Structuralist Perspective Research Articles

Binary Opposition between Characters against Myths in the Novel Begu Ganjang by Ferdiriva Hamzah

This study aims to analyse the narrative construction in a novel by Ferdiriva Hamzah that explores the myth of Begu Ganjang. The study investigates how traditional narratives passed down through generations become the subject of debate in the context of contemporary society. The focus of the analysis lies on the dynamics between the characters, where the main character who tends to represent the values of modernity and rationality confronts the supporting characters who still adhere to traditional beliefs. This research examines the contestation of binary oppositions that emerge from the tensions that occur as reflected in the interactions between characters in the novel. This research method applies a descriptive qualitative approach, using Levi-Strauss' structuralism analysis framework to analyse the mythological construction process. The Levi-Strauss structuralism paradigm is applied to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of the Begu Ganjang myth in the socio-cultural context of Batak society. This study aims to explore and analyse the contradictions that occur in the characters in the narrative of the Begu Ganjang myth. In Levi-Strauss' structuralist perspective, this opposition is conceptualised as binary opposition.

Film Industry at the Service of EU Identity Politics

Mass cinema can act as a powerful tool for influencing public opinion by appealing to shared values and collective historical memory, while simultaneously constructing and guiding these elements in alignment with policy objectives. This article explores the thesis that national cinema, as an element of a common cultural code, plays a significant role in the formation and reinforcement of collective (socio-cultural) identity. Specifically, it examines the significance of Brussels' efforts to cultivate a robust film industry as part of the European Union's strategy for constructing a collective identity.The authors test the hypothesis that cinema serves as a medium for fostering a sense of belonging and emotional connection among EU citizens. To this end, the study aims to uncover the specific mechanisms by which common historical and social narratives are conveyed through European Union cinema. The research methodology is grounded in a structuralist perspective on cinema (P. Wallen, C. Metz).The article analyzes how the EU has intensified its institutional support and promotion of European cinema, particularly in response to the «crisis of ideas» in Hollywood, which has left a void in the global film market. This analysis is contextualized within the broader sociopolitical landscape, including the rising popularity of mass cinema during the pandemic and the heightened urgency for strengthening EU collective identity amid the Ukrainian crisis and the initiation of a special military operation.The findings indicate that the EU is increasingly leveraging the film industry to disseminate narratives, ideas, and values critical for both situational objectives – such as consolidating public opinion on specific political issues (illustrated by the «militarization» of the film market in response to the 2022 military operation) – and long-term goals of fortifying the EU's collective identity. However, the long-term efficacy of cinema in shaping public opinion is constrained by its susceptibility to rapid trend shifts driven by audience preferences.

Ideological Revelations in Narratives: A Perusal of The Mark on the Wall

This text delves into the realm of narratology, examining the structuralist perspective in understanding narratives and their inherent connection to cultural and societal ideologies. Gerard Genette emerges as a key figure for his comprehensive representation of narratology, emphasizing the importance of analyzing the system (langue) rather than individual texts (parole). The structuralist approach posits that stories derive from a general system, reflecting the unconscious molding of authors by society over time. Vladimir Propp's work on fairy tales and Lennard J. Davis's analysis of novel structures further contribute to the exploration of narrative elements. The study highlights the significance of narratology in uncovering the ideological motives behind texts, emphasizing its utility in understanding cultural concepts. By examining Virginia Woolf's "The Mark on the Wall," the analysis reveals how the absence of a clear story mirrors the chaotic ideologies of the time, while narrative and narration expose conflicting perspectives. The abstract concludes by underscoring the essential role of narratology in deciphering the complexities of narratives, serving as a crucial tool for diagnosing the working ideologies of texts and enhancing our understanding of the world.

Fantastik Türk Çizgi Romanları Tarkan ve Kara Murat’ın Biçimsel Yaklaşım ile İncelenmesi

In this study, Turkish historical comics and historical costume adventure films adapted from these comics will be examined formally from a structuralist perspective. The physical and personal characteristics and identity formations of Tarkan and Kara Murat characters and how concepts such as nationality, the other, love and religion are formally handled in the works will be examined. It will be revealed whether these works, which are a reflection of the Turkish cultural history to be taken with the structuralist perspective, which is one of the many examination methods applied on different eternal genres, and Propp's fairy tale analysis method, continue to have the formal structure of fairy tales in the process of becoming audiovisual works from oral literature. is intended. Keywords: Tarkan, Kara Murat, comics, structuralist, Propp

Identity frame at metaphor layer as the driving force for nuclear strategy: The US nuclear strategy during the cold war

The formation of a nation’s nuclear strategy is understood from a typical structuralist perspective of security strategy studies and international politics. This makes it difficult to not only derive new strategic alternatives but also anticipate what nuclear strategy patterns can be developed in the future. This study aims to deepen our understanding of nuclear strategy formation through causal layered analysis and to present new strategic alternatives to existing discourse. Therefore, this study examines the driving force that influences nuclear strategy formation and changes in implicit cognitive layers. The cognitive variables of identity are derived, and the causal layered analysis framework is used to explain how identity factors give meaning to concepts regarding national security and how the concepts are linked to strategic initiatives. Furthermore, this study assumes that nuclear strategy arises from interactions among the key frame variables in the cognitive layers. The US nuclear strategy cases are examined using this theoretical framework to understand how their interactions have shaped security concepts and been reflected in the nuclear strategy discourse. This study derives propositions that the ingroup definition of identity frames affects nuclear strategy as a driving force and that interpreting the explicit layers’ realities by the implicit frames affects the formation of security concepts and the direction of nuclear strategy.

Manufacturing informality. Global production networks and the reproduction of informalized labour regimes in Europe’s peripheries

This paper investigates the drivers of informal employment persistence in Global Production Networks. Building on a structuralist perspective, it reframes informalization as a tool of labour control and argues that informalization – while influenced by structural economic pressures and local socio-institutional contexts – is ultimately shaped by the employer-employee relations at the workplace. Drawing on Global Production Networks analysis and Labour Process Theory, the paper builds a novel extended structuralist approach to investigate the reproduction of informalization in the garment-footwear production networks in Italy and Albania. Through a multi-sited qualitative fieldwork, the paper shows that informalization dynamics persist as a response to competitive structural pressures only as long as workers are unable or unwilling to resist them. Yet, the situated bargaining power relations at each node of the chain crucially determine the predominant forms of informalization leading to either coercive and despotic, or hegemonic and negotiated, informalized workplace regimes.

THE CONCEPT OF DOUBLE AUDIENCE FOR IRONY BASED ON THE THEORY OF BINARY OPPOSITION IN SENSE AND SENSIBILITY BY JANE AUSTEN

Irony is defined as a figure of speech that allows authors to use words in a way that their intended meaning deviates from their actual meaning, simply put a difference between appearance and reality. The organization of these differences is established in the form of binary oppositions, which is the base where irony arises. This study will focus on Jane Austen's different technique, which is to juxtapose the two polar opposites with the use of irony in her novel Sense and Sensibility. By highlighting social hypocrisy and human relations, Jane Austen's major technique in this novel is to center all her phenomena such as the characters, their personality, feelings, and even the settings on oppositions with her ironic attitude. In the context of Austen's novels, the predominant technique is irony, which riddles with social conventions and incongruities more often than not with the presence of cultivated and educated characters. The reason is that the female writers of Austen's time intentionally created didactic heroines not only to meet the expectations but also to challenge the moral indoctrination of their societies operated by the established norms. It is suggested that Austen's dominant technique is not subtly the use of irony; furthermore, it also operates in the form of binaries that juxtaposes the polar opposites. From a structuralist perspective, it is observed that the novelist predicated the technique of irony on the form of binaries with the implications of the doubling of certain elements in her novel.

Inundating Cultural Diversity: A Critical Study of Oral Narratives of Kurichyas and Guarani in the Structuralist Perspective

The paper seeks to explore the practicability of using Vladimir Propp’s framework to study the oral narratives of the Kurichyan tribe of Wayanad, Kerala, India and of the Guarani tribe of Paraguay, South America. For this purpose, Narippaattu (Wolf Song) of Kurichyar and The Beginning Life of the Hummingbird of Guarani are chosen. Out of the 27 functional events identified in the former, six of them do not fit into the Proppian framework and of the 13 identified in the latter, three of them do not conform to the Proppian structure. The events which are matched with Proppian events are tediously paralleled and do not correspond to each other entirely in the Proppian sense. None of the events identified in both tales show any linear or causal progression. Through this, I argue that an attempt to study narratives that originate from communities with multiple subtle diversities in terms of a universal structure will be problematic and mostly futile. We will lose the culturally distinct, subtle manifestations in the narratives in the endeavour to make them fit into any universal framework.

Socrates and the Voice that Says No: Listening to Plato's Apology

Socrates and the Voice that Says No:Listening to Plato's Apology Sarah Nooter (bio) In Plato's Apology, Socrates describes himself as being guided by a voice (phônê) that prevents him from doing the wrong thing. This voice is also a "sign" (sêmeion), whose absence is "proof" (tekmêrion) of correct action. Moreover, it is a "divine" (theion) and "spiritual" (daimonion) phenomenon (see Apology in Fowler, 1966, 31c–d, 40a–b).1 In contrast to scholars who refer to this phenomenon as Socrates's daimonion ("spiritual thing") or as a "sign" that implicitly signifies something else, in this article I suggest that it is not truly a signifier, but is rather better understood as a sign that resists symbolization.2 In other words, I aim to take this "voice" seriously as a voice: one that is irreducible to language (it says nothing), representative of no one (its speaker is not identified), non-dialogic, acousmatic, and unknowable except by the act of negation or the nonperformance of this act. In these features, it resembles the negative capability of Jacques Lacan's object a, and, in a similar way, dwells almost outside of social existence, the symbolic order, a trace of the Real, as defined here: The Real is essentially that which resists symbolization and thus resists the dialectization characteristic of the symbolic order, in which one thing can be substituted for another. Not everything is fungible; certain things are not interchangeable for the simple reason that they cannot be "signiferized." They cannot be found elsewhere, as they have a Thing-like quality, requiring the subject to come back to them over and over again. (Fink, 1995, p. 92) Like the Real, this voice is embodied as unique, its own Thing, repeatedly present to and constitutive of Socrates, heard only as it frees him from the symbolic structures of language, law, [End Page 413] and Athens, despite the attempts of Socrates's many accusers and his still more numerous interpreters (including himself) to assign it a fixed meaning. It is only through its strange (dis) embodiment of (as) voice that we can understand how it is constituted by and in opposition to the other voices in the Apology.3 Socrates's daimonion has been the object of copious studies, not least because it appears frequently—in several dialogues of Plato, works of Xenophon, and again in later but still ancient authors, such as Plutarch and Cicero.4 Thus, we have a protracted chain of overlapping but never quite (quiet) equivalent signifiers (each a "sign," sêmeion), with its meaning always shifting just a touch from one text to the next, with implications ever newly revealed or occluded.5 Many studies of the daimonion attempt to piece together clues from several dialogues (or authors) to construct an interpretation of its meaning or provenance. In this article, I suggest a different approach, namely, to read the daimonion in the Apology alone, not only in accordance with the precise words used there to denote it—first and primarily "voice"—but also in the context of the other voices that populate this dialogue. There are several justifications for this approach. One is that so literary a writer as Plato (however paradoxically) is likely to construct a careful work like the Apology in such a way that the parts bear meaningfully upon each other, whether intentionally or otherwise. Another is to adopt a more broadly structuralist perspective, which also calls for a psychoanalytic one: each piece of the Apology gains its meaning only in relation or opposition to the other pieces. However generally this may apply to language or texts, I try to show here that this form of reading is particularly, even preternaturally, appropriate to the Apology, whose entire raison d'être is to acknowledge, answer, respond to, fend off, diminish, refute, and even invalidate, but ultimately to exist in relation to accusation. Every voice in the Apology accuses, every voice but one. Yet very few voices can be heard, inasmuch as the dialogue poses the courtroom as a space that does not provide time for emphatic listening, the kind of listening that can affect a process of thought and (re) evaluation, such...

Center and Periphery: An Original Institutional Economics Analysis of Raúl Prebisch’s Structuralism

ABSTRACT The present article focuses on Raúl Prebisch’s center and periphery framework, connecting his early, mid-career, and later work to cast a different light on one of his most enduring contributions. Using an original institutional economics approach, the article shows that Prebisch held a structuralist perspective throughout his career, but while early on he maintained a standard structuralist position, by the 1960s Prebisch embraced a less rigid version of structuralism, understanding the relationship between center and periphery through a multi-layered analysis. A movement in such direction enriches economic theory, creating a dynamic framework that views social, economic, and political transformation as a result of interactive actions (Lawson [1997]. Economics and Reality. London: Routledge) between agents and structures.

The insubstantiality of mathematical objects as positions in structures

ABSTRACT The realist versions of mathematical structuralism are often characterized by what I call ‘the insubstantiality thesis’, according to which mathematical objects, being positions in structures, have no non-structural properties: they are purely structural objects. The thesis has been criticized for being inconsistent or descriptively inadequate. In this paper, by implementing the resources of a real-definitional account of essence in the context of Fregean abstraction principles, I offer a version of structuralism – essentialist structuralism – which validates a weaker version of the insubstantiality thesis: mathematical objects have no non-structural essential properties. Next, I show how this rendition of structuralism alleviates a Fregean worry against insubstantiality, which is directed at the explanation of the applicability of mathematics from the structuralist perspective.

An Analysis of Comparative Perspectives on Economic Empowerment among Employment-Seeking Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and Service Providers

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to compare perspectives on economic empowerment in the context of employment seeking among intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors and service providers specializing in IPV-related trauma. This study addressed the following question is: How do employment-seeking IPV survivors and service providers conceptualize and understand empowerment? Insights into how each group conceives of economic empowerment and its attainment following IPV experiences can help to inform an effective service curriculum that can be used to facilitate optimal employment outcomes among survivors. Methods: A constructivist grounded theory method was used to develop a theoretical framework for conceptualizing how economic empowerment is understood by employment-seeking survivors of IPV, and IPV service providers. Twenty-six participants were recruited (survivors, n = 16; service providers, n = 10) in a large northeastern U.S. city. Interview questions focused on how IPV survivors and service providers identify and conceptualize economic empowerment, and how support services respond to survivors’ needs around empowerment, particularly through help with employment seeking. Results: Data were coded and analyzed following data analysis stages: (a) initial coding; (b) constant comparison; and, (c) focused coding. Three main themes emerged from the narrative data: (1) structural characteristics shape individual experiences and perspectives of empowerment; (2) peer support as an integral component to empowerment; and (3) employment attainment as economic empowerment. Though perspectives on economic empowerment were often aligned, some key differences emerged. Whereas providers tended toward a more restricted, micro-level view of empowerment as primarily an attribute of the individual, survivors were inclined toward a structuralist perspective that considers how individuals’ experiences of empowerment are shaped by broader, institutional-level factors. Conclusions: Findings from this study build on prior research on the experiences of IPV survivors. The focus on experiences of empowerment in the context of employment-seeking can inform work on building more effective support services for survivors that avoid reductionist approaches that could be perceived by survivors as “victim-blaming” by incorporating a sensitivity to empowerment as derived from structural factors that shape individual experience.

Globalization, international asymmetries and democracy: a structuralist perspective

ABSTRACT International cooperation, especially on a multilateral basis, has lost ground in recent years. This process has been accompanied by the erosion of core democratic values in many developing and developed countries. Taking Rodrik’s trilemma in international political economy as a point of departure, we analyze the relationship between international regime, international cooperation and democracy using a center-periphery structuralist model, which acknowledges the existence of asymmetries in technological and productive capabilities across countries. We discuss the outcomes of the structuralist model in terms of growth and income distribution under different international regimes, namely the Bretton Woods regime and the hyperglobalization regime. We argue that hyperglobalization gives rise to a recessive bias that compromises income distribution and the stability of the international system. In addition, hyperglobalization has a negative effect on democracy stemming from the reproduction of inequality and specialization in sectors intensive in natural resources or unskilled labor. We present some empirical evidence supporting these results based on the Asian and Latin American experiences in growth and structural change, and on the positive association between democracy and more complex economic structures.

ABKHAZ-GEORGIAN ETHNOPOLITICAL CONFLICT AS A COMPLEX CONFLICT AND PROSPECTS FOR ITS SETTLEMENT

The paper addresses the issue of Abkhaz-Georgian ethnopolitical conflict treating it as not a single process but as the complex case that consists of several consecutive self-sufficient conflicts or sub-conflicts during which different parties had various goals and escalated the situation trying to achieve miscellaneous aims. Although each of these sub-conflicts are looking like historical phases of one conflict, each of them has its own logic and, therefore, requires to be analyzed separately. The first sub-conflict of 1991-1994 can be quite accurately explained from the structuralist perspective as an attempt of the Abkhaz to reconsider their status and break the discriminative social structures developed during imperial and Soviet rule. The second phase 1994-2008 was the period of nationalist mobilization and the new clashes and atrocities were the result of the Georgian and Abkhaz elites’ intention to strengthen their legitimacy and power. Russia's role in this case fits well with the concept of "humanitarian intervention" and does not correspond to the Roger Brubaker’s famous “triadic nexus” (1996). Finally, the last phase of conflict since 2008 can be hardly called an ethnopolitical conflict itself since peace and the military status quo were established after the war of 2008 which neither side can challenge. Therefore, after 2008, it is more appropriate to speak about the need of post-conflict reconciliation instead of Abkhaz-Georgian ethnopolitical conflict. However, none of the parties has taken steps towards this reconciliation yet because the settlement of the conflict is impossible while it continues to be used for nationalist mobilization.

Category theory and foundations of life science: A structuralist perspective on cognition

Category theory has recently been applied successfully beyond mathematics and its foundations, for example, in quantum physics, quantum computing, linguistics, and natural language processing in artificial intelligence. Category theory today is arguably foundations of science as well as foundations of mathematics. Yet applications of category theory to the life sciences are still limited, and there are seemingly no clearly successful paradigmatic cases of them. Here we address foundational aspects of category theory in and across the sciences, and potential structural interconnections between category theory and the life sciences, in particular cognitive science. More specifically, we first address the two aspects of category theory as foundations of science and as foundations of mathematics in particular, and then discuss what category theory could do for foundations of life science, in particular cognitive science. We propose, amongst other things, a categorical structuralist approach to the mind-body problem as an alternative to reductionist approaches, which is arguably of both scientific and metaphysical significance at the same time. Category theory allows us to elucidate structural interconnections between the laws of cognition and the laws of reality, thus paving the way for overcoming the Cartesian dualism separating the cognitive and physical worlds. Put another way, category theory suggests that there may be higher laws governing both worlds at once; the higher structuralist theory of cognition may embody the double aspect theory of information by David Chalmers.

Explaining the supply of home repair and renovation services in the undeclared economy: lessons from Europe

Three competing theories have been used to explain participation in the undeclared economy. A structuralist perspective asserts that workers are pushed into undeclared work because of their “exclusion” from the declared economy. Two alternative theoretical perspectives assert that undeclared operators voluntarily “exit” the declared economy. Neo-liberals depict undeclared workers as rational economic actors and institutional theorists represent them more as social actors who disagree with the formal rules. To evaluate these competing theories in relation to the supply of undeclared home repair and renovation services, data are reported from a 2019 Eurobarometer survey involving 27,565 face-to-face interviews in 28 European countries. The finding is that 9.4% did so solely due to their exclusion from declared work. 19.8% participated purely for reasons associated with the rational economic actor perspective and 28.6% only for motives associated with the social actor perspective. 42.2% did so for a mixture of motives. Using probit regression analysis, the characteristics of those supplying undeclared home repair and renovation services and doing so for each rationale are revealed. The theoretical outcome is a call to view these perspectives not as competing but complementary. The policy outcome is to reveal the different policy initiatives required to tackle each of the rationales for supplying undeclared home repair and renovation services.

A Structuralist Analysis of Wordsworth’s Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Romantic imagination is against any fixation of form and rules and regulations but any creative attempt, however anti-rule it may be, must have some underlying principles governing its structure. This article explores Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood from a structuralist perspective. Structuralism with its roots in Ferdinand de Saussure’s structural view of language sees cultural phenomena and literary endeavors as structured based on the underlying rules governing the writing of the creative work. This article joins two contradictory ideas: Romantic poetry which glorifies the author's subjectivity and structuralism which beliefs in the death of the author. However, this article analyzes the ode from a structuralist perspective and principles of criticism: parallels and echoes, reflections and repetitions, contrasts, and patterns of language and imagery. It also studies the Ode's relationship with the tradition of the genre and its differences from and similarities to other odes.

Occupation through a practice theory lens

ABSTRACT Although occupational scientists have studied many aspects of occupation over the past 3 decades, there remain areas that are poorly understood and under-theorised, which creates a weakness in understanding occupation. In this paper, everyday life is offered as an example of one of these areas. We present practice theory as a tool to support the generation of alternative ways of theorising occupation. Practice theory is a collection of approaches that seek to understand the social world through patterns of activity. These approaches foreground activity and performance in the creation and perpetuation of all aspects of social life, providing a basic understanding that individuals create and re-create the means and conditions of their lives through actively engaging in and interacting with the environment. Practice theory can inform understandings of the person and their everyday occupations, embedded in social contexts. This approach offers a view of person and participation that is radically different from a structuralist perspective. The paper begins with a historical overview of how theories of occupation were developed within particular epistemologies. This is followed by an introduction to practice theory and discussion of what it can offer to the study of occupation. The paper finishes with a real-life case story that illustrates how practice theory can contribute to understanding occupation within the context of everyday life.

Ensino de português para refugiadas e refugiados: pode entrar?

Este artigo apresenta uma breve análise de um livro didático (LD) produzido e utilizado no Brasil para o ensino de Português como Língua Adicional para refugiadas e refugiados. Como base teórica para o desenvolvimento deste estudo, utilizei a pesquisa qualitativa interpretativista (BORTONI-RICARDO, 2008), e teóricos como Bakhtin (2006, 2003), Schlatter (2009), Richards e Rodgers (2001). Minha análise indica que, embora as temáticas propostas no LD sejam relevantes para o público-alvo em questão, há a predominância de uma perspectiva estruturalista pouco produtiva para o efetivo diálogo intercultural, bem como para as ações linguístico-discursivas implicadas na entrada dessas/es refugiadas/os nos distintos contextos brasileiros.

An Analysis of Pride and Prejudice from Structuralist Perspective

Pride and Prejudice is a classic novel from Jane Austen, a prominent female British writer, which has attracted considerable attention from the perspective of language, content, feminism, and marriage view but without the plot organization. Different from the previous study, this paper aims at the plot organization of the novel to see its structure and the deep meaning.
 
 This paper is devoted to analyzing the novel from the surface and deep structure, in which the structuralist approach is employed. The surface and deep structure theory is the main clue; besides, the structuralist narratological methods are applied to analyze the cases in the novel and explore the surface structure and deep structure respectively. The concepts of surface and deep structure and the structuralist narratological methods were applied to analyze Pride and Prejudice to see how the plots act to serve for the theme.
 
 The paper shows that the achievement of a novel is closely related to its complement of the structure. The clear hierarchies can effectively elaborate the story and the theme. To divide the plot into several parts can easily control and handle the development and interaction of the plots. The relative and oppositional relations of the different plots contribute to the demonstration of the theme and the comprehension of the readers.