Identity Turn: Managing Decolonialization and Identity Politics in the Study of Religion

The academic study of religion, with its concepts and theories that originate in a Western, Protestant context, has justly been criticized in postmodern and identity-focused discourses, in recent years under the umbrella of decolonization and social justice activism. It has been suggested that allegedly universally-applicable theories and methodologies are relativized and revealed as particularized Eurocentrism in the hegemonic representations of “white” or “Western” power regimes. While acknowledging such reorientations in the philosophy, sociology, psychology, and history of religion, this article also critically investigates and discusses the “critical study of religion.” It is suggested that the revisionist deconstruction emphasized by contemporary identity perspectives, with their discourses of difference and re-essentialized understandings of religion and culture, are not only problematic as theoretical orientations. Radical identity politics also imply methodological constraints on the academic study of religion, where comparison, analytical categories, and reflexive emic–etic distinctions must remain key factors.

The Limits and Possibilities of Sino-New Zealand Defence Relations: A New Zealand Perspective

<p>Western power has been sustained in the Asia-Pacific region by United States military might ever since the defeat of Japan. For the first time since then, China, a non-Western power, poses a challenge to that dominance, with the result that “neither Australia nor New Zealand has ever seriously considered how we would defend our interests and secure our countries in a region which was not dominated by our great and powerful Anglo-Saxon friends.”1 China is the new variable in the Asia-Pacific equation, and New Zealand is now required to factor this new element into its strategic calculations for the future. China’s ascendancy in the Asia-Pacific region will have a huge impact on New Zealand’s future strategic outlook. The purpose of this essay will be to design, as simply as possible, a way to structure thoughts and discussion about the defence relationship between New Zealand and China, from a New Zealand perspective. It will aim to establish a basic framework centred around a number of themes in order to provide a platform for analysis in the future. It will be a brief examination of how these two nations talk with each other at the defence level in the early twenty-first century.</p>

The Limits and Possibilities of Sino-New Zealand Defence Relations: A New Zealand Perspective

<p>Western power has been sustained in the Asia-Pacific region by United States military might ever since the defeat of Japan. For the first time since then, China, a non-Western power, poses a challenge to that dominance, with the result that “neither Australia nor New Zealand has ever seriously considered how we would defend our interests and secure our countries in a region which was not dominated by our great and powerful Anglo-Saxon friends.”1 China is the new variable in the Asia-Pacific equation, and New Zealand is now required to factor this new element into its strategic calculations for the future. China’s ascendancy in the Asia-Pacific region will have a huge impact on New Zealand’s future strategic outlook. The purpose of this essay will be to design, as simply as possible, a way to structure thoughts and discussion about the defence relationship between New Zealand and China, from a New Zealand perspective. It will aim to establish a basic framework centred around a number of themes in order to provide a platform for analysis in the future. It will be a brief examination of how these two nations talk with each other at the defence level in the early twenty-first century.</p>

When the Complexity of the Large-Scale Development Project Becomes a Roadblock to Access to Justice

On 23 July 2018, when the villagers gathered around the porch to wrap up the day with a good chat, one of the five auxiliary dams of the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy hydropower dam in Attapeu province, the southeastern state of Laos, collapsed. Four days before the collapse, reports of cracks and subsidence started to come through. It should have been enough to prompt evacuation warning issuance by the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy Power Co. Ltd (PNPC), a consortium of South Korean companies SK Engineering and Construction (SK E&C) and Korea Western Power Company (KOWEPO), Thailand-based RATCH Group, and Lao Holding State Enterprise (LHSE). PNPC has a Concession Agreement with the Laos government ‘to plan, design, finance, construct, own, operate and maintain’ the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy hydropower dam. The warning was issued, but it came too late.

Transcending path dependencies: Why the study of post-socialist cities needs to capitalise on the discussion on urbanisation in the South (and vice versa)

Recently, the theoretical relevance and utility of the regionalised notion of post-socialist cities have been questioned. The ensuing debate has resulted in several positions, including suggestions to drop the term entirely or to create a distinctive narrative based on the concept of a Global East, in order to position the knowledge as equal vis-a-vis discourses originating from Western power centres. This article responds to this call through efforts to transcend the dominant frames of research on post-socialist cities. However, I argue that the first step in overcoming the subaltern positioning of local knowledge is to refocus attention on previously marginalised urban phenomena, and to link the post-socialist research agenda to existing empowering discourses. The importance of creating linkages with the research originating from the South, and the potential for such joint engagements to contribute to global theory-making are discussed in the context of the study of urban informality.

The Battle of Manila, February 4–5, 1899

Narrates the fighting between Filipino insurrectos and the American regular and volunteer troops deployed to the Philippines to fight the Spanish. Spanish surrender and American ambitions ultimately led to a conventional battle on the outskirts of Manila. The Battle of Manila marked a turning point in intercultural war. A conventional battle waged using symmetrical tactics, it was one of the encounters that showed decisively that, with some exceptions, non-western forces could no longer stand on the battlefield against a western power. In the battle itself, American racist attitudes combined with experience fighting Indians to dominate American tactics and the soldiers’ experience of combat. For their part, Filipino forces were defined in many ways by the patron system through which they were recruited, which undermined the overall cohesion and effectiveness of their army. The Americans won decisively at Manila, but then struggled to adapt when the Filipinos turned to guerrilla warfare.

Footfalls and heart-prints for Indigenous inclusion

Geographies of inclusion have largely been ignored in Management & Organization Studies (MOS), which tend to be encased within global white Western power over knowledge production. In this paper, I contribute to how non-Western contexts can serve as a counterpoint, yet avoid sharp dichotomies, concerning hegemonic Western discourse in geographies of inclusion. Through ethnography, I seek to provide some answers to the question: How does inclusion happen and how can it be theorised in non-Western contexts. Two central ideas of the paper are: 1. MOS can and should learn from non-Western contexts. Indigenous inclusion, specifically linked to Adivasis in India, illustrates how geographical contexts matter for theorising inclusion which can be enriched by examining non-Western contexts; and 2. Liberation theology through discernment and contemplative action, can provide insights and probe the possibilities of the nature of inclusion. I make no claim to a sole interpretation, rather I offer a guiding framework, grounded in an empirical contribution, for a nuanced understanding of Indigenous inclusion. My poignant hope is to invite other adaptations and traditions to further enrich and unveil understandings of geographies of inclusion for MOS.