‘No toques mi pelo’ (don’t touch my hair): decoding Afro-Cuban identity politics through hair

ABSTRACT

People across the African Diaspora have developed a complex socio-visual-language system of hair as a means of self-expression; however, the decades of economic sanctions in Cuba generated a unique political dynamic that has shaped concepts of self-image and cultural expressions. Sixteen Afro-Cuban women were interviewed about the cultural significance of their hair using The Guided Hair Autobiography methodology. Participant themes included aesthetic pride and confidence, hair bullying and embarrassment, and hair damage and distress. A Cuban cultural critique underlines how Afro-Cuban women have been socialized to have a bias towards straightened long hair over tightly coiled hair textures. These findings suggest that despite the ‘raceless’ political revolutionary spirit infused into Cuban cultural ideology, people of African descent process racial politics and identity through hair.     

The power of “small business” as pending narrative: an ideograph in UK politics 2004–2013

This paper explores utilisation of the term small business in contemporary politics in the United Kingdom. First, the policy and practice implications of the term small business are examined, through the lens of political rhetoric. Use of the term over the period from 2004 to 2013 is examined, drawing upon the DataArt Guardian NewsTraces platform as both a method of initially visualising an overall pattern of the term’s use during the 10-year period, and a medium for facilitating data collection for analysis. The research question is: how is the term “small business” used in political rhetoric in the UK, in the identification of policy problems and solutions, and the creation of pending narrative? It is determined that the term small business is an ideograph with different and often competing meanings for various interest groups, and suffers from serious imprecision despite policy efforts which strive for legitimacy. Even with spikes in use reflecting election cycles and periods of economic stress, the term’s power is in its mutable but appealing vagueness, and its enduring quality as pending narrative. This leaves open obvious questions of both policy efficacy and the sufficiency of ideographic-laced rhetoric as a substitute for meaningful policy.     

快感的考古消费:文博类文创产业的产品特性研究

中国文创产业发展到今天的水平,应当重视产业细分与产业细分条件下产品特色的开发问题。对故宫文创业的个案进行“知识考古学”研究和考察的结果表明,文博类文创产品的基本特性为快感的考古消费,快感消费为产品经济面向的一端,考古则显示了该类产品的文化内涵。它通常包含了知识性、叙事性、场景性的精神内容。所谓知识性将涉及教育、权威、权力批判等几个方面的内涵;叙事性包含文本性、历史秩序性和可阐释性等内容;场景性则通过展演、姿态的造型等凸显。     

形象生成的性属特征指认与限定--对路遥小说叙事的一种透视

路遥的小说叙事,多是将女性视为美与善的化身来进行塑造,并且在男女并置的共构关系中,呈现出女尊男卑的叙写模式,但在主导的叙事观念上却仍然因袭着传统父权制的价值认知标准。对其文本叙事中形象塑造的性属特征与主观意图之间的关联进行具体的分析阐释,具有重要意义。     

THE FUNNY SIDE OF DRUG DEALING: RISK,HUMOR, AND NARRATIVE IDENTITY

In this study, we explore the role humor plays in the narrated identities of drug dealers, in their negotiation of the threat of formal punishment, and in their cultural membership and authority. By drawing from interview and observation data gathered from 33 active drug dealers residing in St. Louis, Missouri, we find that humor facilitates identity work among illicit drug dealers in several ways. Humor is an important symbolic boundary marker distinguishing dealers from others they consider “stupid” or less circumspect. It also indicates dealers’ identities as “smart” and simultaneously establishes and validates their subcultural authority and membership in the symbolic group of “smart” dealers. Furthermore, drug dealers use denigrating humor in their narratives to distance their former and virtual identities from their present identities. Finally, humor also reduces dealers’ perceptions of the threats posed by police and potential snitches by casting dealers’ present identities and former reactions to the threat of punishment in a positive light. We conclude by discussing implications for narrative criminology, extant humor research, and current understanding of symbolic boundaries, identity work, and deterrence.     

Body- and movement-based interventions with male offenders – a narrative review

Therapeutic and psychosocial accompaniment of offenders is increasingly being understood as a communal responsibility. Apart from recognised treatment batteries, an increasing amount of body- and movement-based interventions is carried out within the prison environment. Extensive literature searches were performed for this review. From a total of 2908, 23 publications were included. An increase in research interest in body- and movement-based interventions during the past 5 years was observed. Such interventions are being flexibly applied in detention contexts across western countries, transnationally. Effects of emotional nature as well as competence are being described. Body- and movement-based interventions may contribute substantially in the supervision within the prison regime and can be applied in different modalities as well as low- and high-threshold treatments. Scientific development in this field still is rudimentary and thus further research is necessary in order to provide more evidence for modification processes and efficacy from validated studies.     

驳泛叙述者论

很多当代叙事学家都认为所有的虚构叙事都有一个不同于作者的虚构叙述者。这一观点被称为“泛叙述者论”。本文以充分的理由驳斥了这一观点,同时指出那些看似支持这一观点的重要论据是根本站不住脚的。在简要介绍小说理论的基础上,文章认为,无论从理论还是从实践角度来说,都没有必要为每个虚构叙事假定一个虚构叙述者。     

Narrative Therapy and Peacebuilding

Dealing with trauma and loss in a post-conflict environment demands nuanced responses that take into account individual-level healing work and avoid standardized, statist, institutionalized solutions which tend to prioritize national unity by subordinating disparate individual memories. This article explores how narrative therapy advances the use of local initiatives, skills and values, challenges notions of therapeutic governance and generates possibilities of experiencing an increased sense of agency. Further, it introduces a range of collective narrative methodologies that open up the space for diverse meanings and alternative stories that can contribute to peacebuilding and recovery from the effects of trauma.     

The Communist Ideological Legacy and Serb–Albanian Relations in Kosovo∗

This article uses Central Asian examples to challenge theories of ethnic nationalism that locate its origins in intellectual activism (Hroch), state modernization processes (Gellner), or the rise of mass media (Anderson). Modern Uyghur cultural politics and traditional Central Asian dynastic genealogies reveal related processes used in constructing modern nationalist symbols and pre-modern ideologies of descent. Modern territorial states with ideals of social unification and bureaucratic organization rely upon nationalist discourses to elaborate and rework cultural forms into evidence for the ethnic nation. The state links citizens to institutions through nationalist content used in political discourse, schooling, and public performances. Because such content is presented as authentic but used instrumentally, its contingency and fabrication have to be concealed from view: the culturally intimate spaces of bureaucratic production of culture and narratives are separated from public performances. The creation of genealogies used to legitimate pre-modern states are similar: compositional processes and goals are kept offstage, and little is disclosed in the public historical narratives and performances.