scholarly journals Nzinga Mbandi: From Story to Myth

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-60
Author(s):  
Orquídea Moreira Ribeiro ◽  
Fernando Alberto Torres Moreira ◽  
Susana Pimenta

The figure of Queen Nzinga Mbandi continues to be appreciated in fictional and/or historical narratives as a myth of postcolonial Angolan identity, allowing a continuous approach as to what concerns the modes of cultural representation. In this article, the works of Manuel Pedro Pacavira, Nzinga Mbandi (1975), Pepetela, A gloriosa família: o tempo dos flamengos (1997) and José Eduardo Agualusa, A Rainha Ginga e de como os africanos inventaram o mundo (2014) will be analyzed, as these authors, in different moments of the recent Angolan history, look at this emblematic figure, drawing on historical information produced by Cavazzi, Cadornega or Jean Louis Castilhon, among others. The works now in analysis reiterate the mythical figure of resistance to the European invaders, which was Nzinga Mbandi, or a strong orientation towards the nationalist exaltation supported by it, an evident strategy which, by the rescue of figures and cultural practices, is defined as a means to affirm negritude.

2021 ◽  
Vol 879 (1) ◽  
pp. 012007
Author(s):  
S R Ang ◽  
H T Palarca

Abstract Most indigenous peoples experience homelessness in the Philippines. This is the case for Mount Kalbo’s indigenous tribe, the Agta Community. They face the challenges of dealing with mass wasting disasters potentially devastating their houses and compromising the lives of their families. It is with high hopes that they will be resettled to Sitio Pulang Lupa to rebuild a community, in which this research aims to propose and develop. The proposed resettlement’s goal is to improve and sustain the Agtas’ living conditions in Sitio Pulang Lupa by addressing the unstable slopes and preparing the community to cope with mass wasting disasters. Sitio Pulang Lupa is analyzed compared to Mount Kalbo regarding its advantages of keeping the resettlement sustainable and safe from mass wasting. The resettlement merges the Agtas’ necessities to achieve the research’s objectives, which are improved living conditions, cultural representation, and disaster preparedness into one landscape development in Sitio Pulang Lupa. The resettlement comprises of spaces and facilities that reflect their cultural practices and their needs. Disaster management protocols were also formulated by mapping safe routes, and refuge landscapes to equip the Agtas with preparedness in case disaster occurs. To sustain the vision for the Agtas, soil conditions are firstly addressed by using contour planting. It was used as slope protection and to over-all enhance the environmental quality of the Agtas’ resettlement area. The resettlement as a whole shall be able to meet the research’s goal of proposing a landscape development that mitigates the mass wasting threats experienced by the Agtas, and improves their living conditions. Having said that, Agtas shall finally feel safe and secured in their own homes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Pezzulo ◽  
Laura Barca ◽  
Domenico Maisto ◽  
Francesco Donnarumma

Abstract We consider the ways humans engage in social epistemic actions, to guide each other's attention, prediction, and learning processes towards salient information, at the timescale of online social interaction and joint action. This parallels the active guidance of other's attention, prediction, and learning processes at the longer timescale of niche construction and cultural practices, as discussed in the target article.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 232-243
Author(s):  
Kenneth D. Feigenbaum ◽  
Rene Anne Smith

Sains Insani ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-84
Author(s):  
Azarudin Awang ◽  
Azman Che Mat ◽  
Sophian Ramli

Bagi sesebuah negara yang mempunyai etnik pelbagai anutan kepercayaan dan perbezaan amalan budaya, dialog antara agama berperanan membetulkan semula kekaburan dalam kehidupan beragama dan berbudaya. Melalui peranan Saudara Baru, dialog antara agama mampu menjadi medan bagi menjelaskan kebenaran tentang agama Islam kepada masyarakat bukan Muslim dan pelaksanaan amalan budaya asal kepada Muslim asal. Objektif kajian ini ialah melihat pengalaman pelaksanaan dialog antara agama di Terengganu dan relevansi dalam kehidupan beragama di negara Brunei. Metode kajian ini menggunakan kajian dokumen yang menyentuh komuniti Cina Muslim di Terengganu dan Brunei. Pengalaman pelaksanaan dialog antara agama di Terengganu dan negara Brunei memperlihatkan dialog antara agama mampu membetulkan salah faham dan selanjutnya mengendurkan ketegangan hubungan antara agama dan budaya antara komuniti Saudara Baru, ahli keluarga bukan Muslim dan masyarakat Muslim asal. Biarpun begitu, adalah dicadangkan agar kajian yang menyentuh dialog antara agama perlu diperkukuhkan sebagai medium membina semula peradaban memandangkan penduduk di kedua-dua lokasi ini terdiri daripada berbilang etnik dan agama sedangkan pada masa yang sama masalah yang menyentuh hubungan antara agama sentiasa timbul. Abstract: For a country with diverse ethics of beliefs and cultural practices, interfaith dialogue plays a role to redefine ambiguity in religious and cultural life. Through the role of the New Muslim (Muslim Convert), interfaith dialogue can become a medium to explain the truth about Islam to the non-Muslims and the implementation of real cultural practices to the others Muslim. The objective of this study is to examine the experience of interfaith dialogue in Terengganu and in Brunei. The method of this study is being conducted in document research that related with the Muslim Chinese community in Terengganu and Brunei. In addition, interviews with people involved in the management of New Muslims also carried out. The experience of interfaith dialogue in Terengganu and Brunei shows that dialogue capable explains misunderstandings and further loosening the tension between religion and culture among New Muslims, non-Muslim family members and Muslim communities. However, it is recommended that studies on interfaith dialogue should be strengthened as a medium for rebuilding civilization as the residents of both locations are multi-ethnic and religious while at the same time the problem of interreligious persists.


2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Highmore

From a remarkably innovative point of departure, Ben Highmore (University of Sussex) suggests that modernist literature and art were not the only cultural practices concerned with reclaiming the everyday and imbuing it with significance. At the same time, Roger Caillois was studying the spontaneous interactions involved in games such as hopscotch, while other small scale institutions such as the Pioneer Health Centre in Peckham, London attempted to reconcile systematic study and knowledge with the non-systematic exchanges in games and play. Highmore suggests that such experiments comprise a less-often recognised ‘modernist heritage’, and argues powerfully for their importance within early-twentieth century anthropology and the newly-emerged field of cultural studies.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-77
Author(s):  
Doris Wolf

This paper examines two young adult novels, Run Like Jäger (2008) and Summer of Fire (2009), by Canadian writer Karen Bass, which centre on the experiences of so-called ordinary German teenagers in World War II. Although guilt and perpetration are themes addressed in these books, their focus is primarily on the ways in which Germans suffered at the hands of the Allied forces. These books thus participate in the increasingly widespread but still controversial subject of the suffering of the perpetrators. Bringing work in childhood studies to bear on contemporary representations of German wartime suffering in the public sphere, I explore how Bass's novels, through the liminal figure of the adolescent, participate in a culture of self-victimisation that downplays guilt rather than more ethically contextualises suffering within guilt. These historical narratives are framed by contemporary narratives which centre on troubled teen protagonists who need the stories of the past for their own individualisation in the present. In their evacuation of crucial historical contexts, both Run Like Jäger and Summer of Fire support optimistic and gendered narratives of individualism that ultimately refuse complicated understandings of adolescent agency in the past or present.


Author(s):  
Arezou Azad

Covering the period from 709 to 871, this chapter traces the initial conversion of Afghanistan from Zoroastrianism and Buddhism to Islam. Highlighting the differential developments in four regions of Afghanistan, it discusses the very earliest history of Afghan Islam both as a religion and as a political system in the form of a caliphate.  The chapter draws on under-utilized sources, such as fourth to eighth century Bactrian documents from Tukharistan and medieval Arabic and Persian histories of Balkh, Herat and Sistan. In so doing, it offers a paradigm shift in the way early Islam is understood by arguing that it did not arrive in Afghanistan as a finished product, but instead grew out of Afghanistan’s multi-religious context. Through fusions with Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, early Abrahamic traditions, and local cult practices, the Islam that resulted was less an Arab Islam that was imported wholesale than a patchwork of various cultural practices.


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