Symbolic Gestures Research Articles

Copying Europe? Integration as a Citizenship Requirement in Australia

Recent decades have seen a significant expansion of so-called “integration requirements” for citizenship applicants in many countries. Though led by European states, the trend now seems to be reaching traditional settler states such as Australia. This article examines the integration requirement proposed for citizenship applicants in Australia in 2017. According to the proposal, applicants for citizenship by conferral would have been required to show that they had “integrated into the Australian community,” for instance, through employment, involvement in community organizations, and the absence of conduct inconsistent with Australian values. Although the proposal failed, it is noteworthy because of its far-reaching nature and novelty in a traditional country of immigration. This article analyzes the implications of the proposed legislation with reference to the diverse groups of permanent immigrants entering Australia, demonstrating its discriminatory potential in terms of gender, nationality, and visa category. It argues that the proposal failed because despite its significant implications, the government did not put forward a convincing case for its introduction and may even have initiated it as a symbolic gesture. The article contributes to understanding why integration requirements that are popular in some states and regions may fail to gain favor in others. It suggests that, given the rapid spread of restrictive immigration policies, scholars should pay more attention to the specific local conditions under which immigration and citizenship policy transfers succeed or fail.

A symbolic legislative gesture? An argument for active enforcement of the insider trading prohibition in Myanmar

The object of this short article is to examine one aspect of Myanmar’s recent market reform, namely, its prohibition of insider trading. The prohibition is itself uncontroversial and brings Myanmar into line with the securities laws of most other developed nations. The focus of this article is, rather, on whether the prohibition should be actively enforced or left to function as a mere symbolic legislative gesture. It is argued here that active enforcement is desirable in the developing economy context, but that the current legislative formulation of the insider trading prohibition in Myanmar leaves the prohibition to function really only as a symbolic gesture. The article undertakes a short comparative analysis with the Australian prohibition of insider trading and concludes both that prosecution under the current prohibition would be difficult and that legislative amendment is required.

The centenary of World War I in Serbia: A war of monuments

The anniversary of the First World War in Serbia has become an oc-casion for exacerbating public discussion and drawing attention to the rise of revisionism in NATO countries. Fear of a revision of the history of World War I infl uenced Serbian society and elites on the eve of the centenary. The concerned Serb elites responded with a wide range of events organized in Serbia and Republika Srpska. Within the framework of the commemorative events dedicated to the anniversary, monuments, installed and restored by the Serbian authorities and their foreign part-ners, have received special signifi cance. These were monuments to the Serbian patriot G. Princip, to the famous Iron Regiment, to the woman volunteer-soldier Milunka Savic. They are traditional fi gures of the Ser-bian memory of the First World War. At the same time, Serbian authori-ties did not succeed in their attempt to perpetuate in monumental forms the head of the Serbian military intelligence D. Dimitrievic-Apis, the leader of the Serbian nationalist organization Black Hand, which patron-ized the Mlada Bosna organization that prepared the assassination on Franz Ferdinand. The Russian-Serbian monuments of the First World War in Serbia presenting Nicholas II and the military brotherhood of the two peoples were of special signifi cance. All new monuments have become memorial sites and at the same time attractive points for vari-ous political forces expressing their sympathies and antipathies through symbolic gestures towards them.

Work

Job postings that explicitly encourage “people with migration backgrounds” or those who “experience discrimination” to apply, were a good start once. But they do not solve the problem. Sure, an injustice is being identified here that is imperative to counteract. Unless rules like quotas are established, however, such postings ultimately peter out as a merely symbolic gesture. In the end, it is not the well-intended statement that counts, but who is being hired. And who isn’t.

О ЗВУКЕ, МУЗЫКЕ, ГАРМОНИИ — ФЕНОМЕНАХ КУЛЬТУРНОГО КОДА КИТАЯ

The article deals with sound, music, and harmony as universals of the Chinese cultural code. The cultural code is the result of merging ideas concerning the ontological unity of the world, including the harmony of society, the state and the individual. These ideas permeate historical monuments, philosophical studies, artistic creativity, and the life of every person. At the time of ‘roots’ and ‘sources’, the Chinese worldview reveals in signs of the divine — Shen (神) and subtle, elegant — Miao (妙) evidence of the manifestation of the previously hidden Tao and the birth of meanings and categories of Chinese aesthetics. Their interaction is inseparable from sound and music, which at the initial stage manifest themselves as a rhythm of ontological action. Interconnected yin and yang (female and male; dark and light) are connected to it, complementing each other, enveloping the world with web of allusions. Thus, the “Chun-qiu” classic confirms that as a result, everything that exists, “finding its final form”, occupies a “certain space”, which has a “certain tone”. “The ancient kings were based on this in the establishment of music” (Luishi Chunqiu). So was born an idea of beauty as a harmony of He, equally significant for life and artistic creativity, including theater. The complex architectonics of Chinese theater is based on the laws of music and musical rhythm, according to which vocal lines, speech passages, conditioned by the tonal pronunciation norm, stage movement, rhythm of stage action, symbolic gesture, dance pattern combine, meaning that the theater is embodied not only in plot collisions, but also conveys the deepest meanings of Chinese ontology.

The Burial of a Father as a Symbolic Gesture: A Reassessment of Witi Ihimaera's Tangi

The Burial of a Father as a Symbolic Gesture: A Reassessment of Witi Ihimaera's <i>Tangi</i>

“1945” as a Turning Point in German Art History? Challenging the Paradigm of Rupture and Discontinuity

The historiographical article looks at “1945” as a turning point, inquiring whether the end of both the Second World War and National Socialism also implied a radical break for art history in Germany. In evaluating both contemporary perspectives (like Herbert von Einem’s opening lecture of the First German Art Historians Meeting in 1948) and recent historiographical studies, the paper questions the concept of “Stunde Null” or “hour zero,” and intends to challenge the established paradigm of rupture and discontinuity. Arguing for a more nuanced and holistic understanding of the transformation processes in the postwar situation, three major reasons are identified why simplistic categorizations often prevail: (1) a very narrow definition of the art historian in the history of art history, (2) the disjunction between the humanities and the larger political context, which allow the individual to imagine himself/herself untainted and uncompromised by ideology, and (3) the high degree of continuity, in particular if compared to the radical changes that took place in 1933. The article thus resumes that the idea of “turning points” deserves further differentiation, and calls for the integration of the political dimension into historiography. Essentially, the challenge remains to distinguish between factual processes, false or fraudulent labelling, and symbolic gestures.

Leninfall: The spectacle of forgetting

This article explores the phenomenon of Leninfall – destroying, replacing and transferring objects symbolizing the Russian Revolution in the Ukrainian material landscape in the context of the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. The symbolic gesture of physically removing the idols of 1917 from Ukrainian statue-pedestals, and clearing Ukrainian streets and maps of names related to Communism, is triggered by strategic acts to ensure one’s ideological, historical and political frame is victorious. I demonstrate how these framing acts operate through analysis of the visual and verbal representations of Leninfall in nine Ukrainian TV and film documentaries, analysed in terms of perspectives, figure and ground, metaphor and reframing. This intersemiotic approach affords an explanation of how and why groups and individuals hold particular positions about Leninfall that connect to a certain view of history and national identity. I argue first that different groups have rendered Leninfall a spectacle of forgetting; second, that the perspectives identified through the analysis of documentaries help explain why the post-2014 conflicts and transformations in Ukraine have occurred; and, third, that contrary to common assumptions in this conflicted context, political identities are not only represented as irreconcilable binaries, and that more nuanced positions are detected. The research contributes to our understanding of how positions are arrived at and negotiated both around prominent anniversaries and commemorations like 1917 and Lenin, and in conditions of societies in conflict.

Language, Gesture, and Emotional Communication: An Embodied View of Social Interaction.

Spoken language is an innate ability of the human being and represents the most widespread mode of social communication. The ability to share concepts, intentions and feelings, and also to respond to what others are feeling/saying is crucial during social interactions. A growing body of evidence suggests that language evolved from manual gestures, gradually incorporating motor acts with vocal elements. In this evolutionary context, the human mirror mechanism (MM) would permit the passage from “doing something” to “communicating it to someone else.” In this perspective, the MM would mediate semantic processes being involved in both the execution and in the understanding of messages expressed by words or gestures. Thus, the recognition of action related words would activate somatosensory regions, reflecting the semantic grounding of these symbols in action information. Here, the role of the sensorimotor cortex and in general of the human MM on both language perception and understanding is addressed, focusing on recent studies on the integration between symbolic gestures and speech. We conclude documenting some evidence about MM in coding also the emotional aspects conveyed by manual, facial and body signals during communication, and how they act in concert with language to modulate other’s message comprehension and behavior, in line with an “embodied” and integrated view of social interaction.

Symbolic gesturing: creating opportunities for emotional connections between practitioners and infants in day care

ABSTRACT This article reports on how symbolic gesturing was applied in a nursery setting. Forms of signing systems have been well documented as contributing to communication, predominately used alongside speech when there is a different mother tongue or a physical impairment [Goodwyn, S. W., & Acredolo, L. P. (1993). Symbolic gesture versus word: Is there a modality advantage for onset of symbol use? Child Development, 6, 688–701]. Symbolic Gesturing (SG) is an emerging area to support pre-verbal infants in communicating more effectively. In this article, SG was evaluated as way of reflecting and developing practitioner’s emotional responses and initiations with the infants in their care. The narratives of three practitioners using SG were gathered over several months and revealed how SG created further opportunities for reflection regarding the emotional relationships with infants they cared for. SG was considered a valuable approach to enhancing the emotional interactional connections with infants, resulting in closer, more attuned relationships.

Strategic Gestures in Bill McKibben's Climate Change Rhetoric

Although Bill McKibben is widely recognized as one of the leading strategists of the US climate change movement, several observers identify significant limitations to his approach to climate advocacy and politics. These criticisms are based on his reliance upon “symbolic gestures,” such as campaigns to promote fossil fuel divestment and stop fossil fuel infrastructure construction. In this essay we reconsider McKibben’s work, drawing specifically on his speeches given from 2013-2016 in support of the fossil fuel divestment campaign and campaigns attempting to block the construction of fossil fuel infrastructure, in order to show how McKibben’s strategic orientation is grounded in a politics of gesture. His speeches provide a model for how to reconceive gestures and assemble them for political ends. Beyond the case of McKibben our analysis contributes the concept of strategic gestures to identify and theorize social movement interventions that have significant symbolic and material consequences.

'You Are What You Read:' Is selective exposure a way people tell us who they are?

Selective exposure is the tendency to gather viewpoint-congenial versus viewpoint-uncongenial information. Extant models of selective exposure suggest this tendency occurs because people anticipate reading congenial (vs. uncongenial) information will cause more favourable intrapersonal consequences. However, these models ignore the notion that people's information choices are, in part, symbolic gestures designed to convey identity-relevant beliefs to an audience through information display. Drawing from perspectives that emphasize human consumption as symbolic and a way to signal one's identity, we suggest that selective exposure pertains not only to information processing but also to conveying identity through information display. Experiment 1 showed that people characterize information display as a way to communicate their views to an audience. Experiments 2-4 showed that people are averse to displaying uncongenial versus congenial information (without processing the information), anticipate feeling more uncomfortable and more inauthentic merely displaying (without processing) uncongenial versus congenial information, and that people's intentions to engage in selective exposure in daily life are a function of their belief that selective-exposure displays convey their identity. None of these studies or findings can be generated from extant selective-exposure theories. Thus, selective-exposure theories are likely incomplete because they ignore people's beliefs and goals regarding information display.

KONSEP KEPERIBADIAN DAN KESANTUNAN WANITA MELAYU MENURUT PERSPEKTIF IBU ZAIN

Women are considered the nucleus of a family, country, and civilization. This is due to the fact that they act as a cornerstone in producing good, beneficial and useful generations of the future. The value, personality, and self-respect of women are increasingly becoming more marginalized due to the current borderline digitalized globalized, modernized transformed the modern world. This study aims at evaluating Ibu Zain’s concept of personality and politeness of the Malay woman. The concept of personality and politeness are the essence of the study since the two elements denote the ontological existence of a woman in examining the value of personality as a symbolic gesture of Malay woman, and in analyzing the value of politeness possessed by the Malay lady. This is a qualitative study and it uses the interpretation method approach. Data collection was entirely done through library research by referencing to relevant documents written by this scholar and other related articles of other scholars. Data analysis was in the form of descriptive textual analysis of the concept of personality and politeness. The findings show that the Malay woman symbolizes the strength of the nation with its own uniqueness based on polite behavior, high morale, and sincere struggle in developing the race of the nation, besides freeing themselves from the injustices of colonization and men of cowardice. The impact of this study is fundamentally on the development and empowerment of Malay women holistically. This is due to the significance of Ibu Zain’s idea during that time, crystallized during this period and for the future, inspired to continue defending the identity of a dignified Malay woman.

The Long Drive to Prison

The Long Drive to Prison

The Return of the Jews: Jewish Owners of Amsterdam Real Estate and the Ground Rent, 1938–1949

The most recent public discussion on the return of deported Jews to the Netherlands took place in April 2013. On 30 March of that year, the Amsterdam daily Het Parool broke the forgotten story of how Amsterdam municipality in 1947 had imposed a fine of 3 percent per year on Jewish leaseholders, upon their return from Nazi captivity or from hiding, on any ground rent arrears that had accrued in their absence. The two authors who have written most extensively on this topic, Hinke Piersma and Jeroen Kemperman, have wrongly interpreted this fine as a typical example of the lack of solidarity of the municipality with the persecuted Jews. My findings – based on the original documents – suggest pretty much the exact opposite: the decision by local Amsterdam politicians to reduce these fines from six to three percent for Jews in particular was in reaction to Jewish protests and intended as a symbolic gesture to acknowledge the plight of the persecuted and decimated Jews.

Taking stock of Climate Change Acts in Europe: living policy processes or symbolic gestures?

ABSTRACTSince the UK introduced a Climate Change Act (CCA) in 2008, similar legislation has followed in a number of states, with each having a slightly different take. What unites these examples is that they all represent framework legislation that aims to facilitate climate change mitigation by creating continuous policy processes whereby mechanisms for the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are developed and implemented. This article is concerned with the extent to which they are living policy processes or rather symbolic gestures. We analyse seven European CCAs with regard to GHG emission reduction targets, planning/implementation mechanisms, and feedback/evaluations prescribed by the laws. These three features correspond with three aspects of climate policy integration (CPI): interpretations of CPI as a norm; CPI as a process of governing; CPI as a policy outcome. We show that CCAs address all three aspects of CPI and constitute living policy processes, although to varying extents. However, CCAs are also policy processes in that they are part of a political system, affected by political forces external to the legislation, positively and negatively.Key policy insightsCCAs can provide a normative basis for policymaking on climate change at the national level, especially through quantitative emission reduction targets.Whilst CCAs can bring some stability and predictability to policymaking on climate change (mainly because legislation is more difficult to amend or remove than policy strategies), they are still vulnerable to political developments.Most CCAs lack either short/medium-term (Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Sweden) or long-term (Austria) targets. Given EU Member States’ aim to decarbonise in the next three decades and the Paris Agreement's global goal of pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C, states need to find ways to guide this process. One approach could be the inclusion of short-term, medium-term and long-term targets in their CCAs.Since sanctioning mechanisms are lacking across all the CCAs analysed here, it is not clear what will happen if legally binding targets are not met. Just as it is difficult to imagine speed limits and speed cameras without accompanying penalties, it is hard to imagine how CCAs without sanctions can deliver decarbonization.

Making a symbolic gesture: a qualitative examination of self-immolation in Iran

Self-immolation is one of the most dramatic methods of committing suicide. Some regions in Iran have a high prevalence of suicide by this method. This study aims to understand and explore the experience of self-immolated women in Iran. Twenty women have interviewed in the burns centers of three different cities immediately the following hospitalization due self-immolation, and the data was analyzed using conventional content analysis. The results were categorized in three main categories: Cultural background and preparing the stage, making a symbolic gesture and events of the day of the incident. Making a symbolic gesture consists of the critical elements of self-immolation, including the presence of significant others, dramatic presentation of misery, bringing an end to misfortune, proof of innocence, creating a sense of compassion or guilt and inspiration from similar cases. The social situation of women in Iran is contributing to self-immolation through feelings of anger and helplessness.

“There Needs to Be Full Recognition of Who We Are Beyond Symbolic Gestures”: Indigenous People's Stories About Their Education and Experiences

This article focuses on 10 Indigenous peoples' reflections on their experiences in Canadian schools. Through government legislation, policies and attitudes, past and present, educational systems have systematically and consistently denied and devalued Indigenous educational systems and ways of being. This article provides insights into the experiences of Indigenous peoples in educational settings where their Indigenous identity was ignored or suppressed. It also recommends ways in which educational systems may be improved to better meet the needs of Indigenous students. The students' stories demonstrate that Indigenous intellectual traditions remain strong, are firmly grounded in the land on which their ancestors lived, and that the honoring of Indigenous lands and territories is at the core of Indigenous well-being and learning.

From Whizzoh to Bollocks: The Exclamatory Language of Moral Collapse in Lord of the Flies

William Golding’s 1954 novel Lord of the Flies has been dissected for its symbolic objects and gestures―such as the conch, Piggy’s glasses, the fire, and Jack’s mask―as a means of reading the novel’s allegorical and religious depiction of human evil. The conch itself has productive associations with speech and parliaments, and Golding’s range of language registers in descrip tion and dialogue has also been discussed. Yet one minor but suggestive aspect as yet overlooked is the boys’ exclamatory interjections and profani ties, which are not random but form a structurally intelligent thematic contin uum. The exclamations categorically progress from playfully defiant ono matopoeic sounds and humorous body-oriented expressions, to angrier ani mal comparisons and humiliating references to sexual acts, finishing with complex abstractions such as religious blasphemies. These spontaneous utter ances provide conversational realism but also meaningfully mirror and index the ongoing moral maturation and corruption of the characters in their rising offensiveness, lexical power and aggressiveness, and instrumental uses as tools of violence and dominance.

Developing a Hand Gesture Recognition System for Mapping Symbolic Hand Gestures to Analogous Emojis in Computer-Mediated Communication

Recent trends in computer-mediated communication (CMC) have not only led to expanded instant messaging through the use of images and videos but have also expanded traditional text messaging with richer content in the form of visual communication markers (VCMs) such as emoticons, emojis, and stickers. VCMs could prevent a potential loss of subtle emotional conversation in CMC, which is delivered by nonverbal cues that convey affective and emotional information. However, as the number of VCMs grows in the selection set, the problem of VCM entry needs to be addressed. Furthermore, conventional means of accessing VCMs continue to rely on input entry methods that are not directly and intimately tied to expressive nonverbal cues. In this work, we aim to address this issue by facilitating the use of an alternative form of VCM entry: hand gestures. To that end, we propose a user-defined hand gesture set that is highly representative of a number of VCMs and a two-stage hand gesture recognition system (trajectory-based, shape-based) that can identify these user-defined hand gestures with an accuracy of 82%. By developing such a system, we aim to allow people using low-bandwidth forms of CMCs to still enjoy their convenient and discreet properties while also allowing them to experience more of the intimacy and expressiveness of higher-bandwidth online communication.