This paper has had the ambition to answer the question does people’s perception of group difference affect their sense of societal cohesiveness? Using survey data from a Swedish 2015 study conductedby the SOM-institute this study looks at people living in Sweden’s perceptions of differentgroup identities to see which elements come at play in forming an over-all sense of societal cohesion.This study combines theories on social capital in relation to group identities to create anadvanced model to test the data in. The analysis confirmed that people’s discernment of other groups indeed affects the level of societal cohesiveness, and that respondents who felt a stronger emotional connection towards groups with another economy, education and culture were more likely to feel like a part of the Swedish society and to be more trusting of others.

Esta etnografia foi realizada junto ao Grupo Tradicional Kamba Cuá da comunidade afroparaguaia Kamba Kuá da cidade de Fernando de la Mora, região metropolitana de Assunção, Paraguai. A pesquisa possui como intuito entender como os afroparaguaios estão instrumentalizando seu patrimônio sonoro-performático para, sob o signo da etnicidade “afro”, moverem-se e conquistarem posições de poder reivindicatório em um campo político-identitário - o qual é uma múltipla e complexa teia de articulações entre atores locais, regionais, nacionais e transnacionais ou globais. O eixo teórico que guiou as reflexões está em sintonia com a antropologia musical, que entende as atividades músico-corporais, não somente como produtos artísticos, mas também como parte da construção do mundo social e conceitual. A hipótese que avanço é a de que esse grupo de artes performáticas músico-corporais, pioneiro neste processo político-identitário de luta pela manutenção da agrupação comunitária e do território de referência através do uso de suas práticas culturais e de sua etnicidade, colaborou para manter certa coesão interna. Através da objetificação, a coesão interna foi obtida pelo grupo operando como mecanismo de “manutenção”, “resgate” e “inovação” de suas culturas, ou servindo como elo para criação de uma rede política afroparaguaia. Também, pode-se percebê-los como instrumento mercantil e político para tornar as reivindicações afroparaguaias visíveis nacionalmente através de suas performances públicas. / This ethnography was conducted within the Kamba Kuá people and their artistic performance ensemble, an Afro-Paraguayan community located in the city of Fernando de la Mora, metropolitan area of Asuncion, Paraguay. The research aimed to understand how the Afro-Paraguayans are equipping their sound-performing heritage under the sign of “African” ethnicity to bargain power positions in a political identity field composed by a multiple and complex web of local/translocal connections. The theoretical frame is inspired by an anthropology of music which understands musical performances, not only as artistic products but also as part of the construction of social and conceptual world. My hypothesis is that the Kamba Kuá people use their artistic practices and their artistic group to maintain some internal cohesion within their ancestral territory. Through objectification of their performative culture, the Kamba Kuá artistic groups operates as a mechanism for “maintenance”, “rescue” and “innovation” of afro cultural practices, as well as a link to create a political network within the Afro-Paraguayan movement.

Esta etnografia foi realizada junto ao Grupo Tradicional Kamba Cuá da comunidade afroparaguaia Kamba Kuá da cidade de Fernando de la Mora, região metropolitana de Assunção, Paraguai. A pesquisa possui como intuito entender como os afroparaguaios estão instrumentalizando seu patrimônio sonoro-performático para, sob o signo da etnicidade “afro”, moverem-se e conquistarem posições de poder reivindicatório em um campo político-identitário - o qual é uma múltipla e complexa teia de articulações entre atores locais, regionais, nacionais e transnacionais ou globais. O eixo teórico que guiou as reflexões está em sintonia com a antropologia musical, que entende as atividades músico-corporais, não somente como produtos artísticos, mas também como parte da construção do mundo social e conceitual. A hipótese que avanço é a de que esse grupo de artes performáticas músico-corporais, pioneiro neste processo político-identitário de luta pela manutenção da agrupação comunitária e do território de referência através do uso de suas práticas culturais e de sua etnicidade, colaborou para manter certa coesão interna. Através da objetificação, a coesão interna foi obtida pelo grupo operando como mecanismo de “manutenção”, “resgate” e “inovação” de suas culturas, ou servindo como elo para criação de uma rede política afroparaguaia. Também, pode-se percebê-los como instrumento mercantil e político para tornar as reivindicações afroparaguaias visíveis nacionalmente através de suas performances públicas. / This ethnography was conducted within the Kamba Kuá people and their artistic performance ensemble, an Afro-Paraguayan community located in the city of Fernando de la Mora, metropolitan area of Asuncion, Paraguay. The research aimed to understand how the Afro-Paraguayans are equipping their sound-performing heritage under the sign of “African” ethnicity to bargain power positions in a political identity field composed by a multiple and complex web of local/translocal connections. The theoretical frame is inspired by an anthropology of music which understands musical performances, not only as artistic products but also as part of the construction of social and conceptual world. My hypothesis is that the Kamba Kuá people use their artistic practices and their artistic group to maintain some internal cohesion within their ancestral territory. Through objectification of their performative culture, the Kamba Kuá artistic groups operates as a mechanism for “maintenance”, “rescue” and “innovation” of afro cultural practices, as well as a link to create a political network within the Afro-Paraguayan movement.

Isaac, the least of the patriarchs in the texts of the Old Testament and in the eyes of its readers, offers a surprising number of possibilities for new avenues of interpretation of the Pentateuch and related texts. These are arrived at in this study by first tracing a number of historical-developmental trajectories relevant to the author, namely from philosophy of science, through the main points from the history of Pentateuch studies in South Africa, via an argued choice for historical exegesis over against a-historical methods, and by means of a brief overview of the major insights that had shaped the scholarly study of the Old Testament patriarchs. The central part of the study is exegetical, with the main focus on Genesis 22, which has proven to be a key text. An overview of the historical issues related to this text is offered. Illustrating the limitations of a-historical exegesis, a narrative reading of Genesis 22 is undertaken, followed by a new historical interpretation of the same text, which draws on all of the foregoing. In the light of this new Genesis 22 interpretation, the other Isaac texts in the Old Testament are reviewed, as they would have been understood in post-exilic inner-Judean identity politics, namely between the tradents of the patriarchal traditions. Drawing throughout on an anecdotal view of Old Testament historiography, a theory proposed on the multiplex or composite nature of the personages of the patriarchs, though of Isaac in particular, and on the idea of the post-exilic inner-Judean identity politics, a creative, critical, historical retelling in almost narrative mode is offered of the history of Isaac in the Old Testament as a conclusion to the study. / Thesis (DD)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Old Testament Studies / unrestricted

Leaving Little Havana is the story of a young girl who leaves her comfortable middle-class home in La Habana just after the Cuban Revolution and, fighting to overcome cultural and language barriers, forges a new life in Miami. Dealing with a torn identity and discovering her voice are at the center of the narrative. After an endless string of escapades, she finally pulls herself together, learns the value of her inner strength by rising above bleak circumstances and gets accepted to journalism school in California. The book examines the devastating effects of immigration on a family and the struggle of a child of Cuban exiles, coming of age in a foreign society, to beat the obstacles that stand in her way to a stable and satisfying life. The narrator shows that Cuban immigrants share similar challenges with all who have aspired to make America their home.

This study investigates to what extent the curatorial project of Documenta 11 offered an operative cultural concept beyond multiculturality by favouring a transcultural approach to difference in the global sphere. It questions whether the central strategy employed – of postcoloniality as tactical manoeuvre to expand both the public and aesthetic spheres in order to create the conditions for an ethical engagement with difference – could facilitate a workable exemplar for showing art from different production sites, yet resist levelling of differences for an ever-expanding global art market. Proceeding from the postcolonial institutional critique envisioned by the artistic director, Okwui Enwezor, this study engages critically with the notion of opening-out Documenta in terms of inclusivity and equality of representation. It is argued that while the proposed postcolonial reinvigoration of overlapping public spheres held the promise of heterogeneous participation and minimised the formation of hegemonies, the expansion-project of Documenta 11 could on another level be interpreted to function as a globalising instrument usurping previously unexplored territories and discover marketable ‘others’ for a neocolonial cultural marketplace. Documenta 11 set out to subvert the expansionism of a global art market by constructing the global as postcolonial space in which proximity became the ethical space of engagement. It is the contention of this study that by emphasising the production of locality, the five Platforms localised the global discourse and expressly addressed how inclusivity and pluralism could be approached against the disparities created by globalisation processes. Historically, for artists from the South denial of proximity and coevalness based on colonial conceptions of space and time had meant exclusion from the canon and, where modernist notions persist, being labelled as deficient. In order to breach gaps, de-hegemonise cultural coding and aid transcultural translation, Documenta 11 located its project in its entirety in Homi K. Bhabha’s in-between space, in the gap, as it were. This orientation towards the gap is examined in terms of homelessness, displacement and nomadic subjectivity that impact the archiving logic of Documenta to become anarchival: memory production turned into counter-memory and the work of remembrance was shaped as counter-memorials. Criticised for a skewed commitment to social engagement, rather than aesthetics, the exhibition of Documenta 11 was nonetheless informed by a threshold aesthetic. Different kinds of oppositionality employed by artists, and adversarial approaches reinvigorated by Situationist and Third Cinema strategies put forward by the curators, are evaluated in this regard. An agonistic positioning is explored as, firstly, a counter-localisation to multiculturalism in a transcultural exhibition and, secondly, to resist assimilation and co-optation. It is argued that the embrace of the threshold, of thirdness and littoral curating by Documenta 11 could be considered an exemplar of a global trickster positioning aiming for an expansion of critical visual strategies. The contention of this study is that, having set out to grapple with the construction of multiple public spheres and the space of the transnational exhibition as a creole location, this Documenta at the very least opened up discursive spaces that could expand artistic discourses. At best, Documenta 11 uncovered routes by which difference in the transcultural field could be (re)negotiated. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Visual Arts / unrestricted

Chicana Literature: A Feminist Perspective of Gloria Anzaldúa's Identity Politics Doctoral Thesis Mgr. et Mgr. Tereza Jiroutová Kynčlová 2017 ABSTRACT In the analyses executed in the present doctoral thesis, Chicana literary production emerges as a complex example of a strategic and reflexive instrumentalization of literature in the form of a political and activist tool contributing to Chicanas' gender and cultural emancipation on the one hand. On the other hand, within the Chicana/o context, literature is employed for perfecting the politics of recognition of the marginalized nation typified by the specificity of its geographic, cultural, and social location on the U.S.-Mexico border where a plethora of socially constructed categories interact and intersect. The doctoral thesis further provides a gender analysis of literary representations of Chicana/o lived experience by Chicana feminist writers in general and by Gloria Anzaldúa in particular, and investigates how these representations help shape feminist thought not only in relation to the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, but within and beyond the United States. Moreover, the thesis supplies an interpretation of Anzaldúa's reconceptualization of the border concept as a pertinent means for comprehending Chicanas'/os' socio-cultural context and for forging a...

The thesis focuses on the reactions of readers to new ways of journalistic texts about computer games. These reactions often present themselves as a negative and intense rejection of writing about computer games beyond traditional modes of game journalism. Therefore, the thesis' main objective is to set these reactions to the context of changes in game culture and gamers' identity. The theoretical part describes the historical development of the computer games medium. It also summarizes Czech game journalism's evolution and describes the theoretical concepts of computer games as a specific medium, emphasizing the relationship between the medium and its consumer. The first part is enclosed by a chapter on fan cultures, especially on the gaming community. The central part of the research analyses users' comments, which react to analysed journalistic texts. Part of the analysis is also comprised of interviews with the authors of these texts. Such a constructed sample reveals that gamers and publicists perceive the computer games' nature and their roles in society differently. Furthermore, analysis has shown emphasis on identitarian themes in gaming community which manifested in rejecting the messages of analysed texts with reference to individual characteristics of its authors.

Denna studie behandlar fallet Bosnien, specifikt kriget i Bosnien på 90-talet och syftar till att undersöka hur social konstruktion och identitetspolitik påverkade den enskilda individens samt användes som maktmedel i Fausta Marianovics berättelse från kriget. Jag har alltså undersökt Fausta Marianovics självbiografi med Kenneth J. Gergens syn på social konstruktivism och identitetspolitik som huvudsaklig teoretisk utgångspunkt och narrativ analys med hjälp av biografiforskning som metod. I denna studie är det inte möjligt att komma fram till någon definitiv sanning men resultaten visar att den sociala konstruktionen och identitetspolitiken speglas som en stor del i vad som hände i Bosnien utifrån Fausta Marianovics berättelse samt att hennes egen upplevelse också påverkades.

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