Waste in islands: a political ecology perspective on postcolonial metabolism

Islands are tightly connected to globalized material flows, with specific constraints and vulnerabilities. They are not closed metabolic loops of consumption, production, and waste, favorable to the circular economy. Small islands allow the observation of the material outcomes of circulation, from overflowing dumpsites to marine debris washing up on the shore. We argue that islands are key territories for better understanding the Capitalocene, precisely because of the ways in which they are connected to (rather than isolated from) globalized material flows. This article is a comparative geographical analysis of waste realities in three French/formerly French island territories: Ndzuwani (Comoros), Réunion, and New Caledonia. It builds on metabolism analysis and waste studies—in particular waste colonialism—to address the different perspectives that these approaches open up for the study of island territories. The long-term sociohistorical context of each island helps to explain contemporary waste management policies and practices. A material flow analysis makes it possible to sketch out metabolic profiles that show the contribution of prevailing mining and agricultural industries to waste generation. The comparison of current situations regarding household waste discourses and economies shows how these territories are characterized by waste accumulation.

Program Music

Studies of program music explore ways in which extra-musical material is expressed and interpreted through music. Conceptions of program music are broadly construed and vary throughout history in correlation with various aesthetic and philosophical perspectives—narrowly defined, programmatic compositions include an extra-musical program describing the musical expression, while a broader definition considers evocative titles, allusive musical material, and conventional musical significations as vehicles of extra-musical meaning. The question of aesthetic value arises in the debate surrounding the ability of music to communicate extra-musical ideas and the quality of music that claims to do so. This question is extensively explored through the polemics of the 19th-century “War of the Romantics,” pitting programmatic music against “absolute music.” Musical and theoretical writings of figures such as Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, and Hanslick provide rich source material informing many studies on program music. The distinction between program music and absolute music is blurred through various approaches to deriving meaning from both types of music. Theories of narrativity propose methods of interpreting formal structures, tonal progressions, and thematic devices interacting in ways reminiscent of literary narrative. Semiotic approaches explore meanings that arise from conventional significations of genre, style, and “topics,” evoking cultural understandings of social position, setting, and affect. Applying interpretive strategies such as these to programmatic music allows for hermeneutic readings mapping the extra-musical program onto the musical events to explore meaningful points of intersection or contradiction. Further studies draw connections to composer biography and sociohistorical context, positioning the music in philosophical perspectives and reception. Broader cultural and political situations inform readings of underlying implications such as nationalism or social commentary. Current studies of program music explore musical narratives in nuanced contexts that parse the historical and cultural atmospheres surrounding composers, their music, and reception to propose new readings and frames of interpretation.

Language Variation in the Book of Jeremiah and Its Cultural and Social Background

Syntactic-stylistic analysis of the linguistic variation in the book of Jeremiah points to the cultural/sociohistorical context of the different text groups. The poignant, emotional style of Jeremianic poetry (Mowinckel’s A corpus) is marked by the often extremely high frequency of short clauses, and the low incidence of subordinate clauses and noun groups (similarly in most texts in Jeremiah 30–31; 46–51). These features characterize the “lean, brisk style” of spontaneous spoken discourse/oral literature. Noun groups and subordinate clauses are highly frequent in the narrative corpus (B) and parenetic prose (C), whereas short clauses are far less frequent, as characteristic of the “intricate, elaborate style” of written texts. Where these corpora reflect the scribal desk, corpus A is close to the oral arena. Detailed analysis shows, however, that all corpora are open-ended. These considerations suggest an initial oral-written symbiosis in the prophetic performance and the commission to writing of the prophetic utterances. In the scribal milieu of the Babylonian/Persian era, a new class of religious formulators took up the prophetic tradition and reformulated it in the complex style characteristic of the scribal desk.

Bringing an Intersectional Lens to “Open” Science: An Analysis of Representation in the Reproducibility Project

Feminist psychologists have called for researchers to consider the social and historical context and the multidimensionality of participants in research studies. The Reproducibility Project documents the degree to which the findings from mainstream psychological studies are reproduced. Drawing on intersectionality theory, we question the value of reproducing findings while ignoring who is represented, intersecting social and group identities, sociohistorical context, and the power and privilege that likely influence participants’ responses in psychology experiments. To critically examine the Reproducibility Project in psychology, we analyzed the 100 replication reports produced between 2011 and 2014 (Open Science Collaboration, 2015). We developed an intersectional analytic framework to investigate (a) representation, (b) whether demographic and identity factors were considered through a multidimensional or intersectional lens, (c) explanations of non-replication, and (d) whether socio-cultural context was considered. Results show that reports predominantly include WEIRD samples (people from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic countries). Context and identity were rarely considered, even when study design relied on these factors, and intersectional identities and structures (considering power, structural issues, discrimination, and historical context) were absent from nearly all reports.

Where There’s Fire There’s Smoke

What critics emphasize in their study of the Bible in art depends on a wide range of issues, including the artist’s sociohistorical context, the purpose for which the art is created, and critics’ own interpretive interests. Because all approaches treat biblical art as interpretation in its own right, critics must first address the relationship between text and image. This chapter applies Cheryl Exum’s method of visual criticism to establish a genuine dialogue between biblical texts and their artistic representations in order to interpret figural representations as artistic solutions to textual cruxes. This method is used to elucidate a difficult scene—the painting of Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones in the Dura-Europos Synagogue. This scene will be examined in light of textual problems in MT Ezekiel 9:1–6, rabbinic textual interpretation of Ezekiel 8-9, and the iconography of idolatry in the cycle of synagogue paintings. The scene does not focus on every detail in these chapters; rather, it produces evidence of idolatry, in the display of bowls and incense burners and, more dramatically, in the portrayal of the executioners’ search for the protective Tau as they carry out the divine command of judgment. The artists’ selection of these two episodes indicates a keen engagement of the artists with questions of identity and idolatry in the religiously plural city of Dura-Europos. Thus explained, the scene clarifies the contribution of the Ezekiel painting to the synagogue cycle’s emphasis on Jewish identity in a polytheist context.

Sexual Orientations and Identities Among Sexual Minority Emerging Adults

This chapter focuses on the development of sexual orientations and identities among sexual minority emerging adults, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, pansexual, and other non-heterosexual sexual identities. The importance of sociohistorical context when examining sexual orientations and identity development is considered in explaining why emerging adults increasingly question binary constructs of both sexuality and gender, and more often adopt fluid and shifting identities, compared to older generations. New psychological frameworks accounting for these more diverse ways of approaching sexual identity and gender identity are reviewed. Nevertheless, health disparities among sexual minority emerging adults still prevail, and the minority stress framework is utilized to explain and understand the underlying reasons. The chapter concludes with suggestions on directions for future research on sexual orientations and identities in emerging adulthood.

A cline of enregisterment and its erasure: Intersections of ideology and technology in minority-language news

Audiences often ascribe monolithic linguistic authority to news media institutions, viewing journalists as the bearers of language standards. Yet media are in fact heteroglossic, with journalists across different media platforms negotiating competing practical demands and different understandings of the social purposes and possibilities of their work. This article examines a case of hyperideologized minority-language media to show how the interplay of deep-seated language ideologies, the local sociohistorical context of media, and the material, technological affordances of different platforms produces a cline of enregisterment. It focuses on media produced in Buryat, a Mongolic language of southeastern Siberia whose speakers are shifting to Russian. Comparing journalists’ linguistic practices and audiences’ interpretations across the coexisting media platforms of newspapers, radio, and television shows how media enregisterment and, in turn, the enregisterment of a standard literary language occur along a cline that is shaped by the intersections of ideology with technology. (Media, language ideology, enregisterment, standardization, purism, materiality, Russia, Russian, Buryat)*

Breaking the Circle

First appearing in 1892 as a serialized novel, Han Bangqing's Haishanghua liezhuan 海上花列傳 (The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai) demonstrates the problematic of an “atypical” novel and the challenges it poses to the notion of the Chinese literary “modern.” This article examines Haishanghua's departure from the traditional circular narrative in terms of its narrative perspective, narrative time, and narrative structure and further notes that this circle-breaking pattern on the technical levels is repeated on the more profound semantic/thematic level of the novel as well. By exploring the sociohistorical context that gives rise to such modern narratives, this article draws links between Han's pioneering experimentations with Haishanghua and the rise of literary naturalism in the West. In this way, the author sheds light on the significance of this atypical novel in the periodization of the Chinese literary modern.

A Turning Point

This chapter highlights key differences between Tokyo and Nagano which explain why the 1998 Games came to be seen as a turning point and fostered the “normalization” of disability sports in Japan. It situates the Games in their larger sociohistorical context in order to understand the differences apparent in Nagano and their consequent impacts. It also reviews how the 1998 Winter Paralympics were organized and held against a backdrop of increased attention to disability-related issues. The chapter refers to Japan's deep engagement in several international disability awareness and rights programs that linked to the United Nations. It discusses the 1990s in Japan, which was marked by significant changes in national activism, policies, and approaches related to disability.