Sociopolitical Motivations Research Articles

Activists’ interventions in the heritage spectacle during the Macedonian protests of 2016

Protest and memory activism have been shown to have the potential to demystify the heritage spectacle through de-monumentalisation and de-contextualisation of the dominant and normalised narrative of the past, with the purpose to oppose a mnemonic hegemony and open the space for a cultural and social reimagining of both the past and the present. The protests that took place in North Macedonia in 2016 and the #Protestiram movement are examples of social movements in which newly installed cultural-historical objects and statues served as a canvas upon which protesters could express their socio-political motivations and demands. Protests offer a moment to re-examine given structures and routines and often represent the beginning of a new reality that refuses to accept the existing ‘stable scheme’ as normal. My interest in this article lies in exploring the means by which memory and heritage, as presented in the public space, influence meaning-making not only in a contemporary context but also in projecting a certain future – and thus how they can provoke resistance and revolt. In the context of the Macedonian protests from 2016, I look at how statues and newly produced megalomaniacal heritage bear witness to the social struggle during the protests. A further avenue of enquiry seeks to reveal the ultimate goal of these acts of de-monumentalisation and re-contextualisation of heritage as used by the protesters: what did they hope to achieve? My approach combines both the political logic of hegemonic relationships of Laclau and Debord’s concept of spectacle and the protest as an interruption of that spectacle. The use of the term ‘spectacle’ here suggests there is little actual history at play. In my analysis, I also apply concepts that have been used in memory studies in relation to social movements, including hegemonic memories, exclusive remembrance, counter memories, counter monuments and memories from below.

Agitational and Propagandistic Measures to Activate Cossack Volunteer Movement in Don Region during Great Patriotic War

This study addresses the enhancement of agitational and propagandistic measures to activate Cossack volunteerism in the Don region during the Great Patriotic War. Various sources, including archival and published documents, periodicals, testimonies, and contemporaries’ memoirs, were utilized. A comparative-historical analysis of agitational and propagandistic activities conducted in the Don region from 1941 to 1945 indicates significant changes in Soviet approaches and methods of agitation during wartime. Initially, internationalism and socio-political motives (class-based approach) dominated Soviet propaganda at the war’s outset, akin to the pre-war period, leading to the primary involvement of communists, Komsomol members, and Civil War veterans in the Cossack volunteer movement. However, pre-war propaganda approaches quickly lost their effectiveness. By autumn 1941, national-patriotic motives took precedence in Soviet agitation and propaganda efforts. In the Don region, these changes manifested in propaganda appealing to the illustrious combat history of the Don Cossacks and exalting regional patriotism. It is demonstrated that adjusting agitational and propagandistic measures towards strengthening national-patriotic motives proved highly effective, ensuring a steady influx of volunteers into Cossack cavalry formations.

Évaluation et prise en charge du psychotrauma complexe chez l’enfant et l’adolescent : présentation d’un dispositif expérimental

Recent public mental health policies on psychotrauma call for the development of research and information aimed at the general public, as well as the creation of new tools to improve the assessment and care of people suffering from the impact of traumatic events. There are also recommendations that these aspects be broken down according to age group (child and adolescent/adult) and conditions of exposure to the traumatic event (simple/complex). The establishment of the psychotherapies, psychotrauma and resilience unit (U2PR) at the university hospital service for child and adolescent psychiatry (SHUPEA) in Brest, France, is based on an experimental approach to treating complex psychotrauma in children and adolescents, focusing on three recommended areas (care, prevention, research). This article sets out its foundations, with the aim of contributing to exchanges with other professionals and services involved in supporting children and adolescents in distress. It describes the project's internal workings, its links with care partners in the departmental medical-social network, the socio-political motives behind the project, the reflections arising from group work, and the theoretical-clinical basis that strategically structures the implementation of its axes.

Sinocentrism in Relation to the First Han-Xiongnu Heqin Agreement- The Silk Road in Global History

This paper explores the approval of the first Heqin treaty between the Han and the Xiongnu empire with a focus on unravelling the internal sociopolitical motivations of the Han in making the treaty. Through textual analyses of the Shiji and Hanshu, this paper rejects the depiction of the treatys military failure as a blind extrapolation of the Han system of centralized power. Instead, it puts forth the argument that the innate inapplicability of the Heqin treaty to relations with nomadic states was ignored by the Han imperial court because of a greater atmosphere of preference for sinocentric policies based on sinicizing other cultures in contemporary Han politics. These findings carry significance through its caused-based nature and approach to the Heqin treaty and provide contextualization for future studies on Han-Xiongnu relations.

The Battle on the Second Amendment. The Issue of Private Ownership of Guns in the United States

The Second Amendment of the American Constitution arguably contains the formulation of the citizen’s right to a private ownership of guns. This amendment, however, has been the protagonist of interpretative battles that have reached the Supreme Court of the United States, and that continue today despite the decision of the Court. The issue of private gun ownership presents itself as a multifaceted interweaving of political, legislative, and social motivations, and is destined to increasingly become one of the factors that highlight the internal fracture of the American society. The essay explores the main elements related to the issue and its socio-political motivations, developments, and consequences.

Towards a rights-based multi-religious curriculum? The case of Pakistan

Islamic education is a central pivot of Pakistan’s educational system; it is taught as a separate subject and purposefully included in many other subjects. The State uses Islam to manage public morality and national identity and there is a ‘functionalisation’ (Starrett, 1998) of religious education. A culturally lived tradition is transformed into a pedagogical practice based on narrow interpretations of sacred texts and religious doctrine. Aligning religious and national identity necessarily others those who fall outside of this nexus. The current government prioritises curricular reform predicated on a political commitment to create a unified and inclusive education system. The proposed reforms include curricula for five other religions, potentially addressing some human rights demands for educational equality for religious minorities. Unpacking the historical roots of education’s Islamization and the socio-political motivations behind the current reforms, we conduct a content analysis of the draft curricula and interview stakeholders to situate the implications of these reforms for Pakistan.

Socio-psychological content and structure of consolidation of political groups (empirical model)

The phenomenon of consolidation is studied in various fields of scientific knowledge, which is reflected in the methodological approaches to its research: sociobiological, sociological, anthropological, political, socio-psychological. Solidarity (consolidation) is interpreted as a mechanism, condition, form, level, sign/property of socio-political existence of society. In its extreme variants it can lead to totalitarianism and tyranny or it can be its sign and symptom. The article deals with group consolidation, which is manifested in local group associations of citizens. The connection between the participants in these groups and their joint activities form a resource (social capital), which can be accessed by each participant separately to receive their own benefits. The socio-psychological content of solidarity (consolidation) is reflected in the variants of its interpretation as: support and assistance to the group in solving problems or tasks which it faces; positive attitude towards one's group; coordination of actions of group members, political attitudes they share, identity; the degree of coherence of voters' positions and the depth of political identification. Taking into account the existing theoretical and methodological developments, we believe that consolidation is the process and result of reproduction of the value-oriented unity of the group on the principle of conjunction, which is integrated with socio-political motives, the image of the political future, reflexive capital, group and political identities. It was found that the most significant substantive indicators of group consolidation were: political motive of the need to establish the contact, group identity, common vision of the future of the country, values of patriotism, nationalism, monolithicity, values of individual rights and democracy.

Центральная Азия перед вызовами интеллектуальной миграции: тенденции и перспективы

Intellectual migration is a key element of migration processes in Central Asia, but this topic remains insufficiently studied. In this article, the authors undertake the first attempt to comprehensively analyze the challenges of “brain drain” for the region’s countries. Conceptually, the research is based on developments in the field of migration studies, in particular on the push–pull approach, as well as the idea of relational and aspirational factors of intellectual migration. Methodologically, the study relies on discourse and documentary analysis, systems approach, statistical and survey methods. The authors discover that the topic of intellectual migration in the regional research discourse is presented fragmentarily, as its attention is mainly concentrated on international students mobility trends in the region. It is argued that state regulation of the intellectual migration in Central Asian countries has its own specific features – some are trying to use intellectual migration to stabilize the situation on national labor markets, to contain domestic protest potential, others are looking for an adequate model for turning the “brain drain” trends into “brain gain”, especially through the use of their diaspora’s resources. At the same time, the scale of educational emigration from the region shows growth patterns, which generates serious challenges for the Central Asian states, since a large proportion of foreign universities graduates from the region do not want to return to their countries. Based on the analysis of current trends, it is concluded that Central Asian states have all the economic and socio-political motives for intellectual emigration. In this context, out of the three scenarios for the development of international migration processes in Central Asia presented by the authors – a favorable scenario, a status quo scenario and a negative scenario – the latter seems to be the most probable at this stage. Accordingly, without systematic reforms and a serious approach to the problem of intellectual migration, the prospects for the implementation of the development strategies of the region’s countries will become vague, which is a challenge for their societal stability and national security.

(Dis)Engagement with queer counterpublics: Exploring intimate and family lives in online and offline spaces in China.

There have been ongoing discussions about the ways in which the Internet has created new spaces for sexual minority individuals to meet, communicate, and build their communities in recent decades. Nevertheless, previous studies have paid disproportionate attention to identity politics, civil society, and rights‐based movements. They have largely overlooked other possible forms of, and orientations toward, engagement with cyberspace, particularly those that have emerged and been restricted in non‐Western contexts. This article examines Chinese lesbians' experiences of using cyberspace and the extent to which these experiences help them develop their intimate and family lives. Drawing on interview data and developing a framework that combines queer counterpublics scholarship with insights drawn from the notion of relational selfhood, this study reveals a wide range of personal, familial, and socio‐political motivations for (not) engaging in cyberspace and the mixed feelings of connection and distance experienced by participants. By identifying three forms of (dis)engagement with cyberspace: those demonstrated by ‘pioneers’, ‘skeptics’, and ‘conflicted pragmatists’, this study expands the notion of queer counterpublics beyond its focus on civic and political participation and illustrates the contested and contingent nature of Chinese queer counterpublics. It shows that Chinese lesbians' interactions in cyberspace enable them to explore non‐traditional paths to family formation and motherhood. Meanwhile, these interactions expose them to tensions between the new possibilities revealed by online spaces and established socio‐political and familial norms. I argue that prevailing heterosexual norms, coupled with material concerns and the regulatory power of the family and the state, continue to restrict the transformative potential of cyberspace and push some lesbians to withdraw from cyberspace into themselves and refrain from taking part in collective action. The article concludes with some reflections on queer counterpublics and the complex interplay between online and offline lives in the digital age.

Monoracial perceivers’ sociopolitical motives and their inclusion versus exclusion of multiracial people

ABSTRACT Many societies today are organised as race-based social hierarchies, with clear boundaries between racial groups at the top versus bottom. The growth of multiracial populations has been heralded as holding the potential to blur existing group boundaries. But whether multiracial people do blur boundaries depends critically on how monoracial perceivers categorise them. We review our research programme on how monoracial perceivers’ categorisation of multiracials depends on sociopolitical motives. We present the Sociopolitical Motive × Intergroup Threat Model of Racial Categorisation, which describes how sociopolitical motives interact with specific threats to drive multiracial categorisation, and how this depends on perceivers’ group position in the racial status hierarchy. Our empirical work is based on the U.S. context, but we discuss how our research, grounded in theories of intergroup relations that have been tested cross-culturally – social dominance, system justification, authoritarianism, and social identity theories – may apply more broadly.

Depicting the National Spirit in Uzbek Poetry of the National Awakening Period

As literature increasingly approached public life, the content of the poetry of mardikery changed, while retaining the forms of traditional genres; spiritual-mystical and romantic motives were replaced by socio-political motives, symbolic images were replaced by images of a real person. Poetry dedicated to the events of mardikery reflected the social problems of that time, the innermost thoughts of the people, as well as pain and hatred, irony and anger, which raised the poet's subjective feeling to the level of pathos. In the poetry of mardikery, the realistic image is reflected mainly in the event, prototype, pathos. In particular, the tragedies of the 1916 uprising, being sent to work behind the front, the suffering of life in exile are examples of an artistic interpretation of the event, and such images as Nikolai, Rasputin, Ivanov, Mochalov depict prototypes and their behavior. The ideological and emotional image reflecting the authors' aesthetic ideals associated with the national liberation movement created a realistic pathos. The expression of the poetry of mardikery in realistic pathos was especially vividly manifested in the work of Sidki. The tragic, satirical, critical pathos in the poem "Russian Revolution" also confirms this idea.

'Devi Needs those Rituals!' Ontological Considerations on Ritual Transformations in a Contemporary South Indian Srividya Tradition

Negotiations between continuity and discontinuity have characterized Srividya traditions for centuries; these are primarily studied through texts or the juxtaposition of textual prescriptions with observed practices, leaving the process of how Srividya practitioners negotiate esoteric and orthodox tendencies unexplored. Building on extensive fieldwork among practitioners of a contemporary South Indian Srividya tradition, I present the dynamics animating such transformations. Focusing on kalavahana, one of the tradition's central rituals aimed at identifying with Devi, I trace the underlying forces that gradually replace its most esoteric aspects (centred around the body and pleasure) with conventional worship (external or meditative practices), refashioning the tradition as part of mainstream Saktism. While some practitioners conform to the new canon, others, for whom the changes diminish ritual efficacy, secretly continue embodied practices. Through a Foucauldian archaeologico-genealogical analysis, I investigate which regimes of truth and ontological coordinates allow the ritual to change, and which diminish its efficacy. While at first negotiations between continuity and discontinuity appear driven by socio-political motives, ultimately they are governed and legitimized by fundamentally diverging modes of being. A pre-objectified worldview demands embodied experiences (including unconventional practices invoking pleasure) while a dualistic framework endorses representational practices (such as meditation and idol-worship).

Theorizing race, marginalization, and language in the digital media

Digitization of the communication medium has transformed the mute, marginalized ‘audience’ into a heterogeneous and credible content ‘producer.’ Drawing on this dynamics and operation of the digital media, it has urged the need to re-theorize ‘marginalization’ and ‘race.’ Hence, this paper critiques the digital-media tool, blogs, using a rhetoric-textual analysis method and critical discourse analysis method for the fictional text, Americanah. These methods employ the psychoanalytical-Althusserian critique of Adichie’s fictional narrative, Americanah. In the psychoanalytical sense, blog-writing can qualify as a mechanism of ‘sublimation’ in the post-modern world. In the Althusserian sense, blogs become persuasive mechanisms for a subject’s interpellation into non-dominant ideology. Among the plethora of marginalized global communities, African-Americans are enormously embracing the virtual communication trends for socio-political motives. This paper theorizes the correlations between race-related blogging, psychoanalytic sublimation, and the socio-political repudiation of power structure by employing the literary text as material evidence. Accordingly, the literary study has concluded that digital-mediums (i.e., in this case, political blogs) can depose the power vested in the ideological-state-apparatuses and impose a high potential for expression of unrestrained, credible, and democratic voice of the marginalized. It also validates that blogs/blogging influences and moulds national/political/racial discourses by lending a liberated voice and context-independent perspective to the racially oppressed.

‘Fountain’, from Victorian necessity to modern inconvenience: Contesting the death of public toilets

Drawing on the politicised history of Public Conveniences in England since the 19th century, this paper traces the socio-political motives for their provision and for their gradual withdrawal in recent decades. It discusses the effects these developments have had on public mobility, and the socio-political complexity these infrastructures pose to city-making agendas. In particular, the essay highlights the notions of stigma associated with these spaces in relation to gender, body-politics and control, which led to a lack of political interest in their provision and a pattern of closures that began in the Thatcher era and has continued through later times of economic austerity. To unfold these arguments, the essay examines a series of initiatives put forward to reclaim for public use a derelict toilet in the centre of London: from the concept of an interactive site-specific intervention to raise awareness of its closure, to a campaign for its listing as an Asset of Community Value, to contest its privatisation. This case study is used to address the spatial stigma that public toilets carry as a contested locus of public sanitation and, furthermore, to highlight important questions surrounding their provision in the context of contemporary citizen-driven urban agendas. To articulate this argument, the case study exemplifies how critical spatial practices can operate as a form of pedagogical urban praxis for awareness-raising and citizen engagement, advancing a Lefebvrian ‘right to the city’ against hegemonic neoliberal agendas.

Hacktivism Sebagai Upaya Menyampaikan Suara Lewat Ruang Siber Di Indonesia

Abstract— Hacktivism is becoming a trend that is being loved globally. The hacktivism trend was born at the same time as the information technology revolution, especially when people became increasingly dependent on smartphones and the internet. This has more or less affected aspects of cybersecurity in various countries. Because generally hacktivism appears with socio-political motives. Many countries have made cybersecurity one thing to study before deciding to cooperate with other countries. Also for Indonesia, cybersecurity has become an important factor in seeing national security. Several popular issues have shown that hacktivism has become a trend in Indonesia as well. Keywords—: Hacktivism; Hacktivist; Cybersecurity; hackers; social politics.

The Political Economy of Household Debt & The Keynesian Policy Paradigm

ABSTRACT Britain is an exemplar of a financialised economy that developed systems of household debt to drive economic growth from the 1980s onwards. The prevailing critical and constructivist accounts consider this development as a key feature distinguishing neoliberalism from Keynesianism. We challenge these prevailing accounts for insufficiently acknowledging the socio-political motivations and consequences of a significant rise in household debt from 1945 under Keynesianism. Synthesising the policy paradigm and Neo-Weberian approaches, we assess the socio-political purposes encoded within the rise in household debt throughout the Keynesian era. Our results demonstrate that household debt was regularly relaxed and restricted by Conservative and Labour governments in line with Keynesian economic ideas. Subsequently, we argue that the deproletarianising and conservatizing effects of household debt shifted voter preferences to the right, which influenced political party policies. The Heath government capitalised on this political shift by liberalising the financial sector and removing state-directed controls on the economy, establishing a distinct break from Keynesian demand management. We argue that the punctuated diffusion and evolution of household debt throughout the Keynesian era laid the social, political and economic foundations for the debt-driven growth model to develop in the 1980s.

Factors influencing adoption and rejection of fire hazard severity zone maps in California

Community wildfire preparedness programs are an important means of protecting residents living in hazardous areas like the wildland-urban interface. Different programs rely on various sets of drivers, such as legal enforcement or engaged citizens. Here, sociopolitical motivations and barriers for participation are evaluated in a state-recommended, though not legally required, local program in California (Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones). Through this regional case study, we examine how and why communities do or do not participate in wildfire preparedness programs when given the choice. Drawing on interviews with state and local leadership, the research team identifies motivating factors inducing participation (related to public safety) and factors dissuading participation (related to economic concerns). Following recent catastrophic wildfires, state policy has changed the previously optional Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone program to mandatory, indicating stronger oversight of local decision-making to promote public safety. By understanding the factors driving local participation, higher levels of government can incentivize or require greater engagement throughout hazardous areas to protect lives and properties.

Introducing the Sociopolitical Motive × Intergroup Threat Model to Understand How Monoracial Perceivers’ Sociopolitical Motives Influence Their Categorization of Multiracial People

Researchers have used social dominance, system justification, authoritarianism, and social identity theories to understand how monoracial perceivers’ sociopolitical motives influence their categorization of multiracial people. The result has been a growing understanding of how particular sociopolitical motives and contexts affect categorization, without a unifying perspective to integrate these insights. We review evidence supporting each theory’s predictions concerning how monoracial perceivers categorize multiracial people who combine their ingroup with an outgroup, with attention to the moderating role of perceiver group status. We find most studies cannot arbitrate between theories of categorization and reveal additional gaps in the literature. To advance this research area, we introduce the sociopolitical motive × intergroup threat model of racial categorization that (a) clarifies which sociopolitical motives interact with which intergroup threats to predict categorization and (b) highlights the role of perceiver group status. Furthermore, we consider how our model can help understand phenomena beyond multiracial categorization.

Towards a Geography of trauma: From El plan spiritual de Aztlán to the Birth of Chicana Spìritual Feminism

The paper explores the unbreakable link between Chicana literature and its political/ ideological/militant/subversive component, based on a new interpretation of “cultural nationalism.” Explaining the sociopolitical motivations that led to the California student revolts of the 1960s and the Chicana Movement’s Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, I also discuss the ensuing falling-out between the feminine/feminist faction of the Movement and its androcentric majority. I draw on the formal/conceptual/linguistic hybridity of Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera as a metaphor for the radical character of the entire Chicana literary phenomenon.

Motivated Attention in Climate Change Perception and Action

Despite the scientific consensus, some people still remain skeptical about climate change. In fact, there is a growing partisan divide over the last decade within the United States in the support for climate policies. Given the same climate evidence, why do some people become concerned while others remain unconvinced? Here we propose a motivated attention framework where socio-political motivations shape visual attention to climate evidence, altering perceptions of the evidence and subsequent actions to mitigate climate change. To seek support for this framework, we conducted three experiments. Participants viewed a graph of annual global temperature change while they were eyetracked and estimated the average change. We found that political orientation may bias attention to climate change evidence, altering the perception of the same evidence (Experiment 1). We further examined how attentional biases influence subsequent actions to mitigate climate change. We found that liberals were more likely to sign a climate petition or more willing to donate to an environmental organization than conservatives, and attention guides climate actions in different ways for liberals and conservatives (Experiment 2). To seek causal evidence, we biased attention to different parts of the temperature curve by coloring stronger climate evidence in red or weak climate evidence in red. We found that liberals were more likely to sign the petition or more willing to donate when stronger evidence was in red, but conservatives were less likely to act when stronger evidence was in red (Experiment 3). This suggests that drawing attention to motivationally consistent information increases actions in liberals, but discouraged conservatives. The findings provide initial preliminary evidence for the motivated attention framework, suggesting an attentional divide between liberals and conservatives in the perception of climate evidence. This divide might further reinforce prior beliefs about climate change, creating further polarization. The current study raises a possible attentional mechanism for ideologically motivated reasoning and its impact on basic perceptual processes. It also provides implications for the communication of climate science to different socio-political groups with the goal of mobilizing actions on climate change.