Yoruba Ethnogenesis from Within

It is an anthropological truism that ethnic identity is “other”-oriented, such that who we are rests on who we are not. Within this vein, the development of Yoruba identity in the late nineteenth century is attributed to Fulani perspectives on their Oyo neighbors, Christian missionaries and the politics of conversion, as well as Yoruba descendants in diaspora reconnecting with their West African homeland. In this essay, my aim is to both complement and destabilize these externalist perspectives by focusing on Yoruba concepts of “home” and “house” (ilé), relating residence, genealogy and regional identities to their reconstituted ritual frameworks in Cuba and Brazil. Following Barber's analysis of Yoruba praise-poetry (oríkì) and Verran's work on Yoruba quantification, I reexamine the semantics of the category ilé in the emergence of Lucumí and Nagô houses in order to explain their sociopolitical impact and illuminate transpositions of racial “cleansing” and ritual purity in Candomblé and Santería. More broadly, the essay shows how culturally specific or “internal” epistemological orientations play an important if neglected role in shaping Atlantic ethnicities and their historical trajectories.

Alternative Online Videos in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election

This chapter examines a new form of popular political mobilization–online videos. Revising a “mix of attributes approach” to media effects (Eveland, 2003), grassroots participation is included as the Internet’s new attribute, which renders a more sociopolitical impact of the medium. Furthermore, to examine its sociopolitical impact, the author suggests a “multiple” mix of attributes approach, which considers extrinsic attributes of audiences’ media consumption contexts as well as intrinsic attributes of media configurations. In this regard, the author examines the grassroots participation attribute by interrogating how ordinary people participate in an online public sphere (www.dipdive.com) where they shared and reinforced their support for Obama by producing alternative videos. When it comes to the importance of individuals’ critical appropriation of the Internet for political participation, through alternative video production, the potential of transformative human agency by shaping personal narratives toward a better future is realized. In online videos for the Obama campaign, identity politics and the democratization of campaign leadership as extrinsic attributes are enhancing the Internet’s network politics for political mobilization. Nevertheless, there is ambivalence of online video’s practical impact on society depending on each user’s specific motivations and objectives of using it as seen in many cases of destructive, anti-social deployment of the Internet throughout the globe. Therefore, as an educational initiative to implement the multiple mixes of media attributes approach, this chapter concludes by proclaiming that it is a crucial issue for critical pedagogy practitioners to envisage Feenberg’s (2002) “radical philosophy of technology” which demands individuals’ active intervention in shaping technologies’ social applications, as well as its redesign for a more egalitarian purposes. With critical media pedagogy as a premise of the strategic deployment of new media technologies for social change, common people can become leaders of democratic, grassroots political mobilization as well as active, popular pedagogues by producing alternative online videos.

Sociopolitical Impact on Human Factors

This paper presents a summary of the impact of recent activities of governmental agencies and trade unions in Europe on Human Factors. In particular, the impact of these actions in the area of research characteristics of computer displays and vision is discussed. A detailed description is given of these actions and how cultural differences and values can influence Human Factors research. Incorporated is a historical analysis of how previous research in this field contributed to concern among these agencies and display users, the evolution of this to regulatory actions, and how methodology in the area of visual and physiological research has changed as a result. In summary, the paper gives an example of how sociopolitical pressures can impact Human Factors.