Can interethnic contact between majority (Han) and minority (Uyghur) people in China influence sense of Chinese national Community? The role of positive and negative direct,extended and vicarious intergroup contact

ObjectivesIn multiethnic countries, enhancing the sense of community and preventing ethnic segregation represents a major challenge. In this study we aimed to test the effects of different forms of intergroup contact in fostering sense of community among majority and minority ethnic groups in China, by focusing on the sense of the community at the national level.MethodsParticipants were Han (N = 355, ethnic majority group) and Uyghur (N = 546, ethnic minority group) people at a multiethnic university in the Xinjiang province in China.ResultsResults from path analysis revealed that positive direct contact for the minority, and positive extended and vicarious contact for both majority and minority group were indirectly associated with higher sense of Chinese national community via greater focus on positive characteristics of the outgroup. In addition, negative contact (extended contact for the majority; direct contact for the minority) were indirectly associated with lower sense of Chinese national community via reduced focus on positive outgroup characteristics. No evidence was found for negative focus (focus on negative outgroup characteristics) and intergroup threat as mediators. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings for improving intergroup relations in multiethnic and conflictual settings by using multiple forms of intergroup contact are discussed.     

Micro: global music made in J‐pop?

Abstract

This article tackles J‐pop as a result of diverse influences from Western music. Its strength stems from its capacity to ‘tame the exotic’, i.e. assimilate and recreate from styles that were uncommon for Asian cultures by integrating elements of rock, reggae, hip hop, etc and labelling these J‐rock, J‐reggae, J‐rap. This assimilation and indigenization process in J‐pop creation could be seen as a way to resist against competitors from other places of music production. The article also attempts to identify the specificities and assets of J‐pop in the music scene in general. It elaborates on J‐pop's coolness, and the reason why it could expand throughout East‐Asia. Pop music and pop culture flows in East‐Asia could be regarded then as a means to trigger a sense of community and togetherness through the consumption of pop culture products. Throughout the analysis on J‐pop, the article will rely on one musical example, Def Tech and Micro, as this artist tends to explore various musical genre and intermingles them, so as to create a specific style, coined ‘Jawaian reggae’.     

Voices of Refugee Women: Adaptation and Identification

ABSTRACT

Refugees and other displaced people have been the object of much research related to how people are adapting. Few have focused specifically on women even though women and children are by far the majority of refugees in general and especially in Utah. One of the few focused on narratives of newly arrived women refugees. Narratives are an important method for hearing authentic lived experiences versus assuming researchers can know the answers. However, questions arose about how those narratives might change after being in the U.S. for a longer period of time. Eleven refugee women who had been in the U.S. longer than 10 years were interviewed for this study.

Narratives allowed us to present this scholarship in a way that is accessible to anyone. Five themes were found: language, education, family, assistance, and transition. These themes demonstrate both the resilience of the women and the difficulty and complexity of long-term adaptation.     

Towards a Cultural Understanding of the Disability and Deaf Experience: Implications of a Content Analysis of Introductory Special and Multicultural Education Textbooks

This paper summarizes and discussing the findings of two content analyses of introductory textbooks to special education and multicultural education conducted to determine the extent to which disability and Deaf culture are represented and discussed. Findings of both studies indicated minimal discussion of Disability and Deaf culture, a heavy reliance on perspectives of persons who are not disabled or Deaf about the Disability and Deaf experience, and inaccurate representations and information about Disability and Deaf culture. This paper is a follow-up discussion of the implications of the findings of these studies. A rationale and recommendations for supporting a cultural understanding of the Disability and Deaf experience are presented. In addition, recommendations are suggested for engaging disabled and deaf persons about their shared and collective experience and for promoting cultural competence and proficiency with respect to the Disability and Deaf experience.     

Rethinking social movements through retranslating the economy

Abstract

This paper not only gives an overview of the transgender word in contemporary Japan but also attempts to illustrate the male to female cross‐dressing (MTFCD) community in Shinjuku, Tokyo, which plays an important role in the overall transgender world and how people in the community think and live, by conducting comprehensive fieldwork. The MTFCD community consists of amateur cross‐dressers and their patrons, and it is formed around about ten bars/clubs in Shinjuku. This community differentiates itself from the gay community in their customs and consciousness; they tend to recognize gender based on gender performance rather than biological sex, which is usually accepted for distinguishing sex. Therefore, a MTF cross‐dresser with feminine performance is considered as a ‘woman,’ regardless of one’s physical and biological conditions. Because of this recognition of gender based on gender performance, people in the community are able to develop the ‘quasi‐heterosexual’ relationships as men and ‘women.’     

The Vietnam War and the ‘Miracle of East Asia’

Abstract

The Muslim community in Sri Lanka has a pre-Islamic origin. Ethnically they are a mixed group, but changing political fortunes throughout the course of Sri Lankan history have made them realize that their identity lies in holding fast to the religion of Islam and not to any ethnic category. The current Sinhala-Tamil ethnic war has once again reinforced the need to hold on to the religious identity even more tightly. However, recent economic and political changes in the country and changes taking place in the Muslim world have injected new concerns for the community to worry about. The community is well and truly trapped in a political quagmire. This article highlights some aspects of this predicament.     

Notes to Contributors

ABSTRACT

Later eighteenth-century newspapers have been credited with shaping and reflecting readers' politics and growing sense of regional and national identity. However, historians have long ignored the role that newspaper proprietors played in the construction of those newspapers. Through a close study of one provincial proprietor, John Ware of Whitehaven, this article demonstrates that newspaper owners were shrewd operators in the public sphere. They were businessmen and women for whom the imagined community of readers was a real community of friends and business associates.     

Interrogating the Eyewitness

ABSTRACT

Following on from Peter Burke, Eyewitnessing (2001), this article considers again the potential for collaboration between historians and art historians, and presents ‘ten commandments' to be borne in mind by historians who wish to make use of visual materials in their work.     

The making of Gòng/ Kyō – visual archive and the common in contemporary East Asia

ABSTRACT

This study will take two cases from East Asia to illustrate how visual archive/archiving has become or potentially becomes new space where image, heterogeneous temporalities and ideas of the common may lead to a redefinition or at least reconsideration of the binaries between public and private, between image and visual, between past and future. In contrast to historical archives, such visual archives not only aim for documentation and conservation but also become the sites of creating agencies and provoking critical reflections on the idea of the public. The first case is “Center for Remembering 3.11”¹ initiated by Sendai Mediatheque (SMT), where civic participation and the archiving of the post-311 Tohoku Earthquake images of the disaster-ridden region were solicited and made into an online archive. The second case is Multitude.asia, a digital archive initiated by Taiwanese activist and scholar Huang Sun-quan, who works in collaboration with students, artists, and researchers from Mainland China and Taiwan in sorting, interviewing, and editing videos and texts about alternative cultural activities and space in Asia. While discussions on the archive and the public discourse are predominated by theories from Europe and the US, the current study intends to contextualize the concepts of “the public” (gōng/ōyake), “the private” (sī/watakushi), and “the common” (gòng/ kyō) in Chinese and Japanese languages in the discourse of archive in cultural specificity.     

Towards a Cultural Understanding of the Disability and Deaf Experience: A Content Analysis of Introductory Multicultural Education Textbooks

This paper reports the findings of a simple normative content analysis of 11 multicultural education textbooks to determine the extent to which disability and deaf culture are represented. In addition, this study examines multicultural education textbooks to assess the extent to which perspectives of members of the disability and deaf communities are represented in the discourse about disabled and deaf persons. Results indicate that on average less than 1% of the total pages of text reviewed addressed or mentioned disability or deaf culture. Of these, it was found that on average about 6% of the pages addressed disability or deaf culture. In addition, inaccurate information was presented and perspectives were often not informed by a substantial body of literature that has emerged in the field of disability studies. It was found that multicultural education textbooks rely heavily on information about persons with disabilities from Special Education that may not be widely accepted by disabled or deaf persons. A follow-up paper examines the implications of the exclusion of disabled and deaf persons and their perspectives from the discourse about the shared and collective disability and deaf experience in favor of a dominant perspective widely held by the nondisabled professional community. Questions are raised about whether this is consistent with the values and goals of multicultural education and teaching. A rationale and recommendations are proposed for engaging disabled and deaf persons about their shared and collective experience and for promoting cultural competence and proficiency with respect to the disability and Deaf experience in multicultural education.     

‘The Most Respectable Looking of Revolutionaries’

Abstract

New political histories of late nineteenth-century British political culture have closely analysed the role of language and rhetoric in popular politics. The focus on the content of political messages has meant that the ways such messages were communicated has often been overlooked, as have the varied forms of political communication in the period. This article follows on from recent work that has sought to examine the place of material and visual culture in popular politics in the period. In particular, it focuses on the links between dress, class and politics. It suggests that visual, along with material, forms of political communication remained important and that they illuminate the political culture of the period.     

Turning a home into the common: the micro-politics of subjectivations in a cohousing community in Seoul

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the micro-politics of a cohousing community called Bin-Zib (Empty/Guests’ House) in Seoul, South Korea. In a society where home ownership has become a financial asset, the residents of Bin-Zib have attempted to turn the home into the common. This paper focuses on how paradoxical principles of the community create Bin-Zib as an argumentative space, where disputes constantly arise. The paper then shows how the practice of communing in Bin-Zib is essentially related to the everyday politics of subjectivation. Finally, the meaning of Bin-Zib in the inter-Asian context will be discussed.     

Japanese neo‐nationalism and an idea of an East Asian community

Abstract

The paper explains the relationship between Japan and its neighboring countries, and the influence of Japanese neo‐nationalism on the idea of an East Asian community.     

The Venetian Consul and the Cosmopolitan Mercantile Community of Alexandria at the Beginning of the Ninth/Fifteenth Century

Abstract

Three case studies (Veneto-Cretan shipping of Egyptian-Arab merchandise, Catalan-Venetian cooperation, and Venice acting on behalf of Latin pilgrims) around the activities of the Venetian consul inform an investigation of the cosmopolitan community formed by local groups and foreign nations, and the role of the Venetian consul in this wider community. It will be argued that the Venetian consul was not only a Venetian envoy but also a Mamlūk official and an informal head of the cosmopolitan business community in late medieval Alexandria.     

A cognitive approach to intercultural communication based on schema theory

The purpose of this study was to examine schema theory and its application to intercultural communication, especially to sojourners’ cross-cultural adaptation. Eight primary types of schemas for social interactions were extracted, and these schemas’ functions for processing information were investigated. Furthermore, fundamental functional structures of schemas were analyzed when the theory was applied to sojourners’ cross-cultural adaptation, and eleven axioms were formulated in the following domains: the development of schemas, internal organization of schemas, schema-driven versus data-driven functions, and schema modification and change.     

Coptic Language and Identity in Ayyūbid Egypt1

Abstract

In the late Fā?imid and Ayyūbid periods of Egyptian history, Coptic Christians finally addressed the reality that most of their community no longer understood the Coptic language but were, in fact, losing their communal identity and “figures of memory” to Arabisation and even Islamisation. A Coptic-Arabic “Renaissance” ensued whereby Coptic liturgy, theology and history were translated into Arabic, the lingua franca by this time of the Coptic populace. This creative energy extended into the artistic realm – such as iconography and painting – and ultimately strengthened the identity of the Coptic community as their situation became increasingly more restricted.     

The Power and Function of Images in Northern Europe During the Migration Period

ABSTRACT

In the fifth and early sixth centuries, numerous objects in northern Europe were decorated in a particularly consistent visual style (‘Germanic Animal Style I’). This article argues that we should treat these images not simply as representations of cultural notions, but as an active part in the process of creating a shared elite identity, formed during a particular period of historical crisis.     

Arts councils,policy-making and “the local”

ABSTRACT

In the British Isles, national policies for the arts are primarily viewed as the responsibility of arts councils with statutory duties to distribute state funding that meet the requirements of both “arms-length” principles and national strategic frameworks. This paper explores the tensions between policy making for the nation-state and for “the local” through comparative research on the arts councils (and equivalent bodies) in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with senior representatives from these organisations, it explores their notions of, responsibilities to and affiliations with “the local”. Findings suggest that despite their different models and relationships to the nation-state, and the disparities in the scale of investment, these national policy bodies commonly rely on networked governance to facilitate their relationship to “the local” which risks reproducing national interests, limiting the localised agency of place-based approaches and contributing to a culture of competition within cultural policy.     

Performing Imperial Masculinity in British Theatre in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on theatrical representations of India in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, with special reference to two stage productions, Ramah Droog (1798) and The Cataract of the Ganges (1823). It argues that whilst the plays may have intended to deploy India as a space upon which to outline a militaristic British national identity and bourgeois gender norms, they in fact reflected contemporary anxieties about the fragility of British imperial masculinity. Moreover, it proposes that though theatre directors sought to impress upon audiences a sense of imperial dominance over the subcontinent through the deployment of visual technologies, such attempts were not wholly successful, with spectators having the capacity to deconstruct the façade that lay before their eyes.