#Representation of the People Act Article 151 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thescentofcoffee-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Anthropology by the Wire

The Sharp-Leadenhall Clean and Green video is a great visual representation of the issues addressed in “Anthropology by the Wire.” Throughout the video, there are visual representations of vacant houses, trash, as well as children hanging around corners. In the reading, it is stated “Sharp-Leadenhall [is] under siege from socioeconomic and political forces, which have diminished its size, population, and sense of cohesion and purpose” (pg. 155). Throughout the video, it is reiterated that the community needs to unify in order to create change and to maintain their community. A young boy states “we need more trash cans on corners, kids are hanging on the corners because we need more programs, and the vacant houses need to be fixed;” this statement, coming from a collaborator living in the community, carries weight in the fight for equitable living standards in Baltimore.

Both the article and the video compliment each other because while one provides a lot of detail, the other adds a human dynamic that is often lost in the translation to text. In the video, one is able to see the community members mobilizing their community, taking care of it, doing jobs many people would argue is a City responsibility. It supplements the reading, or the reading supplements the video by providing detail of the history of Sharp-Leadenhall, as well as the structural forces leading to the community’s disenfranchisement.

Women of Steel, a video concerning the gender integration of the Sparrow’s Point steel mill, uses a watered-down version of networked anthropology. In the video, there wasn’t as much collaboration apparent. It used video clips of steel mills, but only had very structured interview clips from people in the mill. However, it did utilize media to evoke a response from the viewer. As stated in “Anthropology by the Wire,” “spatially, the city shifts with development projects and new construction. Socially and politically, it shifts with demographics of its population, and with the ways in which the city is represented” (pg. 147). This can be related to Women of Steel, because the video depicts the gender integration of the steel industry in Baltimore. In doing so, it depicts the differences in perception between a female collaborator and a male collaborator. For the man, he perceives women everywhere in the mill and the workplace as being equal. Whereas the woman perceives the implicit sexism occurring everyday. The video provides a contrast

Questions to consider for your media journal entry:

What is the representational burden placed on Baltimore City?

“Spatially, the city shifts with development projects and new construction. Socially and politically, it shifts with the demographics of its population, and with the ways in which the city is represented” (pg. 147)

“The seedy images of some cities in the United States, like Baltimore in Maryland, that proliferate on television programmes like The Wire (Simon 2002) are entirely different from the more positive representations that people hold of their neighbourhoods and communities” (pg. 147)

“But these are more than differing opinions: ‘representations’ of the city have very real consequences -- for funding, for politics, for development and, ultimately, for the survival of neighbourhoods.” (pg. 147)

“Urban residents and those that live outside of these spaces [traditional media outlets] are often trapped in a cycle of stereotypic and reifying representations of one another -- a media-based engaged public anthropology has the potential to change this trend.” (pg. 149)

What is Anthropology by the Wire?

“‘Anthropology by the Wire’ is a multimedia research project on urban and visual anthropology in Baltimore; it is a part of a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates grant at Towson University” (pg. 147)

“Intersects media and public anthropology, reframing representations of Baltimore and its citizens from the television series The Wire through media technologies transmitted via a wire itself by a group of anthropologists and community members in the city.” (pg. 147)

The data is then posted to a website “www.anthropologybythewire.com” “in an attempt to reflexively detail the process of collaborative research with a variety of community groups and individuals in Baltimore City” (pg. 147-148)

“Through ‘Anthropology by the Wire’, anthropologists, alongside students and in partnership with community residents, engage in collaborative, empirical research on people’s representations of Baltimore City using a common set of qualitative research methodologies related to media anthropology. (pg. 149)

This project allows for data “that are of use to participants as wells as to the communities in which research is undertaken, thus producing a more contemporary and timely public anthropology” (pg. 149)

How are notions of authorship discussed?

“All of these media, digested and linked by one Google or YouTube search, are now connected by an individual simply through the act of liking, sharing, or commenting while browsing the internet, but no necessarily linked by authorship or participation to anything viewed.” (pg. 150)

“If the individual browser is going through a username it makes them an instantly recognized collaborator, which extends and potentially problematizes conceptions of methods and ethics that are changing as rapidly as new mediascapes and technologies. Through social media analytics, the user can become part of a networked anthropology created through the viewing practice and the translation of that experience into connecting nodes.” (pg. 150)

What are the promises and pitfalls of a networked anthropology?

Positive

“Networks are ‘real’ in that we can characterize them qualitatively and quantitatively, but they are also shifting, protean, temporary and chiasmic.” (pg. 151)

“Networked socialites represent possibilities for other kinds of realities -- at once more participatory and more democratic.” (pg. 151)

Negative

“At the same time, networks are not created equal, with neighbourhoods and residents (considered as nodes) effectively cut off from other, more powerful, networks joining the city to the world system -- networks that produce dominant representation of people that they are powerless to contest” (pg. 151)

The goal of networked anthropology is “to transform relationships and to form new ones through this networked content and through community partnerships that might then be generative of new collaborative possibilities” (pg. 151).

What are the details of the collaboration with the community of Sharp Leadenhall?

“Primary fieldwork has focused on documenting the history of the neighbourhood through the collection of life histories of remaining and recently displaced residents as well” (pg.155)

“On the recommendation of our collaborators, a major impetus for research has been placed on the creation of a historical archive of press clippings, planning documents, photographs and other materials alongside the collection of videotaped life-history interviews with current and former residents” (pg. 156)

Students researching were also volunteering at events in the community and encouraged to do service in the area (pg. 156)

“The intent here is to push out illegal vending operations attached to tailgating for the games from Sharp-Leadenhall” (pg. 156)

“A continuous dialogue occurs at monthly strategy meetings and through frequent informal discussions as ethnographic documentary videos are created” (pg. 156)

“Community collaborators choose additional sites that have symbolic meaning and that thus define Sharp-Leadenhall as a place” (pg. 156)

“A web presence for Sharp-Leadenhall committee was agreed on to assist in communicating with community members who have left and to counter negative representations of the community” (pg. 157)

“Establishing local history through research while simultaneously creating positive media about the community is the primary thrust of collaborative work, with a particular focus on creating representations of family life and housing to confront the recent effects of gentrification on the community, and to show other ways the community is sustainable” (pg. 157)

The Clean and Green Team

Organized by the Sharp-Leadenhall Planning Committee to assist in “gardening and other agricultural-related schemes” (pg. 159)

The Anthropology By the Wire team worked “collaboratively with the Sharp-Leadenhall Planning Committee to create a documentary of the youth who would be hired as the ‘Clean and Green Team’ of Sharp-Leadenhall” (pg. 159)

What are the goals of the Anthropology by the Wire project?

“Seek to present another way for Baltimore City and its residents to be understood through the production of collaborative ethnographic media with community residents” (pg. 152)

It is organized as participatory action through networking.

Using media as their tool of research, so videos, photographs, recordings, etc.

An example of a newly developed collaborative approach. Redefining networked anthropology

1 note · View note

brajeshupadhyay · 5 years ago

Text

Uddhav Thackeray must overcome multiple legal hurdles, comply with constitutional provisions to remain Maharashtra CM

Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, who took the oath of the office on 28 November 2019 has to become a member of either of the two houses of State Legislature -- Legislative Assembly or Legislative Council, by 28 May.

An easy way for Thackeray would have been entering the legislature by getting “elected” to Legislative Council. But biennial polls to Legislative Council has been postponed due to coronavirus outbreak.

Now, the other probable options available with Thackeray is to get “nominated” by the Governor to the Legislative Council.

Article 171 of the Indian Constitution provides the manner in which the members to Legislative Council are elected.

It states that (A) One-third shall be elected by electorates consisting of members of municipalities, district boards and such other local authorities in the state as Parliament may by law specify; (B) One-twelfth shall be elected by electorates consisting of persons residing in the State who have been for at least three years graduates of any university in the territory of India or have been for at least three years in possession of qualifications prescribed by or under any law made by Parliament as equivalent to that of a graduate of any such university; (C) as nearly as may be, one-twelfth shall be elected by electorates consisting of persons who have been for at least three years engaged in teaching in such educational institutions within the State, not lower in standard than that of a secondary school, as may be prescribed by or under any law made by Parliament; (D) as nearly as may be, one-third shall be elected by the members of the Legislative Assembly of the State from amongst persons who are not members of the Assembly; (E) the remainder shall be nominated by the Governor.

The members to be nominated by the Governor shall consist of persons having special knowledge or practical experience in respect of such matters as the following, namely; Literature, science, art, cooperative movement, and social service.

Thackeray does not directly fit into any of the criteria mentioned above. But social service has a wider scope and interpretation and he can be appointed from this field.

Maharashtra Legislative Council has 78 members, which means 12 are appointed by the Governor. There are two vacancies due to resignations of NCP MLAs — Rahul Narvekar and Ramrao Wadkute — who joined the BJP before the Assembly polls last year.

The Maharashtra cabinet has already written to Governor seeking Thackeray’s appointment at one of these two seats.

But, here Section 151A in The Representation of the People Act, 1951 can create a major hurdle for Thackeray’s appointment.

Section 151 A states that bye-election for filling any vacancy shall be held within a period of six months from the date of the occurrence of the vacancy: Provided that nothing contained in this section shall apply if—(a) the remainder of the term of a member in relation to a vacancy is less than one year, or (b) the Election Commission in consultation with the Central Government certifies that it is difficult to hold the bye-election within the said period.

As the term of the two seats is to end in June, there is no compulsion upon the Governor to nominate someone on that seat for the remaining period of time.

Another way for Thackeray to continue as Maharashtra chief minister is to resign and again takes the oath of the office. But, this shall face strict legal scrutiny.

In landmark case named SR Chaudhuri v. State of Punjab an important question was raised that whether someone who fails to get elected during the period of six consecutive months after he is appointed as a minister be reappointed as a minister without being elected to the legislature.

The Supreme Court held that the privilege to continue as a minister for six months without being an elected Member is only a one-time slot for the individual concerned during the term of the Legislative Assembly concerned.

The judgment stated, “As already noticed Article 164(4) in terms provides only a disqualification or a restriction for a Minister, who for any period of six consecutive months, is not a Member of the Legislature of the State to continue as such. It expressly provides that he shall on the expiration of that period cease to be a Minister unless he gets elected during that period by direct or indirect election. We must also bear in mind that no right is conferred on the concerned non-member Minister even during the period of `six months', when he is permitted to continue in office, to vote in the House. The privilege to vote in the House is concerned only on Members of the House of the Legislature of a State (Article 189). It does not extend to non-elected ministers. He may address the house but he cannot vote as an MLA. None of the powers or privileges of an MLA extend to that individual. Though under Article 177, the individual shall have a right to speak and to otherwise take part in the proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, he does not carry with him the usual "free speech" legislative immunity as provided by Article 194(2). The individual cannot draw any of the benefits of an MLA without getting elected. All these disabilities also clearly go to suggest that `six consecutive months' in Article 164(4) cannot be permitted to be repeatedly used for the same individual without his getting elected in the meanwhile.”

It added, “It would be too superficial to say that even though the individual Minister is a person who cannot even win an election by direct or indirect means, he should be permitted to continue as a Minister for a period beyond six months, without being elected at all and represent the electorate which has not even returned him. It would be subversive of the principle of representative Government and undemocratic. It would be a perversion of the Constitution and even a fraud on it.”

Perhaps, Thackeray has understood that bypassing all these legal hurdles to continue in the office would not an easy task hence has sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention to sail through this constitutional crisis.

via Blogger https://ift.tt/2SCwqD5

#Blogger #followme instagood art friends beautiful prilaga like4like likeforlike fashion na

0 notes

phgq · 5 years ago

Text

DILG assures due process for detained Anakpawis members

#PHnews: DILG assures due process for detained Anakpawis members

MANILA – The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) on Tuesday assured due process for the six members of the Anakpawis Party-list who were detained after the police filed cases against them for violating the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) protocols, failing to practice social distancing, and attempting to organize a mass gathering in the guise of an alleged relief operation.

“The rule of law does not stop during a public health emergency. The DILG respects the rights of the detained Anakpawis members and we assure them that they will have their day in court. Since nahuli na sila, sa hukom na lang sila magpaliwanag (Since they have been caught, it is up for them to explain themselves in court),” DILG spokesperson, Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya, said in a news release.

Malaya said the Philippine National Police (PNP) saw a probable cause against Anakpawis because its members were caught in the act by the Norzagaray Police in a checkpoint.

“Clearly, they violated quarantine rules because they are Unauthorized Persons Outside of Residence (UPOR), they misrepresented a food pass to gain passage through checkpoints, there was no coordination with the LGU (local government unit) of Norzagaray, Bulacan for this alleged relief operation, and they intimidated our police officers by using a congressman who, in fact, is no longer an incumbent member of Congress, among others,” he said.

Malaya said those detained are entitled to adequate legal representation of their own choice and he has no doubt that a battery of lawyers would represent them.

“I’m sure a battalion of lawyers from the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) and Public Interest Law Center (PILC) has been mobilized by their central committee for this purpose. So, sa hukuman na lang sila magpaliwanag (they just explain in court),” he said.

Malaya reiterated that a food pass, even if issued by the Department of Agriculture, is not valid for the conduct of relief operations.

“They illegally used a food pass for another purpose when a food pass is for the transport of farm produce from farm to market. In fact, the use of the DILG logo for this purpose is again illegal and will not be tolerated by this department,” he added.

Malaya said the DILG and PNP have been very busy fighting the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) and seeking an end to the ECQ that it zaps their time, energy, and effort dealing with Anakpawis and similar "pasaway" (stubborn) organizations.

“Instead sana of being pasaway, tulungan ninyo na lang ang gobyerno (Instead of being stubborn, just help the government) for a change. Stay home and save lives,” he said.

Malaya said all six Anakpawis members have been charged with violating the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, as well as Section 9, Article 1132 (non-cooperation of persons) and Article 151 (resistance and disobedience to a person in authority) of the Revised Penal Code concerning the IATF directive dated April 2, 2020, the Department of Health’s Department Order 2020-0090, and Executive Order 922, Section 4 (all citizens are urged to act within the bounds of the law).

The IATF is the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Meanwhile, former Anakpawis representative, Ariel Casilao, will also be charged for usurpation of authority under Article 177 of the Revised Penal Code, according to the release. (PR)

***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "DILG assures due process for detained Anakpawis members." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1100474 (accessed April 21, 2020 at 07:52PM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "DILG assures due process for detained Anakpawis members." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1100474 (archived).

#Philippines #News #Filipino #Pinoy #Tourism #Politics #Culture #Editorial #Environment #Society #History

0 notes

aliciablsc · 5 years ago

Text

05. Reading Report: Smashed Panes and “Terrible Showers”: Windows, Violence, and Honor in the Early Modern City

The article Smashed Panes and “Terrible Showers”: Windows, Violence, and Honor in the Early Modern City by historian of early and modern Europe Daniel Jütte, focuses on how windows had an impact on violent social relationships in premodern Europe, and how it relates to contemporary times. To do so, he separates his main points in two different parts. On the first half, Jütte discusses an early period in which glass windows were not yet fully established (2015, p. 131-139) and, in the other half, he focuses on the smashing of glass windows (2015, p. 139-151).

In premodern Europe, windows were the point in which public areas – streets – and private spaces – homes – would come together as one. However, even though they were meant to strengthen sociability between people within and outside the building (2015, p. 132), they often were the origin of many social tensions and quarrels. Since the deficiencies of sanitary infrastructure were a key factor in premodern Europe, people in the streets could sometimes see themselves showered by those who emptied their chamber pots, or even, in a more painful way, by those who poured boiling water from their kitchens down to the streets (2015, p. 132-133). Many efforts and laws were reinforced in order to stop those incidences from happening, unfortunately, many of them did not mean any change in this problematic at all (2015, p. 133-139).

However, the throwing of objects from windows was not limited to unwanted fluids, it also was considered a way for angry citizens – especially women, who were always meant to stay home, to participate in urban riots against state officials or tax collectors (2015, p. 137), wars and uprisings (2015, p. 139). This was also motivated by the fact that architectural features such as bay windows, oriels and balconies started to become more popular in the later Middle Ages (2015, p. 139).

On the other hand, Jütte deeply examines the act of smashing windows and the impact it had on this period. More specifically they can be sorted in three different categories: the smashing of government windows during riots (2015, p. 140), church windows during the age of Reformation by Protestants iconoclasts who rejected any visual representation associated with the cult of Saints (2015, p. 140-142), and windows from private houses (2015, p. 142-143), which were often smashed by youths, burglars, family members – due to family conflicts such as inheritances and marriage agreements, neighbors and students, as it was a demonstration of manliness and a way to restore their honour after a conflict (2015, p. 143-147).

As a general rule, the targets of these unfortunate damages were often religious minorities such as Jews and prostitutes – who were attacked by angry customers, which results as a “deliberate inversion of the traditional custom of courting a woman at the window”, a completely opposite use of these parts of the house (2015, p. 147).

All these proofs of violence through windows, as Jütte concludes in an article based on numerous historical happenings that illustrate the main points he focuses on, establish a relationship between the owner of the house and the building itself, being the house a metaphor of the landlord’s body (2015, p. 147), which means that those who deliberately smashed windows already knew that the same damage was going to be caused in the owner itself. Furthermore, the house was used as ann extension of the body for those who used it to attack street wanderers.

In the end (2015, p. 151), the historian makes a comparison of the significance the smashing of windows had at the described period, and the meaning it has nowadays, which often indicates the beginning of the spread of decadence in a certain neighbourhood. However, seen from a lockdown perspective, the analysis can get further than that.

In these strange days we are living, windows and balconies have acquired all kinds of connotations. On the one hand, we see relationships between neighbors being reinforced through window conversations, as well as a feeling of gratitude towards health workers being expressed under a form of applause. However, going back to the “urban riots” already mentioned in this report, windows nowadays are also used as a mean to protest for those who are against the current Spanish government, who use them to loudly bang their kitchenware at night and, following a recent movement started by Greenpeace, a call for activists to project messages defending climate action using a flashlight has been made, both of which use their windows to connect their private life to a more public ambit.

As far as my Graphic Media project concerns, a strong point is made in this article by creating the metaphor home-body, which personifies the building itself and makes it exist as an extension of the human body, thus suggesting the emotional connection between both parties. Although this text clearly focuses on the negative effects of this connection and would result misleading if it were to analyse both positive and negative results, there are many other good connotations such as warmth and tranquility that are part of that connection as well for many of us that are often taken for granted, which I would like to portray on my project.

Jütte, D (2015) ‘Smashed Panes and “Terrible Showers”: Windows, Violence, and Honor in the Early Modern City’, West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History & Material Culture, 22(2), pp. 131–156. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.mdx.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=aft&AN=112669420&site=ehost-live&scope=site (Accessed 16 April 2020)

0 notes

monstersorphansrobots-blog · 6 years ago

Text

This Bridge Called My Back includes numerous works that seem to primarily focus on the power dynamics of race and gender. The particular poem I read before class was “And When You Leave Take Your Pictures With You” by Jo Carillo. I intended to share this poem with the class (but unfortunately we didn’t have time) because of the incredible work it does to challenge forms of representation of women of color. This is a direct discussion of the power dynamics of race and how it haunts all people of color. Though she refers to them as “white sisters,” Carillo builds a community of people of color who experience this commodification, in being seen as “a picture they [our white sisters] own.” (64)

Paris is Burning continues the work done in examining the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. For me, the orphaned beginnings exist most prominently in the clips of the young teens. The socioeconomic situation of most individuals featured in the documentary expose the ways in which the queer community is particularly vulnerable to premature death. Outside of the ballroom space, this community of black and brown queer folk must deal with the dominant power structures that push them to the margins.

bell hooks critiques Paris is Burning, particularly based upon the appropriation of this black and brown queer community’s practices as a white women for explicit commodification. She challenges an understanding of this film as progressive, in saying “Livingston does not oppose the way hegemonic whiteness ‘represents’ blackness, but assumes an imperial overseeing condition that is in no way progressive or counter-hegemonic” (151). The role of an outsider who simply sits and observes does not read to hooks as a liberatory future in the same way as some critics--described by hooks as the reaction of white critics.

The perception of Paris is Burning as a liberatory future, in the argument of hooks, seems to predominantly occur in “the many yuppie-looking, straight-acting, pushy, predominantly white folks in the audience were there because the film in no way interrogates ‘whiteness’.” (149) This reality counters her expectation of the images evoked by the title, “the real Paris on fire, of the death and destruction of a dominating white western civilization and culture, an end to oppressive Eurocentrism and white supremacy.” In fact, this film seems exposes the way this queer community is vulnerable without any intention of doing so. To use the terms of hooks, the spectacle of the ballroom takes precedent over any projected future in which the structures producing the marginalized status of these individuals is challenged.

Barbara Christian’s “Race for Theory” critiques the ways in which theory has become the focus of literature production. She advocates for different forms of narrative production among people of color, which includes abstract logic and typically undervalued forms of cultural production. This article emphasizes the way that practice can and should occur without a basis in theory, which presents a type of liberatory future. Academic work does not need to be done on the production of black feminist works before these works are created. She believes the academic structure of theory prioritizes white, Western perspectives and these do not map onto the lived experiences of every individual, thus theory cannot be applied universally.

0 notes

viewing-identity-closets · 7 years ago

Text

Intersectionality and Queerness

While the previous studies and scholars discussed queer and its relationship to identity categories based on sexual orientation and gender, Glick makes an important point. Glick says, “Queer cannot be discussed in terms of sexuality or gender alone, because it is not through sex and gender alone that we live our complex lives" (Glick, 2003, p. 128). Agreeing with Glick, Cohen adds, “It is my argument, as I stated earlier, that one of the great failings of queer theory and specifically queer politics has been their inability to incorporate into analysis of the world and strategies for political mobilization the roles that race, class, and gender play in defining people’s differing relations to dominant and normalizing power” (Cohen, 2005 , p. 260). Johnson thus seeks to provide a solution for a lack intersectionality in some canonical queer theories saying, “Quare, on the other hand, not only speaks across identities, it articulates identities as well. “Quare” offers a way to critique stable notions of identity and, at the same time, to locate racialized class knowledges” (Johnson, 2005, p. 127).

Moreover, Puar and Quiroga recognize the ways in which Queer theories operate in different contexts and can engage with the advocation U.S. nation state/imperialism. Quiroga states, “Let me put a different way: Queer studies was a project born and bred in the Republic, but it soon became linked to a broad imperial project that sought to impose norms, statues, and identities on other regions of the world” (Quiroga, 2003, p. 134).

Puar then addresses part of Quiroga’s argument through the term homonationalism. “I am deploying the term homo-nationalism to mark arrangements of US sexual exceptionalism— homonormativity—that complicates the dichotomous implications of casting the nation as only supportive and productive of heteronormativity and always repressive and disallowing of homosexuality. I argue that the Orientalist invocation of the ‘terrorist’ is one discursive tactic that disaggregates US national gays and queers from racial and sexual ‘others’, foregrounding a collusion between homosexuality and American nationalism that is generated both by national rhetorics of patriotic inclusion and by gay and queer subjects themselves: homo-nationalism. For contemporary forms of US nationalism and patriotism, the production of gay and queer bodies is crucial to the deployment of nationalism, insofar as these perverse bodies reiterate heterosexuality as the norm but also because certain domesticated homosexual bodies provide ammunition to reinforce nationalist projects” (Puar, 2006, p. 68).

“Furthermore, there is nothing inherently or intrinsically anti-nation or anti-nationalist about queerness either, despite a critical distancing from gay and lesbian identities. Through the disaggregating registers of race, kinship, and consumption, queerness is also under duress to naturalize itself in relation to citizenship, patriotism, and nationalism. Thus the ‘gains’ achieved for LGBTIQ subjects— media, kinship (gay marriage, adoption), legality (sodomy), consumption (gay and lesbian tourism), must be read within the context of war on terror, the USA PATRIOT Act, the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, and unimpeded US imperialist expansion, as conservative victories at best, if at all” (Puar, 2006, p. 86).

Puar, along with the previous mentioned scholars, thus stress that Queer theories must take into consideration multiple intersectioning systems of oppression. Similar to the arguments before Cohen and Alimahomed also note a lack of intersectionality or a centering of whiteness in Queer Politics. For instance, Alimahomed’s 2010 research included interviewing 25 Latina and Asian/Pacific Islander women who identified as queer, lesbian, or bisexual at Gay Pride Events in Los Angeles and San Fransisco. In doing so, Alimahomed concluded, “Queer representation and expression in the LGBT movement has embodied a narrow, white racial frame in which queer Latinas and Asian/Pacific Islander women’s representations of themselves are often rendered invisible by the main- stream” (Alimahomed, 2010, p. 166). Understanding the lack of intersectionality in queer theories and the centering of whiteness in queer politics, Cohen therefore questioned the future of queer politics. Cohen says, “Recognizing the limits of current conceptions of queer identities and queer politics, I am interested in examining the concept of “queer” in order to think about how we might construct a new political identity that is truly liberating, transformative, and inclusive of all those who stand on the outside of the dominant constructed norm of state-sanctioned white middle- and upper-class heterosexuality. Such a broadened understanding of queerness must be based on an intersectional analysis that recognizes how numerous systems of oppression interact to regulate and police the lives of most people” (Cohen, 2005, p. 244).

Cohen’s thoughts on the future of queer politics thus relates to survey questions relating to Beloit College student’s experiences with Queer Politics/Theories. (Important Note:The majority of our survey respondents identified themselves as white. In addition, our survey did not require information about the survey participant’s socioeconomic status, religious affiliation, nationality, immigration status, and/or information on if the survey participant identified as cisgendered. In effect, these responses do not provide a wholistic picture if queer politics or thinking queerly at Beloit operates in a way that addresses multiple systems of oppression).

In your experiences has queer politics or thinking queerly been intersectional?

The majority of participants answered that it isn’t, is just at Beloit, that is focuses on whiteness or Western world ideas/ideologies too much, that it really depends on the person/who is engaging the conversation, that it attempts to be, and it can be if demanded so. Multiple responses did say “Yes”, but most of those responses still said that context matters.

In your experiences has thinking queerly or queer theories had the capacity to acknowledge all of your identities at one time (race/ethnicity, class, religion, ability, age, nationality, gender, sexual orientation)?

The majority of responses said no, maybe, or an extenuation of those responses. Respondents cited a lack of intersectionality in classroom/academic experiences/readings, a centering of white people in readings and class room discussions, and a lack of class room discussion/readings that allow people to discuss how their sexuality/gender is fluid and/or operates differently in different contexts. For responses that said yes, the majority of the responses also elaborated that they were white and/or that some of their other privileged identities affected their answering of this question. A few responses said they did not understand the question. Lastly, a response questioned queer theories capability of being intersectional when they are called queer theories.

Discussion Questions: How can we avoid centering whiteness and supporting homonationalism when thinking queerly at Beloit College? How do the responses relate to the scholars ideas up above and what Johnson specifically says about Quare? How would Puar interpret the survey responses?

Sources:

Alimahomed, S. (2010) Thinking outside the rainbow: women of color redefining queer politics and identity. Social Identities, 16(2), 151-168. DOI: 10.1080/13504631003688849

Cohen, C. (2005). “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?” Still Brave. NY, NY: Feminist Press, Pages 240-267.

Glick, E. F. (2003). Introduction: Defining Queer Ethnicities. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 10(1), 123-124. Duke University Press. Retrieved from Project MUSE database.

Johnson, P. (2005). “Quare” Studies Or (Almost) Everything I Know About Queer Studies I Learned From My Grandmother”. Black Queer Studies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, Pages, 124-155.

Puar, J. (2006): Mapping US Homonormativities. Gender, Place & Culture, 13(1), 67-88. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09663690500531014

Quiroga, J. (2003). From Republic to Empire: the Loss of Gay Studies. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 10(1), 133-135. Retrieved frommuse.jhu.edu/article/49629.

0 notes

nofomoartworld · 7 years ago

Text

Hyperallergic: Dear Kara Walker: If You’re Tired of Standing Up, Please Sit Down

Detail of Kara Walker, “Christ’s Entry into Journalism” (2017), Sumi ink and collage on paper, 151 x 191 in (© Kara Walker, courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York)

Besides the fact that I find Kara Walker’s most famous pieces to be, at best, salacious, the reckless tone of Walker’s statement about her upcoming solo show and a related New York Times article by Blake Gopnik bothered me because it presumes that her audience is incapable of critical thinking and finding its own meaning in her work.

The article’s original title was “Kara Walker: Art Can’t Solve the Nation’s Racial Problems”; it has since been changed to the softer, “Kara Walker, ‘Tired of Standing Up,’ Promises Art, Not Answers.” The initial title placed art in a false binary, implying that it can either save us from the stupidity of racism or it cannot. What it needed to do — and what the new title and entire ensuing article failed to do — was to consider how can art help shape our ideas and be a force in how we relate to our past, present, and future; and in what way art can help us provide our own answers.

As a similarly othered Black woman artist, I can understand, to an extent, Walker’s frustration with being fetishized by a public that, for the most part, barely understands her. However, her words of futility are incredibly problematic at a time like this. We are being beaten and shot by police in our streets, maced and run over in white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, vilified for kneeling to the national anthem in arenas, and persecuted for our right to free speech and equality — the later of which is, of course, not so different from the abuses that drove many of America’s first (white) immigrants to come here. Walker’s art and attitude, however, aren’t exactly changing with the times.

Betye Saar, “Let Me Entertain You” (1972, top) and Kara Walker, “no world” (2010, bottom) at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

When she won the MacArthur “genius” grant in 1997, it was for her work’s unusual combination of shock value and scenery: her pieces illustrated the fluid landscapes of our history mixed with attention-grabbing perversion. However, fellow artist Betye Saar was the first to highlight the potential downsides of such a combination. Saar famously wrote in one of her letters denouncing Walker that she felt “a sense of betrayal at the hands of a black artist who obviously hated being black,” and was therefore, by extension, willing to also betray her womanhood. Despite such critiques, Walker’s success in our “post-racial” society became the cultural reparations that made up for all of the white-on-black brutality and subjugation featured in her artwork and in the news. However, it was retribution given on White America’s terms, and was, by design, incomplete.

The evolution of our self-representation matters. Saar and other second-wave feminist artists of color sought to use the pop culture tools of our oppression to reimagine and empower us to action. Walker’s work, in contrast, describes the beginning of the struggle’s cycle, rather than its desired end. She, with her twerking sphinx, burnt sugar babies, and fellating Negresses, turns this pain into a twisted cartoon version of a reality that white Americans first perpetuated and still eagerly buy into. However, instead of gratitude for being celebrated and being seen, she indicates in the statement accompanying her new show that “being a featured member of my racial group and/or my gender niche” is a burden she has no desire to carry, even though she put it on her own back.

The Times article and statement made the rounds on social media, causing the controversy that Walker had anticipated, all the while subtly discouraging young artists (whom she sometimes teaches at Rutgers, where she is the chair of the visual arts program) from fighting the ongoing whitelash to the Obama years. In sum, the titles, article, and statement all negate the self-revelatory power of art. You can poison anything in five seconds, and such lack of awareness of that risk is simply irresponsible.

Perhaps Walker feels pressured to copy the work that her mentors, collectors, and dealers like in order to stay commercially successful — a common trap for famous artists. Overwhelmingly white elites have always dictated to one degree or another the look of “Black” art, despite having no right to tell her or anyone else what “Black” means. Her claim of not having answers makes no sense because, to put it metaphorically, art is a scene, not a sermon. Why create work that directly ties into the historical and social impact of racism, yet belittle our right to analyze how her art is a meaningful response to it? It’s manipulative and a contradiction in logic.

The coherent passages of Walker’s statement — like the line “groups of white (male) supremacist goons who flaunt … race purity with … impressive displays of perpetrator-as-victim sociopathy” — read like she was fearful of white supremacy’s ability to ignore her, while being oddly dismissive of the people who actually won’t. This contrast in treatment ignores the reality that her core audience needs her as a hero — though it doesn’t need her permission to anoint her as such — and will support her even when she can no longer stand up for herself.

If Walker is so tired of standing up, then she can just take a seat. Relax a little. Complaining about being a role model brings her attention, and I respect that hustle, but it’s becoming predictable and potentially destructive to artists of all colors who struggle alongside and look up to her. Instead, Walker can change her direction and justify it to us because, well, she can. She’s the most famous Black artist in America, so why not start acting like it? She’s well within her rights to just up and say: “Well, I’m going to paint happy little trees right now because this political climate is stressing me out and folks need to look at something beautiful for a change.” Either way, she’ll still get all the criticism and attention to which she’s grown accustomed.

Maybe promoting the idea of empowerment through self-care would be the most radical thing she could ever say. Instead, she stays silent by repeating what she’s always said before: she hates that she’s expected to say it and she can’t provide the meaning that people have always been able to provide for themselves. While she is busy painting herself as a martyr, somebody else is waiting to stand up in her place.

The post Dear Kara Walker: If You’re Tired of Standing Up, Please Sit Down appeared first on Hyperallergic.

from Hyperallergic http://ift.tt/2wgqCnL via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Hyperallergic

0 notes

brajeshupadhyay · 5 years ago

Quote

Article 164 (4) of the Indian Constitution clearly states that “A Minister (that include Chief Minister of the State) who for any period of six consecutive months is not a member of the Legislature of the State shall at the expiration of that period cease to be a Minister." Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, who took the oath of the office on 28 November 2019 has to become a member of either of the two houses of State Legislature -- Legislative Assembly or Legislative Council, by 28 May. An easy way for Thackeray would have been entering the legislature by getting “elected” to Legislative Council. But biennial polls to Legislative Council has been postponed due to coronavirus outbreak. Now, the other probable options available with Thackeray is to get “nominated” by the Governor to the Legislative Council. Article 171 of the Indian Constitution provides the manner in which the members to Legislative Council are elected. It states that (A) One-third shall be elected by electorates consisting of members of municipalities, district boards and such other local authorities in the state as Parliament may by law specify; (B) One-twelfth shall be elected by electorates consisting of persons residing in the State who have been for at least three years graduates of any university in the territory of India or have been for at least three years in possession of qualifications prescribed by or under any law made by Parliament as equivalent to that of a graduate of any such university; (C) as nearly as may be, one-twelfth shall be elected by electorates consisting of persons who have been for at least three years engaged in teaching in such educational institutions within the State, not lower in standard than that of a secondary school, as may be prescribed by or under any law made by Parliament; (D) as nearly as may be, one-third shall be elected by the members of the Legislative Assembly of the State from amongst persons who are not members of the Assembly; (E) the remainder shall be nominated by the Governor. The members to be nominated by the Governor shall consist of persons having special knowledge or practical experience in respect of such matters as the following, namely; Literature, science, art, cooperative movement, and social service. Thackeray does not directly fit into any of the criteria mentioned above. But social service has a wider scope and interpretation and he can be appointed from this field. Maharashtra Legislative Council has 78 members, which means 12 are appointed by the Governor. There are two vacancies due to resignations of NCP MLAs — Rahul Narvekar and Ramrao Wadkute — who joined the BJP before the Assembly polls last year. The Maharashtra cabinet has already written to Governor seeking Thackeray’s appointment at one of these two seats. But, here Section 151A in The Representation of the People Act, 1951 can create a major hurdle for Thackeray’s appointment. Section 151 A states that bye-election for filling any vacancy shall be held within a period of six months from the date of the occurrence of the vacancy: Provided that nothing contained in this section shall apply if—(a) the remainder of the term of a member in relation to a vacancy is less than one year, or (b) the Election Commission in consultation with the Central Government certifies that it is difficult to hold the bye-election within the said period. As the term of the two seats is to end in June, there is no compulsion upon the Governor to nominate someone on that seat for the remaining period of time. Another way for Thackeray to continue as Maharashtra chief minister is to resign and again takes the oath of the office. But, this shall face strict legal scrutiny. In landmark case named SR Chaudhuri v. State of Punjab an important question was raised that whether someone who fails to get elected during the period of six consecutive months after he is appointed as a minister be reappointed as a minister without being elected to the legislature. The Supreme Court held that the privilege to continue as a minister for six months without being an elected Member is only a one-time slot for the individual concerned during the term of the Legislative Assembly concerned. The judgment stated, “As already noticed Article 164(4) in terms provides only a disqualification or a restriction for a Minister, who for any period of six consecutive months, is not a Member of the Legislature of the State to continue as such. It expressly provides that he shall on the expiration of that period cease to be a Minister unless he gets elected during that period by direct or indirect election. We must also bear in mind that no right is conferred on the concerned non-member Minister even during the period of `six months', when he is permitted to continue in office, to vote in the House. The privilege to vote in the House is concerned only on Members of the House of the Legislature of a State (Article 189). It does not extend to non-elected ministers. He may address the house but he cannot vote as an MLA. None of the powers or privileges of an MLA extend to that individual. Though under Article 177, the individual shall have a right to speak and to otherwise take part in the proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, he does not carry with him the usual "free speech" legislative immunity as provided by Article 194(2). The individual cannot draw any of the benefits of an MLA without getting elected. All these disabilities also clearly go to suggest that `six consecutive months' in Article 164(4) cannot be permitted to be repeatedly used for the same individual without his getting elected in the meanwhile.” It added, “It would be too superficial to say that even though the individual Minister is a person who cannot even win an election by direct or indirect means, he should be permitted to continue as a Minister for a period beyond six months, without being elected at all and represent the electorate which has not even returned him. It would be subversive of the principle of representative Government and undemocratic. It would be a perversion of the Constitution and even a fraud on it.” Perhaps, Thackeray has understood that bypassing all these legal hurdles to continue in the office would not an easy task hence has sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention to sail through this constitutional crisis.

http://sansaartimes.blogspot.com/2020/04/uddhav-thackeray-must-overcome-multiple.html

#SEO #Local SEO training #daily news paper #daily news india #daily news newspaper #technology news a

0 notes