Modern Identity Research Articles

DYNAMICS OF THE PERSONAL IDENTITY CRISIS UNDER CONDITIONS OF SOCIAL INSTABILITY

The article considers the issue of the personality identity crisis in the situation of social instability and discusses the topicality of the phenomenon. It is shown that crises constantly occur at certain stages of development of a person, group, society as a whole or in different spheres of a social life, but at the same time they have their own uniqueness and significance. The crisis is considered as a problem that cannot be avoided, but also cannot be resolved with the available means. Personal identity is understood as an internal, self-created, dynamic organization of needs, abilities, beliefs and individual history. In modern conditions of uncertainty and instability, contradictions that exist in the image of the world by the people are intensified to the maximum and have a destabilizing effect on their emotional state and physical well-being. The uniqueness of the situation is that the scale of the threat is equal to the total population of the globe, the threat is inevitable and extraordinary in its consequences. Humanity has never faced such a situation in its history. The author notes that for all scientific approaches in the frame of which the problem is studied, the common thing is that in the process of identity formation, a person discovers himself / herself and his /her place in the world, its main function is to maintain stability, certainty, continuity, and the integrity of the personality. The article identifies and examines the causes of the modern identity crisis that accompanies globalization processes in the world, describes the types, stages, features of a person's situational reactions to the crisis, psychological features of the manifestations of identity in crisis situations at the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral levels. It is concluded that, to a significant extent, the identity crisis, its dynamics, the scale in which it is presented in the modern world is a consequence of globalization processes leading to the disintegration of traditional social ties, which were the basis of stability in previous conditions. Today the task of choosing a “life project” for oneself, constructing and adapting an identity is becoming urgent.

Rediscovering Political Friendship. Aristotle’s Theory and Modern Identity, Community, and Equality

Rediscovering Political Friendship. Aristotle’s Theory and Modern Identity, Community, and Equality

Nationality and Fashionality: Hats, Lawyers and Other Important Things to Remember

The Persianate genre of the tazkira, or biographical compendium, typically concerns poets and Sufi saints, but a different approach is taken in Yadgar-e Rozgar, published in 1931 by Sayyid Badr al-Hasan, an aristocrat and honorary magistrate from Patna. Hasan focuses on the ordinary people—landlords and courtesans, doctors and bakers, lawyers and counterfeiters—who made up Patna’s social world as the city transformed from a provincial town into the capital of a new province. While many Patnaites celebrated these changes, Hasan was deeply ambivalent about the dilemmas of colonial modernity. He struggled to reconcile modernist ideals with his sense that older ways were essential to Patna’s cohesion and distinctiveness. As he worriedly put it, ‘Asian breeding’ had been replaced by a fickle disregard for social norms, as ‘nationality’ increasingly gave way to ‘fashionality’.

Estudio sociológico sobre el efecto de las características de la modernidad en la identidad étnica

La etnicidad y la nacionalidad son tipos de identidades sociales modernas que han sido reformadas después de ser globalizadas. Esta investigación busca estudiar el papel de las características de la modernidad en la identidad étnica. Los datos de la investigación se recopilaron mediante un cuestionario elaborado por un investigador, y 384 estudiantes de la Universidad Islámica Azad, Teherán North Branch fueron seleccionados por muestreo aleatorio no probabilístico en 2019. Los resultados muestran la relación significativa entre la identidad étnica y las características de la modernidad, estilo de vida moderno (r = -0.66), identidad moderna (r = -0.74), socialización moderna (r = -0.40) y uso intencionado de redes sociales virtuales (r = 0.31). En otras palabras, las identidades étnicas se debilitan por la tendencia de los participantes a los patrones y valores beneficiosos e individualistas occidentales adaptados con la ley, evitando y subestimando las normas religiosas y tradicionales. Mientras tanto, las redes sociales virtuales como herramienta de modernidad han sido una oportunidad para expresar las demandas étnicas políticas y sociales, en particular los hombres de la frontera como los kurdos y los turcos. Principalmente, han aparecido en forma de movimientos dramáticos y tensiones interétnicas que al seguir los elementos de la modernidad finalmente disminuyen las pertenencias étnicas y la tendencia a la identidad global, y solo el uso deliberado y consciente del espacio virtual puede aportar integridad y vitalidad a la identidad étnica. Además, ha unificado, despertado y demandado a las etnias en todas las fronteras nacionales debido a la historia y la identidad mutuas. Según los resultados de la investigación, la pertenencia étnica de los estudiantes kurdos y turcos fue mayor que la de otros, y estas etnias tienen una conciencia más completa sobre su historia, épica, tierra, costumbres étnicas, rituales, industria, estilo de ropa y cocina local. Además, se adhirieron al matrimonio, la asociación y la cooperación con su gente y estaban orgullosos de sus nombres nativos.

Discourses on Hamlet's Journey in Turkey

This study seeks to scrutinize extratextual discourses which frame the Turkish translations and post-translation rewritings of Hamlet as an instrument of national self-imagining and projecting Turkey’s self-image in different socio-political and historical contexts. The study points out that various discourses see image construction as the major motive behind the different versions of Hamlet in Turkey. It also underlines that the extratextual material surrounding the retranslations and rewritings focus on various contextual dynamics that reveal how Turkey is torn between dualities that frame its image in line with the narratives of modernity and tradition, secularism and religion, easternness and westernness. In this context, the study emphasizes that theatre translation, and particularly the translations of Hamlet, formed significant part of the late Ottoman Empire’s and modern Turkey’s westernization efforts. Ultimately, the study concludes that discourses on the Hamlet renderings have foregrounded what is and what is not part of Turkey’s historically constructed self-image by bringing the West alongside the East, centering on how the retranslations and rewritings promote Turkey’s Western (secular and modern) identity against a largely negative representation of its eastern cultural identity.
 
 Key words: Hamlet, Turkey, retranslation, post-translation rewriting, image

From appeal to transgression: problems of modern discourse of religious Transitions

Globalization processes, which are aimed at forming a single language of different cultures, raise problems of modern identity and its transformation. The process of self-identification is complex and depends on the existing worldview, so the transformation of identity entails a change in the worldview, and vice versa. In other words, such transformation can be seen as transgressive processes, which is clearly demonstrated in the example of religious practice.The religious worldview is rather stable, but significant changes are observed today. Influenced by syncretism fashion, new religious practices start blurring the boundaries of the world confessions that have been formed over the centuries, replacing the sacrament of conversion with an act of uncontrolled religious transgression, which is especially characteristic of believers who do not feel a special craving for integral system of dogmas.The authors used the term transgression to fix the phenomenon of crossing the impassable border between the possible and the impossible, leading in some cases to a breakthrough beyond the boundaries of everyday commonness and generally accepted norms. This process is both constructive and destructive, but it is destructive to social norms. Therefore, special attention is paid to the act of religious transgression related to the transition to another faith, which makes it necessary to study in the framework of the article bans and recommendations designed to create a limit of impassability on the borders of world confessions. Based on the comparative analysis of various rules and regulations adopted in Judaism, Islam and Christianity in order to regulate believers’ behavior, the social effect on the formation of the individual religious worldview is analyzed.

Knowledge and power: Curricular policy’s evolution and paradoxical relationship with practice in Shanghai

Curriculum, as an expression of legitimate knowledge, should be seen as something political rather than technical, that is, as the result of complex power relations and struggles among identifiable stakeholder groups. In Shanghai, curricular reform, which traditionally assumes the crucial task of cultivating responsible citizens, has sought to situate education as an instrument of ideological indoctrination, at least to some extent. However, due to economic and social changes, such as those related to globalisation and modern ideals of educational development, curricular reform has undergone remarkable ideological changes that have given rise to paradoxes between policy and practice. This article explores the evolution of curricular policy and the ways in which it emerges in a paradoxical relationship to practice by analysing the relationship between curricular knowledge and power in Shanghai.

Cultivating Identities: The Catholic School as Diverse Ecclesial Space

I argue that the crisis of identity Catholic schools are experiencing in the 21st century also presents an opportunity for a rediscovery and expanded conversation, both within and beyond the confines of the institutional Church, of what it means to exist separately from the mainstream without restricting internal diversity. I begin by presenting salient historical, theological, and sociological features Catholicism and Catholic Education during and since the Second Vatican Council (1962-5) to establish the context and substance of its modern identity crisis. I then provide a review of current controversies within Catholic schools to demonstrate how they are symptomatic of this crisis, but also potential catalysts for exploring new options. The next section argues both for the merits of recognizing multiple Catholic identities, and imagining the Catholic school as an institution that assembles and coordinates them. I propose that the fact of multiple Catholic identities should be interpreted as differences in kind, rather than by their degree of difference from a narrowly constructed idea of Catholicism. I also propose that the intersection of these identities at school should be encouraged as a way of nurturing both students’ own identities and their ability to encounter religious difference within their own tradition and community. The conclusion demonstrates how in practice this model presents a promising means of possibly deepening individual and institutional religious identit(y/ies) in today’s world, and for responding to controversial issues that arise within Catholic schools.

Exercising the Body, Exercising Citizenship: On the History of Scouting in Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT Scouting was one of the first modern ‘sports’ to reach Saudi Arabia, with the first boy scout troops dating back to 1943. Yet scouting has largely escaped the attention of historians and social scientist who study the Arab Gulf states, since this uniformed youth movement does not conform to the ‘tribal modern’ identity that is today propagated and researched within the region, as found, for example, in the discourse on heritage sports. How did a Saudi scouting movement take root, importing what is still largely perceived to be a Western cultural practice, identified with a white British-North American middle class? The research demonstrates that the scouting movement was able to take hold in the region by negotiating the universal ideals of modernity and internationalism of the scouting movement with more particular understandings of nationalism and social reform. Following the trajectories of the early Saudi scouting movement, the analysis traces how the conception of what constitutes ‘modern’ evolved from an understanding that emphasizes universal traits, toward a negotiated and particularised interpretation of what ‘modern’ means and should mean in the local context of Saudi Arabia.

Criminalizing Informal Workers: The Case of Street Vendors in Abuja, Nigeria

The article examines the criminalization of street vendors in Abuja, Nigeria. It draws on the debate on informality, legality and rights, to highlight the tensions surrounding the law as a mode of regulation. As documented, ideology provides the rationale for the criminalization of street vending. The activity is deemed inimical to the modernist ideals of a clean and functioning city. Enforcement of the law is accompanied by the harassment of vendors. However, vendors remain on the streets by circumventing the law. The article highlights the shortcomings of a simplistic approach to the governance of informality. It cannot be legislated away.

Islamic Feminism: The Challenges and Choices of Reinterpreting Sexual Ethics in Islamic Tradition

Despite what the furore over Uniform Civil Code and more recently Triple Talaq might suggest, Muslim women have very little discursive space to voice their concerns in Indian political arena. Dominant discourses on Islam and gender, including those propagated by Muslim male organisations pose Islam as a monolithic entity completely alien to the modern gender-egalitarian ideals. Feminist movements, on the other hand, hold Islam to be irrelevant at best and an obstacle at worst in promotion of gender-egalitarian norms within the community. There are concerns about the extent to which Islamic feminism can go in its demands for egalitarianism while staying within an Islamic paradigm. This paper contests those assumptions about Islam and women that foreclose any dialogue for change by exploring the role of human interpretative choices in formation and development of the Islamic religious tradition. As demonstrated by feminist exegetes, how religious texts are read is shaped deeply by human contingencies and choices. In Indian scenario, such changes are visible in formation of Muslim personal law as well. Post-independence, political contingencies within the subcontinent made it difficult to revisit the laws resulting in the loss of fluidity in the tradition. As formative scholars’ choices became enshrined in the tradition as authentic and canonical, the human element in the canonical became forgotten. The inertia to review the moral choices made by earlier authors became the hallmark of authenticity and therefore authority within the tradition. This paper argues that appreciating the role of human choices and hermeneutical flexibility involved in the formation of gender norms in Muslim societies throughout the history of Islamic legal tradition might prove effective in resolving moral dilemmas faced by modern Muslims while maintaining continuity with the tradition.

“Hijos de la libertad”, apuntes sobre el rol social del Museo Histórico Nacional de Chile

The controversy surrounding the temporary exhibition of the National Historical Museum of Chile (MHN) entitled Children of Freedom, 200 Years of Independence (2018), sparked a debate on social networks, the media and academic venues. The museum was accused of transgressing a social consensus regarding the representation of the dictator Pinochet and, with it, of transgressing itself as a stabilizing device of collective sense. This article focuses on the construction of this self, putting its emergence and development into perspective. It is concluded that, with or without success, the museum effectively sought to transgress the distribution of the network between power, knowledge and memory that shapes its modern identity in order to try out a new possible identity, one that attempts to assume the complexity that the construction of collective meaning presents in today's Chile.

Mid–Century Modern Furniture Representing Modern Ideals in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey

This study focuses on how the modern furniture designed for Turkey's third parliament building, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, represented the country's new modern ideals by breaking with its Ottoman heritage. While the architecture of this building has been studied, there are no assessments of its interiors and furniture as integral elements. This study uses archival research and interviews with interior designers who worked on the project. The findings shed light on how modernization was brought to life through the spaces and furniture in this powerful, symbolic building.

Scaling Techno-Optimistic Visions

Techno-optimism, or the enduring belief that technology use and production are promising for humanity, is bound up in past and ongoing ideals of modernity, progress, and “development.” As a particular form of hope and aspiration, techno-optimism is harnessed for nation-building and economic development projects that invest in the promise of scaling. This article demonstrates that this enduring techno-optimism requires various forms of entrepreneurial labor, and that the promise of scaling and technological progress together form a contemporary technique of governance.

Soft Rejuvenation: Cosmetics, Idealized White Femininity, and Young Women’s Bodies, 1880–1930

Abstract In this article we draw together the histories of rejuvenation and cosmetic use in order to examine discourses of “soft rejuvenation” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While rejuvenation has typically been considered in relation to transnational medicalized attempts to restore youthful vitality and virility, we suggest that the logic of rejuvenation was feminized through the promotion of cosmetic and daily self-care regimens in this period. Drawing on material from British, American, and Canadian contexts relating to beauty and hygiene, we suggest that daily practices of caring for and disciplining the white female body, especially through cosmetic use, were legitimated, in part, using the rhetoric of rejuvenation. The article considers how the transnational, the modern, and the propagation of whiteness in the early twentieth century were mobilized in these ideas of how daily bodily work could preserve the (white) youthful face and body, which was understood to embody health and vigor. This discourse was significant for young women, who were subject to male control over their bodies as they began to be employed in nontraditional workplaces; however, we also argue that these cosmetic practices can be understood as a component of girls’ and women’s own self-fashioning of modern identities.

The strategy of individualization of identity in modern culture: philosophical analysis

The article considers the process of identity constructing in modern culture. As a result of the case analysis, the author conceptualizes the modern identity construction strategy as an individualization of identity. The worldview foundations of this strategy are revealed. It is proposed to distinguish two paradigms of identity on the basis of the function of social representation: I-as-image and I-as-symbol. The author connects the tendency of individualization and delegitimation of social institutions in modern culture with the process of transition from a symbolically oriented type of consciousness to a type of consciousness focused on figurative perception.

Modern Kenyan Identity: Crafting a Nation Through Monuments

To define the identity of a modern African country, within the Eurocentric interpretive framework, imposes creative limits. Therefore, this is an insider’s perspective of Kenyan identity. It begins with a summary of what constitutes modernism as a philosophy that underpins various cultural expressions. While pointing out the danger of assigning expressions of cultural identity to a state as opposed to a nation, the article surveys monuments in Nairobi. And it is with qualified confidence that modernist-looking monuments are considered cultural expressions of Kenya; they are simply symbols that try to gather the peoples into a modern collective – with (un)certain success. The colonial authority assembled various monuments in an effort to imprint British identity; these are not in the style of modernism, though they were erected when Europe was experiencing the culture of modernism. The epitome is the statue of King George V. Post-colonial monuments, seeking to wipe off colonial identity, are also more classical and less modernist, bringing to the fore the paradox of a modern culture that does not employ the modernist style. Jomo Kenyatta’s statue in Nairobi’s City Square is the epitome of post-colonial monuments. Its mounting was the gesture par excellence of overthrowing British dominion. The only modernist monuments are those affiliated to President Daniel Moi. His regime had to fight to unite the citizens. A parallel is drawn between this political effort and the artistic style of choice. A discussion of the non-prevalence of the modernist style in articulating modern identity follows. And, in conclusion, the article points out that though both colonial and post-colonial monuments are fabricated out of modern materials and techniques, they cannot be termed modernist works of art. Modernism, as a style that bespeaks a culture, is unavoidably underpinned on western culture (European and American) of the 20th century. Article received: December 18, 2019; Article accepted: January 31, 2020; Published online: April 15, 2020; Original scholarly paper

Narrative Self-Experimentation: Johann Wilhelm Ritter’s Methodology as an Alternative to Objectivity

This paper considers the preface to Johann Wilhelm Ritter’s Fragmente aus dem Nachlasse eines jungen Physikers in conjunction with Ritter’s own scientific practice. As in the case of self-experimentation, in the preface Ritter takes on the role of both the narrating subject and the narrated object of his biography. The inward-directed nature of this literary and scientific approach suggests a scientific ideal contrary to modern ideals of objectivity in which one aspect of the self must be suppressed. Ritter’s work, on the other hand, demonstrates a continuous engagement with the various aspects of the self, which, instead of precluding the possibility of scientific investigation, proves to be fundamental for scientific inquiry.

Foreign military labour in Europe’s transition to modernity

ABSTRACTForeign soldiers were a major element in virtually all European armies between the early sixteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. The extent and duration of their use clearly indicates they were far more than a temporary expedient adopted solely until states acquired the capacity to organize forces from their own inhabitants. Rather than being a hindrance to state formation, they were integral to that process. Likewise, the formation of European states and an international system based on indivisible sovereignty was not purely competitive: it also entailed cooperation. The transfer of foreign military labour is an important example of this and is central to what can be labelled the European Fiscal-Military System, which assisted the emergence of a sovereign state order and was dismantled as that order consolidated in the later nineteenth century. Wilson’s article articulates ‘foreign soldiers’ as an alternative to the problematic term ‘mercenaries’, and examines their motives, explaining how and why foreign soldiers were recruited by early modern European states.as well as assessing the scale of their employment. The article concludes that the de-legitimation of foreign military labour was connected to fashioning the modern ideals of the citizen-in-arms as part of a more general process of nationalizing war-making.

МІСЬКА VS РЕГІОНАЛЬНА ІДЕНТИЧНІСТЬ: ДО ПИТАННЯ ХАРАКТЕРУ ФОРМУВАННЯ/АКТУАЛІЗАЦІЇ/ПРОТИСТАВЛЕННЯ В УМОВАХ СУЧАСНОГО УКРАЇНСЬКОГО СУСПІЛЬСТВА


 
 
 The main focus of this article is on identifying the features of regional and urban identity formation and actualization. An attempt was made to determine the nature of interaction and juxtaposition of these types of territorial identity in the conditions of modern Ukrainian society. The main mechanisms of formation of regional identity are distinguished: use of the mechanism of constructing crisis or opposition regional identity, ideological work as a mechanism of formation of regional identity, images, symbolism, mythologists, ideologists and communication slogans as mechanisms of formation of regional identity. Urban identity is formed during the symbolic production of urban meanings. It is emphasized that urban identity is a socio-cultural construct, which is formed as a result of socialization and adaptation in a certain settlement and is determined by the assimilation and reproduction of cultural symbols, accepted norms, traditions, lifestyle of the city residents. It is determined that in modern Ukrainian society urban identity prevails over regional identity.