Visual Disobedience: The Geopolitics of Experimental Art in Central America, 1990-Present

This dissertation centers on the relationship between art and politics in postwar Central America as materialized in the specific issues of racial and gendered violence that derive from the region's geopolitical location and history. It argues that the decade of the 1990s marks a moment of change in the region's cultural infrastructure, both institutionally and conceptually, in which artists seek a new visual language of experimental art practices to articulate and conceptualize a critical understanding of place, experience and knowledge. It posits that visual and conceptual manifestations of violence in Central American performance, conceptual art and installation extend beyond a critique of the state, and beyond the scope of political parties in perpetuating violent circumstances in these countries. It argues that instead artists use experimental practices in art to locate manifestations of racial violence in an historical system of domination and as a legacy of colonialism still witnessed, lived, and learned by multiple subjectivities in the region. In this postwar period artists move beyond the cold-war rhetoric of the previous decades and instead root the current social and political injustices in what Aníbal Quijano calls the `coloniality of power.' Through an engagement of decolonial methodologies, this dissertation challenges the label "political art" in Central America and offers what I call "visual disobedience" as a response to the coloniality of seeing. I posit that visual colonization is yet another aspect of the coloniality of power and indispensable to projects of decolonization. It offers an analysis of various works to show how visual disobedience responds specifically to racial and gender violence and the equally violent colonization of visuality in Mesoamerica. Such geopolitical critiques through art unmask themes specific to life and identity in contemporary Central America, from indigenous genocide, femicide, transnational gangs, to mass imprisonments and a new wave of social cleansing. I propose that Central American artists--beyond an anti-colonial stance--are engaging in visual disobedience so as to construct decolonial epistemologies in art, through art, and as art as decolonial gestures for healing.

ARAB MUSICIANS IN WASHINGTON, D.C. AREA: ETHNICITY AND IDENTITY

Musicians living in the Arab Diaspora around the Washington, D.C. metro area are a small group of multi-faceted individuals with significant contributions and intentions to propagate and disseminate their music. Various levels of identity are discussed and analyzed, including self-identity, group/ collective identity, and Arab ethnic identity. The performance and negotiation of Arab ethnic identity is apparent in selected repertoire, instrumentation, musical style, technique and expression, shared conversations about music, worldview on Arabic music and its future. For some musicians, further evidence of self-construction of one's ethnic identity entails choice of name, costume, and venue. Research completed is based on fieldwork, observations, participant-observations, interviews, and communications by phone and email. This thesis introduces concepts of Arabic music, discusses recent literature, reveals findings from case studies on individual Arab musicians and venues, and analyzes Arab identity and ethnicity in relation to particular definitions of identity found in anthropological and ethnomusicological writings. Musical lyrics, translations, transcriptions, quotes, discussions, analyses, as well as charts and diagrams of self-identity analyses are provided as evidence of the performance and negotiation of Arab identity.

CHASING THE SINGERS: THE TRANSITION OF LONG-SONG (URTYN DUU) IN POST-SOCIALIST MONGOLIA

Long-song (Urtyn duu) is a prominent Mongolian traditional folk song genre that survived throughout the socialist period (1921-1990) and throughout the political transformation of Mongolia from socialism to democratic capitalism after the Soviet Union was dismantled and terminated its aid to Mongolia in 1990. This dissertation, based on research conducted from 2006 to 2010, presents and investigates the traces of singers' stories and memories of their lives, songs, and singing, through the lens of the discourse on change and continuity in, and as, folk tradition. During the socialist period, this genre was first considered backward, and was then subtly transformed into an urban national style, with the formation of a boundary between professionalism and amateurism among long-song singers and with selective performance of certain songs and styles. This boundary was associated with politics and ideology and might be thought to have ended when the society entered its post-socialist period. However, the long-song genre continued to play a political role, with different kinds of political meaning one the one hand and only slight musical modification on the other. It was now used to present a more nostalgic and authentic new Mongolian identity in the post-socialist free market. Through my investigation, I argue that the historical transition of Mongolia encompassed not merely political or economic shifts, but also a deeper transformation that resulted in new cultural forms. Long-song provides a good case study of the complicated process of this cultural change.

Two versions of life: emotionally negative and positive life events have different roles in the organization of life story and identity.

Over 2,000 adults in their sixties completed the Centrality of Event Scale (CES) for the traumatic or negative event that now troubled them the most and for their most positive life event, as well as measures of current PTSD symptoms, depression, well-being, and personality. Consistent with the notion of a positivity bias in old age, the positive events were judged to be markedly more central to life story and identity than were the negative events. The centrality of positive events was unrelated to measures of PTSD symptoms and emotional distress, whereas the centrality of the negative event showed clear positive correlations with these measures. The centrality of the positive events increased with increasing time since the events, whereas the centrality of the negative events decreased. The life distribution of the positive events showed a marked peak in young adulthood whereas the life distribution for the negative events peaked at the participants' present age. The positive events were mostly events from the cultural life script-that is, culturally shared representations of the timing of major transitional events. Overall, our findings show that positive and negative autobiographical events relate markedly differently to life story and identity. Positive events become central to life story and identity primarily through their correspondence with cultural norms. Negative events become central through mechanisms associated with emotional distress.

When a trauma becomes a key to identity: Enhanced integration of trauma memories predicts posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms

The Centrality of Event Scale (CES) measures the extent to which a traumatic memory forms a central component of personnal identity, a turning point in the life story and a reference point for everyday inferences. In two studies, we show that the CES is positively correlated with severity of PTSD symptoms, even when controlling for measures of anxiety, depression, dissociation and self-consciousness. The findings contradict the widespread view that poor integration of the traumatic memory into one's life story is a main cause of PTSD symptoms. Instead, enhanced integration appears to be a key issue. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The centrality of event scale: a measure of integrating a trauma into one's identity and its relation to post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.

We introduce a new scale that measures how central an event is to a person's identity and life story. For the most stressful or traumatic event in a person's life, the full 20-item Centrality of Event Scale (CES) and the short 7-item scale are reliable (alpha's of .94 and .88, respectively) in a sample of 707 undergraduates. The scale correlates .38 with PTSD symptom severity and .23 with depression. The present findings are discussed in relation to previous work on individual differences related to PTSD symptoms. Possible connections between the CES and measures of maladaptive attributions and rumination are considered along with suggestions for future research.

Accurate localized resolution of identity approach for linear-scaling hybrid density functionals and for many-body perturbation theory

© 2015 IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.A key component in calculations of exchange and correlation energies is the Coulomb operator, which requires the evaluation of two-electron integrals. For localized basis sets, these four-center integrals are most efficiently evaluated with the resolution of identity (RI) technique, which expands basis-function products in an auxiliary basis. In this work we show the practical applicability of a localized RI-variant ('RI-LVL'), which expands products of basis functions only in the subset of those auxiliary basis functions which are located at the same atoms as the basis functions. We demonstrate the accuracy of RI-LVL for Hartree-Fock calculations, for the PBE0 hybrid density functional, as well as for RPA and MP2 perturbation theory. Molecular test sets used include the S22 set of weakly interacting molecules, the G3 test set, as well as the G2-1 and BH76 test sets, and heavy elements including titanium dioxide, copper and gold clusters. Our RI-LVL implementation paves the way for linear-scaling RI-based hybrid functional calculations for large systems and for all-electron many-body perturbation theory with significantly reduced computational and memory cost.

The honest broker; making sense of science in policy and politics

p.81-82

The honest broker; making sense of science in policy and politics

p.81-82

Family, community and politics: the fertile legacy of Michael Young

The Institute of Community Studies was set up by Michael Young in order to carry out research on politically relevant social issues, in a context free from direct political control. A research method was devised for it whereby researchers made their own values and objectives very explicit, while staying as close as possible in their reports to the concerns and language of respondents themselves. This method has often been criticized by professional sociologists: but it reflects quite well the nature of social knowledge. It has produced reports which help to increase public understanding of social processes, and provide useful guidance to policy makers. Professional sociology on the other hand has tried to develop a rigorously value-free method. As a result, though, it often seems to be tied implicitly to values shared among researchers but not more universally. Arguably this makes it harder for the general public to understand, and accept, its findings.

Metaphors and metamorphoses: narratives of identity during times of crisis

The narrative of transformative crisis appears in both autobiographical and fictional accounts of individual lives; it typically involves a difficult or traumatic episode and a period of self-questioning out of which a person emerges more able and more emotionally mature than before (Booker, 2005; Erikson, 1968; Tedeschi and Calhoun, 1995). The present study used interviews to elicit 22 narratives about crises experienced between the ages of 25 and 40, and about any developmental transformation and change that surrounded these crises. Analysis revealed a common four-phase process to the crisis episodes, common metaphors and recurrent descriptions of identity metamorphosis, ie. of ‘becoming a new person’. Comparison of these findings with theory on fictional plots shows a clear parallel between the four-phase process of crisis found in the current study and the ‘rebirth’ plot described by Booker (2005). The theoretical significance of these findings and interpretations is discussed.

The interprofessional practitioner: changing professional identity in social work

Twenty years ago the first joint training programme in learning disability nursing and social work was established as a collaborative project to develop practitioners able to work holistically with people with learning disabilities. Since then a number of programmes have continued this work and more recently the approach has developed in the mental health specialism. These programmes have changed the nature of singular social work education and created a new region of knowledge (Bernstein, 2000) for those who have experienced them. What began as a radical experiment in interprofessional education has been sustained by a strong commitment to the belief that the practitioners who qualify from such programmes are well equipped to support people with learning disabilities in changing and multi-professional services. As with much interprofessional education, however, there is an ongoing need to build an evidence base linking such education with successful outcomes in practice. This paper presents and explores the outcomes of a doctoral research study aimed at evaluating the impact of joint training in learning disability nursing and social work on the professional identity, skills and working practices of practitioners who undertook it. The research was undertaken with almost fifty jointly trained practitioners and involved a national survey followed by semi-structured interviews. The results suggest that practitioners who experience the dual socialisation inherent in this type of training found both gains and losses in the process. They appear to emerge, however, with a confidence, resilience and breadth of knowledge which were part of the early vision for this transformative approach to professional training. Bernstein B. (2000). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity. Theory, Research, Critique. Revised Edition. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield (USA).

What a performance! Developing nurse teachers lecturing persona and identity: a performing arts perspective

Delivering lectures to large groups of students can provoke high levels of anxiety, particularly for new lecturers (Exley and Dennick, 2009). Further, to provide an informative and engaging lecture requires a teacher who is confident, has a sound knowledge and well developed teaching skills (Bentley-Davies, 2010). Thus, new lecturers often need experience and supervision to develop the tacit knowledge and insight into their own style and persona when teaching in order to feel confident when delivering a lecture (Quinn and Hughes, 2007). Considering this model, therefore, may potentially contribute to a lecturers’ development and performance in the classroom. This paper will present the results of the second phase of a two-stage mixed method study that investigated the similarities between lecturing and acting. Twelve in-depth interviews where undertaken with lecturers within one School of Nursing in The United Kingdom. Findings, established a model of ‘persona adoption’ that represents a series of stages that lecturers may go through to both develop and take on a persona when lecturing. This persona is often different from the way they lecturers present themselves in other parts of their working life. The first stage of this model of persona adoption is when the lecturer is subjected to a range of ‘influencing factors’ that provide not only the basic information about a lecture, but also the perceptual stimuli about giving a lecture on a specific subject, to a particular number of students, at a certain academic level. These influencing factors then inter-play with the ‘facets of the individual’, which represent the lecturer’s self-concept, subject knowledge base and philosophy of teaching. This may result in a cognitive dissonance between these ‘facets’ and the ‘influencing factors’, so affecting the lecturers’ perceptions, thoughts and feelings about having to give that particular lecture. This results in the lecturer undertaking specific ‘back stage preparation’ during which they decide on the content and modes of delivery to prepare in light of that discourse. It may result in delivering the information via single or multiple methods, which during the lecture will require various levels of interaction and participation from the students. Just prior to the lecture, the lecturer builds or ‘puts on their persona’ and gets into role, making their initial impact with the group. They use the ‘elements of acting’ as proposed by Tauber and Mester’s (1994) e.g. animated voice and body, space, props humour and suspense and surprise to portray and maintain their persona. This leads the to lecturer demonstrating either positive or negative ‘persona characteristics’ in terms of appearing confident, knowledgeable, fluent in the technical skills of delivering the lecture, being interesting and engendering interaction with the students, or not. These characteristics, may or may not, potentially heighten student interest, attention and attitudes to learning as suggested by Tauber and Mester (1994). This depends on whether the lecturer has successfully used the persona and if the lecturer has been able to engage students in the lecture, in competition with other factors that may be taking the students’ attention. Although the model suggests a linear process, to a great extent, the elements might be more interdependent and interrelated. This might suggest that depending on the lecturer’s perception of their effectiveness during the lecture, that they may decide to continue or adapt their persona and methods to appear more confident. Furthermore, depending on how successful the lecturer perceived the session to be, both their reflections ‘in’ and ‘on’ practice could influence how they teach in the future (Zwozdiak, 2011). Therefore, these reflections become part of the facets of the individual, via the ‘reflective feedback loop’, in the model, which then in turn influences progression through the model in subsequent lectures. This study concluded that these lecturers went through a process whereby they compare the demands of the lecture with their own knowledge base and skill, this resulted in them undertaking specific preparation in terms of content and delivery style, then they adopted their persona immediately prior to entering the lecture, maintain it throughout the lecture via the use of the elements of acting to achieve an informative interactive lecture. The results of which then feedback into their self-concept as a lecturer and consequently may affect the persona they project in future lectures. If lecturers, therefore, can take a step back to consider how they deliver lectures and the way they can deliberately, yet apparently naturally, use their voices, bodies, space and humour in meaningfully, they engage their students in lecture, it will not just result in them being perceived as a good lecturer, but also be a genuine act of education.