The Macedonian Review and the invisible cities of the emigrant

What is cultural memory in the relation between the nation-state and the emigrant? How is the connection to and communication with the emigrant community continued and developed by the nation-state after emigration?  This paper will focus on the role of the<em> Macedonian Review: History, Culture, Literature, Arts,</em> a journal that was published by “Kulturen Život” and distributed by Matica, the organisation responsible for the communication with the emigrant community, through the diaspora in Australia and elsewhere. How is the subjectivity and cultural memory of the emigrant as individual and collective represented in the journal? From a study of the issues of the Macedonian Review as archival data, this paper will argue that rather than representation, the emigrant, as subjectivity is absent from the essays in the journal. The role of the journal can be interpreted as a form of ‘re-education’ of the emigrant and members of the Macedonian diaspora. While the journal is commendable in terms of scholarship and the portrayal of the cultural legacy of Macedonian history, people and culture, its potential resonance and affect on the diaspora community is limited. Interwoven with this critique will be glimpses of the story of emigration, and how both the individual emigrant and the Macedonian diaspora is critical for capturing the dimension of monumental time in relation to Macedonia.<strong> </strong

A framework for exploring the sense of community and social life in residential environments

Sense of community and social life are two key concepts related to social cohesion, which have been the subject of extensive studies in several disciplines including sociology, psychology and built environment. Social life studies have been mostly conducted in the built environment discipline focusing on city centres; while sense of community studies were mostly the target of sociologists and psychologists focusing on neighbourhoods. As a result, the role of the built environment on the sense of community and social life of neighbourhoods is considered as a missing gap in the literature. This paper, through defining the concepts of social life and sense of community, aims to develop a conceptual framework for further implementation in future research. Accurate implication and interpretation of the concepts show that neighbourhoods can include the sense of community in the residential environment and the social life in the commercial environment. This is because residential environments are where residents\u27 requirements can be met through their commitment to the community and commercial environments are the fulcrum of interaction and communication

An issues paper: the roots/routes of Australian architecture: elements of an alternative architectural history

The dynamism and mobility of architects in their approach to architecturaldesign practice provides a context that emphasises that architecture, likeculture, is not static or rooted in place, but is intricately configured throughthe dual processes of locality and mobility &ndash; both physical and theoretical. Theproduction of architecture in Australia, as in other immigrant-rich societies,provides a case for reinforcing the theory that architectural mobility and travelare integral to the architecture of place.This issues paper sets out to re-examine the contribution of geo-culturalinfluences upon Australia&rsquo;s architectural lineage and considers a diverse rangeof themes across an equally broad timeframe; British colonial transpositions; thedissemination of Modernism in Australia; the latent contribution of mid-twentiethcentury European &eacute;migr&eacute; architects; and the secreted history of Australia&rsquo;sAsian architecture. Common to all, however, is the notion of architecturaltranslation as a process of influences transmitted, transposed or adapted toother contexts. It uses Australia as the focus from which to consider how globalcriticism, ideas and theories have travelled and continue to travel transverselyacross time and place, from the late-eighteenth century well into the twenty-first.This paper investigates translations through narratives, processes, networks andtraces of architectural manifestations and begins to draw lines of influence

Postcolonial manifestations of African spatiality in Europe : the invisible 'public' spaces of Ghent

The focus of this chapter is on everyday spaces of African migration in the mid-sized city of Ghent. One manifestation of African spatiality is discussed in-depth in relation to its (in)visibility and publicity: an African shop located in an ordinary terraced house. With no less than 12 activities taking place in the building, the shop is rather a “public” place than solely a space of commercial transactions, although this is not signaled in very visible ways. By analyzing the modest stylistic appropriations of the façade and the significant re-arrangements of the buildings’ interior spaces that challenge more conventional usages of spaces in Ghent’s ordinary houses, this chapter puts this African shop to the fore as emblematic of how the process of materialization of transnational lifestyles and connections is always a balancing act between the visibility necessary for functioning as a (semi-)pubic place and the invisibility required to circumvent hegemonic regulatory regimes