The manufacturing of Islamic lifestyles in Tajikistan through the prism of Dushanbe's bazaars

ABSTRACT

This article traces the multiple ways of ‘manufacturing’ Islamic lifestyles in the urban environment of Tajikistan's capital city, Dushanbe. The city's bazaars serve as a lens through which to observe the conjunction of its booming trade business with Dubai alongside its growing Islamic commodity culture and a religious reformism that is inspired by the materiality and non-materiality of a progressive and hybrid Dubai Islam. Bringing together long-distance trade, urban consumption practices and new forms of public piety in the mobile livelihood of three bazaar traders and sellers, the article provides insights into how the commodification of Islam informs notions of urbanity and modernity in Tajikistan. These notions correspond to the launching of urban renewal and the meta-narrative of Dushanbe's future as a modern city on the rise. Furthermore, the article illustrates the ways in which Dushanbe's Muslims turn bazaars into an urban laboratory for religious agency and cultural identities.     

论经营型夫妻共同债务的认定与清偿

通过对95件类案的分析可以发现,《民法典》第1064条规定的“共同生产经营”型夫妻共同债务的认定标准与清偿规则并不清晰,尚待明确。经营型夫妻共同债务的认定应以共同参与为标准。共同参与的表现形式包括共同投资、一方投资一方参与经营等。基于简化法律关系与提升清偿效率的考量,经营型共债的清偿规则,应先以夫妻共同财产清偿,不足部分由举债方的个人财产承担,非举债方以个人财产代为清偿的,可在法定财产制结束时向举债方追偿。     

Internal or External Production and Satisfaction with the Chosen Sourcing in Danish Municipalities: Different Theoretical Explanations

Abstract

There is a large literature on both why local governments and public organisations choose internal or external production of services and what explains the performance of internal and external production. A range of different theories have been used to answer these questions. However, these studies show mixed results. In this study we investigate four theories: transaction cost economics, neoclassical economics, the resource-based view of strategy and institutional theory. Can these theories explain whether local governments choose internal or external production and can they explain the satisfaction with the internal and external production? Do the same variables explain the choice and the satisfaction? Based on a survey of four different service areas in Danish municipalities, it is shown that different theoretical variables explain the choice and satisfaction with the sourcing mode. Internal expertise is strongly related to the choice of internal or external production, whereas most transaction cost variables are unrelated to this choice. However, other variables such as supplier expertise and technological uncertainty are related to satisfaction with service production. The results corroborate the view that different variables are needed for explaining the performance of suppliers and the choice between internal and external suppliers. Furthermore, the results suggest that the study of local governments' sourcing may benefit from integrating theories focusing on internal expertise and markets. Studies may also benefit from integrating economic theories, which assume rationality, with institutional theory emphasising more unreflective and socially determined behaviour.     

Zimbabwean Indigenisation and the Shadow Economy of Cinematic Production

ABSTRACT

In recent years, Zimbabwe has suffered a political and economic crisis, which has generated impulses that have traumatised the country's film industry, among many other sectors. Resultantly, Zimbabwe's cinematic context of production has been reimagined and reconfigured in recent years. The southern African country's ruling elite, during former president Robert Mugabe's tenure, championed controversial policies of indigenisation in economic sectors, partly as a way of countering external economic and political hostilities. This article explores how the Zimbabwean film economy has responded to postcolonial indigenisation impulses and how the production context has developed parallel to or in tandem with this reality. It teases out the challenges and prospects posed by impulses of indigenisation in Zimbabwe to the country's fledgling film production industry by analysing the video-film production value chain post-2000, when the indigenisation agenda emerged and was consolidated. Informed by the theorisation of the shadow economies of cinema, the study employed in-depth interviews to collect data from purposively selected Zimbabwean filmmakers and policymakers. Thematic analysis was used to analyse this data. The study shows that indigenisation has been a pragmatic response to the economic trauma facing the film industry, although it has, in turn, sent out its own traumatic impulses that continue to affect the industry's structure and aesthetic.     

French capitalism ­transformed,yet still a third variety of capitalism

Rather than one or two varieties of capitalism, this paper argues that there are still at least three in Europe, following along lines of development from the three post-war models: market capitalism, characteristic of Britain; managed capitalism, typical of Germany; and state capitalism, epitomized by France. While France’s state capitalism has been transformed through market-oriented reforms, it has become neither market capitalist nor managed capitalist. Rather, it has moved from ‘state-led’ capitalism to a kind of ‘state-enhanced’ capitalism, in which the state still plays an active albeit much reduced role, where CEOs exercise much greater autonomy, and labour relations have become much more market-reliant.     

Writing about Rwanda since the Genocide: Knowledge,Power and ‘Truth’

This debate article reflects upon four articles recently published in this journal as part of a special Forum on Rwanda (Volume 8, Issue 4, 2014)—released to coincide with the 20-year commemoration of the 1994 genocide. In doing so it highlights what this author considers to be a crisis in contemporary ‘Rwanda studies’. This crisis—referenced and reproduced to some extent in all four articles—combines methodological (‘how can we write about Rwanda?’) and epistemological (‘how should we write about Rwanda?’) uncertainty against a backdrop of highly polarized, partisan and sometimes personalized research agendas. In exploring this phenomenon, the study explores not only the role of academics (mainly European and Rwandan) but also of the Rwandan government itself, highlighting the rise of ‘activist polities’ such as that in contemporary Kigali. These regimes consider knowledge production to be an aspect of their own sovereignty and this poses fundamental challenges, as yet largely unacknowledged, to parts of Western Africanist scholarship.     

Ramchand Pakistani,Khamosh Pani and the traumatic evocation of Partition

This article will address the themes of partition, gender and trauma within two independent films from Pakistan, Sabiha Sumar's Khamosh Pani (2003) and Mehreen Jabbar's Ramchand Pakistani (2008). The article will consider how the events of 1947 – partition of India and creation of Pakistan – recur within the films as disruptive trauma. The article will consider what an engagement with the characteristics of trauma such as involuntary recall and disruption can bring to my readings of the films. Connections are established between women's experiences of ethnic tensions within the contemporary settings of the films and the gendered experiences of 1947. These are expressed in distinct ways, however; the prominence of the themes of trauma within both work to create a powerful presentation of women's subjectivity in Pakistan. Further to this, they draw attention to the possible inevitability of trauma being central to identities and locations forged out of a partition that entailed border creation, large-scale disruption, and violence. The article will conclude that close readings of both films highlight the role of the traumatic in the formation of gendered national identities.     

Best practices for the management of knowledge for conflict resolution: Lessons learned from the Great Lakes region of Africa

Abstract

This article deals with the management of knowledge for conflict resolution and innovation in Africa. After a brief discussion of the research methodology followed, a feedback is provided on the field study conducted from 2006 to 2008 in northern Uganda and Rwanda and at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania, and in the DRC. As a result of the field study, certain principles and practices were identified whereby the challenges facing Africa could be examined. The author found five ‘realms’ in which knowledge management can take place and that traditional knowledge practices, if merged with more modern knowledge management practices, provide a valuable framework for using knowledge management for conflict resolution and innovation in Africa. Best practices that were identified include an intra-connected and collective knowledge production system and the production of tacit knowledge, especially among the new generation or youth. Furthermore, the importance of intellectual capital (in the form of value-driven leadership, competent managers and expert knowledge workers) and the activation of an intervention into the continuous spiral of violent conflict which will ultimately lead to the innovative transformation of African society are discussed. Finally, some recommendations are offered as possible solutions for conflict resolution and innovation in Africa.     

Epistemic pluralism for knowledge transformation

ABSTRACT

When Aristotle wrote that a human being is a rational animal, race, creed and colour were excluded from his declaration. Such a view is informed by the axiom that all human persons are capable of and are endowed with scientific rationality. However, colonialism sought to entrench Western epistemologies (ways of knowing) at the expense of the conquered communities’ world experiences. To deny the reasoning capacity of the Other is tantamount to questioning their humanity. It leads to a fallacious belief that there are modes of knowing, knowledge generation and knowledge application that are inferior, simply because of the pigmentation of the individuals articulating them. Scholarship is violated and impoverished by such an imperial approach. This article argues for the promotion of a holistic and normative epistemology oriented towards the development and happiness of the individual and society, while affirming the humanity of the African person.     

Taiwan's success and its challenges for the future

A look at Taiwan's success to date and the lessons for developing countries. The article also examines the daunting challenges ahead for Taiwan in a changing global order.