This article investigates the role of migration in shaping contested collective memories, taking Catalonia as a case study. While memory studies have advanced the understanding of identity formation, the migration factor (M-factor) remains under-theorised, particularly in contexts where demographic change challenges entrenched national narratives. Catalonia offers a striking example: a territorial community with national aspirations but without a state apparatus, where over 70% of the population descends from internal and international migration. Despite this demographic reality, migration has received limited recognition in Catalonia’s institutional and social imaginaries, generating a paradox that fuels fragmented and contested narratives of belonging. Drawing on contemporary documentary sources and 17 semi-structured interviews conducted at the meso level with key institutional and social actors, the article analyses two domains: first, the diagnosis of contested memories of migration; second, the normative possibilities of developing inclusive collective memory policies. The findings suggest that the absence of an inclusive collective memory of migration reinforces identity fragmentation and contributes to the proliferation of exclusionary or mixophobic discourses. By contrast, strategically reframing migration as a foundational pillar of Catalonia’s shared past—through historical and demographic arguments—opens avenues for building integrative narratives. The article argues that inclusive collective memory should be understood as a strategic political project for fostering intercultural dialogue and strengthening intergenerational cohesion. More broadly, it advances a new conceptual framework for theorising inclusive collective memory in societies where migration intersects with contested national identities, contributing to foundational debates at the crossroads of memory studies and migration studies.

ABSTRACT Education is a key site for nation-building and fostering citizenship across the globe. Historically, Israel’s state education system has promoted ethno-national Zionist values. In the past two decades, Israel has undergone processes of neoliberalisation with the entrepreneurial ethos gaining prominence, emphasising future orientation, personal autonomy, and individualisation in service of the neoliberal state. How is the global entrepreneurial discourse, which encourages autonomous and individualistic citizens, assimilated and translated within a state education system aiming to establish ethno-national citizenship? Drawing on qualitative data including in-depth interviews with state education policymakers and educators, observations of schools’ educational spaces, and content analysis of ministerial official publications, the findings reveal a hybrid entrepreneurial-Zionist ideal citizen reflected in current educational discourse, merging neoliberalism and ethno-nationalism, combining future orientation with Jewish-Israeli narratives. This research contributes to citizenship studies by showing how entrepreneurial and national ideals of citizenship can be mutually reinforcing, rather than merely coexisting. The study demonstrates how in Israeli state education a hybrid model of citizenship integrates global neoliberal discourses of individualism with national narratives of collective ethno-national belonging.

This article explores early nineteenth century American travel narratives about Izmir, focusing on how these texts reflect both the city’s complex cosmopolitan character and the tension embedded in the formation of American national identity, and carries a fresh perspective shaped by U.S. nation-building and the ideology of Manifest Destiny. In the midst of the expansionism debate, Americans endeavored to define the American identity and their democratic rights who would become future citizens if they proceeded with westward expansion, even if it meant establishing a cosmopolitan empire. To that end, they engaged with the multiplicity of the Ottoman Izmir, with a subtle critique of their own empire in the making. Through close readings of certain travelogues, the article analyzes how Izmir’s urban landscape with its layered multiculturalism and spatial segregation served as both a site of fascination and disorientation for Americans negotiating their place in a Euro-dominated world. These travel accounts reveal the contradictions between American ideals of unity and the challenges posed by multicultural realities abroad. In doing so, the article contributes to broader discussions of Ottoman urban history and American exceptionalism by highlighting Izmir as a mirror through which Americans confronted the tensions within their own national narrative.

Citizen science is seen as a valuable tool for improving sustainable tourism governance. This is especially true in environmentally sensitive and socially complex areas that need inclusive knowledge. This research examines how citizen science can capture the views of local stakeholders regarding tourism impacts. It aims to create a community-based evidence base that supports better decision-making. The study takes place in a rapidly transitioning coastal tourism community in northwestern Mexico. Perceptions were collected using a basic participatory model from 150 actors, including local residents, school representatives, business community members, civil society organizations, and public agencies. The survey covered economic, social, and environmental dimensions, providing broad insights into how residents experience tourism expansion. Results indicate that tourism is widely perceived as an important economic driver: over 80% of respondents associate tourism with job creation and regional economic growth, and 100% recognize its role in supporting local crafts and production. At the same time, 84% of participants report rising living costs, and approximately 70% perceive restricted access to public spaces linked to tourism development. Environmental concerns are even more pronounced, with 87% of respondents associating tourism expansion with declining water and air quality, and 77% noting increased pressure on energy and water resources during peak seasons. The findings emphasize growing dissonance between national narratives on sustainability and the lived realities of communities. Stakeholders view tourism as a major driver of the local economy, crafts, and job creation. However, respondents also report rising living costs, displacement pressures, and restricted access to public spaces. Environmental concerns are even more apparent: respondents link tourism to declining air and water quality, habitat destruction, biodiversity loss, waste generation, and resource competition. The study suggests that even simple forms of citizen science can provide early, community-driven signals of social and environmental risks, offering valuable insights into more flexible and inclusive tourism governance in coastal areas.

ABSTRACT This article argues that Singapore speculative fiction seeks to challenge hegemonic national mythos and imagines alternative approaches to Singapore’s historiography, by examining Ng Yi-Sheng’s (2018) time-travel short story “Garden” via a postcolonial speculative framework. Firstly, the article demonstrates how the narrative’s branching structure disrupts linear time and destabilizes the conventional idea of teleological civilizational progress in Singapore’s national narrative. It then investigates the ideological estrangement of founding fathers Stamford Raffles and Lee Kuan Yew in the narrative to critique the state’s (neo)colonial paternalism, while highlighting the subaltern in Singapore history through queer female companionship and regional networks of exchange and solidarity. Lastly, the article explores how “Garden” integrates speculative futures as part of its future history, suggesting processes of myth-making and myth-breaking that are collaborative, cyclical, and constantly reinvented to challenge colonialist paradigms of time and historiography.

This article analyses the imaginaries and identities that comprised the idea of Global Britain in the post-Brexit period. Global Britain emerged as a re-articulation of the United Kingdom’s place in the world following the vote to leave the European Union in 2016. Drawing on six discrete but related articles, this Special Issue on Global Britain shows what drove this idea and how audiences, domestic and international, responded to its narrative with a mixture of enthusiasm, mockery, disdain, and even anger for this renewed vision of Britain and its place in the world. From internal disputes within the Conservative Party to attitudes towards the Monarchy, via foreign policy formation, technological innovation, and message reception among foreign media, Global Britain was articulated in order to mitigate the sense of ontological insecurity generated by the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union and the new geopolitical environment of the 2020s. Part foreign policy, part national narrative, it was not the first such re-articulation of England, Britain, and the United Kingdom, nor will it be the last. This is because such narratives are not only broad foreign policy frameworks but are national narratives that seek to provide a sense of ontological security at a moment of geopolitical change.

Anti-Japanese war comedies have become a visible strand of contemporary Chinese screen culture, blending patriotic memory with comedic ridicule of Japanese invaders. Yet it remains unclear how audiences interpret this mixture of entertainment and nationalist messaging. This study examines how Chinese viewers interpret the anti-Japanese war comedy Hands Up! (2003), focusing on their intercultural competence, humor appreciation, and nationalist orientation. Drawing on intercultural communication and humor theory, the research explores how these audience traits affect responses to the film’s satirical portrayal of Japanese soldiers. The methodology combines a survey (N=250) using structural equation modeling with in-depth qualitative interviews (N=15). Results indicate that viewers with higher intercultural competence report greater appreciation of the film’s humor and more nuanced interpretations, whereas strong nationalist orientation predicts stronger alignment with the film’s patriotic message. Humor appreciation partially mediates the relationship between intercultural competence and interpretation. Qualitative interviews reveal that audiences both laughed at and reflected on the film’s exaggerations, showing an interplay of entertainment and ideological resonance. These findings highlight the complex role of humor in politically charged media: while the comedic dehumanization of the “enemy” reinforces nationalist narratives, viewers’ cultural competence can temper simple ingroup/outgroup reading. The study contributes to theory by linking individual difference variables with audience reception of visual political discourse. It also provides practical insight into how war comedies function as cultural texts in contemporary China. The research underscores the importance of considering intercultural skill and ideology in understanding media effects in nationalist contexts.

ABSTRACT The Taliban’s resurgence to power after two decades of war on terror alongside an increase in global rates of terrorism since 9/11 not only impugns our counter-terrorism measures but also solicits a return to the question that has recurrently engaged scholars in postcolonial studies: How do we respond to the global situation of ‘terror’?. Elleke Boehmer identifies two responsive modalities in postcolonial literature: a ‘hybridizing’ and a ‘resistance’ inflection embodied respectively in the magic realist and national narratives. While both engage with neocolonialism, the former often comes to collude with globalization’s imperio-capitalist processes which are subverted by the latter through ‘nation narration’ (2010, 143). Analyzing Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows via Judith Butler’s theorization of a nonviolent ethics, this paper identifies Shamsie’s response to terror as a departure from Boehmer’s model. Debunking ‘capitalist-driven colonialism’ and ‘neo-imperial globalization’, Burnt Shadows also contests ‘the nation’ to endorse an ethico-politics of relationality anchored in shared human loss. This article argues that Burnt Shadows narrativizes a relational historical consciousness indispensable to apprehending our mutual constitution in vulnerability; in doing so, it advances a new paradigm of postcolonial resistance that demands a re-evaluation of ‘terror’ through our interdependent global history, informed by the continuities of empire, in order to reconceive politics within a relational social ontology that can forfend cycles of violence.

Oxidative stress in diabetic retinopathy: Metabolic triggers, molecular pathways and emerging antioxidant therapies.

ABSTRACT Scholars studying national movements in the late Russian Empire acknowledge Alikhan Bokeikhan as a leader of the Kazakh national intelligentsia, or the Alash movement. Historians also praise Bokeikhan as a scholar of the socio-economic life of modern Kazakh nomads. However, they do not appreciate his historical works enough, especially those from the earlier period of his career, before Bokeikhan became a nationalist speaker. This study examines Bokeikhan’s early works, revealing his initial acceptance of colonial narratives, which earned him some cultural capital through scholarly expertise, and his eventual adoption of anti-colonial rhetoric. By analysing Bokeikhan’s writings, the paper seeks to contribute to a deeper understanding of the intellectual roots of Kazakh nationalism and the development of Kazakh national identity. While he shares a primordial notion of Kazakh nomads, he also challenges traditional institutions of the past that he views as the root of the social problems of the present; at the same time, he uses the glorified past as a reference to the decadent present. These narratives appear as a lab for his political transition away from imperial loyalism to nation-building, with the works around the Revolution of 1905 highlighting the sharp shift in discourse.

Modern nation-states construct a sense of belonging through legal frameworks, civic rituals, and nationalist narratives. These practices reveal the state not only as a political institution but also as a symbolic system that often operates with quasi-religious force, shaping identity and loyalty. For Christians, this dynamic creates a persistent tension, since discipleship calls for supreme allegiance to Christ that cannot be subordinated to civic or national claims. Drawing on anthropological theories of the state, biblical and theological analysis, and historical examples, this article examines how believers have navigated the competing demands of citizenship and discipleship. It argues that while Scripture affirms the legitimacy of political authority, it also places clear limits on the state’s claims, particularly when they encroach upon obedience to God. The study highlights both the dangers of conflating nationalism with discipleship and the possibilities for cultivating a faithful presence that honors civic responsibility while resisting the sacralization of political power.

Feminist Counter-Histories: Women’s Memory Against National Narratives in Indian Literature

The article seeks to explore the issue of citizenship through an analysis of three nineteenth-century short stories, all of which have tramps as characters. The author of each of these tales exhibits a certain hesitancy that they clearly felt in relation to this issue. In Washington Irving’s “Rip van Winkle”, the shift from British subject to American citizen explores American identity and the political and experiential ties that bind people to the state. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Seven Vagabonds” describes an alternative America peopled by vagrant citizens who create a heterotopia. The narrative allows Hawthorne to analyse some political ambiguities affecting the American nation in the second half of the nineteenth century. Kate Chopin’s “A Wizard from Gettysburg” portrays the loss of citizenship as an example of the lack of belonging in postbellum America. While Hawthorne is the only writer who establishes a firm sense of American citizenship, in that he depicts a society of vagrants as an alternative to his contemporary America, Irving and Chopin emphasize the loss of citizenship as a result of political turmoil, the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, respectively. The article also discusses the role of the genre of local narrative in creating the figure of the tramp that represents the stateless citizen and suggests that local narratives reveal the limits of citizenship in a nation in ways that may be not perceived by national narratives.

ABSTRACT Tourist trails, and heritage trails specifically, are an increasingly common feature within the tourism landscape. Stakeholders develop and promote trails for a variety of political, cultural, and economic reasons. Top-down approaches involve authoritative identification of sites that are often grand in nature and support official narratives. In bottom-up approaches, communities are involved in development of their own heritage that may be modest or ordinary and reflect local stories. This study examines two examples of trails organized around the theme of Hispanic heritage in the U.S. state of Texas. In the U.S., Hispanics are the largest ethnic minority with nineteen percent of the population; in the state of Texas, this demographic accounts for thirty-eight percent. The first example illustrates a top-down approach on a state-wide driving trail; the second example features a local walking trail in an Austin neighborhood. Using each trail’s written guides, the research examines site selection and heritage narration. The former guide promotes the grand heritage of the presidios and mission churches and the nation-building narratives of conquest and heroic European-descended male figures. The latter guide showcases the neighborhood’s diverse community members and the ways in which the local is situated within larger state and/or national narratives.

This study analyzes Indian and Pakistani English language print media coverage of climate change (2004–2024) using Hallin’s Spheres of Consensus, Legitimate Controversy, and Deviance. A dataset of 16,694 complete news articles was extracted from Nexis Uni, filtering from headlines mentioning “climate change.” Cosine similarity identified shared articles before Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) extracted common themes, while Euclidean distance separated divergent articles before applying Contrastive LDA (cLDA) to detect distinct national narratives. An informativeness index assessed media emphasis on climate causes, effects, and solutions. Findings show thematic overlap in scientific research, disaster preparedness, and institutional policies. However, Indian media prioritizes renewable energy, climate diplomacy, urban sustainability, and climate related public engagement, while Pakistani media focuses on economic vulnerabilities, aid dependency, institutional inefficiencies, and health crises. Climate effects are widely accepted, but causes remain contested, particularly regarding industrial accountability. Regression analysis shows solutions based coverage enhances informativeness, though with differing national emphases. The study provides a comparative framework for understanding climate discourse in politically adversarial nations, highlighting implications for public engagement, policy formation, and regional climate cooperation in South Asia.

This article analyses the reconfiguration of state soft power within a digital ecosystem governed by algorithms and private platforms. It examines the impact of TikTok, Douyin, and content creators on contemporary public diplomacy, focusing on their role in projecting national narratives and shaping global perceptions of states. A qualitative methodology is employed, using a comparative approach grounded in documentary analysis, specialised literature review, and case studies. These are complemented by empirical data tables addressing algorithmic segmentation, digital consumption, and content distribution. The findings reveal a structural transformation in cultural diplomacy, where symbolic visibility is mediated by technological infrastructures that prioritise discourse based on commercial or ideological criteria. The study concludes that states must design digital diplomacy strategies aligned with algorithmic governance frameworks in order to preserve narrative autonomy and compete effectively for influence in a globalised digital environment.

Easterine Kire represents a significant contemporary literary figure from Nagaland, whose writings profoundly explore the intricate social, political, and historical contexts of the Naga community. In Bitter Wormwood, she delves into the complex intersections of history, politics, and trauma, reconstructing Naga identity through lived experience, memory, and acts of defiance. Employing frameworks derived from postcolonial and trauma theory, especially those articulated by Cathy Caruth and Sanjib Baruah, the novel illustrates the profound impact of historical violence, colonial disruptions, and political marginalisation on the formation of Naga consciousness. Kire’s narrative intricately weaves together personal experiences of trauma, creating a shared repository of resilience that connects individual pain to the larger tapestry of communal history. The novel situates the Naga struggle within the broader framework of India’s postcolonial nation-building, examining how marginalised histories contest prevailing nationalist narratives. By re-centring marginalised voices, Kire enacts a form of “history from below,” demonstrating how literature can function as an alternative space for historiography and healing. Recollection, articulated through narrative, manifests as a vital endeavour for survival and ethical restoration, navigating the intricate interplay among trauma, selfhood, and optimism. This research paper examines the representation of personal and collective trauma in Bitter Wormwood, the reconstruction of Naga identity, and the role of literature in safeguarding subaltern histories.

ABSTRACT Secondary English instruction often reduces literary analysis to fixed interpretations that overlook the dialogic nature of narrative and adolescent identity development. This article argues that Dialogical Self Theory (DST) provides a powerful framework for restoring literature’s polyphonic richness and fostering inquiry-driven classroom practice. Drawing on Bakhtin’s multivoiced novel and Hermans’s conception of the self as a dynamic configuration of I-positions, DST enables students to examine how characters negotiate competing voices, social discourses, and situated experiences of authenticity. Through pedagogical demonstrations using Julius Caesar and American Born Chinese, I show how students collaboratively map internal and external positions, analyse power dynamics, and adopt meta-positions that deepen interpretive flexibility and support identity work. DST also benefits teachers by offering language to navigate the multiple, often competing professional roles they inhabit. Integrating DST into English instruction positions literary analysis as a relational, socially situated process that strengthens both student inquiry and teacher resilience.

Purpose This study examines the transnational reception of Black Myth: Wukong in German media, exploring whether China’s first AAA game has truly disseminated Chinese culture abroad as widely expected by various sectors in China. By analysing media discourse, the study investigates how gaming functions as a vehicle for cultural representation and soft power. Findings A discourse analysis was conducted on 269 German media articles, including reports from mainstream media, mass media, and gaming media. The study finds that while the game has been highly anticipated in China and widely praised for its production quality, its reception in Germany presents a more complex picture: German media discourse questions its narrative depth and cultural accessibility, reflecting broader challenges in the international reception of gaming the culture. Conclusions The case of Black Myth: Wukong reveals that soft power is not simply the outcome of state planning, but rather a product of dynamic interaction among independent developers, public discourse, and national narratives. While Chinese media and scholarship widely frame the game as a cultural milestone, the developers’ original intent was grounded in creative ambition, the game’s symbolic elevation into a soft power asset occurred post hoc, driven by media enthusiasm and public sentiment. At the same time, limited localization and self-regulatory caution—common in China’s highly censored media environment—contributed to a reception in Germany that was curious yet critical.

ABSTRACT How do nonwhite people come to disavow their everyday experience of racism? This article describes “racialized assimilationism” – a discursive formation that predicates the promise of national belonging on essentializing notions of cultural similarity and difference – to expand Philomena Essed’s framework of “everyday racism” with conceptual tools to understand everyday racism’s denial. Leveraging interview materials from Essed’s study in the Netherlands and data collected in France and the United States three decades later, we identify two major processes in the assimilationist logic of everyday racism: (1) the responsibilization of nonwhites for their own marginalization, (2) a pedagogy of disavowal. We argue that assimilationism figures as a counter-heuristic to antiracism, encouraging minority populations to understand their social position as resulting from individual responsibility, deny racism, and reproduce nationalist narratives of racial innocence. Finally, our unique comparison between two distinct studies highlights the continued significance of assimilationism across time and space.