Critical Views
Andean’s Children in Brazil Not Learning Any Language as a Symptom : A Participatory Action Research as a Method to Face the Socio-political Dimension of Suffering View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Joana Sampaio Primo
In this paper, we will present a part of doctoral research in which we accompany the immigrant’s schooling in São Paulo city, Brazil. In our research we noticed that many immigrant children aren’t learning any language, many of them are diagnosed into the Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or under suspicion. We initiate, two years ago, a participatory action research in some schools, in which we problematize the construction of this symptom. We insist on comprehending this production as a social production and not as an individual disease. We support a theoretical framework based on Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, but emphasising the dimension of the politics in the psychoanalytic practice. Being more precise, we support a clinical-political psychoanalytic practice that encourages a necessary dialogue with other fields of knowledge and that encourages, as well, the deepening of concepts and the creation of clinical devices compatible with socio-political dimensions of suffering (Rosa, Estêvão & Braga, jul/set 2017). Thereby, in our participatory action research we developed a clinical-political psychoanalytic practice that dialogues with the educational field, considering all the specific points of these institutions. Sustained by this theoretical framework, we intent to discuss in our paper the issue of "not learning any language as a symptom" as an effect of being placed inside the social bound (Lacan, 1992) in an undervalued manner. Can the symptom of not learning any language be comprehended as a denunciation of this socio-political dimension of suffering? Guided by this question we develop our paper.
Policing Memory : Holocaust Remembrance and Social Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Daniel P. Reynolds
This paper examines the role of social media in regulating collective memory of the Holocaust. The paper first gives an overview of the online presence of several key institutions (The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem) to discuss the growing reach of Holocaust remembrance in this new platform, and the efforts by these institutions to balance their immediate political contexts with their goal of promoting historically accurate representations and commemorations. The paper then explores the underlying tension between the institutional goals and the democratization of knowledge that the online environment encourages. Do social media platforms uphold the authoritative versions of history presented by historically central institutions of Holocaust study and remembrance, or do they undermine it? How do these and similar institutions use social media to "police" remembrance, i.e. to declare statements legitimate or false? Do individual commenters ultimately subvert or reinscribe the authority of expert knowledge? And finally, what do social media platforms tell us about Holocaust memory in the digital age? This paper ultimately takes a critical view of the reliance on social media as a means for producing useful knowledge.
Unshackling the Image of the Orient: A Multi -Dimensional (Re)Reading of Hajj Travelogues - Sir Richard Burton’s and Lady Cobbold as Examples View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Hadeer Aboelnagah
Travel literature as a genre of literary studies remains under explored. Hajj narratives in particular form a sub-genre in travel literature that is considered a valuable source of geographic, religious, political, economic, social, and ecological information about the area of Hejaz. They certainly form a valuable component to the system of knowledge production that created hierarchical oppositions between Europe and the “Other” emphasizing the power of presentation for the sake of colonial domination. Through applying a multiple concurrent analytic (re)reading using postcolonial, feminist and environmental literary theories tools to Sir Ricahrd Burton’s (1893) and Lady Cobbold’s (1934) Hajj travelogues, the study aims to provide a fresh outlook to the representation of Muslims in general and of women in particular. It also aims to reverse the prototype of the hostile portrayal of the environment that foreshadowed Hajj narratives for centuries. Burton’s account documenting his mission to explore the land of Hejaz exemplifies an important era in the relationship between Britain the “colonizer” and Islam the “colonized” as the majority of the population of British colonized land were Muslims. In contrast, Cobbold’s voyage takes a more objective position as oppose to the earlier subjective “traditional” writings about the Orient. Her account is of a particular importance to this study because of her freedom of mobility and accessibility to women secluded areas. This research is expected to create a fresh outlook to the study of Hajj narrative from a multilayered perspective that may take the East-West dichotomy to a new direction.
