Cultural Self-determination Research Articles

The Batwa Trail: developing agency and cultural self-determination in Uganda through Indigenous tourism and cultural performance

This article examines how Batwa—the Indigenous peoples of Southwestern Uganda—negotiate agency and cultural self-determination through touristic cultural performances held during the Batwa Trail, an Indigenous tourist attraction in Mgahinga Forest, Southwestern Uganda. I take a theoretical model that approaches Indigenous tourism and touristic cultural performances as a site of social interaction where identity and representation are negotiated. The touristic performances are crucial in articulating Batwa performance culture and as a forum where counter-narratives against the stereotypes and marginalities associated with Batwa culture are constructed. I argue that touristic performances are a strategic form of experiential and embodied practice through which Batwa identity is negotiated and expressed.

“We Are Here”: Race, Gender, and Spaces of “Common Ground” in the Works of John Edgar Wideman, bell hooks, and Jesmyn Ward

AbstractBlack-authored self-writing serves as a tool of cultural self-determination and anticipates the concept of “placemaking.” Scholars regard “placemaking” as a process by which people of color struggle to transform space into place, to alter racially segregated spaces into sites of joy, freedom, and political mobilization. This essay evaluates these claims through an exploration of spatial themes in three memoirs: John Edgar Wideman–s Fatheralong (1994), bell hooks’s Where We Stand (2000), and Jesmyn Ward’s Men We Reaped (2013). The contemporary constructions of black place in these narratives destabilize ideological impressions of linear racial progress, individualism, dominant narratives of “colorblind” white supremacy, and neoliberal political economy. These texts record a process by which black people create a self-determined space of “common ground” despite white supremacist, capitalist dominance.

Development of humanities education in the context of interdisciplinary approach and informatization

The phenomenon of globalization is directly connected to the emergence of the global Network. National and political diversity in cyberspace fades into the background. Authenticity, self-identification of a person becomes secondary. The society determines the immersion of the individual in the virtual space and its functioning in this space. The transformation and development of humanities education is determined by the processes of informatization. The development of humanities education involves the implementation of the principle of openness of humanities education to social practices and the principle of its accessibility without age and geographical location. The introduction of info-telecommunications accelerates the creation of a single information space, provides access to the information resources. The development of humanities education is aimed at implementing an interdisciplinary approach that ensures the effectiveness of the development and application of humanitarian knowledge and form a conscious responsible choice in a variety of cultural meanings, cultural self-determination. It ensures the rigor and accuracy of the methodological and technical side of humanities education.

Мистецтво в системі філософії освіти. Ч. 2.

Modern reformation-educational processes are influenced by digital technologies, electronic communications networks, media-art practices, etc. Hence we get the actuality of creative potential of art for pedagogical activity as the concept of philosophy of education. Human consciousness inherents organic interdependence theoretically-cognitive (knowledge, ideas, comprehension of the boundary principles of human existence, culture, procedure of philosophical reflection) and social-psychological (feelings, will) elements. Author’s perennial experience incorporates interactive forms of artistic knowledge activation of pedagogical specialties students: preparations and guided tours by students (museums, architecture of Lviv, etc.), developing skills to conduct dialogues about art and education of the countries which languages are taught in pedagogical institution (Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain). In accordance personal and pedagogical experience of intersubjective communication, existential and cultural self-determination is enriched. In the system of philosophy of education, art is designed to harmonize human existence, to balance the sensory-emotional and rational-intellectual spheres of consciousness. The spread of electronic media requires a thorough study of their impact on humans, given the cognitive problems of communication technologies, information and computer systems, digitalization. A variety of artistic phenomena form a holistic system. Moreover, beliefs are knowledge that has passed through the world of feelings and human will. An open humanitarian space, new dialogical, communicative, cultural opportunities for interaction of nature-man-culture-society-universe, the universal nature of self-organization of human life, education of intersubjective cultural communication between carriers of different types of worldview, values, spiritual traditions is methodologically important.

Socialism, Nationalism and Tom Nairn's Dream of Escape.

The relationship between socialism and nationalism in the thought of Scottish intellectual Tom Nairn has been of considerable historical interest. Focusing on the 1960s and 1970s, this article identifies a set of key themes that emerged during Nairn's time within the London New Left, and which shed light on his move towards Scottish nationalism. It demonstrates that he gravitated towards Continental theory in the 1960s as it offered the prospect of political and personal emancipation from the conservatism of the British state. He in turn viewed the student movement of 1968 as an anti-authoritarian social formation ready to topple the establishment-though in a peculiarly intellectualized way that inoculated him from its wilder experimentalism. Nairn's move towards nationalism in the 1970s was his way of furthering this project, though not straightforwardly. Echoing New Right critiques, Nairn argued that demands for Scottish independence stood alongside globalization and European integration as material forces sweeping aside the decrepit British state. He also used support for nationalism to admonish the 'metropolitan-minded' socialists of a New Left he was growing estranged from. Whether due to academic obscurantism or what he saw as a superficial concern with social movement politics, Nairn felt the English New Left was becoming divorced from its original aims of personal and cultural self-determination. Now back in living in Scotland, he saw nationalism as the best vehicle for escape. Nairn however simultaneously celebrated the utopianism and rooted pragmatism of Scottish nationalism, a distinctive position which characterises his career more broadly.

Foreign Language Internet Environment and Its Impact on Cultural Self-Determination of Students

The relevance of the problem: In modern language education, Internet resources are intensively used, which together create a cultural and linguistic Internet environment. This environment can be defined as a virtual space in which the perception of information and the exchange of it is realized. It seems relevant to consider the issues of the influence of the Internet environment used in the process of learning foreign languages on the formation of a student's personality, and, in particular, his national and cultural self-determination. Purpose of the article: The empirical research was carried out in the process of teaching German as a second foreign language to international students of the 4th year of MGIMO. Its purpose was to consider the problem of the influence of the Internet environment on the cultural self-determination of students. Methodology: When conducting an empirical study of the influence of the Internet environment on self-determination of students, the author used methods of analysis of scientific and theoretical sources, analysis and systematization of empirical experience. Results. The study identified the advantages and controversial aspects of using the Internet environment. In order to neutralize the influence of the environment, the following recommendations were formulated: the use of pluralism of the information space, the development of critical thinking skills, the need to teach students the basics of cultural-critical analysis of the source.

"In unserem Kreise": Czech-Jewish Activism and Diaspora in the USA, 1933–1994

"In unserem Kreise":Czech-Jewish Activism and Diaspora in the USA, 1933–1994 Jacob Ari Labendz1 (bio) Well over ten thousand Jews from Czechoslovakia immigrated to the United States between 1933 and 1950, first fleeing Nazism, then Stalinism. A minority within this minority, predominantly from Bohemia and Moravia and numbering no more than a few hundred, distinguished themselves by founding and joining a series of Czechoslovak-Jewish organizations. These individuals wrestled with nostalgia until the century's end, fighting to implant and preserve their lost culture in a new American home. They clung to each other, to identities rooted in a shattered world, and to a fading tradition of bourgeois, Jewish, associational life. The following investigation into their activities and motivations (distinct from others in their immigrant cohort), offers a window into processes of homemaking and memory construction that echoed through the lives of a broader community of mid-century Jewish immigrants to the United States. With the war's end, these Czech-Jewish activists (as I will refer to them) adapted the European-Jewish political strategies that they had imported to the United States to cultural practices for constructing a diasporic community rooted in a nostalgic attachment to the interwar Czechoslovakia of their memories. The first years of Czech-Jewish activism in the US, therefore, also offered a final glimpse of European-Jewish diaspora-nationalism, displaced across an ocean by genocide. Diaspora nationalists held that Jews around the world composed a single nation, and that this entitled them to enjoy rights to political and cultural self-determination as a national minority wherever they resided—alongside other national minorities. In Czechoslovakia, this ideology was meant to have offered Jews, as a collectivity, an opportunity to profess loyalty to their state as citizens and to find there unambiguous welcome as the Jews of Czechoslovakia.2 During the [End Page 371] war, Czech-Jewish activists advocated for the Jewish national minority of Czechoslovakia from the safety of American and British exile.3 The elimination of national minority rights in postwar Czechoslovakia, the reemergence there of Jewish communities that could represent themselves, and an appreciation of wartime losses engendered a shift in the orientation of America's Czech-Jewish activists towards memory work.4 As they grew more comfortable in the United States and abandoned national-minority politics, they developed an idiosyncratic diasporic subjectivity. Theirs was a diaspora of both space and time, bound to a nostalgic rendering of Czechoslovakia's First Republic (1918–1938), conceived as the nation's highest point of development and self-realization. To borrow from Svetlana Boym, Czech-Jewish activists began mourning the lost potential future that they had imagined for themselves in the past.5 Building upon Boym's work, Vanessa May has shown that a "temporal displacement [italics in the original]" can manifest in "place nostalgia," when "a sense of belonging to place is not anchored in the place as it is now, but in memories of the place as it was in the past."6 Boym divides nationalist nostalgia into "restorative" and "reflective" modes, neither of which captures fully the Czech-Jewish-activist experience. She explains: Restorative nostalgia puts emphasis on nostos [return home] and proposes to rebuild the lost home and patch up the memory gaps. Reflective nostalgia dwells in algia, in longing and loss, the imperfect process of remembrance. The first category of nostalgics … believe that their project is about truth [End Page 372] … [reflective nostalgia] lingers on ruins, the patina of time and history, in the dreams of another place and another time.7 Czech-Jewish activists, like many non-Jewish exiles, defended a mythologized past and insisted that communism contravened the democratic character of the Czechoslovak nation. Unlike non-Jews, however, Czech-Jewish activists could not dream of restoration. Their Janus-faced preservative nostalgia (a term I hesitantly introduce) thrived in a community of past experience marked also by the playfulness of reflective nostalgia and its use in processes of reorientation and homemaking in New York.8 If Czech-Jewish activists dismissed Czechoslovakia's postwar present as illegitimate, they did so only to be free of it. Czech-Jewish activists in New York City founded successor organizations to...

Students’ personal self-determination as an integral part of the educational process

This article deals with the psychological mechanisms of student’s professional, cultural and social self-determination in the educational process. It is actual as it develops students’ capabilities and competencies in their future work and life. Learning foreign languages in specific professional field is not an exception in this regard. Educators should take into consideration business, academic, cultural spheres and situations. Psychological approach to pedagogical process must be closely connected with the self-determination of students. This tendency is the leading one and is recognized as a priority from the education renovation point of view. The authors think that information technology background is of great importance. Electronic courses are made to teach students on line. Students also should understand what is necessary to learn. Psychological, cultural approach will be of great importance in the educational process. Methods: Mind – maps, pie charts, dramatization, projects, role-playing are of great importance in teaching different aspects of knowledge. The most important aspects are of course self-development and personal growth. Conclusions and Recommendations: integrating psychology into the foreign language syllabus is badly needed. Also of great importance is digitalization of the educational process, non-liner way of thinking and self-assurance.

ARTISTIC VERSIONS OF THE PROBLEM OF NATIONAL IDENTITY IN THE WORKS OF ASKOLD MELNYCHUK

literary interpretation of the problem of national identity in A. Melnychuk’s novels “What is told” and “Ambassador of the Dead” and identify correlation of the models of ethnic self-determination with the characters of these works. The paper mainly focuses on the features of the writer’s literary embodiment of the models of national identity, substantiated by V. Aheieva, one of which is based on the idea of its immutability, the other one implies the possibility of an individual choice. It examines the challenges for national identity under conditions of emigration, outlined by the author in the novels “What is told” and “Ambassador of the Dead”. The study establishes that the character creation in A. Melnychuk’s works reflects unchangeable national and cultural self-determination of some heroes and evolution of its components through other personages, that illustrates V. Aheieva’s statement with respect to the modern ideas about this problem. It emphasizes the correlation of the motifs of national identity and historical memory, manifesting itself in both novels with regard to particular characters and the collective figure of the Ukrainian community in the USA. The research finds out that in both A. Melnychuk’s novels there are two polar models of national self-determination: some characters represent those who persistently cherish and maintain inherited identity (Zenon Zabobon and his daughter Slava; Adriana Kruk), whereas other heroes demonstrate flexibility, and willingness to assimilate in a new environment, defending their right to make an individual choice (Arkadii Voroh and Natalka Zabobon; the poet Anton, Alex Kruk and the narrator Nick Blud).

Narrative Strategies of Decolonisation: Autoethnography in Mamang Dai’s The Legends of Pensam

According to John Quintero, “The decolonisation agenda championed by the United Nations is not based exclusively on independence. It is the exercise of the human right of self-determination, rather than independence per se, that the United Nations has continued to push for.” Situated within ontologies of the human right of self-determination, this paper will focus on an analysis of The Legends of Pensam by Mamang Dai, a writer hailing from the Adi tribe of Arunachal Pradesh, to explore the strategies of decolonisation by which she revitalizes her tribe’s cultural enunciations. The project of decolonisation is predicated on the understanding that colonialism has not only displaced communities but also brought about an erasure of their epistemologies. Consequently, one of its major agenda is to recuperate displaced epistemic positions of such communities. In the context of Northeast India, the history of colonial rule and governance has had long lasting political repercussions which has resulted not only in a culture of impunity and secessionist violence but has also led to the reductive homogeneous construction of the Northeast as conflict ridden. In the contemporary context, the polyethnic, socio-cultural fabric of the Northeast borderlands foregrounds it as an evolving post-colonial geopolitical imaginary. In the light of this, the objective of this paper is to arrive at the ramifications of employing autoethnography as a narrative regime by which Mamang Dai reaffirms the Adi community’s epistemic agency and reclaims the human right towards a cultural self-determination.

The Pioneers of Sámi Children’s Books

This article discusses the Sámi children’s books produced in the 1970s and 1980s during the Sámi political “awakening,” and which are part of the larger Sámi project of cultural self-determination. In the historical legacy of images of the Sámi that were part of the vast colonial apparatus employed by the surrounding majority cultures, Sámi children of earlier generations had been exposed to and internalized representations of themselves that reproduced a hierarchical social order in which they were on the lower rungs. Since the 1970s, Sámi children’s book creators have been actively engaged in decolonizing children’s literature from this legacy of settler colonization and assimilationist policies by not only foregrounding language and Sámi traditions, but also reappropriating stereotypes and images in a decolonizing gesture in order to reclaim their past and their identities. Because the first generation of Sámi children’s book authors and illustrators were women, Vuokko Hirvonen has termed them the “mothers” of Sámi literature (Voices from Sápmi). Their books also contain deeply feminist critiques, not only of the legacy of the majority culture, but of patriarchy within Sámi culture as well. By working and reconfiguring traditional narratives, their books have thus a dual mission of giving voice, visibility and agency to the Sámi while recouping the silenced female voice.

Features of informatization of sociological knowledge

The article assumes an analysis of information as one of the most important socially significant resources of modern civilization. The authors stressed that main paradigm characteristic of modern social theory can be expressed by the thesis about the impossibility of direct access to social phenomena. In modern civilization, information is becoming one of the most important socially significant resources. The authors think that its role as a strategic resource increases with the development of network technologies that accelerate data transfer and facilitate the search for necessary information. The authors are confident that the role of higher education in this process is key. But it itself is faced with a huge number of problems, one of which is improving the quality of its functioning and guaranteeing the results of its activities. This problem is closely related to the implementation of innovations. The authors suggest that innovation in education should be understood as an innovation designed to resolve the current problem situation in order to optimize the educational process, improve its quality or organize favorable conditions for the assimilation of material by students. Based on a critical approach to reform the current system of higher education the paper touches upon the need to change the process infornatization of humanities education.. The authors conclude that the development of humanities education in the information society is aimed at implementing an interdisciplinary approach, ie should ensure the effectiveness of the development and application of humanities knowledge and form a conscious responsible choice in a variety of cultural meanings, cultural self-determination.

Conceptualizing cultural sensitivity in tourism: a systematic literature review

ABSTRACT This study contributes to the conceptualization of cultural sensitivity in tourism based on an analysis of tourism and social science literatures associated with Indigenous peoples in Canada. The study used a systematic literature review methodology, which consisted of thematically analysing 56 English language, tourism and social science journal articles. Findings indicate that while cultural sensitivity is rarely explicitly defined, several themes are consistently used to illustrate what cultural sensitivity entails or should entail in tourism and other social science encounters. Themes include: (i) respect, (ii) trust, (iii) ethics, (iv) cultural identity, (v) mutual understanding and cultural exchange, (vi) self-determination, governance, and capacity building, and (vii) unique healing, wellness, and spiritual needs. In addition to describing these interrelated themes, the study proposes a definition of cultural sensitivity in tourism tethered to the contexts of Indigenous peoples in Canada.

Subaltern Thinking in Religious Education? Postcolonial Readings of (German) Schoolbooks

ABSTRACT This paper deals with the disclosure of subaltern thinking in current German-language textbooks for religious education. For the hermeneutical framing of this analysis, the approach of a postcolonial reading is particularly profitable. Obvious hierarchical relationships from clearly up and down can consequently be made visible and their presumed self-evidence unmasked. Even hidden hegemonic forms of expression can be uncovered in this way. With regard to current theology and religious education racism and misogyny, environmental degradation and sexual exploitation are attitudes that have already and almost as amatter of course been taken up critically. They are pedagogically reflected and attempted to overcome by using counter-models such as cultural diversity, equal rights, sustainability and sexual self-determination.In exciting contrast to this there are still nowadays textbooks used with remnants of exactly such formats of colonial thoughts. We argue that decolonising schoolbooks can be a useful part of decolonising the religious education curriculum. The schoolbook analysis carried out for this purpose is structured by four leading categories: Anthropological assumptions (1), religious classifications and interpretations (2), conceptions of culture and its hybridity (3) and finally the relationship to creation and environment (4). Textbooks from primary, secondary and vocational schools were examined.

Anthropological Research on the Essence of Rural Revitalization

Cultural consciousness is the essence of rural revitalization, which is a process of transformation from cultural consciousness to cultural self-determination. “Dialogue” is an inevitable choice during rural revitalization among different participants, but “participation” of the main population is the only available path in this regard. Conscious “dialogue” and “participation” of rural population are indispensable for rural revitalization.

Феномен «адыгагъэ»: понятие и сущность

The study gives a scientific and philosophical interpretation of the spiritual essence of Adygs. The novelty of the study is in the analysis of the phenomenon of “adygstvo” (адыгагъэ) – a system of moral values and guidelines of Adygs through the philosophical category of “understanding”. The authors propose supplementing the fundamental elements of the Adyghe ethics with the term “shhyak1o” (шъхьак1о) – a collective term that incorporates everything that belittles, detract, or encroaches on the honor and dignity of the Adyghes. The importance of preserving and following one's cultural code in the context of globalization and the need to overcome the culture gap in their daily manifestation by representatives of various ethnic groups are noted. The importance of maintaining and following its cultural code in the context of globalization is noted; the need to overcome cultural gaps in their daily manifestation by representatives of various ethnic groups. The materials and conclusions of the article can be used in the field of regional culture and the process of cultural self-determination of the Adyghes.

Maria Lizogub’s painting and tendencies in Women Art in Kazakhstan Authors D.S.Sharipova

This article examines the phenomenon of Women Art in Kazakhstan of the XX century. The analysis of the works of Maria Lizogub allows researcher to describe the specific nature of Kazakh women's painting. Analyzing the personality of artist, her creative path, author reveals the style of the works and their importance for the development of national tendencies in art. The artist was able to overcome the barriers of gender inequality declaring herself as the leading representative in the art of Kazakhstan. At the same time, making an accent on the woman’s huge spiritual potential, she comprehended her as a keeper of hearth and home and the patriarchal way of life. This duality consists in the issue of identification processes when the representation of female interacted with ethnic and cultural self-determination.

Against British Influences: Home Rule and the Autonomy of Irish Popular Culture in Ireland’s Juvenile Periodicals

This paper aims to analyse a largely uncharted topic, i.e. the representation of Ireland’s struggle for political and cultural self-determination in the nationalist press for Irish youth. In particular, I will examine four papers (Our Boys, Fianna, Young Ireland, and St. Enda’s), which represented the various nuances within the ranks of Irish nationalism. Combining literary and historical interests, I will devote my attention to the editorials and literary contributions published in the 1910s and 1920s to illustrate how these juvenile periodicals engaged their readership in a discussion on the necessity of Home Rule and Ireland’s cultural independence. Textual attention to the rhetorical and literary strategies adopted by the contributors helps to expose the nuances and shifts in the Irish nationalists’ view on the issue, and how nationalist ideas were repackaged for a youthful audience. Moreover, since the four papers were meant as home-grown substitutes for the examples of British popular culture such as the Boys’ Own Paper, their analysis will cast light on the nationalists’ yearning for the development and success of truly Irish popular culture among the youngsters. The Irish periodicals waged a battle against their British counterparts — a battle which Ireland’s youth was incited to fight.

We the Semites: reading ancient history in mandate Palestine

ABSTRACTThis article reconceptualises ‘Semite’ as a contested chronotope in which Western scientific categories served Palestinian and Zionist educators’ claims to cultural self-determination and national claims over the same space, Palestine. Since the early nineteenth century, racial categories have gained prominence as useful scientific tools to differentiate peoples and cultures. This article analyses how Arabs and Jews adopted, translated, and engaged the term ‘Semite’, through an examination of Arabic and Hebrew history schoolbooks from the Mandate period. It surveys the genealogy of the term in Zionist and Palestinian historiography, showing the centrality of racial categories in the teaching of ancient history in mandate Palestine, and underlining parallels and differences in the engagement of Palestinian and Jewish educators with race. Finally, the article shows how the Palestinian-Zionist conflict wrote itself into the history textbooks, re-writing the ancient history of both peoples, and re-evaluating Palestine’s past through the prism of a contested chronotope, leading to a precarious present and an uncertain future.

ПРОБЛЕМЫ КУЛЬТУРНОЙ САМОИДЕНТИФИКАЦИИ ЕЗИДОВ В СОВРЕМЕННОЙ РОССИИ

The article deals with the problems of religious and cultural self-determination of the Yazidis. Currently, a large number of representatives of this people live on the territory of modern Russia. Their distinctive feature at this stage is the desire to revive their culture, restore lost knowledge. This fact updates the issues of this work. The present article attempts to analyse the complex issues of ethnicity of this people, their attitude towards other peoples, issues in identification of the language, time and place of religion emergence. The problems of preserving and recording sacred texts («Kavla» «Jilve» («Shine» or «Book of Revelations»), «Mashafe Rush» («Black Book»), their content, which determines the essence of the religious teachings of the Yazidis are difficult. Being a complex, syncretic spiritual phenomenon, Yazidism asked and keeps asking both researchers and its carriers many problems. Their significant number is associated with the antiquity of religion, the closed nature of its teachings, but most importantly with the long-standing oral tradition of transmitting religious and cultural heritage, the guardians and bearers of which were not all Yazidis, but the Yazidi clergy – pirs and sheikhs. Works are the cornerstone materials of recently published sacred texts of Yazidi and also the articles and monographs devoted to questions of the yazidism and belonging to such famous researchers – to Yazidi as H. Omarkhali, D. Pirbari, K. Amoev, T. Avdoev, A. Avdal and also to some spiritual heads of Yazidi, such as pir A. A. Daleyan, D. R. Polatov and others. This makes it possible to consider a whole range of controversial problems from the inside, through the eyes of the Yazidis, compare their points of approach to solving the most controversial problems of Yazidism.