Has globalization the phenomenon outgrown "globalization" the concept? In Distant Proximities, one of America's senior scholars presents a work of sweeping vision that addresses the dizzying ...anxieties of the post-Cold War, post-September 11 world. Culminating the influential reassessment of international relations he began in 1990 with Turbulence in World Politics, James Rosenau here undertakes the first systematic analysis of just how complex these profound global changes have become. Among his many conceptual innovations, he treats people-in-the-street as well as activists and elites as central players in what we call "globalization." Deftly weaving striking insights into arresting prose, Rosenau traces the links and interactions between people at the individual level and institutions such as states, nongovernmental organizations, and transnational corporations at the collective level. In doing so he masterfully conveys how the emerging new reality has unfolded as events abroad increasingly pervade the routines of life at home and become, in effect, distant proximities. Rosenau begins by distinguishing among various local, global, and private "worlds" in terms of their inhabitants' orientations toward developments elsewhere. He then proceeds to cogently analyze how the residents of these worlds shape and are shaped by the diverse collectivities that crowd the global stage and that sustain such issues as human rights, corruption, the global economy, and global governance. Throughout this richly imaginative, fluidly written book, Rosenau examines how anti-globalization protests and the terrorist attacks on America amount to quintessential distant proximities. His book is thus a pathbreaking inquiry into the dynamics that lie beyond globalization, one that all thoughtful observers of the world scene will find penetrating and provocative.
Abstract Prime ministers often use vernacularisms in their political rhetoric, but we know little about how they deploy these forms of speech and the consequences for politics and policy. This ...article extends work on the ‘rhetorical PM’ by focusing on how leaders deploy idiomatic expressions in their oratory. The article presents a thematic analysis of four successive Australian prime ministers' use of the country's distinctive ‘fair go’ expression in speeches and media interviews between 1972 and 1996. Australian PMs increasingly invoked the ‘fair go’ expression throughout this period for multiple rhetorical purposes, including to make national identity claims, engage in partisan competition and justify policy reforms with strong neoliberal elements. While prevailing scholarship sees ‘vernacular politics’ as a tool of grassroots actors opposing discourses of globalization and elite-driven reform, this research shows the vernacular is a versatile rhetorical tool mobilized by elites for multiple purposes, including to justify radical policy change.
O presente artigo faz uma análise da obra Niketche: uma história de poligamia, da autora moçambicana Paulina Chiziane, partindo do conceito de comunidade imaginada de Benedict Anderson (1991) e das ...identidades culturais na pós-modernidade, conforme proposto por Stuart Hall (1992). Inspirada pelos autores Sandro Mezzadra e Brett Neilson (2017), a análise propõe a compreensão das fronteiras como método de enfrentamento das categorias coloniais. Assim, o artigo analisa as tensões entre binômios expostos no romance, partindo da oposição entre homem-mulher, e entendendo que a própria fricção entre fronteiras é, por si só, uma reinvenção das mesmas e uma atitude de reconstrução no combate às violências e silenciamentos das identidades.
Why did Hong Kong protestors choose a symbol of former oppression – the old colonial flag – as a banner for their fight for democracy, rights and autonomy in 2019? We propose to answer this puzzle by ...studying the colonial-era flag as a displacement device. The waving of the colonial-era flag is shown to induce non-linear temporal and extraterritorial displacements, as well as contradictory interpretations of Hong Kong’s core values, national sovereignty and cultural identity. The flag’s displacements are amplified against the contested colonial history of the former British enclave. Conceptually, this pragmatic definition of the flag moves beyond approaches that study flags as representations of a structure of symbolic meaning. The flag is neither an unimportant prop nor is it a free-floating signifier; its materiality elicits significant political effects. Methodologically, this translates into an exploration of the flag’s second-order agency. The old colonial-era Hong Kong flag, in combination with discourse and institutional arrangements, is shown to be integral to contentious politics. The flag and its displacements shed new light on a city uneasy with its past, dissatisfied with its present and uncertain about its future.
Congo Style presents a postcolonial approach to discussing the visual culture of two now-notorious regimes: King Leopold II’s Congo Colony and the state sites of Mobutu Sese Seko’s totalitarian ...Zaïre. Readers are brought into the living remains of sites once made up of ambitious modernist architecture and art in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. From the total artworks of Art Nouveau to the aggrandizing sites of post-independence Kinshasa, Congo Style investigates the experiential qualities of man-made environments intended to entertain, delight, seduce, and impress. In her study of visual culture, Ruth Sacks sets out to reinstate the compelling wonder of nationalist architecture from Kinshasa’s post-independence era, such as the Tower of the Exchange (1974), Gécamines Tower (1977), and the artworks and exhibitions that accompanied them. While exploring post-independence nation-building, this book examines how the underlying ideology of Belgian Art Nouveau, a celebrated movement in Belgium, led to the dominating early colonial settler buildings of the ABC Hotels (circa 1908–13). Congo Style combines Sacks’s practice as a visual artist and her academic scholarship to provide an original study of early colonial and independence-era modernist sites in their African context.
Focusing on how a world of possibilities is opened up by language learners themselves, imagination has been regarded as an elusive but indispensable element in second language (L2) education. Drawing ...on notions of international posture (Yashima
2002
), Ideal L2 Self (Dörnyei
2009
), and imagined communities (Norton
2001
), we theorised imagination from a psychological perspective and a sociocultural lens. Then we conducted a mixed-method investigation to examine the complex relationship between imagination and informal digital learning of English (IDLE). A total of 401 participants from a tier-one university in China answered the survey, and 15 participated in post-survey interviews. Quantitative data revealed that students' international posture could positively influence their IDLE practices. The Ideal L2 Self could both contribute to IDLE and partially mediate the relationship between international posture and IDLE. Adding nuances to quantitative results, the analysis of the interview data highlighted three major themes--imagining possible selves, negotiating access, and investing in IDLE. These themes helped to make sense of the intricate ways in which EFL learners invest in IDLE trajectories by utilising the power of imagination to negotiate their desired memberships in imagined international communities. This study concludes with pedagogical implications and suggestions for future research.
This study aimed to overcome the researchers' extreme attention to essentially qualitative methods in research on language learners' imagined communities and move towards quantification in order to ...achieve a more tangible image of this construct. To do so, the present researchers followed three main phases. First, a hypothesized model of language learners' imagined communities with eight components was developed for the Iranian context based on the wide-ranging readings of the literature on imagined communities, consultations with experts and interviews with language learners. Second, a questionnaire was developed and validated based on the model to represent its components. Finally, the data collected through the questionnaire were fed into the model to see to what extent the model fit the data. The initial results showed poor values; however, the model was trimmed by removing one item from the questionnaire, and final statistical indices showed that the model was fit.
