EDITOR’S NOTE: We end this year by each taking a look back and picking our five best posts, explaining both their importance to us and to the world we currently live in. Clicking the banner images will link you to each post, so as 2014 comes to a close join us in remembering how far we’ve come, but also how far we still have to go.
After the recent acts of Daesh terrorism in Paris I returned to this interview with PhD Candidate Rachel Brown to get some perspective. While Brown’s work was focused on food and religious identity in French and Quebecois Muslim immigrant communities, it also highlights how isolation and religious persecution can push young people towards accepting religious extremism. In the interview, Brown explains,
“I’m not really an expert in ISIS or Jihadist fighters or any of the topics that relate to this. I can say that when people, especially youth, feel alienated, when they don’t feel at home anywhere, this can lead to finding identity in extreme forms of religion. If the religious identity is the only identity that one feels they can claim, he/she is going to place a huge amount of importance on that identity.”
This year, a petition began circulating that condemned Nestlé’s operations here in British Columbia. While Nestlé has been operating here in B.C. for 15 years, residents became particularly concerned during the drought this past summer. As Gordon has pointed out in his previous Shame Day post, Nestlé doesn’t have the greatest track record when it comes to respecting other countries and their water needs. In this post we take a closer look at the relationship between Canadian water and the American corporations that would like to bottle it up.
In May of this year In Touch Weekly published an article accusing Josh Duggar of molested five underage girls, including several of his sisters. These events took place when he was a teenager, and the police didn’t follow through on the initial report. Instead, Duggar received Christian counselling from an organization that heavily emphasized the power of forgiveness and, when it came to sexual abuse, did it’s fair share of victim blaming. While “forgiveness” certainly is a beautiful concept, this post examines how it can be (and has been) used to justify evil actions.
We do our fair share of movie posts here on the blog, so we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to write about Mad Max: Fury Road, a movie that received a lot of praise for its strong female characters. This post looks at a few of the very different feminist heroes that this film has to offer.
Now and then I get a little more personal in my blog posts. This was one of those instances. “Body Positivity” and “Fat Shaming” have been hot topic issues of late; in this post I talk about my own insecurities and how the body positivity movement has helped me deal with them. This post also tries to dismantle a few of the arguments that have been used to attack the movement.
As always, it’s been a pleasure writing for the blog. I love the kind of conversations Culture War Reporters has opened up in my life, and on my computer screen. Over the past few months, I’ve been particularly excited about our guest post feature, which has given us the opportunity to hear back from you. In the new year I hope that even more of you take the time to write for us.
Until then, have a fantastic holiday.
I hope you enjoy your Christmas even more than this pug.
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