scholarly journals Displeasures of Cultural Diversity and Diasporic Hybridity in Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Shahzadi Sumra ◽  
Mehroz Taseer ◽  
Muhammad Sufyan Afzal ◽  
Khishar Sadaf
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Third Space ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Cultural Hybridity ◽  
Diasporic Community ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Multiple Meanings ◽  
Cultural Choices ◽  
Diasporic Communities

The research explores the strands of cultural hybridity and diaspora compromise that Mendelson has introduced in her novel, Almost English (2013). The research has analyzed the diasporic community as victim of cultural diversity and ambivalence. It focuses on the significance of cultural choices to establish one’s identity; we see identity as a process of negotiation and of articulation of cultural differences. It explores the ways in which Mendelson addresses the hybrid world, a world in which no culture and identity is pure or essential. Homi K. Bhabha’s critical approaches serve as the theoretical framework of this research. His concepts of cultural hybridity, ambivalence, third space and mimicry are of prime interest for the study of this novel. This work highlights the appropriation of Bhabha’s concepts and their application in postcolonial context considering Almost English (2013), for which main motifs include: challenging fixity in one culture, awareness about other existing cultures, and a contestation of view which privileges one culture above other, skirmish realities which finally produce multiple meanings, and values and identities. Finally, the research demonstrates that diasporic communities face displeasures of identity and language while living in a hybrid world. A world where third space is not productive enough for diasporic communities because of which they become conscious of their own identities and place in the society.

scholarly journals Transnational Spaces of Identity Recognition in Jhumpa Lahiri’s "Interpreter of Maladies"

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 103
Author(s):  
Jesús Escobar Sevilla
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Identity Negotiation ◽  
Third Space ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cultural Hybridity ◽  
Literature Discussion ◽  
Identity Recognition ◽  
Introductory Note

The object of this study is to explore the relation between identity and space in Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection of short stories Interpreter of Maladies (1999). I will gauge how subjects adjust to their environments and to which means they resort to conserve, negate meaning. It appears that through the perusal of border consciousness subjects negotiate their identities, which leads them to understand the Other and, by extension, themselves. In fact, as the sense of belonging operates on the multi-layered and deterritorialised location of home, I will thus illustrate that whilst some subjects are hindered by forces of dislocation, cultural hybridity, others reassert a sense of transnational belonging in a third space. I shall include an introductory note on the theoretical framework and a section on food adding to the more detailed literature discussion of identity negotiation at stake.

How Should We Educate Students Whose Cultures Frown upon Rational Disputation?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harvey Siegel
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Public Education ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Democratic Participation ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Full Participation ◽  
Rational Argumentation

`How should public education in democratic states deal with the cultural diversity brought about by contemporary globalization? My suggestion is that key to democratic public education is the obligation to foster in students the skills and abilities, and attitudes and dispositions, needed to participate fully in democratic decision-making. Of central importance are the abilities and dispositions required for critical thinking and rational argumentation: evaluating arguments of others, constructing arguments of one’s own that might rationally persuade one’s fellow citizens, etc. Without these abilities and dispositions, full participation in democratic decision-making is impossible. But fostering them is problematic when students are members of cultures in which argumentation is frowned upon. In this paper I address this tension, and argue that while respecting cultural differences is of the first importance, in democracies it cannot override the requirements of democracy itself. When these two clash, the requirements of democratic participation must take precedence.

scholarly journals Cultural Diversity and Religious Reflexivity in an Intercultural Chilean Parish

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 118
Author(s):  
Felipe Orellana
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Cultural Pluralism ◽  
Religious Conviction ◽  
Peter Berger ◽  
Personal Belief ◽  
The Difference

This research aims to analyze cultural diversity and its relationship with the personal belief in an Immigrant Parish. The discussion is framed within the topic of intercultural churches and parishes, although in a setting that has not been researched (Santiago, Chile). The research was carried out in the Latin-American Parish placed in Providencia, Santiago, and a qualitative framework was used to obtain and analyze the data. Cultural diversity is understood concerning religious reflexivity and under the idea that pluralism leads to a weakening of religious conviction, as Peter Berger argued. The theoretical framework makes the difference between the vision of Berger on cultural pluralism (pluralism inter-religion) and the viewpoint by Charles Taylor (pluralism intra-religion). On the contrary to Berger, the findings of this research showed that cultural diversity and pluralism are elements that produce a strengthening of individual beliefs.

Chinese restaurant employees’ perceptions of their nationals abroad: a comparative study

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar Moufakkir ◽  
Yvette Reisinger
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Cultural Distance ◽  
Third Space ◽  
Service Encounter ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Chinese Restaurant ◽  
Cultural Proximity ◽  
Restaurant Employees ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Service Gap

Purpose This study aims to further an understanding of hospitality employees’ perceptions of their customers in the context of service encounter by utilizing the concepts of contact hypothesis and cultural distance in a multi-ethnic environment. The study compares perceptions of Chinese immigrants working in restaurants of their British patrons (from a remote culture) and Chinese patrons (from a proximate culture). The service encounter takes place in the London Chinatown. The dynamics of Chinatown as a “third space” adds complexity to service encounter and employee perceptions. Design/methodology/approach A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 118 Chinese restaurant employees in the Soho area of the London Chinatown. Perception questions were based on interviews undertaken in an earlier phase of the research. A paired t-test was run to identify significant differences in the Chinese restaurant employees’ perceptions of the Chinese and British patrons. Discriminant analysis was performed to determine which perception variables discriminated the most between the two patron groups. Findings Despite cultural proximity, the perceptions held by Chinese restaurant employees of their nationals were negative compared to the perceptions of British patrons. Out of 16, in 15 areas of measurement, there were significant differences in the Chinese restaurant employees’ perceptions’ of their Chinese and British guests. Six variables that discriminated the most between the two groups of guests were no tips, not polite, loud, no compliment, messy and demanding. Research limitations/implications Research in ethnic and minority quarters, such as Chinatown in London, may suffer from “recall bias”, or in this case from making the difference between customer groups. Also, the Chinese are not a homogeneous group. For example, despite cultural similarity with mainstream culture, cultural and behavioral characteristics may exist between residents from the South, North and Hong Kong. Practical implications The cultural diversity of the industry’s employees necessitates managing cultural diversity effectively, especially in the sectors that rely heavily on guest–employee interaction. Perceptions affect attitudes and behavior. Training programs about perception and its roots may bridge the service gap in high-contact service encounters. Originality/value This study provides a ground for future empirical research into understanding the immigrant employees’ perceptions of their guests, nationals versus non-nationals and the ways for improving these perceptions. Taking the example of Chinatown as a dynamic “third space” is another approach to understanding the effects of “ethnoscape” on encounters in a more globalized village.

Emergent Cultural Differences in Online Communities’ Norms of Fairness

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 394-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pontus Strimling ◽  
Seth Frey
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Online Communities ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
World Of Warcraft ◽  
Social Outcomes ◽  
Multiplayer Games ◽  
Evolutionary Anthropology ◽  
Social Contracts

Unpredictable social dynamics can dominate social outcomes even in carefully designed societies like online multiplayer games. According to theories from economic game theory and evolutionary anthropology, communities that are otherwise identical can spontaneously develop emergent cultural differences. We demonstrate the emergence of norm diversity in comparable populations distributed across identical copies of a single multiplayer game world. We use 2006 data from several servers of World of Warcraft to analyze how social contracts about resource distribution converge within independent communities, while varying across them. We find wide-ranging diversity in the norms that communities consider standard, fair, and common, even where these norms are unenforcable and players face large incentives to deviate from them. By documenting how designed societies come to differ in undesigned ways, we present emergent cultural diversity as a distinguishing feature of human sociality and a major challenge for game designers.

Introduction

Last Acts ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Maggie Vinter
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Early Modern Drama ◽  
Modern Drama ◽  
Ars Moriendi ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
The Common ◽  
Critical Perspectives

The introduction outlines a theoretical framework for the book. Through a brief survey of critical approaches to Hamlet, it considers the common alignment of early modern drama with mourning and argues that new critical perspectives emerge if we focus on the experience of the dying subject instead. William Perkins’s 1595 tract, A Salve for a Sick Man, illustrates how death was understood around Shakespeare’s time. By situating Perkins’s text in relation to ancient Stoicism and twentieth-century phenomenology, the introduction explicates what is distinctive about the understanding of dying found in the ars moriendi tradition and argues for the theoretical sophistication and continuing influence of the genre.

The Use of Internet by Diasporic Communities for Political Mobilization

2012 ◽  
pp. 281-293
Author(s):  
Maricarmen Sanchez ◽  
Sukumar Ganapati
Keyword(s):  
Social Networking ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Empirical Basis ◽  
Diasporic Community ◽  
Use Of Internet ◽  
Independent Country ◽  
Diasporic Communities

This chapter analyzes how the Internet enables social and political mobilization of diasporic communities. Two diasporic communities—the Eritreans and the Iranians—form the empirical basis. The Eritrean diasporic community has used the Internet in their fight against Ethiopia and in their efforts to establish Eritrea as an independent country. The Iranian diasporic community used social networking, blogging, and other methods to politically mobilize amongst themselves in the host society and to mobilize their fellow countrymen in their homeland in the recent 2009 elections. The case studies illustrate how the Internet enables political mobilization that transcends time and space. Yet, the success of political mobilization depends on the diaspora’s relationship with the homeland’s government, their ability to create linkages, and their power relations.

Dimensions of Cultural Variation

2019 ◽  
pp. 67-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter B. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Multilevel Modeling ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Measurement Bias ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
The Social ◽  
Do So

To understand cultural differences, we need to find ways to characterize the variations in the social contexts in which people are located. To do so, we must focus on differences between contexts rather than differences between individuals. Most research of this type has examined differences between nations in terms of dimensions. Treating each nation as a unit, contrasts have been identified in terms of values, beliefs, self-descriptions, and social norms. The most influential difference identified concerned the dimension of individualism–collectivism, which has provided the theoretical framework for numerous studies. The validity of this type of investigation rests on close attention to aspects of measurement to ensure that respondents are able to make the necessary judgments and to respond in ways that are not affected by measurement bias. Where many nations are sampled, multilevel modeling can be used to show the ways in which dimensions of culture affect social behaviors.

Democracy and Recognition

2018 ◽  
pp. 79-106
Author(s):  
Craig Browne ◽  
Andrew P. Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Recent Analysis ◽  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
Politics Of Identity ◽  
Politics Of Recognition ◽  
New Politics ◽  
Equal Respect ◽  
Nancy Fraser

This chapter focuses on Taylor’s account of the politics of recognition and the broad debates that his essay on multiculturalism stimulated. Taylor was responding to the new politics of identity and the contestation over the implications of cultural diversity, especially in multicultural societies like Canada and Australia. Taylor is shown to bring his own theoretical framework to bear on these topics and to emphasize the cultural underpinnings of identity politics in the values of equal respect and equal dignity. Taylor’s highlighting the broad background experiences of democratic forms of social association is somewhat similar, we argue, to that of Alexis de Tocqueville on democracy and democratisation. Taylor’s reworking of aspects of Tocqueville’s diagnoses of modern society’s potential for ‘democratic despotism’ and the paradoxes of individualism are evaluated. Whilst acknowledging the significance of Taylor’s contributions to theories of recognition and democracy, the critical responses to Taylor’s accounts are outlined and his conceptions are compared with later discussions of these themes, particularly those by Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth. Taylor’s updating of his perspective on recognition and recent analysis of current tendencies for ‘democratic exclusion’ and their remedies are assessed.

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