Search

Aims and objectives: This study investigates the effects of language loss on bilingual autobiographical memory. More specifically, the study focuses on whether severe language loss would lead to any linguistic changes and/or interfere with how memories are recalled and shared. Methodology: Autobiographical memories were elicited with the help of a cued-recall technique and memory questionnaire from two groups of immigrants—attriters (who experienced significant language loss) and bilinguals (who retained their first language proficiency). Data and analysis: The data set consisted of pre-immigration memories that were originally encoded in the first language, Russian. The frequency of recall (i.e., sharing memories with others as well as reminiscing) and linguistic components (i.e., words) of memories elicited from the attriters and bilinguals were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Findings and conclusion: Overall, attriters were able to recall memories that were originally encoded in the forgotten language. They also reported reminiscing about their pre-immigration memories and sharing their memories with others. However, attriters revealed that the pre-immigration memories came to them with words in the second language, English, which was not the case with bilinguals. Attriters also reframed memories for several Russian culture-specific items and events. This finding is indicative of memory re-encoding —a phenomenon when memories are updated, stored, and subsequently retrieved with added information. While this finding points to the bilingual mind's ability to adapt to language loss, it may also suggest linguistic and cultural assimilation under the influence of the new language and culture. Originality: This is the first investigation of autobiographical memory in bilinguals with severe language loss that highlights the malleability and adaptability of the bilingual mind as well as the importance of language maintenance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until the mid-1980s, the Atacameño indigenous people were broadly caricatured as Chilean peasants or herders. In the 1980s, they began a process of resurgence as indigenous in order to attain legal recognition. Structural approaches to indigeneity have explored this phenomenon by seeing Atacameños as passive subjects whose identity has been imposed, fixed, or mediated by the law and by external actors (e.g. bureaucrats, intellectuals, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)). Problematizing these viewpoints, I argue here that Atacameños, rather than adopting indigeneity based on predetermined structural factors or instrumental motivations, are active agents in their resurgence and the articulation of their identity against cultural assimilation and extractive industries. Based largely on oral evidence collected from indigenous leaders and other key actors, I show that the dispossession and threats that the neoliberal Chilean Water Code brought to the Atacameños served as critical historical sediment for the resurgence and articulation of their indigeneity. The results problematize the hegemonic perspective that presents authenticity as a requisite for indigeneity and indigenous people as colonial power victims. Instead, Atacameños are situated agents who revived their identity within a broader process in order to challenge dominant structures concerning access to resources, principally water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have increasingly called for the need to problematise and critically examine sport policy for integration/inclusion. This article aims to contribute to this ongoing debate by presenting a Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis of the languaging of three decades of Norwegian sport policy for integration/inclusion, as well as non-sport policy that seeks to use sport as a policy tool. The analysis demonstrates how ideas and practices about the integration of ethnic minorities in sport are constructed in the shadows of the 'real business' of sport. Self-evident 'Truths' about inclusion/integration convey simplistic notions of assimilation into existing sport practices, reify notions of homogenous groups both with regard to the majority and the ethnic minority Norwegian population, distributing power unequally across the majority–minority divide, and contribute to construct sport as a racially coded, Eurocentric practice. The pervasive, long-standing idea that sport is inclusive works discursively to marginalise contradictory ideas, such as the complexities of integration that focus upon the need for a transformation of structures and practices, and 'Truths' like resourceful ethnic minorities or an adaptable sports organisation remain currently almost un thinkable. The analysis bears witness to scholars' claims for the need to broaden research methodologies and policies for integration in/through sport, such that inequitable, Eurocentric, assimilated practices can be re-languaged to enable hybrid, transnational sports spaces frequented by resourceful participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With examples and illustrations from the African worldview, this article focuses on the nature, meaning, and usage of the double name of Paul of Tarsus. It concludes by considering the help that a proper understanding and functionality of the same name may give an African Christian pastor and theologian, today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the restaurant industry, with Asian restaurants having perhaps suffered the most, as many reported business losses well before shelter-in-place orders were announced. Media outlets argue that this decline in business reflects biases that are linked to the China- and food-related origin of COVID-19. However, discrimination against Asian Americans and their cuisine is not new, as it is rooted in a long and history of assimilation and racism. Overlooked in this body of literature, as well as in conversations on the impacts of COVID-19 on Asian restaurants, is the role of how government institutions shape these biases against a cuisine that has hundreds of years of history in the US yet remains distinctly 'foreign'. In this study, we use 3-years of New York City restaurant health inspection data to examine trends in citation scores before and after the onset of the news of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a synthetic control approach, we find that Asian restaurants uniquely received more citations after news of the pandemic became pervasive in the US. We end by discussing the implications of this finding for the history of Asian cuisine in the US, theoretical frameworks to understand assimilation, and the restaurant industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers theologies of the land by examining the legacy of the nineteenth-century Episcopal bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple and his encounter with Minnesota's Native American people. Using the work of Willie James Jennings as an interpretive lens, it argues that Whipple developed and implemented a theology in which land is (1) fundamentally separate from people, (2) passive physical material, (3) a resource for human productivity, and (4) an instrument for the formation of Christian and American identity. It shows how such a vision of the land has contributed to a destructive theology of displacement, conquest, wealth, and assimilation. It briefly proposes an alternative theology of the land in which land is (1) distinguishable but not separable from people, (2) differentiated and sacred, (3) a creature with value exceeding its productivity, and (4) a place for mutual formation of people and land through God's power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Dreamers have become a driving force of policy and politics in the last two decades. Public opinion polls suggest that most Americans hold favorable attitudes towards Dreamers—more favorable than their attitudes about immigrants more broadly. This study suggests that age-at-arrival is a significant driving characteristic of this support. In 2019, I ran a 2-wave survey experiment in which respondents read a news story about an undocumented immigrant that either migrated at eleven or 21 years old. Respondents in the lower age-at-arrival condition reported more support for the immigrant; and this effect was most pronounced among those who were more opposed to immigration in general. A second 2-wave survey conducted in 2021 explored two possible mechanisms behind the impact of age-at-arrival: attitudes towards (a) assimilation and (b) attribution of responsibility. Results are considered as they relate to ongoing debates about Dreamers, media coverage, and attitudes about immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I argue that there can be an intersection between the rise and development of sports fandom, national identity, as well as political ideology. I contend that the rise of nationalist sports fandom can be driven by the emergence of the nationalist democratic movement. With an ongoing nationalist democratic movement against a cultural dominant "other" as the context, sports fandom becomes a container for nationalism and a reactive form of resistance against the dominant "other" who endangers them. Fans who have a stronger sense of "self" national identity and more political experience in the movement would see sports fandom as a subtle means of catharsis to counter the threat. I showcase the idea using the rise of collective fandom in the Hong Kong men's national football team in recent years as an example. I will trace how the development of the democratic movement and nationalism in Hong Kong paralleled the blossoms of the Hong Kong (men's) national football team (HKNFT) fandom over the last few years, and how the HKNFT fandom was transformed gradually into a reactive form of resistance against threats to political autonomy of Hong Kong and attempts of cultural assimilation from China. Multiple sources of data, including an onsite survey, focus group interviews, individual interviews, and secondary historical works will be utilized to support my arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzed the new media practices of young North Korean defectors (YNKDs) who are portrayed in traditional media as the subject of South Korean stereotypes. Popular content on YouTube channels was examined to determine South Koreans' perceptions of North Korea and North Korean defectors. We also interviewed YNKD YouTubers and classified the types of practices in response to such perceptions. The results indicated that South Korean subscribers prefer content highlighting South Korea's superiority over North Korea. In response, YNKD YouTubers have produced content that may be characterized as "cultural assimilation," "conflict and compromise" and "seeking alternatives." This study found that the decisive factor that distinguishes these three response types is the pursuit of public interest, i.e., aiming to change South Koreans' perception of North Korean defectors. Inner conflicts over financial benefits limit YNKDs' practice and impede their move towards solidarity-based collective action. The findings suggest that YNKD YouTubers who want to change mainstream society's perceptions can contribute to unification by producing authentic and creative content about North Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Events such as Brexit have drawn attention to the precarity of contemporary migrants' settlement rights and reopened the debate on the nature of integration and assimilation processes. Drawing on participant observation and interviews with Italian and Bulgarian migrants in Brexit Britain, this article develops a novel approach for understanding migrants' changing relationships with their countries of settlement and their current and future practices. This approach builds on the sociology of emotions, which it extends to migration and diversity with a transnational sensibility. The approach is then applied to explain the different displays of emotion undertaken by our participants and their consequences. Overall, the article develops a new way to examine the subjective experiences of integration at times of change that is capable of offering important insights into the emotional costs of the neo-assimilationist climate characterising several western societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asian Americans' incorporation into American society is structured by interactions with a racial hierarchy that presents greater barriers for some ethnic groups more than others. The racialized assimilation framework predicts that experiences of discrimination shape incorporation into US society. This study investigates the impact of discrimination on the importance placed on three identities—racial, ethnic, American identity—relative to indicators of structural assimilation. Using the post-election wave of the 2016 National Asian American Survey (N = 3923), we estimate multivariable models to explore the centrality of racial, ethnic, and American identity among an ethnically diverse sample of Asian Americans. Regardless of ethnic group, a large majority deem American as a central identity, with greater variation in race and ethnicity centrality. Discriminatory encounters increased centrality of racial and American identity; meanwhile, educational attainment drives down the centrality of racial identity, though exerting no impact on American identity centrality. Ethnicity moderates these relationships as discrimination enhances racial identity centrality for Koreans, Indians, and Japanese but drives down racial centrality for Chinese adults. Findings reveal that racialized encounters are a distinctive component of the assimilation process resulting in variable expressions of identity among Asian Americans, revealing identity variation across Asian American ethnic groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the idea that endorsement of state-level restrictive language policies can be understood as an ingroup-preserving behaviour driven by majority group members' experiences of linguistic-based collective angst (i.e., concern about the future vitality of the ingroup's language). We did so in the context of legislative reform aimed to enforce monolinguistic public education in Ukraine – a linguistically heterogeneous nation-state with a history of a foreign ethno-political domination. Specifically, we hypothesized that collective angst is most likely to be experienced when majority group members feel higher attachment to Ukraine (vs. glorification) and shared beliefs about historical linguicide of the Ukrainian language. Using data from a public opinion survey (N = 774), we found support for the mediation model – higher attachment and beliefs about historical linguicide predicted increased support for restrictive policies directly and through collective angst, whereas glorification was found to be a non-significant predictor in this relation. Our results highlight the role of the specific content of protagonists' social identities in predicting their support for cultural assimilation of ethnic minority groups within heterogeneous societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]