The importance of language and culture to the growing Sino-Caribbean commercial relationship

Language and culture play a critical role in international commercial relations. Since the 19th century, the English language has undeniably held the prominent position as the global lingua franca to facilitate communication between nations. However, China’s contemporary re-emergence as an economic superpower has expanded its global influence. Consequently, awareness of Chinese culture and language is becoming important not only globally, but also in the Caribbean, where China’s economic footprint has expanded considerably in recent years. This article conceptually explores the important role of language and culture within the growing Sino-Caribbean commercial relationship. Specifically, it discusses the potential impact of language on the trade and tourism sectors, which are two key industries that drive the economies of English-speaking Caribbean small island developing states. It does this by charting the development of the English and Chinese languages as dominant languages. It then briefly looks at the current level of Chinese engagement with the region in trade and, more contemporarily, the potential of greater Chinese tourism in the Caribbean. It discusses the value of deeper cultural and linguistic understanding in nurturing and expanding these relationships. Finally, the article concludes by providing meaningful recommendations on ways to mitigate cultural and linguistic barriers in order to promote deeper Sino-Caribbean trade and tourism.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>Language and culture are two important factors in commercial relationships, especially trade and tourism.</li><br /><li>This article adds to the growing literature on budding Sino-Caribbean relations by exploring the importance of linguistic and cultural understanding to nurturing this relationship.</li><br /><li>It argues that Caribbean countries cannot take for granted that English will always be the lingua franca for Chinese-Caribbean relations given China’s expanding global footprint.</li><br /><li>The article makes recommendations on ways to mitigate linguistic and cultural barriers in order to deepen Sino-Caribbean commercial ties.</li></ul>

Investments in the imaginary: commercial drone speculations and relations

Drones are increasingly understood and imagined as important actors, inhabiting and transforming aerial space. From their entrenched establishment within battlefield operations, drones have spawned into a diverse ecosystem of platforms and applications, increasingly punctuating domestic urban airspace. While occupying a status as exemplars of urban innovation, the drone poses, and remains bound to, a range of techno-cultural contestations – from challenges around airspace integration, to concerns around privacy, safety and pollution. Thinking with commercial drone futures, and specifically the logistics sector, this article interrogates the role of speculation in this unfolding techno-landscape. In so doing we turn to two key sites through which the drone is anticipated – namely patents and adverts – as lenses through which to investigate projected visualisations underpinning the emergent, envisioned and anticipated drone. We argue that such drone speculations do not simply and solely envision new means of circulating goods, people and information, but rather embody and act to promote a particular set of aerial desires and social relations. Critically unpacking envisioned notions of frictionless mobility, instant consumption, and the appropriation of vertical spaces and spectra, we argue that such speculative sites and practices importantly participate in a techno-fetishist agenda positing drone technology as a privileged and panacea agent of futurity, while often eliding its implications.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>Drones are increasingly understood and imagined as important actors, inhabiting and transforming urban airspace.</li><br /><li>Interrogating the domestic drone, we offer a critical visual analysis of key sites through which it is speculated.</li><br /><li>While envisioning convenience from the air, commercial drone speculations also embody and promote particular aerial desires.</li><br /><li>We argue that staying with speculation enables the critical unpacking of notions of frictionless mobility, instant consumption and the appropriation of vertical space.</li></ul>

The collective disorientation of the COVID-19 crisis

One of the chief features of this global crisis is that we find ourselves in a shifting landscape. The resulting disorientation extends beyond health research and into many domains of our individual and collective lives. We suffer from political disorientation (the need for a radical shift in economic thinking), from social disorientation (the rearrangement of social dynamics based on distancing measures), and from temporal disorientation (the warping of our sense of time during lockdown), to name but a few. This generalised state of disorientation has substantial effects on wellbeing and decision making. In this paper, we review the multiple dimensions of disorientation of the COVID-19 crisis and use state-of-the art research on disorientation to gain insight into the social, psychological and political dynamics of the current pandemic. Just like standard, spatial cases of disorientation, the non-spatial forms of disorientation prevalent in the current crisis consist in the mismatch between our frames of reference and our immediate experience, and they result in anxiety, helplessness and isolation, but also in the possibility of re-orienting. The current crisis provides a unique environment in which to study non-spatial forms of disorientation. In turn, existing knowledge about spatial disorientation can shed light on the shifting landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>Growing evidence suggests that the COVID-19 crisis has been disorienting across domains.</li><br /><li>Disorientation is a metacognitive feeling monitoring both spatial and non-spatial tasks.</li><br /><li>Temporal disorientation was fostered by the pandemic’s counterintuitive temporality.</li><br /><li>Disorientation mitigation can facilitate new social and political frames of reference to emerge.</li></ul>

Politics of fear in Brazil: Far-right conspiracy theories on COVID-19

In this article, we present an analysis of narratives mobilised by extreme right-wing leader Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, from March to December 2020. Our research indicates that, throughout that year, despite changes in the categories used, fear was continuously mobilised by the Brazilian president connecting an alleged ‘communist conspiracy’ to the coronavirus pandemic by creating narratives around the terms ‘Chinese virus’ and ‘Chinese vaccine’. Mapping these conspiratorial discourses, we hope to better understand (1) how Bolsonaro converts conspiracy theories into official state discourse as well as public policy, and (2) how Bolsonaro and his mediatic representatives weaponise tensions between individual freedom and public healthcare and the scientific community. Taking this scenario into account, we analyse how Bolsonaro uses social fear during the pandemic as part of his permanent campaign in a process resulting in serious risks to both public health and democracy.