Not playing around: global capitalism,modern sport and consumer culture

Abstract The development of modern sport is bound up with processes of economic and cultural transformation associated with the global diffusion of capitalist forms of consumption. In this article I draw attention to aspects of the globalization of modern sport that were becoming apparent towards the close of the nineteenth century and then move on to consider the factors that contributed to sport becoming a truly global phenomenon in the course of the twentieth century. Consideration is given to the development of international sport and sports goods companies, the growth in media interest and the increasing significance of sponsorship, consumer culture and sporting celebrities. The global diffusion of modern sport that gathered momentum in the course of the twentieth century involved a number of networked elements, including transnational communications media and commercial corporations for which sport, especially through the iconic figure of the transnational celebrity sport star, constitutes a universally appealing globally networked cultural form. Association with sport events and sporting figures through global broadcasting, sponsorship and endorsement arrangements offers commercial corporations unique access to global consumer culture.     

Evolutionary Psychology: Toward a New View of Human Nature and Organizational Society

The paper argues that evolutionary psychologyoffers a radical and challenging new perspective onhuman nature and organizational society. Its roots in aconvergence of insights and scientific discoveries from diverse natural and human sciences aredescribed, and how it seeks to avoid common fallacies ofearlier biological reasoning about human society.Recurrent themes in human nature and theirmanifestations are summarized, including sex and personalitydifferences, cognitive and affective biases, socialorientations, and preferred modes of social exchange.The paper concludes that we suffer the consequences of poor fit between our inherited natures andmany of the constructed environments in organizationalsociety, but that new emerging forms of organization maypresent us with the opportunities for social relations closer to the ancestral paradigms ofour psychology.     

Political cultures and transnational social fields: Chileans,Colombians and Canadian activists in Toronto

We offer an institutional analysis of Chilean and Colombian transnational politics in Toronto to account for cross‐group variation in transnational political practices and the formation of different types of transnational social fields of political action. The article is based on interviews conducted with Chilean and Colombian community activists and Canadian refugee rights and social justice activists. We use the concept of political culture to account for differences in Chilean and Colombian transnational politics and to explain the different kinds of relationships the two groups have developed with non‐migrants. We introduce the concept of activist dialogues, understood as patterns of strategic political interaction between groups, to characterize how migrants and non‐migrants read and navigate their interlocutors' ways of doing politics. We argue that variation in the character of activist dialogues results in different types of transnational social fields of political action. Chilean–Canadian activist dialogues reflect a convergence of political cultures and strategies of action; Colombian–Canadian activist dialogues are marked by a relationship in which there is a divergence of strategies of action. Convergent dialogues produce thicker and more stable transnational social fields. Divergent dialogues are associated with a series of ad hoc initiatives, the absence of stable and strongly institutionalized partnerships, and a thinner transnational social field of political action.     

Enabling Fictions: Philip Roth's Prosthetic Anne Franks

Abstract

In this article, it is argued that insufficient attention has been paid to Philip Roth's uses of Anne Frank in his work. Concentrating on the 'Zuckerman' and 'Philip Roth' novels in which Anne Frank is discussed, it is illustrated that Anne Frank functions as a 'narrative prosthesis' not only in Roth's work and within American postwar culture, but that all representations of Anne Frank function as narrative prosthesis. The concept of Anne Frank as narrative prosthesis allows for recognition of the fact that Roth characterises writing and identity as prosthesis. Exploration of Roth's uses of Anne Frank also exposes problematics in his own work, particularly in his representations of women.     

'Nothing that is earthly': Ideology,performance and colonial difference

Abstract

Recent scholarship on the early Americas has posited performance as the site where colonial difference is enacted. This article examines the ways in which performance was used to disseminate (and conversely, to subvert) Christian ideology in New Spain, in dialogic texts such as Sahagún's Colloquios and in missionary plays by Father Andrés de Olmos and others.     

Individualism/Collectivism Orientations and Reactions Toward Alternative Human Resource Management Practices

In this study, we examined the relationship between individualism collectivism orientations of potential job seekers and their reactions toward alternative human resource management (HRM) practices in the areas of selection, performance appraisal, reward system, career system, and employment security. Using several subdimensions of individualism collectivism, we found many significant relationships between individualism collectivism orientations and preferences for alternative human resource management practices that might affect the effectiveness of alternative HRM practices.     

Rebuilding the ship at sea: super‐diversity,person and conduct in eastern Oslo

Researchers on transnationalism and migration in contemporary Europe often insufficiently communicate or even neglect the major shift between the first and second generation. Using empirical material from eastern Oslo, I argue that the dominant conceptualization of the self, of personhood, has shifted from a chiefly sociocentric to a chiefly egocentric form of selfhood, with important consequences for the process of integration into Norwegian society. At the same time, this change in personhood, a result of wide‐ranging participation in the institutions of majority society, does not per se lead to a weakening of religious or ethnic identity, although they are now reflexively chosen and not adhered to as a duty or social obligation. This process of individualization creates a situation of multiple, complex adaptations rather than one of stable, coherent diasporic populations, one where even conservative traditions have to be chosen actively because they no longer recommend themselves. Members of the second generation are compelled to balance the demands of two social ontologies, one emphasizing security and group cohesion, the other favouring freedom and individuality.     

'Ancient + Future = Now': Goa Gil and Transnational Neo-Tribalism in Global Rave Culture

Abstract

This article posits the case study of rave music DJ Goa Gil as a dynamic example of the transnational, deterritorializing flows that inform the community formation and signifying practices of contemporary rave culture. Intended as a commentary on the changing nature of subcultural formation and practice, Goa Gil's story reveals a complex pattern of transnational and transcultural networks and exchanges. From 1960s American hippy to global rave music DJ, guru, and nomad, Goa Gil is one of the subculture's progenitors of neo-tribalism, a discursive and symbolic trope that allows ravers to imagine, and give name to, their transnational communities of affect that cross national and cultural borders. Set within a social context of advanced information technologies and rapidly changing modes of communication, neo-tribalism, as a critical concept, can be easily applied to any number of communities of affect across the globe, paving the way for a re-evaluation of (sub)cultural inter-connectedness in the early twenty-first century.     

The return of the Indian guide New formulations of the Indian guide at the end of the 20th century

Abstract

In the myth of the North American frontier defined as a place where two or more cultures interact, there is a set of characters who represent the capacity to move in both worlds and to build bridges between them. The translator is one and the 'guide' another. The figure of the 'Indian guide' – explored from white people's point of view ever since Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales – staged a large scale return at the end of the 20th century in North American (Canadian and American) novel and film, but now transformed by authors (generally Native American but not exclusively so) who view the history of the North American West from, as it were, the other side of the frontier line. This article will try to describe the new, rebellious, empowering characteristics of the Indian guide as represented in novels and films of the last 30 years.     

Communicating Coffee Culture through the Big Screen: Starbucks in American Movies

Abstract

This paper examines Starbucks product placement in American movies. The portrait of Starbucks images in movies not only serves a promotional purpose, but also as a way of communicating coffee culture through the big screen. Content analysis and semiotic approaches are employed to examine the coffee culture that is communicated through American movies. Seven American movies from 1998 to 2008 which include Starbucks product placement are included in the content analysis while semiotic theories are applied to the 1998 movie You've Got Mail. The findings suggest that, through the movies, Starbucks attempts to establish the image of an upscale cosmopolitan coffee chain and a coffee culture that represents a vigorous American middle-class lifestyle.