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141. The American Political Landscape, Byron E. Shafer and Richard H. Spady

Author:
Robert A. Jackson
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
Byron Shafer and Richard Spady rely on cutting-edge data analyses and graph¬ical presentations to provide a detailed accounting of how social characteristics have shaped core political values, which, in turn, has structured the presidential vote across the 1984–2008 elections. The study stands apart for the sheer richness and depth of its analyses of a specific data source—namely, the 1987 through 2009 Pew Values Surveys—to gain insight into the shifting contours of the American electorate. An application of item response theory to consistent sets of questions enables Shafer and Spady to produce indicators of two unobservable attitudinal dimensions: economics and culture. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19340#sthash.C8UA9e6m.dpuf
Topic:
Economics, Politics, and Culture
Political Geography:
America

142. Table of Contents

Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Ethics International Affairs is pleased to announce the publication of its winter 2014 issue. This issue includes an essay by Jacinta O'Hagan and Miwa Hirono on "cultures of humanitarianism" in East Asia; articles by Christopher Kutz on torture, American security policy, and norm death, and Ruben Reike on an international crimes approach to preventing mass atrocities; a book symposium on Mathias Risse's On Global Justice, featuring contributions from Richard Arneson, Helena de Bres, Anna Stilz, and Risse; and a review essay by Nancy Birdsall on Thomas Piketty's Capital.
Topic:
Security and Culture
Political Geography:
America and East Asia

143. Cultural Differences and the Economic Performance of Minorities and Immigrants

Author:
Gil S. Epstein and Erez Siniver
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Ìrìnkèrindò: a Journal of African Migration
Abstract:
The economic outcomes of a minority group may be adversely affected by the cultural differences between it and the majority group. On the other hand, cultural differences may lead a minority group to concentrate in enclaves, which can offset to some extent the negative effect of cultural discrimination. We examine how the relative size of a minority group and cultural differences between groups can affect economic outcomes. We begin by specifying a simple theoretical framework and then characterize an economy with four ethnic groups that differ culturally and in size. We then test the effect of these differences on economic outcomes. The results indicate that the difference in earnings between native Jews and Ethiopian immigrants and between native Jews and Israeli Arabs is due to taste-based discrimination.
Topic:
Migration, Political Economy, Immigration, Culture, and Immigrants
Political Geography:
Africa, Israel, and Ethiopia

144. Overthrowing the First Mountain: Chinese Student-Migrants and the Geography of Power

Author:
Anni Kajanus
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This article uses Mahler and Pessar’s (2001, 2006) model of “geography of power” to interrogate how the general dynamic of Chinese student migration generates a variety of experiences at the individual level. Each Chinese student-migrant embarks on their journey from a different position vis-à-vis the flows and interconnec- tions of the international education market. Some of them set out to achieve concrete goals, while others are motivated by a more intan- gible mission to become cosmopolitan subjects. As they move around, their shifting position in the hierarchies of nationality, class, gender, and generation influences their decision-making and their experiences. These power systems function simultaneously on mul- tiple geographical scales, exemplified by the contradictory ways gen- der operates in the family, education, work, and marriage. To further develop the connection this model makes between personal charac- teristics, cognitive processes, and various power systems, I draw at- tention to the politics of ordinary affects.
Topic:
Education, Globalization, Culture, Geography, and Students
Political Geography:
China and Asia

145. “I will change things in my own small way”: Chinese Overseas Students, “Western” Values, and Institutional Reform

Author:
Stig Thogersen
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The article is based on a longitudinal study of Chinese college students who studied abroad as part of their BA programme in Preschool Education. It first examines the Chinese discourse on preschool education in order to understand the current situation in the students’ professional field. The main section then discusses stu- dents’ attitudes to what they perceived to be key values and principles in early childhood education in the West: freedom, individual rights, equality, and creativity. Students generally expressed strong support for these values and wanted to reform Chinese institutions according- ly. The article argues, based on this case, that while Chinese students abroad may not see themselves as the vanguard of macro-level politi- cal reforms, some of them certainly want to play a role in the gradual transformation of Chinese institutions in their respective professional fields.
Topic:
Education, Culture, Reform, and Students
Political Geography:
China and Asia

146. Unseeing” Chinese Students in Japan: Understanding Educationally Channelled Migrant Experiences

Author:
Jamie Coates
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Chinese migrants are currently the largest group of non- Japanese nationals living in Japan. This growth is largely the result of educational migration, positioning many Chinese in Japan as student- migrants. Based on 20 months’ ethnographic fieldwork in Ikebukuro, Tokyo’s unofficial Chinatown, this paper explores the ways in which the phenomenology of the city informs the desire for integration amongst young Chinese living in Japan. Discussions of migrant inte- gration and representation often argue for greater recognition of marginalised groups. However, recognition can also intensify vulner- ability for the marginalised. Chinese student-migrants’ relationship to Ikebukuro’s streets shows how young mobile Chinese in Tokyo come to learn to want to be “unseen.” Largely a response to the visual dy- namics of the city, constituted by economic inequality, spectacle, and surveillance, the experiences of young Chinese students complicate the ways we understand migrants’ desires for recognition and integra- tion.
Topic:
Education, Culture, Immigrants, and Students
Political Geography:
Japan, China, and Asia

147. “Creating a Home away from Home”: Chinese Undergraduate Student Enclaves in US Higher Education

Author:
Yajing Chen and Heidi Ross
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This paper draws on the theory of ethnic enclaves to study Chinese international student communities and their role in constructing Chinese undergraduate student experiences on US campuses. Enclave theory has primarily been used by sociologists to study immigrant and diaspora populations, but it can also provide an important analytical tool for scholars examining the internationalisation of student populations in higher-education settings. Student interviews and participant observation at a representative research-intensive, doctoral-granting institution in the American Midwest indicate that institutional and media characterisations of Chinese international student communities as closed and segregated are far too simplistic. Chinese student enclaves provide their members with crucial information, support, and social spaces that help them adapt to – and in turn change – their host institutions. Chinese students are active participants in and creators of campus cultures that are often in- visible to university administrators, faculty, and peers.
Topic:
Education, Migration, Immigration, Culture, and Students
Political Geography:
United States, China, Asia, and North America

148. Engagement and Reflexivity: Approaches to Chinese–Japanese Political Relations by Chinese Students in Japan

Author:
Herby Lai
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Amidst political tensions between China and Japan, and against the backdrop of the patriotic education campaign in China that promotes a negative image of Japan as the victimiser, Chinese students in Japanese educational institutions study and work in Japan in a highly politicised context. In general, how they chose to interpret their experiences in Japan, and their views on history and controver- sial political issues involving China and Japan, demonstrates two levels of cosmopolitanism – namely, the ability and the willingness to en- gage with Japanese people on such issues, and reflexivity towards their own national identities. Meanwhile, some informants would deliberately avoid talking about history and controversial political issues involving China and Japan. While they lacked the willingness to engage with Japanese people on controversial issues, their keenness to separate their daily lives in Japan from the political context means they were also engaged in a reflexive reconfiguration of their national identities.
Topic:
Education, Migration, Culture, Immigrants, Students, and Social Identities
Political Geography:
Japan, China, and Asia

149. The Social Construction of Guangzhou as a Translocal Trading Place

Author:
Angelo Gilles
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Guangzhou has become a key destination for sub-Saharan African traders. These traders have established multilocal forms of business organisation and, in so doing, have developed diverse prac- tices to overcome geographical, political and cultural boundaries. This paper focuses on these practices, looking at the ways in which the movements, relations and interactions within these organisational formations are produced, transformed and lived. A close ethnograph- ic examination was made of the livelihoods of 33 African traders from 13 sub-Saharan African countries. Through the concept of trans- locality, the organisational formations of these Africans are conceptu- alised as links between different places on a larger geographical scale; these links then meet on a local scale in the specific place of Guang- zhou. Following a relational understanding of spatial constructions in social science, these links are conceptualised as one of the main drivers for the social construction and transformation of the city as a trans- local trading place.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Culture, Urban, and Local
Political Geography:
Africa, China, and Asia

150. Landscapes of Aspiration in Guangzhou’s African Music Scene: Beyond the Trading Narrative

Author:
Roberto Castillo
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This article is an exploration into the personal aspirations that converge in Guangzhou’s African music scene. I argue that despite being often traversed, articulated, fuelled, and constrained by econ- omies and economic discourses, aspirations are not necessarily eco- nomic or rational calculations. I contend that the overarching trading narrative about “Africans in Guangzhou” has left little space for issues of agency, emotion, and aspiration to be considered in their own right. Drawing on a year of continuous ethnographic fieldwork, I show how aspirations are crucial arenas where the rationales behind transnational mobility are developed, reproduced, and transmitted. Indeed, aspira- tions can be thought of as “navigational devices” (Appadurai 2004) that help certain individuals reach for their dreams. By bringing the analysis of aspirations to the fore, I intend to provide a more complex and nuanced landscape of the multiple rationales behind African presence in Southern China; promote a better understanding (both conceptually and empirically) of how individuals navigate their social spaces and guide their transnational journeys; and draw attention to the incessant frictions and negotiations between individual aspirations while on the move and the constraints imposed by more structural imperatives.
Topic:
Culture, Music, and popular culture
Political Geography:
Africa, China, and Asia