Le vieux jacaranda / The old jacaranda tree / Jacaranda, pohon tua!

The three language versions of Ian Campbell's poem series about the old jacaranda tree in a university coutryard presented here comprise a poem series in which he first wrote a poem in French in 1989, then an Indonesian language version which was published in the literary pages of an Indonesian newspaper (in Bandung, West Java) in 2004, and finally in English. Campbell regards this whole process as emblematic of his explorations in trilingual poetics, namely what does a 'concept'/poem idea look like if done in three of the languages with which he has some degree of written knowledge or fluency: English, French and Indonesian. This mirrors the three-pronged approach he took in an earlier edition of PORTAL - Vol. 14, No 1, April 2017, where the three language versions he wrote on a single theme were in English, Spanish, and Indonesian

Partnering with older adults for digital research tool development: Demystifying an engaged research process

The inadequacy of traditional research methods, underscored by the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighted the urgent need for innovative approaches, particularly to research involving older adults. This article reflects on the complexities of establishing and sustaining research partnerships with older adults for digital research tool testing and development. The article offers an explicit report of the outreach process for holding researchers accountable and demystifying the research process

History, Fiction and Trauma: Unveiling the Unspeakable in the Novel Amu

Post-independent India has witnessed several horrific incidents of communal violence. The largest communal riot happened in the year 1984, in the capital city of New Delhi. But after the occurrence of the Anti-Sikh Riots of 1984, there was silence surrounding the incident. The silence was primarily caused by the trauma inflicted from the incident. There are reasons to believe that the silence was politically motivated too. However, the role fictional writings have played in communicating the traumatic memory of the incident was significant. This paper studies the novel Amu written by Shonali Bose to understand the representation of traumatic memory of the community. The paper attempts to problematize the decades-long silence surrounding the incident and the novel’s role along with other similar fictional accounts in unravelling the truth of the incident

‘Welcome to the Anthropocene’

The geological concept ‘the Anthropocene’ circulates widely outside Earth System Science – in museum communities, public culture, social sciences, and amongst social science and humanities scholars, artists, activists and public historians too. It is an evident idea for public historians today working with environmental history to engage with a concept that successfully and popularly bridges academic and public interests. This article discusses the concept of the Anthropocene within public environmental history’s historiography and brings in Dipesh Chakrabarty’s influential discussions from the academic field of history and theory about the non-synchronous temporalities geological time and historical time. The article categorizes public environmental history’s methodological approaches since the field emerged in the 1990s, revealing the important concepts being landscapes, human-nature interactions, climate change, sustainability and the Anthropocene. It concludes that the Anthropocene is a concept that can further develop public environmental history but that it also a paradox to the field potentially affecting a core idea in public history – relationships to publics. This has to do with temporal implications of the concept: it squeezes the temporality of memory important to public history and humans out of view; it imposes an extremely slow and long chronological time that is unfamiliar if not foreign to ordinary people to perceive of; it carries with it the idea about a future without humans and other species of today

Practice of Patriotism, Ethnocentrism, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in India: An Interrogation

The central concern of this paper is to examine intersectionalities between the ideals of cosmopolitanism, patriotism, ethnocentrism and nationalism in general, and their changing facets and interfaces in India. It argues that being a multiethnic and plural society, the civilisational ethos of India is conventionally founded on cosmopolitanism. The practice of patriotism and its accommodative principle of unity in diversity have provided the building blocks to this cosmopolitanism. During India’s independence struggle these ideals encountered the forces of modernism, ethnocentrism, communalism and ethno-nationalism. In contemporary India the forces of economic neoliberalism, developmental imbalances and persisting social and economic inequalities, post modernism, hyper modernism, populism, and cultural politics have become part of social reality. Notwithstanding the prevalence of the ideals of cosmopolitanism and civilisational interactive processes, these encounters have brought cumulative fluidity in the social, economic and political orientations in contemporary society, and have created further space for the influence of ethnocentrism and cultural politics as a means to remain rooted in society

Engagement of local government to promote maternal and newborn health services: the case of Faridpur district in Bangladesh

In rural Bangladesh, local government institutions, especially union parishads, play a key role providing essential services for community development. They help connect people with primary healthcare, along with providing nutrition and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services that reduce the burden of poverty. However, most union parishad officials are not engaged in the promotion of maternal and newborn health (MNH) services in rural areas. Lack of information about their mandated role and responsibilities prevents them from providing MNH services for poor and marginalised communities. Even if they are informed, without the necessary skills to fulfil their role and responsibilities local government officials are struggling to promote quality MNH services within the public facilities in rural areas. To address this problem, Save the Children International engaged local government institutions in a systematic manner to ensure their engagement and contribution to MNH services for rural communities

Paisaje pegajoso/Sticky sororidad Crónica

This crónica is really the first time I’ve written about my childhood. As I’ve noted elsewhere, I have many black holes—up to my early teens, when things sort of snap into focus. Hi-res focus, even. Although I’ve lived in and visited a number of countries whose cuisine is imprinted in my memory and even my day-to-day practices in southern California, I decided to focus on only one place: Zapopan (Guadalajara), Jalisco, México, where I spent summers with my family as a young girl.  After informally interviewing my sister, Sarita—my closest childhood compinche (she’s only 18 months younger)—I decided to take this issue’s prompt, the notion of sticky memories/emotions, literally. Stickiness functions as a sensorial structuring motif, recurring in different ways in each of my crónica’s four vignettes. However, as is my wont, it offers no sense of resolution or closure. Rather, it appears as a floating signifier: these memories of scent, taste, feel and place have “stuck” with me throughout my life, but they evoke neither univocal nor consistent feelings. The same image or memory can feel now comforting, now disquieting, homely yet uncanny, familiar yet alien. Ultimately, it is this ecotonic, interstitial modus vivendi, which I’ve been inhabiting since about age four, that I hope to convey to the reader. &nbsp

The Smile of Misery

I looked at my favorite chocolate and offered it.  Lifetime hardwork was swallowed by usurpers, seeds have volatile prices, meat is out of question. Lebanese are jobless, but Syrians are subsidised.  Water is scarce,and some go to the spring to fill reservoirs if fule there is, and schools need fresh money.  Yet, few worry about finding "foi gras", but others sleep early to avoid dinner.  Winter freezes us. Torn clothes and worn shoes are burned for warmth.  When hunger creeps, luxury becones meaningless.&nbsp

Implementation of Tanzania's Development Vision 2025: local government authorities' endeavours and challenges

This paper contributes to the discussion of efforts made by local government authorities (LGAs) to execute Tanzania's Development Vision 2025. LGAs’ endeavours have revolved around the following areas: establishment of the Women, Youth and People with Disabilities Revolving Fund; the ‘opportunities and obstacles to development’ planning process for increased participation; conducting elections to increase accountability; the furtherance of good governance; and education and health services improvements. Despite their efforts, however, LGAs face continuing dependency on central government, poor capacity for economic management (including mobilisation and administration of revenues), failure to put policies and programmes into practice, deficiencies in governance and inadequate human resources. These have resulted in LGAs’ meagre contributions to Vision 2025 realisation, which have contributed to the country’s limited progress overall. While there is still one year left before the Vision’s 2025 time limit, LGAs will likely only contribute minimally until then. However, the government of Tanzania is in the process of creating a new Vision for 2050, and must ensure that LGAs participate effectively, by granting them autonomy, and effectively boosting their capacity to realise the projected Vision’s goals

Civic Education and Lebanon

The purpose of Civic Education in Lebanon includes the structure of the government and the way it functions.  Isn’t it civic desert?   One should consider then, the meaning of civics.  Civics does not focus on a course or a book, but rather on fundamental social learning.  It is the need to lay the foundation for communication and critical thinking when encountering traditions in conflict with what one’s own.  Yet schools have their role to play, by revealing secular values, for conflict affected areas can easily regress to violence.   A menu of civics implement classroom discussion of current critical events.  Yet, Lebanese schools are overtaken by the baccalaureate program which hardly gives any time to controversial issues.  Teachers are important elements in teaching civics.  They have to believe in what they teach, display it verbally, nonverbally and add ‘mindful learning’.  Yet, one can visualize an array of socio-personal factors when issues are controversial, knowing that humans are resistant to change.  To conclude, teaching quality in civics is to be ranked highly on the scholarly agenda and research is needed to better understand the improvement of civic education