Aesthetic matters: writing and Cultural Studies

What would it mean to treat Cultural Studies as a project that has had amongst its accomplishments the production of new forms and styles of writing, and a generative approach to aesthetics? An initial answer to this question would be that this would recognize how Cultural Studies interceded in an academic environment not only through its concern with supplying ambitious questions and insisting on a broad range of objects of scrutiny, but also by showing how this often entailed reconfiguring the forms through which intellectual inquiry conveyed its cargo. This article doesn’t seek to provide a taxonomy of Cultural Studies’ forms and styles; what it seeks to do is to encourage a self-reflexive attention to aesthetics within Cultural Studies as a form of practice. It suggests that there are two guiding questions that might frame such an attention: how might Cultural Studies generate forms that are adequate to the complexity of the configurations that it seeks to register; and how might Cultural Studies generate forms that could reach the ear of new audiences not attuned to the cadences of scholarly writing? The tension between these two questions should be seen as an invitation to purposeful experimentation within Cultural Studies.     

Immigration and violence: The offsetting effects of immigrant concentration on Latino violence

Despite longstanding interest in the effects of immigration on American society, there are few studies that examine the relationship between immigration and crime. Drawing from social disorganization theory and community resource/social capital perspectives, this study examines the effects of Latino immigration on Latino violence. Data on violence (i.e., homicide, robbery, and Violent Index) and the structural conditions of Latino populations are drawn from the California Arrest Data (CAL), New York State Arrest Data (NYSAD), and U.S. Census data for approximately 400 census places during the 1999–2001 period. Findings suggest that immigrant concentration has no direct effect on Latino homicide or Violent Index rates but may reduce Latino robbery. Immigration also appears to have multiple, offsetting indirect effects on Latino violence that work through social disorganization and community resource measures. These results suggest that (1) immigrant concentration does not contribute to Latino violence and may even reduce some forms of violence, (2) immigration simultaneously stabilizes and destabilizes structural conditions in Latino populations, and (3) it is useful to examine both the direct and indirect effects of immigration on crime.     

应急管理中的心理危机干预与重建:以汶川大地震为例

灾难后的幸存者经常会出现"创伤后综合症",如果得不到及时有效的治疗,将会影响他们今后的生活和身心健康.因此.心理危机干预与重建也是应急管理的重要内容,政府在重视"物质救灾"的同时,也应该进行"心理救灾".汶川大地震后.我国政府认识到心理危机干预与重建的重要性,并采取了很多措施积极地帮助灾区民众度过心灵的难关,为了更有效减轻灾难给民众带来的心理冲击,也应该改进某些措施和积极借鉴他国的经验.     

新形势下增强国有企业竞争力的理性思考

经济全球化对于国有企业改革与发展,是冲击、也是挑战,如何增强国有企业竞争力,促进国有企业改革与发展,是一项长期的艰巨任务,既需要宏观经济环境的支持,需要治理企业外部竞争条件,也必须深化企业内部改革。     

互联网金融发展对中国经济增长影响的实证

文章从内生增长理论视角出发,在线性内生增长AK模型的基础上,将影响中国宏观经济增长的关键变量简化为资本边际产出率、储蓄-投资转换率和储蓄率,进而结合中国互联网金融发展指数以及中国2011-2015年的有关时间序列数据,对互联网金融发展指数和上述变量相关性进行实证研究,结果表明互联网金融的发展对上述变量均能产生正向影响,互联网金融的发展能够有效促进中国宏观经济的增长.     

What ‘works’ when retracing sample members in a qualitative longitudinal study?

Attrition represents a significant obstacle to overcome in any longitudinal research project. It is, perhaps, most keenly felt when the data collected are from a qualitative study, since, unlike quantitative longitudinal research, weighting factors cannot be applied to ‘correct’ for any biases in the achieved sample and even a small number of ‘lost’ respondents can equate to a large percentage of the original sample. It is perhaps because of qualitative longitudinal research’s (QLR) reliance on, generally speaking, smaller samples that few have been able to shed much light on which re-contacting procedures are associated with achieving higher rates of retention. In this article, using data from a fifth sweep of a larger but particularly challenging cohort of 199 former probationers, we explore the strategies which helped us maintain high levels of retention in a QLR study. The article contains many practical suggestions which others planning or undertaking similar studies may find useful.     

Globalized Hopes and Disillusions

In contrast to the common tendency to see war as the result of leadership decisions based on risk assessments, and political and economic considerations about gains or losses, we use a constructivist and institutional perspective to historicize and politicize the way “nation‐state interests” and “nation‐state preferences” even in a decision to go to war are socially constructed and culturally embedded. We maintain that with the end of the Cold War, many societies found themselves at a crossroads where they had to resolve internal conflicts in regards to neoliberal globalization. These internal conflicts and a crisis of identity, between those who supported the principle of globalization and regarded it as a promise for democracy, openness, liberty and peace, and those who saw it as a danger to their exceptionality and distinctiveness, ended in wars (either internal wars or external wars) when the objectors of neoliberal globalization succeeded in creating an institutional turn which presented war as the “efficient,” “necessary,” “legitimate”, or “desired” solution to the new threatening reality. We demonstrate the validity of this argument by using Israel as a test case, examining how institutional changes in the 1990s, arising from internal societal conflicts around the Oslo Agreements, led the state to move from the brink of peace to new wars despite exogenous objections to its policy.     

Syrian Self‐Initiated Expatriates: Emotional Connections from Abroad

The relationship of an expatriate to his or her country of origin is complicated by reasons for leaving, ease of acculturation into the new country, nostalgia, loneliness and the ability to remain connected to his or her country of origin while abroad. Research on expatriate experiences has been limited to certain countries of origin and host countries, as well as a narrow definition of the term “expatriate”. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences and relationships with host and home countries of Syrian self‐initiated expatriates, an underrepresented group in the literature. Phenomenological interviews were conducted with 13 Syrian self‐initiated expatriates during an expatriate conference in Damascus, Syria. The results showed that Syrian self‐initiated expatriates have left Syria to advance their education and their careers. For many of the men interviewed, Syria’s mandate of military service was a factor in leaving. When in their host countries, they faced adjustment issues such as language barriers and difficulty remaining connected to Syria. Relationships with both countries were fluid and changing, based on factors such as adjustment and ease of communication. I make recommendations for improving travel, communication and cultural maintenance to support the connection between Syrian self‐initiated expatriates and Syrian society.