Interfacing the cultural dialectics of commodification and resistance: Nubian spatial/narrative repertoires as markers of hybrid diaspora culture

Abstract

ABSTRACT Nubian culture is explored in the current study as a system of symbolic repertoires informed by dialectics. The study has drawn on the cultural approach to discourse (CAD) [Shi-xu. 2005. A Cultural Approach to Discourse. New York: Palgrave Macmillan; Shi-xu. 2014. “In Cultural Dialogue with CDA: Cultural Discourse Studies.” Critical Discourse Studies 11 (3): 360–369. https://do.org/10.1080/17405904.2014.890947; Shi-xu. 2015. “China’s National Defence in Global Security Discourse: A Cultural–Rhetorical Approach to Military Scholarship.” Third World Quarterly 36 (11): 2044–2058. https://do.org/10.1080/01436597.2015.1082423; Shi-xu. 2024. “Cultural Discourse Studies: A Culturalist Approach to Communication.” In The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Discourse Studies, edited by Shi-Xu, 9–24. London: Routledge] and spatial repertoires [Pennycook, Alastair. 2008. “Translingual English.” Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 31 (3): 30.1–30.9. https://do.org/10.2104/aral0830; Pennycook, Alastair. 2017. “Translanguaging and Semiotic Assemblages.” International Journal of Multilingualism 14 (3): 269–282. https://do.org/10.1080/14790718.2017.1315810] to explore Nubian culture as a dialectic phenomenon. The study has examined how Nubian culture is reformulated in terms of different performances in touristic and non-touristic sites. The adopted approach facilitates reaching a different view of Nubian culture which sits at the intersection of resistance and commodification.