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Murle Youth and the Iconography of Modernity Inscribed on the Body in South Sudan
Get PDFThis article offers a novel perspective into how Murle agro-pastoralist youth in South Sudan draw on permanent body marks (also known as scarifications or body inscriptions) to communicate their individual and collective stories and future aspirations; negotiate identities and generational relations; and reimagine social norms and political subjectivities. Based on long-term ethnographic research and through a visual analysis of body marks, the article explores the meanings behind young people’s body mark iconography, including assault rifles and army ranks, to mobile phones, syringes and United Nations acronyms. Body marks are a powerful embodied knowledge practice and unique lens to understand people as well as how social institutions like the age-sets are transforming. In particular, this article explores the insights that body mark iconography reveal about how Murle rural youth interpret and imagine “modernity”, as read through young people’s bodies, as a culturally situated phenomenon. It reveals how young people’s interpretations of modernity are tied to an urban and military culture that, in their eyes, is synonymous with power. While youth may be aware of the global connotations of their body marks, these are localised practices and claims for validation and pathways to social personhood within their own social world
The Myth of the Vulnerable Audience: Exploring Counter-Intuitive Approaches to Post-Truth Populism in the New Mass Media.
Get PDFThis paper interrogates the liberal policy discourse surrounding populism, which is often characterised as a communicative style linked to ‘post-truth’ politics. Analysing grey literature and scholarly sources, the study critiques the liberal policy discourse on post-truth populism, examining how it is framed as a communicative style that threatens scientific truth by exploiting emotional appeals. The research situates this critique within communication theory, arguing that ‘post-truth’ and populism are conceptually intertwined, both premised on a neo-modernist pursuit of positivist truth. The paper challenges the liberal critique’s tendency to essentialise populist audiences as politically illiterate and passive, devoid of agency and critical capacity. Such framing, it contends, risks reinforcing polarisation rather than facilitating meaningful dialogue. By focusing on the limitations of this policy discourse, the paper advocates for a reassessment of the audience’s agency, emphasising the need for a more nuanced understanding of media reception. It concludes that fostering dialogue requires moving beyond a structural critique of media manipulation and recognising the complex and active nature of digital audiences. The study suggests that this shift is essential to address the root causes of distrust in mainstream institutions and to broaden the epistemological scope beyond the constraints of Western modernity, acknowledging the plurality of populisms in the digital age
A Reassessment of the So-called Prakhon Chai Bronzes
No full textAn initial small group of metal sculptures, reportedly from a hoard, first appeared on the art market in 1965. Known as the ‘Prakhon Chai bronzes’ despite the obscurity of their origins, these sculptures were attributed to the 7th to 9th century CE and treated as archaeological works from Prasat Plai Bat II. Over time, their number grew exponentially. However, some have since been identified as forgeries. This research is the first detailed reassessment of this enigmatic group. It unfolds through two major lines of enquiry. First, the art historical analysis reviews the origins of the find alongside the technical aspects, iconography, and style of the over 100 ‘Buddhist’ statues. This investigation re-evaluates whether there is sufficient evidence to establish two propositions: (i) the statues plausibly came from the same origin and time, and (ii) they belonged to the cultural materials of Buddhist communities. Second, the market analysis examines the genesis and development of related narratives and discourses. It assesses how a network of actors influenced and shaped public perceptions about every aspect of the statues. Based on the findings, I contend that the notion of a so-called Prakhon Chai hoard/ group of statues is essentially a market construct
Sylheti Repertoires and Sociolinguistic Place-making in Tower Hamlets
Get PDFConducted in collaboration with the Tower Hamlets based community organisation Osmani Trust, this sociolinguistic ethnography responds to local concerns that Sylheti is undergoing language shift to English. Existing studies have tended to focus on Sylheti as a discrete language, linked to individual identities and attitudes, or on intergenerational language transmission. Drawing on the concept of spatial and communicative repertoires, this study instead explores the relationship between Sylheti and place. The research sites: streets, shops, markets and cafes, were selected by the participants, all adults with links to Sylheti and Tower Hamlets. The use of ethnographic walking methods and ethnographic linguistic landscaping strengthens the theoretical focus by pushing the analysis away from individual speakers’ competencies and identities towards a more socially situated understanding of sociolinguistic place-making. Findings show Sylheti as a part of a constantly changing web of communication resources and ideologies, rather than a discrete language in decline. Dispensing with dominant discourses which tie minority languages in the UK to a faraway country of origin, I consider Sylheti as a ‘local practice’ (Pennycook, 2010). Further findings suggest that language and place interact through social practice and are mutually constitutive. Legacies of anti-racist struggle in Tower Hamlets reproduce a space of resistance where Sylheti can be used freely and this freedom in turn reinforces Tower Hamlets, or parts of it, as a space of sociolinguistic resistance. The data reveal a linguistic energy and dynamism seldom acknowledged nor referred to in policy documents or in dominant models of language education, which tend to focus on lack and deficit. By suggesting that Sylheti is a crucial element of Tower Hamlets life, the study problematises two powerful discourses: the frequently articulated concern among Sylheti speakers in the UK that irreversible language shift towards English is underway; and the intensifying political discourse that English is the only language to index social cohesion and belonging
'Ghostly Entanglements': Reconsidering Colonial Justice through Hauntology and Feminist Temporalities
Get PDFWhat if “the dead are never really dead” but come back again to remind us of justice denied?1 Recently, ghosts from the violent legacy of British colonialism have appeared, seeking justice. Legal cases such as Mutua and Keyu invite us to reconsider our entanglement with our history and to reconceptualise it as a haunting and a continuation of post-colonial present.2 No doubt ‘ghosts’ function as figurative witnesses, seeking justice for past transgressions. Yet, they also act as harbingers for future justice and encourage action from the living. In Southeast Asia, ghosts co-exist with the living in popular imagination, merging past and present time. Not only do these hauntings disturb our conscience, but also our conception of time - collapsing past into present. A feminist reconsideration of time as ‘polytemporal’ further disturbs the linear norm and allows us to form a different relationship with the past and engage more fully with the possibility of justice in the future
Interconnected Security: Non-State Informal Policing in Africa
Get PDFThe paper examines the role of non-state informal policing in Africa's crime prevention frameworks across multiple scales, focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, state-level dynamics, and community initiatives. Using Nigeria as a central case, with comparisons to Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, and South Africa, the study explores how corruption, weak institutions, and insufficient resources have predominantly contributed to the rise and continued reliance on non-state actors, such as community policing groups, vigilante organisations, and private security firms, to fill critical security gaps left by the state. Employing a historical and qualitative approach, the research traces the evolution of governance and security from pre-colonial times through the post-independence era, analysing data from historical documents, scholarly literature, and case studies. The findings reveal the complex interactions between state and non-state actors, offering insights into hybrid security governance and its implications for sustainable development in Africa. This study highlights the importance of a multi-scalar approach to security governance, providing valuable strategies for improving security in contexts of state fragility
The Politicisation of the Work of Art During Times of Political Unrest: Three Layers of Meaning Production
Get PDFThe aim of this article is to show how, during times of political unrest, a work of art can become a site of contestation and negotiation. When this occurs, meaning is produced, reproduced, interpreted, encoded, and aligned with contemporary systems of representation. The work of art is the most potent example of objectified entanglement in that it occupies a physical or virtual space where the convergence of perspectives is visible and externalised. This article is inspired by a highly publicised incident of purported censorship that took place shortly after the latest war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023. Al Moulatham (2012), an anonymous portrait by Lebanese artist Ayman Baalbaki, was removed from an auction of modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art, sparking debates about censorship and the political nature of the work of art. Drawing on the work of Jacques Rancière and Gabriel Rockhill, this article looks beyond the ontologically inscribed political nature of the work of art to consider instead how sociohistorical processes of collective meaning production entangled Al Moulatham inadvertently in a political moment for which it was not originally intended
Kārwān’s talking forest: Materiality, poetic imagination, and the metaphysics of war violence
Get PDFPir Muhammad Karwan’s 2000 poetry collection Da Xāperey Werghowey traces a history of materiality, emotion, and imagination across human-environmental systems as they are militarized over twenty years in Afghanistan. At the same as it is a unique narration of the wars, this project is a cosmopolitical one. In dialog with other essays in this issue that point to the life of the immaterial in present-day traditions, I show how Kārwān’s bottom-up psycho-history draws on Persianate-classical, Pashto-popular, and embodied knowledges to critique both imperial and Islamist modernity on ontological grounds. It aims to undermine the borders of self and other that geopolitical violence embeds everywhere: barriers between human and other beings, humans and other humans, imagination and material
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