“Heritage protection for the 21st century”

This paper assesses the recent Heritage Protection Review (HPR) process, which culminated in the publication of the Heritage White Paper “Heritage protection for the 21st century” (DCMS, 2007). It argues that although the White Paper makes laudable and useful attempts at streamlining and clarifying the management and protection process, many of its proposed changes operate at the rhetorical level only. Indeed, it does little to challenge the dominant and elitist understandings of “heritage” and attendant cultural values and meanings, and thus fails to adequately address social inclusion/exclusion issues in the cultural sector.     

Crafting the local: the lived experience of craft production in the Northern Isles of Scotland

ABSTRACT

National creative and cultural industries policy agendas tend to focus on the economic impact of the sector often favouring scalable digital activities based in global clusters, which underpin notions of growth. There has, however, been a re-emergence of craft, which may not be scalable in the same way, into public debate, with benefits linked to educational, cultural and economic policy agendas. Accordingly, policymakers have begun to view craft as a stimulus to develop local and regional economies, skills and materials in relation to wider networks. Within this push towards craft-driven creative place making and economic growth, it has been argued that more sophisticated understandings of the “local” are needed that go beyond those which are inward and parochial. Based on AHRC-funded empirical research undertaken in the Northern Isles of Scotland with craft practitioners, this article attempts to provide evidence of the place-based nature of craft work highlighting both opportunities as well as constraints linked to contexts that are often referred to as remote and peripheral when contrasted with urban locations. We argue for future investigation into, what we term, fractal growth – growth and development that considers multiple dimensions – as being a valid and valuable outcome of creative practice, and which cannot be easily scaled.     

Managerial characteristics, operational observations, and small business performance: A comparison of US and Mexican ventures

To contribute to our cross-cultural understanding of small business ventures, we investigate manager reports of small business effectiveness in the United States and Mexico. We examine the influence of organizational policies, managerial characteristics, and managerial process observations on reports of business effectiveness. Data were gathered from ventures in both countries, and results showed differences in interpersonal processes, business structure, and gender. Implications for future research are given.     

The role of intercultural competence,in the relationship between intercultural experiences and creativity among students

We studied the interplay of intercultural competence, intercultural experiences, and creativity among Russian students from Moscow (N = 272). We expected the students from culturally diverse groups, attending the courses on cultural issues, to be more creative. We based our expectation on the idea that cultural diversity and cultural learning are associated with a higher level of intercultural competence that might contribute to students’ creativity. We measured the intercultural experiences by cultural diversity of study groups (a number of foreign students in the groups and the intensity of friendly contacts with them) and by cultural learning (a number of culture-related courses that students attended). We measured creativity by the “Many Instances Game” from the Runco Creativity Assessment Battery (rCAB). We measured intercultural competence by the adapted scale of Fantini and Tirmizi. We discovered positive associations of intercultural experiences in the university with students’ creativity. Such components of intercultural competence as attitudes and skills (the adaptability of behavior), played an important role in the students’ creativity. The attitudes were positive and the skills were negative, related to the creativity. We also revealed that these two components of intercultural competence mediated the relationship between the intercultural experiences and creativity of students. Based on the results, we discussed the factors of the educational environment which may enhance or prohibit creativity.     

Reputation in the fifteenth century credit market; some tales from the ecclesiastical courts of York

This article explores the language used to defend reputation in instances of defamation, debt and theft presented before the ecclesiastical courts of the Archbishopric of York in the latter part of the medieval period. Finding a circulating language of trust and household credibility in the court papers, the argument concludes that the commodification of reputation was not a phenomenon brought about by the Reformation but that a reputation mechanism was intrinsic to the medieval market embedded in informal institutions, social norms and cultural dictates and enforced in the courts.     

Echoes of the Bandung movement in the Caribbean and China's presence in the region today

The ideas of Bandung had echoes in the anti-colonial and decolonization movement in the Anglophone Caribbean from the 1950s to the 1970s. These echoes were signals of international solidarity that emerged among the political leadership and radicalized publics in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. That sense of solidarity has been replaced by pragmatic business relations in the era of global neo-liberalism and the growing role of China and other ex-colonies as economic powers. There is an urgent need for renewal of mutually beneficial political association among ex-colonial countries. The spectres of racism and racial stereotypes need to be confronted in the building of stronger economic relations. These racial stereotypes arise from the growth of anti-black racism over the past 500 years. Similarly, racial stereotypes of Chinese and other peoples of Asia are rooted in colonial histories. New political relations cannot be based exclusively on trade and economic relations but on an explicit elaboration of ideas that can encourage discussion, debate and the development of institutions. These new political ideas can build on shared principles in an anti-racist direction, which helps to restore human dignity to international relations.     

Fear and Rumour in the People's Republic of China in the 1950s

ABSTRACT

The article explores the nature of popular fears during the early years of the People's Republic of China by examining two types of rumour: those of a ‘secular’ type that told of China's defeat in the Korean War, a third world war or an imminent nuclear attack; and those of a ‘supernatural’ type that told of demons out to snatch vital organs or the end of the world. These rumours testified both to the resilience of ancient cosmological beliefs and values and to their capacity to fuse with elements of ‘modern’ politics. The article asks what they tell us about the relationship of the party-state to the populace.     

Lost in TransNation: Tokyo and the urban imaginary in the era of globalization

Abstract

The 2003 film Lost in Translation has attracted both acclaim and critique concerning its representation of the urban imaginary of Tokyo. Examining both the film representation and the critical responses to the imaginary, this paper discusses how they illuminate some of the emerging issues that Tokyo and Japan face in the era of globalization, such as the loss of the idiosyncratic status of non‐Western modernity that Japan has long enjoyed; post‐(self)Orientalist cultural othering; and the transnational alliance of media and cultural industries in a global cultural economy of branding the nation through media and consumer cultures, all at the expense of the issue of intensifying migration and multicultural situations in the urban space. It will be suggested that both the film and Japanese critiques of the film are lost in the actuality of Tokyo (indeed, of Japan) and its populace, which is being radically transformed by intensifying transnational flows of people, capital, and media imagery.     

Training in culture: the case of aikido education and meaning-making outcomes in Japan and the United States

This study investigated whether a relationship existed between instructional style and points of emphasis in the training context of the martial art aikido and the perceptions which practitioners of aikido generated for aikido-related concepts. The findings were gathered within and compared across aikido training settings in two cultures — Japan and the United States. Analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data gathered for this investigation revealed several potent differences between the manner in which Japanese and American aikido practitioners represented their understandings of aikido-related concepts. Differences in the manner in which aikido practitioners in Japan and the United States represented their understandings of aikido reflected the teaching emphasis observed in the respective cultures. It was concluded that aikido instructors represented the values of their own culture in the context of aikido training, and thus served as important mediating forces influencing the meaning which practitioners generated for aikido. An additional finding revealed that in neither culture were participants able to accurately represent how practitioners in the “other” culture structured their understandings of aikido. It was reasoned that both cultural groups generated faulty perceptions of how the “other” group understood aikido because they utilized a similar pattern of projection, using their own meanings of aikido to represent the understandings of practitioners in the “other” cultural group.     

French-Muslims and the Hijab: An Analysis of Identity and the Islamic Veil in France

This article examines how Muslims living in France construct, and negotiate their identities in the wake of Law 2004–228, a French law banning the wearing of the Islamic veil in French public schools. This research finds that Muslims deem the Islamic veil or hijab to be a fundamental part of their identity. Muslims describe the hijab as being an important and salient symbol of Islam that runs counter to France's concept of secularism or laïcité. Moreover, French-Muslims assert regulations like Law 2004–228 represent France attempting to control Muslim identity and forcefully integrate this population.     

The rise of the national-popular and its limits: communism and the cultural in Kerala

The emergence of the communist movement in Kerala, India in a society that was characterized by immense divisions of caste and class is significant for understanding social transformation. What is of particular importance is the ways in which the communist activists who spoke the language of a supposedly alien ideology engaged with a populace that was predominantly agrarian and poor. This paper will look at the communist engagement with certain aspects of culture, specifically songs, folk arts and theater, in the initial years of the movement, and will argue that something akin to a national-popular will was constructed, which broke down many existing hierarchies and created new unities. But this engagement was equally characterized by many contradictions and spectacular failures, which dented the emerging national-popular will. The cultural, and the communist engagement with it will played a crucial role in laying the seeds of a substantive postcolonial democracy but only in relative terms and without necessarily conferring on the most exploited classes equal rights.     

Racial contacts across the Pacific and the creation of minzoku in the Japanese empire

Focusing on the work of the Japanese sociologist Koyama Eizō, this paper critically explores the development of Japanese race studies from the late 1920s to the 1940s. During this period, Japanese intellectual discourses on race developed in the context of the need to manage heterogeneous populations within the Japanese empire and contain the growing mobility of populations in and outside of the territory. Reflecting Koyama’s keen interest in racial/ethnic contacts and interdisciplinary perspectives, his intellectual work symptomatically exemplifies not only the convergence of knowledge production and the dominant imperial regime but also the transpacific implications of Japanese race studies. On the one hand, my study examines Koyama’s preoccupation with racial/ethnic contacts in relation to imperial security and also traces how his study intersected with the discourse of American social scientists who were also interested in Japanese migrations. On the other hand, the study examines how the development of the idea of minzoku in Koyama’s discourse coincided with contemporaneous attempts to mobilize diverse populations in the empire. Thus, my research reveals a complex dynamic of integration and differentiation in discourse on Japanese race studies in the interwar era.     

Acculturation preferences of majority and minority adolescents in Germany in the context of society and family

Four hundred and fifteen adolescents (134 German majority and 281 minority members) completed a questionnaire which measured attitudes towards acculturation, life satisfaction and intergroup relation variables. German majority members preferred integration followed by assimilation (according to Berry's taxonomy), while minority members had a clear preference for integration. Integration was more strongly associated with favourable intergroup relations and, in the case of minority members, life satisfaction, than the other acculturation orientations. Furthermore the study showed that discrepancies between own acculturation attitudes and perceived attitudes of the other group may influence life satisfaction and intergroup attitudes. Perceived acculturation preferences of the respondents’ parents were also examined. German majority adolescents perceived their parents’ attitudes as more favourable to exclusion than their own, and minority members perceived their parents’ attitudes as leaning more towards separation than their own. In the majority sample, these discrepancies were not related to any of the outcome variables, but in the minority sample they influenced life satisfaction, perceived quality of intergroup relations, and tolerance.     

Measuring the Size and Concentration of Business Funding of Culture in the UK: Closing the Gap between Advocacy and Theory

In the past few years, UK public bodies have increased their calls for cultural leaders to diversify even further their funding sources and exploit the dynamics of the mixed-economy. So far only major cultural organisations in London have been able to successfully diversify their funding portfolio. A drop in public funding is likely to make it even more challenging for a large proportion of cultural organisations to close their income gap. To ensure the successful development of policies of funding decentralisation and inform organisational strategies, more theory-based empirical research on trends, drivers and motivations, and models of funding sustainability is needed. One of the many factors preventing the development of this line of research is a wide gap between research conducted for advocacy purposes and academia in the UK. This paper illustrates the extent and implications of this gap by providing a brief summary of the academic literature in the field and reviewing methods and results of existing data collection efforts by advocacy organisations, in particular the Private Investment in Culture survey by Arts & Business UK (A&B). The scope of this paper has been limited to business funding in the form of cash and in-kind sponsorship, donations and membership, since there is relatively more cross-sectional time series data and academic and advocacy studies of this form of funding than of individual giving and trust and foundation support. The paper proposes recommendations on ways of closing this gap, in particular by improving existing sampling methodology for this type of data collection and expanding and strengthening the existing academic research on motivations, market dynamics and concentration of business funding.     

Demographic and Religious Differences in the Dimensions of Self-Disclosure Among Hindus and Muslims in India

This paper discusses a survey, carried out by the authors, of Hindu and Muslim men and women in six Indian states to determine if social/cultural identities influenced self-disclosure. Specifically, an individual's sex, religious, and state identity were investigated. Results indicated that across religions, women disclosed more than men. Comparisons based on religious identification and state of birth revealed significant differences between Hindus and Muslims and between states of birth on self-disclosure. Results also suggest the predictive power of religious identification and state of birth vary dependent upon the dimensions of self-disclosure. Implications for future research include further examination of aspects of identity related to self-disclosure.     

Goals and achievement orientations of anglo and mexican-american adolescents in sport and the classroom

The purpose of this study was to analyze the definitions of success and failure (achievement goals) and preferred means to goal attainment (achievement orientations) among male and female Anglo and Mexican-American high school students I athletes in sport and the classroom. Based on a recent conceptualization of achievement motivation, it was assumed that definitions of success and failure could be equated to personal characteristics, behaviors, or outcomes and reflect an emphasis on either effort or ability. Further, it was assumed that there are two major achievement orientations: In one, the means to goal attainment entail social comparison; in the second, goal attainment is processed according to mastery criteria. Results revealed cultural and sex differences in athletic goals. Anglo males were more likely to define sport success in terms of ability while Anglo females and Mexican-American athletes tended to equate athletic success to the demonstration of effort. The reverse was true for sport failure—Anglo males emphasized low effort while the other groups stressed low ability. Variations in preferred achievement orientations were also revealed. For example, in the athletic setting, females showed the least preference for sport success which reflected on the individual and involved social comparison. Males indicated the least preference for individual-oriented, social comparison-based athletic failure.