Search results for "imagined community"
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Constructing the secular imagined community : a critical intercultural analysis of discourses of laïcité from Le Monde
2016
The concept of secularism encompasses numerous aspects beyond the regulation of relations between the State and Churches. Using a critical intercultural communication framework, this research project explores the interplay between secularism, culture, religion, identity, and collective representations. Specifically, this study focuses on laïcité, the concept of secularism used in France. Previous studies have criticized laïcité for being biased and contributing to inequalities between communities in France. The pervasive (and false) representation of laïcité as originally and exclusively French has also been criticized. In the light of the concerns raised by previous studies, this study set…
GLOBAL ISSUES, WESTERN FOCI: BANAL OCCIDENTALISM IN A FINNISH NEWSPAPER
2016
‘The West’ is an imagined community par excellence with a plethora of connotations that often contradict each other. Although it is often not at all certain exactly what the West or things Western refer to, the concepts are used as if there was some distinct cultural reality corresponding to them. Like any other ethnic group, tribe, nation state, or even village, the West is both fantasy and real, a social construction and, to some extent, an observable social formation. The Western world exists because people believe in its unity and share the connotations but also for a more mundane—or banal— reason: because these are constantly expressed in text and speech. This article examines the news…