176 research outputs found

    Strategies of Resistance:Arab American Dramatic Devices in the Battle Against Anti-Arab Stereotypes

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    The rich and unique Arab American experience of immigration, settlement and belonging is dramatised vividly in a number of thought-provoking Arab American plays. The reception of Arabs in America has been routinely shaped by intricate cultural, racial and political history, which renders Arab American identity a fascinating site of negotiation. While Arab Americans navigate the politics of race, religion and gender on a daily basis, their fluid mediations with each of these identity markers are most pronounced when they engage with the politics of representation. This chapter draws on four Arab American plays that address complex negotiations of identity, family, representation and economic survival. Ten Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith (2009) by Yussef El Guindi and Betty Shamieh’s Roar (2004) present complex and compelling characters engaged in the familiar personal and generational negotiation of family life. Sam Younis’s Browntown (2009) is a dark comedy that satirically presents an Arab American actor who is only cast for terrorist roles. Similarly, Jihad Jones and the Kalashnikov Babes (2014), another play by El Guindi, dramatises the plight of a talented actor whose economical and professional viability depends on creating narratives that enforce the same stereotypes he vehemently contests and fights against. Through these plays, the chapter explores the dramaturgical tools that Arab American playwrights are employing to subvert anti-Arab stereotypical framing in America as the enduring Other. While Ten Acrobats and Roar present an indirect confrontation with stereotyping through the dramatisation of the “ordinary”, Browntown and Jihad Jones arouse a direct assault on stereotypes and their cultural normalisation within the entertainment industry

    Esme Ward (Manchester Museum): in conversation

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    Esme Ward is the Director of Manchester Museum and has been leading the ‘hello future’ £15 million capital project to transform the Museum. Re-opening in 2023, the Manchester Museum will include a brand-new South Asia Gallery, Lee Kai Hung Chinese Culture Gallery and Belonging Gallery as well as an Exhibition Hall and more inclusive visitor facilities and spaces. This interview is part of a project led by Professor Bridget Byrne and Dr Roaa Ali at the Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE), University of Manchester. We have been exploring how institutional practices in cultural institutions can reproduce and mitigate ethnic inequality, and Manchester Museum has been one of our case studies

    How to ... approach anti-racist audience and community research

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    Damaging attitudes and misconceptions about minoritised ethnic individuals and communities can have a negative impact on how we represent and produce culture, as well as on the decision-making and policy of cultural institutions.If your goal is to break this cycle and carry out effective audience and community research – which is anti-racist – this guide draws together some points to consider.Written by Dr Roaa Ali, a cultural sociologist at the University of Manchester, this guide can help identify harmful attitudes and institutionalised approaches that exist in the cultural sector – and ways to break the cycles that enable them.This guide also offers some examples of developing anti-racist research through a case study from a recent Collaborate research project, undertaken by the Crafts Council and Glasgow Caledonian University London (GCU London).Read on to discover more about this How To Guide, or download the Guide as a PDF using the button at the top of the page

    How to ... approach anti-racist audience and community research

    No full text
    Damaging attitudes and misconceptions about minoritised ethnic individuals and communities can have a negative impact on how we represent and produce culture, as well as on the decision-making and policy of cultural institutions.If your goal is to break this cycle and carry out effective audience and community research – which is anti-racist – this guide draws together some points to consider.Written by Dr Roaa Ali, a cultural sociologist at the University of Manchester, this guide can help identify harmful attitudes and institutionalised approaches that exist in the cultural sector – and ways to break the cycles that enable them.This guide also offers some examples of developing anti-racist research through a case study from a recent Collaborate research project, undertaken by the Crafts Council and Glasgow Caledonian University London (GCU London).Read on to discover more about this How To Guide, or download the Guide as a PDF using the button at the top of the page

    How to ... approach anti-racist audience and community research

    No full text
    Damaging attitudes and misconceptions about minoritised ethnic individuals and communities can have a negative impact on how we represent and produce culture, as well as on the decision-making and policy of cultural institutions.If your goal is to break this cycle and carry out effective audience and community research – which is anti-racist – this guide draws together some points to consider.Written by Dr Roaa Ali, a cultural sociologist at the University of Manchester, this guide can help identify harmful attitudes and institutionalised approaches that exist in the cultural sector – and ways to break the cycles that enable them.This guide also offers some examples of developing anti-racist research through a case study from a recent Collaborate research project, undertaken by the Crafts Council and Glasgow Caledonian University London (GCU London).Read on to discover more about this How To Guide, or download the Guide as a PDF using the button at the top of the page

    Predicting Students' Intention to Use Gamified Mobile Learning in Higher Education

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    © 2020 Roaa Abdulaziz Ali AlsahafiBackground and Objectives: While gamified mobile learning holds the potential to offer an interactive learning environment that can improve students’ engagement, the predictors of its adoption remain underexplored, especially in a higher education context. The aim of this study, therefore, is threefold: (i) to identify predictors of higher education students’ intention to use gamified mobile learning; (ii) to examine the correlations among these predictors; (iii) to explore students’ attitudes towards different game elements. Methods: For the first and second objectives, the study extended the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) with cognitive gratification and perceived enjoyment. For the third objective, the study explored students’ attitudes towards five popular game elements in gamifying learning systems; these are Points, Levels, Leaderboard, Teams, and Gifting. A total of 440 responses were collected from higher education students from different regions of Saudi Arabia, using Qualtrics survey tool. After conducting data screening, 271 valid responses were considered in the analysis of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), particularly in the items of the hypothesised model, using AMOS 27. For the third research objective, 399 valid responses were obtained and analysed, using SPSS 27. Results: Our findings reveal that perceived enjoyment (β= .507, p < .001) and social influence (β= .261, p < .001) had the strongest positive effects on intention to use gamified mobile learning, followed by performance expectancy (β= .179, p= .008) and effort expectancy (β= .138, p= .034), while cognitive gratification had no influence (β= -.020, p= .770). The proposed model was able to explain 71% of the data variance in usage intentions. For the third objective, the results showed that game elements that allow students to quantify their achievements as individuals, i.e., Points and Levels, are the most favourable, while there seemed to be high variation with the one that encourages competition, Leaderboard, especially among female groups. Lastly, the elements that encourage collaboration, Teams and Gifting, received the lowest positive perceptions. Originality: The original contribution of this study is the empirically backed impact of the extended UTAUT on students’ intention to use gamified mobile learning in higher education. It also contributes in shedding light on which game elements are most promising in this context. The study offers a set of practical outcomes to contribute to realising successful adoption of gamified mobile learning in higher education

    Outside the Comfort Zone:Intercultural Events in Suspicious Times

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    This chapter explores a network of stakeholders engaged in the making of an event, including the speaker, audience, and socio-political context. Within this, it considers the reticence or receptiveness that both presenters and audience members experience in events incorporating the subject of Muslim identity in the UK. As case studies, the chapter focuses on three UK events that included presentations on the role of the Muslim artist in contemporary Britain. The chapter employs auto-ethnography, analysis of relevant scholarly resources, and field observation to reach a comprehensive understanding of events stakeholders in service of supporting truly diverse and inclusive events

    Digitizing activist art: Widening the platform for civic engagement

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    Ethnic minority artists are often entrapped in cultural spaces that define their representation as ‘marginal’ and limit their visibility and reach. The challenge facing minority artists – like Muslim, Arab or South-Asian American artists, to name a few – lies in creating spaces that would free their plays from being demarcated as ‘marginal’ or ‘subaltern’, and attract a wider audience to view and engage with their issues and concerns. Ethnic theatre initiatives are actively interacting with the wider community to change such narrative by creating new spaces for the distribution of their art, and imbedding civic engagement in the mosaic of that art. This article investigates a new socially-engaged discourse being developed by companies like Silk Road Rising (SRR) in Chicago, whose artists are disseminating their work to new virtual audiences in digital ‘counterpublics’. In particular, the article focuses on the company’s recent direction to harness the online public sphere in the making and distribution of artistic works to challenge cultural, political and institutional limitations. SRR is benefiting from and harnessing new technologies to: firstly, make its projects visible and accessible to a wider audience; secondly, engage its audiences in a participatory process that would effectively render them as ‘spect-actors’; and thirdly, redefine the artistic output of ethnic artists as polycultural, rather than subaltern or marginal
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