Communication uncertainty and the fictional role of organizational culture

This theoretical investigation aims to critically analyze the concept of organizational culture as an example of ＂organizational fiction＂. In order to benefit from unveiling organizational fictions, it is necessary to be aware of how illusion is linked to stability and predictability. It is here proposed to consider communicational uncertainties as positive qualities in flexible organizations, where communicative flows between organizational spheres and individual spaces of employees or managers engender new ideas and foster creativity. Thus, a strong organizational culture, especially in intercultural contexts, may be a barrier to organizational health, but a strong and unified corporate identity is necessary to guarantee organizational stability and cohesion. The solution is the interplay between stability and contingent openness toward external influences.     

白族文化的包容性及其现实意义

包容性是白族文化最主要的特征之一。包容性几乎表现在白族文化的方方面面,但突出地表现在白族族源的多元性、白族文化源流的多源性、白族宗教信仰的多元性、南诏大理国与唐宋的关系、白族的民族观及婚俗观和丧葬观等方面;白族文化包容性的主要成因是受中原文化和白族生息的地理环境的影响;充分挖掘和利用白族文化的包容性有利于促进边疆民族地区的和谐社会建设。     

英语文化渗透式教学的实践与探讨

语言与文化具有紧密的联系。英语教学不应以通过考试为目的,而应注重提高实际生活中运用语言能力和交际能力。本文强调教学过程中应加强文化的渗透,利用多种渠道使学生了解中西文化的差异,并对英语教学中应注意的问题进行分析和探讨。     

加强高职院校文化艺术教育的若干思考

切实加强大学生文化艺术教育,是全面推进素质教育、促进大学生全面发展和健康成长的重要途径。本文在简要分析高职院校文化艺术教育现状的基础上,论述了高职院校开展文化艺术教育的作用和意义,进而提出了加强高职院校文化艺术教育的策略。     

利用图书馆资源优势推广农村文化信息化建设

本文在分析利用图书馆资源推进农村文化信息化建设中存在的主要问题的基础上,提出以图书馆现有资源和设施为依托,更新观念,加大投资力度,建立城乡援助模式进行农村文化信息化建设：     

用优秀文化培育和熔铸民族精神——近百年优秀文化的历史轨迹与改革开放30年的伟大实践

每个时代的优秀文化,都融注着每个时代新的民族精神。社会发展和历史进程都一再表明：中华民族自强不息的民族精神,已经深深地熔铸于中华民族的生命力、创造力和凝聚力之中,这是中华民族得以绵延千载、生生不息的精神动力,更是凝聚中华民族空前力量的无尽源泉。     

The Culture of Interest: A Proposed Addition and Revision of the Three‐Culture Model

Negotiation and conflict resolution theorists have classified world cultures according to three types for the purpose of describing and predicting some of the ways in which individuals and groups within broad, geographically based cultural groups behave in conflict and negotiation‐related situations. These three broad categories, called “cultural syndromes,” have described these cultures according to the relative value they place on these three concerns: honor, face, and dignity. Based on our examination of the literature on the cultural dimensions of negotiation and conflict management, our own practice, and an analysis of literature and practice pertaining to the place and utility of the honor, face, interest, and dignity attributes within and between cultural groups , we propose a reformulation of this typology. Our reformulation would replace the broad “dignity” category with a new category that we call “interest,” which we believe better characterizes Northern European and North American cultures. We also argue that a cultural orientation toward dignity is universal and not geographically unique and is thus shared by all three cultures. This new formulation, we believe, more accurately characterizes the global range of orientations toward negotiation and conflict resolution and would, if adopted, help scholars and practitioners better understand culturally divergent conflict orientations and behaviors as well as the ramifications of such differences for negotiation and conflict resolution practice.     

Contested Resource Extraction,Anti-Corporate Protests and the Politics of Movement Alliance in Bangladesh

Why do activist groups form alliances and why do some alliances later fall apart? This article asks these questions in the context of a popular mobilisation against resource extraction in Bangladesh. It focuses on the dynamics of a strategic alliance between a locally organised community mobilisation against a British mining company and an urban radical activist group, known for its anti-capitalist activism, to explore the subsequent collapse of the alliance and the demobilisation of one group. Based on the qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with activists and organisational documents, the article probes the underlying causes of rupture. Although several individual and organisational factors are identified, it is argued that Bangladesh’s confrontational political culture and its authoritarian party system played a critical role, with local activists vulnerable to co-optation or being silenced by powerful political actors. The article contributes to social movement scholarship by emphasising that specific political cultures can undermine efforts to build strategic alliances between diverse social movement organisations.     

Call me Caitlyn: making and making over the ‘authentic’ transgender body in Anglo-American popular culture

A conception of transgender identity as an ‘authentic’ gendered core ‘trapped’ within a mismatched corporeality, and made tangible through corporeal transformations, has attained unprecedented legibility in contemporary Anglo-American media. Whilst pop-cultural articulations of this discourse have received some scholarly attention, the question of why this ‘wrong body’ paradigm has solidified as the normative explanation for gender transition within the popular media remains underexplored. This paper argues that this discourse has attained cultural pre-eminence through its convergence with a broader media and commercial zeitgeist, in which corporeal alteration and maintenance are perceived as means of accessing one’s ‘authentic’ self. I analyse the media representations of two transgender celebrities: Caitlyn Jenner and Nadia Almada, alongside the reality TV show TRANSform Me, exploring how these women’s gender transitions have been discursively aligned with a cultural imperative for all women, cisgender or trans, to display their authentic femininity through bodily work. This demonstrates how established tropes of authenticity-via-bodily transformation, have enabled transgender to become culturally legible through the wrong body trope. Problematically, I argue, this process has worked to demarcate ideals of ‘acceptable’ transgender subjectivity: self-sufficient, normatively feminine, and eager to embrace the possibilities for happiness and social integration provided by the commercial domain.     

Single,straight, wants kids: media framing of single,heterosexual fatherhood via assisted reproduction

The new reproductive technologies have made possible various postmodern family forms. I highlight an emerging form that has received little attention: single fathers by choice (SFCs), created by single men using egg donation and surrogacy. I focus on heterosexual SFCs, which have been largely ignored in the scholarly literature even as gay and lesbian parenthood have increasingly become topics of feminist inquiry. This type of fatherhood raises several important questions for gender and family scholars about the ‘traditional’ family, the relationship between masculinity and fatherhood, and men’s own desires for parenthood without a female partner. I analyze US media framing to explore cultural sense-making of SFCs. While media framing cannot tell us about men’s lived experiences as intentional single fathers, it does point to larger discourses that potentially impact these men as they engage in non-normative fathering. I identify three core themes within the media frames: (1) viewing men and women as similar, but ultimately different, (2) addressing the tension between bachelorhood and fatherhood, and (3) representing the gender of paternal desire in multiple, conflicting ways. Overall, I argue that further investigations of SFCs can illuminate issues about men’s desires for children and agency in becoming fathers.