Identity theft and the care of the virtual self

Abstract

This paper analyses how major institutions are publicly responding to the crime of identity theft. It concentrates on how individuals are encouraged to responsibilize themselves against this potentiality, and what they should do in the event they are victimized. These two distinct discourses (prevention and victimization) aim to fashion a hyper-vigilant citizen whose daily routines, home environment, consumption patterns and sense of self are being brought into accord with wider power dynamics. These measures can be understood as encouraging a care of the virtual self – a wider social project characteristic of an informational age that encourages individuals to reduce the risks and maximize the potentialities related to their data double. In the context of identity theft, however, institutionally promoted methods for the care for the virtual self transcend what is reasonably practicable for most citizens and mask the role played by major institutions in fostering the preconditions for identity theft.     

Natural and political markets: organizing the transfer of technology and knowledge

Abstract

The author inquires into the performative role of calculative devices, and develops the notion of political markets by drawing upon an empirical case of the transfer of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS). Drawing on the work of Michel Callon, the author claims the natural market to be a special case of the political market, its existence being highly dependent upon calculative devices. The aggregated simulation models and investment calculations of economics were instrumental in establishing the necessary conditions of the natural market. Yet, it remained only a temporally stabilized configuration. With the emergence of reflexive economic agencies, the market also underwent unexpected reorganizations. Finally, the author summarizes the theoretical and practical implications by proposing the twin notions of engineering-oeconomicus and the normalizing market residual.     

From national identity to national security: China's changing responses toward India in 1962 and 1998

This article examines Russian Government policy towards Northeast Asia as an interplay between aspirations, which have been expressed by government leaders, parliamentary figures and prominent academics and journalists and actual results. The article uses three levels, global, regional and bilateral, as a basis for the analysis. In terms of global interests the Russian leadership has sought diplomatic balance against the US, in terms of regional interests the leadership has pursued the aim of economic and security integration while at the bilateral level Russian leadership has sought specific benefits from particular relations with China, Japan and South Korea. The article notes that Russia has obtained certain diplomatic benefits from the relationship with China which serve its interests at the global level. At the regional level policy aspirations have been frustrated by Russia's dire economic condition and the tendency to be treated as an ‘outsider’. Russia has benefited from an improvement of bilateral relations with China, Japan and South Korea but these gains do not translate into an improved position at the regional level yet. while the Russian leadership has been nurturing the development of bilateral relationships problems particular to those relationships hinder its wider regional acceptance.     

Islamic Identity,Nationality and Republicanism in the Process of Islamic Awakening

This paper is going to identify and discuss necessary theoretical principles for reasoning current and future situation of subjects related to Arabic Islamic thoughts. This paper tries to consider typology of vocal groups at Islamic movements involved in the process of Islamic awakening. In this direction, firstly different research approaches will be considered and the main purpose is that how these researches observe the origin of formation of these groups and what is their emphasis in this regard. The key points of their reasoning will be explained and then the explanation, representation and re-definition of these groups are paid attention to. The main idea is that among all analyses and reasoning and view points, the key point is the importance of viewpoint of Islamism in these movements and any analysis will be unreliable reading without reading to this variable,     

Reactions to collective stress: Correlates of active citizen participation at love canal

Abstract

Events at Love Canal, beginning in the spring of 1978, are described as an environmental crisis leading to acute collective stress. As the crisis unfolded, Love Canal residents’ perceptions of the situation, and the actions they took, were monitored through interviews with a sample of 58 families in fall, 1978. Of these, 39 were reinterviewed in spring, 1979. Among interviewed families, 24 (41%) had at least one “activist” member, someone who became personally involved in a community organization formed to help resolve the crisis. This study compares the social characteristics of “activist families” with “non‐activist families,” their Love Canal‐related problems, sources of help, and general views of the impacts on their personal lives, and on interpersonal relations. Activists relied on government and crisis‐related organizations for help, while non‐activists had more family support. Neither group utilized the mental health services provided by the community's “crisis center.” Activists felt better about themselves, and had a stronger feeling of personal efficacy in affecting government decisions. They perceived that the crisis had brought about positive personal changes, and changes in relations with others. The major implication for intervention is that several different approaches to assisting members of a community in crisis must be undertaken.     

台湾选民的政党认同——基于2004、2008、2012年三次“总统”选举的分析

经过2004年到2012年三次“总统”选举,台湾选民的政党认同逐渐结构化。新党、亲民党的认同者迅速下滑,“台联党”亦然,国民党认同的比例上升,民进党认同的比例则保持稳定,“中间选民”的比例逐步下降。在国民党和民进党认同者中,持强烈认同的比例不断上升,较弱认同的比例不断下降。从蓝绿两大政党看,年龄和受教育程度已非影响政党认同的显著因素,国家（族群）认同以及统“独”立场始终是影响政党认同的最重要因素,阶级地位具有显著影响,但是其影响力远不及国家（族群）认同以及统“独”立场。     

‘Women of substance’: Commodification and fetishization in contemporary advertising within the Indian ‘Urbanscape'

Advertising today has become an intrinsic part of modern culture. Apart from the obvious and tangible extolment of the virtues of a product and/or brand, more insiduously and less tangibly, advertising plays a key role in the functioning of social attitudes and values. This paper examines how advertising discourses in India, in particular the hugely successful and representative Woman of Substance’ ad campaign in the magazine Femina, transforms the manifold attitudes and qualities of the woman into commodities to be marketed; and how the ad campaign positions the woman within the nexus of her social interactions. The paper traces the economic and socio‐cultural changes that have characterised India's transition towards an open market economy to situate the role that advertising discourse plays in urban India today in the representation of the ‘Woman of Substance’. These changes have occurred in a relatively short space of time and have interacted profoundly with advertising discourse. This can best be seen in the fact that an urbanising trend in India has diversified the range of approved cultural models available to women in the search for what has come to be fashionably referred to in recent times as ‘lifestyles‘— exemplified both in the ‘Woman of Substance’ ad campaign, and the magazine itself, Femina.     

All Tögethé® now: the recontextualization of branding and the stylization of diversity in EU public communication

This article examines the EU Birthday Logo Competition, which was launched jointly by the major European Union (EU) institutions to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome in 2007. As the first public communication initiative by the European Commission's newly restructured Directorate General for Communication, the logo competition is a particularly rich micro-textual “site” for a critical investigation of the recontextualization of corporate communication discourses and practices into institutional approaches to the communication of EU identity. Through an analysis of policy documents, on-site observations, textual artifacts, and in-depth interviews with policy-makers and design professionals I argue that the tensions and challenges that characterized the EU Birthday Logo Competition and related EU communication policy as a site of recontextualization may have led to the communication of a much more stylized, rather than complex and nuanced, version of European identity. In particular, I argue that the dialectic between the “professional/corporate” and “institutional/political” cultures that interacted in the selection, production and implementation of the anniversary logo may have contributed to obscuring key principles of corporate branding at work in the design, and may have in fact worked to produce a highly generic, decontextualized and ultimately also bland, although certainly problematic, “vision” of EU diversity.     

Theorising Power and Resistance among “Travellers”

This paper (re-)examines the literature on Traveller communities in the United Kingdom by combining parts of Michel Foucault's and Michel de Certeau's theoretical legacies. Following an ethnographic summary, I demonstrate the relevance of Foucault and Certeau for a critical understanding of the Travellers’ structural predicaments and ideological resistance in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I argue that Foucault's outline of modern power, surveillance and classification sheds new light on the impact of social control agencies and the implementation of legislative changes, such as the 1968 Caravan Sites Act, on (semi-)nomadic and/or self-employed groups. The implications of more recent legal developments are discussed as symptoms of postmodernity and the further ideological marginalisation of “non-consuming nomads”. I then argue that some of Certeau's key concepts, including the “strategies/tactics” distinction, illuminate the Travellers’ modalities of resistance and symbolisms of difference. Completing a two-way dynamic between theory and data, the article also shows that existing empirical material on Travellers highlights some of the weaknesses in Foucault's and Certeau's respective thought. Finally, I turn to Foucault's “analytics” to account for intra-group power and resistance, and hence to challenge the common portrayal of Foucault as a “theorist of domination” in juxtaposition to Certeau as a “theorist of subversion”.     

Dissimilar twins: residue of 1947 in the twenty-first century

In this article Meenakshi Mukherjee traces the impact of the Indian partition of 1947 on the creative writing, films and intellectual life of India and Pakistan.