This photo essay looks at how perceptions of refugees change through the medium of food. Theories of nation branding and gastrodiplomacy are creatively applied to understand how this change takes place.
This photo essay looks at the life and death of Cecil the lion, who lived in Zimbabwe. The essay observes the oriental gaze of the west towards Africa that affects nation branding and global stigmatisation through the phenomenon of trophy hunting.
1 Picture 1 : Carylsue, “Cecil the Lion,” National Geographic Education Blog, May 4, 2016, https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2016/05/04/drought-forces-zimbabwe-to-sell-animals/cecil_the_lion/. Picture 2 : Ashifa Kassam and Jessica Glenza, “Killer of Cecil the Lion Was Dentist from Minnesota, Claim Zimbabwe Officials,” July 28, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/28/killer-of-cecil-the-lion-was-american-zimbabwe-officials-claim. 2 Garikai Chimuka, “Western Hysteria over Killing of Cecil the Lion! Othering from the Zimbabwean Gaze,” …
Footnotes for The Lion, The West, and the Oriental Globe Read More »
“If the West wants to alleviate the suffering of the Rohingya, it has to stop looking for actors who will act against their own political interests. In other words, the West has to stop looking for heroes, for there are none.”
“The refusal by Aung San Suu Kyi to take a firm stance on the (Rohnigya) issue exasperated and baffled the UN rapporteur and Western observers alike. In fact, as the international pressure mounted on her, the few comments she made reflected the viewpoints of the Bamar people, the dominant ethnic group in Myanmar, instead. The question arises why did a prominent human rights icon refuse to condemn the army-sponsored abuse? How did we get to this situation? And what can we do about it?”
“It was only when the Soviet Union declared its intention to launch Sputnik as part of its contribution to the IGY, that the global event became a political battleground for the two adversaries of the Cold War.”
“…the difference in response to the virus between the two former Soviet republics can be attributed to the polarity between their idea of state identity.”
“The gender binary is policed through the operation of an invisibilized power where it is least apparent – in the ‘everyday’.” “Macro level concerns such as sovereignty and militarized security are steeped in these micro level ‘domestic’ politics – and the politics associated with going to the washroom, thus, become extremely pertinent.”
“…white guilt often originates from a sense of empathy, one that discerns racism as an experience outside of oneself, exclusive to people of colour. The word ‘ally’ accentuates the same detachment, envisioning the white liberal outside of an all-encompassing system. As if, they are oblivious to and unaffected by a society built on enslavement of racialised hopes, ambitions, desires and bodies. As if, all of this is not their problem. Rather, white liberals are almost convinced that they are the problem.”
