Transnational Approach Research Articles

Translational and Transnational Approaches in Comparative Criminological Research: A Content Analysis Focused on Asian Countries

Translational and Transnational Approaches in Comparative Criminological Research: A Content Analysis Focused on Asian Countries

Biblical Stories on the Medieval and Early Modern Stage: A Transnational Approach

Abstract This contribution offers a survey of the field of biblical drama research and of several approaches. It makes a plea for a transnational approach of studying early modern drama, especially biblical drama. Such a transnational approach is a continuation of many of these earlier approaches, makes use of some and breaks with others. The contribution also shows that it is important to include Neo-Latin drama in the study of early modern drama at the cost of losing sight on a crucial constituent part of the development of this drama and this theatre. Neo-Latin drama contributed to the knowledge and reception of the Bible among the elites and among the ordinary people who attended performances of these plays or of one of the many translations and adapations.

Feminist aesthetics: then and now – reflections on thirty-five years of inquiry in the US tradition

Marking the thirty-fifth anniversary since its emergence in the United States, feminist aesthetics commemorates its significant contributions to feminist philosophical inquiry. This anniversary provides an opportunity to reflect on the field's current status and its potential to further enrich philosophical discourse. This article sets out to (a) synthesise the existing theoretical frameworks within feminist aesthetics, (b) delineate its subject matter and (c) chart the dominant trends and interventions marking feminist engagements with aesthetics. In contemporary feminist debates, aesthetics often occupies a peripheral position, a phenomenon attributed to its perceived detachment from the socio-political core of feminism (Plonowska-Ziarek) and its dismissal as a ‘feminine’ or ‘girly’ discipline (Brand Weiser). This marginalisation is further compounded by critiques of the field's allegedly slow response to the ideas, problems and methodologies present in related domains and broader philosophical inquiry (Eaton). So, despite acknowledging the vital role of aesthetics within feminist philosophy, the articulation of a systematic and coherent feminist aesthetic theory remains elusive. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the most significant and representative positions within feminist aesthetics in the US tradition. The first section introduces the topic of feminist aesthetics. The second section examines feminist interventions in aesthetics, including their evolution towards intersectional and transnational approaches. The challenges of establishing autonomy within and defining feminist aesthetics are discussed in the third, fourth and fifth sections. The sixth section explores the main currents of feminist aesthetics: (a) historical-critical, (b) essentialist (revisionism vs perspectivism), (c) gynocentric and (d) anti-theoretical.

‘Make it look a little like a festival’: Film exhibition and festival organizing at Films Femmes Méditerranée during the COVID-19 pandemic

This article attends to the strategies of survival, affective labour, and practices of care – for women’s film work and publics – within women’s film festivals during the COVID-19 pandemic through the case study of Films Femmes Méditeranée, a women’s film festival based in Marseille, France. The festival was founded in 2007 to give visibility to the work of female filmmakers from the Mediterranean through a curated program of films, showcased in art-house theatres, with free screenings for young audiences, students, the unemployed, and people living on social benefits. Drawing on interviews conducted with workers at Films Femmes Méditeranée, I first provide an overview of the history and the mandate of Films Femmes Méditeranée in relation to the legacy of early women’s film festivals by bringing to light the work of care carried on in the context of Marseille. I will then analyse Films Femmes Méditeranée’s practices of curation and care through digital media during the pandemic. Through a consideration of the labour of film programming and festival organizing vis-à-vis social distancing measures and an examination of curatorial choices, I interrogate how Films Femmes Méditeranée has adapted to the pandemic crisis through digital media to maintain its commitment to fostering transnational approaches to women’s film culture and to provide a space for encounters between female filmmakers and audiences.

A dynamic and critical approach to belonging as a dimension of occupation

ABSTRACT Doing, being, becoming, and belonging have been theorized as dimensions of occupation, yet belonging has received comparatively less attention from occupational scientists. The occupation-based literature tends to equate belonging with connectedness and to take a sedentarist approach in which (transnational) mobilities are considered as a challenge for occupational engagement and belonging. This paper critically examines belonging as developed through occupations and considers its constructed, dynamic, and multifaceted nature in the context of migration. Our theoretical framework is informed by transnational approaches, the mobilities paradigm, and transculturality. We draw from a cross-national comparative ethnography including 86 interviews with recent Vietnamese migrants in Vancouver, Canada, and Paris, France, as well as returning migrants in Vietnam. Our findings address participants’ belonging with regards to 1) routines, social ties, and familiarity; 2) mobile and immobile occupations; and 3) (post-)colonial politics of belonging. This study deepens understandings of the dynamic nature of occupation and belonging as well as how both are shaped by and can reproduce power dynamics. First, we contend that occupation and belonging are inherently situated, yet are not necessarily bounded to a single location. Belonging develops through routine occupations involving familiar people, objects, and amenities, which can themselves be mobile or accessible in multiple settings. Second, we emphasize how some occupations can become benchmarks for belonging, particularly in Western immigrant-receiving countries influenced by assimilationist and (post-)colonial dynamics. Lastly, we underscore individuals’ agency in employing occupations in ways to negotiate and claim belonging to their receiving and/or sending countries.

SHAPING AMERICA'S PERCEPTION OF MUSLIMS: The Transnational Approach to Globalization’s Role in Popular Culture

SHAPING AMERICA'S PERCEPTION OF MUSLIMS: The Transnational Approach to Globalization’s Role in Popular Culture

The Study of National Identities at World Fairs – from Methodological Nationalism to Transnational Approaches and Cultural Isomorphism

The study of national representations at world fairs could provide a strong incentive to the field of nationalism studies, since it enables the construction of national identities to be studied as a global process. This way, it can be shown that the process of national identity construction during the heyday of the world fairs between 1851 and the 1930s demonstrated many converging tendencies. This introductory article is divided into five sections. First, I will show how national and other territorial identities have been shaped at world fairs during the second half of the nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth century. The second section will provide a brief overview of developments in the field of nationalism studies, where scholars have recently placed more emphasis on transnational and bottom-up approaches, while trying to overcome the dichotomy between nation-states and empires. The third section assesses the contributions on nationalism at world fairs published in this and the previous issue of Studies on National Movements, showing how they already integrate many fresh perspectives. In the fourth part, I argue that more attention should be given to the construction of national identities as a global process, showing that world fairs actually had a strong isomorphic effect, as countries increasingly adopted common elements and templates in order to give shape to their national identities. The final section shows that world fairs reflected the existing international order, developed a common taxonomy to categorize human productivity, created a global conceptual framework, defined the main components of a national identity and created successful templates in order to display them for an international audience. World fairs as a consequence had a lasting and homogenizing effect on national identities around the globe.

From criminal radicalism to gay and lesbian lobbyism: a transnational approach to the Scandinavian homophile movement, 1948–1971

ABSTRACT This article describes and analyzes the development of the three Scandinavian national associations for homo- and bisexuals from their founding in 1948 through 1971. This is the first time these associations are analysed as a transnational network rather than nationally divided entities. Using documentary evidence from the national archives of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden as well as other archives, this article establishes the development of the Scandinavian movement based on primary evidence, and is thus able to correct, nuance, and expand upon the ‘oral traditions’ that have been the standard in Scandinavian historiography in this field. The article argues that the transnational angle on the movement brings out new perspectives and offers a new periodization of homophile or gay and lesbian activist history. It concludes that the Scandinavian movements cannot be fitted into the typical American timeline of gay and lesbian activism, and thus opens the question of how European LGBT history differs from those in the United States.

Management Configurations in an Internationalized Brazilian Organization: Human Resources Management, Market and Labor Relations Dynamics

The article analyzes the different configurations of management in a family-owned and recently internationalized firm and observes how the organization understands human resources management (HRM), market dynamics and labor relations in different contexts. This qualitative research consists of a case study based on a field survey and in-depth interviews with human resources managers in a large Brazilian family-owned organization operating in South America. The findings point out differences in management in the firm’s manufacturing plants depending on the country and similarities of the HRM practices within the same country. It was possible to observe a transitioning form of HRM toward the strategic level in the case of Brazil. However, this form of HRM is subsidiary to the traditional notion of HRM in other Latin American countries. Also, the firm monitors the labor market, and the labor relations it establishes are adapted according to the country. The study contributes theoretically by discussing management configurations for HRM, market and labor relations under a transnational approach, and the methodology allows comparative research. Finally, the research offers an empirical contribution by illustrating the management dynamics of a family-owned and recently internationalized firm in different regions of South America.

Activating Displaced Radio Archives: The German ‘Loot Collection’ (Kořistní Fond) At Czech Radio

This paper examines the obstacles to studying and using displaced radio archives, taking as a case study a collection of historic recordings from Nazi Germany that is held at the Czech Radio archive in Prague. This so-called ‘Loot Collection’ (Kořistní fond) occupies an awkward position between established categories and is confronted simultaneously by the challenges common to historic sound archives, and those specific to collections which have been displaced from their point of origin. The paper shares some early analysis of the history and content of this collection, and argues for a transnational approach to ‘activate’ other overlooked archival collections whose history and relevance spreads across contemporary national borders.

Keterlibatan Santri dalam Persepsi Wacana Tiongkok

Santris who have had the opportunity to go to China then face some contemplation, questions, and curiosity about what is really going on in the relationship between the two countries. Not all but some of them try to trace the substance and variations of Indonesians’ perceptions of China in the past. It’s like a philosophical romance where a child migrates to a foreign land but because of their migration, they become curious about their hometown. In scientific language, they try to slowly trace the existence of negative perceptions of China. They even unconsciously dismantle, although not frontally, the bad and negative image. Following Hong Liu’s (2015) opinion on the Chinese Metaphor, where China is used as a metaphor to express a sense of anxiety over domestic politics that is not going according to ideals, then, the santri are trying to dismantle the conflicting perceptions and narratives about China. For Indonesians, especially natives, Tiongkok as a nation-state is respected as a model country where leaders set an example so that the masses can work closely together. How the Chinese metaphor expresses the mood of the general public and anchors political and cultural thought in the early days of Indonesia as a country. Hong Liu even provides historical information that China for some Indonesian political elites was once used as an alternative form of modernity to the conception and practice of government politics that at that time still followed and emulated Western-derived systems and institutions. This study tries to apply a transnational approach to provide new insights into modern Asian History and regional transformation.

Photography between Publicity and Politics

Georgina Karvellas was one of the few women photographers documenting apartheid South Africa for several decades. She produced work for the fashion and music sector next to striking documentary work with a clear stance against the government’s segregationist policy. Inscribing Karvellas into the histories of photography, film and art, this article highlights the intersections of her work between commercial and political photography as well as between issues of gender, race and class through a careful reading of the various frameworks into which it has been placed and the reasons for them. As she worked at a time when the freedom of movement of South Africa’s majority population was severely restricted, a particular focus is on Karvellas’s transnational approach and the question to what extent her choice of commercial photography might have closed doors for her, such as inclusion in the artistic canon, while giving her greater freedom in crossing borders.

Публичная дипломатия США в отношении центральноазиатских стран

Introduction. Public diplomacy is an effective foreign policy instrument of the state. Public diplomacy is understood as the activity of an actor aimed at achieving foreign policy objectives by establishing and deepening long-term interstate relations. The purpose of such activities is to inform foreign audiences as well as broadcast the principles of national policy beyond the borders of one’s own state. Public diplomacy is designed to influence those who have the opportunity to shape public belief systems. Methods and materials. The methodological basis of the study was a transnational approach, which allows us to reveal the role of state and non-state actors in international relations. The work uses a systematic approach in order to form a holistic view of American public diplomacy as an instrument of “soft power.” To identify the individual tools used by the United States in promoting public diplomacy in each individual Central Asian country, a comparative method was used. Analysis and results. Public diplomacy seems to be an important tool of the American administration in the most important foreign policy areas. The priority instrument of US public diplomacy in the Central Asian region is the support of civil society and non-profit organizations. Using grant support mechanisms, the role of public organizations is strengthened, and dialogue between civil society and government authorities is encouraged in the formation and development of socio-economic policy. The second relevant tool is media support and working with information consumers among various segments of the population. According to the results of the study, it was revealed that these projects were most effectively implemented in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan. The third most successful tool is education, whose work is based on grant programs both in the republics and in the United States. Systematic work carried out, taking into account a deep understanding of the internal processes in the Central Asian republics as well as the active use of public diplomacy tools, allows the United States to strengthen its foreign policy potential in the region.

Repatriation Policy of the Republic of Kazakhstan: from “Oralman” to “Kandas”

The article analyzes the repatriation policy of the Kazakhstan from the era of the late USSR 1991 until our days and presents field materials of the research conducted in different cities from 2019 to 2021 (Ust-Kamenogorsk, Astana, the villages of Akmola region - Karaotkel and Koyandy). We have used materials of the field expeditions conducted in 2014 and 2019 in Western Mongolia (Bayan-Ulgiy) among ethnic Kazakhs. During the field expeditions, the goal was to identify the reasons for repatriation and find out the process of integration of immigrants into Kazakhstani society. It was supposed to answer the question of whether the repatriation policy could be considered successful. The authors relied on a transnational approach to study the process of the return of ethnic Kazakhs to their historical homelandas well as the theory of acculturation, through the prism of which the problems of repatriation are shown.The authors were guided by the method of biographical interviewing and participant observation. The article uses archival materials extracted from the National Archives of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Astana) and the Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Almaty). The reason for migration for repatriates is not only their desire to reunite with their homeland. One of the attractive factors is the desire for self-preservation of ethnicity and ensuring a successful life for the repatriates themselves and their children. The integration of repatriates takes place in different ways depending on the country of origin and on the generation of those who arrived. There are certain boundaries and rejection both between the migrants themselves, the repatriates and the locals, which are manifested not only in their behavior towards each other but also in a broader sociocultural understanding.

The Kyrgyz Diaspora in the Regions of Russia: Transnationalism and Migrants’ Problems

This article considers the current formation of the Kyrgyz diaspora. Scholarly literature persists in attempting to interpret Kyrgyz communities outside their homeland as diaspora, which makes the issue relevant. Methodologically, the study draws on a transnational approach, which makes it possible to understand the relationships and connections between the place of residence and the local homeland, with reference to Kyrgyz nationals, and to compare the diaspora itself and transnational communities or, as T. Faist puts it, “two awkward partners in the dance”. The author refers to data from the Kyrgyz Diaspora Mapping Project, carried out under the auspices of the International Organisation for Migration in 2021, as well as in-depth unstructured interviews collected during the author’s fieldwork in Chelyabinsk (47 interviewees), Yekaterinburg (19 interviewees), and Krasnoyarsk (14 interviewees). On average, the interviews lasted for half an hour, and the gender ratio in the group of informants was 31 women and 49 men. The author considers the following parameters of belonging to the diaspora: diaspora and transnationalism, participation in the activities of Kyrgyz public organisations, settlement of Kyrgyz migrants, their orientation to their historical homeland, and specificity of identity. This review tells us more about the absence or incompleteness of the Kyrgyz diaspora in Russia. It is noted that, on the one hand, Kyrgyz migrants are disconnected and distrust the activities of diaspora organisations, and, on the other hand, they form dynamic transnational spaces linking the areas of origin and residence, in this case, the Urals and Siberian regional capitals (Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg and Krasnoyarsk).

L’almanacco serio-faceto tra Italia e Spagna (secoli XVII-XVIII)

This article proposes to analyse from a transnational approach a specific modality of literary almanac appeared in Italia e Spagna during the Early Modern Age: the serio-faceto. The main aim is to demonstrate the common elements between two traditions which have been analysed separately but have never been the subject of such a comparative study. To this end, a study will be carried out to highlight the particularities of the burlesque discourses that seek to discredit astrology, especially in its judiciary aspect. It will then be demonstrated how part of this critique is taken up by certain authors, who succeed in developing an almanac that combines usefulness and amusement.

Disability Data Justice from the Ground Up

Disability advocacy organizations need access to disability data to advocate for human rights, disability justice, and sustainable development goals. Health informatics and Artificial Intelligence that has been developed through an equity-focused process provide important tools that can help address these needs. AI is prone to bias and might exacerbate discrimination and data ableism. A critical disability lens and community collaboration can help to address these biases, and multidisciplinary collaborations with grassroots and community-based organizations are crucial for advancing disability data justice. We have been engaged in a practice-led approach to building a disability justice-focused AI search engine. In the first section of this paper, we report on our co-design process, which included community consultations about disability data justice with local, provincial, national, transnational, and supernational disability organizations and advocates. In the second section, we demonstrate how we applied a transnational disability studies framework during our process of training a search engine AI to function from a disability justice perspective. We demonstrate the semantic and conceptual differences between a transnational approach and a disability rights approach, as a concrete example of how AI bias emerges. We argue that our participatory approach allows us to experiment with data repositories and search engines that confront AI bias and data ableism and reflect community needs.

Cartographies of Region and Empire: Scaling Le tour de la France par deux enfants (and its Afterlives)

ABSTRACT Augustine Fouillée's (alias G. Bruno's) Le tour de la France par deux enfants, a children's geography textbook initially published in 1877, has long been considered a nation-building tool in the Third Republic. This essay draws on critical approaches to cartography in order to show how the contradictory modes of mapping throughout the Tour can clarify its generic complexity. Such forms of spatial knowledge would take on new resonances through the book's travels, adaptations, and remediations in a colonial context, from Indochina to French West Africa. Tracing these migrations offers a dialectical, transnational approach to the spatial analysis of literary narrative.

Scottish Gaelic Movement and Celtic Identity: An Comunn Gaidhealach at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

An Comunn Gaidhealach, as the main representative of the Scottish Gaelic Movement in the late nineteenth century, pursued the essential objectives of cultivating, teaching, and promoting Gaelic language, literature, music, and culture. Its members closely collaborated with their counterparts from other so-called Celtic countries, which subsequently resulted in the formation of other pan-Celtic institutions around 1900. The countries involved supported each other in achieving similar goals through common initiatives. This article explores the nature of Celtic connections through the study of the self-representation of the Gaelic language movement. It defines the most articulated topics for An Comunn Gaidhealach and identifies to what extent Celticism was part of the society’s self-representation. An Comunn Gaidhealach looked at the experience of other Celtic countries as a source of inspiration. While Celtic identity formed a negligible part of An Comunn Gaidhealach’s self-representation, a strong Celtic element was present in its discursive strategies and in the argumentation processes, both inspired by Welsh and Irish revivalist movements. The society defended Gaelic language rights, presented itself as a patron to Gaelic education, and organised the Mòd festival, all the while embracing all political and religious beliefs. The methodology of the research, inspired by Israeli sociologist Ruth Amossy, analyzes the discourse of An Deo-Gréine, the official magazine of An Comunn Gaidhealach. This perspective highlights how An Comunn Gaidhealach intended to be perceived, what discursive strategies it employed, and subsequently, how and to what extent there was a pan-Celtic aspect to its work. The results of the analysis are complemented by archival research. The conceptual framework of the study is embedded in comparative and transnational approaches to historical research. This approach is reflected in understanding the formation of collective identities from a perspective that transcends nation-states rather than focusing solely on a national context.

What did Christopher Columbus once mean to Haiti? Émile Nau’s Histoire des Caciques d’Haïti and Irving’s Columbus in the nineteenth-century Atlantic World

ABSTRACT This essay responds to scholarship on nineteenth-century representations of Christopher Columbus, by reinscribing Haitian writing on Columbus into transnational approaches largely focused on the US and Latin America. Throughout this essay, I contend that Émile Nau’s Histoire des caciques d’Haïti (1854) was profoundly influenced by Washington Irving’s A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828). In particular, I show how Nau reframed Irving’s text in nationalist terms to reimagine Columbus as the catalyst of modernity while asserting the centrality of Haiti to his life. To do so, I compare key passages in Nau and Irving to reconstitute Nau’s enigmatic methodology and to show how Nau adapted Irving’s text to inscribe Columbus within his vision of Haitian history that included the Spanish colonization of Hispaniola. This analysis reveals the ways in which Haitian cultural nationalism drew from and spoke back to the larger network of nineteenth-century Atlantic nationalisms.