Showing papers on "Westernization published in 2011"

Counseling in Turkey: An Evolving Field

Abstract: Most people who have never visited Turkey think of it as a country located somewhere in the Middle East. In fact, Turkey has a unique geographic location that bridges Europe and Asia, sharing borders with countries in Europe (Greece and Bulgaria) andAsia (Armenia and Georgia), as well as the Middle East (Iran, Iraq, and Syria). The modern secular republic of Turkey was established in 1923 following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, which had reigned for more than 600 years. The leader of the secular and progressive Turkish government, Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk, laid the groundwork for the Westernization of Turkey and its entry into the modern technological age. Some of the initial attempts at modernization included replacing the Arabic alphabet with the Latin alphabet, adopting the Western calendar, encouraging men and women to adopt a Western style of dress, replacing sharia (Islamic law) with a secular legal system adapted from Switzerland, granting equal rights to women (including the right to vote and to be elected to government) and encouraging the education of girls. According to Go1e (2004), granting rights to women and transforming them into "public citizens" (p. 12) can be considered "the backbone of Turkish modernism" (p. 12). Today, Turkey has a population of more than 70 million. It shares many common characteristics with other developing countries, such as low per capita income; low levels of education (Raney & Cmarbas, 2005); a large urban--rural divide; a high fertility rate; and the simultaneous existence of modem and traditional economies, lifestyles, and values (Sumer, 1998). In discussing the coexistence of modern and traditional lifestyles and values in Turkey, Surner (1998) stated, "Turkish culture ... is fundamentally collectivistic in the sense that the family retains priority, but this collectivism coexists with highly individualistic trends in the systems of education and economy, where market rules necessitate and justify competition" (p. 126). According to Mocan-Aydm (2000), differences in attitudes, values, and lifestyles among people in different geographic regions and groups make it difficult to provide an answer to the question, "Who is the average Turk?" However, Mocan-Aydln concluded, "If we consider a continuum of collectivism versus individualism, Turkish people still seem to be close to the collectivistic end while at the same time striving for individualism" (p. 282). Recent research (Karakitapoglu Aygun & Imamoglu, 2002) concerning the role of age and value orientation among Turkish university students and adults indicated that compared with university students, adults attribute more significance to traditional values (e.g., showing respect to others, following social norms, sustaining concordance in relationships). As with many other developing countries, Turkey has quickly and readily absorbed many aspects of Western culture, adopted many modern tenets, and mirrored many of the same patterns in attempting to adopt the social sciences. As stated by Adair and Kagitcibasi (1995), "a serious problem facing many social science disciplines in developing countries is their lack of application to the local culture and to the solutions of national social problems stemming from rapid change and development" (p. 634). Thus, counseling as a field has been confronted with many of the same struggles as other social sciences in developing countries. In line with Adair and Kagitcibasi, Demir and Aydin (1996) concluded that although Turkish universities have been responsive in terms of keeping up with advances in academic fields, they have not been very responsive to the needs of society and, as a result, have turned out well-educated elites who perceive their social status to be above that of the general public. In short, many fields within the social sciences, including counseling, have had difficulties in perceiving the different social realities that exist in a country with a wide and continually changing spectrum of beliefs between the traditional and the modem. …

Lay psychology of globalization and its social impact.

Abstract: As a first step to establish social psychology of globalization as a new area of investigation, we carried out two cross-regional studies to examine lay people's perception of globalization and its related concepts, as well as lay people's appraisal of the social impacts of globalization. The participants were undergraduates from regions with markedly different experiences with globalization (the United States, Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong). Despite regional differences in experiences with globalization, cross-regional similarities were found in the way globalization-related issues were classified and how their social impacts were evaluated. Participants in all four regions (1) perceived globalization to be related to but not synonymous with modernization, Westernization, and Americanization; (2) used international trade versus technology, and globalization of consumption versus global consequences as the dimensions to categorize globalization-related issues; and (3) perceived globalization to have stronger positive effects on people's competence than on their warmth.

Teaching How to Discriminate: Globalization, Prejudice, and Textbooks.

Abstract: Language education is a complex social practice that reaches beyond teaching and learning phonology, morphology, and syntax. Language is not neutral; it conveys ideas, cultures, and ideologies embedded in and related to the language, so that language education needs to be examined not only on the purely linguistic level, but also on the broader social and political level. One of the social and political factors that influence language education is governmental policy. Language education is often subject to explicit policy decisions made by governmental bodies. This study seeks to unveil the influence of South Korea's globalization policy on the content of government-approved South Korean high school EFL (English as a Foreign Language) textbooks. I will examine the ways in which globalization is reflected and promoted in the textbooks. In doing so, I will investigate popular social perceptions about globalization in South Korea and interpret textbook contents within unique South Korean social and historical contexts. Then the implications of this study will be discussed with respect to the role that all teacher educators need to play in encouraging pre-service teachers to examine instructional materials through a critical lens. Many researchers have examined the social and political aspects of language education and the crucial roles that governments play in shaping the implementation and practice of English as a Second Language (ESL)/English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education (Recento, 2000; Recento & Burnaby, 1998; Tollefson, 1991, 1995, 2002; Tsui & Tollefson, 2007). For example, learning and using English tend to exacerbate the negative residual effects of colonialism in many Asian and African countries, including India, Hong Kong (Pennycook, 1994, 1998), Sri Lanka (Canagarajah, 1999), and Tanzania (Vavrus, 2002). The English language is also invariably related to the historical imperialism of two powerful countries--the United States and Britain (Pennycook, 1994, 1995, 1998; Phillipson, 1992). These two countries have used both implicit and explicit policies with regard to the promotion of English that were designed to promote national interests (Phillipson, 1992, 1994). Globalization Discourse on globalization tends to center on new and internationalized consumption patterns, global markets, workers, and cross-national investments (Burbules & Torres, 2000; Short & Kim, 1999). Telecommunications such as the Internet and the World Wide Web, the rise and proliferation of supranational organizations such as the United Nations (UN), the International Monetary Funds (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO), and blurred distinctions between international and domestic affairs (Short & Kim) also figure prominently. However, this broad-spectrum sketch often fails to capture the complexity of globalization, and offers little information on the means by which globalization takes place within the boundaries of a given society. What is needed is an in-depth interpretation of cultural globalization that highlights the particular way that each society experiences globalization (Capella, 2000; Luke & Luke, 2000; Pike, 2000). Cultural globalization cannot be fully understood without thorough discussions of the unique social, political, economic, and historical factors that interact within a given society. This approach is sometimes called glocal (Burbules & Torres, 2000), hybridization, creolization, or reterritorialization (Short & Kim, 1999). From this perspective, it is too simple to explain the complex mechanisms of globalization merely as, for example, Americanization/Westernization. For a thorough analysis of globalization, it is necessary to include situated and local uniqueness (Capella, 2000; Luke & Luke, 2000; Pike, 2000), since globalization is not itself a unified global phenomenon in any case (Burbules &Torres, 2000). This point of view serves as guidance for the present study, as I attempt to analyze situated meanings of the contents of South Korean high school EFL textbooks. …

International Women's Rights and the "War of Cultures": Avoiding the "Westernization" Debate

Abstract: On July 2 2010, the United Nations General Assembly voted unanimously to create a new entity to promote women's rights.1 The new institution, called "UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women" (hereinafter "UN Women"), merges four parts of the UN system which have been working for the advancement of women's rights so far.2 UN Women is the result of extensive negotiations. Expectations run high that it will prioritize women's rights and operate with greater impact and consistency (and – not least – a larger budget) than the former agencies.3 In September 2010, Michelle Bachelet, the popular former president of Chile, was appointed Head of the entity.4 This seems like a huge step forward for women's rights; a sign that the international community is strongly committed to advance female empowerment. However, international efforts to promote women's rights are not undisputed: the legitimacy of enforcing feminist values, irrespective of a particular state's traditions and culture, is frequently contested. Women's rights are seen by some as a predominantly Western agenda.5 The most note-worthy concerns do not come from traditionalist backgrounds, but from the critical left. Renowned scholars such as Gayarti Spivak warn against what they view as the perils of imposing uniform Euro-Anglo-American paradigms via international law to developing world contexts.6 These allegedly missionary efforts would result in stereotyping local women as weak and helpless victims, and therefore undermine (rather than

Arab Culture and Urban Form

Abstract: Looking at the evolution of the Arab city from an urban design perspective, Anthony Kiet discusses the cultural impacts of westernization and how they are affe cting urban form. He shows us how the Western planning model seems to be contributing to the creation of a modern antithesis of the traditional Arab city.

The representation of african traditional religion and culture in nigeria popular films

Abstract: One of the ways by which religious rituals communicate in African society is by maintaining cohesion in the culture. They connect participants to richer meanings and larger forces of their community. Even in representational models, rituals create solidarity in the form of subjective experiences of sharing the same meaningful world which is attained by participants through the condensed nature of symbols used therein. Traditional religion is one ritual that despite the influence of westernization and scientific developments in Africa, still holds meaningful implications in people’s everyday life. Thus, from day break to evening, people have religious rituals with which they communicate with their God or gods, deities and ancestors. Also from weeks to seasons, months to years, there are festivals and rituals both in private and in public situations which the African still celebrate in connection with the ‘living dead’ or those in the ‘spirit world’. This paper by means of nuanced textual analysis of some Nigerian home based films: Things Fall Apart (1986), Igodo: The Land of the Living Dead (1999), Sango, (1998), Festival of Fire, (1999), Bless Me, (2005) traces religion to the root paradigm of African cultures as a channel to the construction of African identity

The Implications of Transnationalism

Abstract: When Kritika published a special issue in 2001 on the state of the field ten years after the end of communism, it was logical to include a reassessment of the October Revolution and two pieces on the rapidly developing investigation of the Stalin period. (1) Transnational history went unmentioned, along with international and comparative approaches, for they did not yet appear crucial to the state of the field. If "culture" was "everywhere" in the Russian history of the 1990s, talk of the transnational became ubiquitous in the 2000s. (2) In retrospect, however, the first post-Soviet decade laid the groundwork for the proliferation of cross-border and cross-cultural approaches by furthering a closely related phenomenon: intensive investigation of comparative dimensions to Russian and Soviet history. (3) This essay argues that the interpretive implications of the transnational trend that crystallized in the second post-Soviet decade are most profound for the study of the revolutionary and communist period. This is for two reasons. First, the grand narratives of Soviet history have been focused internally from the field's outset, heightening the impact of cross-border research. Second, communism's intense ideological engagement with the outside world, combined with the effects of isolation from it, has the potential to generate a certain kind of transnational history centering on the interacting effects of models, contacts, and ideas--including rejections and misunderstandings. At the same time, from the perspective of 20 years after, transnational history in the Russian and Soviet field is still very much an unfinished scholarly revolution. The Western scholarship on Russia of the 1990s raised the question of Russian and Soviet modernity as a conceptual frame. The problem of modernity is still very much with us, but its initial posing centered on state violence, practices of state intervention, and the agendas of intelligentsia experts. (4) Institutionally, it was virtually inevitable after the end of the Cold War that Russia would be studied in ways that made its history more relevant to scholars in other fields. In post-1991 Russian-language scholarship there were equally compelling reasons to investigate Russia's international connections, first and foremost with European countries: the combination of interest in previously restricted areas, Yeltsin-era "Westernization," and the controversy over Russia's osobyi put' (special path) produced a wave of books under the title of "Russia and the West" and a research boom on cultural relations with individual European countries) Another major impulse to comparative history has been the "imperial turn," which stimulated comparative studies of empire. (6) But what, in fact, does the term "transnational" mean? In 2006, the American Historical Review ran a discussion entitled "On Transnational History." The resulting forum appeared to fit the Russian field, to paraphrase Stalin, like a saddle on a cow: featuring fine-tuned distinctions among transnational, global, and world history, it centered on the meaning of transcending something Russia never was, the nation-state. Of course, insofar as transnational (or any other) approaches are disciplinary-wide trends and methodologies, Russianists need not necessarily define them differently. Understanding the focus of transnational history as the movement of "goods, technology, or people" across national borders, although it is perhaps most geared toward opening up the boundaries of fields such as U.S. history, is certainly relevant to any area. (7) However, this formulation notably omits explicit mention of the exchange of culture and ideas, not to mention models, practices, and images. These assume heightened significance for the history of both "Westernization" and a Soviet order that severely restricted borders and movement. I would like to argue that Russian Westernization in the imperial period and the Soviet Union's place at the center of the communist "second world" impart a particular valence to cross-border research that can make a distinct contribution to transnational history as it is being developed more generally. …

Cosmopolitanism and Postcolonial Critique

Abstract: Globalization has often been regarded as a synonym for modernization or Westernization and so it is not surprising that ideas of the global have similarly been equated with the modern West. Even scholars critical of the standard forms of cosmopolitanism as expressed by Pagden, often remain circumscribed to a particular geographical territory and intellectual tradition in their exposition of a critical cosmopolitanism. Increasing recognition of the global context of sociology is evident in recent arguments against the supposed methodological nationalism of the past. In the contemporary context, there appears to be little recognition of the potential discrimination against those subject to the face veil ban being proposed in France and other European countries. Multiculturalism, according to Beck, asserts a world of variety and plurality while at the same time presenting humanity as a collectivity divided on cultural grounds. Cosmopolitanism, of course, is not simply at issue in colonial and postcolonial migration to the West.

Kemalism on the Catwalk: The Turkish Hat Law of 1925

Abstract: In Turkey today, the issue of what to wear or not to wear is once more on top of the political agenda. On June 5, 2008, the Constitutional Court ruled that the Turkish Parliament had violated the constitutional principle of secularism by lifting the headscarf ban in universities. This article, however, is concerned with an earlier chapter in the biography of headgear. Considered an important tool by Mustafa Kemal in his attempts to modernize Turkish society, a new dress code was enacted in 1925 that required traditional headgear be replaced by the western hat. In subsequent days, 808 people were arrested for violating the law, 57 of whom were executed. By this legislation of sartorial westernization the individual head became a political site, fusing social and political history in terms of identity construction. The motivations behind, reactions to, and consequences of the Hat Law were recorded in a variety of contemporary sources generated in different social areas. By integrating these images, it is possible to analyze and map the main tendencies of identity formation, a process that went beyond and above a dichotomous Orientalist discourse of East vs. West, revealing lines of conflict that continue to scar the face of modern Turkey.

A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 1: The Artisanal Era, 1897-1941

Abstract: Hamid Naficy is one of the world’s leading authorities on Iranian film, and A Social History of Iranian Cinema is his magnum opus. Covering the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first and addressing documentaries, popular genres, and art films, it explains Iran’s peculiar cinematic production modes, as well as the role of cinema and media in shaping modernity and a modern national identity in Iran. This comprehensive social history unfolds across four volumes, each of which can be appreciated on its own. Volume 1 depicts and analyzes the early years of Iranian cinema. Film was introduced in Iran in 1900, three years after the country’s first commercial film exhibitor saw the new medium in Great Britain. An artisanal cinema industry sponsored by the ruling shahs and other elites soon emerged. The presence of women, both on the screen and in movie houses, proved controversial until 1925, when Reza Shah Pahlavi dissolved the Qajar dynasty. Ruling until 1941, Reza Shah implemented a Westernization program intended to unite, modernize, and secularize his multicultural, multilingual, and multiethnic country. Cinematic representations of a fast-modernizing Iran were encouraged, the veil was outlawed, and dandies flourished. At the same time, photography, movie production, and movie houses were tightly controlled. Film production ultimately proved marginal to state formation. Only four silent feature films were produced in Iran; of the five Persian-language sound features shown in the country before 1941, four were made by an Iranian expatriate in India. A Social History of Iranian Cinema Volume 1: The Artisanal Era, 1897–1941Volume 2: The Industrializing Years, 1941–1978Volume 3: The Islamicate Period, 1978–1984Volume 4: The Globalizing Era, 1984–2010

Orientalism on the Margins: The Ottoman Empire under Russian Eyes

Abstract: Throughout its modern history, Russia was more frequently at war with the Ottoman Empire than with any other power. Russo-Ottoman wars took place between the late 17th and the late 19th centuries and were paralleled by other forms of contact, including captivity, religious pilgrimages, diplomacy, and later tourism and scientific exploration. (1) The intensity of this interaction is reflected in the voluminous literature about the Ottoman Empire that was published in Russian before 1917. (2) Russian and translated Western accounts of captivity, religious and secular travelogues, memoirs, and statistical descriptions are noteworthy not only because they were numerous, but because before the (remarkably late) appearance of osmanistika as a separate branch of Orientalist science devoted to Ottoman Turkey, these nonscholarly writings contained the quasi-totality of Russian knowledge about the rival empire. (3) Aimed at a wide audience, these materials can plausibly be taken as evidence of more or less widespread assumptions that educated Russians held about Ottoman Turkey at least until the 1840s, when there appeared the first general descriptions written by professional Orientalists for nonspecialists. (4) By virtue of their sheer number, these publications constituted the basic horizon for those who engaged in highbrow intellectual discussions as well as for those who limited themselves to the passive reading of thick journals and newspapers. Through them, the Ottoman Empire emerged as an element of the mental background against which Russian intellectuals later discussed their country's relation to Asia and Europe. (5) An analysis of these sources is timely for at least two reasons. First, contacts with Ottoman Turkey constitute an aspect of Russia's "discovery of the Orient" that remains unappreciated in the modern historiography of Russian Orientalism. In the wake of the important work that has been done on "Russia's own Orient" in the last 15 years, it might be worthwhile to turn to the "Orient" beyond the empire's borders in order to describe its function in the Russian imperial imagination. (6) Second, discussions of Russian views of "Europe" and "Asia" are sometimes too quick to subsume actual political entities under these rather problematic categories. Before the "Orient" became a space of European colonial dominance (in which Russia had its own share), it bore the concrete name of Ottoman (Persian, Manchu) Empire and constituted a formidable, if diminishing, military challenge. The problem to be addressed is precisely how Orientalist discourse came to structure the perception of one continental empire by the elite of another. (7) This article examines the Orientalization of the Ottoman Empire in Russian literature before the middle of the 19th century and its role in the articulation of modern Russian identity. The symbolic construction of a rival empire as the "Orient" served to sustain the representation of Russia as part of "Europe" against claims to the contrary. This perception of the "Other" did not emerge overnight. Instead, it crystallized gradually in the context of the Russian elite's conscious and systematic search for models that resulted in Russia's Westernization. Launched by Peter the Great, this process led to the discovery of differences between the empire of the sultans and other powers. These differences, in turn, served as the basis for the Orientalization of Ottoman Turkey that occurred under the combined impact of the Russo-Ottoman wars and of the Russian elite's growing familiarity with Western accounts of the Ottoman Empire. The wars demonstrated the superiority of the European military models adopted by Peter and his successors, while translations of French and British Orientalist texts provided the language to articulate this new sense of superiority. At some point, Russian accounts of the Ottoman Empire started to follow closely the Western model of Orientalist description. …

The other West : Latin America from invasion to globalization

Abstract: List of Maps Acknowledgments Introduction. Latin America in World History 1. Entry The Invasion The Search for New Connections 2. The Ibero-American World The International Context The Components of the Ibero-American World 3. Revival The International Context: Continuity and Discontinuity The New States Are Born 4. The Euro-American World From European to International Concert Latin America in the International Order Latin America in the International Economy Toward a New Society The Liberal-Republican Political Order 5. Westernization From International Disorder to the New Diplomacy Latin America in the International Economy The Secularization of Society The Westernization of Politics Conclusion. Historical Forms and Trends Bibliography Index

Malak Hifni Nasif: Negotiations of a Feminist Agenda between the European and the Colonial

Abstract: Malak Hifni Nasif (1886–1918), one of Egypt’s early feminist writers, stood at the crossroads of many political and social tensions of her day. Situated between the potential contradictions of Egyptian nationalism, Islamic reform, and Westernization, Nasif provides an important lens through which to examine the relationship between feminism and colonial enterprise in the tumultuous milieu of the early twentieth century. This paper contends that, in order to understand Nasif’s construction of her own feminist agenda, one must first examine the pervasive presence of the “colonial” as a distinct site of inquiry—one that must be extracted from the larger and more ambiguous category of “European.” By teasing out the difference between European versus colonial interactions with feminism, we get a clearer view of the process by which Nasif was able to negotiate an indigenous feminist agenda within and against the power structures of both Egyptian society and colonial rule.

The East-West discourse : symbolic geography and its consequences

Abstract: Contents: Alexander Maxwell: Introduction. Bridges and Bulwarks: A Historiographic Overview of East-West Discourses - Glyn Parry: Conceptions of the East: Medieval and Early Modern Europe - Florian Gassner: Becoming a Western Nation: German National Identity and the Image of Russia - Andrew Kier Wise: Russia as Poland's Civilizational "Other" - Vesna Drapac: Yugoslav Studies and the East-West Dichotomy - Sacha Davis: East-West Discourses in Transylvania: Transitional Erdely, German-Western Siebenburgen or Latin-Western Ardeal? - Christopher Browning/Marko Lehti: Geographic Centrality and Marginality: East, West and North in Finnish Symbolic Geography - Mehmet Dosemeci: How Turkey Became a Bridge between "East" and "West": The EEC and Turkey's Great Westernization Debate, 1960-1980 - Nelly Bekus: East, West or "In Between"? Three Post-Communist Concepts of the Belarusian Nation.

Political Economy of Production and Reproduction: Caste, Custom, and Community in North India

Abstract: In post-colonial India, the process of political democratization and radically altered legal enactments, especially relating to marriage and inheritance, have changed the dynamics of power relations. The essays included in this volume are selected with a view to achieve an understanding of contemporary north India, along with all its social, familial, and legal contradictions. Spanning the mid nineteenth to the twenty-first century, the author presents a special case study of Haryana. This elucidates how the richest regions in the area continue to be regressive instead of moving towards the modern egalitarian statehood. The in-depth analysis, however, is broadly applicable to the whole of northern India in sharing socio-cultural concerns. The new, greatly liberalized, political economy of the post-Green revolution; globalization marked by conspicuous consumption; and the quasi-urbanization that rural north India has undergone; have all had their fall-out on rural society. These have led to new class formations, westernization, and changes in the notions of social status and power relations. They have, in turn, impacted familial, inter-generation, and gender relations.

Modernization and Westernization: A Never-Ending Discourse in Indonesia **

Abstract: Ahead of Indonesian independence in 1945, the discourse on cultural and ideological orientation by Indonesian intellectuals became the foundation for the development of the nation.Sutan Takdir Alisyahbana, one of the Indonesian intellectuals at that time strongly believed that following the pattern of Western culture would lead Indonesia to the status of a developed country.Instead, Sanusi Pane and several other Indonesian intellectuals did not agree with the view of Sutan Takdir Alisyahbana.They considered that cultural values that have long held the nation could be used as a foundation for development of Indonesia.The discourse is then known as the Cultural Polemics.This discourse persists to this day but in a slightly different form, namely the discourse of modernization and Westernization. The progress in science and technology from the outside world created Indonesia a market for western products.The West seemed to be fascinating and the adoption of popular culture from the West, especially the U.S., became part of the lives of many people. The image of the West which was considered to be superior and as a role model became an obsession for many people.

Turkish Modernity: A Continuous Journey of Europeanisation

Abstract: From a classical perspective, modernity was understood as a linear and teleological process, spreading from the West to the rest of the world. Accordingly, all societies were said to undergo the same transformations, but at different periods in time. In the end, they would all be ‘modern’ in a western sense. In this frame of reference, modernisation was equated with westernisation, and as such, was very much visible in the narrative of Turkish modernisation. This belief also resulted in a subjective evaluation of the western type of civilisation as the superior model of civilisation, and the promotion of Euro-American hegemony in the discourse on modernity. It is exactly this Euro-American hegemony that is questioned in the context of contemporary discourses on modernity generated and discussed by Schmuel Eisenstadt (2000, 2005), Barrington Moore (1967), Gerard Delanty (2006), Johann Arnason (2006), Bo Strath (2010), Peter Wagner (2001), and Atsuko Ichijo and Willfried Spohn (2005). The ways in which such scholars debate modernity constitute a separate literature on the idea of multiple modernities. The idea of multiple modernities opposes classical views of modernisation and therefore denies the West its monopoly. Schmuel N. Eistenstadt admits that modernity, in its origins, was a western project which spread to the rest of the world through military and economic imperialism, especially in the form of colonialism, and comes to the conclusion that the West has never been successful in its promotion of a homogenising (cultural) program of modernity.

The Failure of Assertive Secularization Project in Turkey

Abstract: The assertive secularization project of modern Turkey as a part of broader modernization and Westernization project has failed in some areas. This failure reflected in three different cases. The Alevi issue, the headscarf issue and the use of unofficial Islamic law are these three areas, which show the different aspects of this failure. The aim of this article is to analyze these three cases by exploring the historical background of Turkish way of secularism and by shedding light on the characteristics of Turkish way of secularism.

One Nation, One Brand? Nation Branding and Identity Reconstruction in Post-Communist Hungary

Abstract: Twenty years have passed since the onset of the post-communist transition, yet many former Eastern Bloc countries are still struggling with their emerging complex identities. In the aftermath of state socialism and its homogenizing political and cultural pressures, countries in Eastern Europe have had to redefi ne their national identities. This process has been infl uenced by two major forces. On the one hand, these countries rediscovered or reconstructed national and cultural traditions that, in turn, infl uenced societal discourses on national identity. In many cases, this resulted in efforts to construct national narratives around ideas of unity and uniformity, where most of the discourse was focused on who is (or can be) part of the nation. National identity was rearticulated against the perceived identities of internal and external “Others,” such as minorities and historical adversaries. On the other hand, the forces of globalization, Westernization, and Europeanization also infl uenced the redefi nition of national identities in Eastern Europe. These macro processes introduced such new concepts as diversity and multiculturalism into the discourses on national identity, resulting in additional conceptual complexity that was unfamiliar to many citizens in the region.

Sporting Japanese-ness in an Americanised Japan

Abstract: As one of the only Asian nations to successfully modernise in the nineteenth century, the Japanese have been on the forefront of the West-East encounter. Many Japanese discussed the diffusion of American culture and the Americanisation of Japan, which accelerated during the inter-war (1920 – 40) period. Despite the fact that the Japanese masses enjoyed cinema, jazz, cafes and baseball, many Japanese were critical of the dynamics of Americanisation. Sport often became the flashpoint of how Japanese were addressing the processes of Westernisation and Americanisation in Japan. This essay discusses the inter-war debates on sport and the 1940 Imperial Anniversary (‘Kigen 2600’) to analyse how the Japanese conceptualised the problematic of projecting and resisting Americanisation vis-a-vis an imagined Japanese national, cultural identity.

Gender and Social Estate as National Identity: The Wives and Daughters of Orthodox Clergymen as Civilizing Agents in Imperial Russia*

Abstract: In her memoirs, published in 1902 in a journal for educators, a rural Russian Orthodox clergyman’s wife issued a call to arms: “We, the wives of priests, can do a great deal to assist our husbands in their pastoral duties.”1 She was echoing an initiative that had been proposed in the last half century by reformminded Russian Orthodox Church publicists.2 At that time, as the Russian revolutionary movement spread and the autocratic government unsuccessfully sought to control the process of modernization, these publicists sought a novel solution to the crisis engulfing society: the marshaling of the wives and daughters of the parish clergy to “civilize” the masses of Russian peasants. This mission was fraught with contradictions. Since populism was widespread among educated Russians—including the clergy—and since clergymen were ambivalent about both westernization and modernization, church publicists

Türkiye'de müzeciliğin gelişimi

Abstract: Since the first ages, the motive of collecting flourishing in religios and other sacred traditions were also the basis for art that has also been the core of collections. Collection was the main reason to establish the museums which led foundation of current museums. Upon opening collections to the public in the eighteenth century, brought about the need for systematic corporate approaches, in addition to the exhibitive and informative functions, and with the social, economic and political developments encountered in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the museums entered a fast-changing development process. Today, within this process, museums aim at social totality with a visitor and communication based approach. In our country, museums' target is primarily the protection of our rich historical and cultural heritage and the museums emerged as a "contemporary organization" as an indicator of westernization efforts in 19th century. This assumption about organizational process of museums also emphasizes two important factors, which effected the formation of museum applications in Turkey. One of these is: "protection" of historical and cultural heritage and the other concept is: "a contemporary institution as an indicator of westernization". The objective of this study is to emphasize influences of Westernization process in museum applications and formation while discussing development of museums in Turkey. Keywo rds: Museums in Turkey, ramification of collections, museum architecture.

Cultural Authentication of Hawaiian Quilting in the Early 19th Century

Abstract: Hawaiian quilting is a form of material culture that developed through the interaction of Polynesian and American design traditions as westernization occurred in Hawaii in the early nineteenth cent...

Moralnosc i religia a rozwoj kapitalizmu w ujeciu Deepaka Lala/Morality, Religion and the Development of Capitalism – the View of Deepak Lal

Abstract: The economist Deepak Lal researches the influence of morality and religion on the shaping of capitalism in different civilizations. His thought was confronted with the remarks of other institutionalists. Lal tries to find out what was the influence of the cost of transactions and the religious beliefs on the evolution of capitalism in chosen countries and regions. Lal claims that materialistic beliefs of agricultural civilizations had not played the key role in the economic growth. The reforms in the Church in the Middle Ages allowed to spread of the instinct of exchange and production of homo oeconomicus. As a result the individualism started to dominate over collectivism. Lal tries to prove that the individualism was not the basis of the Christian faith. The following virtues as: diligence, discipline, frugality, self-help, self-control have had secular origin and nowadays they are more common in India and China than in the West. The Asian civilizations face the dilemma during the economic expansion of the West. They had to choose the path of their development. China and India followed Japan and they modernized without westernization. They tried to find middle course between the tradition and the modernity. We tried to emphasize in the article, that none of the religions have determined the economic fate of the countries. Rather, the morality of the societies and the decision-makers’ beliefs had an influence on economic development.

Negotiations of a feminist agenda between the european and the colonial

Abstract: Malak Hifni Nasif (1886-1918), one of Egypt’s early feminist writers, stood at the crossroads of many political and social tensions of her day. Situated between the potential contradictions of Egyptian nationalism, Islamic reform, and Westernization, Nasif provides an important lens through which to examine the relationship between feminism and colonial enterprise in the tumultuous milieu of the early twentieth century. This paper contends that, in order to un derstand Nasif ’s construction of her own feminist agenda, one must first examine the pervasive presence of the “colonial” as a distinct site of inquiry—one that must be extracted from the larger and more ambiguous category of “European.” By teasing out the difference be tween European versus colonial interactions with feminism, we get a clearer view of the process by which Nasif was able to negotiate an indigenous feminist agenda within and against the power structures of both Egyptian society and colonial rule.