scholarly journals A Narrative Inquiry of Identity Construction in a Post-Colonial Context: Hybrid Identity of a Young Generation Hongkonger

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 95-99
Author(s):  
Jingmin Yang ◽  

Identity construction is a complex issue, especially for Hongkongers. Due to historical reason, Hongkongers are regarded to have multiple languages and dual identities, which is hybridity of Chinese (eastern) culture and English (western) culture. Based on the method of narrative inquiry, this study explores how a young generation Hongkonger constructs her identity in a post-colonial context and provides evidence of Hongkonger’s hybrid identity. On the one hand, Hongkongers desire permission to be accepted in the certain cultural communities. On the other hand, they are excluded by both the Chinese community and the English community from a cultural point of view, which leads to localism in Hongkong. As a result, they are like cultural orphans wandering in the cultural “in-between” space.

Author(s):  
Tetiana Vlasova ◽  
◽  
Olha Vlasova ◽  
Larysa Martseniuk

Among the diverse methodological approaches that are currently represented in the postmodern studies, the one, which dominates nowadays, is the statement that there cannot be any methodology in postmodernism per se otherwise it would be a “relapse” into constructing one more “universalizing method”. Evidently, this assertion is stipulated by the highly pluralized context of the postmodern “normalization of change”, the transformations of the socio- cultural order in accordance with the postparadigmatic shift of the theory. Postmodern researchers both implicitly and explicitly state that the only way to “manage” the increasing pluralism and diversity is unmasking prior modernist ideas and ideals in the individual and general meanings of the human experience. On the other hand, the postmodern methodological “openness” encourages academic ambivalence, which results in the denial of the universal notions and absolute moral values. With the apparent postmodernist accent on the interdisciplinary approaches, the “scientific conditions” have become even more complicated: nowadays philosophy, history, theology, gender studies, arts are being connected with biology, genetics, cybernetics, economics, etc. As one of the main components of the postmodern intertextual analysis the historical method is vividly represented both in the western feminist theory and in the eastern post-colonial criticism, poetics of fiction and cultural studies. All mentioned above, appearing in the pluralized modes, occasion the turn into considering interdisciplinary techniques more scrupulously. The objective of this research is to reconstruct conceptually the comparative-historical methodology in the theoretical field of the postmodern humanities with the focus on the specific character of the interpretation of history in the cultural texts. The main thesis of the research reflects the reconstruction of the historical methods as an important systematic and meaning-conscious component in postmodern theoretical studies. The research proves that nowadays historical approaches are significant and valid because they locate certain techniques into the contemporary scholarly work in order to properly utilize the sources and pieces of evidence in writing “history”. The value of the comparative-historical method is also based on the fact that it proposes some models and patterns in dealing with the analysis of the particular theory in interdisciplinary studies. The historical narrative with its objective to tell the “truth” cannot be reflected according to some simple schemes, without taking into account the “hardcore” role of the context in the hermeneutic reading of history. Though there is a view that historiography is located “between” modernity and postmodernity, the articulated point of view is that postmodernism, being a theoretical cluster of historical disruption and “brokenness”, in fact, cannot reject the tradition of historicism in the humanitarian studies.


Movoznavstvo ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 317 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
P. O.  Selihey ◽  

The state of mass multilingualism has been developed now in many countries of the world, and not only in post-colonial ones. Depending on the situation, most contemporaries use (actively or passively) two or three languages. The norm today is not monolingualism, but multilingualism. At the same time many societies are characterized by bilingualism not balanced, but vertical — diglossia. Since few people speak several languages equally well, the need to use them interchangeably requires additional effort and causes mental fatigue. The state of monolingualism is more usual and comfortable for a person. Language situations in society also favor the use of predominantly one language at the expense of others. Therefore, diglossia cannot last forever. Those sociolinguists are right who regard it as a temporary condition, an intermediate stage in the transition «primary monolingualism → bilingualism → secondary monolingualism». Such a transition is an inevitable consequence of the victory of a communicatively strong language over a communicatively weak one. If we evaluate the interaction of languages from a functional point of view, it should be recognized that their essence boils down to competition. It arises due to the fact that languages are not distributed once and for all in certain areas, are not ultimately tied to a certain circle of speakers. Languages always rise at the expense of the decline of other ones. If a language expands its area of use, it means that another language leaves this area, and therefore reduces the scope of its use. Of the two competing languages, the winner is the one with the greatest communicative power. The phenomenon when a language ceases to be used in a certain communicative sphere, it is appropriate to denote by the term loss of functionality. A language that does not fulfill all the functions that should be performed by a developed literary language should be recognized as incompletely functional. The current spread of English as a single world language, its dominance in the most prestigious spheres of communication (politics, economics, trade, science, education, culture, the Internet) leads to the fact that national languages are gradually displaced from these spheres, marginalized and eventually devalued. The process can become irreversible and lead to their complete decline as functionally weak. Even those languages that also claim to be global (French, Spanish) or interstate (German, Portuguese, Russian) are losing the competition. As a result of competition, languages begin to differ in the richness of their vocabulary, the elaboration of their syntactic structure, the development of the style system, their prevalence, and their social status. But the main result is functional inequality. A language that has a large communicative load is used in a larger number of areas (or in prestigious areas) and turns out to be functionally dominant. The one that exists in fewer spheres or is used with less intensity turns out to be functionally incomplete. As a result, it turns out to be unable to satisfy all the information needs of its speakers — they are forced to resort to languages with greater communicative power.


Africa ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 334-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Spencer

AbstractThe Maasai are widely assumed to be a highly egalitarian society whose past success in dominating their neighbours owed much to the advice of their Prophets (loibonok, ‘laibons’). This article examines the practice of divination and prophecy in relation to the reputation of and the beliefs surrounding the principal family of, Maasai Prophets, the Loonkidongi. Undermining the egalitarian ideal, which is shared by the Maasai themselves, the Loonkidongi are shown to have been accepted as an elite. Throughout the twentieth century they have continued to dominate the Maasai in initiating and controlling sorcery, giving protection on the one hand and fostering the belief in Maasai vulnerability on the other. Living apart from other Maasai, with more wives and larger herds, with their own dynasty and dynastic feuding, with their penetrating mystical powers and networks of influence, the Loonkidongi have the symbolic trappings of a superior class of rulers. From this point of view the Maasai are not egalitarian, but are the clients of a protection racket that in pre-colonial times amounted to an incipient state. Today the Prophets continue to wield influence and are accorded more power popularly than elsewhere in eastern Africa, where surviving traditional rulers have been subordinated to the imposed state apparatus of colonial and post-colonial government.


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-122
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Bulajić ◽  
Miomir Despotović ◽  
Thomas Lachmann

Abstract. The article discusses the emergence of a functional literacy construct and the rediscovery of illiteracy in industrialized countries during the second half of the 20th century. It offers a short explanation of how the construct evolved over time. In addition, it explores how functional (il)literacy is conceived differently by research discourses of cognitive and neural studies, on the one hand, and by prescriptive and normative international policy documents and adult education, on the other hand. Furthermore, it analyses how literacy skills surveys such as the Level One Study (leo.) or the PIAAC may help to bridge the gap between cognitive and more practical and educational approaches to literacy, the goal being to place the functional illiteracy (FI) construct within its existing scale levels. It also sheds more light on the way in which FI can be perceived in terms of different cognitive processes and underlying components of reading. By building on the previous work of other authors and previous definitions, the article brings together different views of FI and offers a perspective for a needed operational definition of the concept, which would be an appropriate reference point for future educational, political, and scientific utilization.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-291
Author(s):  
Manuel A. Vasquez ◽  
Anna L. Peterson

In this article, we explore the debates surrounding the proposed canonization of Archbishop Oscar Romero, an outspoken defender of human rights and the poor during the civil war in El Salvador, who was assassinated in March 1980 by paramilitary death squads while saying Mass. More specifically, we examine the tension between, on the one hand, local and popular understandings of Romero’s life and legacy and, on the other hand, transnational and institutional interpretations. We argue that the reluctance of the Vatican to advance Romero’s canonization process has to do with the need to domesticate and “privatize” his image. This depoliticization of Romero’s work and teachings is a part of a larger agenda of neo-Romanization, an attempt by the Holy See to redeploy a post-colonial and transnational Catholic regime in the face of the crisis of modernity and the advent of postmodern relativism. This redeployment is based on the control of local religious expressions, particularly those that advocate for a more participatory church, which have proliferated with contemporary globalization


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Dyah Adriantini Sintha Dewi

The Ombudsman as an external oversight body for official performance, in Fikih Siyasah (constitutionality in Islam) is included in the supervision stipulated in legislation (al-musahabah al-qomariyah). Supervision is done so that public service delivery to the community is in accordance with the rights of the community. This is done because in carrying out its duties, officials are very likely to conduct mal administration, which is bad public services that cause harm to the community. The Ombudsman is an institution authorized to resolve the mal administration issue, in which one of its products is by issuing a recommendation. Although Law No. 37 of 2018 on the Ombudsman of the Republic of Indonesia states that the recommendation is mandatory, theombudsman's recommendations have not been implemented. This is due to differences in point of view, ie on the one hand in the context of law enforcement, but on the other hand the implementation of the recommendation is considered as a means of opening the disgrace of officials. Recommendations are the last alternative of Ombudsman's efforts to resolve the mal administration case, given that a win-win solution is the goal, then mediation becomes the main effort. This is in accordance with the condition of the Muslim majority of Indonesian nation and prioritizes deliberation in resolving dispute. Therefore, it is necessary to educate the community and officials related to the implementation of the Ombudsman's recommendations in order to provide good public services for the community, which is the obligation of the government.


Dreyfus argues that there is a basic methodological difference between the natural sciences and the social sciences, a difference that derives from the different goals and practices of each. He goes on to argue that being a realist about natural entities is compatible with pluralism or, as he calls it, “plural realism.” If intelligibility is always grounded in our practices, Dreyfus points out, then there is no point of view from which one can ask about or provide an answer to the one true nature of ultimate reality. But that is consistent with believing that the natural sciences can still reveal the way the world is independent of our theories and practices.


Author(s):  
Wesley J. Wildman

Subordinate-deity models of ultimate reality affirm that God is Highest Being within an ultimate reality that is neither conceptually tractable nor religiously relevant. Subordinate-deity models ceded their dominance to agential-being models of ultimate reality by refusing to supply a comprehensive answer to the metaphysical problem of the One and the Many in the wake of the Axial-Age interest in that problem, but they have revived in the twentieth century due to post-colonial resistance to putatively comprehensive explanations. Subordinate-deity ultimacy models resist the Intentionality Attribution and Narrative Comprehensibility dimensions of anthropomorphism to some degree but continue to employ the Rational Practicality dimension of anthropomorphism, resulting in a strategy of judicious anthropomorphism. Variations, strengths, and weaknesses of the subordinate-deity class of ultimacy models are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhihao Duan ◽  
Kimyeong Lee ◽  
June Nahmgoong ◽  
Xin Wang

Abstract We study twisted circle compactification of 6d (2, 0) SCFTs to 5d $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 2 supersymmetric gauge theories with non-simply-laced gauge groups. We provide two complementary approaches towards the BPS partition functions, reflecting the 5d and 6d point of view respectively. The first is based on the blowup equations for the instanton partition function, from which in particular we determine explicitly the one-instanton contribution for all simple Lie groups. The second is based on the modular bootstrap program, and we propose a novel modular ansatz for the twisted elliptic genera that transform under the congruence subgroups Γ0(N) of SL(2, ℤ). We conjecture a vanishing bound for the refined Gopakumar-Vafa invariants of the genus one fibered Calabi-Yau threefolds, upon which one can determine the twisted elliptic genera recursively. We use our results to obtain the 6d Cardy formulas and find universal behaviour for all simple Lie groups. In addition, the Cardy formulas remain invariant under the twist once the normalization of the compact circle is taken into account.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (14) ◽  
pp. 4255
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Szaruga ◽  
Zuzanna Kłos-Adamkiewicz ◽  
Agnieszka Gozdek ◽  
Elżbieta Załoga

This paper presents the synchronisation of economic cycles of GDP and crude oil and oil products cargo volumes in major Polish seaports. On the one hand, this issue fits into the concept of sustainable development including decoupling; on the other hand, the synchronisation may be an early warning tool. Crude oil and oil products cargo volumes are a specific barometer that predicts the next economic cycle, especially as they are primary sources of energy production. The research study applies a number of TRAMO/SEATS methods, the Hodrick–Prescott filter, spectral analysis, correlation and cross-correlation function. Noteworthy is the modern approach of using synchronisation of economic cycles as a tool, which was described in the paper. According to the study results, the cyclical components of the cargo traffic and GDP were affected by the leakage of other short-term cycles. However, based on the cross-correlation, it was proved that changes in crude oil and oil products cargo volumes preceded changes in GDP by 1–3 quarters, which may be valuable information for decision-makers and economic development planners.


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