Journal Project

I am suppose to make a collage journal using more than 15 words from the following list. I love these kinds of projects, and I have done them before for lesiure, not school work. I will take a journal book, decorate it (Crossing Borders {name of class}) and each page will have one word and on that page, I can write, draw, color, paste pictures, information, poems, research, basically anything related to that word. I got into a graphic design because of projects like this that I use to do on my own, where all different tools and mediums are used to present a message.



Choose at least 15 words from the list below for your Crossing Borders Terminology Project Journal for the semester. Explore the terms you choose and interpret them personally. How do they refer to YOUR life experience? Find a way to visualize your interpretations of the terms you choose. You may draw, paint, collage, montage, frottage, collect, glue, write, and, if you would like, use the computer and operate within programs like Photoshop. In the end (on the day it is due) you will need to hand in your pieces in a "book" form. The book can be handmade, a notebook, a purchased journal or a 3-ring binder, whatever you want to put your "collection" in that is some kind of a book form, a box could even operation as a "book.".


Alterity - the concept of "otherness" - this word is required to be your first word in your "journal" books. The rest of the words are your choice. You must have at least 15 words in your book. You can have more . . . but not less.
Agency - the ability to act or perform an action. This concept is tied to the idea of an empowered individual who has the freedom and ability to initiate action - specifically in post-colonial theory to "resist" the dominating culture.
Ambivalence - a continual fluctuation between wanting one thing and wanting its opposite. In colonial discourse it generally refers to the simultaneous attraction of the colonized toward the dominating culture (Western Culture) and the repulsion or "resistance" against the dominating culture.
Apartheid - Afrikaans term meaning "separation" - and generally refers to the segregation or separation of races within a culture.
Appropriation - A term used to describe the ways in which post-colonial societies take over those aspects of the imperial culture - language, forms of writing, film, theatre, even modes of thought and argument such as rationalism, logic and analysis - that may be of use to them in articulating their own social and cultural identities. Post-Colonial theory focuses on an exploration of the ways in which the dominated or colonized culture can use tools of the dominant discourse to resist its political or cultural control.
Binarism - literally a combination of two things, but this concept in colonial discourse is usually about binary opposition. That is, black/white, man/woman, birth/death - each of these oppositions refer to a binary system. There are many uses and abuses of binarism.
Cannibal - this is a specific form of resistance to the dominating culture in which the participants "devour" the dominating culture and transform it through that process into something original.
Cartography (maps and mapping) - Both literally and metaphorically, maps and mapping are dominant practices of colonial and post-colonial cutures. The very practice of Colonialization itself is most often a result of a voyage of "discovery," a bringing into being of "undiscovered" lands. The process of discovery is reinforced bythe construction of maps, whose existence is a means of textualizing the spatial reality of the "other," naming, or in almost all cases renaming spaces in a symbolic and literal act of mastery and control. In all cases the lands so colonized are literally reinscribed, written over, as the names and languages of the indigenous people of the so called "discovered" land are replaced by new names, or are corrupted into new and Europeanized forms by the cartographer and explorer.
Catalysis - the process of racial change and racial mixing in New World societies. This is an idea that opposes that of racial purity often connected with Old World cultures and societies.
Center/Margin (periphery) - the center is the position of power while those who are not in power are pushed to the "margin" or the "periphery" - there can be questions regarding the power of being in the margin. The thinker Foucault, for instance, says that being on the outside of traditional culture can offer certain freedoms that cannot be allowed within the traditional or "center" culture. There is also the idea of "de-centering" the traditional culture - this is for the marginalized other to claim the position of power at the center of discourse.
Chromatism - having to do with color. In colonial theory it refers to the act of distinguishing between people on the basis of color. This is comparable to the term "genitalism" which refers to the difference between men and women based on obvious biological distinctions. The simplification and stereotyping of Chromatism belies the complexity of cultural identity. For example, for the entire Asian cultural diversity both original and diasporic to be reduced to yellow people, or the vast complex of African cultures both original and diasporic to be reduced to black people.
Civil Rights - Rights belonging to a person by reason of U.S. citizenship including especially the fundamental freedoms and privileges guaranteed by the 13 th and 14 th amendments to the U.S. Constitution and subsequent acts of Congress including the right to legal and social and economic equality.
Colonial Discourse - Thisis a term brought into currency by Edward Said who saw Foucault's notion of a discourse as valuable for describing that system within which that range of practices termed "colonial" come into being. Said's Orientalism, which examined the ways in which colonial discourse operated as an instrument of power, initiated what came to be known as colonial discourse theory. Discourse, as Foucault theorizes it, is a system of statement within which the world can be known. It is the system by which dominant groups in society constitute the field of truth by imposing specific knowledge, disciplines and values upon dominated groups. Colonial discourse tends to exclude statements about the exploitation of the resources of the colonized, the political status accruing to colonizing powers, the importance to domestic politics of the development of an empire, all of which may be compelling reasons for maintaining colonial ties.
Colonialism - A specific form of expansion that occurred over the last 400 years.
Context - The part of a text or statement that surrounds a particular word or passage and determines its meaning. The circumstances in which an event occurs; a setting.
Creolization - The process of intermixing and cultural change that produced a Creole society. While the creolization processes might be argued to be going on throughout the world, the term has usually been applied to "new world" societies (particularly the Caribbean and South America) and more loosely to those post-colonial societies whose present ethnically or racially mixed populations are a product of European colonization.
Cultural Diversity/Cultural Difference - the mixing of various cultures or a reference to the variety of cultures in a given situation. As in a class at the Academy of Art College being culturally diverse, in that there are a variety of cultures represented by the students present.
Culture - A very contested word, indeed. But for now we can think of it as the behaviors, relationships, arts, beliefs, institutions and all other products of human thought and work, which are a result and expression of a particular group, community, or population.
Dependency Theory - this concept references the relationship between the dominating culture and the colonized people in which the "Third World" peoples are kept at a low level of subsistence so that they will always be "dependent" upon the dominant culture. This idea opposed the notion that these poor countries are at a low stage in their development and suggests that the dominant culture "requires" these Third World states to remain at low levels of development because "First World" culture is actually "dependent" upon Third World labor and resources for its survival.
Diaspora - literally "scattering" - this term refers to the geographic dispersion of a people from their place of origin, as in the Jewish Diaspora in which the Jewish homeland of Israel was taken from then and they were "scattered" - that is they fled to other nations. Or consider the African Diaspora in which African peoples were sold into slavery throughout the West and therefore "scattered" from their homelands.
Discourse - any kind of speaking, talk, or conversation - in the arena of social theory or in the sense of "post-colonial discourse" - it references the complex of signs and practices which organized social existence and social reproduction.
Dislocation - the occasion of displacement that occurs as a result of imperial occupation and the experiences associated with this event. The phenomenon may be a result of transportation from one country to another by slavery or imprisonment, by invasion and settlement, a consequence of willing or unwilling movement from a known to an unknown location. An example of this would be that many of you may have left "Home" to be here in a new and strange, unknown place and are experiencing a sense of "dislocation." The feeling of dislocation is tied to feelings of being lost, uncomfortable, uneasy - like finding yourself in a strange place without a MAP).
Ecological Imperialism - a term to describe the ways in which the environments of colonized societies have been physically transformed by the experience of colonial occupation. According to this thesis, imperialism not only altered the cultural, political and social structures of colonized societies, but also devastated colonial ecologies and traditional subsistence patterns.
Essentialism - The assumption that groups, categories or classes of objects have one or several defining features exclusive to all members of that category. When this term is used in feminist discourse, it refers to the potentiality of confining women to their biological identity.
Ethnicity - Used to describe or to account for human variation in terms of culture, tradition, language, social patterns and ancestry, rather than the discredited generalizations of "race" with its assumption of a humanity divided into fixed, genetically determined biological types. Ethnicity refers to the fusion of many traits that belong to the nature of any ethnic group: a composite of shared values, beliefs, norms tastes, behaviors, experiences, consciousness of kind, memories and loyalties.
Ethnography - The field of anthropological research based on direct observation of and reporting on a people's way of life. The basic methodology employed by cultural anthropologists, it consists of two stages: fieldwork, which is the term used for the process of observing and recording data; and reportage, the production of a written description and analysis of the subject under study. This discipline has been useful to colonial discourse in constructing a hierarchy of cultures.
Euro-centrism - The conscious or unconscious process by which Europe and European cultural assumptions are constructed as, or assumed to be, the normal, the natural or the universal.
Exile - An idea of a separation and distancing from either a literal homeland or from a cultural and ethnic origin. Note the difference between the terms "exile" - which implies involuntary constraint, and that of "expatriation" - which implies a voluntary act or state.
Fecundity - fertility. For more information on "the cult of fecundity" see Wendy Slatkin's "Maternity and Sexuality in the 1890's," Woman's Art Journal, vol. 1, Spring/Summer, 1980, pp 13-19.
Feminism - the active belief in equal rights and opportunities for women.
Frontier - the idea of a frontier, a boundary or a limiting zone to distinguish one space or people from another. Colonial frontiers were created as imperial discourse sought to define and invent the entities it shaped from its conquests. The boundary that limited the space so defined was a crucial feature in imaging the imperial self, and in creating and defining (othering) those others by which that "Self" could achieve definition and value.
Globalization - the process whereby individual lives and local communities a4e affected by economic and cultural forces that operate world-wide. In effect it is the process of the world becoming a single place. Globalism is the perception of the world as a function or result of the processes of globalization upon local communities.
Hegemony - initially a term referring to the dominance of one state within a confederation, it is now generally understood to mean domination by consent. Fundamentally, hegemony is the power of the ruling class to convince other classes that their interests are the interests of all. Domination is thus exerted not by force, nor even necessarily by active persuasion, but by a more subtle and inclusive power over the economy, and over state apparatuses such as education and the media, by which the ruling class's interest and thus comes to be taken for granted.
Hybridity - One of the most widely employed and most disputed terms in post-colonial theory, hybridity commonly refers to the creation of new "transcultural" forms within the contact zone produced by colonization. It is the "in-between" space that carries the burden and meaning of culture and this is what makes the notion of hybridity so important. It is the potential of hybridity to reverse the structures of domination in the colonial situation which is important thus depriving the imposed dominant culture not only of the authority that it has for so long imposed politically, but even of its own claims to authenticity.
Identity Politics - The struggle to oppose cultural domination on the basis of constructed identities that are based on racism, sexism, homophobia and a host of other "isms." The politics of group-based movements claiming to represent the interests and identity of a particular group, rather than policy issues relating to all members of the community. Identity politics can be a form of victim politics where a group identifies themselves as oppressed and seek either to end that oppression, or to use that oppression to justify their actions in other spheres.
Ideology - The body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, a group, class, or culture.
Imperialism - in its most general sense, imperialism refers tot he formation of an empire, and, as such, has been an aspect of all periods of history in which one nation has extended its domination over one or several neighboring nations. The practice, theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory.
Interstitial - A space or opening between things.
Liminality - Describes an "in-between" space. The transcultural space in which strategies for personal or communal self-hood may be elaborated, a region in which there is a continual process of movement and interchange between different states.
Marginality - being on the margin is the perception of existing on the peripheries of the dominating culture and therefore unable to access power and agency.
Metaphor - Figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that it does not literally denote (to have meaning) in order to suggest a similarity.
Mestizo/métisse - These terms (Spanish and French in origin) semantically register the idea of a mixing of races and/or cultures. They emerged from a colonial discourse that privileged the idea of racial purity and justified racial discrimination by employing the quasi-scientific precursors of physical anthropology to create a complex and largely fictional taxonomy of racial admixtures (mulatto, quadroon, octaroon, etc.)
Mimicry - to copy. When colonial discourse encourages the colonized subject to "mimic" the colonizer, by adopting the colonizer's cultural habits, assumptions, institutions and values, the result is never a simple reproduction of those traits, rather, the result is a "blurred copy" of the colonizer that can be quite threatening. This is because mimicry is never very far from mockery, since it can appear to parody whatever it mimics.
Miscegenation - the sexual union of different races
Nativism - the desire to return to indigenous practices and cultural forms as they existed in pre-colonial society.
Négritude - A theory of the distinctiveness of African personality and culture that was developed immediately before and after the second World War. The concept of "negritude" implied that all people of Negro descent shared certain inalienable essential characteristics. What made the negritude movement distinct was its attempt to extend perceptions of the Negro as possessing a distinctive "personality" into all spheres of life, intellectual, emotional and physical.
Occident - Refers to the West -- Europe and America.
Odalisque - Female slave.
Orientalism - processes by which the "orient" was, and continues to be, constructed in European thinking.
Othering - the process by which imperial discourse creates its "others." In this discourse it is important to remember that the "other" is the excluded or "mastered" subject created by the discourse of power. Othering describes the various ways in which colonial discourse produces its subjects.
Palimpsest - a term for a parchment on which several inscriptions had been made after earlier ones had been erased. The characteristic of the palimpsest is that, despite such erasures, there are always traces of previous inscriptions that have been "overwritten." Hence the term has become valuable for suggesting the ways in which the traces of earlier "inscriptions" remain as a continual feature of the "text" of culture, giving it its particular density and character.
Place - emphasizes the importance of space and location in the process of identity formation.
Post-colonialism - anything dealing with the effects of colonialization on cultures and societies. To be compared with the Empirical perspective.
Race - the classification of human beings, into physically, biologically, and genetically distinct groups. The notion of race assumes, firstly, that humanity is divided into unchanging natural types, recognizable by physical features that are transmitted "through the blood" and permit distinctions to be made between "pure" and "mixed" races.
Racism - The prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races, discriminatory or abusive behavior towards members of another race.
Rhizome - Botanical term for a root system that spreads across the ground as in Bamboo, rather than downward, and grows from several points rather than a single tap-root. Used to counter the binary system of thinking.
Savage/Civilized - terminology used to divide the societies with an anthropological high/low ratio. The West is taken as "Norm" and define the rest as inferior, different, deviant, subordinate, and subordinate able.
Sexism - Discriminatory or abusive behavior toward members of the opposite sex especially, but not exclusively, women.
Slave - the capture, imprisonment, and maintenance of a person for the use of forced non-voluntary labor.
Subaltern - of inferior rank. Often refers to those who are subject to the hegemonic ruling classes. Subaltern classes may include peasants, workers and other groups denied access to hegemonic power.
Surveillance - one of the most powerful strategies of imperial dominance is that of observation because it implies a viewer with an elevated vantage point.
Syncretism - A term sometimes used to avoid the problems some critics have associated with the idea of hybridity in identifying the fusion of two distinct traditions to produce a new and distinctive whole (see synergy)
Synergy - refers to the product of two or more forces that are reducible to neither. It is a way to emphasize that post-colonial cultures are the product of a number of forces variously contributing to the new and complex cultural formation.
Testimonio - a narrative (usually of novel or novella length) told in the first person by a narrator who is also the actual protagonist or witness of the events she recounts.
Third World (first, Second, Fourth) - Economic division of the world cultures. First World referring to the West (generally Europe and America), the Second World was a "cold-war" designation of Russia, the Third World refers to the economically challenged and developing nations, while the Fourth World refers to extremely poor economies.
Transculturation - Refers to the reciprocal influences of modes of representation and cultural practices of various kinds in colonies and metropoles. Used by ethnographers to describe how subordinated or marginal groups select and invent from materials transmitted to them by a dominant or metropolitan culture.
Universalism - the assumption that there are irreducible features of human life and experience that exist beyond the constitutive effects of local cultural conditions.
Worlding - a way of describing the processes by which the colonized space is brought into the "world," that is, made to exist as part of a world essentially constructed by Eurocentrism.
Xenophobia - a fear or hatred of strangers or foreigners.