Western Ideology Research Articles

Instagram vixens: the racialized sexual scripts of erotic labor online

ABSTRACT Despite growing interest in the ways information and communication technologies shape labor, few studies have accounted for the racialized sexualization of erotic labor. This study examines how Black women exotic dancers deploy racialized sexual scripts in the content they generate on the mobile social networking application Instagram. As erotic influencers, these women engage in multifaceted and multimodal erotic self-presentations both within and beyond the strip club. This article presents data from a digital ethnography of 73 Black female exotic dancers located in the southeastern United States, as well as a content analysis of the digital media files they created on Instagram. The findings suggest four distinct sexual scripts that these Instagram users perform: virtual cover girl, erotic professional, boudoir baddie, and assets model. Findings demonstrate Black women use smartphone and social networking technological features to create presentations of femininity, desirability, and sensuality that simultaneously subvert and adhere to the controlling images that define Western ideologies on race and sexuality. Ultimately, this article argues for the need to account for the social and cultural contexts in which the affordances of networked communication technologies that permeate contemporary erotic labor operate.

Silent Strength and Subversive Acts: Feminist Interpretation of Pather Dabi (The Right of Way)

This research item delivers a feminist interpretation of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel Pather Dabi (The Right of Way), examining the subtle but powerful forms of resistance embodied by its female characters within the context of colonial Bengal. This article aims to analyze characters like Bharati and Sumitra’s journey in colonial India through their silent strength and subversive acts. The research shows that these women move forward to complex social and political landscapes, contributing significantly to revolutionary movements. Bharati’s intellectual prowess and strategic silences, juxtaposed with Sumitra’s behind-the-scenes activism, exemplify diverse modes of female empowerment and defiance. This paper explores the evolution of feminist ideas in Colonial India, illustrating traditional Indian society and Western ideologies converging to redefine women’s roles. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on gender dynamics in early 20th-century Indian fiction, arguing that Chattopadhyay’s sophisticated portrayal of women rises above conventional narratives of victimhood. By putting forward these often-overlooked aspects of Pather Dabi (The Right of Way), we propose a new framework for understanding female influence in colonial-era Bengali literature, one that recognizes the power of quiet rebellion and the lasting impact of women’s contributions to social change.

Crime and Governance in the Global South

This article considers the relationship between crime and governance in the peripheries of the Global North. It draws on examples from across the Global South to show how conceptualizations of crimes are impacted by history, politics, and socio-economic contexts and how crime is influenced by, and in turn influences, governance practices. The review centers on four arguments: Western ideologies and epistemologies are inadequate for conceptualizing the nexus between crime and governance in the Global South; understandings of crime must be informed by knowledge of contextual harmscapes; models of crime control and policing do not always capture the hybridity and plurality of everyday governing practices in the Global South; and crime dynamics intersect with governance structures to create complex challenges for state control. The review highlights the need for scholars and practitioners to adopt historically and contextually informed approaches to theorizing the governance of criminalized harms in the Global South.

Социальные последствия воздействия иностранных СМИ на протестную активность молодежи

Today, the Russian Federation, in the new dynamically transforming realities: the confrontation of Western ideology, the cultivated "culture of cancellation", as well as conducting of a special military operation of Russia on the territory of the Ukraine (SVO), faces many tasks protecting the population from aggressive information and the influence from the outside. Especially vulnerable to digital "stuffing" are young people – a socio-demographic group characterized by an unformed worldview and value attitudes. The article examines the activities of foreign mass media and their impact on the protest activity of young people, as well as the impact on the spread of extremist ideas and increasing criminality among the minors. An up-to-date definition of the media is given in accordance with the current regulatory legal acts. The main social consequences of the negative impact, based on the monitoring of the secondary analysis of sociological research (the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion and Regional Studies), are revealed. The analysis of the main ways and methods of dissemination of information by foreign mass media is carried out. The author formulates the main social consequences of the influence of foreign mass media, affecting the escalation of protest activity of modern Russian youth.

Mapping Trends and Challenges in Political Science Research in Indigenous Policy and Politics (2019-2023)

What are the trends and challenges for political science research on Indigenous policy and politics? The present paper aims to answer this question through a critical reading of articles published in specialized journals between 2019 and 2023. The study highlights four main axes of research on Indigenous politics: 1) The relationship between Indigenous peoples and nation-states; 2) Indigenous activism and struggles for territorial, cultural, and environmental rights; 3) The impact of large construction sites on Indigenous territories; and 4) Critical engagement with Western political theory. Conclusions point to epistemic avenues for interested researchers to explore in-depth in future studies: 1) The importance of broadening the scope of sources for more fruitful comparative analyses; 2) The urgency to decolonize political theory; and 3) The imperative of methodological diversification and rigor.

(Re)negotiating Empire

This paper considers narratives of refugee experience in postcolonial scholarship. Investigating refugee experiences is indispensable to understanding how postcolonial theory applies to narratives that represent involuntary mobilization. It elucidates how the refugee experience casts an idiosyncratic outlook on the Western and Orientalist formulations, bringing to light a renegotiation of the dynamics of the distinction between the two. Looking at Laila Lalami’s Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, I argue that Hope challenges the naturalized authenticity of Western superiority by employing the refugee trope as a rhetorical counter-narrative of core paradigms of Eurocentrism, contesting the Western ideologies that consolidate this naturalized Western superiority by establishing a parallel paradigm of power between the two locales—West and East.

Transing the Maghreb: permeable performances of queerness in Abdellah Taïa, Nina Bouraoui, and beyond

This essay explores how a trans theoretical lens can inform interpretations and performances of queer Maghrebi sexualities in various forms of cultural productions like the works of Moroccan author Abdellah Taïa, Algerian author Nina Bouraoui, as well as podcasts and music by Maghrebi artists. It draws from trans theorists to emphasize how a productive performativity resides in the intermediality, the in between of a transition (e.g. transnational) and thus queer transnational sexualities like those depicted in the works of Taïa and Bouraoui can be better understood as always existing at the intersection of the local and global, colonial and indigenous. As a result, by transing queer Maghrebi sexualities, we open new realities of Maghrebi performativity that are not solely conceived of through western ideologies of an itinerary towards a better existence, demonstrating how queerness and Arabness are inherently trans. The construction of queer Maghrebi sexuality within a “trans-”national critical lens offers multiple axes upon which its performance can exist, and its legacy exchanged. To execute this analysis, this essay first defines its trans theoretical approach and then applies it to selected works from Maghrebi authors Abdellah Taïa and Nina Bouraoui. It then expands its analysis away from literature to other forms of cultural productions to showcase the broad impact of a trans approach to queer Maghrebi sexuality.

Islam Stereotype in the Western Ideology and Its Impact on the Frequent Labels of the Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him)، a Study of the Sources and Origins

يرصد هذا البحث مفردات صورة الإسلام عامة والنبي- صلى الله عليه وسلم- خاصة في الفكر الغربي القديم والحديث والمعاصر، ويبين أثر هذه الصورة في الإساءات المتكررة للنبي- صلى الله عليه وسلم-، من خلال تفنيد محتوى هذه الصورة، بالوقوف على المصادر والجذور والعوامل العقائدية الدينية والفكرية الثقافية والسياسية التاريخية التي ساهمت في تكوين مفرداتها ورسختها في الذاكرة الجمعية الغربية. وصولًا إلى الأطر والمؤسسات التي تقف وراءها وتعمل على إعادة إنتاجها وترويجها قديمًا وحديثًا، بالقدر الذي جعل هذه الصورة القاعدة الأساسية التي انطلق منها الوعي الغربي بالإسلام عامة والنبي- صلى الله عليه وسلم - خاصة.

Teaching Tech by Rote: Socialization into Digital Literacies in a Ghanaian Classroom

ABSTRACT Building on decades of interdisciplinary language-centered research on literacies, this article is an exploration of the many ideologies about technology, literacy, and “good” learners, and the resulting tangle of contradictory practices, that converge in rural Ghanaian Information and Communication Technology (ICT) classrooms. In addition to tracing how Western ideologies of technological transformation were imported into the design of ICT policy and curricula via international development organizations, the article contrasts the enduring routines and practices of hierarchical knowledge transfer in Ghanaian classrooms with assumptions about exploratory users embedded in the design of technologies primarily produced in and for North American contexts. In doing so, the article highlights the regimes of participation (Flamenbaum & George 2023), or the interplay between these taken-for-granted ideologies, technological affordances, and available roles for participation in knowledge production, which dynamically structure participatory engagements with digital literacies. Such a lens highlights the ways in which persistent policy framings of digital literacies as universal, neutral universal encounters between individuals and particular hardware or software enable and reproduce longstanding processes of disciplining marginalized populations.

Storytelling for personal connection: A pedagogical strategy to localise fashion education

The 2015 student protests, #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall, gave rise to the call to decolonise curricula and end the dominance of Western ideologies in South African higher education (HE). The argument put forward in this paper is the need to shift from a traditional approach to a humanised pedagogical approach, wherein students frame knowledge around individual experiences to construct personal and shared understanding. Although limited scholarship around decolonising South African fashion HE exists, such scholarship does not focus on storytelling and circle learning as pedagogical strategies. To address this research gap, narrative humanism, referred to in this research as storytelling, and circle learning are put forward as pedagogical strategies to integrate student identities for personal connection in South African fashion HE. This paper aims to explore the affordances of storytelling and circle learning to decolonise South African fashion HE. Through qualitative action research, two teaching and learning interventions, termed the pilot and main studies, were designed and applied with fashion students at a South African HE institution. Data collection entailed semi-structured student questionnaires, artefacts, and a reflective research journal. To analyse the data, content analysis was employed. The findings reveal that, irrespective of cultural lived experiences or diverse backgrounds, storytelling afforded a decolonised approach in terms of inclusivity, collaboration, and a safe environment for socially engaged dialogue and peer feedback. Similarly, circle learning seemed to reduce teacher-student power relations and contrasted traditional modes of delivery. Circle learning appeared to encourage meaningful, engaged participation, affording a progressive pedagogical strategy to accommodate student and teacher voices in open dialogue. This paper contributes to the scholarship of teaching and learning in that storytelling and circle learning are suitable pedagogies to decolonise fashion education in the Global South.

Social processes in Modern Georgia: Is There any Potential for the Development of Russian-Georgian Cooperation?

The authors of the article, participants in the discussion “Georgia’s Communication Regime: Development Trends,” presented their views on social processes in modern Georgia. It is substantiated that the spiritual ties between Georgians and Russians are based on Orthodoxy and the mutual assistance that Russians and Georgians have provided to each other for centuries. The historical and cultural origins of Russian-Georgian relations are examined. The common historical past contributed to the interpenetration of cultures and traditions. However, under the influence of Western ideologies, a large part of modern Georgian youth has formed a different worldview. The authors of the article propose how to overcome the ideological gap through the implementation of cultural projects. Promising areas of cooperation between Russia and Georgia are considered in the absence of diplomatic relations and the anti-Russian position of the Georgian authorities. Youth communications and cooperation in the economy (primarily in agriculture) are also promising. The following risks of cooperation are considered: the unresolved issue of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, fluctuations of the political elites of Georgia, the chaotic nature of the Georgian economy, the role of anti-Russian position of Russians in Georgia, insufficient work with Georgian society on the Russian side and the need to activate the potential of the Georgian diaspora in Russia.The article was prepared based on the materials of the international round table “Georgia’s Communication Regime: Development Trends” (conducted by the National Research Institute for the Communications Development in December 2023).

Salafiah pesantren ideology and KPU Muara Enim's efforts to increase voter participation

Purpose: This research aimed at finding out the ideology of Pondok Pesantren (Ponpes) Dhiya'us Salaf and the people of Karang Agung Village, Lubai Ulu Sub-district, Muara Enim Regency, South Sumatra Province which refused to participate in the General Election (Pemilu) and describe the efforts made by the General Electoral Commission (KPU) of Muara Enim Regency in overcoming this phenomenon. Research methodology: This research was conducted using a qualitative method in the form of a case study approach. Data collection techniques included observations, interviews, and Forum Group Discussion techniques. Results: The results showed that the administrators and the community around Pondok Pesantren Dhiya'us Salaf did not participate in the election for the following reasons: (1) avoiding division, (2) the absence of sanctions, (3) election of Western ideology, and (4) to focus more on their fields. On the other hand, the general electoral commission (KPU) of Muara Enim and South Sumatra made efforts to increase voter participation by (1) providing election socialization and voice education, (2) registering them into the Permanent Voter List (DPT), and (3) breaking up polling stations (TPS). Limitations: Researchers limited aspects of the problem only focused on the efforts of Muara Enim’s KPU and the ideology of Pondok Pesantren Dhiya'us Salaf to create efficient and detailed research. Contribution: In addition to being a solution for breaking the abstainers (Golput) chain, the benefits of this research for the General Electoral Commission (KPU) of Muara Enim and the ranks of the Election Supervisor are a reference material for formulating the right pattern of socialization and political education.

Muslim women consumers: Critical interpretations of US modest fashion brands entangled with the fashion-advocacy-capitalist-façade

Following 9/11, some young Muslim American women have been wearing hijabs to assert their Islamic identities. They are also seeking fashionable modest clothing, yet, despite their growing buying power, the US modest fashion market targeting Muslim women appears underserved. The purpose of this study was to critically examine how niche modest fashion brands in the United States target Muslim women while drawing upon theoretical concepts centring on oppression and agency related to the long history of gendered Islamophobia Muslims have experienced. We analysed eleven brands’ websites and social media applying the constant comparative method and identified four themes: empowering Muslim women, reclaiming modesty as modern and beautiful, meeting fashionable modest wear demand, and rejecting and perpetuating colourism. In our analysis of the digital discourses of US modest fashion brands, we revealed that these brands emerged to meet the demand of young Muslim woman in the United States who are embracing the hijab and modest clothing as a potent symbol of resistance against western ideologies, the fashion system’s oppressive acts towards Muslim women and traditional Islamic dress codes. Yet, their advocacy-centred messages – empowerment, reclaiming modesty as beautiful – operate within a profit-driven system, which we theorize as a fashion-advocacy-capitalistic-façade. The fashion-advocacy-capitalist-façade concept helps explain the slippery slope that fashion brands are tiptoeing as they aim to empower Muslim women, offer trendy modest clothing, reject traditional Islamic dress codes for women and create space in the fashion market for this unmet demand. Although these brands aim to promote a positive sense of self for Muslim women, they cannot be withheld from critical examination and potential interpretations when operating within the capitalist-driven industry that is so often plagued with significant injustices.

Столкновение дикости и цивилизации в фэнтези-вестерне Джо Аберкромби «Красная страна»

In the novel Red Country the famous British author Joe Abercrombie carries out a genre experiment combining in one book the features of such distant and incongruous genres as fantasy and Western. He constructs in his imaginary world a territory with all specific characteristics of a Western chronotopos and actively uses typical plot devices of the Western. But on the level of ideas the plot of Red Country comes into a conflict with the basic values of the Western, instilling the clichés borrowed from this genre with a unique author’s meaning. A good example of this is Abercrombie’s unexpected development of the subject of savageness and civilization. A conflict with savage Indians who must give way to the white man and his civilization is an obligatory part of Western ideology. The attitude to savages in Westerns has undergone some changes, but the opposition of savages and the civilized society remains unchanged. In Red Country Abercrombie uses traditional episodes of Indian attacks etc. according to the Western genre conventions, but afterwards he shows the relativity of the ideas of civilization and savageness themselves; since attributing these characteristics to one or the other group of characters depends exclusively on one’s point of view. The problems of the civilization of the Western kind are also highlighted: its coming leads to the destruction of the indigenous ways of life and brings about the reign of unscrupulous greed. Characters, portrayed as traditional savages in the beginning of the novel, are seen later already as bearers of dying ancient cultures. The fact that they are becoming extinct under the pressure of modern civilization does not bring any satisfaction, as a victory over savageness in a Western should do. This is achieved by actualizing the understanding of dying ancient cultures inherent to fantasy. Therefore, the novel Red Country reconsiders the genres of Western and fantasy and supports values of the modern multicultural and post-colonial society.

On that demon time: Black time geographies of reimagining, recovering, and resisting

This article introduces “Demon Time” as a theoretical concept for examining Black time geographies. Building off the theorization of demonic space, I theorize that demon time is an alternative Black temporality. I use the soundscapes of the Black church, the Black barber/beauty shop, and the strip club to think through demonic temporality as a mode of reimagination, a reimagining of Black subjectivities, a mode of recovery, an iterative process of recovery from anti-blackness, and a mode of resisting, a continual resistance of normative logics and western ideologies. These Black soundscapes produce Black timescapes which are anchored to time-spaces of Black cultural production. Thus, demon time offers us a way to reorient how we understand Blackness in moments of economic, social, and ecological crisis, while also allowing us to think about the incommensurability of Black temporalities across Black regions in the US.

Positive discourse analysis of Aotearoa New Zealand Foreign Minister’s speeches: an ecolinguistic perspective

Abstract As opposed to Western ideologies that promote unrestrained consumption of environmental resources, Indigenous or Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) encourages a more beneficial relationship with nature. In order to address underrepresented subjects and contexts, this article investigates the integration of TEK within political discourse by examining a corpus of speeches given by Aotearoa New Zealand former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nanaia Mahuta, between 2020 and 2022. The study refers to the frameworks of ecolinguistics and Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA) to understand how Māori culture shapes Mahuta’s linguistic choices. Particularly, it focusses the attention on lexical and figurative items, drawing on the concepts of metaphor, framing, and intertextuality. Results show a considerable concern over the state of the environment in Mahuta’s speeches. Furthermore, they reveal the presence of an adaptation framing inspired by Indigenous thinking that acknowledges nature’s agency and complexity. The latter is used to conceptualise current environmental challenges and international cooperation directed at tackling them. Mahuta’s language ultimately supports the idea of interconnectedness within nature and offers as an instance of positive discourse in institutional settings.

The big, bad… grim: personification of death in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

ABSTRACT Animated death has historically remained in specific categorical boxes with elements connected to Western ideology. One of the most consistent of these elements is the presentation of death as an obstacle that can be overcome – a presentation that satisfies the death anxieties of the surrounding culture. DreamWorks’ newest film in the Shrek franchise uniquely communicates death as a frightening, evil hindrance to life and the fulfilment of happiness through the personification of death as a menacing rendition of the Grim Reaper. Using specific cinematic and symbolic strategies, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish challenges specific Western notions about life and death at the same time that it reiterates the most enduring in animation: death is innately frightening.

Ислам и война: Telegram-канал Р. Кадырова в период СВО

The relevance of the study is determined by the influence of the special military operation (SMO) on the transformation of political discourse on the Internet. The novelty of the research is due to the identi-fication of current trends in the proposed content in the modern Russian media space. The start of a special military operation (SMO/SVO) determined a new model of the political development of the Russian Federation, and also significantly influenced the political discourse of the heads of Russian regions. The political discourse, in turn, forms social and political views at the grassroots level. This paper examines the religious and political discourse of the Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov in the Telegram messenger during the first year of the SMO. The study is focused on identify-ing the specifics of the formation of religious and political content in social networks in wartime. The work is based on the methods of classical and digital sociology, as well as discursive analysis of text messages. 2035 publications by R. Kadyrov on the Telegram page from February 24, 2022 to February 23, 2023, including 1406 videos, 165 photos/print-screens, 20 audio messages and 3 docs-attachments were analyzed using a continuous sample. Finally, conclusions are drawn in relation to some change in Kadyrov’s public discourse for the past year. On his personal page in Telegram, religious themes with an emphasis on traditional values, the image of the enemy and the legitimation of armed struggle (ji-had) acquire an exceptional sound in the conditions of the SMO. In today's political realities, a reli-gious resource and an open armed conflict successfully complement each other. At the same time, the head of the Chechen Republic demonstrates a claim to religious authority both on a Russian and global scale: he openly opposes Western ideology not only on the battlefield, but also in the religious content, actively participates in the sacralization of the SMO and its jihadization. The obtained conclusions ex-pand the knowledge about the potential of a religious resource in open conflicts and raise the question of the prospects for its use by other religious communities.

On the Feasibility Analysis of Introducing Foreign Capital into Education, Medical and Other Industries

Because there are huge differences between Chinese and Western ideology and cultural development, but the current trend of economic globalization is irrecontradicable, so it is helpful to introduce foreign investment while insisting on domestic enterprises going global. However, when introducing foreign investment, it is inevitable to encounter many problems, such as not being controlled by the Chinese government or being too strong in foreign investment, which will drive our domestic enterprises to the brink. At the same time, these foreign investments can play their role in China's land and promote its economic development. This requires the rulers to formulate a package of fair and effective policies to promote its development. The two major fields of education and healthcare are related to the ideology and physical health of the people, and therefore are the foundation and foundation of the country. In order to ensure the long-term prosperity of the country and social stability, it is necessary to attach great importance to the guidance of these two aspects. It is necessary to consider the entry of foreign investment into China as a good thing. Meanwhile, it is a good way to allow foreign investment to play a positive role in promoting technological change and capital flow in these two fields. At the same time, it is necessary to control the power of capital and not let it control the foundation of our country, as this will shake national security.

Interrogating irresponsible Leadership within the Post Independence Matrix in Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s Wizard of the Crow and Alobwed’ Epie’s The Bad Samaritan

The aim of this study is to demonstrate the phenomenon of irresponsible leadership within post-independence nations, exploring its impact on governance, societal development, and sustainability of democratic systems. The problem at hand is multi-faceted. Irresponsible leadership perpetuates a cycle of underdevelopment, erodes trust in government institutions, breeds social unrest, and hinders progress towards sustainable growth and stability. This study intends to answer the following research questions; how does irresponsible leadership affect socio-economic development of post-independence nations? and how do citizens react to to irresponsible leadership in the post-independence matrix? By analyzing , interpreting and evaluating Wizard of the Crow and The Bad Samaritan, we aim to illustrate underlying factors that contribute to irresponsible leadership, drawing parallels with historical and contemporary events. This paper is built on the hypothesis that irresponsible leadership after independence is like a tangled web of power and corruption. By examining this theme closely, the novels demonstrate how leaders can harm society through their actions, highlighting the struggles faced in building a just and fair postcolonial world. This study employs postcolonial theory which is relevant in that, it unveils how historical injustices and imbalances continue to manifest in contemporary governance. Interrogating irresponsible leadership through the postcolonial lens enable us to understand how neocolonial forces and the imposition of Western ideologies contribute to corrupt governance. Drawing upon both primary and secondary sources, this study engages in comparative analyses across varying geographical locations to offer an understanding of the nature of irresponsible leadership. The findings of this study underscore that irresponsible leadership after independence has hindered progress and development in many African countries. The study also revealed that irresponsible leadership has led to economic instability and social unrest in post-independence nations.