Cultural Advocacy Research Articles

The Impact of Cultural Validation on the College Experiences of Southeast Asian American Students

The purpose of this study is to explore the critical role of culture on the success of Southeast Asian American (SEAA) college students. Specifically, we examined the saliency of cultural validation and how it shaped the educational trajectories of SEAAs. A national sample of 34 participants was analyzed across 5 public, 4-year colleges and universities. Findings suggest the need for (a) cultural knowledge, (b) cultural familiarity, (c) cultural expression, and (d) cultural advocacy. In addition, the low number of SEAA students on their respective campuses heavily influenced their college experience. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

No Way Through: approaching the West Bank checkpoint

This article considers the intriguing frequency of “proxy crossings” by British and American protagonists in international cultural advocacy that seeks to represent the West Bank checkpoint. This highly visible instance of the global checkpoint is the site of a spectacular confrontation between opposing notions of safety, embodied in the encounter between the Israeli soldier guarding the checkpoint and the Palestinian who seeks to pass through it. The narratives I am interested in prompt their readers or viewers to imagine themselves as the person requesting passage by placing a metropolitan protagonist at the checkpoint. Through this act of substitution, metropolitan audiences are asked not simply to side with Palestinians, but to share in their sense of fear and endangerment, and to recognize their common yet unequal implication in the global security order. At the same time, however, audiences are also reminded of the limits of this form of empathetic identification. When the intermediary figures in these narratives approach the checkpoint with fear and then cross it without incident, they are compelled to acknowledge their own safety, and in acknowledging that safety to feel shame, to feel ashamed that they are safe when others are not. The checkpoint thus becomes a site of political conversion, a site where the protagonist, standing in for the reader or viewer, can be persuaded to stand in solidarity with Palestinians.

Deportable Subjects: Lesbians and Political Asylum

This article explores how deportation as a state of emergency structures the queer migration narratives of lesbian refugees and asylum-seekers. The first part of the article discusses the ways in which the political asylum system produces queer, and specifically lesbian, migrants as deportable subjects. The second part examines queer anti-deportation advocacy emerging from within these spaces of deportability or crisis. The third part analyzes a 2010 piece of performance art, Oreet Ashery's Staying: Dream, Bin, Soft Stud and Other Stories , that reflects upon the everyday practices and embodied experiences associated with deportability. What is crucial about this particular text is that it enables the lesbian refugees involved in the project to take an active role in the production of their asylum narratives. In doing so, the article suggests, media and cultural advocacy on behalf of lesbian asylum can provide a site for the articulation of new sexual rights claims.

Challenges and Benefits of Community-Based Participatory Research for Environmental Justice: A Case of Collaboratively Examining Ecocultural Struggles

This essay features critical reflections on a process of generative community-based participatory research (CBPR) in which communication researchers collaborated with environmental organizations, cultural advocacy groups, and community participants to identify better ways of addressing ecocultural struggles. In response to Depoe's call to promote scholar–practitioner interactions, the authors make explicit challenges and benefits implicated in employing a CBPR process to promote environmental justice. This critical reflective analysis centers on three key issues related to engaging in CBPR-oriented praxis-based research. The findings challenge the researcher's role as the initiator of a community-university collaborative project, broaden the notion of community in CBPR, and promote multiple analytical perspectives that can speak to diverse partner-stakeholders. The authors conclude with a conceptualization of how CBPR can aid in promoting environmental justice as both a goal and a process and offer practical recommendations.

Measurable Progress? Teaching Artsworkers to Assess and Articulate the Impact of Their Work

The National Cultural Policy Discussion Paper—drafted to assist the Australian Government in developing the first national Cultural Policy since Creative Nation nearly two decades ago—envisages a future in which arts, cultural and creative activities directly support the development of an inclusive, innovative and productive Australia. "The policy," it says, "will be based on an understanding that a creative nation produces a more inclusive society and a more expressive and confident citizenry by encouraging our ability to express, describe and share our diverse experiences—with each other and with the world" (Australian Government 3). Even a cursory reading of this Discussion Paper makes it clear that the question of impact—in aesthetic, cultural and economic terms—is central to the Government's agenda in developing a new Cultural Policy. Hand-in-hand with the notion of impact comes the process of measurement of progress. The Discussion Paper notes that progress "must be measurable, and the Government will invest in ways to assess the impact that the National Cultural Policy has on society and the economy" (11). If progress must be measurable, this raises questions about what arts, cultural and creative workers do, whether it is worth it, and whether they could be doing it better. In effect, the Discussion Paper pushes artsworkers ever closer to a climate in which they have to be skilled not just at making work, but at making the impact of this work clear to stakeholders. The Government in its plans for Australia's cultural future, is clearly most supportive of artsworkers who can do this, and the scholars, educators and employers who can best train the artsworkers of the future to do this.

The agency of the subject: Yolngu involvement in the Yirrkala Film Project

From the outset of the Yirrkala Film Project, the Yolngu people of northeast Arnhem Land were quick grasp the possibilities of a film that would record the impact of a huge open-cut bauxite mine on their community. From the first meeting called to discuss the project they began telling filmmaker Ian Dunlop what they wanted him to film. As the project expanded into a long-term engagement, Yolngu became active participants, even producers, of films for which they had a clear purpose, and with which they continued to engage–– making the most of the medium's potential for both intra- and cross-cultural communication. The Yirrkala Film Project can, in retrospect, be seen as the beginning of an ongoing campaign of Yolngu cultural advocacy through film, into which other filmmakers following in Dunlop's wake have subsequently been co-opted. In a culmination of all this work, the current Mulka Project––a new media initiative at the Buku-Larrnggay arts centre at Yirrkala––is now training a new generation of Yolngu to make films of their own.

A bridge between cultures: interpreters’ perspectives of consultations with migrant oncology patients

Migration is increasing worldwide. In previous research into people with cancer from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, interpreter accuracy, professionalism and continuity have emerged as key concerns for patients. Little is known about interpreters' perceptions of their role and the challenges they face. This study aimed to obtain their perspective. Thirty interpreters (Greek n = 7, Chinese n = 11, and Arabic n = 12) participated in four focus groups which were audio-taped, transcribed and analysed for themes using N-Vivo software. Skills as an interpreter were broadly perceived as conveying information accurately, being confidential and impartial. Three broad dilemmas faced by interpreters emerged: accuracy versus understanding; translating only versus cultural advocacy and sensitivity; and professionalism versus providing support. Some saw themselves as merely an accurate conduit of information, while others saw their role in broader terms, encompassing patient advocacy, cultural brokerage and provision of emotional support. Perceived challenges in their role included lack of continuity, managing their own emotions especially after bad news consultations, and managing diverse patient and family expectations. Training and support needs included medical terminology, communication and counselling skills and debriefing. Interpreters suggested that oncologists check on interpreter/patient's language or dialect compatibility; use lay language and short sentences; and speak in the first person. Resolving potential conflicts between information provision and advocacy is an important area of cross-cultural communication research. Further training and support is required to enhance interpreters' competence in managing delicate situations from a professional, cultural and psychological perspective; and to assist doctors to collaborate with interpreters to ensure culturally competent communication. Ultimately, this will improve interpreters' well-being and patient care.

A Black British Canon? (review)

Reviewed by: A Black British Canon? R. Victoria Arana Gail LowMarion Wynne-Davies, eds. A Black British Canon? New York: Palgrave, 2006. xiv + 213pp. As the punctuation mark in its title implies, A Black British Canon? raises fundamental questions for scholars and critics of British literature and the arts—principally, how to respond to the burgeoning rate and prestige of creative works by Britain’s blacks. Do their productions constitute a new and separate canon? If so, which of their works are to be included, on what grounds, and according to whom? The book is valuable not so much for giving definitive answers to such questions as for debating these and related issues from several significant and contending perspectives. The editors make it clear that their book “sets out, not to trace a history or highlight areas of productivity, but to challenge the way in which black British writers and practitioners are being seamlessly incorporated into the academic canon, and to problematize the consequent disciplinary institutionalization” (5). A Black British Canon? features an introduction by its editors, a foreword by Mike Phillips, nine chapters under three section heads—”Interrogating the Canon,” “New Languages of Criticism,” and “Genealogies and Interventions”—and an afterword by Alison Donnell. Only three of the eleven contributors are black (novelist and journalist Phillips, Scottish Arts Council administrator Femi Folorunso, and playwright and cultural critic Michael McMillan). All three are writer-activists prominent in the UK for their cultural advocacy. Except for one doctoral candidate, the rest of the volume’s contributors are seasoned and distinguished university professors whose scholarship has increasingly centered on the work of black British writers and artists. All of the book’s contributors live and work in England or Scotland. In their encyclopedic introduction, Gail Low and Marion Wynne- Davies emphasize their interest in “examining the institutional, funding[,] and publishing networks that support black British culture” and that have had and will continue to have a major say in “the politics and the processes of canon formation” (5); they call for “greater self-reflexivity with regard to the choices [that faculties] make as [they] select, read and recommend texts within, what Gayatri Spivak has called, the ‘Teaching Machine’“ (6). Low and Wynne-Davies extensively list and briefly discuss important anthologies, films, art galleries, serial publications, bibliographies, critical works, authors and artists, and book titles emerging from the 1980s through the early 2000s. They emphasize that “a canon is what we produce as we make those choices about what we read or write about” (10). Low and Wynne-Davies insist that “the issues and problems surrounding canonicity are not simply academic” but “involve, of necessity, a series [End Page 909] of wide-ranging and constantly shifting cultural dialogues that have a significant impact upon contemporary society” (10). The essays they have assembled do an admirable job of mapping these current debates and their rich complexities. Phillips’s “Foreword: Migration, Modernity and English Writing— Reflections on Migrant Identity and Canon Formation” argues cogently for re-describing English literature in the light of its newly altered “landscape,” where writers like himself have sought “constructive engagement” with a whole range of lifestyles, languages, and cultural traditions they know (19). He warns against the glib use, and misuse, of labels (such as diversity or multiculturalism) that lead to “a benign cultural apartheid” and to the view that “you [migrants] have a culture which we [old locals] will support and praise”—a view that also “crudely” implies that “we don’t have to make room in our culture for you” (21–22). Phillips affirms the need for state institutions to recognize and incorporate outstanding works by black citizens into the general canons of the arts and literature because the latest wave of creative works by black Britons, when understood historically, does indeed reflect the most remarkable transformations occurring during the past three centuries in the culture and polity of the British Isles. Phillips “signals the emergence of a new consciousness”—not merely among the migrants, but more generally—and explains the consequent “reconfiguration of selfhood, which is a necessary precondition” of the decisive process of social change occurring in England, Scotland, and Wales (29). In short, he makes...

McLean's Scene: Jackie McLean as Improviser, Educator and Activist

In a musical career spanning nearly sixty years, the alto saxophonist and composer Jackie McLean (1931-2006) developed a model of collaborative and socially engaged pedagogy that was to prove enormously fruitful both for his own career and that of the younger musicians who came into his sphere of activities. Based on a rigorous musicianship essential to Afrological forms of improvisation, an uncommon depth and breadth of experience, professional ties to seminal artists like Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, and Ornette Coleman, and a personal self-confidence which allowed for a radical openness, McLean was able to integrate performance, pedagogy and social and cultural advocacy into a uniquely coherent whole which was much greater than the sum of its parts. His process was opportunistic in the best sense of that word, and it was improvisational. In identifying and exploring some of the main themes or “scenes” of McLean’s musical practice, encompassing improvisation, education, and activism, I hope to contribute to a deeper understanding of the powerful cultural space delineated by this musician.

Performing Ethnomusicology: Teaching and Representation in World Music Ensembles (review)

Performing Ethnomusicology: Teaching and Representation in World Music Ensembles. Edited by Ted Solis. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. [vii, 322 p. ISBN 0-520-23831-1. $24.95.] Index, bibliography. World music ensembles can be found in any number of colleges and universities throughout North America. One would thus assume that, given the recent decades of reflexivity in ethnomusicology, that a significant amount of literature would be devoted to the pedagogical and philosophical issues that surround the creation and perpetuation of world music ensembles, especially since much is written on the process of musical transmission. However, the authors of Performing Ethnomusicology: Teaching and Representation in World Music Ensembles make clear that there is, in fact, a curious absence in ethnomusicological literature concerning the among world music directors, ethnomusicologists, and students. This work is an extraordinary amalgamation of essays that deal with the processes of forming, teaching, and analyzing world music ensembles in various academic settings. One of the true assets of the book is its treatment of the ethnomusicologist as ensemble leader. Also, for those interested in the progression and history of the field of ethnomusicology, this book provides insight into how world music ensembles have helped to make a place for the ethnomusicologist in academia. Along these lines, the work also reveals how ethnomusicology sometimes conflicts with traditional academic frameworks. World music ensembles generally comprise many different people with diverse cultural heritages. How do these different orientations create a mode for change within the ensemble, yet also provide continuity for the to continue year to year? How does the perpetuate itself? Drawing from various cultures, including Caribbean steelband, Indian, Balinese, Javanese, Philippine, Mexican, Central and West African, Japanese, Chinese, Middle Eastern, Jewish klezmer ensembles, and others, this work examines these and other that deal with the creative and pedagogical issues involved in the academic world music ensemble. The volume's general organization is divided into four sections with sixteen essays. The overarching issues include the intercultural and intergenerational transmission and the interlocking pedagogical relationships within the ensemble. Part 1, Sounding the Other: Academic World Music Ensembles in Historical Perspective, comprises an overview and introduction to the next three sections, which all deal with the principle challenges in teaching and transmitting knowledge about world music cultures through world music ensembles. Ricardo D. Trimillos, Scott Marcus, Ted Soli's, David Harnish, J. Lawrence Witzleben, Sumarsam, and Gage Averill provide the foundation for the book. Using contemporary perspectives and philosophies, their essays discourse on the general history of world music ensembles in the academic setting. Richard D. Trimillos's essay Subject, Object, and the Ethnomusicology Ensemble: The Ethnomusicology 'We' and 'Them' reflects on his more than four decades of personal involvement with world music ensembles through both subjective-personal and objective-general perspectives. Reflecting on the history of world music ensembles-from Mantle Hood's initial at UCLA to current-day issues of the other, cultural heritage, credibility, mediation, and cultural advocacy, he presents questions intended both to challenge the present perceptions of the study group and to advance arguments for its value within the academy (p. 47). Chapter 2, A Bridge to Java, is reflexive and consists of an interview with Hardja Susilo, conducted by David Harnish, Ted Solis, and J. Lawrence Witzleben. Drawing upon the extensive experience and emic knowledge of Hardja Susilo, this chapter reveals the negotiations one must take when creating an ensemble. …

Irresolvable cultural conflicts and conservation/development arguments: Analysis of Korea’s Saemangeum project

This paper examines, through argument analysis & grid-group model, how cultural bias, as the frame of reference of an advocacy coalition (AC), brings about irresolvable conflicts and produces divided arguments between coalitions for development and conservation in Korea’s Saemangeum project. Based on different cultural biases, two ACs – the advocacy coalition for development (ACD) and the advocacy coalition for conservation (ACC) – interpreted the same facts differently in line with their cultural orientations and ways of life. The dynamic argument patterns reflected each coalition’s cultural bias, which restricted the frame of reference of actors in each AC. After reviewing argument analysis as an analytic tool, we introduce cultural theoryin which ways of life, consisting of cultural biases and social relations, amplify the irresolvable conflicts between two ACs. Second, to show the culturally constructed nature of the conflicts, we analyze the contrasting arguments between the ACD (dominated by a hierarchy bias) and ACC (led by egalitarianism) in the Saemangeum project. Third, we discuss the implications of Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky’s cultural theoryto advocacy coalition framework (ACF) as follows: 1) constraining effects on inter-coalitional learning by cultural biases, 2) coexistence of different solidarities under a coalition, and 3) asymmetric relationships between parties in a coalition.

Social worker and immigrant client experiences in multicultural service provision: Educational implications

Social work education, while committed to preparing students for anti-oppressive practice with immigrants and refugees, has not always been successful in achieving this goal. Student knowledge about and interest in cross-cultural practice, as evidenced in Canadian and US studies, often remains superficial and marginalized. This may in part be due to a lack of inclusion of practice wisdom and lived experiences of front-line practitioners and their clients. To remedy this deficit, 13 Canadian social workers of varied cultural backgrounds providing services in inner-city schools and 19 immigrant clients were interviewed in-depth to ascertain their perceptions of central elements of anti-oppressive practice with immigrant populations. Results yielded two major themes: Multifaceted Perception of Self and Other , which pertained to a recognition that culture was multifaceted, complex, and defined interactively; and Proactive Service Delivery , which pertained to active worker involvement in cultural bridging, brokering and advocacy. Implications for anti-oppressive social work education include a focus on multifaceted definition of culture, and admissions policies that promote multilingual, multicultural competencies.

The Patchwork Quilt: A Tool for Promoting Cultural Understanding, Community and Advocacy

Approaches that are culturally sensitive and that promote social and economic justice enrich the learning experience. This article presents a class project where students came together around a specific cause and created a patchwork quilt. Students were introduced to the concept of a patchwork quilt as a symbol of tradition, community, and advocacy. Two classes selected a quilt theme and class patchwork quilts were constructed. Students gained valuable experience in appreciating and employing cultural tradition, collaboration, and advocacy.

Using ‘Economic’ Impact Studies in Arts and Cultural Advocacy: A Cautionary Note

‘Economic’ impact studies have been popular in arts and cultural advocacy. Yet the application is inappropriate. ‘Economic’ impact studies are not designed for the purposes of advocacy. In the case of art and culture, they are more likely to be self-defeating. They also distract attention and resources away from the articulation of better advocacy arguments. Economists have warned against the use of ‘economic’ impact studies for advocacy, but their efforts have been only partly successful. This paper summarises the case against using ‘economic’ impacts for advocacy, concentrating on commonsense issues for easy digestion by non-economists.

A Response to Charles Keil

I am especially taken by Charlie's strategy of written speech in this position piece: I can hear him speaking these lines. I doubt he will like hearing it called this, but his positionality is affectively enacted through strategic oratory. He calls for a grounded ethnomusicology with his feet on the ground. I can only second his proposal for ethnomusicologists to make themselves relevant by connecting themselves to neighborhoods, communities, right here and now, wherever 'home' is. This interpenetration of research and social action is tremendously appealing to me too, and I think I arrived at this idea after traveling a similar path to Charlie's. Ethnic studies (in my case, Asian American studies) provides models for connecting the academy to the community; Charlie's years in an American studies department have probably left their mark. Charlie's liberal social realismhis fist-swinging socialism-has characterized his work in ways that I have consistently found inspiring, even exhilarating. He has taken risks over and over again in his work by grappling with the cultural usefulness of ethnomusicology. I am therefore (generally) ready to jump on Charlie's bandwagon as it seems the right place to be, at least politically. Unlike him, though, I think we need critical theory to help us imagine new ways to connect scholarship, teaching, and the community (wherever it may be). If research and teaching is cultural advocacy, then we need more than conviction-we also need the critical tools that might help us focus and refocus what we think we're seeing and what we think we ought to be doing. Theory provides tools for thought as well as for action. Scholars working under the general rubric of poststructuralism share a keen acknowledgment of the constructedness and historicity of the theories they wield. This is as good a place as any for me to object to the word jargon (though it appears here without its usual companion, trendy). Cultural theory and its attendant vocabularies, often emergent, are neither