THE GHETTO FABULOUS AESTHETIC IN CONTEMPORARY BLACK CULTURE

With diamonds, mink, and champagne, black popular culture has, in recent years, made an audacious spectacle of conspicuous commodity consumption. Commonly termed ‘bling’, the ‘ghetto fabulous’ aesthetic of these flashy displays has prompted vociferous debate about the cultural meanings of contemporary black consumerism. Is it pathological? Subversive? Deviant? Since the nineties when it first appeared, the ghetto fabulous aesthetic has left its mark on a range of cultural productions from music videos to ghetto lit, fashion to film, walking a familiar line from defiance to bowdlerization, from raucous wild child of the streets to co-opted product tagline.

This essay explores a new cinematic genre within this repertoire, the ghetto fabulous genre of black film that has emerged to variously castigate and congratulate black investments in ghetto fabulous bling. Appearing at the close of the twentieth century, the genre reflects key shifts in the political imaginary and economic transformations of the ‘post-soul’ era. Drawing on two such texts, Barbershop (Tim Story 2002) and Barbershop 2: Back In Business (Kevin Rodney Sullivan 2004), studio films with all-black casts and directed by young African-American filmmakers, this analysis focuses on their engagement with contemporary cultural tensions over class and consumerism, their narrative containment of a transformative black politics, and their reconciliation of post-soul priorities with hegemonic discourses of the market. I argue that ghetto fabulous films are quintessential products of the post-soul era, their allegorical priorities in pointed accord with neo-liberal individualism and the promise of class transcendence. Performing crucial work of hegemonic cooptation, these texts offer archetypes of the ghetto entrepreneur and black enterprise itself as a salvational sphere for the urban poor. Reining in unruly desires, these texts draw working-class African Americans into the capitalist fold, articulating a post-soul politics that preaches black acquiescence with hegemonic discourses of advanced capitalism.     

Overcoming neoliberal globalization: social-ecological transformation from a Polanyian perspective and beyond

ABSTRACT

The ecological crisis has intensified in many respects. Prominent proposals to deal with the crisis are discussed under the header ‘sustainability transformations’ or even ‘Great Transformation’. We argue that most contributions suffer from a narrow analytical approach to transformation ignoring the largely unsustainable dynamics of global capitalism and the power relations involved in it. Thus, a ‘new critical orthodoxy’ of knowledge about transformation is emerging which runs the danger to contribute to a spatially and socially highly uneven green capitalism. This article claims that the current debate on social-ecological transformation can be enriched by a Polanyian understanding but also based on regulation theory. We distinguish between three types of transformation: incremental adaptation of the current institutional systems, institutional change in favour of a new ‘green’ phase of capitalism, and a post-capitalist great transformation that implies a profound structural change of the mode of production and living.     

And roses too: How “Better Work” facilitates gender empowerment in global supply chains

Women's increasing entry into paid work has not been accompanied by a corresponding change in the gender division of unpaid labor in the household and community. Though women participate in the labor market, the expectation is that they will also take responsibility for the household. To what degree does women's waged work in the garment industry transform gender norms and dynamics in their home lives? To what extent do the choices they make translate to their household-level empowerment? This practice-focused article examines these questions by looking at data collected on gender dynamics at work and at home in the clothing industries of Bangladesh, Cambodia, Kenya, Lesotho, and Vietnam. While women's empowerment through garment sector employment remains circumscribed by low wages, financial insecurity, and gendered expectations, we find that international interventions, namely the International Labor Organization's Better Work program, has expanded women's abilities to exert agency over their earnings within the context of household resource allocation and has decreased the negative effects of ongoing and systemic financial precarity.     

Assessing and Increasing Staff Preference for Job Tasks Using Concurrent-Chains Schedules and Probabilistic Outcomes

The assessment and improvement of staff members' subjective valuation of nonpreferred work tasks may be one way to increase the quality of staff members' work life. The Task Enjoyment Motivation Protocol (Green, Reid, Passante, &; Canipe, 2008 Green, C. W., Reid, D. H., Passante, S. and Canipe, V. 2008. Changing less-preferred duties to more-preferred: A potential strategy for improving supervisor work enjoyment. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 28: 90–109. [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) provides a process for supervisors to identify the aversive qualities of nonpreferred job tasks. Through participative management, the process reduces these aversive qualities while increasing the appetitive properties via the pairing of these tasks with enjoyable consequences. The present study provides an extension of Green et al.'s work through utilization of a concurrent-chains schedule arrangement via the pairing of reinforcing consequences with a target job task using probabilistic outcomes to directly assess job task preferences for eight direct support staff in a human service organization.     

基于专利指标的中国区域创新趋同的时空演变特征分析

本文以中国31个省级行政区1990-2008年专利数据为资料,基于空间马尔可夫链方法,研究中国区域创新趋同的时空动态演变特征。结果表明:(1)1990年以来中国区域创新一直存在"俱乐部趋同"现象,在2000-2008年期间更为显著。(2)区域自身和周围邻居同时向上转移的区域基本集中于东南沿海地区,而区域自身或周围邻居有一方或双方均向下转移的区域绝大多数位于中西部。(3)中国区域创新类型转移显著受到地理背景的制约,创新高水平的区域背景对区域转移起到了正面影响,而创新低水平的区域背景则产生了负面影响,进一步为中国区域创新"俱乐部趋同"现象的存在提供了空间上的解释。     

当前批发体系的结构变化与创新构想--基于工业品流通数据的解析

目前在现实经济中呈现出的批发体系萎缩现象实为发生于批发体系的结构变化,表现为主体层面的专职批发商环节优势丧失,载体层面的工业品市场发展定位困惑,以及职能层面的传统批发职能被大范围分解和替代,是旧主体、旧载体与旧职能未能适时创新的结果。新型批发体系应促成新主体和新载体对新职能的承担,具体可归为创新发展集采批发、委托批发、网络批发和批发市场四种批发业态。     

东中西部地区商品流通业对经济增长影响差异的分位数回归分析——基于中国地级市市辖区的数据

利用分位数回归分析法,对2009年中国256个城市的商品流通业和经济增长之间的关系进行分析,研究结果表明:对于各个分位数,东中部、东西部地区GDP差异和制度性差异都大于0;在大部分分位数下,制度性差异是地区GDP差异的主要原因,特征差异为次要原因。另外又从产业结构、交通状况和观念等角度进行了分析。最后基于实证结果有针对性地提出了政策建议。     

人民币升值对我国出口企业的影响及应对策略

自2005年7月21日实行汇改制度以来,由于受到内在动力与外在推力的双重压力,人民币一直保持小幅升值的态势。通过人民币对美元汇率的变动与初级产品出口额、工业制成品出口额之间的相关性分析,得出人民币升值对工业制成品出口额的影响程度大于其对初级产品出口额的影响程度。     

明代道德生活的发展历程

明代道德生活大体上经历了淳朴时期、衰变时期、堕落时期和颓废时期这样四个历史阶段。在这个历史变迁过程中,不仅鲜明地表现了商品经济发展对社会道德生活的制约性,同时也深刻地蕴涵着明代士人探求社会发展规律的心路历程。     

闽台农业产业链整合的战略思考

在比较分析闽台农业主要经济指标的基础上,认为闽台农业在生产条件与生产水平上的差异互补性使闽台农业产业链整合成为可能,并从交易成本角度分析了影响闽台农业产业链整合的因素,进而提出构建海峡农业经济区的战略目标,以农民合作组织发展为纽带,现代农业物流体系建设为平台,闽台政策机制创新为保障,推进闽台农业产业链的整合。