Title search results
Showing 6861 - 6880 of 21760 items
Communicating in the Third Space (Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies)
By Gerhard Wagner, Karin Ikas. 2009
Communicating in the Third Space aims to clarify Homi K. Bhabha’s theory of the third space of enunciation by reconstructing…
its philosophical, sociological, geographical, and political meaning with attention to the special advantages and ambiguities that arise as it is applied in practical--as well as theoretical--contexts. The idea of "third space" conceives the encounter of two distinct and unequal social groups as taking place in a special third space of enunciation where culture is disseminated and displaced from the interacting groups, making way for the invention of a hybrid identity, whereby these two groups conceive themselves to partake in a common identity relating to shared space and common dialogue. The essays collected in Communicating in the Third Space--including a preface by Bhabha himself--brilliantly introduce readers to this exciting topic in Cultural and Post-Colonial theory and offers insightful elaboration and critique of the meaning and relevance of life in the "third space." With a preface by Homi K. Bhabha.Dissent and Cultural Resistance in Asia's Cities (Routledge Contemporary Asia Series)
By Melissa Butcher, Selvaraj Velayutham. 2009
This book documents urban experiences of dissent and emergent resistance against disjunctive global and local capital, technology and labour flows…
that converge and intersect in some of Asia’s fastest growing cities. Rather than constructing occupants of the city as simply passive victims of globalisation or urbanisation, it presents ways in which people are using everyday strategies embedded in cultural practice to challenge dominant socio-economic and political forces impacting on urban space. Taking the city as a site of contestation and a stage where social conflicts are played out, the book highlights the connections between urban power and dissent; the nature and impact of resistance; how the spatiality and built environment of the city generates conflict and, conversely, how protagonists use the cityscape to stage their everyday and public dissent. The contributors explore the conditions, strategies, and outcomes of such dissent and forms of cultural resistance, and explore the following themes: the impact of urban development, gentrification and ghetto-isation; urban counter narratives and the re-imagining of city spaces; the role of grassroots activism and social movements; cultural resistance in the creation of neighbourhoods and communities; the impact of gender, class and the politics of identity on forms of dissent; the formation of transgressive spaces.The Other Global City (Routledge Advances in Geography)
By Shail Mayaram. 2009
What is a Global City? Who authorizes the World Class City? This edited volume interrogates the "global cities" literature, which views…
the city as a shimmering, financial "global network." Through a historical-ethnographic exploration of inter-ethnic relations in the "other global" cities of Cairo, Beirut, Istanbul, Bukhara, Lhasa, Delhi, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Tokyo, the well-known contributors highlight cartographies of the Other Global City. The volume contends that thinking about the city in the longue duree and as part of a topography of interconnected regions contests both imperial and nationalist ways of reading cities that have occasioned the many and particularly violent territorial partitions in Asia and the world.Caspian Energy Politics: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan (Central Asian Studies)
By Indra Overland. 2009
Caspian Energy Politics analyses the role of oil and gas in the development of the three main petroleum exporters in…
the Caspian region - Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan - and how energy resources influence interactions with semi-authoritarian Russia and China. Due to volatile commodity prices and competition for the resources in and around the Caspian Sea, the governments of these petroleum-exporters face a series of difficult decisions. These governments have sought to balance short-term incentives to spend oil revenues as a means to maintain power against the need for a long-term strategy for managing these assets, choices which have further implications for how these countries align themselves internationally. By illuminating important linkages between domestic and international dynamics in these states, the book provides a fresh perspective on energy politics and the impact of petroleum on the development of the Caspian petroleum producers. Expert contributors from Central Asia and the South Caucasus and international scholars provide context-specific insights into the incentives affecting decision-makers that can provide a foundation for strategies to help the countries in the region overcome the negative effects of reliance on oil and gas. As such, the book will be a valuable tool for business actors seeking to understand the role of Chinese and Russian companies in the region, as well as local and international policymakers and non-governmental organisations.The Rise of Japanese NGOs: Activism from Above (Routledge Contemporary Japan Series)
By Kim D. Reimann. 2009
Over the past two decades, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have exploded in number and emerged as a new force in international…
and transnational politics. Why, however, do some countries nonetheless have more active NGO sectors than others? Using the case of Japan, this book uncovers patterns of convergence and divergence in levels of activism across industrialized countries and offers a two-level political explanation for the rise of NGOs as a global phenomenon. The author argues that activism has been cultivated from "above" and shows the ways in which political structures and processes at the domestic and international level have either encouraged or discouraged activism. Japan, a late developer in terms of its number of NGOs, provided a poor political environment for NGO activism for most of the post-war period. In the past two decades, however, as this situation has changed, NGOs have become a visible player as both critics and partners of the government.. Using the concepts of international political opportunity, norm socialization and transnational diffusion, Reimann traces the ways in which domestic and international politics interact and promote the rise of NGOs globally. This book will be of interest to postgraduate students and academics working in political science, international relations, sociology, policy studies, Asian studies, international development and environmental politics.Gender, Household and State in Post-Revolutionary Vietnam (ASAA Women in Asia Series)
By Jayne Werner. 2009
This book examines gender in post-revolutionary Vietnam, focusing on gender relations in the family and state since the onset of…
economic reform in 1986. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources (including surveys, interviews, and responses to film screenings), Jayne Werner demonstrates that despite the formal institution of public gender equality in Vietnam, in practice women do not hold a great deal of power, continuing to defer to men in both the family and the wider community. Contrary to conventional analyses equating liberalisation and decentralisation with a reduced role for the state over social relations, this book argues that gender relations continued to bear the imprint of state gender policies and discourses in the post-socialist state. While the household remained a highly statist sphere, the book also shows that the unequal status of men and women in the family was based on kinship ties that provided the underlying structure of the family and (contrary to resource theory) depended less on their economic contribution than on family norms and conceptions of proper gendered behaviour. Werner’s analysis explores the ways in which the Doi Moi state utilised constructions of gender to advance its own interests, just as the communist revolutionary regime had earlier used gender as a key strategic component of post-colonial government. Thus this book makes an important and original contribution to the study of gender in post-socialist countries.Zambia Then And Now: Colonial Rulers and their African Successors
By William Grant. 2009
Written by a member of the last generation of British Colonial Service Officers in Africa, the book seeks to place…
both colonial rulers and their African successors in the context of history and the circumstances of their time, viewing their achievements and failures critically but not unsympathetically and comparing colonial society with that of the independent African country that Northern Rhodesia has become. Colonialism is viewed at the day to day level of the administration of a rural district by four officers and a handful of African district messengers, who worked together without even a telephone to assist them. With a wealth of detail that can only come from experience, Grant’s work makes an important contribution to the understanding of a time, place, period and practices that are only now being considered in a balanced way.The Multilateral Dimension in Russian Foreign Policy (Routledge Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe Series)
By Elana Wilson Rowe, Stina Torjesen. 2009
This book examines the place of multilateralism in Russia’s foreign policy and Russia’s engagement with multilateral institutions. Throughout the post-Soviet…
period, both Yeltsin and Putin consistently professed a deep attachment to the principles of multilateralism. However, multilateralism as a value, concept, strategy or general phenomenon in Russian foreign policy has hitherto been neglected by scholars, seldom assessed in its own right or from a comparative perspective. This book fills that gap, combining wider conceptual perspectives on the place of multilateralism in Russian foreign policy thought and action with detailed empirical case studies of Russian engagement at the global, transatlantic and European levels, and also in Russia’s regional environment. It examines Russia’s role and relationship with the UN, NATO, G8, EU, OSCE, Arctic Council, Eurasian Economic Community, Commonwealth of Independent States, Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Collective Security Treaty Organization, covering a wide range of issue areas including nuclear non-proliferation and trade. Throughout, it considers the political, economic and security interests that shape Russia’ foreign relations, conception of multilateralism and activity in multilateral settings. Overall, this book is an important resource for anyone interested in Russian foreign policy and its role in international relations more generally.China's Information and Communications Technology Revolution: Social changes and state responses (China Policy Series)
By Yongnian Zheng, Xiaoling Zhang. 2009
In recent years, China has experienced a revolution in information and communications technology (ICT), in 2003 surpassing the USA as…
the world’s largest telephone market, and as of February 2008, the number of Chinese Internet users has become the largest in the world. At the same time, China has overtaken the USA as the world’s biggest supplier of information technology goods. However, this transformation has occurred against the backdrop of a resolutely authoritarian political system and strict censorship by the Party-state. This book examines China’s ICT revolution, exploring the social, cultural and political implications of China’s transition to a more information-rich and communication-intensive society. The pace of the development of ICT in China has precipitated much speculation about political change and democratisation. This book explores the reality of ICT in China, showing clearly that whilst China remains a one-party state, with an ever-present and sophisticated regime of censorship, substantial social and political changes have taken place. It considers the ICT revolution in all its aspects, outlining the dominant trends, the impact on other countries of China as an ICT exporter, strategies of government censorship and use of ICT for propaganda, the implications of censorship for Chinese governance, the political implications of internet culture and blogging, and the role of domestic and foreign NGOs. Overall, this book is a vital resource for anyone seeking to understand a rapidly transforming China, both today and in the years to come.Strategic Partnerships in Asia: Balancing without alliances
By Vidya Nadkarni. 2009
This book examines the nature and implications of the increasing interaction among three secondary powers in the world: China, Russia…
and India. It provides an in-depth analysis of the complex and often contradictory goals underlying their emerging strategic partnerships along with an assessment of the role these partnerships play in the larger regional and global contexts. In particular, it focuses on the important region of Asia/Eurasia, where these countries seek to increase their influence and compete against the prominence of the United States. Breaking new ground in looking at the ways in which the triad of bilateral strategic partnerships affect the countries’ individual aspirations for power, status and wealth, this book argues that their attempt to develop codified, formal bilateral partnerships and trilateral ties that seek to neither antagonise nor fully embrace each other is both a challenge to peace and security and an opportunity for cooperation. It concludes by suggesting scenarios under which competitive or cooperative economic and security orders may emerge. Clearly written and thoroughly accessible, this book will be an informative text for courses on international relations, international security, foreign policy and Asian and Russian politics.Although numerous studies of religious rituals have been conducted by religious studies scholars, anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists, it is rare…
to find a work that brings scholars from different disciplines together to discuss the similarities and differences in their research. This book represents contributions by leading scholars from several disciplines that show the diversity of approaches to religious rituals, while also providing cross-disciplinary perspectives on this topic. The goals of the chapters are to consider where the field currently stands in understanding religious rituals and what novel ideas can improve our knowledge about these practices; and furnish innovative applications of theory by discussing particular examples which are drawn from the authors’ fieldwork. The chapters cover Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, and Islamic rituals, thus providing a view of how ritual practices vary across the globe, but also how they share some important characteristics.Soviet State and Society Under Nikita Khrushchev (BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies)
By Jeremy Smith, Melanie Ilic. 2009
This book examines the social and cultural impact of the 'thaw' in Cold War relations, decision-making and policy formation in…
the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev. It highlights the fact that many of the reform initiatives generally associated with Khrushchev personally, and with his period of office more generally, often had their roots in the Stalin period both in their content and in the ways in which they were implemented. Individual case studies explore key aspects of Khrushchev's period of office, including the introduction of the 1961 Communist Party Programme and popular responses to it, housing policy, the opening up of the Soviet Union to the West during the 1957 youth festival, public consultation campaigns and policy implementation in education and family law, the boost given to voluntary organisations such as women's councils and the trade unions, the reshaping of the internal Soviet security apparatus, the emergence of political dissent and the nature of civil-military relations as reflected in the events of the workers' uprising in Novocherkassk in 1962. The findings offer an important new perspective on the Khrushchev era.This book deals with the genesis, outbreak and far-reaching effects of a legal controversy and the resulting outbreak of mass…
violence, which determined the course of British colonial rule after post World War Two in Singapore and Malaya. Based on extensive archival sources, it examines the custody hearing of Maria Hertogh, a case which exposed tensions between Malay and Singaporean Muslims and British colonial society. Investigating the wide-ranging effects and crises faced in the aftermath of the riots, the analysis focuses in particular on the restoration of peace and rebuilding of society. The author provides a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of British management of riots and mass violence in Southeast Asia. By exploring the responses by non-British communities in Singapore, Malaya and the wider Muslim world to the Maria Hertogh controversy, he shows that British strategies and policies can be better understood through the themes of resistance and collaboration. Furthermore, the book argues that British enactment of laws pertaining to the management of religions in the post-war period had dispossessed religious minorities of their perceived religious rights. As a result, outbreaks of mass violence and continual grievances ensued in the final years of British colonial rule in Southeast Asia - and these tensions still pertain in the present. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of law and society, history, Imperial History and Asian Studies, and to anyone studying minorities, and violence and recovery.A Theory of Race
By Joshua Glasgow. 2009
Social commentators have long asked whether racial categories should be conserved or eliminated from our practices, discourse, institutions, and perhaps…
even private thoughts. In A Theory of Race, Joshua Glasgow argues that this set of choices unnecessarily presents us with too few options. Using both traditional philosophical tools and recent psychological research to investigate folk understandings of race, Glasgow argues that, as ordinarily conceived, race is an illusion. However, our pressing need to speak to and make sense of social life requires that we employ something like racial discourse. These competing pressures, Glasgow maintains, ultimately require us to stop conceptualizing race as something biological, and instead understand it as an entirely social phenomenon.Law for Foreign Business and Investment in China
By Xiaowen Tian, Vai Io Lo. 2009
In trying to establish a presence in China, foreign investors have found it imperative to understand the regulatory environment of…
this potentially huge market. This book provides an up-to-date overview of the legal framework for doing business in China. It covers such topics as state structure; legislative amendments and enactments on direct foreign investment; the court system; the legal profession; business entities; foreign investment enterprises; contracts; intellectual property; labor and employment; consumer protection; taxation; securities; and dispute resolution. Apart from explaining legal principles, the book highlights liberalisation measures that China has undertaken to fulfil its WTO commitments; elucidates complicated legal concepts with examples of court decisions; discusses relevant foreign trade and investment polices; and includes a glossary of Chinese terms.India's Energy Security (Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series)
By Ligia Noronha, Anant Sudarshan. 2009
This book explores the multifaceted aspects of India’s energy security concerns. Bringing together a set of opinions and analysis from…
experts and policymakers, it sheds light on the context of India’s energy insecurity and explores its various dimensions, its nature and extent. Contributors examine the role that trade, foreign and security policy should play in enhancing India’s energy security. It is argued that the key challenge for India is to increase economic growth while at the same time keeping energy demands low. This is especially challenging with the transition from biomass to fossil fuels, the growth of motorized private transport, and rising incomes, aspirations and changing lifestyles. The book suggests that at this time there are strong arguments to lessen the fossil fuel path dependence and it argues for a need to engage with all the key sources of this dependence to implement a process of energy change. India’s Energy Security is a timely contribution given the national and international interest in the issue of energy security and the possibility that energy concerns have the potential of becoming the cause of serious international conflicts. It will be of interest to academics and policy makers working in the field of Asian Studies, Energy Policy, International Relations and Security Studies.Moving beyond conventional accounts of gated communities and housing segregation, this book interrogates the moral politics of urban place-making in…
China’s commodity housing enclaves. Drawing on fieldwork and survey conducted in Shanghai, Pow critically demonstrates how gated communities are bound up in the cultural reproduction of middle-class landscape that is entrenched in the politics of the good life – defined in terms of a highly segregated landscape secured and maintained through the territorialisation of privilege, lifestyle and private property. The study challenges the concept of gated communities as simply ‘spatial containers’ of social classes and argues that Shanghai’s gated enclaves may be more fruitfully analyzed as critical sites of and for the production and consumption of an exclusive lifestyle where nascent middle-class sensibilities and identities are being (re)presented, cultivated and lived. In the final analysis, the book addresses an overarching normative concern by examining how social-spatial differentiation and exclusion in Shanghai’s gated communities potentially disrupt, challenge and unsettle the modern ideals of urban life. By adopting a geographical moral perspective, this book illuminates the moral complexities and ambiguities of place-making in Shanghai’s increasingly polarized urban landscape. As the first book length academic study on gated communities in China, this book will appeal broadly to those with interests in Urban studies and urban social development in China.Administrative Law and Governance in Asia: Comparative Perspectives (Routledge Law in Asia)
By Tom Ginsburg, Albert H. Y. Chen. 2009
This book examines administrative law in Asia, exploring the profound changes in the legal regimes of many Asian states that…
have taken place in recent years. Political democratization in some countries, economic change more broadly and the forces of globalization have put pressure on the developmental state model, wherein bureaucrats governed in a kind of managed capitalism and public-private partnerships were central. In their stead, a more market-oriented regulatory state model seems to be emerging in many jurisdictions, with emphases on transparency, publicity, and constrained discretion. This book analyses the causes and consequences of this shift from a socio-legal perspective, showing clearly how decisions about the scope of administrative law and judicial review have an important effect on the shape and style of government regulation. Taking a comparative approach, individual chapters trace the key developments in the legal regimes of major states across Asia, including China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. They demonstrate that, in many cases, Asian states have shifted away from traditional systems in which judges were limited in terms of their influence over social and economic policy, towards regulatory models of the state involving a greater role for judges and law-like processes. The book also considers whether judiciaries are capable of performing the tasks they are being given, and assesses the profound consequences the judicialization of governance is starting to have on state policy-making in Asia.Trade Liberalisation and Regional Disparity in Pakistan (Routledge Studies in the Growth Economies of Asia)
By Jayatilleke S. Bandara, Muhammad Shoaib Butt. 2009
Pakistan’s military, which has directly controlled the country’s affairs for more than half of its post-independence history and which often…
retained real political power even during periods of democratic rule, has played a significant role in trade liberalisation. Regional disparities have increased since the beginning of major trade liberalisation attempts in the 1980s and at present, regional conflicts and the associated regional disparities are extremely high. The authors critically review the country's post-independence political economy of trade liberalisation, the resulting structural change and the story of regional disparities, identifying possible relations with political regimes. Using a regional computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, the effects of trade liberalisation on regional disparities are quantitatively examined, with an emphasis on the key export industries at a national level and on the relative output and employment growth at a regional level. In the first study to distinguish a possible link between trade liberalisation and regional disparities under dissimilar political regimes, such as autocracy and democracy, Butt and Bandara use Pakistan as a case study to draw broader lessons for other developing countries. This book will be of interest to academics, economists, political analysts and policymakers interested in development economics in general and South Asia in particular.This book deals with issues in economic development in India. It highlights those factors that are indicative of India’s emergence…
in the global economy yet indicates negative "trickle down" effects, such as malnutrition, poverty, bonded labourers, high adult unemployment and the widespread use of child labour. Focusing on structural deficiencies for a steady growth rate, and how to make growth inclusive, the book examines duality in development and the factors standing between national economic prosperity and human development. The author analyses issues concerning international trade, technology, access to food, inequality and poverty, and the "catching up" of developing countries. A novel approach to the analysis of the Indian economy and other developing countries in the 21st century, this book advocates development as a form of governance. With India as a case study, this book provides a solid framework for looking at developing economies which will be useful to policy-makers and to graduate and post-doctoral students and researchers in the areas of development studies and economics, industrialisation and structural change.