Cultural Ideologies Research Articles

Narrativizing the "Other": Joseph Conrad’s Art of Story-telling in Almayer’s Folly

This paper proposes to focus on Joseph Conrad’s narrative style in his first novel Almayer’s Folly, which has been so far neglected by most mainstream critics. Conrad’s narratives employ different narrative techniques in different texts that complicate the attempt to generalize about his narrative method or style. Still some distinctive features are common in his narratives. Critics so far agree to his modernist style that links the narrators with the characters as well to explore the deep psychology of both. When most of them find Conrad’s narrators as unreliable and reflexive especially in his Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness and some other Western fictions, this essay investigates the author’s style in his debut novel, and drawing on Edward Said’s idea of “secular criticism”, finds a “secular style” of telling the story, by which Conrad achieves a kind of narrative detachment from the text and lends his narrators a transnational identity. By hiding the authorial identity and narrator’s location and racial or national perspectives, Conrad gains the confidence of his readers across the globe. That is why in the Malay trilogy, he makes his narrators nationless, and hence makes them appear as limited omniscient narrators who satirize the dominant cultural, racial, religious and political ideologies, especially the Western Imperialist hegemony. This is what makes Conrad both a writer of the East and the West. This paper critically evaluates this secular style of fiction writing in Almayer’s Folly.

‘I have aym’d my black shafts at white markes’: Colours in The Queen of Corinth

The article offers a new angle on The Queen of Corinth (1617), a tragicomedy that Philip Massinger co-wrote with John Fletcher and Nathan Field. It discusses the way in which colours are skilfully used to sketch out the characters’ personalities, reproduce their mindset, values, gender, and social roles, and define the different agencies of men and women. This article sheds light on how the presence of colours and their interaction convey a cultural ideology and negotiate multiple meanings in terms of morality, sexual politics, gender, and justice while crystallising the sexual, social, and political anxieties of the period.

Is “Application” Everything about Studying for a University Degree? The Multiple Influences Shaping Undergraduates in Chinese Higher Education in Contemporary Times

Abstract Based on the self-reflection of 22 undergraduate students at a renowned Chinese university regarding their journey towards obtaining a bachelor’s degree, this study reveals the discrepancy between the idealistic functions and missions of higher education as perceived by students and their actual implementations in the real world. It further explores the multifaceted logics exerted by the higher education environment on students during their educational journey. Data analysis shows that contemporary global neoliberalism, alongside traditional Chinese cultural ideologies such as Confucianism and Daoism, significantly impacts the educational philosophies of university students to varying extents. These diverse ideologies drive students to demonstrate varied learning states and behaviors, showcasing the complex interplay of global and local forces in shaping student experiences in higher education.

Translation And Politics- An Analysis Of Zhu Guangqian’s Aesthetic Translation Thoughts After 1949

As a kind of discourse right, translation is an effective way of self-shaping, improvement and re-creation of social ideology and ideological culture, as well as a kind of political act. In the history of Chinese aesthetic translation, Zhu Guangqian played an extremely important role. Two distinctly different stages can be used here to divide his aesthetic research and translation practice: translation for academic service before the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and translation for political service after the founding of PRC. After 1949, Zhu Guangqian’s translation practice was deeply influenced by the atmosphere of the times. Translation and politics were inseparable. This paper takes Zhu Guangqian’s academic career after 1949 as a case study, devoted to explore his aesthetic translation under political circumstances according to historical facts, including three aspects: the dramatic shift of aesthetic research and translation thoughts, the academic path of combining translation and research, and the aesthetic translation thoughts of unity in thought and language.

Cityscapes of Hunting and Fishing: Yoruba Place-Making and Cultural Heritage for a Sustainable Urban Vision

Literature on African urbanism has generally lacked insight into the significant roles of hunters and fishers as city founders. This has resulted in a knowledge gap regarding the cultural foundation of the cities that could enhance policy frameworks for sustainable urban governance. This article examines corollaries related to the complementarities of hunting and urbanism with case studies from the ethno-linguistic Yoruba region in southwestern Nigeria. Through qualitative methodologies involving ethnography and the (oral) history of landscapes of hunting from the pre-colonial and (British) colonial periods, as well as tracing the current cultural significance of hunting in selected Yoruba cities, the article reveals data that identify hunters and fishers as city founders. It shows that hunting, as a lived heritage, continues to be interlaced with cultural urban practices and Yoruba cosmology and that within this cultural imagery and belief, hunters remain key actors in nature conservation, contributing to socio-cultural capital, economic sustainability, and urban security structures. The article concludes with recommendations for strategies to reconnect with these value systems in rapidly westernizing urban Africa. These reconnections include the re-sacralization of desacralized landscapes of hunting, revival of cultural ideologies, decolonization from occidental conceptions, and re-definition of urbanism and place-making in light of African perspectives despite globalization. In doing so, the article contributes to a deeper understanding of the interconnections between the environmental and societal components of sustainability theory, agenda, and practice in urban contexts; underscores the societal value of lived heritage, cultural heritage, and cultural capital within the growing literature on urban social sustainability; and sheds more light on southern geographies within the social sustainability discourse, a field of study that still disproportionately reflects the global northwest.

Balancing faith and identity: language policies and practices in Indonesian Muslim families

ABSTRACT This study investigates the complex interplay between language policies, religious beliefs, and cultural identity within two Indonesian Muslim families, residing in urban and rural contexts. Given Indonesia’s diverse linguistic landscape, with over 700 languages spoken, this research examines how religious beliefs and cultural identity shape their language ideology and their utilisation of the Indonesian language, local languages, and Arabic within Indonesian Muslim families. This research fills a gap, as there is limited literature on this topic in Indonesia. Through a case study design, including semi-structured interviews with two families in different contexts, the study explores language use for daily communication, cultural preservation, and religious practices. Findings reveal that the urban family members prioritise the Indonesian language for broader communication, while the rural family members maintain stronger ties to local languages to preserve their cultural identity. Their religious convictions place Arabic as a language designated for religious purposes rather than for daily communication. The study underscores the significance of religious beliefs in shaping language choices and highlights the challenges and strategies to preserve cultural identity and religious devotion. This research contributes to the understanding of how faith and cultural identity influence language ideology and practices in Indonesia’s multilingual society.

The Development of Psychodynamic Psychiatry in China.

The development of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychiatry in China is influenced by political, economic, cultural, and social ideology. The process of psychoanalysis entering China is also a reflection of Chinese history, mirroring China's transition from conservatism to openness, from focusing on tradition to embracing modernity, and from focusing on community and family to individualism. These changes align with the Chinese continuous exploration and pursuit of integration, adaptation, and individuation in the process of globalization, urbanization, and modernization. This article describes the continuous expansion and development of psychoanalysis and psychodynamics in China parallel to societal changes and how an increasing number of people have begun to engage in psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic practices and research. The author describes challenges to how psychoanalysis can better serve the Chinese people through clinical practice and in-depth research under the country's unique social, cultural, historical, and political background.

Inner Circle Ideology Domination in a National Commercial EFL Textbook: A Case of Indonesian Islamic-affiliated Schools

This study employs an analysis of visual images in English textbooks used in Islamic-affiliated schools through the lens of Kachru’s three-circle model of English, which categorizes English-speaking countries into Inner, Outer, and Expanding circles. This study aims to explore how these images reflect and reinforce linguistic and cultural ideologies associated with each circle. A qualitative content analysis was implemented, focusing on the visual images within English textbooks, which were categorized based on the representation of cultural elements. Data analysis was implemented using a coding scheme and Critical Discourse Analysis framework, examining the power relations and ideological influences represented by the visual content of the textbook. Results show that inner circle culture was dominantly represented (67.9%) in the textbook of its visual use. Western-looking people, outfits, movies, and food represent the images used in the textbook. The finding suggests that textbooks used in English teaching at Islamic affiliated schools, or madrasas, must be carefully designed and selected to adjust students’ needs and school context, as teaching a foreign language can carry others’ ideologies and power.

Orientalist Desires and Gothic Manifestations: A Study of William Beckford's 'Vathek'

This study offers a critical analysis of Gothic motifs and Orientalist themes in William Beckford’s Vathek with a view of how the latter contributes to the construction and reproduction of the ideological boundaries between the East and the West which are underpinned by cultural and moral differentialism. This way, the research illustrates how fear, horror and the supernatural are mobilised by Beckford to represent the Oriental as a space that is inherently dangerous and spiritually degenerate. The focus is also made on how the settings of the novel the confusing, infernal halls of Eblis, the vast, mysterious landscapes are not just the background, but characters themselves who embody and intensify the main character’s moral and spiritual degeneration. Furthermore, the penetration provided by the study gives insights as to how figures such as Nouronihar and Carathis exemplify yet disrupt the Orientalist stereotype of the fatal female. Due to this research, the interconnectivity between Gothic and Orientalist Studies has been presented, and it gives an insight into how socio-political imperialisms such as culture supremacy are perpetuated by Vathek. In other words, the findings enrich extant scholarly debate by offering an analytic of how the two architectonic styles weave together in the novel, to create cultural and moral ideologies.

Banned in sports, ignored in media, stigmatized in society: transgender athletes in Turkey

ABSTRACT Social, cultural, and political ideologies have a significant impact on gender policies. In traditional societies, gender identities beyond those determined by an individual’s biological sex at birth are disregarded and stigmatized. In this respect, sport is of great significance for transgender individuals as a field of visibility and struggle. However, political decisions taken by international and national federations on sporting grounds lead to the exclusion of transgender athletes from sports activities. The present study examines the reactions of X users to the decision of World Athletics to ban transgender women from competing in the women’s category. In this direction, comments posted on the X accounts of traditional mass media organizations (n = 7) and digital news producers (n = 14) operating in Turkey who reported on World Athletics’ decision on X were analyzed through qualitative and quantitative content analysis. As a result of the study, it was determined that traditional mass media avoided reporting the event. Moreover, while most of the comments posted by users (93.35%) consisted of content in support of the decision, it was found that cultural (18.50%) and religious (17.44%) themes also stood out. It was also found that transgender athletes were stigmatized with discourses including keywords such as “mutant.”

The Question of Moral Education: Reading Selected Bangla and English Folktales

Moral education is a type of education that distinguishes between right and wrong and determines human behaviour. In other words, moral education is an educational programme that focuses on moral and ethical values. The folktales' moral education aims to prepare the audience to be responsible, respectful, and resilient citizens who will contribute to the development of society, the nation, and the world at large. This study classifies moral themes and investigates their educational impact by conducting a qualitative content analysis of selected Bangala and English folktales. The study finds that each folktale incorporates some moral education, which is necessary in all aspects of human society. Folktales from the oral literary tradition play an important role in imparting moral education that includes historical, cultural, and religious ideologies and values. Folktale performances convey the moral values imbued in folktales to both children and adults. Folktale performance has been a part of human culture since time immemorial. The stories told in a pleasant ambience not only entertain, but also teach children moral lessons and values that will help them become better members of society. The folktale genre aims to educate children by instilling moral values, socialisation, behavioural changes, psychological development, and spiritual upliftment. The study concludes proving that these folktale-based lessons teach children human qualities like hard work, courage, love, sympathy, forgiveness, respect for elders, patriotism, tolerance, heroism, truthfulness, fraternity, and religiosity, among others. Furthermore, these folktale performances also highlight social vices such as pride, envy, wrath, theft, hatred, wickedness, ingratitude, injustice, disobedience, and dishonesty, which typically lead to retribution and nemesis.

‘Through guilt and resilience, we author ourselves’: a collaborative autoethnography of Vietnamese PhD student mothers / ‘A través de la culpa y la resiliencia, nos escribimos a nosotras mismas’: una autoetnografía de madres doctorandas vietnamitas

In this article, we employed collaborative autoethnography to explore the experiences of ourselves as four Vietnamese PhD student mothers who crossed national borders in pursuit of further education and encountered multiple challenges along the way. Based on Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism, we unpacked our experiences by presenting ongoing dialogues that influenced thoughts about our doctoral studies and mothering practices. On the one hand, we recounted our experiences of mother guilt, life–work balance and escalating tensions in the academic journeys and our constant struggle to conform to the moral norms bound by the political and cultural ideologies prescribed to Vietnamese women. At the same time, we displayed our resilience through our self-dialogues, which helped us counter the social norms to author our voices.

The Dissemination, Impact and Effectiveness of Jameson’s Cultural Theory: A Survey-Based Study in the Chinese Context

This study explores the dissemination, impact, and effectiveness of Fredric Jameson’s cultural theory within Chinese mass culture by conducting a comprehensive survey across various social groups and regions. The paper examines the acceptance and communication of Jameson’s theories, focusing on how his insights into cultural expansion and ideology resonate with different demographics in China. The results indicate that the primary audience for Jameson’s works consists of individuals aged 25-35 with high educational backgrounds, with significant interest in regions like Zhejiang, Hubei, Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. The survey also reveals varying degrees of familiarity with Jameson’s theories among respondents, highlighting a growing influence yet uneven understanding. These findings suggest that a systematic interpretation of Jameson’s cultural theory can significantly contribute to the development and enrichment of Chinese mass culture.

Doing Gender, Undoing Race: Token Processes For Women With Multiple Subordinate Identities

Through interviews with 29 Asian American women tech workers, this article demonstrates how cultural frameworks around race and gender shape identity salience and construct a token process for workers with multiple subordinate identities. This approach to tokenism better accounts for multiple systems of inequality affecting workers and demonstrate how certain identities are prioritized—and others neglected—through institutional interventions and cultural ideologies. It also provides an additional lens through which to interpret the emphasis on gender inequality within the high-tech industry: Whereas gender inequality is generally considered a critical step in achieving an equitable work environment, I consider how it is intentionally leveraged within organizations to divert from interventions toward establishing racial equality. Results suggest serious barriers preventing the high-tech industry from reckoning with racial inequality for Asian American women workers; more broadly, they hint at how other racial groups with white-adjacent privileges are similarly exploited to uphold the high-tech industry’s white racial project.

How to think about the instrumental politics of mass rape: a critical appraisal of feminist approaches

ABSTRACT Mass rape and other forms of sexual violence in ethnic conflict, as their incidence in Bosnian and Kosovo wars in former Yugoslavia showed in the 1990s, cannot be relativised along some strategy of either ‘victimization’ or ‘everyone is guilty’ within an antiquated framework of ethnic-religious hatred. In this case as in others, the local notions of honour and blood cannot be taken uncritically to be binding cultural traits that ought to determine social behaviour. Incidentally, they cannot either account for a structured ideology of ‘men’s war against women’, or for a postmodern feminist ideology of gender and the moral panic of a ‘patriarchal dream-order’ restored. In this article, I offer a critical appraisal of the stereotyped and relativising accounts of feminist and human rights scholars, a critique very much needed for an anthropological approach attentive to cultural ideology and activism. To understand the effectiveness of mass rape in a military strategy of ethnic cleansing, I suggest local cultural concepts and moral relativist ideas are not culturally given, but instrumental resources deliberately mobilised.

Shaping our bodies to our shape our selves: A theological remedy to the discontented pursuit of the body I want to be

AbstractThe late modern person has a complicated relationship with the body: despite a contemporary “return to the body,” the body is still conceived as a project which the person must advance and revise in order to both express and shape their sense of self‐identity. For all people this project is destined to failure at some point, and it has a range of concerning implications along the way. In thrall to the prevailing cultural ideologies that idolize projection, progress, and proficiency, our approach to the body is more likely to be characterized by manipulation and striving than the divine affirmation that “it is good” (Gen 1). This dynamic underlies the modern epidemic of ill health, eating disorders, disordered eating, “obesity,” and body‐shaming. Contemporary Christians are poorly insulated from the perils of a culture that is simultaneously body‐obsessed and body‐denying. A barely perceptible Gnosticism undergirds much of the popular theology of the body in practice, and the church has done little to address these ills, instead becoming mired in other body issues centered around sexuality and reproduction. The church has even absorbed the aims of the “wellness” industry and diet culture, sprinkling them Christianese and Christian celebrity endorsements. What can a biblical Christian thought and practice offer as a remedy? Ultimately, the human person need not strive to establish his or her identity, instead it is held secure in Christ. Both beauty and health, theologically defined, emerge from the integration of self and body, and the participation of the whole person in the divine life.

Historicity of Aisyiyah’s Da’wa: A Study of Aisyiyah Da’wa Movement from Sopo Tresno (1914) Until Aisyiyah (2010) from an Aqidah Perspective

The Islamic community experienced a crisis at the beginning of the 20th century. The condition of women at that time was very concerning. Women were regarded as Konco Wingking (a term referring to those responsible for household chores), a position that had evolved into an ingrained cultural ideology contributing to women's ignorance and backwardness. This issue was of great importance to Nyai Ahmad Dahlan and her husband, prompting them to initiate the establishment of an internaat (boarding school) to support Indonesian girls. This study examines the history of the Sopo Tresno and Aisyiyah da'wah movements. It is a literature-based research drawing primary sources from books, conference proceedings, and scholarly works. The approach used is descriptive-analytical, with data validity tested using measures of transferability and reliability. The analysis method employed is inductive. The results will establish the foundation of Aisyiyah's da'wah from Sopo Tresno (1914) to Aisyiyah in 2010 from the perspective of aqidah.

Suffering Together: Photos and Stories of Nsukka Residents During Nigeria's 2023 Currency Redesign Crisis

The Central Bank of Nigeria's (CBN) attempt to redesign the 200, 500, and 1000 naira notes by December 2022 led to a cash crunch and humanitarian crisis, exposing the federal government's shortsightedness and inherent weakness. Amidst the crisis that peaked between late January and February 2023, opportunities for social connections and shared experiences emerged. In this essay and visual archive, I explore the financial crisis phenomenon in Nsukka metropolis, Southeastern Nigeria, from a historical perspective, integrating personal insights, respondents' views, and archival sources. Analysis of observational notes, visual and textual data through the lens of Critical Theory reveals the importance of social connection and cultural ideology among Nsukka residents during a difficult time in Nigerian history. Photographic images of crowded bank scenes and remarks like "You are not the only person" evoke personal and public misery and frustration during the currency redesign crisis. The argument is that those in power can create complex situations like artificial scarcity of valuable commodities for questionable reasons, while the masses bear the brunt and enact and demonstrate servility in the process.

“Nepantla is a Place Just Like the Ocean”: Bilingual Teachers Explore their Identities through Multimodal and Artifactual Testimonio

AbstractBilingual teachers of Color navigate many in‐between spaces as they forge hybrid teacher identities; Chicana feminist scholars have referred to these crossroads between cultural ideologies, values, and beliefs as spaces of nepantla. In this qualitative case study, we analyzed the work of 31 teachers from two cohorts of multilingual educators who participated in a summer bilingual endorsement course and subsequent bilingual teacher induction meetings. These teachers identified as Latine, Asian/Asian American, Native American, or multiracial, and taught in Spanish, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Japanese, and English‐medium settings. As course instructors and induction facilitators, we engaged participants in a series of multimodal and artifactual testimonio sessions and collected data in the form of multimodal and artifactual testimonios, coursework, interviews, and video recordings of testimonio sessions. Framed by bringing Chicana feminist conceptualizations of testimonio and nepantla into conversation with theories of multimodal and artifactual literacies, we analyzed participants' testimonios and found they used images, voice, video, and artifacts to unearth their histories; to forge resilient identidades nepantleras; and to express connection and solidarity with students that informed their present and future pedagogical practices. This study suggests the potential for researchers and teacher educators to leverage hybrid literacy practices, like multimodal and artifactual testimonio, while creating spaces that facilitate identity exploration and development for multilingual teachers of Color. Significantly, this multilingual teacher identity development allows for articulation of connection and solidarity with multilingual students, which teachers perceive as consequential in shaping their pedagogical and advocacy commitments.

Islamic Radicalisation in Bangladesh: An Analysis of Political Islamism in Bangladesh

Islamism in the modern world is clearly portrayed as a notion of religious extremism. Bangladesh on the other hand as a young developing nation finds its root into two different branches of ideology: Bengali cultural and Muslim ideology. The militant groups in Bangladesh have been found active recently specially after 2015 when international media spotted Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and the Islamic State’s (IS) presence in the country. This study, however, aims at understanding the Islamic radicalisation in Bangladesh through the analysis of Islamist political and non-political groups’ functions and propaganda. In this article the ideas of Islamic radicalisation, mutations and role and function of Islamist militant as well as political group have been discussed. The role of Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing in the radicalisation have been discussed. The disputed relationship of Jamaat and the radical extremists as well as ban on their politics have created a complex scenario in Bangladesh. The political polarisation and politicising of counter terrorism effort have weakened the government’s effort to tackle radical organisation. Honest and tolerant political intervention by welcoming different views regarding the solution of the radicalisation problem can help address it effectively.