C. J. W.-L. Wee
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622098596
- eISBN:
- 9789882207509
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622098596.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This book is an account of how the modernization processes for postcolonial societies in Asia such as India, Malaysia, and Singapore are fraught with collaborations and conflicts between different ...
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This book is an account of how the modernization processes for postcolonial societies in Asia such as India, Malaysia, and Singapore are fraught with collaborations and conflicts between different socio-political, historical, economic, and cultural agents.Less
This book is an account of how the modernization processes for postcolonial societies in Asia such as India, Malaysia, and Singapore are fraught with collaborations and conflicts between different socio-political, historical, economic, and cultural agents.
C. J. W.-L. Wee
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622098596
- eISBN:
- 9789882207509
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622098596.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This book focuses on the modernization processes for the postcolonial societies in Asia. Its focus is directed mainly toward Singapore, a developed city that has contributed to the now-established ...
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This book focuses on the modernization processes for the postcolonial societies in Asia. Its focus is directed mainly toward Singapore, a developed city that has contributed to the now-established image and concept of Asian modern urban formation. This Asian modernity in many respects is an image of East meets West in which the centre and the periphery and the old and the new are interspersed. By looking at Singapore, the question of why the East Asian modern is usually perceived as an inauthentic and distorted form of modernity is addressed and answered.Less
This book focuses on the modernization processes for the postcolonial societies in Asia. Its focus is directed mainly toward Singapore, a developed city that has contributed to the now-established image and concept of Asian modern urban formation. This Asian modernity in many respects is an image of East meets West in which the centre and the periphery and the old and the new are interspersed. By looking at Singapore, the question of why the East Asian modern is usually perceived as an inauthentic and distorted form of modernity is addressed and answered.
Prathama Banerjee
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780198082224
- eISBN:
- 9780199082452
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198082224.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Indian Politics
This chapter examines the works about the relevance of time and knowledge in Indian political thought by Indian academics. It analyses works that question the purity, priority, and universality of ...
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This chapter examines the works about the relevance of time and knowledge in Indian political thought by Indian academics. It analyses works that question the purity, priority, and universality of European modernity, and those that show the political entanglement of the discipline of history. It also evaluates research literature that investigates the idea of a singular world history governed by the logic of capitalism and those that sought to recover histories suppressed by the ‘nationalist temporal scheme’. This chapter also considers the distinctiveness of the experience of postcolonial societies and the entanglement of epistemologies and hierarchies of power.Less
This chapter examines the works about the relevance of time and knowledge in Indian political thought by Indian academics. It analyses works that question the purity, priority, and universality of European modernity, and those that show the political entanglement of the discipline of history. It also evaluates research literature that investigates the idea of a singular world history governed by the logic of capitalism and those that sought to recover histories suppressed by the ‘nationalist temporal scheme’. This chapter also considers the distinctiveness of the experience of postcolonial societies and the entanglement of epistemologies and hierarchies of power.
Robert Lang
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231165075
- eISBN:
- 9780231537193
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231165075.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter begins with a background on the rise to power of Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia's first president, and the bloodless coup of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on November 7, 1987, that ended Bourguiba's ...
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This chapter begins with a background on the rise to power of Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia's first president, and the bloodless coup of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on November 7, 1987, that ended Bourguiba's 60-year reign. The discussion then turns to New Tunisian Cinema and its allegorical content. Like the cinemas of most postcolonial societies, Tunisian cinema is preoccupied with the politics of emancipation and identity; but in their role as active participants in the construction of a national/cultural identity, the filmmakers find themselves confronting dilemmas on several fronts. Whereas the first generation of post-independence Tunisian films focused on emancipation from colonial or first-generation neocolonial oppression, New Tunisian Cinema considered oppressive/repressive structures within the society itself: the neopatriarchal family, government corruption, the authoritarianism of the state, the mafia-like activities of President Ben Ali's extended family, the growth of political Islam, and so on.Less
This chapter begins with a background on the rise to power of Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia's first president, and the bloodless coup of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on November 7, 1987, that ended Bourguiba's 60-year reign. The discussion then turns to New Tunisian Cinema and its allegorical content. Like the cinemas of most postcolonial societies, Tunisian cinema is preoccupied with the politics of emancipation and identity; but in their role as active participants in the construction of a national/cultural identity, the filmmakers find themselves confronting dilemmas on several fronts. Whereas the first generation of post-independence Tunisian films focused on emancipation from colonial or first-generation neocolonial oppression, New Tunisian Cinema considered oppressive/repressive structures within the society itself: the neopatriarchal family, government corruption, the authoritarianism of the state, the mafia-like activities of President Ben Ali's extended family, the growth of political Islam, and so on.
Paul Patton
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- December 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199391783
- eISBN:
- 9780190213213
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199391783.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History, Social History
Despite the widespread recognition that treaties with indigenous peoples were instruments of empire, the idea of a treaty relationship continues to play a powerful role in the political imaginary of ...
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Despite the widespread recognition that treaties with indigenous peoples were instruments of empire, the idea of a treaty relationship continues to play a powerful role in the political imaginary of postcolonial societies. This chapter explores this ambivalence with reference to three settler societies established under British colonial rule: Australia, Canada, and Aotearoa/New Zealand. It contrasts the history of treaty making and the nonobservance of treaties with the present function of the treaty ideal in projects for reconciliation, conflict resolution, and constitutional reform. The Canadian philosopher James Tully provides the most detailed account of the treaty relationship as a normative ideal for a genuinely postcolonial constitution. The chapter concludes with a critical examination of the normative basis for Tully’s treaty ideal and argues that the conditions for a genuinely postcolonial liberal society are the same as for any society with diverse cultural, moral, and religious traditions.Less
Despite the widespread recognition that treaties with indigenous peoples were instruments of empire, the idea of a treaty relationship continues to play a powerful role in the political imaginary of postcolonial societies. This chapter explores this ambivalence with reference to three settler societies established under British colonial rule: Australia, Canada, and Aotearoa/New Zealand. It contrasts the history of treaty making and the nonobservance of treaties with the present function of the treaty ideal in projects for reconciliation, conflict resolution, and constitutional reform. The Canadian philosopher James Tully provides the most detailed account of the treaty relationship as a normative ideal for a genuinely postcolonial constitution. The chapter concludes with a critical examination of the normative basis for Tully’s treaty ideal and argues that the conditions for a genuinely postcolonial liberal society are the same as for any society with diverse cultural, moral, and religious traditions.
Robert Baron and Ana C. Cara (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617031069
- eISBN:
- 9781617031076
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617031069.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
Global in scope and multidisciplinary in approach, this book explores the expressive forms and performances that come into being when cultures encounter one another. Creolization is presented as a ...
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Global in scope and multidisciplinary in approach, this book explores the expressive forms and performances that come into being when cultures encounter one another. Creolization is presented as a powerful marker of identity in the postcolonial creole societies of Latin America, the Caribbean, and the southwest Indian Ocean region, as well as a universal process that can occur anywhere cultures come into contact. An extraordinary number of cultures from Haiti, Martinique, Guadeloupe, the southern United States, Trinidad and Tobago, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Réunion, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Suriname, Jamaica, and Sierra Leone are discussed in these essays. Drawing from the disciplines of folklore, anthropology, ethnomusicology, literary studies, history, and material culture studies, essayists address theoretical dimensions of creolization and present in-depth field studies. Topics include adaptations of the Gombe drum over the course of its migration from Jamaica to West Africa; uses of “ritual piracy” involved in the appropriation of Catholic symbols by Puerto Rican brujos; the subversion of official culture and authority through playful and combative use of “creole talk” in Argentine literature and verbal arts; the mislabeling and trivialization (“toy blindness”) of objects appropriated by African Americans in the American South; the strategic use of creole techniques among storytellers within the islands of the Indian Ocean; and the creolized character of New Orleans and its music. In the introductory essay, the editors address both local and universal dimensions of creolization, and argue for the centrality of its expressive manifestations for creolization scholarship.Less
Global in scope and multidisciplinary in approach, this book explores the expressive forms and performances that come into being when cultures encounter one another. Creolization is presented as a powerful marker of identity in the postcolonial creole societies of Latin America, the Caribbean, and the southwest Indian Ocean region, as well as a universal process that can occur anywhere cultures come into contact. An extraordinary number of cultures from Haiti, Martinique, Guadeloupe, the southern United States, Trinidad and Tobago, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Réunion, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Suriname, Jamaica, and Sierra Leone are discussed in these essays. Drawing from the disciplines of folklore, anthropology, ethnomusicology, literary studies, history, and material culture studies, essayists address theoretical dimensions of creolization and present in-depth field studies. Topics include adaptations of the Gombe drum over the course of its migration from Jamaica to West Africa; uses of “ritual piracy” involved in the appropriation of Catholic symbols by Puerto Rican brujos; the subversion of official culture and authority through playful and combative use of “creole talk” in Argentine literature and verbal arts; the mislabeling and trivialization (“toy blindness”) of objects appropriated by African Americans in the American South; the strategic use of creole techniques among storytellers within the islands of the Indian Ocean; and the creolized character of New Orleans and its music. In the introductory essay, the editors address both local and universal dimensions of creolization, and argue for the centrality of its expressive manifestations for creolization scholarship.
Roy Armes
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748621231
- eISBN:
- 9780748670789
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748621231.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book is a study linking filmmaking in the Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) with that in francophone West Africa and examining the factors (including Islam and the involvement of African ...
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This book is a study linking filmmaking in the Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) with that in francophone West Africa and examining the factors (including Islam and the involvement of African and French governments) which have shaped post-independence production. The main focus is the development over forty years of two main traditions of African filmmaking: a social realist strand examining the nature of postcolonial society; and a more experimental approach where emphasis is placed on new stylistic patterns able to embrace history, myth, and magic. The work of younger filmmakers born since independence is examined in the light of these two traditions.Less
This book is a study linking filmmaking in the Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) with that in francophone West Africa and examining the factors (including Islam and the involvement of African and French governments) which have shaped post-independence production. The main focus is the development over forty years of two main traditions of African filmmaking: a social realist strand examining the nature of postcolonial society; and a more experimental approach where emphasis is placed on new stylistic patterns able to embrace history, myth, and magic. The work of younger filmmakers born since independence is examined in the light of these two traditions.
Maria Manuel Lisboa
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780853235668
- eISBN:
- 9781846313851
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780853235668.003.0009
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This chapter considers Mia Couto's narratives. Couto's status questions the politics of representation in a postcolonial society which emerged from five hundred years of imperial and colonial ...
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This chapter considers Mia Couto's narratives. Couto's status questions the politics of representation in a postcolonial society which emerged from five hundred years of imperial and colonial occupation into a state of civil war. This chapter addresses Couto's fragile subject status through the prism of the canonical insights of Homi Bhabha. It signalises Ascolino's fearful failure to exploit the stratagems of subversive mimicry which are so important a part of Bhabha's analysis of colonial subjectivity. It discusses ‘De como se vazou a vida de Ascolino do Perpétuo Socorro’ and ‘O último aviso do corvo falador’.Less
This chapter considers Mia Couto's narratives. Couto's status questions the politics of representation in a postcolonial society which emerged from five hundred years of imperial and colonial occupation into a state of civil war. This chapter addresses Couto's fragile subject status through the prism of the canonical insights of Homi Bhabha. It signalises Ascolino's fearful failure to exploit the stratagems of subversive mimicry which are so important a part of Bhabha's analysis of colonial subjectivity. It discusses ‘De como se vazou a vida de Ascolino do Perpétuo Socorro’ and ‘O último aviso do corvo falador’.
Ahmed Kanna, Amélie Le Renard, and Neha Vora
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781501750298
- eISBN:
- 9781501750328
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501750298.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
Over nearly two decades during which they have each been conducting fieldwork in the Arabian Peninsula, the authors have regularly encountered exoticizing and exceptionalist discourses about the ...
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Over nearly two decades during which they have each been conducting fieldwork in the Arabian Peninsula, the authors have regularly encountered exoticizing and exceptionalist discourses about the region and its people, political systems, and prevalent cultural practices. These persistent encounters became the springboard for the book, a reflection on conducting fieldwork within a “field” that is marked by such representations. The book's focus is on deconstructing the exceptionalist representations that circulate about the Arabian Peninsula. It analyzes what exceptionalism does, how it is used by various people, and how it helps shape power relations in the societies studied. The book proposes ways that this analysis of exceptionalism provides tools for rethinking the concepts that have become commonplace, structuring narratives and analytical frameworks within fieldwork in and on the Arabian Peninsula. It asks: What would not only Middle East studies, but studies of postcolonial societies and global capitalism in other parts of the world look like if the Arabian Peninsula was central, rather than peripheral or exceptional, to ongoing sociohistorical processes and representational practices? The book explores how the exceptionalizing discourses that permeate Arabian Peninsula studies spring from colonialist discourses still operative in anthropology and sociology more generally, and suggest that de-exceptionalizing the region within their disciplines can offer opportunities for decolonized knowledge production.Less
Over nearly two decades during which they have each been conducting fieldwork in the Arabian Peninsula, the authors have regularly encountered exoticizing and exceptionalist discourses about the region and its people, political systems, and prevalent cultural practices. These persistent encounters became the springboard for the book, a reflection on conducting fieldwork within a “field” that is marked by such representations. The book's focus is on deconstructing the exceptionalist representations that circulate about the Arabian Peninsula. It analyzes what exceptionalism does, how it is used by various people, and how it helps shape power relations in the societies studied. The book proposes ways that this analysis of exceptionalism provides tools for rethinking the concepts that have become commonplace, structuring narratives and analytical frameworks within fieldwork in and on the Arabian Peninsula. It asks: What would not only Middle East studies, but studies of postcolonial societies and global capitalism in other parts of the world look like if the Arabian Peninsula was central, rather than peripheral or exceptional, to ongoing sociohistorical processes and representational practices? The book explores how the exceptionalizing discourses that permeate Arabian Peninsula studies spring from colonialist discourses still operative in anthropology and sociology more generally, and suggest that de-exceptionalizing the region within their disciplines can offer opportunities for decolonized knowledge production.
Michael G. Cronin
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198749394
- eISBN:
- 9780191869754
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198749394.003.0013
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature, Prose (inc. letters, diaries)
This chapter maps the mid-century period of the Irish novel in terms of the various aesthetic choices which Irish writers took as they contended imaginatively with the contradictions and conundrums ...
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This chapter maps the mid-century period of the Irish novel in terms of the various aesthetic choices which Irish writers took as they contended imaginatively with the contradictions and conundrums of modernity, and the specific form which these took in a postcolonial society. After all, James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (1939) destroyed the conventions of literary realism in a carnivalesque conflagration. He also dismantled the linguistic structures of intelligibility that uphold this mode of representation, yet he simultaneously produced an interfusion of Irish history with world history and of world history with global myth. Thus, this chapter conceives of a distinction between experimentation and realism as a performative rather than a constative assertion. The advantage of this model is that it not only recalibrates the distinction between realism and modernism in Irish writing, but also dissolves any clean division between Irish writers critically surveying the condition of modern Ireland.Less
This chapter maps the mid-century period of the Irish novel in terms of the various aesthetic choices which Irish writers took as they contended imaginatively with the contradictions and conundrums of modernity, and the specific form which these took in a postcolonial society. After all, James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (1939) destroyed the conventions of literary realism in a carnivalesque conflagration. He also dismantled the linguistic structures of intelligibility that uphold this mode of representation, yet he simultaneously produced an interfusion of Irish history with world history and of world history with global myth. Thus, this chapter conceives of a distinction between experimentation and realism as a performative rather than a constative assertion. The advantage of this model is that it not only recalibrates the distinction between realism and modernism in Irish writing, but also dissolves any clean division between Irish writers critically surveying the condition of modern Ireland.