Showing papers on "Westernization published in 2019"

The Invisibility of Latin American Scholarship in European Media and Communication Studies: Challenges and Opportunities of De-Westernization and Academic Cosmopolitanism

Abstract: In this article, we critically revisit previous attempts to de-Westernize media and communication studies in Europe. Based on a review of the most reputational Europe-based journals and European academic conferences on our subject from 2010 to 2016, we show how European media and communication studies nurture a scholarly practice of talking about Latin American contexts rather than including voices from within the continent. We establish a historical perspective on the current situation by showcasing emblematic cases of past links between European and Latin American scholarship and discuss the invisibility of Latin American scholarship in the context of the de-Westernizing media and communication studies approach. Our analysis shows that a critical implementation of de-Westernization requires more geographically diverse editorial boards, greater international cooperation, and comparative accounts to capture diversity in regional contexts.

Westernization versus indigenization in the context of global mental health: training and services in Ethiopia – University of Gondar in focus

Abstract: Ethiopia is one of the ancient countries inhabited by well over a hundred million people of diverse cultures and languages. Such diversity requires mental health training and services to be...

Modernization and Social Change in Azerbaijan: Assessing the Transformation of Azerbaijan through the Theories of Modernity

Abstract: The socialist development model of the Soviet Union has attracted much scholarly attention over the years, but the modernization experiences of singular post-Soviet countries (e.g. Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Turkmenistan) are rarely discussed. This may be because these countries have only recently gained their independence in the early 1990s and that perhaps most observers are still unsure about their trajectories. This study aims to contribute to the literature by examining the case of Azerbaijan in light of various influential theories of modernity (i.e. the classical modernization theory, neo-modernization theory and multiple modernities paradigm). Azerbaijan’s modernization process has been characterized by fluctuations, reversals and various external influences over the years. The country first emerged as an independent political entity in 1918 and attempted to follow a systematic cultural Westernization and secularization program. Yet it was occupied by the Bolshevik Red Army in 1920 and annexed into the newly formed Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) – being forced to conform to the top-down socialist development model directed by Moscow for many decades. Since gaining its independence once again after the disintegration of the USSR in 1991, Azerbaijan has operated as a secularist country, faltering to democratize and trying to integrate to the global economic system as an energy-producing (i.e. oil and natural gas) rentier economy. While Azerbaijan has sought to become part of the so-called “Western civilization” via building close ties with Turkey, US, Israel, NATO and the EU, the ruling elites in Baku have resisted any calls for democratic reform – not unlike the rentier economies of the Middle East such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. This article will argue that the complex development track of Azerbaijan provides an appropriate case to challenge the hypotheses of the classical modernization and neo-modernization theories, while supporting those of the multiple modernities paradigm.

The Fall of the Family-State and Rise of the Enterprise Society: Family as Ideology and Site of Conservative Power in Modern Japan

Abstract: Recent literature on the history of family in Japan reveals that what is commonly understood as the “traditional” Japanese family—called the ie family—is largely a political construct that was institutionalized in Japan’s Meiji period (1868–1912). While the ie model was effectively removed from the US-imposed postwar constitution and replaced with the western nuclear family as the new ideal, this historical analysis reveals that the neo-Confucian principles and social structures of the ie model were reintegrated into Japan’s company work culture, to the degree that the ie continued to shape Japan’s collectivist social structures and identities well beyond the end of the war. This analysis highlights key ideologies employed by the ruling elite in modern Japan as a means of social control and nation building. It demonstrates a continuation of the historically close relationship between family and the state in postwar Japan that challenges deterministic notions of westernization applied to the Japanese context; it highlights articulations of family that complicate culturally bound conceptions that see it as inherently separate from the state, and clarifies the modern history of collectivist society in Japan.

English Language Teaching in Iran: A Case of Shifting Sands, Ambiguity, and Incoherent Policy and Practice

Abstract: English language teaching (ELT) in Iran has experienced a turbulent history reflecting an often dynamic context and changing attitudes toward English, yet framed within a discourse of tolerance rather than one of embrace, as this study is going to show. The discourse was much brighter before the Islamic Revolution and this study reveals that there were much fewer adverse policies toward the spread of English (mostly because of economic reasons). However, after the Islamic Revolution, the discourse can be seen as a product of a postcolonial perspective and an accompanying unease – even antipathy – concerning Westernisation and Western values that are seen as being at odds with Iran’s identity and aspirations as an Islamic state. It is discussed in this study that at its current status, language policy and planning in the Iranian context is blatantly at odds with the ‘educational’ and ‘social’ needs of the nation.

«Новый регионализм» в Африке: форма приспособления к глобализации или попытка противодействия современному неоколониализму?

Abstract: The paper is devoted to the analyses of the evolution problems of such key for African states phenomena as globalization, regionalism and neo­colonialism. The attempts of transnational corporations to realize the “vertical” integration with the post­colonial African economies had stimulated the development of the “horizontal” inter­African integration – on regional and continental scales. In 1980­1990­s, after the extra measures for the African economies’ liberalization, the integration processes had made more active. Later they were transformed and the formal declarations about interstate cooperation were changed by the complex programs, adopted by all the members of African Union – “A global strategy to optimize use of Africa’s resources for the benefits of all Africans” (2013­2063), based on the successful practices of eight African regional economic groups, and African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA (2019). New regionalism, emerged after including the problems of ecology, culture etc. in the sphere of intergovernmental cooperation, was a result of deep changes in the international division of labor. It needed the structural transformation of economies­members of the regional groups. Nowadays the growing interaction of the economic integration and globalization processes in Africa does not insure against the influence of modern neo­colonialism. Apart from this, the globalization is not equal as to “westernization” so the neo­colonialism according to, firstly, growing influence of the “East” within the world economy and, secondly, the differences between the objective process of the globalization and the static model of neo­colonial inter connections between developed and developing economics. In the “new regionalism” conditions, African countries as the parts of the world economy periphery are simultaneously the subjects of globalization and the objects of neocolonial influence. This situation contradicts with the needs of the Fourth industrial revolution, but stimulates African states to develop interactions between continental institutes and international economic organizations.

State, university, and society: higher educational development and university functions in shaping modern Thailand

Abstract: The case of higher educational development in Thailand is intriguing in the sense that the country, with the deep religious root of Buddhism, was never colonized; however, the shadow of Westernization in the higher education system is strongly evident. The functions of Thai higher education have played a crucial role in shaping the country’s modern society in political, economic, and social aspects. The five terms of the state, the university, society, changing environments, and higher education functionality are adopted as a conceptual ground of the investigation. The intertwined roles and power relationships of the three actors—the state, the university, and society—surrounding by the changing environments at global, regional, and local levels have largely influenced and determined the functionality of universities in the country’s development. The paper investigates the actions and interactions among these three factors under the changing environments that have shaped the major shifts and incidents of the country’s development. It highlights the universities’ functions in modern Thai society in the different eras. With the conceptual framework, the historical account of Thai higher educational development is analyzed through six phases: (1) Buddhism and Thai higher learning; (2) the threat of colonialism; (3) the Siamese Revolution and the end of absolute monarchy; (4) the Cold War and the military regime; (5) the Student Uprising, democracy, and soaring population; and (6) the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and the forces of globalization.

The Foreign Policy of the “New Turkey”: Priorities, Challenges and Contradictions

Abstract: Turkish foreign policy making under the Justice and Development Party ( Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi , AKP) rule has been at the centre of scholarly debates since the party first came to power in 2002. Interest to the subject maximised in a way during the 2010s, raising serious concerns over its manifestation in the field – not only in the Middle East, but also in other parts of the world. Contrary to what was initially believed, mostly by Western scholars, the AKP did not shift Turkish foreign policy away from Turkey’s westernization vision. The AKP rather adapted to the changing global conditions of our time, affected by and being in constant dialogue with, the socio-economic and political aspects of the party’s vision of founding the “New Turkey”. The collective goal of the present collection of articles in this special issue is to show how – and in what complex ways – Turkish foreign policy has changed over the years, and discuss the nature of the changes through three distinct themes: priorities, challenges and contradictions.

Cinematography as an element of the ideological system of kemalism

Abstract: Purpose: The article deals with the politics of the Kemalists in the Republic of Turkey in the 1920s - 1930s, as well as the ways of indoctrination of the main political principles of this ideology. During this period, Turkey, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, began radical changes affecting all spheres of society. Methodology: The research given is based on the principles of science, historicism, and impartiality; moreover, historical-genetic, historical-comparative, historical-systematic methods of historical research are used. Result: Having declared itself a secular state, focusing on the European level of development of those times, the Republican Turkey at the same time created its own system of national education, culture, language, ideology. This was facilitated by quite radical, largely authoritarian transformations. However, it is worth noting that the goal of the reforms was not widespread westernization of society, but the creation of a national Turkish state. Applications: This research can be used for the universities, teachers, and students. Novelty/Originality: In this research, the model of Cinematography as an element of the ideological system of Kemalism is presented in a comprehensive and complete manner.

Religious Pluralism and Interfaith Coexistence: Ecumenicalism in the Context of Traditional Modes of Tolerance

Abstract: In many parts of the developing world, religion is singled out as the cause for violent clashes. At the 2007 TrustAfrica workshop in Dakar, the conference of religious leaders, scholars, and experts from 12 African countries and the Diaspora explored this concern under the theme "Meeting the Challenges of Religion and Pluralism in Africa." It was observed that religiously justified conflicts were often the repackaging of community concerns regarding issues of social, economic, and political injustices, inequities and exclusions. Consequently, a project on “religious pluralism and interfaith coexistence in Ghana” was funded in 2008 as part of the efforts to examine the role of local traditions as a foundation to interfaith dialogue. Earlier in 2005, a similar project on the theme of Islam and tolerance, with funding from Harvard and Michigan State University, was conducted in Ghana. Several issues emerging from the field conversations are pertinent to topics of how history shaped Muslim relations with their non-Muslim hosts in West Africa. It is often argued in the literature that Islam’s inherently adoptive attitude toward African religious culture made it possible for Muslims and their non-Muslim hosts to co-exist. However, this research contends that, in the case of Ghana, it was the traditional local culture as defined by indigenous religious values that shaped and moderated the environment that sustained peaceful interreligious relations. The authors express concern that as the country experiences rapid urbanization, Westernization, proliferation of charismatic churches and aggressive Christian evangelization, the traditional values that underpinned pluralism and peace in historic times might be threatened (George Bob-Milliar and Karen Lauterback, 2018).

Perceptions of Some Africans about Post-Colonialism as Depicted in Jomo Kenyatta’s “The Gentlemen of the Jungle”

Abstract: Every human being, in addition to having his or her own personal identity, has a sense of who he or she is, in relation to the larger society. It seems that after independence is achieved by African states, one main question arises: What is the new society, culture, and identity? Africans are faced with cultural clash owing to the fact that they have been too much exposed to the colonizer’s (Eu-ropean’s) way of life. The identity of most Africans is gradually eroded as there is a proliferation of Westernization. This content analysis design paper, employing Jomo Kenyatta’s short story, “The Gentlemen of the Jungle”, as the main data, has examined the main theme, post-colonialism, from four sub-perspectives. These perspectives are: alienation and exclusion, retributive justice, the colonizer’s language as a tool of dominance, and double standard and abuse of power. The significance of this paper is to facilitate the shaping of new identities in African communities after the obliterating of colonialism and European imperialism. The essay is structured into four main parts: introduction, the method, the themes, and the conclusion.

Institutionalization and Professionalization of the Social Sciences in Hungary Since 1945

Abstract: The study sketches the socio-historical conditions of the emergence of a strata of critical intellectuals in the late nineteenth century, as well as their institutional support agencies, giving rise to the first major ‘workshop’ of the social sciences (1900). A dismantling after the revolutionary break of 1918–1919 follows, with the emigration of a whole generation of scholars, producing the intellectual stalemate of the interwar years. The catastrophe of WWII including Nazification leads up to the transition years followed by hard core Stalinism, outlawing Western type social studies and replacing them by mandatory Marxism. A new start is observable only after 1963. All formerly restricted social sciences achieve a degree of professional standing before 1989, when the regime transition opens the door to full-scale Westernization (124).

Iran: Islamic Revolution against Westernization

Abstract: Iran is the most important country in the Middle East. The Iranian revolution and its anti-Western outcome took Iran out of the orbit of the Western powers and seems to have pushed the country toward a nonaligned position. Liberal nationalists did not propose any specific economic plan other than advocating greater national control of resources; most of their concern was with constitutional rights and a nonaligned foreign policy. In fact, the economic development plan of Khomeinis Islamic Republic, and its constitution, emphasized the determination to reduce foreign control and to develop along self-reliant ways. The Iranian revolution is best explained by an approach in which competition for resources among domestic groups is embedded in more general trends of superpower competition and changing patterns of global economic interaction. The data on the uneven sectoral development of the Iranian economy nicely explain the massive rural-to-urban migration.

Science, Westernization, and Feng Shui in Early Twentieth-Century China

Abstract: Since the 1911 overthrow of the Manchu dynasty and the creation of modern political China, each generation has grappled with issues about the maintenance of Chinese culture, specifically its mixed Confucian/Daoist traditions, alongside the modernization of society. It is useful to put this ‘feng shui and modernization’ question into historical context. There was, and is, a significant internal Chinese tradition that views feng shui in the same light that outsiders such as Matteo Ricci and Ernst Eitel did, and see the comparable social and cultural changes required for remediation of its detrimental impact on the country. This Chinese cultural ‘reformist’ tradition has both philosophical and political dimensions. By the late-nineteenth century, there had been a number of Chinese translations of European scientific and mathematical works which were read by ever increasing numbers of scholars. In the three centuries following Ricci’s death, Western science had made precious little impact in China. Knowledge of Western science was confined to a miniscule portion of the mandarin class, and there it was understood in utilitarian terms and pursued mainly for technological advantage. The argument of this book is that what is needed for genuine modernization is engagement with scientifically informed philosophy, not just with Western philosophy. Of fundamental importance was the late-nineteenth-century introduction of European science and mathematics as optional subjects in the 2000-year-old system of Civil Service Exams. The modernization of thought called for by twentieth-century Chinese scholars echoes the Enlightenment project launched in Europe in the eighteenth century. This is clear in the writings, achievements, and tribulations of Fang Lizhi, the prominent cosmologist and astrophysicist.

Introduction: Englishization and the New Asian Subjectivity

Abstract: English has had the status of an international language since the nineteenth century, when the British Empire was established. It has been the most widely used language in the world, not only for business and technology but also for education, government, popular entertainment, aviation services, and international exchange. From a postcolonial perspective, the British Empire, though often condemned as economic exploitation and domination, is by far the most powerful attempt at Westernizing the world, bringing about far-reaching cultural changes in the past two centuries. To a large extent, the British Empire can still be felt in many parts of the world, particularly in Asia, through legacies of the colonial systems and the presence of English. A major legacy of the Empire is the Englishization of the world. The language of colonization, English is the major language of Westernization, or modernization, at least for Asia, if not for other parts of the English-speaking world.

Tracing the Path of Islamic Political Movements in Indonesia

Abstract: A bstr act Middle East is a religious Centrum for Muslims around the world, including the Indonesians. The relationship between Islam and the Middle East involves a complex political and historical process. The struggle for authentic Islam in the face of imperialist domination values and westernization of course the main reason for the spread of Islamic political movements to various parts of Asia.. The goal of this research is to discover the relationship between the Islamic political movements in the Middle East and the movements that have developed in Indonesia. There are numerous aspects which need to be understood about the emergence of Islamic political movements. The transmission of Islamic political movements to Indonesia has seen rapid developments since the 1970s and 1980s. The development of Islamic political movements began to gain momentum with the increase in the number of Indonesian students, of both school and university age, who went to study in the Middle East, which caused the relations between Indonesia and the Middle East to become closer on many levels. In the 1980s, Indonesian students in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern countries absorbed many ideas related to political Islam or the movement of Islamic fundamentalism from the Middle East.

Conceptual histories of “tourism”: A transcultural dialogue

Abstract: Author(s): Graburn, Nelson H; Salazar, Noel; Zhu, Yujie | Abstract: Abstract Today’s world, characterized by networked agencies, global flows, cultural hybridity, andmovements of people within and across borders, contextualizes tourism in many ways. Paying close attention to the multiple translations and circulations of the concept of “tourism” across the globe, this symposium endeavors to elaborate both the spatial and temporal dimensions of the conceptual history of tourism. With this theme in mind, the symposium will deal with the following questions: How has the western concept of tourism (primarily Anglophone and French) traveled to non-Western contexts in Asia (including the Middle East), Africa, or South America, thereby imposing a discursive hegemony of a conceptual lexicon? Which native/local concepts of hospitality have been displaced by this conceptual globalization or have transformedit? Do newly emerging forms of tourism across the globe contribute to the intellectual discussion of the “decline of the West” and the “provincialization of Europe,” or they are just furtherexamples of westernization?nKeywords: Tourism; theory; concepts; world anthropologies

Staging Reality: Premodern Drama in China at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Abstract: The turn of the twentieth century was an exciting period of change and continuity in China. The article describes the process of modernization of drama in the period on the Chinese Mainland and in Hong Kong. It is found that the “Chinese modern” was formulated not with complete Westernization, which has been the assumption of most critics and literary historians. Modernization went through tortuous ways of interaction, appropriation, negotiation and renegotiation, an interweaving of different pathways of tradition and the new. There was an awareness of the differences between what was Chinese and what was Western and of the contrast between the old and the new, but not to the point of destroying tradition as ferociously as with the later May Fourth generation. In the process, a new conception of reality of the theatre evolved, pointing the way towards the predominance of realism in modern and contemporary China.

Racism, Prejudice, and Democratization: The Westernization of Japan Under U.S. Occupation, 1945-52

Abstract: Following the unconditional surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945, the Allied forces set out to establish a military occupation in Japan to instill democratic ideals upon the nation and rid Japan of its militarist and fascist sentiments. In facilitating Japan’s transformation into a democratic nation with values of freedom, liberty, and equality, there was also an influx of cultural exchanges between the American occupation forces and Japanese citizens. In fact, the issue of race revealed itself as a major component of American democracy that created a strain on the interactions and relationships between African American GIs, white GIs and the citizens of Japan. In this paper, I will examine the encounters of African-American soldiers with Japanese citizens during the occupation and compare them to the African American-Japanese relationship during the trans-war period. In doing so, I will argue that the impact of the occupation reinforced American racial hierarchical structures in Japan and in turn negatively affected the African American-Japanese relationship. INTRODUCTION World War II, the eventual defeat of Japan, and the implications of the allied occupation reflect a more complex distinction between the U.S. and Japan relationship than victor and vanquished. The interplay of race, ethnicity, national identity, and democracy during the transwar period revealed to be driving factors in the approaches and outcomes of the war. Tensions surrounding national identity and race were amplified in the interactions between Japan and the west during this period and subsequently unearthed mass racially charged propaganda, rhetoric, and prejudice. The influx of these sentiments stratified the sides of the war beyond the distinction between democracy and fascism. Race and national identity operated in tandem, as a tool to mobilize the populace against a foreign “other”. The way in which race was ingrained as a unifying force for the nation complicated any hopes for international collaboration. The eventual

Geopolítica del Conocimiento y Decolonialidad: ¿Está el eurocentrismo puesto a prueba?

Abstract: Eurocentrism has founded its hegemony as the center of global thinking in a hierarchical relationship, which has had few and weak challengers. Despite the efforts of decolonizing the creation of knowledge, there is no any evident meaningful change in the geopolitical structures of global knowledge. While China is presented as a challenge, one of its strategies to gain acceptance in the world has been, in turn, its westernization.

"Wild Westernization" and Liminal Racialization at the Limits of the Middle East and North America

Abstract: The biopolitical governmentality of nation-state projects ranges from managing ethnic and racial difference to instituting processes of modernization, often seen as concomitant with Westernization. The transgressions of everyday life and cultural production that expose the limits of such projects are the concerns of two recent texts that consider the Middle East in relation to the United States from the perspectives of the Iranian diaspora and Turkish public culture and folklore. From the limits of whiteness to the limits of Westernization, NedaMaghbouleh and Perin E. Gürel’s books demonstrate how figures and concepts are constructed and mobilized across time and space and how attention to the local reveals the disconnects and transgressions of governmental, imperial, and nationalist discourses and regimes. Maghbouleh’s multisited analysis exposes the liminality of Iranianness in a North American ethnic and racial schema in which it is included within the legal and

An example of the effects of the Westernization period on the First National Architecture: the Reşadiye Numune School

Abstract: It has been known that the westernization efforts that started in the last period of the Ottoman Empire continued in the Republican era and that a wide and radical change was made in order

Turkey: From Symbols to Actors in the Struggle for Women’s Political Rights

Abstract: Women in Turkey received the right to vote and run for office in local elections in 1930 and in national elections in 1934. While Republican modernizing reforms improved the status of women, there was a 10-year gap between recognizing women’s rights to education and to divorce and extending women the right to vote. This chapter argues that the extension of political rights to women was a product of both national and international factors. The modernization/Westernization and nation-building projects of the Republican elites, which emphasized women’s emancipation, provided an opportunity structure for women to organize and push for their political rights. At the international level, Republican elites granted women their political rights to show Turkey’s commitment to the project of modernization and to women’s rights.

Globality: Cultural Comparison Between Europe and China

Abstract: The term “Globality” should not be restricted to the economic, political, and historical developments which have taken place after World War II. As the Mexican Silver dollar won a firm place in the finance system of Imperial China between the sixteenth and twentieth century, the interaction between Europe, Asia, and Middle America has a history of almost 500 years. The problem, however, is how do we define it. Unfortunately, the fruitful encounter of, for instance, China and West-Europe is very often misunderstood as Westernization. Talking about the material and cultural exchange requires a defining of the terms which are used in a global context. The idea of the West is coined by Russia in the eighteenth century and implicates a pejorative meaning up till now. Besides, the recent criticisms of globalization as some kind of Americanization falls too easily prey to unhistorical thinking: Self and Other are not necessarily contradictions. The contribution tries to clarify the basic assumptions of our academic concepts.

Changes of political theories in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract: In the countries of Middle and Eastern Europe the collapse of „real socialism” was followed by the annulment of political and ideological supervision over scientific researches. Since then the political theory has been developing in an unembarrassed way, drawing investigative patterns with the tradition of western political sciences. Form this perspective, the expression „westernization” used with regard to political theory signifies the process of going away from Marxism and historical materialism. The article focuses on two essential trends of this process. The main consequence is the pluralization of theoretical bases of investigations, which signifies not only differentation, but also the lack of predominant theory. The international program for monitoring the development since 1990, shows that new investigative trends disclose a division between the traditional and current model of politology, which demonstrates the topicality of arguments raised in western academic debatesover the theoretical condition and status of political science discipline.