scholarly journals Indigenous Semiotics in “The Transistor” by Shahnaz Bashir: Application of Roland Barthes’ Codes to Kashmiri Narrative

Author(s):  
Mazhar Abbas ◽  
Farrukh Nadeem ◽  
Ali Ahmad Kharal

The research focuses on the indigenous critical perspective when applied through semiotics of Barthes’ codes to the Kashmiri narratives. The study briefly reviews indigenous perspective as explained by Professor Jody Byrd and Aileen Moreton-Robinson after giving reference to Heather Harris about indigenous epistemology. This follows linking it to semiotics through Barthes’ codes with their review and association to cultural indigenousness. The research also reviews the Kashmiri narrative tradition and analyses the short story “The Transistor” in the light of this theoretical perspective to show that Kashmiri indigenousness as presented through signs and symbols when interpreted as indigenous semiotics show the specific Kashmiri resistance, conflictual cultural practices, and indigenous sovereignty under paracolonialism. The research, however, falls short of proving how the Kashmiri cultural paradigm shifts under paracolonial presence which requires separate inquiry from another angle.

2021 ◽  
pp. 016235322110014
Author(s):  
Eleonoor van Gerven

Currently, in Western society, five significant paradigm shifts can be distinguished affecting Dutch and Flemish gifted education: (a) an inclusive approach of education, (b) response to educational needs, (c) new perspectives on giftedness, (d) social constructivism, and (e) evidence-informed teaching. In this review article, the positioning of the education of gifted students in primary schools in the Netherlands and Flanders is explained within the context of these five significant paradigm shifts. There are frictions between what is, from a theoretical perspective, desirable optimally and what can currently be realized in Dutch and Flemish education. The process of change demonstrates a need for competent specialists in gifted education. Because basic teacher competencies for the Netherlands and Flanders are already prescribed by law, the construction of a competency matrix is recommended for specialists in gifted education that combines the general teaching competencies with competencies that apply specifically for gifted education.


2021 ◽  
pp. 59-65
Author(s):  
O. D. Rykhlitska ◽  
O. I. Kosyk

The article analyzes modern design practices based on symbolic and ornamental motives of folk art and their modern actualization in ethno-artistic areas, reflecting the relationship of traditional aspects with innovative, symbolic translation of cultural experience in time and space, creating symbolic value images, enhancing emotional environment and creating new narratives. Symbols, as the basis of the existence of the people, reflect the ethno- national aspects of culture, is an opportunity to find yourself at the level of relationship with your people, your nation, traditions. The appeal to archetypes is a special methodological perspective in which the meaning of the future is created due to the transformation of the past into a symbol. What is relevant in modern Ukrainian realities is that the whole cultural paradigm is being reconsidered and new ways of national identification are being sought. Embroidery is marked by a special color and incredible ornamentation, complex performance technique, which is reflected in the symbols of sociocultural practices, immersing in the depths of traditional norms and values that encourage to feel, assimilate, preserve and transmit. In modern domestic discourse, design practices are thought of as aimed at transforming the cultural environment into the integrity of cultural and natural components. They serve as a basis for forming an idea of the world and building harmonious relationships with the world. And the use of symbols-amulets and a certain emotional color is a special process of self-identification and the foundation for the revival of national culture and spiritual values, seeing their own place in the global cultural and artistic space. Therefore, the use of ornamental symbols in design practice is the basis for the revival of national culture and spiritual values and the formation of a new promising direction of Ukrainian design. Among the spiritual heritage of Ukraine with its color and incredible ornamentation, complex technique is embroidery, which is reflected in the symbols-codes of modern socio-cultural practices


Author(s):  
Mojgan Gaeini ◽  
Fatemeh Sadat Basirizadeh ◽  
Mahnaz Soqandi MA

Language, Social identity and Religion are three major concerns of cultural studies. Language in literary texts plays a major role in constructing meaning and reflecting the author`s intention. Likewise religion as a cultural politics is a dominant factor in shaping mind as well in affecting the framework of literary text. Religion is one of the emerging issues in the modern era and forms the backbone of most literary works. Religion as a theme is seen to influence the operation of those who believe in it. It forms the functional framework that predetermines ones actions and behavior. Furthermore, social identity decides on the status of the social class and their material life situation.  Social identity relates to how we identify ourselves in relation to others according to what we have in common. All these issues are interrelated since they all cooperate and construct a social and cultural materiality. James Joyce could be placed among the most dominant cultural authors whose concern is the material life, social class, social identity and cultural crisis. As an outstanding author, Joyce is well known for his typical depiction, musical decoration as well as his sticking to proper cultural and social materials and issues such as religious matters. His major short story collection, Dubliners, revolves around the lifestyle of the Irish middle-class in Dublin around the late 1800s and early 1900s. This collection is decorated with violated norms and ritualistic behavior that are part of social constructs. Addressing social, religious and cultural issues, cultural materialists believe that “literature can serve as an agent of change”, since a culture`s hegemony is unstable. Raymond Williams views culture as a “productive process” that is, part of the means of production, and cultural materialism often identifies what he called “residual”, “emergent” and “oppositional” cultural elements. Seemingly, James Joyce`s Dubliners pertains to the notion of language, social identity and religion as cultural practices within the framework of cultural materialism. This study aims to clarify how James Joyce`s Dubliners reflects the notions of language, social identity and religion as cultural practices and how they construct social and cultural products within the framework of cultural materialism to show how James Joyce criticizes Irish culture at the beginning of the Twentieth century.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Brian Tweed

<p>In this thesis, the learning of conventional curriculum mathematics in indigenous Māori schools is conceptualised as a site of struggle within the wider context of a national New Zealand education system. For example, the research literature documents the effects of inadequate mathematics education resources, detrimental impacts on the nature of traditional Māori language and cultural practices, and concerns about under-achievement of Māori students in mathematics and access to powerful societal knowledge. The thesis aims to uncover a causal mechanism for the struggle with mathematics education in one Māori school.  Empirical data about mathematics learning activities are examined using a theoretical perspective strongly influenced by Dialectical Critical Realism. The methodological frameworks are based on Basil Bernstein’s sociology of education, Systemic Functional Linguistics and Legitimation Code Theory. Using these theoretical and methodological tools, empirical data are related to deeper-level ontological determinations which underpin practices in the Māori school.  The major conclusion of the thesis is that struggle derives from two conflicting ontological determinations about the nature of a person. Mathematics education tends to construe people, and create subjectivities, in terms of their knowledge. The ethos of the Māori school considered in this thesis tends to construe people, and create subjectivities, in terms of their genealogically-embedded, unique, material and spiritual natures.  Based on this conclusion, the thesis indicates some potential consequences and future developments of mathematics education in Māori schools. These developments may be thought of in general terms as a disengagement from current relations with mathematics education, an establishment of autonomy, and a re-engagement with mathematics on different terms.</p>


Author(s):  
John Evelev

The discourse of the picturesque reshaped how Americans understood their landscape, but it largely ended in the mid-1870s. The decline of the picturesque can be illustrated in two emblematic works: Constance Fenimore Woolson’s 1872 short story “In Search of the Picturesque” and William Cullen Bryant’s enormous 1874 scenery book Picturesque America. Woolson’s fictional story is a satire of travel in which a young urban woman accompanies her grandfather to the countryside “in search of the picturesque” and instead only finds development. This story signals the shift in literary interest in rural subjects toward regionalism. Regionalism disavowed the earlier focus on picturesque landscapes, instead featuring distinctive regional dialects and cultural practices that reflected the newly created social sciences. Bryant’s Picturesque America was a Reconstruction-era project aimed at reconnecting the divided nation through a nonhierarchical unification under the sign of “picturesque.” Adding not only the West but also the South to the compendium of American scenery, Picturesque America imagined the entire nation as picturesque. In this formulation, the picturesque became synonymous with landscape in general. Although the picturesque lost its appeal as an authoritative discourse for shaping the American landscape in the latter third of the nineteenth century, this book demonstrates that the spaces that dominated American life in the twentieth century and beyond are owed almost entirely to the transformative project of the mid-nineteenth-century picturesque.


2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lakshmi Rajendran ◽  
Fariba Molki ◽  
Sara Mahdizadeh ◽  
Asma Mehan

With rapid changes in urban living today, peoples’ behavioural patterns and spatial practices undergo a constant process of adaptation and negotiation. Using “house” as a laboratory and everyday life and spatial relations of residents as a framework of analysis, the paper examines the spatial planning concepts in traditional and contemporary Iranian architecture and the associated socio-cultural practices. Discussions are drawn upon from a pilot study conducted in the city of Kerman, to investigate ways in which contemporary housing solutions can better cater to the continually changing socio-cultural lifestyles of residents. Data collection for the study involved a series of participatory workshops and employed creative visual research methods, participant observation and semi structured interviews to examine the interlacing of everyday socio-spatial relations and changing perception of identity, belonging, socio-cultural and religious values and conflict. The inferences from the study showcases the emerging social and cultural needs and practices of people manifested through the complex relationship between residents, the places in which they live, and its spatial planning and organisation. For a better understanding of this complex relationship, the paper argues the need for resituating spatiality as a socio-cultural paradigm.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Myriam Durocher

<p>Over the last decades, it has been possible to observe an increasing amount of research having for common assumption the impossibility to dissociate changes which occur within medias, culture and society. Mediatization theories, particularly developed in Scandinavian countries, and American configurations of cultural studies utilize interesting tools and conceptual material to think about the transformations that occur within the social field. Both encourage questioning the power relations and struggles that inform those transformations. However, their manner of conceiving and using “culture” and “media” as conceptual tools for analysis differ, bringing multiple and diverging ways to study and question objects, phenomenon and processes. These two approaches do not appear as irreconcilable and would take advantage of being put in dialogue as a way to see how they can possibly complement each other. For example, by enriching their mutual understanding of power and, therefore, their critical character. This article draws points of tension and convergence between cultural studies and mediatization studies. It explores cultural studies' focus on (cultural) practices as a privileged site to analyse power relations and their ongoing negotiations by and through media. This approach may resonate or complement Couldry’s (2004) proposal for a paradigm of media as practice “to help us address how media are embedded in the interlocking fabric of social and cultural life” (p. 129). This dialogue between mediatization theories and cultural studies is being put to the forefront with the hope it may allow further discussions and relevant theoretical avenues for critical research located within both fields. Thinking of this possible interplay let foresee the possibility of questioning objects, processes and phenomenon in a critical perspective in a context produced and characterised by medias’ omnipresence. It would allow researchers to question the power struggles that are negotiated through practices themselves, without neglecting the consideration that most of these practices are made by, with or within media.  </p>


Author(s):  
Rubén Peinado Abarrio

Abstract: The controversy that followed hurricane Katrina and its representation by the media revealed unresolved racial issues in contemporary United States. Present-day New Orleans has become an ideal site for the application of Michael Omi and Howard Winant’s ‘racial formation’ theory, which challenges essentialist visions of race pointing to its sociohistorical construction. The present article makes use of this theoretical perspective to examine two pieces of fi ction set in post-Katrina U.S.: HBO’s TV series Treme, and Richard Ford’s short-story “Leaving for Kenosha”. Such an analysis unveils key connections between race and class, ideology, politics or the role of the media. Resumen: El huracán Katrina y su representación en los medios pone de manifi esto cuestiones raciales sin resolver en Estados Unidos. Nueva Orleans se ha convertido en un lugar idóneo para aplicar la teoría de la “formación racial” de Michael Omi y Howard Winant, un ataque a la visión esencialista del concepto “raza”. Este artículo parte de dicha teoría para examinar dos obras de fi cción situadas en Estados Unidos después del Katrina: la serie de televisión Treme y el relato de Richard Ford “Leaving for Kenosha”. Tal análisis pone de manifi esto la relación entre raza y clase, ideología o medios de comunicación.


Author(s):  
Mojgan Gaeini ◽  
Mahnaz Soqandi ◽  
Fatemeh Sadat Basirizadeh

Language, Social identity and Religion are three major concerns of cultural studies. Language in literary texts plays a major role in constructing meaning and reflecting the author`s intention. Likewise religion as a cultural politics is a dominant factor in shaping mind as well in affecting the framework of literary text. Religion is one of the emerging issues in the modern era and forms the backbone of most literary works. Religion as a theme is seen to influence the operation of those who believe in it. It forms the functional framework that predetermines ones actions and behavior. Furthermore, social identity decides on the status of the social class and their material life situation.  Social identity relates to how we identify ourselves in relation to others according to what we have in common. All these issues are interrelated since they all cooperate and construct a social and cultural materiality. James Joyce could be placed among the most dominant cultural authors whose concern is the material life, social class, social identity and cultural crisis. As an outstanding author, Joyce is well known for his typical depiction, musical decoration as well as his sticking to proper cultural and social materials and issues such as religious matters. His major short story collection, Dubliners, revolves around the lifestyle of the Irish middle-class in Dublin around the late 1800s and early 1900s. This collection is decorated with violated norms and ritualistic behavior that are part of social constructs. Addressing social, religious and cultural issues, cultural materialists believe that “literature can serve as an agent of change”, since a culture`s hegemony is unstable. Raymond Williams views culture as a “productive process” that is, part of the means of production, and cultural materialism often identifies what he called “residual”, “emergent” and “oppositional” cultural elements. Seemingly, James Joyce`s Dubliners pertains to the notion of language, social identity and religion as cultural practices within the framework of cultural materialism. This study aims to clarify how James Joyce`s Dubliners reflects the notions of language, social identity and religion as cultural practices and how they construct social and cultural products within the framework of cultural materialism to show how James Joyce criticizes Irish culture at the beginning of the Twentieth century.


Author(s):  
Laura Di Michele

The relationship between spectators, performers and spaces is investigated in a critical perspective which aims at further developing the concept of the city as a performance place where precarious urban identities are dynamically and temporarily shaped and reshaped. Even if this essay takes into due account the seminal studies of Barthes (1971), H. Lefebvre (1974), and urban theorists such as Reyner Banham and Kevin Lynch who conceived of the city as a ‘legible’ text, at the same time it argues that textuality and performativity must be perceived as intertwined cultural practices that work together to shape the body of phenomenal, intellectual, psychic, and social encounters that frame a subject’s experience of the city. London 2012 Olympic Games, and in particular the stunning Opening Ceremony directed by Danny Boyle, for which visitors and overseas spectators were invited to transform themselves into a global theatrical audience, can be used as a privileged viewpoint from which to analyse the different ways of perceiving, but also being looked at and performing oneself, in and through spaces which tend at modifying, or at interrogating or destabilizing one’s traditional identity.


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