Socio-Intercultural Entrepreneurship Capability Building and Development

This study aims to analyze the socio-intercultural entrepreneurship as capability building and development. The analysis departs from the assumption that entrepreneurship is a culturally embedded concept, although the intercultural category used in entrepreneurial studies has not found full conceptual, theoretical, and empirical support. Based on this existing research gap, this analysis reviews the literature to address the main issues of the socio-intercultural entrepreneurship focusing on the capability building and development to conclude that it is more situational in context and environmentally oriented. The methodologies used are the exploratory and analytical tools. Socio-intercultural entrepreneurship competence is highly related to be situational in context and environmentally dependent on awareness and understanding of cultural differences.

‘It’s part of who I am’: Tā’aloga ma fa’asinomaga ma fa’aSāmoa - Sport, identity, and culture in the lives of Samoan-New Zealanders

<p>Samoan-New Zealanders have become increasingly prominent within New Zealand sport since the mid-20th century. Despite the apparent desirability of players with Pacific Island heritage their presence is also met with resistance and apprehension in both professional and amateur settings. Discourse that frames the relationship between Samoan-New Zealanders and sport often does so in terms that rely on stereotypes and the naturalisation of sporting ability and participation suggesting that they are ‘built’ for sport. This thesis offers a counternarrative to such discourse exploring the ways in which sport, particularly rugby, is a culturally embedded practice for Samoan-New Zealanders. I argue that for Samoan-New Zealanders sport exists as an example of Marcel Mauss’s fait social total or Total Social Phenomenon (TSP) by virtue of the range of cultural institutions and practices that find expression within it. As such it is deeply and uniquely immersed within the fa’aSāmoa or Samoan culture. This thesis is based on seven months of ethnographic fieldwork, participant observation, and talanoa conducted in Wellington, New Zealand. It seeks to explore the ways in which sport is a culturally embedded practice as a means of interrogating the notion that Samoan-New Zealanders are ‘born to play sport’.</p>

‘It’s part of who I am’: Tā’aloga ma fa’asinomaga ma fa’aSāmoa - Sport, identity, and culture in the lives of Samoan-New Zealanders

<p>Samoan-New Zealanders have become increasingly prominent within New Zealand sport since the mid-20th century. Despite the apparent desirability of players with Pacific Island heritage their presence is also met with resistance and apprehension in both professional and amateur settings. Discourse that frames the relationship between Samoan-New Zealanders and sport often does so in terms that rely on stereotypes and the naturalisation of sporting ability and participation suggesting that they are ‘built’ for sport. This thesis offers a counternarrative to such discourse exploring the ways in which sport, particularly rugby, is a culturally embedded practice for Samoan-New Zealanders. I argue that for Samoan-New Zealanders sport exists as an example of Marcel Mauss’s fait social total or Total Social Phenomenon (TSP) by virtue of the range of cultural institutions and practices that find expression within it. As such it is deeply and uniquely immersed within the fa’aSāmoa or Samoan culture. This thesis is based on seven months of ethnographic fieldwork, participant observation, and talanoa conducted in Wellington, New Zealand. It seeks to explore the ways in which sport is a culturally embedded practice as a means of interrogating the notion that Samoan-New Zealanders are ‘born to play sport’.</p>

Reflexivity in the negotiation of participation: Insights from a culturally-embedded community project in Vietnam

<p>This research aims to explore the possible negotiation of participation within development practice in Vietnam based on different understandings of reflexivity among different development actors. Specifically, it adopts a qualitative approach, using a sustainable community livelihoods project in Central Vietnam as a case study, to ask the following questions: (1) How do Western and local development facilitators understand reflexivity in participatory development in Vietnam?; and (2) How do Western and local development facilitators negotiate and practice reflexivity in participatory development in Vietnam? These questions are important because while participation and fieldwork partnerships in community projects promise mutually-beneficial opportunities for shared learning, they also involve negotiations of power. The reflexivity of development practitioners assumes that they can obtain thorough understanding and knowledge of the local culture and facilitate participation appropriately, which may not actually be the case. Secondly, little is known about how participants think or practice their own culturally-embedded understandings of reflexivity in their interactions with non-local practitioners. Thirdly, there is a knowledge gap about how participation intersects with reflexivity as “Western” development discourses and local understandings are negotiated. Semi-structured interviews were employed with three groups of people positioned differently within the case study project: international development practitioners, Vietnamese development practitioners and local community members. Interpretative methods of auto-ethnography and reflexive writings were used to analyse the researcher’s own understandings of reflexivity and the working of power from his prior work as a translator in this project. Building on existing critiques of reflexivity, and through careful analysis, the thesis interrogates assumed links between reflexivity and better facilitation in community projects. The negotiations explored in this research include rethinking the principle of reflexivity in the context of local cultural norms as these significantly shape values of development work and likely benefits for practitioners and participants. From extracted perspectives of research participants through semi-structured interviews and the researcher’s reflections by means of auto-ethnography, an alternative approach is suggested to aid development practitioners in reflecting upon notions of “self” and “others” in order to examine various conceptions of participation in theory and practice.</p>

Reflexivity in the negotiation of participation: Insights from a culturally-embedded community project in Vietnam

<p>This research aims to explore the possible negotiation of participation within development practice in Vietnam based on different understandings of reflexivity among different development actors. Specifically, it adopts a qualitative approach, using a sustainable community livelihoods project in Central Vietnam as a case study, to ask the following questions: (1) How do Western and local development facilitators understand reflexivity in participatory development in Vietnam?; and (2) How do Western and local development facilitators negotiate and practice reflexivity in participatory development in Vietnam? These questions are important because while participation and fieldwork partnerships in community projects promise mutually-beneficial opportunities for shared learning, they also involve negotiations of power. The reflexivity of development practitioners assumes that they can obtain thorough understanding and knowledge of the local culture and facilitate participation appropriately, which may not actually be the case. Secondly, little is known about how participants think or practice their own culturally-embedded understandings of reflexivity in their interactions with non-local practitioners. Thirdly, there is a knowledge gap about how participation intersects with reflexivity as “Western” development discourses and local understandings are negotiated. Semi-structured interviews were employed with three groups of people positioned differently within the case study project: international development practitioners, Vietnamese development practitioners and local community members. Interpretative methods of auto-ethnography and reflexive writings were used to analyse the researcher’s own understandings of reflexivity and the working of power from his prior work as a translator in this project. Building on existing critiques of reflexivity, and through careful analysis, the thesis interrogates assumed links between reflexivity and better facilitation in community projects. The negotiations explored in this research include rethinking the principle of reflexivity in the context of local cultural norms as these significantly shape values of development work and likely benefits for practitioners and participants. From extracted perspectives of research participants through semi-structured interviews and the researcher’s reflections by means of auto-ethnography, an alternative approach is suggested to aid development practitioners in reflecting upon notions of “self” and “others” in order to examine various conceptions of participation in theory and practice.</p>

Коррупция и государство в Сахеле

Начиная с 2000 гг. новые инструменты оценки борьбы с коррупцией создают нелестный образ госу-дарств Сахеля. Согласно наиболее известному из них – Списку стран по восприятию коррупции (Corruption Perception Index, CPI), составляемому международной неправительственной организацией Transparency International, в 2016 г. практически все страны региона попали в группу государств с эндемической коррупцией. Однако восприятие коррупции внутри группы варьирует: Сенегал и Буркина Фасо считаются менее коррумпированными, чем Мали и Нигер, которые, в свою очередь, вы-глядят лучше Мавритании и особенно Чада, входящего в список 20 наиболее коррумпированных стран мира – вместе с Бурунди, Гаити, Центральноафриканской Республикой и Демократической Республи-кой Конго. Однако эти чисто количественные и вырванные из контекста измерения проливают мало света на социальное и культурное обрамление повседневной коррупции. Настоящая статья опирается на качественные эмпирические полевые исследования, ведущиеся автором в Нигере, Сенегале и Мавритании. Starting in the early 2000s, new means of measurement produced by the international anticorruption indus-try cast a rather unflattering light on the Sahelian countries, stigmatizing them for their lack of public integ-rity. In 2016 the best known of these tools, Transparency International’s “Corruption Perception Index” ranked all Sahelian countries, excepting (barely) Senegal, as states with systemic corruption (a score lower than 43). Perceptions vary from country to country: Senegal and Burkina Faso are reputedly less corrupt than Mali and Niger; these two are, in turn, more virtuous than Mauritania, and even more so than Chad. These approaches, purely quantitative and decontextualized, shed little light on how corruption is socially and culturally embedded in everyday life. In contrast, this article is based on qualitative empirical studies and on the author’s own research in Niger, Senegal, and Mauritania.

Public–private partnership in a smart city: A curious case in Japan

Previous studies have overlooked how partnerships between public and private actors (PPPs) play out as an effect of cultural and historical conditions in the context of a smart city. Our analysis investigates the peculiar context of Japan, where smart city initiatives stem from a historically and culturally embedded “partnership” between government and businesses. Unlike other smart city settings, the adoption of a neoliberal logic of an all-embracing market world by prioritizing business interests over other civic issues is not inevitable. This paper contributes to the literature on PPPs and smart cities by presenting the case of a partnership between public and private actors that overcomes the antagonistic and transactional relationship problematized in previous studies. We demonstrate that the workings of PPPs are historically and culturally embedded. Thus, we caution policy-makers against adopting a universal framework for partnerships in smart city initiatives. In the case of Japan, we advocate for long term orientations of projects instead of the short-term goals espoused by smart city initiatives.

"I Think She's Learnt Her Lesson": Juror Use of Cultural Misconceptions in Sexual Violence Trials

The extent to which decision-making in sexual violence jury trials is impacted by culturally embedded misconceptions is not well understood. In this article, we provide an insight into the views of 121 real jurors in 18 sexual violence trials, illustrating that rape myth acceptance scales give an incomplete view of when and how jurors might be influenced by cultural misconceptions. Prompted in part by the behaviour and tactics of counsel, jurors in real trials often expect complainants to fight back and to report sexual offending immediately. They also have expectations of complainants and defendants that derive from misconceptions about "real rape". While our study confirms that jurors are susceptible to cultural misconceptions, it also demonstrates the complexity of assessing the extent of their influence and the difficulties in designing reforms to reduce their use.

“Crusaders” and the Islamic State Apocalypse

Islamic State propaganda manipulated and combined a culturally embedded sense of Islamic history with a heady, potent mixture of classical and radical apocalyptic, and real and supposed Islamic authority, both sacred and profane. Tapping into a widespread belief in the approach of the Last Hour, the group attempted to change an established “crusader master narrative” by giving “crusaders” and their “crusade” integral roles in Islamic sacred history and an impending Islamic State apocalypse.