The Proximity of Other Skins

Author(s):  
Celine Parreñas Shimizu

Transnational films representing intimacy and inequality disrupt and disgust Western spectators. When wounded bodies within poverty entangle with healthy wealthy bodies in sex, romance and care, fear and hatred combine with desire and fetishism. Works from the Philippines, South Korea, and independents from the United States and France may not be made for the West and may not make use of Hollywood traditions. Rather, they demand recognition for the knowledge they produce beyond our existing frames. They challenge us to go beyond passive consumption, or introspection of ourselves as spectators, for they represent new ways of world-making we cannot unsee, unhear, or unfeel. The spectator is redirected to go beyond the rapture of consuming the other to the rupture that arises from witnessing pain and suffering. Self-displacement is what proximity to intimate inequality in cinema ultimately compels and demands so as to establish an ethical way of relating to others. In undoing the spectator, the voice of the transnational filmmaker emerges. Not only do we need to listen to filmmakers from outside Hollywood who unflinchingly engage the inexpressibility of difference, we need to make room for critics and theorists who prioritize the subjectivities of others. When the demographics of filmmakers and film scholars are not as diverse as its spectators, films narrow our worldviews. To recognize our culpability in the denigration of others unleashes the power of cinema. The unbearability of stories we don’t want to watch and don’t want to feel must be borne.

2019 ◽  
pp. 179-187
Author(s):  
Jeffrey J. Sallaz

The author’s premise is that the voice industry will not return to the United States. Reflecting the analysis presented in previous chapters, this chapter offers a dim prognosis for those who wish to bring call center jobs “back home.” As the author notes, the value proposition simply isn’t there. Countries such as India and the Philippines offer labor that is both cheap (relative to the West) and skilled enough (when it comes to English fluency). The Philippines in particular has emerged as a call center “nirvana,” as a stable labor market assemblage in which firms find workers and workers find jobs offering strategic and sustainable solutions to their dilemmas.


2019 ◽  
pp. 127-149
Author(s):  
Victoria Smolkin

This chapter describes the timing and motivations of the USSR's promotion of atheist doctrine. At the outset, it seems, the Soviets expected Orthodoxy to wither away, invalidated by rational argument and the regime's own record of socialist achievement. This did not happen, but Soviet officialdom did not take full cognizance of the fact until the 1950s and 1960s at the height of the Cold War. Then it was that the Soviet Union's confrontation with the West came to be recast in religious terms as an epic battle between atheist communism on the one hand and on the other that self-styled standard-bearer of the Judeo-Christian tradition, the United States. So, here indeed, in Soviet atheism, is a secular church militant—doctrinally armed, fortified by the concentrated power of the modern state, and, as many believed, with the wind of history at its back. It speaks the language of liberation, but what it delivers is something much darker. The chapter then considers the place of ritual in the Soviet secularist project.


Author(s):  
James DiCrocco

This is a comparison of the difficult situations facing two different American armies, one in the Philippines in 1941-1942 and the other in contemporary Europe, headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany. Although there are many differences between the two situations confronting the two armies, there also are similarities. Both armies were understrength, consisting of about 30,000 US soldiers. Both operated in a resource-constrained environment. Both had to prepare to contend with large, aggressive powers in the region. Both armies were responsible for the defense of a broad regional expanse. The United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) ultimately were ill-prepared when the Japanese struck the Philippines on 8 December 1941. It is important that United States Army Europe (USAREUR) and its allies do not meet a fate similar to what their comrades in arms did in 1942.


Author(s):  
Jenny Heijun Wills

Transnational adoption from Asia began in the 1950s as an institutionalized practice. Since, hundreds of thousands of young people from countries such as South Korea, China, India, Vietnam, and the Philippines have been adopted and raised primarily in white families in places like the United States, Canada, and Australia but also Scandinavian countries and countries in western Europe. What began as a relief program for multiracial “war orphans” in South Korea has blossomed considerably and affects countries and people around the world; transnational adoption has become a popular industry that targets young people in countries including Guatemala, Brazil, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Haiti, and Russia. Today, transnational adoption continues to be a lucrative industry, though the practice seems to be dwindling in popularity and certain “sending nations” have recently declared its abolition (i.e., Ethiopia in 2017). The United States is by far the most prolific “receiving nation,” and is implicated as one of the greatest instigators, given that nation’s military presence in places such as South Korea and Vietnam in and around the years that transnational adoption expanded from those countries. While not nearly as many Canadians (in comparison to Americans) adopt from countries in Asia, adoptees raised in that country have unique experiences mainly due to vastly distinctive regionalism, that makes, for instance, the identities of Asian/Québécois adoptees uniquely precarious. Mexico is considered a “sending nation,” and since race and class factors rarely see young people both immigrating and migrating from the same nation under the auspices of transnational adoption (though it is not always the case; see, e.g., the United States’ history of sending black children for adoption to various European nations), it is mostly not included in conversations about transnational Asian/North American adoption. For decades, literature about transnational Asian/American adoption centered on adoptive parents, social workers, and pro-adoption activists. In the 1990s, Asian adoptees around the world began to recount their experiences of racial and cultural alienation, among other things, in life writing and poetry. Adoptees in North America were no exception. Asian/North American authors (as well as non-Asian writers) began exploring these subjectivities, too, usually in the context of examining racial, cultural, and national issues related to other Asian/North American subjects who were not subjects experienced. Across most of these representations—by adoptees and non-adoptees alike—the theme of personal and collective history is a notable focus, and adoptees are imagined as another meaningful example of the paradoxical and complex ways Asian/North Americans’ paper histories, immigration rights, and so-called model minorityhood have been levied. Transnational Asian/North American adoption continues to be a topic of fascination for so many writers and audiences and these representations cross genres, aesthetic modes, and narrative styles.


Author(s):  
Yury Morozov

The growing geopolitical confrontation between the West, led by the United States on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other, leads to the appearance in the Western media of myths about Russian and Chinese threats to the international community. The article describes what myths are circulating in the modern media and what such publications lead to. At the same time, the article presents facts that expose these myths.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 129-137
Author(s):  
He Shuquan

The United States has a robust trade and investment relationship with China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). ASEAN is collectively the fourth-largest trading partner, and China is one of the largest trade partners of the United States, the largest export destination for China. Thus, China and ASEAN countries are competing in the US market intensively. The purpose of this paper is to calculate the net gains or losses for the ASEAN-5 Members and China during 1993 and 2007 in the US market. There are two main contributions of this paper: one is to dynamically estimate the net shifts of the economies as compared to the traditional comparative static approach; the other is to extend the shift‐share analysis to attribute the net gains or losses to competing exporters. This study adopts the widely used shift-share analysis technique to exam the net gains or losses for the ASEAN-5 and China during 1993-2007 in the Unites Sates market. The paper provides a new extension to the shift‐share analysis to attribute the net shift to competing economies with a dynamic approach. The paper applies the methodology to the competition among China and ASEAN-5 in the US import market with the data drawn from World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS), a data consultation and extraction software developed by the World Bank. The discussion focuses on three periods: 1993-1997, 1998-2002 and 2003-2007. In general, China performs the best among the competing economies. Among the ASEAN-5 Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand perform better than the other two members. During the first period, all economies have positive export growth as the actual export growth shows. However, in terms of net shift, only China and the Philippines are the winners with positive value of net shifts. During the second period, China stands out while the ASEAN economies show negative net shifts values. Similar is the case for the third period. In terms of the industries, China focuses on different industries during the thee periods, and the ASEAN economies depend heavily on a few industries. China’s gains in these industries are much bigger than the ASEAN economies’ gains in value. The ASEAN economies gain in small numbers of industries with small values. When attributed the gains or losses to competing economies, China only loses to the Philippines during 1993-1997, and gains from all competing economies during all periods. Though net losers, the ASEAN-5 also gain from other competing economies. For example, Indonesia gains from Singapore and Thailand during 1993-1997, from the Philippines and Singapore during 1998-2002, from Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore during 2003-2007. The trade war between the United States and China provides opportunity for the ASEAN countries in the Unites Sates market, however, there are negative impacts on the ASEAN countries as well. The ASEAN countries are more vulnerable. Keywords: shift-share analysis, export competitiveness, Asia, ASEAN, China.


2019 ◽  
pp. 129-150
Author(s):  
Mitchell A. Orenstein

Core Europe and North America have often imagined themselves to be invulnerable to the Russian influence campaigns that have affected smaller, weaker countries in the lands in between. However, in recent years, that perception has broken down as Russia regularly hacks democratic elections in the West, sponsors extremists, spreads disinformation, and may have tipped the US 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump. The West now exhibits a similar politics to what we observe in the lands in between—with growing political extremism and polarization on the one hand and the rise of cynical power brokers on the other who seek to profit from both sides of an intensifying divide. Increasingly, democratic elections seem to pose a “civilizational choice” between the forces of liberal democracy and authoritarian nationalism on the Russian model.


1953 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 1130-1133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Marcy

On June 13, 1952, with two senators on the floor, the Senate of the United States gave its advice and consent to the ratification of three treaties which thereby became a part of the supreme law of the land. One of the senators did not vote. The other voiced his “aye” while serving as presiding officer.The conventions approved by the voice vote of one senator were the Consular Convention with Ireland; a Protocol Supplementary to the said Convention; and the Consular Convention with the United Kingdom.Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution provides that the President shall have power “to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur….” Even though, under Article I, Section 5, Clause 2, “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, …” how, as a matter of law, was it possible for the Senate, with but two senators on the floor, one of whom did not vote and the other of whom was in the chair, to give its advice and consent to a treaty? And as a matter of policy was the Senate in this case properly discharging its responsibilities?


2001 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sung-Joo Han

The historic June 2000 summit and subsequent exchanges between North and South Korea have added a new dimension to not only South-North Korean relations but also the situation in Northeast Asia as a whole. On one hand, the thawing South- North Korean relations has generated great optimism among those who see it as an irrefutable sign of North Korea's intention to join the rest of the world as a constructive player. At the other extreme, it is seen as a deceptive, if not desperate, act on the part of North Korea to reap economic gains and lower the guard of South Korea and its allies, principally the United States. Perhaps a more realistic assessment lies somewhere between these polar analyses.


2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-402
Author(s):  
Akhilesh Chandra Prabhakar

Abstract The path from Africa to Indonesia – via West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia – has been of vital interest to North America. Situated at a junction of three continents – namely Asia, Africa, and Europe – linkage over land and across sea between Europe and the Indian Sub-continent on the one side and Africa and India on the other side, it offers the shortest and cheapest trade and transit routes between the West and the East. It commands a vast reservoir of oil – about 60 percent of the world's proven reserves of oil – which enormously contributes to the affluence of the United States.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document