Clash Of Identities Research Articles

How to Interpret the Security Situation in East Asia: Four New Books to Assist Our Understanding - Electoral Reform and National Security in Japan: From Pork to Foreign Policy. By Amy Catalinac. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. xvii, 248 pp. ISBN: 9781107120495 (cloth, also available in paper and as e-book). - The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security

How to Interpret the Security Situation in East Asia: Four New Books to Assist Our Understanding - Electoral Reform and National Security in Japan: From Pork to Foreign Policy. By Amy Catalinac. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. xvii, 248 pp. ISBN: 9781107120495 (cloth, also available in paper and as e-book). - The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security

La féminité du monde dans Le Premier Siècle apres Béatrice d’Amin Maalouf

In his futuristic novel entitled The First Century after Beatrice (1992), Amin Maalouf condemns the systematic discrimination of and crimes against women, focusing his efforts on an extremely disturbing phenomenon affecting some countries, in particular China and India, in terms of the lack of tens of millions of women in the general population. The phenomenon concerned is the killing of girls and the performing of selective abortions with a view to preventing female babies to be born, resulting in a gender imbalance that may push the world over the edge. The narrator – the protagonist of the story – a famous French entomologist, witnesses certain events in various parts of the world over the course of the first three decades of the 21 st century, which have endangered the existence of women and, consequently, the whole of humanity. Due to the abuse of a mysterious ‘substance’ that favourises giving birth to boys, the number of women begins to decrease drastically and the world plunges into violence and hatred. That ‘substance’, which is initially regarded as medicine, becomes an efficient pharmaceutical industry weapon, capable of decimating some hostile tribe, even an entire race of people. Men fear for their wives and daughters, who are now a rarity. By analysing multiple layers of the novel’s structure, female characters in particular, the paper first focuses on the writer’s attitudes on the significance of femininity and on the way our relation towards woman influences the future of contemporary societies. Then it shifts to Maalouf’s image of cruel misogynist traditions that deny a woman her right to life. In the end, it explores certain alarming phenomena that affect the world today, such as emigration on a mass scale caused by the economic gap between rich and poor countries, as well as identity clashes. In this analysis of Maalouf’s story on the defence of women’s existence, we also provide a review of humanistic messages by this French writer of Lebanese origin, a visionary for whom ‘the womanhood of the world’ is close to his heart.

Can the Frontier Write Back?

vi Editors’ Introduction Nathan Hopson and Ran Zwigenberg Can the Frontier Write Back? This issue of Verge is about reclaiming one of the F-­ words of academia: frontier (Klein 1996). Sometimes a frontier is just a political border or a border zone (witness frontière in French and biānjiāng in Chinese, for example ), but the word frontier is often highly charged, used to describe the outermost limits of expansion and “progress.” Space is the “final frontier,” Alaska the “last frontier,” and science the “endless frontier.”1 In much of the academic world, the term has been compromised by its association with imperial and colonial expansion into areas of “free land” or expansionism ’s concomitant treatment of “inferior” or “moribund” peoples whose land must be subjected to the whims of extractive capitalism as part of their redemptive, “tough love” education in civilization. Scholars often conceive of frontiers as contact zones, simultaneously productive and destructive “social spaces” in which multiple, often opposing actors and agendas “meet, clash, and grapple with each other” (Pratt 1991, 34).2 In this formulation, the chaotic clash and coalescence of ideas and identities compose a kind of creative destruction in which both the personal and the collective are reshaped and reborn (Hall 2009, 37). Frontier is thus a big-­tent, protean concept, plural even in the singular. It is a constellation of not-­always-­compatible ideas, one that has both evolved over time and remains plastic, multivalent, and multivocal. In April 2014, we cohosted a workshop at Yale University, sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies, exploring not the frontier per se but the utility of the frontier as a conversation starter, as a fertile concept for promoting dialogue and discourse between academics working on diverse aspects of Japanese history and society. Taking inspiration from Tessa Morris-­ Suzuki’s (1994, 1) observation that “the shape of things becomes clearer when one looks at the edge than when one looks at the centre,” we challenged participants to leverage the power of the frontier to Editors’ Introduction vii elucidate aspects of Japanese history that might otherwise be marginalized or overlooked. Our animating questions revolved around the utility of upending or inverting the “frontier gaze” that constitutes “free land” zonesofabsence—­absenceof“civilization”and“civilizedpeople”—­instead looking as much from the frontier as upon the frontier. “This frontier gaze kills the country,” as Deborah Bird Rose (2005, 60) observed, “making everything seem small, distant, and terribly faded.” What, then, can be gained from “writing back” from the frontier?3 The theme of this mini-­conference, “The Significance of ‘the Frontier’ to Japanese History,” borrowed from the most notorious description of the frontier, that of Frederick Jackson Turner’s epochal 1893 paper “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.” Turner was responding to the U.S. Census’s momentous declaration three years earlier that the frontier—­at least as a “line” of settlement—­no longer existed. Turner, who believed that the existence of the frontier line was the defining feature of a uniquely American history, reflected on the possible significance of both the frontier and its disappearance. Turner’s American frontier was defined by the westward movement of mostly male, mostly Anglo settlers whose encounter with the “wilderness” of the West stripped off the burdens of European history and society, allowing new (American) values and culture to be born. Though castigated with vigor and rigor by countless academics, especially since the rise of the new social histories in the 1960s, Turner’s heroic vision of American exceptionalism through devolution and re-­ volution retains a powerful hold on the popular imagination as a pervasive explanation for the production of American national identity. Perhaps for that reason, the term is a favorite of technology firms and venture capitalists, for instance.4 Our workshop asked whether the term frontier and its many possible meanings could be recuperated, rescued from its association with colonialism, triumphalism, Anglocentrism, sexism , and so on.5 While acknowledging that the “frontier” label is often complicit in creating and maintaining the hierarchical core–­ periphery, metropole–­ colony power relations between the world’s self-­ declared centers and other-­ designated margins, we came out of the workshop nevertheless believing that...

The Lessons of Bolivia

Across the West, political-party systems are disintegrating from the bottom up, as economic and social changes cause them to loose their moorings in the major cleavages that defined politics throughout the twentieth century. The experience of Bolivia, where an underinstitutionalized politics disintegrated earlier and faster, may offer analytical hints about the larger future. In societies where industrial workers as a self-conscious group have dwindled, a left-right axis of political competition based on the opposition between workers and capital is probably doomed. Identity politics anchored in ethnicity, religion, and place will most likely replace it. This is dangerous for democracy, as identity politics revolves around exclusive categories and zero-sum games. The rise of identity clashes is a sad turn for the West that may forever change who we are.

Translation and food: the case of mestizo writers

ABSTRACTFor many years, different disciplines have approached the concept of food as a complex semiotic system that reflects diverse lifestyles and cultural values. Not until very recently, however, was it first acknowledged in Translation Studies that mestizo writers, those who live in a global society within two cultures and who use an equally hybrid language politically in order to combat the asymmetry between their culture and the stronger culture, use food as a concept that reflects this clash of values and identities. What is interesting is that the writers mentioned in this article (Gloria Anzaldúa, Esmeralda Santiago, Chimamanda Adichie, Najat El Hachmi, among others) write the words related to food from the colonized culture in their ‘minor’ language, so as to reclaim its values as a challenge to the status quo. Taking as starting points Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of ‘minor’ language and Derrida’s ‘relevant’ translation, our proposal is that if translators wish to offer an ethical translation of these novels, they should leave these food-related words untranslated, (i.e. in the ‘minor’ language). Their non-translation creates that ‘third space’ (Bhabha) or ‘in-between’ (Spivak). It becomes a plural, heteroglossic rendition based on the belief that monolingualism is imposed by hegemonic power.

Should I Stay or Should I Go: A Clash of α-Cell Identity

Understanding mechanisms for maintaining pancreatic islet cell fate and function is important for addressing the urgent challenge of restoring islet β- and α-cell function in T1DM. In this issue of Cell Metabolism, Chakravarthy etal. (2017) identify a genetic mechanism by which mouse β-cells are spontaneously regenerated from adult α-cells.

Southern Crucible: The Making of an American Region by William A. Link

Reviewed by: Southern Crucible: The Making of an American Region by William A. Link Aaron Astor Southern Crucible: The Making of an American Region. By William A. Link. (New York and other cities: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. xx, 585, plus index. $49.95, ISBN 978-0-19-976360-3.) For college instructors seeking a comprehensive narrative text capturing the entirety of southern history, William A. Link’s Southern Crucible: The Making of an American Region serves as the finest survey produced to date. The breadth of coverage, analytical depth, historiographical relevance, and lucid but concise prose make for a superb volume accessible to undergraduates of all levels as well as to general readers. Southern Crucible successfully integrates the social, political, cultural, and economic history of the South and deftly places the region within its national context. Released as either two separate volumes divided chronologically at the end of Reconstruction, or as in the case under review, a combined and complete text, Southern Crucible takes readers from before European contact to the present. Beginning with a discussion of the demographic origins and environmental context of human settlement in the South, Link incorporates both Native American civilizations as well as Spanish and French coastal settlements in places that became part of the American South. From there the story proceeds with the development of a slave plantation system and British (and British-descended) settlers forcibly expanding that system into the Old Southwest. Taking in much of the latest scholarship on the Civil War, [End Page 241] emancipation, and Reconstruction, Link provides as good a depiction of the war experience as any to be found in a survey text. The real strength of the book lies in the second half, as Link’s expertise in the transformation of the New South shines through. The emergence of the Jim Crow system, continued impoverishment of the region, textile-based industrialization, and mass migration characterize the story from the 1880s to the 1920s. Chapters on the mid-twentieth century incorporate technological and social changes associated with World War II as the South simultaneously experienced the black freedom movement and the growth of Sun Belt suburbs. Link concludes by remarking how the modern South has remade America as a whole by assuming a greater degree of cultural, economic, and political power than at any other time since the Civil War. If there is a single, overarching argument driving the narrative it is the centrality of race and the “clash of identities” that gave shape to the plantation system and to the post–Civil War social order (p. xii). Link is careful to identify the instability of racial ideology, however, especially when emancipation, the Populist movement, the Great Depression, and the collapse of legal segregation briefly imperiled the class structure. But the long scope of coverage, ranging from the rise, sustenance, and decline of the plantation system to the adjustments to post–World War II modernity, underscores the persistence of race as a marker of social and political power in the South, even more than in the rest of the country. The transformation of southern evangelicalism receives less attention than expected. To be sure, Link discusses the early proliferation of evangelical revivalism in the early-nineteenth-century South, the rise of fundamentalism after World War I, and the ascendancy of the Christian Right in the 1980s. But these developments appear more as episodic interjections in the larger course of southern history than they do as markers of southern identity over time. Geographic coverage of the South is a bit uneven. Spanish and French cultural influences along the Gulf Coast garner extensive and welcome treatment, while southern Appalachia and the Ohio and Missouri River Valleys barely intrude on the narrative. Considering how often Appalachia and the border South exemplified the flashpoints of slavery’s extension, labor struggle, the limits of urbanization, and environmental destruction, the narrative would have been enriched by more thorough coverage of those regions. The book occasionally suffers from distracting editing errors that could easily confuse undergraduates relying on Southern Crucible as a course text. The sacking of Lawrence, Kansas, for example, is described as occurring two months after the Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) decision...

Scott A. Snyder and Brad Glosserman, Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security and the United States, (NY City: Columbia University Press, May 2015)

Scott A. Snyder and Brad Glosserman, Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security and the United States, (NY City: Columbia University Press, May 2015)

The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security and the United States, written by Brad Glosserman and Scott A. Snyder

The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security and the United States, written by Brad Glosserman and Scott A. Snyder

The Transformation of the Immigrant’s Identity and the Traditional and Contemporary Cultural Concepts in the Translation of Gish Jen’s Short Stories

Since Gish Jen was born to the Chinese immigrant parents in New York City, it is no wonder that her work provides a good insight into the immigrant’s experience. With reference to Derrida’s concepts of the arrivant and hospitality, the paper focuses on some issues that Gish Jen raises in her work: the transformation of the immigrant’s identity in America, the interaction between the two cultures and cultural and identity clashes. The paper also focuses on the strategies used to translate into the Serbian language such a work that contains some Chinese culture-specific concepts and phrases.

The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security and the United States by Brad Glosserman and Scott A. Snyder

Reviewed by: The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security and the United States by Brad Glosserman and Scott A. Snyder Ria Chae The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security and the United States by Brad Glosserman and Scott A. Snyder. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. 218pp. In-between the Christmas chimes and sounds of wooden mallets pounding rice for New Year festivities to usher in 2016, citizens of Japan and South Korea seemed to have been given a Christmas-New Year present by their governments—a surprise announcement that the two countries had reached an agreement with regard to the “comfort women” issue. The agreement was designed as a step toward improving a bilateral relationship that has been consistently undermined by historical and territorial disputes. Yet far from being pleased with the gift, many Japanese and Korean political leaders and intellectuals expressed their strong opposition to the deal. Now, several months after the announcement, though there are no visible signs of further souring in South Korean-Japanese relations—which in itself is progress—the two countries are still a galaxy away from developing amicable ties, to say nothing of becoming allies. The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash is an attempt to resolve the longstanding puzzle of what prevents Japan and South Korea from building an alliance relationship. The approach selected—looking at the issue through the prism of differing, or “clashing,” identities—may raise some eyebrows, for no two countries, even those having a friendly or alliance relationship, can be said to have “highly compatible” identities. Take a look at France and England or Germany, for example. But on second thought, it is difficult to find another pair of countries that have such mutual animosity as South Korea and Japan, despite their being in the same camp, joined by so many links, sharing geographic and geopolitical positioning, and having so many commonalities in their worldview, including their perceptions of threats and interests. On the other hand, the intention to build a trilateral alliance by having South [End Page 232] Korea and Japan come closer to each other is an American desire, conceived by and benefitting most apparently the US, even though the book’s authors go to great lengths to pinpoint the advantages of the arrangement to South Korea, Japan, and other regional players. In this light, the second major contribution of the book is bringing the American dimension to the discussion of the issue. The result is a comprehensive study that masterfully weaves in a wide range of related topics. Chapter 1 delineates the puzzle from the positions of policy-makers and theorists of international relations. Chapters 2 and 3 reconstruct the current identities of Japan and South Korea, respectively, based on interviews with elites and data from public opinion surveys over the last two decades. Given the objective of the study, it is natural that the chapters do not examine cultural or ethnic identities, but focus on political and outward-oriented identities, such as elite and public visions of their country’s standing in the world, attitudes to neighboring countries, and perceptions of foreign policy choices. It is here that the reader can most benefit from the expertise of the two authors—both of whom are leading analysts of Japanese and Korean politics in prominent Washington think tanks, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Brad Glosserman) and the Council on Foreign Relations (Scott Snyder)—although scholars of Korea may find the discussion of Korean identity less comprehensive and historically grounded as that of Japanese identity. Chapter 4 provides an overview of existing studies on the US-Japan-South Korea trilateral coordination and puts forth the main argument, that “the threat-based and alliance-based evaluations of conditions for Japan-ROK cooperation cannot overcome the psychological and emotional gaps in perspective on Japan-ROK relations” (p. 95). The argument is supported by an analysis of the development of South Korean-Japanese relations since the early 1990s and the concurrent evolution of public opinion in the two countries. Chapter 5 starts with an overview of the development of bilateral alliances between the US and Japan and South Korea in the post-Cold War period...

The Japan-South Korea identity clash: East Asian security and the United States

Preface 1. The Japan-South Korea Divide 2. Japan's Identity Crisis 3. South Korea's Growing Confidence 4. Convergence and Alienation in Japan-South Korea Relations 5. Implications for Alliance Management 6. Reinvigorating Trilateralism Notes Index About the Authors

Third Space Narratives and the clash of identities in Disney’s Brother Bear

The turn of the millennium has witnessed a renewed interest in narratives and narrative modes of thought and expression (Bruner, 1986). This paper aims to consider this recent interest in narratives, discussing the relationship between narratives and identity construction and/or understanding. The paper tries to embrace a political perspective of identity, discussing the concept both from the point of view of researchers who deal with the issue of narratives or life stories as identity construction and from the point of view of postmodern authors. The paper also discusses the concept of Third Space, as proposed by Bhabha (2000; 2003), using Disney’s Brother Bear as an example.

A Bold Approach to the Security Copperation between Korea and Japan? - Brad Glosserman and Scott A. Snyder. 2015. The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security and the United States. New York: Columbia University Press. -

A Bold Approach to the Security Copperation between Korea and Japan? - Brad Glosserman and Scott A. Snyder. 2015. The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security and the United States. New York: Columbia University Press. -

Cyprus: From an Argued Past to a Shared Future

Most individuals face traumatic events during their lifetime, but when entire groups of people are trapped inside the width and breadth of a horrific atrocity, their experiences can also become a shared or “collective trauma.” If an aim of conflict analysis scholars is to contribute to a sustained and peaceful resolution, the psychological and social impact of violence – upon the individual as well as the community – must be broadly examined and synthesized into future strategies and recommendations. The island of Cyprus is home to one of the longest standing and intractable conflicts since the establishment of the United Nations. Its history includes forced occupation, invasion, being traded, and betrayed. There have been military coupes, unilateral decision makers, and aggressive military interventions. Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots have their own historical, fixed, and salient collective trauma. It is a stubborn memory; one that appears and reappears as an old and unhealed wound. The aim of this qualitative study is three-fold: (1) to elucidate the role and effect of opposing Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot trauma narratives upon the peace process; (2) to examine the dialectic exacerbation between the two narratives; and (3) to explore how these narratives have been transmitted to new generations. This research is especially focused on how collective trauma narratives shape perceptions, but at the same time, how they shape social identity, and perceptions of the self. Through a comparison of conflict narratives, this study elaborates on how invalidated or unresolved collective trauma can serve as an insidious source of distrust, enemy imaging, a clash of identities among parties, and how it can also serve to justify each party’s actions and reactions. Also, the research aims to explore specific ways the people of Cyprus might be able to move forward from their argued and vehemently opposed understandings of the past, toward a more shared and cohesive future. Keywords: Sustainable Peace, Peaceful Coexistence, Cyprus Conflict, Conflict Narratives, Collective Trauma

China's Developing Arctic Policies: Myths and Misconceptions

The Arctic and Far North regions of the world have grown in importance for China's international interests in recent years, and in 2013 China became an observer state in the Arctic Council. Beijing has sought to develop an Arctic policy based on scientific research and partnerships, including in the areas of environmental studies and climate change issues, as well as development and economic issues. As the Arctic gains more international attention due to the effects of ice melting and the possibility of the region becoming a new source of resources, concerns have been raised about a scramble for riches and economic advantages. China, as a rising political and economic power, has been subject to much scrutiny, especially from the West, about its emerging agenda in the Arctic region. Although China is not an Arctic state, the concerns are based on predictions that Beijing is seeking to play a stronger and perhaps even dominant role in the Arctic, and this has led to many misconceptions about China's Arctic policy. The result has been a clash of identities between Chinese and Western perceptions, and in order to understand why these diverging views have appeared, it is necessary to first examine the origins of myths about China's regional Arctic policies, and then examine their roles, using constructivist theory, before suggesting ways for both China and the international community to address this divergence.

Support for asymmetric violence among Arab populations: The clash of cultures, social identity, or counterdominance?

Using a random sample of 383 Muslims and Christians in Lebanon and Syria, we explored the degree of public support for two distinct kinds of asymmetric violence—“fundamentalist violence” and “resistance violence”—against the United States as a function of three explanatory narratives: a clash of cultures narrative, social identity/self-categorization theory, and a counterdominance perspective. Multiple regression analyses showed that the factors most closely associated with support of asymmetric violence among Arab populations was very much dependent upon the type of asymmetric violence. Among both Christians and Muslims, the results showed that perceived incompatibility between Arab and American cultures was the best predictor of support for fundamentalist violence, while perceived American domination of the Arab world was the distinctly strongest predictor of support for resistance violence. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Eastern Desekratorz and Nuclear Metal Lust:1 Performing ‘Authentic’ black metal in Malaysian Borneo

Abstract Among the globalized metal scenes of South East Asia, Malaysian Borneo’s black metal (BM) demonstrates a great deal of referencing to the satanic themes and sonic rawness of the first wave of western BM bands such as Venom and Bathory. However, the ways in which Malaysian Borneo black metallers perform what they perceive to be ‘authentic’ BM identity clash with the reality of their everyday lives. In fact, their social backgrounds seem incompatible with the features of BM authenticity they strive to perform. What remains unclear is how and why Malaysian Borneo BM fans and musicians manifested their authentic belonging to this subculture by adopting the genre’s dominant anti-Christian imagery, when in most instances Christianity is not their religion of choice. Qualitative data were collected by ten weeks of ethnographic fieldwork and semi-structured interviews with eight members of Malaysian Borneo’s BM scene in the states of Sarawak and Sabah. Findings were supported by content analysis of local BM recordings, lyrics and interviews published in independently produced metal fanzines. BM ‘authenticity’ in Malaysian Borneo emerged as a theatrical pursuit of the most shocking global examples of primeval BM, which allows for a troubled, precarious coexistence between perceived ‘authentic’ BM aspirations and everyday social life in the respondents’ lives.

Escaping the Vicious Cycle: Symbolic Politics and History Disputes Between South Korea and Japan

Despite highly favorable conditions for cooperation, South Korea and Japan have experienced almost constant diplomatic conflict since the end of the Cold War, in large part because of unresolved history disputes. Through the theoretical approach of symbolic politics, I examine the substance of these conflicts and the processes by which specific group identities affect policymaking in and the relationship between the two countries. Based on three case studies I suggest that diplomatic conflicts are the result of identity clashes between a group of Japanese conservative elites and the South Korean public, manifested through the elite-led process of symbolic politics in Japan and the mass-led process in South Korea. These findings help analysts understand the patterns that these conflicts exhibit and assess the prospects for future reconciliation between South Korea and Japan.

To feel a look, To see the flesh: Phenomenological reflections of a pierced and tattooed pre-service teacher

This phenomenological reflection invites us to consider what it feels like to be looked at, as a visibly pierced and tattooed pre-service teacher, by a supervising principal. Drawing from Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception, theories of the look in education forwarded by Madeleine Grumet, Michel Foucault’s notion of the disciplinary gaze and Luce Irigaray’s work on intersubjectivity, this article delves into the layers of meaning within a piercing moment. This inquiry thus fleshes out what it feels like to be seen as a body-modified teacher in comparison to that of the “expected teacher” image during a time of struggle when one’s newly-forming teacher identity clashes with one’s personal self-identity. It also provides context for better understanding, both palpably and politically, the sense of vision in education from various perspectives: looking within, looking down, the uniform look, the stereotypical look and the mutual look