西北民族地区人口消费模式与环境关系定量分析

西北民族地区包括甘肃、青海、宁夏、新疆4省区,是我国自然生态极端脆弱的地区,人口与资源之间的矛盾十分突出.文章将采用统计方法,分析西北民族地区生态环境和消费模式的变化与现状,然后采用面板数据模型,对生态环境和消费模式关系进行定量分析,从中找出存在的问题,并提出转变消费模式改善生态环境的相关政策建议,以促进该地区生态环境的保护与建设.     

个体低碳消费行为引导的低碳经济实现路径

基于态度过程的视角, 构建个体消费者消费行为理论模型并进行实证研究。探讨低碳消费态度和实际消费行为产生差异的原因, 探寻基于个体消费行为引导的低碳经济实现路径。研究结果表明:环境问题认知正向影响社会知觉消费行为和负向影响个体知觉消费行为, 是促进低碳经济的最有效选择手段低碳消费意义认知、视他低碳消费偏好、低碳消费行为倾向对社会知觉消费行为具有促进作用, 是实现低碳经济的有利途径;自我低碳消费偏好对个体知觉消费行为具有负向作用, 应加以引导。现实的社会消费文化压力对态度过程之间、行为倾向与实际消费行为之间具有负向调节作用, 必须培育低碳消费的主流消费文化, 并制定出基于低碳经济实现路径中政府和社会的保障措施。     

基于泰尔熵指数的区域碳排放差异研究

碳排放的区域差异研究,对各地区碳减排任务的合理分配及碳减排目标的顺利实现具有重要意义.基于泰尔熵指数系统分析了中国碳排放的区域分布特征及差异化程度,探索了中国东部、中部和西部不同区域碳排放效率的差异及成因.研究结果表明:中国碳排放整体呈现出人均碳排放量增加、碳排放强度降低的走向;碳排放效率总体呈现出东高西低,中部改善迅速的态势;中国各区域碳排放效率长期存在差距,西部地区的减排行为对中国整体的碳减排目标实现举足轻重.为中国碳减排任务的合理分解提供了经济及政策建议.     

《全国主体功能区规划》实施阻力及其解决路径探讨

《全国主体功能区规划》的出台,完善了中国国土规划体系,并从制度上落实了区域协调发展理念,具有重要战略意义。但是,《规划》的落实因为缺乏全国可比的标准,无法建立可行的利益补偿机制而遇到了受限地方不配合的内在阻力以及来自制度环境的外在阻力。为了化解这两重阻力,在《规划》框架内,提出了省级分区及其开发强度确定的思路与方法,从而明确划分出补偿区域和受偿区域及其补偿标准,为构建合理科学的区域补偿机制提供科学依据,最终实现区域利益均衡,推进《规划》的执行与落实。     

能耗、碳排放与江苏工业发展方式转型

在保护环境和节约能源的时代呼声下,构造江苏工业的投入产出数据库,把能耗和二氧化碳排放引入到传统的生产函数中,利用超越对数生产函数估算江苏工业全要素生产率变化和四种投入要素的贡献率来讨论以高排放为特征的江苏工业发展方式问题显得尤有意义。江苏工业总体上已经实现了以技术驱动为特征的集约型增长方式转变,但近年来二氧化碳排放越来越成为阻碍江苏工业发展的重要因素。     

The ‘Parkour Organisation’: inhabitation of corporate spaces

This paper discusses the corporate city and the way it structures the experience of its inhabitants. The corporate city is seen here as the embodiment of power relationships of a distinctly postmodern nature, a means to preserve and promote hegemonic and homogenising discourses like globalisation and consumerism. Corporate design and architecture embody specific kinds of relationships, experiences and perceptions of space and place. We will suggest that the corporate city is homogenised, lacking richness of civic space, not just in terms of form but in terms of structures (both, spatial structures and the kind of social structures/interactions they invite). The activities of a group of traceurs practising parkour are described and their philosophy is explained as a metaphor for active participation and dialectic relationship between the actual and the possible structures of the world. Richness of experience, strengthening of community, variety of activity, openness and possibility are irrelevant (actually, inimical) to the corporate forces that shape our cities today. However, as the experience of parkour demonstrates, extreme artforms of ‘urban activism’ but also, more importantly, human agency and the performativity of the everyday, are capable of transforming the otherwise alienating non‐places, to grounds of possibility, creativity and civic identity.     

Wal-Mart: An Analysis of the Glocalization of the Cathedral of Consumption in China

This paper examines the methods adopted by Wal-Mart to cater to local cultures in China. This analysis draws on glocalization, a concept that refers to the interaction of the global and the local, or the incorporation of local elements into global products and/or services. This paper is important for two reasons. First, glocalization, in and of itself, has the capacity to enhance scholarly understanding of globalization with reference to global agency and cultural differentiation. Second, not only is China a nation where Wal-Mart had to glocalize the most; China is also the fastest growing market in the world. So, this analysis can bring fresh insights into today's reality of globalization processes. One of the consequences of Wal-Mart's strategy of glocalization is that it contributes to its status of ‘cathedral of consumption’ even more. A cathedral of consumption refers to an incomparable magnitude of global success (achieved by a major corporation) that gives birth to a consumer religion and a display of abundance and excess.

Este artículo examina los métodos adoptados por Wal-Mart para satisfacer a las culturas locales en China. Este análisis se basa en la glocalización, un concepto que se refiere a la interacción entre lo global y lo local, o a la incorporación de elementos locales dentro de los productos o servicios globales. Este artículo es importante por dos razones. Primero, la glocalización en sí, tiene la capacidad de mejorar la noción académica de la globalización, con referencia a la agencia global y a la diferenciación cultural. Segundo, China no sólo es una nación donde Wal-Mart tuvo que glocalizarse en mayor grado; sino que además es el mercado de mayor crecimiento en el mundo. Así, este análisis puede traer un conocimiento fresco a la realidad actual de los procesos de globalización. Una de las consecuencias de la estrategia de glocalización de Wal-Mart es que contribuye más aún a su estado de “catedral de consumo”. Una catedral de consumo se refiere a una magnitud incomparable de éxito global (lograda por una corporación mayor) que da vida a una religión de consumidor y a un despliegue de abundancia y exceso.

     

Viable Systems Approach and Consumer Culture Theory: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

The aim of this study is to depict the relational dynamics between the firm/brand and the individual/consumer or communities of consumers. To this aim we propose a conceptual framework, integrating the viable systems approach (VSA) with consumer culture theory (CCT), which considers the individual as an active co-maker of the product/brand (‘prosumer’). The VSA view of the firm overcomes the limitations of CCT research, which is mainly focused on the individual, giving little consideration to the other actors in the context. Among the different approaches under the umbrella of viable systems we chose the VSA because of its emphasis on the analysis of the systemic external relations with the agents in the context, helping to underscore the marketing and social perspectives of CCT. Using a viable systemic perspective, the firm/brand and the individual/consumer can be conceived as viable systems embedded in a social-business context. Therefore, the consumption system can be considered as the momentum for the creation and maintenance of symbolic and cultural relationships between the firm/brand and the individual/consumer or communities of consumers (i.e. brand communities or subculture of consumption). These relationships are finalized to establish a common and consonant language in order to achieve a desired consonance level capable of enabling both the consumer and the firm/brand to co-evolve, maintain, and enhance their systemic viability.     

A Smoking and Health Fair: Implementation and Evaluation

Abstract

A two-day health fair that focused entirely on the tobacco smoking habit was organized. Participating agencies offered information on smoking effects, cessation programs, and health screening to fair visitors. A visitor questionnaire indicated that the fair was successful in attracting both smokers and nonsmokers and that each group found information that was perceived as helpful. Issues involved in coordinating the project are discussed and suggestions for future smoking and health fairs are offered.     

‘Presentable’: the body and neoliberal subjecthood in contemporary India

The opening up of the Indian economy through a series of neoliberal reforms since 1991 ushered in processes of globalization that have led to a rapidly changing socio-cultural environment in India. Economic growth, globalizing discourses, and new consumer choices have driven desires for new global-yet-Indian identities. An emerging consumer agency has allowed for the embodiment and performance of these identities at the site of the body, even as new spaces of consumption have necessitated new bodily dispositions and practices. In this paper, I focus on how access to new commodities and discourses has affected understandings of the modern Indian body. In particular, I concentrate on appearance and the notion of exercising consumer agency to be ‘presentable’ as a lens through which to examine broader aspects of the body in the creation of neoliberal subjects in India.