Issues Of Domination Research Articles

From Post-structuralism and Marxism to Postcolonial Cultural Subversion and Political Resistance against the Once-colonized

abstract
 Contemporary political movements such as Marxism and post-Marxism, as well as intellectual and academic movements such as post-structuralism, postmodernism, and psychoanalysis have had a great influence on postcolonial literary criticism. There has been so much debate around the question whether issues of colonial/neocolonial domination and decolonial resistance should be regarded as political or cultural issues or as a combination of both political and cultural sectors (including ethical and psychological points of view) that the terms “political”, “cultural” themselves have appeared to be relative terms–assuming different meanings at different times. This paper will show how such poststructural conflations of the “political” and “cultural” regarding the issues of both domination and resistance can appear as problematic for postcolonial context where the division between the two terms appears so obvious at times that the boundary between them is inescapably erected once again producing ultimately an ambivalence. However, whatever the approach is to colonial/neocolonial dominations, and whatever the mode of resistance is proposed to challenge them, whether it is political or cultural or psychological, radical or liberal, or conflation of them, every discussion ultimately produce a liberal self-criticism at the cost of the once-colonized peoples, states and their cultures.

Female Images of French Comics (Bande Dessinée)

The article analyzes the history of female characters of French comics (bande dessinée). The study covers the period from the beginning of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century, from the creation of albums telling about the history of Bécassina to the albums devoted to the adventures of Laureline. Analyzing the history of the development of female characters, the authors noted that the feminization of the French bande dessinée coincides with the chronology of the three stages of development of feminism. This circumstance is reflected in the specifics of female characters of comics, their nature, manner of action and gender relations. Moreover, the stories of female characters in the bande dessinée were a reflection of the social and cultural situation of a certain time, the change in the legal and civil status of a woman, the transformation of her role in society and the desire for real equality. The Bécassina’s character, although it fits into the framework of traditional gender relations and the social role of women in France at the beginning of the 20th century, at the same time reflects the beginning of a “rebellion”, an attempt to go beyond the assigned role, to know the outside world. The image of Lili in this context is more modern and more reflective of the post-war spirit of the “beautiful era” marked by the process of female emancipation. In any case, both characters have a choice to play a social role reserved for them by society, or to go beyond the patriarchal framework. In fact, this is the first bright characters bande dessinée, embarked on the path of emancipation. The second wave of feminism contributes to the evolution of female characters bande dessinée. The heroines of the comic books of the 1960—1970s reflect the results of the sexual emancipation of the post-war decades. This can be seen in the Barbarella way, but also in the behavior and lifestyle of Adèle (despite placing her in a completely different historical context). Unlike Bécassina and Lili, they are no longer constrained by the framework of traditional patriarchal relations, social and cultural conformism, expressing a desire to change the world. Finally, to the period of the third wave of feminism, we can attribute two albums telling about the adventures of Isa and the cosmic adventures of Laureline. As in the case of Adèle, the modern character of Isa, transferred to the context of the 18th century, introduces a modern interpretation of the issues of slavery, sexism and male domination. In the albums of the series “Valerian and Laureline”, the female character Laureline first becomes the central figure of the series, which allows us to speak about the end of the feminization of bande dessinée.

Luke 1–9 by Barbara E. Reid OP and Shelly Matthews

Reviewed by: Luke 1–9 by Barbara E. Reid OP and Shelly Matthews Claudia Janssen barbara e. reid, op, and shelly matthews, Luke 1–9 (Wisdom Commentary 43A; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2021). Pp. lxvii + 339. $49.95. For quite some time there have been very few feminist publications on the Gospel of Luke, so this commentary was long overdue. In the introduction, the authors Shelly Matthews and Barbara E. Reid describe their approach as feminist with an intersectional perspective: "As a feminist commentary this volume takes special interest in narratives on women in Luke, but our analysis is not restricted to the question of women alone" (p. xliii). Gender is linked to other issues of power and domination, such as status, (dis)ability, and prejudice owing to racial, ethnic, and religious difference. Two themes receive special attention: Luke's attitude toward Jews who do not follow Jesus, and the evangelist's portrayal of women. Interspersed with the authors' own exegetical remarks are several short articles by other authors that focus mostly on the reception of the Gospel in various cultural contexts, including issues of critical masculinity studies, postcolonial exegesis, or disabilitycritical interpretation of the salvation narratives. In their interpretation of the religious location of Luke's Gospel, the authors criticize interpretations which assume that Luke is "within Judaism" and which interpret the polemics against the Pharisees and other Jews as "intramural": "Luke's privileging of Jewish institutions such as the temple and Jewish texts is better understood as appropriation rather than appreciation" (p. lx). Luke proclaims that all of the Jewish Scriptures are fulfilled by Jesus and highlights the temple as the locus of revelation and worship. But the entire representation is linked to Christocentric concerns. R. and M. argue that the Jesus-centered attitude of the Gospel is a "form of proto-supersessionism." This laid the foundation for the later established Christian supersessionism as the boundaries between Jews and Christians became more firmly fixed. Both authors are concerned with overcoming anti-Jewish interpretations in the current reception of the texts. [End Page 508] At various points in the commentary, the authors make their different assessments of exegetical problems visible. This makes the reading particularly exciting, since the authors take very different positions on many issues. One example is the interpretation of the imperial language in the Magnificat (pp. 44–47). R. argues that Luke is countering Roman imperial values by offering Jesus's service in humility as a contrast to imperial power and arrogance. Thus, the Magnificat has subversive potential. M., on the other hand, is of the opinion that Luke is reinscribing imperial power rather than overturning it. God is portrayed as a warrior god who takes revenge on his enemies. Another central theme of the commentary is the question of whether Luke is a friend of women or the most dangerous book in the Bible. Their answer (p. lxii): It is likely that Luke was aware of women's presence, struggles, and agency in the early apostolic ministries, including instances of their leadership, but he restricted them to silent, passive supporting roles. For him, women and men have different ways of being disciples. The authors use feminist-critical methods to expose and challenge Luke's patriarchal biases and to recontextualize and reinterpret the text. Especially helpful are the "translation matters" sections, which provide brief explanations of individual words relevant to the interpretation. Following the introduction, the commentary offers an extensive exegesis of Luke 1–2, which includes a comprehensive reception of the feminist discussion of the last thirty years: An Orderly Account for Lovers of God (1:1–80); Divine Love Becomes Incarnate (2:1–52). The headings of the subsequent chapters are as follows: Beloved Son of God and All God's Children (3:1–38); Prophetic Mission Declared; Divided Responses (4:1–44); Male Disciples Called; Female Disciples in the Shadows (5:1–39); Multitudes of Women and Men Are Healed and Hear (6:1–49); Wisdom's Children Justified (7:1–50); Galilean Women Followers and Financiers (8:1–56); and The Cross That Should Not Be Taken Up (9:1–62). Other topics briefly covered in the context of interpreting each chapter...

Biological Body, Social Body, Political Body?

This paper covers various aspects of the contemporary issues faced by the midwifery profession in America with a focus on gendered issues of midwives and their clients. My analysis begins by considering the historically embedded practice of North American midwifery. The shift from birthing and maternity as a women’s domain to the territory of the newly trained male medical practitioner is outlined. I then undertake an examination of how midwifery is perceived today, including what footing it has gained and lost since the nineteenth century, and how the proliferation of consumerism has impacted midwifery practice. The overarching theme of the piece is to demonstrate how midwifery has functioned historically and in the present as a means of empowering women and allowing them to retain control over their bodies through pregnancy and the birthing process. This approach is in competition with the dominant biomedical model, which portrays the (male) medical practitioner as an all-knowing presence and the woman as a machine to be handled. The core question considered is how North American midwifery has changed over time and how issues of gendered work and patriarchal domination in medicine have influenced these changes. Methodologically, this paper considers how various scholars conceptualized midwifery and the issue of the medicalization of women’s bodies present within the dominant biomedical model. The desire for control, which is experienced by many women, is conceptualized as partially stemming from the negative experiences some women have encountered within obstetrics, and with male medical professionals specifically. I conclude with a discussion of how due to various factors, such as consumerism and neoliberal ideologies, midwifery is located within discourses regarding choice and women’s reclamation of control over their bodies.

The Role of Gender and Cultural Psychology in the Discourse of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Arranged Marriage

The term 'Cultural Psychology' refers to the idea that culture and mind are inseparable. Cultural Psychology has its root from the 1960s and 1970s. But it has attained its zenith and popularity during the 1980s and 1990s. Some of the prominent cultural psychologists are Harry C. Triandis, Fiske, Hofstede, Susan T. Fiske, Eva Magnusson, Jeanne Marecek, Hazel Rose Markus, Shinobu Kittayama, Richard Shweder etc. The present study aims to portray the issues of gender bias and male domination through the cultural conflict which affects the characters physically and psychologically in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Arranged Marriage. The Introduction deals with the overall view of the stories and themes. The Literature review focuses on the studies relevant to cultural psychology. The Methodology section discusses the cultural and gender issues with the theory and approaches of Eva Magnusson and Jeanne Marecek's Gender and Culture in Psychology. The Discussion part gives the results of the study. The study is compared and discussed with the other studies relevant to gender-based and cultural psychology concepts. The conclusion sums up the entire study and its limitation and scope for future researchers.

A Comparative Analysis of Dominance and Resistance in the Rhetoric of Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez: A CDA Perspective

This article intends to compare the speeches of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez with the help of Critical Discourse Analysis. This article has applied Van Dijk’s theoretical framework to dig out the issues of domination, imperialism, violence, resistance, and injustice not only in a social context but also in a political arena inculcated in speeches. The research has analyzed one speech of each president qualitatively to investigate the concepts of resistance against the hegemonic domination of the US. The study finds that both the leaders have utilized positive self-representation and negative other representation with the help of discursive devices. The study has also found the brutality, domination, and injustice of the US. There may be found ideological similarities between the two presidents' positions over the imperialist designs. They are agreed that certain global powers' incursions and hegemonies need to be resisted due to their designs of imperialism and hegemony in places like the Middle East and Venezuela. The Study recommends that resistance rhetoric in politics can be significantly helpful in terms of international political diplomacies and policies for the nations of the world.

Place is memory: A framework for placemaking in the case of the human rights memorials in Buenos Aires

As a long tradition in urban studies made clear, the production of urban space is twofold: users continuously reshape what a contentious political process produces at first. The struggle around conflictual memories invests cities increasingly by marking spots or reshaping places to reconstruct or re-signify past events. The politics of memory deploy a combination of argumentative, emotional and ordinary arguments. The intent is neither preserving nor deleting but re-writing memories. However, places interfere with the political and argumentative strategies making room for ordinary uses that question the stability of meanings, although not providing political answers to the issues of power and domination. The paper introduces sense-making to suggest that places reinforce the social processes that build collective memories. The relationship between memory and place is not unidirectional. Briefly, a social process infuses place and this latter ‘hits back’. This statement leads to the apparent odd conclusion that, in the long term, place-making is as essential as the reframing of memory. A few initiatives involving institutions, human rights movements and bottom-up initiatives in Buenos Aires are investigated: a clandestine detention centre, a memorial garden, an ordinary urban square, aiming at developing an analytical framework that highlights the details of the sense-making mechanism linking memories and places.

Immaterial Labor, culture and domination

The postulation of immaterial labor as something pivotal in the current historical moment is, at the same time, something related to the transformations of contemporary culture in the form of cultural production. We seek to conceive the intertwining between immaterial labor and cultural production as a key aspect of a new historical moment of capitalism or of late capitalism. In this sense, we seek to investigate a few problems that also derive from the Frankfurt School tradition, mainly the concept of cultural industry. Our hypothesis is that the concept of cultural industry and its overcoming by the post-industry era is central to understanding how this new stage demands us to take a new look on the issues of domination and emancipation.

Complexity issues of perfect secure domination in graphs

Let G = (V, E) be a simple, undirected and connected graph. A dominating set S is called a secure dominating set if for each u ∈ V \ S, there exists v ∈ S such that (u, v) ∈ E and (S \{v}) ∪{u} is a dominating set of G. If further the vertex v ∈ S is unique, then S is called a perfect secure dominating set (PSDS). The perfect secure domination number γps(G) is the minimum cardinality of a perfect secure dominating set of G. Given a graph G and a positive integer k, the perfect secure domination (PSDOM) problem is to check whether G has a PSDS of size at most k. In this paper, we prove that PSDOM problem is NP-complete for split graphs, star convex bipartite graphs, comb convex bipartite graphs, planar graphs and dually chordal graphs. We propose a linear time algorithm to solve the PSDOM problem in caterpillar trees and also show that this problem is linear time solvable for bounded tree-width graphs and threshold graphs, a subclass of split graphs. Finally, we show that the domination and perfect secure domination problems are not equivalent in computational complexity aspects.

Adherigaun Narratives and Subaltern Myth Making in Maidaro

The theory of subaltern studies, as the postcolonial way of analyzing and understanding literature and social relations, examines the context of the marginal ideologies, socio-political or literary. The basic value of subaltern philosophy, therefore, is the marginal case of social and political castration however it also includes the issues of domination, marginalization and discrimination caused by already established cultural politics of the society with social and economic diversity. The cultural politics keeps certain group of people under the marginal domain in the process of mythmaking. The society and social values do not accept these groups existing in the cultural politics, but still exploit them, their labour, work and ability in the name of their power as cultural power. Recently, such myths have been on the way to break down as the result of subaltern consciousness. With this sense of cultural politics of mythmaking, this study examines on how social and cultural narratives have raised the subaltern issues in Bhupeen’s novel Maidaro. The aspiration of this research is to unearth the subaltern narratives of the society depicted in the novel and to find out on how these narratives have become the central factors to dominate and overshadow certain group of people in the name of culture.

Military Conflict in Eastern Ukraine and its Social and Political Dimensions

Social networks have become tools of geopolitical influence that Russia fully used during annexation of Crimea and inflaming of war in Eastern Ukraine. The pro-Russian pages "In Contact" created the image of Ukraine as a foreign country for the population of Donbas and Crimea, Southeastern Ukraine - as a part of Greater Russia, NATO and the EU - as the main enemies whose actions have led to the conflict. The narrative concerning Ukraine was dominated by the theme of describing the actions of the Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian authorities as "punishers", making an emotional message and appealing to allegories of World War II, which was intended to deepen the sense that Ukraine is an enemy. The second dominant issue was the questioning of Ukraine as a political entity, through appealing to it as for "failed political project". The third dominant issue for Ukraine was the widespread criticism of former-Ukrainian authorities, which was referred to as the "Kyiv authorities" to emphasize the differences between the interests of the Center and local interests. Abovementioned issues of the geopolitical narrative were complemented by issues of domination of oligarchs in Ukraine, who exploited the population and allowed themselves to violate human rights and freedoms. Russia, in its turn, created for itself the image of a "great state" capable of resisting the enemy and being culturally closer to Southeastern Ukraine (so called the concept of "Novorosiya"). The annexation of Crimea was used as the sample of "success story" in pro-Russian narratives.

Shared Intimacies: Women’s Sexuality in Foreign Workers’ Camps, 1940–1945

Abstract By examining judicial records as well as corporate archives, this article argues that the camp played an important role in the management of foreign workers’ sexuality in Nazi Germany. A means of housing foreigners or controlling the workforce, the segregation of workers along racial and gendered lines in barracks also ensured their reproducing bodies could be controlled to avoid their ‘settling down’ on Reich territory. This microhistorical study of French women living in Berlin between 1940 and 1945 argues that although camp housing was primarily intended to control heterosexuality, it also had profound consequences for queer relationships. In illuminating this previously unacknowledged aspect of biopolitics in Nazi Germany, the article addresses issues of spatial domination and agency in romantic and sexual encounters.

Nigeria’s Federal Character Commission (FCC): a critical appraisal

ABSTRACT Since attaining independence, Nigeria has experienced recurrent tensions due to the severe horizontal inequalities that exist between different regions and ethnic groups. After the end of the Biafran civil war, consecutive regimes embarked on a reform process intended to address the sensitive issues of inequality and ethnic domination. Key reforms included the adoption of the federal character principle to ensure the equitable representation of different groups in all tiers of government, and the formation of the Federal Character Commission (FCC) to monitor and enforce its implementation. While the FCC has raised hopes on redressing historical imbalances in Nigeria’s civil service, this paper finds that little progress has been made over time. The workings of the FCC remain plagued by legal and administrative constraints, chronic underfunding, and political dependence. These issues will need to be addressed if the FCC wants to gain the legitimacy and power needed to fulfil its mandate.

Myanmar Media in Transition: Legacies, Challenges and Change ed. by Lisa Brooten et al.

Reviewed by: Myanmar Media in Transition: Legacies, Challenges and Change ed. by Lisa Brooten et al. Kristina Simion Lisa Brooten, Jane Madlyn McElhone, and Gayathry Venkiteswaran, eds. 2019. Myanmar Media in Transition: Legacies, Challenges and Change. Singapore: ISEAS. 407 pp. ISBN 9789814843409 This edited collection of twenty-one chapters provides a thorough introduction to developments in Myanmar’s media sector since the country’s political opening enhanced by valuable historical glimpses. The book fills an important gap in the existing literature on media and transition by moving beyond a focus on economic forces of change to covering grassroots change agents and the “non-state and non-commercial efforts that also compel and propel change during transition” (p. 8). The book gathers overviews of topics linked to Myanmar’s media landscape: social and digital media (chapters 18–20), the music and film industry (chapters 14–16), the literary scene (chapter 17), questions of law and regulation (chapters 2 and 11), international aid (chapter 3), the emerging information and communications technologies sector (chapter 5), regional and local media as well as media coverage (chapters 6, 9, and 10), media coverage of natural disasters and elections (chapters 7 and 13), and issues of male domination over the sector (chapter 12). In addition, interviews with key figures of Myanmar media in chapters 4 (Thiha Saw) and 8 (Ye Naing Moe) add personal insights into print media and watchdog functions. The interviews capture the voices of actors with firsthand insights into Myanmar’s media landscape [End Page 325] during years of military rule, censorship, and persecution for their engagement in the sector. Overall, the book nicely brings together contributions from activists, academics, journalists, writers, and development practitioners from Myanmar and beyond to provide a rich and vibrant account of the field and its dynamics. The book is divided into four parts: “Structural Constraints and Opportunities,” “Journalism in Transition,” “Creative Expression,” and “Society and Media.” Although not stated explicitly, several chapters address issues of reporting on Rakhine as well as challenges facing the Rohingya. The book ends with a thought-inspiring epilogue that includes the important question of “Where do we go from here?” Myanmar Media in Transition: Legacies, Challenges and Change would serve as a great companion for journalists, practitioners, and activists who are deployed to Myanmar or those who have an interest in the media sector as well as for students and academics searching for theoretical and practical insights. The introductory chapter sets the scene by presenting a comparative perspective on media and political transitions. It is useful for understanding the challenges facing the media and state/media relationships in countries with hybrid regimes. It also summarizes the contemporary media landscape and issues that reformers face. The chapter nicely summarizes key historical events and delves into “the country’s long struggle with censorship and control, religious and state involvement with media (and its) vibrant, yet tumultuous, journalistic past” (p. 13 ff). Highlights include descriptions of the postindependence press as one of the liveliest in Asia functioning as a watchdog against corruption (p. 17), the expulsion of foreign correspondents and banning of foreign journalists after 1974 (p. 19), the various forms of creative expressions that thrived as a functioning television service was lacking (p. 20), and the practice of reviewing printed material post print (p. 25). One particularly interesting chapter is chapter 2: “Legal Changes for Media and Expression: New Reforms, Old [End Page 326] Controls.” The chapter provides an introduction to the planned legal reforms that had activists and others hoping for a more enabling media environment. However, as the chapter tells, instead disappointment became vast as the National League for Democracy–led government failed to reform the existing legal framework in line with international standards, thus continuing the use of draconic colonial criminal laws to silence critical voices and journalists. Importantly, the chapter however provides a comprehensive guide to any changes to laws related to media and free expression that have been made since 2011. The chapter also critiques international actors that continue to stress the importance of “laws as fundamental to the transition . . . in a country where the judicial process has been used to imprison critics and censor the media” (p. 60...

Examining HIV/AIDS-Related Stigma at Play: Power, Structure, and Implications for HIV Interventions

ABSTRACT Drawing on critical theoretical perspectives and ethnographic field research related to HIV/AIDS in northern India, this paper argues for a cultured-centered approach to stigma reduction interventions and communication practices that are based on an assessment of larger social and structural processes on the one hand and the lived experiences and narratives of people living with HIV (PLWH) on the other. This paper suggests that while the complex nature of stigma, particularly as it relates to HIV/AIDS, makes it difficult to understand and respond to, this problem is further exacerbated by a largely individual and behavior-centered research that still dominates the field of Health Communication. Such research sees human cognition as the main source of stigma and underplays issues of power, structure, domination, and control. More specifically, and with concrete examples from the everyday lived experiences of PLWH – such as their experiences within family and health-care settings, this paper demonstrates how power and structure deeply impact their lives and remain central to their experience of (and resistance to) stigma, thus opening up space for alternative theorizing and practices in Health Communication.

Editorial

The social sciences are intimately linked to understanding the societies in which we live. This is why the question of the historical and political anchoring of this knowledge arises. As postcolonial studies have shown, the social sciences have produced theories, concepts, and paradigms in Southern societies conveying a discourse on “modernity.” According to Edward Said, scientific knowledge is a form of power that confers authority on the person who produces it. However, knowledge is largely controlled and produced by the West, which therefore has the power to name, represent, and theorise (Said 1995). By entering into the field of these theories, indigenous researchers impose on themselves a representation of themselves and the other that endorses these power relationships. In order to finally break with this type of domination, indigenous societies are encouraged to move away from the Western ethnocentrism carried by the social sciences, and their particular vision of modernity, in order to construct their own narratives. Issues of domination are therefore at the heart of the social sciences, and in China as elsewhere, in the modern and contemporary period, these issues have not ceased to be taken into account, discussed, and thwarted. Historically, the birth of the human and social sciences in China at the turn of the twentieth century is closely linked to the desire of intellectuals to contribute to the emergence of a “powerful and prosperous” China (fuqiang 富强) following its traumatic encounter with the Western powers during the Opium Wars. As an integral part of the “self-reinforcing movement” (yangwu yundong 洋务运动), which consisted of learning from the West in order to better counter it, the human and social sciences, in China as in other non-Western societies, from the start engaged the relationship to the Other (the West) and to the Self. Trained for the most part abroad and especially in Japan, a country through which Western concepts first passed, Chinese researchers quickly strove to situate themselves in relation to this Western knowledge. As early as the 1930s, in the wake of the sociologist and anthropologist Fei Xiaotong in particular, many sought to “indigenise” the social sciences, in order to better understand the issues specific to their country and to move in the direction of a specifically Chinese modernity. The same dynamic is found in the aftermath of the Maoist period, marked by the isolation of China and the ban on social sciences. The“feverish” re-introduction of Western theories to fill the three-decade gap, which marked the 1980s, was followed by a movement of critical re-appropriation of these theories (Merle and Zhang 2007). The lecture given by Xi Jinping in May 2016, during which the President of the PRC called on Chinese researchers to “accelerate the construction of a philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics” (jiakuai goujian Zhongguo tese zhexue shehui kexue 加快构建中国特色哲学社会科学), raises the question of the extent to which national characteristics are linked to the social sciences of each country and to question the validity of epistemological relativism. Is the assertion of a national specificity of the disciplines compatible with the aim of the human and social sciences, and to what extent can a scientific discourse or approach have cultural or national characteristics? Xi Jinping’s speech also calls for an update on the longstanding opposition between Western and Chinese social sciences, inherited from postcolonial studies, which this discourse seems to mirror. What is the significance of such an injunction today in China, and how do Chinese researchers respond to it? Ultimately, this special issue aims to question the relationship between knowledge and power, science and ideology in the light of the Chinese case.

Re-engaging master narratives: Re-encountering Shakespeare’s The Tempest in Esiaba Irobi’s Sycorax

Just like Aimé Césaire’s Une tempête, Esiaba Irobi’s Sycorax is a parallel narrative of Prospero’s encounter with characters of other skin colour and gender. Both plays, like many others, represent successful efforts in countering the hitherto master narrative, Shakespeare’s The Tempest. They speak back to and destabilize it through different versions that, at once, query and mitigate Shakespeare’s. Using the idea of counter-narrative and writing back, Sycorax is interrogated here through textual analysis and selective close reading with a view to examining its exhumation and foregrounding of the silences, elisions, and under- or misrepresentations of The Tempest. With a highly provocative diction — Irobi’s language is sexually explicit, violent, abusive, and unsettling — and experimental, somewhat postmodernist, dramatic structure, Sycorax intertextually dramatizes the issues of race, enslavement, colonial domination, migration, and gender as well as sexuality. Its relocation of action from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean; resurrection of Sycorax; Caliban’s able-bodiedness, revolutionary zeal, vociferousness and change of name to Caribbean; Ariel’s piebald sexuality as a bisexual hermaphrodite with the liberty to jump from Prospero’s bed to Sycorax’s; and the questioning of Shakespeare himself to answer for his (mis)representations; all exemplify Irobi’s redirection of action and the emergence of new protagonists out of the characters of The Tempest. This article sees Sycorax as part of the work of formerly-colonized writers and artists now engaged in the process of redefining their people, identity, and cultural realities in the face of the preponderant assault of more powerful cultures and narratives that often garble them. Irobi’s politically incorrect, troubling, and highly charged play thus expresses the angst of finding oneself vilified simply on the basis of race, body, or sexuality.

Finding Home: Paule Marshall’s “The Chosen Place, the Timeless People”

[full article and abstract in English]
 The paper deals with the novel “The Chosen Place, the Timeless People” by Paule Marshall, one of the most significant precursors of the modern generation of African American women writers who were instrumental in voicing the concerns and aspirations of millions of black women. It develops some of the themes the writer addressed in her first novel “Brown Girl, Brownstones” and raises topical issues of power and domination, connections between the historical past and present, postcolonial mentality, individual and collective identity, racism, gender inequality, complex relationship between the oppressed and the oppressors, men and women in a male-dominated society, and women’s struggle for self-identification and self-determination. The novel was published in 1969, a critical year in the Civil Rights movement that paved the way for major changes in the social and political life of the United States, and signified the emergence of black feminist writing focusing on the female protagonist of mixed descent who challenges the accepted views and mores and helps to introduce the new awareness of what should be done to break with the miserable past.

The contribution (or not) of UN higher education to peacebuilding: an ethnographic account

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the role of United Nations (UN) peace academics in teaching for peace within the UN higher education system, and questions what contribution, if any, UN peacebuilding education makes to the broader field of peace and conflict studies education, and in the lives of the people it touches. The study draws on ethnographic data collected over a six-month period at one UN university in 2015. The data collection period involved participant observation, interviews with faculty and postgraduate students, document analysis, and surveys with learners. Findings suggest tensions and contradiction in the university around issues of UN mimicry, Western-centrism, state domination, and institutional capitalism. Implications are briefly addressed and recommendations provided.

Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations in Africa: Retrospect and Prospects from Nigeria

This article diagnostically examined the several competing perspectives on the beleaguered nature of intergovernmental relations in Nigeria. Tracing the evolution of intergovernmental relation in Nigeria and espousing its legal, political and governance antecedents, the paper hazarded the undercurrent for the lingering conflicts between the center and the component units. The article also critically analyzed the impacts of the erstwhile British colonial strategy of division into regions as a means for administering the country and exploration of the mineral endowments in the 1950s on the composition and the current nature of predatory power that the center currently wields, much to the detriments and underfunding of the component units in the federation. The paper found evidences to showcase that because the British colonialists unduly queered the political pitch by allocating more seats to the North than to each of the other two regions at the center, intergovernmental relations in Nigeria has been quite contentious. If anything, a mutual suspicion between the North-dominated Federal Government and the Southern component units became a logical end. We concluded, among others, that notwithstanding the ample provisions in the 1999 Constitution for veritable intergovernmental relationship in Nigeria, there are still the intricate issues of regional domination of the center, leading to lack of political will to induce proper constitutional implementations.