Sociocultural Trends Research Articles

Failed, not finished: A narrative approach to understanding venture failure stigmatization

This paper implements a qualitative, narrative approach to investigate entrepreneurs' personal experience of stigma associated with venture failure. Findings draw on the lived experience of 12 entrepreneurs and tell a collective story of how stigma affects entrepreneurs, shapes their actions, and engenders outcomes for them and their ventures. The story covers three episodes of entrepreneurs anticipating, meeting, and then transforming venture failure. Overall the paper shifts the focus of stigma research from the socio-cultural perspective pervading research to date, to micro-level processes underlying socio-cultural trends. Findings offer unexpected insights into failure stigmatization. First, findings suggest stigmatization is best viewed as a process that unfolds over time rather than a label. Second, this process begins before, not after, failure and contributes to venture demise. Third, there is a positive ending to the collective story in that stigmatization ultimately triggers epiphanies or deep personal insights which transform entrepreneurs' view of failure from a very negative to a positive life experience. This transformation results in entrepreneurs distributing learning from failure to the founding of future ventures, even when ventures are not their own.

Psychoanalysis and Research: Some Reflections and Opinions

The author argues that existing research on the outcome of psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic therapies is sufficient to claim a solid basis in scientific evidence for psychodynamically oriented clinical work. She explores sociocultural trends that increase the probability that analytic therapists and academic researchers will misunderstand one another, and she discusses the problematic status of the randomized controlled trial as the "gold standard" of research. She urges readers to educate themselves about what the outcome research actually shows, to support empirical investigations of psychoanalytic theories and practice, to make alliances with therapists of other orientations, and to try to contribute to changing the terms in which policymakers and the public frame their understanding of mental health and mental suffering.

Shots to the mind: Violence, the brain and biomedicine in popular novels and film in post-1960s America

Abstract This article traces an unlikely and gruesome subject: how and why images of people getting shot in the head have become so pervasive in contemporary US fiction and film. Adopting a historical-genealogical approach, the analysis explores how the so-called headshot image emerged from two socio-cultural trends. First, the headshot referenced key historical traumas from the 1960s that involved the deaths of Ernest Hemingway, J. F. Kennedy and Nguyễn Văn Lém. Second, it drew upon strong anxieties over the new brain death diagnosis that was established by medical authorities in the late 1960s. The analysis then traces how this image was subsequently elaborated in books such as Mario Puzo’s The Godfather (1969) and Lawrence Sanders’ The First Deadly Sin (1973), as well as films such as Ted Post’s Magnum Force (1973) and Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978). Finally, the article demonstrates key uses of the headshot in the recent novels of Don DeLillo and Cormac McCarthy. In all this, the headshot points to a much deeper undercurrent of narcissism and fragmentation that characterizes post-1960s culture in the United States.

The formation of Afrikaans

'If we go back in time, the problem of what Afrikaans is becomes more and more difficult', wrote Valkhoff more than two decades ago (1972:2), and notwithstanding a far better understanding of the material facts, his words remain true today. In what follows I shall elucidate the sociolinguistic nature of the formation of Afrikaans at the Cape of Good Hope. In section 2 I explore the social bases of glottogenesis within a pantheoretical framework in the sense that the parameters I identify will hold for any theory or model of glottogenesis at the Cape. To paraphrase Woolford (1983:2): Although there are internal principles that govern the theoretically possible linguistic paths along which .. language may evolve in an extraterritorial setting, it is the external factors that determine how radically its linguistic structure will diverge from metropolitan norms. Section 3 is devoted to a critical overview of both current and selected older writings on how Afrikaans came into being. No one who has investigated its history would seriously dispute that the emergence of the new code was as much a social fact as it was a purely linguistic one. But not everyone has put equal emphasis on this truism. In numerous writings on our subject we find widely varying degrees of concern with sociolinguistic relations underlying the formation of Afrikaans. Section 4 explores the implications entailed by adoption of the view that periods of marked shifts in linguistic patterns are largely congruent with significant changes in culture. An eminent linguist/anthropologist of another generation, Harry Hoijer, was of the opinion that in order to understand linguistic change, one must see it as a part of a wider process of cultural change. Naturally, this is not to suggest a causal connection between sociocultural trends and specific linguistic changes. Rather, changes within the various aspects of culture cannot be regarded as distinct and unrelated but must be seen as different realizations of a single process (Hoijer 1948:335). In section 5 I discuss the directional gradience of linguistic items across social class by the end of the Dutch India Company (VOC) era in 1795, with a view toward elaborating on my claim (Roberge 1994) that the Cape Colony was a continuum ~peech community. More precisely, the Netherlandic speech community at the Cape consisted of a spectrum of lects ranging from the 'High' Dutch of the expatriot power elite to a Cape Dutch Creole. Rather than concern myself narrowly with the origins of these linguistic items, I focus on their social transmission and development in a context of interacting social groups alternating among variants in their linguistic ,repertoires. As such, this essay departs somewhat from the usual method of historical disquisition in Afrikaans linguistics, which concentrates on single-feature etymologies and takes for granted the formation of a socially accepted grammar.

From Riches to Rags: A Narrative Approach to Entrepreneurs’ Experience of Venture Failure

This paper investigates entrepreneurs’ experience of stigma associated with venture failure. We implement a narrative approach to understand how stigma was experienced personally by entrepreneurs. Findings draw on the lived experience of 12 entrepreneurs and tell a collective story of what stigma meant and how it affected entrepreneurs’ actions, behaviors, and decisions as they anticipated, enacted, and moved beyond venture failure. Overall the paper shifts the focus of stigma research from the socio-cultural perspective that constitutes the bulk of research to date, to the level of the microprocesses underlying these socio-cultural trends. Importantly, findings show how entrepreneurial failure engendered epiphanies or sudden deep insights for entrepreneurs that ultimately transformed failure from a very negative to a positive life experience. This transformation inspired entrepreneurs to contribute their knowledge gained through failure to future entrepreneurial efforts, even if these efforts were not their own. We discuss implications of findings for failed entrepreneurs’ future start-ups and for the application of learning from venture failure.

The formation of Afrikaans

'If we go back in time, the problem of what Afrikaans is becomes more and more difficult', wrote Valkhoff more than two decades ago (1972:2), and notwithstanding a far better understanding of the material facts, his words remain true today. In what follows I shall elucidate the sociolinguistic nature of the formation of Afrikaans at the Cape of Good Hope. In section 2 I explore the social bases of glottogenesis within a pantheoretical framework in the sense that the parameters I identify will hold for any theory or model of glottogenesis at the Cape. To paraphrase Woolford (1983:2): Although there are internal principles that govern the theoretically possible linguistic paths along which .. language may evolve in an extraterritorial setting, it is the external factors that determine how radically its linguistic structure will diverge from metropolitan norms. Section 3 is devoted to a critical overview of both current and selected older writings on how Afrikaans came into being. No one who has investigated its history would seriously dispute that the emergence of the new code was as much a social fact as it was a purely linguistic one. But not everyone has put equal emphasis on this truism. In numerous writings on our subject we find widely varying degrees of concern with sociolinguistic relations underlying the formation of Afrikaans. Section 4 explores the implications entailed by adoption of the view that periods of marked shifts in linguistic patterns are largely congruent with significant changes in culture. An eminent linguist/anthropologist of another generation, Harry Hoijer, was of the opinion that in order to understand linguistic change, one must see it as a part of a wider process of cultural change. Naturally, this is not to suggest a causal connection between sociocultural trends and specific linguistic changes. Rather, changes within the various aspects of culture cannot be regarded as distinct and unrelated but must be seen as different realizations of a single process (Hoijer 1948:335). In section 5 I discuss the directional gradience of linguistic items across social class by the end of the Dutch India Company (VOC) era in 1795, with a view toward elaborating on my claim (Roberge 1994) that the Cape Colony was a continuum ~peech community. More precisely, the Netherlandic speech community at the Cape consisted of a spectrum of lects ranging from the 'High' Dutch of the expatriot power elite to a Cape Dutch Creole. Rather than concern myself narrowly with the origins of these linguistic items, I focus on their social transmission and development in a context of interacting social groups alternating among variants in their linguistic ,repertoires. As such, this essay departs somewhat from the usual method of historical disquisition in Afrikaans linguistics, which concentrates on single-feature etymologies and takes for granted the formation of a socially accepted grammar.

Socio-cultural trends in Women’s Founders Training, Mentorship, Transition and Transformation with a Special Focus on Botswana

Botswana women have historically played very crucial roles in the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) as great partners and gap fillers in national development. Among the most important aspects of founding NGOs organization is the need to train, mentor and transform, and transit from the organization with no doubt about its autonomy and sustainability. This article is informed by a Based on a workshop methodology with a total of twenty women from the USA and Botswana women assembled under the auspices of the Women’s Affairs Department and have occasional meetings since 2008. A key finding from studying the Women’s Founders Collective is that women are socio- culturally groomed to participate in unpaid NGO work even if they have been trained, mentored and make an impact enough to transform organizations and communities they serve. With the advent of the cash economy, the trends of women as key actors in NGOs have changed to include men especially in instances where there are some financial rewards. Regardless of whether key actors are men or female, the need for intensive training, mentorship, transition and transformation can not be overemphasized. This is the gist of the journal article, using women as a point of contact.

Understanding the Oversupply of Physicians in Greece: The Role of Human Resources Planning, Financing Policy, and Physician Power

Planning of the workforce has emerged as a critical issue in European health policy, as the need for human resources for health is changing in light of demographic, epidemiological, and socio-cultural trends and patterns of supply and demand in service provision. Greece represents a country with an oversupply of physicians, having the highest concentration of physicians among European Union countries. The study aims to analyze the factors influencing the high number of physicians in Greece and make policy recommendations. The analysis was conducted through international literature review and database searches. Neither the demography of the physician population in terms of age, gender composition, and geographic dispersion, nor the epidemiology of the Greek population, can explain the relatively high number of physicians in Greece. Despite the physician surplus, Greece faces serious geographical inequities regarding the distribution of physicians. There are also imbalances within the specialist category, with certain specialists (e.g., cardiologists) being in oversupply compared to other European countries, while others (e.g., general practitioners) remain weakly represented. Inadequate planning of human resources for health, inadequate health financing policy regarding primary care, gatekeeping mechanisms, and medical power constitute the primary themes explaining the trends of physicians' population in Greece.

Moral Ambition: Mobilization and Social Outreach in Evangelical Megachurches (review)

Reviewed by: Moral Ambition: Mobilization and Social Outreach in Evangelical Megachurches Jon Bialecki Omri Elisha , Moral Ambition: Mobilization and Social Outreach in Evangelical Megachurches. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. 276 pp. It would be factually accurate to describe Moral Ambition: Mobilization and Social Outreach in Evangelical Megachurches, the first ethnographic monograph by Omri Elisha, as a single book. After all, it takes on a single problematic—that of politically and theologically conservative American Evangelicals who feel compelled to engage in a form of voluntaristic social work usually associated with the sort of "social gospel" movements normally connected with liberal, mainline denominations. It does so in a single site—Knoxville, Tennessee—and it is contained within a single volume. However, when considering the merits of this work, and what it has to tell us about the current state and potential future directions of the contemporary anthropology of Christianity, it is probably best to consider this to be two separate books, or better yet (given that the religious nature of the topic) it is profitable to think of this as a volume capable of being given both an exoteric and esoteric reading. The exoteric reading might be called the privileged one; it certainly is what stands out in sharp relief during the initial reading of the book. It is, like all good ethnography, a nuanced snapshot of particularly situated people struggling to work through a particular problem: in this case, the problem is that of how to practice and campaign for Christian charity in an age that is ideologically and structurally neoliberal. Though these individuals may not be humanists in the classic sense of the word, the portrait drawn of them by Elisha certainly is, a sketch of persons who function as much as full characters as they do as exemplars of larger socio-cultural trends. This is particularly the case in the moments when the ethnographic description attends to the way people struggle with the [End Page 973] painful antinomies of their religious and economic situation, as well as to their attempts to overcome it through various forms of what might have been called "consciousness raising" had it occurred in a different milieu. Elisha's informants are caught in the snares of an ethical individualism, a petit bourgeoisie consumerist quietism, and a salvation economy skeptical of the social and the institutional; despite this, Elisha depicts a handful of "morally ambitious" individuals who struggle to extricate both themselves and their fellow megachurch believers. This ambition impels them into a different creative and agentive mode of interacting with those they consider the poor and the oppressed, imagined as the proper objects of Christian charity and concern. If such a movement were to come to its completion, Elisha's informants contend, it would augur a real revival, completely transforming their city in ways that even they find difficult to articulate. Working against class type, and struggling to bridge racialized economic divides, this is a study of people engaged in a particular kind of moral involution, attempting to overcome the very forces that shape and limit their subjectification. At the exoteric level, this book would be compelling for those interested in contemporary charity and gift economies, those interested in the subjective shape of neoliberalism in the contemporary world, or those who attend to social movements. The second, esoteric reading of this book lies not at the level of expressed content, but the formal decisions made by the author in framing his ethnographic object. What is of interest here is Elisha's choice to think through his wider object, a recognizable "Bible Belt" evangelical Christianity, as a multiplicity, while not falling into what Joel Robbins (2003:193) has called "an object dissolving critique." Here, instead of being either epiphenomenon or essence, Christianity is a series of open, differentiating potentialities; the direction of charitable practices designed to address and denature structural forms of inequality are always present in the form of Southern Evangelism that Elisha documents, but it is not always actualized, and frequently not actualized on the same form. This means that Elisha also has to make use of an analytics of different speeds, intensities, durations, and thresholds, as well as of different attractors that...

The impact of migrant work in the elder care sector: recent trends and empirical evidence in Italy

Italy is characterized by a very high and increasing demand for elder care but, paradoxically, also by a surprisingly low level of public service provision in this sector. Due to current demographic, economic and socio-cultural trends, the potential availability of informal family care has been decreasing while, on the other hand, still strong familistic attitudes have so far limited the emergence of formal—both home and residential—care services. The ‘cash-for-care’ orientation of the Italian welfare system, with direct payments prevailing over in-kind services, has thus gradually developed into a care regime where monetary transfers to dependent (older) people are often used to privately employ migrant care workers. This phenomenon is analyzed in the context of two different studies (EUROFAMCARE and DIPO), in order to understand how migrant care work has been affecting both family care and professional care work in Italy. The main findings suggest that the widespread employment of migrant care workers—propelled by public care allowances—has certainly relieved many families from most burdensome care tasks, but at the same time partly ‘crowded out’ formal care services. Care quality issues remain. however, largely under-investigated, as do care drain effects in sending countries.

New Trends in the Dutch Housing Market

Every few years the planning agencies in the Netherlands draw up a prognosis for the future housing needs on the basis of economic and demographic scenarios. It is our contention that, in applying this approach, the agencies neglect to take sufficient account of the influence of cultural dynamics. Against this background, a recent recommendatory report by the Dutch Council for Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM-raad 2009) drew attention to three socio-cultural trends which are currently manifesting themselves on the Dutch housing market: 1. A growing interest in living with like-minded people and in common-interest housing concepts; 2. The rise of transnational living (permanently or temporarily living abroad) and people having multiple residences; 3. An increasing mix of housing and other functions and services (care, energy, leisure, retail), which is opening up the housing market for new players. This contribution explores the background and the expressions of these three trends that will have a significant influence on the demand for housing in the future, in spatial terms as well as with regard to quantity and quality. It turns out that the trends raise new dilemmas in spatial planning and housing policy. In order to solve these dilemmas, a different way of thinking is needed.

Materialist Scholarship and The People of Puerto Rico

The People of Puerto Rico occupies an ambivalent place in both the genealogy of anthropological theory and the understanding of Puerto Rican society. Its co-authors collectively developed a uniform and complex conceptual scheme which expressed both convergence and divergence among them. The book furthered Marxist approaches in U.S. anthropology and was the first serious scholarly materialist analysis of Puerto Rico. While privileging the lives of common people, it fell short of representing important strains of Puerto Rican diversity and socio-historical dynamics. The Puerto Rico Social Anthropology Project used four different models to explain the genesis of cultural forms and the interrelations among aspects of society/culture, in a given, homogeneous, “subculture” or “socio-cultural segment” of a complex society. The Project's members stressed a linear-utilitarian analysis of these subcultures, but where they could not account for observed cultural forms with such an approach, they appealed to the culture-psychology relation. This article considers the four interlinked paradigms, the associated analysis of socio-cultural trends, the resulting problematic theoretical consequences, and the flawed Marxism of the work.

Review: War Made New

WAR MADE NEW Technology, Warfare and the Course of History, 1500 to Today Max Boot New York: Gotham Books, 2006. 640PP, US$35.00 cloth ISBN 1-592-40222-4This is a sweeping and ambitious book that takes aim at the current debates about the future of warfare. Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the notable Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power (2002), has looked to the past to inform the reader about what can come to pass. Unsurprisingly, he concludes that despite the rapidly increasing pace and cost of military-technological innovation, the United States needs to continue to innovate to dominate the entire spectrum of military power if it hopes to retain its qualitative lead and great power status (472). Though reaching across a far greater spread of time, Boot's account reflects the intensifying concern among current military analysts over the preservation of US military strength, and is in company with similar recent studies such as Fred Kagan's Finding the Target (2006) and Thomas Mahnken's Technology and the American Way of War Since 1945 (2008).In War Made New, Boot takes the whole modem era (since 1500) for his scope and distils from it four key eras of change, or revolutions, in the character of warfare. The first is what he terms the gunpowder revolution, ranging from the early 1500s to the early 1800s and characterized by the widespread adoption of firearms on land and sea and the corresponding organizational changes that gave European nations great military strength over most other parts of the world. Boot follows this with the industrial revolution, largely the 19th century to the First World War and reflected in the integration of changes in steam transportation and wire communications, as well as mass-produced complex rifled weaponry. The third period he identifies as a second industrial revolution, reflecting the substantive technological changes in industrial societies in the 1920s to the 1940s and culminating in World War II and the hegemonic transfer of power away from central and western Europe to the United States and the Soviet Union. Boot then examines what he sees as the fourth major era, the current information revolution. (He specifically sets aside nuclear weapons as not having had much direct effect on warfare.) Boot does not attempt to recount the developments in each era closely - this is not a rewrite of Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987) - but instead retells several key battles in each revolutionary period to illustrate his point. The focus of his analysis is clearly on military technology and how its adaptation by various successive powers changed the character of war and their strategic position. Despite the book's heft, the narrowness ofthat focus will make the reader question at times Boot's argument about how influential certain innovations truly were compared with the deeper underlying roots of a nation's military strength (such as economics, politics, and sociocultural trends) that shaped the great powers' ability to adopt and adapt the new tools of war to maximum effectiveness. …

How to sell your soul and still get into Heaven: Steven Covey's epiphany-inducing technology of effective selfhood

Steven Covey's The 7 habits of highly effective people, one of the most influential and popular contemporary self-help texts, has resulted in the development a large multinational consulting business, several spin-off texts, and much imitation since its publication in 1989. An examination of the text, informed by Critical Discourse Analysis, is conducted with a view to unearthing the textual, discursive and socio-cultural practices that have enabled the work and its message to become so popular. 7 habits is an epiphanogenic (or epiphany-inducing) technology emerging from an `effectiveness' discipline supported by three socio-cultural trends: the postmodern, saturated self; the coming of neo-liberal society and the financialization of the self; and the subjective turn. Covey's discipline of effectiveness aims to produce a self that is simultaneously de-saturated, financialized and expressivist, but supportive of conservative, universalist and late-capitalist modes of being.

The Second Life of urban planning? Using NeoGeography tools for community engagement

The majority of the world's citizens now live in cities. Although urban planning can thus be thought of as a field with significant ramifications on the human condition, many practitioners feel that it has reached the crossroads in thought leadership between traditional practice and a new, more participatory and open approach. Conventional ways to engage people in participatory planning exercises are limited in reach and scope. At the same time, socio-cultural trends and technology innovation offer opportunities to re-think the status quo in urban planning. NeoGeography introduces tools and services that allow non-geographers to use advanced geographical information systems. Similarly, is there a potential for the emergence of a neo-planning paradigm in which urban planning is carried out through active civic engagement aided by Web 2.0 and new media technologies thus redefining the role of practicing planners? This paper traces a number of evolving links between urban planning, NeoGeography and information and communication technology. Two significant trends – participation and visualisation – with direct implications for urban planning are discussed. Combining advanced participation and visualisation features, the popular virtual reality environment Second Life is then introduced as a test bed to explore a planning workshop and an integrated software event framework to assist narrative generation. We discuss an approach to harness and analyse narratives using virtual reality logging to make transparent how users understand and interpret proposed urban designs.

Sea ice, climate change, and community vulnerability in northern Foxe Basin, Canada

The Arctic is undergoing rapid climatic and environmental change, most notably in the spatial extent and thickness of the sea ice. Inuit communities in the Canadian Arctic are directly affected by these changes, with dramatic change in sea ice conditions documented in recent years. We use a case study from the Inuit community of Igloolik to examine the processes and conditions shaping human vulnerability to sea ice change. In 2006, the ocean froze 3 to 4 wk later than normal, with little remnant ice during the summer. Igloolik residents described this state of sea ice as anom- alous, and Inuit observations were consistent with instrumental sea-ice data. We examined how com- munity members experienced and responded to the anomalous ice conditions of 2006, using our analysis of this perceptual/behavioral data as a lens for exploring vulnerability and its determinants. Inuit observations shed light on the implications of such ice conditions for human use of this arctic environment, including reduced ability to procure traditional food. Effects on the community were exacerbated by other climate-related conditions and non-climatic stresses, including increasing fuel prices and longer-term socio-cultural trends. The case study also indicates significant adaptive capacity: anomalous ice years are increasingly becoming the norm and there is evidence that social learning and responsive local institutions are reducing the physical risks of using the ice in a chang- ing climate. Climatic extremes documented in 2006 are projected to be the new mid-century norm as a result of anthropogenic climate change. The case study therefore offers a baseline for examining potential future vulnerabilities.

Historiography of Ballet Studies at the Undergraduate Level in the United Kingdom

This paper explores the histories, practices, and legacies of ballet studies in academic education in the United Kingdom. Charting the coexistence of vocational training in mainstream professional colleges and the emergence of ballet studies in select higher education institutions provides a reading into the marginalisation of ballet studies within the spectrum of dance degrees in the twenty-first century. The paper presents selected readings of sociocultural, artistic, and pedagogical trends concerned with the proliferation of dance and ballet degrees (1980S–1990S); and the effect of issues in training and academic studies on the nature of past and current programmes in the field of ballet studies.

Constructing Vernacular Culture in the Trans-Caribbean (review)

Reviewed by: Constructing Vernacular Culture in the Trans-Caribbean Catherine M. Douillet Holger HenkeKarl-Heinz Magister (eds.), Constructing Vernacular Culture in the Trans-Caribbean. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2008. 407 pp. The 15 essays of Constructing Vernacular Culture in the Trans-Caribbean investigate how globalization and transnationalism construct and shape the making of “vernacular” cultures in the transnational Caribbean communities in the Caribbean, the United States, and Europe. Rather than the narrowly defined “Caribbean,” the book interests itself in the broader, more complex notion of the “ trans-Caribbean,” which, as Anton Allahar mentions in the preface, “ invite[s] a host of other social, political, and intellectual entanglements that speak to diasporas within diasporas” (x). Some of the significant questions that the contributors pose include: What happens to local cultures when individuals who carry various ethnic, political, and class backgrounds as well as different premigration histories get transplanted physically or virtually in different diasporic places? How are cultural and gender identities affected by the increasing movements of populations and ideas across borders? How are transnational practices reflected in literary writing? In the introduction, Henke and Magister define “the vernacular” as diverse cultural expressions that are entrenched in the popular and indigenous spheres, rather than in the official “high” culture. The book offers a [End Page 741] broad range of case studies and analyses of vernacular culture in the realms of music, religion, oral productions such as gossip and oral poetry, gender relations, and cyberculture, with focuses on various transnational spaces such as Puerto Rico, Guyana, New York, Surinam, and the Netherlands. One of the chief assets of Constructing Vernacular Culture in the Trans- Caribbean probably lies in its pluri-disciplinary dimension, with essays in anthropology, sociology, political science, literature, cultural studies, and sexual and gender studies. This plurality of voices is also evidenced by the volume’s international team of authors—scholars active in the Caribbean, Europe, and North America. This book is most obviously valuable for Caribbeanists, as it provides fine ethnographies of various trans- Caribbean communities and socio-cultural trends in the 20th and 21th centuries, as well as useful analyses of literary texts that pertain to Caribbean transnationalism. Yet, its authors foster discussions grounded in theories of globalization, transnationalism, creolization, and feminism that could be very beneficial to non-Caribbeanists as well. Part 1 focuses on the transnational re-creation of “home” and family relations, with essays by Nierkerk, Sutton, and Schmidt. Nierkerk’s and Sutton’s are ethnographic contributions based on research conducted in the late 1990s. While Nierkerk investigates the ways in which Afro- Surinamese and Indo-Surinamese adapt differently to the Netherlands based on each ethnic group’s migration histories and socio-economic place both in Surinam and the Netherlands, Sutton focuses on family reunion rituals held in Trinidad, Grenada, and Barbados by second-generation migrants living in the United States and England. Schmidt’s contribution offers a more theoretical approach: Building upon concepts of creolization and mestizaje, as well as Levi-Strauss’s concept of “bricolage,” she introduces the useful notion of “polyphonic bricolage” which stresses the multivocal quality of cultural construction where different, equivalent discourses get continually exchanged in a permanent process of mixture and interpretations. While the concept is interesting, as it stresses the complexity of Caribbean transnational identifications and the necessity to move away from simplistic national boundaries to understand what cultural performance and identities mean for specific individuals based on their personal histories and interactions with their surroundings, it probably does not advance the established concepts of creolization and mestizaje to the degree that Schmidt contends since both creolization and mestizaje already encapsulate notions of dialogical change. [End Page 742] Part 2 examines “Performing Identities” in areas that include religion, oral productions such as gossip, and music. Butler explores the ways in which Haitian and Jamaican Pentecostals negotiate their religious and national identities through their use or rejection of various local and global popular musical forms, such as dancehall reggae, “Konpa,” or African-American musical styles, according to their perceived degree of appropriateness. In the same vein, Forde’s essay offers an interesting overview of the various historical and contemporary spiritual and physical cross-influences between Spiritual Baptism in the...

Art, Light and Landscape New Agendas for Urban Development

ABSTRACT Public space in cities is in crisis. The symbolic elements constructed in public spaces in the past no longer serve to represent the flows circulating through them. According to the Dialogue Collective Public Space: New Perspectives, organized by the Universal Forum of Cultures, Barcelona 2004, the progressive weakening of public space has two underlying causes: the weakening of the political dimension of the city and the fact that the very notion of shared urban life is going through a deep crisis. We need a profound change in cities and local management. This change should reorient the thinking of city planners and political representatives, focusing on the city as a place of exchange that embraces new forms of institutional interaction and unconstrained relationships between citizens. Public urban space has a key role to play in the development and integration of cities. This paper presents the experience of some projects, named Luzboa, where art (culture and the creative arts) and light (science and technology) were used to promote urban development and to revitalize public space. Luzboa was a pioneer project in Portugal, built at the intersection between economic (science and technology innovation) and socio-cultural trends (culture and arts), with the support of public and private capital. Luzboa was 2 weeks of light-art animation in Lisbon's streets, conferences and workshops. More than 30 works brought live experience of the night to citizens and visitors in the old part of the city. In this paper, under inspection are: the new agendas for urban development; the reorientation of urban planning to focus on developing an active, cultural city, rather than simply highlighting historical heritage; the question of finance for innovation and creative activity; the management of knowledge and the role of various intermediaries.

Emerging policy challenges in intellectual disabilities

The forces shaping intellectual disability policy-making are diverse; while many of the policy issues reviewed in this issue are specific to intellectual disabilities, there are others that transcend disability-specific concerns. Our review is organized around six emerging demographic and socio-cultural trends that may directly and profoundly impact the intellectual disability field: aging, changing labor markets, immigration, families, federalism, and culture. Each of these trends is discussed in terms of their relevance and potential impact on disability policy.