Representation of Others

A hapless attempt at swimming': Representations of Eric Moussambani

by John Nauright

published in Critical Arts 17:1/2 (2003), 106-122, co-authored with Tara Magdalinski

One of the most powerful images to emerge from the pool at the Sydney 2000 Olympics was that of Eric Moussambani from... more One of the most powerful images to emerge from the pool at the Sydney 2000 Olympics was that of Eric Moussambani from Equatorial Guinea who swam his heat of the 100-meter freestyle alone after the other two swimmers in his heat were disqualified. Moussambani completed the distance over one minute slower than eventual gold medallist Pieter van den Hoogenband. The media coverage of Moussambani's performance illustrates that the discourses of colonialism, paternalism, and racial stereotyping remain central in the modern Olympic movement. This paper analyses media reports of Moussambani and identifies three main frames used to contextualize his performance at the Olympics. We situate Moussambani's swim within a broader framework that reveals the mechanisms used to display African bodies for the European gaze as well as the paternalist Olympic discourse that seeks to universalize Western sporting practices within a global culture that privileges Western cultural and economic practices.

Obliterating history for leisured consumption: the New South Africa in the global sports and tourism order

by John Nauright

Published in Journal of Sport Tourism (now Journal of Sport and Tourism), 7:1 (2001), 31-38.

A number of scholars have written about the role of globalisation in the development of sport in national and local... more A number of scholars have written about the role of globalisation in the development of sport in national and local contexts (cf. Bale & Maguire, 1994; Bale & Sang, 1996; Maguire, 1994; 1999). These studies clearly demonstrate that there is a global sports market and economy that is dominated by major events such as Olympic Games, the World Cups of soccer, rugby and cricket, the IAAF World Championships and by major national leagues in leading sports. These events draw competitors and tourists from all over the world and pit cities and nations against each other in bidding processes to host events that are broadcast to global audiences (Macintosh & Whitson, 1993). What these studies do not do is explore the nexus between sporting hallmark events and representations of local cultures in touristic presentations to the international community. This paper seeks to examine the links between tourism, sport and representation through a case study of South Africa in the 1990s.

Bufflaxed superdiversity: Representing the Other on YouTube

by Sirpa Leppänen

Co-authored with Ari Häkkinen. Pre-print version.

In this article we investigate how the oriental Other – increasingly a superdiverse being – is represented in the... more In this article we investigate how the oriental Other – increasingly a superdiverse being – is represented in the context of translocal YouTube culture. More specifically, we look at videos which through subtitling and editorial commentary entextualise and resemiotise the figure of the Other to western audiences. We will have a close look at three typical ‘buffalaxed’ videos and investigate how each of them constructs images of the Other that are ambivalent and multilayered.
On the basis of our analysis we will argue that, while the videos repeat and remodify aspects of the stereotypical and discriminatory Western heteronormative metanarratives of the Orient, they also depict the Other in ways in which his/her otherness is no longer the simple anti-thesis of ‘Us’ – the western subject – but, occasionally, very much like ‘Us’.

La Amazonia en sus imaginarios cinematográficos. 1914-1955. Apuntes preliminares

by Oscar Guarin Martinez

Colonialism

by József Böröcz

Co-authored with Mahua Sarkar. Published as an entry in the Sage Encyclopedia of Global Studies. 2012.

The Bridge: Toward Relational Aesthetic Inquiry in the Montreal Life Stories Project

by Alan Wong

Sajnani, Nisha, Warren Linds, Lisa Ndejuru, Alan Wong, and members of the Living Histories Theatre Ensemble. “The Bridge: Towards Relational Aesthetic Inquiry in the Montreal Life Stories Project” in Canadian Theatre Review. 148.18 (2011): 18-24. Print.

This is the story of the Bridge, an original interactive theatre form that brings audiences and actors into a... more This is the story of the Bridge, an original interactive theatre form that brings audiences and actors into a dialogical relationship marked by the principle of ‘‘shared authority’’ (Frisch xx) and relational aesthetic inquiry (Springgay, Irwin, and Kind). This form emerged from the reflective practice of our troupe, the Living Histories Ensemble (LHE), a socially-engaged improvisational theatre collective exploring the intersections of oral history, performance, trauma, and emergent inquiry within a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)-funded project titled Life Stories of Montrealers Displaced by War, Genocide, and Human Rights Violations.

’Dangerous Shortcuts’: Representations of LGBT Refugees in the Post-9/11 Canadian Press

by Alan Wong

Jenicek, Ainsley, Edward Lee, and Alan Wong. “’Dangerous Shortcuts’: Representations of LGBT Refugees in the Post-9/11 Canadian Press”. Canadian Journal of Communications 34.4 (2009): 635-658. Print

Canadian newspapers are a principal source of information on refugees claiming asylum in Canada on the basis of... more Canadian newspapers are a principal source of information on refugees claiming asylum in Canada on the basis of persecution for their sexual orientation. Many articles rely on culturally racist and classist stereotypes of sexual minorities to demonstrate claimants’ legitimacy. Refugees’ stories are further deployed as “mediating agents” to confirm Canada’s “superiority” over other regions, particularly those identified as Islamic. To determine what thematic constructions are most prevalent among Canadian news sources, the authors conducted a critical discourse analysis (CDA) and secondary textual analysis of articles culled from five Canadian English-language newspapers, employing critical race and queer theories as framing devices.

Keywords: Post-colonialism; Multiculturalism; Feminist/Gender; Newspapers; Rhetoric

The Disquieting Revolution: A Genealogy of Reason and Racism in the Québec Press

by Alan Wong

Wong, Alan. “The Disquieting Revolution: A Genealogy of Reason and Racism in the Québec Press”. Global Media. 4.1 (2011): 145-162. Web.

Within the past decade, a series of contentious events concerning the accommodation of different cultural and... more Within the past decade, a series of contentious events concerning the accommodation of different cultural and religious traditions and practices in Quebec has incited much debate in this region. Labelled the “reasonable accommodation” issue by the local press, this controversy, which has its roots in neo-nationalist sentiments born of the Quiet Revolution, has incited responses ranging from denunciations of racist discrimination to calls for more stringent measures to ensure the assimilation of non-Westerners into Québécois culture. As Monika Kin Gagnon points out, this concept has moved beyond its legal origins to become a “social discourse” in the culture at-large, in that many in Quebec are vocally expressing their anxieties over the idea that the rights of newcomers has reached a tipping point, whereby the limits of reason are now over-stretched, weakening the dominant population’s values and identity. Much of this fear was stoked by certain stakeholders in the 2007 Quebec election, namely politicians and media outlets, when reasonable accommodation was highlighted as a major issue. This paper provides an analysis of that election and the campaigns leading into it, revealing how the press and the leaders of the three major political parties were complicit in transforming some negligible and private incidents into a greater menace endangering the very existence of Quebec society. By tracing the genealogy of “the reasonable Québécois”, I will demonstrate how reason and racism became intertwined during the course of this debate over rights, identity, and citizenship in Quebec.

Keywords: Election; Immigrants; News Media; Québec; Racism; Reasonable Accommodation; Religion

The Morality of Hypocrisy: Gnapheus's Latin Play Hypocrisis and the Lutheran Reformation

by Verena Demoed

Book chapter published in Literary Cultures and Public Opinion in the Low Countries, 1450-1650 (Leiden - Boston, 2011) 91-119.

The representation of religions - especially Catholicism and Lutheranism - during the Reformation in a Latin play. The representation of religions - especially Catholicism and Lutheranism - during the Reformation in a Latin play.

Neoliberalising violence: of the exceptional and the exemplary in coalescing moments

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2012. Neoliberalising violence: of the exceptional and the exemplary in coalescing moments. Area 44 (2), 136-143.

This paper sets out to develop two related ideas. First, it seeks to identify how both violence and neoliberalism can... more This paper sets out to develop two related ideas. First, it seeks to identify how both violence and neoliberalism can be considered as moments. From this shared conceptualisation of process and fluidity, I argue that it becomes easier to recognise how these two phenomena actually converge. Building upon this conceived coalescence of neoliberalism and violence, the second aim is to recognise how the hegemony of neoliberalism positions it as an abuser, which facilitates the abandonment of those ‘Others’ who fall outside of neoliberal normativity. I argue that the widespread banishment of ‘Others’ under neoliberalism produces a ‘state of exception’, wherein because of its inherently dialectic nature, exceptional violence is transformed into exemplary violence. This metamorphosis occurs as aversion for alterity intensifies under neoliberalism and its associated violence against ‘Others’ comes to form the rule.

Your past is not their present: Time, the other, and ethnocentrism in cross-cultural personality psychology

by Matthew Adams

co-authored with Paul Hanna

Recent cross-cultural studies of personality traits have been ambitious in their scope, bringing together dozens of... more Recent cross-cultural studies of personality traits have been ambitious in their scope, bringing together dozens of researchers to measure personality across many cultures. The key claim made in this paper is that a persistent form of ethnocentrism mars the presentation and interpretation of findings in cross-cultural studies of personality traits using evolutionary approaches. It is a form long-established as problematic and referred to in anthropology and related social science disciplines as allochronic discourse. A significant research report will be analysed to explore how allochronic discourse, conceptualizations of time, and representations of “otherness” are utilized. The reproduction of allochronic discourse is argued to indicate a need for cross-cultural personality psychologists to engage in multi-disciplinary debate, embrace innovative methodologies, and acknowledge the cultural specificity of its own conceptual frameworks.

Objects and Histories: Representations of Aboriginality In Exhibitions of Aboriginal Objects, 1855–1957

by Ilaria Vanni

Othering, racial hierarchies, and identity construction in Japanese television advertising

by Michael Prieler

published in "International Journal of Cultural Studies", 2010

Although non-Japanese actors have appeared in Japanese television commercials for years, little systematic research... more Although non-Japanese actors have appeared in Japanese television commercials for years, little systematic research has been conducted on them. Using a sample of 20,000 commercials, this article shows that the inclusion of ‘Others’ in TV commercials conforms to an artificial ‘racial hierarchy’ that mirrors Japanese society’s perception of racial groups. White people appear more often than all other groups combined, are represented through discernible stereotypes and advertise nearly all product categories. By contrast, blacks and non-Japanese Asians are associated with a narrower range. The former appear as musicians and athletes; the latter are either famous celebrities or associated with products from their countries of origin. These ‘Others’ are often stereotyped in ways that differentiate them from Japanese. Overall, this article provides insight into the attitudes of the Japanese toward ‘Others’, contributing both to the long-standing discourse of Japanese exceptionalism (nihonjinron) and the understanding of Japanese society in a globalizing world.

The discreet other in a hybrid space: The image of the Bulgarians in Dimitrie Bolintineanu's travelogue, in Revue des études sud-est europenes, Academia Română, Institutul de Studii Sud-Est Europene, vol. 42, no1-4, 2004, pp. 175-181

by Irina Vainovski-Mihai

The Ainu as 'Other': Representations of the Ainu and Japanese Identity Before 1905

by Katie Bresner

Platforum: Journal of Graduate Students in Anthropology

Othering, Power Relations, and Indigenous Tourism: Experiences in Australia’s Northern Territory

by Katie Bresner

Platforum: Journal of Graduate Students in Anthropology

Hollandois, Zélandois, Flessingois & Flamands. Jean-Baptiste du Tertre et les Néerlandais

by Carl Pruneau

in Cahiers d'histoire, vol. 29, no 2 (Automne 2010), p. 143-164

Résumé - Cet article s’intéresse aux différents rôles que tien- nent les Néerlandais dans les écrits du missionnaire... more Résumé - Cet article s’intéresse aux différents rôles que tien- nent les Néerlandais dans les écrits du missionnaire dominicain Jean-Baptiste du Tertre. Cette source historique contribue indi- rectement à les dépeindre comme étant une nation de marchands, de navigateurs peu aptes à se défendre sur terre, mais habiles à la guerre sur mer ; une image des Néerlandais déjà bien ancrée en Europe à la même époque. Il y a cependant certaines nuances à expliquer et, dans le cas des derniers tomes parus en 1671, cer- tains propos semblent contradictoires avec l’opinion exprimée dans ses travaux précédents sur les mérites du commerce étran- ger dans le développement des colonies françaises des Antilles.

Abstract - This article addresses the different roles embo- died by the Dutch in the French missionary Jean-Baptiste du Tertre’s chronicles. The dominican, long accustomed with the Dutch alterity, depicts them as a seafaring nation of merchants poor at handling land combat but otherwise competent at waging naval warfare - a widely held representation of the Dutch in Eu- rope in the second half of the 17th Century. However, there are nuances in the manner in which they are perceived by the author. In the case of the last two tomes that were published in 1671, some remarks concerning foreign commerce contradict the opi- nion he held in earlier works.

From Inference to Empathy: Objectivity and Alterity in Husserl's Fifth Meditation

by Michael J. Braund

"Draft Only"

It seems evident that any philosophy which seeks to derive objectivity wholly from the resources of consciousness... more It seems evident that any philosophy which seeks to derive objectivity wholly from the resources of consciousness necessarily encounters grave difficulties in justifying the common-sense belief that the world is a public object for a plurality of subjects. This problem is not a new one. It is frequently raised as the objection that idealism leads to solipsism, making it impossible to justify the almost universal belief that others have minds like our own. At first blush, the Fifth Meditation might lead one to believe that it is yet another essay concerning the traditional problem of other minds. After all, in the first paragraph Husserl proclaims that the task of “uncover[ing] the sphere of transcendental being as monadological intersubjectivity” must be undertaken precisely because of the objection that phenomenology, as a kind of idealism, could “be branded ... transcendental solipsism.” (CM 89) By seeming to present his theory of alterity as an answer to such an objection, “Husserl gives the impression that he is setting out to demonstrate, deductively or inductively, the independent existence of other subjects.” (Carr 1987, p.46) I will show that the comparison is superficial, however, and for several reasons. As posed, the other minds problem takes it for granted that we are in possession of, at least, some understanding of what it means for other minds to exist; the problem simply consists in justifying the empirical belief that there are such entities in the world. However, Husserl’s problem is of a deeper, transcendental nature. It asks how we can defensibly be said to arrive at such a conception in the first place. The task of the whole meditation is to gain insight into the intentional structures of consciousness wherein the sense “other ego” is constituted by the transcendental subject. So, his initial concern is how another ego is even cogitable. This segues with a second reason that Husserl’s account differs from that of someone addressing the other minds problem. As Husserl explains, it is impossible to move by inference from one’s own ego to the rest of the world, because the ego is not a ‘tag end of the world.’ It is not part of the world’s causal nexus. Consequently, inferences according to the principle of causality are ruled out by definition. This marks a decisive transformation in scope and focus. The problem is no longer how to prove the empirical existence of “objective subjects, subjects existing in a world.” (CM 124) Again, he says his concern is with “the transcendental clarification of experiencing ‘someone alien’ -- in the sense in which the Other has not yet attained the sense ‘man.’” (CM 138) The reason for this is that the overriding concern of the Cartesian Meditations is with objectivity, or the sense of anything existing in a way that does not reduce to facts about my individual consciousness. In what follows, I will articulate the subtle connections linking the themes of alterity and objectivity in Husserl’s final meditation, with the intention of arriving at a charitable defense of his position against the assertion that it remains fatally solipsistic. I will demonstrate how these (and other) phenomenologically-oriented concepts allow Husserl to reconfigure the traditional problem as a problem for transcendental philosophy, rather than attempting to render it straightforwardly solvable by one “natural” method or another.

Foreign Bodies: Migrants, Parasites, and the Pathological Nation

by Jonathan Xavier Inda

Praising A City: Nicaea, Trebizond, and Thessalonike

by Aslihan Akisik

Forthcoming in "Journal of Turkish Studies" ed. Nevra Necipoğlu and Cemal Kafadar

The late Byzantine period(1204-1461) was distinguished by the existence of multiple, competing, and interconnected... more The late Byzantine period(1204-1461) was distinguished by the existence of multiple, competing, and interconnected centers, superseding the imperial and Constantinopolitan model of the middle period. Civic identity, defined largely in opposition to the "other", which refers to the Latins in the earlier part of this period and the Turks in the latter, was an integral component of the late Byzantine intellectual's self-definition. City enkomia, a defunct genre, was revived in the late period by authors such as Theodore II Laskaris, Theodore Metochites, John Eugenikos, Bessarion, and Mark Eugenikos to praise Nicaea, Trebizond, and Thessalonike among other Byzantine cities. This paper provides three competing visions of late Byzantine identity:, Roman, Hellenic, and Christian. In spite of their differences, these three alternate solutions to the question of Byzantine identity and Byzantine self, all engaged with oppositions between inside and outside and developed the notion of freedom in the context of autonomous centers, existing in opposition to Constantinople.