Browsing by Subject "Area Studies"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5

Open Access
Acting Out: Qui pro Quo in the Context of Interwar Warsaw
(East European Politics and Societies, 2013-05-01) Holmgren, B
In the turbulent context of interwar Polish politics, a period bookended by the right-wing nationalists' repression of an ethnically heterogeneous state, several popular high-quality cabarets persisted in Warsaw even as they provoked and defied the nationalists' harsh criticism. In their best, most influential incarnation, Qui pro Quo (1919-1932) and its successors, these literary cabarets violated the right's value system through their shows' insistent metropolitan focus, their stars' role-modeling of immoral behavior and parodic impersonation, and their companies' explicitly Jewish-Gentile collaboration. In the community of the cabaret, which was even more bohemian and déclassé than that of the legitimate theater, the social and ethnic antagonisms of everyday Warsaw society mattered relatively little. Writers and players bonded with each other, above all, in furious pursuit of fun, fortune, celebrity, artistic kudos, and putting on a hit show. This analysis details how the contents and stars of Qui pro Quo challenged right-wing values. Its shows advertised the capital as a sumptuous metropolis as well as a home to an eccentric array of plebeian and underworld types, including variations on the cwaniak warszawski enacted by comedian Adolf Dymsza. Its chief female stars-Zula Pogorzelska, Mira Zimińska, and Hanna Ordonówna-incarnated big-city glamour and sexual emancipation. Its recurring Jewish characters-Józef Urstein's Pikuś and Kazimierz Krukowski's Lopek-functioned as modern-day Warsaw's everymen, beleaguered and bedazzled as they assimilated to city life. Qui pro Quo's popular defense against an exclusionary nationalism showcased collaborative artistry and diverse, charismatic stars. © 2012 Sage Publications.
Open Access
Archival research in Africa
(African Affairs, 2017-04-01) Daly, Samuel Fury Childs
Open Access
E-Commerce and Industrial Upgrading in the Chinese Apparel Value Chain
(Journal of Contemporary Asia, 2019-01-01) Li, F; Frederick, S; Gereffi, G
© 2018, © 2018 Journal of Contemporary Asia. The economic and social gains from electronic commerce (e-commerce) that promote innovation, industry upgrading and economic growth have been widely discussed. China’s successful experience with e-commerce has had a positive effect in transforming consumer-goods sectors of the economy and motivating economic reform. This article looks at how e-commerce reduces barriers to entry and enables firms to move up the value chain by using the global value chain framework to analyse the impact of e-commerce on the upgrading trajectories and governance structures of China’s apparel industry. For large Chinese brands, e-commerce has enabled end-market diversification. For small- and medium-sized enterprises, e-commerce has facilitated entry with functional upgrading as well as end-market upgrading. In the “two-sided markets” created by platform companies, the “engaged consumers” are the demand side of this market, and “e-commerce focused apparel firms” are the supply side of the new market. Consumers and platforms are more directly involved in value creation within this emerging internet-based structure.
Open Access
Empowering governmentalities rather than women: The Arab Human Development Report 2005 and western development logics
(International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2009-05-28) Hasso, FS
The researchers and writers of the Arab Human Development Report 2005 (AHDR 2005) include activists, social critics, intellectuals, and feminists who aspire for izdihar (flourishing) in the Arab world "based on a peaceful process of negotiation for redistributing power and building good governance." This passage suggests that the aims the AHDR 2005 shares with the previous three volumes are to encourage state apparatuses and officials to transform themselves by changing policies and surrendering some of the power and resources they have fortified vis-à-vis their citizenries. This article argues that rather than encouraging the rise of women or any group interested in political or social transformation, the AHDR 2005 works within a U.N. development framework that strengthens states and political elites in relation to their populations by constituting the former as the causes of underdevelopment and thus the primary agents for economic, social, and political improvement. © 2009 Cambridge University Press.
Open Access
Modernity and gender in arab accounts of the 1948 and 1967 defeats
(International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2000-01-01) Hasso, FS
The victory which the Zionists have achieved…lies not in the superiority of one people over another, but rather in the superiority of one system over another. The reason for this victory is that the roots of Zionism are grounded in modern Western life while we for the most part are still distant from this life and hostile to it. They live in the present and for the future while we continue to dream the dreams of the past and to stupify ourselves with its fading glory. © 2000, Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.