European Film Commissions as Transcultural Promoters and Mediators

This article investigates transcultural communication taking film commissions as case study. Film commissions are non-profit organisations looking to attract audiovisual productions to their areas and supply these audiovisual productions with services free of charge. Although relatively recent and little studied, film commissions are spreading fast worldwide. Combining the political economy approach with the most recent production studies, the article contends that film commissions can stimulate transcultural phenomena on three levels. First, they act as intermediaries between the audiovisual production and the host area. Second, they encourage collaboration between different production cultures. Third, they incentivise brand-new collaboration between the audiovisual production and the tourist sector.

Patronage, Repression, and Co-Optation: Bobi Wine and the Political Economy of Activist Musicians in Uganda

In recent decades, musicians have figured prominently on Africa’s political stage. Popular Ugandan musician Bobi Wine moved beyond protest singer and ventured into politics by entering parliament in 2017 and challenging long-term President Yoweri Museveni at the presidential polls in 2021. To push for social change, Wine created the People Power movement and built an alliance with fellow musicians. This article studies Wine’s movement and his alliance with musicians by taking a political economy approach. I posit that the political activism of musicians reaches its limits when a sitting government can easily threaten the economic base of its oppositional challengers. Alliances become fragile once the government can demonstrate that challenging a ruling elite has severe consequences for one’s livelihood whereas aligning with the government ensures economic prosperity. The article uses ethnographic data, interviews, and newspaper articles to demonstrate this argument.

Unfolding the Enigma of Dispossession in India: An Analysis of the Discourse on Land Grabbing

A discourse analysis of land grabbing literature, in general, reveals that it is dominated by the political economy approach, and that dispossession remains a governing theme. But dispossession due to land grabbing in India is not that simple. It is contingent upon the cultural subjectivities such as gender, caste, indigeneity, region and religion, which are local relations of power impacting land use and possession. In fact, the empirical studies prove the inseparability of the sociocultural realm with the economics of state-led land expropriation or market compulsion in the country. Thus, it is imperative to understand that the experiences of land grabbing and dispossession are highly contextual and diverse with an assemblage of perceptions over land.

Do Not Disturb/Please Clean Room: The Invisible Work and Real Pain of Hotel Housekeepers in the GTA

The hotel industry in the GTA is dependent on cheap, racialized and gendered work; the result has been significant poor health outcomes for immigrant women of colour who are over represented in this industry. This paper explores the larger structural processes intensified by neoliberal globalism that leads to the racialized segregated labour of immigrant women of colour working as hotel housekeepers. This will begin by critically analyzing the organization of the economy and the "global city" through a feminist political economy approach and by linking the downward trajectory in immigrant health to the Health Immigrant Effect and gaps in the Population Health Approach. This will be highlighted by personal narratives from immigrant women of colour currently working as housekeepers in the GTA, who have shared their stories and how they are actively contesting and negotiating with their spaces of precarious employment to promote and increase health and well being at work, in their homes and within their communities.

Do Not Disturb/Please Clean Room: The Invisible Work and Real Pain of Hotel Housekeepers in the GTA

The hotel industry in the GTA is dependent on cheap, racialized and gendered work; the result has been significant poor health outcomes for immigrant women of colour who are over represented in this industry. This paper explores the larger structural processes intensified by neoliberal globalism that leads to the racialized segregated labour of immigrant women of colour working as hotel housekeepers. This will begin by critically analyzing the organization of the economy and the "global city" through a feminist political economy approach and by linking the downward trajectory in immigrant health to the Health Immigrant Effect and gaps in the Population Health Approach. This will be highlighted by personal narratives from immigrant women of colour currently working as housekeepers in the GTA, who have shared their stories and how they are actively contesting and negotiating with their spaces of precarious employment to promote and increase health and well being at work, in their homes and within their communities.

Income Inequality and Environmental Degradation in Egypt: Evidence from Dynamic ARDL Approach

This study aims to explore the effect of income inequality on CO2 emissions in Egypt during the period 1975–2017. " The analysis investigates the validity of the political economy approach compared to the Keynesian approach regarding the inequality-environment nexus. The study applies the novel dynamic autoregressive distributed lags approach (DARDL) to overcome the complications associated with the structure of the ARDL model. The findings showed that the relationship between inequality and CO2 emissions is not a trade-off relationship. Rather, inequality leads to environmental deterioration in the long term, which supports the political economy approach in explaining the inequality-environment nexus. Hence, the economic development policies adopted in Egypt during the past four decades have led to a negative impact on the environment.