Traditionalism and its impact on the administration of justice: the case of the Syariah Court of Singapore

Abstract

This paper examines, by way of case studies, the influence of traditionalism as a style of thought on the administration of Muslim law on divorce in the Syariah Court of Singapore. It focuses on the mode of its operation in the selection, construction and application of the law, and highlights its repercussions on the lives of parties in family breakdowns. The paper also touches upon the effects of traditionalism on the development of a more progressive legal culture and identifies measures that would alleviate the problem.     

Traumatic experiences,acculturation, and psychological distress among Syrian refugees in Turkey: The mediating role of coping strategies

Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees in the world. So far, many studies investigated the mental health problems among Syrian refugees in Turkey and other hosting countries. However, little attention has been paid to the acculturation process of Syrian refugees in Turkey. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 409 Syrian refugees in Mardin, Turkey. Results showed that traumatic experiences depleted problem-focused, emotion-focused, and maladaptive coping strategies. Emotion-focused coping strategies mediated the relationship between traumatic experiences and maintenance of the heritage culture and adoption of the destination culture. To conclude, our findings underscore the importance of traumatic experiences and emotion-focused coping strategies for integration of Syrian refugees in Turkey. Psychosocial interventions enhancing emotion-focused coping capacities might mitigate the adverse impact of traumatic experiences on integration. We discussed the strengths and limitations of the study considering the current literature.     

Finding a voice,fighting for rights: the emergence of the transgender movement in Hong Kong 1

Abstract

This paper is intended to provide a space for reflection on Hong Kong’s transgender movement at its current stage, with particular reference to the objectives and activities of the Hong Kong Transgender Equality and Acceptance Movement (‘TEAM’). Established in 2002, TEAM was the first organized group of transgender people and supporters in Hong Kong. First, the paper examines the emergence of the transgender movement in Hong Kong, situating the stated objectives of TEAM in the broader social, legal and political context in Hong Kong. It then considers the successes and limitations of TEAM’s activities to date, measured against its objectives. Finally, it examines why Hong Kong’s transgender community has not yet fought for the right to legal recognition of their gender identity, as have transgender individuals and transgender movements in many other countries around the world. In the Asia‐Pacific region these include Australia, Japan, the People’s Republic of China, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and New Zealand. Through interviews with members of TEAM, the paper questions whether legal recognition is indeed a concern and/or priority for Hong Kong’s transgender community, and, if so, what prevents Hong Kong transgender people from claiming their right to legal recognition in the courts or through the political process.     

When culture and the law clash: A primer on the extraterritorial implications of U.S. anti-discrimination rules and regulations

The rapid globalization of U.S. business has generated many questions about the extraterritorial implications of U.S. anti-discrimination rules and regulations. This paper provides an introduction to the relevant statutes and related case law that govern the extraterritorial responsibilities of U.S. companies with interests in foreign firms. Particular attention is paid to the extraterritorial requirements of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, including important amendments to the Act added when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1991. This paper also describes the defenses U.S. firms can use to insulate themselves from the extraterritorial requirements of these rules and regulations as well as issues and problems created when the cultural norms and customs of foreign countries clash with U.S. law. Suggestions are then made about how U.S. firms can meaningfully comply with the extraterritorial requirements of U.S. anti-discrimination rules and regulations. Finally, the paper examines legal and organizational issues that require further clarification and interpretation.     

Spheres of citizenship: The role of distinct perceived threats in legitimizing allocation of political, welfare and cultural rights in Israel

The question of who is excluded from full citizenship stands at the heart of the political and scholarly debate. This issue is highly relevant considering the gap between those whose substantive citizenship is taken for granted and various “strangers”. This paper addresses the issue by exploring the motivations that shape patterns of exclusion from full citizenship. The aim is to understand the attitudes of the dominant group regarding allocation of different kinds of rights to minorities under the impact of intergroup hostility and threat perception. Looking at dominant group perceptions makes it possible to explore the role of economic, symbolic and security threat perceptions as antecedents of exclusionist attitudes towards welfare, cultural and political rights for three dissimilar minorities in Israel: Palestinian citizens of Israel, non-Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union and ultra-Orthodox Jews. Analysis has indicated that regardless of the dissimilarity between the three minority groups there is a clear pattern of hierarchy of attitudes toward rights allocation. However, only the symbolic threat plays an identical role in shaping these attitudes toward the three groups. These findings emphasize the significance of the cultural dimension of citizenship.     

New trends of managerial roles in performing arts: empirical evidence from the Italian context

Since the 1990s the Italian performing arts sector has been characterized by juridical, social and economic changes, due, for instance, to new technologies, increasing environmental competition and contamination among different artistic realities. These new trends have increased the industry's complexity and forced organizations to undertake processes of internal reorganization. In particular, Italian organizations have faced such challenges through the recruitment and training of human resources with managerial competencies. Accordingly, nowadays managerial roles seem to be more critical than artistic ones. This paper aims to investigate “the state of the art” in terms of internal reorganization experienced by Italian organizations operating in the performing arts. In so doing, it draws on the resource-based perspective and discusses the results of an empirical investigation conducted through the administration of a questionnaire.     

An alternative route towards socialization of democracy in Asia: review of Liberalism Disavowed: Communitarianism and State Capitalism in Singapore by Chua Beng Huat

The contribution of Chua’s Liberalism Disavowed is very large in that it shows how the hegemony of the PAP is working and resisting liberalism, especially in the everyday world of Singaporeans. It re-interprets the origin of public support for the PAP by focusing on its embedded social democratic origin. However, we differ with Chua because we think that the PAP interpreted liberalism very narrowly and rejected it. The strong state, which overwhelms civil society, emerged, interpreting democracy centered on outputs such as stability of economy or higher standard of people’s livelihood rather than inputs such as civic participation or interaction of diverse civil society actors, and openness of the state bureaucracy to civil society. Singapore has sacrificed freedom for political unity. We derive our opinion from of the need to integrate democracy and the social and co-evolution of freedom and equality. We believe that alternative democratic models should be based on the socialization, rather than the nationalization of politics.     

Images of life in America: The impact of American T.V. in Israel

The present study sets out to uncover young Israelis' perceptions of the American reality using the postulates and methodology of the cultivation analysis approach to mass communication. The comparison of the perceptions of “light” and “heavy” T.V. viewers with measures of the actual reality reveals that heavy viewers demonstrate a strong and consistent tendency to paint a rosier picture of life in the U.S., in terms of wealth and standard of living, even when other factors (age, gender, residence and ethnic group) are held constant. The findings of this study have methodological implications concerning the study of media effects as well as theoretical implications regarding the ongoing debate on “media imperialism.”     

Sources of bias in performance evaluation: Two experiments

Attribution and stereotyping theories predicted that poor-performing black workers would receive lower evaluations than corresponding Whites, while good performance would have the reverse effect. “Dress and lifestyle” was also predicted to influence performance evaluation. Male business students, evaluating bogus employees differing in race, dress, and behaviorally described performance, provided weak support for the second hypothesis. A second experiment investigated the possibility that perceived social class, rather than race, was the relevant variable in the operation of a stereotype confirmation—contrast process. Individual differences in stereotyping were also measured. No support for the specific hypothesized process was found, but results supported the potential relevance of attribution theory to a configural performance-evaluation model. Results were also discussed in terms of worker-perceived discrimination.     

Cross-cultural differences in attitudes towards disabled persons: A study of Jewish and Arab youth in Israel

Cultural values may be seen as the primary determinants of altitudes towards deviant or exceptional persons. The present study deals with the attitudes of Jewish and Arab youth in Israel towards the disabled as a function of cultural identity, existence of contact with a disabled person, and type of disability (blindness, amputation, facial disfigurement, or confinement to a wheelchair).A sample of 510 Jews and 655 Arabs filled out the Yuker Altitudes Towards Disabled Persons Scale (ATDP). The results indicated that overall, Jews were more positive towards the disabled than Arabs. Furthermore, the existence of previous contact with a disabled person was a positive factor in the formation of the Jews' attitudes, and a negative factor for the Arabs. In their ranking of different types of disability, Jews and Arabs differed significantly.The results are interpreted in the context of modern versus traditional cultures, whereby the Jewish youths' more tolerant Western approach seems to engender a more positive attitude than the Arab youths' conservative values.     

Pacem Portantes Advenerint: Ambivalent Images of Muslims in the Chronicles of Norman Italy

The goal of this essay is to call attention to some of the more positive and ambivalent depictions of Muslims in a set of historical texts associated with the Norman takeover of Sicily in the fifth/eleventh and sixth/twelfth centuries. To achieve that aim, it considers social vocabulary applied to Muslims in five sources written by Amatus of Montecassino, Geoffrey Malaterra, William of Apulia, Alexander of Telese, and Hugo Falcandus. Although recent scholarship has posited that medieval identity was often felt through a “self versus other” or “Christian versus non-Christian” dichotomy, this essay questions the notion that the actual language contained in these sources ever devolved into such simplistic, binary terms. On the contrary, though the perceptions and definitions applied to this group of people were, admittedly, sometimes based on uninformed stereotypes, they were more often deliberately constructed images that were highly dependent on the cultural milieu in which they were created.     

Media and criticism in China: The case of the “cultural revolution”

This paper analyzes the role of the media in China during the cultural revolution 1966–1976. In particular, the authors examine the two elements that contributed to the ease with which the “Gang of Four” subverted the media to their own political ends. They contend that the media's history and culture were the two principal elements which allowed the “Gang of Four” to usurp both media and state power. Criticism represented a special cultural genre that established the legitimacy of one group to remove another from power. The authors demonstrate the inherent possibility of usurpation of the media when truth is dominated by personality.     

The Almohads and the Qur’ān of Uthm ān: The Legacy of the Umayyads of Cordoba in the Twelfth Century Maghrib

The sixth/twelfth century geographer, al-Idrīsī, alludes to the presence of the so-called Qur’ān of Uthmān in the great Mosque of Cordoba and a ceremony in which it was brought out and paraded daily after the Umayyads proclaimed themselves caliphs in 317/929-30. Around 552/1157, the same Qur’ān appeared in the processions of the Almohads, a Ma?mūda Berber dynasty from the High Atlas mountains, who also claimed to be caliphs. Ibn ?ā?ib al-?alāt, al-Marrākushī and the unknown author of the ?ulal al-mawshiyya, who describe the Almohad parades, all mention the Qur’ān's Uthmānic antecedents and possession by the Umayyads. Using this as a starting point, this paper will explore the image the Umayyads projected in the Maghrib, and the later significance of Cordoban Umayyad prototypes to the ruling Mu’minid dynasty of the Almohads. This contributes to a larger discussion of the evolution of a paradigm of imperial power in the Islamic west and its manipulation to legitimise a succession of dynasties whose actual origins, ambitions and praxis diverged widely.     

The role of discordant acculturation attitudes in perceived threat: An analysis of host and immigrant attitudes in Germany

The present research examines discordant acculturation attitudes of host society members and immigrants as an antecedent to intergroup threat. Based on integrated threat theory and the concordance model of acculturation, we posited that discordance on culture maintenance and on desire for contact would predict intergroup threat beyond the influence of other antecedents of threat, such as in-group identification, knowledge, and negative contact. A study with 202 German host society members and 151 Turkish and Italian immigrants was conducted. In line with our assumptions, path analyses revealed that culture discordance and contact discordance contribute independently to the prediction of realistic threat, symbolic threat, and intergroup anxiety for host society members and immigrants. Moreover, differences in threat between cultures were mediated by the discordance in acculturation attitudes.     

The camera in pain: memories of the Cold War in East Asian independent documentaries

Abstract

This article begins with a discussion of the changing topography of cultural production in East Asia over the last 25?years, especially as it concerns the genre of independent documentary film, and then it turns to three independent documentaries filmed in Japan and North Korea, South Korea and Japan, and China, respectively: Yang Yong-hi's Dear Pyongyang (2005 Dear Pyongyang. 2005. Directed by Yang Yong-hi. Busan International Film Festival. [Google Scholar]), Mun Jeong-hyun's Grandmother's Flower (2007 Grandmother's Flower. 2007. Directed by Mun Jeong-hyun. Busan International Film Festival: [Google Scholar]), and Wang Bing's He Fengming: A Chinese Memoir (2006). Erased from the official historical record and excluded from public commemoration, the alternate history of pain traced by these documentaries resubmits the Cold War to examination from deep inside its most private wounds. In the process, the filmmakers encounter not only the memories of the earlier generation that lived through the most violent episodes of the Cold War, but also come to question their own history and identities within the process of the Cold War's decomposition.     

Institutional completeness and communication acculturation: A comparison of Korean immigrants in Chicago and Hartford

This paper addresses the question of whether the institutional completeness of an ethnic community affects the communication acculturation patterns of the members of that ethnic community. The study examines the effects of institutional completeness upon the ethnic interpersonal and mass communication patterns. The research question was tested by applying some of the methods used in a study of a very institutionally complete ethnic group, the Chicago Korean community, studied by Young Kim, to a less institutionally complete ethnic group, the Greater Hartford Korean community. The results indicate that there are differences in some of the communication patterns which can be seen as evidence that the institutional completeness of an ethnic community influences certain aspects of the communication acculturation patterns of the immigrants within that community.     

Welfare and Charity in a Sixteenth-Century Jewish Community in Egypt: A Study of Genizah Documents

Musta?rib is a term that refers to the local Arabic-speaking Jews in Syria, Palestine and Egypt. The article discusses the Musta?rib community of Cairo in the late sixteenth century. Like other Medieval Jewish communities, the Musta?rib of Cairo had an advanced system for support of the needy. It included regular support for the poor, for widows and orphans, and occasional help for foreign travellers, captives, and more. Based on Genizah documents in Judaeo-Arabic, the article discusses the mechanism of welfare in that community and proves the influence of European Jewish immigrants on the construction of this system.

The Musta?ribs are romanticised in classic Zionist historiography as deeply rooted farmers. The article argues that the Musta?ribs were first and foremost members of an urban population. It also suggests that contrary to the classic image of them as a fixed and unchanging population, which resided in the same area for successive generations, the Musta?rib society should be viewed as a society in motion. They adjusted to historical changes, were influenced by other Jewish cultures, and applied changes to improve their welfare system.     

Dynamic Nature of Boundaries of Speech Communities: Learning and Negotiating Codes in Intercultural Communication

Using the ethnography of communication and speech codes theory, this study aims to capture instances in which individuals’ views of appropriate conduct and cultural boundaries are undergoing change in intercultural interactions. The paper proposes a way of describing such instances by illustrating Japanese speakers’ experiences of encountering unfamiliar codes in problematic situations with English speakers in the United States, recognizing boundaries, negotiating contrasting codes, and revising their perceptions of codes and boundaries as a result of engaging in remedial episodes. The study illuminates the dynamic nature of the boundaries of speech communities and adds an ethnographic exploration of intercultural communication.     

Development communication expectations in occupational contexts: A Comparison of U.S. and foreign graduate students

This study focuses on the communication approaches used by experts in development. In line with recent “paradigm shift” issues, this study asks whether foreign and U.S. graduate students have inculcated alternative communication approaches instead of, or in addition to, the predominant “top to bottom” communication approach in their occupational communication roles. A total of 24 foreign and 23 U.S. graduate students from various departments at the University of Washington were asked to describe their expected communication with contact groups above, at the same and at lower status levels. All graduate students showed a marked tendency to exhibit “top to bottom” approaches with contacts of lower status and alternative communication approaches (i.e., bottom to top or interactive) only with peers. Few differences were found between U.S. and foreign, but those that were found were attributed to differing societal and occupational structures. Discussion focused on the lack of a coherent communication approach showing inculcation of more user oriented approaches suggested by the “paradigm shift.”     

Meaning of life as a protective factor of positive affect in acculturation: A resilience framework and a cross-cultural comparison

Although research has demonstrated a strong linkage between meaning of life and positive emotion, few studies have examined this association in the context of acculturation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the predictive effects of meaning of life and acculturative stressor on positive affect in a sample of Chinese international students in Australia and Hong Kong, and to compare these effects between the two groups. Four hundred mainland Chinese postgraduate students at six universities in Hong Kong and 227 Chinese international students at the University of Melbourne in Australia completed a questionnaire that included measures of acculturative stressor, meaning of life, positive affect, and demographic information. The analyses revealed that (1) meaning of life had a strong positive contribution to predict positive affect in acculturation, and acculturative stress had a negative impact on positive affect within both samples; (2) social interaction had a significant negative predictive effect on positive affect in both samples, and academic work served as a significant negative predictor of positive affect in the Hong Kong sample; and (3) meaning of life was found to mediate the relationship between acculturative stress and positive affect in both samples. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.