National heroes or coming anarchy? Vigilant youth and the “war on terror” in Nigeria

In this article, I explore analytically how local youth vigilante groups in terror-stricken northeastern Nigeria – locally known as the Civilian Joint Task Force or yan gora (“youth with sticks”) – are responding to threats to their communities posed by the terrorism of Boko Haram and the human rights abuses of the Nigerian security forces. The article argues that vigilantism has been a way for victimised local youth to reclaim a sense of control and agency in a context of risk, radical uncertainty, powerlessness and heightened fear. While one group of victimised and angry youth (Boko Haram) in northeastern Nigeria are violently resisting the state, another group of victimised and angry youth (yan gora) from the same region are joining forces with the state to protect members of their local communities and to restore peace to their troubled region. However, growing concerns that the yan gora are a “coming anarchy” have compelled state-endorsed youth empowerment schemes geared at integrating the militia into Nigerian security service, while regulating their actions and instilling patriotism and discipline in its members. Yet, such hybrid security arrangements may end up reproducing the very insecurity they were meant to forestall.     

Televisie,tegnopolie en postmodernisme

SUMMARY

In this article the author argues that the ongoing process of redefining public broadcasting can be related to the nature of the technopological society of the late twentieth century and the existing postmodern condition. In this society the emphasis moved away from television as a cultural product to television as a consumer product or commodity. Based on Neil Postman's work he briefly discusses the nature of the technopological society and its influence on public communication. He relates this to postmodernism and briefly discusses the so-called postmodern condition and how it is reflected (and even created) by and through television.     

'Something nasty down below': The challenges facing cultural studies in English departments

ABSTRACT

This article examines the controversial impact that English literary studies is having upon cultural studies. Instead of reconstructing itself in the light of moving onto the terrain of cultural studies, English literary studies is in danger of over-textualising cultural studies, and remains captive to appropriating texts ethically to suit its historical mission as a 'surrogate religion'. These prevent English literary studies from properly engaging with the recent shift within cultural studies to notions of the 'active audience'. However, the preoccupation of English studies with postmodern textualist theories can enable cultural studies to break with the damaging opposition between 'text' and 'social context'.     

Subcultural Theory Applied to Jihadi and Right-Wing Radicalization in Germany

This article assesses the applicability of subcultural theories to individual cases of jihadi and Right-wing radicalization in Germany, with a focus on the individual initial situation and motivation for involvement. Within an overall qualitative research design, the article tests deviance/strain and Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) subcultural theories against four jihadi and three Right-wing extremist cases. The findings show little support for the strain-based status frustration hypothesis, but confirm the illegitimate opportunity structure thesis; modified versions of the CCCS’ resistance, bricolage, and homology concepts; as well as some of the postmodern approaches to agency and cultural cross-fertilization. The jihadi and Right-wing radicals examined here are assertive and purposive agents, strategically using the rich cultural arsenal available in the mainstream and/or other subcultures, while at the same time being themselves influenced by contemporary mainstream preferences of style. The article discusses the implications of these findings for radicalization research and specific subcultural approaches. It argues for a greater focus on both individual agency and the (sub-)cultural context for an improved understanding of individual involvement in political violence.     

A model of international and intercultural communication

International and intercultural communication and their respective cognate constructs, political international and cultural international communication, are redefined and interrelated in order to create a clearer definitional base for theory building in communication among nations and peoples. International communication is any symbolic interaction between people of different nation states. Political international communication is politically significant symbolic internation between nation states. Intercultural communication is communication between people of different cultures in which cultural values are an obvious factor in the nature of the interaction and/or determining the outcome of the interaction. Cultural international communication is intercultural communication between people of different nation states. There are four advantages of this model over existing constructs. The model: (1) unifies yet distinguishes among each different type of communication (2) focuses attention on political significance (3) separates cultural international from intercultural communication (4) argues that international communication is inherently persuasive and that intercultural communication is an interpersonal transaction.     

The gender of shopping malls

Abstract

This article investigates the historical alignment between women and shopping that dates from about the middle of the nineteenth century. During this time the masculine, modernist world of urban life was separated from the feminine, domestic sphere; this led to gendered perceptions about space and place. The split between male and female worlds led to representations of space that characterised certain spaces as male and others as female. This article shows how the nineteenth-century department store became a key location of middle-class female activity and identity formation, and demonstrates how this social spatialisation has been sustained by the contemporary shopping mall. Because malls are products of consumer capitalism, they embody ideologies and myths that support this dominant ideology; notions concerning gender, class, race, and space are hence grounded in the manner in which malls conceptualise and represent space. This article sites a gendered reading of South African shopping within the discourses of gender politics, (feminist) cultural geography and (visual) cultural studies, which attempt to unveil the spatial practices of contemporary society. The findings suggest that the social perception that shopping is women's work is upheld by current social practices.     

ETA: From secret army to social movement – the post‐Franco schism of the Basque nationalist movement

Under the Franco dictatorship, post‐Civil War generations of Basques grew up in a climate of physical violence and symbolic repression. Through the imposition of controls on all manifestations of Basque cultural and linguistic expression, the Spanish state transformed even the simplest of actions into defiant symbols of Basque identity. Rejecting, as ineffectual, attempts by the existing Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) to defend Basque culture, the more militant members of the PNV's youth organization attempted to stimulate a radical ethnic movement through a new organization, Euskadi ‘ta Askatasuna [Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA)]. From its founding in 1959, ETA's principal goals have been the achievement of Basque independence and the revival of Basque culture and language. Its principal strategy has remained armed resistance to Spanish rule. To date, ETA has been responsible for approximately 600 deaths. In this article, we focus on the strategic and organizational evolution of ETA from secret army to social movement in the post‐Franco era. In particular, we seek to clarify the role that violence plays in the symbolic conflict of Basque/Spanish collective identities and to identify how the democratization process has influenced the strategies and tactics adopted by ETA as well as by those political organizations which have emerged from ETA and its numerous factions.     

Youth as Actors of Change? The Cases of Morocco and Tunisia

In the last decades, ‘youth’ has increasingly become a fashionable category in academic and development literature and a key development (or security) priority. However, beyond its biological attributes, youth is a socially constructed category and also one that tends to be featured in times of drastic social change. As the history of the category shows in both Morocco and Tunisia, youth can represent the wished-for model of future citizenry and a symbol of renovation, or its ‘not-yet-adult’ status which still requires guidance and protection can be used as a justification for increased social control and repression of broader social mobilisation. Furthermore, when used as a homogeneous and undifferentiated category, the reference to youth can divert attention away from other social divides such as class in highly unequal societies.     

Preventing radicalisation in Norwegian schools: how teachers respond to counter-radicalisation efforts

ABSTRACT

This article explores how selected educators respond to the integration of counter-radicalisation efforts into Norwegian secondary schools. Our research participants describe having limited encounters with youth extremism in practice, yet their narratives exhibit a professional responsibility to prevent students from being radicalised towards any form of violent extremism. There are, however, diverging views on how prevention should be carried out in school. When faced with concerns of radicalisation, most participants draw on therapeutic prevention, which conforms to the dominant radicalisation discourse in global politics aimed at identifying and rehabilitating vulnerable youth. We argue that these therapeutic prevention strategies are a form of pedagogical control intended to recondition “illiberal” students under the pretext of national security. Considering the strong normative and political connotations of extremism-related issues, we recommend that educators tread cautiously in their prevention efforts. Educators must especially strive to find a balance between deterring students from radicalisation and violent extremism, while also ensuring that these efforts do not impede the agency and autonomy of young lives. Overall, this research raises some ethical and practical concerns about preventing radicalisation and violent extremism in Norwegian schools.     

THE ODDS ON CASINO PAINTINGS

ABSTRACT

This article considers the role of decorative paintings in two South African casinos, namely Carnival City and Caesars Gauteng. It suggests that entertainment landscapes such as casinos are subject to subtle and elaborate mechanisms whereby the creation of seductive milieus reinforces the myth of leisure and paradigms of hedonistic consumption. The use of strategies such as themeing is examined in order to propose that entertainment is increasingly predicated on the imperative of creating exotic, fantastic, escapist or extraordinary experiences – but at a price. The contentious issue of the need for a more authentic so-called African identity in casino developments is also broached. The authors point out that within the postmodern cultural hypermarket of unlimited choices, eclecticism and pastiche, cultures and histories have the potential to be reduced to themes and stereotypes, and can be endlessly re-duplicated in simulacral fantasy landscapes. This production of escapist consumer spaces is important, because the social role of casinos in South Africa has undergone radical changes during the last few years – far from being places of adult entertainment, they now embrace diverse forms of leisure activities for families.     

Terrorism and subversion of the state: Italian legal responses

Political assassinations constitute a specific form of violence intended to take someone else's life against that person's wish. The act of killing (the ‘event') is distinguished from the cultural interpretation given to that act (the ‘rhetorical device'). The essay examines the rhetorical device as a cultural artifact to construct and interpret the deliberate serious attempt(s) to kill a specific actor for political reasons having something to do with the political position (or role) of the victim, and with the symbolic‐moral universe out of which the assassin/s act(s). This universe generates the legitimacy and justifications required for the act, which are usually presented in quasi‐legal terms although the acts are typically not the result of a fair legal procedure.     

The aesthetics of “everyday” violence: narratives of violence and Hindu right-wing women

“Right-wing” movements see significant participation by women who espouse their exclusionary and violent politics while at the same time often contest their patriarchal spaces. Women also serve as discursive and symbolic markers that regularly form the basis of the rhetoric, ideology, actions and policies of the right-wing. However, even as women’s roles and politics within the right-wing remain diverse and important, dominant feminist scholarship has had uneasy encounters with right-wing women, labelling them as monolithic pawns/victims/subjects of patriarchy with limited or no agency. This article aims to question this notion by examining the aesthetics and visual and oral imagery appropriated, (re)constructed, transformed and mediated by right-wing women. Based on ethnographic and visual research conducted in 2013–2014 with women in the cultural nationalist Hindu right-wing project in India, I argue that right-wing women use a variety of visual and oral narratives (from images to storytelling) to negotiate with spatialities and carve out independent “feminine” discourses within the larger language of the right-wing. I also argue that these narratives are “ritualised” and performed in various spaces and styles and remain crucial to the “everyday” politics and violence of right-wing women. The “everyday” politics of right-wing women often contest, subvert and bargain with the patriarchal goals of the larger projects, rendering narratives as sites of examining agency. Using specific examples of visual and oral narratives from the aforementioned movement, this article articulates how everyday violence is shaped by the aesthetics of the nation and the body, and how these aesthetics shape everyday violence.     

The framing of radicalisation in the Belgian societal debate: a contagious threat or youthful naivety?

ABSTRACT

Following the terrorist attacks of 13 November 2015 in Paris and 22 March 2016 in Brussels, radicalisation has become the topic of lively debate in Belgium. However, little research has been done on the different perspectives which people use to communicate about radicalisation in Belgium. Therefore, an inductive framing analysis of 2,271 excerpts, taken from various newspaper articles, policy documents and social media, was performed to precisely reconstruct all the frames and counter-frames that are used to define the issue. The results were validated through seven interviews and two workshops with a variety of stakeholders (imams, youth workers, academics, journalists). This resulted in the reconstruction of four problematising frames and eight deproblematising counter-frames. In addition to presenting and illustrating these frames, this paper discusses how the framing analysis can help gain insight into the social construction of radicalisation in the wake of the 2015 and 2016 terrorist attacks.     

Japanese youth consumption: A cultural and a social (r)evolution crossing borders

This paper deals with the issue of Japanese youth as the social group that is (r)evolutionising the consumption trends in their society by a cultural change in values and lifestyles. These changes are reflected in new ways of social relations, work, gender issues and mainly consumption patterns. Japanese youth is creating a pop culture of their own that is spreading around East and South-East Asia, affecting their consumption trends as well. Such influence confers a new identity to the region that will be a key issue for marketers in the 21^st century.The author thanks the help of the Spanish Ministry of Industry and Technology through the R&D Project BS02003-07810, that enables the funding of this ongoing research.     

The Armenians of Los Angeles: Rethinking “Americanization”

Abstract

The existing scholarship typically measures “Americanization” along structural lines—such as knowledge of public policies, percentage of life spent in the U.S., or proficiency in the English language. While these variables are certainly important, they overlook another important dimension of newcomers’ post-migration experiences—namely, immigrants’ psychological attachment and sense of belonging to the American social, political, and economic fabric. This article therefore reevaluates what it means to Americanize by exploring the psychological (or symbolic) dimensions of multigenerational immigrants’ evolving political beliefs toward the polity. In rethinking the process of Americanization, we rely on a largely understudied immigrant population—that is, the Los Angeles Armenians (or Armenian Angelenos)—and an original public opinion survey—the Armenian Angeleno Survey (AAS). This study demonstrates that symbolic (rather than merely structural) Americanization is a useful framework in studying how contemporary immigrant groups position themselves in relation to the polity and understand important political outcomes. This article thus introduces an expanded model based on how multigenerational immigrants cultivate their ethnic communities while becoming ideological members of American society.     

The Sovereignty of Nature? Environmental Protection in a Postmodern Age

Recent postmodern international relations (IR) scholarship threatens to undermine global environmental protection efforts. Global environmental protection is fundamentally about conserving and preserving nature. It involves safeguarding the quality of the earth's air, water, soil, and other species. Postmodern critics have shown, however, that "nature" is not simply a given, physical object but a social construction—an entity that assumes meaning within various cultural contexts and is fundamentally unknowable outside of human categories of understanding. This criticism raises significant challenges for global environmental politics. How can societies protect the nonhuman world if the very identity of that enterprise is cast into doubt? How can states cooperate to protect nature if the meaning of the term is socially and historically contingent? This article argues that postmodern criticisms of "nature" do not undermine global environmental protection efforts—as many IR scholars suggest—but rather provide their own guidelines for practice. Postmodernists value the so-called "other"; they aim to give voice to the poor, oppressed, and otherwise disadvantaged in an attempt to limit hegemonic tendencies of the powerful. The article calls on postmodernist IR scholars to take their own concerns seriously and stand up for the paradigmatic "other," the nonhuman world in all its abundance and diversity. It calls on postmodern IR scholars to extend their concern for the "other" to the realm of plants, animals, landscapes, and so forth, and work to protect the radical "otherness" of the so-called natural world. The article, in other words, uses postmodern criticism against itself to ground commitment to global environmental protection.     

Simbole in interkulturele kommunikasie

SUMMARY

The first part of this article: “Symbols as message-bearers” discusses the nature and occurrence of symbols, symbol systems and classifications, and the way these manifest a society's specific world view. Symbolic systems are paradigms in which certain concrete cultural constructions (eg. houses, meals, clothes etc.) occur as syntagms. The analysis of symbolic mechanisms grants access to a culture's unique constitution of meaning. Verbal and non-verbal communication symbols are briefly discussed.

The second part depicts the manifestation of symbols in certain cultural arrangements in which symbolization plays a great part, like myths, religion, art and rituals.

The final part maintains the use of symbol analysis as utilization of the cultural totality for intercultural communication. By involving the symbol system as well as the unique communication patterns, successful communication transcending intercultural boundaries, becomes more likely.     

Children,war and world disorder in the 21st century: a review of the theories and the literature on children's contributions to armed violence

Young populations, and particularly young males, have been attributed a proclivity to aggression and unrest that puts societies at risk. Theories about the dangers of a demographic ‘youth bulge’ inform public and policy debates about the predictors of violent conflict, as evidenced most recently in the World Bank's World Development Report for 2007. This paper assesses the validity and utility of claims linking youth bulges to civil conflicts by reviewing different literatures concerning naturalist ideas of young humans' innate aggression and cognitive incompetence as well as environmentalist ideas of environmental stimuli, processes of socialisation, and the dialectical relationship of structural conditions and human agency. This review finds that the moral panic propagated by youth bulge theorists is too often based on only one form of influence on human development and action, whether an aspect of environment, personal experience, or individual traits. A more cogent analysis must integrate the highly complex and dynamic processes involved in cognition and behaviour and aim to develop theories that take account of the social power, ideational and structural forms, and emotional and cognitive processes that young people experience and draw on in times of war.     

Beyond access: Youth and digital skills

Abstract

There is an increasing growth in access to the Internet among youth, gained largely through cell phones, computer laboratories on campuses, home connections, and connections on personal computers. Also, the availability of social software tools for webpage creation, blogging, and creating and sharing multimedia content has made content creation relatively accessible. But are the youth using these tools effectively? What are the levels of digital skills among this population? This study investigates digital skills among South African university students. Through a survey conducted at ten universities, and two skill experiments conducted at two universities, this study explores the pattern of perceived skills and actual skills, to examine current trends of digital skills among the students. The findings reveal that forms of Internet access, the cost of access, social stratification, and inequalities have implications for the patterns of digital skills, with content creation being a challenge for many youth.     

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and the social responsibility media theory: the case of Yizo Yizo

ABSTRACT

In this article the authors investigate the controversy surrounding the educational youth programme Yizo Yizo and the possible effects thereof on school children and members of the public. The research problem is situated against the background of the social responsibilities of the South African Broadcasting corporation (SABC) with the aim of establishing whether the producers of Yizo Yizo have violated the principles of the social responsibility theory by publishing information (television programmes) which has lead to crime, violence or social disruption, and which has offended sections of the viewing public.

The authors argue that demands and outcries by members of the public and politicians to remove Yizo Yizo from the television screen, would be shortsighted. Yizo Yizo is a good example of social realism which succeeds in penetrating the root courses of problems in township schools. The excessive use of violence and graphic portrayal of rape and sodomy however, detracts from and overshadows the positive messages. In terms of the application of the social responsibility theory, it seems that the SABC did violate some of the principles of this theory by broadcasting programme content which offended a large section of the viewing public. Furthermore, another worrying factor is that Yizo Yizo did lead to crime and violence when school children started acting out copy-cat scenes of violence they had seen on Yizo Yizo.