DIVE-IN – An International Journal on Diversity and Inclusion

La professionalizzazione dell’industria musicale araba indipendente: contro il paradigma della music of resistance

Fernanda Fischione — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100

This article aims to shed light on two aspects concerning the independent Arab record industry in the last ten years: on the one hand, the decline of the academic paradigm of music of resistance; on the other hand, the growing role played by a politics and a poetics of professionalism, embraced by all the categories operating in the music industry. The article reviews the most recent studies that have tried to deconstruct the paradigm of resistance as a predominant interpretative framework. It also recaps the century-old history of the recording industry in the Arab world, which has undergone radical material and symbolic transformations, taking part in the cultural and economic history of the region. Finally, the article tackles the issue of the professionalization of the independent Arab music industry, which musicians and workers of the music industry often see as an antidote to the obsolete rhetoric of resistance, and through which they seek to build a new notion of agency.

Arabo standard e ʿāmmiyya: esclusione e inclusione nei fumetti di ʿUmar Khūrī

Giulia Aiello — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Adult comics have developed in the Arab world as an independent literary genre and are often used as a tool for social criticism. Linguistically, this new cultural product tends to favor the use of the vernacular (‘āmmiyya) as a written variety instead of standard Arabic (Høigilt 2017a, Høigilt 2019, De Blasio 2020, inter alia). However, in the comic books Ṣālūn Ṭāriq al-Khurāfī (The salon of Ṭāriq al-Khurāfī) and in its prequel Yūtūbiā (Utopia), both by the Lebanese author ‘Umar Khūrī, standard Arabic, used by some characters instead of the vernacular, also finds a place. Therefore, starting from the definition of language as a marker of the identity and as a symbolic resource (Suleiman 2013), the aim of the study is to investigate the link between language variety and the identity of the different characters and to examine what social and political functions language is invested with within the fictional societies of these comics strips.

Documenting De-colonial Practices through Comics: Joe Sacco’s Paying the Land

Mattia Arioli — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Being a “cool medium” (McLuhan 1964) comics provide less sensory information and therefore demands more involvement and/or ‘completion’ by the reader/viewer. They ask for slowness, as the viewer has to recompose, understand, and question the existing relation between words and pictures. This mode of fruition contrasts with the rapid way we generally consume news (even though they might use a similar visual-verbal syntax). Their slowness help comics visualize the stories of those who have been ignored/neglected by the international arena and makes the reader witness human rights violation and abuses (Chute 2016). This paper aims to discuss how Joe Sacco’s Paying the Land (2020) (re)narrates the past and present relationship between Aboriginal people and (all) Canadians. This comics testifies to the existence of allied depictions (as Joe Sacco is not of Aboriginal descent and does not appropriate Indigenous stories) that aim to break (even controversially) the silence about past and present sufferings of the Dene peoples in Canada, but also shows forms of Indigenous activism and healing practices that aim to re-construct community ties.

I AM WHAT I AM: Manga, corpi e identità di genere

Paolo La Marca — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The main objective of this contribution is to analyze works that have dealt with the theme of gender identity – specifically the figure of josō no shōnen/otoko (boys/men in women’s clothes) – in a selection of works created by male manga artists and published on generalist magazines aimed at a male audience in a period between 1969 and 1976. Although comics for girls/women have always dealt with issues such as trans identity, gender dysphoria and gender identity, it is even more interesting to examine these same themes from a completely new and masculine perspective. I have selected works by Tatsumi Yoshihiro, Kamimura Kazuo, Sakaki Masaru etc., little known and almost never analyzed by critics. Precisely for this reason, therefore, these manga will be able to offer us a new – and probably completely unprecedented – dimension on extremely current issues such as inclusion and trans identity.

Representation of Male-Male Desire in Tachibana Sotoo’s Nanshoku Monogatari (1952)

Marco Taddei — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Tachibana Sotoo (1894–1959), a novelist unknown outside Japan and not widely read in Japan either, was among the writers who depicted various forms of nonheteronormative sexuality in his work. Best known for his ghost stories later adapted into films by director Nakagawa Nobuo (1905-1989), Tachibana also published Nanshoku Monogatari (A Tale of Male Love) in 1952. This novel, largely inspired by the author’s own experience, humorously recounts his crushes on his attractive classmates. The appreciation of teenage, androgynous beauty is central in this work where same-sex attraction is presented without moral judgment. The aim of this paper is to examine how Tachibana represents male-male desire in Nanshoku Monogatari and to investigate whether the novel challenged heteronormativity in post-war Japanese society. The novel will therefore also be analysed in relation to the homoerotic literature born in the Edo period (1603-1868) and later developed in pre-war modernist literature, in which romantic relationships between schoolboys were often depicted.

Rettifiche per un linguaggio inclusivo: i segni dell’uguaglianza e della diversità nella lingua coreana

Imsuk Jung — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100

This work aims to draw the attention to the main linguistic issues produced by Korean society and to propose a reflection on non-discriminatory language, which is increasingly moving to an inclusive direction towards any individual or social group, attributing equal dignity and visibility to all. This present research intends to proceed with the collection of a corpus of terms and phrases of the Korean language in the description of persons or groups of individuals who may encounter the risk of discrimination. This work is based on the surveys carried out by the SFWF (Seoul Foundation of Women Family), established in 2002, and units selected will be analyzed with the aim of proposing the correction of terms representing a patriarchal society and strongly male chauvinist. The reflections of these research, therefore, invite to take small steps to contribute to a broader social understanding of respect.

Inclusiveness Practices in Contemporary Feminist Narratives

Gohar Parissa Rahimi — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Feminisms have gained increasing visibility in the last decade, becoming part of public and media discourse in Western societies. The popularisation of gender discourses has been accompanied by the growing production of feminist guides, handbooks and manifestoes produced by journalists, influencers and celebrities to spread feminism among young women. Nevertheless, the actual articulations of feminist narratives are often intertwined with neoliberal postfeminist discourses on individualism that reinforce existing hierarchies of power. These narratives are opposed by others that question individualism and deconstruct existing power hierarchies. This paper explores the problematic outcomes of the feminist entanglement with neoliberalism, which result in the flattening of gender, race and class differences. Then, the neoliberal postfeminist dominant narrative is contrasted by and confronted with a critical analysis of two contemporary feminist manifestoes that, in different ways, oppose individualism and deconstruct existing power structures through intersectional inclusive practices.

L’architettura come pratica inclusiva: un progetto di connettività transculturale a Berlino

Irene Tuzi, Angela Fiorelli — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The project presented in this contribution is the synthesis of an interdisciplinary collaboration between architecture and sociology, as it stands as a design and programmatic verification of possible strategies of physical-spatial and socio-cultural interchange between different social groups. The paper invites a critical reflection on the concept of ‘integration’, starting from the diffuse inhabited space with particular attention to the role of public space in today’s society. In particular, the study explores the role of architecture in the creation of a model of social integration, presenting a project aimed at promoting inclusion in schools in Berlin. The research project presented is based on the concept of transculturalism, a cultural perspective broader than multiculturalism, which transcends the boundaries of ‘communities’ in favour of a single, broader society able to coexist according to common principles and values.

Introduzione. Interpretare e costruire mondi: pratiche inclusive a varie latitudini

Ines Peta, Francesco Vitucci — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100