Cultural Deconstruction Research Articles

A Chinese Odyssey to the West from the perspective of postmodernism: narrative, symbol and cultural deconstruction

A Chinese Odyssey to the West from the perspective of postmodernism: narrative, symbol and cultural deconstruction

Education Between Cultural “Canon” and the Future: “Classics” and Their Didactic Value

The text considers various aspects of pedagogical reflections within the problematics, described and analysed as follows: (1) The future speeds up and surprises, also painfully, (2) Everyday experience as an enemy of the future, (3) How symbolic culture is functionning?, (4) On the possibility of appraisal of classics beyond the classicism, (5) On bureaucratic interference into a lively textual tissue, (6) Between conservative and liberal treating of traditions in culture, (7) Between social radicality and dialogic deconstruction of culture, (8) Illusions and traps of canonizations of cultural contents, (9) The conclusion: on cultural attitudes in didactics. The author discusses limits and paradoxes of imposing cultural canon within education perceived as initiation into culture. The latter is to be perceived as invisible environment constituting symbolic soil for the memory of signifiers which serve for self-expression, understanding of the Other and for creative autotranscendence and enrichment of the cultural patrimony for the next generations. The basic message of the text requests more profound educational perception and treatement of tradition in order to make it participate in influences becoming the energetic and symbolic background of cultural development at the same time critically revisited in order to meet the challenges of the future.

The Church and Cultural Reconstruction for Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Increasingly, Christianity is becoming the majority religion in many Sub-Saharan African countries. The impressive number of adherents of the faith however, in most cases, is at odds with the cultural beliefs and practices of the peoples of these nations. From a critical historical perspective, the paper examines the influence of Christianity on selected cultures and argues that organized religion, particularly Christianity, holds the key to the development of Sub-Saharan Africa through cultural reconstruction, starting from the church’s sub-culture. Consequently, the paper concludes that African theological reflections, directed towards the challenges of cultural deconstruction and reconstruction within the Church and the larger society, will be able to deepen the roots of the average African Christian and make room for enhanced socio-economic development of Sub-Saharan Africa. Keywords: Church, Culture, Reconstruction, Development

La investigación científica y su aporte al proceso de desarrollo del occidente de Honduras

Este estudio presenta una valoración acerca de la pertinencia de las investigaciones científicas de las universidades públicas y privadas con presencia en el occidente de Honduras. El trabajo fue realizado entre octubre de 2016 y julio de 2017. Las herramientas utilizadas fueron principalmente cuestionarios y entrevistas con gestores del desarrollo y educación superior. Los resultados demuestran que existe una mora sustancial en investigación científica; la coordinación entre las distintas universidades para impulsar procesos de investigación y vinculación son casi nulos, existiendo un distanciamiento entre la Academia y las intervenciones del desarrollo. La investigación queda reducida a unos pocos docentes y es poco socializada. Por su parte, el desarrollo sigue percibiéndose como una meta a alcanzar y como el simple crecimiento económico. Los entrevistados perciben que las universidades deben investigar más temas relacionados con educacion, salud, ambiente, emprendimiento, seguridad alimentaria y ciudadana. Problemas que afectan a la región son el desempleo, la corrupción y la pobreza generalizada, esto se relaciona con la exigencia de la sociedad para profundizar dichos estudios. La pertinencia debe estar más en función de las necesidades de la población y no desde una visión vertical impositiva, por lo que deben definirse líneas y estudios que surjan desde la sociedad misma. Es necesaria la crítica permanente que posibiliten la búsqueda de pensamientos alternativos;deben revisarse los giros paradigmáticos de la ciencia y las intervenciones del desarrollo, esto obliga a entrar en un proceso de descolonización epistemóloga y de deconstrucción cultural que permitan el reencuentro con otros caminos.

Viola Caipira na Universidade: Uma representação schopenhaueriana ou a possibilidade de uma análise sócio-política e estética no universo caipira?

Com o ingresso da Viola Caipira na universidade, a possibilidade de um diálogo com a academia pode ser recebida como um período de análises produtivas neste universo. Entretanto, se o diálogo for conduzido apenas pelo viés acadêmico, esquecendo a essência e a história que este instrumento possui na cultura caipira, tal caminho corre um risco antagônico, isto é, a desconstrução da cultura e a representação desta mesma cultura por um viés de publicações acadêmicas. Afirmar a Viola Caipira em seu atual momento como instrumento ainda imerso em seus primórdios, ou seja, no campo, na roça, na vida do caipira, em festejos populares, como se tais manifestações ainda tivessem o mesmo sentido sociológico e filosófico, é o primeiro passo para que sua história seja eternizada como uma simples ferramenta de trabalhos acadêmicos. Este artigo tem como objetivo realizar uma crítica sobre a posição tomada por aqueles que sustentam a ideia de uma cultura da Viola Caipira, do Caipira e do Violeiro ainda imergido na essência desta mesma cultura, a saber, sem o reflexo da cultura do mercado fonográfico como primeiro passo para a representação do que seria esta cultura. Para realizar esta crítica utilizarei alguns nomes, por exemplo: Arthur Schopenhauer e sua obra Über die Universitäts-Philosophie (Sobre a Filosofia Universitária), Friedrich Nietzsche e sua primeira obra publicada Die Geburt der Tragödie (O nascimento da tragédia), entre outros textos clássicos do filósofo Theodor Adorno e do historiador Mário de Andrade. As obras destes quatro nomes têm em comum, além da originalidade, temas relacionados à cultura e à arte, assim como à cultura de mercado, à essência, às críticas à academia, entre outros.

When culture clashes with individual human rights: A practical theological reflection on the dignity of widows

This article discusses the nature of human beings (men and women) as an egalitarian one even beyond cultural expectations. It argues against some cultural practices on women, especially widows, which claim supremacy and bind the widows to its ritual processes among the Tsonga people. It stresses the importance of human individual that overtakes everything from God�s creation, including cultural rituals which are created by human beings. It claims that the existence of culture depends solely on the existence or presence of human beings and their communities. Therefore, culture cannot use humans to shape itself and to transform the community. It is humans themselves who use culture to identify themselves and ultimately change their communities. Although the paper is theological in its approach, it argues for individual human rights to be respected and weighed above all cultural practices. It further concludes that such cultural practices are not static and that they can be removed from the rest of culture.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article, from a practical theological view, challenges the African cultural rituals that claim authority over women�s rights and dignity. The interdisciplinary nature of this article indicates the sanctity of human individuals especially widows and thereby calls for paradigm shift to deconstruct certain oppressive teachings and practices against widows among African women. This article concludes thus, cultural deconstruction is possible.

TANTANGAN DAKWAH DI ERA POSMODERNISME

As a criticism to modemism, posmodemism has created new cultural realities different from the previous. Through its political acts and strategies, postmodernism has constructed cultural hypereality and complexity. This change becomes a chance and also threat that we need to be critical to anticipate the negative effects. One of its strategies is cultural deconstruction, which denies transcendental signs, meanings, and values, represents one of its negative effects. It will eliminate religious values which by contrast place transcendental values as its principle. For that reason, we need to contextualize Islamic teachings in order not to make postmodernism eliminate Muslims’ sense of religiousity. Da’wa, as a means of communication and transformation of Islamic values, plays a significantrole in this postmodernism era. Consequently, reconstruction of contextual da’wa strategy should be committed to balance the domination of postmodernism cultures.

Percepción y caracterización del desarrollo en las comunidades de Carrizalón, Copán Ruinas y La Campa, Lempira, región occidental de Honduras, mayo-noviembre de 2015

En el marco de las líneas prioritarias de investigación definidas por la UNAH y patrocinada por la Dirección de Investigación Científica y Posgrado, se realizó un estudio de campo durante los meses de mayo y noviembre de 2015, en el que se describe e interpreta la percepción que se tiene del desarrollo en comunidades indígenas lenca y chortí de la región occidental de Honduras.Este trabajo contempló una serie de entrevistas con diferentes líderes y gestores del desarrollo. Algunas herramientas utilizadas en este estudio cualitativo fueron cuestionarios, entrevistas, grupos focales, observaciones, notas y diarios del investigador. Los resultados demuestran que el discurso del desarrollo sigue interpretándose en función del crecimiento económico; su práctica social ha penetrado por diferentes medios: Gobierno local, organizaciones no gubernamentales y otros gestores del desarrollo que intervienen de buena fe en las comunidades.Este trabajo plantea la revisión de las teorías que han estado de la mano del desarrollo como meta universal, pero también critica los fundamentos filosóficos que han estado como premisas detrás de los principales adjetivos desarrollistas que han surgido durante las últimas siete décadas. El propósito es reflexionar acerca de estas concepciones reproducidas en nuestros contextos; de igual manera, buscamos fomentar un pensamiento, a través de la deconstrucción cultural y la descolonización epistemológica del desarrollo que desnaturalice la vergonzosa exclusión social que sufre el pueblo de las comunidades mencionadas; se busca una verdadera justicia cognitiva y, a la vez, retomar postulados de hombres y mujeres que han amado, estudiado y servido a Honduras y a esta América desigual.

Short Reviews

Gabriele Brandstetter's Poetics of Dance has remained unavailable to English-language readers until now. Widely considered a landmark book of dance scholarship when it first appeared in Germany in 1995, this provocative analysis of the early twentieth-century avant-garde in Europe is sure to continue to influence a new audience. The book's initial publication advanced the application of critical theory and interdisciplinary approaches to dance that now constitute the field of critical dance studies. Caringly translated by Elena Polzer with Oxford Studies in Dance Theory series editor Mark Franko, this work remains a unique analysis of modernity that illuminates dance as an “act of transmission,” a bridge through theatre, literature, and visual arts altering relationships to how movement is reproduced and how space is conceptualized. Brandstetter's central premise expands through reading body imagery as a historically specific context from which the iconography of pictorial patterns open up perceptual concepts. The interdependency between new models and vocabularies of modern dance and literature appearing at the turn-of-the-twentieth century brace the argument that avant-garde aesthetic debates and concerns moved through body imagery and figurations in space. The poetics of free dance (and later forms of Expressionist dance appearing in Germany) as it took shape in Europe foregrounds the dancer's movement as a transformative language and symbolic system of cultural deconstruction and renewal.

DAMPAK PERSEPSI BUDAYA terhadap Kesehatan Reproduksi Ibu dan Anak di Indonesia

Reproduction for women is sunnatullah, the health of a mother in childbirth is a necessity so that the child will be born healthy too, but sometimes women are stuck in the myths, traditions and cultural perceptions that occur in the presence of certain taboos will eat healthy foods so that the will result in death, then this is where the need for cultural deconstruction of discourse that is built up so it can be enlightened and enlightening for mothers and children born

Poetry Can Challenge, Too A Few Thoughts on the Poetry of Yi Sha

Chinese literary critic Tang Xin's essay argues that Yi Sha's poetry offers readers one of the most compelling responses to the unfathomable complexities of modern China. According to Tang Xin, the poet's early combination of plain, often vulgar, spoken language coupled with the use of pastiche, his keen eye for parody, and a documentary ethics have made him a poetic force to reckon with over the last two decades. Yet Tang Xin also exposes readers to some of the more unexpected turns the poet has taken over the last decade, including his epic poem “Tang,” in which Yi Sha weaves his current poetic concerns into a broader cultural quilt of poetic vocabularies and themes inherited from Classical Chinese poetry and poetics, leading to what Tang Xin argues is a uniquely Chinese postmodern poetics that avoids common dichotomies to find a balance between cultural deconstruction and reconstruction.

The violence of disablism

This article addresses the multi-faceted nature of violence in the lives of disabled people, with a specific focus on the accounts of disabled children and their families. Traditionally, when violence and disability have been considered together, this has emphasised the disabled subject whom inevitably exhibits violent challenging behaviour. Recently, however, more attention has been paid to violence experienced by disabled people, most notably in relation to hate crime. This article embraces theories that do not put the problems of disablism or violence back onto disabled people but magnify and expose processes of disablism that are produced in the relationships between people, which sometimes involve violence. This, we argue, means taking seriously the role of social relationships, institutions and culture in the constitution of violence. Disabled children, we argue, are enculturated by the violence of disablism. We follow Žižek's advice to step back from the obvious signals of violence to 'perceive the contours of the background which generates such outbursts', and identify four elements of the violence of disablism which we define as real, psychoemotional, systemic and cultural. We come to the conclusion that violence experienced by disabled children and their families says more about the dominant culture of disablism than it does of the acts of a few seemingly irrational, unreasonable, mean or violent individuals. We conclude that there is a need for extensive cultural deconstruction and reformation.