Popular Narratives Research Articles

Ghosts between the lines: local workers in Italian archaeological excavations in Crete (1899–1910)

ABSTRACT In 1899, the Italian Archaeological Mission was established in Crete, and soon became an important player in the rediscovery of Minoan and post-Minoan civilization. The paper analyses the relationships between the archaeologists of the Mission, directed by Federico Halbherr, and the local workforce through the key of imperial hierarchies. Thanks to diaries, excavation notebooks, private correspondence and images, the analysis sheds light on the perceptions archaeologists had of locally recruited workers. At the same time, it brings out the agency of the workers, trying to enlighten their relationships with the antiquities and their way of interacting with the archaeologists. By comparing Italian sources with those produced by other foreign archaeologists, the paper shows how this agency was silenced in the official discourse of archaeology, which incorporated the authority/subalternity and superiority/inferiority dichotomies elaborated on the excavation. After analysing the role of some local actors – such as Halbherr’s collaborator, Manoli Iliakis – the paper explores the popular narrative of Cretan archaeology, showing how the themes and images elaborated in Crete were proposed to the Italian public. Here again, the inferiorizing view of local actors, who were condemned to remain as ghosts between the lines of an archaeological discourse based on modernity and the hierarchies of imperialism, emerges.

Mediating the Sugar Baby Imaginary: Popular Narratives About Gender and Sexuality in Sugar Dating

The internet is rife with opportunities to participate in dating practices, discourses about gender, romance, and sexuality, and, increasingly, efforts to restrict sexual expression. Therefore, it is important to square popular discourse with the perspectives and thought processes that color women’s participation in romantic and sexual phenomena. This article explores how media narratives about women who pursue relationships at the intersection of intimacy, social class, and labor map onto the realities of their lived experiences. Specifically, I compare an analysis of popular press articles about sugar dating—a mutually beneficial relationship practice wherein people engage in frank negotiations of companionship, intimacy, and material benefits—with interviews with 13 women who have participated in sugar dating. I sought to understand how these women defined sugar dating, what motivated them to sugar date, and where their sugar relationships felt most rewarding or difficult. I argue that, for women, sugar dating can be a site of both labor and leisure. These interviews complicate how contemporary press coverage tends to frame sugar dating, revealing important insights about how women may conform to but also challenge popular narratives about their identities, labor, sexual desires, and agency. My findings, therefore, constitute a narrative about sugar dating that captures the nuances of women’s thinking and operating logics. This is a crucial step forward in elevating the voices of those who participate in sugar dating and other romantic and sexual practices.

Gaza Crisis and the Arabic Press: A Discourse Analysis

The Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, and the Israeli military response have been widely covered in the Arabic press, reinforcing the popular narrative of a strong and aggressive Israeli state and the victimized Palestinians. The coverage underlines the wide support for Palestinians in the Arabic press. Broadly, one can divide the Arabic press into state-aligned and independent media, with the former’s coverage reflecting the opinions of the respective governments, while the latter showcases the views of non-state actors. A key trend that emerges is the strong anti-Israel sentiments prevailing in the Arab countries and the increased support for Palestinian statehood. Notably, there are serious discussions about the possibility of a two-state solution and the role Arab governments can play in convincing the two warring sides. There are some nuanced and veiled criticisms of Hamas’s actions that triggered the current spate of violence. A closer reading of select international Arabic-language media (print and online) reveals the nuanced shifts in their coverage toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Love is Glorious: The Analysis of Emotional Education Culture of Film “To Our Youth That Is Fading Away”

About the educational films, most of the existing studies in academia and culture are based on the construction of theoretical perspectives, or the discussion of the narrative content and the transformation of themes of a certain genre, but there is a lack of important educational issues based on the analysis of film texts. As a popular narrative genre of educational films in China since the beginning of this century, “youth narrative” has a wide range of communication audiences, but for the audience, there is a need for more in-depth discussion of its educational meaning. Therefore, it is necessary to select typical case of “youth film” in China, describe the emotional education in detail, and try to put forward the theoretical category of “emotional education culture”, to show that for teenagers, the complex, mutual, reverberative and dislocated relationship of emotional space poses a great challenge to education.

A History of Black Power We Need and Deserve

Say Burgin reviews Stayed on Freedom: The Long History of Black Power through One Family's Journey, an account of the fight for Black Power as told through the Simmons family, and particularly, Michael and Zoharah Simmons, from their first meeting during SNCC's Atlanta Project to their later painful struggles as a family. The story that shines through, Burgin writes, is a story of Black Power that is deeply personal, often messy, and, above all, a refreshing challenge to popular narratives that serve to demonize the history of Black Power and the radicals who devoted their lives to the struggle.

Double Decolonization

Following the outbreak of COVID-19, there emerged a popular narrative that East Asians are submissively complying control measures because they have been conditioned by Confucianism. Taking this narrative as a point of departure, this article reflects on why and how East Asia has been essentialized as a historical and distant other and left out of post-decolonial conversations from a religious studies perspective. Proposing a framework of “double decolonization,” the article historicizes the co-production of such orientalist narrative by both global and regional hegemonies for nationalistic, imperialistic, or other ideological reasons, hence the need to double-decolonize such essentialization. Furthermore, this article emphasizes the diffused and socially engaged nature of East Asia religions against acontextual imaginations underlying the World Religions Paradigm (WRP) and introduces the notion of “transnationally Asian” to highlight the transnational nature of local hegemonies and the transnational formation of agency against such hegemonies.

‘We Must Find a Way to Remember Them Too’: British Second World War Conscientious Objectors in Post-War Culture

This article examines the ways in which British Second World War conscientious objectors (COs) have been commemorated, memorialized, and represented since 1945. Despite comprising nearly 60 000 men, the CO is strikingly absent in both the popular narrative of the Second World War and official, institutional commemorations of the conflict. This is not true of their First World War counterpart. This is unsurprising: the Second World War CO is largely at odds with popular British conceptions of the war as a ‘just’ conflict. Nevertheless, a broad and diverse set of initiatives have been established to commemorate the CO. The CO also features in numerous forms of post-war popular culture, including fiction, films, television programmes, and plays. It is these disparate remembrance practices and representations that this article brings together to help us explore both the memory of wartime conscientious objection and the broader cultural legacies of the Second World War.

Aktivisme, Budaya Populer, dan Media: Paradigma Protes terhadap Three Finger Salute dalam Berita Reuters

This study investigates the framing and presences of the protest paradigm in Reuters' coverage of activism events in Southeast Asia involving The Hunger Games' Three Finger Salute. In recent years, several protests in the region have adopted this salute as a means of expressing dissent against their respective governments. These diverse activisms not only attract media attention as political events but also signify interconnected political phenomena through a gesture inspired by popular narratives such The Hunger Games. Reuters, an international news agency, has shown a heightened interest in this phenomenon compared to other news agencies that focusing solely on political activities. While it is common for news reports to embody the protest paradigm when covering activism, Reuters' coverage specific focus on events involving the Three Finger Salute sets it apart. The protest paradigm highlights the media's tendency to depict social protests with a negative sentiment. Through text and framing analysis, this research delves into how Reuters selectively emphasizes certain aspects of these fan activisms. The findings reveal that Reuters framed the coverage of fan activisms around authoritarian government, youth and student, and royalist. Reuters also has negative sentiment and continues to perpetuate the protest paradigm.

Viral ecologies: Resurgent nature, COVID-19 and the discourse of transgender contagion

During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, popular narratives of a ‘resurgent nature’ and portrayals of the virus as a form of ‘revenge’ prompted geographical reflection on the promises and limitations of ecological perspectives on the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Revisiting these reflections in the light of what we have learned from the pandemic, this article asks what is to be gained by attempting to think critically with the virus about human space as multispecies composition. Thinking ecologically with the virus can become a method for critically reconsidering naturalised and dualistic orders of exclusion and inclusion, health and unhealth, or belonging and unbelonging. Specifically, we focus in this article on the overlap of immunological and trans-antagonistic discourses with viral imaginaries of the pandemic, exploring the paradox of vulnerability that arises at this point of intersection. COVID-19 simultaneously highlights humans’ mutual vulnerability as a horizontalising force and amplifies differential social vulnerabilities. In examining this paradox of vulnerability as it relates to viral discursive constructions of transness, we explore tensions between different modes of engaging, identifying and thinking with the virus in recognition that the social and the ecological cannot properly be considered as separate domains. The aim is not simply to propose an extended epidemiology that takes into account the complex human–nonhuman entanglement, but to explore the social, cultural and political implications of pandemic vulnerabilities and of thinking ecologically with the virus. We trace the shared conceptual underpinnings of ecological and immunological thought, showing that these same conceptual lineages manifest in political responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and exploring how they are expressed in queer- and trans-antagonistic discourse and policy. Building on these analyses, we develop a proposal for ‘transing’ the virus and a model for ‘thinking ecologically’ that is simultaneously liberatory, messy and agnostic.

Challenging the deglobalization narrative: Global flows have remained resilient through successive shocks

We challenge the popular narrative that the world has entered a period of deglobalization, arguing that deglobalization is still a risk rather than a current reality. Drawing upon the DHL Global Connectedness Index, we show that international flows have not decreased relative to domestic activity, there is not an ongoing shift from global to regional business, and geopolitically driven shifts in international flows still primarily involve countries at the center of present conflicts. We propose policy and research implications, warning that misperceptions of deglobalization could themselves contribute to costly reductions in international openness.

Did Cholera “Force” the Reform of Urban Water Infrastructure? Lessons from Nineteenth-Century Berlin

This study of Berlin’s nineteenth-century hydrological reconfiguration challenges the popular narrative that Europe’s recurrent cholera epidemics after 1831 motivated an efficient and scientific path to safe tap water supplies and sanitary sewers. Analysis of contemporary discourse reveals that the causal link between cholera and water infrastructure reform is weak and ambiguous, with aesthetic and industrial concerns taking precedence. Far from prompting effective action, miasmatic frameworks and the limited proto-epidemiological tools of the pre-bacteriological era led to inefficient and sometimes counterproductive approaches, potentially worsening urban mortality. Understanding Western Europe’s sanitary past provides important insights into the ongoing struggle for urban sanitation in today’s developing world.

Personological Creation of Language: The Feminist Perspective

This research stems from Helene Cixous's call for women to invent their language – the language of feminism – by interpreting their identities as a science of feminine creation. This science is a protest of women's subjugation and exploitation using symbolic language to question male supremacy. Thus, this research investigates sexual differentiation as related to language differentiation between men and women. This investigation aims to develop standards and deploy a feminist-specific language known as l’ecriture feminine. Significantly, the argument seeks to challenge masculine realities, judgments and perspectives manifested in language deployment. A creative writing-based methodology is used, and the primary author is Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, together with other relevant authors and feminist critics who have demonstrated in their works, women's patterns of reasoning and language. The goal is to create a language of feminism that is a conscious effort to erase or contrast the language of patriarchal imaginary order, which is fundamental in language codification. Consequently, female and male writers who share this position are encouraged to develop and rewrite popular narratives to establish the language of feminism as a field of exploration and use in the modern world.

Visualising entangled Gaia in eco-dystopian graphic narratives Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and The Snake and the Lotus

ABSTRACT The Anthropocene epoch, characterised by human-induced ecological crisis and precarious future, calls for a paradigm shift in our popular narratives to re-evaluate our relationship with the earth (Gaia). Transcending conventional logocentric narratives, the paper aims to theorise eco-dystopias by dissecting the recurrent trope of entanglement prevalent in eco-dystopian graphic narratives, envisaging how it provides an apocalyptic counter-spectacle of nature. The paper focuses on two graphic narratives, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1995) by Hayao Miyazaki and The Snake and the Lotus (2018) by Appupen, to investigate their passionate plea to subvert instrumentalisation of nature and hierarchisation of humans over other species, towards garnering an ontological humility. By highlighting the agential understanding of nature, the narratives show how the porous and corporeal existence of human subjectivity smoothly permeates into the more-than-human world, thereby fostering a more (w)holistic understanding of our interconnectedness amongst various actants of Gaia. Furthermore, the paper showcases how eco-dystopias can best be captured in the framework of visual-verbal narratology and underscores the dialectical relationship between present and future (dystopias), word and picture (graphic narratives), and literature and environment (ecocriticism).

To caucus or primary? Why state parties change their presidential nomination contests

AbstractPresidential nominations are generally perceived to be under the control of primary voters and caucus‐goers, with party organizations themselves largely powerless to steer outcomes. However, parties are highly active in the background, often switching contests between primaries and caucuses or vice versa in order to influence the nomination. Despite the popular narrative of parties becoming more internally democratic and abandoning caucuses, we find numerous instances of states moving from primaries to caucuses. We examine state party switches between caucuses and primaries between 1980 and 2024, testing various theories of party change. This approach yields few systematic conclusions. Therefore, we shift to examining contemporaneous coverage of state party switches using an inductive qualitative approach, revealing a complex and dynamic nomination system and a variety of reasons why state parties choose one form of contest over another. These findings catch state parties in the act of trying to control nomination contests in surprisingly overt ways.

Caught between China and Hollywood: the transnational journey of Jing Tian in The Great Wall (2016)

ABSTRACT This article explores the transnational Chinese female stardom in the wake of the changing Sino-Hollywood relations in the 2010s, taking Jing Tian, the Chinese star who plays the female lead in the Sino-Hollywood coproduction The Great Wall (2016), as an illustrative case. It rejects the popular narrative which presents Jing’s failure to attain stardom in Hollywood as her own lack and an individual incident. Rather, it investigates the ways in which the systemic forces in Hollywood and the negotiations between the Chinese film industry and Hollywood in relation to gender, race, and (trans)nationalism may hold at bay her attempt to establish stardom in Hollywood. It examines Jing’s character and her industrial positioning through the lens of postfeminism and intersectionality. It argues that first, her persona as a ‘sinicised’ postfeminist girl hero suggests a failed negotiation between China and Hollywood, and second, her intersectional identities in the Hollywood industry place her at a disadvantage in this Sino-Hollywood collaboration. By deconstructing Jing’s failure, this article also unravels how Chinese stars were used in a disposable way by Hollywood when the box office performance of the Chinese market remained strong in the 2010s.

Cybertorture: Transformation of Humanitarian Crime and Development of Normative Construction in Indonesia

The development and social transformation of technology has had an impact on changes in the types and forms of violence and even torture aimed as an instrument of terror, punishment and even extermination. The practice of cybertorture has not become a popular narrative or discourse in Indonesia even though it has been realized about the serious impact, especially on psychological, mental and social aspects. Such actions are part of crimes against humanity and violations of human rights. This study aims to further examine the concepts, characteristics and efforts to develop law enforcement based on the perspective of human rights and civil and political rights. There are 2 problematic issues in this paper, namely 1. What are the concepts and characteristics of cybertortortue; 2. What are the opportunities for the development of Cybertortue law enforcement in Indonesia? Literature study (library research) is used as a method to examine existing concepts and legal materials so that an analytical description can be produced that can answer the problems posed. The study concluded that Cybertorture is a new type of torture that is intentionally carried out in the cyber space to provide pain, in the form of threats to physical, psychological, bullying, sexual violence, or other inhumane acts of torture, causing severe mental, psychological, social and physical suffering. Cybertorture is a new form of torture that has the potential to continue to grow, but there is no serious and focused legal politics to tackle it. It is necessary to further develop strategies and approaches in law enforcement instruments in Indonesia with a human rights perspective and victim protection.

The ups and downs of online intergroup contact interventions: popular narratives and secondary transfer effect

The ups and downs of online intergroup contact interventions: popular narratives and secondary transfer effect

FROM THE “RIGHT GERMAN” TO THE “KALININGRAD PHILOSOPHER”: IMMANUEL KANT IN COMMEMORATIVE PRACTICES AND MEMORY POLICY IN THE KALININGRAD REGION (SOVIET PERIOD)

One of the key problems of the state historical policy in the Kaliningrad region during the Soviet period was related to the attitude to the local pre-war historical and cultural heritage, it was partly the memory of the life and activities of the outstanding philosopher and educator Immanuel Kant. The purpose of this article is to identify the prerequisites, factors and stages of integration of Kant’s name and image into the regional culture of memory and commemorative activity. The scientific novelty of the study is determined by the fact that the commemoration of the philosopher is first considered throughout the Soviet period of the region’s history. In the first post-war decade, the key condition for the formation of Kant’s commemoration traditions in the young Soviet region was ensured, that is, his tomb was preserved and taken under state protection in the mid-1950s. It became a place of attraction for Kaliningrad residents and guests of the city. In the 1960s–1970s, the philosopher’s grave was included in excursion routes and tourist guides, respect for his memory was used as an argument in the propaganda system, a tradition of scientific study of Kant’s heritage was formed in the region, and Kaliningrad State University became a center of such research. Under strict restrictions on the study and popularization of pre-war history, Kantian topics were perceived by a part of local intelligentsia as an allowed opportunity to share the “secrets” of the German past of the Kaliningrad land. At the same time, the position of regional authorities was characterized by contradictions, and initiatives to commemorate the philosopher were repeatedly met with resistance instigated by the regional committee of the CPSU. In the years of perestroika Kant’s image was perceived as a “bridge” connecting epochs and cultures. The work on the preparation of restoring the monument to the philosopher began, the plans of the regional branch of the Soviet Culture Fund included a “Kantian” programme of events, Kant became a character in the first popular narratives about the prewar history of the region. The process of integration of the “outstanding ‘fellow countryman’”, “Kaliningrad philosopher” into the regional culture by the end of the Soviet period was considerably accelerated.

The evolution of judicial standards: evidence from litigated merger trials

Abstract A popular narrative suggests that, in the wake of the rise of the Chicago School, the judiciary has grown increasingly lax, making it difficult for antitrust agencies to successfully challenge mergers in court. We develop a theoretical framework to yield propositions regarding merger challenges, settlements, and outcomes under varying judicial standards. We then undertake an empirical investigation of all mergers, challenges, and litigated outcomes in the United States over 1982–2021 to test for the presence of shifting judicial standards. Contrary to the popular narrative, we find evidence that judicial standards have become increasingly pro-enforcement over the past four decades.

‘Fulanisation’ of kidnapping: Ethnic profiling of criminality in Nigeria

Nigeria has recently witnessed an increase in kidnapping for ransom. Fulani militants are considered a contemporary non-state armed group engaged in abduction for ransom. The ransom industry continues to flourish across geopolitical zones due to a wide range of factors that have provided an enabling environment for its prevalence. At the same time, the phenomenon of the ‘Fulanisation’ of kidnapping has become a common topic of discussion in public forums. This paper examines the criminalisation of ethnic identity, particularly in relation to the constructed narrative of ‘Fulanisation’. The implications of this narrative on peaceful coexistence are discussed. The paper utilises identity theory to explain the criminalisation of the Fulani ethnic group. Departing from popular narratives of collective criminalisation, the paper delves into the social imagery that poses a significant threat to Nigeria's social cohesion.