scholarly journals The Cul-de-Sac of Postcolonial Theory: Negotiation or Negation?

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (Winter) ◽  
pp. 168-181
Author(s):  
Shereen Abuelnaga
Keyword(s):  
Contact Zone ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
The West ◽  
Immigrants And Refugees ◽  
Cultural Negotiation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status

The escalating wave of migration and its discontents that the world is witnessing now challenges some aspects that form the backbone of postcolonial theory through revealing the inefficiency and invalidity of all the previous givens. Policed borders render the concept of hybridity and the horizon invalid. The attempt at eluding the politics of polarity could not survive the discursive and physical practices of several dislocated localities. Consequently, the “contact zone” that has always been the pride of the West, upon the assumption of hybridity, is shrinking now, if not fading. What should have been cultural negotiation came down to be cultural negation. This paper reads the status of the women asylum seekers who are locked in Yarl’s Wood Center in the U.K. as an example of the stark violations practiced against immigrants and refugees in general, and in the case of women, as an example of turning the female body into an arena onto which conflicting power relations are inscribed. However, the main goal of this reading is to prove the failure of postcolonial theory to cope with the fierce return of borders, material and symbolic. To do this, the paper assumes that the life stories of the women stand as a text/narrative that yields itself to analysis.

A few words on Olga Tokarczuk’s The Land of Metaxy

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-72
Author(s):  
Barbara Tomalak
Keyword(s):  
Transpersonal Psychology ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Collective Unconscious ◽  
The West ◽  
Analytic Psychology ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Actual Meaning

In her volume of essays The Tender Narrator, Olga Tokarczuk devotes one of them to The Land of Metaxy, which she calls – following Plato – a place between the world of humans and the world of gods. The status of this place is peculiar: it mediates between the worlds, and yet does not belong to either. It is from that place that characters come to the writer. An attempt to explain the actual meaning of Metaxy and who its inhabitants are boils down to four possible interpretations. We can analyse Metaxy in accordance with contemporary quantum physics and cosmology (parallel worlds), from the perspective of religious models created by the civilization of the West, according to the astrology of astral planes, and finally as a domain of collective unconscious, in accordance with Carl Gustav Jung’s analytic psychology and Stanislav Grof’s transpersonal psychology.

scholarly journals RESPONSE TO REFUGE ISSUES IN INDONESIAN IMMIGRATION LENS IN IMMIGRATION DETENTION HOUSES

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-101
Author(s):  
Hana Farah Dhiba ◽  
Wahyu Eka Putra
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Director General ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Refugee Status ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Special Concern ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers

The phenomenon of refugees is one of the topics of discussion in the international world. This situation was triggered by the increasing number of refugees scattered in various countries around the world. The existence of refugees is often a special concern for countries that are both transit places and destinations. In Indonesia, tens of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers stop and live. Some of the Arab and African countries and ethnic Rohingya who are hit by armed conflict and acute poverty. They lived for years while waiting for a third country. Their existence is increasingly causing various problems in society. The research uses normative legal research methods with 7 approaches. From the research results, it can be concluded that the presence of refugees in Indonesia has been going on for decades. The refugees entered by land and sea routes to Indonesian territory. Various policies have been taken to deal with the presence of refugees from abroad, one of which is Presidential Regulation Number 125 of 2016 concerning Policies for Handling Refugees from Abroad. However, over time, the refugee status intersected with the status of illegal immigrants contained in the regulation of the Director General of Immigration. This in the future raises various problems related to the handling of refugees in Indonesia.

scholarly journals Environmental migrants and Canada's refugee policy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheila Murray
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
Policy Response ◽  
Refugee Resettlement ◽  
Refugee Policy ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Liberal Approach

Canada is among the world's foremost refugee resettlement countries and is signatory to international agreements that affirm its commitment to the protection of refugee rights. Asylum seekers come to Canada from around the globe. But as climate change continues to affect growing regions of the world -- threatening to create as many as 200 million environmental migrants by the year 2050 -- Canada has not yet begun to address the issue of climate change migration. In an era defined by a neo-liberal approach to migration issues, and until international actors determine the status of environmental migrants, Canada's policy response to the looming crisis may be conjectured from an historical review of its refugee policy. This provides an understanding of the various factors, both domestic and international, that may have the greatest influence on Canada's future refugee policy.

Artists in Korea

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sang Jo Jong
Keyword(s):  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Economic Incentives ◽  
Copyright Law ◽  
Internet Technology ◽  
The West ◽  
Korean Art ◽  
Korean Music ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Artistic Freedom

A Korean idol group “BTS” made history with its tenth week at No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 Chart. Dramatic developments in the music industry of Korea demonstrate how important it is for artists to enjoy freedom of expression and economic incentives like copyright. Although both freedom and copyright are ideas imported from the West, Korean artists have absorbed them quite differently than Westerners. Even as artistic freedom is taken for granted in the West, individual artists in Korea seriously fought for and achieved that same freedom. Korean artists have also realized that the theory of Western copyright law does not apply well in Korea in reality. Despite increasingly strong protection of copyright, the status of Korean artists has not improved much in either copyright law or reality. Although much of Korean music and film is well-known around the world, it is not widely known that some Korean artists have become victims of unfair contracts. While Korea’s Internet technology impressed the world with its speed, Korean artists and fans turned out to be another victim on the Internet. Copyright trolls also demonstrate how different the Korean art industry is from the Western one.

scholarly journals Strategic Hypocrisy: The British Imperial Scripting of Tibet's Geopolitical Identity

2009 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dibyesh Anand
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
The West ◽  
Significant Aspect ◽  
Western Idea ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
British Imperialist

The protests in and around Tibet in 2008 show that Tibet's status within China remains unsettled. The West is not an outsider to the Tibet question, which is defined primarily in terms of the debate over the status of Tibet vis-à-vis China. Tibet's modern geopolitical identity has been scripted by British imperialism. The changing dynamics of British imperial interests in India affected the emergence of Tibet as a (non)modern geopolitical entity. The most significant aspect of the British imperialist policy practiced in the first half of the twentieth century was the formula of “Chinese suzerainty/Tibetan autonomy.” This strategic hypocrisy, while nurturing an ambiguity in Tibet's status, culminated in the victory of a Western idea of sovereignty. It was China, not Tibet, that found the sovereignty talk most useful. The paper emphasizes the world-constructing role of contesting representations and challenges the divide between the political and the cultural, the imperial and the imaginative.

scholarly journals Orientalisms and Occidentalisms: Evolution of Concepts and Divergence of Connotations

2020 ◽  
pp. 30-45
Author(s):  
Ingrīda Kleinhofa ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Colonial Discourse ◽  
Asian Studies ◽  
The West ◽  
European Tradition ◽  
The World ◽  
Western Imperialism ◽  
Science And Politics

During the most part of its long history, the term ‘Orientalism’ has had several interrelated meanings with neutral or positive connotations, some of which are still preserved, for instance, in art, architecture, design, and music, where it refers to Oriental influences and works inspired by Oriental themes and sounds rather attractive and romantic. As an academic term, it was used to denote the European tradition of Asian studies, suggesting a thorough exploration of Eastern cultural heritage, in particular, languages, literature, and artifacts. After the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978, the term gained new negative meanings, related to postcolonial theory where it denotes mainly the biased, haughty attitude of the West towards an essentialized East and manifestations of Western colonial discourse in literature, science, and politics, such as the justification of Western imperialism, colonialism, and racial discrimination. The redefinition of the term by postcolonial theorists raised a debate about the about the so-called Western approach to history, sociology, and Asian studies as well as about the permissibility of division of the world into binary opposites, “the Orient” and “the Occident”. By the end of the 20th century, the term ‘Orientalism’ was adapted for the use by anthropologists, and its counterpart, ‘Occidentalism’ emerged, referring to the essentialized, dehumanized image of the West created by non-Western societies. Currently, most of the mentioned meanings have survived, each to some extent, and interfere in various fields of knowledge, creating complex sets of contradictory connotations.

scholarly journals Environmental migrants and Canada's refugee policy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheila Murray
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
Policy Response ◽  
Refugee Resettlement ◽  
Refugee Policy ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Liberal Approach

Canada is among the world's foremost refugee resettlement countries and is signatory to international agreements that affirm its commitment to the protection of refugee rights. Asylum seekers come to Canada from around the globe. But as climate change continues to affect growing regions of the world -- threatening to create as many as 200 million environmental migrants by the year 2050 -- Canada has not yet begun to address the issue of climate change migration. In an era defined by a neo-liberal approach to migration issues, and until international actors determine the status of environmental migrants, Canada's policy response to the looming crisis may be conjectured from an historical review of its refugee policy. This provides an understanding of the various factors, both domestic and international, that may have the greatest influence on Canada's future refugee policy.

scholarly journals Kultura pamięci i polityka historyczna w dzisiejszej Rosji

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 39-65
Author(s):  
Alvydas Nikžentaitis
Keyword(s):  
Initial Phase ◽  
The Other ◽  
The West ◽  
Noticeable Increase ◽  
National Memory ◽  
Memory Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
The Status ◽  
Historical Periods

Memory culture and historical politics in today’s RussiaConsidering that other countries are still conducting their studies, it is too early to make conclusions and summarise the question of Russia’s memory culture and historical politics. However, it is possible to share some insights concerning this topic:(1) This analysis indicates that Russia’s case is in stark contrast to the opinions of those theorists who negate the existence of national memory culture. In Russia, this culture began to materialise in 2005, after the complicated period of post-Soviet transformation. What became central was the narrative of the empire (derzhava), whose status should also be recognised by the rest of the world. The main symbolical resource used in the construction of the motif of powerful Russia is a myth of victory in the Great Patriotic War. More recently, however, this general myth has been strengthened by selected facts from other historical periods.(2) Symbolical figures of Russia’s memory culture – both those developing and those already formed – are continuously reinterpreted. Since 1992 the myth of victory has undergone a few stages of transformation: the first years of Boris Yeltsin’s presidency (until 1995) were dominated by active efforts to deconstruct this myth; in the period between 1995 and 2000 it was restored, with a particular stress put on the status of Russian people as the unconquered victim; in 2000–2005, the State regained its vital place in the structure of the myth. Recently, the myth has been instrumentalised and used as an argument in Russia’s confrontation with the West. The period since 2011 has seen a noticeable increase in attempts to expand the symbolic instrumentarium through active use of selected facts from other historical periods(3) Although what dominates in Russia is the imperial mega narrative (derzhava),there is also an alternative stream that makes a substantial opposition – the myth of a victim. The years 2009–2013 have shown us that the memory of Stalin’s crimes is really strong. In this sense, the structure of memory in Russia, although with some exceptions, is comparable to the Polish one. On the other hand, substantial differences are noticed in comparison with Germany, Lithuania or Belarus. Those countries have only one memory culture, although with different topics included in the content. Ukraine remains beyond the regional context: even though the process of forming a single policy of remembrance is in place, it is only in its initial phase.  Kultura pamięci i polityka historyczna w dzisiejszej RosjiBadania nad zagadnieniem kultury pamięci w Rosji i krajach ościennych ciągle trwają, dlatego nie można jeszcze mówić o ich podsumowaniu. Istnieją jednak przesłanki, by przedstawić pewne wnioski na ten temat.1. Przeprowadzona analiza ukazuje, że przypadek Rosji wyraźnie przeczy poglądom tych teoretyków, którzy negują możliwość istnienia narodowej kultury pamięci. Po skomplikowanym etapie transformacji postsowieckiej w Rosji kultura pamięci w 2005 roku nabrała konkretnych kształtów. W jej centrum znalazła się opowieść o imperium (dieržava), którego status powinna uznać także reszta świata. Podstawowym symbolicznym zasobem dla toposu silnego państwa rosyjskiego jest mit zwycięstwa w Wielkiej Wojnie Ojczyźnianej. Jednak w ostatnim czasie do wzmocnienia mitu centralnego aktywnie wykorzystuje się także selektywnie wybrane fakty z innych epok historycznych.2. Symboliczne figury tworzącej się czy też już ukształtowanej kultury pamięci są w Rosji stale reinterpretowane. Także mit zwycięstwa po 1992 roku przeszedł kilka etapów transformacji: w pierwszych latach prezydentury Borysa Jelcyna (do roku 1995) dominowały aktywne próby dekonstrukcji tego mitu, w latach 1995–2000 był on odnowiony, akcentowano przede wszystkim status rosyjskiego narodu jako niepokonanej ofiary. W latach 2000–2005 w centrum mitu znów usytuowano państwo, a w ostatnim czasie został on poddany instrumentalizacji i wykorzystany jako argument w konfrontacji Rosji z Zachodem. Po 2011 roku wyraźnie widać próby ilościowego rozszerzenia zasobu instrumentarium symbolicznego za pomocą aktywnego wykorzystania wybranych faktów z innych epok historycznych.3. Choć w Rosji wyraźnie dominuje meganarracja imperialna (dieržava), to jednak ma ona swoją konkurencję. W Rosji nadal w silnej opozycji do mitu zwycięstwa pozostaje mit ofiary. Lata 2009–2013 wyraźnie pokazały żywotność pamięci o ofiarach stalinowskich. W tym sensie struktura pamięci Rosji, choć z pewnymi wyjątkami, może być porównywana do polskiej, jednocześnie różniąc się istotnie od niemieckiej, litewskiej czy białoruskiej. W tych krajach dobitnie wyrażona jest jedna kultura pamięci, choć jej treść zawiera różne wątki tematyczne. W kontekście regionalnym nie mieści się Ukraina, w której jednolita polityka pamięci jest wprawdzie formowana, ale to dopiero początek procesu.

scholarly journals Environmental Migrants and Canada’s Refugee Policy

Refuge ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheila Murray
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
Policy Response ◽  
Refugee Resettlement ◽  
Refugee Policy ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Liberal Approach

Canada is among the world’s foremost refugee resettlement countries and is signatory to international agreements that affirm its commitment to the protection of refugee rights. Asylum seekers come to Canada from around the globe. But as climate change continues to affect growing regions of the world—threatening to create as many as 200 million environmental migrants by the year 2050—Canada has not yet begun to address the issue of climate change migration. In an era defined by a neo-liberal approach to migration issues, and until international actors determine the status of environmental migrants, Canada’s policy response to the looming crisis may be conjectured from an historical review of its refugee policy. This provides an understanding of the various factors, both domestic and international, that may have the greatest influence on Canada’s future refugee policy.

Part 3 Protection, 11 Treaty Standards and their Implementation in National Law

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Goodwin-Gill Guy S ◽  
McAdam Jane ◽  
Dunlop Emma
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Actual Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers ◽  
Point Of Departure

This chapter describes how the main treaties governing the status and treatment of refugees have attracted wide, if not universal acceptance, although they do not in fact either comprehend every refugee known to the world, or, in many cases, offer any but the most basic guarantees. Indeed, both the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol are widely accepted. For those found to qualify, the benefits for which they call are often improved upon in actual practice, and supplemented substantially or filled out by the provisions of regional and related instruments. The Convention and the Protocol represent a point of departure in considering the appropriate standard of treatment of refugees, often exceeded, but still at base proclaiming the fundamental principles of protection, without which no refugee can hope to attain a satisfactory and lasting solution to his or her plight. The chapter examines the provisions of these and related agreements, with a view to determining the appropriate convention standards of treatment applicable to refugees and asylum seekers, whether lawfully or unlawfully in the territory of contracting States.

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