Adat and Islamic Law in Contemporary Aceh, Indonesia: Unequal Coexistence and Asymmetric Contestation

Discussions on adat and Islamic law in Muslim societies have been focusing on a tension between the two entities. By looking at adat and Islamic law being respectively applied in contemporary Aceh, this article offers a different approach by considering the unbalanced relationship between adat and Islamic law and thus argues that both have been unequally coexisting and asymmetrically contesting with one another. Based on a lengthy ethnographic fieldwork and recurring visits to Aceh, this study discusses the ways in which adat of Aceh has been reinvigorated along with the official implementation of Islamic law in the past two decades. It includes efforts: 1) to establish adat bureaucracy, 2) to restore a cultural sovereignty of adat, 3) to retrieve adat rights to natural resources, and 4) to reinforce adat mechanism of dispute settlement. Despite all these efforts, however, adat appears to be subordinate and secondary.

Expression and Emotion: Cultural Diplomacy and Nation Branding in New Zealand

<p>States need to be recognised by other states to be legitimate and diplomacy is the way in which states represent their interests overseas. Cultural diplomacy is an important part of this diplomacy as it allows states to present their culture internationally and use it to build and maintain relationships that will be of value. Historically, cultural diplomacy has been a long term project, and the benefits to the state are not always immediate. In recent years, the more short term and immediate benefits of nation branding have become popular with states. Nation branding allows a state to promote itself and its products, resulting in quick and often very profitable economic benefits to the country. Like cultural diplomacy, nation branding draws heavily on the culture and imagery of the nation and uses it to gain an advantage. This thesis looks at New Zealand’s cultural diplomacy programmes and the very successful 100% Pure New Zealand nation brand. It looks at the way in which the cultural diplomacy programme meets New Zealand’s aims and is able to build long term relationships, promote understanding and protect its cultural sovereignty, and examines the way in which the new Zealand nation brand has managed to build such a distinctive image and attract customers. The thesis argues that the traditional long term cultural diplomacy is beginning to be changed as economic aims take precedence and it discusses some implications of this for New Zealand.</p>

Expression and Emotion: Cultural Diplomacy and Nation Branding in New Zealand

<p>States need to be recognised by other states to be legitimate and diplomacy is the way in which states represent their interests overseas. Cultural diplomacy is an important part of this diplomacy as it allows states to present their culture internationally and use it to build and maintain relationships that will be of value. Historically, cultural diplomacy has been a long term project, and the benefits to the state are not always immediate. In recent years, the more short term and immediate benefits of nation branding have become popular with states. Nation branding allows a state to promote itself and its products, resulting in quick and often very profitable economic benefits to the country. Like cultural diplomacy, nation branding draws heavily on the culture and imagery of the nation and uses it to gain an advantage. This thesis looks at New Zealand’s cultural diplomacy programmes and the very successful 100% Pure New Zealand nation brand. It looks at the way in which the cultural diplomacy programme meets New Zealand’s aims and is able to build long term relationships, promote understanding and protect its cultural sovereignty, and examines the way in which the new Zealand nation brand has managed to build such a distinctive image and attract customers. The thesis argues that the traditional long term cultural diplomacy is beginning to be changed as economic aims take precedence and it discusses some implications of this for New Zealand.</p>

‘Europudding’ or European co-production? The archaeology of the television series Eurocops (1988–94)

This chapter examines the case of Eurocops, a crime TV show produced by the European Coproduction Association – composed by one private and six public service broadcasting (PSB) channels of seven European countries – from 1988 to 1994 (71 episodes). Although it is one of the first European co-productions of its kind, Eurocops was a critical and commercial fiasco: what were its faults? Following Ib Bondebjerg’s methodology, this article aims at exploring the failure of this ‘Europudding’. The first section places Eurocops in the media landscape of the late 1980s and explains why this series can be considered as a ‘Europudding’ trying to enforce Europe’s cultural sovereignty against the North American hegemony. The second section analyses how the decentralized PSB production of Eurocops implied the use of an inconsistent narrative structure making the single episodes appear as part of a loose ‘collection’ of crime fiction. This partly explains the lukewarm critical reception of this television programme. The third section examines the cultural meaning of the series and is based on the analysis of the 48 episodes we had access to (through the INA French archives). The lack of transnational ‘encounters’ or dialogues – compared to other more recent cop shows such as The Team, The Killing and The Bridge – reveals the absence of a strong European identity at the time of production.

‘My Family and I Are Absolutely against This Law’: Gender Citizenship and Domestic Violence in Contemporary Russia

The article examines how post-soviet legal initiatives on prevention of intimate partner and domestic violence relate to the concepts of gender citizenship and “new private” which transformed gender order in the Russian Federation. To explore emerging concepts the article focuses on the discursive practices of the public debate on the draft law “On prevention of family-domestic violence,” which was released by the Federation Council for the online public discussion on 29 November 2019 and became the most debated draft law drawing 11,186 online entries as comments. Using grounded theory to identify main discursive clusters of the public debate, the article offers an analysis of how theories of cultural sovereignty and “new private” are articulated in contemporary Russian public space. This analysis, supplemented by the examination of other legal and policy documents on prevention of violence against women, gender policy and human rights of women, resulted in conclusions that in post-soviet Russia the concept of gender citizenship has been developing in the close relationship with the concept of cultural sovereignty, which provides the State with legitimate ways to exercise a selective approach to the guarantees of human rights and reject gender-sensitive legislation on the grounds of protecting the family as a traditional value at the expense of human rights of women.

Contested Sovereignties: States, Media Platforms, Peoples, and the Regulation of Media Content and Big Data in the Networked Society

This article examines the legal and normative foundations of media content regulation in the borderless networked society. We explore the extent to which internet undertakings should be subject to state regulation, in light of Canada’s ongoing debates and legislative reform. We bring a cross-disciplinary perspective (from the subject fields of law; communications studies, in particular McLuhan’s now classic probes; international relations; and technology studies) to enable both policy and language analysis. We apply the concept of sovereignty to states (national cultural and digital sovereignty), media platforms (transnational sovereignty), and citizens (autonomy and personal data sovereignty) to examine the competing dynamics and interests that need to be considered and mediated. While there is growing awareness of the tensions between state and transnational media platform powers, the relationship between media content regulation and the collection of viewers’ personal data is relatively less explored. We analyse how future media content regulation needs to fully account for personal data extraction practices by transnational platforms and other media content undertakings. We posit national cultural sovereignty—a constant unfinished process and framework connecting the local to the global—as the enduring force and justification of media content regulation in Canada. The exercise of state sovereignty may be applied not so much to secure strict territorial borders and centralized power over citizens but to act as a mediating power to promote and protect citizens’ individual and collective interests, locally and globally.

Exploration, colonisation et développement durable

In this article, we will sketch a historical portrait of the video game sector in Quebec, both on the geographical plane (from Montreal to Quebec City through Trois-Rivières and other off-centred studios) and for different firm types (from the large studios to independent developers and amateurs). This historical overview will shed light on the challenges and characteristics of this sector which straddles both the technology and cultural industries in three stages : 1) the explorations of amateur entrepreneurs and enthusiasts; 2) the colonisation by large foreign firms and the injection of foreign capital which stimulated industry growth; 3) the structuration of independent developers (notably with La Guilde du jeu video du Québec) and the post-fission transition to a sustainable development of the sector. Our overview will cover the factual aspects of the industry, issues of contents and creative processes, and the challenges of achieving cultural sovereignty in a business sector based on liberalized markets, the free flow of capital, and a dematerialized digital economy.