Fakalakalaka : The impact of a Tongan notion of development in a contemporary transnational world

This paper aims to explore a Tongan notion of development –'fakalakalaka' – in light of Western notions of development. Two case studies of international development aid schemes illustrate the impact of Tongan development ideas in practice. Drawing on a number of ethnographers' work on Tonga, 'fakalakalaka' appears broader than the Western notion of development. The latter is characterised by influential ideals of controllability and industrialisation. The notion of development among Tongans, on the other hand, tends to be directed by an underlying persistence that, for instance, reflects Tongan core values regarding social organisation. The production of textile 'koloa', controlled by women, emerges as central to the accomplishment of this three-dimensional development notion of intertwined physical, mental and spiritual aspects. The importance attributed to this specific kind of textile has increased in recent years and found two additional roles, or development strategies, in Tongans' contemporary transnational world.

Litteratur i gränszonen : Transnationella litteraturer i översättning ur ett nordiskt perspektiv

Antologin Litteratur i gränszonen analyserar texter som uppstått i sammanhang där olika språk mer eller mindre frivilligt samexisterar och ställer frågan om vad som händer när verk vandrar från ett språk till ett annat, från en kontext till en annan. Boken stammar ur ett antal workshopar kring översättning och reception av utomeuropeiska litteraturer i Norden och samlar forskningsrapporter från tio forskare från olika ämnen som kritiskt diskuterar olika aspekter av transnationalism i litteraturen. Uppsatserna bidrar inte bara till att belysa hur vi genom litteraturen bemöter det främmande utan har också som syfte att synliggöra och problematisera Nordens plats på det världslitterära fältet.

Flerspråkighet i ett globaliserat samhälle : uppfattningar om minoritetsspråket som framtidsresurs

Multilingualism in a globalized society: The minority language as a future resource In this article the author investigates how the globalization of society is used as a reference in the discussion of future opportunities among minority language speaking youths in Sweden. A spatial typology of four different types of societies are constructed, the national, the multicultural, the diasporic and the transnational society, all giving the expression of different levels of globalization. These are used as layers of reference put upon the empirical data, functioning as a raster on a screen. The result is a pattern of expressions in three societal dimensions, the economic, the social and the cultural dimension. The findings of the investigation show that the minority language as a future resource of opportunities is anchored in all four societal types and in all three dimensions. In the empirical data (the youths interviewed) the ability of anchoring (finding stories, opportunities etc.) is less frequent when it comes to the diasporic and the transnational as a foundation for opportunity and more frequent when it comes to the national and the multicultural.