Month: August 2014

Many past studies of gender interaction discussed differences in masculine and feminine conversational styles. In particular, collaborative talk is regarded as a feminine conversational style. For example, Holmes (2006) makes a summary that most gender studies found that women tend to collaborative while men tend to be challenging in everyday communication. However the author of …

Since the 1960s, Tibetan self-government has been established in autonomous areas; there, Tibetans live in compact communities under the unified leadership of the Chinese central government. A number of Chinese artists and scholars have come to work and live in Tibetan cities, in Lhasa in particular. Against this background, this paper is about contemporary paintings …

In the past, almost the whole university student population in Malaysia comprised three major ethnic groups, namely Malays, Chinese and Indians, as well as other minorities. The make-up of the student population has evolved dramatically and it is common to see students of other cultures in private campuses throughout the country. These students have significant …

From carving up empires to enclosing the commons, the history of maps has long been caught up in creating, legitimising and representing borders. As a product of these historical processes, Google Maps now claim to have one billion users per month. Given this unprecedented audience, how the multinational corporation represents the world is very significant, …

This autoethnography recounts the process of developing my own agency out of a borderland lifeworld formed in multiple geographic sites. I use self-reflection and research to make explicit a functional inbetween space where I belong. Through Gloria Anzaldúa’s work, literature from border and cultural studies, identity formation and my own qualitative research, I analyze the …

Globally not yours … The master discourse of transcultural mediation Intercultural encounters, particularly between civilizationally and power-unequally related cultures, demonstrate the complexity inherent in the process of interlingual communication across cultures. This complexity stems from the carrying-over of specific cultural products (as texts) to and recuperated by receivers that have at their disposal an established …

By the rapid flow of internet and media, McDonaldization has somehow mixed with local cultures everywhere. Culture represents our whole life, and nowadays people express their traditional culture by using modern tools and images. We have created a new style called “Hybridity”, which was introduced by Homi K. Bhabha, especially in refernce to the global …

Post-Modernity, Globalization, Neo-Liberalism, many words come to mind to describe the contemporary world, but there is one type of discourse that seems to be gaining hegemonic position regardless of how we describe the present era: Multiculturalism. Particularly in Japan, a country that has since long constructed its identity under the idea of homogeneity, the adoption …

The Second World War caused unprecedented hardship, but it also accelerated change. A massive European immigration reached Australia’s shores, giving rise to a sort of ideal multi-ethnic society. Between history and myth, diverse ethnic groups interacted without coalescing and by maintaining distinctive, national or group cultural identities. Indeed Melbourne rose as one of the world’s …

Japan, like many developed countries, has seen its population decrease and reached the lowest low fertility rate of 1.41 in 2012. This tendency was first associated with the lower number of children born to married couples. But since the 1970s, the main cause identified is the postponement of marriage, and so childbirth, by women. Following …

The paper is based on qualitative, ethnographic research with Bhutanese refugees who resettled to the UK via the Gateway Protection Programme. In this context, borderland is not a physical space, but a state of mind, in which stateless refugees attempt to negotiate between different identities: whilst seeking to ‘integrate’ in the British host society, they …

Indonesia is a multicultural country that consists of hundreds of distinct native ethnic, racial, and religist groups. Historically, the Nation was built because of the unitary spirit of its components, which was firmly united and integrated to make up the victory of the Nation. The plurality become advantageous when it reach harmony as reflected in …

Colonialism fundamentally changed the traditional pattern of Asian migration and opened new avenues for trade and investment for migrant merchant communities and occupational opportunities as indentured labour for agrarian classes. The Indian communities who migrated to Sri Lanka during British rule played vital and diverse roles in the colony’s economic transformation. When Sri Lanka transformed …

Today there still exist many borders which hamper transit and crossings for many others. Case in point is the border between Sarawak and Kalimantan, a border whose crossing requires documentation for many a potential traveller. In this regard it is helpful to remember that most national borders are different from natural borders. National borders are …

Economists to academics have noted the simultaneous tendency towards globalization and localization in recent decades. At times, the increasingly globalized economy and advances in communications technology seem to bring us together only closely enough to recognize our fundamental differences. Internal divides along cultural, linguistic, political and economic lines become as sharp and clear as geographic …

Letter from an Unknown Woman (1922), one of the Stephan Zweig’s monuments, shows the contradiction between self and others in the context of Love, in which, self insists on his (her) own identity while it is required to keep in touch with others by the nature of “I Love you”, that is to say, self …

Changes in the new media environment are radically shifting the ways audiences consume media products like foreign language TV dramas. The rapid expansion of broadband internet and the development of mobile technology in Asia are changing how Asian fans of these media products interact with each other. The purpose of this study is to examine …

Japanese media cultures have become diversified in Malaysia, providing opportunities for local audiences to gain access to media products from varied sources and participate in its consumption. This triggers an increase in recognition for audiences as producers of rich cultural readings resulting from cross-border media consumption. This study examines the interpretations of Japanese television dramas …

In 2003 the Actroid range of robotic androids was launched in Japan. Its creators and vendors imagine that the ‘bots will integrate into society, taking on companionship, entertainment and hostessing duties. Actroids are modelled after young females, with the exception of (near) exact copies of two male Professors from Japan and Denmark, and a ‘brother’ …

Kusama Yayoi is a world famous Japanese artist who has worked in a wide variety of media. Since the 90’s we can observe growing fascination with Kusama’s works, as well as its recognition and rediscovering. The phenomenon is better known as “The Kusama Renaissance”. As a still living and creating artist, she constantly tries to …

The Japanese in Canada have a complex cultural identity relating to their sense of (not) belonging in Canada, their imaginings of Japan as homeland, and the growth of Nikkei identifying themselves transnationally. This paper compares representations of Canadian Nikkei families in the post-Redress (1988) and post-Canadian Multiculturalism Act (1988) period by Canadian Nikkei authors. It …

A cultural landscape, which encompasses various elements in a specific area, represents the combined works of nature and man. An organically evolved cultural landscape may represent a specific production process for a place, and may consolidate the identification for local people through conservation process of cultural landscape. With this concept, traditional economical model with special …

Relocation by crossing borders can be a risky endeavor, regardless of the amount of resources and support one receives. While many immigrants experience stress by functioning in a foreign language and culture, aging in a foreign environment can lead to an additional burden among older people. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that the number of …

Various epistemological changes – such as the linguistic, narrative, and cultural turns that have influenced humanistic and social scientific studies since the 1980s – have had an impact on the increased academic interests in politics, discourses, processes, and practices of belonging. During the recent decades, the idea of belonging or non-belonging have been discussed and …