Las primeras imágenes cinematográficas rodadas por los estadounidenses en Cuba se remontan a la Guerra Hispano cubana norteamericana, anterior al surgimiento de Hollywood y su consolidación como industria del espectáculo. Los filmes producidos en esta etapa constituyen el preámbulo del denominado cine de propaganda política que, según el historiador Román Gubern, ha llegado hasta la actualidad y, sobre todo, develan el carácter manipulador que desde sus inicios ha tenido el lenguaje cinematográfico. Entre las décadas del `30 y `40 los (...) filmes realizados por Hollywood en la isla han proyectado una imagen exótica y estereotipada sobre la identidad cubana. No solo se ha desvirtuado nuestra memoria histórica, sino también nuestros valores identitarios, imagen que se ha extendido hasta el contexto actual.En la extensa historia del cine hollywoodense no son pocas las cintas que han abordado aspectos de nuestra historia. Independientemente de la calidad de la gran mayoría de estos filmes, no se puede minimizar su importancia en el obsesivo intento por construir una imagen creíble y veraz sobre Cuba. Aunque la gran mayoría de las cintas realizadas por cineastas estadounidenses sobre la isla se encuentran limitadas por el hecho de haberse rodado en espacios y locaciones de otras naciones con semejanzas geográficas y culturales con Cuba, dicha limitación no es sinónimo de pobreza artística. El objetivo fundamental de este ensayo radica en el análisis de la representación de la imagen e identidad de Cuba en la industria de Hollywood, a partir del estallido de la Guerra Hispano-cubana-norteamericana el 15 de febrero de 1898 hasta la administración del presidente Barack Obama, período histórico conocido como el Deshielo, porque ambas naciones decidieron restablecer relaciones diplomáticas interrumpidas en plena Guerra Fría, específicamente en 1961. (shrink)

Within the climate justice debate, the ‘beneficiary pays’ principle holds that those who benefit from greenhouse emissions associated with industrialization ought to pay for the costs of mitigating and adapting to their adverse effects. This principle constitutes a claim of inter-generational justice, and it is widely believed that the non-identity problem raises serious difficulties for any such claim. After briefly sketching the rationale behind ‘beneficiary pays,’ this paper offers a new way of understanding the claim that persons in developed societies (...) have benefited from industrialization. It argues that when we think of the claim in this new way, it evades the non-identity problem entirely. Some objections to this approach are then considered and rebutted. The paper concludes by comparing the present, relatively modest solution to the nonidentity problem with a much more ambitious attempt from the recent literature. (shrink)

Discussions on the impact and future directions of technology often proceed from an empirical point of view that seems to presume that the ebb and flow of technological developments is beyond the control of humankind, so that all that humanity can do is adjust to it. However, such an approach easily neglects several crucial normative considerations that could enhance the standing of individual human beings and whole communities as rational users of technology rather than its slaves. Besides, more often than (...) not, technological products are designed in ways that neglect the needs of persons with disabilities, thereby perpetuating their exclusion from society. Consequently, this article proposes four normative considerations to guide the initiatives of African societies in their deployment of the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, namely, inclusiveness to meet the needs of all human beings, affordability to bridge the digital divide, respect for cultural identity to guard against cultural imperialism, and an ethical orientation as the overarching guide to building a truly human society. (shrink)

Despite the potential political impact of industry attempts to influence public policy about genetic modification, little research has focused on critical understanding of industry perspectives. This article explores the rhetorical and discursive construction of public messages about this controversial issue by two major New Zealand export industries. The kiwifruit industry advocates a very cautious public policy position, while the dairy industry has been a strong advocate for the commercial development of genetic modification. We demonstrate that these (...) industries draw on multiple identities and rationalities to negotiate, express, and elaborate their positions on genetic modification, informed variously by discourses of risk, science, the political economy of the marketplace, and images of the ‘natural’ environment. We suggest that exploring how organizations seek to influence controversial socio-political issues through the management of multiple identities may facilitate greater understanding of viewpoints often represented in the media as two distinct polarities; that is as either ‘for’ or ‘against’ the issues. (shrink)

Recently, organizational identity is being given more attention than ever before in the business world. This notion has grown substantially in importance in the hospitality industry. Facing increased competition, hospitality companies are driven to project a positive image to their stakeholders. Therefore, these organizations have begun to develop new organizational identity programs as part of their strategies to achieve their desired identities. This study analyzes the role of corporate social responsibility in the definition of the Organizational Identity of these (...) organizations, employing a qualitative research methodology based on an illustrative case study. Particularly, the authors analyze the case of Meliá Hotels International, a leading hotel company in Spain with a presence in 27 countries. The findings indicate that the company has formally integrated CSR into its strategy to align its actual identity with its desired and conceived identity in view of the critics in its local community. Moreover, the interest of the firm toward its stakeholders suggests that the company understands its conceived identity as an important link in understanding its organizational identity. This paper demonstrates that firm’s organizational identity is a set of several elements. When analyzing Meliá Hotels International’s identity, we see that the firm defines this concept as that which is most central, enduring, and distinctive about the organization. In this sense, the company appears to follow the vision-driven approach by referring to the organizational mission and vision statements, organizational philosophy, and core values as the basis of organizational identity. (shrink)

The sweeping changes that have taken place in the Eastern European countries and the former Soviet Union have detrimentally impacted an already weak Cuban economy. The establishment of the Special Period (1990-) embodies increasing austerity, especially in the inputs market. Recent economic liberalization policies in Cuba may lead to a more market-oriented economy, the lifting of the U. S. embargo, and commercial relations between the two countries. There is concern on the potential impact that resumption of trade may have (...) on the U. S. and Florida's agricultural economy. This study implies potential costs for the citrus, sugar, horticultural, and seafood industries in Florida, while potential Florida exports unveil trade opportunities of a large magnitude. Further research is needed to quantify potential benefits and costs. Of special importance is the fate of Cuba's recent program on low-input sustainable agriculture once large amounts of inputs become available. (shrink)

Values research generally confirms that personally held values influence an individual's decision processes and behavior. Yet this academic research often is limited to the individual or organizational level of analysis. This study utilizes social identity and personal values theories to search for the presence of superordinate identities emerging at the meso level from six different industries. The six selected industries—accounting, banking, construction, education, energy, and manufacturing—represent a mix of highly respected and disrespected industries, as well as industries that have an (...) ethical professional association and those that do not. Results provide evidence of meso‐level superordinate identities, distinguishing managers' personal value orientations from a generalized population, and across the six selected industries. Implications emanating from this research for the human resource practitioners and academic scholars are discussed. (shrink)

This study brings an organizational identity perspective to the debate regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR) and multinational corporations (MNCs). The basic proposition is that organizational identities warrant closer attention since they influence CSR strategies. It is further argued that a more explicit distinction between principles and practices, or between 'being' and 'doing', is needed when debating whether multiple organizational identities are required for MNCs operating in locations characterized by different stakeholder demands. In terms of identity construction, two translation processes are (...) suggested to be pertinent; from hypernorms to organizational principles and the translation of organizational principles to practices. The first translation is relevant since 'hypernorms' alone do not create the distinctiveness needed for an organizational identity to develop and the second translation helps in explaining the ability to endorse local contracts. (shrink)

The prosperous development of online education in the digital age harvested countless consumers. Education for sustainable development is an important proposition for both academic community and practitioner, however, current little studies have shed light on Sustainable Consumption Behavior in online education industry. The Consumer Value Theory and Social Identity Theory as theoretical basis linked with the field of Sustainable Consumption Behavior. This study is to further investigate the role of consumer value and social identity in the relation to Sustainable (...) Consumption Behavior. Putting forward suggestions from this study to online education providers toward sustainable development.MethodData on the impact of personal value on SCBOEI through a survey method with 552 valid students as respondents are collected from higher education institutions in China. A structural equation modeling approach is employed in this study for data analysis.ResultsThe result shows at the level of excellent model fit as indicated by all indicators: X2/DF = 1.053. The results showed that, through social identity, functional value, emotional value, and social value influence the variance of SCBOEI. The finding reveals that both theories can explain the SCBOEI of higher education students by showing that functional, social, and emotional values as well as social identity are powerful predictors of the Sustainable Consumption Behavior. The proposed model highlights the mediating role of social identity between SCBOEI and the three values. The functional, emotional, and social values influence SCBOEI directly and through social identity.ImplicationsThe study significantly contributes to market promotion, college students, education planning, and teaching. Online education market personnel and college students can better understand the significance of sustainable development aspect of online education. Teaching and learning activities help lead students to SCBOEI by shaping their values and identities while paying more attention to quality education, knowledge sharing, and social equality. (shrink)

From Inception to The Lake House, moviegoers are increasingly flocking to narratologically complex puzzle films. These puzzle movies borrow techniques--like fragmented spatio-temporal reality, time loops, unstable characters with split identities or unreliable narrators--more commonly attributed to art cinema and independent films. The essays in Hollywood Puzzle Films examine the appropriation of puzzle film techniques by contemporary Hollywood dramas and blockbusters through questions of narrative, time, and altered realities. Analyzing movies like Source Code, The Butterfly Effect, Donnie Darko, Déjà (...) Vu, and adaptations of Philip K. Dick, contributors explore the implications of Hollywood's new movie mind games. (shrink)

Publication date: 27 August 2018 Source: Author: Chadi Chahdi This article throws into relief the tropes by which Hollywood has come to churn out identical Arabs bent on destruction, yet ones that need to be salvaged. However, the salvation process is never complete because the Arabs are not worthy of redemption, which sinks them further into the abyss of darkness. The representation of Arabs in Hollywood movies mostly aims at disseminating a stereotypical image that demeaningly homogenizes their cultures (...) and identities. Hollywood here participates in a process of imperial hegemony. The repetition in producing such imagined culture of Arabs and Muslims is seen as a hegemonic act of naturalizing orientalist ideologies that tend to over-idealize the Western culture and relegate the Eastern counterpart. In this light, this article attempts to deconstruct the visual representations produced to malign and vilify Arabs in Hollywood movies. Such movies are always premised upon a structure of binary oppositions that establish a motion picture of a civilized center dominating the margins, the so-called uncivilized subjects. (shrink)

Kevin Starr’s Golden Dreams is the culmination to some forty years of scholarship on the unfolding theme of a “California Dream,” that imaginal component to the growth of the self-identity and increasing international economic power of the most populous state in the American Union. Indeed, the period 1950–1963 that the book meticulously covers forms in many ways the most imposing manifestation of that Dream. This essay reviews the central features of Starr’s account, particularly the infrastructural foundations in transportation, water supply, (...) and higher education realized by a triumvirate of California governors, both Republican and Democrat, who regarded themselves as nonpartisan members of the “Party of California”; the expansion of California’s major cities: Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco; the characteristics of the Silent Generation and the culture of “cool Jazz” that dominated the period; as well as the rise of dissident elements among environmentalists, minorities, and Beats, that foretold the protest period of the 1960s. This essay then asks whether Starr has avoided the larger implications of his own narrative that California from this period on had become in most respects a putative nation-state in its own right. From the global impact of its major media industry—Hollywood—to the continued advances of its economic clout throughout the rest of the century as at times the fifth largest economic entity in the world, California may need to be increasingly regarded as a world civilization in itself rather than as a regional civilization to which Starr’s historical narrative has so far constricted it.Corrigenda:The title of the work in footnote 1, p. 270, should be: “Americans and the California Dream, 1850–1915”In footnote 6, p. 274, the title of the last work cited in the note should be: The Dream Endures: California Enters the 1940s. (shrink)

Speaking about the state of the Hollywood film industry at the 2008 Academy Awards, the Oscars’ host – comedian Jon Stewart – made the following wry assessment: ‘Not all films did as well as Juno obviously. The films that were made about the Iraq War, let’s face it, did not do as well. But I’m telling you, if we stay the course and keep these movies in the theatres we can turn this around. I don’t care if it (...) takes 100 years. Withdrawing the Iraq movies would only embolden the audience. We cannot let the audience win.’ The films he is referring to include Home of the Brave (2006), In the Valley of Elah (2007) and Stop-Loss (2008) – all of which focus on the personal cost to American soldiers on their return to civilian life, as well as exposing the failure of the US invasion of Iraq at home and abroad. Despite their topical subject matter, these movies were, for the most part, commercial failures. This article seeks to investigate audience indifference (Jean Baudrillard claims a certain indifference is a fundamental consequence of the Western globalising ideology) to mainstream cinematic depictions of the post September 11 invasion of Iraq, via a consideration of the trauma and abjection depicted in these films. Baudrillard’s hypotheses on terrorism – as a symbolic challenge put forth by terrorism (embodied by the attack on the Twin Towers) – and the West’s incapacity to respond to it, forms the basis for our investigation of the limits of these films to incite and engage viewers. His writings offer a lens through which to consider how ‘terrorism’ operates symbolically, and fundamentally, the dilemmas this raises for a Western psyche grappling with how the ‘terrorist threat’ might be answered, engaged with, responded to. (shrink)

Feminist approaches within the social sciences have expanded enormously since the 1960s. In addition, in recent years, geographic perspectives have become increasingly significant as feminist recognition of the differences between women, their diverse experiences in different parts of the world and the importance of location in the social construction of knowledge has placed varied geographies at the centre of contemporary feminist and postmodern debates. Gender, Identity and Place is an accessible and clearly written introduction to the wide field of issues (...) that have been addressed by geographers and feminist scholars. It combines the careful definition and discussion of key concepts and theoretical approaches with a wealth of empirical detail from a wide-ranging selection of case studies and other empirical research. It is organized on the basis of spatial scale, examining the relationships between gender and place from the body to the nation, although the links between different spatial scales are also emphasized. The conceptual division and spatial separation between the public and private spheres and their association with men and women respectively has been a crucial part of the social construction of gendered differences and its establishment, maintenance and reshaping from industrial urbanization to the end of the millennium is a central linking theme in the eight substantive chapters. The book concludes with an assessment of the possibilities of doing feminist research. It will be essential reading for students in geography, feminist theory, women's studies, anthropology and sociology. (shrink)

Williams’s famous argument against immortality rests on the idea that immortality cannot be desirable, at least for human beings, and his contention has spawned a cottage industry of responses. As I will intend to show, the arguments over his view rest on both a difference of temperament and a difference in the sense of desire being used. The former concerns a difference in whether one takes a forward-looking or a backward-looking perspective on personal identity; the latter a distinction between (...) our normal desire to continue living and the kind of desire implied in desiring immortality. Showing that there is some sense of identity and desire that support Williams’s conclusion goes some way toward providing support for his argument, if not a full-fledged defense of it. (shrink)

In Sweet Liberty, writer and director Alan Alda dramatizes the process of turning a scholarly study about the American Revolutionary War into a Hollywood film; he does so in ways that bring out the ethical complexities of adaptation, and eventually takes them to a meta-filmic level rarely seen in non-experimental cinema. While Sweet Liberty initially comes off as a light comedy with a predictable plot and ending, on closer inspection it compels us to reflect on the relationship between historical (...) research and the popular entertainment industry. Although Alda appears to chastise the makers of period films who seek to capitalize on “history” without paying heed to historical facts, his professorial hero is not particularly critically minded either. Intentionally or not, Alda demonstrates that evaluating a mainstream history film cannot be reduced to a dichotomy between truth and fiction, and that research-based knowledge should also be viewed with a healthy skepticism. (shrink)

In Sweet Liberty, writer and director Alan Alda dramatizes the process of turning a scholarly study about the American Revolutionary War into a Hollywood film; he does so in ways that bring out the ethical complexities of adaptation, and eventually takes them to a meta-filmic level rarely seen in non-experimental cinema. While Sweet Liberty initially comes off as a light comedy with a predictable plot and ending, on closer inspection it compels us to reflect on the relationship between historical (...) research and the popular entertainment industry. Although Alda appears to chastise the makers of period films who seek to capitalize on “history” without paying heed to historical facts, his professorial hero is not particularly critically minded either. Intentionally or not, Alda demonstrates that evaluating a mainstream history film cannot be reduced to a dichotomy between truth and fiction, and that research-based knowledge should also be viewed with a healthy skepticism. (shrink)

The question of racial identity in the process and outcome of aesthetic surgery is gaining increasing attention in bioethical discourse. This paper attempts an ethical examination of the racial identity issues involved in aesthetic surgery. Dominant moral values in Western culture are explored in the evaluation of aesthetic surgery. The paper argues that African values are yet to receive the universal attention they arguably deserve especially in the rethinking of values underlying aesthetic surgery as racial transformation. Through a consideration of (...) some moral-aesthetic values in the Yorùbá-African culture, this paper further re-evaluates the ethics of aesthetic surgery. The paper contends against the propagation of aesthetic surgery as a new form of bolstering racial divides and identity in the evolving cosmopolitan age. The position defended in the paper is that some values from Yorùbá-African culture are useful in the consideration of the ethics of aesthetic surgery and more importantly, in avoiding the racial identity bias embedded in aesthetic surgery. The paper concludes that if due consideration is perhaps given to some African moral-aesthetic values in the global aesthetic surgery industry, some of the evolving moral and racial complexities would be better mediated. (shrink)

There has been an explosion of interest in the idea of European Union citizenship in recent years, as a defining example of postnational cosmopolitan citizenship potentially replacing or layered on top of national citizenship. We argue this form of EU citizenship undermines industrial citizenship, which is a crucial support for social solidarity on which other types of citizenship are based. Because industrial citizenship arises from collectivities based on class identities and national institutions, it depends on the national territorial order and (...) the social closure inherent in it. EU citizenship in its ‘postnational’ form is realized through practices of mobility, placing it in tension with bounded class-based collectivities. Though practices of working-class cosmopolitanism may give rise to a working-class consciousness, the fragmented nature of this vision impedes the development of transnational class-based collectivities. Industrial and cosmopolitan citizenship must be re-imagined together if European integration is to be democratized. (shrink)

Increasing pharmaceutical industry presence in health care research and practice has evoked critical social, political, economic, and ethical questions and concern among health care providers, ethicists, economists, and the general citizenry. The case example presented of the ‘marketization’ of nursing practice not only reveals the magnitude of the purview of the pharmaceutical industry, it demonstrates how that industry imparts effect upon the organization of nursing work, an area of health care professional practice where the ethical polemic of (...) pharmaceutical industry involvement and influence has been largely ignored, and the profession of nursing conspicuously silent. Drawing on a Foucauldian dispositive analysis that troubled the complex apparatus responsible for the production of knowledge and action in the neurology subspecialty of multiple sclerosis (MS), the case discloses how the pharmaceutical industry has created compliance and adherence as clinical imperatives in the practice of MS nursing. The case makes explicit the conscious transformative self‐action undertaken by MS nurses as a result of their subjectivation (marketization) and demonstrates how MS nurses have become pawns in pharmaceutical industry strategic games of power, truth, identity, and wealth creation by turning their clinical practice settings into heterodiscursive spaces of surveillance and persuasion. MS nurses have become instruments of the pharmaceutical industry, and their clinical practices ordered, organized, limited, constrained, and marketized as a result. (shrink)

Women generally initiate, lead, and constitute the rank and file of environmental justice activism. However, there is little research on why there are comparatively so few men involved in these movements. Using the environmental justice movement in the Central Appalachian coalfields as a case study, we examine the ways that environmental justice activism is gendered, with a focus on how women’s and men’s identities both shape and constrain their involvement in gendered ways. The analysis relies on 20 interviews with women (...) and men grassroots activists working for environmental justice in the coalfields of Appalachia. We find that women draw on their identities as “mothers” and “Appalachians” to justify their activism, while the hegemonic masculinity of the region, which is tied to the coal industry, has the opposite effect on men, deterring their movement involvement. We explore the implications of these findings for understanding the relationship of gender to environmental justice activism. (shrink)

The transition to twenty-first century post-industrial capitalism from the 'welfare' industrial capitalism of the twentieth century, has affected the ways in which class is lived in terms of relational inequality and the factors that structure identity. Class After Industry takes a complex realist approach to the dynamics of individual lives, places, the social structure and analyses their significance in terms of class. A wide range of quantitative and qualitative studies are drawn on to explore how 'life after industry' (...) shapes class, and the consequent potential for social change. The book will be of interest across the social sciences and beyond, to those concerned with how class forms might translate into political action. (shrink)

Although film for Adorno is first and foremost the principal agent of culture industry, he takes on an equivocal stance towards the medium and its aesthetic potentials for reasons inherent to the medium itself. Indeed, its disinterested recording of the empirical world leads to both, a semblance of immediacy easy to instrumentalize for propaganda or advertising purposes, and a non-subjective access to the world of objects, which disclose their societal imprint. Despite (or because of) its technological basis, film is (...) inherently concerned with the society it both mediates and addresses, and has to be understood as a collective medium in either of its formats: commercial productions, because they address the masses (which they manipulate and distract from reality’s inherent antagonisms by reproducing pseudo-realistic, stereotypical representations in a totalitarian manner), independent films, because they unearth something non-identical nestled in the folds of the ideological totality, through a montage “which does not interfere with things but rather arranges them in a constellation akin to that of writing”. This article aims to deploy the complex constellation through which Adorno approaches film, its embedding in the capitalist world, its inherent aesthetic force and its complicated relation with the reality it mediates. (shrink)

Urban agriculture in Cuba is often promoted as an example of how agroecological farming can overcome the need for oil-derived inputs in food production. This article examines the geographical implications of Cuba’s low-carbon urban farming based on fieldwork in five organopónicos in Pinar del Río. The article charts how energy flows, biophysical relations, and socially mediated ecological processes are spatially organised to enable large-scale urban agricultural production. To explain this production system, the literature on Cuban agroecology postulates a model (...) of two distinct modes: agroecology versus industrial agriculture. Yet this distinction inadequately explains Cuba’s urban agriculture: production in the organopónicos rather sits across categories, at once involving agroecological, organic-industrial, and petro-industrial features. To resolve this contradiction, a more nuanced framework is developed that conceptualises production systems by means of their geographical configuration. This provides analytical clarity—and a political strategy for a low-carbon, degrowth agenda. (shrink)

The proposal of the research is to review and analyse the role of the media as constructors of social imaginaries, and to do so, we will analyse the power of the audiovisual industry to create and re-create stereotypes about lesbians, and as generators of a social imaginary, we will also analyse lesbian plots and characters, through which direct messages are sent to society in general, but also to lesbians.Finally, after conducting discussion groups and focus groups with lesbians who have (...) participated in the research, we present some conclusions. (shrink)

What is called “time travel” cinema is but one aspect in a tripartite series of interweaving modes of disjunctive narration which is also – simultaneously – a cinema of “many worlds” and “altered states”. Exploiting Gilles Deleuze's three syntheses of time, space, and consciousness from Difference and Repetition (1968) allows a conceptual development of these cinematic series through three popular Hollywood film cycles beginning with Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968), The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984), and Back (...) to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985). In so doing, film and philosophy are deployed as two series which together create inexhaustible atemporal, aspatial, and ahuman disjunctions, ungrounding everyday spatio-temporal identities, and affirming productive images of cinematic thought. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to evaluate the structure and measurement invariance of the religious identity, religious practice, and religious beliefs across cultures in six world regions (Asia, non-Western Europe, North America, Oceania, South America, and Western Europe) and across Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic regions (WEIRD) and non-WEIRD world regions. Confirmatory factory analysis examined whether the hypothesized measurement model fits the data; several multi-group confirmatory factor analyses were performed to examine measurement invariance through a progressive analytic strategy (...) involving three invariance conditions of configural, metric, and scalar invariance. The results generally supported the adequate fit to the data of the three correlated factors model (religious identity-RII, religious practice-RPI, and religious beliefs—RBI); it was found to be full metric invariance for WEIRD regions (RII), North America (RII and RBI), Western Europe (RII) and Non-Western Europe (RII), and South America (RII and RBI). Finally, for RII, it was found to be full configural invariance in almost all regions, except North America and Oceania; for RPI, it was found to be full configural only in North America and Non-WEIRD regions; and for RBI, it was found to be full configural only in North America, Asia, and South America, being that women scored significantly higher than men in all three indices all over the world; finally, it was found to be configural, but not metric or scalar invariance across WEIRD and non-WEIRD world regions. (shrink)

Integrative systems biology is among the most innovative fields of contemporary science, bringing together scientists from a range of diverse backgrounds and disciplines to tackle biological complexity through computational and mathematical modeling. The result is a plethora of problem-solving techniques, theoretical perspectives, lab-structures and organizations, and identity labels that have made it difficult for commentators to pin down precisely what systems biology is, philosophically or sociologically. In this paper, through the ethnographic investigation of two ISB laboratories, we explore the particular (...) structural features of ISB thinking and organization and its relations to other disciplines that necessitate cognitive innovation at all levels from lab PI’s to individual researchers. We find that systems biologists face numerous constraints that make the production of models far from straight-forward, while at the same time they inhabit largely unstructured task environments in comparison to other fields. We refer to these environments as adaptive problem spaces. These environments they handle by relying substantially on the flexibility and affordances of model-based reasoning to integrate these various constraints and find novel adaptive solutions. Ultimately what is driving this innovation is a determination to construct new cognitive niches in the form of functional model building frameworks that integrate systems biology within the biological sciences. The result is an industry of diverse and different innovative practices and solutions to the problem of modeling complex, large-scale biological systems. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The article presents exploring the cultural and anthropological traits of consumers and producers of cultural services and products in the digital epoch. There have been singled out two types of cultural subjectivity according to the aim of a person’s activity in the virtual net: either production of things, services, and technologies or the consumption and creative use of all mentioned innovations. So these sociocultural formations are called "geek" and "chic" subcultures. _Theoretical basis._ The historical genealogy of the definitions was (...) analyzed, so as the changes in social esteem of the contribution of geeky persons to modern art and design practices. Social and cultural identities of those who belong to the modern youth-subcultural communities have been formed according to the topology and temporality of digital trends. To explain the worldview characteristics of the members of those subcultures the concept of "the New Middle Ages" was used to discover the values and pursuits of those who represent geek and chic subcultures. The study is based on the theoretical works of such classical authors as A. Toffler, and Z. Bauman, as well as current investigators of youth cultures. They are Calum Finister, Thomas V. Pollet, Nick Neave, Jessica McCain, Billy Wong. The chic subculture is oriented toward the imitation of visual images, consumer habits, and the way of life of successful (or seemed to be such) people. Glamorous followers need to receive approvals and likes from like-minded people. The geek subculture is more inner-sense-oriented. It unites intellectuals and activists who have common creative intentions. _Originality._ There have been analyzed the main attributes and features of such modern subcultures were conditionally named chic and geek. They were analyzed in the context of the concept of the New Middle Ages. _Conclusions._ The virtual user’s life world seems to be diverse only quantitatively, but qualitatively it is as narrow, mythopoetic, and esoterically uncritical as the world of the Medieval person, who used to live the whole life in the same place, mai in one’s village. But thanks to the merger of the IT industry with effective social management, the geek culture becomes a powerful super-subculture that defends values of social good, industrial productivity, and cultural creativity. Chic subculture creates new trends in fashion and art discourse. It develops modern lifestyles, its visual images with which our era will be associated in the future. (shrink)

The work analyzes the results of a pilot socio-cultural study of the Tuvan diaspora of the city of Abakan, conducted by researchers of the N.F. Katanov Khakass State University. The results of the study describe the social structure of the analyzed ethnic group, the level of interaction between members, the reasons for moving to another national region, as well as the activity of socio-cultural attitudes. In addition, atten­tion is focused on the level of expression of the ethnic identity of representatives (...) of the Tuvan diaspora, which, as a result of the study, is characterized as increased. The author also comes to the conclusion that the ethnic identity of the analyzed group passes into the category of intersubjectivity and is not subjective. (shrink)

Since World War II Japanese artists have employed two seemingly contradictory ways of working, using aesthetics, materials, artistic methods technologies, and approaches that are either radically innovative and wildly experimental, or traditional/classical. Many other artists, however, in a move that seems paradoxical. have combined the two to explore the new themes of the post-atomic period. Three narrative works dealing with the effects of the World War II war effort and the atomic bombings that ended them, Yasunari Kawabata’s novel The Sound (...) of the Mountain (1952), Rio Kishida’s avant-garde play Thread Hell (1984), and the film Barefoot Gen (Hadashi no Gen), directed by Mori Masaki and written by Keiji Nakazawa (Masaki and Nakazawa 1983), exemplify this third approach. Set in the pre-War textile industry that enabled the War, during the atomic bombings, and the post-War American Occupation, all three explore the experience not only of the horrific objective effects of war but of the Japanese experience of psychic numbing, which damages the person’s sense of self and their sense of agency—their ability to act effectively in the world. All three utilize classical aesthetics to provide aesthetic experiences, for their readers/viewers, to make the experience of the work tolerable, and for their characters—to demonstrate the roles of positive aesthetic experience in making life worth while and in grounding a renewed sense of personal identity and selfhood in a self that has been shattered through trauma. (shrink)

El siguiente artículo toma como punto de partida al concepto de industria cultural desde sus principales exponentes, para exponer sus usos actuales. Este nació como concepto filosófico como parte de la obra de los autores representantes de la llamada Escuela de Frankfurt, Theodor Adorno y Max Horkheimer, con valiosos aportes de Walter Benjamin. En la actualidad ha mutado su definición, siendo utilizado de manera instrumentalpor parte del Estado y organismos internacionales, para definir al grupo de sectores de producción cultural y (...) simbólica de acuerdo a sus parámetros económicos. En este sentido, desde aquél concepto de industria cultural de los años cuarenta podremos ver que hay un recorrido en el cual se van transformando las posturas acerca de lo que el arte y la cultura posibilitan. La función social del arte va escondiéndose detrás de su inmersión cada vez más visible dentro de la producción mercantil, si bien en los últimos años la cultura aparece como motor de desarrollo económico e identitario. Esta transición será ilustrada con el caso argentino, dando cuenta de los cambios en el sector. The following article takes as its starting point the concept of Culture Industry from its leading exponents, and exposes its current uses. The Culture Industry began like a philosophical concept, as part of the work of the Frankfurt School authors, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, with contributions of Walter Benjamin. Nowadays, this concept definition has mutated, being used instrumentally by the state and international organizations, to define the cultural and symbolic production according to economic parameters. In this sense, paying attention to that idea of Culture Industry, we can see that there is a path in which the possibilities of meanings of art and culture are changing. The social function of art is subordinating behind the commodity production, although in recent years the culture appears as an engine of economic development and identity. This transition will be illustrated accounting for changes in the sector in the case of Argentina. (shrink)

This volume is an act of talking back, of talking heresy. To reclaim the term “realism,” to maintain the epistemic significance of identity, to defend any version of identity politics today is to swim upstream of strong academic currents in feminist theory, literary theory, and cultural studies. It is to risk, even to invite, a dismissal as naive, uninformed, theoretically unsophisticated. And it is a risk taken here by people already at risk in the academy, already assumed more often than (...) not to be uninformed and undereducated precisely because of their real identities. Of course, identity is today a growth industry in the academy, across the humanities and social sciences, influencing even law and communication studies. The constitutive power of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality and other forms of identity has, finally, suddenly, been recognized as a relevant aspect of almost all projects of inquiry. However, as I shall discuss in this essay, simultaneous to this academic commodification of identity is an increasing tendency to view identity as politically and metaphysically problematic, some have even said pathological. So on the one hand the theoretical relevance of identities has become visible, while on the other hand many theorists are troubled by the implications of the claim that identity makes a difference. Increasingly, then, the attachment to identity has become suspect. If identity has become suspect, identity politics has been prosecuted, tried, and sentenced to death. To espouse identity politics in the academy today risks being viewed as a member of the Flat-Earth Society. Like “essentialism,” identity politics has become the shibboleth of cultural studies and social theory, and denouncing it has become the litmus test of academic respectability, political acceptability, and even a necessity for the very right to be heard. In contrast, there has been a noticeable thaw regarding the term essentialism. What was once perfunctorily denounced at the start of every paper in feminist theory has recently been tentatively examined by a few theorists for possible signs of validity.. (shrink)

The study here is a qualitative research based on multiple case studies of banking service providers to analyze the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the definition of the corporate identity of these kinds of organizations. The results show that, although companies increasingly integrate CSR into their business strategies, there are some aspects of its management such as its communication or the measurement of its results that detract from its success. These results have important implications for those managers pursuing (...) an effective management of CSR policies and strategies in their organizations, especially as the information comes from 6 of the biggest and most important banking institutions in a European country, with a declared assets (loans) volume which represents 62.75% of the total assets in the national banking industry, and thus largely representing the possible heterogeneity of the market in terms of company size, location, legal status, and management styles. (shrink)

Sustained dialogue between people and the authenticity of relationships are dependent on the existence of an epistemic distance between the interlocutors – there needs to be a difference between the patterns of thought salient among the subjects involved. A lack thereof must lead to the collapse of the conditions requisite for continued engagement. This is the case because we can only sustain dialogue based on difference of opinion among agents. In short, similar constitutions of the ego must lead to a (...) breakdown in communication. The consumer industry populates the world with objects of a similar ilk and thereby renders the environment homogeneous. The egos constructed under its rule must thus be similar in nature, hence the claim that dialogue must collapse under its rule. However, should we focus on the sundered duties implied by a community, as we intend to do with this article, we may recover the conditions of epistemic distance and thereby also the conditions of sustained and authentic relationships. (shrink)

_ Purpose. _ The article highlights, on the one hand, the impact of the potential of a developed reflective identity on the processes of civilizational transformations, and on the other hand, the role of the transformational processes of a civilizational scale in the formation of a new type of reflective identity. Acute crisis processes in social development, which humanity has faced so far, in particular after 24.02.2022, indicate the beginning of a radical civilizational transformation. Therefore, in the article, it is (...) necessary to find out with the help of which mental, organizational and personal resources humanity can move to a more developed level of civilization without much loss. It is also necessary to show the importance of the philosophical understanding of reality in the formation of reflective identity because reflection has been the basic method of philosophy since its appearance. _Theoretical basis._ There is an understanding of the inextricable connection between the level of development of civilization and the level of reflective development of the individual fixed in a certain type of identity: a more historically developed stage of civilization corresponds to a more complex type of identity with multi-level reflection. At the same time, achieving a higher level of civilizational development is possible only under the condition of constructing a more complex and multi-level reflexive identity. _Originality._ It consists in establishing that the mental-cognitive mechanisms of reflection during the development of civilization passed through the stages of 1) reflexive forms of "the Axial Age", fixed in the corresponding forms of moral, logical, theological, political, etc. culture since the era of Ancient society; 2) reflexive forms of the Modern era with an emphasis on the inner world of man, the emergence of the reflective division into subject and object of knowledge as an essential feature of epistemology, as well as the formation of a modern type of identity; 3) the dual reflection of the post-industrial society and the Second Modern era, the mechanisms of which contribute to the formation of an active and self-sufficient network society and network crowdfunding economy. In this regard, at various stages of the development of civilization, in accordance with certain reflexive mechanisms, the corresponding types of identity are formed: 1) the basic identity of a person determined by his primary socialization; 2) reflective identity which is associated with the acquired cultural potential of a person and the opportunity to consciously choose special features of one’s own identity, and 3) identity which is associated with the existence in a given social culture of a mechanism of double reflection, which allows not only to make a valuable choice of the trajectory of development own identity but also to construct it. _Conclusions._ The aggravation of the identity problem in the modern world is the result of a civilizational crisis associated with the transformation of modern civilization, the technological basis of which is the introduction of renewable energy and artificial intelligence, as well as the development of network relationships in society. The hierarchical structure of modern identity is conditioned by the gradual historical and civilizational layering of the process of evolution of the reflexive component of identity. In each specific modern society, progressive civilizational transformations take place when an innovative type of identity coexisting with basic and modern types is activated and takes a leadership position. The growing role of network relations in society overcomes the identity crisis due to the reduction of social opposition and the harmonization of different aspects of the identity itself. Perceptible climatic changes and the destruction of the established security system in the world after 24.02.2022 made it obvious to the global thinking public that the world community is at the bifurcation point of a radical civilizational transformation. (shrink)

Durkheim and National Identity in Ireland uses the classical sociology of Durkheim, in association with established theories of nation formation, to explore the development of opposed national identities in Ireland and Northern Ireland. James Dingley looks at Catholicism, the core of Irish nationalist identity, and draws upon its established sociological association of pre-industrial, rural peasant society and culture. By contrast, Dingley reviews Protestantism as the core of Ulster identity, with the equal association of industrial, scientific society, as the key elements (...) in explaining why Ulster Unionists evolved an opposed and incompatible culture and identity to Irish nationalism. These underlying religious philosophies of Catholicism and Protestantism illustrate how religion acted as a symbolic representation of socio-economic separate development, and examine a Durkheimian analysis as an alternative approach to conflict resolution in Northern Ireland. (shrink)

The main aim of this article is to analyse the relationship between two innovative concepts—the technoself and process identity—from a perspective inspired by process ontology. The working hypothesis is that industrialized and mass societies entered into a post-industrial or informational sphere of capitalism, becoming networking societies—also known as knowledge-based societies—which closely followed their role in approaching the plural identity of the digital Subject and the surveillance practices exercised in its governance as correspondent models for the changes of the current reality. (...) The first section of the article is devoted to research on the technoself, a concept recently introduced by Luppicini in 2013. Criticizing the technoself in terms of process ontology and as a result of digitalization, subjectivity, and technical rationality, I will argue that the constitution of digital subjects, as well as their interactions, should be defined in terms of processes. Therefore, I introduce the concept of process identity—which includes the technoself—and explain how this approach contributes to the development of different research fields (such as speculative realism and object-oriented ontology) and how it affects Floridi’s distinction between digital ontology and informational ontology. The second section focuses on the effects of the digital environment on self-constitution practices and techniques, virtual worlds experiencing what Foucault recognizes as the aesthetics of existence. In the final part, I confront Bentham’s and Foucault’s panopticism, arguing that based on what is accomplished by process identities, networking societies represent societies of control, not disciplinary ones, and consequently this distinction should be applied in governing virtual communities. In the end, I will explain why notions such as digital personae or databased selves are insufficient, and should be replaced by the concepts of process identity and technoself, respectively, in order to improve the models of governing networking societies. (shrink)

SUMMARYTo be Marxist at the turn of the twentieth century was highly contested. During this crisis of Marxism, identity politics were acute, exemplified by the private and public debate between Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky. With Bernstein's celebrated turn away from the Marxist theory of his day, the grounds for being Marxist were at stake. Was it possible to criticise Marx's analysis of industrial capitalism, his account of historical change and his hard-nosed class politics, and yet still be in a (...) position to carry his name forward? Moreover, the springing-up of another identity, Revisionist, suggested that being Marxist was ambiguous. If one accepted Bernstein's and the Revisionists' point that Marxists had become too orthodox, leaving Revisionists as the true heirs of Marx's critical socialist spirit, then the Marxist identity was so open as to be meaningless. In this article, I contend that the name-calling of this period, the Revisionismusstreit, should be seen as creative. In contrast to politico-ideological perceptions of the Streit, which construe the clash of Marxist and Revisionist as representative of foundational Social Democratic party political realities, I highlight the manner in which being Marxist—the veneration of Marx's and Friedrich Engels's word into a Marxology of sorts by Marxists and Revisionists alike—held a certain epistemic value in its own right. (shrink)