Music,Tradition, and Cultural Adaptation among the Maronites of Lebanon: The Reform of the Funeral Liturgy

The Maronite Church is a branch of the Syro-Antiochean Church and one of the oldest among the Eastern churches. Modernisation, globalisation, emigration, civil war and other factors have together influenced many aspects of local religious expression, but the Maronite Church has succeeded in adapting to the social changes and the spiritual needs of its followers without losing its identity. This is reflected in the Maronite funeral liturgy, which is here examined. I aim to show how the role of music and poetry is perpetuating a sense of communal identity among the members of this religious group, and is creating boundaries with other ethnic and religious groups.     

Predicting Intrapersonal Communication Satisfaction on the Basis of Imagined Interactions in the Pacific Rim

Intrapersonal communication satisfaction was regressed on a type of intrapersonal communication known as imagined interactions (IIs) in which people daydream about talking with others who are important in their lives. This study examined the functions of IIs impacting intrapersonal communication satisfaction and measures of cultural patterns in America, Japan, and Thailand. Additionally, cultural patterns were examined. Horizontal individualism is a cultural pattern in which the self is independent but is equal in status with others. Vertical individualism is a pattern characterized by an autonomous self but there are differences in authority, based on status, low equality, and high freedom. Horizontal collectivism is a pattern in which the self is seen as equal in status with others. Vertical collectivism is a pattern characterized by the self being connected with other group members and inequality is accepted. Results revealed that intrapersonal communication satisfaction was predicted by imagined interactions that serve a self-understanding, catharsis, and boldness function. Horizontal collectivism also predicted communication satisfaction for Thai participants. Results are discussed in terms of the importance and functions of conflict-linkage and rumination.     

Perspectives on South-South relations: China's presence in Africa

This paper explores the broad questions on China's presence in Africa from the perspectives on South-South relations. More generally, China has a diffuse and growing presence in Africa through trade relations, as the importation of various consumer goods is highly visible in most African capital cities, and numerous smaller towns. The racial problem is compounded by the prevalence of a sinophobic media in which a racial hierarchy constructs the China below whites, albeit with blacks being relegated to the bottom. Yet there are empirically observable racist tendencies amongst the Chinese settlers towards Africans, although this is often overstated. China has become influential in Africa at the level of trade, investments and geo-political relations, but it is far from being a hegemonic recolonizer. Moreover, Africa is increasingly militarized, but China is not substantially engaged at this level. The paper concludes by suggest that much more research is necessary in the future in terms of understanding South-South international relations, so that many more people learn more about countries in the Global South and their complex set of interactions. This requires various African intellectual networks to re-visit the Bandung spirit and reconstruct the idea of non-alignment and solidarity.     

The effect of perceived overqualification on job satisfaction and career satisfaction among immigrants: Does host national identity matter?

Overqualification is a form of person-job misfit that is common among those who reside in a foreign country. It is associated with poor work-related well-being and can inhibit full adjustment to the host society. The goal of our study is to examine the impact of perceived overqualification on job satisfaction and career satisfaction among immigrants. Furthermore, we investigated immigrants’ host national identity as a moderator of the impact of perceived overqualification on job satisfaction and career satisfaction. We analysed longitudinal online survey data from 124 Italian and Spanish immigrants who migrated to Germany between 2000 and 2014. Regression analyses show that perceived overqualification is negatively associated with job satisfaction six months later. Furthermore, host national identity moderates the association between perceived overqualification and job satisfaction: low overqualification is beneficial for job satisfaction whereas high overqualification is a threat for job satisfaction, especially for immigrants who identify strongly with the host society. We do not find corresponding direct and moderating effects on career satisfaction. We conclude that indicators of acculturation, such as host national identity, are worth considering in order to understand the impact of person-job misfit on work-related well-being among immigrants.     

On not being able to read or speak Malayalam: language and region in Kerala

Abstract

This paper attempts to read aspects of language, history, and literariness historically from the perspective of both Brazil and Kerala. It is also an attempt to compare two very distinct places from within a framework centred on the South. Initially, region and nation are discussed, as well as modernity and development, and the issue of thinking South–South connections from an anthropological perspective. Next, the matter of the complex connected histories of Kerala within the Indian Ocean is mentioned, including Portuguese colonial history. The image and influence of Latin America in Kerala is briefly brought up, especially in what concerns literary influence. There follows an extended discussion of issues of literacy and the rise of the novel in Kerala as well as the historical intricacies of the construction of Malayalam as a modern medium. A contrast with the literary construction of modernity in Brazil is made, and the importance of English in Kerala is accordingly highlighted as well as the issue of the coloniality of the Portuguese within Brazil's complex creolized history. An analysis of the pioneering novel of Chandumenon is offered, and a comparison with a novel in Brazil is subsequently sketched. The different historical contexts of nineteenth century Brazil and Kerala are stressed. The close interrelatedness between issues of language, nation, and region is emphasised as well as the internal complexities of modernity in both regions.     

The Social Stratification of Cultural Consumption: Some Policy Implications of a Research Project

The paper briefly describes a recently completed research project on the social stratification of cultural consumption, presents some major findings from this project, and considers their implications for public policy in relation to the arts. A central theme is the inadequacy of the ‘homology’ argument, claiming that social hierarchies and cultural hierarchies map closely onto each other. This argument is shown to be empirically unsound and to underestimate the complexity of the relationship between social stratification and cultural consumption, as this is determined by the combined effects of income, education and social status. One question that then arises is what policy response, if any, is required by the fact that many individuals do not participate extensively in the arts even though they have the economic and cultural resources required to do so (self-exclusion rather than social exclusion). And a second is that of how far, in attempts at increasing participation, status-linked motivations might be exploited.     

Ethnic identity: Myth and reality in Western Canada

The paper analyzes eleven research projects which have focused on the issue of ethnic identity. Each study addresses the question of how important ethnicity is to the individual. The results suggest that ethnicity, as measured in the present studies, is of little importance to Canadians. Ethnicity, however, should be viewed as an adaptive response to the conditions governing the context for acquisition of scarce and desired goods! What is clear is that assertions of the universal and constant import of ethnicity to Canadians are not true.     

Why do we subsidize donations to the opera?

In many countries – the US, Canada and the UK, for example – donors to charities receive the identical subsidy through the tax system whether their donation is to a homeless shelter, or to the opera. The way in which charitable giving is subsidized differs across systems, but the equal treatment of very different charities is common to them. Given the different circumstances of the beneficiaries of these various of charities, how can the identical tax subsidy for donations be justified? One approach is to consider the charitable subsidy in light of egalitarian theories of justice and to ask whether a subsidy to charitable gifts to arts institutions that primary benefit the well-off could be justified within the theory. An alternative approach avoids the overarching theory of just distribution and focuses instead on the essentially political and practical aspects of the income tax. This essay considers both approaches, concluding that the latter is more appropriate to the question of the charitable subsidy, and that there is a case to be made for equal treatment of donation to charities with markedly different beneficiaries.     

A measure of acculturation for Italian Canadians: scale development and construct validation

Conceptualizations of the immigrant adaptation process are diverse and often incongruous. There is also a lack of agreement in the interpretation and measurement of constructs underlying the notion of changing ethnicity. In an effort to resolve these differences, this study initially presents a conceptual framework for changing ethnicity by delineating and then integrating its key underlying aspects. This is followed by the development and validation of a multidimensional measure of acculturation for Italian Canadians—one aspect of their ethnic change. Construct validation is based on confirmatory factor analyses of the multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) data. Once validated, the measure is used for an investigation of the relationships between acculturation and some aspects of gender-role perceptions of Italian-Canadian spouses. The paper is concluded with a brief discussion on the possibility of extending the application of our measure to other ethnic groups in North America.     

Indicators for arts and cultural policy: A Global perspective

Taking an international view of cultural indicators, this paper is an account of the state of play of indicator development. It reviews the literature on cultural indicators, raising analytical and global coordination issues, and adapts ‘good practice’ ideas from the literature. It is argued that improving cultural indicators is not simply about improving statistical methods: it is also about understanding better the nature of arts activities, improving the articulation of arts policies and considering the complex interrelationships between statistics and policy and the impacts that measurement can have on ‘stakeholders’ in the arts and cultural sectors.     

Which intercultural competences for teachers,educators, and social workers? A literature review

Europe seems to be going through a historical period characterized by the fear of otherness, conceived as an attack on the positive values of liberal society. This fear manifests itself, according to several researchers, through neo-assimilationist tendencies in public policies in many European nations: an example of this trend can be considered the reintroduction of the language and knowledge requirements of the country for new immigrants as a prerequisite for obtaining permanent residence and citizenship.At the same time, in both academic and public debates, the tendency is spreading to affirm that it is necessary to overcome the multicultural approach in favour of a new paradigm capable of dealing with the complexities typical of the superdiversity that characterizes European nations: the interculturalism. This trend is in contrast to the thinking of several researchers who believe that the theoretical principles and the practical aims, which are at the basis of multiculturalism and interculturalism are complementary to each other. Multiculturalism tends to focus more on the level of public discourse and political debate while interculturalism is aimed more at more meso and micro-level. It is believed that teachers, social workers and educators play a fundamental role in making the members of the majority of a State more open to comparison and exchange with subjects coming from other historical and geographical contexts. The purpose of this review is to identify the intercultural competencies that these professionals should have to counter the fear and closure towards diversity, which is constantly increasing in European societies.     

The Issues of Culture and Politics in Redubbing Anglophone Films in Iran

ABSTRACT

Audiovisual translation is an extremely influential means of intercultural communication among close or distant cultures. Dubbing is historically the main mode of film translation in Iran and has been increasingly investigated. Redubbing, however, as a form of retranslation, is barely researched in Persian. The main focus of this study is to investigate how the cultural and political issues of the time may influence media retranslation. The findings revealed that the dubbed versions before and after the revolution have been influenced by the dominant culture and politics of the time, but the extent and the subjects of interventions differed.     

The 1911 Revolution: a reassessment

Why is the period from the Opium War through the Republican era in recent Chinese history treated by so many scholars of different stripes as a decline of China itself, rather than as a decline simply of the dynastic order? What is the nature of the Republican period? What role has the centralization and decentralization of power played through these years – and is it limited to the Republican period, or is it part of a much longer trend in Chinese history? Why have so many scholars fixated on the Opium War at the beginning of Chinese modernity? Mizoguchi asks these penetrating questions and makes telling comparisons with Japan over roughly the same period of time.     

National pride,social trust,and cultural nativism: Findings from East and Southeast Asia

Using the latest (fourth) wave of Asian Barometer Survey (2014–2016), this study examines how national pride and two types of trust (general and particular) are related to nativist preference (cultural nativism), independent of anti-immigration attitudes, among citizens in East and Southeast Asian countries. Findings from multilevel models show that, at the individual level, national pride and particular trust are positively related to cultural nativism, while general trust is negatively related. At the subnational-regional level, we also find significant contextual effects. Living in geographic areas with greater national pride is positively associated with nativist preference, as is residency in places with higher levels of particular trust. In contrast, residency in subnational contexts with higher levels of general trust is negatively associated. Finally, the association between national pride and cultural nativism is stronger in regions with greater contextual national pride.     

Hou Hsiao‐Hsien’s two dreams of light and shadows

Abstract

In traditional Chinese culture, dreams are often more than a narrative ploy or an extension of the authors’ imagination, but instruments for musings on life. This essay is an attempt to study Hou Hsiao‐Hsien’s aesthetics in The Puppetmaster and Flowers of Shanghai from the perspective of dreams. The former is like a lucid dream where the ageing puppet master is the person in the dream, while Hou the filmmaker is the passer‐by who saunters into the dream and puts it down on record. The latter, on the other hand, is an inebriated dream where the plan‐sequences are weaved together by black‐ins and black‐outs as in a dream from which no one wants to wake.     

A review of articles on multiculturalism in 35 years of IJIR

This article is a review of literature on multiculturalism in 35 years of publications in IJIR, spanning from the first issue of IJIR in 1977 to the current issue in May 2012. The review includes empirical and theoretical articles alone. Multiculturalism is discussed in light of demographic, policy, and psychological aspects. An inductive thematic analysis revealed four themes, namely, Multicultural Education, Attitudes toward Multiculturalism, Multicultural Interactions, and Multicultural Identity. Each of these themes is discussed, and the implications of the findings are explored. It is noted that policy and practice are yet to be refined to match the ideology of multiculturalism.     

Observing intercultural communication: A proposal of theory and method

Techniques for analyzing intercultural communication should minimize subjective intrusion by observers and maximize the potential benefit of analysis to communicators. Interchange between communicators is defined transactionally as events involving simultaneous change in (1) a communicator, (2) other communicators encountered by that communicator, and (3) what is known about these encounters. Interchange in dyadic communication is explained in terms of an ABX model, which is phenomenal rather than objective for an observer and in which X signifies mutual experience between communicators A and B. X is the focus of empirical investigation by the observer, who conducts parallel interviews with A and B and cross checks them. Comparison of different sets of interviews indicates which variables are persistent in intercultural communication. Research procedures are proposed for rigorous evaluation of the transactional model.     

How do Indonesians remember Konfrontasi? Indonesia–Malaysia relations and the popular memory of “Confrontation” after the fall of Suharto

After the fall of Suharto in May 1998, mass rallies yelling anti-Malaysia sentiment broke out several times in a number of major cities in Indonesia. The rallies were triggered by various conflicting issues involving the two countries. Every time a mass rally against Malaysia happens, memory of “Konfrontasi” is recalled, as is seen in the use of “Ganyang Malaysia” (Crush Malaysia) rhetoric, whereas during the Suharto era, the narrative of the historical episode of “Konfrontasi” was constructed in the tone of criticizing Sukarno’s “Crush Malaysia” campaign as an escape from the internal economic crisis, rather than as an expression of nationalist sentiment. However, as this article addresses, there is a gap between the “national memory” as is constructed by the history school textbook and “popular memory” as is embodied in society. Beneath this “popular memory,” as this paper contends, there is a sort of nationalist sentiment in the sense of longing for “national pride” as projected upon the “persona” of Sukarno.