Explores the interplay between artistic values and social, political, and moral concerns in writings by African American and Native American women.

This research note examines the feasibility of using corporateWeb sites as an indicator of corporate culture. This is done by comparing theWeb sites of 12 multinational companies in two distinct business sectors—food services and pharmaceuticals—across 23 subdimensions of corporate culture. Differences in the corporate cultures of these companies, as observed in theirWeb sites, are then discussed.

Although virtually all comparative research about risk perception focuses on which hazards are of concern to people in different culture groups, much can be gained by focusing on predictors of levels of risk perception in various countries and places. In this case, we examine standard and novel predictors of risk perception in seven sites among communities affected by a flood in Mexico (one site) and volcanic eruptions in Mexico (one site) and Ecuador (five sites). We conducted more than (...) 450 interviews with questions about how people feel at the time (after the disaster) regarding what happened in the past, their current concerns, and their expectations for the future. We explore how aspects of the context in which people live have an effect on how strongly people perceive natural hazards in relationship with demographic, well-being, and social network factors. Generally, our research indicates that levels of risk perception for past, present, and future aspects of a specific hazard are similar across these two countries and seven sites. However, these contexts produced different predictors of risk perception—in other words, there was little overlap between sites in the variables that predicted the past, present, or future aspects of risk perception in each site. Generally, current stress was related to perception of past danger of an event in the Mexican sites, but not in Ecuador; network variables were mainly important for perception of past danger (rather than future or present danger), although specific network correlates varied from site to site across the countries. (shrink)

The idea of culture has been subject to critical debate in anthropology during the past decade as the result of a shift in emphasis from the bounded local culture to transnational cultural flows. But at the very same time that cultural mobility is being emphasized by anthropologists, the people they study are recasting culture as a place of belonging as they construct local identities. Siting Culture argues that it is only through rich ethnographic studies that anthropologists may explore (...) the significance of place in the global space of relations which mold the lives of people throughout the world. By examining the concept of culture through case studies from Europe, Africa, Oceania, Latin America and the Caribbean, it probes the methodological and theoretical implications of the divergent scholarly and popular concepts of culture. (shrink)

In responding to Barbara Herrnstein Smith's article, “The Chimera of Relativism: A Tragicomedy,” this essay addresses a number of recently published research papers attempting to identify the neuronal correlates of cultural selves. However, underlying these studies of the “cultures of human nature” are some very strong assumptions about the nature of human culture. Current discussions of cultural effects on the brain are therefore not simply about reducing identity to brain states; they also show how a notion of identity (...) is transformed and reconfigured by its relation to a brain domain of knowledge making. Understanding these dynamics, both at a discourse level and at a brain level, this piece suggests, may provide a useful case for a contemporary discussion of relativism. (shrink)

UNESCO World Heritage sites are places of outstanding significance and often key sources of information that influence how people interact with the past today. The process of inscription on the UNESCO list is complicated and intersects with political and commercial controversies. But how well are these controversies known to the public? Wikipedia pages on these sites offer a unique dataset for insights into public understanding of heritage controversies. The unique technicity of Wikipedia, with its bot ecosystem and editing mechanics, shapes (...) how knowledge about cultural heritage is constructed and how controversies are negotiated and communicated. In this article, we investigate the patterns of production, consumption, and spatial and temporal distributions of Wikipedia pages for World Heritage cultural sites. We find that Wikipedia provides a distinctive context for investigating how people experience and relate to the past in the present. The agency of participants is highly constrained, but distinctive, behind-the-scenes expressions of cultural heritage activism are evident. Concerns about state-like actors, violence and destruction, deal-making, etc. in the World Heritage inscription process are present, but rare on Wikipedia’s World Heritage pages. Instead, hyper-local and process issues dominate controversies on Wikipedia. We describe how this kind of research, drawing on Big Data and data science methods, contributes to digital heritage studies and also reveals its limitations. (shrink)

The role of the cultural assets as one of the pillars of sustainable development is undeniably of great significance in the cultural sustainability of cities. Indeed, the way users understand and interpret cultural heritage sites would be highly critical to managing cultural organizations properly. It means by improving users’ perception of these sites, it can expect a fair distribution of comprehensive awareness among generations about the values of cultural assets. Past studies in spatial psychology have (...) demonstrated that environmental properties can positively Influence human emotions. On the other hand, using computational–mathematical methods used to examine spatio-visual properties have rarely been compared to human perceptions. This paper examines the impact of spatio-visual properties on human perception as a clever cultural management strategy to promote cultural sustainability. It is discussed how environmental features in general, and visibility in particular, can shape the way users interpret cultural heritage. Results indicate that not only visibility of users’ paths within cultural heritage sites can be an influential factor for the development of users’ perception, but also the visibility of the entrance of these complexes can change their understanding. This means that decision-makers, architects, and managers of the cultural organizations can apply these findings as cultural management framework by defining predefined paths in these sites in the way that they possess high visibility and visible entrance. Consequently, the distribution of public awareness among generations can be improved to strengthen the role of cultural aspects in sustainable development. (shrink)

This paper investigates how young people give meaning to gender, sexuality, relationships, and desire in the popular social networking site Netlog. In arguing how SNSs are important spaces for intimate politics, the extent to which Netlog is a space that allows contestations of intimate stories and a voicing of difference is questioned. These intimate stories should be understood as self-representational media practices; young people make sense of their intimate stories in SNSs through media cultures. Media cultures reflect how audiences (...) and SNS institutions make sense of intimacy. This paper concludes that intimate stories as media practices in the SNS Netlog are structured around creativity, anonymity, authenticity, performativity, bricolage and intertextuality. The intimate storytelling practices focusing on creativity, anonymity, bricolage and intertextuality are particularly significant for a diversity of intimacies to proliferate. (shrink)

The connection between cultural heritage site visits and expenditures usually shows that improved visits to cultural sites lead to higher tourist spending, as these sites regularly appeal to extra prosperous or culturally engaged traffic. Additionally, properly preserved and promoted cultural history sites can enhance local economies by way of illustrating more travelers who spend on diverse services like accommodation, food, and entry fees. Therefore, investment in cultural heritage maintenance and merchandising can drastically enhance tourism revenues.In (...) this paper, it used data from 138 visitors to analyze the connection between their tourist expenditures and visits to cultural heritage sites. 40 questions were distributed to the visitors to collect their experience and data, including age, gender, and income level. Then evaluate the factors and their willingness to visit using the Pearson correlation, descriptive analysis, and ANOVA test. Additionally, we assessed the main reasons for unwillingness and detailed total expenditures. As a result, we found that visitors had a high willingness to spend more on expenditures. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

The cultural heritage sites, incorporating advanced technology and engaging activities have been demonstrated to enhance visitor attention and retention, resulting in more significant and unforgettable experiences. The evolution of immersive technologies, has significantly transformed visitor engagement in cultural heritage sites. This study investigates how these technologies increase visitor experience and engagement. The study utilizes Chi-square tests and ANCOVA and multiple linear regressions tests to examine the correlation between technology usage and visitor satisfaction, to identify key predictors of enhanced (...) visitor interaction. The findings highlights the significant prospective of immersive technology enhances cultural heritage experiences, providing actionable insights for site managers and technology developers. The investigation highlights the renovate consequence of incorporating VR and AR technologies on visitor engagement at cultural heritage sites, enhancing satisfaction, and boosting return visits. It provides valuable recommendations for site managers and technology developers to enhance cultural heritage experiences. (shrink)

The fascination and thrill of arts festivals relates to their capacity to host the unexpected, surprising and new. The economic model of novelty bundling markets presents a rare attempt to account for the potential impact of festivals on innovation. Its cognitive conception of festivals as sites of economic evolution offers a point of departure for this paper. The economic model is criticised and further developed, especially in two respects, drawing on sociological studies on science, technology and society and on empirical (...) data from two cases of innovatively used lighting technology in festivals. First, it is argued that festivals offer a fair space for the simultaneous discovery, display and valorisation of the new that is produced by performers, curators and audiences, and by innovators, intermediaries and consumers alike. Secondly, the production and consumption of newness in festivals is linked to the specific way in which their socio-material setting facilitates what has been termed framing and overflowing of cognitive formats. Finally, the analysis sheds new light not only on the innovative impact of festivals but also on the scholarly reserve to engage with this field of research. (shrink)

The paper draws its inspiration from the provocation which Merton offered sociology both to engage with empirical data and to perform analyses adequate to guide intervention beyond the particular case. Whilst contemporary STS is very different both in its models of theory and its forms of methodology, this paper suggests Merton's concerns with engagement and adequacy provide a useful way to interrogate current approaches. Specifically, the paper explores some recent anthropological conceptions of ethnographic fieldwork that have provided potent models for (...) the study of scientific and technological cultures. These multi-sited approaches have also provided the opportunity to develop new notions of intervention and explore alternative ways of making contributions to development of theory and practice. In the process of pursuing the goals of engagement and adequacy notions of ethnography have however become stretched. This sense of detachment from methodological canons accentuates the need for methodological debate and skill-sharing in STS. (shrink)

The aim of the study is to develop theoretic and methodological recommendations and practical activities for the positive social, managerial, organizational and economic development of historical and cultural tourist destinations. In theoretical terms: the role of historical and cultural tourist destination in the development of the region has been established; the historical and cultural tourist destinations have been identified; the author’s classification of historical and cultural tourist destinations has been developed basing tourist visiting activeness; the author’s (...) methodological approach to the diagnosis and creating tools for development of historical and cultural tourist destinations, comprehensively taking into account resource and factor components, has been presented. In practical terms: variations of the activities aimed at the positive development of historical and cultural tourist destinations have been proposed; the description of measures aimed at the creation of a historical and cultural complex on the example of the designed historical and cultural complex “Stara Samar” has been given. The results of the study are applicable for a wide range of historical and cultural tourist attractions: territories, landscapes and elements of landscapes, historical settlements, parks, film studios, historical and cultural heritage sites, history and culture monuments, burial sites, places of worship, sites of social cultural infrastructure. The author’s recommendations provide obtaining commercial results and ensuring a social and cultural effect for businessmen, managers, local communities in the management of existing or in the creation of new historical and cultural tourist destinations. (shrink)

John Russon draws from a broad range of art and literature to show how philosophy speaks to the most basic and important questions in our everyday lives. In Sites of Exposure, Russon grapples with how personal experiences such as growing up and confronting death combine with broader issues such as political oppression, economic exploitation, and the destruction of the natural environment to make life meaningful. His is cutting-edge philosophical work, illuminated by original and rigorous thinking that relies on cross-cultural (...) communication and engagement with the richness of human cultural history. These probing interpretations of the nature of phenomenology, the philosophy of art, history, and politics, are appropriate for students and scholars of philosophy at all levels. (shrink)

This study examines the connections among cultural tourism, spirituality, and associated factors among religious tourists in Saudi Arabia. It focuses on how cultural tourism impacts spiritual fulfilment, considering visitors' intentions to visit religious sites, while also factoring in cultural competence and trust in tourism brands as moderators. This study involved 244 participants, who were administered self-report surveys during their visits to religious sites and cultural attractions in Saudi Arabia. Data analysis employed Stata-SEM software, utilizing structural equation (...) modelling (SEM) to assess the hypothesized relationships among the variables. The results indicate noteworthy positive associations between cultural tourism and the spiritual experiences of tourists, with mediating effects observed through their intentions to visit religious sites. Additionally, the study identified that cultural competence and trust in tourism brands exerted a moderating influence on the relationship between cultural tourism and spiritual experiences. This research contributes to the advancement of knowledge and practical applications in the realms of spirituality and cultural tourism. It substantiates the proposition that cultural tourism has the potential to influence the spiritual dimensions of visitors. The results underscore the significance of incorporating cultural and spiritual components in tourism marketing and destination management strategies. Moreover, they provide insights for destination stakeholders seeking to enhance cultural tourism initiatives, not only in Saudi Arabia but also in other contexts. (shrink)

In Turkey, the period after the establishment of the Republic saw archeological representations play an active role in defining the ancient past and producing new disciplinary knowledge. Visual practices emerged as important sites for the formation of a new conception of the ancient past in the larger context of the political and cultural discourse over the modernization of the country. Based on museum guidebooks, official publications, and archival documents, this paper focuses on the İzmir region after the establishment of (...) the Turkish Republic in 1923 and explores how the ancient past was perceived and displayed in relation to the historical and cultural transformations that occurred in Turkey after the Greco-Turkish War. (shrink)

This article examines and exposes substantial fragments of the crucial for the Russian autocracy discursive formation that hegemonically produces disempowered identities and relationships, inactive social practice and representations for ordinary Russian people. Employing a multi-sited critical discourse analysis of a school textbook, TV coverage of protests, and an annual press-conference with Vladimir Putin, this study looks at the contexts, representations and identities constructed via interrelated means of power, participation and change. The analysis shows how the state perpetually and diversely propagates (...) via the discourse of non-participation a necessity to leave the matter of the social change to those in power. As a result, non-participation represents both the politically intentional absence of participatory practices among citizens, and forms of ‘participation’ suggested and mediated by the state. Overall, the study illustrates the suppressive ideological work that the Russian state performs exploiting various communication channels, institutions, and social domains to sustain the hegemonic domination over its citizens. (shrink)

Community participation is the core of sustainable tourism development; however, it encounters obstacles at government-controlled heritage sites in China. This paper examines the status quo of community participation and residents’ empowerment perception through 25 in-depth interviews and 168 questionnaires in the Miao ethnic heritage site of Xijiang Village in southwest China, the findings reveal that: The phenomenon of disempowerment focuses on the political and economic aspects, rather than the social and psychological aspects; Spatial difference affects empowerment perception; and Residents (...) desire more political and education empowerment. On this basis, the present research puts forward a comprehensive empowerment system consists of system, information, and education empowerment which contributes to the theorization of community empowerment between Chinese and Western scholars and provides an alternative path to sustainable tourism development for developing countries’ cultural heritage sites. (shrink)

In Culture, Politics, and Governing, the study of contemporary ascetics provided me with a way to approach the practice of knowledge production and its intersection with cultural production that was able to take into account the institutionalization of authors and artists and the ways in which their practices were both governed and governing, often through valorization. Recently, I have worked to extend this framework to settings that are less obvious as sites for the production of governing knowledge: what Max (...) Weber and Foucault discussed as ascetics, generated through what Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno called the culture industry. The contemporary culture industry produces an art of living genre that encourages pecuniary subjects who treat the self as a site for the production of value from which to practice valorized ascetics. (shrink)

Aesthetic desire and distaste prime everyday life in surprising ways. The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic casts much-needed light on the complex mix of meanings our aesthetic activities weave into cultural existence. Anchoring aesthetic experience in our relationships with persons, places, and things, Monique Roelofs explores aesthetic life as a multimodal, socially embedded, corporeal endeavor. Highlighting notions of relationality, address, and promising, this compelling study shows these concepts at work in visions of beauty, ugliness, detail, nation, ignorance, and (...) cultural boundary. Unexpected aesthetic pleasures and pains crop up in sites where passion, perception, rationality, and imagination go together but also are in conflict. Bonds between aesthetics and politics are forged and reforged. Cross-disciplinary in outlook, and engaging the work of theorists and artists ranging from David Hume to Theodor W. Adorno, Frantz Fanon, Clarice Lispector, and Barbara Johnson, The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic lays open the interpretive web that gives aesthetic agency its vast reach. (shrink)

The concept of “site” is at the center of current debates in theories of social practices as well as in cultural anthropology. It is unclear, however, how to assess the associated methodological assumption that overriding social structures or cultural formations can manifest themselves in sites. The article draws on the conception of social practices and introduces the notion of “publicness” in order to explicate how and why sociality and social structures can be accessed through “siting”. Sites as (...) well as social practices, it is claimed, have to be conceptualized as essentially public and thus principally observable phenomena. This assumption of publicness implicit to both site ontology and theories of social practices is unfolded on the basis of a praxeological reformulation of the paradigm of joint attention elaborated in developmental psychology. To avoid presentist misinterpretations, we then conceptualize sociality as chains of practices across time and space, drawing on the works of Theodore Schatzki, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Anthony Giddens and Bruno Latour. The public carriers of practices (artifacts, symbols, media, bodies) and the translocal structures they establish acquire particular significance in these approaches. In a further step, we present some methodological consequences of the “publicness assumption” and support our arguments by referring to Pierre Bourdieu's study on Distinction. (shrink)

This essay presents a critical appraisal of the current state of baccalaureate Health Humanities, with a special focus on the contextual differences currently influencing the implementation of this field in Canada and, to a lesser extent, the United States and United Kingdom. I argue that the epistemological bedrock of Health Humanities goes beyond that generated by its written texts to include three external factors that are especially pertinent to undergraduate education: site (the setting of Health Humanities education), sector (the (...) disciplinary eligibility for funding) and scope (the critical engagement with a program’s local context alongside an emergent “core” of Health Humanities knowledge, learning, and practice). Drawing largely from the Canadian context, I discuss how these differences can inform or obstruct this field’s development, and offer preliminary recommendations for encouraging the growth of baccalaureate Health Humanities—in Canada and elsewhere—in light of these factors. (shrink)

It is widely thought that stealing, trading and destroying cultural artifacts in time of war are inherently immoral actions, and that it is right that they be treated as war crimes, which, indeed, they currently are. But oppressive cultures have their heritage and cultural artifacts too, in the form of monuments, sites of worship, and so on; and for the oppressed, these things may be awful reminders of their subordination, and may even perpetuate it. This chapter suggests that, (...) since cultural objects can be both tools and symbols of unjust oppression, their theft and destruction ought to be seen as appropriate when this would be a means of overcoming oppression. Whatever current law may say, in these instances, it would be morally inappropriate to count such acts as war crimes. Furthermore, it is bizarre that theft and destruction of cultural property are counted as war crimes when soldiers killing each other is not (due to combatant immunity). Surely killing is worse than property destruction and theft. It is therefore argued that, where possible, it would be better for conflicts to be fought using the latter methods. Finally, the chapter responds to many objections to using theft and destruction of cultural property as a method of warfare. E.g. to the objection that such property has timeless, trans-cultural, aesthetic, historical and scientific value, it is replied that justice is a more important value; and to the objection that these practices amount to cultural genocide it is replied that unjust cultures have no right to exist unmodified. (This chapter was formerly entitled: "Culture Weaponized: A Contrarian Theory of the Sometime Appropriateness of the Destruction, Theft and Trade of Art and Cultural Artifacts in Armed Conflict." The PhilPapers archived version is a pre-penultimate version of the published version.). (shrink)

This essay tracks the movement in Édouard Glissant’s work from thinking relationality as creolisation to Relation as such, to a globalised sense of cultural contact and transformation he ca...

This article aims to analyse one specific type of memorial site that furnishes an indexical link to past traumatic events which took place in precisely these places. Such memorials will be defined here as trauma sites. It will be shown how the semiotic trait of indexicality produces unique meaning effects, forcing a reframing of the issue of representation, with all its aesthetic and ethical dimensions. In contrast to other forms of memorial site, trauma sites exist factually as material (...) testimonies of the violence and horror that took place there. The fact they still exist, more or less as they were, implies a precise choice on the part of post-conflict societies regarding which traces of the past ought to be preserved and in which ways. In other words, a decision is made about what politics of memory to adopt in each case. Trauma sites thus become unique, privileged observatories that allow us to understand better the emergence of post-conflict societies. The various forms of conservation, transformation, memorialization of places where slaughter, torture and horror have been carried out are key clues to better understandings of the relationship between memory and history in each post-conflict society studied. This article presents a close reading of three very different trauma sites: the Tuol Sleng Museum of the Crimes of Genocide in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Villa Grimaldi in Santiago, Chile; and a third, more recent, museum: The Ustica Memorial Museum (Museo per la Memoria di Ustica) in Bologna, Italy. These memorials represent instances of three very different traumatic memory politics: in Tuol Sleng, visitors are relocated in the trauma space, in a sort of ‘frozen past’; in Villa Grimaldi, a process of attenuation is at work, the traces of the past are less evident, and their emotional effects weaker. The Ustica Museum represents yet another option, a movement towards an artistic and creative reinterpretation of the traumatic event itself. (shrink)

"Can Freud be 'updated' in the twenty-first century, or is he a venerated but outmoded genius?" asks Jerry Aline Flieger. In Is Oedipus Online? Flieger stages an encounter between psychoanalysis and the new century, testing the viability of Freud's theories in light of the emergent realities of our time. Responding to prominent critics of psychoanalysis and approaching our current preoccupations from a Freudian angle, she presents a reading of Freudian theory that coincides with and even clarifies new concepts in science (...) and culture. Fractals, emergence, topological modeling, and other nonlinearities, for example, can be understood in light of both Freud's idea of the symptom as a nodal point and Lacan's concept of networks that link psychic realities. At the same time, Flieger suggests how emerging paradigms in science and culture may elucidate Freud's cultural theory.Like Slavoj Zizek, editor of the Short Circuits series, Flieger shifts effortlessly from field to field, discussing psychoanalysis, millennial culture, nonlinear science, and the landscape of cyberspace. In the first half of the book, "Re-siting Oedipus," she draws on the work of Lyotard, Zizek, Deleuze, Virilio, Baudrillard, Haraway and others, to refute the assumption of Freud's outdatedness in the new century. Then, in "Freud Sitings in Millennial Theory," she recasts oedipal theory, siting/sighting/citing Freud in a twenty-first-century context. Thinking of Oedipus -- decipherer of enigmas, wanderer -- as a navigator or search engine allows us to see psychoanalysis as a navigation device for the cultural maze of the "bimillennial" era, and Oedipus himself as a circuit of intersubjective processes by which we become human. For humanity -- still needed in the "posthuman" century -- is at the core of Freud's theory: "Reading Freud today," Flieger writes, "reminds us of the complications of the Sphinx's riddle, the enigma that Oedipus only thought he solved: the question of what it is to be human. Psychoanalysis continues to pose that question at the crossroads between instincts and their vicissitudes.". (shrink)

This article shows how the construction of transnational migrant communities across international borders poses a challenge to the assumed "natural" isomorphism of space, nations, and cultures that typically exists in theories of cultural and cross-cultural psychology. One of the principal aims of this article is to add to the critical impulse that initially defined the vision of cultural psychology by analyzing how transnational diaspora communities have become new sites for the rethinking of core concepts such as culture, (...) self, nation and identity. By drawing on Gupta and Ferguson's work, I present three important ways through which cultural theorizing can be reconfigured in the present transnational context. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) has been little used by archaeologists. A key barrier is that current metaphor analysis relies on linguistic evidence, a resource that archaeologists rarely have. Methods for interpreting entirely “material metaphors” have yet to develop. This article explores CMT in a domain of long-standing archaeological interest: settlement structure. Anthropologists have long recognized that hunter-gatherers place their dwellings close to those they are close to socially, usually their kin. Archaeologists have assumed the same holds true for prehistory—although without (...) direct evidence. This article explains why people consistently associate with their kin this way, and how the metaphor, “SOCIAL DISTANCE IS PHYSICAL DISTANCE,” structures hunter-gatherer campsites worldwide. Archaeologists can infer the existence of this metaphor in the archaeological record without linguistic support. Furthermore, they can assume it exists in all human societies for as long as human brains have been wired up as they currently are. (shrink)

The Algerian writer Malika Mokeddem embeds her novels in the geography of a desert that belongs ever more to the past of the nomadic immediate ancestors of her main characters. Object of nostalgic yearning, this desert past and the nomads peopling it also necessitate flight, especially for women, trapped there in a patriarchal culture and society whose violence has been perpetuated into that of contemporary Algeria - also often aimed against women. Besides a few strong older women able to take (...) advantage of their age and status to help their juniors, these novels principally set on stage young women or girls whose accidental or perilously self-willed access to education and - above all, writing - frees them from binding traditions even while, for most, such writing is akin to the nomadic traveling of their ancestors (as `writing' on the desert's very body). Even so, because it is a revolt against such traditions, their writing is the site and actuality of fraught struggle and pushes them into the `nomadism' of literal exile, across seas themselves often envisaged as wider deserts. (shrink)

This article catalogs social processes contributing to construction of emotions across three time-scales, covering: natural selection; ontogenesis; and moment-by-moment transactions. During human evolution, genetic and cultural influences operate interdependently, not as separate forces working against each other. Further, leaving infants’ environment-open serves adaptive purposes. During ontogenesis, cultural socialization affects emotion development in various ways, not all of which depend on internalization of cultural meanings as emphasized in some earlier social constructionist accounts. Construction also operates over the moment-by-moment (...) time-scale of real-time interpersonal interactions, as emotions adjust to the constraints and affordances of immediate cultural environments. Claims that emotions are constructed, and that social processes contribute to their construction, are no longer contestable. Now the project is to specify how these processes operate and what materials they use. (shrink)

There is no prepared script for social and cultural life. People work it out as they go along. Creativity and Cultural Improvisation casts fresh, anthropological eyes on the cultural sites of creativity that form part of our social matrix. The book explores the ways creative agency is attributed in the graphic and performing arts and in intellectual property law. It shows how the sources of creativity are embedded in social, political and religious institutions, examines the relation between (...) creativity and the perception and passage of time, and reviews the creativity and improvisational quality of anthropological scholarship itself. Individual essays examine how the concept of creativity has changed in the history of modern social theory, and question its applicability as a term of cross-cultural analysis. The contributors highlight the collaborative and political dimensions of creativity and thus challenge the idea that creativity arises only from individual talent and expression. (shrink)

This study investigated the relationship between cultural value orientations and country-specific changes in mobility during the Covid-19 pandemic. The aim was to understand how cultural values relate to mobility behavior during the initial stages of the pandemic. The aggregated data include Schwartz's cultural orientations, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, number of Covid-19 cases per million, and mobility change during the Covid-19 pandemic (Google Mobility Reports; percentage decrease in retail and recreation mobility, transit station mobility, workplace mobility (...) and percentage mobility increase in residential areas). Regression analyses showed that, after controlling for economy and severity of disease, hierarchy was the primary factor reducing mobility, such as staying at home, and mobility in public spaces, such as avoiding retail and recreation sites (marginally significant). The results are discussed in the light of previous literature and the implications for social distancing measures. (shrink)

This introduction surveys a number of problems for contemporary cultural theory, which arise from the transformations in culture that have been produced by developments ranging from the globalization of third wave capitalism to the emergence of tele-technologies. It summarizes arguments presented by Lash, Thoburn, Johnson, Terranova and Venn, as well as a number of reflections on the state of cultural studies outside Euro-America, to present alternative genealogies of cultural studies and open up new sites for theoretical elaboration.

ArgumentIn the decades following World War II, the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics came to represent new technical standards that informed most advances in economic theory. The public emergence of this community was manifest at a conference held in June 1949 titledActivity Analysis of Production and Allocation. New ideas in optimization theory, linked to linear programming, developed from the conference's papers. The authors’ history of this event situates the Cowles Commission among the institutions of postwar science in-between National Laboratories (...) and the supreme discipline of Cold War academia, mathematics. Although the conference created the conditions under which economics, as a discipline, would transform itself, the participants themselves had little concern for the intellectual battles that had defined prewar university economics departments. The authors argue that the conference signaled the birth of a new intellectual culture in economic science based on shared scientific norms and techniques un-interrogated by conflicting notions of the meaning of either science or economics. (shrink)

In the new era of technology, internet turns to be one of the main sources of information, since it is considered cheaper and easier to use. Hence in tourism, two main pull factors influencing potential tourist to visit a destination are recognized as nature and culture which a destination offers. The acceptance of culture as one of the important factors in tourists’ motivation, heritage sites become popular in many countries especially those which are nominated as world heritage sites. This paper (...) is to analyze the condition of available online information about George Town world heritage spots (Penang, Malaysia). As far as heritage is one of the products of tourism and tourism, on the other hand, is a big help for sustainability of heritage sites, providing sufficient information about tourism heritage sites as a promotional key is very important. Top ten tourism websites were chosen and content analysis was performed to find the current situation of those websites. By recognizing heritage as tangible and intangible, the result shows that although the intangible heritages need more concern in sustainability matter, but the information about them are not as complete as the tangible ones. Lack of proper information was seen in most websites and the focus of information was more on tangible heritage and among intangible heritage, the main focus was on food. To support the result of analysis, in-dept interviews were conducted by couple of heritage offices in the city. The main reason behind the lack of sufficient information about intangible heritage seems to be the lack of complete list of them and moreover, promoting this division of heritage needs negotiation with the local residence involving in those activities. The paper suggests providing a complete list of George Town world heritage as far as some of them are disappearing lately, and keeping this valuable world heritage sustainable for next generation needs detailed study and completing the list as soon as possible. In this regard those intangible heritages which are in hazard of disappearing can be maintained by the effort of key holders of the field. Moreover, providing the mentioned list helps the information providers, especially related websites to focus equally on tangible and intangible George Town world heritage. (shrink)

Psychiatric culture provides an important site for humanities scholars interested in the relationships between body, culture and identity. The problem raised in this article is how to ‘think’ the body as discursive, material and embodied without reinstating the notion that the discursive and material are two separate, preexisting entities that somehow ‘interact’. The focus of this article will be on the complex relational dynamics that exist between science and culture in the production of psychopathology. The discussion will centre on (...) the practices of a psychiatric user-movement, the Hearing Voices Network, that provide a radical challenge to the alignment of body, culture and identity in the production and understanding of psychopathology, and specifically the phenomenon of voice-hearing. The article will consider the importance of affectivity, relationality and embodiment in understanding the relationship between the performative injunctions of psychiatry, the transformative practices of the HVN and the production of subjectivity. (shrink)