Search results for ""Author Matthew Allen""

The keystone of U.S. security in East Asia, Okinawa is a troubled symbol of resistance and identity. Ambivalence about the nature of Okinawan identity lies behind relations between Japan, the United States, and Okinawa today. Fully one-fifth of Okinawa's land is occupied by a foreign military power (the United States), and Okinawans carry a disproportionate responsibility for Japanese and U.S. security in the region. It thus figures prominently in the re-examination of key questions such as the nature of Japan, including the debate over Japanese "purity" and the nature of Japanese colonialism. Yet underneath the rhetoric of the "Okinawa problem" lies a core question: who are Okinawans? In contrast to approaches that homogenize Okinawan cultural discourse, this perceptive historical ethnography draws attention to the range of cultural and social practices that exist within contemporary Okinawa. Matthew Allen's narrative problematizes both the location of identity and the processes involved in negotiating identities within Okinawa. Using the community on Kumejima as a focus, the author describes how people create and modify multitextured and overlapping identities over the course of their lives. Allen explores memory, locality and history; mental health and shamanism; and regionalism and tourism in his richly nuanced study. His chapter on the Battle of Okinawa, which opens the book, is a riveting, fresh analysis of the battle in history and memory. His analysis of yuta (shamans) opens new terrain in rethinking the relationship between the traditional and the modern. Based on fieldwork, interviews, and historical research, Allen argues that identity in Okinawa is multivocal, ambivalent, and still very much "under construction." With its interdisciplinary focus, anthropologists, sociologists, and historians alike will find this book an important source for understanding broad questions of identity formation in the contexts of national, ethnic, cultural, historical and economic experience.

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This book provides case studies from several higher education contexts to represent the diverse ways that L2 specialists can build up programs and courses that contribute to their institutions' internationalization by promoting language and cultural exchange. This volume contributes to emerging interdisciplinary conversations in higher education about how to refine internationalization in terms of praxis and how to coordinate curricular and pedagogical efforts to achieve meaningful learning outcomes for all students. The chapters provide suggestions for how L2 specialists can reframe their work in their individual programs to help internationalize the entire university in ways that lead to improved learning outcomes for students at different points in their degree programs, including: Orientation programs (early arrival on campus, before classes start) Language Center contexts (support during studies) Volunteer programs for International Teaching Assistants (ITA) and undergraduate students Graduate-level writing support structures Instructional design (virtual learning spaces) Virtual Partner programs (co-curricular) Intercultural composition (placement, interdisciplinary collaborations)

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