Digital Archiving of Diasporic Cultural Productions and Transnational Citizenship of Arabs in the West

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-278
Author(s):  
Melissa Finn ◽  
Eid Mohamed ◽  
Bessma Momani

When transnationally constructed art forms, such as the works of diasporic cultural productions of Arabs in the West, are made available in open-source on a digital archive, this supports the transnational flow or exchange of citizenship-enhancing ideas, skill-sets, technologies, tools, capacities, and practices. In this theoretical investigation, we explore imagined outcomes when new audiences can engage with diasporic cultural productions of Arabs. Digital archiving of ethnically diverse cultural productions can expand civility, solidarity, and common ground among people; these latter behaviors are the ideational foundations of agency-based claims of transnational citizenship. Such cultural productions help to reconfigure the questions, opportunities, and nature of political and social agency in ways that empower diaspora communities and expand their abilities to make citizenship claims in multiple societies. This is what the Internet enables despite its tendency towards parochialism in globalized pockets. Moreover, we highlight the possibilities of open-source digital archiving—with a focus on literature, poetry, biographies, and letters—for agency-based claims of citizenship and the many caveats that require further attention and consideration.

First Monday ◽  
2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroyuki Shimizu ◽  
Jun Iio ◽  
Kazuo Hiyane

A variety of individuals around the world are furthering development of Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) through the Internet. Why do they participate in developers’ communities and continue to develop FLOSS? Is their treatment enough to sustain their activities? Surveys, using online questionnaires, were conducted to answer these questions to analyze the FLOSS movement sociologically. However these surveys tend to focus on developers in the West. We decided to see if there are regional differences in FLOSS development. To that end, we conducted two surveys, the FLOSS–JP survey in Japanese and the FLOSS–ASIA survey in other Asian languages. In this paper, we describe regional differences, especially among Asian and Japanese FLOSS developers and compare the results to those from Western FLOSS surveys. Detailed reports of FLOSS–JP/ASIA are available at our Web site (MRI, 2004)


Author(s):  
Robert S. Kramer

It is tempting to seek an auspicious beginning for the Sudanese city of Omdurman, given its eventual significance, but there is none to be found. From its humble origins as a watering place for local pastoralists on the west bank of the Nile, and a mere hamlet and waystation for travelers by the early 19th century, it grew rapidly in the 1880s into a crowded market center, an administrative capital, and even a holy city: all due to the tumultuous events of the Sudanese Mahdist movement (or Mahdiyyah) of 1881–1898. And while it was not the intention of Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi to found anything—he considered Omdurman just another “spot” (buq‘a) among the many he had camped at—the policies of his successor and the devotion of his followers enlarged and ennobled the place, transforming it into the dominant urban center of the Nilotic Sudan. As a holy city, Omdurman can hardly be compared to such places as Jerusalem, Rome, or Mecca, with their centuries or even millennia of existence; and although it resembles Shaykh ‘Uthman dan Fodio’s city of Sokoto in northern Nigeria as the capital of an expansionist jihadist state, it also differs from it in some important ways. Ultimately, whether one considers its messianic or economic importance, its military or administrative functions, its planned or spontaneous origins, Omdurman is remarkable for becoming, in just over a decade’s time, one of the most important cities across Sudanic Africa. Moreover, the experience of the Sudanese people in so tribally and ethnically diverse an urban environment, under such concentrated and extreme conditions, both impelled by the policies of the state and inspired by fervent Mahdist belief, helped to accelerate ongoing social changes, which ultimately led to the formation of a more coherent national identity.


Author(s):  
Jack Goldsmith ◽  
Tim Wu

Pierre Omidyar’s self-composed one-line autobiography reads: “Technologist, founder of eBay, trying to make the world a better place.” As his life’s progression suggests, of the many 1990s Internet billionaires, Omidyar’s disposition and outlook may most truly reflect the ethos of the West Coast. During his early “technologist” period he had a pony tail, wore aviator sunglasses, and worshipped the Apple Macintosh. It was during this period, in 1995, that he started eBay in his spare time, as a kind of hobby. “It was just an idea that I had, and I started it as an experiment, as a side hobby basically, while I had my day job.” In media legend the inspiration was his fiancée, Pam, who wanted to meet like-minded collectors of PEZ dispensers. But Omidyar’s account of his company’s origins emphasizes a different point. “The whole idea there was just to help people do business with one another on the Internet. And people thought it was impossible because how could people on the Internet—remember this is 1995— how could they trust each other? How could they get to know each other? And I thought that was silly. . . . [P]eople are basically good [and] honest.” It didn’t take long for eBay to realize that not everyone was good and honest: As this chapter shows, eBay quickly learned that to prevent fraud, enforce its contracts, and ensure stability in its auction services, it would depend critically on government coercion and the rule of law provided by a stable country like the United States. These are a few of the many complex benefits that only territorial sovereigns can bring, and without which most aspects of the Internet that we love and cherish would not exist. In this chapter and throughout part 3, we study these largely hidden virtues of government control of the Internet. As the story of China has already made clear, and as we discuss further in what follows, government control of the Internet is not always a happy prospect, for governments often rule unwisely and often clash with one another in destructive ways. Our aim in this part is to give a balanced account of these virtues and vices, and to show how the future of the Internet will be shaped by domestic politics and international relations, as interest groups and countries fight for control and influence over the once-borderless medium.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-103
Author(s):  
Carole Cusack ◽  
David Pecotic

The occult and the internet intersect in four ways: as a static medium for information; as a space where contested information or ideological conflict may occur; as a facilitator of communication; and as a medium for esoteric practice. The last type of activity is rare, but it is intriguing, in that technology can shape and inform beliefs and practices in unanticipated ways. Online engagement with the ‘Work’, the movement produced by the Greek Armenian spiritual teacher and esotericist G. I. Gurdjieff (c. 1866-1949) and his immediate followers, is an under-researched instance of online esoteric practice. This article addresses this scholarly desideratum, bringing the theoretical approaches of online religion and digital ethnography to bear on the Gurdjieff Internet Guide (GIG) website, founded by Reijo Oksanen (b. 1942) and later maintained by Kristina Turner, who created an accompanying Facebook page. The GIG manifests a shift away from the sectarian secrecy of the ‘Foundation’ groups, founded by Jeanne de Salzmann (1889-1990) after Gurdjieff’s death to formalise and protect the content of the Work, and the limited web presence that the Foundation permits. The GIG moves towards an ecumenical ‘open source’ approach to the dissemination of Gurdjieff’s teachings rooted in independent groups founded by other first generation followers of Gurdjieff who remained outside of the Foundation. It is argued that the deregulation of the religious and spiritual marketplace of the contemporary West, coupled with the dominant role played by the Internet in disseminating information, has radically transformed the Gurdjieff tradition, collapsing hierarchies and esoteric strategies, democratizing access for seekers, and creating new ritual and teaching modes.


1970 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Moh. Salman Hamdani

This paper aims to provide explanation about John Louis Esposito’s insights on therelationship between Islam and The West. The relationship is a fluctuative one, some tensionsand even open conflict may occur. Some events become the entry point to the relationship, forinstance, the crusades that is not only happened physically but also, through this war, the meetingbetween Islam and The West establishes inter cultural dialogue among them.John Louis Esposito’s views on the relationship between Islam and The West ispositioned in view of some Muslim intellectuals and orientalists to emphasize its originality. Theintellectual positions do not put it on pros or cons side in the context of the relationship betweenIslam and The West.Historically, the relationship between Islam and The West actually has a theologicallystrong bond that there is common ground and similarities between Islam and The West. Islamand The west are inherited with Jewish and Christian traditions. Islam like Christianity andJudaism are religions ‘of the sky’ that are allied in Abrahamic religions. Therefore, according toJohn L. Esposito, based on historical fact, there were a real strong bond between Islam and theWest and it started centuries ago .


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-124
Author(s):  
Alexander Pschera

"Neben der Industrie hat die Digitalisierung auch die Natur ergriffen. Die Tatsache, dass Tausende von Tieren mit GPS-Sendern aus- gerüstet und überwacht werden, erlaubt, analog zur Industrie 4.0 auch von einer Natur 4.0 zu sprechen. Dieses Internet der Tiere verändert den Begriff, den der Mensch von der Natur hat. Er transformiert die Wahrnehmung vor allem der Natur als etwas fundamental An- deren. Neben den vielen kulturellen Problematisierungen, die das Internet der Tiere mit sich bringt, lassen sich aber auch die Umrisse einer neuen, ganz und gar nicht esoterischen planetarisch-post-digitalen Kultur aufzeigen, die die conditio humana verändert. In addition to industry, digitalization has also taken hold of nature. The fact that thousands of animals are provided and monitored with GPS transmitters allows to speak of nature 4.0 by way of analogy to industry 4.0. This internet of animals changes our idea of nature. Most of all, it transforms the perception of nature as something fundamentally other. Beside the many cultural problems that the internet of animals implies, it can also outline a new, not at all esoteric planetary post-digital culture that is about to change the human condition. "


Author(s):  
Elly Mufida ◽  
David Wardana Agus Rahayu

The VoIP communication system at OMNI Hospital Alam Sutera uses the Elastix 2.5 server with the Centos 5.11 operating system. Elastix 2.5 by the developer has been declared End of Life. The server security system is a serious concern considering that VoIP servers can be accessed from the internet. Iptables and fail2ban applications are applications that are used to limit and counteract those who try to attack the VoIP server. One application that can be used as an open source VoIP server is the Issabel Application version 4.0. The migration process from Elastix 2.5 application to Issabel 4.0 by backing up all configurations in the Elastix 2.5 application through a web browser including the configuration of endpoints, fax, e-mail, asterisk. After the backup file is downloaded then upload the backup file to the Issabel 4.0 application then run the migration process. Adding a backup path as a failover connection is needed because the VoIP communication protocol between the OMNI Hospitals Group still uses one path so that when there is a problem in the connection path, the communication protocol will stop. The tunnel EoIP is a protocol used as a backup path between the OMNI Hospitals Group site.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kunal Srivastava ◽  
Ryan Tabrizi ◽  
Ayaan Rahim ◽  
Lauryn Nakamitsu

<div> <div> <div> <p>Abstract </p> <p>The ceaseless connectivity imposed by the internet has made many vulnerable to offensive comments, be it their physical appearance, political beliefs, or religion. Some define hate speech as any kind of personal attack on one’s identity or beliefs. Of the many sites that grant the ability to spread such offensive speech, Twitter has arguably become the primary medium for individuals and groups to spread these hurtful comments. Such comments typically fail to be detected by Twitter’s anti-hate system and can linger online for hours before finally being taken down. Through sentiment analysis, this algorithm is able to distinguish hate speech effectively through the classification of sentiment. </p> </div> </div> </div>


Author(s):  
Balázs Trencsényi ◽  
Michal Kopeček ◽  
Luka Lisjak Gabrijelčič ◽  
Maria Falina ◽  
Mónika Baár ◽  
...  

The success of the Bolshevik Revolution confirmed that economic backwardness was not necessarily an obstacle for socialism, as it triggered the radicalization of leftist movements in the region. Yet this also led to polarization of the left on questions of Soviet-Russian developments and possible cooperation with non-socialist parties, as well as agrarian and national questions. While in many countries social democracy entered the political mainstream in the 1920s, its position was undermined by the rise of right-wing authoritarianism. In turn, the Great Depression made the communist position more plausible, but the Stalinization of communist parties and the imposition of socialist realism alienated most intellectual supporters. Eventually, some radical leftists turned against the communist movement attacking its dogmatism and the Stalinist show trials. At the same time, the rise of Nazism forced leftist groups to seek a common ground, first in the form of “Popular Front” ideology, and, during the war, in the form of armed partisan movements.


Author(s):  
Frederick C. Beiser

The Jewish writings of these final years develop themes of the earlier years. Cohen continues to explore one of his favorite topics: the affinity of German and Jewish character. Despite his cosmopolitan conception of Judaism, Cohen still thought that the Jews were most at home in Germany. Yet, despite his belief in the special affinity between Germans and Jews, Cohen still shows his cosmopolitanism by his sympathy for the Ostjuden; he maintains that they should be freed from the many immigration controls imposed on them. Cohen continues to worry about the growing weakening of Jewish communities in Germany, and argues, as Socrates did in the Crito, that people have a special obligation to stay within the communities which nurtured them. In a remarkable 1916 lecture on Plato and the prophets Cohen argues that they are the two major ethical voices in the Western world: Plato gave the West a rational form while the prophets gave it moral content. Cohen now reduces his earlier striving for a unity of religions down to the demand for a unity of conscience.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document