Examining the Intersection of Cultural Identities: The Malaysian Chinese Experience

This essay aims to present the intersections that constitute the cultural identity of Malaysian Chinese and suggest how their migration and settlement experiences have shaped their sense of who they are and who they are becoming through personal and family histories. I utilise a methodology analogous to the microhistory framework, where the individual assumes an active role in the process of memory formation and exercises agency in the selection, alteration and transmission of memories. This perspective encourages “understanding people in light of their own experience and their reactions to that experience.”1 Most scholarly publications on Malaysian Chinese identity use a macro-level approach, emphasising the study of social and political institutions while giving less attention to personal introspection and micro-level research. A September 17, 2022, New Straits Times article quoted Danny Wong, a Malaysian historian from Sabah, as saying that family history, tales and memoirs help people comprehend both their past and their future trajectory. Wong believes that scrutinising one’s personal history through the medium of family narratives can lead to a critical evaluation of the interconnectedness of familial, communal and national dynamics. My artworks, reproduced in this article, aim to visually portray these submerged and accumulated layers of intersecting identity through a microhistorical perspective. Through my art, I present the intersecting and multi-layered inner reality that has accumulated traces of lived experiences. This inner reality is distinguished by its multicultural, multi-religious, multi-lingual character and multiracial experiences that combine to influence identity formation, under the impact of constantly changing social environments. The evolution of these inner realities is conveyed using visual assemblages combining printmaking, photography and digital manipulation in order to visually represent the socio-cultural formation of a Malaysian Chinese individual. The artworks reproducedconvey the mutable nature of ethnic identity in conjunction with variables such as geographic location, degree of interaction, era, and age group

Whakamana Te Tuakiri o Ngā Wāhine Māori I Te Ao Whutuporo : Flourishing Wāhine Māori Identities in Rugby: A Literature Review

This article presents a qualitative, autoethnographic exploration of personal realities and lived experiences in rugby. The literature highlights the potential harm of imposing a Westernised 'one size fits all' team culture, particularly in relation to its impact on Māori identity and aspirations. Herein we advocate for more inclusive environments that honour the intersections of diverse values, beliefs systems and perspectives of Māori, Pasifika and other marginalised communities. As an authorship team we sit within a research excellence group at the Centre of Indigenous Science. This space validates Māori and Indigenous identity, nurtures personal growth and embraces every facet of existence, from whakapapa to cultural identity, including our shared passion for rugby. This systematic literature review pursues two primary research objectives: firstly, it aims to identify and compare the challenges confronted by wāhine Māori in rugby, examining both Western and te ao Māori perspectives. Secondly, it uncovers effective strategies for addressing these challenges, with the ultimate goal of safeguarding and empowering flourishing wāhine Māori identities (tuakiri) in rugby

Creating a Tool to Explore Intergenerational Understandings: Through the use of Virtual Reality in Malaysia

This paper provides an introduction to a research-creation project, focusing on developing a prototype Virtual Reality (VR) educational tool. Younger people in Malaysia have limited exposure to or interest in information relating to the elderly, resulting in an intergenerational disconnect. The wider project aims to develop a VR teaching tool inspired by an existing role-playing simulation game (Aging Game). As a storytelling-based experience, VR can be used to share the discomfort faced by older people when using information and communications technology (ICT) such as computers/cell phones, internet and social media.The project is to explore the potential VR has to act as a bridge between the generations and to raise awareness in younger people about intergenerationalissues. The primary focus of this discussion paper is to discuss design and modification of the VR tool for creating interactive experiences that inhabit both the real and the unreal (virtual) world

Google Earth Augments Viewing the Spectacle of Ruin in Selected ‘In-Between Places’ of Old Industrial Johannesburg

South Africa is said to have the worst social inequality in the world, and examples of this inequality can be seen in the shack settlements, backyard shacks and hijacked properties in many parts of the city of Johannesburg. These unsafe and neglected ‘interstitial places’ are where the poor live in inadequate housing, squeezed between factory buildings, railway lines and motorways in the city. One of the challenges of capturing visual information about these settlements in these difficult settings is getting access to the areas where photographs can be taken. In Johannesburg, many areas are no longer safe for outsiders to visit. These unsafe, informal and often well-hidden areas can be considered ‘interstitial’ in relation to other areas where middle-income earners live in decent houses in pleasant suburbs with amenities. It is these ‘unsafe’ areas that the author wished to explore as a source of images and impressions for creative works. This study takes an autoethnographic approach to exploring three neglected suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa (Cleveland, Denver and Jeppestown), which all date from soon after the first discovery of gold in 1886. Through this work, the author hoped to make sense of observed changes within the city and the proliferation of informal, survivalist settlements seemingly arising without town planning interventions. Many open areas and dilapidated buildings are now occupied by low-income earners, perhaps because city governance has been overwhelmed by the thousands of work-seeking migrants arriving in the city on an ongoing basis. To explore the many visual indicators of poverty in these selected areas of Johannesburg, the author used Google Earth remote sensing images and Google Earth Street View to augment site visits. Google Earth is a valuable research tool, as one can quickly explore marginal areas that are not safe for outsiders to visit. One can also view activities that are not visible from the street – for example, illegal motor repair operations occurring behind high walls. Ethical issuesabound in these acts of anonymous looking at the poor and destitute and finding the picturesque in neglected buildings, dismal living conditions and slums, as well as the privacy and surveillance issues relating to those being observed. This essay will dwell on some of the benefits of the Google Earth virtual globe software, as well as the ethical discomfort that can result when observing people, poverty and informal living places – whether using remote sensing methods and driving around these areas with a camera, or using the images and perceptions gained for personal use as a source of inspiration for art making and fiction writing

Aligning the Vibrations: Resounding Matters

Te Kore, to Te Pō, to Te Ao MaramaTe reo Māori (the Māori language) is an oral language, so these “Te Kore, to Te Pō, to Te Ao Marama” words are most commonly encountered as spoken. Unlike Western traditions, precontact Māori cultures did not impose Cartesian divisions between nature and culture on the world. Nor does te reo position entities in an oppositional manner, as for instance the Greek prefix ‘in-’ does on the words ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible.’ Similarly, the Greek prefix ‘inter-’ inscribes the possibility that within oppositional entities there is always an in-between. Sound vibrates, resonates and reverberates, sound is always inherent to material movement, both in its generation and propagation. Vibrations are one of the ways that the material world makes itself felt. If language is communication, then in this understanding it is not just a human prerogative

Aboriginal Language Revival: The Intersectionality of Language Practices

Aboriginal language revival is a recent phenomenon in Australia (Rigney 2006; Troy 2012). Prior to British colonisation, Australia had over 250 distinct languages that could be subdivided into 600-700 dialects, clearly, Australia was composed of ‘multicultural and multilingual societies’ (Rigney 2006, 385). Today only 18 Indigenous languages are spoken by all generations of people within a given language group (Social Justice Report 2009).  In response to the urgent need to protect Indigenous languages, in August 2009, the Australian Government launched for the first time a strategy titled Indigenous Languages - A National Approach 2009 (Social Justice Report 2009). It highlighted the Government’s plan to preserve and revitalise Indigenous languages through targeted actions. More recently, in 2016 the state of New South Wales introduced Indigenous languages in the secondary school curriculum, with other states following. Australian universities are increasingly offering tertiary courses (Bagshaw, 2015). Subsequently, the Aboriginal Languages Act 2017 was passed in New South Wales with a 5-year plan to reawaken and nurture Aboriginal languages.   Meanwhile, Australian Aboriginal women play a key role in reclaiming language and their voice in the policy arena by contributing to radical pedagogies and healing through language revival programs. To this end, Indigenous scholars in Australia see their work as drawing on generations of women, particularly in the context of Grandmother’s Laws, and their contribution to resistance, challenge to stereotypes and focus on survival as an outcome (Watson 2015; Behrendt 2019). Grandmother’s law is part of Indigenous law where men and women hold equal positions with reciprocal rights and responsibilities for maintaining societal equilibrium in their own Nations and in their own languages. These interdependent roles are designated as women’s and men’s law and are also referred to as “Women’s Business” (Burarrwanga 2019, p.72) and “Men’s Business” (Canuto et al. 2018). “Grandfathers look outwardly, protecting home community, Land and camp” (Wall 2017). Grandmothers look inwardly, teaching and nurturing younger generations in having respect and responsibility to care for Country, to benefit both Land and people and to maintain cultural connection with family, language, and Land (Wall 2017).  As a result, competing tensions exist in the area of Indigenous language learning with government policies on the one hand providing western models for language learning within educational institutions while on the other, Indigenous community led structures are informing vital ways of re-centring language pathways.  The aim of this paper is to build on and contribute to work in the area of Indigenous languages in Australia by examining the intersectionality relevant to the revival of an Indigenous language in order to understand the ways in which different forms of language knowledges intersect and interact to shape experiences of oppression and privilege to address and challenge systemic forms of inequality and discrimination. It draws on a framework that is informed by the relation between knowledge and pedagogy (Apple 1993; Aronowitz & Giroux 1985) and by Indigenous pedagogy frameworks (Watson & Heath, 2004; Watson, 2015). This framework acts as a useful, yet destabilising factor that brings into question how teachers teach and what systems of knowledge are applied.   The study draws on interviews with Indigenous educators in both an Australian educational institution and a community context to examine the relation between people and society in the process of language revival as well as the challenges posed and solutions offered by the way various forms of language knowledges intersect.&nbsp

Striking (Up) Interspecies Collaborations with Crows and Falcons

This essay discusses two different kinds of human collaboration with wildlife. First, I consider the short non-fictional text Krähengekrächz (2016) by German author Monika Maron. Second, I look at young artist Hara Walther’s body of work, including her falconry, work she performs with her animal companion Sicilia.1 I deem both creative engagements to be two distinct yet related cases of zoopoetics (more on this below).2 Maron’s text is an incomplete and tentative account (in German Erzählung) of her attempts at striking up a friendship with a crow in the Berlin neighbourhood where she lives. As the writer announces at the outset, her experiment in interspecies companionship is initially in the service of a planned novel featuring a crow among its main characters.3 However, as I shall argue, while explicitly conceived with such an agenda in mind, precisely by following the crow’s movements, Maron’s text strays from such a goal –or map– but rather follows what Thom van Dooren might call the crow’s “interjections”. For Van Dooren, an interjection involves an interruption of the status quo, a getting in between what is and what might be, whether verbally or bodily, in an effort to realize something different, to propose an alternative configuration of how we may get on together.4 Indeed, Maron’s text functions as one such interjection itself, for, in being “recruited” by the crows, the narrative breaks away from any specific genre. As I hope to make clear below, this story or rather collection of stories is less the result of the author’s intention than a meandering response to the crows’ own experimental gestures in the emergent interspecies contact zone where woman and crows meet.5 Walther’s art is the offspring of her long partnership with Sicilia. For example, Walther has created colouring books for children, books she uses to teach falconry in her school Falconette, as well as watercolour paintings and assemblages with materials acquired during her hunts with Sicilia.6 Her art is made of markings that, as is the case in Maron’s text, are neither authorial nor authoritative. In contrast, her art follows the trail left by her wild animal companion and collects the traces as gifts. Issues of creativity, vulnerability, and impermanence punctuate the joyous gestures of cobecoming in Walther’s work. For this artist, therefore, falcon and human are creatively joined in the everyday practices of falconry, teaching, and art

Live Performance as a Multiverse: : From the Present Moment to the Transverse Effect

What are the different interconnected spaces and times in the construction of the character in drama, and to what extent is acting ‘live’ performances consubstantial with the notion of the multifarious, and especially the multiverse

“I Contain Multi-Tudes” : – A Meditation on the Need for Rough and Rowdy Ways

Since his elevation to the Nobel laureateship, quoting the lyrics of Bob Dylan seems even more apropos to successfully understanding the rubbish which fills ‘modern times,’ and the possible solutions to our current eschatological predicament. In the more-or-less poetic ‘meditation’ which follows, I will use his lyric as jumping-off point for a kind of wilfully Derridean exegesis. My aim is not to attempt to divine what St Bob ‘meant;’ but to use ‘categories’ derived from his words to cast a sideways light on an emergent art form based on improvisation with sound, which I believe can show us the embryo of a strategy for resolving some of the challenges we are currently facing