The translated identities of Chinese minority writers : Sinophone Naxi authors

This paper will show the interplay between language and identity in the writing of Sinophone Chinese minority writers, who write what can be envisioned as a form of postcolonial literature. It is postcolonial in the sense that they are transposing their native, subaltern culture into Chinese for a Han Chinese audience. The focus of the discussion is on Naxi minority writers such as Sha Li and Niu Gengqin who are writing their own racial identity in Chinese. They are essentially “translating” the cultural metatext of their home (Naxi) culture for a dominant-culture (Han) audience. It is argued that the use of foreignising literary strategies allows the Naxi writers to negotiate the space that has been created by the convergence of Naxi and Chinese language and culture: they have created a distinct form of Chinese, a Naxi-influenced, ethnic Chinese that represents a translated identity

How the Turtle Lost its Shell: Sino-Tibetan Divination Manuals and Cultural Translation

This article is a pan-Himalayan story about how the turtle, as a cultural symbol within Sino-Tibetan divination iconography, came to more closely resemble a frog. It attempts a comparative analysis of Sino-Tibetan divination manuals, from Tibetan Dunhuang and Sinitic turtle divination to frog divination among the Naxi people of southwest China. It is claimed that divination turtles, upon entering the Himalayan foothills, are not just turtles, but become something else: a hybrid symbol transformed via cultural diffusion, from Han China to Tibet, and on to the Naxi of Yunnan. Where borders are crossed, there is translation. If we go beyond the linguistic definition of translation towards an understanding of transfer across semiotic borders, then translation becomes the reforming of a concept from one cultural framework into another. In this way, cultural translation can explain how divination iconography can mutate and transform when it enters different contexts; or in other words, how a turtle can come to lose its shell

Bijections for Entringer families

Andr\'e proved that the number of alternating permutations on $\{1, 2, \dots, n\}$ is equal to the Euler number $E_n$. A refinement of Andr\'e's result was given by Entringer, who proved that counting alternating permutations according to the first element gives rise to Seidel's triangle $(E_{n,k})$ for computing the Euler numbers. In a series of papers, using generating function method and induction, Poupard gave several further combinatorial interpretations for $E_{n,k}$ both in alternating permutations and increasing trees. Kuznetsov, Pak, and Postnikov have given more combinatorial interpretations of $E_{n,k}$ in the model of trees. The aim of this paper is to provide bijections between the different models for $E_{n,k}$ as well as some new interpretations. In particular, we give the first explicit one-to-one correspondence between Entringer's alternating permutation model and Poupard's increasing tree model.Comment: 19 page

A Microcosm Untouched by Time

In 1939, Marion Post Wolcott, a young photographer recently hired by the Farm Security Administration, traveled to Florida for several months. She quickly developed a special interest in the region’s striking contrasts: along the coast, the camps of migrant workers and the fields devastated by drought formed a strange backdrop to the little beach towns and rich tourists fleeing the winter. Thus was born the project ‘Gold Avenue,’ a series of photographs of Florida’s affluent tourists. Today, some of these images are among Post Wolcott’s most famous works. They are often hailed as the embodiment of an originality peculiar to the photographer, proof that she represented a ‘shining exception.’ Yet their popularity was very late in coming. Critics and researchers were long unaware of the project as a whole. It was not until the late 1970s and the first exhibitions of Post Wolcott’s work that the photographs of ‘Gold Avenue’ were discovered. The author studies the impact and importance of this belated discovery in the history of Post Wolcott’s critical reception

Between the oral and the literary: the case of the Naxi Dongba texts

"It is my argument that not only can the ritual texts of the Naxi people of southwest China be proven to be demonstrably oral in nature, but that they also exist in a realm of potentiality that occupies the uncontested territory between the two extremes of oral and written: they are truly transitionary texts."--Pages 27-28

Travelling Back via Translation: Alai, Lijiang and Minority Literature

Abstract: Tibetan author Alai’s Chinese essay, Yi di shui jingguo Lijiang (一滴水经过丽江 [A drop of water passes through Lijiang]) is a piece of travel writing that describes the city of Lijiang (home to the Naxi minority of Yunnan province) and its environs from the perspective of an anthropomorphic drop of water. The essay has been subsequently translated back into the minority Naxi language of Lijiang by Naxi scholar Mu Chen, and both versions are presented as a lapidary inscription in a tourist square. Writing travel from the reverse perspective, i.e. translating the writing from the minority perspective of the place being travelled, is perhaps a way of counteracting the genre’s inherently epistemic appropriation of the ‘other’. I believe that a comparative approach can act as an antidote against the monolingual, ethnocentric tropes of travel writing. In this essay it will be observed that through back-translation of the travel writing into the Naxi culture being observed, cultural specifics can be reintroduced into a text, and a minority culture can reclaim the power to speak for itself.     &nbsp

How the Turtle Lost its Shell

This article is a pan-Himalayan story about how the turtle, as a cultural symbol within Sino-Tibetan divination iconography, came to more closely resemble a frog. It attempts a comparative analysis of Sino-Tibetan divination manuals, from Tibetan Dunhuang and Sinitic turtle divination to frog divination among the Naxi people of southwest China. It is claimed that divination turtles, upon entering the Himalayan foothills, are not just turtles, but become something else: a hybrid symbol transformed via cultural diffusion, from Han China to Tibet, and on to the Naxi of Yunnan. Where borders are crossed, there is translation. If we go beyond the linguistic definition of translation towards an understanding of transfer across semiotic borders, then translation becomes the reforming of a concept from one cultural framework into another. In this way, cultural translation can explain how divination iconography can mutate and transform when it enters different contexts; or in other words, how a turtle can come to lose its shell

Impacts of Granite Quarrying: The Case of Subsistence Farmers in the São Pedro River Valley

Granite quarrying constitutes an occupational hazard that compromises workers’ health, destroys the environment and negatively affects nearby communities (Azevedo et al., 2020; Ibrahim et al., 2019; Oktriani, Darmajanti, & Soesilo, 2017; Shaik et al., 2015). But the demand for granite and other decorative stones continues to grow (Gupta, 2018). Despite a decrease in imports/exports due to Covid-19 (Alves et al., 2020), today Brazil remains the number 1 granite exporter to the United States (US Geological Survey, 2021). In the last 30 years, the extraction of granite in Brazil has been continuous, particularly in the states of Espírito Santo (ES) and Minas Gerais (MG). In the Northeast of MG, granite extraction comes from an impoverished rural area heavily affected by drought. The São Pedro River Valley is part of this rural area known as Sertão. Environmentally, over the last decades, studies revealed factors that have severely altered and compromised this unique and fragile biome called Caatinga (Quintão et al., 2017). Despite patent land destruction, water contamination and scarcity, coupled with rural communities’ distress, the effects of granite extraction in the São Pedro River Valley remain scientifically unknown. This case study addressed this research gap. Qualitative data originated from rural communities’ testimonies. Participants were subsistence farmers whose livelihoods directly depended on local natural resources. The data emanated from content-based unstructured focus groups comprising 25 individuals. Data analysis consisted of Freire’s pedagogical approach and In Vivo coding. Qualitative data was cross-referenced with a geological report consisting of a soil analysis and interpretation. This study also gathered insights from a local Research Associate (RA), recent images and video recordings of the area. To preserve the authenticity and integrity of participants’ unique environment and circumvent limitations set by the current worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, the data collection was conducted remotely. This case study provided an in-depth understanding of an economic activity that compromises the sustainability and equitability of the human-environmental balance in the São Pedro River Valley