Cultural Dualism Research Articles

“Swoop and Grab Your Rights”

Abstract This article centers community archives as sources of history as well as sites of theory to map interconnected social and ecological struggles in the Niti Valley of the central Himalayas from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth centuries. Tolchha and Marchha communities have integrated different ecological belts over centuries through lifeways of trade, pastoralism, and herb gathering. Colonial and postcolonial policies threatened to sever these lifeways through militarized borders, timber extraction, and the demarcation of the exclusive boundaries of the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve. Yet tribal communities have fought to maintain ancestral relations with land by infringing upon colonial restrictions and defying dichotomies of nature and culture through the postcolonial Chipko and Jhapto Cheeno movements. Juxtaposing official archives with community archives from Lata Village, this article argues that leaders of people's movements have sought to reclaim authority over Himalayan history and resituate rural struggles within the framework of Indigenous spatial knowledges.

‘Disciplining the audience’: Audience experiences with MUBI

Through the case of MUBI, this article inquires into the changing audience habits with the proliferation of video-on-demand services and the discourse of control and choice, increased mobility, and democratic access. Drawing on in-depth interviews with subscribers of MUBI Turkey, this article explores the ways the audience relates to the imagined audience that MUBI assumes, promotes, and celebrates as a cultural gatekeeper and artistic patron/expert; and how, in turn, being a MUBI user becomes a sign of cultural taste. This study argues that even though users appreciate MUBI’s limited choice model compared to Netflix, they still experience feelings such as frustration, stress, and inadequacy. These feelings mainly result from MUBI’s artistic authority over them, established through the discourse of expertise/artistic patronage and limited-time model. On the other hand, users do not automatically accept the service’s expertise. Some are more critical of it than other VOD services (such as Netflix) because they consider watching MUBI a form of ‘intellectual labor’. Even though MUBI discursively maintains the long-standing dichotomies of niche-mainstream, arthouse-popular cinema, or high-lowbrow culture, the users experience these dichotomies more complexly according to their multiple subject positions.

Friends, Cuties and Trash Birds

In this article, I examine human–animal encounters in Instagram selfies with seagulls. I ask how human–seagull relations are visualised, narrated and negotiated in Instagram posts with the hashtag “seagullselfie”. While my total data consist of 814 Instagram posts from before 2020 with #seagullselfie, I have chosen six photographs that represent different types of human–animal interactions for more detailed analysis, as they make visible human ambivalence towards non-human animals. For example, humans sometimes call seagulls “friends”, or even “cuties”, but at other times portray them as hungry, dirty and annoying – as “trash birds”. Drawing on Stacy Alaimo’s concept of trans-corporeal interactions, I focus on the embodied agencies, both human and non-human, and the multispecies sharing of spaces considered “urban” or “natural”. My method of studying the photographs of seagulls and humans is inspired by new materialist “ways of following” art, being moved by photographs and seeing where they take me. I argue that seagulls cross the hierarchical dichotomies of nature and culture and contest the anthropocentric ideals of nature as something that should be accessible on human terms. I claim that there is no beautiful and passive “nature” in the seagull selfies that remains as a background for human action. Instead, in these six photographs, seagulls stalk humans, take their food, photobomb them, refuse to pose for their photographs and ignore their clumsy attempts at friendship.

Hybridity and Cultural Duality in E.M Forster’s Character Dr. Aziz: A Post-Colonial Analysis

The study examines the impact of British influence on Indian culture and its people, leading to a dualism in their personalities, as conceptualized by Homi K. Bhabha's notion of hybridity. The analysis of Forster’s novel and the character of Dr. Aziz using Bhabha’s concepts of hybridity and ambivalence reveals that British culture poses a significant threat to the native culture, eroding the ancient histories of Indian cultures in the younger native generation. This qualitative research, based on the findings of this study, also opens up a new dimension for researchers in the same field or those interested in hybridity, or A Passage to India. This research is qualitative in nature, and the data was collected from the novel A Passage to India. The research also identifies that Dr. Aziz appears to be influenced by the English lifestyle and attempts to emulate English behavior on multiple occasions, seeking friendship with English people and even organizing and leading a trip for them to demonstrate his honor and responsibility. However, after facing accusations, he refrains from accepting the friendship of the English until they cease to rule India, displaying dual and hybrid behavior. The study also uncovers the influence of the English language and cultural values on Indians. Considering that Forster wrote the novel A Passage to India during his visits to India, it is evident that he witnessed the scenario during the British Raj, lending credibility and trustworthiness to the events described in the novel. This provides a satisfying validation of the research results.

Achievement Motivation among Students in Indonesia: What is the Role of Teacher-Student Relations, Peer Relations and Moderation of Collectivist Culture?

Although there is much research related to students' achievement motivation, there is still very little research involving social relations at schools and the role of culture in these studies. This research analyses the relationship between teacher-student relations, peer relations, and achievement motivation, as well as whether collectivist culture moderates the relationship between teacher-student and peer relations on achievement motivation. Data was collected using a questionnaire adapted from the Student Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS), the Quality of Relationships Inventory (QRI) Scale, the Individualism-Collectivism Scale (ICS), and an achievement motivation scale. Data analysis used multiple regression analysis and the F. Hayes moderation test. An unexpected finding from this research is that the collectivist culture does not significantly moderate the relationship between teacher-student relations and achievement motivation; the collectivist culture does not significantly moderate the relationship between peer relations and achievement motivation, even though collectivist culture should have a strengthening effect on social relations of achievement motivation. The research results provide essential findings; namely, there is an indication of the transformation of cultural dimensions in the Z Generation who were participants in this research, so that the cultural dichotomy of individualism and collectivism becomes meaningless in the relationship among teacher-student relations and peer relations with achievement motivation. This research provides essential information on the development of science and future researchers to conduct a more comprehensive study of the dichotomy of the cultural dimensions of individualism and collectivism by involving two countries with different cultural backgrounds because cultural transformation is possible.

Cultural Heterogeneity of Top Management Teams, Cross-Border Acquisitions, and Financial Performance of Chinese Publicly Listed Companies

ABSTRACT Using data from Chinese publicly listed companies (PLCs) over the 2010–2017 period, this paper examines the impact of cultural heterogeneity within the top management team (TMT) on the post-acquisition performance of cross-border acquisitions (CBAs). TMT cultural heterogeneity is measured as the cultural distance between the board chairperson and chief executive officer (CEO), based on the south-rice-north-wheat cultural dichotomy in traditional China in 1916. Overall, we find that TMT cultural heterogeneity can increase the likelihood of CBAs. However, it also has a significantly negative impact on both the market performance and profitability of privately-owned Chinese PLCs after the CBAs. To provide a comprehensive analysis, we also explore the moderating effects of state ownership and high-tech industries. The results reveal that TMT cultural heterogeneity can actually improve the market performance of CBAs conducted by state-owned PLCs, and it can enhance the profitability performance of CBAs within the high-tech industry. Our analysis highlights the significance of TMT cultural heterogeneity during the post-acquisition integration process following CBAs.

Monsters in Mirrors: Duality, Triangulation, and Multiplicity in Two Adaptations of Jekyll and Hyde

Jacques Derrida’s theory of deconstruction provides an ideal means of appreciating and interrogating the duality central to both Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and its adaptations. Moreover, because deconstruction exposes binary oppositions as artificial and constrictive, it enables us to advance beyond them toward multiplicity, a term used by Gilles Deleuze for a complex, ever-changing, multipart structure that transcends unity. Roy Ward Baker’s Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971) and episodes of Showtime’s Penny Dreadful (2014–2016) offer fresh ways to think about—and beyond—the duality of culture’s most famously divided pair. The binary oppositions that organize each text are innovative, as are the ways in which these oppositions are reversed and conflated. Ultimately, these adaptations employ triangulation to deconstruct themselves, thereby demonstrating the limitations and instability of duality, as well as the possibilities of multiplicity.

IS SILENCE GOLDEN? CONVERSATIONS OF NATIVE SPEAKERS OF RIMI IN SINGIDA- TANZANIA

This paper provides an empirical examination of the perception of silence as a communicative act in a Rimi cultural context. Four casual conversations with Rimi native speakers were examined. Silence in conversation was determined using a turn-taking framework in Conversation Analysis previously described by Sacks et al. (1974) as a turn-taking organization. Native speakers of Rimi like people in other cultures have beliefs and myths regarding silence. However, these cultural artifacts are often hardly reflected in their real conversation practice. Rimi's belief regarding the value of silence dictates avoidance of silence because they consider it a danger and veiled bad intentions. Despite this cultural orientation regarding silence, in some contexts, Rimi native speakers give it a positive value. The findings show that silence can be used for terminating a topic, showing agreement, and indicating emotions such as sadness. Silence therefore can lead to either harmonious or troubled conversation at the same time. Many prolific studies have shown that Eastern cultures appreciate silence while the Western cultures silence is attributed to incompetence and lack of willingness to participate in communication. This cultural dichotomy regarding the perception of silence between Western and Eastern cultures gives an impression that cultures can either perceive silence positively or negatively. Data from this study show that this understanding is faulty. The data indicate that silence cannot be described categorically as solely positively or negatively perceived in a particular culture; instead, it should be viewed as a variable entity within a single cultural group.

From History to the Future: The Chinese Experience in Margaret Cezair-Thompson's The True History of Paradise

ABSTRACT: This essay examines the Chinese experience represented in Margaret Cezair-Thompson's 1999 novel The True History of Paradise . By analyzing the author's characterization of the Chinese migrant Mr. Ho Sing and his Afro-Chinese Jamaican daughter Cherry Landing, this essay first elucidates Afro-Chinese intimacy in late nineteenth-century Jamaica and then investigates Jamaican Chineseness in the 1960s and 1970s. It underscores middle-class Jamaican Chinese's economic advantage in their proximity to Jamaica's Creole identity, and illuminates what appears to be the author's proposition of a reconsideration of creolization that, instead of presuming anti-Blackness or encouraging Black radicalism, negotiates the political and cultural dichotomy between Creole nationalists and the Afro-Jamaican majority. Drawing upon Cezair-Thompson's literary reworking of the Jamaican Chinese experience, I conclude that The True History of Paradise rehearses the possibilities to envision the future for the diasporic Chinese, the Jamaican nation, and Caribbean literature.

State–business–civic partnerships in children’s film policy: the roles of the CFD/CEF Advisory Council in post-war Britain

ABSTRACT Established in 1951, the Children’s Film Foundation (CFF) contributed to the growth of children’s film culture in Britain. This paper aims to show how the CFF’s active involvement of public authorities, film industry organisations and educationalists resulted in partnerships between them and in the growing production of children’s films in Britain. Drawing on under-investigated archival materials, this paper argues that the Advisory Council of the Children’s Film Department and Children’s Entertainment Films, precursors of the CFF, offered significant platforms for mediation between public authorities, industry organisations and educationalists, and for shaping new beliefs about child audiences and children’s cinema, which resulted in both the film industry’s and educationalists’ support for, and commitment to, producing films with entertaining and educational values. The case study demonstrates how the CFF overcame a commerce – culture dichotomy. It therefore offers a more nuanced understanding of state–market–civic relations in British cultural policy.

Analysis of the Cultural Duality in Eastern Asia

For a long time, Confucian culture has been synonymous with Chinese culture and Eastern Asian culture. From a historical standpoint, most cultural heritages of Eastern Asia originated in China as one of the oldest civilizations on earth, so the two terms were often used interchangeably to reflect the dominant influences of Chinese cultures on the rest of Eastern Asia. While Confucian philosophy has made itself a single most iconic cultural symbol of Eastern Asia with its emphasis on etiquette and morality, the discussion of whether Confucianism closely represents the substance of Eastern Asian culture has rarely been evaluated with a particular historical context. Under the fundamental social transitions from aristocracy in the Zhou dynasty to a unified dictatorship in Qin Dynasty, Confucian thoughts themselves were challenged by other anti-Confucian ideologies that seek compatibility with the changing regimes. The most notable of them is a school of thought known as Legalism. As two completely split views, both Confucianism and Legalism have been deeply intertwined in the history of China and eventually integrated into the complex cultural identities of Eastern Asians. The causes and implications of the existence of such contrary duality in the cultures of early China and later Eastern Asia will be the topics of interest in the paper.

Co‐Creatively Producing Knowledge With Other‐Than‐Human Organisms in a (Bio)Technology‐Controlled Artistic Environment

Along with the increasing awareness about the destructive force of humankind on nature, existential questions about how to create a more sustainable relationship with the natural world have emerged. To acquire a more eco‐friendly attitude, we need to go beyond the well‐established knowledge cultures that highlight a nature versus culture dichotomy. This study focuses on bio art as an epistemic vehicle to re‐imagine our understanding of and connection to the natural world. Drawing on the theoretical stance of philosophical posthumanism, we discuss how artistic co‐creation processes involving humans and other‐than‐humans hold the potential to introduce a shift in our worldview from anthropocentric to ecocentric. We further question what this shift might imply for how we approach the complex relationship between humans and other‐than‐humans in our own research. We conducted a within‐case and cross‐case analysis of five bio art projects that previously won the Bio Art & Design Award (2018–2020). To analyze the data, we used a combined approach of visual and context analysis and material semiotics. Qualitative interviews were used as a data collection technique to investigate the lived experiences of both artists and scientists involved in the projects. Our findings suggest that bio art’s epistemic significance can primarily be found in its multispecies perspective: By following the wills and ways of bio‐organisms, bio art makes the invisible connection between nature and culture visible. Bio art can provoke our thinking about how to include and approach other‐than‐human agency in the context of socially engaged research practices.

Adapting integrated reporting through the stages of local rationalisation

ABSTRACT In 2013, the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) released the integrated reporting (IR) framework to become the corporate reporting norm. Ten years later, IR has not been diffused globally, with two notable exceptions – South Africa and Japan. IR in South Africa has been the subject of comprehensive research, but we know little about IR’s journey through the political and cultural dualism of Japan. We see adaptation as an essential step in institutionalising IR, and for this reason, we have examined the process of adapting IR in Japan by analysing the stages through which local actors have rationalised IR to solve local corporate governance and reporting problems. Our evidence from field observations, public documents, and interviews reveal five stages of political, cultural and professional rationalisations. These shape a mutual adaptation process. Through rationalisation, we unveil how the ambiguous global idea of IR has been transformed in Japan into a local solution and an institutionalised practice aligned with the local business culture. At the same time, local actors have adapted their reporting and communication practices to the ideology of IR. By embracing the notion of rationalisation, this study enriches the theory of how the powers and motivations of social actors mediate and shape adaptation. What emerges is compatibility between accounting innovation and the local context.

Radio espacio estacion broadcast Fordlândia

On September 16th and 17th, 2017, the nomadic online radio station radioee broadcast from Fordlândia, today a district of the city of Aveiro, state of Pará, in the Brazilian Amazonia. Produced by artist Augustina Woodgate along with cultural producers Stephanie Sherman and Hernan Woodgate and several other partners in every new location, Radio Espacio Estacion/radioee was conceived as a multilingual, mobile, online radio station set up around 24-hour/36-hour long events broadcast from different parts of the world to discuss issues of migration, mobility, transportation, environment, and climate change. In Transmissão Fordlândia, radioee revisited the legendary history of the site’s foundation by the Ford Motor Company in 1927. The broadcast questions the official narrative of desertion after Ford’s enterprise failed, which implies ideas of underdevelopment associated with a colonial modern economy of representation of Latin America. Adopting live and online radio communication, based on immediacy, synchronicity, and accessibility, Transmissão Fordlândia combined research, interviews, and first-hand descriptions of the site in a continual multilingual conversation, producing a non-linear narrative enriched with a bustling soundscape of people, birds, water, motorcycles, boats, and everyday activities, transmitted to a global audience. This paper investigates how Transmissão Fordlândia articulates an ecocritical approach to space through site-oriented practices and sonic-spatial imagination, challenging colonial modern representations of tropical landscapes based on spatial rationalization and the duality of culture–nature. This paper also explores the sonic-spatial effects of live radio transmission as an aesthetic device for imagining place.

POST-APOCALYPTIC IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN AYN RAND’S ANTHEM WITH REFERENCE TO CULTURE/NATURE DUALITY

The present article endeavors to explicate the process of identity construction in Ayn Rand's post-apocalyptic dystopian novel, Anthem. The utilisation of language and the dissemination of symbolic meanings are significant factors that contribute to the formation of identity, which enchains individuals, transforming them into obedient subjects. Fiske's perspective on identity construction elucidates the interplay between power and resistance, which appears to be absent in this post-apocalyptic work. The imperialising power is predominantly responsible for the mechanism of identity formation in the subjectivity of the characters, as there is no discernible systematic resistance to the dominant representations of power throughout the novel. Despite the absence of the duality of power and resistance, the duality of nature and culture is at play, significantly impacting the way identity is constructed. The imperialising power aims to eradicate or limit representations of nature, as the semantic burden that nature carries poses a threat to its existence. We aim to clarify how the imperialising power responds to the representations and meanings that nature embodies. Lastly, we posit that the imperialising power's reaction towards nature is stronger in post-apocalyptic contexts, where representations of nature are highly restricted, confined only to the "Uncharted Forest."

Care as Intertextuality: From Human Condition to Holistic Device

Since the Roman mythographer Hyginus composed the fable of Cura in the second century AD, it has been cited and reemployed in literary and philosophical texts by authors like Augustin, Herder, Goethe, Heidegger, Blumenberg and Kristeva. These authors all use the tale about the ambiguous figure of Cura (Care) to reflect upon the fundamentals of the human condition. Later, aspects of these philosophies have been translated into the medical humanities, but often in an ontologically “purified” form, stripping Cura of her ontological ambiguity and more troubling traits such as sorrow, anxiety or dependency. This purification turns care into something easily digestible, fit to “sweeten the pill” of curative medical interventions that can be painful and accompanied by suffering. The ontological, epistemological, and cultural dualisms marking modern medicine are reproduced instead of being problematized, while care is reduced to a soft, psychological, or cultural supplement to “hard” biomedical therapies. How can we restore the original ambiguity and richness of the concept of “care”, making it capable of troubling the current system of medical categories? To address this question, we will use Kristeva’s notion of intertextuality to explore the inscription and reductionist use of Cura in philosophy and the medical humanities.

Seynabou Sonko: Djinns ou le roman de l’entre-deux

"In her first novel, Djinns, Seynabou Sonko, a young Franco-Senegalese writer, explores the question of biculturalism through the identity quest of the young Penda, the main character in her story, whose questions are often similar to her own. We shall see that, going back to the Senegalese traditions of her childhood, the author starts from the figure of the djinn, invisible mystical beings with ambiguous intentions living among humans and associates them in her novel with what occidental sociology calls identity schizophrenia. Through this cultural duality, the characters, accompanied by their djinns, will acquire a more complete perception of their environment, which will lead them to a harmony of identity and language"

Warrior Ethos versus Well-Being: Correcting a Cultural Dichotomy

The Army’s warrior mindset, while crucial for being successful in battle, can also lead to chronic suppression of emotions, and hamper help-seeking behavior. Messages to prioritize well-being are often presented in a confusing juxtaposition to the warrior mindset. In spite of the Army’s emphasis on a “People First Strategy,” accompanied by calls to reduce the stigma associated with help-seeking behaviors, the culture of toughness created by the Warrior Ethos continues to be an imposing obstacle for those in need of help. We integrate the Healthy Minds framework with the Army ethos, to focus on the development of foundational skills: mindfulness, connection, insight, and purpose. Our hope is this framework will contribute to a culture that views the Warrior Ethos and well-being as complementary, rather than conflicting, ideas.

Cold Cookies and Culturalism

Of our many sensory modalities, discussions on taste perception are widely fueled by its unconventional qualities. Gustation is unique in that it is inherently biological yet cultural. Sugar perception, particularly, has been a significant area of research in the field of taste perception—its historical, cultural, and scientific dimensionality parallels the unique qualities of taste perception as a whole. While our biology predisposes us to perceptive similarities, cultural dichotomies, especially between Eastern and Western societies, have embodied the divergence in gustatory preferences. To analyze how such dichotomies interact with a widely unresearched scientific factor— temperature—a mixed-method study was conducted between Korean and American participants, measuring how temperature and cultural background influenced the taste perception (hedonic value and taste intensity) of a classic American dessert staple—the chocolate chip cookie. Guided by quantitative measurements, a qualitative interview portion was conducted, where background information and verbal analyses contextualized the results from phase 1. Results revealed a positive correlation between cookie temperature and taste intensity as well as hedonic value. Additionally, it was also discovered that international travel served as a gustatory transition for both groups and historical events had a direct impact on dessert ‘staple’ choices by Koreans. Elements of nostalgia were exclusive factors to Americans when selecting childhood staples or expressing sentiments towards unconventional foods. When investigating perceptive changes through foreign residency, The American tendency to perceive a ‘forced change’ in eating habits reflected notions of Westernization and embodied historical interactions with colonization, the sugar industry, and the Korean peninsula.

A conceptual framework for understanding the intrinsic contestation of cultural heritage tourism in Chinese qiaoxiang

Cultural heritage in Chinese qiaoxiang is constructed where Chinese and foreign cultures gather, connecting overseas Chinese with their country of origin. However, conflicts concerning this type of heritage comes out frequently, such as house reconstruction clash, host-guest conflicts and destructive competition in heritage tourism. The economic and cultural duality of heritage is perceived as the source of intrinsic contestation in heritage tourism, and conflicts related to different types of heritage may take on different appearances and causes. Extant tourism studies have generalised cultural heritage in Chinese qiaoxiang, neglecting the unique characteristics of the diaspora and their corresponding influence on heritage protection and utilisation, that makes the reasons for these conflicts remain unclear. By answering the basic question of what heritage is, this research proposes an analytical framework to understand the intrinsic contestation of cultural heritage tourism in Chinese qiaoxiang. The paper points out that the contradiction between ‘ancestral root culture’ and modernity and between flow and stillness is the trigger for intrinsic contestation. The paper also summarises the core issues in conflicts that need further discussion by answering the questions of ‘what is heritage’, ‘whose heritage’ and ‘how to interpret heritage’. The core issues include heritage selection and identification, the commercialisation of ‘home’, heritage interpretation and so on.