scholarly journals Book Review: Dealing in Desires

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patara McKeen

This is a review of Kimberly Kay Hoang’s (2015) Dealing in Desire. Her ethnographic study observes four different bars in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: 1) Kong Sao Bar, 2) Naught Girls, 3) Secrets, and 4) Lavender. Hoang traces different representations of the global financial sector after the 2008 financial crisis and explores the relationship between Asian ascendancy and Western decline. From the local to the international, interactions with clients and hostesses in the bars of Ho Chi Minh City demonstrate a new global trend: the rise in transactions occurring among a global financial sector undefined by traditional social structures (e.g., commercial or national banks). By moving from observer to participant, Hoang develops a deeper understanding of the capital and labour practices that these men and women engage in, highlighting how their everyday experiences demonstrate that nightlife in the city is a way for locals to move up the socio-economic ladder.

Sexualities ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 738-761 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilly Hartal ◽  
Orna Sasson-Levy

Tel Aviv’s Gay-Center is unique in Israel for being sponsored, managed and controlled by the municipality. This article focuses on the Gay-Center as a material, symbolic and discursive space in order to clarify the relationship between LGBT individuals and the nation. Based on an ethnographic study, we show that since its establishment the Gay-Center has undergone centralization processes as a result of being located in central Tel Aviv and by striving for LGBT mainstreaming, thereby accelerating the achievement of sexual citizenship and urban belonging. However, the expansion of sexual citizenship, which is always based on processes of inclusion and exclusion, reveals homonational practices and homonormative discourses. Since being in the city is the easiest and, at times, the only way to earn sexual citizenship, we argue that LGBT urban citizenship is an indication, a marker and thus a prerequisite of homonationalism.


2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ho Dinh Phi ◽  
Thanh Ngo Quang ◽  
Thao Huynh Thi Phuong ◽  
Nhon Nguyen Linh

Most of the tourist destinations are facing tourist loyalty and expanding market share. Research on factors influencing visitor satisfaction and revisit intention to the tourist destination has not been given sufficient attention, especially the relationship between destination image and satisfaction, word of mouth, and revisit intention. This is a challenging problem for tourism researchers and managers. This study uses a survey of 350 domestic tourists staying at least 3 days in the city and applying a structural modeling approach in the analysis. The results reveal that factors of the destination image positively impact satisfaction, word of mouth, and revisit intention. Components of the destination image include (i) Cognitive image; (ii) Affective images; and (iii) Tangible images.


2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisela Montenegro ◽  
Karla Montenegro ◽  
Laura Yufra ◽  
Caterine Calaz

In this article we reflect upon the relationship between the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) formulated by the United Nations (2000) and the migration phenomena that is characteristic of the present globalised society. First, we argue that the Millennium Goals have not sufficiently considered migration processes as a structural phenomenon. Development goals must take in account this emergent phenomenon in post-industrial societies in order to achieve human rights and social equity and to promote the well-being of all people in their origin and host societies. Second, by interpreting the results of an ethnographic study carried out in social services aimed at migrant women in the city of Barcelona, while focusing on the 3rd Millennium Goal: gender equity and the empowerment of women, we reflect on the limits and possibilities of these intervention practices in advancing towards the goal in host societies. We conclude that changes in public policy and social services are necessary in order to advance towards the achievement of the gender equity goal and empowerment of women, a transformation that aims at the achievement of citizenship for all people in this global society.


Author(s):  
Jonathan Diesselhorst

This article discusses the struggles of urban social movements for a de-neoliberalisation of housing policies in Poulantzian terms as a “condensation of the relationship of forces”. Drawing on an empirical analysis of the “Berliner Mietenvolksentscheid” (Berlin rent referendum), which was partially successful in forcing the city government of Berlin to adopt a more progressive housing policy, the article argues that urban social movements have the capacity to challenge neoliberal housing regimes. However, the specific materiality of the state apparatus and its strategic selectivity both limit the scope of intervention for social movements aiming at empowerment and non-hierarchical decision-making.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-180
Author(s):  
Muhammad Sharif Uddin

Inequality in the promised land: Race, resources, and suburban schooling is a well-written book by L’ Heureux Lewis-McCoy. The book is based on Lewis-McCoy’s doctoral dissertation, that included an ethnographic study in a suburban area named Rolling Acres in the Midwestern United States. Lewis-McCoy studied the relationship between families and those families’ relationships with schools. Through this study, the author explored how invisible inequality and racism in an affluent suburban area became the barrier for racial and economically minority students to grow up academically. Lewis-McCoy also discovered the hope of the minority community for raising their children for a better future.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 386-389
Author(s):  
Eduardo Oliveira

Evinç Doğan (2016). Image of Istanbul, Impact of ECoC 2010 on The City Image. London: Transnational Press London. [222 pp, RRP: £18.75, ISBN: 978-1-910781-22-7]The idea of discovering or creating a form of uniqueness to differentiate a place from others is clearly attractive. In this regard, and in line with Ashworth (2009), three urban planning instruments are widely used throughout the world as a means of boosting a city’s image: (i) personality association - where places associate themselves with a named individual from history, literature, the arts, politics, entertainment, sport or even mythology; (ii) the visual qualities of buildings and urban design, which include flagship building, signature urban design and even signature districts and (iii) event hallmarking - where places organize events, usually cultural (e.g., European Capital of Culture, henceforth referred to as ECoC) or sporting (e.g., the Olympic Games), in order to obtain worldwide recognition. 


Author(s):  
Jordan T. Camp

While many analysts have commented on the representation of 1968 campus events and antiwar demonstrations, less attention has been paid to the global significance of the dramatic struggles in industrial Detroit during the period. The meanings of events in the city were intensely fought over. As Stuart Hall, Chas Critcher, Tony Jefferson, John Clarke, and Brian Roberts observed, the events of 1968 were “an act of collective will, the breaks and ruptures stemming from the rapid expansion in the ideology, culture and civil structures of the new capitalism . . . in the form of a ‘crisis of authority.’” In Detroit the crisis of authority was expressed in the form of popular political struggles against racism, state violence, and the contradictions of life in the industrial capitalist city. This article asks and answers the following research questions about the struggle over the meaning of this decisive turning point in US history: What was the relationship between racial ordering, uneven capitalist development, and mass antiracist and class struggles? How did Black working-class organic intellectuals resist and alter hegemonic definitions of the situation? How are the dialectics of insurgency and counterinsurgency to be best theorized during this precise historical conjuncture? 


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Margret Plloçi ◽  
Macit Koc

Abstract Purpose of the article There is relatively a big number of brands in the market of laptops nowadays in Albania. It appears that the number of brands offered in this market could easily be compared to the number of brands in Europe and even broader. The purpose of this study is to help Albanian vendors understand the criteria that consumers take into consideration when they make the decision to purchase a laptop. Methodology/methods The research is based on the collection and the analyses of the primary data collected through interviews to people like managers or employees who work in the sector of trading laptops or in businesses like education where laptops are broadly used recently; then a survey is done through a questionnaire delivered to customers who already own and use a laptop and customers who are potential buyers of laptops. Scientific aim The aim of the research is to identify if there are any relationships between the demographics of the consumers and the criteria of buying a laptop; on the other hand, to find out how is the relationship between the demographics and the features of different brands. Findings The study found out that Albanian consumers have good knowledge of laptops and their brands, and they use different sources of information for making their decisions in buying a laptop; it is found that there are relationships between some demographics like age or gender and the appraisal for some attributes of the laptops like price, design and high graphics card; it is also found that some technical features and other attributes of using laptops are some of the determinants that influence the laptops’ purchases. Conclusions It is realized that one of the most important demographics of the consumers is their age. Some core features like RAM, ROM, battery life, processor quality, light weight or attributes that are connected to the purposes of using the laptop computers like practicality and mobility in using them, work and studying processes, quick access to the internet are determinant factors which influence the decision making process of purchasing a laptop. I would recommend that future researches be focused also on the relationship between the customers’ income and their preferred brand or ranking brands according to the customers’ preferences. Such studies should also extend outside the city of Tirana.


Author(s):  
Oleksii Chepov ◽  

The qualitative and clear definition of the legal regime of the capital of Ukraine, the hero city of Kyiv, is influenced by its legislative enshrinement, however, it should be noted that discussions are ongoing and one of the reasons for the unclear legal status of the capital is the ambiguity of current legislation in this area. Separation of the functions of the city of Kyiv, which are carried out to ensure the rights of citizens of Ukraine and the functions that guarantee the rights of the territorial community of the city of Kyiv. In the modern world, in legal doctrine and practice, the capital is understood as the capital of the country, which at the legislative level received this status and, accordingly, is the administrative and political center of the state, which houses the main state bodies and diplomatic missions of other states. It is the identification of the boundaries of the relationship between the competencies of state administrations and local self-government, in practice, often raises questions about their delimitation and ways of regulatory solution. Peculiarities of local self-government in Kyiv city districts are defined in the provisions of the Law on the Capital, which reveal the norms of the Constitution in these legal relations, according to which the issue of organizing district management in cities belongs to city councils. Likewise, it is unregulated by law to lose the particularity of the legal status of the territory of the city. It should be emphasized that the subject of administrative-legal relations is not a certain administrative-territorial entity, but the social group is designated - the territorial community of the city of Kiev, kiyani. Thus, the provisions on the city of Kyiv partially ignore the potential of the territorial community.


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