Team Arab: al‐Jazeera and the flagging of everyday Arabism during the 2008 Beijing Olympics

The linking of living rooms across state borders by al‐Jazeera and other pan‐Arab satellite television channels has prompted claims that a ‘new Arabism’ that undermines state nationalism is emerging. Until now, analysts have mostly focused on the ‘hot’ Arabism in the news coverage of politicised events such as the Israel–Palestine conflict. This article offers a new dimension by suggesting that as important to satellite television's construction and reproduction of Arab identity is the everyday discourse found in less overtly political programmes such as sport. To demonstrate this, it offers an analysis of al‐Jazeera's coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics showing how the broadcasts address viewers as a common Arab audience who are simultaneously encouraged to be nationalistic towards their separate nation‐states within a given ‘Arab arena’ of states with whom they should primarily compete. This suggests that new Arabism should in fact be considered a ‘supranationalism’, not a revived Arab nationalism as it simultaneously promotes Arab and state identities in tandem. Finally, it aims to expand our understanding of ‘everyday nationalism’ by adapting Michael Billig's theory and methodology of ‘banal nationalism’ in British newspapers to facilitate the study of sport on supranational Arab identity on satellite television.     

An outline of Alan Wilson’s philosophy of knowledge,with special attention given to the importance of interdisciplinarity and its role in undergraduate education

ABSTRACT

This article explores two ideas due to Alan Wilson: superconcepts and enabling disciplines. These ideas emerge from Wilson’s philosophy of knowledge and, in particular, from his thinking on interdisciplinarity. Both ideas are described, analysed and developed in the context of their wider importance in interdisciplinary undergraduate education and their implementation on the Arts and Sciences BASc at UCL. Some suggestions for future developments of these ideas at the proposed new university at the London Interdisciplinary School are offered.     

The construction of a ‘narrative’ in Australian federal budget speeches, 1996–2013

Given the significance of annual budgetary decisions in both fiscal terms and policy reach, the annual federal budget speech has a distinctive place in Australia's parliamentary cycle. The speeches afford a government a significant opportunity to articulate its economic policy agenda and to contrast its agenda with that of its predecessors or the Opposition. This article reviews the budget speeches of two Treasurers, Peter Costello (Liberal, 1996–2007) and Wayne Swan (Labor, 2008–13), and compares them with respect to how they used the budget speech to position their parties and their governments. Costello's speeches are singular, consistent and highly partisan. Swan eschewed the ‘ad hominem’ argument favoured by Costello, but failed to project an alternative, consistent narrative of his government's agenda and achievements.

年预算无论是财政上还是政策上都至关重要,因此年度联邦预算讲话在澳大利亚的国会程序中有着特殊的位置。这个讲话为政府提供了阐述其经济政策并比较其前任或反对党经济政策的机会。本文研究了两任财长即彼得考斯特罗（自由党,1996-2007）和怀恩斯万（工党,2008-13）的讲话,比较了两人如何利用预算讲话阐明其政党和政府的立场。考氏的讲话不同凡响、一以贯之,具有鲜明的党派倾向。斯万不像考氏那样个人风格,但他没能就其政府的议题和成就拿出一个别样、连贯的讲述。     

对我国新时期利益群体矛盾的动态分析

本文通过阐述我国新时期利益群体矛盾的表现形式,动态地分析了利益群体矛盾的成因,提出了正确处理新时期利益群体矛盾的指导思想、原则和对策。     

Constructions of Australia in pro‐ and anti‐asylum seeker political discourse

ABSTRACT. Whilst there has been a proliferation of research on the role of nationalism in the exclusion of asylum seekers, less attention has been paid to how nationalism can be mobilised in accounts opposing, rather than supporting, harsh anti‐asylum seeker regimes. This paper compares the ways in which ‘Australia’ is constructed and used in parliamentary speeches on asylum seekers by both refugee advocates and those seeking harsher asylum seeker laws in Australia. This dual focus is particularly important as it highlights the flexibility of nationalist discourse, in that the same constructions of the nation may be used for both exclusive and inclusive purposes. Whilst typologies of inclusive and exclusive nationalisms, such as Smith's (1991) ethnic/civic typology, focus on the content of nationalist ideologies, we argue that the inclusivity or exclusivity of nationalism can best be determined by examining the subject positions, political solutions and social realities they make possible, and who these discourses benefit and oppress.     

早期中国共产党人关于义和团运动的话语分析

中共成立以前的政治派别与社会集团,多贬斥、诋毁义和团,通过论说义和团来实现某种政治目的与社会意图.早期中国共产党人运用马克思主义的知识学和话语系统,对义和团运动的起因、性质、失败原因、历史地位进行了系统论说,推倒了强加在义和团头上的诬蔑之词,从民族解放运动角度给予义和团运动以高度评价,强化了民众对于中国革命性质、对象、动力与任务的共同认识,以积极参加反帝反封建的革命斗争.早期中国共产党人论说义和团运动的话语框架为后来的共产党人所继承.这种话语体系的根本转换不是对义和团运动简单意义上的重新评说,而是从一个侧面反映了中国共产党进行舆论动员、构造集体认同的过程.     

'As solid as the Rock'? Place, belonging and the local appropriation of imperial discourse in Gibraltar

Although imperialism is firmly on the geographical agenda at present, rarely does the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar feature, even though it is the only remaining formal colony in Europe. Seized in 1704, Gibraltar has come to stand as a symbol of British imperial resilience, a status encapsulated by the phrase 'as solid as the Rock'. The paper explores how such a place-based imperial discourse has served to marginalize the civilian population and yet, paradoxically, has been appropriated locally to articulate a distinctive sense of belonging. More generally, the paper considers how a surviving colony such as Gibraltar, with its apparently loyal population, complicates postcolonial categories, periodizations and assumptions.     

Family photographs and domestic spacings: a case study

This paper elaborates the argument that domestic space should be considered as the product of relations that extend beyond the home. It examines one common domestic object – family photographs – and explores how the particularity of this photography and the specificity of its display by white middle-class mothers with young children in South-east England produce just such an extended domestic space. The stretched space co-produced by these mothers and photographs is also a form of stretched time, and it is integrative in complex ways; it contains different kinds of absences which disturb but do not break its cohesion. The paper also discusses why the display of family photographs is done almost exclusively by women.     

American Images of Canada: Canadian Muslims in US Newspapers, 1999–2014

How do American news media portray Canadian Muslims? Using a sample of 386 discrete newspaper articles published between January 1, 1999, and December 31, 2014, in The Buffalo News, Tampa Bay Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and USA Today, this article investigates the portrayal of Canadian Muslims in these publications through a combination of content and discourse analyses. Three findings stand out: first, the overall tone of the coverage was neutral or ambiguous rather than either systematically positive or systematically negative; second, a tendency to construct Muslims as social outsiders was common even in articles coded as positive; third, the Canadian Muslim experience was viewed through the prism of discourses on American exceptionalism, and above all the idea that assimilation always trumps multiculturalism.     

Commissioned Citizenship: The Evolution of Pedagogical Citizen Construction in Canada, 1947–1994

One of the most influential tools that the state wields in developing citizenship is public education. The 19 royal commissions and major reports on education completed in provinces across Canada between 1947 and 1994 offer valuable insight into what the Canadian state conceives as ideal citizenship. The following work attempts to answer two research questions: (1) When do provincial governments desire to change the direction of education (and construction of citizens)?; and (2) How do provincial governments define the ideal citizen once reform is initiated? This essay finds that through three eras of reform, the pedagogical focus on citizenship moved from the individual to the community to a diluted form with no unifying vision. The sum of these attempts at change and conceptions of ideal citizenry leads one further from an accepted meaning of the continually elusive notion of Canadian citizenship.