Mainstream Narratives Research Articles

Imposed Invisibility: Unraveling Identities Through Negotiations of Categories among People Raised in Germany by Polish Parents

While recent studies have focused extensively on the reflexive use of categories and methodologies in research on migrants and refugees, they have paid less attention to individuals whose parents are migrants. Previous studies have noted that the terms second generation migrants and migrant descendants are centered on migration, thereby homogenizing experiences and deepening social exclusion of the people they define. However, we have less understanding of research participants’ perceptions of these categories. Additionally, the focus of most research has been on non-white descendants of migrants, which risks aligning scientific discourse with mainstream narratives that problematize some groups while silencing others. This article bridges this gap by examining the perception of research categories among people raised in Germany by Polish parents. It presents interviewees’ negotiations of categories in the context of their status as an invisible minority as well as their access to various class resources. Drawing from autobiographical narrative interviews, the study first demonstrates how the positioning of interlocutors as invisible begins at the micro level through everyday interactions with the mainstream society and their families. It then reveals the mechanisms of this process: ascribing identifications, creating an anti-migrant environment, exerting pressure on integration, and limiting resources. It argues that invisibility limits interlocutors’ possibilities to negotiate a sense of belonging and express self-identification. Engaging participants in category negotiations and autobiographical narrative interviews, along with considering the class perspective, expands the space for reflecting on identity and helps to align categories with participants’ lived experiences.

Entrepreneurship Educators in an Age of Climate and Ecological Breakdown

It is stated, with increasing frequency and urgency, that Entrepreneurship Education should help society move past Business as Usual, the unsustainable development pathway which depletes communities and is driving climate and ecological breakdown. We agree with this ideal, but our lived experience suggests that the everyday philosophy and practice of mainstream Entrepreneurship Education means this shift will be challenging for many educators. Mainstream narratives of economic growth and tools such as Business Model Canvas erase social and ecological concerns, compromising the Entrepreneurship Educator in the way they prioritize economic concerns over un/sustainability. Our question is, given the demand for transformation in Entrepreneurship Education, how do we—educators—change ourselves and our practice? In this paper we blend action-based accounts of change with interpretations from a dialogic perspective to elaborate how Entrepreneurship Educators can, and already are, taking action in light of climate and ecological breakdown. We provide a way of thinking about how change happens—in and through relations and dialogue between people—and new conceptual directions—the metacrisis and time between worlds—which aim to contribute a source of agency for educators.

The Female Body and the Body Politic in Sex Scenes of Lou Ye’s Film: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of <i>Summer Palace</i>

This article discusses the body politic of Yu Hong in the postsocialist Chinese film–Summer Palace (2006). Director Lou Ye places Yu Hong’s body in the sex scenes that metaphorically expresses a traumatic and sensitive political event, the “June Fourth Incident.” The portrayal of sexual intercourse, nudity, and this historical event is the unspeakable “secret” in mainland Chinese media. Therefore, the authors raise the question that, when sexual intercourse and the female body enter political discourse, how do we deal with the complex and dynamic power structures behind bodily attributes and the “anachronistic” historical objects that do not fit into the mainstream narrative and epistemological spaces? Drawing on body politic theory, feminist film theory, and a semiotic framework, we adopt multimodal critical discourse analysis to assess power relations and ideologies behind Yu’s body attributes in the sex scenes. The findings indicate that Lou constructs a complex communication system, using her body as a carrier of communication to express self-consciousness, constructing female subjectivity through the writing of feminine discourse, with the political purpose of seeking the freedom of the written word. Sexual liberation is sought by establishing a transgressive body that is not accepted by the mainstream and opposes the inherent power of government. Yu’s bodily pleasure is set up as an expression of narcissistic individualism through love, producing a vision of political ecstasy. Her melancholy body metaphor for the discomfort and confusion that preceded the student movement and the post-traumatic ambivalence. Using the female body as a site of political discourse and sexual liberation offers a new reading strategy for analysing the representation of the female body in film and other forms of media. In making the argument, the study contributes valuable scholarship to the film studies focused on sexual, gender, and political marginalised discourse.

Conspiratorial narratives as cultural repertoires and methodological tools.

This article builds on data and field work notes from two ethnographic studies conducted in two cities: Istanbul and Trabzon, Turkey. It examines the socio-political dynamics behind the prevalence and impact of conspiratorial narratives. We explore the emergence, circulation, and effects of these narratives and how they shape political orientations and mobilisation. We raise methodological questions about these narratives and propose researchers closely scrutinise them rather than dismissing them as illogical or incoherent. Our research reveals three novel relational and methodological insights derived from conspiratorial narratives. First, these narratives serve as sense-making tools during times of uncertainty. They provide accessible explanations for abrupt changes, and they rely and draw upon 'cultural repertoires'. Second, by challenging the mainstream narratives, they shape subjectivities; empowering narrators to act as agents. Third, how conspiratorial narratives circulate has implications for the dynamics of state-public relationships, often following the neoliberal logic, they portray political leaders as central figures in navigating complex decision-making processes. Our case studies demonstrate that actors, even in less powerful positions, may not necessarily antagonise the state. We underscore the methodological significance of these narratives for researchers, to examine actors' agency, group dynamics, and responses to everyday injustices.

What distinguishes conspiracy from critical narratives? A computational analysis of oppositional discourse

AbstractThe current prevalence of conspiracy theories on the internet is a significant issue, tackled by many computational approaches. However, these approaches fail to recognize the relevance of distinguishing between texts which contain a conspiracy theory and texts which are simply critical and oppose mainstream narratives. Furthermore, little attention is usually paid to the role of inter‐group conflict in oppositional narratives. We contribute by proposing a novel topic‐agnostic annotation scheme that differentiates between conspiracies and critical texts, and that defines span‐level categories of inter‐group conflict. We also contribute with the multilingual XAI‐DisInfodemics corpus (English and Spanish), which contains a high‐quality annotation of Telegram messages related to COVID‐19 (5000 messages per language). We also demonstrate the feasibility of an NLP‐based automatization by performing a range of experiments that yield strong baseline solutions. Finally, we perform an analysis which demonstrates that the promotion of intergroup conflict and the presence of violence and anger are key aspects to distinguish between the two types of oppositional narratives, that is, conspiracy versus critical.

Being Home in the Shelter of Time: Gospodinov’s Time Shelter

In the context of contemporary culture, nostalgia is often linked to feelings of deep yearning for home. Human’s pathological home desire and traumatic state of most individuals due to modern life result in nostalgic feelings that are often associated with the safety and coziness of home. In order to maintain such state of protection, people not only yearn for the physical state of their home but also long for the time they spent in that protected world. Their memories of the past are anchored in such space and time where they can have self-continuity, increase attachment security and boost self-esteem. Such individual memories of the past function as a shield that neutralizes the threats of the unknown present and therefore, serves as “time shelter”. The same is also true for collective memory. People tend to prefer living in specific time periods in which they are secure and feel a sense of belonging. Though this kind of longing for a specific time period can be maintained via memories, Georgi Gospodinov, a Bulgarian writer, claims it can also be physically actualized through a strong, mainstream narrative. While focusing on both the biological and sociological reasons behind people’s need and motives to forget and live in nostalgia, Georgi Gospodinov, the winner of the International Booker Prize 2023, also sheds light on how socially constructed realities, particularly “time”, can become reality once accepted collectively in his novel, Time Shelter.

A Dissident Archive of Climate Change Fiction: Feminist Afrofuturist Literary Voices on the Anthropocene

Drawing from Shelley Streeby’s definition of “visionary fiction” to describe Indigenous and people of colour futurisms as fiction that “extends beyond cli-fi in its rich and deep connections to social movements and everyday struggles” (Streeby 4-5) and that attempts to decolonise the imagination of climate change, this article will propose an analysis of feminist Afrofuturist climate change fiction. The absence of climate justice from several novels that are considered to be part of the emerging canon of climate fiction, and their one-dimensional representation of gender, race, and the other-than-human (Schneider-Mayerson; Gaard), require alternative ways of responding to the climate change crisis. My analyses seek to demonstrate that feminist Afrofuturist representations of the Anthropocene not only treat climate justice as a central issue, but they also make an insightful critical intervention capable of imagining a rupture from master—and mainstream—narratives of linear progress. This article, in particular, will propose an overview of some contemporary feminist Afrofuturist writers and filmmakers, such as Wanuri Kahiu, Nnedi Okorafor, and N. K. Jemisin.

How can child assistance policy supporting familisation be supported?

PurposeThis study examines the public’s perception of cash transfers for children in societies where children's welfare is often viewed as a private affair.Design/methodology/approachBased on 12 semi-structured interviews and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) conducted in urban Jakarta, Indonesia, we explore mothers' perspectives on cash transfer programmes for children within low-income families during fieldwork in October 2023 and January 2024. In addition to the semi-structured interview, a FGD involving parents and other related stakeholders was conducted to increase data accuracy.FindingsOur findings reveal that cash transfers function as a “caregiving allowance” in Jakarta, allowing mothers to prioritize familial obligations while maintaining a reasonable standard of living. Contrary to the “de-familisation” focus observed in advanced welfare countries, these cash transfers for children reinforce traditional family labour division (familisation). Interestingly, despite reinforcing the familisation function, the initiative receives significant support. These results clearly highlight the influence of familisation-oriented welfare production, demonstrating a focus on enhancing family resilience in the design of child-related policies in Indonesia. Overall, these results make clear the visibility of traditional division of labour influences on welfare production, revealing a focus on the familialisation effect in the design of child-related policies in Indonesia. These findings reinforce the suitability of the term “familistic welfare regime” as an appropriate descriptor for Jakarta in particular and Indonesia in general.Originality/valueThis study enriches our understanding of the evolution of child-related assistance in the Global South through a defamilisation lens, shedding light on the complex interplay between gender inequalities and social policy formulation in these regions. Furthermore, it offers valuable insights into the ongoing discourse on welfare regime studies in Indonesia, suggesting that mainstream narratives of productivist transition are only partially validated. The insights garnered from this research open avenues for future studies across diverse contexts.

Cultural Nationalism or National Culture as Portrayed in Indian Popular Culture: The Case of Indian Visual Media

Ever since Friedrich Meinecke proposed the distinction between the terms “cultural nation” (Kulturnation) as expressed in fine art and “Statsnation” (political nation), the cultural sphere of nationalism or nationalist idealogy/culture has been quoted either out of context or misquoted/misinterpreted to demean other cultures and reinforced ostensibly to carve out a false or “imagined” national identity in the Indian context and more so in the Indian popular culture. Does it reflect the culture of the majority populace in India? Why does it hegemonize other cultures? With the mainstream narratives and myths that underlie the Indian media, popular culture galvanizes around terms like nationalism, national identity and others. The main aim of this article is to unravel and deconstruct the notion of national culture and all the accompanying terms associated with it. It becomes significant in the present socio-cultural-politico-Indian context with its approach towards feudalism and postcolonial imperatives. The main question is how these terms are appropriated and subverted to form a new meaning, perhaps a historical revision. Randomly, nine Indian films were chosen for observation. The analysis reveals that a microscopic minority invokes the metanarrative of hypernationalism and cultural homogenization to placate the democratic forces and achieve their hidden agenda. Since it is value-based, its recommendations too primarily belong to the moral turpitude of those who are in power.

Universalism v. Relativism: The Human Rights Debate Around Internalization of Global Norm of Anti-FGM in Gorontalo, Indonesia

Researches show how people and government of Southeast Asia tend to promote the relativism of norms, and with that challenge the mainstream narrative that promote the universalism of norms. This partially explains the multiple failures of the regionalisation of many global norms in the region. Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), a term that defines any procedure that harms female genital organs, is a traditional practice that is condemned by many international institutions. Anti-FGM has become one of the most important global norms on health issues, officially adopted as a terminology by WHO in 1991 and become resolution in 2008. Under this circumstances, it is widely known that the practice of female children circumcision is still very commonly found in Gorontalo region in Indonesia. In Gorontalo, this practice involved not only health and rational consideration, but most importantly also is involved tradition and beliefs that have been passed down from generation to generation. It is hence contained a particular cultural meaning, which somehow has become the people’s shared characteristics which further defines the identity of the women of Gorontalo. This strong tradition is, naturally, goes against global believe which consider this custom as a violation on children's and human rights. This local dynamics thus lead us to the contestation between the idea of "universalism" of norms which holds the legitimation of human rights introduced by Liberal thinking,, and the idea of "relativism" which acknowledges the particularity of local tradition, as well as religion, and the rights of the people to practice what they believe as culturally appropriate. This article hence will answer the question, "in what way relativism overcome universalism in the process of internalization of global norms on anti-FGM in Gorontalo, Indonesia?"

Pluriversal possibilities for the Euro/U.S.-centric intercultural communication field? A review of the Gulf Cooperation Council states and Taiwan

ABSTRACT The mainstream narrative of intercultural communication (IC) as a field remains Euro/U.S.-centric despite efforts to (re)imagine it from the margins. To shift this, in this exploratory essay we challenge the disciplinary contours of IC by using a pluriversal framework. We ask, how to pluriversalize Euro/U.S.-centric IC scholarship when it already penetrates non-European/U.S. spaces? And what lessons can this offer? To that end, we turn to a comparative review of the state of IC in the Gulf Cooperation Council states and Taiwan. We propose that to pluriversalize a focus on indigeneity and human-nature relationships is needed; and the concept of relational ontologies bind the two cases together and can be extended to other non-Euro/U.S. spaces so that pluriversal alternatives can appear.

Running in the Family: Australian Migrants’ Environmental Care as Inter-generational and Domestic Civic Practice

ABSTRACT This article presents and analyses findings from a pilot project in which seventeen young first- and second-generation migrants resident in metropolitan Sydney were interviewed about their environmental care practices. From this and other comparable studies, it theorises about the value of documenting and framing intergenerational migrant practices that may or may not be deliberately framed as ‘environmentalism’ as a form of civic practice working ‘quietly’ or inadvertently to resist environmental crisis. A close analysis of responses from the interviews and the subsequent workshop reveals that contrary to mainstream narratives of what is seen as ‘sustainability practice’ and who is understood as engaging in it, many migrants learn to practice environmental care within everyday domestic settings and from their family members. Moreover, these may begin inadvertently due to the need to be thrifty in one’s early period of settlement in a new country but are often continued by subsequent generations even when the economic necessity has been addressed. The article builds on scholarship about the need to untap and learn from the everyday domestic practices of culturally diverse communities in immigrant nations in the Global North, even though these may not be viewed as conventional, middle-class environmentalism.

Female Leadership in Shia Islam: Women on the Way from Mujtahid to Marja’

Marja’ al-taqlid are Shia religious scholars of the highest level, something which takes decades to achieve. At present, most Shia scholars agree that women cannot be Marja’, i.e., create religious rulings for other people. But there is a space for discourse, and there are even a few scholars who disagree with the mainstream narrative. In this paper, I argue that, with time, the number of these scholars will increase, since Shia Islamic thought is ‘live’ and flexible, and adapts to the changing social conditions. The main obstacles that prevented women from reaching this level were the conservative views of some scholars and the lack of access to education. As the number of women with religious education constantly increases, the appearance of a female Marja’ will be a matter of time, but will still cause some resistance from some patriarchal members of society.

Imagining Otherwise: Conceptualising Sustainability in an Era of Extractivism Through an Agonistic Feminist Lens: A Response to Gendron (2024)

ABSTRACT This article explores the tension between sustainability, accounting and governance from an agonistic pluralist perspective adopting feminism as a methodology. Inspired by a commentary by Gendron (2024, in this issue) on the trustworthiness of science in the light of industry sponsorship of academic institutions, this article questions more deeply the acceptance of an extractive mindset which weaves into the organising of society as it influences what topics to prioritise and what to leave out of the mainstream narrative. The article draws in particular from the work of Mouffe (2000, 2013; see also Laclau and Mouffe, 2014) and Davis (2016). These studies, alongside other work, in particular by Black and Indigenous scholars, seeking to dismantle the oppressive bodies of capitalism, colonialism, racism, and patriarchy, have inspired my own reflections for this article. While these are all complex issues in and of themselves, which need further exploration beyond the rich body of existing literature, discussing them together and in relation to sustainability provides an opportunity to realise the equivalences in the struggles and encourage the formation of solidarity.

An Image Journey into Carnivalesque and Representation: The Case of the Postcolonial Indian Mainstream Narrative

An Image Journey into Carnivalesque and Representation: The Case of the Postcolonial Indian Mainstream Narrative

Beyond Protection, toward Respect: Struggle for Environmental Justice in the Kendeng Mountains

The cement industry is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than international air traffic, it takes up massive amounts of water and energy in the production process and creates highly destructive stone pit mines. The case we are presenting here stands for a complex transnational struggle for environmental justice involving the indigenous Sedelur Sikep community and a subsidiary of the German HeidelbergCement AG linking the Javanese lime stone landscapes of the Kendeng mountains with nodes of decision-making in Jakarta and Germany. The Kendeng mountains on the island of Java are important sites of social and cultural reproduction for the Sedelur Sikep, providing important ecosystem services. The community rejects the market economy and in particular the trading of products they have not produced themselves. Their practices have contributed to the conservation of this biodiversity rich landscapes for centuries. The plans of the HeidelbergCement AG to construct a cement factory raises concerns among the Sedelur Sikep. The group worries that the factory and the stone pit mine alter the hydrological cycle affecting their wet-rice fields and ultimately their lifestyles. Despite protests by Sedelur Sikep and allied conservation and human-rights organizations, the subsidiary of Heidelberg Cement AG hold son to its plans, referring to a completed environmental impact assessment and related permits.Building on the concepts of environmental justice and epistemic justice, we investigate how the Sedelur Sikep, together with conservation and human-rights organizations have (so far) successfully prevented the construction of the cement factory by challenging the procedural aspects of the permit process, stressing their role as indigenous communities and by challenging dominant forms of knowledge production used in environmental impact assessments. We show how successful resistance is organized employing the mainstream nature conservation narrative. We also show that the employment of different knowledge system is part of a strategy, while the groups own understanding of respecting and living with the mountain goes beyond this mainstream narrative.

Challenging dominant narratives, interrupting objectification, and queer creativity: Queer sex worker art in Los Angeles

Drawing on queer of color critique, this paper uses mixed methods including participant observation, interviews, visual and textual analysis, and photovoice to interrogate sex workers’ queer creative practices. Building upon the larger oeuvre of sex working artists, contemporary sex working artists in Los Angeles utilizes queer creativity to thwart hegemonic readings of sex work. Performances at two activist fundraisers drew on the themes and esthetics of sex work to counter mainstream narratives about sex work and workers, and to interrupt their objectification. The cover and graphics of a sex worker zine push back against dominant narratives about sex workers and the power structures that suppress sex worker self-representation. Photovoice methodology allowed sex workers to counteract objectification by telling their own stories. In their creative products, sex workers show how “queer” is a praxis of sex and gender disruption, rather than a simple identity category signaling non-heterosexuality, challenging homonormativity in addition to heteronormativity.

Effective Altruism, Islamic Philanthropy, and Public Welfare: A Critique

Islamic philanthropy is often seen as a major articulation of Islamic principles of wealth redistribution and social justice, especially in rural and peripheral areas. In this mainstream narrative, the economic mandate of Islam is seen from a prism of noblesse oblige and/or reformism, turning the Islamic notion of solidarity into an individualized obligation for charity and almsgiving. This embourgeoisement of Islamic economic ethics overlaps with and embodies the idea of Effective Altruism (EA), a utilitarian practical philosophy of philanthropy for the most pressing social causes which has grown into a gigantic industry-cum-fad of the global capitalist elites. This article presents a critique of EA, EA-adjacent practices of Islamic philanthropy, and alternative economic proposals for rural welfare. To do so, this article uses insights from critical studies of political thought, critical political economy, and solidarity economy literature as an analytical lens in analyzing EA and Islamic philanthropy and formulating a synthesis of Islamic economic ethics and alter-capitalist rural welfare practices and institutions. This paper concludes that Islamic philanthropy and EA have serious limitations in improving rural welfare, especially in Global South countries such as Indonesia, and shows alternative pathways for agrarian justice.

The resituated rural: exploring narratives beyond the empty Spain

ABSTRACT The controversies surrounding the rural have generated a lively discussion in Spain. Notions of “empty Spain” have gained momentum since the second half of the 2010s while the mainstream media have continued to replicate negative stereotypes and narratives about the countryside: the lack of opportunities, abandoned villages, economic depression and impoverished cultural life. These clichés, though grounded in the difficult realities of these spaces, come from a background of stigmatized depictions of the rural. However, these mainstream narratives may conceal alternative perspectives that allow new representations. The author proposes the notion of the resituated rural to refer to these new narratives and identifies three markers: the determination to leave behind victimization; the rejection of rural stereotyping; and the commitment to values rooted in cultural identities, sustainability concerns, social justice and gender equity. To illustrate this notion, the author reviews cultural works ranging from novels and feature films to documentaries about agriculture and nature, as well as magazines producing quality journalism on a variety of media platforms and social networks. The article argues that the resituated rural provides alternatives to hegemonic storytelling, avoids polarized apocalyptic or idyllic scenarios and explains the Spanish countryside as a “livable space”, thus offering critical insights for the construction of acceptable futures.

Reimagining space, history and memory in East Germany through sonic fragments of Chilean exile

This article addresses ongoing discussions regarding the material and cultural legacies of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It draws on texts produced by two individuals that were members of the Chilean artistic community that lived in exile in the GDR during the Chilean military dictatorship (1973–90). I argue that descriptions of musical activity and sonic memories within these texts offer a powerful counterpoint to some of the more prevailing assumptions that tend to position East German cultural history either as relic of material nostalgia or simply subsumed under capitalism after the period of German reunification. By positioning the ephemeral and unruly sonic traces of the Chilean exile community against mainstream narratives of GDR history, this article offers the possibility of examining and animating spaces subject to invisibility and disappearance in contemporary German memory.