The Spatial Imaginary of National Practices: Dwelling—Domesticating /Being—Exterminating

1996 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 463-485 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ghassan Hage
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Ethnic Cleansing ◽  
The West ◽  
The Third ◽  
National Imaginary ◽  
The Face ◽  
General Practices ◽  
The Third World ◽  
Mass Killings

The prevalence of a culture of ‘tolerance’ towards ethnic minorities in the West in the face of the practices of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Eastern Europe and of other more general practices of intolerance and extermination in parts of the Third World has led to a popular as well as a sometimes academic conception of ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ nationalisms essentialised into two radically different kinds of nationalism. In this paper I offer a critique of such a differentiation based on an examination of various practices of dealing with otherness in the process of nation building, particularly in Lebanon and Australia. I argue that practices of nation building, ranging from the promotion of ethnic cultures to mass ethnic killings, are guided by national imaginaries which, despite their empirical variety, are basically structured in the same way. This means, first, that such differences are better understood as the historical or contextual privileging of specific nationalist problematics grounded in this common national imaginary. Second, it means that within the nationalist imaginary that guides them there is a space in which, in given circumstances, the practitioners of valorisation and tolerance can turn into practitioners of mass killings and vice versa without them turning into a radically different kind of nationalists. Far from being specific to an ‘Eastern’ nationalism, the logic of extermination is inherent to any form of nation building today.

Neanderthal and the fossilization of the Third World

2020 ◽  
pp. 030631272098346
Author(s):  
Ryan Higgitt1
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Third World ◽  
Caste System ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Investment Bankers ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Face ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Third World

Neanderthal is the quintessential scientific Other. In the late nineteenth century gentlemen-scientists, including business magnates, investment bankers and lawmakers with interest in questions of human and human societal development, framed Europe’s Neanderthal and South Asia’s indigenous Negritos as close evolutionary kin. Simultaneously, they explained Neanderthal’s extinction as the consequence of an inherent backwardness in the face of fair-skinned, steadily-progressing newcomers to ancient Europe who behaved in ways associated with capitalism. This racialization and economization of Neanderthal helped bring meaning and actual legal reality to Negritos via the British Raj’s official ‘schedules of backward castes and tribes’. It also helped justify the Raj’s initiation of market-oriented reforms in order to break a developmental equilibrium deemed created when fair-skinned newcomers to ancient South Asia enslaved Negritos in an enduring caste system. Neanderthal was integral to the scientism behind the British construction of caste, and contributed to India’s becoming a principal ‘Third World’ target of Western structural adjustment policies as continuation of South Asia’s ‘evolution assistance’.

Knee Surgery and the Indian Knee: The Importance of the Preservation of Flexion

1989 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
R N Villar ◽  
V K Solomon ◽  
J Rangam
Keyword(s):  
Knee Flexion ◽  
Third World ◽  
Degenerative Disease ◽  
Knee Surgery ◽  
The West ◽  
The Third ◽  
Mission Hospital ◽  
The Third World ◽  
Indian Mission ◽  
Knee Pathology

The pattern of knee pathology seen in an Indian mission hospital following the introduction of knee clinics is described. This paper reports the results of the first 200 consecutive patients seen at these clinics, relating the findings to anticipated treatments. The occurrence of degenerative disease was high. The importance of knee flexion, in order to be able to squat, is highlighted. The necessity to adopt this position materially alters the types of treatment that can be offered to this group of people. It is concluded that treatments common to the West are not always suitable for patients in the Third World.

Globalization and the death of liberal democracy

1998 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Cammack
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Third World ◽  
Economic Globalization ◽  
Economic Liberalization ◽  
The State ◽  
The West ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third World

It is doubtful as to whether the countries of the Third World are likely to move to the kind of liberal democracy that is regarded as characteristic of the West. In particular, parties are often remaining ‘parties of the State’ and not organizations truly competing with each other. This is in part a consequence of economic globalization, as the requirements of global economic liberalization do not fit with the requirements of democracy. In such a context, clientelism around the State may be inevitable and it contributes to ensuring that the main party in the country, and indeed all parties become ‘parties of the State’, as is the case in Mexico or Malaysia and perhaps in the Ukraine and South Africa. Thus, globalization does not mean the end of the State, but possibly the end of liberal democracy.

Coups, Earthquakes and Hostages? Foreign News on Canadian Television

1989 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 809-826 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Hackett
Keyword(s):  
Geographical Distribution ◽  
Third World ◽  
English Language ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
The West ◽  
The Third ◽  
News Agencies ◽  
Foreign News ◽  
The Third World

AbstractForeign news coverage on Canadian national television was content analyzed in light of Third World criticisms of Western news agencies. Using a sample of CBC and CTV national English-language newscasts in 1980 and 1985, four hypotheses were considered: (1) the geographical distribution of foreign news is highly concentrated, focussing on the West and regions of violence involving Western interests; (2) news from the industrialized West and from the Third World tends to be characterized by different formats and topics; (3) differences between networks are limited; and (4) differences between the two years studied are minor. The results support these hypotheses, with the partial exception of the fourth one, to the detriment of the image of the Third World on Canadian television.

Wanted: A Comparative History of the Modern Mediterranean

2012 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-53
Author(s):  
Edmund Burke
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Third World ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
The West ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Third World

There is something seriously flawed about models of social change that posit the dominant role of in-built civilizational motors. While “the rise of the West” makes great ideology, it is poor history. Like Jared Diamond, I believe that we need to situate the fate of nations in a long-term ecohistorical context. Unlike Diamond, I believe that the ways (and the sequences) in which things happened mattered deeply to what came next. The Mediterranean is a particularly useful case in this light. No longer a center of progress after the sixteenth century, the decline of the Mediterranean is usually ascribed to its inherent cultural deficiencies. While the specific cultural infirmity varies with the historian (amoral familism, patron/clientalism, and religion are some of the favorites) its civilizationalist presuppositions are clear. In this respect the search for “what went wrong” typifies national histories across the region and prefigures the fate of the Third World.

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