Research Article ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
The Right

This research article focuses on the theme of violence and its representation by the characters of the novel “This Savage Song” by Victoria Schwab. How violence is transmitted through genes to next generations and to what extent socio- psycho factors are involved in it, has also been discussed. Similarly, in what manner violent events and deeds by the parents affect the psychology of children and how it inculcates aggressive behaviour in their minds has been studied. What role is played by the parents in grooming the personality of children and ultimately their decisions to choose the right or wrong way has been argued. In the light of the theory of Judith Harris, this research paper highlights all the phenomena involved: How the social hierarchy controls the behaviour. In addition, the aggressive approach of the people in their lives has been analyzed in the light of the study of second theorist Thomas W Blume. As the novel is a unique representation of supernatural characters, the monsters, which are the products of some cruel deeds, this research paper brings out different dimensions of human sufferings with respect to these supernatural beings. Moreover, the researcher also discusses that, in what manner the curse of violence creates an inevitable vicious cycle of cruel monsters that makes the life of the characters turbulent and miserable.

Minorities in the Contemporary Egyptian Novel

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Youssef
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
First Century ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Robust Analysis ◽  
Specific Approach ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Historical Moment

This book examines questions of identity, nationalism, and marginalization in the contemporary Egyptian novel from a postcolonial lens. Under colonial rule, the Egyptian novel invoked a sovereign nation-state by basking in its perceived unity. After independence, the novel professed disenchantment with state practices and unequal class and gender relations, without disrupting the nation’s imagined racial and ethno-religious homogeneity. This book identifies a trend in the twenty-first-century Egyptian novel that shatters this singular view, with the rise of a new consciousness that presents Egypt as fundamentally heterogeneous. Through a robust analysis of “new-consciousness” novels by authors like Idris ᶜAli, Bahaᵓ Tahir, Miral al-Tahawi, and Yusuf Zaydan, the author argues that this new consciousness does not only respond to predominant discourses of difference and practices of differentiation along the axes of race, ethno-religion, class, and gender by bringing the experiences of Nubian, Amazigh, Bedouin, Coptic, Jewish, and women minorities to the fore of Egypt’s literary imaginary, but also heralds the cacophony of voices that collectively cried for social justice from Tahrir Square in Egypt’s 2011-uprising. This study responds to the changing iconographic, semiotic, and formal features of the Egyptian novel. It fulfills the critical task of identifying an emergent novelistic genre and develops historically reflexive methodologies that interpret new-consciousness novels and their mediatory role in formalizing and articulating their historical moment. By adopting this context-specific approach to studying novelistic evolution, this book locates some of the strands that have been missing from the complex whole of Egypt’s culture and literary history.

The Political and Aesthetic Power of the Everyday in Beckett's Happy Days

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-66
Author(s):  
Julie Bates
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
First Century ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Algerian War ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Last Man ◽  
Second World

Happy Days is contemporaneous with a number of seminal contributions to the concept of the everyday in postwar France. This essay suggests that the increasingly constrained verbal and physical routines performed by its protagonist Winnie constitute a portrait of the everyday, and goes on to trace the affinities between Beckett's portrait and several formulations of the concept, with particular emphasis on the pronounced gendering of the everyday in many of these theories. The essay suggests the aerial bombings of the Second World War and methods of torture during the Algerian War as potential influences for Beckett's play, and draws a comparison with Marlen Haushofer's 1963 novel The Wall, which reimagines the Romantic myth of The Last Man as The Last Woman. It is significant, however, that the cataclysmic event that precedes the events of Happy Days remains unnamed. This lack of specificity, I suggest, is constitutive of the menace of the play, and has ensured that the political as well as aesthetic power of Happy Days has not dated. Indeed, the everyday of its sentinel figure posted in a blighted landscape continues to articulate the fears of audiences, for whom the play may resonate today as a staging of twenty-first century anxiety about environmental crisis. The essay concludes that in Happy Days we encounter an isolated female protagonist who contrives from scant material resources and habitual bodily rhythms a shelter within a hostile environment, who generates, in other words, an everyday despite the shattering of the social and temporal framework that conventionally underpin its formation. Beckett's play in this way demonstrates the political as well as aesthetic power of the everyday in a time of crisis.

Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger: A Socio –Political Study of Poverty and Injustice

IJOHMN ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (6) ◽  
pp. 11-19
Author(s):  
RASHMI Ahlawat
Keyword(s):  
Indian Society ◽  
Poor People ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Social ◽  
White Tiger

Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker Prize winning debut novel The White Tiger is sharp, fascinating, attacks poverty and injustice. The White Tiger is a ground breaking Indian novel. Aravind Adiga speaks of suppression and exploitation of various sections of Indian society. Mainly a story of Balram, a young boy’s journey from  rags to riches, Darkness to Light transforming from a village teashop boy into a Bangalore entrepreneur. This paper deals with poverty and injustice. The paper analyses Balram’s capability to overcome the adversities and cruel realities. The pathetic condition of poor people try to make both ends meet. The novel mirrors the lives of  poor in a realistic mode. The White Tiger is a story about a man’s journey for freedom. The protagonist   Balram in this novel is a victim of injustice, inequality and poverty. He worked hard inspite   of his low caste and overcame the social hindrance and become a successful entrepreneur. Through this novel Adiga portrays realistic and painful image of modern India. The novel exposes the anxieties of the oppressed.

KONSEP DIRI “ I “ DAN “ME” TOKOH HIROKO DALAM NOVEL NAMAKU HIROKO KARYA NH.DINI

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Besin Gaspar
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Fictional Character ◽  
Social Customs ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Village ◽  
The City

This research deals with the development of  self concept of Hiroko as the main character in Namaku Hiroko by Nh. Dini and tries to identify how Hiroko is portrayed in the story, how she interacts with other characters and whether she is portrayed as a character dominated by ”I” element or  ”Me”  element seen  from sociological and cultural point of view. As a qualitative research in nature, the source of data in this research is the novel Namaku Hiroko (1967) and the data ara analyzed and presented deductively. The result of this analysis shows that in the novel, Hiroko as a fictional character is  portrayed as a girl whose personality  develops and changes drastically from ”Me”  to ”I”. When she was still in the village  l iving with her parents, she was portrayed as a obedient girl who was loyal to the parents, polite and acted in accordance with the social customs. In short, her personality was dominated by ”Me”  self concept. On the other hand, when she moved to the city (Kyoto), she was portrayed as a wild girl  no longer controlled by the social customs. She was  firm and determined totake decisions of  her won  for her future without considering what other people would say about her. She did not want to be treated as object. To put it in another way, her personality is more dominated by the ”I” self concept.

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