Symbolic Place Research Articles

The Aesthetics of Jordanian Place in the Novel The Flood Notebooks by Jordanian Writer Samiha Khrais

This research studied and analyzed the aesthetics of the Jordanian place in the novel The Flood Notebooks by the Jordanian writer Samiha Khrais. The importance of this novel lies in the fact that it is a social-historical novel that depicts a Jordanian place in the 1930s. Its writer was able to combine truth with imagination to present an artistic work whose events are derived from history, yet it is not a historical document; rather, it is a work of art, and the writer excelled in its construction. The two researchers studied the place in this novel within the framework of specific dualities of both the historical and contemporary place, the open and closed place, and the real and symbolic place. The study of duality, or opposites, is at the heart of the structural studies of meaning, which took as its starting point the duality of phenomena, claiming that it is a characteristic of human thought. However, the present study will not stop at these dualities alone; rather, it will benefit from the current semiotics due to the interest they provide in structure and meaning and the ability to interpret texts according to the context in which they appear.

장소만들기 관점에서 본 김해 구산동 묘역지석묘의 공간구현 전략

The dolmen with surrounding stone platform of Gusan-dong, Gimhae, was a megalithic monument built to realize political purposes. This was the creation of a new landscape and the result of creating a kind of place with added social function and symbolic mean-ing. In making such a place, spatial implementation strategies that considered the physical environment of the time, the activities of local residents, and symbolic aspects were used. First, a strategy was used to form a central image by dramatically highlighting the characteristics of the construction space of the dolmen. The dolmen with surrounding stone platform in Gusan-dong was in a path that controlled movement throughout the Gimhae Basin, and occupied a node that could exert influence and play a role as a central point of the region. In addition, it had a spatial status that connected the physical and psychological boundaries divided by the Haebancheon River and wetlands, and integrated the location and foreign culture. Above all, the dolmen was a landmark representing visibility and sym-bolism, forming the central image of the local community and acting as a place with a spe-cial meaning. The second place-making strategy was the creation of space sequences and activity spaces that induced the repetitive experiences of the dolmen. The dolmen was built at the intersection of the axis of the Gimhae Basin, which formed a circular structure that induced a dynamic physical experience. In addition, the platform of the dolmen formed a segment through changes in the shape, height difference, and material of the structure and had the effect of inducing a strong visual experience. The visibility of the dolmen also induced con-tinuous visual experiences to local residents moving along the axis. On the other hand, it is highly likely that the platform was used as a space for repetitive ritual activities, and this seems to have influenced the formation of the placeness of the dolmen. The third strategy was the realization of a symbolic place that implies historicality. At that time, the Gimhae Basin was creating a politically meaningful place by adopting the dolmens with surrounding stone platforms as seen at 294 Daeseong-dong. It was the Gu-san-dong dolmen that expanded and reproduced these traditional tombs. This was a politi-cal act emphasizing the symbolism of the dolmen through the spatial expansion and visual-ization of the traditional order, and the symbolic landscape at the local level was converted to the regional level of the Gimhae Basin.

Editorial: Enhancing Regional Resilience

Welcome to this special issue where we explore the role of hospitality services in sustaining communities especially in terms of enhancing regional resilience. In this issue, a range of topic areas are covered including service learning, operational risk management, hotel subscription models, staycations, virtual reality, cultural resilience, luxury transportation and Vanaprastha Tourism. With each of the research papers in this issue, the focus is on the provision of hospitality services and in particular the unique relationship between hosts and guests. The studies show that various factors need to come together for quality hospitality services to be delivered and that it is the interplay between hosts and guests that has important implications for organisations and associated communities. The studies highlight that hospitality is about creating spaces where a range of services are experienced, e.g., food, drink, accommodation, transportation, and entertainment. In turn, hospitality spaces are at the intersections of a range of issues such as social interactions, physical spaces, symbolic places, loyalty, transformation, embodiment, inclusivity, and resilience. These papers present insights into the importance of hospitality services to not only travellers and their experiences and memories but also to sustained social and economic activities of communities and their respective regions. They contribute significantly to understanding and knowledge of regional resilience and augment past, present and emerging discourses on the nature and role of hospitality and provision of hospitality services for enhancing regional and community resilience and sustainability. They generate ideas for policies, practices and future research. Individually and collectively, the insights provided by these papers lend opportunities for establishing resilient and sustainable hospitality operations into the future.

Reasons to understand the symbolic importance of Ricardo Darín in the Argentine audiovisual universe

Argentine actor Ricardo Darín is the one who attracts the largest audiences in each of the films he stars in. He occupies a very important symbolic place within the national star system, and even in the country’s public arena. In this article, I go back to his television career to explain how, in his long career, there were two key products that helped to consolidate his persona, and at the same time allowed him to turn it around: the sitcom Mi cuñado (Carlos Berterreix, 1993-1996) and the feature film Nueve reinas (Fabián Bielinsky, 1999). I propose that his star text was shaped by the tension between the stereotype of the chanta (the rogue) –of long tradition and popularity in Argentine arts– and the measured middle-class young man. The qualitative leap between the two occurred between the peak of his television popularity and his consolidation as a film star of international scope.

Latinxs in the house? Latinx migration and culture in Madrid

This commentary explores some of the cultural practices among people of Latin American origin living in Madrid. By establishing a link between Latinx migration and the process of racialization, the author describes how contemporary archives are being created and the ways that “migrant culture” is expressed and perceived in modern-day Spain, using the term “Latinx” as a critical category that refers to Latin American “Xs” living in the diaspora. This preliminary inquiry keys into the following question: What is the cultural history of Latinx communities in Madrid and how was this history constructed? In this way, the piece contextualizes the conflicts and misunderstandings experienced by Latinx migrants upon arrival in the host society from the standpoint of taking ownership of spaces of signification to generate a sense of belonging through cultural practices and creative projects. For these communities, such spaces are tangible and symbolic places of action, meaning making, and resistance. Culture—both its everyday manifestations and specifically artistic practices—is a critical space of expression, creativity, and thought. This makes it a suitable way to incorporate the migrant population into a new perception of Spanish national identity, thus generating enough of a sense of belonging.

Life experiences and cultural adaptation among migrant workers in Malaysia

This study examines the state of migrants’ cultural adaptation in Malaysia, and how such an adaptation can help build our understanding of migrants’ life and employment experiences in the country. In doing so, this study has adopted a quantitative approach, with a completed survey towards 410 migrant respondents, living and working temporarily in Selangor, Malaysia. A multiple regression analysis finds that the three most significant predictors contributing to the respondents’ cultural adaptation are “positive experiences” (β = .677, p = .000), “closeness” (β = − .107, p = .008), and “social relationships” (β = .095, p = .032). While “positive experiences” and “social relationships” influence the migrant workers’ adaptation positively, the “closeness” predictor on the contrary (negative). Another predictor, “disconnection”, is found to be not statistically significant. The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) reveals significant differences in the respondents’ cultural adaptation based on such demographic characteristics as age, gender, level of education, nationality, length of employment, and sector of employment. For instance, female migrants are strongly associated with a higher level of “positive experiences” [F(1, 408) = 6.321, p = .013] and “social relationships” [F(1, 408) = 5.634, p = .018], while male migrants tend to rely on cultural proximity (i.e., “closeness”) [F(1, 408) = 6.828, p = .009]. The discussion section highlights attributes such as the gender factor in cultural adaptation, preservation of cultural identities, and creation of migrants’ symbolic places to understand how cultural adaptation intersects with the migrant workers’ daily lives and experiences. This study concludes that as Malaysia’s economy continues to rely on migrant workers, it needs to better understand the workers’ cultural adaptation and their far-reaching impact on their life experiences and employment conditions in the country.

A Gestão Ordinária na Comunidade Quilombola Paiol de Telha no Paraná: Memórias das Lideranças sobre as Práticas Cotidianas Antes da Expulsão do Território

Abstract The aim of the present study is to learn more about the ordinary management of daily practices based on memories told and experienced by leaders at Quilombola Community “Invernada Paiol de Telha - Fundão” before they were expelled from their territory in 1974. Management practices in ordinary men’s daily life are not set from academic knowledge, but rather developed in a very peculiar way based on both their experiences and the context they live in. The qualitative methodology was herein adopted and it meant researchers’ insertion in this community and working with oral and written sources, mainly with oral history. Results have shown that “Fundão” set conviviality bonds by producing memories in order to turn space into symbolic places. It allowed better understanding their daily lives as space enabling the adoption of verb “to manage” linked to “Knowhow”. It is possible observing that practices adopted before their expelling from the territory were full of activities stressed by residents’ personal and collective repertoires about their routines and by the very essence of their management. Housing, eating and subsistence practices were observed at first, and solidarity, faith and leisure were the target in a second moment. Ancient community leaders “gave voice” to ancestral territoriality by recalling these daily practices. Such a territoriality highlighted the perspective of territory as space for lived experiences, whose relationship between Fundão residents and nature (physical and social) aimed at associations full of feelings and symbolisms represented by places.

The Mediterranean at the Dawn of the Third Millennium

The Mediterranean, after the end of the Cold War and the massacres of 11.9.2001 in New York and 7.10.2023 in Israel, is at the center of new conflicts and international imbalances. The crisis of Western hegemony is confirmed and intertwined with growing migratory flows, desertification and poverty produced by new financial selfishness and climate change, genocides and wars involving old and new forms of colonialism. Also, the Mediterranean is confronted with the new protagonism of the South of the world. “Our Sea” is a symbolic place for new conceptions of Identity, Race and God, and of the desire for freedom from old and new fears.

Between Alienation and Revolution

Following the tracks of the soiree collectives in the metropolitan area of Belo Horizonte, this article aims at analysing the role of the dimension of everyday life, which according to Lefebvre means the constant movement between the tendency to repeat and the capacity for social transformation, the constant movement between routine and invention. These collectives are formed by young people, most of them residents of peripheral areas who have revealed themselves to be holders of a new subjectivity capable of explaining their place in the world and justifying their existence drawing from the pride of being peripheral, which results in a new way of political action. The daily life lived, perceived, and conceived in the context of their social and symbolic place occupied by the peripheries and their social actors has been reframed in the face of a set of social transformations and, consequently, it produces new public spheres and new ways of expression of emancipatory struggles. The ethnography carried out seeks to apprehend the intertwining of poetry, performance, and the occupation of public space. The critique of everyday life reveals those patterns of behaviour, organization strategies of groups and subgroups, networks of relationships and networks of meanings, as well as systems of material and symbolic exchanges. Indeed, such collectives are expressions of everyday resistance, manifested in poetry, in bodily expressions, in the way activities are organized and performed. In these soirees, critical and political reflections are collectively created, making the creative and liberating capacity emerge.

Symbolic Places in D. H. Lawrence’s England, My England and The Border Line

Symbolic Places in D. H. Lawrence’s England, My England and The Border Line

SOVIET MONUMENTAL PROPAGANDA PROBLEMS IN WESTERN UKRAINIAN LANDS IN 1944 – 1953

The article characterizes the problems of Soviet monumental propaganda in the Western Ukrainian lands in the post-war years, mainly related to building monuments of republican significance. Based on the analysis of archival documents, the author has outlined the peculiarities of legislative regulation and financing of the monuments’ construction, which affected the delay or non-implementation of government decrees regarding the construction of memorials. The financial problems and the shortcomings of the Soviet bureaucratic system have been described in the example of the building of monuments to Lenin in L’viv, Drohobych and Chernivtsi, the monument to Oleko Dundych in Rivne, the “Hill of Glory” in L’viv, and the military cemetery in Stanislav. The reasons contributing to the failure to fulfill the tasks of monumental propaganda included the limitation of funding for building monuments by both the central and republican authorities, the lack of funds in local budgets, and the delay in submitting or approving project or financial documentation. Furthermore, an ideological factor has been identified as the primary reason for postponing the construction of memorials to Ivan Franko and Taras Shevchenko in L’viv. The author concluded that Soviet memory politics, which aimed to Sovietize the memorial space rapidly, lacked the resources to create essential symbolic places to disseminate Soviet commemorative culture in the Western Ukrainian lands effectively. The delay in constructing new monuments of republican significance caused dissatisfaction among the party leadership, which demanded an immediate solution to these problems. These demands, in turn, resulted in cost-cutting measures during monument building, leading to deviations from their original projects. The article pays particular attention to the issue of the quality of typical monuments to the state’s leaders and fallen soldiers of the Soviet army, which was also one of the problems of Soviet monumental propaganda.

Tracing Mobility Patterns of Buried Species of the Late Iron Age Funerary Staggered Turriform of Son Ferrer (Calvià, Spain)

Abstract This is the first mobility 87Sr/86Sr analysis in human remains made on the Balearic Islands. Eight human individuals buried at the same Late Iron Age funerary chamber of Son Ferrer site (Calvià, Mallorca) have been sampled for strontium and oxygen isotopic analysis (87Sr/86Sr and δ 18O). The study includes strontium and oxygen isotopic analysis of domestic mammals buried in the same Funerary Area (FA1) together with present-day vegetation and archaeological bone to assess the strontium isotopic ratios (87Sr/86Sr) around the site. All the results are compatible with the 87Sr/86Sr documented in Mallorca and, more specifically, with the surrounding bedrocks from the site. Humans, caprines, and dogs provided similar results and no significant differences are found between the species. The only exception is a caprine which shows seasonal movement through the period of enamel mineralisation. The isotopic information agrees with the previous studies, which proposed that Son Ferrer site was a symbolic place for the surrounding territory where people from the nearby villages were buried.

The Good of Rules: A pilot study on prosocial behavior

In everyday life, individuals interact with relatives, friends, and colleagues, share ideas and passions, and cooperate with others to pursue common goals. Within each social domain, individuals recognize themselves as group members with rights and duties to observe. Encouraging mutually beneficial cooperation and promoting fairness perceptions are crucial for sustainable economic and societal development. This paper presents a pilot experiment named Good of Rules, an educational program for 11-year-old children from South Italy. The program introduces participants to institutions, legality, and social cohesion. Among other didactic activities, it includes two field trips to symbolic places and a role-playing game. The results suggest that the program attendance positively affects cooperation in a one-shot N-player Prisoner's Dilemma and altruism in a Dictator Game. Our findings contribute to the nature-nurture debate, showing that learning the benefits associated with prosocial behavior can be effective in pursuing the common good.

The Crusades and the Latin East in the Memories of the Hispanic Hospitallers (14th Century)

A set of memories forged an institutional history, disseminated for and by the Catalan, Aragonese, and Navarrese Hospitallers, that paid attention to the crusader past in the Latin East as justification for their functional and administrative features after the Order was re-founded in Rhodes. The translated versions of the statutes were a key means for transmitting the Order’s iconic references to the time of the crusades in the Holy Land. These images operated as a mirror that permitted Hospitallers to recreate identity functions and mythical characters in the most emblematic phase and places, after becoming the crusader Order par excellence in the eastern Mediterranean in Rhodes. Reports on military actions from the 12th to 13th centuries and other allusions stood out in a historiographical tour that extolled its mission and identified itself with symbolic places and people. All this was without forgetting the importance of their caring and religious roles in these narratives. This paper analyses the uses of the memory of the Eastern Hispanic priories of the 14th century found in the crusades and in the history of the Latin East fundamental arguments to affirm and guarantee the strong links between East and West in the headquarters in Rhodes.

‘The prettiest house of the region’: Performance and imagination of the industrial fishery heritage in Bonne-Espérance, Canada

ABSTRACT Between 1855 and 1960, a fishing industry developed on Bonne-Espérance Island, locally known as ‘Bony,’ on the Lower North Shore of Quebec, Canada. The site now abandoned and in ruins, is a symbolic place of local history and strongly linked to the fishing identity of Rivière-Saint-Paul village, where many of the descendants of those who lived and worked in that maritime extractive industry currently reside. I study this site using digital recording tools and a 3D reconstruction of its visible features. The house of the Whiteley family, owners of this fishing industry, is presented here to examine the industrial heritage of the recent past and the role that performance and imagination, encouraged by a collaborative archaeological project, play in the persistent resonance of the past in the present.

Stereotyp(y) Niemca/Niemiec w historiografii polskiej w latach 1945–1956

The stereotype(s) of Germans/Germany in Polish historiography in 1945–1956 Ethic stereotypes are frequently studied, although mainly by sociologists and psychologists. They are a form of social awareness usually examined in the context of large groups – societies, nations, less often social strata. In the present paper the research field has been limited to the stereotypes of Germans and Germany in Polish historiography from 1945–1956. It is an important period, because, given the dramatic situation of the war and German terror, we might expect a rise in anti-German prejudice at the time. Surprisingly, most historians from the period referred to anti-German stereotypes quite rarely and in a rather conventional manner. Very few scholars made stereotypes a category controlling their research conclusions. Ethnic generalisations included the unchanging nature of the Germans throughout history, their expansiveness, cruelty, hatred of Slavs and Poles, greed and hypocrisy, obedience to authority. A symbolic place was occupied by the Teutonic Knights and Prussians, and among individuals — by Frederick II and Otto von Bismarck. The situation changed in 1950, when the ethnic stereotypes were replaced with references to historical materialism. A vast majority of Polish historians did not accept this change in the context of German studies.

A Discursive Analysis of the Photo Essay Madres Terra

The present work analyzes the representations of the mourning of mothers of Soacha, Colombia, in the series of 15 photographs entitled Madres Terra, by the photographer Carlos Saavedra and the anthropologist Sebastián Ramírez, exhibited at the “Centro de Memoria, Paz y Reconciliación”, Bogotá, in 2018. Also called “false positives”, aged between 16 and 33 years old, hundreds of innocent young people were executed by the Colombian army on the grounds that they were in the service of illegal armed groups such as the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). The analysis pointed to the fact that, in addition to being a space for denouncing state crimes and fighting for justice, the photo essay works as a symbolic place for the elaboration of the mothers' mourning, as well as a way of resistance/persistence of memory, that is, a way of remembering in order not to forget. The theoretical basis is constituted by the Discourse Analysis of a materialist line, which works in the middle between Language, Unconscious and History. Methodologically, the notion of memory, discourse and text (Orlandi, 1999; 2001) are mobilized.

Axis Occupation and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus: Artistic Production under Fascism (1941–1942)

During the first two years of the Occupation of Greece by the Axis powers (1941–1942), the Odeon of Herodes Atticus had a symbolic place within fascist ideology. Legislative reform and a cultural revival of the ancient monument played a crucial role in the artistic expression of the occupying forces. Productions of Greek companies were tightly controlled by the Italian and German authorities, and fascist military personnel attended many of them. At the same time, German and Italian artists collaborated with Greek productions, staged their own events, and broadcast them to their homeland through radio transmission. It was, however, the German film Fronttheater (1942) that epitomized the fascist appropriation of the Roman Odeon as a monumental site of spectacle where war and fiction were inextricably interwoven. The film exhibited how the occupying powers enforced and exercised their cultural authority in Athens. In this regard, the fascist myth of ancestral rebirth transformed civic spaces into sites of spectacular politics.

Cultural Heritage and Religious Phenomenon between Urbicide and Cancel Culture: The Other Side of the Russian–Ukrainian Conflict

The Russian–Ukrainian conflict, in addition to causing an unacceptable loss of human life, is straining the integrity of Ukraine’s cultural heritage, despite the fact that both countries involved are parties to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its First Protocol. Churches are one of Ukraine’s most important historical assets, as well as symbolic places of Orthodox religious identity common to both the invaders and the invaded. The destruction of these places and their deliberate damage on the part of both sides appear to be part of a more general conflict concerning internal disagreements between Russian and Ukrainian Orthodoxy, which, in turn, reflect two different historical views of the Russian–Ukrainian relationship. A brief reconstruction of relations between the Orthodox Churches operating on the territory of Ukraine demonstrates how religious affiliation has affected the conflict, causing it to become decisive and deeply divisive, so much so that the Patriarchate of Moscow has become an active part of the conflict. This circumstance favours the hypothesis that it is precisely the religious cultural heritage that is most at risk of deliberate destruction. The Russians, by destroying the symbolic places of Ukrainian religious identity (urbicide), affirm the spiritual unity of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples. For their part, the Ukrainians attempt to erase the Russian presence and the common religious cultural roots by destroying buildings of worship dear to the tradition of the Moscow Patriarchate (cancel culture). They reject the imperial traditions of Russia and, at the same time, claim an independent Church. The question arises as to whether the reconstruction process following the war will take into account the original cultural–religious identities, or whether it will take the opportunity to adopt a new (also) religious identity instead, and whether the old and new instruments offered by law are adequate.

Learning ‘The Customs of their Fathers’: Irish Villages in Chicago’s Columbian Exposition, 1893

Abstract This article examines how a transnational vision of Ireland was created in the United States by two philanthropic women in Chicago’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Lady Aberdeen and Alice Hart each used accessible images of Ireland and the bodies of white exhibited women to authenticate their narrative of dying rural industries that needed to be revived. Their specific visions of Irish development and survival were located against the backdrop of significant Irish migration to the United States and capitalized on feelings of nostalgia popular among the newly settled Irish-American population. By trading on discourse of an Irish whiteness, a Scotswoman and Englishwoman foregrounded Ireland’s place in the imagined hierarchy of civilizations popular in the nineteenth century. They materially, physically and performatively manufactured Ireland as being at the apex of civilization narratives – positioned as the Irish Villages were at the start of the Midway Plaisance. If the Irish only laboured enough, produced enough, and consumed enough, their symbolic place in the fairground would ascend to the main arena of industry, technology, and capitalism – ensuring the survival of Ireland’s people and land. Through interrogating the multiple ways in which women’s bodies, rural industries, and commerce interacted in the space of the Fair, the article contributes to studies of Irish identities in Ireland, England, and the United States at the interface of race, gender, and class.