Evaluating the effectiveness of the first breast cancer awareness campaign in the United Arab Emirates: Lessons learned and next steps

Following an innovative breast cancer awareness campaign in the United Arab Emirates, a dual language survey of 500 women and in-depth interviews were conducted. The study found television advertising to be the most optimal awareness communication method, particularly among Emirati and other Arab women respondents. The research also found strong support for a year-long awareness campaign.     

Mediating production and consumption: cultural capital and 'cultural workers'

This paper examines recent debates about the role of what Bourdieu termed cultural intermediaries in the formation and reproduction of the relations of cultural capital. Workers in the cultural or creative industries were given a central place in Bourdieu's schema in the creation of hierarchies of value in the production and consumption of symbolic goods. Subsequent writers about the apparent emergence of a creative economy (Lash and Urry 1994; Featherstone 1991) have given workers involved in the production and distribution of cultural goods a pivotal place in the development of late or post-modernity. More recent work (Negus 2002; Nixon and du Gay 2002) has criticized the validity and coherence of the term as it has come to be understood and called for more rigour in its definition and use. This paper adds to this debate by considering the book trade as a space in which the gap between production and consumption of cultural goods is mediated. It suggests that cultural intermediaries, as cultural workers, are engaged in the reproduction of the cultural aspects of social class by 'shoring up' their insecure position in the relations of cultural capital, rather than simply being the taste leaders of a reflexive modernity.     

Contingent Hybridity: The Cultural Politics of Tepoztl‡n's Anti-Golf Movement

In order to maintain some level of local control over both ideological and material resources, local social activists construct hybrid cultures that reflect their simultaneous insertion into local, national, and global cultural discourses. Theirs is a contingent hybridity in that it reflects the specificities of their experience as well as the conscious attempts to resist the homogenizing tendencies of global discourses while not isolating themselves from those discourses. This article analyzes the conflict in the town of Tepoztl?n, Morelos, Mexico, over the construction of a golf course and the ensuing movement against the project. While emphasizing local practices and making use of local communicative networks, movement leaders were also quite adept at moving between the cultural realities of Tepoztl?n and their own experiences outside of the town in order to forge alliances with transnational organizations. As a result, many Tepoztecos now make use of such labels as "environmentalist," but do so within the embedded social and cultural structures of their community.     

汉语语境中的文化表述与中伊哲学的交流--论《勒瓦一合》和《真境昭微》的中伊哲学思想的融通

刘智作为明末清初的著名汉文译著家,他的翻译、介绍和著述充满了时代的创新性、开创性.刘智译著中哲学思想的丰富来源于他对伊斯兰哲学和思想的深刻学习和理解,更得益于他对中国传统哲学的悉心了解和系统掌握.其中,刘智对伊斯兰教哲学史上著名的哲学家、思想家和诗人阿布德·热哈曼·贾米(Abd al-Rahman Jami,伊历817-898年,1414-1492)的<勒瓦一合>(Lawa'ih)的译介,以<真境昭微>而著名,并反映了刘智译介过程中的创造性特征.<真境昭微>既忠实于原著,又以中国穆斯林的聪明才智超越了原文的文本,进行了汉语语境中的创造性表述和中国哲学范畴的恰当转化,从而以汉语的话语更直观地体现了伊斯兰哲学,特别是伊斯兰苏非哲学思想中"存在统一论"思想,以及苏非追求和实践自我超越和心灵升华的理想境界.在中国伊斯兰哲学、伊斯兰思想史上具有重要的理论价值和现实意义,也更好地体现了伊斯兰哲学和中国哲学的交流和融通,是人类智慧和思想间相互学习、理解、交流和对话的一幅历史风景画.     

Role of Leaders as Agents of Negotiation for Counterbalancing Cultural Dissonance in the Middle East and North Africa Region

This study provides a unique perspective in the field of cross-cultural management by exploring the relationship between “cultural dissonance”—the gap between cultural values and actual practice—and effective leadership attributes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Incorporating cultural dissonance into implicit leadership theory, the study uses measurements of dissonance on nine cultural dimensions to identify particular leadership preferences in seven MENA countries. The overall findings suggest that societies prefer leaders who counterbalance cultural dissonance by allowing space for negotiations by members of society to reduce disparities between cultural values—“the way things should be”—and actual practices—“the way things are.” The greater the disparity between cultural values and practices, the greater the citizens' desire that leaders act as agents of change by creating space for negotiation.     

Knowledge transfer of the Western concept of quality

This paper addresses one of the issues in contemporary globalization theory: the extent to which there is 'one best way' in which business can be conducted and organizations managed. It uses Czarniawska's 'travels of ideas' model as an organizing framework to present and understand how the concept of 'quality', so important in contemporary approaches to manufacturing and services, and their management, travelled to, and impinged on, a newly opened vehicle assembly plant in Poland. The extent to which new meanings were mutually created in the process of translation is discussed, using ethnographic reporting and analysis techniques commonly used in diffusion research. Parallels between the process of translation as an idea becomes embedded into a new cultural location and the processes which contemporary research has identified as important to organizational learning are briefly discussed in conclusion.     

傣泰民族起源与傣泰民族文化圈的形成新探

中国古代不存在一个可成其为民族的越人族体,泰人也不是越人演变而来的,傣泰民族在汉代以前的历史的追溯已无意义。傣泰民族可追溯的源流在汉代云南滇中,并随后向南迁移到今天的云南南部及东南亚一带。由于傣泰民族在长期的历史迁移与发展中保持了水稻种植、“勐-阪”制度与文化的复制模式,使傣泰民族的先民们能在长期的迁移过程中定居并壮大起来,从而在今天形成了一个傣泰民族居住的文化圈。傣泰民族文化圈是一个文化地理概念,基于共同的民族渊源关系,人们互相理解、宽容、合作、开展社会与经济的交流,共同促进民族与文化的发展,是当代理解傣泰民族文化的新思维。     

东北亚文化发展的新思维 --读《东北亚共同体的文化视角》

中国东北、朝鲜(韩)、日本在内的东北亚地区,地理位置较近,同属汉字文化圈,在过去数十年间,尽管在经济上取得了巨大成功,但东北亚在政治上依然是令世界不安的焦点地区。为了长期的安定,作者以独特视角提出先从构建文化共同体开始,研究进一步加强区域性合作,以谋求共同发展。     

对2004年前三季度我国外汇储备大幅增长的分析

2004年前三个季度的外汇储备大幅增长,其中近一半是等待人民币升值进行套汇交易的游资。人民币面对国际国内多重压力,还是应该保持币值稳定。