Common past, divided memories: historical memory of the Polish minority members in Lithuania

The Master’s thesis examines historical memory of the Polish minority members in Lithuania with regard to how their interpretation of the common Polish-Lithuanian history reiterates or differs from the official Polish and Lithuanian narratives conveyed by the school textbooks. History teaching in high schools carries a crucial state-supported role of “identity building policies” – it maintains a national narrative of memory, which might be exclusive to minorities and their peculiar understanding of history. Lithuanians Poles, in this regard, represent a national minority, which is exposed to two conflicting national narratives of the common past – Polish and Lithuanian. As members of the Polish nation, their understanding of the common Polish-Lithuanian history is conditioned by the Polish historical narrative, acquired as part of the collective memory of the family and/or different minority organizations. On the other hand, they encounter Lithuanian historical narrative of the Polish-Lithuanian past throughout the secondary school history education, where the curriculum, even if taught in Polish, largely represents the Lithuanian point of view. The concept of collective memory is utilized to refer to collective representations of national memory (i.e. publicly articulated narratives and images of collective past in history textbooks) as well as to socially framed individual memories (i.e. historical memory of minority members, where individual remembering is framed by the social context of their identity). The thesis compares the official national historical narratives in Lithuania and Poland, as conveyed by the Polish and Lithuanian history textbooks. The consequent analysis of qualitative interviews with the Polish minority members in Lithuania offers insights into historical memory of Lithuanian Poles and its relation to the official Polish and Lithuanian national narratives of the common past. Qualitative content analysis is applied in both parts of the analysis. The narratives which emerge from the interview data could be broadly grouped into two segments. First, a more pronounced view on the past combines the following elements: i) emphasis on the value of multicultural and diverse past of Lithuania, ii) contestation of “Lithuanocentricity” of the Lithuanian narrative and iii) rejection of the term “occupation”, based on the cultural presuppositions – the dominant position of Polish culture and language in the Vilnius region, symbolic belonging and “Lithuanianness” of the local Poles. While the opposition to the term of “occupation” is in accord with the official Polish narrative conveyed by the textbooks, the former two elements do not neatly adhere to either Polish or Lithuanian textbook narratives. They should rather be considered as an expression of claims for inclusion of plural pasts into Lithuanian collective memory and hence as claims for symbolic enfranchisement into the Lithuanian “imagined community”. The second strand of views, on the other hand, does not exclude assertions about the historically dominant position of Polish culture in Lithuania, but at the same time places more emphasis on the political and historical continuity of the Lithuanian state and highlights a long-standing symbolic connectedness of Vilnius and Lithuania, thus, striking a middle way between the Polish and Lithuanian interpretations of the past.

Many Faces of Mao Zedong

The main aim of this work was to explore the use of Mao Zedong s (毛泽东, 1893—1976) visual image in contemporary Chinese art during the years 1976—2006. Chairman Mao is the most visually reproduced person in the People's Republic of China (PRC), and the presence of his image is still unquestionable at many levels. Although several scholars have provided insightful observations on this topic, research focusing on Mao's visual image has been neglected. Employing the interdisciplinary approach of visual studies and using image as the main concept, this research combines different theoretical frameworks, deriving from art history, image studies and social sciences, for each chapter in order to explain the origins, intentions and major strategies of the contemporary Chinese artists. The focus of this research was to elucidate how Mao's visual image, deriving from the Maoist era, is re-created and negotiated in contemporary Chinese art works. The material reproductions - the visual images in contemporary art - are created to be juxtaposed with the immaterial mental images of Mao that were created during the Maoist era through the original visual images of Mao. This complex interaction between visual and mental images is further exemplified by art works that do not include Mao's visual image, but still imply his mental image. The methods used derive from both sinology and art history. The research is based on extensive fieldwork in China, which was crucial for gathering new information and materials from this vigorous art scene. The topic is approached through a Chinese cultural, political and historical perspective that is necessary for a further understanding of how the original visual images of Mao obtained their omnipotent status and what kind of iconography was created. Close structural analysis, taking into account the format, style, techniques, composition, colors, materials and space used in the art works, is employed to demonstrate the great variety of visual images created. The analysis is further placed in a continuous dialogue both with the contemporary art works of Mao and with the original visual images of Mao from the past. In this study it is shown that contemporary Chinese art relating to Chairman Mao is a more versatile and multilayered phenomenon than is generally assumed. Although some of the art works seem to fit into the definition of superficial art, the study demonstrates that this reading of the art works is not adequate. The author argues that employing Mao's visual images in contemporary Chinese art is based on three main strategies used by artists: to create a visual dialogue with a traumatizing past, to employ transcontextual parody, and to explore the importance of Tian'anmen through site-dependent art. These strategies are not exclusionary, but instead interdependent and many art works employ more than one of them. In addition, these three main strategies include versatile methods used by artists that make the use of Mao's visual images even more multifaceted.

The EU and Institutional Twinning in Morocco - An inquiry into the motives of cooperation through discourse ethics

This study examines Institutional Twinning in Morocco as a case of EU cooperation through the pragmatic, ethical and moral logics of reason in Jürgen Habermas’s discourse ethics. As a former accession tool, Twinning was introduced in 2004 for legal approximation in the context of the European Neighborhood Policy. Twinning is a unique instrument in development cooperation from a legal perspective. With its long historical and cultural ties to Europe, Morocco presents an interesting case study of this new form of cooperation. We will analyse motives behind the Twinning projects on illegal immigration, environment legislation and customs reform. As Twinning is a new policy instrument within the ENP context, there is relatively little preceding research, which, in itself, constitutes a reason to inquire into the subject. While introducing useful categories, the approaches discussing “normative power Europe” do not offer methodological tools precise enough to analyse the motives of the Twinning cooperation from a broad ethical standpoint. Helene Sjursen as well as Esther Barbé and Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués have elaborated on Jürgen Habermas’ discourse ethics in determining the extent of altruism in the ENP in general. Situating the analysis in the process-oriented framework of Critical Theory, discourse ethics provides the methodological framework for our research. The case studies reveal that the context in which they operate affects the pragmatic, ethical and moral aspirations of the actors. The utilitarian notion of profit maximization is quite pronounced both in terms of the number of Twinning projects in the economic sphere and the pragmatic logics of reason instrumental to security and trade-related issues. The historical background as well internal processes, however, contribute to defining areas of mutual interest to the actors as well as the motives Morocco and the EU sometimes described as the external projection of internal values. Through its different aspects, Twinning cooperation portrays the functioning of the pragmatic, ethical and moral logics of reason in international relations.

Notions of Nation : A Critical Discursive Psychology perspective on the Isle of Man

At the the heart of this study can be seen the dual concern of how the nation is represented as a categorical entity and how this is put to use in everyday social interactions.This can be seen as a reaction to the general approach to categorisation and identity functions that tend to be reified and essentialized within the social sciences. The empirical focus of this study is the Isle of Man, a crown dependency situated geographically central within the British Isles while remaining political outside the United Kingdom. The choice of this site was chosen explicitly as ‘notions of nation’ expressed on the island can be seen as being contested and ephemerally unstable. To get at these ‘notions of nation’ is was necessary to choose specific theoretical tools that were able to capture the wider cultural and representational domain while being capable of addressing the nuanced and functional aspects of interaction. As such, the main theoretical perspective used within this study was that of critical discursive psychology which incorporates the specific theoretical tools interpretative repertoires, ideological dilemmas and subject positions. To supplement these tools, a discursive approach to place was taken in tandem to address the form and function of place attached to nationhood. Two methods of data collection were utilized, that of computer mediated communication and acquaintance interviews. From the data a number of interpretative repertoires were proposed, namely being, essential rights, economic worth, heritage claims, conflict orientation, people-as-nation and place-as-nation. Attached to such interpretative repertoires were the ideological dilemmas region vs. country, people vs. place and individualism vs. collectivism. The subject positions found are much more difficult to condense, but the most significant ones were gender, age and parentage. The final focus of the study, that of place, was shown to be more than just an unreflected on ‘container’ of people but was significant in terms of the rhetorical construction of such places for how people saw themselves and the discursive function of the particular interaction. As such, certain forms of place construction included size, community, temporal, economic, safety, political and recognition. A number of conclusions were drawn from the above which included, that when looking at nation categories we should take into account the specific meanings that people attach to such concepts and to be aware of the particular uses they are put to in interaction. Also, that it is impossible to separate concepts neatly, but it is necessary to be aware of the intersection where concepts cross, and clash, when looking at nationhood.

Tiedostumaton nykytaiteessa : Katse, ääni ja aika vuosituhannen taitteen suomalaisessa nykytaiteessa

Leevi Haapala explores moving image works, sculptures and installations from a psychoanalytic perspective in his study The Unconscious in Contemporary Art. The Gaze, Voice and Time in Finnish Contemporary Art at the Turn of the Millennium . The artists included in the study are Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Hans-Christian Berg, Markus Copper, Liisa Lounila and Salla Tykkä. The theoretical framework includes different psychoanalytic readings of the concepts of the gaze, voice and temporality. The installations are based on spatiality and temporality, and their detailed reading emphasizes the medium-specific features of the works as well as their fragmentary nature, heterogeneity and affectivity. The study is cross-disciplinary in that it connects perspectives from the visual culture, new art history and theory to the interpretation of contemporary art. The most important concepts from psychoanalysis, affect theory and trauma discourse used in the study include affect, object a (objet petit a) as articulated by Jacques Lacan, Sigmund Freud s uncanny (das Unheimliche) and trauma. Das Unheimliche has been translated as uncanny in art history under the influence of Rosalind Krauss. The object of the study, the unconscious in contemporary art, is approached through these concepts. The study focuses on Lacan s additions to the list of partial drives: the gaze and voice as scopic and invocative drives and their interpretations in the studies of the moving image. The texts by the American film theorist and art historian Kaja Silverman are in crucial role. The study locates contemporary art as part of trauma culture, which has a tendency to define individual and historical experiences through trauma. Some of the art works point towards trauma, which may appear as a theoretic or fictitious construction. The study presents a comprehensive collection of different kinds of trauma discourse in the field of art research through the texts of Hal Foster, Cathy Caruth, Ruth Leys and Shoshana Felman. The study connects trauma theory with the theoretical analysis of the interference and discontinuity of the moving image in the readings by Susan Buck-Morss, Mary Ann Doane and Peter Osborn among others. The analysis emphasizes different ways of seeing and multisensoriality in the reception of contemporary art. With their reflections and inverse projections, the surprising mechanisms of Hans-Christian Berg s sculptures are connected with Lacan s views on the early mirroring and imitation attempts of the individual s body image. Salla Tykkä s film trilogy Cave invites one to contemplate the Lacanian theory of the gaze in relation to the experiences of being seen. The three oceanic sculpture installations by Markus Copper are studied through the vocality they create, often through an aggressive way of acting, as well as from the point of view of the functioning of an invocative drive. The study compares the work of fiction and Freud s texts on paranoia and psychosis to Eija-Liisa Ahtila s manuscripts and moving image installations about the same topic. The cinematic time in Liisa Lounila s time-slice video installations is approached through the theoretical study of the unconscious temporal structure. The viewer of the moving image is inside the work in an in-between state: in a space produced by the contents of the work and its technology. The installations of the moving image enable us to inhabit different kinds of virtual bodies or spaces, which do not correspond with our everyday experiences. Nevertheless, the works of art often try to deconstruct the identification to what has been shown on screen. This way, the viewer s attention can be fixed on his own unconscious experiences in parallel with the work s deconstructed nature as representation. The study shows that contemporary art is a central cultural practice, which allows us to discuss the unconscious in a meaningful way. The study suggests that the agency that is discursively diffuse and consists of several different praxes should be called the unconscious. The emergence of the unconscious can happen in two areas: in contemporary art through different senses and discursive elements, and in the study of contemporary art, which, being a linguistic activity is sensitive to the movements of the unconscious. One of the missions of art research is to build different kinds of articulated constructs and to open an interpretative space for the nature of art as an event.

Human Ecology in India Some Historical Perspectives

Before the spread of extensive settled cultivation, the Indian subcontinent would have been inhabited by territorial hunter–gatherers and shifting cultivators with cultural traditions of prudent resource use. The disruption of closed material cycles by export of agricultural produce to centres of non-agricultural population would have weakened these traditions. Indeed, the fire-based sacrificial ritual and extensive agricultural settlements might have catalysed the destruction of forests and wildlife and the suppression of tribal peoples during the agricultural colonization of the Gangetic plains. Buddhism, Jainism and later the Hindu sects may have been responses to the need for a reassertion of ecological prudence once the more fertile lands were brought under cultivation. British rule radically changed the focus of the country's resource use pattern from production of a variety of biological resources for local consumption to the production of a few commodities largely for export. The resulting ecological squeeze was accompanied by disastrous famines and epidemics between the 1860s and the 1920s. The counterflows to tracts of intensive agriculture have reduced such disasters since independence. However, these are quite inadequate to balance the state-subsidized outflows of resources from rural hinterlands. These imbalances have triggered serious environmental degradation and tremendous overcrowding of the niche of agricultural labour and marginal cultivator all over the country.

Las ciudades castellanas bajomedievales a través de sus paisajes sonoros

Resumen: El análisis de los sonidos que envuelven a las actividades realizadas por el hombre en un momento y espacio concreto, facilita una visión renovada sobre los comportamientos de sus productores como así también de aspectos culturales. Para ello es posible utilizar, tal como proponemos aquí, testimonios históricos exhaustivamente estudiados, como son las ordenanzas municipales castellanas bajomedievales. El objetivo del presente artículo será percibir las representaciones sonoras de las ciudades castellanas bajomedievales-Ávila, Piedrahíta y Plasencia– a través de sus Ordenanzas Municipales y, con ello, delinear los paisajes sonoros urbanos, revalorizando esta fuente documental, planteando sus alcances y limitaciones, a la luz de las nuevas aportaciones historiográfi cas (Historia Cultural) y los cruces interdisciplinarios, en este caso, la Antropología de los sentidos.

El papel de internet en la convergencia cultural: un análisis teórico basado en la aproximación constructivista dinámica desde la perspectiva de las interacciones online de los consumidores

[ES] Este trabajo plantea y analiza, con un enfoque teórico, el papel que puede tener Internet como factor impulsor clave de la convergencia cultural entre países. En este respecto, se reflexiona en torno a una propuesta teórica central, tomando como base principal la aproximación cultural constructivista dinámica. En esencia, se teoriza sobre cómo los valores compartidos por parte de los individuos (consumidores) procedentes de diferentes culturas en este medio, fruto de procesos interactivos e iterativos de comunicación online, pueden ser transferidos de manera plausible a cada una de sus culturas primarias o de origen, fomentando, por tanto, la aproximación de las mismas en el largo plazo.

La influencia del entorno cultural en la eficiencia de las "mejores prácticas" en dirección de recursos humanos

[ES] La eficiencia de los llamados Sistemas de Trabajo de Alto Rendimiento ha sido un objeto de estudio preferente en las dos últimas décadas. El análisis de su comportamiento se ha realizado considerando diversos factores que supuestamente moderan su eficiencia, entre los que destacan los factores internos de la empresa. Sin embargo, los factores externos, y más concretamente la perspectiva contextual, en contadas ocasiones han sido objeto de análisis.

El viajero Wilhelm von Humboldt y sus sucesores: caracterización cultural del País Vasco en las descripciones de viaje del siglo XIX

Berta Raposo Fernández e Ingrid García Wistädt (editoras)

The Slow Search for Solutions: Lessons from Historical Energy Transitions by Sector and Service

28 p.

A enfermeira obstétrica frente às transformações de sua prática consequente ao movimento de humanização do campo obstétrico hospitalar

Este estudo de perspectiva histórico-social estuda as transformações das práticas das enfermeiras obstétricas consequente ao movimento de humanização do campo obstétrico hospitalar. Tem por objetivos: identificar o capital global das enfermeiras obstétricas; analisar as concepções das enfermeiras sobre a prática profissional no campo obstétrico hospitalar no contexto do movimento de humanização; discutir as transformações percebidas pelas enfermeiras obstétricas sobre sua prática. Utilizei como método a história oral. Os sujeitos foram 25 enfermeiras que vivenciaram no campo obstétrico hospitalar, antes e após a implementação do movimento de humanização. Os cenários foram seis maternidades municipais do Rio de Janeiro. A técnica de coleta de dados foi a entrevista semiestruturada. À luz da perspectiva histórica realizarei a análise dos dados, tendo como base os pressupostos de Pierre Bourdieu. A conjuntura obstétrica do nascimento das entrevistadas era a de transição do parto domiciliar para o ambiente hospitalar. O cenário do parto e nascimento de muitas delas foi uma instituição pública de saúde ou conveniada. As agentes são oriundas de famílias humildes, com pouco capital econômico e cultural. Ressalta-se que as condições de acumulação de capital destas enfermeiras, à época, foram proporcionais às oportunidades que tiveram no campo social em que se encontravam e do processo de socialização. Algumas, após o curso de graduação em enfermagem, buscaram a especialização para adquirir um certificado, que lhes aumentasse o volume de capital e as legitimasse para a realização da assistência ao parto normal. O contexto político onde muitas adquiriram o título de especialista era o de implementação do modelo humanizado no campo obstétrico do município do Rio de Janeiro, favorável para a redução de práticas intervencionistas à parturiente com o incentivo ao parto normal focado na autonomia e no empoderamento feminino. Desse modo, as enfermeiras perceberam que as lutas dos agentes no campo obstétrico para a implantação de um novo modo de agir na obstetrícia foram importantes no processo de mudança de suas práticas. Especificamente sobre as transformações de sua práticas elas evidenciaram que, com esse movimento social e político elas passaram a ver e a assistir a mulher, de forma mais próxima, mais humanizada através da aquisição de capital cultural eficiente, outra evidência destacada foi quanto à questão das lutas, houve o reconhecimento de que as lutas foram importantes no processo de mudança, pois com estas foi possível adquirir lucros simbólicos significativos que permitiram gerar mudanças de posição e de práticas obstétricas no campo hospitalar.

Participación ciudadana, patrimonio cultural y museos: entre la teoría y la praxis

Cap. 1. La Nueva Museología, el patrimonio cultural y la participación ciudadana a debate. Iñaki Arrieta Urtizberea Cap. 2. Museos: del público al ciudadano. Rafael Azuar Ruiz Cap. 3. Los públicos y lo público. De mutismos, sorderas, y de diálogos sociales en museos y espacios patrimoniales. Luz Maceira Ochoa Cap. 4. La restitution du patrimoine: un rôle pour le musée? Études de cas dans les communautés innues du Québec et du Labrador (Canada). Élise Dubuc Cap. 5. El museo de territorio y sociedad, ¿una utopía? el caso del Museo Industrial del Ter. Carles García Hermosilla Cap. 6. El ecomuseo del río Caicena (Almedinilla-Córdoba): un proyecto de desarrollo rural desde el patrimonio histórico-natural, ¿y la participación ciudadana? Ignacio Muñiz Jaén Cap. 7. Mé-tisser les mémoires. Musées indiens du nordeste brésilien. Martin Soares Cap. 8. El patrimonio como proceso social. Intervención, desarrollo y consumo del patrimonio minero en Andalucía. Macarena Hernández Ramírez y Esteban Ruiz Ballesteros Cap. 9. Legislación patrimonial, intervención pública y participación ciudadana en la declaración de un conjunto histórico. Iñaki Arrieta Urtizberea Cap. 10. El castillo de Montsoriu. La participación de la sociedad civil. Joaquim Mateu Gasquet Cap. 11. El patrimonio cultural; espacio de encuentro. Daniel Arnesio Lara Montero

A santa absolvição do crime: violência, revolta e religiosidade nas dramaturgias de Jean Genet e Plínio Marcos

A presente tese de doutorado analisa, em perspectiva comparada, as convergências e divergências entre as dramaturgias do francês Jean Genet e do brasileiro Plínio Marcos, sob o prisma de três tópicos inegavelmente presentes, nelas: a violência, a revolta e a religiosidade. As questões de margem, borda, periferia, ex-centricidade, dissenso etc são abordadas neste trabalho para situar a ideia de outro como o referencial ontológico que sustenta a obra teatral de ambos. As respectivas biografias dos autores em questão, direta ou indiretamente, tem relação com a aura de marginalidade artística atribuída (e até assumida por eles próprios) a sua produção em geral (seus romances, poemas, ensaios e contos). Pode-se dizer que muito da persona que ambos assumiram correspondia às expectativas que os círculos intelectuais engajados tinham em adotar uma figura que viesse a encarnar o papel de autêntico porta-voz do segmento marginalizado da sociedade na qual cada um deles se criou. Ambos gozam de certo status de vanguardistas no caso do metateatro de Genet, na sua atribuída vinculação ao Teatro do Absurdo, e, no caso do hipernaturalismo dramático de Plínio, na sua atribuída (e mesmo confessa) descendência da linhagem criativa de caracteres e motivos do teatro de Nelson Rodrigues. Outro aspecto comum à dramaturgia de Genet e Plínio que abordamos é a problematização de dois espaços alegóricos definidores por excelência do ethos dos tipos humanos que o habitam: a prisão e o prostíbulo. Para tanto, ganham destaque, aqui, Alta vigilância e O Balcão, de Genet, e Barrela e O abajur lilás, de Plínio. Nelas também se verifica a figuração de motivos de inspiração religiosa que, no autor francês, concorrem para uma espécie de sacralização ritual do crime (o que ecoa o ideário de Antonin Artaud) e, no brasileiro, funcionam como um exercício catártico de compaixão à sombra de uma cristandade de feição primitiva que se insinua no tratamento que dá à degradação dos párias sociais que compõem seu universo dramático. Por fim, analisamos comparativamente três peças brasileiras (Pedro Mico, de Antonio Callado; Gimba, o presidente dos valentes, de Gianfrancesco Guarnieri; e Oração para um pé de chinelo, de Plínio Marcos) tomando como ponto de partida uma situação dramática comum a elas para traçar, assim, as afinidades e distinções de cada qual quanto à abordagem da criminalidade. E, assim, também, poder apontar o tipo de projeto de teatro a que cada uma se vincula, trazendo à tona questões caras ao momento histórico-cultural no qual foram compostas, como a figuração do negro e do favelado na sociedade brasileira

Revista americana: caminhos e descaminhos de um projeto cultural para o continente

O presente trabalho contempla o projeto da Revista Americana, publicada entre 1909 e 1919, idealizado pelo Barão do Rio Branco e realizado por seu pupilo Arthur Guimarães de Araújo Jorge. Verificaremos a coleção da Revista, sob a perspectiva das revistas culturais e políticas característica do início do século XX, que se constituíam veículos de divulgação de cultura, idéias e doutrinas. A análise do objeto consiste em ponderar o comprometimento com o projeto inicial avaliando as transformações sofridas ao longo dos dez anos que esteve em circulação. Para além do conteúdo do periódico, este estudo busca revelar a rede de sociabilidade envolvida com a publicação, que passava pelos quadros do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, da Academia Brasileira de Letras e do Ministério das Relações Exteriores.