Identity construction and cultural production

Identity in a virtual world

by Saša Radojčić

I am Beginning to Understand by Carol P. Christ

by Feminism and Religion

Originally published on the Feminism and Religion project

Elizabeth Kelly Inglis died in 1927 at age 62 from complications of a stroke. Secondary causes were malnutrition and... more Elizabeth Kelly Inglis died in 1927 at age 62 from complications of a stroke. Secondary causes were malnutrition and exhaustion.

When I was a child, my father, though he was very close to his own parents and sister, spoke very little about his ancestors. I knew that both of his parents lost their fathers when they were small children. I was told that the Christs were German and the Inglises were Scottish and Irish. My grandmother Mary Inglis Christ was as Irish as the day is long. She prayed to the blessed Virgin and took me to church with her in the early mornings where she lit candles and whispered the rosary while fingering faceted lavender beads. She voted for Kennedy because he was Irish and Catholic—to the horror of my father and his father who had no use for the Democrats. My grandmother sometimes cried when she showed us photographs of her family, especially when she pointed to her sister Veronica, called Very. I sensed that my grandmother felt sad to have left her family in New York when she moved with her husband and children to California during the depression, but I was too young to understand fully. As far as I know, I never met any of the relatives from her side of the family, even when I moved to “back east.”

RE-SOULING ON SHABBAT BY IVY HELMAN

by Feminism and Religion

Originally published on the Feminism and Religion project

I attended a service at Congregation Shalom in Chelmsford, MA two Fridays ago.  During the service, Rabbi... more I attended a service at Congregation Shalom in Chelmsford, MA two Fridays ago.  During the service, Rabbi Shoshana Perry spent a few minutes addressing the last word of a Hebrew prayer found in the Reform siddur, Mishkan T’filah.  It was translated in the siddur as “God rested” but the Hebrew word used was vayinafash, which comes from the word nefesh, or soul.  The prayer emphasizes on the seventh day that God did not rest as much as God took time out to re-soul.  Rabbi Perry believes that our Shabbat should be spent doing things that help us also re-soul.

Initially, I spent quite a long time considering why God would need to re-soul and what exactly God would do to re-soul.  When I realized the futility of trying to sort that out, I moved a little closer to home: what do I do on Shabbat to re-soul?  I was quite overwhelmed trying to answer this question as well.

Is Baptism a Male Birthing Ritual? By Michele Stopera Freyhauf

by Michele Stopera Freyhauf

Originally published on the Feminism and Religion Project.

Quite a number of years ago I had a conversation with one of my professors, a feminist theologian, who posed the... more Quite a number of years ago I had a conversation with one of my professors, a feminist theologian, who posed the question “Why do I need a man to purify my baby with the waters of baptism?  Is there something wrong or impure about the blood and water from a mother’s womb – my womb?”  Before you jump and shout the words Sacrament or removal of original sin, this question bears merit in exploring, especially in today’s world where women are taking a serious beating religiously, politically, and socially.  In today’s world, violations and rants are causing women to stand up and say STOP!  This is MY Body.  This outcry was provoked by chants of ethical slurs against women– Slut! Prostitute! Whore!  The cry got even louder when the issue of religion and government was raised in the fight of healthcare coverage of contraception. The cry got even louder with the enactment of the laws in Virginia and Texas (and many other states to follow suit) that forces women to undergo transvaginal ultrasounds in early stage abortions.  The mandatory insertion of a wand into a woman’s vagina (mandated by the government, mind you), is a violation and has women crying RAPE!

Who'We'are and How We Perceive'Others': Influence of History Textbooks During the Construction Process of'Self'and the 'Other'in Cyprus

by Tutku Akter

'Death to fascism isn't in the catechism': legacies of socialism in Croatian popular music after the fall of Yugoslavia

by Catherine Baker

Narodna umjetnost 47:1 (2010): 163-83

This paper discusses both textual and structural legacies of socialism in Croatian popular music since the collapse of... more This paper discusses both textual and structural legacies of socialism in Croatian popular music since the collapse of socialism and Yugoslavia. Yugoslav socialism struggled to reconcile socialist consciousness and capitalist consumerism, forcing the producers of popular culture to make sense of the political field that surrounded them and put ideology into practice. The structural conditions of cultural produc- tion under socialism, the use of socialist iconography and memory as resources in post-socialist popular music and the negation of the socialist experience by patriotic musicians reflect three layers of socialist legacy in contemporary Croatian popular culture.

Culture as History and Landscape: Hizbullah's Efforts to Shape an Islamic Milieu in Lebanon

by Mona Harb

co-authored with Lara Deeb, Arab Studies Journal, 19(1): 12-45 (2011).

Identity scavengers: queer girl fandom, identity politics, and South of Nowhere

by Whitney Monaghan

Through analysis of the fan culture of South of Nowhere, this essay opens up the complex worlds of reception and... more Through analysis of the fan culture of South of Nowhere, this essay opens up the complex worlds of reception and fandom, positioning queer girl fans as "identity scavengers."

Transmission and Recall: the use of short wall anchors in the wide world

by Pat Reynolds

This thesis considers the use of a little-known building technique: short wall anchor construction. Ignored by its... more This thesis considers the use of a little-known building technique: short wall anchor construction. Ignored by its users and misunderstood by many of those who observed it subsequently, the short wall anchor construction technique has proved a useful window into the perception and behaviour of early modern people and subsequent communities.
Using the technology of the late twentieth century: the relational database, digital mapping and the internet I have taken a world-wide approach to analyse and interpret the short wall anchor as a feature
within an assemblage.
This analysis, and a study of the processes and contexts of transmission has demonstrated a close connection between display, narrative and identity and the building façade. Short wall anchors give insight into these practices in the early modern world - the whole world - where new relationships between people, places and things were being forged.
569 pages, 156 illustrations (all in colour), 5 maps (all in colour), 10 tables, bibliograply, CD of entire thesis, including animated maps and database.

Paradoxes of the ‘glocal’ self in the new world (dis)order: the national identity project

by Faiz Sathi Abdullah

Published as:
Abdullah, F. S. (2008). Paradoxes of the ‘glocal’ self in the new world (dis)order: the national identity project. In F. S. Abdullah, M. H. Abdullah & B. H. Tan (Eds.), Critical perspectives on language and discourse in the New World Order (pp. 38-70). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Contemporary identity politics concerns the considerable dynamics that are inherent in much of the socio-political... more Contemporary identity politics concerns the considerable dynamics that are inherent in much of the socio-political activity and theorising based on the lived and shared realities of social groups in the “era of globalisation” and the “New World Order”. “Glocalisation”, quite obviously a hybridised term from economics, refers to the production of goods or services intended for the global market but which are (re) packaged for a local culture. Hence, discourses on “glocal” identities tender the construction to mitigate “endist” arguments about the effects of global pressures on economic autonomy, privacy, democracy, and the sovereignty of the nation-state, its national language, culture, ideology and most certainly, its identity. Given the centrality of language in neo-capitalist discourse, emergent terms in the new lexicon (e.g. “fragmegration” as a conflation of “fragmentation” and “integration”) are at best essentially reflective of the contestation of the “third space” as the globalisation project moves inexorably forward in the dominant bipolar discourse of pax Americana, its putative “coalition of the willing” and the coterminous formation, renewal and realignment of geopolitical allegiances. Hence, whither goes national identity? How do the national collective and the citizens thereof seek meaning as social actors in the new epoch? Using a broad critical discourse analysis framework, this paper explores a range of issues related to identity politics and the discourses of globalisation and world order to present descriptive hypotheses about the paradoxical nature of hybridised identities within the ambit of the historic Malaysian national identity project and the salience of “Bangsa Malaysia” (Lit. “Malaysian Nation”) as the Vision 2020 ideal. An interdiscursive analysis of a sample text is incorporated to explicate the related dialectics of identity construction such as identity/difference, localisation/globalisation, colonisation/appropriation and narrative/ metanarrative.

Raça/Etnia, Gênero e suas Implicações na Construção das Identidades Sociais em Sala de Aula de Línguas

by Aparecida De Jesus Ferreira

FERREIRA, Aparecida de Jesus; FERREIRA, Susana Aparecida. Raça/Etnia, Gênero e suas Implicações na Construção das Identidades Sociais em Sala de Aula de Línguas. RevLet – Revista Virtual de Letras, v. 03, nº 02, p. 114-129. ago/dez, 2011 ISSN: 2176-9125.

Este artigo objetiva refletir acerca das questões identitárias que envolvem raça/etnia e gênero dentro de sala de... more Este artigo objetiva refletir acerca das questões identitárias que envolvem raça/etnia e gênero dentro de sala de aula. Tais questões já vêm sendo discutidas na arena educacional, no entanto ainda é necessário continuar com análises a respeito do assunto para que seja possível uma mudança significativa e definitiva na maneira como essas questões são tratadas no ambiente escolar. A sala de aula é um ambiente importante para a formação das identidades sociais dos alunos, sendo assim, é mister compreender como o preconceito, o racismo e a discriminação operam em uma sociedade em que não se assume tais questões. Desta forma poderemos refletir acerca de quais são os possíveis mecanismos para tentar sanar tais questões. Para tais reflexões, serão inseridas contribuições de Moita Lopes (2003), Munanga (2003), Silva (2003), Gomes (2005), Ferreira (2006), Jovino (2006), Louro (2008), Auad (2003), entre outros. As questões discutidas neste artigo pretendem contribuir para a percepção da importância da reflexão sobre raça/etnia e gênero a partir da sala de aula, visando uma sociedade mais humana e igualitária.

Irish-language policy in a multiethnic state: competing discourses on ethnocultural membership and language ownership

by Justin McCubbin

This paper examines how competing discourses about the ownership of the Irish language in an increasingly multiethnic... more This paper examines how competing discourses about the ownership of the Irish language in an increasingly multiethnic Ireland and the extent to which it is associated with a sense of ‘Irishness’ influence the formulation of recent Irish-language policy at institutional and national levels. As part of a broader study on the language ideology and practice of Irish-speaking immigrants to Ireland, a critical analysis of their discourse in relation to questions of language ownership and ethnocultural self-identification was performed. A similar analysis of the public discourse was conducted by examining public statements, policy documents, letters to the editor and newspaper articles from the English-language media that addressed questions of language, immigration and identity. The informants' discourse reveals a social-constructionist ideology about the ownership of Irish and the permeability of the Irish-speaking ethnoculture that challenges the ethnically essentialist character of the public's discourse on such matters. It is this dominant public discourse, however, that informs language policy to the exclusion of more social-constructionist perspectives.

Virtual Identities and Market Segmentation in Marketing in and Through Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs)

by Peter Zackariasson

It has been asserted that the emergence of virtual worlds has changed the ways that business may be conducted. In... more It has been asserted that the emergence of virtual worlds has changed the ways that business may be conducted. In massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) a participant is given the opportunity to not only create an identity of how they would like to appear but also select individual activities. Clearly, this opport- unity may carry marketing implications because marketers are given the opportunity to consider potential customers as they might like to be. Background in self-identity and buying behavior, the nature of MMOGs, taxonomy of gamers, and the construction of identity is sketched. Five propositions are developed that summar- ize our observations from this foundation.

Collective Creativity Social processes in Cultural Production

by Alice Atkinson-Bonasio

Cyber-Communities and Motherhood Online: A Reflection on Transnational Adoption

by Claudia Megele

This is a Chapter for a reader on "Motherhood Online" edited by Michelle Moravec.

A Queer and Trans Fat Activist Timeline zine – digital version

by Charlotte Cooper

I published this zine in May 2011. It is a version of a timeline that was co-constructed at a workshop at NOLOSE 2010 and is now an archival object. The zine is an attempt to talk about how fat activist histories are constructed and dispersed. It is a way of working with multiple fat activisms over time and place.

Download a free digital version of the zine from my blog, or from here.

http://obesitytimebomb.blogspot.com/p/queer-and-trans-fat-activist-timeline.html

In 2010 I proposed and facilitated a workshop at the NOLOSE queer-dyke and trans fat activist gathering in Oakland,... more In 2010 I proposed and facilitated a workshop at the NOLOSE queer-dyke and trans fat activist gathering in Oakland, California, where a timeline was collectively produced. Part of the workshop proposal was that I would make a zine of the timeline which would be donated to archives and distributed in an attempt to create conversations about queer and trans fat activist histories. For those not in the know, a zine - rhymes with bean - is a homemade publication. The zine includes an explanation, some pictures and the text of the timeline itself. It's about a movement, ideas, experiences, a workshop, a conference, zines, histories, places, collective memory, community, critical reflection, cultural imperialism, dialogue, texts, feminism, archives, many things, and stuff I haven't considered too. It's also about fat people, queer people, and trans people. And it's about me and the things I do as a fat activist.

“Singing back the kurbetlli – Responses to migration in Albanian folk culture as a culturally innovative practice” in Anthropological Notebooks XVI/II, 29-39.

by Eckehard Pistrick

Although the modes of creation and the value of the traditional song in Albanian rural
society have changed... more Although the modes of creation and the value of the traditional song in Albanian rural
society have changed significantly, music making is still considered a practice of emotional
release. Migration songs have been proved like other partly improvised repertoires such
as humoristic songs or përshendetje (songs for greeting and wishing for well-being) that
they are still valued for the expressing individual or collective pain. Migration songs open
up over-individual categories of identification (Papailas 2003: 1060) and even serve as a
low-tech counter-discourse to the official media discourse about migration. This became
apparent in the migration songs for Flamur Pisli which were understood by Albanians
as collective laments, making visible once again the self-renewing and magical power
attributed to traditional Albanian musical practice.

Migration memories in the borderlands ETHNOLOGIA BALKANICA 12/2008 97-110

by Eckehard Pistrick

The paper discusses the essential role that place and sound can play in the construction of a regional identity based... more The paper discusses the essential role that place and sound can play in the construction of a regional identity based on a constructed memory based on “mythistory”. The chosen fieldwork site for this study, the region of Zagoria, is marked as a borderland; the chosen topic, migration, as a shared historical experience is perceived as worth remembering in different social strata. In discussing the process of how a local community can imagine itself through the act of remembering, it is argued that certain “memory figures” such as symbolic places and sounds fulfil an important role in the construction of a “migration memory”. The analysis of some of these symbolic local “memory places” and some examples of migration songs reveals that these “memory figures” are emotionally charged and possess multiple layers of possible meanings. It is in these places and sounds where the negotiation between official history and local “histories” takes place most prominently. Because of the ability of these songs and places to surpass the boundaries of time and individuality, they are perceived as “collective and representative”.

Un precedente ibérico de las hermandades de negros: la cofradía de Sant Jaume de Barcelona (1455)

by Ivan Armenteros Martinez

'América Latina Ayer y Hoy', 2010.