scholarly journals Inter-cultural communications and power relations in international tourism commodity chains

2006 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolai Scherle ◽  
Tim Coles

The internationalisation of tourism has resulted in the mediation of spatially-stretched commodity chains which often transcend international frontiers and which in businesses from different cultures come into contact with one other. This paper examines the social relations in bilateral business co-operations between Moroccan and German enterprises. As a central concept in the social sciences, there are multiple contested theorizations of power and in this paper we adopt a Lukesian starting point. A more precise naming and locating of power is vital to enhancing our understanding of the way in which the tourism product is commodified.

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Bruff ◽  
Matthias Ebenau

This introduction to the special issue focuses on the rise to dominance in debates on capitalist diversity of approaches which take institutions as their starting point, rather than the wider social relations in which institutions sit and are constituted by. However, although this is part of broader trends across the social sciences over the last three decades, the self-marginalisation of critical political economy perspectives from these debates was also a factor, as was the declining dialogue between critical political economy researchers rooted in different geographical and philosophical traditions. Echoing the influence on the emergent Conference of Socialist Economists of German-language debates on the state in the 1970s, we call for renewed dialogue between researchers from different linguistic and intellectual backgrounds in the name of a renewed critique of dominant comparative capitalisms (CC) approaches. In so doing, we emphasise the range of alternative perspectives that can be offered through such dialogues and critiques, and thus the significant potential for further collaboration and advances in our understanding of capitalist diversity.


Author(s):  
Gary Goertz ◽  
James Mahoney

Some in the social sciences argue that the same logic applies to both qualitative and quantitative research methods. This book demonstrates that these two paradigms constitute different cultures, each internally coherent yet marked by contrasting norms, practices, and toolkits. The book identifies and discusses major differences between these two traditions that touch nearly every aspect of social science research, including design, goals, causal effects and models, concepts and measurement, data analysis, and case selection. Although focused on the differences between qualitative and quantitative research, the book also seeks to promote toleration, exchange, and learning by enabling scholars to think beyond their own culture and see an alternative scientific worldview. The book is written in an easily accessible style and features a host of real-world examples to illustrate methodological points.


2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-192
Author(s):  
Nadia Ruiz

Brian Epstein has recently argued that a thoroughly microfoundationalist approach towards economics is unconvincing for metaphysical reasons. Generally, Epstein argues that for an improvement in the methodology of social science we must adopt social ontology as the foundation of social sciences; that is, the standing microfoundationalist debate could be solved by fixing economics’ ontology. However, as I show in this paper, fixing the social ontology prior to the process of model construction is optional instead of necessary and that metaphysical-ontological commitments are often the outcome of model construction, not its starting point. By focusing on the practice of modeling in economics the paper provides a useful inroad into the debate about the role of metaphysics in the natural and social sciences more generally.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 160-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Ciro Martínez

This article explores the importance and impact of a set of actions through which bakers manipulate laws and regulations that seek to organize and regulate how they do business. It builds on eighteen months of fieldwork conducted in Jordan, twelve of which were spent working in three different bakeries in the capital, Amman. Moving away from the idea that public policies are simply imposed, the article looks in detail at the social relations through which they are enacted. By honing in on the bakery, and examining arrangements between bakery owners, workers, consumers and ministerial employees, it illuminates modes of political agency that escape conventional binaries of domination/resistance, state/society and legality/illegality. I argue against seeing these practices as easily categorized forms of resistance or frivolous acts of corruption. Nor are they simply reinforcements of hegemonic control. Instead, ‘tactics’ at the bakery subvert the order of things to serve other ends. Foregrounding them in this analysis seeks not only to challenge views of power relations as strictly binary but to elucidate some of the ways in which citizens inhabit and engage with the neoliberal and authoritarian logics that pervade everyday life in Jordan.


2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 175
Author(s):  
Jean François Y Deluchey

Resumo: Neste artigo, busco refletir as potencialidades e dificuldades metodológicas relativas ao uso do “dispositivo” como ferramenta de investigação nas ciências sociais e sociais aplicadas. Sugiro pensar a relação entre dispositivos normativos e sujeitos de direito, a partir da analítica do poder de Michel Foucault, para quem o poder existe como feixe de relações dissimétricas coordenadas por estratégias que impactam os sujeitos em suas dimensões inter e intraindividuais. Para tanto, o uso do dispositivo – em especial no caso do dispositivo normativo – apresenta-se como importante ferramenta metodológica, na medida em que funciona como grade de análise das relações de poder, de identificação das estratégias e de seus efeitos nos sujeitos. Nas conclusões, observo que a identificação da estratégia de um dispositivo deve perpassar pela análise da lógica das relações que o compõem, para, em um segundo momento, ver de que forma e em que medida esta estratégia impacta as formas de vida dos atores que compõem o nosso campo de estudo.Abstract: In this article, I try to interrogate the potentialities and methodological difficulties related to the use of the "dispositive" as a tool for research in the social sciences and applied social. I suggest to think the relation between normative dispositives and subjects to law from the Michel Foucault´s analytics of power, philosopher for whom the power exists as a beam of dissymmetrical relations coordinated by strategies that impact the subjects in their dimensions inter and intraindividuals. The use of the dispositives – especially of the normative ones - presents itself as an important methodological tool, to the extent that works as analytic framework of power relations, identification of strategies and their effects on the subjects. Finally, I observe that the identification of a dispositive strategy should pass by analysis of the logic of relations that compose it, for, in a second moment, see how and to what extent this strategy impacts the ways of life of the actors that compose our field of study. 


1999 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 119
Author(s):  
José Manuel Martín Morillas

In this paper it is argued that, despite the welcome psycho-social emphasis in educational linguistic theories witnessed in recent decades, and with it, a rapprochement of the social sciences to the psychological sciences, the relationship between these fields has not gone far enough. The actual challenge is a move towards the unification of the social, psychological and language sciences (anthropology and sociology; cognitive science; and linguistics). A step in this interdisciplinary direction is offered by the discipline called 'cognitive anthropolinguistics', and its central concept of 'cultural cognition'. The paper discusses the implication of this concept for the field of educational linguistics, followed by a brief illustration of a cognitive-cultural application of that concept, namely the concept of 'ethnic stereotype', as part of a socio-cultural guide for a cross-cultural pedagogical grammar.


2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damien Cahill

This article responds to Peck’s call for a heterodox economic analysis of markets that is sensitive to their sociality and spatiality with Polanyi’s work as a starting point. It is argued that while Polanyi’s concept of the socially embedded economy offers a useful heuristic for apprehending the social foundations of economic activity, his analysis exhibits ‘market fetishism’ – a tendency to treat markets as things in and of themselves, without a proper appreciation of their inherently social foundations – and that this is reflected in broader scholarly discourses with respect to markets. Thus, it is argued, we need to augment Polanyi’s framework with other heterodox economic insights. The article outlines a four-step approach to ‘de-fetishizing’ markets. First, the article foregrounds the specifically capitalist nature of the global economy, and the ‘unique system of market dependence’ to which capitalist social relations give rise. Second, it is argued that de-fetishizing markets requires that an agent-centred approach be adopted. Rather than viewing markets as ‘things’ it is argued that they are most usefully understood as the interactions between agents, the most significant of which, within the contemporary global economy, is the large capitalist firm. Third, the interaction between such agents is structured by pervasive frameworks of rules. Fourth, it is argued that markets are inherently spatial phenomena. They are spatially constituted and contribute to the production of space.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-242
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Monk-Turner

PurposeThis work examines assumptions of positivism and the traditional scientific method.Design/methodology/approachInsights from quantum mechanics are explored especially as they relate to method, measurement and what is knowable. An argument is made that how social scientists, particularly sociologists, understand the nature of “reality out there” and describe the social world may be challenged by quantum ideas. The benefits of utilized mixed methods, considering quantum insights, cannot be overstated.FindingsIt is the proposition of this work that insights from modern physics alter the understanding of the world “out there.” Wheeler suggested that the most profound implication from modern physics is that “there is no out there” (1982; see also Baggott, 1992). Grappling with how modern physics may alter understanding in the social sciences will be difficult; however, that does not mean the task should not be undertaken (see Goswami, 1993). A starting point for the social sciences may be relinquishing an old mechanistic science that depends on the establishment of an objective, empirically based, verifiable reality. Mechanistic science demands “one true reality – a clear-cut reality on which everyone can agree…. Mechanistic science is by definition reductionistic…it has had to try to reduce complexity to oversimplification and process to statis. This creates an illusionary world…that has little or nothing to do with the complexity of the process of the reality of creation as we know, experience, and participate in it” (Goswami, 1993, pp. 64, 66).Research limitations/implicationsMany physicists have popularized quantum ideas for others interested in contemplating the implications of modern physics. Because of the difficulty in conceiving of quantum ideas, the meaning of the quantum in popular culture is far removed from the parent discipline. Thus, the culture has been shaped by the rhetoric and ideas surrounding the basic quantum mathematical formulas. And, over time, as quantum ideas have come to be part of the popular culture, even the link to the popularized literature in physics is lost. Rather, quantum ideas may be viewed as cultural formations that take on a life of their own.Practical implicationsThe work allows a critique of positivist method and provides insight on how to frame qualitative methodology in a new way.Social implicationsThe work utilizes popularized ideas in quantum theory: the preeminent theory that describes all matter. Little work in sociology utilizes this perspective in understanding research methods.Originality/valueQuantum insights have rarely been explored in highlighting limitations in positivism. The current work aims to build on quantum insights and how these may help us better understand the social world around us.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Wójcik

PurposeThe subject of the article is the concept of augmented intelligence, which constitutes a further stage in the development of research on artificial intelligence. This is a new phenomenon that has rarely been considered in the subject literature so far, which may be interesting for the fields of social sciences and humanities. The aim is to describe the features of this technology and determine the practical and ethical problems associated with its implementation in libraries.Design/methodology/approachThe method of literature review was used. Systematic searches according to specific questions were carried out using the Scopus and Web of Science scientific databases, as well as Google Scholar and the LISTA abstract database.FindingsThe results established that the issue of augmented intelligence has barely been discussed in the field of librarianship. Although this technology may be interesting as a new area of librarian research and as a new framework for designing innovative services, deep ethical consideration is necessary before this technology is introduced in libraries.Research limitations/implicationsThe article deals with some of the newest technologies available, and this topic is generally very rarely discussed in scientific publications in either the social sciences or humanities. Therefore, due to the limited availability of materials, the findings presented in the article are primarily of a conceptual nature. The aim is to present this topic from the perspective of librarianship and to create a starting point for further discussion on the ethical aspects of introducing new technologies in libraries.Practical implicationsThe results can be widely used in practice as a framework for the implementation of augmented intelligence in libraries.Social implicationsThe article can help to facilitate the debate on the role of implementing new technologies in libraries.Originality/valueThe problem of augmented intelligence is very rarely addressed in the subject literature in the field of library and information science.


2005 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Cacioppo ◽  
Louise C. Hawkley ◽  
Edith M. Rickett ◽  
Christopher M. Masi

Scientific theories in the natural sciences posit invisible forces operating with measurable effects on physical bodies, but the scientific study of invisible forces acting on human bodies has made limited progress. The topics of sociality, spirituality, and meaning making are cases in point. The authors discuss some of the possible reasons for this as well as contemporary developments in the social sciences and neurosciences that may make such study possible and productive.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document