Banana Republic Research Articles

Ethno-Techno: Writings on Performance, Activism, and Pedagogy (review)

Reviewed by: Ethno-Techno: Writings on Performance, Activism, and Pedagogy Laura Levin Ethno-Techno: Writings on Performance, Activism, and Pedagogy. By Guillermo Gómez-Peña . Edited by Elaine Peña . New York: Routledge, 2005; pp. xxvi + 336. $125.00 cloth, $38.95 paper. To performance art devotees, Guillermo Gómez-Peña is a superhero of sorts. Despite his ongoing attempts to de-romanticize his positioning as a rebel artist, it is not hard to find yourself cheering after reading one of his books. In these works, which are composed as experimental collages of performance photos and texts, Gómez-Peña presents himself as the consummate border artist, working to destabilize both purist and tourist conceptions of cultural identity while simultaneously promoting intercultural understanding across shifting boundaries of difference. In his celebrated performance art pieces, this complex negotiation is played out in cheeky acts of translation and mistranslation, with performance personae making up words, switching accents, blending languages, and ultimately ending up in an argot that can be described neither as English nor Spanish. In his recent book, Ethno-Techno, Gómez-Peña updates his signature approach by rethinking the role of the artist as cultural translator in the "dark forest of the twenty-first century" (282). At the center of his concerns is the need for artists to construct a new language for oppositional politics—even a new language for naming the world—in response to the emergence of two disturbing realities: the first is a condition he calls "the mainstream bizarre," and the second, the cartographies of racism and fear in post-9/11 America. We are now witnessing, he argues, a repackaging of the "radical," where consuming edgy products like MTV and iPods is couched in the language of countercultural revolution. Here, in the age of "corporate multiculturalism," the border has been commodified as style, and performance artists compete with a wide range of mainstream entertainments that claim to be interactive and transgressive (shows like Fear Factor and Extreme Makeover immediately come to mind). Gómez-Peña reflects on this development in "Brownout 2," one of the powerful performance scripts included in the book. "What does 'radical behavior' mean after Howard Stern," he asks, "Jerry Springer, Bin Laden, Ashcroft, Cheney, / six-year-old serial killers in the heartland of America, a First World Banana Republic . . . Florida, / tampering with electoral ballots, / an AA theological cowboy running the so-called 'free world' / as if he were directing a spaghetti western in the wrong set?" (214). In this brave new world where spectacle reigns over content, where opinions stand in for action, and where political statements need not be reconciled with the facts at hand, language seems to have slipped out from under us. We need to retrain our ears to hear the subtle differences between words that turn Arabs into terrorists and critics into traitors. These ostensibly benign mistranslations prop up the ideology and fantasy of democracy. Gómez-Peña explains: "If only I had known the difference / between desire and redemption / between political correctness and personal computers / between us and US / between humanity and mankind" (196). The relationship between language and political manipulation is discussed in the fascinating e-mail correspondence between Lisa Wolford and Gómez-Peña included in the book, which reflects on the chilling "paradigm shift" (271) that took place in the months after 9/11. In this context, they explain, the words "radical" and "revolutionary" take on yet another set of meanings as they assume the "demonizing" cast of "the Bush doctrine and the Patriot Act" (273). But perhaps the most important intervention in Ethno-Techno is the articulation of an accessible critical pedagogy designed to re-politicize language and art. This is, of course, where performance art comes in. As a language that communicates across borders and uses the live body to invest signs with new meanings, performance art is uniquely able to [End Page 523] talk back to a culture that is "eating away at distinctions between multiculturalism, transculturalism, and interculturalism" (Elaine Peña xxiii). Although this emphasis on critical pedagogy can be found in each section of Ethno-Techno, which include essays/chronicles, radio texts...

The Man Behind Abercrombie and Calvin Klein's Sexy Ad Campaigns: Tom Reichert (University of Georgia) Interviews Sam Shahid

The Man Behind Abercrombie and Calvin Klein’s Sexy Ad Campaigns: Tom Reichert (University of Georgia) Interviews Sam Shahid Tom Reichert and Sam Shahid (bio) Abstract Tom Reichert interviewed Sam Shahid on March 16, 2005, because of Mr. Shahid’s involvement with marketing campaigns that contain sexually provocative imagery. The purpose of the discussion was to reveal how sex is implemented in advertising and how it influences consumers from a production vantage point. Mr. Shahid’s work as creative director with Calvin Klein, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Perry Ellis offers a unique perspective because of its success, controversial nature, and, as some have claimed, homoeroticism. TR: Sam, Today we’ll be talking about sex in advertising. I’ll ask you questions about three things: What is sex in advertising? How does it work? And how does it come to be? I’m asking you these questions because you’ve created or been involved with campaigns that people consider very sexual, for brands such as Calvin Klein, Banana Republic, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Perry Ellis, just to name a few. To begin, thinking back on your career, can you describe for me an ad that was clearly sexual in nature? SS: It started with my first ads for Calvin Klein. It was my first creative assignment. TR: Was everything for Calvin sexual? SS: Well, Calvin was very sexual. He was a very physical person, and he owned sex. That’s what he stands for. He believed very strongly in everything he did. You saw the way he designed clothes, they were very sexual and sensual on women’s bodies. And he owned that, so that’s where the sexuality comes from. TR: In your mind, what made these ads sexual? Was it the people? Was it what they were wearing? SS: It’s the casting. It’s the clothing. It’s everything combined, but mainly it’s who is wearing the clothing. The casting is very important. TR: So, it’s who it is and how the clothes fit on him or her? SS: In a strange way, the model dictates the sexual tension. Then the photographer feels it, and so does the designer. You love it when you see it or you’re photographing it. TR: The photographers know it when they’re shooting it? SS: Yes, we know what we like when we see it. We can tell if it’s really great—really beautiful or really gorgeous. We use words like that to describe what we see and how we feel. TR: What response does a viewer have when they encounter a sexual ad, either in print or a commercial? SS: I think everyone feels different. Some people love it and some people hate it. Some people are in love with the model—that guy, that woman. On the other hand, some people won’t like that person, and he or she will say, “It’s not my style.” The reaction is in the eye of the beholder, how he or she feels. You can’t ever guess that. I don’t look at it and try to guess what you’re going to think. I think about my reaction to it, or the designer’s reaction to it, the people who pay for it and how they’ll feel about it. TR: And you guess that if you like the ad then those people who might buy the product will, too? SS: You hope so, but it doesn’t always happen that way. I can tell you that most people I’ve encountered will have a reaction to the work. They will either say, “God, he’s great. God he’s hot. I love it. It’s so beautiful,” or “You’re really going too far.” It seems that there’s always a real strong believer, an advocate, for the work. They’re passionate about it. And the other side hates it. I never get reactions to my work that are middle-of-the-road. People either love it or they hate it, like we do. TR: So potential consumers identify with the models in the ad, and they experience an emotional response. SS: Sure, because the photographs themselves...

Using private label credit cards as a loyalty tool

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of retail private‐label credit cards in a crowded marketplace. It offers ideas, citing examples from successful retailers, for improving the effectiveness of credit cards as a loyalty tool.Design/methodology/approachThe paper examines the strategy behind Gap Inc.'s private label credit card, which allows customers to earn rewards for shopping at Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy stores. It also examines other retail card programs, including quotes from program leaders who share their ideas.FindingsStatistics are cited which indicate how crowded the marketplace currently is for private label credit cards. By closely examining successful credit card programs, and by interviewing industry leaders, the importance of competitive differentiation in this marketplace is proved.Practical implicationsThe reader will walk away with some specific ideas for improving the effectiveness of their private label credit card program. Armed with the knowledge of the scope and size of the private label credit card market, readers should gain insight that will improve their decision making about their own program.Originality/valueThe paper takes a look at how private label credit cards are currently used as loyalty marketing tools, and follows with suggestions on how to incorporate the strategies of some major retailers into existing programs.

A Banana Republic? The Investigation into Electoral Fraud by the Birmingham Election Court

A Banana Republic? The Investigation into Electoral Fraud by the Birmingham Election Court

Biopiracy and Bioterrorism: Banana Republics, NAFTA, and Taco Bell

B<scp>iopiracy and</scp> B<scp>ioterrorism</scp>: B<scp>anana</scp> R<scp>epublics</scp>, NAFTA, <scp>and</scp> T<scp>aco</scp> B<scp>ell</scp>

American Revolution: From the Electoral Gap to the Banana Republic

Through an analysis of the rhetorical strategies used by mainstream U.S. media between November 8, 2000, and March 3, 2001, the authors show how the U.S. mainstream media helped to restabilize the United States as the pillar of democracy and how an analysis of media accounts can expose the "changing nature of the order of things." The authors demonstrate how the image of the United States as the pillar of democracy was protected through an analysis of (a) images of the Third World that provided a vocabulary for describing America's domestic crisis, (b) media descriptions of our own political foibles and descriptions of similar happenings in other countries, and (c) the downplaying of other countries' media accounts of the U.S. 2000 election crisis.

American Revolution: From the Electoral Gap to the Banana Republic

American Revolution: From the Electoral Gap to the Banana Republic

Sound Connection: A Family Gets Cochlear Implants Together

Sound Connection: A Family Gets Cochlear Implants Together

Reinterpreting the Banana Republic: Region and State in Honduras, 1870-1972

Reinterpreting the Banana Republic: Region and State in Honduras, 1870-1972

German banana republic?

German banana republic?

Reinterpreting the Banana Republic: Region and State in Honduras, 1870-1972, by Darío A. Euraque.

<i>Reinterpreting the Banana Republic: Region and State in Honduras, 1870-1972</i>, by Darío A. Euraque.

Shorter notice. Reinterpreting the Banana Republic. Region and State in Honduras, 1870-1972. DA Euraque

Shorter notice. Reinterpreting the Banana Republic. Region and State in Honduras, 1870-1972. DA Euraque

Reinterpreting the Banana Republic: Region and State in Honduras, 1870-1972.

Reinterpreting the Banana Republic: Region and State in Honduras, 1870-1972.

Reinterpreting the Banana Republic: Region and State in Honduras, 1870-1972

Reinterpreting the Banana Republic: Region and State in Honduras, 1870-1972

Darío A. Euraque, Reinterpreting the Banana Republic: Region and State in Honduras, 1870–1972 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), pp. xxvi+242, $39.95, $18.95 pb.

Darío A. Euraque, Reinterpreting the Banana Republic: Region and State in Honduras, 1870–1972 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), pp. xxvi+242, $39.95, $18.95 pb.

Reinterpreting the Banana Republic: region and state in Honduras, 1870-1972

In this new analysis of Honduran social and political development, Dar degreeso Euraque explains why Honduras escaped the pattern of revolution and civil wars suffered by its neighbors Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Within this comparative framework, he challenges the traditional Banana Republic 'theory' and its assumption that multinational corporations completely controlled state formation in Central America. Instead, he demonstrates how local society in Honduras's North Coast banana-exporting region influenced national political development. According to Euraque, the reformism of the 1970s, which prevented social and political polarization in the 1980s, originated in the local politics of San Pedro Sula and other cities along the North Coast. Moreover, Euraque shows that by the 1960s, the banana-growing areas had become bastions of liberalism, led by local capitalists and organized workers. This regional political culture directly influenced events at the national level, argues Euraque. Specifically, the military coup of 1972 drew its ideology and civilian leaders from the North Coast, and as a result, the new regime was able to successfully channel popular unrest into state-sponsored reform projects. Based on long-ignored sources in Honduran and American archives and on interviews, the book signals a major reinterpretation of modern Honduran history.

A dictionary of Australian colloquialisms

Now available in a fourth, revised, and greatly expanded edition, A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms records the robustness and inventiveness of the Australian vernacular and provides a unique insight into Australian life and culture. This famous dictionary, first published in 1978 (ten years after Professor Wilkes began collecting), offers the first and the most recent colloquial coinages. Words and idioms are drawn from a wide range of historical and contemporary sources - chiefly newspapers, magazines and novels - and each entry is shown in context, with origins and derivations. Famous and enduring colloquialisms have as many as ten citations from original works, illustrating changing meanings and emphases. Almost three hundred colloquialisms have been added to the fourth edition, along with a scholarly introduction. New entries include Banana Republic, Broncos, Chardonnay socialist, the Dockers, Fair suck of the sauce bottle, Baggy green cap, I love youse all, Men and women of Australia, Multicultural, Get nicked, Placido Domingo, True Believer, Back to Work. Amusing, informative and up to date, A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms is a revealing guide to Australian language.

Jungle Stories: North American Representations of Tropical Panama

'Tis a land that still with potent charm And wondrous, lasting spell With mighty thrall enchaineth all Who long within it dwell 'Tis a land where the Pale Destroyer waits And watches eagerly; 'Tis, in truth, but a breath from life to death, In the Land of the Cocoanut Tree. - James Stanley Gilbert, Panama Patchwork, 1908 During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as tropical Central America came under increasing U.S. influence, U.S. policymakers, businesspeople, missionaries, and bureaucrats began to transform the region to meet their needs.(1) They built railways, led military invasions, established banana and coffee plantations, and eventually dug a canal across Panama. Their published accounts and artistic renderings of Central America drew on more generalized, archetypal ideas in the art, history, literature, and photographs of tropics around the world to form a specific discourse about the Central American tropics.(2) Two opposing narratives constituted this discourse: positive ones about Edenic paradises, fertile soil, and exotic beauty; and negative ones about moral laxity, dangerous landscapes, disease, and the threatening abundance of the jungle. These varied ways of seeing Central America revealed themselves in more than just semantic representations; they influenced U.S. actions and policies in the tropics. These contradictory narratives were used to legitimate imperialist intervention and actions in the Panama Canal Zone in the early twentieth century. THE DISCOURSE OF THE TROPICS Lines of latitude have long been used to demarcate tropical regions. Aristotle, for example, separated the world horizontally into frigid, temperate, and torrid (tropical) zones. Today the tropics are depicted as the region that lies between 23 [degrees] 30 [minutes] north latitude and 23 [degrees] 30 [minutes] south latitude - the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Alternatively, the tropics have been defined using temperature and precipitation isolines. These have varied somewhat, from Ellen Churchill Semple's (1911) inclusion of areas within the 20 [degrees] mean annual isotherm to Isaiah Bowman's (1937, 381) use of the 25 [degrees] mean annual isotherm. A physical geography textbook today designates them as lands within the 18 [degrees] mean annual isotherm (Strahler and Strahler 1996, 165). Agreement on the climatic character of the region - the heat and humidity associated with the tropical lowlands - is more general. In fact, highland areas such as the Meseta Central of Costa Rica were excluded from the tropical discourse because, as one traveler stated, they are as cool and healthful as the coastal plains are torrid and fever-infested (Putnam 1913, 10). The interpretation of tropical heat and humidity has shifted over the past two centuries, however. At various times North Americans have imagined the Central American lowland tropics as distant paradises or fever coasts (in the nineteenth century), as banana republics (in the early to mid-twentieth century), as places for revolution (in the 1970s and 1980s), and as sites for romantic ecotravels (in the 1990s). In this article I use the word tropics to refer to the lowland tropics, and I deal exclusively with the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this geographical and historical context, the character of tropical climates was frequently expressed in subjective terms, even when placed within a so-called scientific framework. Turn-of-the-century U.S. natural science textbooks typically included a classification of the tropical flora, fauna, temperatures, and diseases in Central America. Such descriptions, however, were frequently intertwined with an author's opinions concerning heat, disease, dark-skinned peoples, hot or spicy foods, exotic fruit, fecund vegetation, and economic underdevelopment. For example, in his 1918 Handbook of Commercial Geography, Geo. G. Chisholm describes the specific rainfall amounts, humidity, and temperature that are characteristic of the tropics while noting the excessive heat and irksome humidity (p. …

Changing conceptions of security in the Third World

information, drawn mainly from the post-World War Two period, although special attention was paid to recent times. Analysis of interpretations of the Central American Crisis (the name often used to describe the period of prolonged tension in the region beginning in 1979 and continuing into the early 1980s) suggested weakness in the predominant position of security as a concept within International Relations. Before the crisis, Central America had not attracted much attention and its apparent geopolitical irrelevance saw it characterised as an unimportant region of 'banana republics' (a term first used by US humorist 0 Henry) ruled by dictators. Analysis rarely reached beyond such stereotypes. However, the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979, and the gathering strength of revolutionary groups in El Salvador, soon stimulated intense academic interest and debate about the nature of the crisis. Two broad types of interpretation of the Central American Crisis emerged, with some overlap. First, those which blamed predominantly external factors and analysed the situation in an international context. Second, explanations which concentrated on the internal dynamics of the crisis as a domestic political problem. The former category used a predominantly traditional security-strategic studies approach to analyse the region's problems. Central America was seen in an East-West context, as an arena of superpower conflict. This view is particularly associated with the Reagan administration. In the campaign leading to Reagan's first presidency 'the insurgency in El Salvador was portrayed as resulting primarily from Cuban and Soviet subversion rather than domestic social and political conditions'.2 That the region's conflicts had indigenous roots was denied or subsumed in the much more immediate and crucial problems of managing the delicate Cold War balance or implementing the so-called Reagan Doctrine of 'rolling back' communism.

Crown Colony as Banana Republic: The United Fruit Company in British Honduras, 1900–1920

AbstractIn much historiography of the colonial Caribbean, British administrators are portrayed as mediators between domestic elites, foreign capital, and the working class. Such scholarship converges with popular belief in Belize, whose institutions are seen as a legacy of ‘impartial’ British rule. This article examines the relationship between the United Fruit Company and the colonial government of British Honduras. Contrary to claims of administrative impartiality, colonial officials facilitated the company's monopoly over the banana industry and acted as company advocates before the Colonial Office, actions that ultimately undermined the colony's independent banana producers.