Nation Building and Modern Architecture in Malaysia

2017 ◽  
pp. 30-37
Author(s):  
Nor Hayati Hussain

This paper explores the historical development of modern architecture in Malaysia, which is evident in the emerging architectural language; the efforts of the Federation of Malaya Society of Architects (later known as the Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia); as well as the direction taken by the architectural practice in the country; all of which were driven by the prevailing political, economic as well as the socio-cultural attributes of the new nation, and the vision on Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first Prime Minister of the Federation of Malaya. The outcome of all these is an architecture that speaks of the nation’s modern society’s values and identity.

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 632-650 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Brisku

This article explores the dilemma of the small Bohemian Lands/Czechoslovak nation (-state) in staying “in” or “out” of the larger Habsburg supranational entity in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. It does so mainly through the language of political economy (on national wealth creation and redistribution) articulated in the opinions and political actions of Czechoslovakia's two founding statesmen, the first president, Thomas G. Masaryk, and the first prime minister, Karel Kramař. The article argues that their choice of staying “in” the large imperial space was premised upon renegotiating a better political and political–economic deal for the Bohemian Lands, whereas the option of abandoning it and of forging the Czechoslovak nation-state was essentially based on political reasons. And while both advocated an interventionist role for the state in the economy during the imperial period, they considered such a prerogative even more essential for their new nation-state.


1994 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 37-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sibel Bozdoğan

Deeply rooted in “the great transformation” brought about by capitalism, industrialization and urban life, the history of modern architecture in the West is intricately intertwined with the rise of the bourgeoisie. Modernism in architecture, before anything else, is a reaction to the social and environmental ills of the industrial city, and to the bourgeois aesthetic of the 19th century. It emerged first as a series of critical, utopian and radical movements in the first decades of the twentieth century, eventually consolidating itself into an architectural establishment by the 1930s. The dissemination of the so-called “modern movement” outside Europe coincides with the eclipse of the plurality and critical force of early modernist currents and their reduction to a unified, formalist and doctrinaire position.


2021 ◽  
pp. 030981682110615
Author(s):  
Alan Hall

Studies in several national jurisdictions have highlighted the limitations of joint health and safety committees and worker representatives in affecting change in working conditions. Using Canadian data, this article focuses on the argument that many health and safety committees and worker representatives have been captured or substantially controlled through the State’s promotion of an internal responsibility system framed around a technocratic partnership. The historical development of this framing is first understood within a political economic framework which highlights several major influences, followed by a field theory analysis which explains how these control relations are established by management within workplace settings.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-51
Author(s):  
Thiago P. Barbosa

Abstract This paper deals with the transnationalism of racial anthropological frameworks and its role in the understanding of human difference during India’s decolonization and nation-building. With attention to the circulation of objects, I focus on the practices and articulations of Irawati Karve (1905–1970), an Indian anthropologist with a transnational scientific trajectory and nationalistic political engagements. I argue that Karve’s adaptation of an internationally validated German racial approach to study caste, ethnic and religious groups contributed to the further racialization of these categories as well as to the racialization of nationalistic projects in Maharashtra and India. I conclude with a reflection on the transnationalization of the coloniality of racialization.


1997 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 399-400
Author(s):  
Stanley B. Alpern

When I wrote two prominent European historians of western Africa that I was planning a trip to São Tomé and would check out the national archives, one replied: “Are there really local archives? The Cape Verdes seem to have lost theirs.” The other remarked that “[i]t would certainly be worth finding out whether any of the old archives are still on the island.” Even the person who would be my host there, a resident American official, had the impression that the Portuguese had carted off all the colonial records when São Tomé and Príncipe became independent in 1975.I am happy to report that the Arquivo Histórico of the new nation is alive and surprisingly well. On my visit in March of 1996 I met two dedicated and cultivated young women who were doing their utmost against long odds to organize and preserve all that is left of their country's written records. They are Maria Nazaré Ceita, a trained historian who is Director General of Culture of São Tomé e Principe, and, under her, Anabela Barroso, Director of the Arquivo Histórico.Since December of 1995 they and a tiny staff have been moving the archives into spacious, if spartan, new quarters in the heart of São Tomé city. The modernistic one-story building used to be the offices of the Prime Minister. When I visited the place, much had already been done. Long neat rows of boxed and dated dossiers were up on shelves, though jumbles of papers remained to be sorted. The archives also contains a small library for researchers and space for a large, as yet unfurnished, reading room.


Author(s):  
Ross McKibbin

This chapter is concerned with J.M. Keynes’s analysis of the rentier, the ‘functionless investor’ in Britain (and Europe) in the interwar years. Even though Keynes had no coherent idea of who the rentier was, he was central to Keynes’s economics and to his political sociology. The rentier was also essential to Keynes’s political-economic account of Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. Hence, Keynes was forced to a view that while the rentier remained unchained society would be based upon conflicting interests and social tensions. Such a view undermined Keynes’s original allegiances to the kind of Liberalism associated with the former Liberal prime minister, H.H. Asquith, and the argument Keynes sometimes presented, that economic policy was determined by an intellectual muddle, not warring interests. Asquithian Liberalism, however, depended on notions of political agreement and social harmony and that was, in practice, not something Keynes ever believed characterized modern capitalism.


2018 ◽  
pp. 37-44
Author(s):  
L.M. Singhvi

This chapter presents Dr Singhvi’s views on public governance and decentralization wherein the learned author has appreciated the role of Panchayati Raj institutions to strengthen the democratic fabric in the country. He has followed Gandhiji’s line of Gram Swaraj in his thoughts. He was a great supporter of decentralization of powers. Dr Singhvi’s opportunity for a renewed demarche on decentralization and Panchayati Raj came when Shri Rajiv Gandhi became the prime minister. He wrote to him to suggest that he should concentrate on nation-building through institution-building and that he should take a bold initiative to revive and revitalize Panchayati Raj which had fallen by the wayside and was in the process of decay and disintegration. Shri Rajiv Gandhi listened to him with rapt attention. He was receptive and was exceptionally quick on the uptake. He said he would like him to head a Committee and prepare a Concept Paper.


Author(s):  
Eyal Zisser

This article describes how in the middle of the winter of 2010 the “Spring of the Arab Nations” suddenly erupted without any warning all over the Middle East. However, the momentum of the uprisings was impeded rather quickly, and the hopes held out for the “Spring of the Arab Nations” turned into frustration and disappointment. While many Israelis were focusing their attention in surprise, and some, with doubt and concern as well about what was happening in the region around them; suddenly, in Israel itself, at the height of the steamy summer of 2011, an “Israeli Spring” broke out. The protesters were young Israelis belonging to the Israeli middle class. Their demands revolved around the slogan, “Let us live in our land.” However, similar to what happened in the Arab world, the Israeli protest subsided little by little. The hassles of daily life and security and foreign affairs concerns once more became the focus of the public's attention. Therefore, the protesters' hopes were disappointed, and Israel's political, economic, and social order remained unshaken. Thus, towards the end of 2017, the memory of the “Israeli spring” was becoming faded and forgotten. However, while the Arab world was sinking into chaos marked by an ever deepening economic and social crisis that deprived its citizens of any sense of security and stability, Israel, by contrast, was experiencing years of stability in both political and security spheres, as well as economic growth and prosperity. This stability enabled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party to remain in power and to maintain the political and social status-quo in Israel.


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