Mobility among Pentecostal pastors and migratory “miracles”

Taking into account space and identity in the movements of transnational religious actors, this article is engaged in reframing and reinterpreting experience by investigating the articulation of migratory and religious experiences as expressed by the pastors of four different Brussels-based Pentecostal congregations. The analysis of pastors' narratives, as they reassess the circumstances that brought them from Sub-Saharan Africa or Latin America to Belgium, reveals an interwoven process of geographical shifts and “divine” actions: this offers us an opportunity to consider an implied double process of mobility and religion. On the one hand, we can see how Pentecostalism transforms and subverts their immigrant experience by allowing for an alternate narrative of this experience. On the other hand, we can analyse the effect of the migratory experience on the discourse and religious practices in the new social context, more particularly through the identification of such “Children of God” with missionary duties towards their fellow immigrants. An analysis of the pastors' narratives also offers a particularly relevant opportunity to question the tensions between processes of endogenous identification (missionaries elected by God and working towards the extension of his “kingdom”) and exogenous assignment, repeated associations of otherness and strangeness, and the stigma coupled with pejorative characterizations of the “migrant”.     

叙事研究在中国公共行政学研究中的运用

叙事研究作为质的研究方法中的一种,是西方公共行政学研究的重要方法。由于中国公共组织运作的特殊性等原因,在中国公共行政学研究中引入叙事研究有着重要的意义。研究方法与研究对象是一致的,应该针对适当的研究对象和研究问题选择适当的研究方法。     

Editors’ introduction: critical terrorism studies: practice,limits and experience

The articles in this special issue are drawn from papers presented at a conference titled Critical Terrorism Studies: Practice, Limits and Experience. The conference was organised by the Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group of the British International Studies Association (BISA). The event was supported by both a BISA workshop grant and by Loughborough University’s Centre for the Study of International Governance (CSIG) and was held at Loughborough University from 9–10 September 2013. The conference aimed to explore what we know about terrorism and counterterrorism and importantly to ask how we know it. Reflecting the recent “materialist”, “everyday”, “experiential” and “narrative” turns in the fields of International Relations (IR), Geography and Cultural Theory, the event brought together scholars and practitioners to reflect on practices of research and knowledge production in Critical Terrorism Studies and related fields. The articles in this special issue reflect those aims.     

The artist as a medium and the artwork as metaphor in Murakami Haruki’s fiction

Abstract

In many of Murakami Haruki’s works, the protagonist is in a profession close to the world of literature, although usually not exactly a writer. In their role as translators, advertising copywriters, journalists, or editors, Murakami’s protagonists are invested with the task of rearranging fragments of reality into narrative or artistic form, and/or of transmitting a message. This process is emotionally charged, often involving a supernatural dimension. While the process of reconstructing a narrative is largely unconscious, the narrator’s choice to act in this capacity is deliberate, and is presented as a way of fulfilling his responsibility towards others. I read this element as an expression of Murakami’s vision of the role of a writer in society. The figure of the artist-narrator takes an interesting form in Kishidanchō-Goroshi (Killing Commendatore, 2017), where the protagonist, a visual artist specialising in realistic portraits, decides to pursue a more creative approach to painting that leads him to a series of supernatural adventures. Through a close reading of the novel, this article investigates how Murakami’s portrayal of the artist as a shaman-like figure functions like a metaphor for the role of the literary author as a catalyst that enables people to connect with their inner self and with each other.     

Normative power Europe and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the EU’s peacebuilding narrative meets local narratives

ABSTRACT

This article conceives the EU’s normative power in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a narrative that projects views of the international system, the EU’s identity as a peacebuilder, and its positions on specific conflict issues. Highlighting the importance of local narratives as cultural filters, this article argues that a high degree of alignment of local narratives with key elements of the EU’s normative power narrative facilitates positive images of the EU as a normative power in peacebuilding, whilst diverging local narratives tend to give rise to more critical views. Yet, the case of Palestine also shows that strong narrative alignment with the EU may encourage high expectations, resulting in critical views about inconsistencies between the EU’s normative aspirations and its actual foreign policy conduct.     

“Industrial Defence Against the Whole World”: Deakinite New Protection as Narrative of Global Modernity

As it evolved towards the New Protection program from 1906, Deakinite protectionism manifested as a historicised narrative of modernity: an attempt to impose a rationale of nation-building over the heterogeneous and unstable impact of new economic relations and technologies, and the tense dynamics of competition between nations. History was invoked by actors fashioning the nation-building task in post Federation Australia as they claimed to make decisive breaks with past practice, reflected in innovative government strategies and social reforms. The anxieties and opportunities stimulated by global industrial modernity defined New Protection policy, evident in the formation of political narrative and parliamentary legislation, and government intervention in the conduct of business enterprise and industrial relations. The objectives and contradictions of New Protection were clarified in the political narratives and policy interventions constructed to secure the future of the Sunshine Harvester enterprise and its workforce.     

苏童的《米》和李锐《旧址》的比较

作为新历史主义小说,苏童的《米》和李锐的《旧址》具有较强的可比性。从死亡意识、叙述方式和语言结构等方面来进行深入的解读和比较,以便我们更好地认识这两部小说,有助于我们进一步感悟新历史主义小说的特点,有助于我们深刻理解新历史主义小说的理论。     

The Unmasking of the Metaphysicians or the Deconstructing of Metaphysics?

Abstract

This essay argues that Popper's work, seen from the vantage point of increasing historical distance, can be viewed as the first attempt to understand the grand narrative as the adjustment of metaphysics to the modern world. When viewed from such a distance enduring questions regarding holism, identity, essentialism, and truth can once again be thrown into relief, together with the pressing issues of the paradox of freedom and sovereignty.     

The Secret Knowledge of Peacemaking

In this article, the author tells stories of relationship conflict in which the trajectory of the conflict narrative is disturbed by one of the participants instigating a shift to a different story line. He analyzes these shifts in terms of narrative theory and accounts for them in terms outlined in the narrative mediation literature, interrogating the knowledge called upon by the protagonists to initiate these narrative shifts. This knowledge seems to be pragmatic knowledge, local knowledge, and performative knowledge, with implications for professional practice. Practitioners are urged to be alert for opportunities to privilege such knowledge.     

Redemption and reproach: Religion and carceral control in action among women in prison

Criminologists are increasingly interested in how a variety of justice-adjacent institutions scaffold surveillance and punishment in the U.S. criminal justice system. A relevant but understudied institution within the carceral state is that of religion. Drawing on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork inside a U.S. state women's prison, I interrogate how religion—predominately conservative and evangelical Protestantism—served dual purposes in light of carceral control. Religion offered redemptive narratives to counter punitive carceral narratives promulgated by the state. At the same time, this narrative shift from “flawed” to “faithful” prescribed particular forms of embodiment: avoiding fights and rejecting sexual relationships with women. These forms of Protestant embodiment aligned with carceral purposes, such that women who reprimanded others for breaching religious norms were simultaneously enforcing prison rules. Although rhetorically challenging official prison narratives on the meaning of incarceration, Protestant narratives in practice regulated women's emotional and sexual behaviors and fostered a system of informal surveillance among incarcerated women. These findings illuminate how organizational narratives are linked to individual action. More broadly, they suggest how an institution such as religion can undergird state authority within an intractable context of carceral control.