Death Becomes Him: The Hypervisibility of Martyrdom and Invisibility of the Wounded in the Iconography of Lebanese Militarised Masculinities1

2020 ◽  
pp. 121-147
Author(s):  
Henri Myrttinen
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Visual Landscape ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Political Economic

The visual landscape of Lebanon both mirrors and reasserts the country’s complex socio-political, economic and gendered order. Using public memorialisations of the dead in the Lebanese and Syrian Civil Wars as a starting point, the chapter analyses how these reflect Lebanese realities and imaginaries, and how particular militarised masculinities are constructed through them. The chapter then contrasts these visualisations with the invisibilisation of conflict-related disabilities and the war-wounded and what these mean for the reproduction of gendered and other social hierarchies.

Commemorating the Ancestors, Performances of Death at the Tucson All Souls Procession

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Bowditch
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
Clear Distinction ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Day Of The Dead ◽  
White Face ◽  
Visual Landscape ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Dense Crowd

At dusk close to 100,000 people clad in black and white face paint and hand-made costumes emerge from all directions marching along a two-mile procession route from Hotel Congress in Tucson, Arizona to the finale site carrying puppets, banners, effigies, floats and posters with photographs of the dead of all shapes and sizes. Crowds of people line the streets; however unlike the Macy’s Day Thanksgiving Parade and other official processions, there are no street barriers separating those marching in the procession and those observing; the lines are porous and blurred. Participants move fluidly in and out of the procession between spectating and marching: dancing, drumming and walking. There is no clear distinction between sidewalk and street; between official performers and spectators—everyone is a participant. There is a somber sense of excitement and anticipation. A large-scale sculptural urn assisted by guardians from the performance troupe Flam Chen weaves through the dense crowd collecting hand-written prayers and offerings from passersby. Day of the Dead motifs of black and white skeletons, flowers, and masks dominate the visual landscape mixed with a fusion of hybrid imagery that evokes death, memory and celebration. Suspended weightlessly above a crowd of fire-lit faces, a figure moves gracefully without a safety net, wrapping her body in aerial silks tethered to helium balloon clusters. Stilted figures in ornate hand-constructed costumes twirl fire to the thundering beating drum. Costumed figures scale the metal tower with torches to light the large paper mache urn, which is filled with the prayers of the entire community. Flames lick up the sides of the urn transforming it into a ball of raging fire; the crowd cheers as they watch their prayers ascend into the darkness. This ritual burning of the urn signifies the culminating act of the Tucson All Souls’ Procession. Flam Chen, pyrotechnic performance troupe from Tucson and Many Mouths One Stomach, the organizers of the event, stage a fire aerial performance followed by the symbolic burning of the urn filled with the community’s prayers and wishes.

Variegated transitions: Emerging forms of land and resource capitalism in Laos and Myanmar

2020 ◽  
pp. 0308518X2094852
Author(s):  
Miles Kenney-Lazar ◽  
SiuSue Mark
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Political System ◽  
Global South ◽  
Resource Extraction ◽  
The Political ◽  
Private Capital ◽  
Democratic Rule ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Economic Transitions

Since the mid- to late- 1980s, Laos and Myanmar (Burma) have gradually and unevenly opened their economies to capitalist relations of accumulation. Both countries have done so by granting state land concessions to private capital for resource extraction and land commodification projects, particularly since the early 2000s. Yet, resource capitalism has manifested in distinct ways in both places due to the ways in which capital has interacted with unique pre-capitalist political-economic and social relations as well as the diverse political reactions of Lao and Myanmar people to capitalist transformations. In this paper, we analyze such differences through a conceptualization of ‘variegated transitions’, an extension of the variegated capitalism framework, which investigates the political economic transitions towards capitalism in marginalized, resource extractive countries of the Global South. In Myanmar, the transition from military to democratic rule has been marked by protests and land occupations combined with center-periphery fragmentation and ongoing civil wars, all of which have led to a heavily contested process of land concession granting. In contrast, a stable, comparatively centralized political system in Laos that restrains popular protest has enabled an expanding regime of land concessions for resource extraction projects, albeit hemmed in at the edges by sporadic, localized forms of resistance and appeals to the state.

The Starting-Point of Tacitus' Historiae: Fear or Favour by Omission?

1964 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. B. Hainsworth
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Future Tense ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Future ◽  
Roman Historiography

Tacitus' Historiae begin in the middle of a series of civil wars: initium mihi operis Servius Galba iterum Titus Vinius consules erunt. This point of time leaves the revolts of Vindex and Galba behind and the revolts of Otho and Vitellius just about to begin. Such a plunge in medias res, more suitable for the novelist than the historian, was at one time sharply criticized. It would have been more logical, it was argued, to begin with the proclamation of Galba at the beginning of April A.d. 68, with the death of Nero on 9 June following, or with the death of Galba himself on 15 January A.d. 69. These points, or others even earlier or later, are better ‘natural breaks’ in the story, and consequently more satisfactory from the literary point of view than the arbitrary breaks of the calendar. On behalf of Tacitus it was maintained that in Roman historiography the annalistic method had the force of law (but what then of the starting-point of the Annales—ab excessu divi Augusti?), or that Tacitus took up the tale where some other historian, Cluvius Rufus perhaps or Fabius Rusticus, had left off (why then the long introduction extending to ch. II? Xenophon, for example, felt no such need for the Hellenica). Tacitus himself does not attempt to justify his choice of starting-point. In fact the use of the future tense (erunt) may be thought to imply that the matter is scarcely worth discussing at all. That was likely, I think, to have been Tacitus' hope and intention. If it was so, it has been realized in the most recent scholarship, which, having failed to make out a conclusive case for or against any other date, has fallen back on the belief that 1 January A.d. 69 was, faute de mieux, inevitable.

scholarly journals Tracing livelihood trajectories: Patterns of livelihood adaptations in rural communities in eastern Nepal

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 57-80
Author(s):  
Phu Doma Lama ◽  
Per Becker ◽  
Johan Bergström
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Sustainable Livelihood ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Mountain Communities ◽  
Rural Livelihood ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Political Economic

Mountain communities are adapting their livelihoods to a complex combination of social, political and economic changes and associated risks. Despite recognition of adaption in response to multiple changes in sustainable livelihood and critical climate change literature, risks attributed to biophysical effects of climate change have increasingly assumed importance. Consequently, diversification is promoted as an adaptive approach to reduce such risks. However, understanding livelihood adaptation from the vantage point of climate change alone might lead to a limited understanding of non-climatic factors also shaping it. This paper proposes understanding adaptation through analysing long-term livelihood changes and using society rather than climate change as a conceptual starting point. It argues that such an approach has better potential to highlight a broader range of dynamic drivers operating over decades and to inform contextually grounded rural livelihood adaptation policies. Changes are traced in the overall livelihood trajectories among four rural communities in Nepal, in living memory, to understand the role of adaptation in shaping it. Qualitative life narratives were collected and complemented by key informant interviews, field observations and the analysis of official documents. The findings suggest that livelihoods have shifted not only from subsistence towards income generation but also from engagement in diverse livelihood sectors towards specialisation; the opposite of the advocated diversification. The role of political, economic, social and cultural processes within and outside the community has been prominent in shaping this trajectory.

scholarly journals Reimagining the terrain of liquid times: Reflexive marketing and the sociological imagination

2020 ◽  
pp. 146954052095520
Author(s):  
Paul Hewer
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Sociological Imagination ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Public Issues ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Liquid Modernity ◽  
The Third ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Political Economic

This paper has three objectives. The first is to deliver a critical review of the work of Zygmunt Bauman on Liquid Modernity and Liquid Times. I argue that Bauman’s work can provide a useful starting point for analysing the ‘unruly’ forces of contemporary society. Bauman’s work, as I have sought to reveal, takes us to the heart of liquid modern darkness. It forces us to take seriously the import of the sociological imagination and the insight that personal troubles are best understood as emerging public issues stemming from structural processes. The second objective, is to explore how consumer culture theorists have taken and in dialogue with these ideas sought to expand upon his initial ideas. Here I review the value of the concept of ‘liquid consumption’ and the ‘fresh start mindset’. The third and final objective, is to demonstrate how reflexive marketing practitioners are responding to such liquid times through rethinking their practice and thereby extending the terrain of marketing. Here I detail how the promise marketing imagination starts not with the darkness of liquid modern times but rather with a far more hope inspired tale to enchant new markets and new audiences on the possibilities and ‘solutions’ of being future oriented and technologically savvy. Finally, it argues that the task of reimagining appears essential given the current zeitgeist, where the climate of anxiety, fear and uncertainty whether it be political, economic, environmental or social threatens to engulf us.

Neoconservatives and Neo-Confucians: East Asian Growth and the Celebration of Tradition

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Miller
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Religious Commitment ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Foreign Assistance ◽  
Confucian Tradition ◽  
Dependency Theory ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Nathan Glazer ◽  
Political Economic

This article explores the influence of East Asia's economic growth on the evolution of American neoconservative thought in the 1970s and 1980s. It traces how prominent neoconservative thinkers—Nathan Glazer, Peter L. Berger, Herman Kahn, Michael Novak, and Lawrence E. Harrison—developed the claim that the region's prosperity stemmed from its alleged Confucian tradition. Drawing in part from East Asian leaders and scholars, they argued that the region's growth demonstrated that tradition had facilitated, rather than hampered, the development of a distinct East Asian capitalist modernity. The article argues that this Confucian thesis helped American neoconservatives articulate their conviction that “natural” social hierarchies, religious commitment, and traditional families were necessary for healthy and free capitalist societies. It then charts how neoconservatives mobilized this interpretation of Confucian East Asia against postcolonial critiques of capitalism, especially dependency theory. East Asia, they claimed, demonstrated that poverty and wealth were determined not by patterns of welfare, structural exploitation, or foreign assistance, but values and culture. The concept of Confucian capitalism, the article shows, was central to neoconservatives’ broad ideological agenda of protecting political, economic, and racial inequality under the guise of values, culture, and tradition.

Changing the Dead to Statues of Stone: The Synthesis of Fossils, Petrifaction, Photography, and the Chemistry of the Gorgonean Arts

Nuncius ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-308
Author(s):  
Irina Podgorny
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Chemical Nature ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Chemical Substances ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Chemical Complex ◽  
The Dead

Taking the story of Efisio Marini as its starting point, this paper argues that embalming and photography are materially and historically connected due to their chemical nature. Photography and modern embalming both originated in the “chemical complex” of the nineteenth century, i.e., the idea that nature and natural processes could be synthesized in the laboratory. As Ursula Klein and Wolfgang Lefèvre have remarked, eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century chemists experimented with materials, studied the possibilities for improving their production, examined their properties, explored their reactions, and analyzed their composition. Eighteenth-century chemistry, in their words, could be seen as the most authoritative science of materials. Marini’s story relates to this ontology of materials in that it refers to experiments with chemical substances and subsequent changes in their materiality and meaning.

scholarly journals Framing Sálvame: Public debates on taste, quality and television in Spain

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reinald Besalú ◽  
Mercè Oliva ◽  
Óliver Pérez-Latorre
Keyword(s):  
Child Protection ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Legal Issue ◽  
Regulatory Body ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Celebrity Gossip ◽  
Working Class Women

Abstract The main aim of this article is to analyze the social circulation of discourses on non-hegemonic cultural practices, in particular, on what is called “trash TV”, and how they are connected to struggles over cultural and social hierarchies. To do so, it takes a specific event as starting point: the injunction that the CNMC (the Spanish broadcasting regulatory body) filed against Mediaset (a commercial TV operator) to adjust the contents of Sálvame Diario (a celebrity gossip program frequently associated with “trash TV”) to the requirements of what is known as the “child protection time slot”. This paper uses constructionist framing to analyze how this event was discussed by different social actors. Our analysis shows that while the CNMC and the press painted the conflict as a legal issue, Sálvame and social media users focused their discussion on the social acceptability of celebrity gossip media and their viewers (specifically working-class women).

Scripts of Blackness

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isar P. Godreau
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Spanish Colonial ◽  
Racial Mixture ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The City

The geopolitical influence of the United States informs the processes of racialization in Puerto Rico, including the construction of black places. This book explores how Puerto Rican national discourses about race—created to overcome U.S. colonial power—simultaneously privilege whiteness, typecast blackness, and silence charges of racism. Based on an ethnographic study of the barrio of San Antón in the city of Ponce, the book examines institutional and local representations of blackness as developing from a power-laden process that is inherently selective and political, not neutral or natural. The book traces the presumed benevolence or triviality of slavery in Puerto Rico, the favoring of a Spanish colonial whiteness (under a hispanophile discourse), and the insistence on a harmonious race mixture as discourses that thrive on a presumed contrast with the United States that also characterize Puerto Rico as morally superior. In so doing, the book outlines the debates, social hierarchies, and colonial discourses that inform the racialization of San Antón and its residents as black. Mining ethnographic materials and anthropological and historical research, the book provides powerful insights into the critical political, economic, and historical context behind the strategic deployment of blackness, whiteness, and racial mixture.

THE ROLE OF THE COMMUNIST BLOC IN THE ILO DURING THE COLD WAR – SELECTED ISSUES

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (XX) ◽  
pp. 263-276
Author(s):  
Łucja Kobroń-Gąsiorowska
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
International Labor Organization ◽  
International Labor ◽  
Central Hypothesis ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Communist Countries ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Key Questions

In this article, from a multidisciplinary point of view, key questions were raised that defined how the bloc of communist countries had an impact on the International Labor Organization. The author believes that the role of communist countries in the ILO depended not only on the international political, economic and social context of the time, but also on the field of globalized labor history and relations of international organizations. The starting point of this article is the central hypothesis that the concept of protecting employees and the rights of employers has always been presented from the point of view of the „bloc” of capitalist states, without reference to the role of communist states.

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