Analytical Focus Research Articles

The diffusion of data privacy laws in Southeast Asia: learning and the extraterritorial reach of the EU’s GDPR

ABSTRACT The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of 2016 is widely recognised as the benchmark global standard for data-privacy law. In recent years, countries across Southeast Asia have enacted or updated data-privacy laws with provisions that align with the GDPR. This paper explores the balance of internal and external forces driving these regulatory changes. It argues that a nuanced understanding of diffusion in the policymaking process allows us to see beyond the ‘Brussels Effect’ and how the increasing digitalistion of Southeast Asian societies has created increasing local demand for regulatory change. While an analytical focus on scripting in the drafting of GDPR-like laws focuses attention on the extraterritorial reach of the EU’s regulatory power, an analytical focus on problematisation points to different pathways of domestic learning regarding data privacy, especially in response to rising data-security threats.

Infrastructures of Social Reproduction: Migrant Survival and Economic Development at the Thailand-Myanmar Border

International migration literature has shown that infrastructures consisting of people and institutions sustain migration and help migrants cope in new environments. However, analytic focus on these infrastructures is often limited to the migration process and its impact on migrants. This article extends the growing literature on migration infrastructure by analyzing its socially reproductive capacities in the context of economic development in Thailand. Drawing on ethnographic and interview data from the Tak border zone, I show how the social and humanitarian dimensions of migration infrastructure that grew from war displacement, labor migration, and migrant survival efforts became essential to economic development aims of the Thai state. Through this case, I illustrate a process of infrastructural co-optation by which the state harnesses grassroots and humanitarian actors’ capacities for childcare, education, and healthcare to advance such aims. Authorities spatially contain migrant workers with limited rights and social protections while loosely engaging with parts of the border's infrastructure, which keeps noncitizen workers alive and available for low-wage jobs. The findings show that aspects of migration infrastructure are co-optable, with impact beyond the migration process and for non-migrants.

Articulating the ‘How’ of Social Return on Investment: Foregrounding the Plural and Pluralizing Character of Its ‘Moments of Judgment’

ABSTRACTSocial accounting practices attribute value to an organization's activities beyond traditional economic conceptions of success. In assessing the merit of such practices, we argue that it is helpful to extend our analytical focus beyond questions of what is evaluated and who evaluates to how valuations are performed. Social accounting literature has already explored a crucial aspect of the “how question,” emphasizing the need to widen stakeholder input and engage in agonistic democratic deliberation beyond applying technical expertise. We extend these insights by drawing attention to an important dimension of the how question that remains underexplored, namely, where such deliberation can or should be applied and explaining why this matters. In doing so, we disclose the complexity and messiness of social accounting processes, as well as their normative and political significance. We deploy political discourse theory to highlight the virtues of focusing on where value is constructed along the social accounting chain, illustrating our contribution with examples drawn from our experience conducting a Social Return on Investment (SROI) for a not‐for‐profit organization. We present and unpack key decision‐junctures in the SROI process, demonstrating the plural and pluralizing character of these “moments of judgment” by showing how contestability and normativity enter the valuation process, aspects that are often obfuscated by an over‐reliance on, and the rhetoric of, the technical aspects of quantification and monetization. By foregrounding the contingency and subjectivity embedded in valuation practices, we argue there is a need to navigate agonistically, deliberatively, and pragmatically their plural and complex character.

Systems Approaches to Planning: From Control, Self-Organisation and Power to Normal Accidents

I distinguish four systems approaches to urban planning with analytical foci on control, self-organization, power and normal accidents. I elaborate on the last of these approaches, noting its salience to a world in which statutory urban planning continues to expand but also to disappoint in its outcomes. This organizational systems approach speaks to normative questions of: whether urban planning could or should be reduced to project management; how smart smart city-related interests in complexity will be in practice; the limits of muddling through; and the contribution of intermediation and discretion to urban planning’s normal accidents.

(Re)Incorporating “the Tangible” in Industrial Path Development Analyses: The Role of Sociomaterial Contingencies in Explaining Potential Emergence of Hydrogen Production in Western Norway

Studies of industrial path development, a literature strongly influenced by evolutionary economic geography and systems of innovation theorizing, have an analytical focus on how interplays between actors, networks, and institutions, what we term social contingencies, shape industrial development in geographic areas. Tying into earlier calls in the literature, we argue that the emphasis on social contingencies has led to limited analytical attention to how material contingencies are also influential in shaping how and where industries develop. Based on this, we develop an analytical framework for studying sociomaterial contingencies for industrial path development in geographic contexts. Consequently, and echoing early path development theory, we argue for considering the breadth of dimensions underpinning industrial path development and their interplay, considering both intangible and tangible explanators without reducing either of these categories on behalf of the other. We discuss our approach in an exemplifying discussion of potential industrialization of hydrogen production in Western Norway to illustrate how assessment of sociomaterial contingencies adds analytical utility to the industrial path development literature.

On the fringes of empire? Rethinking suburbs as colonial spaces in early modern South and Southeast Asia

Abstract This survey challenges conventional perceptions of colonial suburbs in the early modern Indian Ocean world in general, and those under the rule of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in particular. Recent urban research advocates re-evaluating suburbs as intricate and diverse spaces, yet this shift has had limited impact on historical studies of early modern colonialism. The survey highlights the importance of recognizing suburban regions in eighteenth-century settlements such as Cape Town, Cochin, Colombo or Batavia, where significant population growth resulted from inter-Asian and internal migration. These areas fostered ethnic and cultural diversity, disrupting normative ideas of segregation. By shifting the analytical focus from the core to the periphery and exploring colonial histories from an outside-in perspective, the contribution emphasizes the potential of a more horizontal approach to sub/urbanity for understanding early modern colonial societies, encouraging scholars to delve into the intersection of ‘the imperial’ and ‘the urban’.

Interpreting parliaments, but how?: Centring parliamentary actors and settings in ethnographic design and practice

Do researchers that use ethnographic methods study parliaments and parliamentary actors in the same way? While parliamentary ethnography is a growing research methodology to study political phenomena, such as informality, political behaviour and interpretations of parliamentary work, less is said about how access to sites and actors may affect analytical foci, strategies and outcomes. This neglects the complexity of parliamentary organisation and distinctive practices of parliamentary actors. We draw attention to this complexity to investigate how different levels and types of access to parliaments, and actors therein, affect ethnographic research. We reflect on this issue through four themes: (1) entry and access, (2) adapting to organisational rhythms, (3) ethnographic capital of researchers and (4) analysis and publication of findings. We argue that there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way of undertaking ethnographies of parliaments, but emphasise that researchers must explicitly reflect on how their particular strategies may shape ethnographic research on parliaments.

Teachers’ knowledge of soft skills and flipped classrooms: Nursing and health technologies

BackgroundSoft skills and flipped classrooms are important in the fields of education, nursing, and health techniques. AimThis study determined nursing teachers’ knowledge of soft skills and flipped classrooms. DesignThis was a descriptive cross-sectional study with an analytical focus involving 100 teachers. SettingsThe study was conducted at the Higher Institute of Nursing Professions and Health Techniques (ISPITS) at Agadir and its annex in Tiznit. ParticipantsOne hundred permanent and temporary teachers (with an equal distribution of male and female teachers) participated in the survey. MethodsA five-part questionnaire was used to collect data. The independent variable was the use of a flipped classroom and dependent variable was the development of soft skills. SPSS version 25 software was used to process the data. Chi-square test, Ficher's test, binary logistic regression test, and multivariate logistic regression model were employed for data analysis. ResultsIn total, 80 % participants had knowledge of soft skills, and 75 % knew about flipped classrooms. The most important soft skills were considered to be communication, stress management, teamwork, conflict management, problem-solving, time management, critical thinking, autonomy, adaptability, and decision-making. The five soft skills considered most likely to be developed by flipped classrooms were autonomy, analysis, teamwork, communication, and time management. Furthermore, the development of soft skills through the flipped classrooms was independently associated with soft skills training (p = 0.008) and use of flipped classrooms (p = 0.042). ConclusionsTeachers have knowledge of soft skills and flipped classrooms despite a lack of training, and flipped classrooms contribute to the development of soft skills.

Digital economy empowered entrepreneurship

PurposeAs an important engine of economic growth, the digital economy is bringing new opportunities for the promotion of entrepreneurship. However, key questions regarding the extent of the effect of the digital economy on entrepreneurship remain unanswered. This study examines how the digital economy influences entrepreneurship in China using provincial data from 2011–2020, applying convergence tests and spatial econometric models.Design/methodology/approachBased on theoretical analysis and using macro provincial data covering the period of 2011–2020, we adopt a diversified empirical analytical method and apply a combination of the convergence trend test, spatial auto correlation test, and spatial Durbin model to test the research hypotheses.FindingsFirst, there is spatial correlation between the digital economy and entrepreneurship. Second, the overall trend of China’s digital economy shows s convergence, with the whole country and the eastern region showing absolute β convergence and the whole country as well as the central and western regions showing β conditional convergence. Third, the digital economy can significantly promote entrepreneurship and has spatial spillover effects. Moreover, higher education has a negative moderating effect on the process of digital economy empowering entrepreneurship.Research limitations/implicationsStudying the spatially correlated impacts of the digital economy on entrepreneurship enhances our understanding of its contribution to economic growth. Policy-makers can use these findings to develop targeted digital infrastructure investments in lagging provinces, guide entrepreneurs to better grasp the opportunities of the digital economy, and provide support for innovation and entrepreneurship. The findings also could offer Chinese experience that can be used to guide developing countries in utilizing the digital economy to enable entrepreneurship.Originality/valueThis paper expands and enriches the analytical focus on digital economy-empowered entrepreneurship and complements the current theoretical research on the moderating effect of the digital economy in empowering entrepreneurship.

Exploring Political Socialization through the Lens of Giddens' Structuration Theory

Socialization is a fundamental process for the dissemination and comprehension of ideas, essential for maintaining and strengthening societal structures. It involves the exchange of values, beliefs, and perspectives, ensuring that these ideas are understood and valued within a community. This process also integrates individuals into social groups, fostering familiarity and acceptance among members. This study explores political socialization through the lens of Anthony Giddens’ Structuration Theory, which emphasizes the duality of structure and agency. By examining the interplay between social structures and individual actions, this research aims to provide a deeper understanding of how political norms and practices are produced and reproduced. This research employed a descriptive qualitative method, specifically the Literature Study Method, to trace theoretical details and provide an analytical focus on political socialization and Structuration Theory. The findings highlight that political socialization is a complex process influenced by various agents such as family, education systems, media, and political institutions, which shape individuals' political identities and behaviors. Moreover, Giddens’ Structuration Theory elucidates that social structures both constrain and enable political actions, emphasizing the reciprocal relationship between individuals and their social contexts. This study contributes to our understanding of how political socialization mechanisms contribute to societal stability and change by elucidating how individuals navigate and negotiate political structures through their everyday practices and interactions.

Dis//assemblages of AI: repair labor and resistance in the automated workplace

ABSTRACT Breakdowns and repairs are seldom present in dominant narratives about Artificial Intelligence that depict these technologies as a seamless source of optimization. Yet, AI systems are replete with moments of downtime and delayed action that feminist science and technology scholars have theorized as openings to reimagine technological systems. The following article engages the concept of friction to contend with the contradictory ways in which workers tasked with the continual labor of sustaining Artificial Intelligence technologies simultaneously transform parts of the system. Drawing upon seven months of ethnographic research at a recycling facility integrated with various forms of automation, including AI-powered sorting robots, we show how moments of machine malfunction provide fleeting windows for workers to bring to life alternative AI configurations. Our analytical and observational focus on glitches and breakdown allow us to make two related contributions to the study of the automated workplace: (1) We propose friction as a lens that aids in navigating the messy paradox of reproduction and resistance inherent to repair labor and (2) empirically demonstrate how friction emerges from workers’ material practices that contest datafied technological imaginaries through embodied science and move against pressures to optimize for efficiency and revenue by prioritizing communal care.

PICTORIAL MAPS AND THE RISE OF MODERN RESORT IN ŌISO IN THE MID-MEIJI PERIOD

This study explores three pictorial maps produced in the mid-Meiji period (1868–1912) featuring Ōiso and the relationship between these maps and the rise of Ōiso as a modern resort. Ōiso was a town located on the highway Tōkaidō connecting Edo (or Tokyo after 1868) and Kyoto. It became a modern seaside resort after the late 1880s. Previous studies on visual and cartographic representations of towns and cities in Japan, for example, Kindai nihon no shikakuteki keiken [Visual experiences of modern Japan] (Nakanishi and Sekido 2008), have already narrowed the analytical focus and shifted away from the metropolises to provincial cities and hot spring towns. However, some questions, such as the social functions of these materials, remain unexplored. This study analyzes three maps and argues that these maps highlight Ōiso as an attractive place, particularly by featuring its villa residents from the high society. Visually, they resemble the conventional meisho zue [pictures of famous places] developed in the Edo period (1603-1867) and share with other city/town maps produced in the Meiji period in showing preferences for bird’s-eye views and emphasizing symbols of modernity such as railroads and electricity. The depiction of villa clusters is a remarkable feature of the three maps. However, rather than encouraging actual visits to the villas, the mapmakers – the local shop owners and administrators – achieved in producing these maps as souvenirs and creating a public desire for the lifestyle of high society.

Spravedlivá řeč O Apolónovi. K průsečíkům performativity a narativní prózy

The study examines the late medieval Old Czech version of the tale of Apollonius of Tyre from the perspective of narratology and traces how an analytical focus on performativity helps to understand its workings. It contextualizes and elucidates the effects of elements in which previous scholarship has recognized innovations in vernacular adaptation over the Latin model. It traces the staging of the conflict of textual authorities and the presentation of speech as a distinctive agent – how it manifests itself, how it thematizes its power and its limits, and what it achieves. It interprets the tale as a stylized reinterpretation of an earlier historical rendering, through the reading of which justice is to be done and the recipients brought to reflect on and control their own emotional responses.

How Can the Church Reclaim Backsliders? Analysis of Church Education to Reclaim Backsliders

Backsliding is a problem occurring among Christians in Myanmar. The author focuses this research on seeking several solutions to the issue of backsliding among Christians in Myanmar by comparing it with the Reformed worldview. The analytical focus is on the educational aspect in the church to address backsliding based on the Reformed worldview. This research was conducted in several stages, including problem identification and its causes, proposing problem-solving ideas. The researcher conducted interviews among Christians and elaborated with various other literary sources. The research findings reveal that the church needs to teach sound doctrines that can help its members grow in their faith and withstand difficult times. Political and religious issues are inseparable, but the fundamental problem is the need for contextual churches. The church needs to love and care for its flock. Additionally, the research finds that contextual churches require influence in every public area. Church leaders in urban areas need to be more educated and aware of the views and sensitivities of various ethnic, class, race, and religious groups. The church, as the body of Christ, should be able to communicate the Word of God honestly and accurately to its members and ensure that they are engaged in Bible classes or groups where they can learn and enjoy fellowship with fellow believers to strengthen their faith.

Budgetary Cycle and late accountability: diagnosis regarding the political judgment of government financial statements within the scope of the States

The normative scenario configured by the 1988 Constitution, in matters of public finances, reveals a dynamic structured based on the notion of budget cycle. However, the materialization of the processes that make up this cycle is permeated by decision-making operated from a perspective of supervision of social bodies and institutionalized control. In this sense, the theoretical framework regarding horizontal accountability emerges, according to O'Donnell's (1998) categorization, which translates in the issuance of the preliminary opinion by the Audit Courts and the subsequent political judgment issued of Parliament. Having as its object of work the temporal profile of the political judgment of government accounts, this paper proposes to investigate the existence of empirical distortions concerning the process of assessment and judgment of the accounts of the head of the Executive Branch of the States, and where possible delays arise – whether in the assessment and sending of the preliminary opinion by the accounting body or in the processing of the document in the legislative houses. Therefore, in methodological terms, for the purpose of articulating the diagnosis on a legal-exploratory basis, we opted for a sample selection stratified into subgroups referring to the five historically recognized regions, choosing the most populous federated entity in each region as a critical case for analysis, which takes place through the mobilization of qualitative data, extracted from primary sources (legislative decrees, draft legislative decrees and previous opinions), with a documentary analytical focus, taking as a focus the period referring to the accounts from 2010 to 2020.

Beyond the lens: More-than-human encounters in Yin Hong’s Himalayan science education filmmaking

The post-1949 production of China’s science education films has not received enough scholarly attention. This article treats Yin Hong’s Himalayan filmmaking as a prism through which we can rethink science education films’ propaganda missions, knowledge-making modalities, promotion of environmental awareness, and status in Chinese film and overall cultural history. Yin Hong’s film texts, produced under strict government censorship in Mao-era China, propagated the ideology of transforming and mastering nature for socialist development. Nev­ertheless, through investigating personal writings of Yin Hong and other scientists, the article illustrates that the filmmaker’s on-site filming practices embody an epistemic space where personal and embodied encounters with nature cannot be reduced to a “nature-conquering” mission. His filming journey demonstrates more-than-human encounters, where nonhuman nature is not just a subjectable and silent object but actively reshapes filming practices. Shifting analytic focus from representations to practices, the article advocates for a rediscovery of science education filmmaking in China.

The Franchise Devouring Itself: A Critical Analysis of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Reflexive Turn

This article proposes that a "reflexive turn," which is particularly visible in some of the MCU's new streaming series, has taken place with the beginning of the franchise's Phase Four, the first phase of the new Multiverse Saga. Taking the first seasons of She-Hulk, What If...?, WandaVision and Loki as illustrations, my analytic focus falls on the reflexive devices and the narrative structures of these four series, which together seem to have established the grounds for a recurring metafictional allegory whereby the diegetic multiverse is made analogous to the franchise's own "multiverse" of complexly interrelated narratives. Thus seen, my interpretation of each of the series pays special attention to how reflexivity has allowed the MCU to speak about itself in this transitional moment, in a way that ambivalently reflects not only about the franchise's continuing dominance within the contemporary culture industry, but also about fears and concerns that the franchise's power may not last very long if it loses its narrative coherence along the way. It is in this sense that the Marvel Cinematic Universe seems to have started devouring itself, turning into a kind of "narcissistic" and "autophagic" narrative precisely at the time when it is beginning to generate a sense of exhaustion and saturation among its fans and followers. Although the reflexive elements of these four series acknowledge this sentiment in ways that approximate self-parody and self-critique, in the end they all arrive at the cynical and/or conformist conclusion that, for better or for worse, there is no alternative to the franchise's planned continuation.

The global relevance of locally grounded ethnobiology.

While ethnobiology is a discipline that focuses on the local, it has an outstanding, but not yet fully realized potential to address global issues. Part of this unrealized potential is that universalistic approaches often do not fully recognize culturally grounded perspectives and there are multiple challenges with scaling up place-based research. However, scalability is paramount to ensure that the intimate and context-specific diversity of human-environmental relationships and understandings are recognized in global-scale planning and policy development. Here, we identify four pathways to enable the scalability of place-based ethnobiological research from the ground up: local-to-global dialogues, aggregation of published data, multi-sited studies, and geospatial analyses. We also discuss some major challenges and consideration to encourage continuous reflexivity in these endeavours and to ensure that scalability does not contribute to unnecessarily decontextualizing, co-opting, or overwriting the epistemologies of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. As ethnobiology navigates multiple scales of time and space and seeks to increase its breadth, this study shows that the use of deliberately global approaches, when carefully nested within rich field-based and ecological and ethnographically grounded data, can contribute to: (1) upscaling case-specific insights to unveil global patterns and dynamics in the biocultural contexts of Indigenous Peoples and local communities; (2) bringing ethnobiological knowledge into resolutions that can influence global environmental research and policy agendas; and (3) enriching ethnobiology's field-based ethos with a deliberate global analytical focus.

Coworking spaces and workplaces of the future: Critical perspectives on community, context and change

Coworking spaces and workplaces of the future: Critical perspectives on community, context and change

Algorithmic Management and the Social Order of Digital Markets

Platform companies use techniques of algorithmic management to control their users. Though digital marketplaces vary in their use of these techniques, few studies have asked why. This question is theoretically consequential. Economic sociology has traditionally focused on the embedded activities of market actors to explain competitive and valuation dynamics in markets. But restrictive platforms can leave little autonomy to market actors. Whether or not the analytical focus on their interactions makes sense thus depends on how restrictive the platform is, turning the question into a first order analytical concern. The paper argues that we can explain why platforms adopt more and less restrictive architectures by focusing on the design logic that informs their construction. Platforms treat markets as search algorithms that blend software computation with human interactions. If the algorithm requires actors to follow narrow scripts of behavior, the platform should become more restrictive. This depends on the need for centralized computation, the degree to which required inputs can be standardized, and the misalignment of interests between users. The paper discusses how these criteria can be mobilized to explain the architectures of four illustrative cases.