Sacred cows and crashing boars : ethno-religious minorities and the politics of online representation in Malaysia

Starting with the incident now known as the Cow’s Head Protest, this article traces and unpacks the events, techniques, and conditions surrounding the representation of ethno-religious minorities in Malaysia. The author suggests that the Malaysian Indians’ struggle to correct the dominant reading of their community as an impoverished and humbled underclass is a disruption of the dominant cultural order in Malaysia. It is also among the key events to have has set in motion a set of dynamics—the visual turn—introduced by new media into the politics of ethno-communal representation in Malaysia. Believing that this situation requires urgent examination the author attempts to outline the problematics of the task.

The uses of satire : unorthodox news, cultural chaos and the interrogation of power

This article focuses on the satirical Australian show The Chaser’s War on Everything, and uses it to critically assess the potential political and social ramifications of what McNair (2006) has called ‘cultural chaos’. Drawing upon and analysing several examples from this particular program, alongside interviews with its production team and qualitative audience research, this article argues that this TV show’s engagement with politicians and political issues, in a way that departs from the conventions of traditional journalism, offers a significant opportunity for the interrogation of power. The program’s use of often bizarre and unexpected comedic confrontation allows it to present a perhaps more authentic image of political agents than is often cultivated in mainstream journalism. This suggests therefore that the shift from homogeneity to heterogeneity in the news media – which McNair (2006) sees as a key feature of cultural chaos – presents a significant challenge to those who wish to retain control over what the public sees and understands about the political world, and is a development which should be viewed in positive terms.

Enlightenment out of chaos : power, politics and The Chaser’s War on Everything

This paper focuses on the satirical Australian television show The Chaser’s War on Everything, and uses it to critically explore the potential ramifications of what McNair (2006) has called ‘cultural chaos’. Through an analysis of several examples from this particular program, alongside interviews with its production team and qualitative audience research, this paper argues that this TV show’s engagement with political issues in a creative, entertaining way that departs from the conventions of traditional journalism, allows it to present a perhaps more authentic image of political agents than is often cultivated in the mainstream news media. This paper therefore provides clear evidence that the shift from homogeneity to heterogeneity in the news media presents a significant challenge to those who wish to heavily control public opinion. It also provides further support for an optimistic re-appraisal of entertainment which emphasises its central (not merely periphery) role in political discourse.

'In the hands of the Receivers': The Politics of Literacy in The Savage by David Almond and Dave McKean

David Almond and Dave McKean's The Savage is a hybrid prose and graphic novel which tells the story of one young man’s maturation through literacy. The protagonist learns to deal with the death of his father and his own 'savage' self by writing a graphic novel. This article reads The Savage in the context of earlier, 'Northern' literacy narrative - particularly Tony Harrison's poem "Them & [uz]" and Barry Hines' Kes — through the discourse of neoliberalism and the notion of the reluctant boy reader. It is suggested that Almond and McKean are influenced by currently dominant ideologies of gender and literacy.

Do you see what I mean? charting changing representations and receptions of the disabled body in contemporary and pop cultural performance

The meaning of the body emerges through acts of seeing, looking and staring in daily and dramatic performances. Acts that are, as Maike Bleeker argues1, bound up with the scopic rules, regimes and narratives that apply in specific cultures at specific times. In Western culture, the disabled body has been seen as a sign of defect, deficiency, fear, shame or stigma. Disabled artists – Mat Fraser, Bill Shannon, Aaron Williamson, Katherine Araniello, Liz Crow and Ju Gosling – have attempted, via performances that co-opt conventional images of the disabled body, to challenge dominant ways of representing and responding such bodies from within. In this paper, I consider what happens when non-disabled artists co-opt images of the disabled body to draw attention to, affirm, and even exoticise, eroticise or beautify, other modalities of or desires for difference. As Carrie Sandahl has noted2, the signs, symbols and somatic idiosyncrasies of the disabled body are, today, transported or translated into theatre, film and television as a metaphor or "master trope" for every body’s experience of difference. This happens in performance art (Guillermo Gomez-Pena’s use of a wheelchair in Chamber of Confessions), performance (Marie Chouinard's use of crutches, canes and walkers to represent dancers’ experience of becoming different or mutant during training in bODY rEMIX /gOLDBERG vARIATIONS), and pop culture (characters in wheelchairs in Glee or Oz). In this paper, I chart changing representations and receptions of the disabled body in such contexts. I use analysis of this cultural shift as a starting point for a re-consideration of questions about whether a face-toface encounter with a disabled body is in fact a privileged site for the emergence of a politics, and whether co-opting disability as a metaphor for a range of difference differences reduces its currency as a category around which a specific group might mobilise a politics.

White Lines: The Intercultural Politics of Everyday Movement in Local Spaces

This article draws on research into racist vilification experienced by young Arab and Muslim Australians especially since 11 September 2001, to explore the links between public space, movement and national belonging, and the spatial regulation of cultural difference that functions in Australia. The authors analyse the way that the capacity to experience forms of national belonging and cultural citizenship is shaped by inclusion within or exclusion from local as well as nationally significant public spaces. While access to public space and freedom to move are conventionally seen as fundamental to a democratic state, these are often seen in abstract terms. This article emphasises how movement in public space is a very concrete dimension of our experience of freedom, in showing how incivilities directed against Arab and Muslim Australians have operated pedagogically as a spatialised regulation of national belonging. The article concludes by examining how processes associated with the Cronulla riots of December 2005 have retarded the capacities of Muslim and Arab Australians to negotiate within and across spaces, diminishing their opportunities to invest in local and national spaces, shrinking their resources and opportunities for place-making in public space.

Cultural diplomacy with Chinese characteristics : the case of Confucius Institutes in Australia

Since 2004,China has set up more than 400 Confucius Institutes and 500 Confucius Classrooms in 108 countries to promote Chinese language and culture. Despite these impressive numbers, these institutions are still surprisingly under-studied. This article uses Confucius Institutes in Australia as a case study to deepen the understanding of China’s new cultural diplomacy tool. The article describes Confucius Institutes as a form of strategic stakeholder engagement and argues that this collaborative tool of cultural diplomacy depends heavily on the commitment of its local stakeholders.

Confucius Institutes as innovative tools of China's cultural diplomacy

"Chapter 5 by Hartig introduces Confucius Institutes as an innovative tool of China’s cultural diplomacy. It explains the origins and implications of this new approach to promote China’s culture abroad and thus to shape China’s image globally. The chapter draws on case studies of Con- fucius Institutes in Australia and Germany. It shows how China is adapting a Western instrument of cultural diplomacy, namely an organisation like the British Council or Goethe Institute, in an innovative manner to accomplish its goals in the most effective way. In contrast to British Councils or Goethe Institutes, Confucius Institutes are typically set up as joint ventures between Chinese and international partners. By exploring the advantages and disadvantages of this project for both sides, the chapter illustrates how the outside world shapes China and, in turn, China shapes the outside world in the context of cultural exchange and cooperation. It argues that global influences, namely the general negative perception of China in the West, have forced China not only to become active in the field of cultural diplomacy, but furthermore to strive for an innovative way to be successful."

Socio-Spatial Approaches To Literacy Studies: Rethinking the Social Constitution and Politics of Space

Literacy studies have begun to examine the spatial dimension of literacy practices in a way that foregrounds space, and that considers space as constitutive to human relations and practices. This chapter provides an introduction to spatial literacy research, providing a guide to key theorists, themes, and studies that have shaped historical and new developments in spatial approaches to literacy practice and pedagogy. It begins by reconceptualising socio-spatial approaches to literacy research and defines terms. Intersections with related social theories are examined, with an emphasis on critical approaches and the politics of space. It clarifies the relationship between socio-spatial and socio-cultural paradigms, revisiting the spatial in seminal socio-cultural research. It covers new ground,including networks, flows, and deterritorialisation of literacy practice. The chapter concludes with challenges and recommendations for future language research and educational practice.

The remediation of the personal photograph and the politics of self-representation in digital storytelling

Over the past couple of decades, the cultural field formerly known as ‘domestic’, and later ‘personal’ photography has been remediated and transformed as part of the social web, with its convergence of personal expression, interpersonal communication, and online social networks (most recently via platforms like Flickr, Facebook and Twitter). Meanwhile, the Digital Storytelling movement (involving the workshop-based production of short autobiographical videos) from its beginnings in the mid 1990s relied heavily on the narrative power of the personal photograph, often sourced from family albums, and later from online archives. This paper addresses the new issues arising for the politics of self-representation and personal photography in the era of social media, focusing particularly on the consequences of online image-sharing. It discusses in detail the practices of selection, curation, manipulation and editing of personal photographic images among a group of activist-oriented queer digital storytellers who have in common a stated desire to share their personal stories in pursuit of social change, and whose stories often aim to address both intimate and antagonistic publics.

Paper, prices and politics : an evaluation of the Swedish support to the Bai Bang project in Vietnam : a Sida evaluation report

Sweden’s protest against the Vietnam War was given tangible form in 1969 through the decision to give economic aid to the Government of North Vietnam. The main outcome was an integrated pulp and paper mill in the Vinh Phu Province north-west of Hanoi. Known as Bai Bang after its location, the mill became the most costly, one of the longest lasting and the most controversial project in the history of Swedish development cooperation. In 1996 Bai Bang produced at its full capacity. Today the mill is exclusively managed and staffed by the Vietnamese and there are plans for future expansion. At the same time a substantial amount of money has been spent to reach these achievements. Looking back at the cumbersome history of the project the results are against many’s expectations. To learn more about the conditions for sustainable development Sida commissioned two studies of the Bai Bang project. Together they touch upon several important issues in development cooperation over a period of almost 30 years: the change of aid paradigms over time, the role of foreign policy in development cooperation, cultural obstacles, recipient responsibility versus donor led development etc. The two studies were commissioned by Sida’s Department for Evaluation and Internal Audit which is an independent department reporting directly to Sida’s Board of Directors. One study assesses the financial and economic viability of the pulp and paper mill and the broader development impact of the project in Vietnam. It has been carried out by the Centre for International Economics, an Australian private economic research agency. The other study analyses the decision-making processes that created and shaped the project over a period of two decades, and reflects on lessons from the project for development cooperation in general. This study has been carried out by the Chr. Michelsen Institute, a Norweigan independent research institution.

Rethinking cultural sensitivity : a response to criticism

We welcome Olga Kanitsaki’s comments on our paper ‘Rethinking cultural sensitivity’ (Nursing Inquiry 1996 3: 3-10) and appreciate the opportunity to respond. The main point we seek to emphasize here is the fundamental difference between our position and that of Kanitsaki. Our analysis is based on the recognition that the term ‘culture’ is historically and politically grounded. Its meaning changes over time and its contemporary usage (and popularity) thus demands explanation. The analytical task we undertook in our work was to emphasize the politics of culture rather than posing the political as one of a number of cultural dimensions (alongside the social, religious or technological)...

Othering the Malay in Malaysia : a planned consequence of politics?

This paper examines the rise in the politicisation of Islam in Malaysia and links it to the othering of the Malaysian Malay. It is my argument that both were “conquering” tools of Malaysia’s “Father of Modernisation”, Mahathir Mohamad, devised to win the support of the Malay Muslim majority in Malaysia. The many awards bestowed on Mahathir obscure the fact that he was instrumental in the systematic erosion of the power and roles of state institutions, especially at the Federal government level. This includes the significant loss of the independence of the Malaysian judiciary. Whilst per capita income in Malaysia may well have increased eight times under his 22-year leadership, this paper asks why is it that the majority of the Malays remain the largest number among the poor and the more disenfranchised of ethnicities in the country? Why have Malay and Muslim women suffered such a rapid decreasing ability to access justice? This paper examines existing research on the social and political changes Malaysia has experienced with Islamisation and under Mahathir’s rule, as well as studies on Malayness, Malay nationalism and Muslim Malay identity formation. The paper elaborates the othering of a majority people, the Malays in Malaysia, and how this othering has brought forth a fast-growing political power in the name of a supremacist Islam, a puritanical Sunni and Malay Islam. Specific events in the rise and rule of Mahathir as Malaysia’s then Prime Minister are reviewed, such as the banning of The Malay Dilemma, and the split in the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) in 1987. Also examined is the varying emphasis between Muslim and race, and how during Mahathir’s rule, that strong misogynist and patriarchal attitudes took hold in Malay Muslim consciousness, a colonising consciousness that is othering the perceived cultural and genetic “impurities” within the Malay.

“A politics of what” : A praxiography of renal disease in Indigenous renal patients

The morbidity and mortality rates of renal disease in Indigenous Australians are significantly higher than those of non-Indigenous Australians, and are increasing. The dominant discourses of renal disease currently predicate this as essentially a client problem, rather than (for example) a health care system problem. These discourses are indicative of the dominant “white” paradigm of health care, which fosters an expectation of assimilation by the marginalised “other.” In this paper, we draw upon a sociological methodology (the actor network approach) and a qualitative method (discourse analysis) to tease out these issues in Indigenous renal disease. Based on empirical data, we explore on the one hand the requirements of the discourses, technologies and practices that have been developed for a particular type of renal patient and health system in Australia. On the other, we examine the cultural and practical specificities entailed in the performance of these technologies and practices in the Indigenous Australian context. The meeting of the praxiographic orientation of the actor network approach—which has been called “the politics of what” (Mol 2002)—and the sociocultural concerns of discourse analysis does provide a useful guide as to “what to do” when confronted with issues in health care that currently seems unfathomable. Our praxiographic analysis of the discourse enabled us to understand the difficulties involved in translating renal health care networks across cultural contexts in Australia and to understand the dynamic and contested nature of these networks. The actor network approach has its limitations, however, particularly in the articulation of possible strategies to align two disparate systems in a way that would ensure better health care for Indigenous renal patients. In this paper we will discuss some of the problems we encountered in drawing on this methodology in our attempt to unearth practical solutions to the conundrums our data presented.

Cultural content matters: A critical sociology of language and literacy curriculum

A theoretical rationale, policy analysis and research agenda for a critical sociology of language and literacy curriculum, outlining the agenda for a political economy of textbooks.