scholarly journals “Canadian, Please”: The Intimate Space of YouTube Racism

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Sugars
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Affective Response ◽  
Cultural Discourse ◽  
Music Video ◽  
Intimate Violence ◽  
Transnational Identities ◽  
Canadian Identity ◽  
Cultural Texts ◽  
Opening Line

“Yeah I know that you wanna be Canadian, please.” This is the opening line of the 2009 “Canada Day” YouTube music video by Julia Bentley and Andrew Gunadie that went viral days after it was posted. The video is a kitsch anthem celebrating the benefits of Canadian identity, but there is a deeper message in it, and, indeed, in the troubling responses that it initiated, that makes it a ground-breaking text in Canadian cultural discourse about national identity and anti-racism. The YouTube site invited responses from viewers, and soon became flooded with racist slurs aimed at Gunadie’s Asian descent and his questionable right to claim to “be” Canadian. In short, the very public space of YouTube became a disturbing site of intimate violence. The backlash against the video was so extreme and unsettling that it led to a CBC news investigation, in which Gunadie described the racism the video inspired and his equally “inspired” YouTube fight against the racists. Fed up with being subjected to online violence, Gunadie retaliated by creating a number of ingenious videos. His responses did not resolve intimate and uncomfortable moments into invisibility. On the contrary, the discomfort of online racism prompted from him a self-consciously “uncomfortable” affective response. These cultural texts stand as a powerful testament to the mediating force of online exchanges as a forum in which debates about national and transnational identities are being waged.

scholarly journals Growing Up to Belong Transnationally: Parent Perceptions on Identity Formation Among Latvian Emigrant Children in England

2019 ◽  
pp. 145-161
Author(s):  
Daiga Kamerāde ◽  
Ieva Skubiņa
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Country Of Origin ◽  
Migrant Children ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Transnational Identity ◽  
Transnational Identities ◽  
1.5 Generation ◽  
English Dominant ◽  
Generation Migrant

Abstract As a result of the wide availability of social media, cheap flights and free intra-EU movement it has become considerably easier to maintain links with the country of origin than it was only a generation ago. Therefore, the language and identity formation among children of recent migrants might be significantly different from the experiences of children of the previous generations. The aim of this paper is to examine the perceptions of parents on the formation of national and transnational identity among the ‘1.5 generation migrant children’ – the children born in Latvia but growing up in England and the factors affecting them. In particular, this article seeks to understand whether 1.5 generation migrant children from Latvia construct strong transnational identities by maintaining equally strong ties with their country of origin and mother tongue and, at the same time, intensively creating networks, learning and using the language of the new home country. The results of 16 semi-structured in-depth interviews with the parents of these children reveal that the 1.5 generation Latvian migrants are on a path of becoming English-dominant bilinguals. So far there is little evidence of the development of a strong transnational identity among 1.5 generation migrant children from Latvia. Instead, this study observed a tendency towards an active integration and assimilation into the new host country facilitated by their parents or occurring despite their parents’ efforts to maintain ties with Latvia. These findings suggest that rather than the national identity of the country of origin being supplemented with a new additional national identity – that of the country of settlement – the identity of the country of origin becomes dominated by it instead.

scholarly journals Uncovering dress policy in Québec

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krista Raymer
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Provincial Government ◽  
Key Terms ◽  
Parti Quebecois

By contrast with Canada, the provincial government of Québec has struggled to identify and articulate a "national" identity. The separatist Parti Québécois proposed the Charter of Values in 2013 in order to strengthen provincial claims to nationalism. Legislation within the charter potentially alters the appearances of the populace by defining acceptable forms of dress in a range of public spaces. It raises troubling questions concerning the role dress plays in the bodily display of values and creation of national identity. Through a biopolitical approach, it is evident the Charter of Values is designed to eliminate the presence of hair and facial covering practices in public space. The policy prioritizes the pure laine identity, while marking those bodies dressed in a way that reference non francophone traditions and cultures as threatening to the security and cultural values of Québec. The critique of the proposed legislation exposes the role public policy plays in creating, maintaining, and perpetuating dressed identities in public space. The Charter of Values has and will continue to stigmatize those citizens who communicate non- pure laine identities through dress. Key Terms: Dress, Public Space, Public Policy, Charter of Values , Québec, Biopolitics, Multiculturalism

What do we value? The questions of Rachel Whiteread’s House

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 155-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elesa Huibregtse
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Housing Policies ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Cultural Texts ◽  
The Subject ◽  
East End ◽  
Post Industrial

On 25 October 1993, British artist Rachel Whiteread revealed her most ambitious sculptural work to date – House. The solidified space of this Victorian-era, terraced home physically existed for a mere 80 days; yet, during this time it became the subject of an intense media interest and heated public debate which reached the United Kingdom’s Houses of Parliament. While House has been discussed in depth within art historical scholarship for almost 30 years, trends in this academic body of work tend to focus on absence and memory in a highly contested public space, as well as thoughts on loss, death, architecture, the art market, politics and gentrification in London’s East End during the latter part of the twentieth century. What is lacking, however, is an examination of House within the larger context of visual culture and what it may, or may not, mean for contemporary viewers. Analysing the historical context of the work’s location through a Marxist lens, reveals the dehumanization which occurred within the East End’s class constructs throughout the nineteenth century, and its effect on housing policies well into the twentieth century. Reading the sculptural work itself, using the methodologies of semiotics, unveils mythologies regarding what is and is not expendable in our western spaces; particularly, the working class, houses and works of art in post-industrial capitalist societies. The ideologies embedded within these mythologies continue to appear in our mass media images to this day, leaving unanswered questions regarding what is truly valued in our societies. Thus, Whiteread’s unique work is an artistic intervention into an image-saturated environment, asking the viewers and readers of cultural texts to consider at what point in time we will seek to change how we treat that which has been arguably undervalued.

Erykah Badu’s Ambulatory Acts

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 162-166
Author(s):  
Kimberly Juanita Brown
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Music Video

When black women enter public space acts of retrieval and reproduction are possible. R&B singer and performer Erykah Badu took as her public space Dealy Plaza in Dallas, Texas. In her “Window Seat” music video Badu follows the route of JFK’s motorcade, bridging together history and geography while also making visible black women’s ambulatory actions.

scholarly journals Cultural innovation and narrative synergy in R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet

2012 ◽  
pp. 64-75
Author(s):  
Ioana Literat
Keyword(s):  
Soap Opera ◽  
Music Video ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Cultural Innovation ◽  
Promotional Strategy ◽  
Original Product ◽  
Cultural Texts ◽  
Media Channels ◽  
Narrative Conventions ◽  
Strategy I

This article analyses the narrative conventions of R. Kelly’s serial “hip-hopera” Trapped in the Closet, exploring the manner in which the artist’s chosen narrative strategies have shaped the generic reading of the series. Specifically, I discuss how Trapped in the Closet re-appropriates the conventions of the soap opera and the music video, to create a wholly original product that both evokes these schematas and simultaneously challenges their traditional narrative norms. Looking at R. Kelly’s chosen promotional strategy, I argue that the convergence of genres and narrative influences, as evident in the series’ content and style, parallels the convergence of media channels—radio, television, internet—that characterised its release and distribution, highlighting the increasing importance of a transmedial approach in the conceptualisation and dissemination of cultural texts.

Bangladesh: building national identity through archaeology

Antiquity ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 74 (285) ◽  
pp. 701-706 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.L. Smith
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Developing Nations ◽  
Heritage Management ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Developing Nation ◽  
Archaeological Heritage ◽  
Domestic Tourism ◽  
Archaeological Heritage Management ◽  
Archaeological Excavations

For a developing nation, Bangladesh has a surprisingly large number of active archaeological excavations and museums. Resources have been invested not only in the capital city of Dhaka, but also in regional centres where there are archaeological museums and sites open for public visitation. These venues, identified by politicians and philosophers as the repositories for symbols of heritage and national identity, provide another significant benefit in the form of open public space for recreation and leisure. The use of these spaces by growing numbers of urban-dwelling Bangladeshis illustrates the often under-appreciated phenomenon of domestic tourism as a component of archaeological heritage management in developing nations.

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