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This paper represents an evaluation essay regarding the position of Austria- Hungary within the Triple Alliance. Even though it was regarded as a great power, in this essay I argue that the weak link of the Triple Alliance was Austria-Hungary, as a result of its internal problems and strategic position. Austria-Hungary was a multinational empire, weakened by ethnic disputes and economic backwardness, as a result of a conservative style of rule by the Habsburg dynasty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Oriental Studies (Al-Farabi Kazakh National University) / Kazahskij Nacional'nyj Universitet Imeni Al'-Farabi Vestnik Seriâ Vostokovedeniâ is the property of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

At the end of the 1990s, there existed a belief that a growing Canadian military involvement in the Caribbean region was unlikely if it was not associated with Canada's interest in Latin America (Klepak 1996). This view had such a large impact that today there is a dearth of information on Canada's military involvement in the Caribbean region. Lacking systematic investigation, two myths have perpetuated: first that Canada has no stake or interest in Caribbean security, insofar as those interests cannot be tied to Canada's interests in Latin America; and second, that all expressions of Canada's involvement in Caribbean security are simply extensions of US security interests in the region. Looking at Canada as part of the Anglosphere, this paper analyzes Canada's ongoing commitment in the Caribbean to preserving and expanding the political, social, economic, and ecological system that benefits Anglospheric capitalist accumulation and security objectives. Today, Jamaica is the host site for the Canadian Armed Forces Operation Support Hub in Latin America and the Caribbean (OSH-LAC), as Canada aims to position its long-term security partner as a regional sub-policeman of the region. OSH-LACs proximity to states like Haiti, a frequent site of Canadian intervention, should worry those concerned with Canada's increased global militarism and imperialism in the world more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Corpus: Archivos Virtuales de la Alteridad Americana is the property of CORPUS. ARCHIVOS VIRTUALES DE LA ALTERIDAD AMERICANA and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In his writings, Bernard Magubane theorizes racial capitalism but without necessarily invoking the term. Instead, he frequently refers to "the political economy of race and class" in the South African society. First, Magubane traces the roots of capitalism and racism in South Africa back to European expansionism. Second, he grapples with dispossession during the colonial period and calls it "the fact of conquest". This period was a significant prelude to apartheid capitalism and racism. Third, having analyzed these forms of domination, he argues that black people in South Africa would be liberated through the insurrection of the working people. Magubane's main contribution is his use of historical analysis to understand the next move by imperialism and its impact on the interaction of race and class and the struggle for liberation. Magubane seeks to develop a clear theoretical framework to understand the nature of the South African society. In this paper, I will attempt to illustrate Magubane's contribution to Marxist thought based on his study of South Africa's racially hierarchical political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether a semantic parallel to the modern use of the word depression can be identified in ancient Greek. To that end, it retraces the development of the lexical family of the verb θλίβω , 'to press', and the abstract noun θλῖψις to gain the emotional and psychological meaning of 'pressure' or 'affliction'. An analysis of the collected data suggests that a similar valence may be found in Hellenistic and Imperial Greek. However, this development is disregarded by authors with greater stylistic ambitions. Even physicians such as Galen continue to use θλῖψις solely in a physical, concrete sense. Conversely, the conceptualization in the singular of the word de-pression is lacking in ancient Greek. An antecedent may be identified in the formation of the prefixed verb καταθλίβω and the derived noun κατάθλιψις , found only from Late Antiquity onward, but this retains a concrete valence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thomas Munro, a Scottish highlander, came to the Madras Presidency in South India as a soldier in the army of the East India Company in 1780. He rose to the position of its governor 40 years later in 1820 and died in India in 1827. His rise was not through military campaigns but peaceful administrative policies. During his stay in India, he defended Indian interests and took on powerful governors-general and other higher officials. He resisted their elitist policies, talked of lack of political freedom in India and wanted to give representation to Indians in administration. He conducted the first educational survey and established 101 schools. In the history of modern India, particularly in the history of education, there is a tendency to view British colonialism as a monolithic category. This paper looks at this extraordinary journey of a Scottish soldier, his impoverished status, family constraints, struggle with British elitism, and above all, his contributions to education in South India. No theory of imperialism and colonialism is available to analyse the Scottish interventions in the field of education. Such existing theories rely on the European and non-European dichotomies. They cannot be used to explain why the Scots chose to support Indians instead of their own fellow British officers in the colonial administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an inscribed bronze necklet discovered at Yasin Tepe, one of the largest tell-type sites in the Sulaymaniyah Governorate in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The necklet was found on the floor of a large building complex of the Neo-Assyrian period that probably belonged to an elite family living at the site. The two-line inscription dates to around the eighth to seventh centuries BCE, and mentions the dedication of a son by his father to the god Nabû, implying the diffusion of his worship to the frontier of the Assyrian empire. Nishiyama wrote Sections 1–4, and Yamada Section 5, respectively; both share the responsibility for Section 6. Abbreviations follow M. P. Streck et al. (eds.), Reallexikon der Assyriologie, vol. 15. Berlin/Boston, except for RINAP 2 = Frame 2020; RIMA 2 = Grayson 1991, RIMA 3 = Grayson 1996. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to recent debates about memorials and the persistence of outmoded forms that commemorate figures associated with slavery and colonial depredations. The focus is on John Batman, often considered to be the founder of Melbourne, and a subject that has been commemorated in numerous forms. We explore the ways in which reified understandings of Batman were consolidated by these memorials. We argue that they provided a basis for the rampant settler colonialism that was initiated by his arrival in what became Melbourne. While the power of the Batman myth has endured for many years, we show how more recently it has been challenged by a range of art-inspired memorials that provide oppositional and alternative meanings and forms. We especially focus on the potency of counter-memorials, forms that directly address these older modes of commemoration, and anti-memorials, inventive installations that seek to dissolve singular meanings and continue the work of decentring outmoded commemorative forms and narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his theory on delinking, Amin shows how Africa is linked to global Capital. For Amin, it is in this link that Africa's underdevelopment resides. An important element in this linking process is the role that the comprador bourgeoisie plays in its relationship with global Capital, which facilitates the continued underdevelopment of Africa. Amin raises the question of the role that the African comprador bourgeoisie played as agents of imperialism in keeping Africa linked to Europe. From this standpoint, Amin presents the possibility of approaching Africa's underdevelopment from another dimension – the possibility of exploring Africa's underdevelopment as an internally driven process initiated by home-grown African capitalists who accumulate for their own account. Extending the logic of the comprador bourgeoisie, this paper argues that Capital in Africa is responsible for internal under development. African Capital too, together with international Capital consciously participates in under developing Africa. We argue that internal underdevelopment is based on a capitalist logic that contains all the standard phenomena associated with Capital, namely, inequality, unemployment, and poverty. Furthermore, exploring the rise of our case studies, viz; the Dangotes, Motsepes, and the Dos Santos', we show how instrumental each of them are in the internal underdevelopment of Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of 'Western Philosophy' is the product of a legitimation project for European colonialism, through to post-second world war Pan-European identity formation and white supremacist projects. Thus argues Ben Kies (1917-1979), a South African public intellectual, schoolteacher, trade unionist, and activist-theorist. In his 1953 address to the Teachers' League of South Africa, The Contribution of the Non-European Peoples to World Civilisation, Kies became one of the first people to argue explicitly that there is no such thing as 'Western philosophy'. In this paper, I introduce Kies as a new figure in the historiography of philosophy with important insights, relevant today. I outline his three key arguments: that 'Western Philosophy' is the product of political mythmaking, that it is a recent, largely mid-twentieth century fabrication, and that there is an alternative to 'Histories of Western Philosophy', namely 'mixed' or entangled histories. I show that Kies' claims are supported both by contemporary scholarship and bibliometric analysis. I thus argue that Kies is right to claim that the idea of a distinctive, hermetically sealed 'Western Philosophy' is a recent, political fabrication and should be abandoned. We should instead develop global, entangled historiography to make sense of philosophy and its history today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Border discords are one of Africa's unending vestiges of European colonialism/imperialism; the Bakassi peninsula dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria was one of such. The subsequent discovery of large deposits of natural resources in the Bakassi region made Cameroon and Nigeria to engage into claims and counterclaims, bilateral diplomacy, military skirmishes, and finally resorting to the World Court or International Court of Justice (ICJ) for judgement. After eight years of deliberations, the court finally adjudged and declared that Bakassi belongs to Cameroon, sparking widespread criticism from Nigeria. Popular opinion in Nigeria held/holds that Nigeria benefited little or nothing following the ICJ verdict of October 10, 2002 and that Cameroon gained exponentially. Thus, the premise of this paper is to outline the gains and losses of both Nigeria and Cameroon following the International Court of Justice's ruling, and to debunk the Nigerian perception of the verdict being partial and willy-nilly in nature. Using the qualitative method of research, secondary data based on previous research on the Bakassi saga was used. Using content analyses on the secondary data obtained, observations were made on what both Cameroon and Nigeria lost or gained after the World Court's verdict over the Bakassi peninsula. In its findings, this paper proffers that the gains and losses accruing to both countries are evenly distributed. This research can be a springboard for Cameroon and Nigeria to look beyond their gain and losses, and jointly carryout developmental activities in the Bakassi peninsula so as avoid future ethno-nationalistic tendencies in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Calcutta madrasa was one of the many institutions which witnessed recurrent attempts at reform in Muslim societies during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Since the eleventh century, when madrasas first emerged as the principal institution of higher Islamic learning, it has undergone many changes, adapting in varying degrees to local cultures and changing times. Given the centrality of the Calcutta madrasa in the preservation and production of knowledge as well as in the formation of the religious elite, the madrasa was crucial to the construction of religious authority. This paper attempts to arrive at a deeper understanding of the origin and nature of the Calcutta madrasa. The first half explores the impact of British educational policies and conceptions of knowledge on the very "traditionalists" attempt to protect Islamic knowledge and learning from its feared extinction under colonial rule. The madrasa institution established by and during colonial rule emerges as a more complex entity that absorbed both colonialist and traditionalist conceptions, which continued to be renegotiated even after the madrasas, had been firmly established. This aspect will be discussed in the second part of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the nature of the dichotomy and difference between officers' and non-commissioned officers' wives in Nigerian Cantonments. It identifies that the interactions between the two groups since the colonial period have long been overlooked in intellectual discourse and knowledge production due to culture and sex stereotypes. The paper argues that the relationship between officers and noncommissioned officers' wives in both colonial and post-colonial periods were marked by rank and social inequality. In this piece, we draw on primary and secondary sources of data, oral interviews, official documents, internet materials, and participant-observation to substantiate its claim, this paper reveals that the case of army officers' wives and noncommissioned officers' wives in Nigeria epitomizes the theory of social stratification in a male-dominated profession. Contrary to the opinion that it is only men that marginalise women, this paper demonstrates that women also marginalise fellow women on account of rank and social construct. It also affirms that colonial encounters reinvented inequality and dichotomy in gender relations and military life. The study concludes that rank is important but social inclusion will foster cooperation and collaboration in a plural society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an integrated account of maturity and the requisites of individuality in the political thought of John Stuart Mill, bridging his writings on the individual and society. To do so, it focuses on Mill's account of the relationship between civilization, democracy, class, individuality and custom in his later political thought. Mill draws on these concepts to flesh out his account of maturity in both individuals and societies. Mill's conception of custom, in particular, bridges the individual and society. Maturity, simply defined, is the ability to be self-governing. For Mill, only mature individuals and societies are entitled to be self-determining. In offering a unified account of maturity in Mill, this paper is departing from two different views of maturity in Mill that have become popular in recent scholarship. It also offers interpretations of the relationship between civilization and democracy, and class and custom in Mill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important aspect of the nineteenth century debate on the relationship between science and religion concerned the popularity of deterministic views among scientists. An integral part of Comte's positivism, the idea of immutable laws that determined natural and social phenomena became an increasingly prevalent component of scientific perspectives in the Darwinian era. Referring to this tendency as 'scientific fatalism,' critics likened it to Calvinist predestination, which transformed the debate into one involving polemics about different branches of Christianity as well. This paper focuses on a neglected aspect of this debate, namely, the role that references to Islam and Turks played in it. 'Mohammedan fatalism,' already a common theme in justifications of colonialism, promptly became a tool with which to condemn new scientific views. Comparing French, British, and American writings on the topic, the paper illustrates that while there emerged approaches that praised the fatalism of Muslims while making a case for scientific determinism, most scientists and thinkers resorted to condemning the fatalism of Muslims in order to distinguish their views from it. In this respect, the paper demonstrates how political and religious discourses played a significant part in the shaping of scientific discourse in the Victorian era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a study of the novel The Inheritance of Loss (2006), by contemporary Indian-born writer Kiran Desai, by exploring some of the practices of colonialism and coloniality depicted in the novel. The Inheritance of Loss is a non-linear narrative, organized in fragments, that portrays the lives of Indian characters that belong to different generations and backgrounds. This paper aims at analyzing passages from the first decades of the 20th century that picture the British rule over India, some of the practices of colonialism introduced by the colonizers and the coloniality that permeates the Anglicized Indian character Jemubhai Patel in the novel. This paper emphasizes a fundamental strategy of colonialism used by the British rule in India which was the introduction of the English language and culture in that country. Homi Bhabha (1994), Gauri Viswanathan (1995), Elleke Boehmer (2005), Aníbal Quijano (2007), Walter D. Mignolo (2012), Robert J. C. Young (2015) are part of the theoretical framework that supports the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Homoeroticism or same-sex relationship though considered impious and abhorred publicly has existed in the Subcontinent of India in almost all sections and genders of society from the elite to the most downtrodden. Though male homosexuality has been a subject of both public discourse and academic writings, women’s same-sex relationship, however, is largely viewed as taboo and hence is discreetly referred to. This paper drawing upon Judith Butler’s criticism of normative gender with psychoanalytic commentary from Freudian sources investigates the queer characterizations and sexuality in the context of colonial India. Thus, this paper aims to explore and discuss the effects of the homoerotic practices of men and women, especially within the institution of marriage by employing textual analysis of Ismat Chughtai’s short story The Quilt. The story portrays a woman whose desire for her husband is thwarted because of his being homoerotic. This suppressed desire finds its way into her actual and attempted coerced sexual relationships with the other women around her. Homoeroticism, thus, results in gender oppression, economic exploitation, and worst of all paedophilia, all of which remain muffled and silenced because of their association with homoeroticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and Frank Herbert’s Dune were considered to be “unadaptable” works. This paper critically discusses Villeneuve’s Dune and the TV series created by AppleTV+, a revision of the “Foundation”, overviewing the controversies surrounding the recreation and transformation of these “grand narratives”. The author considers that these transmutations are relevant not only for their storytelling alterations, but also for the transformations of “cinematic capitalism”. Proposing as a working concept the notion of chimeric capitalist cinema, the paper also brings into the debate other productions that disclose ideological mutations, like Rings of Power and House of the Dragon, considering how contemporary cinematic modes of production are changing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that twentieth-century (post)coloniality was a multicentric and poly-peripheral space and as such calls for a different, more complex geocultural and historical portrayal than the one provided by mainstream postcolonialism. Conventional postcolonialist critiques are ill equipped to address the historical interactions and the conceptual migrations between the discourses of the Second and Third Worlds, or with their "dual dependencies" because, with notable exceptions, postcolonialist studies only focus on the relations between the West and its (former) colonies. I argue that Eastern Europe and the (post)colonies of the West are alternative peripheries in the convoluted field of global (post)colonialism and that there were protracted two-way exchanges between these subaltern discourses in their interconnected experiences of (post)colonialism. This interplay, together with their vacillation between the two power centres during the Cold War, complicated not only the global power games, but also the processes of (post)colonial identity formation, and the ideological genealogies of repression and resistance. This paper first illustrates the historical interpenetration between the (post)colonial histories of these alternative peripheries, then looks at how this convoluted network of discourses and encounters forced the colonial subalterns of the capitalist West and the Soviet Union to generate cultural self-images by means of a strenuous process of triangulation. I contend that colonized subjects negotiated their unstable, ambivalent, and relational positions between a coerced centre, a desired centre, and an alternative periphery. Once we factor in the Cold-War confrontation between the Western and Soviet imperial colossi, we are faced with the hitherto unnoticed reality of transcolonialism which calls for abandoning left-leaning postcolonialist orthodoxy and drawing up a revised, cross-imperial history of oppression and resistance against a complicated and ideologically muddled nexus of colonial relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights how two early nineteenth-century British colonial writers Rev. Hobart Caunter and Thomas Bacon represented Indian life and culture in The Oriental Annual[s]. The Oriental Annual was the common title given to a series of seven volumes, which were published every year between 1834 and 1840. Combining anecdotes, short sketches and accounts of firsthand travel experiences of the writers, these volumes sought to present India and its people to readers back home in Britain. This paper shows how British colonial ideology shaped the representations of India and its people in these books. It specifically foregrounds how, in depicting India, both writers highlighted those aspects of Indian cultural and religious life that foreigners usually found disagreeable. It is argued that they did this to construct a vision of India which seemed to call for urgent reforms. This in turn helped them vindicate British colonialism in India, which both authors presented as being benign and reformative in nature. The paper thus demonstrates that these volumes were not mere innocuous travelogues, but works complicit in the colonial project of dominance and control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars most often adopt qualitative data-gathering methods, notably interviews, to access the lifeworld of "mixed" families. Nonetheless, when research questions require vivid details about their lives, other data-collection techniques may be needed. "Intimate" research methods, characterised by proximate contacts and interactions with "mixed" couples and their families, appear particularly useful in this regard. Drawing from ethnographic studies of mixed families of Filipino and Thai migrant women in Belgium and The Netherlands, the present paper unveils the heuristic value of three intimate methods—homestays, sleepovers, and commensality—in perceiving the realities of these women's couple and family lives. Homestays and sleepovers allow an in-depth understanding of ways of life within homes, interpersonal interactions, and their intricacies. Commensality (i.e., eating together) offers "snapshots" of the lives of mixed families, providing insights complementary to other methods such as interviews. Hence, the three intimate methods explored in this paper are social sites in which one can view details, otherwise invisible or unspoken, of the lives of mixed families, ranging from power dynamics to intergenerational relations, from the family's social class status and cross-border social ties to emotional situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the memories of Japanese teachers who worked in Korea during the colonial period. By focusing on the autobiographical narratives of three Japanese primary school teachers who worked in rural Korea between 1931 and 1945, this study aims to unpack the relatively under-studied aspects of colonialism. Their narratives carried personal histories regarding their choice to study and work in Korea, the nature of their relationship with Korean children, and the memories of the political and cultural atmosphere at schools in pre-war Korea. These memoirs were accounts of Japanese colonialism through the "Japanese eyes". As they intimately interacted with the local community and students, their memories were multifaceted and complicated; these were not simply apologetic or nostalgic but involved particular social relations that they had experienced in Korea. In this paper, I attempted to shed light on the reconstruction of the grander narrative of pre- and post-war educational history in the region by looking at the complexity of their "reflected" memories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how Kazi Nazrul Islam's poetry aligns with the leitmotifs of decolonisation. Nazrul Islam grapples with the race-gender-based regimens of his society. His activism and creative oeuvre harp on a subversive praxis, which interrogates the British colonial regime and racist norms ingrained in colonial India. As the paper examines, decolonisation not only foregrounds anti-colonial interventions and emancipation of the colonised, but envisages a continuing cultural revolution against colonialism. Analysing Nazrul Islam's emblematic political poems and his intellectual struggle, the paper ascertains how his poetry and authorial-political life mirror the philosophy of decolonisation, and thus radically contends colonialism. His poetry pits a cultural wholeness -- composed by nature, human, men, women, and global religions and myths -- against the western ideology of culture, race, anthropocentrism, and androcentrism that remains agentive in shaping, consolidating, and validating global colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early 1880s, Portugal began the construction of railways in its colonies. The main goals were to reinforce Portuguese presence and increase colonial revenue. This paper aims to analyse the transnational railways built in Mozambique, between the 1880s and the 1930s, as critical infrastructure (or critical systems). I argue that the lack of railways in Mozambique was the cause for deep concern and fostered a "sense of urgency" among the Portuguese authorities, as this could potentially jeopardise the Portuguese imperial project. Railways were considered critical to bolstering Portugal's sovereignty, as well as to exploit local resources and attract traffic from neighbouring territories. Once built, the railways revealed two major vulnerabilities: competition from South African ports and dependence on British capital. A few episodes involving Portuguese and British agents highlighted these vulnerabilities and motivated Portuguese policymakers to find solutions. This paper explores these topics based on a comprehensive literature review and the use of primary sources, intended to provide a novel approach to Portuguese colonial railways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compulsory teaching of Aotearoa New Zealand histories has potential to change how this country's young people think and feel about themselves. However, achieving the new curriculum's vision of a more thoughtful and responsible citizenry is unlikely to be straightforward. For Pākehā secondary school students, descendants of European settlers, the emphasis on te ao Māori could challenge a sense of centredness within the nation, and learning about colonial violence and injustice may be a source of emotional discomfort. For the new teaching framework to reach its transformative potential, these moments must be harnessed rather than allowed to block learning and engagement. This paper analyses three possible emotional responses of Pākehā students when monoculturalism is confronted and conflictual local histories are remembered: anxiety, guilt, and shame. While these emotions are usually framed as unnecessary or immobilising, I argue that they signal important starting points for Pākehā in responding to the complexity of colonialism and their complicity within it. Anxiety draws Pākehā attention to the constructed nature of the 'New Zealander' identity, and thus possibilities to de- and re-construct it, guilt pinpoints injustices that Pākehā must collectively address and monitor, and shame alerts Pākehā to their moral ideals. Yet, I also propose that if such feelings are to be harnessed constructively, they must be supplemented with a sense of mutual vulnerability and critical hope. Ultimately, this paper aims to show how discomforting emotions can either thwart or enrich learning and are therefore worth working with and through. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assyria's expansionist policy during the 8th- century B.C.E was indeed a force to reckon with and it was practically inevitable for this expansionist policy not to trigger various response mechanisms especially from the weaker nations. These responses varied from the formation of anti-Assyrian coalitions to opting for neutrality. The later response is most immediately expressed in the prophesies of Isaiah. As such, although scholarship has convincingly established that the prophet's message revolved around the political developments of the hegemony of Assyria, little has been written regarding the possible reasons that influenced the prophet's option for neutrality in the face of Assyrian Imperialism. While the argument that the prophet's decision was largely influenced by his religious convictions and trust in Yahweh is sustainable, this paper argues that the prophet Isaiah's stance was predominantly influenced by his political understanding of how empires like Assyria functioned. Contrary to the common position, this paper contends that the decision had more do with the prophet's political convictions than it had to do with his religious convictions. As such, this paper examines Assyria's imperial tactics and demonstrates how these predominantly informed Isaiah's policy of neutrality over and above the prophet's religious persuasions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decolonisation projects have proliferated with the increasing awareness of the hegemony that comes with globalisation. Decolonising English studies (both language and literature) is nothing new and often manifested at the implementation levels with the use of local literary texts and localised Englishes in the classroom. What collective voice has decolonising English studies achieved in relation to other decolonising projects, however, has not been fully scrutinised. The aim of this paper is to review past studies on some areas affected by the decolonising project and to try establishing its relationship to English studies itself. The overarching concern is expressed by these research questions: 1) What are some examples of decolonisation projects that can be found?; 2) What are the common themes of past studies on decolonisation projects?; And 3) How are these past studies contributing to the decolonisation of English studies? To achieve this, the review of literature is organised thematically to create links and synthesis. This paper adopts the definitions of decolonisation by Meera Ashar (2015) and Shahjahan et al. (2022). The thematic analysis reveals three main themes which are privileging indigenous knowledge, a re-evaluation of the curriculum, and the questioning of the epistemology of knowledge itself, with the first two themes bookending the last theme. We conclude that English studies should be coded as a tool of cultural-political literacy that is useful in helping us make sense of how inequalities are being reproduced via literary texts and the English language. This finding contributes toward an alternative understanding of the evolution in pedagogy and the innovative approaches in English studies so that its cultural imperialism is eliminated while providing a vanguard of possible retheorisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous Peoples have stewarded marine environments since time immemorial. Due to colonialism, Indigenous Peoples suffered impacts to their rights and abilities to holistically manage ocean systems. We situate the value systems embedded within manifest destiny and colonialism as the root systems that generated a plague of conservation issues that impact Indigenous Peoples today (e.g., fortress and green militarized conservation praxes). This paper is written by Indigenous scholars using Two-Eyed Seeing, reflexivity, and decolonizing methods (e.g., symbology, storytelling, and Indigenous beading) to unsettle the ways that marine conservation should be facilitated. Our framework operationalizes Indigenous value systems embedded within "the seven R's": respect, relevancy, reciprocity, responsibility, rights, reconciliation through redistribution, and relationships. This framework underlines the need for marine conservation efforts to center Indigenous voices and futures and Tribal management of marine systems. Marine system managers can use this paper as a guide for decolonizing marine conservation approaches, operationalizing Indigenous value systems in marine management, and building decolonial relationships with Indigenous Peoples and waters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the FIFA World Cup organized in Qatar at the end of 2022, which has been the subject of multiple controversies since the decision was taken in December 2010. If it is nowadays admitted that Qatar invests in the world of high-level sports in order to consolidate its soft power, the holding of the most important sports competition in the world poses many problems, both societal and environmental. The objective of the paper is to recall the main controversies related to the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which are expected to continue during the tournament itself, and to underline that it could threaten the FIFA empire financially, in case of withdrawal of powerful sponsors, as it happened in the recent past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper evaluates the reach and viability of the call to "decolonize academia" and assesses what can be done in academic institutions by way of decolonizing practices. By distinguishing colonialism from coloniality, it stresses the material and structural dimensions of the latter as an on-going reality, and thus argues for the impossibility of "decolonizing" the academy as we know it. From this stance, it identifies an array of expressions of coloniality in the academy and presents a critique of metaphorical and/or allegedly performative approaches to decolonization. In doing this, the paper seeks to offer philosophical instruments for a thorough, self-critical reflection and intervention on academic institutions and teaching and research practices, in the understanding that these must be but a part of broader processes of social transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically analyses the extent to which research in the field of English and development in the global South supports the claim that English can contribute to development. Particular reference is made to the Colombian context, which, along with several other countries in Latin America, has prioritised English language teaching in recent years through a series of initiatives. In doing so this paper highlights domains where English skills may be more or less useful in developing contexts in general and in Colombia more specifically and identifies factors which may influence the role of English in development. To aid in this analysis, this article draws on Phillipson's (Linguistic imperialism. Oxford University Press, 1992) theory of linguistic imperialism and relevant literature which looks at the role of English and development in the global South. The paper argues that although English may foster development in domains such as employment, trade, migration, and education, this is contingent upon a range of personal and contextual factors including level of Englishand socioeconomic status. It is also argued that, regardless of the contribution that English can make to development, interests in the global North are benefitting from the proliferation of this language in developing contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The main value of architectural heritage is defined by the selected set of attributes ranging from the substantial ones, such as form or design for example, to the intangible ones, including relevant social processes and cultural production (UNESCO). Within complex historical urban areas, characterized by historical-stylistic stratification, spatial and architectural forms have been observed in which many incoherent practices, traditions and logics are confronted, and whose ambiguity requires that their nature and the product itself (urban or architectural form) are being better explained. The Sarajevo historical core is the area where the described multifaceted contacts were observed. They are a consequence of the confrontation of two cultural circles, Ottoman as Eastern (native, oriental), and Austro- Hungarian as European (Western), not only in a simple binary relation old-new, but through the intertwining of cultural dialogue on the line of power and subordinate periphery. As an analytical and methodological framework for the assessment and explanation of the described spatial and architectural occurrence, this study applies the theory of syncretism as a phenomenology that best defines the processes in the background and the architectural-urban resolution itself. In the first part of the paper, theories of syncretic situations offered a reference for the basic structural definition of these contacts. In the second part, syncretism is questioned on concrete samples placed in the space of the Sarajevo Čarši. The factor of social action is introduced as a corrective element of monosyllable combinations of confrontations. This social action distorts the canonical practices of the colonial paradigm, which places this part of the paper in the analytical framework of postcolonial studies. The analysis of the sample clarifies syncretism in the levels of expression, and depending on the meaning of the background dialogue centre-periphery. The meaning ranges from the pragmatic (Mula Mustafa Bašeskija Street), to the one that tries to integrate modernization into the traditional spatial framework (Kundurdžiluk, Mali and Veliki Ćurčiluk), to its transition to the level of symbolic forms (Baščaršija Square). Conclusions and consequently the results of this study should provide the primary theoretical pattern for defining syncretic spaces in architectural-urban theoretical canonization, which has so far mainly focused on identity, while the essence of syncretic theories is the identification as a result of conflict. Assessing the meaning of problematic spaces is also necessary because syncretic situations, although coherent, are always only temporal, unstable. They will inevitably demand new resolutions, which, with proper valorisation, can be directed towards sustainable outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the tributary horse trade between Ming China and the northern tribes and states from 1368 to 1570 , when an expansive Ming Empire turned toward a defensive position. Concurrent with this reorientation of the empire were reshufflings of the tributary relations binding the Ming to its northern neighbors. Mongols, the war enemies of the Ming, were initially excluded from the horse trade but became a major horse provider later on. Our paper analyzes the timing and causes of such a shift, positing that the changing relations between the Ming and Mongols were both affected by and consequences of their relations with other tributary parties. Our paper offers a new perspective on tributary practices: we examine the differentiation of tributary ties and changes provoked by unforeseeable alterations of interconnections; as well, we analyze the mixed economic/political/cultural motivations that played out in the practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines African peasant tobacco production in Southern Rhodesia from 1900 to 1980, from the cusp of colonialism to its end. It analyses shifting state policy towards African tobacco producers, the concomitant impact on peasant economies, accumulation patterns and the rural physical landscape and peasant responses. It focuses on the changing agricultural commodity value chains, cash crop asymmetries, and global market forces to explain colonial responses to peasant production and peasant agency. We argue that the symbolic value of each agricultural commodity, in entrenching the hierarchy of power relations and the institutionalisation of white control, mediated colonial responses to peasant production and concomitantly 'peasant agency'. We use this case study to highlight the structural constraints on 'agency' and to explore how cash crop asymmetries helped structure agrarian encounters and power relations in colonial Africa. The paper uses archival sources from the National Archives of Zimbabwe, newspapers, and journals from the Tobacco Research Board (TRB). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]