This article uses Tribal Critical Race Theory (TribalCrit) and human rights education (HRE) to frame social studies instruction about the Ghost Dance movement of the late 1800s…
Abstract
Purpose
This article uses Tribal Critical Race Theory (TribalCrit) and human rights education (HRE) to frame social studies instruction about the Ghost Dance movement of the late 1800s. This religious ritual served as a source of spiritual communion for Native Americans across the Western United States during an especially brutal era of colonization, most tragically exemplified by the Wounded Knee Massacre. The critical approaches offered are meant to challenge dominant narratives that often neglect or minimize colonialism and White supremacy.
Design/methodology/approach
TribalCrit is useful in framing acts of racism and genocide faced by Indigenous people in American history and can help teachers approach issues of social justice in a way that identifies oppression, while also promoting empathy and advocacy (Brayboy, 2005; Sabzalian et al., 2021). Furthermore, human rights concepts can support a critical interrogation of colonialism by providing a framework that guides analysis of multidimensional oppression (Bajaj, 2011).
Findings
The pedagogical approaches included in this article link the historical context of these events to tenets of TribalCrit and HRE. These strategies are explicitly connected to the National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies and the C3 Framework. A lesson plan and enrichment sources, linked to the C3 Inquiry Design Model, are provided.
Originality/value
The Ghost Dance is a powerful illustration of spiritual resistance to colonial policies and ideologies in the United States, such as the Dawes Act and Christian nationalism. An examination of this important religious movement through the critical lenses offered here may build empathy, support justice-oriented citizenship and decolonize curriculum.
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Rungpaka Amy Hackley and Chris Hackley
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of Asian consumer culture by exploring how hungry ghost death ritual in the Buddhist world reconciles…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of Asian consumer culture by exploring how hungry ghost death ritual in the Buddhist world reconciles spiritual asceticism and materialism.
Design/methodology/approach
This is an interpretive study that incorporates elements of visual semiotics, ethnography and qualitative data analysis. The native-speaking first author interviewed local ritual leaders of the Pee Ta Khon festival in Dansai, Thailand, while both authors witnessed examples of other Buddhist death rituals in Thailand and visited temples and markets selling death ritual paraphernalia. Data include translated semi-structured interview transcripts, field notes, photographs and videos, the personal introspection of the first author and also news articles and website information.
Findings
The paper reveals how hungry ghost death ritual resolves cultural contradictions by connecting materialism and spirituality through consumption practices of carnival celebration with feasting, music, drinking, costumes and spirit offerings of symbols of material wealth, such as paper money and branded goods.
Research limitations/implications
Further research in the form of full ethnographic studies of the same and other rituals would add additional detail and depth to the understanding of the ritual in Asian consumer culture.
Originality/value
The paper extends existing qualitative consumer research into death ritual into a new area and sheds light on the way managers must locate Asian marketing initiatives within distinctively local contexts.
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Purpose – Role-taking refusal was a foundational problem in Mead's work but was ignored by subsequent interactionists who focused on the benefits of role-taking – empathy and…
Abstract
Purpose – Role-taking refusal was a foundational problem in Mead's work but was ignored by subsequent interactionists who focused on the benefits of role-taking – empathy and solidarity – but failed to examine how they are destroyed or crippled from emerging as inclusionary aspects of social consciousness. Role-taking refusal constitutes both the microfoundation of dehumanization in the case of the oppressor and, in the case of the oppressed, the microfoundation of resistance. Role-taking refusal is linked to Giddens's notion of the reflective project of the self, Omi and Winant's racial formation theory, Feagin's theory of systemic racism, and the perspective of Critical Race Theory.
Methodology – I shall portray role-taking refusal by using historical, theoretical, and empirical works, especially ethnographic studies.
Social implications – The oppressed know the image their oppressors have of them. Refusing to internalize this image is the first step – the microfoundation – of resistance. Role-taking refusal in the oppressed fosters critical consciousness, which, if solidarity with others is formed, can lead to collective action and, possibly, permanent institutional change.
Originality – “The superiority delusion” is the paradigmatic ideology of all oppressors, deployed to justify their power, privilege, and prestige. This delusion is maintained by the microfoundation of dehumanization, which is a systematic refusal to role-take from those over whom oppressors oppress. All other ideologies that justify oppression are derived from some form of “the superiority delusion,” identifying for the first time role-taking refusal as paradoxically both the original sin of social relations and the foundation of social resistance.
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In my book, Rural Rebels, I examined the nature of two protest movements in Kenya and discussed their determinants. Here I will attempt a more general explanation of protest…
Abstract
In my book, Rural Rebels, I examined the nature of two protest movements in Kenya and discussed their determinants. Here I will attempt a more general explanation of protest movements in colonial Kenya addressing the question of why they clustered among certain tribes and in certain areas and not in others. The fact that movements were not randomly distributed throughout the country but clustered, suggests that any explanation of causation that focuses merely on culture contact, or on colonialism or one of its aspects, is inadequate because these are not sufficient causes in themselves. The questions that need to be answered are, under what conditions does colonialism or culture contact lead to the occurrence of protest movements? Any adequate explanation should be able to account for their appearance in one area, and absence in another, within a particular country. Secondly, within tribes and particular areas, what are some of the factors involved in support for, and opposition to, colonialism? Third, why was the protest movement such a common response? The following analysis tries to answer these questions, however tentatively.
Previous research on classroom uses for political cartoons identified two negative trends: creative stagnation (as teachers utilized them solely for interpretation) and age…
Abstract
Previous research on classroom uses for political cartoons identified two negative trends: creative stagnation (as teachers utilized them solely for interpretation) and age limitation (as researchers suggested they fit best with gifted and older students). Recent scholarship has addressed both trends by enabling young adolescent students to creatively express newly generated understandings through construction of original political cartoons. During such authentic assessment activities, students demonstrated high levels of criticality by using effective and efficient technologies to create original political cartoons, which then elicited constructive whole class interpretative discussions. This prior research did not detail specific methodological steps that positively influenced students’ original political cartoons. This paper compares students’ original political cartoons generated from two methodological approaches that differ in two small, yet consequential steps. One teacher required students to utilize concept maps and substitution lists prior to original political cartoon construction while the other did not. Based on the collected data, these two steps enabled the former teacher’s students to more effectively incorporate intricate and complex encoded messages through the use of abstract symbolism and complementary textual statements. The findings prove meaningful for teachers and researchers interested in enabling students’ creative and critical expressions of historical thinking.
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Stephen Little, Len Holmes and Margaret Grieco
Both critics and proponents of globalisation tend to assume that it is a uniform process leading to a flattening of the cultural terrain. In contrast, this paper, using examples…
Abstract
Both critics and proponents of globalisation tend to assume that it is a uniform process leading to a flattening of the cultural terrain. In contrast, this paper, using examples from Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan and Canada, demonstrates a more complex interaction between traditional cultural practices and modern communication forms. The new information technologies enable universal access to authentic local voice. Archiving social and cultural practices has historically been the business of museums, universities, and indeed oral traditions of song and poetry. New information technologies provide for cultural continuities and reflexivities: they enable the routine archiving of social and cultural practice at a minimal cost through hypertext, Web pages and universal access. The “globalisation of culture”, so often discussed, needs to be reframed with reference to this highly overlooked indigenous capability to archive own culture. This paper attempts to provide such a reframing.