Next year the Civil Service celebrates twenty‐five years of equal opportunity policy. Linked to a formal structure designed to promote the ablest individuals, this policy should…
Abstract
Next year the Civil Service celebrates twenty‐five years of equal opportunity policy. Linked to a formal structure designed to promote the ablest individuals, this policy should be showing encouraging results, but, as Celia Temple reports, there is little to get excited about.
P. P. Mohanty and Niharranjan Mishra
Overtourism is an emerging concept and a perennial process every destination is going through. It is a cyclic phenomenon derived from the destination, retained in the destination…
Abstract
Overtourism is an emerging concept and a perennial process every destination is going through. It is a cyclic phenomenon derived from the destination, retained in the destination and at last demised by the destination. It's a kind of ‘tourism illness’ spreading rapidly in every destination in the present scenario. The status of overtourism in every destination has been caused by the tourist, of the tourist and for the tourist. In the context of religious places in Odisha, overtourism is a ‘disorder’ that cannot be mitigated, as religiosity, faith and spiritualism have propelled and governed people's sentiment and emotion. Hence ambiguity arises out of making an intrigue situation between a myth or a spiritual sojourn bounded by faith and belief. This chapter significantly contributes by unfolding the existing literature by providing the origin and evolution of overtourism, various stated definitions by the different authors, causes and consequences, and overtourism in religious destinations by adopting an exploratory study, particularly in case of the Golden triangle of Odisha.
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Although the commodification of black bodies amid state violence and widespread racism is nothing new, considering the histories of Hollywood, jazz, minstrelsy, or even athletes…
Abstract
Although the commodification of black bodies amid state violence and widespread racism is nothing new, considering the histories of Hollywood, jazz, minstrelsy, or even athletes enslaved on plantations (Rhoden, 2006), the hyper commodification of the contemporary black athlete, alongside expansive processes of globalization, growth in the profitability of black bodies, and their importance within colorblind discourse, demonstrates the importance of commodification within our new racist moment. Likewise, the shrinking opportunities afforded to African American youth, alongside clear messages about the path to desired black masculinity (Neal, 2005; Watkins, 1998; West, 1994), push black youth into a sports world where the possibility of striking it rich leads to a “win at all costs” attitude. Robin Kelley argues that African American youth participate in sports or engage in other cultural practices as an attempt to resist or negotiate the inherent contradictions of post-industrial American capitalism (Kelley, 1998). Patricia Hill Collins describes this process in the following terms: “Recognizing that black culture was a marketable commodity, they put it up for sale, selling an essentialized black culture that white youth could emulate yet never own. These message was clear – ‘the world may be against us, but we are here and we intend to get paid’” (Collins, 2006, p. 298). Celia Lury concurs, noting that heightened levels of commodification embody a shift from a racial logic defined by scientific racism to one centering on cultural difference. She argues that commodity racism “has contributed to shifts in how racism operates, specifically to the shift from a racism tied to biological understandings of ‘race’ in which identity is fixed or naturalized to a racism in which ‘race’ is a cultural category in which racial identity is represented as a matter of style, and is the subject of choice” (Lury, 1996, p. 169; as quoted in Spencer, 2004, p. 123). In the context of new racism, as manifested in heightened levels of commodification of Othered bodies, racial identity is simply a choice, but a cultural marker that can be celebrated and sold, policed, or demonized with little questions about racial implications (Spencer, 2004, pp. 123–125). Blackness, thus, becomes little more than a culture style, something that can be sold on Ebay and tried on at the ball or some something that needs to be policed or driven out-of-existence. Race is conceptualized “as a matter of style, something that can be put on or taken off at will” (Willis as quoted in Spencer, 2004, p. 123). Collins notes further that the process of commodification is not simply about selling “an essentialized black culture,” but rather a particular construction of blackness that has proven beneficial to white owners. “Athletes and criminals alike are profitable, not for the vast majority of African American men, but for people who own the teams, control the media, provide food, clothing and telephone services, and who consume seemingly endless images of pimps, hustlers, rapists, and felons” (2006, p. 311). bell hooks, who describes this process as “eating the other,” sees profit and ideology as crucial to understanding the commodification of black bodies. “When race and ethnicity become commodified as resources for pleasure, the culture of specific groups, as well as the bodies of individuals, can be seen as constituting an alternative playground where members of dominating races…affirm their power-over in intimate relations with the other” (Hooks, 1992, p. 23). She, along with Collins, emphasizes the importance of sex and sexuality, within this processes of commodification, arguing that commodification of black male (and female) bodies emanates from and reproduces longstanding mythologies regarding black sexual power.
We issue a double Souvenir number of The Library World in connection with the Library Association Conference at Birmingham, in which we have pleasure in including a special…
Abstract
We issue a double Souvenir number of The Library World in connection with the Library Association Conference at Birmingham, in which we have pleasure in including a special article, “Libraries in Birmingham,” by Mr. Walter Powell, Chief Librarian of Birmingham Public Libraries. He has endeavoured to combine in it the subject of Special Library collections, and libraries other than the Municipal Libraries in the City. Another article entitled “Some Memories of Birmingham” is by Mr. Richard W. Mould, Chief Librarian and Curator of Southwark Public Libraries and Cuming Museum. We understand that a very full programme has been arranged for the Conference, and we have already published such details as are now available in our July number.
This paper aims to examine the tourist business and marketing strategies of a US agribusiness giant, the United Fruit Company (UFCO), between its incorporation in 1899 and 1940…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the tourist business and marketing strategies of a US agribusiness giant, the United Fruit Company (UFCO), between its incorporation in 1899 and 1940. It considers how tourist marketing served the company’s public-relations interest and tourism’s broader connection to narratives of US ascendancy in the Caribbean Basin.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on original research in a series of published company materials, including annual reports and a wide variety of marketing materials, as well as a variety of rare primary sources documenting the experiences of US tourists on UFCO cruises.
Findings
From its incorporation in 1899, the UFCO developed a Caribbean cruise business as a vital part of its strategies of vertical integration and expansion around the region. Marketing tropical travel at a time when tropical disease dominated US perceptions of such places required a thorough conceptual makeover, and UFCO publicity played an important part in this process. The company advertised Caribbean destinations first for their therapeutic possibilities, but by the 1920s, a framework of anachronistic space and picturesque primitivism predominated in marketing campaigns. The structure of this narrative naturalized the company’s, and more broadly, US, hegemony in the region. While on cruises, tourists became witnesses to and participants in a series of spectacles and activities highlighting the company’s technological prowess and benevolence.
Originality/value
This analysis centers on a largely overlooked dimension of the famed banana company’s enterprise. It is grounded in a wide collection of primary sources largely untapped by researchers, a source base that brings tourist perception and experience into the story of this company’s marketing efforts. This research brings tourism and leisure into the historical discussion of US power in early-twentieth-century Latin America.
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Lauren Gurrieri, Ross Gordon, Jo Barraket, Andrew Joyce and Celia Green
This paper contributes to emerging discourse about social movements in social marketing by examining how tensions, issues and challenges may arise in areas of social change that…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper contributes to emerging discourse about social movements in social marketing by examining how tensions, issues and challenges may arise in areas of social change that have attracted social movements and the ways actors can come together to drive inclusive social change agendas.
Design/methodology/approach
Through the lens of new social movement theory, a case study of the interactions and dynamics between fat activists and obesity prevention public health actors is examined. This is undertaken through a multi-method qualitative analysis of interview and archival blog data of fat activists located in Australia, which was compared with the campaign materials and formative and evaluative research related to two high profile Australian Government funded anti-obesity campaigns.
Findings
The case analysis highlights the disconnect between public health actors and the marginalized voices of those they are meant to be representing. Whilst public health actors characterise obesity as a social issue of individual responsibility, disease and rational-decision making; fat activists frame a competing collective identity of well-being, support and self-acceptance that characterise their social change efforts.
Research limitations/implications
This research highlights how complexities arise but can potentially be overcome in creating inclusive social change coalitions that incorporate the voices of citizen groups whom have mobilised into social movements. Specifically, we highlight the importance of generating a common language around obesity, the significance of collaborative and supportive relations and the need to create common unity through emotional investment and returns - a departure from the highly rational approaches taken by most social change programs.
Practical implications
Obesity is a complex social issue marked by conflict and contestation between those who are obese and the very actors working to support them. Our research contends that creating an inclusive social change coalition between these stakeholders will require a shift towards language anchored in well-being as opposed to disease, relations defined by support as opposed to an emphasis on individual responsibility and emotional investments that work to bolster self-acceptance in place of rational appeals as to the “correct” behaviours one should chose to engage in. Such steps will ensure social change program design is collaborative and incorporates the lived experiences of the very citizens such initiatives are targeted towards.
Originality/value
We contribute to wider discussions in social marketing about the development of holistic and progressive, multi-stakeholder, multi-level programs by advocating that inclusive social change coalitions united through the collective identity elements of cognitions and language, relational ties and emotional investment offer an important step forward in tackling the wicked problems that social marketers work to address.
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THE re‐organisation of local government in Greater London and the resultant amalgamation of library authorities is viewed by many with considerable misgivings. The upheaval of…
Abstract
THE re‐organisation of local government in Greater London and the resultant amalgamation of library authorities is viewed by many with considerable misgivings. The upheaval of staff, the loss of status for some senior officers, the general uncertainty for the future—these are very real consequences of the Act and they cannot be ignored. Many chief librarians will see the work of a lifetime, perhaps spent in building up a comprehensive and unified system, made virtually meaningless overnight.
The re‐organisation of local government in Greater London and the resultant amalgamation of library authorities is viewed by many with considerable misgivings. The upheaval of…
Abstract
The re‐organisation of local government in Greater London and the resultant amalgamation of library authorities is viewed by many with considerable misgivings. The upheaval of staff, the loss of status for some senior officers, the general uncertainty for the future—these are very real consequences of the Act and they cannot be ignored. Many chief librarians will see the work of a lifetime, perhaps spent in building up a comprehensive and unified system, made virtually meaningless overnight.