Cultural and social interactions

This paper presents the results of a bibliographical research that had as corpus the films "Up to the limit of honor" (1997), "Race and redemption" (2019) and "The House of Spirits" (1993), an activity proposed in the discipline Cultural Representations: Literature and Cinema, of the master’s degree in Sociocultural Practices and Social Development of the University of Cruz Alta – Unicruz. The purpose of this work was to discuss recurring themes in the contemporary society scenario, such as: machismo, social inclusion and prejudice, issues that are presented in the films analyzed.

Invoking divine blessing

This study explores the speech act of congratulation in university graduation notebooks, a new communicative context in Jordan. Using the concept of the pragmeme as a situated speech act, a total of 1064 congratulatory messages, found in 35 notebooks, were analyzed. The analysis demonstrated that the cultural concept of baraka ‘blessing’ plays a central role in the Arabic congratulation speech act. Embedded in its production are other speech acts such as compliments and advice, sociocultural beliefs and concepts such as fatalism and collectivism, and sociocultural practices such as naqout ‘money given as a gift’. Invoking these values and beliefs when performing congratulations was accomplished through ritualistic religious invocations, formulaic expressions, reference to collective identity, and acts of material support, showing how this Arabic speech act is situated in sociocultural beliefs and values.

The Myth of Resurrection: Reimagining Mahabali through the Semiotics of Select Folk Songs

Written history, being the vehicle of dominant or hegemonic culture, often neglects sub cultural art forms whereas oral or folk culture acts as a reservoir of residual cultural practices. When written history is narrated, unwritten history is sung or performed. The importance of regional folk songs in delineating the subtleties of a particular culture can never be overlooked. Folk songs carry the emotions of the era as well as their associated sociocultural practices. Mahabali is the central mythical hero of a very prominent traditional festival of Kerala- Onam. Conceptual pluralities in the history of onam festival stand in the way of explaining onam in a unidimensional fashion. Yet, the popular myth goes like this- Mahabali (affectionately called by people as 'Maveli'), the benevolent asura king rules his land in abundance, peace and prosperity, with no instances of theft or murder. Jealous of King Mahabali's popularity and his power, the Gods conspired to end his reign. They sent Lord Vishnu to earth in the form of a dwarf Brahmin (Vamanan) who trampled Mahabali to the netherworld. But Lord Vishnu granted the king's sole wish i.e. to visit his land and people once every year. This visit is celebrated as onam festival in the Malayalam month of Chingam . The just and noble Mahabali in the myth is not just a symbol of peace and prosperity, but a true image of resurrection from oppression, as the history of Kerala would like to tell. Myths and folklore depicts the hope of a generation. This paper tries to probe into the intricacies of the Mahabali myth through select Malayalam folk songs, to bring out the essence of that hope.

A disavowed community: the case of new Italian migrants in London

This paper reports on a study of the language ideologies and practices of the post-2008 crisis Italian migrants in London. It explores how the traditional idea of a national migrant community is challenged by these practices. While the Italian post-2008 crisis migration continues a long tradition and has captured the attention of the media, it is understudied from a sociolinguistic point of view. Using a qualitative research approach, two sets of data were collected: recordings of social interactions in spontaneously organised gatherings, and interviews with 15 post-crisis migrants. The data show the multilingual practices of post-2008 migrants and their attitudes towards these practices. Participants recognise translanguaging as the main practice defining the community language. This seems to contrast with the disavowal of their national migrant community. They refuse to engage with traditional community sociocultural practices, challenge their membership of the Italian community in London and, in some cases, even deny the existence of the community by highlighting the internal diversity that characterises this group. Nevertheless, although the participants refuse to be seen as members of a national community, they describe their engagement with translanguaging as a community practice that determines their belonging to a migratory group. The paper argues that, through the practice of translanguaging, migrants negotiate and shape their migratory identities, and reflect on the concept of the community and its dynamics.

Modern technologies in representation and preservation of the Kola Sami ethnic culture

The paper is based on the latest comprehensive study of representations of the Sami people in Murmansk Region. The aim of the article is to describe and analyse the representations, which are considered as a product of the sociocultural practices which use specific technologies. The latter are regarded as methods and tools of practices aimed at preservation of ethnic culture, including its construction. The subject of this study is textual, visual, objective and animated forms of representations of the Sami culture, as well as interactive and other tech-nologies for imaging and branding of Murmansk Region, preservation of cultural heritage of the Sami, and market-ing of regional and ethnic products. For the first time, regional sociocultural practices of actualization and conser-vation of the tangible and intangible heritage have been analyzed using materials of the Kola Sami culture. The study involved ethnographic field research methods, content analysis of regional printed and network media, de-scription of expositions of the regional ethnographic museums, Sami private collections and archives. The analy-sis was based on the framework of constructivism methodology of ethnic studies, actor-network theory, sociology of things and memory studies. It has been determined that museums and mass media appear as collective au-thors of representations. The main commissioner of the technologies of representation and preservation of ethnic and cultural heritage of the Kola Sami of Murmansk Region is the regional government, which uses public and media practices as a managerial tool for the economic and social development of the Region. In the context of development of the ethnocultural tourism, the Sami historical and cultural heritage acts as a very attractive touris-tic resource which requires new sociocultural technologies, such as various forms of visualization and objectifica-tion of ethnic cultural elements, museumification and commercialization of material objects, symbolization and branding of the Sami culture. Sami self-presentations dominate in modern public space and discourse since 2010. At the same time, heteroethnic presentations demonstrate sustainable linguistic modes to describe and to portray Kola Sami people. Construction of cultural models results in reformatting of the Sami ethnic culture, changes of functionality of its elements, and appearance of new ethnocultural forms.

Sociocultural affordances and enactment of agency: A transactional view

This article argues that when attempting to extend the concept of affordances to encompass action possibilities characteristic of our sociocultural environments, a transactionally informed relational perspective—along the lines formulated by classical pragmatist thinkers (especially Dewey and Bentley but also Peirce and Mead)—proves useful. A transactional perspective helps to reveal the intimate conceptual connections between sociocultural affordances (SCAs) and agency: both are crucially about contextually defined goal-directed doings, and about learning to fluently master particular patterns of habits, skills, and sociocultural practices in culturally appropriate and socially feasible ways. The paper outlines first, critical issues in the conceptualization of SCAs; second, how the concept of SCAs also points towards a transactional conception of agency enactment; and third, how a transactional view helps to make sense of some of the apparently puzzling tensions and fringe areas between various conceptualizations of (sociocultural) affordances and agency.

La investigación post-disciplinaria como alternativa en comunicación

This paper takes up previous works by the author and reformulates them to argue that there are increasingly clear indications of the adoption of “post-disciplinary” modalities in the institutionalized practices of knowledge production on communication in various regions of the world. Faced with the growing epistemic fragmentation and dispersion of this academic field, and the evident transformations of the sociocultural practices that are its references and subject matters, post-disciplinary research may represent a useful alternative consistent with the very history of the university institutionalization of this specialty, in which contributions from the humanities and social sciences converge, with apparent independence from the different conditions of national higher education systems. Some of the more developed formulations of this perspective and their strategic implications for university practices in the field are analysed.

Reading Opportunities in a Provincial Russian City during the First World War (Materials from the Volga Region)

The article deals with the problem of resources for reading for the townspeople in the Volga city during the First World War. It is noted that the dealing with the problems, allows the researcher to identify the mechanisms that allowed society to adapt to the conditions of extreme reality. The provision of the Volga cities with libraries has been studied. The possibilities of reading in the provincial and district cities of the studied region are compared. The novelty of the research is seen in the fact that the development of a complex of public and private resources (libraries), available for leisure reading in the Volga city during the First World War, was revealed. The relevance of the study is due to the importance of analyzing the sociocultural practices of society as a compensatory mechanism, as well as a resource reflecting mass sentiment in extreme periods of state development. Comparison of provincial and county city libraries in terms of ownership, attendance, material security is carried out. The conclusion is made about the diversity of reading opportunities as a form of leisure for the Volga region residents during the First World War. The cities of the Volga region were identified, in which the resource of libraries was more diverse. It is shown that there were more libraries in the provincial towns than in the county ones; they had a different organizational basis and more complete funds.