bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Early warning: the role of market on entrepreneurial alertness
Authors: Ghasemi Bahare , Rowshan Aligholi
Published: January 2020

Given the growth and role of entrepreneurship today, it is becoming increasinglyimportant to understand how new entrepreneurial opportunities get developed. Discussions of the emergence of new entrepreneurial opportunities often include “eureka” moments, but our understanding of how new opportunities get brought forward is limited. We attribute the difference to a loosely defined quality that Kirzner called “entrepreneurial alertness”. Other market actors do not have the responsibility to create innovative market opportunities although they do have an obligation to consider such opportunities once they are available in the marketplace. Consequently, understanding the opportunity identification processrepresents one of the core intellectual questions for the domain of entrepreneurship. So the question of this paper is how are market environments represented and interpreted in the mind of the entrepreneur such that opportunity identification occurs? and what factors impress on it? To achieve this goal we distribute questionnaires between 115 M.A. students from Economics and Management college of University of Sistan & Baluchestan for the years2012 and 2013. Analysis was done by correlation test. Results showed that there is a significant relationship between market disequilibrium, accuracy vs. timeliness, schema complexity, counterfactual thinking, frame-breaking and sensitivity to profit potential and student’s entrepreneurial alertness; but the relationship between ignorance of new resource and excessive optimism or pessimism about resource and student’s entrepreneurial alertness was not significant.
Cross-cultural strategic intelligence solutions for leveraging open innovation opportunities
Authors: Capatina Alexandru , Bleoju Gianita , Yamazakib Kiyohiro amazakib , Nistor Rozalia
Published: January 2020

Although the concept of open innovation has become widely discussed by scholarsand practitioners, few cross-cultural studies focus on the assessment of companies’ behaviourstowards “not invented here” and “not sold here” syndromes. The purpose of this paper is toinvestigate the profiles of Japanese and Romanian companies operating in two fields, IT andmanufacturing, from the open innovation perspective. The goal of this study is therefore toprovide comprehensive empirical evidence for the adoption of inbound and outbound openinnovation activities in the companies from these two target countries. Data from a sample ofJapanese companies and Romanian companies were used to test two hypotheses on openinnovation behaviour, in the context of a cross-cultural comparative approach. The results showthat technology isolationists are more frequently found among the Romanian companies(especially in the manufacturing field), than the Japanese companies, which can be explainedby the fact that Japanese firms are mainly based on leading innovative technologies, whileRomanian firms are early adopters of the advanced technologies, due to the economiccircumstances. Japanese companies included in the sample are defined as technology fountains,followed by technology brokers, proving their appetite for outbound open innovation. In thiscontext, strategic intelligence solutions, once performed in collaborative culture environments,will lead to the improvement of the partners’ managerial competences and will act as enablersfor competitive positioning, proving the added-value of the acquired know-how through openinnovation practices.
Business intelligence evaluation model in enterprise systems using fuzzy PROMETHEE
Authors: Maadi Mansoureh , Javidnia Mohammad , Khatami Malihe
Published: January 2020

In this paper, a new model to evaluate business intelligence (BI) for enterprisesystems is presented. Evaluation of BI before making decisions about buying and deploymentcan be an important decision support system for managers in organizations. In this paper, asimple and practical method is presented that evaluates BI for enterprise systems. In this way,after reviewing different papers in the literature, 34 criteria for BI specifications aredetermined, and then by applying fuzzy PROMETHEE, different enterprise systems areranked. To continue to assess the proposed model and as a case study, five enterprise systemswere selected and ranked using the proposed model. The advantages of PROMETHEE overother multi-criteria decision making methods and the use of fuzzy theory to deal withuncertainty in decision making is assessed and it is found that the proposed model can be auseful and applied method to help managers make decisions in organizations.
Economic and industrial espionage at the start of the 21st century – Status quaestionis
Authors: Solberg Søilen Klaus
Published: January 2020

This article is a literature review where the aim is to define a status quaestionisfor the field of economic and industrial espionage. History shows how those who engage in theseactivities often are the scientifically and industrially weaker party, the party that is learning ortrying to catch up. On a global scale economic and industrial espionage can be seen as a form ofinvoluntarily sharing that has a series of positive results for economic development. On thescale of the individual businesses attacked, and for tax authorities in those countries, it is atroublesome phenomenon that must be regulated and punished. Governments must preparesociety for systematic and frequent cyberattacks. Private companies are wise to move to strictersecurity controls, which must include encryption. A number of specific research projects aresuggested throughout the article. In the literature we have identified the following agentmotives: the employee who needs money, has split loyalties, leaves angry, the occasional thieveand the professional spy.
Business intelligence, big data and theory
Authors: Söilen Klaus Solberg
Published: January 2020

Again, the articles for this issue are mostly about the application of new technology and about business intelligence, reflecting a strong development in corporations. The only exception is the first article, which is purely theoretical.The contribution by Søilen, entitled “When the social sciences are based in evolutionary theory: the example of geoeconomics and intelligence studies,” is a theoretical article. It argues for why it was wrong to make the study of physics the model for the new social sciences after the Second World War.Moreover, it describes how this was done for the study of economics and how new studies like geoeconomics and intelligence studies have an advantage in this sense, and that a fresh look at theory is easier in these cases.Hughes, in his article “A new model for identifying emerging technologies,” argues for the relevance of the intelligence expert despite the increase in new complexities required for understanding an industry, but he also emphasizes the importance for the analyst to learn more about big data. Our technologicalsystems are still ineffective at knowing the relevant data sources and how to connect the data in meaningful ways to derive value for the firm, but their importance is increasing. The author proposes a new forecasting model that incorporates a combination of technology sequencing analysis and big datatools within the organization while also leveraging experts from across the open innovation spectrum. Salguero et al., in the article “Proposal of an assessment scale in competitive intelligence applied to touristic sector,” present a mathematical CI model to be applied in the tourism sector, specifically forhotels. The model is also tested and fine-tuned, proving to have value for the CI function. The authors also present an extensive literature review.The extensive article by García and Pinzón, “Key success factors to business intelligence solutions implementation,” builds on previous literature published in this journal, such as Cidrin and Adamala (2011) and takes as a starting point the high number of BI projects that fail. The authors identify 13 factors that affect business intelligence solution success. The final article, by Papachristodoulou et al., “Business intelligence and SMEs: Bridging the gap,” talks at great length about the problem of implementing BI in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It shows how new products have changed to adapt to a new sector of customers.
Business intelligence and SMEs: Bridging the gap
Authors: Papachristodoulou Ekavi , Koutsaki Margarita , Kirkos Efstathios
Published: January 2020

According to research findings, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are facing problems such as an excessively large volume of data, lack of information and lack of knowledge. Therefore, in order to make decisions on time, the managers of SMEs use mainly their experience, which implies a high risk of failure. Business intelligence (BI) is a useful and helpful tool, which brings many advantages and benefits to businesses. However, like any technology, it is accompanied by some limitations that must be overcome in order to help businesses to develop. This paper summarizes current research findings addressing the issue of the development and application of business intelligence systems for SMEs. The issues addressed are models for the estimation of the readiness of a SME to establish BI tools, alternative BI solutions for SMEs, benefits and challenges of BI in SMEs, implementation methods for BI systems in SMEs and finally, BI systems in cloud computing platforms. Research papers dealing with these issues are analyzed and the results are presented. This paper contributes to the understanding of problems and potentials regarding the development and application of BI systems in SMEs.
Patent bibliometrics and its use for technology watch
Authors: Jürgens Björn , Herrero-Solana Victor
Published: January 2020

Technology watch is a methodology for organisations to systematically analyze technical information in a continuous way in order to gain insight and competitive advantage in a specific technical domain and is based mainly on statistical analysis of patent information. Patent statistics are commonly based on bibliographic data and generated with bibliometric techniques. In this paper we describe the differences between patent bibliometrics and classic bibliometrics and propose several patent indicators for technology watch activities which we classified into four categories: performance, technology, patent value and collaboration indicators. In a case study we undertook a bibliometric patent analysis using the described groups of indicators in order to generate a technology watch of nanotechnology for the domain of a whole country (Spain) and explained the different data visualizations we used in order to represent the indicators. We conclude that statistical analysis of patent information and its visualization is a powerful methodology for any competitive intelligence activity centred on technology but there are also some limitations to bear in mind when undertaking technology watch activities using patent information discussed in terms of its timeliness, patentability criteria, sector dependence, quantity vs. quality.
Integration of business intelligence with corporate strategic management
Authors: Calof Jonathan , Richards Greg , Santilli Paul
Published: January 2020

The traditional model of competitive intelligence and its operationalization in most organizations appears to be inadequate to address the intelligence challenges arising from the speed of change in the environment, increasing data complexity, and growth of international activities. To address this challenge, this article borrows concepts from open innovation, applying them to all CI activities. We are suggesting going beyond the traditional model of an in-house CI unit with activities largely conducted by the units personnel and moving towards a cross pollination approach whereby others in the firm contribute to all CI activities including, for example, the selection of key intelligence topics and being involved in analysis and eventually towards a full open intelligence model in which key stakeholders and external experts also assist the organization in all aspects of competitive intelligence activity. In proposing a more open approach for intelligence, the authors recognize the concern that CI professionals will have regarding sharing intelligence and intelligence activities outside the CI unit and outside the organization. However, as pointed out in this article, organizations around the world have been moving quickly towards an open innovation model generally concluding that the benefits associated with opening up all elements of the innovation process, including R&D, outweigh the risks of intellectual property loss.
Israeli start-ups – especially in cyber security: Can a new model enhance their survival rate?
Authors: Barnea Avner
Published: January 2020

Start-up companies are the fastest growing business in Israel. However, half of them do not last through their fourth year. This paper looks into the issue of the power of Israeli start-ups to survive and to become successful companies. The challenge is to seek new directions, which will help this sector to change this disappointing course. The start-up sector has a significant contribution to the strength of the Israeli economy which leans on its intellectual resources. Based on my continuing consulting in implementing competitive intelligence to local Israeli start-ups and further research that I have done by following closely the added value of developing capabilities, which enable better understanding of the external environment, I have found that one of the main causes of the high percentage of failures of Israeli start-ups is the difficulties in comprehending the competitive landscape, which has a significant contribution to making them less competitive. By using a new model, the competitive review model, which considers the special attributes of start-ups, especially in cyber security, this kind of small company can be better prepared for intense competition. This is in addition to the Lean start-up model, which is not executed in this segment in Israel and faces serious resistance based mainly on opposition to unfamiliar input. Based on combining the new competitive review model with existing analytical models, a few local start-ups' executives have already matured by awareness about the value of sensing the external environment, which have the potential to change the course of at least some of the Israeli start-ups and increase the success rate for this sector.
The disciplines of management and IT have indeed merged: new empirical data
Authors: Søilen Klaus Solberg
Published: January 2020

Advancement in the intelligence field can only be achieved through new observations and the presentation of new empirical data. This is a continuous process and includes how we as employees engage with software and technical solutions. Just as it is impossible to teach or learn anything in marketing today without a deep understanding of digital marketing, in the same way is it impossible to make advancements in intelligence studies without first-hand experience with business intelligence software and new IT-equipment. Management and IT have indeed merged. This understanding has been an integrated part of JISIB since the journal started some eight years ago. And as always, we are less interested in how new technologies are developed (for that there are excellent technical journals) than about the management practice of these developments.  This issue follows very much on this track.
Social business intelligence: Review and research directions
Authors: Gioti Helena , Ponis Stavros T. , Panayiotou Nikolaos
Published: January 2020

Social business intelligence (SBI) is a rather novel discipline, emerged in the academic and business literature as a result of the convergence of two distinct research domains: business intelligence (BI) and social media. Traditional BI scientists and practitioners, after an inevitable initial shock, are currently discovering and acknowledge the potential of user generated content (UGD) published in social media as an invaluable and inexhaustible source of information capable of supporting a wide range of business activities. The confluence of these two emerging domains is already producing new added value organizational processes and enhanced business capabilities utilized by companies all over the world to effectively harness social media data and analyze them in order to produce added value information such as customer profiles and demographics, search habits, and social behaviors. Currently the SBI domain is largely uncharted, characterized by controversial definitions of terms and concepts, fragmented and isolated research efforts, obstacles created by proprietary data, systems and technologies that are not mature yet. This paper aspires to be one of the few -to our knowledge- contemporary efforts to explore the SBI scientific field, clarify definitions and concepts, structure the documented research efforts in the area and finally formulate an agenda of future research based on the identification of current research shortcomings and limitations.
Investigating the competitive intelligence practices of Peruvian fresh grapes exporters
Authors: Bisson Christophe , Tang Tong Maria Mercedes
Published: January 2020

This paper reports an empirical study of Peruvian fresh grapes exporters with the aim of delineating the behavioral and operational typology of their competitive intelligence practices. Cluster analysis was used as an exploratory tool to determine the correlation, if any, between the size of the company, grapes exports share of total exports, the percentage of the Red Globe variety in total grapes exports and the size of the grape farm with the typology and the average price received at export between August 2016 and July 2017. The behavioral and operational typology of competitive intelligence practices model, developed by Wright et al, (2012), was used. The findings reveal that exporters have a positive behavior towards competitive intelligence practices, but cannot make good use of them due to a lack of knowledge, and deficiencies in organization and in technological and IT systems support. As 37 companies participated in this experiment, this study could be extended to all non-traditional Peruvian agricultural exports. It has been possible to identify areas where changes are needed to enable these exporters to perform at a higher level of competence. In addition, it appeared that a slightly higher level of attitude and IT systems support pays off as medium-sized companies achieved a higher price per ton compared to big companies. This study is the first to present a typology of competitive intelligence practices in Peru and is one of the very first to study competitive intelligence in this country and agriculture.
Business intelligence for social media interaction in the travel industry in Indonesia
Authors: Yulianto Michael , Girsang Abba Suganda , Rumagit Reinert Yosua
Published: January 2020

Electronic ticket (eticket) provider services are growing fast in Indonesia, making the competition between companies increasingly intense. Moreover, most of them have the same service or feature for serving their customers. To get back the feedback of their customers, many companies use social media (Facebook and Twitter) for marketing activity or communicating directly with their customers. The development of current technology allows the company to take data from social media. Thus, many companies take social media data for analyses. This study proposed developing a data warehouse to analyze data in social media such as likes, comments, and sentiment. Since the sentiment is not provided directly from social media data, this study uses lexicon based classification to categorize the sentiment of users’ comments. This data warehouse provides business intelligence to see the performance of the company based on their social media data. The data warehouse is built using three travel companies in Indonesia. As a result, this data warehouse provides the comparison of the performance based on the social media data.
Why you should be interested in intelligence studies
Authors: Søilen Klaus Solberg
Published: January 2020

In this issue most articles are reflections (bibliometrics, scientometrics) on what has been done in intelligence studies in business (IS) and more particularly in competitive intelligence (CI) and business intelligence (BI), so some reflections and analysis on the subject proper seems to be appropriate for these notes.
Almost all articles in IS (CI, competitor intelligence, market intelligence (MI), BI, and competitive technical intelligence (CTI)) are empirical contributions that show how to work more effectively with need to know information in business. Authors submit empirical articles that solve new and specific problems. It can be a new method, the introduction of a new model or the application of some new technology.
Characterizing business intelligence tasks, use and users in the workplace
Authors: Svarre Tanja , Gaardboe Rikke
Published: January 2020

This paper investigates business intelligence (BI) tasks, use and users in a workplace setting. The study reports on a mixed methods study of users in three different types of organisations employing BI. 1052 respondents answered a survey and 15 individual and 3 group interviews were conducted to elaborate on the survey results. The study finds that the majority of public BI users are employees, and fewer managers and students, that are handling a variety of tasks. Although they can experience challenges learning and using the BI system, they are still satisfied with it from different perspectives.
Developing new models for intelligence studies
Authors: Søilen Klaus Solberg
Published: January 2020

The aim of any social science to develop theories and/or models to better understand the business reality. We are happy to see that a majority of contributions this time do exactly that. The first article by Nuortimo is entitled “Exploring new ways to utilise market intelligence (MI) function in corporate decisions: Case opinion mining of nuclear power”. It is an in-depth case study about the monitoring of technology sentiment based on business environment scanning. Results show how media sentiment towards nuclear power has been mostly negative, particularly in social media. However, results from similar analyses of the image for the companies currently deploying these technology are less negative, suggesting the importance of companies’ communication and branding activities. The paper shows how technology’s media sentiment can influence a company’s brand image and marketing communications. It concludes that there is a need for better co-operation between different corporate functions, namely technology management, MI, and marketing and strategic planning. The second paper, by Bleoju and Capatina, entitled “Enhancing competitive response to market challenges with a Strategic Intelligence maturity model” shows a way to gain robustness in confronting unexpected events in real markets by adopting a wider unstructured learning perspective with the help of maturity assessment tools. This helps to pool strategic intelligence skills. The theoretical contribution is called the Strategic Intelligence Capability Maturity Model. The article by Solberg Söilen is entitled “How managers stay informed about the surrounding world”. It’s a survey of managers and knowledge workers to find out exactly what sources of information they gather to help their organization stay competitive. Conclusions from the data are drawn and a model presented that brings together previous theory with new empirical findings. The first issue of 2019 was delayed primarily due to the journal’s involvement as co-sponsor of the ICI Conference in Luxembourg in May. As always, we would above all like to thank the authors for their contributions to this issue of JISIB. Thanks to Dr. Allison Perrigo for reviewing English grammar and helping with layout design for all articles and to the Swedish Research Council for continuous financial support. We hope to see as many as possible at the ICI Conference in Bad Nauheim in May, 2020. On behalf of the Editorial Board, Sincerely Yours, A list of authors relevant contributions are included.
Exploring new ways to utilise the market intelligence (MI) function in corporate decisions: Case opinion mining of nuclear power
Authors: Petteri Nuortimo Kalle , Härkönen Janne
Published: January 2020

The challenge in today’s corporations is that even though the technology portfolio of a company plays a crucial role in delivering revenue—falling as a topic mainly under the area of technology management—technology may have a negative image due to observed risks or failing the sustainability criteria. It may influence the company’s image and brand image, possibly also influencing decisions at corporate level. The monitoring of technology sentiments is therefore emphasized, benefiting from the advanced methods for business environment scanning, namely market and competitor intelligence functions. This paper utilizes a new big data based method, mostly utilized in market(MI)/competitor intelligence(CI) functions of the company, opinion mining, to analyse the global media sentiment of nuclear power and projects deploying the technology. With this approach, it is easier to understand the linkage to corporate images of companies deploying the technology and also related corporate decisions, mainly done in the areas of technology market deployment, marketing and strategic planning. The results indicate how the media sentiment towards nuclear power has been mostly negative globally, particularly in social media. In addition, results from similar analyses from a single company’s images for the companies currently deploying the technology are seemingly less negative, indicating the influence of company’s communication and branding activities. This paper has implications showing that a technology’s media sentiment can influence a company’s brand image, marketing communications and the need for actions when technology is deployed. In conclusion, there seems to be a need for better co-operation between different corporate functions, namely technology management, MI, marketing and strategic planning, in order to indicate technology image impacts and also counteract firestorms from social media.
Collective intelligence process to interpret weak signals and early warnings
Authors: Almeidaa de Fernando C , Lescab Humbert
Published: January 2020

The treatment of weak signals is identified as a method to identify strategic surprises in a firm’s environment. Many researchers address the problem of anticipation of movements that have an impact on a firm’s environment. Weak signals are considered in some approaches and presented in the literature, but also other methods are explored. This article tries to deepen the discussion of how to treat and interpret weak signals collected in a firm’s environment. The concept of a weak signal is explained and the discussion about how to collect and interpret them is presented. Two important aspects are distinguished in the article: the usefulness of information technology in collection and treatment of weak signals and the concept of collective sensemaking in interpreting weak signals. Two cases of weak signal interpretation are presented as illustrations
Business intelligence using the fuzzy-Kano model
Authors: Lamrharia Soumaya , Elghazi Hamid , El Faker Abdellatif
Published: January 2020

Today, understanding customer satisfaction is becoming a difficult and complex task for companies due to the explosive growth of the voice of the customer in online reviews. This has pushed companies to rethink their business strategies and resort to business intelligence techniques in order to help them in analyzing customer requirements and market trends. This paper proposes a decision support framework for dynamically transforming the voice of the customer data into actionable insight. The framework measures the customer satisfaction by extracting key products’ aspects along with customers’ sentiments from online reviews using a text mining technique: the latent Dirichlet allocation approach. We apply the Fuzzy-Kano model to classify the real customer requirements, then, map them dynamically to the SWOT matrix. The proposed approach is extensively tested on an empirical dataset based on several performance metrics including accuracy, precision, recall, and F-score. The reported results showed that latent Dirichlet allocation approach has correctly extracted aspects with 97.4% accuracy and 92.4 % precision.
Using open data and Google search data for competitive intelligence analysis
Authors: Černýa Jan , Potančoka Martin , Molnára Zdeněk
Published: January 2020

Open data are information entities that are of significant importance for many institutions, businesses and even citizens as the part of the digital transformation within many fields in our society. The aim of this paper is to provide a competitive environment analysis method using open source intelligence within the pharmaceutical sector and to design the optimal data structure for this purpose. Firstly, we have described the state-of-the-art of open human medicine data within the European Union with a focus on antidepressants and we have chosen the Czech Republic as the primary research territory for demonstrating competitive intelligence analysis. Secondly, we have identified the competitive intelligence and open source intelligence relationship with a new possible contextual analysis method using open human medicine data and Google Search data. Finally, this paper shows the potential of open deep web data within competitive intelligence activities, together with surface web data entities as a lowcost approach with high intelligence value focused on the pharmaceutical market.
The potential of business intelligence tools for expert finding
Authors: Dadkhaha Mehdi , Lagziana Mohammad , Rahim-niaa Fariborz , Kimiafar Khalil
Published: January 2020

Finding the right experts for data gathering through interview serves as a key for particular research works. However, most expert finding methods in the literature require great deals of technical knowledge, making them somewhat impracticable for business researchers without deep technical knowledge. Accordingly, there is a need for an expert finding solution for researchers without a deep technical background. As business researchers may have knowledge about business intelligence and its tools, the use of business intelligence tools can be used to solve such issue. The present paper discusses the process of using business intelligence tools to find potential experts for example topics. Subsequently, based on a literature review, criteria are presented for distinguishing different experts. Finally, the analytic hierarchy process is discussed for assigning weights to both selection criteria and potential experts. The audience of this paper is researchers who are familiar with business intelligence tools or would like to learn how to work with them
Edward Lear
Authors: Williams James
Published: January 2020

Edward Lear wrote a well-known autobiographical poem that begins “How pleasant to know Mr Lear!” But how well do we really know him? On the one hand he is, in John Ashbery’s words, “one of the most popular poets who ever lived”; on the other hand he has often been overlooked or marginalized by scholars and in literary histories. This book, the first full length critical study of the poet since the 1980s, sets out to re-introduce Lear and to accord him his proper place: as a major Victorian figure of continuing appeal and relevance, and especially as a poet of beauty, comedy, and profound ingenuity. It approaches Lear’s work thematically, tracing some of its most fundamental subjects and situations. Grounded in attentive close readings, it connects Lear’s nonsense poetry with his various other creative endeavours: as a zoological illustrator and landscape painter, a travel writer, and a prolific diarist and correspondent.
Intimate Frontiers: A Literary Geography of the Amazon
Authors: Uriarte Javier , Martínez-Pinzón Felipe
Published: January 2020

The introduction to the book explains the theoretical and historical arguments that articulate the book. Thus, the introduction is composed of four parts that seek to establish lines of reading the different contributions received. We argue that it is necessary to adopt a new perspective to read the Amazon region, in which local, minimal stories / histories are the focus of the analysis. This is one of the connotations that intimacy adopts in our book. The introduction, in fact, explains at length how these different meanings of the intimate (the local, the popular, the homely, the quotidian, and forms of friendship and of sexual intimacies) are presented in the articles reunited in the volume.
Hildebrando Fuentes’s Peruvian Amazon: National Integration and Capital in the Jungle
Authors: Cardemil-Krause Cristóbal
Published: January 2020

In this essay Cardemil-Krauze reconstructs the life and writings of Peruvian politician Hildebrando Fuentes during and after his tenure as mayor (Prefecto) of Iquitos, the most important Amazonian riverine port in Peru. Fuentes’ rarely studied memoirs, Iquitos: Apuntes geográficos (1908) are explored here, exposing the sordid years of the Rubber Boom from the perspective of one of the members of the city’s governing elite. Written contemporaneously with Euclides’ texts, Iquitos attests to Peru’s nationalizing plans for the Amazonian region and its indigenous population. Cardemil-Krauze’s analysis portrays the painful and oftentimes contradictory impulses Fuentes navigates as he tries to negotiate Loretano regionalism (Loreto is an Amazonian department of Peru) with Lima’s centralism, while simultaneously attempting to create a viable state presence in Iquitos.
Contested Frontiers: Territory and Power in Euclides da Cunha’s Amazonian Texts
Authors: Torres Cinthya
Published: January 2020

This essay explores the political and discursive mechanisms Brazilian writer Da Cunha employs to build a historical past for Brazil in the Amazon, while simultaneously discrediting Bolivia and Peru’s territorial demands on the Acre region in Amazonia. Building his argument on boundary-making history, cartographical data, and nationalistic feelings, Torres argues that Da Cunha crafts a compelling case for Brazil’s rightful purchase of Acre and expansion of its frontiers in two ways. Firstly, Da Cunha identifies the value of the Amazon, whether as a political, economic, or even symbolic capital that can be utilized to lay the grounds for a diplomatic defense, and therefore lawfulness of their territorial claims. Secondly, Torres goes on to argue that Da Cunha is aware of the decisive nature of his mission for the mapping of a terrain visited only by local Indians and Peruvian rubber tappers. This consciousness leads him to compose a history for Brazil in the Amazon with the intention of nationalizing the territory; in other words, to turn an abstract and alien place into one concrete narrative in which the uprooted nation is reunited and homogenized under a common and shared identity.
Nostalgia and Mourning in Milton Hatoum’s Órfãos do Eldorado
Authors: Rogers Charlotte
Published: January 2020

This essay explores the long-term implications of sexualized representations of El Dorado. Rogers discusses how Brazilian novelist Milton Hatoum’s Órfãos do Eldorado (Orphans of Eldorado, 2008) contrasts the colonial European depiction of Amazonia as a virgin land of promise with the present exploitation of the region. Her article shows how Hatoum uses the deflowering of Amazonian women as a metaphor for the destruction of an ostensibly virgin territory. The novelist, Rogers argues, employs an ironic nostalgia for the promises of El Dorado as an aesthetic stance in order to debunk the myth of Amazonia as an untouched site of riches. The novel, thus, re-inscribes the search for the utopian city of gold into contemporary literature by displacing the concept of an untapped wilderness of riches onto the virginal bodies of Amazonian women. Hatoum uses the ravaged indigenous female as a metaphor for the increasing urbanization and commodification of the wilderness. Yet rather than exhibiting an uncomplicated nostalgia for a previous historical time, Rogers argues, Orphans of Eldorado conveys a nostalgia for what is now known to be an illusion.
Introduction
Authors: Armstrong Joshua
Published: January 2020

The Introduction sets out the terrain of the book by signifying a key historical turning point in postwar France (and the West more generally): the spatial crisis of globalized capitalism. The effects of this crisis are felt as once familiar, local environments are increasingly de-localized and made porous to global trends and planetary preoccupations. The chapter proposes an initial synthesis of key notions from important thinkers of postmodernity and globalization—including Paul Virilio, Marc Augé, Peter Sloterdijk, and Bruno Latour —in order to develop the parameters of this crisis, which notably entails the destabilizing of senses of place, identity, and belonging. It makes the claim that such preoccupations constitute a fundamental underlying impetus for the contemporary French novel, illustrating this with a brief reading of Jean Rolin’s Les événements [The Events] (2015). Finally, it presents overviews of each chapter, introducing the corpus of eight novels that will be the subject of the book: novels by Michel Houellebecq, Chloé Delaume, Lydie Salvayre, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Virginie Despentes, Philippe Vasset, Jean Rolin, and Marie Darrieussecq.
Absolute Clarity
Authors: Armstrong Joshua
Published: January 2020

This chapter examines Michel Houellebecq’s La carte et le territoire [The Map and the Territory] (2010). In this Prix Goncourt-garnering novel, we see the world through the eyes of artist Jed Martin, who—like his cartography-inspired work—gazes upon the world with an ‘absolute clarity’ of vision. For Houellebecq’s protagonist, the map is ‘more interesting’ than the territory, but cartography is not the only visual paradigm lending its authority to his constructed gaze. I take Jed Martin’s mysterious and overlooked admission that he is above all a ‘television viewer’ as a starting point for an interrogation of the high-definition visual and rhetorical dynamics of Houellebecq’s prose. Ultimately, in this novel, in which Michelin the mapmaker becomes Michelin TV, and in which descriptions of landscapes read like commercials for automobiles, I propose that the true ‘television viewer’ is in fact Houellebecq’s ideal reader. This chapter mobilizes Bruno Latour on cartographic megalomania, Paul Virilio on visual media, and Antoine Compagnon on the Antimodern, delivering a new perspective on Houellebecq’s literary aesthetic.
Making Literary Connections
Authors: Brown Katie
Published: January 2020

Chapter 4 suggests that, by linking their own writing to that of an author they admire through quotation, allusion or reference, Méndez Guédez, Chirinos and Zupcic both counter Venezuela’s literary isolation and explore issues of particular importance to them. Through playful references to other writers, Chulapos Mambo (Méndez Guédez, 2011) draws attention to the limited access to international literary developments in Venezuela. In addition, real Latin American writers appear throughout the story, most notably Mario Vargas Llosa and Alfredo Bryce Echinique, two writers who, like Méndez Guédez, have been judged negatively for their political beliefs. In El niño malo… (Chirinos, 2004), as well as integrating fragments of Eugenio Montejo’s poems into the narrative, Chirinos makes the poet one of the main characters of his story. This allows Chirinos to both pay homage to Montejo and to contemplate his own experience of being Venezuelan abroad. In Círculo croata (2006), Zupcic honours Salvador Prasel, a Croatian emigrant who became a writer in Venezuela, while also linking Prasel to William Faulkner, allowing Zupcic to allude to Faulkner’s appreciation for Venezuelan literature.
Baseball, not Biology
Authors: Thiess Derek J.
Published: January 2020

This chapter confronts the central claim of many in sport studies that sports may best be characterized by hegemonic masculinity. This school of thought is reflected in the work of such scholars as Nancy Lesko and Varda Burstyn. To challenge this notion, this chapter reads widely from early feminist utopia to contemporary young adult science fiction, exploring the representation of gender as it relates to sport. Science fiction does not limit sport to the realm of the masculine. Athletic bodies, rather, present a distinct limitation to the construction of sport as an inherently violent, destructive (coded masculine) space. In this way, this chapter saves a place for biological embodiment and posits the equation of sport and hegemonic masculinity as an oversimplified essentialism.
Introduction
Authors: Doughan Christopher
Published: January 2020

This chapter provides a brief historiography of Irish newspapers and details some of the most significant texts documenting this particular strand of the print media. It also highlights the rather limited amount of published material specifically covering any aspect of Ireland’s regional press. The relative lack of attention to this section of the print media is not sufficient reason alone to justify a study such as this and accordingly this chapter explains the necessity for filling such a historical gap. It also details the scope of the research and details the relevant research questions that are posed. Additionally, the primary sources that are utilised in addressing such research questions are briefly considered. Finally, the structure of the book is outlined and the reasoning for addressing it on a province-by-province basis is provided.
The Pale and Beyond: Leinster
Authors: Doughan Christopher
Published: January 2020

This chapter concentrates on regional newspapers in Leinster (excluding Dublin) and presents an overview of the regional press in the province during the 1914-21 period. A brief history of some of the main newspapers is provided while some of the key figures involved in those titles are also considered. However, the chapter specifically focuses on four titles, the Meath Chronicle, Enniscorthy Echo, Kilkenny People, and Midland Tribune, papers that came to be regarded as Sinn Féin or republican organs. Individual sections document the origins and history of each title while the key figures involved in of each of these publications are also profiled. Additionally, the editorial commentary of all four papers between 1914 and 1921 is reviewed and analysed. All of these titles were subjected to varying degrees of censorship and suppression while in some cases editors or proprietors were arrested and imprisoned. The experiences of each of these newspapers are documented in this chapter.
Southern Exposure: Munster
Authors: Doughan Christopher
Published: January 2020

This chapter concentrates on regional newspapers in Munster and presents an overview of the regional press in the province during the 1914-21 period. A brief history of some of the main newspapers is provided while some of the key figures involved in those titles are also considered. However, the chapter specifically focuses on five titles, the Cork Constitution, Skibbereen Eagle, Southern Star, Clonmel Chronicle, and Kerryman. These represent a broad range of political sympathies – one unionist title, two independent titles, and two titles that were strongly associated with the Sinn Féin party. Individual sections record the origins and history of each title while the key figures involved in of each of these publications are also profiled. Additionally, the editorial commentary of all five papers between 1914 and 1921 is reviewed and analysed. All bar one of these papers were affected by the Anglo-Irish conflict – the Southern Star and Kerryman experienced censorship, suppression, and forcible closure while the Cork Constitution and Skibbereen Eagle were targeted by Irish republicans. The experiences of each of these newspapers are documented in this chapter.
Contested Identities in Costa Rica
Authors: Harvey-Kattou Liz
Published: January 2020

Costa Rica is a country known internationally for its eco-credentials, dazzling coastlines, and reputation as one of the happiest and most peaceful nations on earth. Beneath this façade, however, lies an exclusionary rhetoric of nationalism bound up in the concept of the tico, as many Costa Ricans refer to themselves. Beginning by considering the very idea of national identity and what this constitutes, this book explores the nature of the idealised tico identity, demonstrating the ways in which it has assumed a white supremacist, Central Valley-centric, patriarchal, heteronormative stance based on colonial ideals. Chapters two and three then go on to consider the literature and films produced that stand in opposition to this normative image of who or what is tico and their creation as vehicles of soft power which aim to question social norms. This book explores protest literature from the 1970s by Quince Duncan, Carmen Naranjo, and Alfonso Chase who narrate their experiences from the margins of society by virtue of their identity as Afro-Costa Rican, feminist, and homosexual authors. Cinema from the twenty-first century is then analysed to demonstrate the nuanced and intersectional position chosen by national directors Esteban Ramírez, Paz Fábrega, Jurgen Ureña, and Patricia Velásquez to challenge the dominant nation-image as they reinscribe youth culture, Afro-Costa Rica, a female consciousness, and trans identity into the fabric of the nation.
Coded Messages: Costa Rican Protest Literature, 1970–1985
Authors: Harvey-Kattou Liz
Published: January 2020

This chapter posits that the 1970s in Costa Rica was a period of sociological revolution whereby dominant ideas of national identity began to be openly challenged. It analyses the protest literature of this period written by three key authors: Quince Duncan, Carmen Naranjo, and Alfonso Chase. Firstly considering Duncan’s Los cuatro espejos, it explores this novel as an example of the harmful practices of stereotyping and the internalisation of norms. It then considers the feminist subtext of Naranjo’s short stories ‘Simbiosis del encuentro’ and ‘A los payasos todos los quieren’, before moving on to analyse homosexual codes apparent in Chase’s short stories ‘La lluvia. El Silencio. La Música’.
The Birth of an Industry
Authors: Nanney Lisa
Published: January 2020

Film emerged rapidly both as an art and as an industry during the same years Dos Passos was maturing as an artist and absorbing the boundary-breaking creative potentials wrought by modernist innovations in all the arts. The process by which film achieved its privileged status as an engine of change was both cultural and aesthetic; as film developed this agency, it was driven by and in turn drove economic systems that were in flux during the decades before the economic Crash of 1929. These systems and this process fashioned film into the kind of potent political force that Dos Passos sought for his own art. The revolutionary interchange among the arts that transformed them in the 1920s galvanized Dos Passos’s practice in each discipline he was undertaking in that period—painting and set design, and writing plays and novels. Critics have long recognized the impact of the visual arts and particularly of moving pictures on the stylistic innovations that characterized his modernist novels. Dos Passos acknowledged that both Manhattan Transfer (1925) and U.S.A. (1938) were built on montage, and he specifically credited the impact of individual film pioneers such as D.W. Griffith and Sergei Eisenstein on his narrative style.