Oppressed Within the Oppressed: The Patriarchal Hegemonic Discourse of Colourism on Dalit Women in Shahjadpur, Sirajganj, Bangladesh

The biggest victims of colourism in Bangladesh are girls, who are victims of colour-based violence and suffer from a dark-black complexion. In general, Bangalee society is a dominating patriarchal society, which has been established through a hegemonic discourse. This study explores how and in what process this racist discourse has started in the society. Therefore, being born with only a black complexion, a family deals with long-term psychological problems. In addition to the so-called mainstream social system in Bangladesh, a detached and marginalized group living in Bangladesh is known as Dalits. They are primarily a neglected community, isolated from the mainstream. Among them, the condition of Dalit women is much more deplorable. Dark complexion women are experiencing the most exploitation, deprivation and neglect. The Dalit women are ‘Oppressed within the Oppressed’—they are forced to live a cursed life through a dark-black complexion from birth. This study focuses on how masculine authoritarian behaviours dominate the dark-black face of the Dalit girls in Bangladesh. A random sample-based interview has been conducted on Dalit people of Shahjadpur in the Sirajganj district to explore what kind of mechanism exploits the girls and how the literal meaning of ‘beauty’ is established in society.

Reconciliating the Relationship Between Christian Churches and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex+ People: The Letter of São Paulo as a Counter Hegemonic Discourse in Times of Religious Conservatisms

The ‘1st Congress Churches and LGBTI+ Community: ecumenical dialogues for respect for diversity’ was held between 19th and 22nd of June 2019, in the city of São Paulo. The Congress was organised by the Parish of the Holy Trinity of the Episcopal Anglican Church in Brazil and Koinonia–Ecumenical Presence in Service. As we consider this congress a historic landmark in the debates concerning religions and sexualities that escape from cisheteronormativity in Brazil, in the course of this article, we propose to analyse the social and political conjuncture that motivated the event. In a second step, we will briefly describe the structure of the event, as well as its objectives, in order to understand the assumptions that guided the construction of the Letter of São Paulo, the official and public document of the Congress, approved in plenary by the participants. We believe that the Congress and the Letter of São Paulo have political potential, as they claim the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex+ people as people of faith and denounce forms of oppression, exclusion and marginalisation reinforced by conservative and hegemonic religious discourses.

Feminist Occidentalist Discourse in ‘Shehrazad Goes West: Different Cultures, Different Harems’ by Fatima Mernissi

Occidental discourses tend to revise orientalist images about the orient. Many authors have taken the responsibility of giving a new voice to the occident and among those is Fatima Mernissi. In this regard, this paper aims at discussing the shift that has marked the writings of Fatima Mernissi with a particular focus on her book, ‘Shehrazad Goes West: Different Cultures, Different Harems’. It is undeniable that Fatima Mernissi‘s thoughts have known a radical change in terms of ideology and discourse. ‘Shehrazad Goes West’ seems to promote an Occidentalist discourse that isn’t based on appropriating orientalist rhetorical images of the orient but rather on revising/ reconsidering the tropes of essentialism, dehumanization and fixity that Orientalist texts usually opt for. From an auto-orientalist discourse that Mernissi advocated in her narrative Dreams of Trespass, we move to another discourse that manifests itself in ‘Shehrazad Goes West’, which is Occidentalism. In this article, based on a postcolonial feminist approach, I argue that Fatima Mernissi uses another approach of occidentalism in her construction of Western gender relations and the space of Western Harem. Instead of constructing a counter-hegemonic discourse to orientalism that based on misrepresenting the “other” and denying their voices, Eastern representation of the West in ‘Shehrazad Goes West’ does not keep with the same rhetoric of orientalism; rather it dismantles that logic which victimized people of the East and replaces it with a humane vocabulary. Moreover, the Occidentalist approach appropriated in the book does not only target the occident but also the orient resulting on what Abdelkbir Khatibi calls “double critiques”. The significance of this paper lies in highlighting such a potentially inclusive and democratic discourse that would counterbalance the politics of othering inherent in the discourse of orientalism.

Beyond the Veil: Exploring Muslim Women’s Multidimensional Identities in Laila Aboulela’s The Translator and Mohja Kahf’s The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf

The article presents a critical analysis of two novels by contemporary Arab Muslim women writers, Leila Aboulela and Mohja Kahf. The article examines how these authors critique, resist, and disrupt the hegemonic discourse that presents Muslim women as a monolithic and homogeneous category. In The Translator and The Girl in Tangerine Scarf respectively, the female protagonists’ religious experiences and identities are studied with reference to resistance narratives and disruptive postcolonial strategies. The unsettling of the monolithic image of veiled Muslim women is hereby pursued through providing an analysis of the cultural imagery of Muslim women, to deconstruct the image of the veil in today’s world.

Emotional clashes and female public nudity in Thailand

This article revisits cultural controversies over female public nudity in Thai society. It uses Songkran’s topless dancing in 2011 and a bare-breast painting performance on the ‘Thailand’s Got Talent Show’ in 2012 to explore cultural and emotional clashes in Thailand’s 21st century. It shows that these two cases of public female nudity drew deep and divergent emotional responses from different groups in Thai society. These cases clearly revealed a clash in viewpoints with regard to Thai notions of feminine respectability associated with national identity and women’s sexual expression. On the one hand, the controversies prompted moral panic and backlashes against women’s sexual rebelliousness. On the other hand, they set off counter-backlashes against hegemonic discourse that tends to normalise oppressive sexual culture, nationalism and totalitarianism.

Creating the Technological Saviour: Discourses on AI in Europe and the Legitimation of Super Capitalism

Scholars in political economy of communication such as Vincent Mosco have showed how discourses around digital technologies have historically been constructed as modern myths with major references to utopian worlds and possibilities. Myths, conceived as the dominant ideologies of our time become powerful devices that normalise conventional wisdom into ‘common sense’ thus making the conception of alternatives impossible. This chapter aims to analyse the ideological discourse on Artificial Intelligence and its relevance in legitimising the hegemony of capitalism. From its beginnings in the fifties, Artificial Intelligence has been surrounded by evocative claims about the imminent creation of a machine capable of surpassing the potentials of humankind. This chapter aims to establish what hegemonic discourse around the concept of AI is emerging in Europe and what are the myths employed to construct such discourse.

Becoming a Gamer: Performative Construction of Gendered Gamer Identities

This article examines how women construct their gameplay identities in relation to the hegemonic “gamer” discourse. The article is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with women who occupy central roles in the Finnish gaming industry. We deploy Judith Butler’s theorization of performative identity construction to examine how the women negotiate their identity in relation to the hegemonic gamer discourse, focusing on how they both embrace and resist the hegemonic, masculine constructions of gameplay. The study shows the dynamics surrounding the gamer identity. While women submit to the hegemonic gamer discourse, reproducing the masculine gamer notions to gain recognition as a viable member of the gameplay community, the study also identifies how subversive opportunities arise as the women deploy new, alternative versions of gamer identity. The hegemonic discourse is subverted through the identity position of tech-savvy, which departs from the masculine connotations.

Balkan Migration Crises and Beyond

This article has a threefold aim. First, to create a typology of Balkan migration crises. Second, to reflect on how migration is theorized in a crisis situation by analyzing the competing conceptual clusters and proposing new ones. Third, to measure the ratio between the region’s crisis and anti-crisis potential in the field of migration in regard both to agency and policies. The article is structured in four parts. The first part reconstructs the conceptual history of “crisis” and its affirmation as the hegemonic discourse of contemporary times. The second part introduces temporality as a theoretical zoom that illuminates a different migration profile depending on whether we are observing it in a short-term, mid-term, or long-term perspective. The third part presents a new typology of Balkan migration crises based on different criteria. It structures Balkan migration crises into two clusters: real and constructed. The article seeks to answer the question of why, given the abundance of real refugee and migration crises, new ones are constructed. The fourth part goes beyond the crisis and analyzes the migration and development nexus as a major policy innovation. The conclusion offers a comparative analysis of the diverse Balkan migration crises.

Transitions against the Problems of the 21st Century the Ecological Economy

The purpose of this review article is to describe the characteristics of a dissent of the hegemonic discourse of economic science such as ecological economics, reflecting the asymmetries between them as the possibilities has to understand and solve labor transitions, economic and ecological that presents the problems of the 21st century. The methodology is qualitative, and the method is documentary review. The main conclusions are that the ecological economy establishes the dialogue with other disciplines as sustenance to respond to the challenges of the present. It conceives life as a pivot, not as another variable to obtain short-term returns but as a dynamic argumentative line.