Imaginary Boundaries Research Articles

Cosmopolitanism and Coexistence in Ottoman Jewish History: The Case of Shopkeeper Yeuda Macha

Abstract: This piece takes the life of Yeuda Macha, a Jewish shopkeeper in Izmir, as its starting point. Focusing on a late nineteenth-century source detailing the settling of his accounts after his death, the article reconstructs the links, contacts, and partnerships that punctuated his daily life both within and outside of the Jewish community. With its emphasis on the mundane, this source offers a point of entry into the rhythm of everyday life in the eastern Sephardi diaspora and the centrality of the esnaf, or urban shopkeepers and petty traders, who made up so much of the Sephardi labor force. It also offers crucial tools to evaluate and refine categories that are so often applied reflexively in the study of the modern Mediterranean and its Jewish communities, such as “cosmopolitanism” and “coexistence,” and the opportunity to concretely probe the nature of both real and imagined boundaries between religio-ethnic groups in an Ottoman port like Izmir.

Плагиат: анализ культурных оснований оправдания

The article is devoted to the study of the cultural foundations of such a phenomenon as plagiarism. It is revealed that plagiarism, like theft and appropriation of authorship of someone else’s work, has its roots in the mythology of culture: the theft of fire by Prometheus, the theft of the blessing of the birthright by Jacob. Plagiarism is a form of self-identification based on an act of passive protest. Through it, the subject is removed from the current government and constitutes its own autonomy. Assuming that theft comes from need, lack of something, plagiarism is also carried out from a lack of self, and in the act of appropriation there is an attempt to compensate for sovereignty. The cultural conditions of postmodernity are described, which exclude plagiarism from the condemned deviations: intertextuality, multiplicity, Death of the Author, leveling the boundary between opposites. Today, the Author is gradually being eliminated from the text and this manifests itself in a special temporal connection: the modern Author existed before the text, and today’s scriptwriter arises simultaneously with the text. The text becomes open, free to make or extract meaning. It can be observed that postmodern discourse implements a kind of apology for plagiarism, considering it an important component of creativity. Plagiarism studies reject the moral assessment of the phenomenon in favor of demonstrating the imaginary boundaries between the copy and the original. The conclusion is made about the need to return the study of plagiarism to the moral field, the return of conscience and “cognitive abilities”.

Cultural Powerful Youth: Interconnection of Local Wisdom and Cultural Industries through the MIC Strategy at the Sekaten Ceremony

Maximizing the cultural potential exists in the DIY region,especially Kraton as a culture-based tourist destination, requires collaboration between government, private sector and local communities. Media Communication as a alternative pillar for developing the promotion of culture to the international to penetrate imaginary cultural boundaries. (Mele,Cantoni,2017). The elements of tourist destinations Kraton are quite complete,friendliness,full-value and upholding local culture are the main attractions for local and international tourists. Through the good cooperation,The Sekaten ceremony will stand strong amidst the onslaught of foreign culture by empowering youth, because it has great potential cultural sector in the digital era.The strategy in this research uses integrated marketing communications (IMC) by combining advertising,direct sales marketing,public relation and digital marketing. This research aimed to find out the potential of youth in cultural promotion and developing it in the challenges of modern era to international.Using literature search methods and direct interviews studies,this research presents data integrated between creative and cultural industries. The results of this research show that youth agents are not only connoisseurs of the cultural market,but more than that; who have penetrated the boundaries of unconsciousness the hyperreality stage and initiated the birth of creative cultural industry

Imagining the Nation as a “Web” of Animals

AbstractWhile existing scholarship is largely interested in exploring how a particular (nonhuman) animal symbol is mobilized to support a specific exclusionary agenda, what happens when the very nation is imagined as a “web” of different constituent “species”? In this article, the author examines four nonhuman animal symbols—the lion, the tiger, the pig, and the butterfly, which have been mobilized in Sri Lanka to delineate (imaginary) boundaries between different communities that reside there. The article combines critical animal studies and nationalism studies scholarship with affect theory to complicate the current understandings on the relationships between animality, affect, and nationalism. A focus on affect, the author argues, can open up a line of inquiry that is invisible to our current accounts on the relationships between animality and nationalism by demonstrating how animality can be instrumentalized as a tool for not only domination and subordination but also subversion, refusal, and contestation. Tracing the different ways in which animality gets mobilized to represent various communities that reside within the nation, the article highlights the complex ways in which animality can be mobilized within nation-building and how bodies negotiate and respond to such assignations.

National Imaginary and the Catholic Church: Queer Migrant Women’s Experiences of Exclusionary Moments

In this article, I discuss the imagined boundaries of belonging in Iceland, the political projects of national identity and religion, and the ways in which those projects affect the everyday social formations for LBTQ+ migrant women. I highlight the interlocutors’ experiences of exclusion, foregrounding resistance and resilience in facing unequal power relations, including racism, sexism, heterosexism and cisgenderism. In the article, I apply theories of critical race, postcolonialism, queer-of-colour critique, queer theology, the relationality of space and place, as well as the politics of belonging and a sense of belonging. I draw on feminist writings concerning queer migrations, intersectionality and assemblage, to analyse interlocutors’ multilayered experiences within the Icelandic context, other cultural frames of reference, and transnationally. I analyse semi-structured interviews with 28 interlocutors, who identify as LBTQ+ migrant women, demigirl, gender queer and non-binary. Six interlocutors are racialised as black or brown, 22 as white, hailing from the Global South and Global North. Two themes were carved out of the analysis, relating to the genealogy and aesthetics of racialisation and othering in Iceland, and experiences of exclusion and resistance within the Catholic Church. In line with the analysis, I advocate for dismantling social hierarchies and exclusionary power structures by foregrounding structural violence and microagressions against disenfranchised groups of individuals in addition to highlighting queer worldmaking practices.

SOCIAL MEDIA FEEDS AMID THE ELECTION EVERYDAY: DIGITAL BOUNDARIES AND DISRUPTION DURING THE 2020 U.S. ELECTION

Ongoing political events can reshape the topography of our social media feeds and platformed experiences, destabilizing everyday routines of digital media consumption. The 2020 U.S. presidential election extended this disruption far longer than typical U.S. elections due to extended mail-in ballot counting and political unrest. Within this distinctive political milestone, I study how “ordinary” citizens consume, witness, and feel through social media during an ongoing election. My research centers on social media feeds as sites of political media exposure, examining election media experiences as well as the practices participants use to navigate their feeds as ever-shifting, ephemeral digital environments. I move away from top-down approaches to studying the social media feed by using a “small data,” observational interviewing technique that I term feed analysis interviewing to conduct three interviews each with 21 participants over the course of the election. Ultimately, my preliminary results suggest that participants understand their feeds as spaces of contestation between election affect and their “everyday,” “real,” and “normal” media lives. They use a series of sociotechnical practices to navigate and enforce these imagined boundaries, going beyond political avoidance to differentiate realms of political experience. While introducing a new methodological approach to study political communication and the social media feed, this research also challenges scholars to consider how “ordinary” citizens define and negotiate junctures of politics and everyday life in digital spaces.

A Study on the Collaborative Experiences of Faculty Members and Students Health-Oriented Transdisciplinary Process: Convergence of Science for Social Accountability

Introduction: Transdisciplinary education is necessary for the improvement of life quality and social sustainable development. The convergence of science also provides the opportunity to achieve this goal through collaborative learning and by crossing imaginary boundaries of various fields of knowledge. This study was part of a project titled "Application of artificial intelligence for developing tools for virtual education and counseling for prevention, diagnosis, treatment and self-care of cardiac patients" The aim was to share the experiences of professors and students participating in this transdisciplinary health oriented activity.
 Methods: We used a qualitative method in this study. Purposive sampling and data collection was performed through a focused group discussion session and three individual semi-structured interviews. The process of data analysis was based on the Granham and Lundman method, and the accuracy of our data was examined with Guba and Lincoln criteria.
 Results: The participants included 22 students and faculty members of various disciplines of medical sciences, engineering and art. Classes and members of qualitative analysis included "individual development" (self-directed learning, self-confidence, responsibility) and "social development" (transdisciplinary vision, academic leadership and social responsibility).
 Conclusion: Many of the themes, such as self-directed learning, self-confidence, responsibility and transdisciplinary vision, are hidden curriculum components that students learn through participating in team and problem-solving activities. Interdisciplinary activities are also effective for empowering faculty members in areas like academic leadership and creating a multidisciplinary perspective to respond to the needs of society.

Torn apart! Transnational feminist researchers’ geopolitical positionality in (pre-) COVID-19 times

In this article, we examine the ‘geopolitical positionality’ of transnational feminist researchers caught between hostile countries (home-field). We define geopolitical positionality as the researchers’ position influenced by international politics, discourses, and practices by core powers and hegemonic states. By revisiting our fieldwork experiences, we interrogate how our geopolitical positionalities have a great impact on the process of feminist knowledge production and researchers’ well-being amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. In the era of global trade wars, the geopolitical positionality of transnational researchers requires more scholarly attention; however, a focus on this geopolitical positionality remains practically nonexistent in feminist geography. This article works to fill this void by reflecting on our fieldwork experiences in the geopolitical tensions between China and the US (for Ruwen Chang) and between South Korea and Japan (for Jaeyeon Lee). By sharing our vulnerabilities and hardships concerning our fieldwork prior to and during the COVID-19 crisis, we aim to accomplish two goals. First, by showing the vulnerability of transnational feminist researchers who are caught between hostile countries (home-field), we hope to create a space of compassion and support in/beyond academia. Second, with our analysis of geopolitical positionality, we demonstrate that transnational knowledge is precariously produced across imaginary and material boundaries between the personal, the academic, the national, and the geopolitical.

Idolatrias en las fragiles fronteras nororientales del virreinato de la Nueva Granada, 1746-1764

The scandals induced by a dozen of women described as witches in the towns of Silos and Tota and by several male sorcerers in Chiscas and Güicán, show the breakdowns, the failures, and the delays in the process of Christianization and ‘puesta en policía’ in the Indian towns of the northeastern region of New Granada during the 18th century. These events clearly reveal not only the problems faced by the Spanish authorities in the jurisdictional control of civil society, but also the tension between ancestral beliefs and Catholicism. This article deals with the cases in which the political, the spiritual and imaginary boundaries intermingle and mix, and with the disorders and riots that the fragile margins of those societies generated in a geographic corridor that connected the settlers among Caracas, Pamplona, and Tunja.

Your social ties, your personal public sphere, your responsibility: How users construe a sense of personal responsibility for intervention against uncivil comments on Facebook

User intervention against incivility is a significant element of democratic norm enforcement on social media, and feeling personally responsible for acting is a vital prerequisite for intervention. However, our insight into how users construe their sense of personal responsibility and expectations of other users remains limited. By theoretically foregrounding user perspective, this study investigates the boundaries and nuances of user responsibility to intervene against incivility. Empirically, it draws on 20 qualitative vignette interviews with young people in Germany. The findings show that as contexts collapse in users’ newsfeeds, the imagined boundaries of personal public spheres and own social relationships with uncivil users serve as heuristics for hierarchizing and delimiting personal responsibility to intervene. Beyond abstract individual responsibility for the public discourse, practical responsibility is distributed among personal public spheres.

Turkey’s Participation in International Biennials in the 1950s

Biennials became important events for regeneration through culture and art in the post-WWII era, and as such they were supported through the cultural policies of nation-states. The Venice Biennale was first organized in 1895, and after 1950, other biennials took place in cities like Ljubljana, São Paulo, and Paris. Their number continued to increase over the years, as did the number of countries participating in them. In the atmosphere marked by the promotion of multiculturalism and world peace that followed the Second World War, Turkey was among the countries invited to take part in international biennials. However, because of economic and organizational challenges, it was only able to participate in such events from the 1950s onwards. In addition to Turkey's participation in international biennials as a country, individual artists who had left Turkey for various reasons took part in major exhibitions such as biennials and documenta during this period. This article focuses on Turkey's representation in the world art scene in the 1950s, when the country first began taking part in international biennials. It also questions why Turkey began participating in such events at that time and considers the impact they had on the Turkish art scene in the context of cultural policies of the Cold War. Drawing on new information and documents obtained from ASAC-Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo/Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo, Archives de la critique d'art, Rennes, Mednarodni Grafični Likovni Center (MGLC), and the Cincinnati Art Museum and Documenta Archiv, this study sheds light on Turkey's early participation in Ljubljana, International Biennial of Contemporary Color Lithography, Venice, São Paulo, and Paris Biennials as well as the inclusion of artists from Turkey in documenta, issues that have been little discussed in the literature on art history. By considering the imaginary boundaries that were drawn during the Cold War, Turkey's participation in international biennials in the 1950s, the global representation of Turkish artists at international exhibitions, and the incorporation of Turkish artists' works into the collections of major museums, it becomes clear that Turkey was an established part of the modern art movements of the period.

The Alien Republic: Narratives of Deterritorialization in Imaginations of Turkmenistan from the Late Nineteenth to the Late Twentieth Century

Turkmenistan holds a special place in the Russian and Soviet imagination. At the turn of the last century, especially, Turkmenistan appeared as an imaginative object shaped by both nineteenth century tropes and images of the steppe and by the modernist's revaluation and displacement of these very tropes. This article traces this intellectual history from the late nineteenth century to the fall of the Soviet empire and elicits three main narratives through which the republic was rendered alien: Turkmenistan as a “republic from outer space,” as an “arctic desert,” and as a republic whose southern border is constantly threatened by various forces that can never be successfully defeated. Based on a wide body of literary works and films, mainly from the 1920s–30s and the late Soviet period, the paper points to intertextual references that betray both shifts and continuities within these narratives. The analysis shows how notions of political integration and climatic transformations were constantly countered by alternative imaginary boundaries, contributing to an “imaginative geography” of the republic that shaped the way Turkmenistan was perceived. The development of such an “imaginative geography” of Turkmenistan as an “alien republic” was thereby inextricably linked to its steppe and desert geography, marked by a threefold dialectic between concrete and imaginary geography, a rhetoric of appropriation and of alienation, and between present and mythical time.

Common notions and composite collaborations: Thinking with Spinoza to design urban infrastructures for human and wild cohabitants

This paper explores the ways in which we might construct urban environments that are responsible to the needs of more than just human cohabitants. Drawing on Spinoza’s common notion and attentive to the possibilities of socio-natures that both construct and respond to the habitat needs of urban wildlife, I look at how urban design and wildlife habitat might be thought and planned together as a human/non-human composite, invoking a complex spatial and temporal choreography which serves divergent needs. Drawing on examples of urban design in Toronto, Canada, this paper offers a way to think of the city as a composite body in Spinoza’s terms, to become open to an awareness of the city as a composition of forces—a choreography of bodies that are constantly interweaving and overflowing imagined boundaries, struggles that are fought as much over time as space, the accommodation of the temporalities and spatialities of other life processes, other rhythms and cycles that would, without a recalibration, sync uneasily with the pacing and spacing of human requirements.

Urban Development and Muslim Minorities in the Middle Ages: the Path to Invisibility

The long existence of a Muslim population under Christian rule (Mudejars) in the kingdoms of medieval and early modern Iberia gave way to the development of a number of boundaries between religious and social groups. Urban boundaries, both physical and socio-religious, were continuously redefined. Residence in towns in the Iberian kingdoms could vary from contiguous housing to separate neighbourhoods based within real or imagined boundaries. Mudejars in Castile had the possibility of building new mosques, thus breaking canon and local laws, whereas in Aragon, Jewish communities paid for their right to rebuild synagogues continuously. Invisibility was a very important tool to marginalize groups that were perceived as a possible threat, so the only requirement for mosques and synagogues was not to be set apart from surrounding houses. On the other hand, restrictions on minority visibility in Christian spaces included the inauguration of previously inexistent secluded neighbourhoods in northern Castilian towns. The geographical setting of the closed quarters established after the Castilian Cortes of 1480 contributed to the invisibility of the religious minorities, resulting in the long run in their exclusion from urban life.

КАПСУЛА ВРЕМЕНИ В ПОСТСОВЕТСКОМ СОВХОЗЕ

The article is devoted to ideas about the Soviet era, widespread in а village in the north-east of Crimea. The paper offers an analysis of how the community, formed around a partially preserved state farm, builds its own picture of historical time, expands the imaginary boundaries of the Soviet period, and also thinks of it not so much as the past, but as the past future. Particular attention is paid to the object that organizes its temporality — а time capsule, which was laid twice in the studied village (in 1967 and in 2017), as well as its connection with the teleology of modernism. The article compares letters to descendants, sealed in two time capsules, as well as additional documents sent to the future. The text of the 1967 letter is based on a progressive narrative and contains a list of economic indicators of the success of the Soviet economy. By contrast, the 2017 text creates a picture of an unstable time of change, in which the focus is not on the predictable future, but on the vague past and present. The author of the article explains the nostalgia for the Soviet era in the studied community by the reaction to the changes and crises of the post-Soviet period, and suggests using temporal logic in the research of post-socialism.

Fast response in‐plane switching liquid crystal display mode optimized for high‐resolution virtual‐reality head‐mounted display

AbstractWe propose to apply short‐range lurch control in‐plane switching (SLC‐IPS) as a fast response liquid crystal display (LCD) mode to virtual reality applications, where fast response times and high resolutions are essential. In this study, we discuss the SLC‐IPS electrode structure optimized for high‐resolution virtual reality applications. To maintain transmittance at high resolutions, we developed a one‐sided branch electrode structure with convex parts. The issue of slow response times can be resolved using the convex part of the electrode structure by analyzing the imaginary boundaries characterizing the SLC‐IPS. Thus, a response time of less than 2.2 ms can be obtained over all tones using a 1001‐ppi high‐resolution SLC‐IPS LCD.

Символический предел фронтира: «генофонд народа» и миграции в прошлом и настоящем

Рассматривается проблема современных символических ограничений фронтира миграционных потоков. Определяется роль этногенетики в конструировании воображаемых границ между представителями этнических групп, мигрантами и местным населением. Выявляются социально-политические особенности социума, которые делают престижными и актуальными нарративы о биологических различиях народов. Выдвигается гипотеза о важной роли мифов о кровном родстве в мобилизации населения. Распространенность представлений о биологической составляющей этнической идентичности объясняется присутствием в модернизирующемся социуме элементов (пост)традиционной культуры. Анализируются советский и современный этапы становления и развития этногенетики. На основе доступных источников делается попытка охарактеризовать мировоззренческие ориентиры лидеров этногенетики. Констатируется присутствие у исследователей традиционных консервативных взглядов с религиозной составляющей. Дается характеристика методологических оснований работ ведущих этногенетиков. Делается вывод о серьезном теоретическом противоречии их построений – физиологические параметры сложносоставного урбанизированного и подвижного населения ставятся в один ряд с такими же показателями эндогамных малых популяций (нередко, изолятов), что создает иллюзию наличия стабильной структуры генофонда. Указывается на прямое отождествление популяции и народа («этноса») в диссертационных работах отечественных этногенетиков и ведущем профильном журнале «Генетика». Воображаемой преградой миграционному фронтиру становится постулируемая учеными необходимость «сохранения структуры генофонда» и обеспечения «генетической безопасности народа», что может войти в арсенал антимигрантской риторики и критики смешанных браков.

UMA LÓGICA PARA OS SENTIDOS: ENTREVISTA COM FERNANDO BONASSI

Apresentação Nascido em São Paulo (1962), Fernando Bonassi destaca-se como contista, roteirista, dramaturgo, romancista e cineasta premiado internacionalmente. Várias de suas produções estão publicadas em antologias brasileiras e estrangeiras. Como autor de literatura e como produtor cinematográfico, reconhecido pela crítica pelo poder corrosivo e cáustico de sua linguagem artística, Bonassi demonstra especiais habilidades comunicativas de expressar ficcionalmente faces do mundo contemporâneo tão marcado por consumismo, violência e instantaneidades. Seus livros 100 histórias colhidas da rua (Editora Scritta, 1996) e Passaporte (Editora Cosac & Naify, 2001) podem, certamente, constar entre as melhores coletâneas de micronarrativas publicadas no Brasil nas últimas décadas. Neste último, por exemplo, tendo o passaporte como metonímia, narradores múltiplos empreendem uma flânerie por espaços diversos do mundo, como se percorressem labirintos de uma cidade única que apenas muda de nome, com fronteiras imaginárias: o que se representa, nessas breves crônicas do cotidiano, é o humano, em sua contundente realidade de derrisão utópica. Para o cinema, Bonassi produziu roteiros de Os matadores, Carandiru, Garotas do ABC, Cazuza, Através da janela, Castelo Rá Tim Bum; destaca-se, também, com as produções teatrais de Preso entre ferragens, Três cigarros e a Última Lasanha, além de ter escrito e dirigido o monólogo O incrível menino na fotografia – entre outros textos. Entre suas produções destinadas ao público infantil e juvenil, incluem-se os títulos: Uma carta para Deus (Formato, 1997), O pequeno fascista (Cosac Naify, 2005), Diário de guerra de São Paulo (Publifolha, 2007) e Montanha-russa (Cosac Naify, 2008). Na entrevista a seguir, o autor fala de sua produção destinada ao público infantil e juvenil: sua sensibilidade e atenção para a contemporaneidade e a crueza das relações sociais que afetam a infância e a juventude reverberam na estética de Bonassi, trazendo provocações intensas ao leitor, oferecendo, de certo modo, uma espécie de lógica potente para compreensão dos sentidos.
 PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Fernando Bonassi. Literatura Infantojuvenil. Contemporaneidade. Entrevista.

Mental Health and the Coronavirus: A Global Perspective

<br>Any epidemic of infectious disease such as the present one that we are witnessing puts a strain on both the individual and the community. The very basis of physical and emotional health, dependent as it is on the body and social networks, is threatened. Existing inequalities in society get accentuated, and systemic responses that provide succor to all sections of society, especially the marginalized, are critical. Scientific and technological insights will, ultimately, provide solutions (or at least a better understanding), but the broader engagement of the “social body” in this endeavor is very important. Humans are social beings, and the isolation, stigma and the labeling of those infected; indeed, the very “othering” of the virus, makes us concerned about the long-term consequences of this pandemic. From health-care workers and those seeking help who are concerned about imminent infection and morbidity, to those displaced and dispossessed, who now face months of poverty and hardship, the spectrum of mental health needs is very large. Pandemics like this underline the urgent need to work beyond real and imagined boundaries. As a group of mental health professionals and social scientists, we hope that the social and psychological responses will help us emerge from this with a greater sense of harmony and cohesiveness.<br>

Imperial Whiteness: Fantasy, Colonialism and New Walls

AbstractThirty years after the fall the Berlin wall, political walls in Europe, Israel and the United States safeguard divisions that are based on the defensive projection and protection of besieged “whiteness.” These new barriers take the shape of impassable fences, brick walls, barbed wire barricades, and precarious crossings, negotiating physical and imaginary boundaries. Reworking colonial power structures, contemporary walls are tethered to imperial fantasies that produce whiteness as the insidious marker of religious, economic and racial hierarchies. Notably, these walls sustain an intricate dynamic between visibility and invisibility, ensuring the proliferation of the borderless civilized West (so long as the other remains excluded and hidden from view). At the same time, political walls circumscribe the affective and expansive force-field of whiteness, revealing its enduring efficacy. In this article I look at the recent fortification of fortress Europe, Israel’s escalating security fence and Donald Trump’s promised wall in the US in order to discuss the ways in which the material and ideological walls reappearing around the world are animated by myriad defenses of toxic vulnerability and white affect.