Cross-cultural Representation Research Articles

Discourse Analysis and Humor on Papuan Mop in the Series of “Epen Kah Cupen Toh”

This study aims to explore the humor and discourse in Papuan MOP, as depicted in the 2010 YouTube video series "Epen Kah Cupen Toh" (EKCT). Humor reflects different cultures and societal conditions, and MOP is a frequently used humor by Papuan people, making it a unique representation of their lives. The study utilizes qualitative analysis to identify patterns and themes in Papuan MOP humor and discourse. The primary data is collected from the transcription of EKCT video series. Discourse analysis was utilized to further analyze the transcription of videos as the primary data. The findings reveal that the primary type of humor in Papuan MOP is witticism, and the character "Dodi" represents the effects of a lack of education and underdeveloped society in certain areas of the Papuan region. Furthermore, the use of the Papuan Melayu dialect, which emphasizes monosyllabic sounds, adds to the uniqueness of the humor portrayed in the series. The cross-cultural representation in the series also highlights the diverse ethnicities in Indonesia. The study concludes that Papuan MOP humor is closely linked to the social conditions of Papuan people, making it a valuable aspect of their cultural heritage.

A Cross-Cultural Reference of the 17th Century Bugis Community in the 22nd King of Bone's Diary (Study of Historical Literature)

This study aims to explore 'historical literary archives related to local culture' of Indonesia so that certain knowledge about cross-cultural activities, attitude structures, and cultural references that have influenced historical culture can be used as cultural references that are valued as the values of today's society. One of the old texts that contains various cross-cultural events in the past in South Sulawesi is the 22nd Diary of the King of Bone, namely La Tommassongek To appawelling Matinroe in Mallimongan. The works which are classified as historical literature contain experiences, expressions, and cross-cultural understandings of their time. The object of research is the Diary of the King of Bone in the 17th Century AD. The research method used is descriptive qualitative with a cross-cultural psychological approach. The results of the research show that cross-cultural representation in the form of strong individualism-collective values. This is based on four aspects of indicators, namely: a) Harmony in socializing is represented in the relationship between the King of Bone and other powerful kings, as well as foreigners such as the Dutch (Tomarajae); b) Cooperate in social groups that are represented in the culture of building houses, irrigation facilities, places of worship, and cultural celebrations, and; c) Self-control in relation to social groups is represented in an attitude of mutual assistance and protection in defending oneself, family and country; d) Give recognition or appreciation that is represented by mappacella and massolo culture

Strategies of Resistance to the Patriarchal Coercion in Najat El Hachimi’s the Last Patriarch (2008)

The focus of this paper, which is in the mainstream of cross-cultural representation, is on the resistance strategies used by Anglophone Arab women immigrant writers. Writings from the Arab diaspora in particular lay the way for challenging the binary opposition between various cultures, genders, races, nationalities, and so forth as well as the culture of exclusion and oppression. This paper argues that Arab women Diaspora writing commit itself seriously to the marginal and the oppressed where authors express their abilities to engage consciously in a political contest and willed protest against Orientalism and Patriarchy. Through a textual analysis of Najat El Hachimi’s Novel entitled The Last Patriarch (2008), this study attempts to trace the ways in which Arab female diasporic writers aim to go beyond the politics of exclusion, surpasses gender and sexual stereotypes and resists patriarchal regime in its many multiple forms and institutions. Therefore, Theories of feminism, postcolonialism and identity are used to analyze double oppression and identity formation in a context of precariousness.

A Multidimensional Culturally Adapted Representation of Emotions for Affective Computational Simulation and Recognition

One of the main challenges in affective computing is the development of models to represent the information that is inherent to emotions. It is necessary to consider that the terms used by humans to name emotions depend on the culture and language used. This article presents an experiment-based method to represent and adapt emotion terms to different cultural environments. We propose using circular boxplots to analyze the distribution of emotions in the Pleasure-Arousal space. From the results of this analysis, we define a new cross-cultural representation model of emotions in which each emotion term is assigned to an area in the Pleasure-Arousal space. An emotion is represented by a vector in which the direction indicates the type, and the module indicates the intensity of the emotion. We propose two methods based on fuzzy logic to represent and express emotions: the emotion representation process in which the term associated with the recognized emotion is defuzzified and projected as a vector in the Pleasure-Arousal space; and the emotion expression process in which a fuzzification of the vector is produced, generating a fuzzy emotion term that is adapted to the culture and language in which the emotion will be used.

What is Intergenerational Storytelling? Defining the Critical Issues for Aging Research in the Humanities

Intergenerational storytelling (IGS) has recently emerged as an arts- and humanities-focused approach to aging research. Despite growing appeal and applications, however, IGS methods, practices, and foundational concepts remain indistinct. In response to such heterogeneity, our objective was to comprehensively describe the state of IGS in aging research and assess the critical (e.g., conceptual, ethical, and social justice) issues raised by its current practice. Six databases (PsycINFO, MEDLINE, PubMed, Scopus, AgeLine, and Sociological s) were searched using search terms relating to age, intergenerational, story, and storytelling. Peer-reviewed, English-language studies conducted with participants residing in non-clinical settings were included. One thousand one hundred six (1106) studies were initially retrieved; 70 underwent full review, and 26 fulfilled all inclusion criteria. Most studies characterized IGS as a practice involving older adults (> 50 years old) and conventionally-aged postsecondary/college students (17–19 years old). Typical methodologies included oral and, in more recent literature, digital storytelling. Critical issues included inconsistently reported participant data, vast variations in study design and methods, undefined key concepts, including younger vs. older cohorts, generation, storytelling, and whether IGS comprised an intentional research method or a retrospective outcome. While IGS holds promise as an emerging field of arts- and humanities-based aging research, current limitations include a lack of shared data profiles and comparable study designs, limited cross-cultural representation, and insufficiently intersectional analysis of widespread IGS practices. To encourage more robust standards for future study design, data collection, and researcher reflexivity, we propose seven evidence-based recommendations for evolving IGS as a humanities-based approach to research in aging and intergenerational relations.

Adverse childhood experiences and adulthood mental health: a cross-cultural examination among university students in seven countries

While there is evidence that histories of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are common in university students and are associated with an increased risk of mental health difficulties, current research has limited geographic and cross-cultural representation. Comparing ACEs across diverse contexts using a standardized measure can illuminate geographic and sociocultural similarities or differences in exposure. The present study aimed to assess ACE exposure and its relationship with mental health symptoms in university students from seven countries. We sampled 5945 university students from the United States, Canada, England, South Africa, Spain, Argentina, and Uruguay. Participants completed the Adverse Childhood Experiences International Questionnaire (ACE-IQ) and the Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms (IDAS). Most participants (94.8%) reported exposure to at least one type of ACE and 61% reported exposure to four or more types. Repeated exposure to at least one ACE was reported by 70.2% and repeated exposure to at least four ACEs was reported by 21.2%. Spanish students had significantly lower ACE exposure than other students. Cumulative ACE exposure was significantly higher among students in lower income countries, but when repeated exposure was considered these differences fell away. For the total sample, cumulative ACE exposure was significantly associated with severity of depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and suicidality. Findings indicate that universities globally should be guided by a trauma-informed approach that recognizes students as a psychologically vulnerable group carrying a long-standing burden of childhood adversity.

Poetics of Cross-Cultural Relation: Critical Performances by Artists kate-hers RHEE and Patty Chang

This article explores anti-racist, feminist performance and video art by kate-hers RHEE and Patty Chang. Parodic performances of awkward sexual encounters in works such as RHEE’s The Chocolate Kiss (2013) and Chang’s The Product Love (2009) embody and deconstruct identity formation within transnational German and Asian American contexts. I explore how RHEE and Chang distinctly challenge sexist and racist stereotypes and the objectification of Asian women, while problematizing cultural categorization through (mis)translations and poetic relations. The article illuminates how these artists complicate Asian American identities via variegated explorations of critical race theories and connected histories of cross-cultural representation.

East and West in Zakia Khairhoum's the End of My Dangerous Secret

Literature is an arena for cross-cultural representation par excellence. It is in the literature that images produce an awareness of the Self and Other, and of the Here and the Elsewhere, however small that awareness maybe. The accounts of many canonical literary figures in the history of literature featured portrayals and descriptions of radically different people and customs, exotic lands, and far-off places where everything is outlandish and anomalous. Literary representation, therefore, plays a pivotal role in shaping perception, creating historical and textual monoliths, stereotypes, and essentialization about ethnic minorities, race, sexuality, and gender. This article investigates the politics of representation of the Self and the Other in Zakia Khairhoum’s novel The End of My Dangerous Secret (Nihayat Sirri L’khatir, 2008) from a postcolonial feminist’s point of view. I argue that Khairhoum does not only shatter the foundations of patriarchy in the Arab world but also undermines and subverts Western colonial discourse and its claim of supremacy. The novel foregrounds a different pattern of representation that has not yet been sufficiently investigated, which is the denigration of both the Self and the Other and the quest for a third cultural reality that is defined in terms of gender equality, justice, human rights and democracy.

Researching early photography of the Pacific Islands: An overview

Historical research on the early years of photography in the Pacific Islands has revealed changes in the practice of photography, the development of Pacific imagery, tropes and stereotypes and changes in the ways images were distributed, archived and used in modern contexts. Research in the field was initially focused on photography’s indexical nature and the role of professional and amateur photographers, travellers, colonial officials and missionaries. The research highlighted here, only in the English language and excluding Aotearoa/New Zealand, reveals how later analyses have begun to grow more theoretical, in keeping with postcolonial approaches to reading cross-cultural representation, and how new directions in research point towards the nature of Indigenous engagement with early photography.

Victor Segalen’s 1914 archaeological mission in Sichuan: The untold story

This essay challenges the French poet, naval doctor, archaeologist and sinologist Victor Segalen’s established image as a literary modernist who broke with colonial exoticism. I use a set of previously understudied primary sources, including Segalen’s own travel journals, archaeological accounts, letters and photo albums, as well as Chinese gazetteers and a stele inscription documenting his excavation of a tomb associated with Bao San Niang 鮑三娘 – the supposed daughter-in-law of the famous Chinese general Guan Yu 關羽. Through a study combining both textual and field investigations, this article not only points out the disjuncture between Segalen’s progressive theory and his actual practice, but also questions the tendency among critics – both Western and Chinese – to overstate Segalen’s contribution to East–West cross-cultural representation, while intentionally omitting his exploitative deeds.

Poetry and place in Gorbaciof (Gorbaciof, The Cashier Who Liked Gambling) (Incerti, 2010) and Io sono Li (Shun Li and the Poet) (Segre, 2011)

This article analyses a new trend in the representation of Chinese immigrants by Italian filmmakers, namely dramas such as Stefano Incerti’s Gorbaciof (Gorbaciof, The Cashier Who Liked Gambling) (2010) and Andrea Segre’s Io sono Li (Shun Li and the Poet) (2011) that recount friendships between older men and younger Chinese women. These narratives are inscribed in a larger conversation about race, migration and economics. The protagonists’ differences appear to confirm Europe’s fascination with the exotic East; the power imbalance between a mature European man and a youthful Asian woman further problematizes these relationships. while recognizing the possibilities for an Orientalist critique and the challenges of cross-cultural representation, this article argues that the filmmakers’ aesthetic choices – and their privileging of silence over dialogue – literally and figuratively attempt to bridge the gap between native and foreign, Italian and Chinese.

All the Promise in the World: Mobilizing Comparison in The Book of Salt

The central premise of this article is that reading The Book of Salt as a work of world literature shifts the temporal and spatial sites, as well as the reading practices, involved in thinking about Vietnamese American literature and subjectivity away from the effects of the so-called Vietnam War and toward a long historical view that compares how Vietnamese actors have accrued, and continue to accrue, worth within differing regimes of global value. With The Book of Salt inching toward canonical status in the Asian American Studies curriculum, it is clear that Monique Truong's work has emerged as a central text of Vietnamese American literature. However, analyzing the novel solely as a work of Asian American literature may, in fact, limit the promise the book holds due to the conventional marketing and reading practices that frequently reduce a heterogeneous collection of Vietnamese American works to a hermeneutic centred around the “Vietnam War.” In contrast, I propose that reading The Book of Salt as a work of world literature reveals how Truong creates a ground of comparison that reimagines accepted routes of cross-cultural representation, reception, and value. This world literature perspective nudges Vietnamese American writing away from its own shores by delving deep into the history of Vietnamese mobility and reconsiders the multiple promises held within the Vietnamese diasporic past in a way that brings into question a singular construction of the Vietnamese present.

China and the Politics of Cross–Cultural Representation in Interwar European Fiction

In his article "China and the Politics of Cross–Cultural Representation in Interwar European Fiction" Carles Prado-Fonts analyzes Joan Crespi's La ciutat de la por (The City of Fear, 1930) to illustrate the varied representations of China in interwar Europe. In the 1920s and 1930s, a plurality of views on China and the Chinese people became widespread across different parts of Europe, mainly shaped by English, French, and German representations. Contradictory images of China coexisted in literature, thought, and popular culture. Crespi's work exemplifies these contradictions: China appears as both an attainable reality and an unreachable fantasy, two tropes that prevailed in Catalan society after having been adapted from the European imagery. The novel responds to these contradictory discourses by launching a radical critique of Western modernity imposed on China. This article argues that representing China from Catalonia (or from the rest of Spain) not only implied the import of data and knowledge from European sources but also the transculturation of formal aspects and a subordination of agency. By showing how difficult it was to imagine China from the periphery of Europe without the mediation of these European centers, this article rethinks the politics of cross-cultural circulation in a noncolonizer, noncolonized context.

The Writing of the Unwritten and the Translation of the Untranslatable: Alexnadra David-Néel's Reception in China

Abstract The French writer and explorer Alexandra David-Néel (1868–1969) is internationally renowned for being the first Western woman to reach, in 1924, Tibet's onetime forbidden capital of Lhasa. Her personal recounting of this treacherous expedition, in Voyage d'une parisienne à Lhassa, is considered one of the most compelling travelogues ever written in French. As a maverick figure of French Orientalism, David-Néel was introduced to Chinese readers long ago. Yet a close look at her reception in China brings to light some of the most tangled aspects of West–East cross-cultural representation, such as clichéd exoticism, translatorial censorship, forgery of ideologically edifying discourses, and so forth. Through a series of philological investigations of some heavily modulated Chinese translations of David-Néel's writings, I show that the tripartite, interpretive dynamic between France, Tibet, and modern-day China cannot simply be reduced to a dualistic, unilateral, and static power pattern, since we see that the Chinese, despite being themselves “Oriental,” could, advisedly or unconsciously, produce falsified images of another “Oriental” entity placed at a less advantageous position through a French medium.

Thuggee and Sati Revisited

Films on Indian themes made by western filmmakers have often been ridden with stereotypes and clichés. The wave of Raj films that came out of British and American production companies in the years since India‟s independence have largely been nostalgia-driven, and they almost invariably end up exoticising the region. However, with regard to films made by the nonHollywood film company named Merchant-Ivory Productions, audiences had come to expect more sophisticated and nuanced treatments of themes drawn from Indian history. This paper examines one of their films, The Deceivers, which deals with the twin themes of Thuggee and Sati. The discussion of the film is set against the broader context of the literature and cinema spawned by Western interest in the Raj era. While it is certainly more aesthetically sophisticated than the Hollywood type of Raj films, The Deceivers nevertheless falls short of engaging with the complexities of 19th century India in any meaningful way and is especially blind to the tendency of colonial propaganda to criminalise entire ethnic groups. Such attempts at cross-cultural representation are nevertheless valuable from a pedagogic point of view in the specific context of postcolonial approaches in the humanities classrooms in our colleges.
 Keywords: Colonial, Empire, Gender, Sati, Stereotypes, Thuggee

The Elicited Verbal Pain Language of Childbirth: A Closer Look at Pain Assessment Through a Critical and Interpretive Review of the Literature

OBJECTIVE:To provide a critical and interpretive review of the literature to investigate examples of pain assessment tools used in a childbirth context. Through these examples of pain assessment, the concept of elicited verbal pain language is introduced and explored.METHODS:Electronic search strategies were used to identify primary research regarding maternal reports of pain (during labor, postpartum and retrospectively), which were captured by standardized pain assessment tools.FINDINGS:The review revealed the physiological (the sensory and affective dimensions of pain, the intensity of pain, and the influence of parity on pain perception), psychological (the influence of maternal attitude, mood, and memory on pain perception), and ethnocultural (the impact of the ethnocultural context on pain perception) components of the pain experience. The strengths and limitations of pain assessment tools are highlighted. There were similarities in the reviewed studies’ approaches to pain assessment despite the cross-cultural representation of birth. Possible implications for cross-cultural pain assessment and communication are outlined.CONCLUSION:The question remains regarding the appropriateness of implementing standardized pain assessment tools across birth context. An ongoing critique of pain assessment may inform the provision of better care overall for birthing women in multicultural societies.

Cross-Rhythms, Across Cultures: Towards a Multi-Sensory Travel Literature

Cross-rhythms — or the simultaneous combination of contrasting rhythms in a musical composition — are characteristic of many non-Western forms, and present, too, in those such as jazz which have been progressively 'de-othered' in the course of the 20th century: from being perceived as 'primitive' and 'un-European', jazz has been gradually assimilated into the European cultural landscape. As Matthew F. Jordan has argued in Le Jazz, this evolution has, though, entailed an at times vexed renegotiation of aspects of French cultural identity. The motif of the cross-rhythm — with its suggestions of cultural forms 'rubbing against' one another in ways that may be perceived as conflict or harmony depending on the listener's own cultural positioning — may thus be suggestively linked to questions of cross-cultural encounter and representation, borrowing and reinvention. Swiss traveller-writer Nicolas Bouvier (1929–1998) will provide a particular focus. My analysis posits a multisensory engagement with 'otherness' as an ethical imperative which displaces the ocularcentrism commonly associated with cross-cultural representation.

Ambivalent mimicry in Enomoto Kenichi's wartime comedy: His revue and Blackface

ABSTRACTThis article discusses blackface performance used by Japanese comedian Enomoto Kenichi, also known as Enoken, in late 1920s and mid-1930s theatre and film. I examine his blackface performances, giving two examples — Negro Comic Dance, one of the varieties danced to the newly imported American jazz in his first troupe Casino Folies; and his musical comedy film, A Millionaire-Continued (1936). I ask why Enoken adopted blackface, a form of racist caricature by white people emphasizing stereotypes of black people, in his wartime comedy. I question whether Enoken's mimicry of Euro-American-born blackface, though using himself as the laughing stock, is inculpable due to his ignorance of slave history, the absence of American social memory in his mind, or a more productive, cross-cultural representation of the black diaspora celebrating blackness. The article also pinpoints Japan's racial mimicry and Japanese orientalism, associated with its imperialist goals in war propaganda theatre and still active in the contemporary Japanese show business industry.

Writing in the San/d: Autoethnography among Indigenous Southern Africans (review)

Reviewed by: Writing in the San/d: Autoethnography among Indigenous Southern Africans Megan Biesele (bio) and Robert K. Hitchcock (bio) Keyan G. Tomaselli , ed. Writing in the San/d: Autoethnography among Indigenous Southern Africans. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2007. 190 pp. Paper, $29.95. The Writing in the San/d anthology is an intriguing experiment in collaborative methods and so is quite apt for inclusion in this first volume of Collaborative Anthropologies. It is important both as a device to raise consciousness about the human side of anthropological research and as a challenge to some of the more traditional modes of ethnographic writing. Editor Keyan Tomaselli has been for some years gathering his students in Culture, Communication, and Media Studies (CCMS) at the University of Kwazulu Natal (Durban, South Africa) and taking them, along with members of his own family, to research sites in South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia to interact with San people. The interactions of this loosely defined research group with San communities and individuals have been more or less informal, but at the same time they have been concerned quite fixedly with the mediation, representation, and phenomenology of Ethnographic Encounter, writ large. Thus the activity of this group of researchers sits squarely [End Page 201] within postmodern anthropology. Many readers of this new journal will know that Kalahari research has been one of the major loci where the postmodern and earlier approaches to ethnography have gone head to head. The "Great Kalahari Debate" is still going on, and Tomaselli's group of collaborators is carrying some of the current salient strands of argument. The offerings in the book stem from trips to two San areas in South Africa and one each in Namibia and Botswana. They range across journeys of personal discovery, methodological experiments and refinements, and the conundrums of cross-cultural representation. The writers vary from a student of sheltered background making her first trip out of town, through more experienced students, to Tomaselli himself, who has traveled the Kalahari roads for decades and has thought deeply about representations of, by, and with San people in media ranging from film to oral poetry. Fresh insights abound in the collection, touching on the role of anthropologists, development workers, and other outsiders as they may affect myth reinforcement about the San; exploring the role of market relations in the commodification of culture; and asking hard questions about ways in which grassroots critique may reach and influence the larger structures in which San communities, often feeling voiceless and powerless, are embedded today. This said, we want to make a few suggestions for the anthology authors to consider. We assume the main purpose of Writing in the San/d is to improve communication among several stakeholders in the San's future, including, beyond the San themselves, relevant nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and government entities, academics, and a public wishing to get beyond romantic stereotypes. If so, it would seem that attention to the cultures of communication of the various parties to the desired amelioration would be the best avenue to progress. Yet it must be said that many of the articles in the anthology neglect scholarly conventions—even on the level of spelling and grammar—in a way that is bound to make scholars feel disregarded. Each author also seems to find it necessary to criticize the "hundreds of " previous researchers and NGO workers with indiscriminate assurance, many times in ignorance of the facts of various situations. Worst, the lively San themselves, and their often heroic efforts to make their communities sustainable, are too often given short shrift in this book and emerge as passive recipients of both aid and oppression. [End Page 202] We do not for a moment think that it was the intention of this group of authors to thwart the purpose of furthering communication. Perhaps it was their very focus on their own encounter experiences that caused them to do so in many ways with this book. For one thing, the ethnographic term clan is quite loosely used, which does not seem a good decision for a book whose title claims to valorize autoethnography. For another, the awkward "San/d" in the title is only awkwardly...

Narrating the new Japan: Biograph's The Hero of Liao-Yang (1904)

This essay analyzes the representation of Japan and “Japaneseness” in Biograph's The Hero of Liao-Yang (September, 1904), an early narrative film released in the midst of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5). This war is a remarkably rich historical site for exploring the politics of cross-cultural representation because it evoked, participated in, and transformed a tangled skein of American discourses concerning race, militarism, nationalism, and modernization. To explore these discourses, particularly in relation to Japanese masculinity, I situate The Hero of Liao-Yang in the context of a wide range of period texts drawn from several different media and cultural channels, including editorial cartoons and photojournalism as well as children's fiction and first-person accounts by renowned war correspondents. This inclusive, comparative approach helps account for the particular representational strategies in The Hero of Liao-Yang and also allows for a more full assessment of the complex ideological weight of the Russo-Japanese War and the New Japan in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century.