Cultural Activism Research Articles

Contributors

Contributors

Transnational‐Migrant Domestic Workers' Cultural Activism Online: The Case of an Indonesian Islamic‐Writing Group in Hong Kong

This study aims to illustrate the nuanced efficacy of Islamic‐writing activism by Indonesian domestic workers in Hong Kong, who vigorously utilize online spheres. We regard this group as a part of transnational migrant domestic workers' cultural activism, which is currently flourishing in the region. In particular, we pay a special attention to this group's intersectional themes in Islam and writing, to ask how an intersectional activist group utilizes online terrains and multiple themes, to nurture affective ties with others and simultaneously build activist networks. By combining questionnaires, socio‐metric surveys, interviews and web content analysis, we argue that the participation in this activism allows the members collective and personal empowerment online. From the data analyses, we uncover three key features of the members' Facebook usage: maintaining weak ties by balancing multiple group memberships, using tools for interactive self‐identification, and being driven by networking. Additionally, the members re‐contextualized their gender and class identities in positive ways, using Islam and writing. We argue that the members utilized Islam chiefly as moral yardstick and image‐making, while writing as a multitasking tool and an alternative class marker for them.Through these acts of re‐contextualization, the members recreate their alternative self‐identifications incorporating class, religion, gender and nationality seamlessly. These features partly resonate with their offline behaviors, to assist and synthesize their attempt at self‐actualization in‐between their cultural spaces, by integrating the host society, native society, and the activist society.

The Soundtrack of Social Movements among Kurdish Alevi Immigrant from Turkey in Germany

Based on a multi-sited ethnographic research between 2010 and 2013, this article asserts that Kurdish and Alevi social movements in Turkey and in the transnational space have relied heavily on music and activist musicians to engage community members. This article marks several key songs, musicians, and events that effectively formed the soundtrack for these movements. Kurdish Alevi cultural entrepreneurs in Germany and Istanbul have established a transnational social field in which they can relate to members from those communities living in multiple locations. This multiplicity results from simultaneous politicization processes of Alevi and Kurdish movements that have allowed old and new actors to engage with political and social capital along with symbolic capital through cultural and religious activism around multiple identities. The transnational space has allowed new actors to employ different means to serve their main political goals: cultural, musical, and those of other art forms, along with public campaigns to mobilize activists. Therefore, cultural entrepreneurs and other religio-political actors have been navigating in this transnational space while reformulating their political demands.

Gerakan Keagamaan dan Identitas Kultural Masjid Jendral Sudirman Yogyakarta

Abstract: The article aims at explaining the root and the form of religious based cultural movement initiated by Jendral Sudirman Mosque (MJS) Yogyakarta. The conundrum departs from the common assumption that mosque is usually regarded as the sacred place, not as profane as cultural performance. Since 2011, the MJS has carried out various cultural activism that is unique, paradox and distinct from the common mosques which activites are generally centered on religious piety. It is in this case that this paper discusses MJS from two aspects: the history of the MJS and its cultural strategy. In its history, the MJS underwent three phases of movement. At first, the mosque was subjugated by the militant Islamic movement which aims at establishing an Islamic state. The movement, then, shifted into an educational movement of the children. And later, it changed totally into religious cultural movement. At this regard, the cultural movement carried out by the MJS reflects an effort in shifting their old identity, while at the same time they are involved in a discursive approach to respond the contemporary challenge of Islamism.

Kabbalah, and the Popular Culture Industry: Exploring Identity and Spiritual Satisfaction

Todays popular culture is a part of global culture. Kabbalah, a form of popular spirituality derived from orthodox Jewish mysticism has gained popularity because of its association with the activists and celebrities in the pop culture industries. This paper examines the influence of this organization, which is still mysterious, through the public image of the spirituality of pop culture actors who became followers of Kabbalah and express their identity in the implied meanings contained in music and lyrics of the song and as the media to express those feeling, thought, or social and religious experince, also how popular culture as a criticism of religious institutions. In strengthening and deepening this research, will applies social and phenomenological approach as my theoretical framework to make a deep analysis in this topic. This study is important to give alternative perspectives to pop culture and the media as inseparable linked to identity, culture, politic, religion and gender which is related to common society nowadays.

Opportunities and challenges in preserving and revitalizing the Tibetan oral literature Shépa in Chone

This article explores the ongoing Shépa preservation and revitalization in Chone County of Kanlho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, China. Shépa is an expansive collection of Tibetan cultural wisdom composed as oral poetry and performed in antiphonal style in Chone. It captures the most salient aspects of Chone Tibetan cultural identity and linguistic practices. Yet, along with the erosion of the Chone Tibetan language, the inter-generational transmission of Shépa has been seriously interrupted. Given this picture, since 2016, various efforts have been made by the stakeholders (local community members, Shépa narrators, language and cultural activists, and Chone County Government) to preserve and revitalize Shépa. These efforts include but are not limited to the transcription and teaching of Shépa through Chinese, the establishment of Chone Shépa Cultural Association in 2017, the government-funded Shépa performance both within and outside Chone County and so forth. Through using qualitative research methods, including participant observation and semi-structured interviews with all stakeholders, this article first documents the processes of how Chone Tibetans reclaim and revitalize their oral tradition, Shépa. It also examines the tensions derived from the processes and explores how local communities negotiate and manage these challenges. The research results will contribute to the conversation on the importance and complexities of oral tradition preservation in Indigenous communities in Tibet and beyond.

'We got the power!': the political potential of street choirs Campaign Choirs Writing Collective

This article champions the power of song and looks at the activities of 'street choirs'- groups that sing together with collective political intent in public space, as a form of cultural activism. In addition to a socialist core, street choirs in the UK coalesce around feminism, the peace and anti-nuclear movements and, more recently, environmentalism and LGBTQ activism. The authors discuss the emotions that song and singing release, and the connections and solidarities that may then be created between people. They also explore the wider context of music and emotion, and look at the relationship between words and music and between music and place. They argue that social movements can both learn from and educate through song, and that choirs can engage in acts of citizenship by following up on the emotions released by their performances, and engaging in debate on the issues raised. The article includes excerpts from interviews with choir members.

Matematika dan Budaya Sasak: Kajian Etnomatematika di Lombok Timur

This research aims to identify the mathematical objects contained in the cultural products of the Kembang Kerang’s sosieties in East Lombok and its implementation in islamic educational institution. The research data was obtained by conducting cultural site studies as well as observations and interviews with informants who at the same time, became cultural actors and mathematics teachers at the research location. Results of the study show that cultural products were found in namely ragong gula gending, parane, kereng sesek, and caraken that contained the objects of mathematics in the form of flat building and building space consisting of links, cubes, tubes, squares, symmetrical flat shapes, and burial. Learning mathematics by utilizing Sasak cultural products carried out in islamic education institutions in MI NW Kembang Kerang shown good results on the implementation of learning, achieving ideal time of learning activities of students and teachers, positive responses from students after following the learning process, and changes in learning outcomes from before and after learning is done.

Participation as policy in local cultural governance

ABSTRACTThis article takes on participation not as taking part in cultural activities per se but in cultural policy-making, by studying the transformation and institutionalisation of participatory processes. Focusing on Switzerland, a federalist country where local and private actors play key roles in cultural policy, several processes by which different actors participate in local cultural policy-making are explored. Top-down procedures, such as formalised mandatory consultation procedures or the inclusion of cultural actors in administrative expert committees, coexist with bottom-up grassroots initiatives that can complement or even supplant traditional participatory processes. Furthermore, certain alternative modes and concepts of participation, such as the “cultural council”, circulate between different cases, across levels of state and in time. Participatory processes in cultural policy-making need to be seen as public policies in their own right, which can aim to depoliticise policies and procedures. Furthermore, actors need certain resources in order to participate, and venues aimed at opening participation do so in a restrained framework, focusing mostly on artistic and cultural elites rather than encourage larger citizen participation.

Vittorio Bodini, “a brilliant translator, a brilliant man, a brilliant poet”

The present note sets out to review several publications on the figure of Vittorio Bodini, a poet, a hispanist, and a cultural activist for Italy's Mezzogiorno , who died in 1970. Its main object are the proceedings of the international study conference Vittorio Bodini fra Sud ed Europa (1914-2014) , edited by Antonio Lucio Giannone; it also considers several volumes of a series which under the title «Bodiniana» offers new editions of his publications, together with unpublished material from the Archivio Bodini. The contributions to the one-day conference Vittorio Bodini tra l’Italia e la Spagna , which took place at the Universitat de Valencia in March 2018, are also considered in the paper.

Pages of Olena Pchilka’s Life in Kyiv

The article is dedicated to the 170-th anniversary of Olena Pchilka’s birth. Olha Kosach (1849–1930, Olena Pchilka being her literary pseudonym) was a Ukrainian writer, corresponding member of the Pan-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, folklorist, ethnographer, journalist, publisher, social and cultural activist. She was also the mother of Lesia Ukrainka, Mykhailo Obachnyi and Olesia Zirka.The article highlights one of the most important periods of her life, strongly connected to Kyiv. Olha Kosach had been studying here at Mrs. Nelhovska’s boarding school for girls and then lived together with the family of her brother Mykhailo Drahomanov who was a professor at St. Volodymyr University. She married Petro Kosach, a lawyer and conciliator in court cases of peasants an member of the union “Stara Hromada”. Later in Volyn young Olha Kosach never broke up her ties with Kyiv, working on her first scholarly research about Ukrainian folk ornament, translating from Russian and Polish, writing her own poetry, prose and drama. She was one of the editors of “Kiievskaya Starina” (“Kyiv Antiquity”) journal and active participant in Literary and Artistic Community, Kyiv “Prosvita” (“Education”) Community, Ukrainian Club. The journal “Ridnyi Krai” (“Native Land”) was published in Kyiv at her own expense. It had a supplement “Moloda Ukraina” (“Young Ukraine”), being the first periodical for children in Dnieper Ukraine. Kosach family lived in Kyiv permanently since 1899 and resided at 97, 115, 101 Mariinsko-Blahovischenska str., (now P. Saksahanskoho str.). The editorial office of the above-mentioned journals was situated at the same buildings. The prominent figures of the Ukrainian culture M. Lysenko and M. Starytskyi were the neighbors of the family. Nowadays the address accommodates Lesia Ukrainka Literary Museum (97, Saksahanskoho str.).1924–1930 was the last period of Olena Pchilka’s life in Kyiv. She lived at 7 Bahovutivska str., later at 16 Ovrutska str., and worked actively as a research fellow of the Pan-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. She was elected a corresponding member of the Academy on the 6th of April 1925. Olena Pchilka issued “Ukrainski Uzory” (“Ukrainian Ornaments”), her last lifetime album, in 1927, and the book “Stories. With autobiography” in 1930. The writer was buried in Baikove Cemetery, next to the graves of her husband Petro Kosach and her children Mykhailo Obachnyi and Lesia Ukrainka.

Niñez: instrumento para la salvaguardia de la cultura de San Basilio de Palenque

Recibido: 19 de marzo del 2019Aprobado: 01 de mayo del 2019El trabajo es un estudio analítico bibliográfico, tiene como objetivo analizar laniñez como instrumento para la salvaguardia de la cultura de San Basilio de Palenque. En este sentido, la cultura influye de manera importante en cualquier persona, pero más en el niño puesto que es el receptor de la información a su alrededor, el va siendo moldeado por una sociedad, familia o demás personas que lo acompañan en su proceso de crianza, también las escuelas han contribuido desde la infancia a la edificación del espíritu de reflexión sobre lo propio, permitiendo repensar el sentir comunitario, revalorar elementos culturales, conscientes del significado de proteger la autonomía de las comunidades afrodescendientes. De allí radica la importancia que los maestros de San Basilio de Palenque como actores de la cultura, sean hijos de esa tierra con formación profesional para que los procesos educativos no vayan en contravía de los intereses de la comunidad.

Agonistic Entanglements of Art and Activism: #RhodesMustFall and Sethembile Msezane’s Chapangu Performances

ABSTRACTThis article reflects on some of the limitations and challenges of recent student protest movements in South Africa, with a specific focus on their activism on issues of cultural politics. It articulates the dominant modes of cultural activism of these movements, taking the #RhodesMustFall campaign as a defining instance in this regard. Revisiting one of the first victories of #RhodesMustFall, the removal of the statue of Cecil John Rhodes from the University of Cape Town’s main campus in 2015, it finds that another, very different and, in many ways, opposing form of cultural activism asserted itself in an artistic performance by Sethembile Msezane. It is argued that during this iconic scene of contemporary student protests, an uneasy tension thus came to exist, provoking fundamental questions regarding activist styles of cultural contestation and modes of subjectivity. Through Jacques Rancière’s notion of the politics of aesthetics, Msezane’s performance is taken to harbour a critique of the dominant activist modes of #RhodesMustFall, affirming the important role of creativity and imagination within radical political movements. Inversely, a critique of artistic interventions from the perspective of a #RhodesMustFall style of cultural activism is formulated, based on Fredric Jameson’s redemptive reading of philistine attitudes. Although #RhodesMustFall and Msezane’s performance are thus conceived in agonistic terms, it is argued that the tension between art and activism should be endorsed as a productive one, allowing for processes of self-critique, self-correction, and self-reinvention within social protest movements.

Islamic Musical Forms and Local Identity in Post-Reform Indonesia

Abstract Through an analysis of local Sundanese music in distinct settings in village and urban contexts, this article observes and analyses different constructions of meaning around Sundanese Islamic music, as well as the role played by cultural activists and village audiences in those constructions. Based on fieldwork in Tasikmalaya, West Java, I explore the novel meanings given to village genres in urban contexts, and contrast that with the affective responses of village audiences. I find that musical meanings offer different processes of identity formation within particular social boundaries. Emergent Indonesian political developments shape these processes.

Mexico’s ethnic culinary heritage and cocineras tradicionales (traditional female cooks)

Cocineras tradicionales—traditional female cooks—are women of Mexican indigenous descent who embody the status of food tradition bearers and the “ethnic” components of Mexican foodways. In the climate of enthusiasm generated by the 2010 nomination of “traditional Mexican cuisine” as Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO, cocineras tradicionales are esteemed social figures and both a driving force and a symbol of Mexico’s current food and tourism policies. This article is an examination of the power relations surrounding the making of this heritage identity. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Mexico City and the state of Oaxaca among cocineras, heritage agents, and cultural activists, it demonstrates how the economics and politics of culture turn food into a tool and a product, describes the strategies employed by various actors in this realm, and examines the ways in which recognition and material rewards are allocated in the field of food heritage.

Идентичность заводского рабочего в постсоветском контексте: этнографическое кейс-стади района Уралмаш

Статья обращена к изучению идентичности представителей рабочего класса. Исследование основано на концепции культурологического анализа классов и подходе генетического структурализма Пьера Бурдье, согласно которому классовый габитус представляет собой систему устойчивых диспозиций, порождающих социальные практики и встроенных в социальные отношения. Эмпирическим объектом исследования выступают рабочие Уралмашзавода – одного из крупнейших заводов СССР, который продолжает функционировать и сегодня. Исследование проходило на территории района Уралмаш, построенного в 1920-е гг. в городе Свердловск (ныне Екатеринбург). Полевое исследование выполнено в жанре этнографического кейс-стади. Во время сбора данных, в мае-июне 2017 г., коллектив исследователей во главе с авторами статьи стали временными жителями района Уралмаш. На примере уральского кейса показано, что современный заводчанин на постсоветском пространстве является носителем множественной и фрагментарной идентичности, в которой объединяются «советские» и «постсоветские» практики и ценности. Рабочие описывают себя в категориях «простые люди», «хороший человек», через личные качества и ценности такие, как «честность», «трудолюбие», «общительность», «достоинство», «простота», а также идентичности частной жизни, вне сферы труда (семьянин, пенсионер, садовод). Многие представители старшего поколения осознают себя как люди, «живущие в прошлом», «советские» люди. Таким образом, для старшего поколения заводчан советское прошлое по-прежнему остается главным ресурсом и универсальной опорой, которая поддерживает их самовосприятие. Смыслообразующим ресурсом для идентичности уралмашевцев является «районный» патриотизм. Однако, как показывают данные наших наблюдений и интервью, рабочие в постсоветское время становятся все более «невидимой» группой в районе и, в силу сложившихся привычек, отказываются перенимать новые стили жизни, предлагаемые пришедшими в район новыми акторами (застройщики, культурные деятели, представители инфраструктуры развлечений). Кроме того, работник завода в постсоветском времени утрачивает классовую идентичность, характерную для советского периода. В результате рабочие воспроизводят или заново присваивают иные идентификационные типы, но сохраняют при этом память о советском прошлом и пытаются найти основания для идентичности вне сферы труда, в приватной, непубличной жизни.

Cultural heritage, artistic innovation, and activism on Amazigh Berber websites

ABSTRACTNew means of communication and networking have intensified the contact among the Amazigh (Berber) communities in North Africa and diasporic locations, reinforcing pre-existent forms of transnationalism and deterritorialisation. The Internet, however, reinforces local identities as well. This article claims that historical memory and visual and verbal art interact with the social and political discourses on Amazigh/Berber websites, producing local, transregional, and transnational forms of identity. The issue is explored by examining Berber websites’ production of ‘heritage’ and artistic innovation linked to the criticism of national historical constructions and of ‘globalising’ approaches to the Maghreb. The online reactions to the label ‘Arab Spring’ and the artistic and political discourses of the online project ‘New World Embassy of Azawad’ are appraised as examples of interrelating political, artistic and identity dynamics. A second issue concerns the interpretation of Amazigh cultural and political discourse. The question is whether Amazigh websites create contradictory discourses to be interpreted in terms of new ‘mythologies’ or of ‘strategic essentialism’.

The Calm Before The Storm?

This article revisits intellectual and literary trends in the few years preceding the launch of the New Culture Movement. Focusing on translations of texts dating from 1912 to 1915, this study explores how a group of writers usually considered conservative ventured to question the reliance of the individual on political structures that underpinned the then prevailing intellectual framework. I argue that these texts competed through literary means and preceded the claim of self-awareness forcibly voiced by New Culture activists in 1915 by achieving what I call a turn to the intimate. Reassessing the necessity to translate these texts as we celebrate this year the centenary of May Fourth Movement, this approach seeks to resurrect the long-forgotten but thriving literary and intellectual context from which the New Culture Movement’s ideas sprouted.

Conjuring Futures

This article explores the history of the Foundation for Cultural Cooperation between the Netherlands, Suriname, and the Netherlands Antilles (Sticusa), asking how cultural institutions partook in the process of decolonization. Analyzing the perspectives of Sticusa collaborators and critics in the Caribbean, I argue that cultural actors saw decolonization as an opportunity to reorient cultures toward an emergent world order. In this process, they envisioned a range of horizons, from closer integration with Europe to enhanced affinity with the broader Americas. By the 1970s, however, these horizons narrowed to the attainment of national sovereignty, and Sticusa’s cultural experiment ended as a result.

Conjuring Futures

This article explores the history of the Foundation for Cultural Cooperation between the Netherlands, Suriname, and the Netherlands Antilles (Sticusa), asking how cultural institutions partook in the process of decolonization. Analyzing the perspectives of Sticusa collaborators and critics in the Caribbean, I argue that cultural actors saw decolonization as an opportunity to reorient cultures toward an emergent world order. In this process, they envisioned a range of horizons, from closer integration with Europe to enhanced affinity with the broader Americas. By the 1970s, however, these horizons narrowed to the attainment of national sovereignty, and Sticusa’s cultural experiment ended as a result.