Defining ‘real India’: representations of authenticity in independent travel

As an alternative to the stereotypical mass tourism, independent travellers – travellers who travel for extended periods on low budgets while ostensibly avoiding formalized tourist activities and locales – are invested in constructing ‘authentic’ travel experiences. Practices such as ‘off-the-beaten-track’ travel and cultural engagement provide the means by which independent travellers are able to make claims to such authenticity. Authenticity is constructed by travellers through idealizations of intimacy and non-commodification. These idealizations are tangled in narrative representations of ‘real’ India and ‘real’ Indians, their ‘real’-ness typified by an absence of other travellers, tourists and, more generally, Western contamination. In these ways, ‘authentic’ travel is dependent upon actively constructed binaries of Western travelling subjects and exotic Indian objects. Yet travellers' fantasies of the Other are fragile and subject to collapse at moments in which so-called Others articulate their subjectivity in a way that is inconsistent with travellers' expectations. Through a focus on travellers' narratives of their experience, both the requirement for an Orientalist dichotomy as well as the ruptures that continually challenge this dichotomy, will emerge.     

Identity in old clothes: the socio-cultural dynamics of second-hand clothing in Irbid,Jordan

This paper investigates the socio-cultural dynamics underlying the consumption of second-hand clothing (al-Balih) in Irbid city, northern Jordan. It primarily examines the various images and meanings that consumers attach to used clothes imported primarily from the West. Al-Balih is conceived of as a social space where multiple imaginations and images meet and interact. Put another way, it tends to blur the conventional socio-economic distinctions that mark Jordanian society. In light of the recent economic hardship that Jordanians have faced due to the late alarming rise in most commodity prices, more people are turning to shopping at second-hand stores. The growth of the second-hand clothing trade can be seen as a testament to the strong demand by consumers for varied and inexpensive products. The paper adopts an anthropological framework in terms of its methodology and analysis. Ethnographic data were collected primarily through conducting in-depth interviews with consumers and shops owners.     

Designer nations: Neo-liberal nation branding – Brand Estonia

This article critically examines the emergence of nation branding as a commercial practice at the end of the Cold War by conceptualizing it as a means for nations to redefine and reposition themselves within the master narrative of globalization. It examines the industry literature of the nation branding movement, which seeks to legitimate the practice. It argues that nation branding is an engine of neo-liberalism that explicitly embraces a reductive logic, which privileges market relations (market fundamentalism) in articulations of national identity; also contends that nation branding is a risky business that can backfire, since its success depends, in large part, on the intuitive knowledge of individual industry ‘creatives’. It maintains that the methodology of nation branding, qua methodology, is profoundly anti-democratic. It offers recommendations for making nation branding more transparent and accountable to democratic values, but also explores Umberto's concept of ‘semiotic guerrilla warfare’ as a possible strategy for disrupting nation branding and redirecting initiatives to rethink national identity in more democratic directions.     

Surrogate selves: notes on anti-trafficking and anti-blackness

This essay explores the discursive production of black captivity across the African diaspora in the afterlife of slavery. I take as my objects of analysis the contemporary anti-trafficking and anti-slavery movements, features of the increasing hegemony of human rights discourse for formulating problems of social justice and their remedies. I argue that configuring black captivity – in this case, the experiences of Nigerian women migrants to Western Europe – through these hegemonic discourses extend, rather than ameliorate, the global structural antagonism of anti-blackness.     

沙特的全球治理观：以沙特参与G20机制为例

随着全球化的发展,全球问题和地区冲突逐渐凸显出来,全球治理理论在这样的国际背景下迅速在国际关系学界和各种国际组织中流传开来并被广泛运用。沙特作为中东最具有影响力的地区大国之一,参与二十国集团在一定程度上表明了阿拉伯伊斯兰国家对于全球治理观的形成和实践。     

全球化时代的民族与国家

全球化是一股巨大、深厚且广泛的力量。20世纪中后期全球化的加速推进,对民族国家、民族国家构成的世界体系以及世界格局和区域形势产生了巨大而深刻的影响。在此过程中,作为人类群体的民族也发生了巨大而深刻的改变,不仅生成了新的民族类型,使族类群体趋向于多样化,而且极大地改变了国家的民族构成和族际关系,导致族际关系的复杂化。全球化过程带来的这些变化,有的已经成为现实并日渐凸显,而有的正处于量变的阶段,目前还只能偶见其端倪。今天,人类仍然处于民族国家时代,国家仍然是人类社会最为有效的治理形式。因此,有必要在新的形势下重新审视民族与国家的关系,确立适应形势需要的民族观、国家观和民族政策观,促进民族与国家关系的协调发展。     

权力话语理论视域下的中国文化英译原则

从福柯权力话语理论入手,论述了全球化背景下中国本土文化“走出去”过程中汉英翻译的媒介作用,并提出了相应的中国文化英译的三个原则,从而在汉英翻译的层面为中国文化的国际传播提供理论支持.     

文化全球化背景下的文化走向研究:回顾与展望

文化全球化是全球化的一个重要维度,体现了当今世界不同文化之间相互碰撞、相互融合的过程。文化全球化的形成由来已久,但推动其加速发展的应是现代信息传媒技术的飞速革新。在文化全球化背景下,世界文化的走向体现为三种可能模式:文化同质化、文化异质化,以及文化混合化。这三种模式实质上是文化中心主义或文化相对主义倾向对文化走向产生的影响。文化中心主义和文化相对主义均有其合理之处,但也都存在着局限性。构建和谐、理性的全球文化,需要不同文化间进行积极的对话与融合。     

劳动者主体地位新论——以法学分析为视角

当今时代,劳动者主体地位面临全球化、知识经济和市场经济的三重挑战,应该从宪法学的角度出发,对劳动者概念进行重新界定,从资本、权力、劳动者三者的相关性中定位劳动者的主体地位,并通过法治化路径切实保障劳动者的主体地位。     

国际视野下商科高校商务英语教学协作创新特色研究与实践

文章对商务英语的概念及范畴进行了梳理,归纳了国内外商务英语的研究内容,并针对国内商务英语的教学现状及教师队伍存在的问题,提出商科高校商务英语教学协作创新的途径。