Conflicting Epistemic Demands in Poststructuralist and Postcolonial Engagements With Questions of Complicity in Systemic Harm

The brief and remarkable introduction to this collection of essays, speaks eloquently for the publication as a whole. Its intention is to disabuse scholars of the notion that ecocriticism as a critical theory and methodology is limited because of its focus on what normatively is considered to exist outside of the realm of language or textuality, that dry and intolerable chitinous murmur of terrestrial allusions, as Jameson puts it; a focus which discredits the discipline as a proper participant within poststructuralist theory and its arenas of enfranchising social constructivism and linguistic determinism (10). The collection treats the figure of nature as at once phenomenon and aesthetically charged category (13), and ecocriticism, having caught up in the twenty-first century with the established theories of structuralism, new historicism, feminism, psychoanalytic criticism, and postcolonialism, as a methodology that re-examines the history of ideologically, aesthetically, and ethically motivated conceptualisations of nature, of the function of its constructions and metaphorisations in literary and other cultural practices, and of the potential effects these discursive, imaginative constructions have on our bodies as well as our natural and cultural environments (10). These remarks are welcome to scholars famished for writing within a field that contributor Louise Westling states, in the first essay in the collection, is still undertheorized (26). Herbert Zapf, another contributor to the collection, notes theory itself as this refers to the late hallmark of is partly to blame for the lacuna. Until recently, during the period when emerged as a dominant critical practice, writing that addressed the physical world as a figure equal to the human in either or both its material and non-material effects was considered politically questionable and epistemologically naive in the pansemiotic universe of poststructuralism (50). The collection contributes to dispelling this condescension. They are exemplary, respecting nature and language, not as disparate and antithetical figures but, analogous to Marianne Moore's real toads with imaginary gardens, as richly intertwined.

Based on parallel field research conducted in two peri-urban villages in the cities of Naga and Valencia, the Philippines, this article deploys gender analysis to understand livelihood diversification in the context of agrarian change. In analyzing the role of state organizations and NGOs in (re)producing gender differences, hierarchies, roles and identities within agrarian settings, it brings poststructuralist and postcolonial theory into conversation with political economy to explore how gender is at stake in daily livelihood struggles. Specifically, attention is drawn to how structural constraints and institutional discourses still render livelihood diversification a gendered project, and how state and other development organizations are continuing to perpetuate gender inequalities and reinscribe normative gender discourses, particularly around masculinities and women's reproductive roles, in agrarian communities.

This paper draws upon recent research that explored Muslim youth identity constructions in southern Ghana. At a time when Muslim youth are often demonised and Islam is represented as incompatible with western democratic ideals, the research explored the intersections of nation, religion, ethnicity and gender in identity narratives of female students in high school and higher education in southern Ghana. After describing the Ghanaian socio-historical context, we outline the post-structural and post-colonial theories used to understand key concepts such as identity and youth. We then describe our methodological approach before presenting our intersectional analysis of data from the focus group discussions. This highlights female youths’ deep commitments to nation and religion, the marginalisation of young Muslim females in this Christian-majority context, and finally, the identity tensions articulated by participants between different Islamic traditions. We further show how all of these identity constructions were intersected by gender.

Nationality between poststructuralism and postcolonial theory: a new cosmopolitanism

The prominence of postcolonial studies in academia today is belied by persistent misunderstandings over its aims. The reasons for this are too various to be treated here, but what follows is a brief list of charges: that postcolonial studies caricatures Enlightenment reason; that it embraces nativism and identity politics; that it dresses political resentments in academic language; that it is a watered-down, depoliticized form of anticolonial thinking; that it is obsessed with nineteenth-century colonial institutions to the neglect of current forms of political and economic domination; that it is a tool of self-promoting immigrant academics. In this essay I do not respond directly to these allegations but will attempt to lay some of them to rest by exploring what I take to be the animating question of postcolonial studies: whether it is possible for formerly colonized or underdeveloped peoples to articulate a creative, that is, textured, response to the institutions of modernity. I argue that recent scholarly writing on India teaches us how to think about this fundamental issue, and will demonstrate that it holds valuable insights for those of us who are students of places other than India. Elaborating Indian history and cultural politics, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Partha Chatterjee, and Dipesh Chakrabarty are among the most influential of those scholars who have generated the style of thinking called postcolonial. To help us understand this term as it has come to be associated with these scholars, we might begin by distinguishing post colonial from the term anticolonial Anticolonial thought refers to forms of ideology critique that expose as false the colonizer's claim that colonial values are properly enlightened or universal. Postcolonial thought is a reflection on the categories and reflexes through which anticolonial resistance takes place. Postcolonial thought asserts that anticolonial resistance tacitly reproduces the culture and values of imperialism. A good example of this, it is argued, is elite anticolonial nationalism, where native elites (for example, Nehru or Sukarno) criticized their masters while reproducing colonial norms and schemata to articulate their po litical and economic goals.

From the mainstream success of the US cable network Showtime’s lesbian television series The L Word, to the global embrace of the It Gets Better project aimed at lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth, the media are central to the mainstreaming and re-visioning of sexual identity. Niche television programming and interactive social media have also opened up new arenas to showcase heterogeneous sexual practices. Of particular significance in this chapter is the representation of racialized queer identities. In the two decades since the emergence of queer race studies, scholarship on queer identities has developed in tandem with sexuality, postcolonial, and diasporic studies. I will explore the limitations, exclusions, and possibilities of queer identities through the connections between these theoretical fields, considering the mutually constitutive categories of sexuality and race as a set of practices; as desire; and as identity and post-identity politics. This chapter revisits the history of queer race studies in the light of today’s“post-gay” and “post-racial” environment with two focal points. The first attends to the specific methods and sites in which queer race interventions have emerged, in particular media analyses on interracial sexual encounters, such as independent art house and experimental cinema, and gay Asian porn. The second explores media in terms of queer race identities in relation to neoliberalism and postmodern racism; specifically, practices of queer mobility illustrated by marriage equality and sexual migration. These aims highlight changes in the way racialized sexualities have been constituted, from the early margins of subcultural media, to the center of mainstream forces that mediate new power hierarchies of inclusion and exclusion. I begin with independent film, online porn, magazines, and situated media, look-ing back to radicalized sexuality as a set of practices tied to the emergence of modern sex and racism, and examining “Oriental sex” as a form of Western desire. Second, I examine black gay cinema and photography. I problematize identity politics by locating the critical combinations of voice, enunciation, and intersectionality as central to early scholarship on queer race studies. Third, I evaluate media texts of queer mobility as represented in gay travel guidebooks, queer asylum reports, and newspapers. I situate historical developments of racialized sexuality and identity politics against contemporary articulations on homonationalism, and question the politics of sexualized racism that govern practices of queer neoliberalism. I argue that the challengefor a post-identity queer race studies is to attend to the politics of a queer mobility that resists assimilation to a “post-gay” and “post-racial” settlement.

Educators and educational theorists frequently employ a gardening metaphor to capture several child-centred principles about teaching and children, i.e. teachers must respect a child’s unique interests and abilities, recognise what is developmentally appropriate for students, and resist pursuing a narrow set of outcomes. Historically, however, educational theorists were as likely to use the gardening metaphor to support teacher-centred, ‘moulding’ ideals as they were to support child-centred ideals. Furthermore, in stark contrast to the contemporary optimism about a child’s innate, unique potential, the use of the gardening metaphor in the past sometimes supported prejudicial, deterministic views of children. In many ways, therefore, the contemporary use of the metaphor reflects genuine progress in educators’ ideas about children and their potential. Nevertheless, those who employ the gardening metaphor today might learn from some of its past users. Eager to avoid imposing their own goals on children, today child-centred gardeners have resisted articulating normative ideals by which teaching and parenting might be guided. Yet a normative ideal of the educated adult is not inconsistent with child-centred gardening.

Despite being one of Africa's greatest postcolonial thinkers, implementing an award winning national literacy campaign and writing extensively on adult education and development, the contributions of Julius Kambarage Nyerere remain relatively unknown within mainstream adult education. This paper critically examines the contributions of Nyerere to adult education and postcolonial theory. The paper makes two assumptions. First, it assumes that there is a relationship between the discourses of postcolonialism and the project of constructing a more inclusive knowledge base of adult education. Second, that postcolonial theory provides a relevant framework for understanding the politics of adult education and development. Through a comprehensive and critical textual analysis of Nyerere's major works on adult education and development, the paper concludes that Nyerere's philosophy of adult education and lifelong learning was very progressive if not radical. Nyerere's ideas on education for liberation and development resonate with those of Paulo Freire. By linking the principles of education for liberation to the goal of building an egalitarian, socialist society based on the philosophy of Ujamaa, Nyerere provided an innovative and yet ‘localized’ theory of social change. Finally, Nyerere provided a sustained critique of colonialism and racism, and was a committed advocate of equality, unity and economic and social justice for the postcolonial world.

Introduction: Something About the Way We Live Now

Modern Italy is frequently diagnosed with having suffered an excess of ideological antagonism. However, poststructuralist political theory implies that, as a form of negative exclusion, antagonism serves a crucial purpose in shaping political discourse and delimiting social and political identities. This essay outlines the poststructuralist argument and sets out an agenda for rethinking ideological conflict in the Italian context. Taking the rise and decline of Italian Anti‐Fascism as an example, it argues that antagonism is as important to ideological coherence as is the positive content of political ideology itself.

Historical cinema in India frequently transcends mere amusement, serving as a conduit for the formation of cultural memory, political identity, and social values. Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Bajirao Mastani (2015) and Padmaavat (2018) are two great instances of films where visual grandeur is interwoven with ideological narratives. The significance of this study lies in its focus on color as a cinematic language that both preserves and reimagines history. This study examines the impact of chromatic choices on the portrayal of cultural dualities, thereby contributing to broader discussions regarding politics, religion, and identity in Indian cinema. The study is based on Postcolonial Theory, which looks at how the self and other are made in cultural texts, and Social Semiotics, which examines color as a way of communicating that has many meanings. The study aims to examine how Bhansali uses color to depict ideological conflicts, to analyze how visual palettes create cultural dualities, and to evaluate the influence of clothing and set design on the construction of historical narratives. The method uses both descriptive analysis and discourse analysis. The results show that color in Bhansali's films is more than just decoration; it is a political and cultural code that reinterprets history, shapes identities, and embeds ideological stances in spectacle.

"This thesis examines historical and cultural paradigms in dance in Ireland. Initially, the Introduction establishes the post-colonial matrix within which the thesis is written. This section interprets stages in the development of dance using cultural and educational theorists. It also highlights where the dance repertoire and teaching system at Siamsa Tire operate as signifiers. Chapter One focuses on dance during the colonial era. Post-Colonial theorists have queried the validity of the coloniser/ colonised concept highlighting that it simplifies the long ago. The heterodox origins of the Irish dance master system and canon support this notion as they recognise a cross-fertilisation process between British, Irish and French dancers. The repertoire and teaching system at Siamsa Tire, the National Folk Theatre of Ireland, are used to signify specific stages in the evolution of dance in Ireland during the chapter. The thesis moves on to dance during the Gaelic Revival. At this stage dance had became a site of political and ideological struggle. The first section of the chapter focuses on nationalist efforts by leaguers and the Anglo Irish to use specific modes of artistic expression (including dance) to assert their ‘Irishness’. Then, the chapter focuses on the rural dance tradition. It signified a nomadic state of consciousness where people continued to live outside fixed social conventions. Founding Artistic Director of Siamsa Tire Pat Ahern assimilated this folk culture in his youth and he drew upon it to project a particular type of Irishness on stage.Fie used the North Kerry dance canon and style as tools of expression. The next section focuses places the inauguration of Siamsa Tire into artistic and cultural contexts. Initially, a Gaelic League Concert in Dingle Co. Kerry in the 1930s receives attention: the diverse repertoire and mixed audience reaction signified an unstable national consciousness where ethnic groups continued to use dance (and other forms of expression) to establish their identity. Then, a decline in native forms from the thirties to the fifties is highlighted. It spurred a second revival and Siamsa was a core element. Concepts of westernisation and the subaltern are used to rationalise Ahern’s ‘Plan for Fostering the Growth of Traditional Irish Culture’ which was published in 1972 and his foundation of Siamsa Tire in 1974. The fourth chapter uses Stein’s categorisations of storytelling to classify stages in pantomimic dance in Ireland. Signifiers are highlighted in pantomimic dances in the Siamsa repertoire. Other instances, where artists adopted and adapted the same stories also receive reference. At the conclusion of the chapter, correlations are drawn between Pat Ahern and Brendan Kennelly’s works. Born during the same era, both men experienced the North Kerry storytelling tradition. While Ahern used the stage, and Kennelly used the page, to relay stories, similarities were present - in the themes, modes of discourse and storytelling style. The thesis concludes by focusing on the future of dance in Ireland. A teaching model, the ‘Inclusive Model’, is proposed. This model draws upon current systems of teaching dance in mainstream education and at Siamsa Tire. It is holistic as it focuses on dance from cultural, artistic, academic and physical perspectives."

The late eighties and early nineties saw the publication of such works as The Empire Strikes Back (1989) and The Location of Culture (1994). Despite their crucial influence on the development of postcolonial theory, these works contributed to an idealization of the post-colonial subject—a trend that continues to this day embodied by Ashcroft’s horizonal space. They enthusiastically answer Spivak that, indeed, the subaltern can speak. However, The Book of Salt by Monique Truong and Linh Dinh’s short stories ‘!’ and ‘Prisoner with a Dictionary’ fight openly against this post-colonial optimism. Through an eclectic approach to these Vietnamese American works, which combines diasporic and post-structuralist theories, I question the usefulness of Ashcroft’s concepts of horizonal space and transnation and Bhabha’s notions of interstices and third space in representing the subaltern condition. While Ashcroft and Bhabha highly praise any attempt by the colonized to resist colonial hegemony and celebrate the state of ‘in-betweenness, ‘ I caution that these ‘spaces’, these ‘interstices’ are not inviolable; they do not operate in isolation, but they are challenged by other, possibly differently constituted ‘spaces’. I prove this by analyzing the interplay of identity modalities, in this case language and colonization, in the three texts.

Theoretical scholarship on law and sexuality has increased dramatically over the past several decades, in part due to an increase in litigation pursued by social movements representing sexuality‐based interests and identities. Much of this recent scholarship adopts an instrumental view of law, examining doctrinal framing strategies, especially rights‐based claims. Critiques based in critical race theory, critical legal studies, feminism and feminist legal studies, queer theory, postmodern and poststructural theory, and postcolonial theory complicate narratives emphasizing progressive change in the law's understanding of sexuality and identify its constitutive power to shape sexuality's place and meaning in social life.

Mapping Jewish American Literary Studies in the New Century