Suchergebnisse

Examines the emergence of Hong Kong's new rich class & explores its political, economic, social, & international implications, drawing on the literature. This new group, including members of the capitalist & middle classes who have emerged from the process of industrialization since the 1960s, is categorized into four types: local bourgeoisie, local middle-class liberals, local middle-class nationalists, & mainland Chinese bourgeoisie. Politically, the rise of the new rich has contributed to the emergence of pluralism in Hong Kong. However, because Hong Kong is increasingly tied economically to the People's Republic of China, its politics in the future will likely be shaped by China's political & economic circumstances. The social liberalization brought about by the middle class is also likely to be tempered by China's authoritarian political system. However, China's influence over postcolonial Hong Kong may be kept in check by international concern over Hong Kong's future. D. M. Smith

Discusses national identity & citizenship from an African perspective, drawing on an analysis of publications in the popular press & a review of the relevant demographic & historical characteristics. In Africa, citizenship is defined in terms of three conceptions: as membership in an identifiable civil society, a set of rights & obligations pertaining to that civil society, & an experiential reality with which Africans cope. Citizenship is distinguished from nation in that nationality refers to identification based on shared territory, history, or culture consciously juxtaposed to a foreign identity. Postcolonial constitutions were written in every African country to protect the rights of all citizens under their jurisdiction. However, these rights have been eroded to favor a particular collectivity as a model of state-sponsored nationalism. This process has produced repeated conflict & wars across the African continent since the late 1970s. A solution to this dilemma will require the institutionalization of political participation, itself dependent on the infrastructural adjustment of African economies. 20 References. D. M. Ryfe

Racial & gender divisions in Zimbabwe are analyzed during the precolonial period, settler colonialism, the struggle for independence, & the postindependence period. Five dimensions of the racial/ethnic & gender experience are discussed: (1) African women & settler colonialism; (2) white women & settler colonialism; (3) the Jewish community; (4) Asian/colored classifications & associated ambiguities; & (5) ethnic differences among African women. The analysis reveals a basic disjuncture between the transnational corporation & settler-dominated Zimbabwean economy & the country's indigenous African-dominated political & ideological structures & processes. The need to go beyond racialized categories of black & white or simple dichotomies between men & women in studying the Zimbabwean racial & gender experience is discussed. 70 References. D. Generoli

Outlines the emergence of modern racism in the English colonial world through an analysis of the justifications for upholding slavery. African slavery was rationalized as a means for sustaining the declining work force. European principles accepted slavery for non-Christians as well as captives of war, & the initial use of African slaves had little to do with skin color. As European immigrant labor subsided & the concept of lifelong servitude emerged, however, the treatment of African slaves grew increasingly harsh. Legal precedents were overturned in an effort to preserve perpetual bondage: a custom that any slave who converted to Christianity could demand his release was withdrawn & matrilineal descent was implemented. Slavery was therefore transformed into a race-based institution & was further grounded into society through racial stereotypes & epithets. 28 References. M. Greenberg

Argues for a postcolonial revisioning of modernity that understands culture both as transnational & translational. The term "transnational" is employed to indicate how postcoloniality is rooted in histories of displacement, while the term "translational" is used to raise the issue of how this displacement is signified by culture. A poem by Derek Walcott (1990) describing the colonialist moment is counterposed to an African poem dealing with the same theme to demonstrate how this process of transnationality-translationality proceeds. Excerpts from the work of black American writers are also discussed in this vein. In these cases, the past is projected onto the present just as colonial culture is projected onto that of the colonized. It is in the space between the time of the utterance & the space of memory that a postcolonialist project may intervene to reveal the lived experience of resistance & survival in both the colonial & postcolonial periods. D. M. Smith

Assesses contemporary debates on citizenship & national identity, drawing on the secondary literature. It is suggested that the current crisis of citizenship in Latin America is a consequence of the racist colonial legacy, which produced a protonationalism based on racial criteria that has carried over into the republican period, especially in the form of discussion of the status of native Indians in these countries & in the differential concession of citizenship based on economic stratification. Moreover, many Latin American countries followed the colonial example to press for nation-state cohesion through cultural homogenization policies. Latin American social scientists have responded to this situation both by appropriating a particular Western academic paradigm, eg, Marxism, & by adhering to an ideological stance toward regional racial, national, & ethnic groups. Real change in the circumstances of the Latin American citizenry, however, awaits the development of a notion of multinational states, with citizenship & cultural rights bestowed on the population. 62 References. D. M. Ryfe

Traces the history of Spanish racism through the example of Mexico. It is argued that Spanish racism differed from modern racism in that it was grounded in the superiority of "things Spanish," including whiteness, Christianity, & Hispanization. Colonial discourse, in drawing on racial differences & social nonconformity, connected the darker-skinned Indians, runaway slaves, & vagabonds to animals & disease. Spanish perceptions of the colonies were influenced by dispatches that reported blacks as prone to aggression & evil, & Indians as weak & ignorant. The colonial elite were thus able to continue the exploitation of African & Indian peoples to protect their own economic privilege. 32 References. M. Greenberg

W. E. B. Du Bois's commitment to the Pan-African movement is argued to be linked to his commitment to eradicate racism, colonialism, & all structures of exploitation. Du Bois has been credited with founding the Pan-African movement in the 20th century, & his long involvement with movement organizations, coupled with his many written pieces on Pan-Africanism, make him a central figure in this movement. His consistent theme, from his attendance at the Pan-African Assoc's conference in 1900, through many Pan-African Congresses, was his commitment to democracy & self-rule. The growth of the Pan-African Congress from its beginnings in WWI through the period of decolonization is charted, with specific references to Du Bois's influence. George Padmore & Kwame Nkrumah are identified as the bearers of Du Bois's legacy to the momentous Fifth Pan-African Congress in 1945, & to Africa as new states were formed. H. von Rautenfeld

Reads Anne Wheeler's film, Loyalties (1984), as a reflection of contradictions that emerge in feminism when it takes up the trope of the feminizing of colonial territory to critique a patriarchal narrative of imperial history. It is shown that the race & class differences between the two main characters are overcome through an essentializing notion of sexual differentiation, which marks an originary site of patriarchal violence in the history of imperialism. The ideological effect produced by this movement is taken to be a residual mark of competing material forces between or among the capitalist mode & hunter/gatherer mode of producing sexual difference. Contradictions between these modes of producing sexual differences are likened to similar effects produced by the passage of Bill C-31 in Canada, which both set a precedent for sex equality & unleashed a set of contradictions among native organizations & communities. D. M. Smith

Presents a Foucauldian genealogy of the convergence of women, nation, & empire in postcolonial discourses of religion, property, & selfhood in an analysis of the controversial case of 73-year-old Shahbano, a destitute Muslim woman in India granted a small monthly allowance by the government under a colonial secular code, that compares to the figure of the female as individualist in Daniel Defoe's Roxana (1724) & a silenced rape victim in the records of the East-India Co. The trope of the female as individualist in Defoe is read in the context of the history of colonialism as a structuration that reorganizes private & public space in colonial England. The text of the trial involving the rape of a woman in the premises of the East-India Co is interpreted as another instance of the covert exercise of colonial authority through the construction of distinctions between the personal & the legal. It is suggested that these arbitrary divisions ingrained in colonialist practice were undone by Shahbano, who was able to move between the bourgeois discourse of liberal rights & the Muslim shariat (family-related religious law). Her ambivalent status between these discourses is taken to explain her ability to provoke a national crisis. D. M. Smith

Compares two movements of organized Hinduism in India, the Arya Samaj & Rashtriya Svayamasevak Sangh (RSS), highlighting differences in their goals, strategies, ideologies, organization, & bases of support. Their respective histories are traced, focusing on the impact of colonialism, adaptation of Western models, & partition & independence. Founders of each group created different forms of Hindu identity, drawing on a wide range of Hindu scriptures, laws, & philosophies, with Arya Samaj's use of Vedic authority contrasted with the RSS's ideology of the Hindu Nation. The bases of the groups' organizational structures in their concepts of their role in the larger Hindu community are described as individual initiative (Arya Samaj) & central leadership (RSS). Political & social roles of each group are analyzed, emphasizing their participation in elections & party politics. It is demonstrated how the experience of colonialism has shaped the current situation, leading to growing fundamentalism & mob violence. It is concluded that the forces driving activist Hinduism have more to do with establishing Hindu rule than promoting Hindu values & practices. Bibliog. T. Arnold

Explores implications of being a black feminist academic teaching in an international development studies program in a British university. Development studies is described as a neocolonial discipline that constructs a gender & racial formation in which colonial processes are articulated & represented. The discourse of development is taken to be the root of personal ambivalence toward academia. Though the discipline is grounded in neocolonial thinking, in recent years, new diverse strands of thought are opening spaces for the introduction of new identities. It is in these spaces that teaching development may become a form of intervention into the dominant discourse. This intervention often takes the form of constructing abstract theories so that personal space & emotion may be shielded. This process of intervening is not easy or simple, but requires constant negotiation, challenge, & resistance to dominant ways of positioning marginalized identities. 21 References. D. M. Ryfe

Discusses the multifaceted ways in which imperialism shaped the environments of Third World cultures, drawing on communication literature. The impact of Western religions, educational practices, administrative organizations, languages, travel & tourism, & technology on Third World cultures is documented. It is suggested that imperialism was a major diffuser of modernity; however, this diffusion was a double-edged sword in that it influenced both Western states & the regions they colonized. In the Third World, this process has produced a double alienation, as local peoples have become alienated from their own cultural heritages & the metropolitan cultures of the West. Not all of these forces are evident in every culture, but together they compose the major elements of imperialism; more research is needed to determine their precise impact on local cultures. D. M. Smith

Explores how feminist neocolonial discourses have been manifested in recent literature on Latin American women, particularly on related movements, showing how it constructs hierarchies between Western feminists & Latin American women through the distinction between practical & strategic gender interests. This dualism is interpreted as an act of disciplining that legitimizes some kinds of political mobilization as emancipatory at the expense of others. Testimony in ethnographic encounters, a method by which Latin American women are able to participate in the production of knowledge about gender & development, is discussed more generally as a means by which women conduct struggles to resist & delegitimize dominant discourses. D. M. Smith

Demonstrates that, as it has been implemented by international development agencies, the women in development (WID) regime, with its origins in modernist colonial discourses & discourses of the market, disempowers Third World women. Drawing on relevant literature, colonial discourses are described as privileging the economy, culture, society, & politics of European peoples & homogenizing & essentializing Third World peoples, particularly women. Moreover, the discourses of the market are taken to stress individualism & voluntary choice in a manner that disempowers Third World nations in the international political economy. It is shown that these discourses have been at the root of the WID regime as it has been implemented by the World Bank. The Third World women's, or empowerment, perspective is advocated as an alternative basis for development, because it is rooted in the concrete experiences of women & grassroots strategies of organization that do not essentialize or disempower the people it is trying to assist. D. M. Smith