Struggle For Self Research Articles

What Matters for Educated and Uneducated Indian Women: Realizing Identity Struggle for Self and Matriarchal Harmony through Shashi Deshpande’s That Long Silence

This article is an attempt to explore the challenges faced by educated and uneducated Indian women and the kind of silence and secrecy they maintain in the patriarchal society in search of self-identity. At the outset, it is worth emphasizing that men have traditionally been claiming a superior status in Indian Society and women have not been able to find equal face in affairs pertaining to family and society. This paper engages with the ways in which women characters are illustrated and how they are compelled by both the genders to remain voiceless in accepting their lot. The major focus of this article is to throw light on Shashi Deshpande’s views about Indian woman brought up under a traditional set up. The novelist’s diligence in story telling is very much evident in the manner in which the protagonist, Jaya, is portrayed in novel That Long Silence. It is pertinent to note that by virtue of her resilience and abilities, Jaya is able to establish an identity overcoming the challenges imposed on her by the family and society.

Gender Discourses and the Making of the Indian Constitution

Indian democracy was constituted after a long struggle for self- determination, which ultimately culminated in the making of a constitution for independent India. This article seeks to revisit gender discourses during the constituent assembly debates when women members were seeking for complete gender equality to be written into the constitution. The nationalist discourses on ‘Indian womanhood’ prevalent during the years of the freedom struggle were articulated and reflected in the debates and impacted the writing of the text of the constitution. The final text contains gender progressive provisions on which consensus had been achieved during the nationalist struggle but excludes explicit provisions that would have challenged the roots of patriarchal structures. Thus, while the nationalist movement provided a platform for women to organise for their rights, it also constrained the agenda of transformation.

Diamond Mining in Denendeh: Colonial Natural Resource Extraction and Indigenous Peoples in Canada’s Northwest Territories

Diamond mining is a rapidly developing industry, with an immensely large presence in Canada's Northwest Territories (NWT) with two currently functioning mines. Since the opening of the first mine in NWT in 1998, the Canadian federal government has viewed diamond production as 'essential' to both the territorial and national economies, frequently highlighting the benefits of diamond production. Entrenched in colonial language, the very existence of diamond mines in operation within NWT violate teachings, values, and the time honoured reciprocal relationships with the land held by Indigenous peoples across the territory. In problematizing this relationship, this paper employs the theories of Glen Coulthard's work For the Land: The Dene Nation's Struggle for Self- Determination, and examines the ways in which the operation of diamond mines exist as strongholds of settler-colonialism while simultaneously seeking to 'modernise' Canada's North. This is achieved through an exploration of Indigenous land relationships, the false beneficiary nature of diamond mine corporations, and finally the homeland vs. colonial frontier dichotomy.

Eighteenth-Century Women’s Writing and the “Scandalous Memoir.” by Caroline Breashears

Reviewed by: Eighteenth-Century Women’s Writing and the “Scandalous Memoir.” by Caroline Breashears Neil Guthrie Caroline Breashears. Eighteenth-Century Women’s Writing and the “Scandalous Memoir.” New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. vii + 121. $54.99. The first half of this short book discusses two “scandalous memoirists” from our period, Frances Hawes (later Viscountess Vane) and her less well-known friend, Françoise-Thérèse de La Touche. The latter’s Apologie (1736), translated as the Appeal of Madame La T—to the Publick in 1741, anticipates in many ways the Memoirs of a Lady of Quality (1751), the more-or-less factual history of Lady Vane that is embedded in Smollett’s Peregrine Pickle. Ms. Breashears points out that the two women’s stories differ in significant respects from those of Teresia Constantia Phillips and Laetitia Pilkington, the scandalous memoirists who now get the most critical airplay. Unlike them, Madame de La Touche and Lady Vane came from moneyed, if compromised, backgrounds; both were the daughters of disgraced financiers. Their narratives are framed not as apologies and were not written for money. La Touche and Vane celebrate their amorous exploits rather than seek to justify them, and they hold money in contempt. The book then turns to Lady Vane’s Memoirs in more detail, arguing that they represent an innovative collaboration with Smollett. Ms. Breashears has no new evidence for the authorship of the Memoirs, but it is difficult to question her assumption that Lady Vane provided at least the raw materials to Smollett (and perhaps a draft) because she wanted to find a “sympathetic” and noncommercial vehicle for making her case. Ms. Breashears [End Page 68] also plausibly suggests that Smollett was willing to take this on board because he wished both to corroborate his fiction by capturing real life and to adumbrate aspects of Pickle’s own story with a nonfictional narrative. Both narratives are concerned with mercantile origins, loss of status, disinheritance, the struggle of self against society, and the trials of love (including love triangles). These parallels have been pointed out in the past—as long ago as 1945, by Rufus Putney, and occasionally since—but the point has not met with universal acceptance, and therefore bears reiteration. The picaresque narrative and the female scandalous memoir are, for Ms. Breashears, not so different in their incidents and themes, although they differ in their endings. Peregrine’s story is ultimately one of restoration and reintegration, while Lady Vane is obliged to return to an oppressive husband who effectively imprisons her. For Ms. Breashears, “Such differences affirm the importance of gender in shaping lives as well as plots.” Neil Guthrie University of Toronto Copyright © 2018 W. B. Gerard, E. Derek Taylor, Kellye Corcoran, Melanie Holm, J. T. Parnell, David Venturo, and Donald R. Wehrs

Anger, Resistance and the Reclamation of Nature in Audre Lorde's Ecopoetics

After decades of literary criticism that is solely focused on one dimensional reading of literary texts, some of the relatively recent studies are turning towards a more comprehensive analysis that lies at the intersection of numerous literary theories. Eco criticism and post-colonial analysis for example can form a dual prospective that open the doors for a deeper understanding and appreciation of literary texts that can never be reached via the traditional one dimensional reading. Post-colonial theory, for instance, provides very specific critical tools that help to explore the ways in which black literature as an example, addresses the intersection between racial oppression and the exploitation of nature. Nature is usually pictured in literature as a place of pose and meditation, yet due to the long history of discrimination and abuse it is represented differently in African American Literature. However, recent analysis of African American poetry like Katherine Lynes' (2015) for instance, refers to the ecopoetics of nature reclamation. Selected examples from African American poetess Audre Lord are to be examined here via this particular scope. Black dragon fish, angry trees, shattered branches, black unicorns and buried diamonds are only few examples of Lorde’s ecological angry others and ecopoetics of reclamation. What is the role played by nature in the African American struggle of self- definition and liberation? How does ecocriticism as a form of literary critique respond to the post-colonial interrogation of equity and sustainability? How can literature and poetry in particular enable African American poets to reclaim their voice and textual authority over nature? These are the questions that come at the core of the ecopostcolonial dual critical reading employed in this study.

‘Losing my religion’: Managing identity in a post-Jehovah’s Witness world

What is it like to be socialised into the self-contained Christian fundamentalist world of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and to move towards disinheriting that tradition during adolescence? This article considers this question by looking at how a group of young, Australian Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs), who were born into the religion, make the journey from membership to dissent. The interview data suggest that for these young respondents the roots of disaffiliation lie in disagreement with specific JW practices and the freedom and hedonistic attractions offered by the secular world. It shows how disaffiliation was staged as a dynamic struggle for self as the ex-JWs swung between the secular attractions of freedom and hedonism, and the certainty and comfort of the religious community. Further, the article suggests that parental socialisation and the differences between those born into such movements and converts are important factors in understanding reasons for disaffiliation.

Lillian Guerra, Popular Expression and National Identity in Puerto Rico: The Struggle for Self, Community, and Nation (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1998), pp. xi+332, $49.95 hb.

Lillian Guerra, <i>Popular Expression and National Identity in Puerto Rico: The Struggle for Self, Community, and Nation</i> (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1998), pp. xi+332, $49.95 hb.

The Struggle for Self in Environmental Law: The Conversation Between Economists and Environmentalists

Those who draft, analyze, and evaluate environmental law do so on the basis of foundational assumptions that are as influential as they are hidden from explicit review. No one approaches environmental law without the baggage of a congeries of value preferences, ontological assumptions, and social aspirations.(1) Instead, we think about environmental law from a personal perspective informed by our experiences and dreams,(2) and especially by our descriptive assumptions, the priors that function below the surface to push and pull our arguments in particular directions. Foremost among those guiding assumptions is a sense of self.(3) Do we see others and ourselves through the individualistic lens of personal responsibility,(4) wherein the individual charts and maintains a personal course through life? Or do we see the self as something emerging from a wealth of social interactions, abidingly interdependent, ineluctably bound to others?(5) How is the concept of the self integrated into environmental law? The initial component of the article describes alternative visions of the self to provide a framework for the argument. The second step in the argument is the establishment of the link between the prevailing concept of the self and the extent to which market arguments are given credence in establishing and enforcing environmental law. The subsequent analysis of the frequently unfriendly discourse between economists and environmentalists(6) is designed to illustrate the impact of specific ontological assumptions about who we are on our assessment of environmental law. The concluding section urges those who wish to effect change in environmental law to do so with a more robust understanding of the self than is typically deployed in debates about particular environmental statutes. I. THE SELF AND ENVIRONMENTAL LAW When we speak about who we are or believe ourselves to be, we adumbrate both the limits and possibilities for our development. Specifically, who we think we are shapes our attitude toward the environment and the alternative social mechanisms for interacting with it.(7) For instance, when we tell ourselves that life is a jungle, we compel ourselves to rely on our own strengths to counter a hostile environment.(8) Especially important for American conceptions of the self is the Robinson Crusoe story,(9) a tale of self-reliant mastery of the environment. Self-reliance is the necessary change agent for those who see the self as independent.(10) In turn, the social perspective that respects and applauds that self-reliance is known as individualism.(11) This perspective is one that encourages personal domination of a hostile life space;(12) individualism in the United States(13) directs both the promise and constraints of our legal development.(14) The atomistic,(15) or isolated self, views social and community interests, such as environmental protection, as extrinsic to its nature and identity as a moral agent.(16) Michael Sandel calls this radically independent self irreducibly decontextualized.(17) His point is that the independent self is situation dependent; choice arises from inside the character and cognitive structures of the individual person. The environment from this perspective is an omnipresent instrument available for use to activate personal ends. II. THE SELF, INDIVIDUALISM, AND MARKET ARGUMENTS Individualism in any of its guises is characterized by the elevation of the individual's interests over the interests of the collective. Individualistic thinkers downplay their ties to others, the very links that are emphasized by those seeking more aggressive environmental regulation. A community from this perspective is just an aggregation of egos.(18) From inside the individualism perspective referring to a community as an organic endeavor is a major mistake that threatens to weaken the potential muscle of personal agency. …

Popular Expression and National Identity in Puerto Rico: The Struggle for Self, Community, and Nation

Explores popular-class and elite political consciousness in Puerto Rico from 1889 to 1940. The book examines the struggle for identity under North American imperialism and analyzes intellectual expression from folk tales and other literature showing the peasant as a symbol of national identity.

Popular Expression and National Identity in Puerto Rico: The Struggle for Self, Community, and Nation

Popular Expression and National Identity in Puerto Rico: The Struggle for Self, Community, and Nation

The Struggle for Self

This article reviews theories of identity formation ranging from the classic work of E. H Erikson to postmodern and feminist theories, and it incorporates qualitative research to examine the particular difficulties adolescent girls face in forming confident and powerful adult identities. Social/economic status identity, body image identity, the effects of the mass media, and the declining influence of family and community are discussed. The article concludes by suggesting that schools can potentially serve as sites for deconstructing these complex issues.

Review of Trapped in the Mirror: Adult Children of Narcissistic Parents in their Struggle for Self.

Review of Trapped in the Mirror: Adult Children of Narcissistic Parents in their Struggle for Self.

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reveiwed in this article:Love Is Never Enough. Aaron T. Beck.Children of Alcoholism: The Struggle for Self and Intimacy in Adult Life. Barbara L. Wood.Depression Prevention: Research Directions. Ricardo F. Muñoz.Assessment and Treatment of Addictive Disorders. T. B. Baker and D. S. Cannon (Eds.).

Children of Alcoholism: The Struggle for Self and Intimacy in Adult Life

Children of Alcoholism: The Struggle for Self and Intimacy in Adult Life

Identity: Cultural Change and the Struggle for Self. By Roy F. Baumeister

Identity: Cultural Change and the Struggle for Self. By Roy F. Baumeister

Review of Children of Alcoholism: The Struggle for Self and Intimacy in Adult Life.

Review of Children of Alcoholism: The Struggle for Self and Intimacy in Adult Life.

The Prophetic Voice of Allen Ginsberg

In an old creation myth, the androgyne stretches out and folds over itself to create a void in which the universe is born. This image is illuminating when one reflects on the poetic endeavor of Allen Ginsberg during the last thirty years. When the poet speaks of the “poem of life butchered out of their own bodies,” as he does in “Howl,” he signifies something about the creative effort expended in his own poetry and about the struggle of self to articulate a “true philosophy of life.” The ambiguity of the phrase “poem of life” is instructive as well, for it indicates a commitment to art and life as mutually informing categories. As the struggle for articulation is the struggle of the self to assert—or discover in the sense of revealing—its being in the world, the writing of poetry becomes a mode of self-creation. It becomes, in the terminology of existentialism, a “life project.”