Review of Ways of Being Free: Authenticity and Community in Selected Works of Rushdie, Ondaatje, and Okri by Adnan Mahmutovic.

Review of Ways of Being Free: Authenticity and Community in Selected Works of Rushdie, Ondaatje, and Okri by Adnan Mahmutovic

Phenomenology and educational research

Amongst novice researchers, there is considerable uncertainty about how to use phenomenology as a methodological framework. The problem seems to reside in the fact that phenomenology is a philosophy, a foundation for qualitative research, as well as a research method in its own right. Added to this confusion is the misperception that phenomenology is one unified approach when it actually consists of three disparate complex philosophies. It is, therefore, important for a phenomenological researcher to state the approach that they have adopted for their research, as it impacts upon their selection of methodological procedures. The aim of this article is to address these problems and to provide a useful resource to postgraduate education students who are considering applying this research method to their study. This article commences by defining phenomenology as a philosophy, and then explores a range of salient features of the three different philosophical approaches. It concludes by outlining how to carry out a transcendental phenomenological study with specific examples to illustrate key aspects of how to use the tools and techniques associated with this method of research

Islamic feminist discourse: origins and development in the Muslim World

This paper traces the origins of the feminist discourse in the West and the different strands of this discourse so as to understand better the feminist debates and the root of Islamic feminist discourse within the feminist movements generally. It concludes that the concept of feminism, being a modern concept which has developed through different phases in the Western part of the world, like all isms in the modern world, the values it came to be associated with – especially in its radical form – is an antithesis of what Islam stands for and is thus not acceptable to many Muslims. However, Muslim scholars and many Muslim women have presented this ideology in an Islamic form and tried to use the same idea to fight for the emancipation of women while qualifying their feminism with Islam

Socio-Political and Cultural Context of Independence in 1960: Perceptions, Lived Experiences in Middle Belt Areas and Lessons (Not Learned?) for Modern Nigeria

Nigeria’s political independence on October 1st 1960 was highly ‘emotional’ among citizens in different parts of the country at that moment. This paper examines some critical socio-cultural issues veritable to the formation of a new nation. Information in form of reports, written testimonies, and related archival materials were examined from the National Museum and National Archives, Jos in writing the paper. In-depth/personal interviews were also conducted in Jos and Makurdi. From the analysis and interpretation of information for the study, the following constitute major findings: 1, while the whole country was said to be ready to receive independence in 1960, not all known regional interests, such as those of the Middle Belt minorities were accepted and included in the national agenda 2, the demand for the creation of Middle Belt region (along with those proposed for the Mid-West and COR States) was perceived by ‘majority’ political actors as ‘extraneous’ to the planned independence, and 3, since hopes of Middle Belt minorities for a separate region of theirs were dashed, the overall perception of independence was suspect and morale low. The implication is that since the ‘celebration’ of the first independence suffered an initial ‘social fracture’, the rapid integration of various ethnic nationalities into mainstream post independence Nigeria has been faced with daunting difficulties, which the alienation and exclusion of majority of citizens from participating in the nation’s petro-economy represent focal loci of social helplessness. Occasions of national celebration of 1st independence in 1960 should not have been hastily contrived which leaves the country now undergoing unnecessary birth pangs, if it was a nation for all citizens with equal rights, obligations and privileges. Keywords: independence, ethnic nationalities, ethnocentrism, xenophobia, oppressors, domination, Nigeria

Collaborating with a Dead Man: The Cultural Politics of Ahmed Yerima’s Otaelo

Several contemporary adaptations of Shakespeare address important, as well as ongoing, socio-cultural and political situations in their various societies. While this approach suggests collaboration with Shakespeare rather than contesting of the colonial political and cultural hegemony that the English Bard privileges, it also underlines the influence that Shakespeare has on the writers and cultures with which he has been in contact. From the perspective of collaboration with Shakespeare through Othello, this essay examines Ahmed Yerima’s Otaelo, which dramatizes the debilitating and tragic effects of the Osu practice among the Igbo people of southeast Nigeria and emphasizes the play’s strong echoes of other plays by Shakespeare, including Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, and Titus Andronicus. Yerima’s play underlines how adaptation makes it possible to view the relationship between an older writer and a young (or new) one in the context of both influence and collaboration

Sovereign responsibility : an impossible solidarity

This article takes interest in solidarity as sovereign responsibility. Sovereign responsibility is a nonproductive form of care that emerges at the interface of order defined by a privileging of economy and a general economy defined by a return to order of life lost to death. It is this return that unveils the existence and operations of a general economy that order presupposes. The article locates its discussion of sovereign responsibility at two levels of relationality. Firstly, it situates its deliberations concerning sovereign responsibility in the family and among kin. Here it argues that as a form of solidarity, sovereign responsibility positions relations among kin as those of neighbours. Secondly, it shows that the question of the neighbour extends beyond kinship relations and into the realm of extra-kinship relations where others and strangers appear as neighbours. The overall argument of the article is that sovereign responsibility holds potential to facilitate an Afro Centred and counter-hegemonic response to the modern experience of alienation. CONTRIBUTION: The modern experience of alienation, as well as how it can be challenged, are of interest to this article. The article recognises that numerous attempts have been made to try and address this problematic of alienation in modernity. What it claims has not been done is to engage that problem by taking Africa as an idea, and not just geography, seriously.http://www.hts.org.zaSociolog

Knowledge and Politics in International Law

What does it mean to say knowledge is power? Francis Bacon is alleged to have said it first. In that version, the remark is supposed to have captured the signature aspiration of modernity - to deploy knowledge for the sake of the mastery on which human progress depends. The inquiry of experts would unlock the arcana of nature, and provide a mode of beneficial rule that could escape old criticisms of the power of ill-informed and thus to some extent illegitimate monarchs. [T]he sovereignty of man lieth hid in knowledge, Bacon wrote, wherein many things are reserved, which kings with their treasure cannot buy, nor with their force command; their spials and intelligencers can give no news of them, their seamen and discoverers cannot sail where they grow: now we govern nature in opinions, but we are thrall unto her in necessity ... [but] we should command her by action. Expertise, that is, would offer liberation from the age-old yoke of nature by taking humanity beyond the realm of mere opinion. Kings had proved themselves powerless to lift this yoke, but experts would do so for the sake of man\u27s advancement and sovereignty. It was an optimistic, untroubled, and even visionary statement. In the several centuries since, expert governance - rule by elite knowledge claimed to be superior to mere opinion - has fallen under suspicion. But there is a serious debate about how to diagnose its possible failings

Visualizing experience: using creative research methods with members of sexual and gender communities

This chapter argues that visual methods may be particularly appropriate for the study of non- heteronormative sexualities and genders, particularly the more marginal identities and practices which have tended to be pathologised in, and excluded from, past research. We focus here on three of these: bisexuality (attraction to more than one gender, or regardless of gender), trans (moving away from the gender which was assigned at birth), and polyamory (having multiple sexual and/or intimate relationships). Of course trans people may be heterosexual, or indeed of any sexuality, but have tended to be marginalised in many of the same ways as people from non-heterosexual sexualities, and are consequently included in this chapter for that reason. First we briefly overview the history of qualitative research on non-heterosexual sexualities and trans, arguing that qualitative methods, per se, do not prevent researchers from forming limiting understandings and problematic generalisations about such groups. Then we present an alternative to conventional interview/focus group discussion research involving the use of visual methods. We summarise key reasons why this may be particularly appropriate to the exploration of those in marginalised sexualities, genders and relationship forms, and then present three examples, based in our own research, of the ways in which such research provided data which confounded simple celebratory or critical conclusions about people in these communities. Finally, we summarise some methodological considerations which are of value to those considering the use of visual methods in their own research