To this day LGBT and queer communities experience marginalisation, and discrimination and remain understudied and underrepresented across research. Consequently, there is a lack of resources,...Show moreTo this day LGBT and queer communities experience marginalisation, and discrimination and remain understudied and underrepresented across research. Consequently, there is a lack of resources, education and protection for these groups. It is necessary to represent their voices and lived experiences in research. Studying LGBT and queer populations is essential to understanding how they cope with these adversities. Research on LGBT communities in the context of self-love could give insights into how they learn to overcome internalised prejudice and cultivate self-love and authentic self-expression despite marginalisation. Individuals turn to social media to explore and share aspects of their queer identities. Therefore, this study aims to highlight the voices of LGBT individuals to uncover how they navigate and express their LGBT identity development. This study focuses on social media narratives to understand protective factors like authenticity and positive LGBT identity within the context of self-love. To achieve this, this study used a mixed-methods cross-sectional approach. By performing a qualitative content analysis, we identified themes across social media posts from Instagram and X (formerly known as Twitter) within the year 2019 that contained the hashtags #lgbt and #selflove (n = 723). The study also included a quantitative Chi-square analysis to investigate the association between posts that contain authentic views of the self and posts that 1) mention positive LGBT identity and 2) contain a personal tone of the post. Results of the content analysis revealed that the top five themes out of 26 themes discussed within #lgbt and #selflove posts were: 1) posts disclosing a personal story, 2) posts talking about identity pride and 3) identity integration, 4) posts written in a prosocial and 5) encouraging manner. Results also showed a statistically significant association about positive LGBT identity and authentic self-perception. No statistically significant association was found between posts about authentic self-perception and personal tone of post. The study brings forward the conversations that are shared within the context of LGBT and self- love on social media posts. It underscores the significance of social media as a place to express LGBT or queer identities and foster community support. It highlights the importance of research and mental health environments focusing on helping LGBT and queer individuals cultivate self-love and embrace their identities, which have often been neglected or associated with feelings of shame and discrimination.Show less
Exhibition spaces being closed as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown brings unforeseen new concerns for the museum. Digital visitor interaction influences the engagement with objects and artworks...Show moreExhibition spaces being closed as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown brings unforeseen new concerns for the museum. Digital visitor interaction influences the engagement with objects and artworks within the exhibition. This change of interaction has consequences for the relation between visitors and the artwork, and how these relate to each other. Visitors gain new forms of power in curating the exhibition without the original crafted outlines by the museum. Especially during a pandemic where sudden changes in society are compulsory, it is a necessity to research the influences caused by these changes. The digitization causes digital reproduction that have not been (as much of) a struggle for the museum as before the global pandemic. Digital interaction and reproduction cause adaptations in authenticity and the carefully crafted authority of the museum over the centuries. This role and status the museum has in society is mutating because of digitization.Show less
This thesis focuses on African American hip-hop music. How does this music form produce a connection between black people and how does it create a community? Hip-hop music has a performative...Show moreThis thesis focuses on African American hip-hop music. How does this music form produce a connection between black people and how does it create a community? Hip-hop music has a performative function in producing a collective identity based on race, and now that new generations of African Americans are growing up in a world steeped in hip-hop culture, it is important to try and understand this performativity. How does hip-hop music produce a construct of blackness? And how is this performative function complicated by the many contradictions in hip-hop: commercial hip-hop balances on a fine line between emancipating African Americans and reproducing negative stereotypes of African Americans.Show less
In society we seem to value authenticity over inauthenticity, whether it be in lifestyle, philosophical treatises or even artefacts which have to be certified of authenticity in order to attribute...Show moreIn society we seem to value authenticity over inauthenticity, whether it be in lifestyle, philosophical treatises or even artefacts which have to be certified of authenticity in order to attribute a certain validity to an object. Somehow it is significant to own a claim on the authorship or origin of something in the world, as a patent, to make our life just that bit more meaningful or outstanding. However, there is no such thing as the ‘content’ of authenticity, no fixed formula at least, as it is a concept that adapts to its context continuously; parallel to cultural changes and needs. This is why authenticity is often perceived as a quest, whether it is attained through commendable endeavours or returned to through thorough introspection; whether it is regarded as a state you arrive at or a moment that shines up. This paper will try to offer a philosophical reflection on this employment of a language of authenticity by focusing on and connecting two movements of philosophical thought, namely the thought of Martin Heidegger (1889 – 1976), specifically in Being and Time (1927) and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School by Max Horkheimer (1895 – 1973) and Theodor W. Adorno (1903 – 1969), specifically in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947). Heidegger explicitly speaks of a notion of authenticity (eigentlichkeit) in his theory on Being. I will argue that, even though the word ‘authenticity’ is not particularly mentioned, a sense of that term is implicitly present in the work of Horkheimer and Adorno. To put it more precisely, I will try to investigate whether a sense of authenticity like that of Heidegger’s is to be found in their work. This means that Heidegger will serve as a point of departure. For such a comparison I believe Horkheimer and Adorno’s insights on ‘Culture Industry’ are most relevant to the issue.Show less
This thesis re-views Jack Kerouac's "On The Road" through the cultural-anthropological lens of "liminality" in order to understand the novel's endurance as well as its contemporary reflection of a...Show moreThis thesis re-views Jack Kerouac's "On The Road" through the cultural-anthropological lens of "liminality" in order to understand the novel's endurance as well as its contemporary reflection of a generation in limbo. This thesis contends that the liminal characteristics and rituals studied by Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner in small-scale African communities can be modernized and applied to such ritualistic phenomena as road travel in Kerouac's novel, which utilizes the anonymity of the American highway as a liminal space that allows freedom of self-definition. Such a reading returns "On the Road" to its contemporary socio-political landscape and makes it clear that the novel depicts not a subversive countercultural movement, but that it is actually part of a private ritual of passage that eschews the mainstream culture only on a temporary and minimal basis. By way of the liminal phase, the narrator appropriates characteristics of the socially and ethnically marginal while reproducing and reinforcing the values of the mainstream (white) culture against these marginal people.Show less
Today’s cinematic movement show a heightened interest in stories based on historical periods or events. These stories, however, need not necessarily be historically accurate but may merely evoke an...Show moreToday’s cinematic movement show a heightened interest in stories based on historical periods or events. These stories, however, need not necessarily be historically accurate but may merely evoke an illusion of historical reality. In this thesis, I explored the methods contemporary filmmakers can turn to in order to achieve a sense of realism in the on-screen worlds of their imagination. I limited myself to discussing those methods that are concerned with setting, character, and plot respectively; I used Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur as my point of reference.Show less
Food and eating habits are good indicators of wider social changes and appetite for multi-ethnic eating can be perceived as one step forward to accepting and understanding the meaning of diversity....Show moreFood and eating habits are good indicators of wider social changes and appetite for multi-ethnic eating can be perceived as one step forward to accepting and understanding the meaning of diversity. In migration studies, the socio-historical analysis of the relationship between migrants and food practices provides a fresh perspective on the cultural encounters between communities. The aim of my research is to explore the private space of the Dutch eating habits and the more or less successful integration of foreign kitchens. In detail, this paper looks at how and to what extent have foreign cuisines, especially the Indonesian and Moroccan, affected the Dutch eating culture from 1950 until 2000. The results show trends of appropriation of culinary knowledge and adoption of culinary authenticity.Show less
