bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Discursive Construction of National Identities
Authors: DE CILLIA RUDOLF , REISIGL MARTIN , WODAK RUTH
Published: March 2007

The concept of the nation as an imagined community has gained importance in the relevant literature during the last decade. How do we construct national identities in discourse? Which topics, which discursive strategies and which linguistic devices are employed to construct national sameness and uniqueness on the one hand, and differences to other national collectives on the other hand? These questions were investigated in our study on the Austrian nation and identity. Taking several current social scientific approaches as our point of departure, we have developed a method of description and analysis of these phenomena which has applications beyond the discursive production of national identity in the specific Austrian example studied. By focusing particularly on the discursive construction of (national) sameness, this study has broken new ground in discourse-historical analysis, which until now has mainly been concerned with the analysis of the discursive construction of difference.
Sorcery of the Self
Authors: O'Connor Kieron P. , Hallam Richard S.
Published: March 2007

In this article, we first examine current cognitive and social constructionist (SC) notions of self and we suggest that although `self is central to both approaches, it is not satisfactorily defined by either because the discussion of self remains at an epistemological level. The lack of genuine definition leads to difficulties specifying the properties `self possesses and to dilemmas about how to draw boundaries between public and private experience and explain that discourse is both personalized yet socially constructed. In the second part of the article, we examine phenomenological claims for an ontological position which transcends views of the self as a unit `known about' and which grounds self-knowledge in Being. Being is revealed by projects in the world and does not distinguish a priori between subject and object. Such divisions are invoked by projects such as `knowing the world' which require a temporal and spatial version of the world in order to come about. Projects are always in the process of coming about; therefore, self s defining quality is what it is about to become rather than what it is. Hence the finite self is an illusion; but a necessary one. We draw an analogy between the way the illusion of self is created and revealed through the project of `knowing the self' and the way a conjuror, through his/her lead-up, convinces an audience to see what should be there. Only because sense of self is an illusion, we speculate, can it exert such a powerful sway over our lives.
Narrative Psychology, Trauma and the Study of Self/Identity
Authors: Crossley Michele L.
Published: March 2007

This paper aims to provide an overview of a narrative psychological approach towards the study of self and identity. The narrative psychological approach can be classified as broadly social constructionist insofar as it attempts to examine the cultural structuration of individual experience. However, building on recent criticism of certain social constructionist approaches (such as discourse analysis), it is argued that these approaches tend to lose touch with the phenomenological and experiential realities of everyday, practical life. Accordingly, they overplay the disorderly, chaotic, variable and flux-like nature of self-experience. Drawing on recent research on traumatizing experiences such as living with serious illness, this paper argues that the disruption and fragmentation manifest in such experiences serves as a useful means of highlighting the sense of unity, meaning and coherence (the `narrative configuration') more commonly experienced on an everyday level. Moreover, when disorder and incoherence prevail, as in the case of trauma, narratives are used to rebuild the individual's shattered sense of identity and meaning.
The Neglected Situation of Vision in Experimental Psychology
Authors: Nishizaka Aug
Published: March 2007

The orthodox conception of `visual perception' entertained in cognitive psychology is that retinal images inside eyeballs or impressions in the `mind', which are very different from our actual visual experiences, are organized into a perception under an individual's skin. Even though this conception is caught up in profound `grammatical' confusions about the concept of seeing or visual perception, nevertheless, it provides experimental psychologists with `instructions' as to how to conduct experiments on `visual perception'. In the main body of the paper an attempt is made to demonstrate how this orthodox conception is embodied in the actual course of interaction in psychological experiments. In the analysis of audio-visual recordings of an `experimental' psychological experiment, I show that the actual course of interaction in the psychological experiment exhibits some distinct features, which are interactively organized so as to constitute the `private' character of `vision' in the experiment.
Genetic Determinism
Authors: de Jong Huib Looren
Published: March 2007

Recently, investigators in behavioral genetics have found loci on the genome (so-called `quantitative trait loci' or QTLs) that are associated with complex mental traits, such as anxiety or novelty seeking. The interpretation of these findings raises interesting theoretical questions. At first sight, the discovery of `genes-for-personality' seems to support genetic determinism and reductionism. Genetic determinism is the view that the phenotype is precoded in or determined by the genotype. However, evidence from developmental biology and neural modeling indicates that development is a result of interactive processes at many levels, not only the genome, so that geneticism must be rejected. Identifying QTLs and perhaps also the causal paths in the tangle of top-down and bottom-up influences between genome, organism and environment is best seen as a simplification. It amounts to considerably less than reduction in the classical sense of replacement via bridge laws or elimination. It is argued that higher (psychological and physiological) levels are functionally characterized and are irreducible to molecular-genetic levels. Therefore, it is to be expected that ideas about inter-level relations may be useful in clarifying the relation between loci on the genome (QTLs), gene products, the nervous system, behavior and personality, and to help identify the contribution of genetic factors in behavioral genetics.
Introduction: Social Constructionism and its Critics
Authors: Stam Henderikus J.
Published: March 2007

The articles in this issue signify the maturation of social constructionism. After introducing the articles, I raise two questions that have remained under-represented on these pages. First, the historicization of constructionism has been avoided by constructionists and critics alike; and, second, the epistemological concerns have been dominated by realist-anti-realist debates. I conclude by inviting further responses on these questions for a future issue of the journal.
Gergen's Social Constructionism, Logical Positivism and the Continuity of Error
Authors: Hibberd Fiona J.
Published: March 2007

It is the received wisdom that K.J. Gergen's postmodernist metatheory of psychological science—social constructionism-is the anti-thesis of positivist philosophy of science. If by `antithetical' it is meant that the two share nothing that is central to each, this view is mistaken. One of the links between social constructionism and logical positivism is that both embody conventionalism. This is not a minor similarity between two otherwise different theories. Conventionalism involves the claim that theories (or certain parts of theories) are non-empirical because they are not forced on us by nature but adopted for non-epistemic reasons. Despite differences in the way social constructionism and logical positivism conceptualize conventionalism, certain features of Gergen's theory are clearly evident in the theories of Schlick, Reichenbach and Carnap. The logical positivists' difficulty in consistently maintaining a conventionalist account of scientific theory is repeated by Gergen, though camouflaged by the Modern-day flavour of his metatheory.
Explanatory Pluralism and Macro-Causation
Authors: Meyering Theo
Published: March 2007

Contemporary reductionism nowadays comes in various strengths and flavors, ranging from restricted claims concerning the token identity of physical and mental events up to the more orthodox claims about the reducibility of psychological laws. This paper first provides a taxonomy of different versions of reductionism arranged in order of decreasing strength. Against this backdrop it is argued that classical arguments in favor of an absolute autonomy of psychology and of the special sciences fall far short of their intended conclusion. Instead the paper develops what it takes to be more promising arguments based on the notion of multiple supervenience that underwrite the notion of explanatory pluralism and make room for a systems account of higher-order processes sanctioning downward causation without violating the laws of micro-physics.
Explanatory Pluralism
Authors: Drees Willem B.
Published: March 2007

What is the theological significance of the philosophy of mind and debates on reductionism? Religious experience is rooted in processes in the brain (e.g. d'Aquili). Understanding this may offer the theologian some arguments against dismissive accounts of religion, but it challenges claims regarding a non-natural referent. Problems with treating the world-God relationship as analogous to the one between brain and mind (as Philip Clayton does) are pointed out. The idea that Christians must side with irreducibilists in the philosophy of mind is criticized. Ontological irreducibility seems theologically unnecessary, as God can be the creator of a world with one, two or any other number of aspects. Epistemological irreducibility is insufficient for such a theology, as it comes with a naturalistic understanding of human nature. Thus, contemporary philosophy of mind may be an ally in arguing against an easy dismissal of religious practices and convictions, but at the same time it challenges a supernaturalist view of religion.
Facts and Interpretations of Personality Trait Stability
Authors: McCrae Robert R.
Published: March 2007

The strong claim that the stability of personality is not falsifiable is wrong because it has been falsified under some conditions. The weaker claim that it is trivial because traits are defined as transcontextual consistencies does not hold because the transcontextual nature of traits has no implications for long-term stability. Traits are important both because of their pervasive influence on thoughts, feelings and actions, and because of their centrality in many people's identity. Nevertheless, there is more to personality than traits, and many other psychological phenomena also merit study by personality psychologists.
Acculturation, Dialogical Voices and the Construction of the Diasporic Self
Authors: Bhatia Sunil
Published: March 2007

This article argues that various Third World, diasporic communities (e.g. Indian-American, Chinese-Canadian, Turkish-German), settled primarily in Europe and North America, negotiate their cultural identities as citizens of First World countries while retaining a strong identification with the culture of their home country. A dialogical model of acculturation is employed to explain the psychological complexities, contradictions and cultural specificities involved in the experiences of these non-European, diasporic communities. Such a model illustrates how the diasporic identity is shaped by, and linked to, the cultural and political issues of race, gender, colonization and power that are present in the hostland and the homeland. I draw upon Said's memoir Out of Place (1999) to show how a diasporic immigrant's effort to rework the different parts of one's heritage or ethnicity entails an ongoing, dialogical negotiation between the I positions of feeling simultaneously assimilated, separated and marginalized.
Is the `New Sentence Problem' a Genuine Problem?
Authors: Coulter Jeff
Published: March 2007

The theoretical problem of explaining how people can produce and understand `sentences' they have never heard before has, for some time, been at the center of psycholinguistic and cognitive theorizing. It has rarely been questioned as a coherently formulated `problem' in itself. In recent years, however, a range of conceptual criticisms has been advanced from within the Wittgensteinian tradition. A consideration of these criticisms in relation to Chomsky's various formulations constitutes the main purpose of this paper. Among the critical issues discussed are: (1) the compositional theory of linguistic behavior which was developed as part of the solution to the new sentence (projection) problem; (2) the conception of linguistic comprehension which underlies it; (3) the `ideas/utterance' translation assumption; (4) the characterization of language learning embraced by the treatment of the projection problem; (5) the internal rule-system model; and (6) alternative versions of the phenomena grouped under the `new sentence problem'.
Feminism and the Self
Authors: Joy Morny
Published: March 2007

The subject of the self is a controversial topic in many disciplines, and the added ingredient of a feminist perspective serves to increase the complexity of the debate. This article surveys various options that have been presented by women scholars in an effort to delineate what sort of self or selves is appropriate for contemporary women. These discussions are not isolated, or arbitrary, as they must take into consideration the current theories that are being presented by male scholars. In this connection, the model of hermeneutics, especially as it is related to narrative theory, has pertinent and constructive points to make. In particular the recent work of Paul Ricoeur, whose model allows for dynamism and pluralism, is evaluated. The resultant interchange is both constructive and critical, which is characteristic of most feminist interventions in mainstream male scholarship.
Yerkes-Dodson: A Law for all Seasons
Authors: Teigen Karl Halvor
Published: March 2007

The paper traces the vicissitudes of the Yerkes-Dodson law from 1908 to the present. In its original form, the law was intended to describe the relation between stimulus strength and habit-formation for tasks varying in discrimination difficultness. But later generations of investigations and textbook authors have rendered it variously as the effects of punishment, reward, motivation, drive, arousal, anxiety, tension or stress upon learning, performance, problem-solving, coping or memory; while the task variable has been commonly referred to as difficulty, complexity or novelty, when it is not omitted altogether. These changes are seldom explicitly discussed, and are often misattributed to Yerkes and Dodson themselves. The various reformulations are seen as reflecting conceptual changes and current developments in the areas of learning, motivation and emotion, and it is argued that the plasticity of the law also reflects the vagueness of basic psychological concepts in these areas.
Significance Tests Die Hard
Authors: Falk Ruma , Greenbaum Charles W.
Published: March 2007

We present a critique showing the flawed logical structure of statistical significance tests. We then attempt to analyze why, in spite of this faulty reasoning, the use of significance tests persists. We identify the illusion of probabilistic proof by contradiction as a central stumbling block, because it is based on a misleading generalization of reasoning from logic to inference under uncertainty. We present new data from a student sample and examples from the psychological literature showing the strength and prevalence of this illusion. We identify some intrinsic cognitive mechanisms (similarity to modus tollens reasoning; verbal ambiguity in describing the meaning of significance tests; and the need to rule out chance findings) and extrinsic social pressures which help to maintain the illusion. We conclude by mentioning some alternative methods for presenting and analyzing psychological data, none of which can be considered the ultimate method.
The Strength of Weak Points
Authors: Panhuysen Geert
Published: March 2007

It is argued that the substantial heuristics used by scientists offer the most adequate explanations of theoretical developments in science. In contrast to formal or procedural heuristics (such as generate and test), substantial heuristics are the implications for problem-solving which can be derived from the theoretical principles on the basis of which scientists work (such as conservation notions). They provide directives indicating where to find problems (such as violations of conservation principles) and where to search for solutions. Reconstruction of the substantial heuristics in a particular domain not only leads to a deeper historical understanding, but also enables theoretical psychologists themselves to make a contribution towards theory development. This general thesis is illustrated by references to the work of Freud. To a considerable extent, the birth and growth of psychoanalysis can be understood from Freud's psychological transformation of biomedical heuristics. The focus is on contributions of the traditional aetiological search scheme. This scheme requires the specification of external noxious influences and constitutional weak points. Freud did so, again and again.
Constructing Psychological Knowledge
Authors: Budge G. Scott , Katz Bernard
Published: March 2007

This literary, textual analysis of the APA Publication Manual reveals a text of extraordinary complexity and intricacy which belies its often presented purpose as being merely a `helpful tool'. In it we examine the characters-for example, authors, editors, typists-involved in the production of a document, the nature of their roles and relationships, and the overt and covert demands of informed and powerful voices who are presented as facilitators and allies. We examine messages inherent in the Manual which potential authors are advised to consider to make their work acceptable for publication. In addition, the process of creativity, construction and ownership of the product is addressed in reference to the standards of professional publishing communities.
The Reporting and Ethics of the Research Relationship in Areas of Interpersonal Psychology, 1939-89
Authors: Walsh-Bowers Richard
Published: March 2007

This study examined research reports published in the interpersonal areas of psychology from 1939 to 1989, focusing on authors' descriptions of the relationship between investigators and research participants. Analysis of 3001 articles published at 10-year intervals in seven US journals and one Canadian showed that researchers employed participants as data sources only and typically did not report consent, debriefing or feedback; authors generally described participants but not data collectors and settings, heavily used the term `subjects' and seldom acknowledged participants. Overall, hierarchical research and depersonalized reporting prevailed. The findings also illuminate the historical role of women researchers and participants' gender and underscore recommendations for including social and ethical processes in journal reports.
Classifying and Clarifying: A Reply to Van Hezewijk
Authors: de Jong Huib Looren
Published: March 2007

In response to Van Hezewijk's comments, I argue, first, that I have a less stringent view of comparing theories than he assumes. My aim is to provide a rough guideline for identifying intellectual undercurrents ('clarifying') rather than defining features for category membership of theories ('classifying'). Second, I maintain that rationalism and naturalism are useful diagnostic terms indicating two broad methodological options in psychology: the crux of the distinction is whether functional and adaptive considerations enter into perceptual explanations. Put thus, I feel the naturalism-rationalism distinction, without being absolutely clear-cut or exhaustive, gauges a deep controversy between ecological psychology and the representationalist mainstream. Third, I defend my claim that Marr is in an important sense a supporter of Gibsonian naturalism. In Marr, as well as in Gibson, the structure of the environment is a factor in psychological explanation, whereas Fodor and classical psychophysics hold that only the physical impact on the sensory surface counts.
Whose Right is it to Define the Self?
Authors: Fisher Harwood
Published: March 2007

Descartes founded the psychology of the individual with a mind! body distinction that calls for internal dialogue and interactive exchange. Individuals struggle with their nature through an intracommunicative system, emanating not from social exchanges, but, instead, from autonomous rules and constraints inherent in the machine of the body. The attacks on these ideas by social constructionists, such as Gergen, Harré and Shotter, impel me to write this paper. My purpose is to show how rejection of Descartes's Cogito; ergo sum, and of his idea that the human being struggles with feelings directed by the body and beliefs formed in the soul, eliminates criteria necessary for concepts of the self and the person. I argue that social constructionist reductions of mind and body to social process disallow a causal basis for self and its autonomously generated origins. The same reductions substitute contextual determination for cause and effect logic, clouding accounts of an individual's choices and decisions and making the attribution of personal moral responsibility impossible. I demonstrate that the bases for maintaining the criteria of self and person flow from the Cartesian tradition, have a wide support among many trenchant thinkers in psychology and remain logically necessary.
Postmodern, Post-Cartesian Positionings on the Subject of Psychology
Authors: Gergen Mary
Published: March 2007

Descartes's philosophical position, founded upon a mind/body dualism, has had a strong influence on psychology. His dualistic system has supported the creation of a discipline in which individuals are viewed both as systems affected by mechanistic bodily emanations and as self-regulating agents replete with self-awareness and the capacity for moral responsibility. The purpose of Harwood Fisher's (1995) paper is to demonstrate that this Cartesian view is crucial to the continuation of a psychological science, which has this form of being as its subject. The major antagonists of these goals are those involved in the postmodern move in psychology, and he focuses especially on the work of Kenneth Gergen, Rom Harré and John Shotter. My attempt here is to expose the manner in which Fisher masks his desire as reason, and to invite him to accept his desires as a foundationless, a priori commitment. Further I contend that possibilities other than chaos among faceless automatons can result from the erasure of the Cartesian legacy from psychological theory. On the contrary, my feminist postmodern reframing holds that a system that enforces a hierarchy within which the rational (mind/soul) elements are designated as the masters of the inferior body (emotions) reproduces the male/female dichotomy. This polarity, a hallmark of patriarchal history, is deeply problematic from the position of postmodern feminism. Finally I pose the possibility of relational selves as an alternative to the Cartesian self as the subject of psychology.
Speaking Subjects, Discursive Worlds
Authors: Morgan Mandy
Published: March 2007

Discourse and Social Psychology by Jonathan Potter and Margaret Wetherell has been an influential text in recent developments in social psychology. This paper examines certain aspects of the book's `linguistic resources'-though it does not use a discourse analytic approach and is neither a review nor a critique. Instead, through fragmentary readings informed by recent feminist writings, the paper raises questions about the `specific reality' (Potter & Wetherell, 1987, p. 2) constructed in and through the text. Particular attention is paid to binary oppositions which are implicated in Potter and Wetherell's textual worlding—reality and representation, inner and outer worlds, nature and culture. The paper attempts not to expose `errors' or offer solutions to controversial issues but to suggest problematics which emerge from this construction of a particular discursive `world'.
Towards Europeanization of Collective Bargaining?: Insights from the European Chemical Industry
Authors: Le Queux Stéphane , Fajertag Giuseppe
Published: March 2007

Trade unionists and academic experts increasingly support the view that European Industry Federations should take a leading role in the Europeanization of collective bargaining. This article investigates whether this is a plausible prospect for the European chemical industry. Drawing on collaborative research between the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) and the European Mine, Chemical and Energy Workers Federation (EMCEF), the article presents a comparative synopsis of industrial relations in five European countries, including recent strategic developments at EMCEF level. The study confirms the importance of national resources and steering power at sector level, especially in relation to monitoring decentralized flexibility. However, despite growing interest in transnational labour cooperation, the conclusion is that progress towards Europeanization is so far modest. More attention in the research agenda, it is then argued, should be directed to how transnational collective bargaining can be achieved.
A European Solidaristic Wage Policy?
Authors: Schulten Thorsten
Published: March 2007

In the first postwar decades, unions in many western European countries were able to implement solidaristic wage policies, with pay increasing in line with productivity and a significant reduction in differentials. Since the 1980s, however, wage policy has become increasingly competition oriented, involving pay restraint and increased inequality. This article analyses the concept of solidaristic wage policy, describes how it has been beset by crisis, and discusses its possible reconstruction at European level.
Institutional Limits to the Internalization of Work Systems: A Comparative Study of Three Japanese Multinational Companies in the UK
Authors: Saka Ayse
Published: March 2007

This study adopts a multilevel comparative approach to investigating the degree to which Japanese work systems are implemented and internalized in the UK business system. The focus is on the limits to accepting the continuous improvement schemes of Japanese multinational corporations. The article addresses national and local institutional factors and firm-level organizational factors affecting implementation and internalization. Using case studies of the adoption of Japanese work systems in two UK subsidiaries and in an Anglo-Japanese technical collaboration, it concludes that firms face a double barrier to the internalization of work systems in the form of, first, institutional embeddedness at national and local level, and second, embeddedness of tacit work systems at firm level. Firms attempt locally to interpret work systems transferred from the source company.
Industrial Relations in Europe and North America: Some Contemporary Themes
Authors: Adams Roy J.
Published: March 2007

In North America as in Europe, the `Great Recession' of the early 1980s has had an enduring impact on industrial relations. Despite superficial similarities, however, there have been important differences in the extent to which industrial relations institutions in the two continents have been able to accommodate the challenges. The author considers these differences with respect to four themes: Japanization, supranational economic integration, decentralization of collective bargaining and trade union decline. He concludes by discussing the implications for the academic study of industrial relations.
Voluntary European Works Councils
Authors: Rivest Chantal
Published: March 2007

This article analyses the 59 agreements establishing voluntary European Works Councils (EWCs) during the decade up to September 1995. Originally confined to companies based in France, and later also Germany, the geographical coverage has now widened. However, EWCs remain concentrated in a small number of sectors. This may reflect the distinctive strategies of specific international trade union organizations, which are signatories of almost half the agreements. The article considers the implications of the characteristics of these agreements for the likely development of EWCs once the directive adopted by the European Union in 1994 comes into effect.
Converging on Conflict? A Further Comment on Warhurst
Authors: Gall Gregor
Published: March 2007

This comment raises criticisms of the article by Warhurst (1995) which previously appeared in this journal, and also of the response by Blyton and Turnbull (1996). It is argued that both discussions of industrial relations in the European airline industry fail to stress sufficiently the rise in industrial conflict which stems from the economizing strategies of company managements.
The Europeanization of Labour: Structure before Action
Authors: Turner Lowell
Published: March 2007

At national level, the development of effective labour movements has involved the interaction of two processes: the establishment of formal organizational structures, and the rise of rank-and-file pressure and protest. At European level, recent years have seen significant organizational developments; this article discusses the role of the European Trade Union Confederation and the emergent European Works Councils. As yet, however, there has been no parallel evidence of transnational labour protest, and indeed the obstacles are considerable. Nevertheless, institutional frameworks may create a `political opportunity structure' which facilitates its emergence.
Institutional Theory and Economic Transformation: Enterprise Employment Relations in Bulgaria
Authors: Hill Stephen , Martin Roderick , Vidinova Anna
Published: March 2007

This article employs institutional theory to analyse the remodelling of employment relations after the transformation from socialism to a market-based economy. Such transformation is subject to constraints deriving from institutional legacies which include both structures and ideational forces, and which create path dependence. We report empirical research on employment relations within Bulgarian enterprises, and show how path dependency has interacted with intentional design. We identify the structural and cultural residues that mould post-socialist employment relations. The result is a system of industrial relations that combines conscious redesign along a continental European model of corporatist interest representation and collective bargaining with institutional residues from socialism which have themselves mutated with the collapse of traditional institutional structures after the revolution.
Affecting the Future
Authors: Hellström Christina
Published: March 2007

The aim of this qualitative study was to investigate chronic pain patients' perceptions of the pain-future relation, more specifically, of the way such perceptions affect: (1) well-being and coping; (2) psychosocial organization/adaptation; and (3) experienced agency in a clinical context. In-depth interviews with 18 chronic pain patients were conducted in order to generate categories describing the influence of chronic pain on the patient's perception of the future. The analysis resulted in six general conceptual patterns: diagnosis - `a signpost' to the future; changes in prospective thinking and feeling; `frozen futures'; changed strategies for coping with the future; perceived degree of agency; and approaches to handling conflicts in a clinical setting. The results call for more `time empathy' in patient-doctor encounters.
Hospital Discharge and the Temporal Regulation of Bodies
Authors: Heaton Janet
Published: March 2007

This article explores the temporal interface between hospital and home-based regimes of care, focusing on patients' discharge home from specialist care units. Following an outline of the temporal imperatives that distinguish hospital discharge policy in the UK, secondary analysis of qualitative data is used to examine the temporal organization of discharge procedures and patients' and informal carers' experiences of the transfer of care from hospital to home. Tensions in the institutional time frames of hospital and community-based services and the everyday time frames of patients and carers are highlighted, together with the implications for policy and practice in this area.
Political Time
Authors: Miller Donald F.
Published: March 2007

Political time is the timing of our affairs; the union of an event with its time and place; the particular context of our actions, each one seemingly unique. To cope with chance; to grab an opportunity or to be thrown by the unexpected. Some events are timely, others untimely: the physiology and psychology of timing. The implications of this for our behaviour cast a novel light on certain necessary qualities of our politics—in its broadest setting. Yet, how determined is a chance timing? Do we need a new human science somewhere between the conventional mathesis universalis and a mathesis singularis (Barthes)?
Time and Strategic Action
Authors: Hay Michael , Usunier Jean-Claude
Published: March 2007

A business organization's sense of time is revealed through action and, specifically, through its approach to strategic planning. This paper presents a way of analysing an organization's temporal identity. We develop a framework showing the levels of strategic planning and their cross-cultural variability, especially in relation to Japanese temporal culture (Makimono time). The example of the strategies pursued by international banks originating from the US, the UK, Germany and Japan illustrates how a strategic time perspective is a reflection of the temporal cognitive styles prevailing in a particular culture. We further show the influence exerted by the constituencies to which an organization is beholden, the definition of performance criteria and their reinforcement through human resource management policies.
A Temporal Approach to the Relationship between Education and Generation
Authors: Schuller Tom
Published: March 2007

This paper begins by setting out the demographic context within which there is a growing interest in older people and their social role. The notion of generation is briefly considered, and then related to McTaggart's philosophy of time. Next, the paper moves on to discuss how education affects intergenerational relations, dealing first with the question of equality between generations, and secondly with ways in which generations affect each other's learning. Evidence is presented from a recent policy study conducted for the Carnegie Inquiry into the Third Age. The discussion stresses the relevance of a temporal approach to analyses of the distribution of educational opportunity, and to issues of motivation and achievement in education.
Spacing Times, Telling Times and Narrating the Past
Authors: Crang Mike
Published: March 2007

This paper takes one institution, the museum, and suggests how this institution organizes understandings of time. Museums are seen as actively organizing practices that sustain certain views of the world. The paper takes a single case study to illustrate how such practices may be currently organized. It suggests that while analysis of cultural grammar may be illuminating, a narratological perspective is required in order to analyse practices in modern museums. Thus it is suggested that studies of narrativity may shed some light on contemporary understandings of temporality.
`When Discourse is Torn from Reality'
Authors: Allan Stuart
Published: March 2007

The aim of this article is to secure the basis for an interdisciplinary critique of Bakhtin's notion of the `chronotope' (`time-space') and to argue for its relevance to several different research agendas within time studies. First, the article outlines the contours of Bakhtin's dialogical approach to language and its implications for theorizing a text's ontological assumptions regarding time and space. Second, the concept of the `chronotope' is addressed by prioritizing for discussion its advantages as a heuristic device. Next, three specific chronotopes are described, followed by an evaluative appraisal of the resultant `principle of chronotopicity'. Finally, the article concludes with a series of suggestions regarding the future refinement of this approach for alternative applications in time studies.
Second Nature once Removed
Authors: Bowker Geoffrey C.
Published: March 2007

Taking the example of large-scale technological and organizational change in the nineteenth century, it is argued that time and space are reconfigured socially by infrastructural change, and that these reconfigurations are then mirrored in cultural and scientific texts. The key claim is that organization and technology need to be looked at together: dropping out one or the other prevents the uncovering of causal links.
Toys and Time
Authors: Cross Gary
Published: March 2007

Toys, as conveyers of meaning between parents and their children, reveal interesting changes in adult attitudes toward seasonal celebrations, rites of passage, and feelings about the past and future. From about 1900, changes in the economic roles of children and parental emotional responses to the young made toys especially important repositories of temporal meanings. While American manufacturers accommodated parents with toys that met their ambiguous feelings about change, by the 1930s toymakers began to respond to children's quite different understandings of time with playthings built around fantasy and celebrity.
`The Millennium Time Bomb' or Year 2000 Problem: What Problem? Whose Problem?
Authors: Schwaller Caroline
Published: March 2007

The meaning of time in modernity as a conventional metaphor instantiated in technology is made visible and problematized by the phenomenon of the so-called `Millennium Time Bomb' (MTB) which is both a vehicle for social change and a process for social study. The MTB is created by the two-digit representation of the year in hardware, software and embedded chips potentially resulting in widespread failure of computerized systems in the Year 2000. Technology is the driving force behind social change as modern societies in which knowledge is power increasingly rely upon interdependent computers to effect rapid transfer of information. Empirical data are drawn from local case studies and media publications to describe and analyse the research problem. A tentative method is put forward for researching the range of problems encountered; the role of the social scientist as change agent is also investigated.
Inner Time and Social Time in a World of Uncertainty
Authors: Melucci Alberto
Published: March 2007

This article discusses how inner rhythms and social roles can be kept together and how to pass from one to another without breaking the unity and continuity of one's identity. The author first outlines some of the paradoxes that a complex society based on information creates in the experience of time. He then analyses how the opposition of inner rhythms and social rhythms in everyday life leads to new pressures on personal identity and social organization, and considers how to cope with the fragmentation and multiplication of times. The ability to change in the present by preserving the continuity and the boundaries of one's existence is the challenge faced by contemporary individuals, but this new situation makes time a locus of social conflicts, where individual experience transforms itself into a social energy for change.
Legality Versus Legitimacy: Humanitarian Intervention, the Security Council, and the Rule of Law
Authors: CHESTERMAN SIMON
Published: March 2007

This article sketches out the nature of legal responses to humanitarian intervention in general and the Kosovo intervention in particular, with particular attention given to arguments that were not made. Though some possible arguments appear to have been omitted through oversight, the nature of the discussion suggests a view of international law as one policy justification among others. These debates are then situated in a broader historical context by drawing parallels between the current international framwork and earlier historical periods in which no body comparable to the Security Council existed. It is argued that developments since the end of the Cold War, and in the past few years in particular, suggest a reversion to pre-Charter paradigms, where the council exists merely to advise member-states and international order is contingent, once more, on the goodwill of the powerful. The reluctance of the Great Powers to submit themselves to law may yet have a more lasting effect on the international order than NATO's decision to wage war on behalf of the Kosovo Albanians.
Tourism, Place Identities and Social Relations in the European Rural Periphery
Authors: Kneafsey Moya
Published: March 2007

Rural areas in many peripheral areas of Europe have turned to tourism as an alternative development strategy in the face of changes to the agricultural food production system. Particularly in more remote and less agriculturally viable areas, national and European-level policies have often concentrated on trying to encourage ‘bottom-up’ development revolving around the commodification of local cultural resources or ‘knowledges’. The extent to which this occurs, however, varies between places. The aim in this article is to use case-study evidence from two peripheral rural locations in Europe to explore why these variations occur. It is argued that the extent to which tourism is adopted or rejected by actors within rural places is determined by the unique configurations of historically layered and newer social relations which intersect within and between such places. These configurations shape the contested ways in which local knowledges are valorized and contribute to the existence of multiple senses of place identity. Qualitative methods, it is suggested, can lead to a more nuanced understanding of the complex ways in which such identities are constructed, and, in turn, to a deeper appreciation of the factors which promote or hinder tourism development at the local level.
How Many Europes?
Authors: Agnew John
Published: March 2007

Eastward enlargement of the European Union (EU) is rarely discussed in terms of the organizational and ideological condition of the existing Union. In this paper the debate over eastern enlargement is related directly to a shift within the EU from a dual focus on global economic competitiveness and the compensation of lagging regions to an increasingly singular focus on European competitiveness. Seen in this light, the goal of a single Europe with relatively similar levels of development everywhere is being replaced by an emerging threefold division of the continent into a ‘core’ Europe (itself increasingly differentiated across policy areas), a ‘peripheral’ Europe of potential eastern members perpetually on the road to full membership, and an ‘external’ Europe excluded from membership but open to use by businesses from the core. This geographical taxonomy rests on the growing reliance of the EU on a neo-liberal economic ideology that sees uneven development within Europe as helping the global competitiveness of the EU as a whole, using the model of the United States as its inspiration.
The Europeanization of Brussels and the Urbanization of ‘Europe’
Authors: Baeten Guy
Published: March 2007

Regeneration practices in the EU district in Brussels clearly reveal how a mismatch has grown between Brussels’ economic and cultural globalization and its political-institutional parochialization. Brussels’ global mission is being inserted into well-tested local formats of urban governance that have existed throughout the postwar period. Local powerbrokers continue to form remarkable economic growth coalitions that are successfully manoeuvring through obstacles that would prevent them from cashing in on Brussels’ internationalized economy through property development. Any government strategy that would deal with the rapid internationalization of Brussels and the EU district - socially, economically, culturally or politically - is simply absent. Important segments of Brussels’ social fabric are excluded from participation in public political and cultural life. Meanwhile, the success of extreme right-wing parties - which are fiercely contesting the multiculturalization of Brussels - has risen to alarming levels, while different cultural groups in Brussels are de facto generating hybridized cultural expressions which might form the base of a new modus vivendi of community, citizenship, economy and politics.
Industrial Mass Production and Regional Differentiation in Hungary
Authors: Kiss János Péter
Published: March 2007

This paper focuses on the issue of spatial differentiation stimulated by dissimilarities in the economic structure of regions/settlements. After the transition period, two distinct models of economic revival and development emerged in Hungary. One, embodied by Budapest, is that prosperity rests on the tertiary sector. However, industrial output outweighs all other economic indices in regional differentiation in the remainder of the country, as a consequence of the investment strategies of multinational companies. The main factors, agents and impacts on regional differentiation in this non-knowledge-based economic development model are revealed.
Living with a Chronic Disease: Healing and Psychological Adjustment in Indian Society
Authors: Dalal Ajit K.
Published: March 2007

This paper examines the relationship between cultural beliefs about illness and psychological adjustment to a chronic disease. The findings of five studies were metaanalysed. In all these studies hospital patients suffering from various types of health problems were interviewed at different points in time and measures were used to assess their psychological adjustment. The findings revealed that patients' in Indian hospitals consistently attributed their illness to karma and God's will. These cosmic beliefs were found to influence patients' treatment re lated decisions. However, no consistent linkages were unravelled between pa tients' illness beliefs and their psychological adjustment. It was conjectured that these cosmic beliefs acquire different symbolic meaning when illness and social context change. The paper argues for an integrated health care system combin ing the strengths of traditional healing and biomedical practices.
Life Satisfaction of Indian Immigrants in Canada
Authors: Vohra Neharika , Adair John
Published: March 2007

It is a common conception that immigrants face numerous problems and considerable stress in the process of adjustment to a new culture. The life satisfaction of immigrants from India was assessed using the Satisfaction With Life Scale (Diener et al., 1985). As predicted by judgment theory (Micholas, 1986), it was found that Indian immigrants judge their own well-being in comparison to relevant others, such as their peers back home, the majority white community in Canada and other Indian immigrants. Their satisfaction was also predicted by the discrepancy between what they have in Canada and what they feel they could have had if they had stayed in India, with respect to raising children, freedom in making day-to-day decisions, opportunity to realise personal goals and amount of respect. Life satisfaction was correlated with perceived discrimination, guilt over leaving the country of birth and perception of social support, but not with education, socio-economic status, or perception of day-to-day comforts.