Old Routes, New Dreams: Reminiscences of the Southern Silk Road and Bengal-China Connectivities

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 302-341
Author(s):  
Jayati Bhattacharya
Keyword(s):  
Silk Road ◽  
Place Making ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
Bengal Delta ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Different Dimensions

Abstract An increasing optimism at the prospect of “shared prosperity” has revived attention on ancient historical routes such as the Southern Silk Road compelling us to rethink notions of the “centre” and the “periphery” in comprehending binaries of nation-states and agencies of globalization. This article focuses on revisiting circulatory movements and networks from the past across land and sea between Bengal delta and China in strengthening the networks and a new alignment of communities and economic possibilities. It explores some of the lesser-studied historical routes in the region and different dimensions of “place making” in the popular imagination and new synergies to redefine the Bengal-China connections.

scholarly journals Between Russia and Estonia: narratives of place in a new borderland

2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alena Pfoser
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Life Story ◽  
State Building ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Place Making ◽  
National Narratives ◽  
The Past ◽  
Russian Speakers ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Continuity And Discontinuity

The Russian–Estonian border has undergone radical changes in the past two decades – from an integrated borderland between two Soviet republics to a border between nation-states and the new EU external border. Until the present day, it is a discursive battlefield that reflects the difficult relations between Russia and Estonia after the restoration of Estonia's independence. While much research has concentrated on antagonistic projects of identity politics and state-building from a top-down perspective, this paper asks how people living in the borderland make sense of the place they live in and negotiate shifts in the symbolic landscapes. Based on life-story narratives of Russian-speakers, it analyzes different ways of narrating and framing place and argues for a consideration of the plurality and ambivalences of place-making projects on the ground. Furthermore, it argues for a more balanced account of continuity and discontinuity in memory narratives by taking into account how the socialist past continues to be meaningful in the present. As the interviews show, memories of the socialist past are used for constructing belonging in the present both by countering and by reproducing national narratives of boundedness.

The wellness habits of men and women in the Northern Great Plain Region

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-130
Author(s):  
Péter HIDVÉGI ◽  
◽  
Andrea Puskás LENTÉNÉ ◽  
József Márton PUCSOK ◽  
Melinda BÍRÓ ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Great Plain ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Northern Great Plain ◽  
Health Tourism ◽  
The Past ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
Plain Region ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
Time Changes

In the past decades, the harmony of body and soul was getting more and more important,the balance, the self-confidence, and the positive-being, which is supported mostly by health tourism,so this section is improving with huge steps to serve the increasing needs fluently. For the effect of the consecutive social changes, the rules of genders have also changed. At the same time changes could be realized in the consumption habits of different genders. The resource took place from September to December 2018. It happened with a questionnaire survey; we asked the customers of hotels in the Northern Great Plain Region, and the answering was optional – they do it on their own choice. We investigated the participants' data through different dimensions and look for the answer to the question along these dimensions that which specifies had the service customers.

Corruption and anti-corruption local discourses and international practices in post-socialist Romania

Human Affairs ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Filippo Zerilli
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Past ◽  
Research Fields ◽  
Nation States ◽  
National Heritage ◽  
New Research ◽  
Local Discourses ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractIn the past two decades academic and research literature on “corruption” has flourished. During the same period organizations and initiatives fighting against corruption have also significantly expanded, turning “anti-corruption” into a new research subject. However, despite a few exceptions there is a division of labor between scholars who study corruption itself and those who study the global anti-corruption industry. Juxtaposing corruption’s local discourses and anti-corruption international practices, this article is an attempt to bring together these two intertwined research dimensions and explore how an ethnographic approach might contribute to framing them together. Firstly, it describes how corruption in Romania is often conceptualized and explained in terms of national heritage, something related to old and recent cultural history, including traditional folklore. Secondly, it explores how anti-corruption works in practice, focusing on international legal cooperation projects monitoring the progress and shortcomings both prior to and post Romania’s accession to the European Union. Finally, revealing the articulations of these two apparently unrelated research fields, the article argues that corruption’s local explanations and the circular logic of auditing observed within the anti-corruption industry share a common developmental ideology mirroring the crypto-colonialist structure of power relations and dependency among European nation-states emerging out of the Cold War.

The Political Economy of Post-Independence India—A Review Article

1989 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 787-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akhil Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Newly Industrialized Countries ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Balance Of Forces ◽  
The Third World

Economists and political scientists have become increasingly interested in the political economy of India during the past decade and particularly during the past three or four years. The titles under review will be valuable not only to India specialists but also to comparative scholars because of the intriguing mix of conditions found in India. More like a continent than a country in its diversity, India is in some ways very similar to densely populated, predominantly rural and agricultural China, differing most perhaps in the obstinacy and depth of its poverty. In the predominant role played by the state within an essentially capitalist economy, it is closer to the model of Western social democracies than it is to either prominently ideological capitalist or socialist nation-states; like other countries in the “third world,” the state in India plays a highly interventionist developmental role. Finally, since Independence it has pursued, more successfully than most nation-states in Latin America and Asia, policies of importsubstituting industrialization and relative autarchy. In terms of its political structures, India differs from most newly industrialized countries (NICs) in that it generally continues to function as a parliamentary democracy. The federal political system creates an intriguing balance of forces between central and the regional state governments, which are often ruled by opposition parties with agendas, ideologies, and organizational structures quite different from those of the central government.

From Nowhere to “Partyslava”

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 299-320
Author(s):  
Peter Barrer
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Slovak Republic ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
The Past ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
English Speaking

Over the past two decades, Prague has cemented itself as a tourist hotspot in the popular imagination. But what of Bratislava, long considered a “poor cousin” to Prague? What images of Bratislava have foreign publics been presented with since the fall of communism in East-Central Europe and the establishment of the Slovak Republic? Building on previous research which has examined visitors’ historical perceptions of Bratislava primarily from a German-speaking perspective, this paper seeks to map the development of Bratislava’s image in media texts from English-speaking countries since 1989 by focusing on two central motifs: Bratislava as a post-communist space and Bratislava as a locus of touristic pleasures (“Partyslava”). The images presented herein will be evaluated and contrasted with local descriptions of Bratislava, thus offering a cross-cultural perspective which will contribute to the wider discussion of popular perceptions of post-communist urban spaces in East-Central Europe.

scholarly journals Flooded with memories: Emergence and development of the “memory boom”

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 91-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tijana Bajovic
Keyword(s):  
Nation State ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Cultural Climate ◽  
Scientific Discourses

This paper aims to describe the development of the recent wave of interest in memory and the past in general (so-called ?memory boom?), as well as the overall cultural climate that encouraged this ?invasion? of the past in both public and scientific discourses. While the first wave of memory boom was supposed to legitimate the emerging nation-states, the second boom signified the exhaustion of the old paradigm of nationalism, decline of the nation-state, as well as the emergence of a new paradigm: globalization.

scholarly journals A Site Shaped by Discontinuity

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 30-52
Author(s):  
Dagnoslaw Demski ◽  
Dominika Czarnecka
Keyword(s):  
Place Making ◽  
Military Base ◽  
The Past ◽  
A Site

In this paper, the authors focus on the place-making practices which have emerged in the Polish post-Soviet military base – Borne Sulinowo. The new civil town (1993-2017) forms a unique reality, as it employs Polish, German and Russian elements, and interweaves the past threads of civil settlements and garrison life with the present. The authors analyze the process of place-making drawing on their research in a site shaped by discontinuity. The aim of the article is to present the multilayered nature of the place-making process as well as diverse, sometimes conflicting, often interdependent and interconnected perspectives through which the place can be understood and experienced. 

scholarly journals Who Cares? ―The COVID-19 Pandemic, Global Heating and the Future of Humanity1

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Torbjörn Tännsjö
Keyword(s):  
Great Length ◽  
Repugnant Conclusion ◽  
Happy Life ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Total View ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Global Government ◽  
Common Future ◽  
Global Heating

The COVID-19 pandemic has engendered unprecedented drastic and costly measures to obviate the threat. Will something similar happen in relation to global heating? No, this is not likely. Mainly this has to do with a difference in the nature of collective action. Nation states protect their respective populations against the virus. With regard to global heating, we are facing the tragedy of the commons. No global government assumes responsibility for our common future. However, there may be another and further explanation lurking behind political inaction: many people, including our politicians, think that it does not matter if humanity goes extinct. It does matter, however. Strangely enough, the view that it matters is questioned by many important philosophers in the past and in the present, and it is hence controversial. Yet, it should be our common-sense stance to the problem. It is of the utmost importance that there will be sentient happy life on the globe for an indefinite time. Theoretically speaking, in order to recognize this, we need to accept some “total” view, implying what has been called the repugnant conclusion. Practically speaking, we should go to great length to rescue our human civilisation, even if this means that, for a while, we must endure all sorts of hardships such as a global enlightened despotism, or worse—a situation of life boat ethics.

scholarly journals Repositioning Indonesia in the Changing Maritime Landscape of the Indo-Pacific Region

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Sukmawani Bela Pertiwi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
Pacific Region ◽  
Normative Power ◽  
The Past ◽  
Maritime Silk Road

Indo-Pacific has been among the most contested regions in the past decade. After China demonstrated its ambitious goal in reviving maritime silk road with its military and economic presence, United States, India, Japan, and Australia formed a new coalition to counter this strategy. This paper aims to examine the position of Indonesia as a traditional regional maritime power in the context of this changing maritime landscape of the Indo-Pacific region. In doing so, this paper develops the concept of “the three faces of maritime power” which distinguishes maritime power into hard, soft, and normative maritime power. The findings of this paper indicates that Indonesia demonstrates less of its hard and soft power, but it capitalizes on its normative power to demonstrate its presence in the new maritime landscape of the Indo Pacific

Researchers in Ghana identify specific factors that “provide the seedbed for institutionalized bullying” in universities

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Individual Factors ◽  
Management Behavior ◽  
Content Type ◽  
State Sector ◽  
The Past ◽  
Specific Factors ◽  
Different Dimensions

Purpose The authors decided to study the causes of coercive management behavior (CMB) in universities because this area has been neglected in the past. There has been a lot of research into CMB in profit-oriented organizations, but it has been assumed that universities were unaffected. Design/methodology/approach The study was conducted at 10 universities, five from the private sector and five from the state sector out of the 100 accredited Ghanaian universities. The authors sent out 405 questionnaires and 371 were returned. Findings The results showed a strong relationship between specific causes and different dimensions of CMB. The authors said their analysis identified specific factors that “provide the seedbed for institutionalized bullying”. Originality/value The authors said the research provides the basis for designing policies for employees at any organization. A one-size-fits-all approach was not always appropriate, however, and their identification of the role of individual factors could help universities find their own solutions.

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