"They call me the plantation negro"

A few years back I was asked to look into traditional Caribbean song texts - the main research question being whether and to what extent these would show a different sexual morality. While analyzing these songs I found it hard to interpret the sometimes shocking racism of popular and apparently uncontroversial songs.

In particular:
"They call me the plantation negro,
for work to me is an enemy.
I leave working to the ox,
for God created work as a punishment".
(A mí me llaman el negrito del batey, / porque el trabajo para mí es un enemigo. / El trabajar yo se lo dejo todo al buey, / porque el trabajo lo hizo Dios como castigo).

The history of these songs led me to the following explanation:

Public administrations as corrupt welfare systems

Why is it harder in some countries to cut back on their administrative bodies, normally in multiple layers, than on other public services that, at least at first sight, seem at least as important - say, education or health care? I believe these administrations historically have a different function. While the authoritarian dictatorships of Southern Europe failed to build welfare states, they did create corrupt substitutes through the control, assignment and withdrawal of civil servant positions. Now that Southern European democracies still have very limited social systems, political parties continue to rely on handing out public jobs to their supporters.

This is a corrupt alternative for the northern welfare states, and with no democratic protection against poverty in place, it is hard to see how this vicious circle of clientelism can be broken.

“Look out for that big ant just north of your foot.”

Does Your Language Shape How You Think? Interesting article by Guy Deutscher in the New York Times (summary of his forthcoming book Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages), discussing teories that relate language with ways of thinking.

Deutscher distantiates himself from the Whorf theory giving language absolute supremacy over thinking and quotes Roman Jakobson stating that “Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.” Gender difference is an example: while French and German oblige their speakers to explicitly distinguish male and female friends, English doesn't; but on the other hand it does not stop its speakers from making that distinction if they wish to do so. Research even hints at the possibility that linguistic gender distinctions determine emotional connotations: Spanish speakers deemed bridges, clocks and violins to have more “manly properties” like strength, but Germans tended to think of them as more slender or elegant.

The most surprising examples relate to how languages refer to space: whereas most languages use both egocentric coordinates (left, right of where I am standing), and geographic directions (north, south, east, west), there are languages that only use the latter type of directions. Speakers of the aboriginal Australian Guugu Yimithirr will therefore say, for instance: “I left it on the southern edge of the western table,” or “Look out for that big ant just north of your foot.” Such references are a clear sign of a different awareness of space.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html.

Dostoyevski Murals too grim

Pictures of the new Dostoyevski murals in the new Moscow metro station. As many other stations, it looks impressive and somewhat intimidating. I hope we actually get to see the greyscale marbles, in spite of the fear of side-effects.

According to the Moscow Times, the opening of the new Dostoyevskaya station in the Moscow metro was cancelled over fears that the grim murals may lead to suicides. The controversy started after pictures of the construction site (including the murals) were published on a blog at http://d0cent.livejournal.com/124730.html:

Come on, kids, there is the garbage truck!

A cross-cultural experience in Taiwan.

A happy melody sounds through the streets, kids come running out of their houses. In stead of coins for the ice-cream vendor they hold garbage bags.

Working Internationally: the W-Curve

Reflection on the W-Curve of students during exchanges and traineeships abroad

The so-called W-curve is a known phenomenon in literature on expat experiences. Originally it was thought of as a V, reflecting the deep crisis people may go through at the start of their international experience. It turned into a double-U when researchers realised that this crisis would repeat when expats went home after a prolonged stay abroad.

That the W is a reality is something that I have not only experienced for myself; I have tutored many Ws over the years, mainly with Dutch students. The last few years, working with Spanish students, I have noticed a differently shaped, assymetric W though. The homesickness crisis being more profound, home (family) support will not seek to help the individual overcome the crisis, but will exercise pressure to avoid it alltogether by cancelling the international experience.

This can be interpreted as a consequence of the Individualism-Collectivism dimension. Education is not the start of an individual venture, but a socialization aimed at providing the community member with a set of commonly recognizable experiences, and the documents to prove it.

This may be an element that seriously affects both the individual's and the community's competitiveness. I believe we as educators should insist on the development of personal autonomy through international experiences.