A Portraiture of Environmental Justice in Communities of Concern

Environmental justice as a movement is an urgent step towards the realization of environmental equity. There is a necessity that makes environmental justice an important solution to climate change. The origin of the necessity was the damage that environmental racism was causing, and its realization in the United States and later as an international phenomenon. Through a theoretical approach, this article examined how communities of concern are denied environmental justice as a result of the current developmental models in practice and showed why they are vulnerable to the global challenge of climate change and environmental pollution. It identified the link between human rights and the environment. It explored a viable sustainable development model for communities of concern and concluded on how they can get past the economic challenges of implementing green industries.

Life Writing through Texts and Images – Picture books by Celebrities

In the last 15 to 20 years a lot of celebrities have published novels and or picture books for children and adolescents. This article will contextualise this international phenomenon within a theoretical framework of celebrity studies and research on life writing and intermediality. As will be shown, these literary texts for young people by celebrities represent an intermedial life writing that combines texts, illustrations, photographs and forms of online and offline self-curating as well. It is especially the picture book that seems to carry an archival function with respect to the authors’ lives. Here, the celebrities tell about themselves in words and images, they stage themselves as private and authentic persons. Understanding children’s and adolescents’ literature as part of intergenerational communication, these literary texts show different kinds of strategies to prolong the knowledge of a public person in societies’ collective memories.

FinTech: Ecosystem, Opportunities and Challenges in Saudi Arabia

FinTech is a disruptive international phenomenon that is expected to shape the future of the financial sector. This study describes the features and characteristics of the current Saudi Arabian FinTech landscape and ecosystem. Examples of innovative financial startups in Saudi Arabia, including online banking, transfer and payment services, crowdfunding platforms, peer-to-peer lending, and blockchain initiatives, are discussed. Several changes have occurred within the ecosystem in the last five years; for example, Saudi banks are taking a more cautious approach. However, FinTech initiatives are also being internally developed, encouraging technology companies and startups to focus their efforts on innovations aimed at improving current processes rather than novelty. The government directs its effort mainly toward initiatives related to regulations and laws. Customers are interested in new products that are convenient and easy to use. We compare the Saudi FinTech ecosystem to the United Arab Emirates’ FinTech ecosystem and conclude with recommendations for the different stakeholders.

Punk Sans Frontières

Punk’s diaspora was not limited to the United Kingdom or the United States, and, even during its mid-1970s heyday, parallel developments were happening around the globe, and what would become known as “punk” emerged in Australia, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia at the same time as the nascent UK punk movement. Furthermore, as punk in the United Kingdom reached its commercial peak and began to decline (at least in terms of its public profile), it was being discovered, reinvented, or adapted in far-flung places beyond the (Western) critical radar. More than forty years on, punk has traversed international boundaries, and the legacies of the original UK and US scenes are now accompanied by a variety of global counterparts. This chapter narrates punk’s evolution as an international phenomenon, whose interaction with wider cultural contexts, languages, and systems of belief challenged notions of a homogeneous “punk” identity.

Informal housing in global cities: case studies on Hong Kong, New York City and Toronto

This paper examines the major characteristics and drivers of informal housing in three global cities. Despite each city’s unique path to urbanization, Hong Kong, New York City, and Toronto are experiencing housing issues that are reflective of many developed, wealthy cities around the world. Continued population increase from globalization, rising property costs, and insufficient housing stock has contributed to the persistence of various forms of housing that exist outside of formal processes. The case studies exposed distinctive socio-economic and political drivers that underlies this international phenomenon. The findings revealed a continuum of informal dwelling typologies that span across a spectrum of legality and illegality, ranging from highly visible structures to those that are more hidden. This research responds to the need to understand shared challenges between cities in the East and in the West, and may be particularly relevant to city builders who are concerned about distributive justice. Key words: informal housing, informal settlements, global cities, public housing, urban development

Informal housing in global cities: case studies on Hong Kong, New York City and Toronto

This paper examines the major characteristics and drivers of informal housing in three global cities. Despite each city’s unique path to urbanization, Hong Kong, New York City, and Toronto are experiencing housing issues that are reflective of many developed, wealthy cities around the world. Continued population increase from globalization, rising property costs, and insufficient housing stock has contributed to the persistence of various forms of housing that exist outside of formal processes. The case studies exposed distinctive socio-economic and political drivers that underlies this international phenomenon. The findings revealed a continuum of informal dwelling typologies that span across a spectrum of legality and illegality, ranging from highly visible structures to those that are more hidden. This research responds to the need to understand shared challenges between cities in the East and in the West, and may be particularly relevant to city builders who are concerned about distributive justice. Key words: informal housing, informal settlements, global cities, public housing, urban development

The Beatles and Their Fans

This chapter focuses on the Beatles’ transition from an English sensation to an international phenomenon during the fall and winter of 1963–1964, with particular attention to British and American media’s construction of the Beatles’ image and their evolving fan base during that period. On its surface, due to Capitol Records’ and the American media’s initial dependence on British sources, the Beatles’ image appeared to have been exported to the United States with little change. Yet in American media, the band’s image was stripped of much of the class-based resonance so important in the British context, and because of the Beatles’ teen-idol status, Capitol and the American press extricated their image from the intimations of sex, drugs, and violence found in Liverpool’s “rave” culture.. What was left was an ebullient ideal, a celebration of youth that carried the Beatles through the touring years and beyond.

Kicking off: Is the association between the FIFA world cup and domestic abuse an international phenomenon?

This study examines whether increases in incidents of female domestic abuse occur during FIFA world cup tournaments, in countries, other than the UK. Columbian medical records providing national daily counts, relating to Violence Against Women (VAW) and females subject to Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), across two world cup tournaments (2014/2018) were analysed. The number of medical examinations rose by 43% (VAW) and 39% (IPV) during the 2014 Columbia match days, and 26% (VAW) and 27% (IPV) during the 2018 match days, when compared to non-match days (p < .001). The increases were higher on a weekend and when winning, rather than losing.

GERMAN RECEPTION OF MODERN MIGRANT PROSE OF THE AUTHORS FROM THE FORMER USSR

The literature of migrant authors from the former USSR became popular in the German literary market not only within the framework of the well-known international phenomenon of “new immigrant chic”, but also due to the specific character of German literary market, which is characterized by the demand for “narrative lightness” of modern literature. The main aspects of the promotion of writers on the literary scene in Germany are the role of the literary publisher in choosing marketing strategies for authors, the self-positioning of writers, and the interest of the readers in a biography that is exotic for German-speaking society. The interaction between different generations of migrant writers, the lack of success of migrant prose from the former Soviet Union in the Russian literary market as well as the current trend towards publishers’ creating a feigned image of the migrant writer with Russian roots are particularly relevant topics in this discussion.