Transnational Ideas Research Articles

Transnational Mobiles in Bhramar and Dak Bangala

This article has discussed the Nepali transnational mobiles as the characters in two of the early Nepali novels written by the Indian Nepali novelists. In the early twentieth century when India referred to British India that covered present India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Myanmar (Burma), Nepali people used to migrate there in search of works and opportunities. When they left home, they thought to return after certain earnings. But the life was not so easy, and finally most of them stranded in life never to reach anywhere. Rupnarayan Singh’s Bhramar (1970/1936) and Shivakumar Rai’s Dak bangala (2020/1957) have used such Nepali transnational mobiles as the characters. These characters have always been found in the transition as they are wanderers without any fixed place to settle and feel the peace of mind. Mobility is their common quality. The analysis has been based on Janine Dahinden and Steven Vertovec’s idea of transnationalism. They have termed the cross-border migrants who never get permanently settled in the hostland as the transnational mobiles. This article has picked up such characters from both of the novels and discussed their life, culture, mentality and conditions of existence. This article can be a sample for further analysis of Nepali novels from transnational perspective.

Was there a Portuguese economic corporatism? Political economy, transnational ideas and institutions in Salazar’s New State

The corporatist ideas associated with the dictatorship regime of António de Oliveira Salazar (1932-1968) were prominently expressed through a set of institutions created by the State to promote social order and to govern the economy. This institutional bureaucracy was particularly dense and resilient, as it withstood various social and economic changes, including external shocks. Based on previous historiographical contributions, namely from the history of economic thought, this article explores the interaction established in the Portuguese case between the transnational dissemination of corporatist ideas and the political construction of institutions governing the economy and interests. A critical analysis of the doctrinal rhetoric of Portuguese corporatists, who always exalted the ‘national and specific’ character of Salazar’s corporatism, will help to identify forms of transnational circulation of corporatist economic ideas. More than a political economy of Portuguese corporatism, there was an emulation of foreign authors, especially Italian, and an instrumental adaptation of ideas and institutions.

Contexts and Spaces of Intersectionality: The Black Feminism and Internationalism of Lydie Dooh-Bunya, 1970–1990

Abstract: This article retraces the local and transnational ideas and activism of Lydie Dooh-Bunya, a French novelist, journalist, and activist from Cameroon. Its objective is to understand how Dooh-Bunya’s life experiences as well as the sociopolitical, intellectual, and activist contexts to which she had access contributed to the articulation and practice of a specific form of feminism at the intersection of colonialism, patriarchy, and racism, and how it evolved through her interactions both local and global. Through the tools offered by biographic and transnational approaches, this research contributes to the historiography of Black women’s and people’s agency and internationalism, and historicizes an intersectionality resulting from intellectual thought and lived experiences.

Introduction: Assimilation, integration or transnationalism? An overview of theories of migrant incorporation

Introduction: Assimilation, integration or transnationalism? An overview of theories of migrant incorporation

RESEARCH OF MIGRATION PROCESSES: HISTORIOGRAPHICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS

The article outlines the main stages of the study of migration processes in English historiography from the end of the XIX century (in the works of Ernst Georg Ravenstein and Georg Simmel) till the beginning of the XXI century, and special attention is paid to the issue of population movement in the humanities. Classifications and typologies of the migration process by Henry Pratt Fairchild, William Petersen, Wilbur Zelinsky, Charles Tilly, and Robin Cohen are considered. How changes in scientific paradigms and the geopolitical situation have influenced trends in population movement research is observed. It’s highlighted that since the 1960s, with the introduction of several new methods in the humanities, scientists have actively used the comparative method in studying migratory movements. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, one group of researchers insisted on expanding migration studies to the global scope, while another suggested focusing on the participation of nation-states in this process. The author analyzed how the idea of transnationalism became widespread in the mid-1990s, eventually influencing the emergence of the so-called international approach to population movement research. It’s confirmed that other important modern trends are rethinking current approaches to the study of ethnicity and assimilation theories, increased attention to gender issues, and the paradigm of mobility. An interpretation of the concept of transfer proposed by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Research is shown. Also, an explanation of the terms of forced migration according to the definitions of the International Organization for Migration – IOM, International Association for the Study of Forced Migration – IASFM is given. A brief problematic review of the works of Ukrainian sociologists, lawyers, and economists who have studied various aspects of the phenomenon of migration is considered. It is noted that there is an issue with the interpretation of the terms of resettlement, and deportation in most Ukrainian historical research.

TRANSNATIONAL APPROACHES TO STUDYING THE HISTORY OF THE UKRAINIAN LIBERATION MOVEMENT(on the example of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations as part of the transnational anti-communist network) The study analyzes the concepts of «transnationalism»

The study analyzes the concepts of «transnationalism» and transnational approaches to historiography. The concept of «transnational history» is defined, and the difference between it and historical-comparative studies is explored. Also, there are presented the historical development of these concepts and their possible influence on the paradigm shift of historical research in the Ukrainian history of the 20th century. The author determined how using transnational approaches can influence the research of the Ukrainian liberation movement. For instance, the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN) in 1946 included more than a dozen national emigration organizations. The bloc was initiated by the Bandera wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, whose members through decades had developed the ideological doctrine of the unification of the subjugated nations and established contacts with national movements in the Soviet Union during World War II and, after the war ended, among emigrant organizations of Eastern Europe. In contrast, in their home countries, communist regimes were established. The author considered the history of the ABN – the Eastern European anti-communist organization of the Cold War – as part of a transnational anti-communist network. The criteria according to which transnational approaches can be applied to studying the history of ABN are defined. This is, in particular, the use in the ideology of the ABN of transnational concepts of «right of self-determination for nations» and «anti-communism», as well as, activities in the field of International Non-Governmental Organization – INGO. In addition, the author argued that the use of transnational approaches can also be through the historical period in which the bloc operated. It was during the bipolar world ideological confrontation that transnational ideas became widespread and non-governmental organizations gained influence, particularly in the public sector of Western democracies. This allowed the bloc to pursue active public activities among national diasporas in the West, actively using anti-communist slogans and thus appealing to the USSR and communist governments in Eastern Europe. Keywords transnational history, ABN, the Cold War, the Ukrainian liberation movement, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

The “Africanization” of an African Diaspora Household: Toyin Falola and the Idea of Diasporic Home-Making

This essay is an exercise in the interrogation of cultural globalization, and how the idea of transnationalism generates identity responses. The authors used the concept of home-making to examine how Toyin Falola deployed an aesthetic sensibility of African art as ideological dynamics for the personalization of his home situated in a suburb in Austin, Texas. The Africanization agenda that the Falola house operationalized points at the critical role that interior decoration can play in African diaspora homes. The project is crucial because it undermines the homogenizing reach of globalization that dislocates the sense of identity of an average African transnational migrant. In the Falola home, we confront an assemblage of aesthetic consciousness, dynamics of Africanity, and identity construction.

재일코리안 교육의 패러다임 전환과 경험 - 코리아국제중고등학교 졸업생 3인의 구술사를 중심으로 -

This paper explores the change of educational paradigm of Zainichi Korean education in Japan with the example of Korea International School (KIS). In the history of ethnic minority schooling for Zainich Koreans, it is noticeable that nationalism had influenced their curriculum. To overcome nationalistic ideas in the education of ethnic schools, KIS was established in 2008 based on the idea of transnationalism. This paper explores the experiences of three students who started their education in a Chōsen school, which is the biggest group of the Zainichi Korean school, and then transferred to KIS. This paper examines interviewees’ educational desire in their choice of changing schools. Their identity as a Korean ethnic minority and also as a member of Japanese society could not be fully explored in a Chōsen school. Through this analysis, this paper shows one of the underlying reasons for the change of educational paradigm of the Zainichi Korean school.

Toward Transnationalism

With social and economic boundaries receding, transnationalism is a fast-growing phenomenon in the world. The article highlights the journey undertaken in the novel Life of Pi by the protagonist across several countries, justifying the thought that staying unconditionally loyal to one nation is futile. In contemporary times with a shift in social, economic, and cultural terms, the nation stands deterritorialized. Reaching out across borders in a world where distance and time have crumbled is looked upon as the beginning of the idea of transnationalism. Even the relationship of the protagonist with the unexplored islands has undergone change. Bereft of family, he is a castaway on unknown terrain, a victim of the unforeseen wrath of nature and in intimidation of the island, which he has to leave soon. Shifting focus of the present humanity is explored in the article, establishing the argument of change in the contemporary thought and lifestyle.

Hebei New Area in Tianjin, 1902–1912 – implementing Japanese commercial and industrial urban planning ideas in China

ABSTRACT A transnational flow of capital exchange during the 19th and early 20th centuries brought planning ideas and modernity into China. Since European countries and America used violence to place China into a colonial world and its forms of power-knowledge, the existing works too often focus on the impact of the ‘west’, treating the Chinese as passive recipients who responded to ‘western’ transnational planning ideas, while neglecting the transnational flow of Intra-Asia. By exploring the formation of urbanism in Hebei New Area in Tianjin, this article reveals that the Chinese did not allow themselves to be dictated to by the planning ideas emanating from the west. Instead, they both sought the most suitable ideas based on their local situations and actively imported planning ideas from the east – Japan. The authorities in Tianjin sent officials to Japan to draw upon Japanese industrial and commercial planning models to set up their own organizational framework, urban built environments, and operational management. Consequently, they incorporated planning ideas from the ‘east’ to re-organize the daily life of the masses and modernize their city. These ideas were juxtaposed with ideas from the ‘west’ to shape the urbanism of Tianjin.

Transnational competence frameworks and national curriculum-making: the case of Sweden

ABSTRACT Competence-based approaches (CBAs) in education have become an internationally important educational policy concept in recent decades. However, a substantial body of research has suggested that in order to understand and explain the evolution of CBAs, there is a need to analyse curriculum-making as a complex and multi-layered practice. To contribute to this research field, this paper makes use of Vivien Schmidt’s concept of discursive-institutionalism (DI), which focuses on ideas and discourse. First, we compare ideas of competences as expressed in four influential CBA frameworks, and second, we exemplify how these ideas, with special reference to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, have been translated when re-contextualised within Swedish curriculum policy-making. The results show that when re-contextualised within national borders, transnational ideas of competences are reconfigured. In the case of Sweden, this process has led to a national interpretation of CBAs, discussed in this paper as ‘hybrid competences.’

The Glocality of the Acta Comparationis Litterarum. Local Interpretations of Educational Freedom, Coercive Innovation and Comparative Literature

Abstract The Present Tasks of Comparative Literature (Vorläufige Aufgaben der Vergleichenden Litteratur) is the most often-cited essay of the first international journal of comparative literature, the ActaComparationis Litterarum Universarum. The article proposes a revision of the generally established explanations of this pioneering text, and traces back the microcultural genealogy of the idea of freedom and autonomy associated with the emerging modern discipline of comparative literature in the essay. In this new intellectual framework both the essay and its broad horizon are interpreted as a glocal interplay of recycled and enthrallingly reinvented transnational ideas.

Diffusing a Movement: An Analysis of Strategic Communication in a Transnational Movement

ABSTRACT This research explores how and by which mechanisms and processes a social movement diffuses to other countries or regions and the role of communication management in this spread. Findings suggest activists and advocates involved in the diffusion process can be understood as strategic translators whose work is locally oriented, but also whose connections and frames of reference are transnational. Activists and advocates are not merely receivers of information; rather, they are active seekers who engage with transnational ideas, information, and connections.

The Curated TV Experience with ‘Value Added’

Canned TV has been a television industry practice almost from the start of television itself and was a way in which local/nationally-produced television programmes gained extra revenue by travelling, under licence, around the world. As well as providing extra revenue, this process also provided, often unintentionally, various opportunities for branding – both at the broadcaster level and at the national level. However, using Channel 4’s OD platform, Walter Presents, this essay will consider the state of canned TV in more contemporary terms related to global and transnational ideas where television in general, and canned TV in particular, describe a transformed media culture.

‘dass diese tauben Geschichten aufflattern’: Narrative, Translingual Creativity and Belonging in Katja Petrowskaja’s Vielleicht Esther (2014)

This article argues that reading Katja Petrowskaja’s Vielleicht Esther in the context of minor literature as a literature of deterritorialisation highlights its sense of liberation and emphasises the creation of associations – aspects that are crucial to this transnational and translingual book about retrieving memory across space and time. Going beyond the idea of a binary relationship between minor and major literature and instead focusing on rhizomatic affiliation emerges as key. A wider framework of analysis is also provided by ideas that derive from or have been developed in conjunction with Deleuze and Guattari’s thinking: the idea of minor transnationalism (Francoise Lionnet, Shu-Mei Shih), the concepts of multi- and translingualism (Leslie Adelson, Steven G. Kellman) and the ethics of relationality (Sara Ahmed) and multidirectionality in postmemory discourses (Hirsch, Rothberg). Combined, these ideas prove to be useful tools for understanding Petrowskaja’s handling of narrative, language and belonging in Vielleicht Esther.

Race, the Canadian Census, and Interactive Political Development

This article explores the erratic history of counting by race on the Canadian census. It argues that the political development of racial classifications on Canadian censuses has been shaped by the interactions among evolving global ideas about race, the programmatic beliefs of international epistemic communities of statisticians and census designers, and domestic institutions involved in the administration of the census. First, Canadian census designers drew from shifting global conceptions about the nature of race and racial difference, which normatively defined the legitimate ends of race policies. Second, Canadian census designers often paid heed to the programmatic beliefs of the international statistical community about the appropriateness of collecting racial data. Finally, evolving political institutions involved in the administration of the census mediated these transnational ideas, molding them to fit the Canadian national context through institutional and cultural translative processes. Theoretically, this research makes the case that focusing on interactive political development can augment the theoretical toolbox of American political development, enabling a more comprehensive picture of the emergence, dynamism, and persistence of the Canadian racial order.

The Street Fighter Lady: Invisibility and Gender in Game Composition

The international success of Japanese game design provides an example of the invisibility of female game composers, as well as of gendered identification in game music production and sound design. Yoko Shimomura, the female composer who produced the iconic soundtrack for the 1991 arcade game, Street Fighter II (Capcom 1991), seems to have been invisible to game developers and music producers, which is partly due to the way in which the game is credited as a team effort. Regardless of their personal gender identity, game composers respond to themed briefs by drawing on transnational musical ideas and gendered stereotypes that resonate with the Global Popular. Game music, as imagined as suitable for hyper-masculine game arcades, seems to draw on a masculinist aesthetic developed in Hollywood compositions. In turn, Street Fighter II’s music and the competitive game culture of arcade fighting games has been interwoven with masculinist music scenes of hip-hop and grime. The discussion of the music of Street Fighter II and the musical versions it inspired, nevertheless highlights that although seemingly simplified gendered stereotypes are reproduced within the game, gender identification itself can be complex within the context of game music composition.

On the Transnational Destruction of Cities: What Japan and the United States Learned from the Bombing of Britain and Germany in the Second World War*

Abstract How did it become ‘normal’ to bomb civilians? Focusing on the aerial bombardment of China, Germany, Britain, and Japan in 1937-45, this essay spotlights the role of transnational learning in the construction and destruction of ‘home fronts’. Belligerents vigorously studied each other's strategies to destroy the enemy's cities and ‘morale’, while investigating efforts to defend one's own home front by means of ‘civilian defence’. The inclusion of Japan, as bomber and bombed, contributes to a more global, connected history of the Second World War. Japan's sustained bombardment of Chinese cities not only reflected emerging transnational ideas of strategic bombing and total war, but also imparted new ‘lessons’ to Western air forces. Moreover, the devastating US firebombing of Japanese cities in 1945 challenges widely accepted judgments that bombing was generally ineffective, serving only to stiffen civilian morale. Why Japanese cities were bombed, and how they were bombed, was not an exceptional story, but was intimately connected to what the Allies had learned from bombing European urban areas.

Bereft of nature: renegotiating national identity in the films of Rashid Masharawi

ABSTRACTThis essay examines Rashid Masharawi’s transnationally produced films against the backdrop of problematizing the Palestinian relationship with the realm of nature. Grounded in the idea of minor transnationalism, modelled by Françoise Lionnet and Shu-mei Shih, drawing upon the conceptualization of ‘minor literatures’ of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and the transnational film theory of Mette Hjort, it focuses on Masharawi’s feature films, Curfew, Haïfa, Ticket to Jerusalem, Laila’s Birthday and Palestine Stereo. Set in and around refugee camps in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, Masharawi’s ‘minor films’ accentuate the absence of nature from the lives of local individuals and communities, and their disconnections from the realms of natural transcendence. Masharawi affirms his position on cinema as a vehicle for the advancement of modernity, but does not negate or marginalize the ties of Palestinians to their land. Urging his audiences to contemplate the tropes in the national imaginary and the discontinuities from the romanticized narratives of land in the pre-Nakba period, he seeks what Deleuze and Guattari describe as the ‘collective paradigms of political enunciation,’ corresponding to the new modes of subjectivity.

Ages of Anxiety: Historical and Transnational Perspectives on Juvenile Justice ed. by William S. Bush and David S. Tanenhaus

Reviewed by: Ages of Anxiety: Historical and Transnational Perspectives on Juvenile Justice ed. by William S. Bush and David S. Tanenhaus Tera Eva Agyepong Ages of Anxiety: Historical and Transnational Perspectives on Juvenile Justice. Edited by William S. Bush and David S. Tanenhaus. New York: New York University Press, 2018. ix + 193. Cloth $49. Ages of Anxiety: Historical and Transnational Perspectives on Juvenile Justice is a critically important examination of international juvenile justice policy in the twentieth century. The contributing authors and editors have co-created a cutting-edge volume that surveys the emergence of juvenile justice and the transnational circulation of ideas surrounding delinquency. This six-chapter volume historicizes the middle decades of the twentieth century—a period that has been under-examined in juvenile justice scholarship. Each study highlights the important role that ordinary people and ideas have played in shaping juvenile justice, and the varied responses that modern, developing, and colonial regimes have had to delinquency. The first part of the book examines efforts that reformers and practitioners made to legitimize emergent juvenile justice systems in Belgium, Mexico, and colonial Zanzibar. The second part analyzes the varied approaches to policing and punishing youth crime in Boston, Paris, Montreal, and Turkey. David Niget highlights a transnational movement of ideas about juvenile courts among Belgian reformers, judges, and the International Association of Children's Judges (IACJ) by examining discourses that circulated internationally. Collectively, Belgian reformers, the IACJ, and other international congresses disseminated proposals for juvenile courts based on the "American" or "Chicago" model. This first chapter reveals the significant impact that the emergence of international human rights paradigms had on notions of juvenile justice in the aftermath of the world wars. In the second chapter, Shari Orisich's study of the transformation of Mexico City's juvenile court between the 1930s and 1960s similarly explores the impact of a transnational circulation of ideas. Orisich focuses on juvenile court workers' understanding and application of scientific ideas about delinquency and youth. The chapter contains rich analysis of estudio social (minors' case files that included reports by doctors, psychologists, caseworkers, and other state agents), revealing not only the impact that transnational ideas had on the ground, but the ways in which children themselves asserted agency over their own lives. Orisich's "reading against the grain" of the narratives in the children's case files brilliantly historicizes how [End Page 129] a new welfare state modernized authority on a "body of knowledge that was built on youth" (53). Corrie Decker's chapter on the limits of Western conceptions of juvenile justice in colonial Zanzibar concludes Part I of the text. British colonial administrators resisted calls from the Colonial Office, beginning in the 1930s, and from the United Nations in the 1950s, to follow international blueprints for the administration of juvenile justice. Decker reveals how masheha (local chiefs) and mudirs (Islamic legal representatives) resolved cases of juvenile delinquency before colonial administrators knew about them. As a result, local leaders diverted youth before they could encounter the colonial penal apparatus. Decker's study is an important reminder that the very notions of "delinquency" and "justice" have been culturally and historically contingent categories mediated by local actors even when they have purported to be "universal" and international" in their conception. Part II's examination of approaches to policing and punishing youth crime begins with Tamara Myers' chapter. Myers analyzes the Montreal Police Department's (MPD) approach to a juvenile crime wave that began—as it did in other large cites—in the postwar period. The MPD successfully reduced juvenile delinquency by creating delinquency prevention programs and reconceptualizing the role of police officers so that it emphasized mentorship rather than policing. The chapter is not only an important addition to historical scholarship and policy debates about juvenile justice because of its illumination of a locale where delinquency prevention strategies worked, but also because it highlights how important the construction of youth was to this history. As Myers notes, prevention work "necessitated the production of particular construction of youth—one that was deserving of protection" (96). In "Supervising Freedom: Juvenile Delinquency in Paris and Boston in the Mid-Twentieth Century," Guillaume Périssol's comparative study examines the...