Local Ethos Research Articles

RESEARCH ON TOURIST SATISFACTION AND BEHAVIORAL INTENTION IN ECOLOGICAL HEALTH TOURISM ACTIVITIES IN BAMA, GUANGXI BASED ON STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODEL

This study endeavors to delve into the intricacies of tourist contentment and proclivities in the realm of ecological health tourism activities within Bama, Guangxi. An exploration of the intricate structural relationships is undertaken, unraveling the quintet of variables encompassing tourists' engagement in Bama's ecological health tourism - namely, the effects of activities, the experiential facet of activities, the pecuniary dimension of activities, coupled with tourist satisfaction and behavioral intent. Employing the methodological framework of constructing a structural equation model, this study leverages IBM SPSS 23.0 software to execute correlation analyses across various variables, including demographic information statistics, reliability and validity metrics. Survey research orbits around the quintet of variables. The findings illuminate that the experiential tapestry woven by tourists partaking in ecological health tourism activities exerts a conspicuously affirmative influence on both their satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Conversely, the financial investment made by tourists in ecologi cal health tourism activities manifests a counteractive impact on their satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Evidently, heightened tourist activity experiences and diminished costs conduce to the facilitation of tourists' aspirations for individualistic tourism activities, thereby enhancing travel satisfaction and behavioral intent. Nevertheless, the potency of tourists' activity effe cts on tourist satisfaction remains suboptimal. Consequently, it is proffered that the propagation of health care paradigms be fortified, coupled with the augmentation of activity experience design. Further, the optimization of cost structures and the enhancement of resource utilization efficiency are recommended, alongside ameliorating activity effects and steering behavioral intent. This comprehensive approach is anticipated to immerse tourists more profoundly into the local ethos of longevity culture, thereby fostering the robust and sustainable evolution of longevity tourism in Bama.

ROSES, TOMATO CHUTNEY AND RISING SUN: ON VISIBILITY OF THREE FESTIVALS IN BULGARIA

Objectives. This study focuses on the visibility of three local festivals in Bulgaria: Rose Festival in Kazanlak, July Morning at Kamen bryag and the Festival of Peppers, Tomatoes, Traditional Foods, and Crafts in Kurtovo Konare. The research on festive visibility has been deconstructed to three components of analysis: story, local imagery and photogenicity (colors, photographic visuals). Material and methods. These include participant observations, in-depth interviews, analysis of visuals (both website and media ones as well as photographs, taken by the researcher), and desktop research of scientific literature and online media outlets. Results. The researcher conducted fieldwork as participant observer, interviewer, photographer, and visual analyst of festive events. It was discovered that the Rose Festival promotes pink symbols as prevalent elements of the cultural-historical branding, encompassing Thracian heritage and rose farming. July Morning has been commodified towards fragmented celebrations happening in the peripheral moment of 30th June and 1st July. This has obscured the sense of community and the sense of place affiliated with the initial phenomenon. Local farmers’ aesthetics and diligence play a central role in the publicity of Kurtovo Konare Fest: their agrarian knowledge and willpower to actively participate in social life, upskill and exchange know-how with fellow famers. Conclusions. The three local celebrations represent collections of sensations, colors, imagined experiences, memories, visitor’s expectations, sense of community and awoken sense of place. The optics of the Rose Festival in Kazanlak comprises of contrasting messages: the pink aesthetics is representing the beauty and the traditional means of local livelihood; however, the flashy pink ambience somewhat mutes the demands of the rose farmers, seen in the pieces of critical journalism. July Morning Festival has been largely deterritorialized from its original place to dispersed celebrations which do not recur the initial code of conduct. In the locality of Kamen bryag, however, the scent of wild nature and sea salt still reunites a few generations of like-minded people, mostly admirers of rock music and camping. The heart of the optics of Kurtovo Konare Fest are the village producers, eager to raise voices in defense of their production and generate a distinctive local ethos. Keywords: local festivals, story, visibility, local imagery, photogenicity.

Tamil Life of Purūravas


 
 
 The Purūravac-cakkiravartti-katai (PCK), “The Story of Emperor Purūravas,” is a pre-modern Tamil folk telling of the ancient Urvaśī-Purūravas legend. The classical narrative of King Purūravas of the Lunar Dynasty tells about his love affair with the celestial nymph Urvaśī, their tragic separation, and final reunion. The PCK follows the classical narrative closely, but interposes a long account of other exploits of Purūravas, which do not appear in any of the Sanskrit tellings of the story. In this supplement, which I call “The Tamil Life of Purūravas,” Purūravas faces a tragic chain of unavoidable events, but eventually restores his former status through meditation and devotion. A comparative examination of the two parts of the text, that is, the classical narrative and the Tamil Life, shows that the latter generates an inverted mirror image of the fundamental notions implied in the classical narrative. The outcome of this structure is a shift in the ideological tendencies of the narrative toward a local ethos and popular religious notions. The PCK is thus shown to be a field of cultural negotiations, in which opposing ideologies contend for superiority, and its structure can be regarded as a transformative mechanism applied by local and popular cultural forms to enable appropriation of classical narrative traditions.
 
 

A global approach to school education and local reality: A case study of community participation in Haryana, India

In post-Jomtien phase, community participation in school education management has appeared as one of the most prominent features in all educational development programmes at global level. In line with this trend, India has also placed a significant focus on local communities in school management through various programmes such as LokJumbish, District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) and SarvaShikshaAbhiyaan, etc. All these programmes have been implemented with active involvement and financial assistance from international agencies such as UNICEF and World Bank. Considering community as a viable grass root institution, these community participation programmes have assigned some crucial aspects of school management, such as school mapping, social accountability, curriculum design, resources mobilization, etc. to local stakeholders. However, these programmes have failed to customize the global notion of community participation to meet the local circumstances in India. These programmes grossly undermine the local character of community served by the public schools. Since public schools in India are largely catering to the poor and marginalized section of the society, the capacity of local community vis-à-vis education remained very limited. Further, caste, gender, and social distance between teacher and stakeholders remain other unresolved issues. This paper tries to interrogate these concerns with the help of qualitative data collected through primary field survey based on semi-structured interviews with different stakeholders in a village in Haryana, India. The study argues that the current idealization of community participation can be problematic if we fail to imbibe the social and local ethos of specific region. While the role of community participation as strong viable grass root structure in effective school management remains a desirable goal for the future, given the present limitations, this is unlikely to bring about the required changes.

The 'global interconnectedness' of dentist migration: a qualitative study of the life-stories of international dental graduates in Australia.

The migration of dentists is a major challenge contributing to the oral health system crisis in many countries. This paper explores the origins of the dentist migration problem through a study on international dental graduates, who had migrated to Australia. Life-stories of 49 international dental graduates from 22 countries were analysed in order to discern significant themes and patterns. We focused on their home country experience, including stories on early life and career choice; dental student life; professional life; social and political life; travels; and coming to Australia. Our participants exhibited a commitment to excellence in earlier stages of life and had cultivated a desire to learn more and be involved with the latest technology. Dentists from low- and middle-income countries were also disappointed by the lack of opportunity and were unhappy with the local ethos. Some pointed towards political unrest. Interestingly, participants also carried prior travel learnings and unforgettable memories contributing to their migration. Family members and peers had also influenced participants. These considerations were brought together in four themes explaining the desire to migrate: 'Being good at something', 'Feelings of being let down', 'A novel experience' and 'Influenced by someone'. Even if one of these four themes dominated the narrative, we found that more than one theme, however, coexisted for most participants. We refer to this worldview as 'Global interconnectedness', and identify the development of migration desire as a historical process, stimulated by a priori knowledge (and interactions) of people, place and things. This qualitative study has enriched our understanding on the complexity of the dental migration experience. It supports efforts to achieve greater technical co-operation in issues such as dental education, workforce surveillance and oral health service planning within the context of ongoing global efforts on health professional migration by the World Health Organization and member states.

Advancing ethical research with children: critical reflections on ethical guidelines

This viewpoint article reflects upon the recent surge of formal and institutional ethics requirements, particularly for research with children. Drawing on our experiences of researching with children and communities in economically poor contexts, we critically discuss three interrelated perspectives that help shift the focus of attention about the ethics of research in the global south from the geographical and conceptual margins to the center. First, we explore the interface between ethical research and the wider agenda of achieving social justice for/with children. Second, we highlight the ways in which research takes place within the context of broader social and personal relationships. Third, we highlight the need for researchers' understand, respect and incorporate appropriately local ethos of relationships in order to not only bridge the gap between formal ethical standards/guidelines and informal ethical practices but also promote participatory ethics.

The Park Hotels: Designing Communications

The case describes how Priya Paul, the Chairperson of The Park Hotel (TPH), and her team created a uniquely Indian boutique hotel network — infusing each property with local ethos and a charming distinction, emphasizing intimate and personalized service, and positioning each hotel as an entertainment destination for customers. The case invites students to consider the communication choices open to the TPH management in 2010 as they cope with growing competition from the entry of international majors (Hyatt, Starwood Hotels and JW Marriott) and the expansion plans of domestic giants (The Taj, Oberoi and ITC Welcomgroup) while seeking to retain the distinctiveness and individuality of each of the properties in the network. The case describes the communication strategy adopted by TPH and elaborates on the various channels of communication used such as personal selling, advertising, public relations, and social media. The rich exhibits of the case allow for analysis of creative as well as media strategy. The case will enable participants to understand the challenges in integrating the different elements of marketing communications and the challenges in communicating experiences as opposed to products or services.

The Moderating Effect of U.S. Regional Collectivism on Acquired Family Firm Success

The following proposal seeks to advance studies on U.S. regional characteristics and their effects on business expansion through firm acquisition. The investigation will augment regional cultural dimension studies by Vandello and Cohen, (1999) and expand upon applications of Cultural Dimension Theory within country borders. It is the intent of the researcher to extrapolate Individualism and Collectivism traits of U.S. regional territories and the perceived success of acquired Family Business in the associated region. Literature suggests that, family businesses are representative of local ethos and significantly correlated with collectivist cultures across national boundaries (Granovetter 1994; Dutta 1996; Chakrabarty 2009). This study will seek to determine if there is a relationship between perceived post-acquisition performance of acquired family firms and the concentration of Individualism or Collectivism traits of specific states or regions within the US country borders.

Multiple methods, complex dilemmas: negotiating socio-ethical spaces in participatory research with disadvantaged children

The paper explores the methodological and socio-ethical dilemmas of researching with disadvantaged children in two contrasting fieldwork settings in Ethiopia. The challenges of adhering to dominant, ‘Western’ ethical principles and of creating and sharing ethical spaces during fieldwork are discussed. It is argued that research ethics originating in the Global North entail standards that are difficult to apply in social, cultural and economic contexts elsewhere, and that these needed to be reworked in reflexive ways during fieldwork. The indeterminate nature of grounded field research and the fluidity of its unfolding directions, not only make the contextualization of universal ethics in local ethos about childhood necessary. The paper also highlights how fieldwork with children is a morally contested terrain embedded in and through personal, social and ethical spatiality (Soja 2001, Massey 2005). Some questions are raised that require further consideration in research with children in similar circumstances.

From ‘Russianness’ to ‘Israeliness’ through the landscape of the soul: therapeutic discourse in the practice of immigrant absorption in Israel with ‘Russian’ adolescents

This article explores the increasing incorporation of professional therapeutic knowledge and practices into the state-led apparatus of absorption of new immigrants in Israel. Singling out this phenomenon is the seemingly unexpected alliance between the therapeutic ethos, which leans on individualist, a-national and universal values, and state-led absorption practices, based on a Zionist, collectivist and local ethos. According to the Zionist ethos, the newcomer ‘returning to an historical homeland’ is expected to become part of a territorially bounded collective entity and to adopt a new national identity that will predominate over other identities. The therapeutic ethos undermines moral authorities promoting collective redemption through identification with community goals and challenges a patronizing attitude towards new immigrants. Analysing the rhetoric and practice of Na'aleh – a decade-and-a-half-old project for adolescents immigrating from the former Soviet Union, characterized by a ‘therapeutic absorption policy’, this article examines the meaning of ‘therapeutic’ absorption in shaping a new Israeli citizen within the current social context. In order to clarify the historical uniqueness of this phenomenon, Na'aleh's absorption paradigm is compared to Youth Aliyah – the project that absorbed youngsters in a distinctly different ideological period of Israeli history (early 1940s), particularly with regard to the status of Zionism. A locus of comparison is the perceptions of the absorbing personnel and the absorbed immigrants in both ventures. The main claim of this article is that the psychologizing of the absorption apparatus both challenges and fortifies the traditional role of statist Zionism under global, postmodern conditions, typified by the erosion of the nation-state and questioning the moral status of its constitutive ethos. Therapeutic absorption transforms the newcomer into the object of therapeutic intervention rather than assimilative education. However, it simultaneously enables the ‘Russian’ teenagers from a ‘pre-therapeutic society’ to internalize a ‘therapeutic habitus’, which grants them the skills and competency to become a ‘local’ and to attain symbolic goods significant in their new social environment. Therapeutic personnel, characterized by emotional skills and cultural proximity to the absorbed pupils, rather than ideological identification with Zionist project, serve as a newer version of traditional agents of Israeli socialization, by virtue of their own unique course of absorption in Israel that blends the process of ‘becoming Israeli’ with socialization into a professional/therapeutic culture.

O ethos sanjoanense: tradição e mudança em uma "cidade pequena"

Este artigo analisa como o "padrão pessoalizante de relações sociais", arquetípico das chamadas sociedades holistas ou tradicionais, âmago do ethos nacional brasileiro e elemento estruturante da vida coletiva nas "cidades pequenas", reage diante do "processo de individualização" provocado pela expansão do capitalismo e de seus valores dominantes. Tomando como referência o período em que o Brasil passou a se incluir mais vigorosamente sob a "ordem social competitiva" do sistema mundial, o texto reconstitui a história do faccionalismo - uma expressão proeminente do padrão pessoalizante de relações sociais - em uma pequena cidade de Minas Gerais entre o final do século XIX e o final do século XX. O objetivo é relativizar a concepção de que esse processo tenha redundado em uma decaída do estilo de vida tradicional da pequena cidade, mas também rejeitar a idéia de que a tradição se mantém incólume à passagem do tempo, propondo que a dialética entre tradição e mudança explicita "processos de modulação" do ethos local.

How rational should bioethics be? The value of empirical approaches.

Rational justification of claims with empirical content calls for empirical and not only normative philosophical investigation. Empirical approaches to bioethics are epistemically valuable, i.e., such methods may be necessary in providing and verifying basic knowledge about cultural values and norms. Our assumptions in moral reasoning can be verified or corrected using these methods. Moral arguments can be initiated or adjudicated by data drawn from empirical investigation. One may argue that individualistic informed consent, for example, is not compatible with the Asian communitarian orientation. But this normative claim uses an empirical assumption that may be contrary to the fact that some Asians do value and argue for informed consent. Is it necessary and factual to neatly characterize some cultures as individualistic and some as communitarian? Empirical investigation can provide a reasonable way to inform such generalizations. In a multi-cultural context, such as in the Philippines, there is a need to investigate the nature of the local ethos before making any appeal to authenticity. Otherwise we may succumb to the same ethical imperialism we are trying hard to resist. Normative claims that involve empirical premises cannot be reasonable verified or evaluated without utilizing empirical methods along with philosophical reflection. The integration of empirical methods to the standard normative approach to moral reasoning should be reasonably guided by the epistemic demands of claims arising from cross-cultural discourse in bioethics.

Poetic transformations of yolmo ?sadness?

One way in which Yolmo Sherpa of Helambu, Nepal, come to terms with loss is to sing of it. The paper seeks to show how one Yolmo 'song of sadness' works to express, evoke and assuage sentiments of funerary grief. Yet to best explore the transformative poetics of the song, we must trace its semantic links to other songs and situations, and so develop a contextual understanding of the experiential contours of Yolmo 'sadness,' the local ethos of emotional avoidance and restraint, and the sociopolitical nature of emotional distress in the Helambu valley. The findings of this analysis lead the author to argue, in contrast with recent ethnographies which treat discourses on emotions as rhetorical strategies rather than as reflections of personal or communal experience, that we need an integrative approach which focuses on the relationship between language and experience, politics and felt emotion.

The Antioquians of Medellin

The municipality of Medellin, Colombia, was studied in 1970 in order to determine the type of missionary activity that could most realistically be undertaken in this city by evangelicals wishing to share their faith effectively with the residents of this urban center. Bringing together data from local publications, statistics gathered by various branches of the government, insights into the local ethos gleaned from interviews with residents and historical facts, the author argues for a non-ecclesiastical, infiltration approach directed toward the strategically important and rapidly growing middle class.