“The Occupation of Beauty”

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrina Z. S. Schwartz

This article uses the case of Latvia to explore the relationship between discourses of nature, homeland, and national identity. National entrepreneurs construct homelands by infusing physical terrain with national meanings, thereby transforming landscape into “ethnoscape.” The author traces this process in Latvia, beginning with the National Awakening of the 1860s, including the interwar period of independence, and the period under Soviet rule. By focusing on the intranational discursive construction of homeland, this article seeks to complicate the dominant understanding of national identity as a phenomenon linked solely to the drawing and policing of boundaries between members of the nation and outsiders.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Strange

Abstract In May 2018, voters in the Republic of Ireland passed a referendum proposal to repeal the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, lifting the Irish state’s near-total ban on abortion. Scholars have argued that Ireland’s abortion ban has historically played a key role in the construction of Irish national identity along Catholic, traditional, and heteronormative lines, meaning the lead-up to the vote allowed for key insights into the discursive construction of national identity and gender in Ireland. Drawing on theoretical discussions in both the nationalism and Linguistic Landscape (LL) literature and adopting a qualitative, multimodal approach to analyse the referendum campaign’s LL, I argue that there was a dominant understanding of the relationship between women and Irish national identity, predicated on a positive stance towards Irish identity, while any dissenting voices which questioned whether advancing gender equality was compatible with nationalist ideology were confined to the margins of the debate.


Humanities ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Marianna Charitonidou

The article examines an ensemble of gender and migrant roles in post-war Neorealist and New Migrant Italian films. Its main objective is to analyze gender and placemaking practices in an ensemble of films, addressing these practices on a symbolic level. The main argument of the article is that the way gender and migrant roles were conceived in the Italian Neorealist and New Migrant Cinema was based on the intention to challenge certain stereotypes characterizing the understanding of national identity and ‘otherness’. The article presents how the roles of borgatari and women function as devices of reconceptualization of Italy’s identity, providing a fertile terrain for problematizing the relationship between migration studies, urban studies and gender studies. Special attention is paid to how migrants are related to the reconceptualization of Italy’s national narrations. The Neorealist model is understood here as a precursor of the narrative strategies that one encounters in numerous films belonging to the New Migrant cinema in Italy. The article also explores how certain aspects of more contemporary studies of migrant cinema in Italy could illuminate our understanding of Neorealist cinema and its relation to national narratives. To connect gender representation and migrant roles in Italian cinema, the article focuses on the analysis of the status of certain roles of women, paying particular attention to Anna Magnagi’s roles.


2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 607-621
Author(s):  
Faedah M. Totah

AbstractThe camp and the city are both important for understanding the relationship between space and identity in the refugee experience of exile. In the Palestinian example, the camp has emerged as a potent symbol in the narrative of exile although only a third of refugees registered with UNRWA live in camps. Moreover, the city and urban refugees remain missing in most of the scholarship on the Palestinian experience with space, exile, and identity. Furthermore, there is little attention to how refugees understand the concept of the city and camp in their daily life. This article examines how Palestinian urban refugees in the Old City of Damascus conceptualized the relationship between the camp and the city. It illustrates how the concept of the camp remained necessary for the construction of their collective national identity while in Syria. However, the city was essential in the articulation of individual desires and establishing social distinction from other refugees. Thus, during a protracted exile it is in the interstice between the city and the camp, where most urban refugees in the Old City situated themselves, that informed their national belonging and personal aspirations.


2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
TIMOTHY S. BROWN

This article examines the life and times of Richard Scheringer, an army officer and supporter of Adolf Hitler who became famous during the early 1930s for his high-profile conversion to communism. Known in the closing years of the Weimar Republic as a point-man for Communist efforts to win support from the radical right, Scheringer survived the Third Reich to become a leading figure in the postwar Communist Party. His well-documented but little-studied career, bridging critical caesurae of modern Germany history, highlights the unique political constellation of the interwar period, demonstrating fundamental continuities in the relationship of German communism to the nation before and after 1945.


2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-65
Author(s):  
Mary Varghese ◽  
Kamila Ghazali

Abstract This article seeks to contribute to the existing body of knowledge about the relationship between political discourse and national identity. 1Malaysia, introduced in 2009 by Malaysia’s then newly appointed 6th Prime Minister Najib Razak, was greeted with expectation and concern by various segments of the Malaysian population. For some, it signalled a new inclusiveness that was to change the discourse on belonging. For others, it raised concerns about changes to the status quo of ethnic issues. Given the varying responses of society to the concept of 1Malaysia, an examination of different texts through the critical paradigm of CDA provide useful insights into how the public sphere has attempted to construct this notion. Therefore, this paper critically examines the Prime Minister’s early speeches as well as relevant chapters of the socioeconomic agenda, the 10th Malaysia Plan, to identify the referential and predicational strategies employed in characterising 1Malaysia. The findings suggest a notion of unity that appears to address varying issues.


2021 ◽  
pp. 095001702110346
Author(s):  
Luci Pangrazio ◽  
Cameron Bishop ◽  
Fiona Lee

This article analyses the representation of the gig economy in three Australian newspapers from 2014 to 2019. ‘Gig work’ is defined as short term, contract or freelance employment and is seen by many social institutions as the future of work. Drawing on a corpus of 426 articles, Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory is used to examine the construction of the ‘gig economy’ in the cultural imaginary. Five key elements emerge, including: demographics of workers; working conditions; workers’ rights; resistance and regulation; and change and disruption. Despite multiple competing discourses evident across the newspapers, each constructs the gig economy as an inexorable phase in the evolution of the relationship between capital and the worker. The article critically analyses the construction of the discourse, including the difficulties of regulating gig economy platforms and the narrative of inevitability used to describe changes to work and life brought about by technology.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 361-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norig Neveu

Abstract In the Emirate of Transjordan, the interwar period was marked by the emergence of the Melkite Church. Following the Eastern rite and represented by Arab priests, this church appeared to be an asset from a missionary perspective as Arab nationalism was spreading in the Middle East. New parishes and schools were opened. A new Melkite archeparchy was created in the Emirate in 1932. The archbishop, Paul Salman, strengthened the foundation of the church and became a key partner of the government. This article tackles the relationship between Arabisation, nationalisation and territorialisation. It aims to highlight the way the Melkite Church embodied the adaptation strategy of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches in Transjordan. The clergy of this national church was established by mobilising regional and international networks. By considering these clerics as go-between experts, this article aims to decrypt a complex process of territorialisation and transnationalisation of the Melkite Church.


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