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View Rights PortalBy focusing on aid Central and Eastern Europe, the volume adds to the existent scholarly explorations of modern humanitarianism, its actors and practices. In the twentieth century, aid workers assisted victims of war and earthquakes, delivered food, supported health care, provided childcare, or sheltered refugees. The contributors not only reconstruct these diverse histories and their protagonists, but also bring international, national, and local actors together: from grassroots activists to private associations to state-driven "socialist humanitarians" to large Western aid organizations. In doing so, they challenge the often unidirectional, from West-to-East, and asymmetrical perspective on donor-recipient relationships in humanitarian processes.
In the wake of 9/11, the Asian crisis and the 2004 tsunami, traditional analytical frameworks are increasingly unable to explain how individuals and communities are rendered insecure, or advance individual, global or environmental security. In the Asia-Pacific, the accepted wisdom of realism has meant that analyses rarely move beyond the statist, militarist and exclusionary assumptions that underpin traditional realpolitik. This innovative new book challenges these limitations and addresses the missing problems, people and vulnerabilities of the Asia-Pacific region. It also turns a critical eye on traditional interstate strategic dynamics. Critical security in the Asia-Pacific applies both a critical theoretical approach that interrogates the deeper assumptions underpinning security discourses, and a human-centred policy approach that focuses on the security, welfare and emancipation of individuals and communities. Leading Asia-Pacific researchers combine to apply these frameworks to the most pressing issues in the region, from the Korean peninsula to environmental change, Indonesian conflict, the 'war on terror' and the plight of refugees. The result is a sophisticated and accessible account of often-neglected realities of marginalization in the region, and a compelling argument for the empowerment and security of the most vulnerable.
With original case studies of a more than a dozen countries, Monarchies and decolonisation in Asia offers new perspectives on how both European monarchs who reigned over Asian colonies and Asian royal houses adapted to decolonisation. As colonies became independent states (and European countries, and other colonial powers, lost their overseas empires), monarchies faced the challenges of decolonisation, republicanism and radicalism. These studies place dynasties - both European and 'native' - at the centre of debate about decolonisation and the form of government of new states, from the sovereigns of Britain, the Netherlands and Japan to the maharajas of India, the sultans of the East Indies and the 'white rajahs' of Sarawak. It provides new understanding of the history of decolonisation and of the history of modern monarchy.
This anthology, presenting new research from fourteen scholars, delves into the interplay between contemporary art and ecological concerns in East and Southeast Asia. Focused on the concept of artistic remediation, the book unravels the diverse capacities of art to combat systemic anthropogenic destruction to the environment and ecology. At its core, the book articulates the ongoing ecological transformation in art and art history that embraces a paradigm shift in human-nature relationships, emphasizing interconnectedness of all life forms of the Earth. Bridging art studies, activism, and environmental studies, the book examines how artistic practices in the region have engaged with ecocritical reflection, biodiversity advocacy, sustainable practices, and environmental justice, among others. Providing a platform for critical and timely analysis of artistic interventions in the face of existential crises, the book acknowledges diverse voices of scholars who have situated their scholarship in the cultural and artistic specificities of various societies, locales, and communities in the region.
In the Western cultural production that puts individual or collective fear at its center, East/Central Europe has been portrayed as an othered space of horror - lawless, frightening zones where anything can happen. Incorporating articles on literature, film, visual arts, video games, music videos, and music festivals, Contemporary Slavic horror across media: Cursed zones is a pioneering anthology of academic essays devoted to Slavic horror fiction. The book focuses on works from the mid-20th century through the present, particularly the post-Soviet period. Assessing current trends in Czech, Polish, Russian, Slovak, Ukrainian, and East/Central European horror media, the book looks at similarities and idiosyncrasies of the genre in its Slavic variant. With this anthology we hope to tame 'the Easterner Other' and start exorcising 'monstrous' East/Central Europe.
This volume foregrounds racial difference as a key to an alternative history of the Central and Eastern European region, which revolves around the role of whiteness as the unacknowledged foundation of semi-peripheral nation-states and national identities, and of the region's current status as a global stronghold of unapologetic white, Christian nationalisms. Contributions address the pivotal role of whiteness in international diplomacy, geographical exploration, media cultures, music, intellectual discourses, academic theories, everyday language and banal nationalism's many avenues of expressions. The book offers new paradigms for understanding the relationships among racial capitalism, populism, economic peripherality and race.
This important book reassesses a defining historical, political and ideological moment in contemporary history: the 1989 revolutions in central and eastern Europe. Adopting a multi-disciplinary approach, the authors reconsider such crucial themes as the broader historical significance of the 1989 events, the complex interaction between external and internal factors in the origins and outcomes of the revolutions, the impact of the 'Gorbachev phenomenon', the West and the end of the Cold War, the political and socio-economic determinants of the revolutionary processes in Poland, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, and the competing academic, cultural and ideological perceptions of the year 1989 as communism gave way to post-communist pluralism in the 1990s and beyond. Concluding that the contentious term 'revolution' is indeed apt for the momentous developments in eastern Europe in 1989, this book will be essential reading for undergraduates, postgraduates and specialists alike. ;
Any reader who has ever visited Asia knows that the great bulk of Western-language fiction about Asian cultures turns on stereotypes. This book, a collection of essays, explores the problem of entering Asian societies through Western fiction, since this is the major port of entry for most school children, university students and most adults. In the thirteenth century, serious attempts were made to understand Asian literature for its own sake. Hau Kioou Choaan, a typical Chinese novel, was quite different from the wild and magical pseudo-Oriental tales. European perceptions of the Muslim world are centuries old, originating in medieval Christendom's encounter with Islam in the age of the Crusades. There is explicit and sustained criticism of medieval mores and values in Scott's novels set in the Middle Ages, and this is to be true of much English-language historical fiction of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Even mediocre novels take on momentary importance because of the pervasive power of India. The awesome, remote and inaccessible Himalayas inevitably became for Western writers an idealised setting for novels of magic, romance and high adventure, and for travellers' tales that read like fiction. Chinese fictions flourish in many guises. Most contemporary Hong Kong fiction reinforced corrupt mandarins, barbaric punishments and heathens. Of the novels about Japan published after 1945, two may serve to frame a discussion of Japanese behaviour as it could be observed (or imagined) by prisoners of war: Black Fountains and Three Bamboos.
Borders and conflict in South Asia is the first full-length study of the 1947 drawing of the Indo-Pakistani boundary in Punjab. Using the Radcliffe commission as a window onto the decolonization and independence of India and Pakistan, and examining the competing interests, both internal and international, that influenced the actions of the various major players, it highlights British efforts to maintain a grip on India even as the decolonization process spun out of control. Drawing on extensive archival research in India, Pakistan, and Britain, combined with innovative use of cartographic sources, the book paints a vivid picture of both the partition process and the Radcliffe line's impact on Punjab. This book will be vital reading for scholars and students of colonialism, decolonization, partition, and borderlands studies, while providing anyone interested in South Asia's independence with a highly readable account of one of its most controversial episodes.