324,065 research outputs found
Mind in Africa, Body in Europe: The Struggle for Maintaining and Transforming Cultural Identity - A Note from the Experience of Eritrean Immigrants in Stockholm
No full textThis paper describes how individuals and groups who had crossed ‘physical, national boundaries’, and who live in a different social context make sense of their lives make sense of their lives by re-constructing their identities - of the sense of who they are, and who they want to be, which is an ongoing process. This is done by narrating the experiences of African men and women who live in Sweden and who struggle to both maintain their cultural identity and at the same time change aspects in their culture due to the context in which they find themselves. Maintaining cultural identity and transforming aspects of that identity therefore constitute the main thrust of the paper. Some of the ways through which immigrants claim to maintain their identity are practices and routines that they repeatedly and consistently perform as if these were uniform both in the host country and in the country of origin. But it is exactly within this premise that ‘maintaining’ an identity is defined in this paper. However, the routines, or practices may have different meanings or significance to different actors, different audience, and especially for the main beneficiaries, in a particular context. In this paper, I will narrate how ‘maintaining’ cultural identity is understood and practiced by Blin (Eritrean) immigrants in Stockholm, Sweden, when they solemnly perform a cultural rite called blessing (gewra) in weddings. The paper is based on a participant observation of weddings from 1992 to 2001 in Stockholm, Sweden, when the Blin speaking people perform the blessing rite, enjoy doing it, show to the audience how they maintain ‘who they are’, and perhaps symbolically confirm their unity with the Blin community. The main actors are the elderly and the bridegroom, both sine qua non if the rite is to get its legitimacy. Thus, the blessing rite is an example of being Eritrean in Sweden for its performers. The concept of identity and identity construction has become an important concept to deal with such demands for ‘maintaining’ and 'transforming' identities. Even though maintaining identity is encouraged in the Swedish social policy, transformation of that identity comes through demands that are widely accepted as modern values, such as egalitarianism, gender equality and individualism – leading to issues of diversity at different levels. If one strictly defines the meaning of the blessing rite, one can find that the meaning sometimes may not be consonant with the so-called modern values but that the people then provide symbolic significance to the rite.Blessing rite, Blin community, Culture maintenance, Identity construction, Immigrant
Image(s) & environnement, sous la direction de Marie-Pierre Blin-Franchomme, 2012
No full textNdiaye Aïssatou. Image(s) & environnement, sous la direction de Marie-Pierre Blin-Franchomme, 2012. In: Revue Juridique de l'Environnement, n°4, 2012. RIO+20. pp. 743-745
Image(s) & environnement, sous la direction de Marie-Pierre Blin-Franchomme, 2012
No full textNdiaye Aïssatou. Image(s) & environnement, sous la direction de Marie-Pierre Blin-Franchomme, 2012. In: Revue Juridique de l'Environnement, n°4, 2012. RIO+20. pp. 743-745
Discussing ethnohistory: The Blin between periphery and international politics in the 19th century
No full textBorderlands, which are often experiencing challenges of different kind, can be regarded as a "laboratory" for new political or cultural projects or solutions. The country of the Blin ethnic group in northern-central Eritrea was such a land, especially between the 1840’s to 1880’s. Originally living in peaceful isolation, autonomously organizing their political live with a minimum of external intervention, this changed with the arrival of expanding Egypt in the adjacent Sudanese region of Taka in 1840. In the 1850’s, international brokers of religion – Catholic missionaries – and of academic exploration – Orientalists – appeared in the region, immediately followed by agents of imperialism – the British and French vice consuls of the port of Massawa. Simultanously reuniting Ethiopia sought to regain lost influence in the borderregions, including the Hamasen province, with the Blin of Bogos as their historic vassals. The Egyptian expansion resulted in the regular appearance of violent raids against the Blin, which gave a chance to the consuls and missionaries – with the few academics involved as their collaborators – to intervene, declare the Blin as protected by them and free the enslaved Blin men and women. Orientalists, the mission and consuls appeared to the Blin as agents of one idea: the inclusion of the Blin into the sphere of European influence. The Blin actively responded to the new challenges from all sides. While the Blin of Bogos accepted their vassalry towards /Hamasen, they also assured international protection by converting to Catholicism in great numbers. The Blin of Halhal converted to Islam, thus avoiding future raids from vassals of Egyptian Sudan. This article argues that the main strategy of the Blin was that of an active adaptation to political and religious domination by greater powers, which allowed them to preserve their highly developed internal autonomy, based on an age-old non-centralized confederacy (network) of Blin leaders
Wuwei and ExpressionismAlfred D?blin?s Interpretation of Wu Wei (Non Action) in His Novel ?the Three Leaps of Wang-lun?
No full text[[abstract]]In the first half of the 20th century Chinese Taoist thought enjoyed a unparalleled
popularity among German intellectuals. In this context Alfred D?blin?s novel ?The
three leaps of Wang-lun? plays a special role. D?blin was not satisfied with simplz
adapting Chinese thought and using it as a mouth piece for his own ideas, but used the
Chinese setting of the Qing dynasty to experiment with a new style of writing within
the German tradition.His creative use of Chinese thought can thus be read in two
directions. On the one hand D?blin, by making Taoist thought a focus of his narrative,
gave the Taoist idea of non action (wu wei) a new interpretation; on the other hand by
writing a ?Chinese Novel?6 in German he is able to introduce certain techniques into
writing that became features of expressionist writing in German. This paper will look
at how these two different features of the novel relate to each other to create a new
powerful expression of D?blin?s own understandingof the human condition
Diffusive author(s), cohesive author: Analysis of S/N (1994)
No full textThis study indicates the ways in which various aspects of the author(s) are brought forth in Dumb type’s performance art, the S/N production. Previous research has suggested a non-hierarchical organization of Dumb type and the absence of a “privileged author” in Dumb type’s collaborative work, S/N. However, the results that I have investigated from member’s interviews on the creative process of S/N along with my analysis of the recorded images of S/N, indicate a different aspect of the author(s). First, S/N was created through, so to speak, the collective ideas of the members of Dumb type. Further, S/N has at least nine quotations from previous performances, installations, and printed writings, besides the work-in-progress technique. Explicating one of the “author functions” as given by Michel Foucault, each text has plural subjects of the author. However, it has been revealed from members’ interviews that Teiji Furuhashi had a decision-making role in selecting the members’ ideas within the performance. Since then, S/N has had plural subjects of creation; however, Furuhashi is one of the subjects of creation along with the “privileged author.” S/N has plural authors (diffusive authors) yet at the same time, it has a “privileged author,” Teiji Furuhashi (cohesive author)
Discussing ethnohistory: The Blin between periphery and international politics in the 19th century
No full textLes pays frontaliers sont souvent soumis à des tensions en tous genres et peuvent être considérées comme des laboratoires pour des nouveaux projets politiques ou culturels. Le pays du peuple Blin, situé au centre-nord de l’Érythrée actuelle, en est un parfait exemple, tout particulièrement entre les années 1840 et les années 1880. À l’origine, ce pays était paisible du fait de son isolement, et la vie politique s’organisait de façon autonome, avec un minimum d’interventions extérieures. L’intrusion de l’Égypte, en 1840, dans la région adjacente du Taka, au Soudan, changea la donne. Dans les années 1850 des « brokers » de tous pays – religieux, comme des missionnaires catholiques, ainsi qu’académiques-explorateurs, comme des orientalistes – apparurent dans la région, immédiatement suivis des représentants de l’impérialisme occidental: les vice consuls britanniques et franc,ais du port de Massaoua. À la même époque l’Ethiopie réunie essaya de regagner son influence perdue sur ses régions frontalières et notamment la province de Hamasen, dont les Blins du Bogos étaient traditionnellement les vassaux. L’expansion de l’Egypte au Soudan avait pour conséquence des raids violents et récurrents sur le territoire des Blins, ce qui donna l’occasion aux consuls et missionnaires – et leurs collaborateurs académiques concernés – d’intervenir, de déclarer le peuple Blin sous leur protection, et de libérer des femmes et des hommes Blins qui vivaient sous le joug de l’esclavage. Les orientalistes, les missionnaires et les consuls apparurent aux Blins comme les vecteurs d’une seule et même idée: l’inclusion des Blins dans une sphère d’influence européenne. Ils relevèrent activement les défis qui s’offraient à eux de toutes parts. Pendant que les Blins du Bogos acceptaient leur allégeance aux /Hamasen, ils assurèrent aussi leur protection internationale en se convertissant massivement au catholicisme. Les Blins du /Hal/hal se convertirent à l’Islam, afin de parer aux raids futurs des vassaux du Soudan Égyptien. Cet article vise a montrer que la stratégie principale des Blins a été de participer activement à la nouvelle présence des pouvoirs dominants, que ce soit sur le plan politique ou religieux, et que cette adaptation leur a permis de préserver leur système très sophistiqué d’autonomie interne, fondé sur une confédération non centralisée, un réseau reliant entre eux les différents chefs Blins.Borderlands, which are often experiencing challenges of different kind, can be regarded as a "laboratory" for new political or cultural projects or solutions. The country of the Blin ethnic group in northern-central Eritrea was such a land, especially between the 1840’s to 1880’s. Originally living in peaceful isolation, autonomously organizing their political live with a minimum of external intervention, this changed with the arrival of expanding Egypt in the adjacent Sudanese region of Taka in 1840. In the 1850’s, international brokers of religion – Catholic missionaries – and of academic exploration – Orientalists – appeared in the region, immediately followed by agents of imperialism – the British and French vice consuls of the port of Massawa. Simultanously reuniting Ethiopia sought to regain lost influence in the borderregions, including the Hamasen province, with the Blin of Bogos as their historic vassals. The Egyptian expansion resulted in the regular appearance of violent raids against the Blin, which gave a chance to the consuls and missionaries – with the few academics involved as their collaborators – to intervene, declare the Blin as protected by them and free the enslaved Blin men and women. Orientalists, the mission and consuls appeared to the Blin as agents of one idea: the inclusion of the Blin into the sphere of European influence. The Blin actively responded to the new challenges from all sides. While the Blin of Bogos accepted their vassalry towards /Hamasen, they also assured international protection by converting to Catholicism in great numbers. The Blin of Halhal converted to Islam, thus avoiding future raids from vassals of Egyptian Sudan. This article argues that the main strategy of the Blin was that of an active adaptation to political and religious domination by greater powers, which allowed them to preserve their highly developed internal autonomy, based on an age-old non-centralized confederacy (network) of Blin leaders
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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