CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES
Fourth International Conference
June 29 - July 2, 2002, Tampere, Finland
Community: An Alternative to the Nation?
Organiser: Annedith M. Schneider
Locklin, Blake (Southwest Texas State
University, USA) CITIZENS OF THE WORLD: THE DREAM OF A TRANSNATIONAL COMMUNITY
In this paper, I examine the idea of national and transnational imagined
communities in the context of Latin Americans living, studying, and working in
Asia. For example, Beatriz Sarlo, in her article "Aesthetics and
Post-Politics: From Fujimori to the Gulf War," analyzes pictures of Alberto
Fujimori in his first presidential campaign as emblematic of a
"post-politics" in which image replaces content and the idea of a
global culture is a dangerous illusion. More than Fujimori, however (despite his
own recent immigration to Japan), the dekasegui (foreign manual laborers) and
other Peruvians in Japan face questions of local and global identity in their
daily lives. Their own accounts show a tension between the desire to believe in
a shared culture and the reality of cultures that are incompatible if not
incommensurable. Nevertheless, attempts to position themselves as global
citizens in a world of universal tolerance and love represent not simply an
acceptance of the manipulation of mass media that Sarlo decries but rather also
a need to imagine a community that will help them salvage meaning from a
difficult experience.
Toman, Cheryl (Millikin University, USA)
WHEN WOMEN OF NIGERIA AND CAMEROON ARE AS ONE
Although Nigeria and Cameroon are definitively two separate nations today, the
ties that bind the Igbo women of Nigeria and the Kom women of Cameroon seem to
dissolve these borders. Both groups of women live in communities that are
organized according to a matriarchal social structure where women ultimately
hold more authority in the power structure than men, although there is an
intricate system of checks and balances applicable to the entire community.
Nigerian feminist sociologist Ifi Amadiume highlights these communities in her
recent book, From Reinventing Africa: Matriarchy, Religion, and Culture, and
this work as well as other anthropological studies will be used in the analysis
of a political structure that is so highly organized that both women and men
have scoffed at the idea of state government both in words and actions. This
study will focus on Igbo and Kom customs and rituals that transcend national
boundaries, creating perhaps a "better" option than a nation for these
ethnic groups.
Bilici, Mucahit (University of Michigan,
USA) WHY UMMA IS NOT A BIG NATION?: TWO IMAGINED COMMUNITIES IN THE WRITINGS OF
SAID NURSI
Nation has been the dominant organizing principle for many human communities for
the last two centuries. In the age of globalization, the idea of nation is being
questioned both theoretically and practically. Deconstruction of
nation(alism)invites competing conceptions of community formation. Umma as the
community of Muslim believers is one such alternative conception. This paper
explores the ways in which umma is constructed differently in contradistinction
to nation in the works of Said Nursi. Drawing upon Nursi's ideas, I argue that
contemporary appropriation of the idea of umma by Islamism is simply another
form of nationalism, Muslim nationalism. By looking at the genealogies of nation
and umma, this paper delineates different ontological assumptions built in these
two concepts and discusses their practical implications.
Schneider, Annedith (Sabanci University,
Turkey) A COMMUNITY OF THEIR OWN? CITIZENS AND "SISTERS" IN ALGERIA
Much official rhetoric in Algeria has based the idea of national identity on the
infamous slogan, "Islam is our religion Arabic is our language, Algeria is
our fatherland." This vision, however, ignores the significant role of
other ethnic, linguistic and religious groups in shaping contemporary Algerian
identity. Some current observers of Algeria's political situation have been
enthusiastic about the revival of traditional community councils in Berber areas
of the country, as a possible antidote to failed national institutions. In some
respects these local entities do seem more responsive to local needs, although
they are far from democratic, given that members are not elected and women are
excluded entirely. While women may be accorded a symbolic role in the nation or
community, as citizens or sisters, their actual participation is often limited.
This paper, focusing on the work of one of Algeria's best-known women writers,
Assia Djebar, considers the kind of place available for women in the nation and
communities of Algeria.
|