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Edification in the Chinese Philosophy of Confucianism (Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture)
by Jinglin LiThis pivot focuses on “the concept of edification” in a bid to systematically expound its connotative structure and logical evolution. It is divided into ten chapters, embracing various issues, such as human nature as the foundation of edification, the development of edification and cultivation, the evolution of edification and the resultant life based on ritual and music, the political orientation and ultimate care of edification, and the nurturing of social edification, in an effort to offer a panoramic view of the intellectual features of Confucianism, and consequently a profound reflection on the cultural consciousness of contemporary China. The book is expected to satisfy the needs for a better understanding of edification as a Confucian concept, and the conceptual features of Chinese philosophy, or rather, Confucianism.
Formation of Teachers for Catholic Schools: Challenges and Opportunities in a New Era (Catholic Education Globally: Challenges and Opportunities #1)
by Leonardo Franchi Richard RymarzThis book explores in a theoretical and practical sense the challenges and opportunities arising in the initial and ongoing formation processes for teachers in Catholic schools. It showcases a range of international perspectives on how prospective teachers for Catholic schools are prepared both academically and pastorally for their professional role. Divided into two parts, Part 1 of the book focuses on certain countries in the Anglosphere; each country with a dedicated chapter in which the academic and pastoral approaches to teacher formation are examined in the context of its particular cultural, political and religious landscape. Part 2 of the book examines specific areas of interest with particular reference to what it means for the Catholic Church’s mission to offer suitable formation to its corps of teachers. Building on the editors' previous work, this book offers a fresh perspective on this subject by bringing together observations from selected local contexts on what Catholic teacher formation looks like as a set of organised processed and structures. It also shows how the study of educational themes offers challenges to current practices, but also opportunities for fruitful engagement with other educational perspectives.
English Bilingual Project: Exploring the Pedagogical Function of Mentalese
by Mathew VargheseToday, English is the global lingua franca and competent English communication skills should be one of the rights of all educated individuals irrespective of any socio-cultural limits. By introducing a new method, this book focuses on helping any learner to get sufficient communication skills in English as much as in the native language. This method helps one to avoid translating from mother tongue to English. And by using the method of thinking in English, one could acquire the required English bilingual skills naturally. The method is founded on the philosophical idea of mentalese—mind language as the base language of thinking available for humans for constructing thoughts. The proposed English Bilingual Project (EBP) helps one to transfer thoughts from a structureless mentalese to the grammatical structure of any language English/Japanese/Chinese. The method described in this book works in two ways: one it helps one to intuitively understand the working of mentalese; the other is by practicing think in English with the mentalese, one could generate the bilingual brain. The main procedure for transferring thoughts from the mentalese to English is through writing one’s thoughts. This helps one to think effectively in English like one’s own mother tongue. This method works as a prime requirement model for one to generate multilingual skills. The book resourced the idea of mentalese from the classical philosophy, reflects it with the modern generative theories, links it with the studies in neuro-linguistic studies on bilingualism and the bilingual brain.
Memory and Identity in Modern and Postmodern American Literature
by Lovorka Gruic Grmusa Biljana OklopcicThis book discusses how American literary modernism and postmodernism interconnect memory and identity and if, and how, the intertwining of memory and identity has been related to the dominant socio-cultural trends in the United States or the specific historical contexts in the world. The book’s opening chapter is the interrogation of the narrator’s memories of Jay Gatsby and his life in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The second chapter shows how in William Faulkner’s Light in August memory impacts the search for identities in the storylines of the characters. The third chapter discusses the correlation between memory, self, and culture in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Discussing Robert Coover’s Gerald’s Party, the fourth chapter reveals that memory and identity are contextualized and that cognitive processes, including memory, are grounded in the body’s interaction with the environment, featuring dehumanized characters, whose identities appear as role-plays. The subsequent chapter is the analysis of how Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated deals with the heritage of Holocaust memories and postmemories. The last chapter focuses on Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day, the reconstructive nature of memory, and the politics and production of identity in Southeastern Europe.
Saint Paul and the Education Encounter: Lessons on Love, Event and Change
by Michael VictoryThis book connects the Biblical Paul’s work as an educator with the revival of interest in Paul’s impact on contemporary social and cultural experience, sometimes referred to as ‘Paul’s new moment’. It presents Paul's letters as being the testament of an educator who brought a radical emancipatory approach to the communities with whom he lived and worked. The book draws on history, philosophy, New Testament studies, and social theory to present the case for Paul as the initiator of a pedagogy of the event. This book explores the concept of a pedagogy of the event, and provides a case study of success in its implementation.
‘Pre-Islamic Survivals’ in Muslim Central Asia: Tsarist, Soviet and Post-Soviet Ethnography in World Historical Perspective (Islam and Global Studies)
by R. Charles WellerThe book traces the conceptual lens of historical-cultural ‘survivals’ from the late 19th-century theories of E.B. Tylor, James Frazer, and others, in debate with monotheistic ‘degenerationists’ and Protestant anti-Catholic polemicists, back to its origins in Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions as well as later more secularized forms in the German Enlightenment and Romanticist movements. These historical sources, particularly the ‘dual faith’ tradition of Russian Orthodoxy, significantly shaped both Tsarist and later Soviet ethnography of Muslim Central Asia, helping guide and justify their respective religious missionary, social-legal, political and other imperial agendas. They continue impacting post-Soviet historiography in complex and debated ways. Drawing from European, Central Asian, Middle Eastern and world history, the fields of ethnography and anthropology, as well as Christian and Islamic studies, the volume contributes to scholarship on ‘syncretism’ and ‘conversion’, definitions of Islam, history as identity and heritage, and more. It is situated within a broader global historical frame, addressing debates over ‘pre-Islamic Survivals’ among Turkish and Iranian as well as Egyptian, North African Berber, Black African and South Asian Muslim Peoples while critiquing the legacy of the Geertzian ‘cultural turn’ within Western post-colonialist scholarship in relation to diverging trends of historiography in the post-World War Two era.
A Kaleidoscope of Malaysian Indian Women’s Lived Experiences: Gender‐Ethnic Intersectionality and Cultural Socialisation
by Premalatha Karupiah Jacqueline Liza FernandezThis book presents a compilation of chapters relating to the socio-cultural experiences of Malaysian Indian women. It includes a historical background covering Indian women’s migration to Malaya, and explores the lived realities of contemporary Indian women who are members of this minority ethnic group in the country. The authors cover a wide range of issues such as gender inequality, poverty, the involvement of women in performing arts, work, inter‐personal relationships, and well-being and happiness, drawing on substantial empirical data through a gendered lens. This book addresses the gap in the intersectional gender studies literature on minority groups of women in Malaysia, while simultaneously highlighting the multiple forms of subordination minority women - particularly Indian women - experience in society, including those that arise from gender‐ethnic intersectionality. In examining the case of Indian women in Malaysia, it also speaks to and enriches existing literature on the lives of minority groups of women in the Global South more broadly This anthology is beneficial to researchers and students in the social sciences, particularly in disciplines related to gender studies and minority studies. In addition, it is also useful for policy makers and social activists working with minority women in the Global South.
**Missing**: A Sociology of the Everyday (Asia in Transition #20)
by Lian Kwen Fee Paul J. Carnegie Noor Hasharina HassanThis thoughtful and wide-ranging open access volume explores the forces and issues shaping and defining contemporary identities and everyday life in Brunei Darussalam. It is a subject that until now has received comparatively limited attention from mainstream social scientists working on Southeast Asian societies. The volume helps remedy that deficit by detailing the ways in which religion, gender, place, ethnicity, nation-state formation, migration and economic activity work their way into and reflect in the lives of ordinary Bruneians. In a first of its kind, all the lead authors of the chapter contributions are local Bruneian scholars, and the editors skilfully bring the study of Brunei into the fold of the sociology of everyday life from multiple disciplinary directions. By engaging local scholars to document everyday concerns that matter to them, the volume presents a collage of distinct but interrelated case studies that have been previously undocumented or relatively underappreciated. These interior portrayals render new angles of vision, scale and nuance to our understandings of Brunei often overlooked by mainstream inquiry. Each in its own way speaks to how structures and institutions express themselves through complex processes to influence the lives of inhabitants. Academic scholars, university students and others interested in the study of contemporary Brunei Darussalam will find this volume an invaluable resource for unravelling its diversity and textures. At the same time, it hopefully stimulates critical reflection on positionality, hierarchies of knowledge production, cultural diversity and the ways in which we approach the social science study of Brunei. ‘I wish to commend the editors for bringing this volume to fruition. It is an important book in the context of Southeast Asian sociology and even more important for the development of our social, geographical, cultural and historical knowledge of Brunei.’ —Victor T. King, University of Leeds
Placemaking and Cultural Landscapes (Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences)
by Pravin S. Rana Olimpia Niglio Rana P. B. SinghPlacemaking and cultural landscapes are worldwide multidisciplinary global concerns that cover many points of view of the common impacts of socio-economic cultural and rights jurisprudence planning, wellbeing and related advancements. Concerned with the complex interactions between the development and environment of those factors, it is important to seek ways, paths and implications for framing sustainability in all social activities. This book is mostly based on the 10th ACLA – Asian Cultural Landscape Association International Webinar Symposium that took place during September 26–27, 2020, in the Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. It examines contemporary social–cultural issues in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) and associated cultural and sacred landscapes. There, the emphasis is on awakening deeper cultural sensitivity in harmonizing the world and the role of society and spiritual systems, drawing upon multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural interfaces—all within the scope of the future of the earth. The book’s chapters add a new dimension of cultural understanding in the broad domain of emerging human geoscience, considered as key policy science for contributing towards sustainability and survivability science together with future earth initiatives.
The Medico-Legal Development of Neurological Death in the UK
by Kartina A. ChoongDiagnosis of death by neurological criteria (DNC) is a construct which has been part of the British medico-legal landscape for nearly half a century. This book examines the factors behind its emergence, and discusses the various changes that took place in the last few decades that culminated in the current definition and clinical criteria for determining brain-based death. It highlights the continuities and discontinuities in practice, and the impact they have on the issue of withdrawal of mechanical ventilation in intensive care units and on the field of organ transplantation. The book also explores the law’s response to the introduction and development of DNC in clinical practice. It demonstrates how the legitimacy of the definition and criteria used by the medical profession were forged in the courtroom rather than in Parliament. It documents why case law were introduced in court, and assesses whether organ donation was a consideration in the deliberations. It will be emphasised that courts have given insufficient consideration to requests made in recent cases to consider a broader range of methods to determine death. Those pleas were made on the grounds that the definition and criteria used in the UK are dissimilar to those used in other jurisdictions that also adopt DNC; and that faith communities have a different understanding of death. By taking a close look at those other approaches before highlighting the inherent limitations of the courtroom as the forum that confers DNC its legitimacy, the book puts forward the argument that the democratic process should be engaged.
A Sociotheological Approach to Catholic Social Teaching: The Role of Religion in Moral Responsibility During COVID-19
by Vivencio O. BallanoThis book introduces Catholic social teaching (CST) and its teaching on the common good to the reader and applies them in the realm of public health to critically analyze the major global issues of COVID-19 that undermine public interest. It uses the sociotheological approach that combines the moral principles of CST and the holistic analysis of modern sociology and also utilizes the secondary literature as the main source of textual data. Specifically, it investigates the corporate moral irresponsibility and some unethical business practices of Big Pharma in the sale and distribution of its anti-COVID vaccines and medicines, the injustice in the inequitable global vaccine distribution, the weakening of the United States Congress’s legislative regulation against the pharmaceutical industry’s overpricing and profiteering, the inadequacy of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) law enforcement system against corruption, and the lack of social monitoring in the current public health surveillance system to safeguard the public good from corporate fraud and white-collar crime. This book highlights the contribution of sociology in providing the empirical foundation of CST’s moral analysis and in crafting appropriate Catholic social action during the pandemic. It is hoped that through this book, secular scholars, social scientists, religious leaders, moral theologians, religious educators, and Catholic lay leaders would be more appreciative of the sociotheological approach to understanding religion and COVID-19. “This book brings into dialogue two bodies of literature: documents of Catholic social teaching, and modern sociology and its core thinkers and texts...The author does especially well to describe how taking ‘the sociotheological turn’...will benefit the credibility and dissemination of Catholic social thought.”- Rev. Fr. Thomas Massaro, S.J., Professor of Moral Theology, Jesuit School of Theology, Santa Clara University, Berkeley, California.
A Brief History of the Relationship Between Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism
by Zhongjian MouChinese traditions of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism have a profoundly philosophical dimension. The three traditions are frequently referred to as three paths of moral teachings. In this book, Mou provides a clear account of the textual corpus that emerges to define each of these traditions and how this canonical axis was augmented by a continuing commentarial tradition as each generation reauthorized the written core for their own time and place. In his careful exegesis, Mou lays out the differences between the more religious reading of these traditions with their defining practices that punctuate the human journey through life, and the more intellectual and philosophical treatment of the texts that has and continues to produce a first-order culture of annotation that become integral to the traditions themselves. At the center of the alternative religious experience reflected throughout the teachings of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism is the project of personal cultivation as it comes to be expressed as robust growth in family and communal relations. For Mou, these three highly distinctive and yet complementary ways of thinking and living constitute a kind of moral ecology, wherein each of them complements the others as they stand in service to a different dimension of the human need for an educated spirituality.
Living without God: A Multicultural Spectrum of Atheism (Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures #37)
This book deals with the intricate issue of approaching atheism—methodologically as well as conceptually—from the perspective of cultural pluralism. What does ‘atheism’ mean in different cultural contexts? Can this term be applied appropriately to different religious discourses which conceptualize God/gods/Goddess/goddesses (and also godlessness) in hugely divergent ways? Is my ‘God’ the same as yours? If not, then how can your atheism be the same as mine? In other words, this volume raises the question: Is it not high time that we proposed a comparative study of atheism(s) alongside that of religions, rather than believing that atheism is centered in the ‘Western’ experience? Apart from answering these questions, the book highlights the much-needed focus on the philosophical negotiations between atheism, theism and agnosticism. The fine chapters collected here present pluralist negotiations with the notion of atheism and its ethical, theological, literary and scientific corollaries.Previously published in Sophia Volume 60, issue 3, September 2021Chapters “Religious Conversion and Loss of Faith: Cases of Personal Paradigm Shift?” and “On Being an Infidel” are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Ibn Khaldun’s Theory and the Party-Political Edifice of the United Malays National Organisation (SpringerBriefs in Political Science)
by Syed Hamid bin Syed Jaafar AlbarThis concise book examines the decline and erosion of UMNO as a dominant political party of Malaysia through the perspective of Ibn Khaldun's theory of asabiyyah and umran. It uses the qualitative method of data collection from Ibn Khaldun's original works. After discussing Ibn Khaldun's theory of asabiyyah and umran, UMNOs umranic contributions and erosion of Malay asabiyyah are discussed in detail. The research outlines how asabiyyah led to UMNOs rise to prominence, gain of political power, bringing of progress and development of Malaysia to an umranic stage before it started to decline and erode in concordance with the five stages of Ibn Khaldun's theory of rise and fall of civilizations. This book highlights that early leaders of UMNO played significant role in fostering group feeling and solidarity of the Malays (asabiyyah). Asabiyyah was the engine that propelled UMNO to transform the Malays and Malaysia to an umranic society. In conclusion, the later leaders of UMNO contributed to weakening of the Malay asabiyyah and the fall of UMNO from power in the 14th General Elections in 2018. The process of UMNOs decline and erosion of political power is primarily caused by the leaders’ failures and shortcomings. The author, a Malaysian lawyer and long-standing Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Minister of Justice, Minister of Defence, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Minister of Home Affairs in the Barisan Nasional in Malaysia, concludes with the recommendation that for UMNO to be relevant again in the current political landscape, it must initiate new and serious approaches and initiatives to change itself and must focus on good governance and rule of law in a multi-ethnic Malaysian society. Relevant to scholars and practitioners in political science, sociology, and Islamic studies, this book is a landmark commentary on contemporary Malaysian politics, drawing from the author's own experience as a member of parliament in his various ministerial positions over three decades.
Ubuntu Philosophy for the New Normalcy
by Jahid Siraz Chowdhury Haris Abd Wahab Mohd Rashid Mohd Saad Golam M. Mathbor Mashitah HamidiThe book is about Ubuntu—loosely translated—I am because we are—or, our common humanity in Zulu, about Unity, and global solidarity. It proves again how alike and universal we are as societies across the globe despite this deadly pandemic. On a personal and social basis, each of the six chapters is a call to action to find commonality, and this is the third book of Jahid’s amelioration on Covid-19 Trilogy. And the Appendix is something special for the readership. Ubuntu tells us about the Indigenous healing keys: empathy, compromise, learning, non-violence, change, forgiveness, restorative justice, love, spirituality and hope. The book was written by a highly diverse team of contributors, both from the Global South and North, and is multidisciplinary in nature, and attempting of Commoning the Communities. The authors hail from the fields of social work, anthropology, and education, and have been working with local communities in the ongoing struggle to identify and address complicit oppression and inequalities. Offering a beacon of hope for today and tomorrow, the book will appeal to social science researchers, policy planners, and the general public alike
Cultural Interactions of English-Medium Instruction at Vietnamese Universities: The Western Proposition by the Eastern Implementation
by Thi Quynh Luu Helena Hing Sit Shen ChenThis book presents a case study of English-Medium Instruction (EMI) implemented by universities in Vietnam, making valuable theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions to the research in EMI which is currently a popular theme in the field of Higher Education. The importance of internationalization of higher education has been widely recognized by many countries all over the world. The spread of English as an international language has resulted in its crucial role in teaching and learning any disciplines. Globally, higher education in many non-English speaking countries has witnessed rapid expansion of (EMI) which was initiated in Europe, then to Asia and other continents which are featured with “Cultural Circles” spread in the world.Although there are many publications with the same theme available today, this monograph is unique because it is the first time to examine EMI classroom interaction from the cultural perspective specifically rather than from linguistic or pedagogical perspectives. It is a pioneering attempt to discuss in depth about cultural issues relating to EMI, namely (1) the social-cultural context of EMI classes in higher education; (2) the cultural backgrounds of EMI teachers and learners; and (3) culture interactions between teachers and learners in EMI classrooms. In addition, both quantitative and qualitative methods are employed to collect data from teachers and learners. Finally, a context-based model of EMI is proposed based on findings of this research.As a country within the Confucius Heritage Cultural Circle, Vietnam has been selected for this study because few studies to date are carried out in how EMI is culturally integrated to teaching and learning in the Vietnamese universities. This book is a joint effort by international academics, prepared for established scholars, researchers, educators, and research higher degree students who are interested in higher education, second and foreign language education and EMI teacher training.
Populism, Authoritarianism and Necropolitics: Instrumentalization of Martyrdom Narratives in AKP’s Turkey
by Ihsan Yilmaz Omer ErturkThis book examines how Turkey’s ruling party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan produces and employs necropolitical narratives in order to perpetuate its authoritarian rule.In doing so, the book argues that as the party transitioned from socially conservative Muslim democratic values to authoritarian Islamism, it embraced a necropolitical narrative based on the promotion of martyrdom, and of killing and dying for the Turkish nation and Islam, as part of their authoritarian legitimation. This narrative, the book shows, is used by the party to legitimise its actions and deflect its failures through the framing of the deaths of Turkish soldiers and civilians, which have occurred due to the AKP’s political errors, as martyrdom events in which loyal servants of the Turkish Republic and God gave their lives in order to protect the nation in a time of great crisis. This book also describes how, throughout its second decade in power, the AKP has used Turkey’s education system, its Directorate of Religious Affairs, and television programs in order to propagate its necropolitical martyrdom narrative.
The Tree of Legal Knowledge: Imagining Blackstone’s Commentaries
by John V. OrthThis book restores to view a masterpiece of beauty and legal scholarship, which has been lost for almost two hundred years. Produced anonymously in 1838, The Tree of Legal Knowledge is an elaborate visualization in five large colored plates of the law as stated in Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. Intended as “an assistant for students in the study of law,” the study aid was not a simple diagram but a beautiful tree with each branch and twig labeled with legal terms and concepts from the Commentaries. Not for law students only, the original was also intended to be of use to the practicing attorney and educated gentleman “in consolidating his learning and forming an instructive and ornamental appendage to an office.” Although Blackstone’s Commentaries had been first published eighty years earlier, it remained the primary source for knowledge of English law and required reading for American law students. The Commentaries remain relevant today and are frequently cited by the U.S. Supreme Court as a source for the original understanding of legal rights and obligations at the time of American Independence. Despite its artistic beauty and academic significance, The Tree of Legal Knowledge had seemingly disappeared shortly after its publication. It is not included in the collection of any library, including the Library of Congress or in Yale University’s Blackstone Collection, the largest in the world. It is not listed in the comprehensive Bibliographical Catalog of William Blackstone, edited by Ann Jordan Laeuchli, published for the Yale Law Library in 2015. The present volume reproduces the only extant copy of The Tree of Legal Knowledge. It includes an introduction by the editor that places The Tree in historical context and identifies the anonymous author, an otherwise unknown lawyer. In addition, it reprints the original author’s introduction and “explanation of the branches,” both extensively annotated. This book restores this lost masterpiece to its proper place in legal history. The Tree is a beautiful—and accurate—depiction of English law as expounded in Blackstone’s Commentaries, the single most important book in the history of the common law.
Mode & Musik
by Jochen SträhleDieses Buch wird das Verständnis der Leser für die Verbindungen zwischen der Musik- und der Modeindustrie erweitern. Es hebt die Herausforderungen hervor, denen sich die Modeindustrie derzeit in Bezug auf den Hyperwettbewerb, die Definition immer schnellerer Trends, sich ändernde Verbraucherwünsche usw. gegenübersieht. Die Modeindustrie wird in der Tat stark von der digitalen Revolution in der Musikindustrie beeinflusst, die das Gesicht des individuellen Musikkonsums und des sozialen Bezugs verändert hat und sich daher auch auf den Modekonsum und den sozialen Bezug auswirkt. Dieses Verständnis ist von entscheidender Bedeutung, um die Strategien eines Modeunternehmens auf die Anforderungen der modernen Modekonsumenten auszurichten. Inhaltlich befasst sich das Buch zunächst mit der sozialen Perspektive von Mode und Musik. Dazu gehört eine Analyse der Musik als wichtiger Einflussfaktor für Modetrends, sowohl theoretisch als auch anhand einer Fallstudie über Grunge-Musik. Anschließend wird die Rolle der Musik in der Modebranche behandelt, wobei die Musik in den Geschäften und die Rolle der Musik in der Modekommunikation behandelt werden. Im Anschluss daran wird die Rolle der Mode im Musikgeschäft analysiert. Dazu gehören der Trend zum Co-Design von Modekollektionen, die Rolle von Musikkünstlern bei der Differenzierung nach Stilrichtungen und der Markt für Musik-Mode-Merchandise-Artikel (sowohl theoretisch als auch anhand einer Fallstudie). Abschließend werden mögliche Lehren aus der Musikindustrie für die Modeindustrie gezogen. Dazu gehört auch eine Analyse der digitalen Revolution und des Aufkommens der Crowdfunding-Idee (sowohl theoretisch als auch in einer Fallstudie).
Regional Culture and Social Change: A Study of Miao-Inhabited Areas of Southwest China
by Yuhua MaThis book explores Shimenkan—a Miao-inhabited area in Weining County, China—and its rural society from a comprehensive and long-term perspective, drawing on research conducted by the author in the course of ten years. Located in the northwest of Weining County in Guizhou Province, Shimenkan is a multiethnic area, where, e.g., the Hans, Miaos, Yis, Huis, and Buyis live. Until the early twentieth century, it was a small mountain village; the introduction of Christianity led to significant cultural and social changes in this area. Focusing on China in the twentieth century, the book addresses the traditional culture of the Miao people, the popularity of Christianity in early modern times, the management and control by the government, the socialist reform in the period of the People’s Republic of China, and the changes following the reform and opening-up in recent years. Covering a century’s worth of history, it discusses the major historical events in Northeastern Yunnan and Northwestern Guizhou around Shimenkan and analyzes local social structures, religions, ideologies, customs, and ethnic psychologies, making it a valuable addition to the study of regional social history. The book draws on archives, literature reviews, and field surveys and pursues a multi-disciplinary approach combining history, anthropology, and other disciplines. It offers a valuable resource for researchers in history, religion, and ethnology, as well as readers interested in the spread of Christianity in the Miao-inhabited areas of southwestern China.
Religions and the Global Rise of Civilizational Populism (Palgrave Studies in Populisms)
by Ihsan Yilmaz Nicholas MoriesonThis books explores the rise of civilizational populism throughout the world, and its consequences. Civilizational populism posits that democracy ought to be based upon enacting the ‘people’s will’, yet it adds a new and troubling dimension to populism’s thin ideology: a civilization based classification of peoples and division of society. Today, we increasingly find not conflict between civilizations, but conflict within states over their civilizational identity. From Western Europe to Turkey, and from India and Pakistan to Indonesia, populists are increasingly employing a civilization based classification of peoples in order to define the identities of ‘the people’ and their perceived enemies. This book is the first to examine civilizational populism as global phenomenon rather than a uniquely Western form of politics. Through a series of case studies, the book examines the role played by religion in forming civilizational identities, but also investigates the often deleterious consequences of civilizational populism entering the political mainstream.
Re-imagining Senior Secondary Religious Education: Evaluating the Religion, Meaning, and Life Curriculum (SpringerBriefs in Education)
by William Sultmann Janeen Lamb Peter Ivers Mark CraigThis book examines and reports the findings regarding the level of satisfaction by students, teachers and parents with an innovative senior secondary Religious Education curriculum ‘Religion, Meaning and Life’ (RML). The stimulus for RML is found in the changing profile of students within faith-based schools and the motivation of school authorities to be inclusive and responsive to changing needs and priorities of students and families. Curriculum practices typically mirror this continuing renewal as community expectations give rise to innovation in curriculum practice. This concept of continuity and discontinuity is evidenced in the field of Religious Education,, which recognizes religious plurality while giving preference to an imagination centred on inclusion, hospitality and respectful dialogue. In this context, new pathways are being explored as the reality and significance of Religious Education in faith-based school remain a priority for Christian organizations in Australia.Mindful of the diversity of expectations within the Catholic school, the curriculum initiative of RML was developed, supported and implemented. The La Salle Academy of the Australian Catholic University reviewed this senior secondary curriculum across three years and presents in this book an independent, evaluative report of the findings, together with insights for implementation at scale and associated applications across Christian faith-based institutions.
Indigenous and Local Water Knowledge, Values and Practices
by Mrittika Basu Rajarshi DasGuptaThis book provides a knowledge base of the existing indigenous and local water knowledge, values, and practices, and how this water knowledge can be mainstreamed into the decision-making process. The book not only demonstrates the perks of using indigenous knowledge but also illustrates the barriers and gaps that should be considered while planning for mainstreaming traditional knowledge and values at a local scale. The chapters incorporate case studies from various parts of the world demonstrating how indigenous, and religious and cultural values of water have translated into water use and conservation behavior among indigenous people ensuring resource sustainability over a long period of time. There has been global attention towards combining indigenous and local knowledge with new information and innovation to attain future water security. In this regard, this book is timely, relevant, and significant as it is the first attempt, as per the best of our knowledge, to publish a book that solely addresses indigenous and local knowledge, values, and practices regarding water management, quality monitoring, use, and conservation. With increasing emphasis on the inclusion of indigenous and local knowledge into natural resource governance and conservation by international agencies like the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the proposed book will significantly contribute to the existing knowledge base and demonstrate the importance of mainstreaming indigenous water knowledge and practices into water governance and decision making. The UN SDGs, recognizing the significance of indigenous knowledge systems, emphasized its inclusion in most aspects and principles of SDGs. Apart from direct links with SDGs like zero hunger (SDG 2), no poverty (SDG 1), and climate action (SDG 13), indigenous and local knowledge system is considered to be directly connected to clean water and sanitation (SDG 6). The book will be useful to researchers and students in the field of indigenous knowledge and education, water governance, community-level planning, and water sustainability. The book can be referred to for postgraduate courses and beyond, as well as policymakers, conservationists, non-governmental organizations, development practitioners, and local government officials.
Islamism and the Quest for Hegemony in Indonesia (Contestations in Contemporary Southeast Asia)
by Luqman Nul HakimThis book examines the failure of Islamic politics in becoming a hegemonic force in Indonesia and the far-reaching consequences for current practices of democracy and of Islam itself. In contrast to the thesis of compatibility between Islam and democracy following the dominant discourse of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and neoliberal democracy, this study situates Islamic politics in broader social settings by examining its nature and trajectories throughout Indonesia’s modern political history. The book thus investigates how the practices of Islamic politics, or Islamism, have shaped and been transformed through political contestations and the formation of coalitions of multiple forces in constructing Indonesia’s socio-political landscape.Using the concept of hegemony from poststructuralist discourse theory, the analytical framework applied in this book goes beyond liberal epistemologies of Islamism that prescribe the separation of religion from politics and treat Islamism as an object of intervention. Instead, the book is premised on the contention that Indonesia is a political construction, in which Islam has become one of the major discourses that have defined and transformed Indonesia’s nation-state throughout history. In this view, it is argued that the nature and dynamics of Islamism are not driven primarily by different interpretations of religious doctrines, cultural norms or by the imperative of institutions. Rather, the struggles of different Islamist projects in their quest for hegemony are contingent on the outcomes of socio-political changes and contestations that involve multiple political forces, both within and beyond the Islamists, in specific historical conjunctures.
Islamic perspectives relating to business, arts, culture and communication: Proceedings of the 1st ICIBACC 2014
by Roaimah Omar Hasan Bahrom Geraldine De MelloThis timely book explores how the Malays and Muslims in general are faced with challenges in the fields of business, economy and politics, in the modern era of globalisation. These research findings can help the Muslim community to enhance international integration, particularly in Malaysia and Southeast Asia.In this work, scholarly and expert authors explore Islamic perspectives on communication, art and culture, business, and law and policy. They respond to the need to uphold and strengthen the culture, arts and heritage of the Malays. Readers are invited to explore the challenges for the Malay and Muslim world and to evolve strategies to ensure competitiveness, dynamism and sustainability. Topics such as Islamophobia, drug trafficking, savings behaviours and the role of social media are addressed.These reviewed papers were presented at the International Conference on Islamic Business, Art, Culture & Communication 2014, held in Melaka, Malaysia. They have the potential to strengthen aspects of Islamic economy and leadership, if translated into action plans. This book represents essential reading for scholars of Islamic studies and will be of interest to those examining Southeast Asia and the Malay world.