Showing papers on "Cultural analysis published in 2004"

Markets from Culture: Institutional Logics and Organizational Decisions in Higher Education Publishing

Abstract: Institutional logics, the underlying governing principles of societal sectors, strongly influence organizational decision making. Any shift in institutional logics results in a similar shift in attention to alternative problems and solutions and in new determinants for executive decisions. Examining changes in institutional logics in higher-education publishing, this book links cultural analysis with organizational decision making to develop a theory of attention and explain how executives concentrate on certain market characteristics to the exclusion of others. Analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data from the 1950s to the 1990s, the author shows how higher education publishing moved from a culture of independent domestic publishers focused on creating markets for books based on personal, relational networks to a culture of international conglomerates that create markets from corporate hierarchies. This book offers broader lessons beyond publishing-its theory is applicable to explaining institutional changes in organizational leadership, strategy, and structure occurring in all professional services industries.

Cultural Clusters and the Post-industrial City: Towards the Remapping of Urban Cultural Policy

Abstract: This paper explores and discusses the fairly recent phenomenon of cultural clustering strategies in the Netherlands. Amongst other things based on ideologies of 'enterprise culture', the quest for urban imagery and positioning strategies, the changing spatial fabric of cities and a search for economic and cultural revitalisation, for the past 5-10 years, the formation of cultural clusters has turned into something of an urban cultural development hype. However, what at first glance appears as a common model, often accompanied by boldly expressed slogans concerning the new role of culture and creativity in the physical and economic revitalisation of cities, in more detail unfolds as an ambivalent and conflict-ridden mixture of cultural, economic, social and spatial interests and sentiments. From a short-term perspective, such an eclectic blending of interests and sentiments might be considered as a good opportunity for urban cultural developments within a 'post-modern' urban development regime. However, fr...

Psychology and Culture

Abstract: Psychological processes influence culture. Culture influences psychological processes. Individual thoughts and actions influence cultural norms and practices as they evolve over time, and these cultural norms and practices influence the thoughts and actions of individuals. Large bodies of literature support these conclusions within the context of research on evolutionary processes, epistemic needs, interpersonal communication, attention, perception, attributional thinking, self-regulation, human agency, self-worth, and contextual activation of cultural paradigms. Cross-cultural research has greatly enriched psychology, and key issues for continued growth and maturation of the field of cultural psychology are articulated.

Culture and Public Action

Abstract: How does culture matter for development? Do certain societies have cultures which condemn them to poverty? Led by Arjun Appadurai, Mary Douglas, and Amartya Sen, the anthropologists and economists in this volume contend that culture is central to development, and that cultural processes are neither inherently good nor bad and never static. Rather, they are contested and evolving, and can be a source of profound social and economic transformation through their influence on aspirations and collective action; yet they can also be exploitative, exclusionary, and can lead to inequality. Culture and Public Action includes case studies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, which examine the role of culture in community-based development, ethnic conflict, famine relief, gender discrimination, and HIV-AIDS policy. The editors conclude by proposing how a "cultural lens" can better inform future research and public policy on development. Accessible, balanced, and engaging, this book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the relationship between culture and economics, and the design and implementation of development policy. For further information on the book and related essays, please visit: http://www.cultureandpublicaction.org For orders from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, please e-mail Permanent Black at perblack@ndb.vsnl.net.in.

Memory and place: geographies of a critical relationship

Abstract: In recent years, investigations of social or cultural memory have become a major field of inquiry throughout the humanities and social sciences. No longer the sole preserve of psychology, the study of memory now extends to anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, literary studies, communication, history and, increasingly, to geography. This article assesses some of the major trends in this burgeoning literature, especially those works spatial in nature, which we find to be of considerable cross‐disciplinary importance. Together, memory and place conjoin to produce much of the context for modern identities; providing a modest overview of that critical, dynamic relationship, this article serves as an introduction to this special issue of Social & Cultural Geography.

“Cultural” Concepts and the Language‐Culture Nexus1

Abstract: Events of language use mediate human sociality Such semiotic occasions develop, sustain, or transform at least part—some have argued the greater part—of people's conceptualizations of their universe Reserving the term cultural concepts for such sociocentric aspects of human cognition, this article sketches linguistic anthropology's methods for discovering truly cultural conceptualizations, illustrated at the polar extremes of ritual efficacy (Christianity's Eucharistic liturgy) and of everyday conversational language games Knowledge schemata structuring cultural concepts, here termed ‐onomic knowledge, turn out to be “in play” in interaction, made relevant to it as interactants use verbal and perilinguistic signs in the work of aligning as relationally identifiable kinds of persons In interactional experience, ‐onomic knowledge anchoring cultural concepts is always implicit and is even sometimes part of largely abstract cultural patterns only indirectly experienceable by people such as the cultural “e

Who is afraid of the humanoid? investigating cultural differences in the acceptance of robots

Abstract: Are robots perceived in the same manner in the West and in Japan? This article presents a preliminary exploration of several aspects of the Japanese culture and a survey of the most important myths and novels involving artificial beings in Western literature. Through this analysis, the article tries to shed light on particular cultural features that may account for contemporary differences in our behavior towards humanoids.

Culture on Display: The Production of Contemporary Visitability

Abstract: * Why is culture so widely on display? * What are the major characteristics of contemporary cultural display? * What is the relationship between cultural display and key features of contemporary society: the rise of consumerism; tourism; `identity-speak'; globalization? * What can cultural display tell us about current relations of self and other, here and there, now and then? Culture on Display invites the reader to visit culture. Reflecting on the contemporary proliferation of sites displaying culture in visitable form, it offers fresh ways of thinking about tourism, leisure and heritage. Bella Dicks locates diverse exhibitionary locations within wider social, economic and cultural transformations, including contemporary practices of tourism and travel, strategies of economic development, the staging of identities, globalization, interactivity and relations of consumerism. In particular, she critically examines how culture becomes transformed when it is put on display within these contexts. In each chapter, key theoretical issues of debate, such as authenticity, commodification and representation, are discussed in a lively and accessible manner. This is an important book for undergraduate and postgraduate students of cultural policy, cultural and media studies and sociology, as well as academic researchers in this field. It will also be of considerable value to students of sociology of culture, cultural politics, arts administration and cultural management.

The model of cultural competence through an evolutionary concept analysis.

Abstract: Becoming a culturally competent health professional is a demanding prerequisite in this multicultural society. Cultural competence is explored and abstracted as a conceptual framework through a concept analysis using the evolutionary method. Its model is constructed from a systemic, comprehensive literature review and analysis. Taking into account how cultural competence is viewed by other disciplines (medicine, psychology, education, and social work), a comprehensive definition, antecedents, and consequences of cultural competence in nursing are described and diagrammed. Additionally, two model cases and future implications are discussed. The broader American society is composed of a mosaic of discrete cultural groups existing within the context of their values and identities. Those distinct cultures affect each patient’s ways of thinking and his or her perceptions on health care and health behaviors. The proposed model of cultural competence provides a theoretical guide for developing strategies to achi...

Cultural Criminology: The Long and Winding Road

Abstract: This article will offer a thumbnail sketch of some of the key theoretical antecedents that have underscored the cultural analysis of crime and criminality in both the United States and Britain. It ...

The Practice of Cultural Studies

Abstract: Identifies the main methods of researching culture. Demonstrates how theory can inform and enable the practice of research. Explores the ways in which research practices and methods both produce and are produced by knowledge. Looks at the implications of the 'cultural turn' for disciplines other than cultural studies. The Practice of Cultural Studies will be an essential text for students of cultural studies and a useful guide to others studying culture in a range of disciplinary contexts across the humanities and social sciences.

Endogenous Explanation in the Sociology of Culture

Abstract: This paper examines recent work in the sociology of culture devoted to providing endogenous explanations of cultural phenomena. The focus is on works that provide cultural explanations of cultural processes, as opposed to the social structural and “production of culture” explanations otherwise predominant in the literature. I examine three distinct approaches: a “post-hermeneutic” approach devoted not to the question of cultural interpretation but to the issue of subjects' manipulation of culture in the quest for meaning; a semiotic approach focused on the mechanics of symbol systems; and an ecological approach that emphasizes the role of competition and niche density in explaining both cultural stasis and change. The three approaches have in common a general lack of interest in traditional conceptions of meaning (verstehen), choosing instead to focus on issues related to the internal structure and dynamics of cultural expression. This marks a new opportunity for synthesis and exploration in a field tradi...

“CIVIC GOLD” RUSH: Cultural planning and the politics of the Third Way

Abstract: Cultural planning is a strategic approach to city re‐imaging and cultural industries development that variously involves establishing cultural precincts, nurturing creative activity, and re‐evaluating public life and civic identity. In the context of varying political configurations and local histories, cultural planning is touted as a policy intervention capable of achieving a wide range of cultural, social, economic and urban outcomes. This article considers key factors leading to, and legitimating, the incorporation of so many aspects of social and human endeavour into cultural planning, and the reasons why cultural planning must inevitably fail in its own terms. Two influences are identified as being particularly important. First, the adoption by cultural planning of an understanding of culture as the entire way of life of a group or community provides theoretical legitimacy for its wide‐ranging agenda but is also a source of instability. Second, it is argued that the political priorities of the “Thir...

Redirecting traditional professional values to support safety: changing organisational culture in health care

Abstract: Professionals in healthcare organisations who seek to enhance safety and quality in an increasingly demanding industry environment often identify culture as a barrier to change. The cultural focus on individual autonomy, for example, seems to conflict with desired norms of teamwork, problem reporting, and learning. We offer a definition and explication of why culture is important to change efforts. A cultural analysis of health care suggests professional values that can be redirected to support change. We offer examples of organisations that drew upon cultural strengths to create new ways of working and gradually shifted the culture.

Mediated memories : Personal Cultural Memory as an Object of Cultural Analysis

Abstract: Like many people born in the 1950s and 1960s, I own a shoebox containing a variety of personal items signalling my personal past: photos, letters, diaries, and so on. In the course of several decad...

Cultural Studies and the Politics of Public Pedagogy: Making the Political More Pedagogical

Abstract: The ascendancy of neoliberal corporate culture into every aspect of American life both consolidates economic power in the hands of the few and aggressively attempts to break the power of unions, decouple income from productivity, subordinate the needs of society to the market, and deem public services and goods an unconscionable luxury. But it does more. It thrives on a culture of cynicism, insecurity and despair. Conscripts in a relentless campaign for personal responsibility, Americans are now convinced that they have little to hope for – and gain from – the government, non-profit public spheres, democratic associations, public and higher education, or other non-governmental social forces. With few exceptions, the project of democratizing public goods has fallen into disrepute in the popular imagination as the logic of the market undermines the most basic social solidarities. The consequences include not only a weakened state, but a growing sense of insecurity, cynicism and political retreat on the part of the general public. The incessant calls for self-reliance that now dominate public discourse betray a hollowed out and refigured state that neither provides adequate safety nets for its populace, especially those who are young, poor or marginalized, nor gives any indication that it will serve the interests of its citizens in spite of constitutional guarantees. In short, private interests trump social needs, and economic growth becomes more important than social justice.

The Politics of Cultural Difference in Second Language Education.

Abstract: Cultural difference is an important topic of discussion in second language education. Yet cultural difference is often conceptualized as fixed, objective, and apolitical based on an essentialist and normative understanding of culture. This article challenges such conceptualizations by examining and politicizing multiple and conflicting meanings of cultural difference. Multiple meanings of cultural difference are illustrated in examples from contrastive rhetoric research, the national standards for foreign language learning in the U.S., and culturally relevant teaching for minority students. The multiple and often contradicting meanings of cultural difference signify that they are produced in discourses that embody politics and struggles for power. The concept of a discursive construction of culture and cultural difference is exemplified in how characterizations of Japanese written communication styles are related to identity politics and colonialist discourses. It is suggested that cultural difference nee...

The Ethnography of Imagined Communities The Cultural Production of Sikh Ethnicity in Britain

Abstract: A shift in ethnographic vantage point from an exclusive focus on everyday worlds to the broader historical and cultural processes in which these worlds are embedded brings to light forms of politics that challenge traditional ways of understanding immigrant incorporation in modern nation-states. The author argues that the cultural politics of immigration and citizenship in the global era require this shift in ethnographic perspective. Multisited ethnography enables researchers to illuminate the more complex cultural processes of nation formation and the contradictory and, at times, incommensurate forms of cultural politics within which immigrants are made and make themselves as citizens. Viewing immigration from the perspective of nation formation, moreover, brings into question the explanatory power and political implications of traditional assimilation models of immigrant incorporation.

Self-Help, Media Cultures and the Production of Female Psychopathology

Abstract: This article brings together work at the intersection of critical psychology and cultural studies to explore the psychological and cultural significance of women's magazine culture. Drawing on rhetorical psychology and Foucault's later work on 'techniques of the self', it explores the complex injunctions and positionings that create the range of gendered anxieties and dilemmas produced within neoliberal relations. Self-help is discussed as a practice that condenses or brings together a range of cultural anxieties, bodily tensions, emotional economies and forms of psychopathology which are 'already constituted' lived realities for many of the readers engaging with these magazines. The article concludes that further engagement with critical psychology by cultural theorists will enable cultural studies to bring the body back into cultural theory and to consider the translation of cultural injunctions across the designations of race, class, sexuality and gender.

The Psycho-linguistic Embodiment of Parental Ethnotheories: A New Avenue to Understanding Cultural Processes in Parental Reasoning:

Abstract: A linguistic discourse analysis of the study of parental ethnotheories is proposed in this paper. It is argued that not only are ideas about parenting informed by the cultural environment, but the ways ideas are formulated in language itself can be understood as expressing cultural codes. In order to identify these cultural codes, we analysed interviews with mothers from independent and interdependent cultural contexts and looked for specific differences in the content and linguistic markers found in these personal narratives. We studied interviews with mothers from: two typically independent cultural communities (middle-class mothers from Los Angeles, USA, and Berlin, Germany); one typical interdependent cultural community (West African Nso farmers); and a cultural community that is believed to combine independent and interdependent orientations (middle-class urban Nso). The styles and analysis enabled us to discover the cultural embodiment of ethnotheories in terms of characteristic linguistic markers a...

Mapping Cultural Diversity within India: A Meta-analysis of Some Recent Studies

Abstract: Cross-cultural comparative studies mostly have been based on the assumption of cultural homogeneity that equates culture with nation. This assumption overlooks the cultural diversity that might exist within a nation. This article is based on the review of four empirical studies conducted by J.B.P. Sinha and his associates focusing on cultural diversity within India. A review of these studies revealed seven pan-Indian cultural preferences: (a) collectivist orientation; (b) respect for status and power; (c) primacy of personalized relationship; (d) desire to be embedded in an in-group; (e) familism; (f) context-sensitive (situational) behaviour; and (g) cynical view about others. However, it also revealed location-specific cultural preferences. The authors have analyzed these preferences, extracted from the findings of these studies for those locations which have been covered in more than one study, to present an holistic picture of the culture of each location. Sinha and his associates view cultural differ...

Anthropology and Tourism: Past contributions and future theoretical challenges

Abstract: As tourism continues to expand across the world, in terms of types and forms as well as tourist numbers, its global importance and impact correspondingly increase. Concurrently, the potential for t...

Envisioning Taiwan: Fiction, Cinema, and the Nation in the Cultural Imaginary

Abstract: In discussions of postcolonial nationhood and cultural identity, Taiwan is often overlooked. Yet the island—with its complex history of colonization—presents a particularly fascinating case of the struggle to define a “nation.” While the mainland Chinese government has been unequivocal in its resistance to Taiwanese independence, in Taiwan, government control has gradually passed from mainland Chinese immigrants to the Taiwanese themselves. Two decades of democratization and the arrival of consumer culture have made the island a truly global space. Envisioning Taiwan sorts through these complexities, skillfully weaving together history and cultural analysis to give a picture of Taiwanese identity and a lesson on the usefulness and the limits of contemporary cultural theory. Yip traces a distinctly Taiwanese sense of self vis-a-vis China, Japan, and the West through two of the island’s most important cultural movements: the hsiang-t’u (or “nativist”) literature of the 1960s and 1970s, and the Taiwanese New Cinema of the 1980s and 1990s. At the heart of the book are close readings of the work of the hsiang-t’u writer Hwang Chun-ming and the New Cinema filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien. Key figures in Taiwan’s assertion of a national identity separate and distinct from China, both artists portray in vibrant detail daily life on the island. Through Hwang’s and Hou’s work and their respective artistic movements, Yip explores “the imagining of a nation” on the local, national, and global levels. In the process, she exposes a perceptible shift away from traditional models of cultural authenticity toward a more fluid, postmodern hybridity—an evolution that reflects both Taiwan’s peculiar multicultural reality and broader trends in global culture.

Science and Cultural Process: Defining an Anthropological Approach to Science Education

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to define, through discussion and example, the notion of an 'anthropological approach' to science education research, as well as to advocate the potential contribution of such an approach to several research domains and to questions of access and equity. While many science education researchers in the last fifteen years have done work which one might describe as 'anthropological', these writers come from a variety of camps and may or may not think of themselves principally in this light. We hope that the value of this article lies in opening a dialogue about what an 'anthropological' approach to science research might be, as well as about how such an approach might redefine the role which science education research, and science itself, plays in the lives of teachers, students and communities which it affects.

Architecture of Institution & Home. Architecture as Cultural Medium

Abstract: This dissertation addresses how architecture functions as a cultural medium. It does so by by investigating how the architecture of institution and home each construct and support different cultural practices. By studying the design of ordinary settings in terms of how qualitative differences in architectural environments affect those who use them, this study exemplifies architectural research directed toward constructive cultural change. In the United States, ordinary people often describe housing as in a spectrum from homey to institutional. For example, hospitals are more institutional and less homey than apartment buildings, but apartment buildings are more institutional and less homey than single family detached dwelling. This dissertation examines the terms institution and home, exploring the hypothesis that they form an oppositional pair. The two ideas are studied from many different perspectives: The way that ordinary people evaluate photographic images in semantic differential and free sort studies is compared to architectural form as documented in sketches, words, photographs, inventory and plan. Analyses reveal that different housing types reflect different degrees and kinds of domesticity and institutionality. The investigations pertaining to this were completed during the 12-year period (1981- 1993), and followed by Phase 3, substantiating research concluded in 1996. Motivated by the normalization principle, that citizens with disabilities have the right to dwellings as similar as possible to that of society's mainstream, the Phase 1 studies (1981-84) developed guidelines for the alternative housing for disabled adults, including a checklist of architectural features. Phase 2 (1984-86, explored the lay understanding of institution, home, and other related qualities, tested the validity of the checklist guidelines and refined measures for home-likeness and institutionality in living rooms. In addition to normalization, several other theoretical positions inform this work. Architecture is conceived as a cultural medium that communicates cultural ideas, attitudes and expectations thereby tending to produce patterns of behavior. Culture is seen as a shared and evolving vision of the world manifested directly in behavior and indirectly in artifacts. Culture is understood as produced in its practice, being a collective process that evolves or changes as particular practices are discontinued, modified or replaced. A first corollary to the conception of architecture as a cultural medium is the conception of architecture as a medium for conscious cultural change. If culture is produced through practice, then it is susceptible to change by conscious practices as well as by unconscious ones. From this perspective, when applied to the design of buildings, normalization or deinstitutionalization can be seen as an intended cultural change, although not fully conscious. For cultural change to be fully conscious, the change must be well considered, with clear identification of both the change that is needed and the method of change. Furthermore, in order to be what is here called conscious cultural change, the change not only needs to be implemented, but also evaluated and adjusted. A second corollary to the conception of architecture as a cultural medium is the implementation of an architectural reception theory. In addition to considering the design and making of an artifact, reception theory emphasizes how it functions socially and symbolically for the people who experience it. This research addresses how the design of different residential settings affects the people who will use and inhabit them.

Metaphor Variation in Cultural Context: Perspectives from Anthropology

Abstract: (2004) Metaphor Variation in Cultural Context: Perspectives from Anthropology European Journal of English Studies: Vol 8, No 3, pp 275-294

Selling civilization: toward a cultural analysis of America's economic empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Abstract: This essay builds on work that is exploring the convergence of economic and cultural approaches to understanding imperialism through an examination of the particular case of American commercial expansion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Based on my archival research into the promotional and practical strategies of five of the largest American companies that were international in sales, I suggest some of the ways that an analysis of commercial imperial representations of, and knowledges about, race, gender and civilization adds to our understanding of the multiplicity of imperialisms. I argue that examining these multiplicities can help contribute to a critical postcolonial perspective.

Historicizing and Gendering Celebrity Culture: Famous Women in Nineteenth-Century France

Abstract: Celebrity status couples recognition of individual achievement, the preeminent cultural ideal of Western societies since the democratic revolutions of the eighteenth century, with the power of the media to disseminate visibility and publicity. This article demonstrates the relevance of celebrity culture well before film and the electronic media by historicizing and gendering it. The nineteenth-century French press offered its bourgeois readers a lively celebrity culture, notably featuring famous women more than men. The historicized and gendered concept of celebrity provides an important tool of cultural analysis since societies inevitably project upon celebrities—and expect them to perform—reigning myths about self-fulfillment and personal uniqueness. In the case of nineteenth-century France, there was a telling evolution in the representation of women celebrities from femmes fatales to proper women whose achievements outside the home were accepted as legitimate.

Cultural Competence in Forensic Mental Health: A Guide for Psychiatrists, Psychologists, and Attorneys

Abstract: Introduction: Culture and Forensic Psychiatry. A. What is Culture? Law in various Cultures. Effects of Culture in Court. Possible Impact of Culture on the Legal Procedure and Decision. Universal Rule Versus Cultural Relativism. The Impact of Culture on Various Aspects of Forensic Psychiatry Service. The Goal, Scope and Nature of the Book. General Cultural Issues in Forensic Psychiatry Assessment. Basic Considerations for Transcultural Forensic Assessment. Special Attention Needed for Forensic Psychiatric Assessments. A Culturally Appropriate Approach to Examining Mental Status. Certain Legally-related Issues Requiring Cultural Consideration. Assessment of Malingering: Cultural Considerations. Particular Concern is Needed for Certain Populations. Psychological Testing for Forensic Evaluation. Transcultural Application of Psychological Instrument: General Issues. Conventional Psychological Tests. Specialized Forensic Assessment Instruments. Implications for Forensic Application. Cultural Aspects of Psychiatric Disorders in the Forensic Context. Culture and Psychiatric Disorders: General Review. Psychopathy and Antisocial Personality Disorders. Schizophrenia. Delusional Disorders. Mood Disorders. Dissociation, Possession, and Multiple Personality Disorders. Substance-related Mental Disturbances. Conduct Disorder and Juvenile Delinquency. Sexual Disorders. Culture-related specific disorders. Cultural Dimensions of Various Crimes and Behavioral Problems. Spouse Abuse. Infanticide and Filicide. Child Abducting and Kidnapping. Violence Against Others. Homicide. Mass Homicide. Rape. Religion-related Wrongful Behavior. Conflict Between Religion Belief and Societal Law. Cultural Considerations in Specific Types of Forensic Evaluation. Cultural Input in Various Phases of the Legal Process. Culture Defense Strategy. Criminal Cases. Civil Cases. Family-related Issues. Legal Regulation of Psychiatry and Medical Practice: Cultural Consideration. Psychiatric Care of Mentally Ill. Therapist-patient Relationship Problems. Ethic-legal Issues Relating to Medical Practice. Correctional Psychiatry: Culture-relevant Care and Treatment. General Issues. Cultural Considerations in Prison for Institutional Care. Care for Special Populations. Counseling for Offenders. Cultural Analysis of Forensic Psychiatric Cases. Cultural Examination of Selected Landmark Cases. Analysis of Cases Using "Culture Defense". Cases that Proceeded with Input on Cultural Issues. Final Discussion and Comments. Closure: Review, Comments, and Suggestions. Review of Present Situation. Overall Cultural Comments. Suggestions for the Future. Subject Index