Critical Journey Research Articles

Inescapable Reflexivity for Social Science Research in India for Now: A Personal Dialogue with the Lived Contexts of Anthropology

This is a reflexively critical account of the lived practices particularly of anthropology that might stand broadly valid as well for other social science disciplines in most of the Indian Universities except a few elite ones. This is because the ways the dominant discourses of institutional learning in postcolonial India—more particularly of ‗science‘ disciplines—persist as foreign to and outside our everyday lived realities that their disorienting consequences surface more pronouncedly and specifically in higher education. The writing materializes my becoming of a site of dialogues regarding why, how and what might be the urgent reflexivity about the ―decline narrative‖ in ‗social sciences‘. The reflexive responses, nonetheless, are selective about the themes that I consider salient. They include: (a) how and why we need to accept our ‗reality‘ as ‗hybridity‘ that is assumed to complete and compete for the full circle of going global (‗western‘) and then to create the ‗real‘ differences in the research outcomes; (b) the reflexively critical journey beginning with where and how we stand in field research by merely „being there‟; (c) how we might redraw the possibilities of social science in India and finally (d) why and how the ambivalence of hybrid in-betweenness might help us speaking out ourselves. Thus, we cannot escape how we, like most of the postcolonial nations, unwittingly moved to the stabilising singularity at pre-neoliberal order that hardly could disembed us from the enduring ground of reflexive everydayness, even at the rise of neoliberal unstable multitude. Keywords : Reflexivity, Social Science, Anthropology, Dialogue, Hybridity, Ambivalence, Postcolonial, Merely being there, Fieldwork, Knowing/Becoming, Neoliberal, Education

Critically Conscious or Dangerously Dysconscious?: An Analysis of Teacher Candidates' Concerns in Urban Schools

ABSTRACTDrawing on a teacher concerns framework, alongside notions of critical consciousness, this article examines the extent to which teacher candidates' (TCs') concerns are related in any way to the critical scholarship they have engaged with throughout their teacher education coursework. Utilizing teacher candidates' written dilemmas of practice during student teaching as the primary data source, the authors utilize consensual qualitative research for data analysis and share results within and across concern categories as related to notions of critical consciousness and dysconsciousness (King, 1991). Results indicate that TCs' posted self concerns lacked a critical inward journey; that TCs were more likely to be critically conscious regarding their own positionality in schools, yet overwhelmingly dysconscious when talking about students and families; and that large percentages of dysconscious task concerns seem related to TCs' lack of critically conscious posts about self. The authors suggest the importance of more focused mentorship and assignments aimed at asking questions designed to promote critically conscious ways of being in classrooms, and similarly suggest the importance of considering notions of critical consciousness in concerns-based studies moving forward. The authors end with a note of caution on the movement toward “core practices” in teacher preparation and instead suggest the importance of programming that focuses on uncovering and eradicating dysconsciousness among TCs working with historically marginalized youth.

La justicia transicional del posacuerdo con las FARC-EP

Tras doce años de introducido por primera vez el discurso de la justicia transicional en el país, la firma del acuerdo de paz entre el Gobierno nacional y las farc-ep plantea la necesidad de analizar este instrumento, eminentemente político, a la luz del desarrollo de políticas públicas e instrumentos previos sustentados en la justicia transicional y el derecho constitucional a la paz. Para ello se hace un recorrido crítico sobre la justicia transicional en Colombia y la coherencia e integralidad del contenido de las medidas previas, con los postulados y contenidos del acuerdo. Se parte de la hipótesis de que en Colombia existe un marco constitucional transicional que obliga a integrar los esfuerzos en una política de justicia transicional única, concatenada e integral, que garantice la seguridad jurídica de lo pactado, el fortalecimiento institucional y el goce efectivo de los derechos de las víctimas del conflicto armado.

Critical journey evolving graphs

End-to-end connectivity in dynamic networks may not hold at a given point of time. Nevertheless, temporal paths (or journeys) may still exist over time and space due to the inherent evolution of networks. Large amount of work has been done to examine foremost journeys and connectivity of dynamic networks. However, as far as we know, there is still no work which can address foremost journeys calculation in continuous time under scenarios where contacts have arbitrary durations and edge traversal time is non-negligible. To this end, we propose a model named critical journey evolving graphs (CJEGs) to effectively characterize the temporal connectivity of dynamic networks. By CJEGs, a foremost journey between any pair of nodes starting at any time can be inferred directly. Accordingly, temporal connectivity metrics such as velocity, efficiency and density can be figured out. To construct CJEGs, a distributed algorithm called CJEG-PERST is developed, which can update CJEGs online adaptively with the evolution of networks, thus avoiding the hassle of heavy computation and memory overhead. We conduct extensive experiments and analysis to explore the temporal connectivity of dynamic networks by applying CJEGs to synthetic and realistic datasets, as well as making comparison with other models such as temporal reachability graphs (TRGs). Experimental results show CJEGs yield many fresh and enlightening insights into connectivity of dynamic networks. Especially, two important applications of CJEGs are further discussed, namely how to derive TRGs and calculate theoretical performance benchmark for opportunistic routing. These explorations preliminarily demonstrate the promising potentials of the CJEGs model.

Writing from other margins. Difference, exception, and translation in the portuguese-speaking world: counterpoints between literary representations and critical paradigms

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2017v37n1p65Enquanto enquadramento conceptual para estudar as chamadas literaturas pós-coloniais, a tradução constitui um paradigma crítico complexo que abre inúmeros caminhos teóricos a partir de onde ler e situar as representações literárias sob uma perspetiva global. No que concerne ao que pode ser definido como literaturas africanas eurófonas (Zabus, 2007), o conceito de tradução oferece a possibilidade de problematizar diversas questões críticas, em particular as que dizem respeito à “diferença cultural” (Bhabha, 1994) e, por isso, à “materialização [textual] do outro” (Ahmed, 2000). Neste sentido, a tradução torna-se um conceito operativo não apenas para uma hermenêutica textual, mas também para uma reflexão epistemológica mais ampla, permitindo discutir os paradigmas que caracterizam a receção crítica do romance africano e, portanto, o próprio campo da crítica literária africana. Através da análise de autores e textos provenientes das chamadas literaturas africanas lusófonas, o presente artigo visa traçar um percurso crítico que destaque as possibilidades teóricas que o conceito de tradução oferece, de modo a que as representações literárias possam ser abordadas como “experiências epistemológicas” cruciais (García Canclini, 2012, 50), a partir das quais se pode ler e compreender as alterações, os desafios e as transformações do nosso tempo.

Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines by Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco

Reviewed by: Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines by Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco Ricardo G. Abad SIR ANRIL PINEDA TIATCO Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2015. 209 pages. Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines gathers six essays on local theaters and performances framed by an introduction to theater and performance studies in the Philippines and a concluding chapter on the future of these fields. Using “the trope of entablado [stage] as a central idiom” (18), the book’s “itinerary” takes the reader from the performance space of the theater auditorium to the entablado of a theater festival, the streets, the river, the foyer of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), and the gathering of people engaged in an academic debate. It is a lively and critical journey: Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco assesses his chosen sites through the interdisciplinary lens of performance studies, which, consciously or not, is laden with a heavy dose of sociology’s debunking motif. In this motif existing social arrangements are not what they claim to be. Rather, these are social constructions borne out of negotiations and compromises that seek to privilege something or the other. The first leg of this itinerary, an academic debate, sets the debunking tone. “What is Philippine Drama?” asks Nicanor Tiongson in an influential [End Page 129] essay. Tiongson’s answer takes the essentialist nationalist position, one that dismisses foreign influences, embraces only Filipino culture, and moves people to action. Tiatco rebuts this view. He cites the diversity of Philippine theater, the heterogeneity of Philippine cultural identities, and the problem of privileging one kind of Philippine theater over others. While Tiatco appreciates the historical contingencies that shape this brand of scholarship, seeing it as a form of “strategic nationalism” that aims to “achieve certain goals against the hegemony of colonial and imperial forces” (27), he asks whether the paradigm remains relevant in the era of globalization. Shouldn’t the paradigm have changed? Can the approach remain nationalistic but still be open to other kinds of theater? Philippine-nesses, not Philippine-ness? A similar issue gets debunked in the second leg of the book’s itinerary, one enacted in the academic halls of the University of the Philippines (UP) at Diliman where a Komedya Festival was held in 2008. The festival witnessed a move made by esteemed artists to define the komedya as a heritage marker and to install it as national theater. Tiatco again challenges the position. The call to heritage, he says, is more political than historical, an assertion that privileges the stand of influential artists and overlooks the fact that heritage is a “contested sociocultural category” (60). Moreover, despite its variations, the komedya stays anchored in the ideological battle between Catholics and Muslims. It is a theater that polarizes rather than affirms religious identities and hoists one as superior to the other. What is needed, Tiatco advocates, is the notion of a nation as home, not as a stable and fixed entity but a site of social engagement, “a community enjoying and respecting difference but at the same time attempting to situate each other on an idea of common ground” (68). This notion of social engagement animates the third and fourth legs of this itinerary. These essays tackle two religious rituals in Pampanga that the author documents in ethnographic detail. One ritual, locally known as Apung Iru Libad, occurs on the river. The other, a Lenten ritual involving the nailing on the cross, happens on the streets. Both are performances that entail the interaction of church officials who insist on official practice and local community members who assert their own. Negotiations and compromises ensued, and these, to Tiatco, led to a sharing of power in a performance of “communal intimacy” (86). No group dominated the conduct of these events. Thus, what appears on the outside as a ritual of communal intimacy is, in fact, mired in contradictions and ambivalence. [End Page 130] And the church tolerates them and plays its part, finding comfort perhaps in the observation of Frank Lynch, SJ, that folk Catholicism makes Filipinos better Catholics. But what happens when solidarity never comes? The fifth leg...

Del conocimiento clásico al trabajo como posibilidad de cambio

En este texto se expone al lector un recorrido crítico sobre los fundamentos del método científico y su trascendencia como medio generador de conocimientos, para posteriormente desembocar en el análisis de algunos aspectos referentes al trabajo. Para este fin se toman en cuenta conceptos como la bioética y la procrastinación, derivando con una visión fundamentada en el pensamiento complejo, en una propuesta integradora que permita contrarrestar los efectos de la inmediatez en los trabajadores del sector empresarial.Planteando la posibilidad de conjugar elementos de la terapia grupal, la psicología analítica y la psicología organizacional, a partir del pensamiento complejo; se pretende abrir la posibilidad de generación de espacios reflexivos al interior de las empresas que contribuyan de alguna manera a rescatar el sentido individual detrás de las funciones laborales. Lejos de mostrarse como la mejor alternativa, la propuesta de generación de encuentros grupales, busca fomentar el interés sobre la temática expuesta, invitando al lector al cuestionamiento y búsqueda de alternativas que contribuyan a una concientización, que apoyada en la psicología, genere mejoras en la calidad de vida de los trabajadores

Crossing the Line

On 7 October 1899, HMS Terrible’s critical journey to join the Second Boer War (1899–1902) had stopped. Crew members adorned costumes and a procession of characters from nautical folklore were led by King Neptune across the bow of the ship. The performers submerged one another in to tanks of water, initiating the newest company members in to the ‘Ancient Order of the Deep’. After uncomfortable acts were endured, the company were transformed from their former status as ‘pollywogs’ and re-emerged as ‘shellbacks’. Upon crossing the Equator, Terrible’s crew had completed a rite of passage known as ‘Crossing the Line’, a ritual at sea maintained by the Royal Navy for centuries.By evaluating the significance of the mass participation, craftsmanship and creativity employed by Terrible’s crew that day, this article puts forward motivations for ‘Crossing the Line’ that go beyond simply maintaining cultural heritage and entertainment as light relief from a monotonous work routine. Situated within mobility studies and the work of cultural theorists including Kevin Hetherington, Victor Turner and Michel Foucault, the article identifies the liminal and heterotopic zones that layer the space of this floating theatre. It reveals how this rite of passage may have been used as a tool to negotiate an open tension between mobility and rootedness in the construction of this crew’s individual and communal identity. Furthermore, by drawing on journals, newspapers and photographs that document the event, it addresses the wider implications of disseminating reports and images of this performance at sea for the public on land.

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Learning Objectives: The creation of person centred care is central to national and international policy. One way of achieving person centred care within the critical care environment is to ensure that patients and family members co-produce healthcare services and are involved in the quality improvement agenda. This can be achieved through the use of a Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC). Methods: We invited 12 patient and family members to our first PFAC. We recruited a variety of participants including those who had made a complaint about aspects of our service and those from different backgrounds and specialities. The PFAC met bimonthly in a room off of the ICU. The PFAC was co-chaired by a patient or carer. The agenda for each meeting was also co-produced by the Council. Results: The PFAC identified five main stages of the critical care journey for patient and carers: arrival in ICU, the ICU stay, discharge to the ward, discharge home and ongoing recovery. This led to significant changes within our ICU including: improvements in the provision of information for relatives and patients, improved signage to the ICU and the creation of an information leaflet for ward staff. The PFAC has also helped design our current ICU rehabilitation program. Changes to the downstream ward areas are an ongoing area of work but will include patient volunteers. The PFAC will approve a final report which will be sent to the Chief Executive of our organization. This ICU PFAC Framework will be used for future Councils in our hospital to shape improvements in care. Conclusions: The creation of a PFAC is feasible and appropriate in the ICU environment. Our PFAC has helped established meaningful change in both our ICU and hospital.

When Objects Fail

ABSTRACTDrawing terms from the philosophers Bruno Latour, Michel Serres, and Martin Heidegger, this essay argues that one way to put thing theory to use in design criticism is by analyzing objects that failed. Instead of starting the critical journey with pictures of successful objects on pedestals, this investigation begins with recognized failures, or with failures that the object supposedly fixes. When something fails, we want to know why—a question that immediately moves design criticism past its obsession with style, form, movements, and biographies and into a mode of explication.

Learning through a Reflection: Becoming an effective PhD supervisor

The aim of this paper is to learn how to be a better or more effective supervisor through a critical reflection on my own supervisory experience. The importance of the effective supervision is highlighted in view of the established link between effective supervision and greater completion rates of postgraduate degrees, where the latter is main focus of higher education institutions/authorities in the last decade. The reflection is used to not only to justify the way we were supervised, but to challenge it and find ways how we can improve our effective supervision. Several researchers argue that supervisors usually adopt the same supervisory practice and style as the one they experienced themselves as research students (Pearson and Brew, 2002; Lee, 2008; Wright et al., 2008), notwithstanding additional factors that might influence the effectiveness of supervision. Pearson and Brew (2002) argue that new supervisors should have an ability to critically reflect on their past experience as research student in light of the theoretical conceptions and research findings in the literature on supervision, a process called “a critical reflective journey” by Tait (2009, p.193). The methodology for this research is based on the framework for effective supervision adopted by Engebretson et al. (2008) who establish eleven characteristics of an effective supervision. Parallel to the examination of each of those individual characteristics, I provide my insight into each characteristic by reflecting on my own experience. The structure of the paper is as follows. Section 1 introduces the importance of an effective supervision in the modern educational environment, as well as the value that critical reflection brings to the learning. Section 2 provides a literature review of the characteristics of a good supervisor, along with a personal experience related to each of them. Section 3 concludes. Key words: Reflection, Learning, Supervision, Students, Oversees

A “Dirty Old Man” on Stage: Charles Bukowski and the Underground Press in the 1960s

While the underground press was instrumental in turning Charles Bukowski into a popular figure in the alternative publishing scene in the late 1960s, its relevance in Bukowski's early career has been largely overlooked. For Bukowski, the underground newspapers were an ideal outlet for his prolific output, and, unlike the little magazines—where his work was nonetheless staunchly championed—they paid him for his literary efforts. This previously uncharted territory is here illustrated by means of a critical journey through the main periodical appearances of the period, stressing how crucial Open City—where his infamous, unvarnished “Notes of a Dirty Old Man” columns made their debut—Nola Express, Los Angeles Free Press and many other underground outfits were in helping Bukowski become an international icon.

Unmasking the Inequitable Discipline Experiences of Urban Black Girls: Implications for Urban Educational Stakeholders

There is a large body of research examining the discipline experiences of Black males (Lewis et al. in Souls: A Critical Journey of Black Politics, Culture, and Society,2009; Skiba et al. in The Urban Review, 34, 317–348, 2002); however, less is known about the types of behavioral infractions Black female students exhibit and the discipline sanctions imposed for Black girls for such infractions. As a result, the purpose of this study is to examine the type of discipline infractions exhibited by Black female students enrolled in an urban school district and to explore whether the pattern of discipline infractions and sanctions imposed for Black girls disproportionately differs from all female students, but more specifically White and Hispanic females. Results suggest that Black girls are overrepresented in exclusionary discipline practices and Black girls reason for discipline referrals differs significantly from White and Hispanic girls. Based on these findings, recommendations are provided for urban educational stakeholders.

The Role of the Narrator in Literary Biography

"The Imperative of Narrative in Literary Biography": This essay discusses elements of creativity that distinguish literary biography as a literary genre in its own right—different from history, different from fiction, but one that requires the skills both of the researcher and of the artist to reach its full potential. Chiefly, Middlebrook argues, it requires the invention of a narrator who serves as a contemporary guide to the materials of the book, telling the life as a story. This narrator may be presented in the first person, or be entirely "transparent"; but either way, the narrator is a fully literary creation designed as a channel of subjectivity through which the historical materials of the biography are delivered to readers. Middlebrook draws her examples from Lyndall Gordon, Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft; Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare; Ian Hamilton, Robert Lowell, A Biography; and Janet Malcolm, Reading Chekhov: A Critical Journey.

A emergência do acompanhamento terapêutico e as políticas de saúde mental

Este trabalho visa analisar o processo de emergência do acompanhamento terapêutico (AT). Pretende-se, desse modo, fazer uma viagem crítica pelo mundo das ciências da saúde, tendo como campo de problematização as atividades do AT a partir da segunda metade do século XX. Tradicionalmente, essa prática é pensada em uma "perspectiva integrativa", baseada na idéia de uma "adaptação unidirecional" do paciente. Entendemos, no entanto, que a experiência de conviver com os inusitados encontros que ocorrem nas intervenções do AT produz efeitos que extrapolam as "metas adaptativas", os "protocolos institucionalizantes" e apontam uma dimensão clínica, política e artística da experimentação das relações de força e dos processos de subjetivação aí implicados.

From Cell Surface to the Nucleus, a Short but Critical Journey for Retroviruses

From the cell surface to the nucleus, retroviruses will face multiple obstacles, crossing physical barriers such as the plasma membrane, but also finding their pathway through a viscous cytoplasm. At the same time, retroviruses have to overcome cellular defenses, interfering with the early steps of the virus life cycle. Although the general outcomes of this journey have been known for several decades, the stepwise interactions taking place between cellular and viral factors, which will transform the incoming viral RNA genome into a double-stranded DNA competent for integration, remain largely unknown. In this sense, the uncoating process and the molecular basis of intracellular trafficking of preintegration complexes are still poorly defined. Additionally, other key stages, which have been the focus of many reports, still require some clarification, as is the case for the precise implication of viral and cellular determinants involved in nuclear import of preintegration complexes.

New Perspectives on Criseyde ed. by Cindy L. Vitto, Marcia Smith Marzec

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER Cindy L. Vitto and Marcia Smith Marzec, eds. New Perspectives on Criseyde. Asheville, N.C.: Pegasus Press, 2004. Pp. 336. $17.95, paper. The essays in this generally worthwhile collection make one thing clear: the poem that Chaucer refers to in his Retractions as ‘‘the book of Troilus ’’ has evolved, over its long critical history, into something more like ‘‘the book of Criseyde.’’ One has to wonder, in fact, whether a volume devoted to the comparatively static Troilus could ever invite the broad range of topics found here: everything from gendered reading practices, to manuscript studies, to exemplarity, to aesthetics, to codependency. It must be said, however, that the title of the collection, New Perspectives on Criseyde, is a bit misleading, or perhaps just overly optimistic. For whatever their other virtues, none of the perspectives adopted here strikes me as being particularly new. Some, indeed, are going on fifteen, twenty, or even thirty years old, and the wear, I am sorry to report, is starting to show. For this reason, New Perspectives on Criseyde will probably appeal more to those looking for a handy compilation of wellestablished critical positions than to anyone searching for the next leap forward in Chaucer studies. The anthology’s first section, ‘‘Historical Contexts for Understanding Criseyde,’’ starts off with an overview of twentieth-century interpretations of Criseyde by Lorraine Kochanske Stock, who deftly traces Criseyde ’s critical journey from a woman whose ‘‘slydynge . . . corage’’ must be either attacked or defended, to a symbol of idolatry, to a ‘‘charming enigma,’’ to a feminine subject shaped by, or struggling against, cultural and historical forces largely beyond her control. Stock’s account leaves little doubt that Criseyde is as much a product of criticism as of Chaucer’s text, and it does an excellent job of teasing out the genealogies from which most of these essays descend. Its comprehensiveness is rendered somewhat ironic, however, by the fact that two readings in particular, David Aers’s ‘‘Chaucer’s Criseyde: Woman in Society , Woman in Love’’ and Carolyn Dinshaw’s ‘‘Reading Like a Man: The Critics, the Narrator, Troilus, and Pandarus,’’ cast shadows across these pages so long and imposing that they threaten to blot out new growth. The two essays that round out this first section, Laura F. Hodges ’s ‘‘Criseyde’s ‘widewes habit large of samyt broun’ in Troilus and Criseyde’’ and Kathryn Jacobs’s ‘‘Mate or Mother: Positioning Criseyde Among Chaucer’s Widows,’’ are each as helpful and informative, in PAGE 340 340 ................. 16094$ CH17 11-01-10 14:05:26 PS REVIEWS their own way, as Stock’s. Neither one, though, does much to dispel the impression that this kind of historical ‘‘contextualizing’’ is but another means, to paraphrase Dinshaw, of containing the desire that Criseyde embodies. The three essays gathered together under the rubric ‘‘Concerns of Gender and Power’’ are linked by what the editors describe as a shared interest in ‘‘concepts of reading and/or writing, both internal and external to the text itself’’ (p. 5). Kara A. Doyle’s argument in ‘‘Criseyde Reading, Reading Criseyde,’’ for example, is that Chaucer tries to coerce even his female readers into identifying with Troilus and objectifying Criseyde. From as early as the sixteenth century, however, Chaucer’s female readers have been resisting his efforts. Indeed, as Doyle shows through the example of a letter written (presumably) by Margaret More Roper, the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas More, they have been identifying with Criseyde as a figure not of victimization or betrayal but of agency. Doyle’s essay is subtle and multifaceted, repeatedly calling our attention to the fact that readers have the power to make and unmake the meanings of texts and that a character like Criseyde can assume something like an independent existence. Missing, though, is any consideration of the Palinode, where the reader is enjoined to identify neither with Troilus nor Criseyde, but with Christ. Identification is likewise at stake in Martha Dana Rust’s ‘‘‘Le Vostre C’: Letters and Love in Bodleian Library Manuscript Arch. Selden. B.24,’’ only this time it is Criseyde’s forced identification with the material properties of one particular witness to Chaucer...

Marx in Hell: The Critique of Political Economy as Katabasis

This paper examines one of the many Judeo-Christian allusions in Marx's corpus, his citations of Dante in the “1859 Preface” and the preface to the first edition of Capital. It demonstrates that Marx borrowed key features of Dante's Inferno for his own critique of political economy, and that Marx thereby situated his critical journey through economics as the heir to the Western tradition of the katabasis, the formative descent into the underworld. This undermines the dichotomization of religion and science prevalent in Marxology, and suggests that Marx must be read outside both of these traditional categories.

Towards a narrative theological orientation in a global village from a postmodern urban South African perspective

This article was motivated by two of the major challenges which I believe congregations are facing within the context of ministry, namely postmodernity and globalization. After seeking a fuller description of these two challenges I sought a theological orientation within such a context (postmodern global village) as well as an ecclesiological praxis that could be transformative and redemptive within such a context. I believe to have found in the narrative orientation an appropriate way for doing theology in the postmodern context. The climax of this journey (story) is in the fusion of horizons between the theory-laden questions of descriptive theology and the historical texts of the Christian faith within the narrative orientation. I discovered that truly transformative and redemptive praxis is only possible within language communities narrative communities). These narrative communities cannot exist in isolation, but are continuously confronted and relativised by the stories of other communities in the global village and therefore these language communities need to be open to the fragmentation and pluralism of the global village, otherwise they will not be able to respond to the reality of the globalization and postmodernity. The narrative communities needed a story (sacred story) that did not deny the reality of fragmentation and pluralism, but could incorporate this reality into its story. I found this story in the story of the cross and therefore refer to the narrative communities as communities of and under the cross of Christ. These ideas formed the basis for a transformative praxis within a specific congregation, namely Pastoral Redemptive Communities. These narrative communities are not an answer to the postmodern global village, but they do offer a way of proclaiming Christ crucified and allowing the deconstruction of the cross to create a community which is a redemptive alternative to the reality of the postmodern global village. This journey was a critical journey in dialogue with other disciplines (economics, philosophy, psychology and sociology) thereby opening it up for further dialogue within these other sciences as well as dialogue with other religious communities.

Beyond Hollywood, into Europe

The Hollywood film musical, as the quintessential genre of entertainment, is usually considered in European cinema studies as a model for considering how European cinema has defined itself in relation to a Hollywood product. This article traces the beginnings of this critical journey by analysing a specific European reaction, in this case, French, to two Hollywood musicals, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Hawks, 1953) and Funny Face (Donen, 1957). Both these musicals place their female heroines in Paris as American tourists. The cultural transactions involved in watching a Hollywood product in France are thus illustrated on as well as beyond the cinema screen. This allows us to consider the ways in which Hollywood constructs a specific European screen identity and how this identity offers differing pleasures to the musicals' stars and audiences.