Search results for "Binary Opposition"
showing 6 items of 6 documents
Epistemic, interpersonal, and moral stances in the construction of us and them in Christian metal lyrics
2011
Abstract Religious groupings and subcultures both tend to have well-articulated interests, aims, and values that unite certain people but also alienate those who do not share their interests. The case is then made for the construction of difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’. This paper examines the construction of such a group boundary in the previously little studied context of the Christian metal (CM) music subculture. The focus of analysis is on the kinds of stances that are taken and attributed to ‘us’ and ‘them’ in the English lyrics of Finnish CM groups. The particular types of stance are related to questions of epistemology, interpersonality, and morality. The paper shows that the bord…
Exploring or exporting? Qualitative methods in times of globalisation
2011
Europeanism, westernism and methodological imperialism all refer to the classic criticism of Western research in non-Western contexts. Though I welcome the debate, I find arguments based on simple binary oppositions and descriptions problematic. This debate is better positioned as one about the quality of qualitative research. With reference to the criticism I ask if contemporary qualitative research is stuck in old problems. Based on my ethnographic data from East Africa I show that the pitfalls of Western research that are pointed to in classic criticisms are the outcome of old models and poor analytic work. I also show that contemporary ‘Western’ qualitative research offers analytic alte…
A discursive analysis of oppositional interpretations of the agro-food system: A case study of Latvia
2015
Abstract This article critically reflects on the literature that addresses the complexity of food systems, which is often caught in application of simplistic binary oppositions of local vs. global, short vs. long, sustainable vs. intensive, etc. It then goes on to show, through a case study analysis of food-system discourses in Latvia how the binary oppositions surrounding with food systems, are actually mobilised in a specific national context. Agro-food systems are often explained through binary opposing knowledge systems that, depending on the theoretical affiliation of the author, might be called frames, narratives or discourses. These powerful instruments are used to explain, and often…
Three Halves of a Whole : Redefining East and West in UNESCO’s East-West Major Project 1957-1966
2017

 
 
 In 1946 Julian Huxley, UNESCO’s rst Director-General, suggested that two opposing philosophies of life were confronting each other from the East and the West, setting the focus on the cultural aspect of this polarisation and de ning the possibility of an East- West conflict as the main threat to world peace. A decade later, in 1957, UNESCO launched The Major Project on the Mutual Appreciation of Eastern and Western Cultural Values to promote its ideas of intercultural understanding as a means to maintaining peace. The core concepts of the Project, East and West, were not strictly defined. Here East and West, as concepts, fit Reinhart Koselleck’s definition of Grundbegri…
The unspoken pressure of tradition : East Asian classical musicians in western classical music
2013
Itäaasialaisia klassisia muusikoita käsittelevät artikkelit ovat olleet yleisiä eurooppalaisissa klassisen musiikin lehdissä siitä lähtien kun itäaasialaiset alkoivat yhä suuremmassa määrin voittaa kansainvälisiä musiikkikilpailuita ja luoda kansainvälistä uraa 1900-luvun viimeisinä vuosikymmeninä. Läntinen taidemusiikki on kansainvälistymässä aikana, jolloin pelot klassisen musiikin kuolemasta ovat myös päässeet otsikoihin Euroopassa. Itäaasialaiset muusikot työskentelevät kompleksisella kulttuurien kentällä, jossa heidän muusikkoutensa on jatkuvasti arvostelun alaisena. Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoitus oli saada selville, miten itäaasialaiset klassiset muusikot ja heidän kulttuurinen identitee…
Sociolinguistics from the Periphery
2016
This leading team of scholars presents a fascinating book about change: shifting political, economic and cultural conditions; ephemeral, sometimes even seasonal, multilingualism; and altered imaginaries for minority and indigenous languages and their users. The authors refer to this network of interlinked changes as the new conditions surrounding small languages (Sámi, Corsican, Irish and Welsh) in peripheral sites. Starting from the conviction that peripheral sites can and should inform the sociolinguistics of globalisation, the book explores how new modes of reflexivity, more transactional frames for authenticity, commodification of peripheral resources, and boundary-transgression with hu…