Disability Life Writing

This dual autothnographic research study examined the knowledge and experience gained by two women through the course of narrative exchange. Using the theoretical lens of Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory, DisCrit, and the methodology of disability life writing, the authors explored themes of deficit thinking, cultural essentialism, intersectionality, ability profiling, and liberation. The authors made recommendations for educating preservice teachers using disability life writing and personal reflection. Other implications for teacher preparation coursework included teaching disability as a cultural model, exploring counter narratives for social change, and unpacking deficit mindset. Finally, the authors suggest further research for finding best practices for instruction and implementation of recommended practices.

‘Political-Timing-Specific’ Performance Art in the Realm of the Museum

Can reenactments be a way to create counter-narratives in and for the museum? Through the analysis of political performance (or what the artist Tania Bruguera calls ‘political-timing-specific’ artworks), this essay discusses the potential of reenactment as both a practice of materializing memories and narratives of oppression and of rethinking museum policies in terms of preservation and display. Its main argument is that, while the archive can be regarded as a form of materializing the memory of these works, reenactment is more than a way of recovering the past; it is also a device for reconstructing memories of activism and oppression. This essay further suggests that reenactments of political-timing-specific works demand a change in accessioning, conservation, and presentation practices, which might be inclined to erase decentralized art-historical and material narratives.

Kings of Chaldea and Sons of Nobodies: Assyrian Engagement with Chaldea and the Emergence of Chaldean Power in Babylonia

From the ninth century until the last quarter of the seventh century BCE, the Assyrian Empire first extended its power over Babylonia and then engaged in a prolonged effort to retain control. The patchwork nature of Babylonian society—divided as it was between the traditional urban centers, territories controlled by five distinct Chaldean tribes, and regions inhabited by Aramaean tribes—presented opportunities and challenges for Assyria as it sought to assert its dominance. Assyrian interactions with the Chaldean tribes of Babylonia redefined the Chaldeans’ place within power relationships in southern Mesopotamia. Starting in 878, Assyria first perceived Chaldean territory as distinct from what they defined as Karduniaš, the land ruled by the king of Babylon. Shalmaneser III exploited and accentuated this division by recognizing the Chaldean leaders as kings and accepting their tribute even as he concluded a treaty with the Babylonian king, Marduk-zakir-shumi I. By decentralizing power in Babylonia, Assyria was able to assert indirect control over Babylonia. However, periods of Assyrian weakness created opportunities for several Chaldeans—drawing upon the economic and military power they could muster—to claim the title of king of Babylon with all the accompanying ideological power. These new developments prompted Assyria under the Sargonids to create counter-narratives that questioned the legitimacy of Chaldeans as kings of Babylon by presenting them as strange and inimical to the Assyrian order even as Assyrian interactions with the Chaldeans improved Assyrian familiarity with them.

‘My Grandmother Never Told Me That Before!’

Hmong ethnic minority populations in Vietnam’s northern borderlands have a long history of oral tradition and story-telling. Yet with an historical absence of literacy and no self-created written archives, the first-hand knowledge and experiences of Hmong elders is seldom communicated beyond their kin. At the request of a Hmong community member we developed a collaborative, intergenerational oral history project that would allow stories of Hmong elders to be shared on the internet. Concurrently, we trained Hmong youth in research methods, helping to improve their English skills and contribute to inter-generational knowledge transfer. Drawing on debates regarding collaborative North-South ethnography, positionality and critical reflexivity, and feminist fieldwork approaches, we contemplate our roles as two Global North researchers interacting with Global South ethnic minority youth and elders, and the degree to which we were able to help support the creation of subaltern counter-narratives to Vietnamese state discourses of upland minority histories.’

The “Rotten” matter in A Farewell to Arms: An Ecological Gothic reading

This article uncovers the gothic tropes manifest in the “rotten” food, human bodies, landscapes, and rain in Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms through an eco-gothic perspective. It demonstrates how the rotten food, the disjointed bodies, the broken landscapes, and the gothic rain can be viewed in the novel as counter-narratives against the narratives of war, the military, and modern medicine. The first part of this article suggests interpreting war as a form of cannibalism by exploring the representations of rotten food and the connection between eating and killing. Next, the author focuses on how the body is fragmented both metaphorically and literally by the discourse of war, the military, and medical science. The third part uncovers the non-anthropocentric consciousness embedded within the protagonist’s narrative, followed by the gothicizing and romanticization of nature in the fourth section. Here, the protagonist’s linking of the human body to the natural landscape, the descriptions of the gothic rain, and the romanticized snow—all these, as the author argues, can be interpreted as a collective resistance against industrial, anthropocentric warfare.

Rethinking 3.11's Mediascape through Japan Sinks 2020

This paper examines Science SARU's Netflix show, Japan Sinks 2020, notably its departure from the general apocalyptic ideology of previous primary Japan Sinks texts. By reframing it through the disaster lens of 3.11, Japan Sinks 2020 sheds light on significant inequalities between global and regional images. As the first internationally aired Japan Sinks media, Japan Sinks 2020 leverages contemporary streaming practices to propose ongoing counter-narratives of the Japanese state, its actors, and the urban-rural divides which have preceded – and continue – in the face of 3.11. Drawing upon Komatsu's last words on the international status of the 3.11 disaster, Japan Sinks 2020 is a post-3.11 text addressing aspects of Japanese disaster fiction mainly ignored by previous Japan Sinks texts and simultaneously reignites less-discussed challenges associated with the 3.11 mediascape.

Environmental counter-narratives of Mapuche and Māori primary school children

<p>Scholars working from decolonial perspectives examine how processes of colonisation have marginalised local and contextualised knowledges in favour of dominant, usually Western, monological claims to ‘Truth'. These monological truths are characterised by binaries of separation such as nature/culture, adult/child and human/environment which subjugate non-binary ways of knowing. Around the world, children’s, and particularly indigenous children’s, environmental knowledges are rendered incomplete and non-scientific within processes of State-sanctioned monocultural formal education. Decolonial scholars argue that this subjugation lies at the heart of humans’ destructive ecological practices and the current crisis of sustainability. In this thesis I explore the environmental narratives of two groups of indigenous primary school children in Chile and Aotearoa New Zealand in an effort to contribute to decolonial research and explore counter-narratives. I use a Critical Pedagogies of Place analytical lens to understand how concepts of cultural decolonisation and ecological reinhabitation were represented within the children’s audio-visual environmental narratives and consider how these counter-narratives may help us to practice more creative and inclusive 'border thinking' to address environmental problems.</p>