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Quality interactions give rise to residents' desire to engage with tourists: a cognitive appraisal model
Get PDFThe global tourism industry, a significant contributor to the world economy, often grapples with challenges related to the interactions between resident communities and tourists. This study, testing a cognitive appraisal theoretical model, explores how the quality of interactions (situation) between residents and tourists influences emotional solidarity (appraisal), which explains perceived emotions associated with tourists, and how these, in turn, affect residents' desire to engage in specific behaviors with tourists. Survey data were collected from a sample of Fijian residents (N = 407) in six tourism destinations using a mall-intercept method and analyzed using co-variance-based structural equation modelling. Of the 13 proposed hypotheses, nine were significant, with variances explained ranging from 17 to 48%. These findings make a meaningful contribution to the literature and present crucial insights and actionable strategies for tourist stakeholders
How has Western detective fiction represented and othered marginalized groups such as Asians, women and people with disabilities, how does that fiction relate to Indian detective fiction, and how might that dynamic be subverted through my experimental creative work, Sounds & Shadows: Casebook of the Blind PI?
No full textThis research examines how Western detective fiction has negatively represented, othered, exoticized and demonized Asians, women and people with disabilities. It then considers the influence of Western detective fiction upon Indian detective fiction, in terms of both the colonial relationship between the UK and India and the post-colonial relationship. In order to conduct this investigation, Western detective fiction, specifically from the US and UK, and Indian detective fiction have been considered and interpreted via the theoretical approaches of post-colonial theory, feminist theory, disability theory and the intersectional approach of post-colonial disability theory and praxis. Central to the research is my experimental creative work of detective fiction, Sounds & Shadows: Casebook of the Blind PI, which challenges and subverts existing negative tropes regarding women, people with disabilities and the India-UK relationship, and attempts to provide more authentic and morally neutral representations.
Chapter 1 introduces the concepts of colorism, gender and disability. Chapter 2 summarizes how Western detective fiction, since its inception with the publication of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue in 1841, has demonized, exoticized, and ‘othered’ people of color, particularly Asians, women and people with disabilities. The chapter discusses, moreover, how such fiction continues to do so in contemporary times. The chapter uses examples of exoticizing and ‘othering’ including Rohmer’s Fu Manchu, and how tropes such as the silent ninja, delicate damsel and dragon lady remain present. It discusses how women detectives have been represented and how detectives with disabilities have been ‘othered’ as having superpowers or given token representation.
Chapter 3 offers a critique of Indian detective fiction from its inception in pre-independent India in 1892 to contemporary times. It summarizes how Indian cultural identity has been oppressed and demonized by colonial influence in pre-independent and post-independent Indian detective fiction. It also considers contemporary Indian detective fiction by authors like Vaseem Khan and Vikram Chandra who have made much progress in representing Indian cultural identity, especially in the post-colonial response of Indian characters to the former colonizing power.
Chapter 4 contains the creative manifesto, which is modeled on ‘A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste’ (1913) by Ezra Pound. My own manifesto has been informed by my research into Western and Indian detective fiction and outlines what my detective and the experimental detective fiction will and will not be like. Further research into the statistics of current crime rates in India is presented in order to enhance the creative work in relation to contemporary Indian society.
Chapter 5 consists of my short story collection, Sounds & Shadows: Casebook of the Blind PI. The collection comprises five stories which deal with themes such as disability, post-coloniality, inter-cultural misunderstandings, misogyny, discrimination based on gender and disability, colorism and family. Crimes such as honor killing, rape, murder, crimes against the third gender and crimes against people with disabilities are covered.
Chapter 6 presents my reflections about the creative work. Here, I outline the original contributions of my research thesis with regard to Indian detective fiction. In addition, the chapter also contains the lessons I have learnt during the creative process and feedback from beta readers and supervisors.
Chapter 7 is the conclusion, a succinct answer to the research question and final observations about the research and creative work. The scope for future research is also outlined
The humble rice bowl: a critical analysis of the constitutional and legal effects of the global trading frameworks for rice on the Tolima province of Colombia
Get PDFRice is the third most farmed crop in the world after maize and wheat. It is consumed everyday by more than half of the global population, having been a staple of human diets for at least eleven millennia. And while academic literature in the biology and agronomy of rice is more than abundant, regrettably the same does not apply to its trade, or to the effects of international and local legal frameworks within the so called “spaghetti bowl” of global trade including the World Trade Organization and Free Trade Agreements on non-Asiatic rice producing nations.
In view of these facts, this thesis asks: What is the nature of the legal framework that allows rice to be traded internationally? What are the legal effects of apparently imbalanced trade agreements between developed and developing nations for a staple like rice? What is the role of Colombian constitutional law in the rice trade amid the somehow recent integration of the country in the legal global economy? And how do the integration of those agreements to Colombian law, via constitutional assessment fit in the entrenched neoliberal philosophies that have come to dominate legal systems and consider them as the main tools for development?
What this thesis finds is that rice is predominantly an inelastic product, with demand remaining constant around the globe from a variety of consumers which include buyers with medium to high purchasing power, but for the most part from the world´s poorest inhabitants. Rice´s supply is also a complicated story. Since for the most part it is consumed within kilometres of where it is farmed, upsetting the availability of the grain for international trading and turning it despite its preponderance in food production and in human diets, into a rather disappointing commodity.
As a result of this, the cereal´s political nature is constantly emphasised and explain why it has been practically impossible to discipline its trade from a multilateral perspective, and instead most exchanges of the cereal have taking place for more than a century within the legal frameworks provided by barters, free trade agreements and government to government contracts conducted by state-owned foodstuff enterprises, that are riddled with regulations at the national level in the absence of representative private actors. Furthermore, because of rice´s political sensitivity, cultural affinity and place in people´s diets, nations historically have shown a marked inclination to overregulate the crop, therefore seriously amplifying ripple effects on markets during times of crisis, as mirrored in the last two global food crises.
Likewise, because rice is an agricultural product, it is plagued by the many imbalances that affect agricultural markets, particularly protectionism. And although for years mounting evidence proved that for the most part protectionist practices were deployed by industrialised nations, with notable examples being the United States, the European Union, and Japan, nowadays it is possible to clearly recognise that as countries develop, they are prone to do the same, therefore distorting global agricultural markets all around.
Similarly, this research corroborates that while the common international economic and trading narrative surrounding agreements of economic and trading nature, indeed portrays them as the main avenues for development, their outcomes are more nuanced and complex than they appear, as they intertwine domestic and international interests. This turns out to be self-evident in the Colombian case-study, of the United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (USCTPA), as it embraces a wide range of aspects that include dramatically different levels of development, international division and specialisation of labour; legal traditions and therefore procedures for incorporating international agreements to national legislations; the multifaceted dynamics of illegal drugs trafficking, and in the case of Colombia, the constitutional evaluation carried out by the country´s Constitutional Court. Certainly, the Colombian case study shows that at least for rice, the spaghetti bowl has become nothing less than untangled thanks to the provisions of the USCTPA, even if the correlation between Free Trade Agreements and development in Colombia remains to be proven and that somehow, in the case of the USCTPA continue to be bittersweet for many sectors involved, including rice, despite its emergence as a sensitive and therefore protected product, protection that slowly but surely is running out.
Finally, this research finds that the decision of incorporating the USCTPA to Colombian law via constitutional assessment of the country’s Constitutional Court, mostly rested upon the political perspective, rather than a legal one. This is clearly discernible from the arguments replicated by the ruling majority of the bench, which in several instances seemed to bypass the need to consider and apply in a conscientious matter, instruments provided by the national legal system, such as the abstract and concrete control of constitutionality, and the relinquishment of Colombian jurisdiction on many aspects of the USCTPA, in the name of neoliberal arguments, with a deficient legal and economic analysis of the outcomes
Developing environmental sustainability policy – how financing and subsidies are influencing green innovation in mineral extraction industries in China
No full textMineral extraction is regarded as a pollution-intensive industry and is confronted with multiple environmental sustainability challenges. This issue poses an existential crisis for mineral extraction due to continued global pressure to adopt more sustainable practices in their functioning. Despite its importance, there is a notable gap in the literature regarding how these companies encounter financial challenges, particularly in the context of high-risk, long development cycles, and the unique double externalities associated with green innovation. This research, leveraging panel data from 2016 to 2023, aims to fill this gap by examining whether Chinese mineral extraction companies demonstrate distinct preferences for specific financing sources and by evaluating the role of government in facilitating their green innovation activities. Our findings indicate that such companies utilize a mix of internal and external financing to support their green innovation projects. It is observed that the influence of external finances channels, namely government subsidies, equity financing and debt financing, on green innovation progressively weakens, a conclusion supported by multiple robustness checks. Furthermore, the study highlights the crucial role of government subsidies in motivating publicly listed companies to enhance their green innovation activities through debt and equity financing, thereby contributing to a more equitable and sustainable development paradigm in the Global South
Gendered citizenship and the right to the city
Get PDFThis chapter reviews the different perspectives on gendered citizenship and its implications for discussions about the right to the city in different regions of the world. I outline the resurgence of interest in citizenship in the past few decades and its engendering and growing interest in the city as a key site of citizenship acts and support of increasingly diverse populations, not just for those with unquestioned access to entitlements but also to those denied or with precarious statuses. Approaches to citizenship have undergone a number of changes, moving our understanding away from an exclusive focus on an institutional analysis of inclusion and exclusion to acts of performing citizenship and making claims at different scales and sites, including the urban, in which citizenship is less tied to the formal membership of the nation-state. Hence I turn to examine how urban citizenship has been enriched by the concept of the right to the city, which a number of feminist scholars have critiqued for its absence of gender considerations. Though Henri Lefebvre did not engage with gender relations in his discussion of the right to the city, the concept is useful in drawing together the ways in which individuals and groups make claims to access resources, appropriate spaces and struggle to participate in city life which, particularly in larger cities, incorporates diverse populations whose right to the city has often been precarious. Thirdly, I outline some of the issues addressed in the growing literature in diverse contexts on gendering the right to the city, namely: rights to where in the city, the public and the private and migrant women
The Corncrake in the Aftergrass: poetry practice, cultures and contexts in post-conflict Northern Ireland
No full textHow do I, as a poet living and working in Northern Ireland, transcend the polemics and pietism of difference in a sustained contribution to ongoing conversations of conviction within and beyond Northern Ireland’s cultures and contexts?
My thesis investigates whether contemporary poetry practice can go beyond the polemics and pietism of difference in contributing to conversations of conviction both within and outside cultures and contexts in Northern Ireland. It explores how I find my voice and vocation in poetry amid the culture of poetry in post-conflict Northern Ireland. I situate my work creatively, culturally, and experientially, drawing on the lives and works of Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, and W.R. Rodgers. Their work serves as an overarching narrative to my life and work against the backdrop of conflict and post-conflict life in Northern Ireland. My primary sources are my poetry; I reflect on the development of my creative writing and how my poetry functions as public work within the canon of Ulster poetry. I examine my poetry practice as my response to life in Northern Ireland beyond the Belfast Agreement of 1998. Therefore, this thesis analyses how my poetry functions as public work, within an established canon and in contemporary cultures and contexts.
I analyse my poetry practice as public work through the lenses of Semiotics and Reader Response Theory, which I compare and combine to create meaningful intersections exploring: text beyond the author, creativity beyond conflict, readers’ contexts beyond the writer’s contexts, and the reader’s role in making meaning of the text. This is an exploration of contradictions and intersections. Beyond Good Friday, there is the uneasy silence, the void that characterizes the in-camera acts of Holy Saturday. Similarly, beyond the Good Friday Agreement, there is an uncomfortable silence, the void representing the in-camera acts of peace where people say nothing, aware of the need to ‘whatever you say, you say nothing’ (Heaney). This narrative includes ‘The Corncrake in the Aftergrass’ (Heaney), in which the research aims to uncover some of the reasons behind the rhyme
Success and attrition of students on a science Foundation Year: an exploratory study of their experiences in a mixed-methods framework
Get PDFAttrition is a complex but persistent issue across tertiary education world-wide, impacting on institutional reputation, financial stability, and students’ future life trajectories. Foundation Year programmes in the UK provide a pre-university year of study and increasingly serve as the primary route into Higher Education for students lacking appropriate academic entry qualifications. Prevailing research to address high attrition rates has centred on first-year students, with less attention given to students on Foundation Year programmes. This mixed methods explanatory sequential project, constructed within a pragmatic paradigm, was set in a widening participation London university concerned about high rates of attrition of Foundation Year biological sciences students. Focussing on the 2018 cohort, n=84, the research aimed to explore experiences of students to develop targeted strategies to reduce attrition and improve student outcomes. Data collected included a cohort survey, semi-structured interviews and an emotional journey map together with analysis of university engagement and outcome metrics. Quantitative data were analysed statistically, while qualitative data were analysed using Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis framework. The main findings were integrated using a narrative synthesis and critically explored within a qualitative dominant framework. Interpretation of the findings primarily drew on Tinto’s longitudinal model for student departure and highlighted the challenges students faced in transition and academically integrating into the programme. These challenges stemmed from significant barriers they had to overcome to access Higher Education, including academic failure, negative life experiences and poor wellbeing. Students were poorly equipped to overcome the emotional impact of their prior experiences, which adversely affected their academic engagement and programme outcomes. Factors linked to attrition included low attendance, low engagement, ineffective study skills and poor self-regulation, particularly among students with BTEC qualifications. Highly motivated students and those changing academic direction were more academically integrated. However, this is a simplistic view as many risk factors for attrition intersected. Recommendations focus on transforming practice by provision of an extended bridging programme that supports the development of student skills in building academic resilience and enhancing coping strategies. Further interventions require revising the programme’s pedagogical approach, particularly through an embedded model of delivering study skills, and increasing interactive learning to enhance academic and social integration in a community classroom space. Research is needed to develop tailored interventions that support the success of BTEC students
A Litmus Test for Democratic Politics in Europe: Parliaments, Brexit and the Future of the European Union, Julien Navarro (Ed.) (London: Routledge), 2023 [Book review]
No full textPolicing rape and serious sexual offences: officers' insights on police specialism
No full textPurpose
Several studies have been conducted to understand why the conviction rate for rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO) remains so low. Increasing pressure and criticism have led to questioning why improvements in RASSO investigations are proving ineffective. The purpose of this study was to capture police officers’ perspective of police specialism while investigating RASSO.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 82 semi-structured interviews were conducted. Data collection spanned across two years, from October 2021 until May 2023, and included police officers from four police forces in England and Wales. Template analysis was used to identify recurrent patterns around police specialism for RASSO.
Findings
Most officers viewed specialism as a tool to improve how police forces prevent and tackle RASSO. In spite of this, the lack of prioritisation of specialist training, roles and units specifically for this crime type has hindered the development of evidence-based practice in policing. The impact on well-being, resources, organisational support and role identity has been explored.
Originality/value
This is the first qualitative study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to look at officers’ insights on police specialism for RASSO in England and Wales. Officers discussed day-to-day challenges associated with conducting RASSO investigations while reflecting on potential advantages related to dedicated specialist units and/or specialist roles
AI systems and worker’s rights in Europe: assessing the potential impact of CSR tax and automation tax as a response to job automation
No full textThe research project has an interdisciplinary character and it concerns European legislation, Artificial Intelligence systems (AI systems) and political economy. Following the job predictions there is a high probability that there might not be enough jobs for people in the future. There are even opinions that automation replacing human workers, with time, will create technological unemployment because it helps companies to cut expenses and speeds up the process of goods production. Therefore, this project focuses on the job automation and asks whether the social and human rights justify an additional corporate tax liability imposed on the companies. There are further questions regarding this matter, such as how to protect people who lost their jobs due to job automation or where will the money come from to finance such schemes. In relation to that, the research project proposes an additional corporate tax imposed on companies that replace humans with AI systems and operate in Europe. Following the concept, the income generated from the additional tax might be used as a source of funding for affordable and efficient Universal Basic Income