1,721,119 research outputs found
Pathways to the Contemporary Art Field: Latin American Visual Artists Gaining Legitimacy in the United Kingdom (1990-2024)
No full textThis dissertation examines how Latin American visual artists have gained legitimacy within the contemporary art field in the United Kingdom (UK) from 1990 to 2024. Drawing on historical analysis, museum records, and 18 semi-structured interviews with visual artists and art professionals in the UK, it investigates the role of actors in the art field (mediators and intermediaries) as well as the personal strategies adopted by visual artists to build up legitimacy.
The findings reveal that Latin American visual artists have gained legitimacy in the UK through a dual process that combines external validation with individual agency. Mediators, such as curators, academics and public institutions, provide symbolic capital, facilitate access to professional networks, and offer mentorship and institutional support. Intermediaries, including galleries, art fairs and dealers, enable market access, collector outreach and increased exposure. Alongside these actors, artists mobilize their own resources by pursuing postgraduate education, cultivating strategic networks, and applying to open calls for residencies, grants and awards. The study also highlights how identity can be both a resource and a constraint, shaped by institutional and market expectations. Ultimately, this research contributes to the historiography of Latin American art in the UK and to wider debates on legitimacy in globalized art contexts
Kazakh Cinema at a Crossroads: Institutional Continuities, Market Forces, and Creative Dynamics (1991-2024)
No full textThis thesis examines how Kazakhstan's national film sector that once operated as a Soviet cultural arm has been remodelled for a market economy without abandoning its socialist scaffold. Filling a gap in the literature on post-socialist creative industries, the study asks: what continuities and discontinuities have shaped Kazakh cinema's institutional organisation between 1991 and 2024, and with what creative and economic effects? To answer this, the thesis triangulates three evidence streams: fifty-one policy documents and statutes mapping governance reform and an IMDb-derived panel of all feature-length Kazakh releases since independence, analysed with bipartite social-network methods to track 2,470 director-writer collaborations. Combining qualitative policy analysis with empirical network metrics allows the project to capture both formal rule change and informal creative practice.
Findings reveal alignment with institutional path plasticity, suggesting an incremental adaptation rather than rupture. Core Soviet bodies were seldom abolished. Instead, policy-makers layered new instruments such as cash-rebate schemes and digital tools onto existing hierarchies or tried to convert legacy entities like Kazakhfilm into hybrid public-private actors. Parallel industrial shifts evidence a pluralisation of production. Studios such as Sataifilm, Nurtas Production and Qara Studios normalised profitability, while web-native companies (Salem Entertainment) and OTT newcomers (Uni-Q/Unico Play) redirected finance and audience attention towards genre cinema and Kazakh-language streaming originals. Policy has tacitly endorsed this pivot through incentives like the Digital Content Rebate, signalling a new contest over narrative sovereignty in the platform era. Network analysis shows that the director-writer field evolved from a fragile, Kazakhfilm-centred hub in the 1990s to a segmented, polycentric web after 2014, in which generational clusters orbit loose-coupled brokers rather than a single state anchor. Yet veteran auteurs preserve status and influence, acting as a bridge between public subsidy and private capital. It confirms that institutional hierarchies still shape cultural industries.
The thesis argues that this hybrid architecture, simultaneously market-responsive and statist, explains both the resilience of Kazakh cinema and its persistent stratification. Conceptually, it extends path-plasticity theory to cultural industries and offers a mixed-methods template for examining post-Soviet creative economies. Practically, it highlights how incremental rule change, rather than wholesale privatisation, can stimulate output while preserving symbolic assets, a lesson for other small-market cinemas navigating global platform pressures
Beyond Fashion: Posthumanism as a Sustainable Business Model (2000 - 2025)
No full textThis thesis investigates whether posthumanist values can inform viable business models in the fashion industry. Against the backdrop of intensifying environmental and social critiques of fashion, the research examines how posthumanism, a framework that reconsiders value, agency, and responsibility across human and nonhuman actors, can move beyond theory into applied practice. The analysis is structured around five key posthuman principles: distributed agency, relationality, material agency, becoming, and undoing dualisms.
A comparative case study method was used, drawing on expert interviews, internship-based fieldwork, other primary sources and secondary sources. The study focuses on Die Kees, a Dutch brand rooted in posthuman philosophy, and Allbirds, a global fashion sustainability-oriented company. Die Kees demonstrates strong material ethics and design integrity, but faces constraints in visibility, capacity, revenues and scale. Allbirds, while embedded in the dominant market system, offers insights into how aspects of communication, framing, and growth might inform posthuman-aligned models, supporting the broader aim of exploring whether posthumanism can function within the very system it critiques.
Situated within the historical evolution of sustainable fashion, following the rise of fast fashion in the early 2000s and shaped by shifts from ethical to circular, regenerative, and now posthuman design approaches, this research positions posthumanism as a distinct framework for fashion business innovation. The findings suggest that although posthuman values are difficult to sustain under current economic pressures, they can nonetheless shape viable business models when supported by narrative clarity, strategic compromises, and financial adaptability. At the same time, scalable brands like Allbirds offer practical insights into how visibility and framing might be adapted, while also revealing the tensions and trade-offs that come with aligning ethical values to market expectations
POST-COMMUNIST ALBANIA: THE ROLE OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENTS IN DRIVING ECONOMIC GROWTH
No full textThis thesis explores the evolving role of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in shaping Albania's post-communist economic development since the early 1990s. As the country transitioned from a centrally planned system to a market economy, FDI emerged as a key force behind structural reforms, economic revitalization, and Albania's growing integration into global markets. The study investigates how foreign investment has influenced the broader development trajectory, particularly in terms of economic growth, institutional change, and modernization. Drawing on both quantitative analysis and policy interpretation, it reflects on the uneven distribution of benefits across sectors and regions, as well as the ongoing tension between dependence on external capital and domestic economic autonomy. By situating Albania within the wider Western Balkan context, the research highlights the importance of long-term strategic planning to ensure that FDI contributes not only to growth but also to social equity and sustainable development
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Curbing Communism
Full text linkThe main objectives of this study are to identify what processes have contributed towards military intervention in Indonesia and how these processes are represented in Dutch newspapers. The US decision to intervene militarily in Indonesia was influenced by Cold War imperatives. US policymakers saw the growth of the communist party in Indonesia as a security threat. As Eisenhower’s terms progressed the administration found it increasingly difficult to form strong diplomatic bonds with Indonesia. Personal diplomacy with Indonesia’s president Sukarno failed and so did US’ economical aid policies in Indonesia. The US administration did not manage to draw Indonesia closer to the US sphere of influence, Indonesia kept a steadfast neutral course on the world stage. Also the West New Guinea conflict proved to be continuously straining US-Indonesian relations. Following these processes are qualitatively and quantitatively researched in a wide array of digitalized Dutch newspapers. Regarding this subject Dutch newspapers have not been investigated yet and therefore add to the body of knowledge on the subject. Also this thesis incorporates a quantitative element. This novel tool quantifies the amount of entered keywords in newspapers articles and presents the findings in a histogram. The Dutch newspapers reveal that they make different analyses, and hold different views on the processes that have contributed towards US intervention than the US administration. These differences in views are most apparent in the assessment of the communist threat in Indonesia
Exchange or Empire?
Full text linkIn 2014 the Fulbright Program will celebrate its 68th birthday. The Fulbright Program is the United States flagship educational exchange program – and the largest in the world. A don at Oxford described it as “the biggest, most significant movement of scholars across the face of the earth since the fall of Constantinople in 1453.” Since the programs conception in 1946, it has facilitated the exchange of over 325.000 people and it is currently active in over 155 countries around the world. The Program makes it possible for American teachers and students to travel to other countries, to lecture and to study there and vice versa. It is a very competitive, merit-based program. Forty-five Fulbright alumni have won Nobel prizes, eighty have won Pulitzer Prizes and twenty-nine alumni have served as head of state or government, including the current presidents of Colombia and Chile. The program is financed by the United States Department of State Bureau of Educational Affairs and last year’s budget was 177.5 million euros. Despite its age, there is a surprising lack of scholarly works regarding this immense program. The only history book solely devoted to the Fulbright Program was published in 1965, which means the last five decades have been largely neglected by historians.
The contribution that the Fulbright Program has made to the furthering of American interests during the Cold War has often been overlooked. Was the Fulbright Program truly an academic program, or was it political in nature? Is it possible the Fulbright Program helps to shape an ‘informal empire’ in its host countries? In this thesis the Fulbright Programs activities in the Netherlands during the Cold War have been studied to answer the question of its political or academic nature. This question has been operationalized by researching what the targets and aims of the Fulbright Program in the Netherlands were, and if these were achieved. This is reflected in the title of this thesis: Exchange or Empire? Was the Fulbright Program an academic exchange program, or a political tool used by the United States government to manage their informal empire?
This thesis concludes that it has been the goal of the Fulbright Program in the Netherlands to legitimize American leadership by showcasing American culture as well as advances in science and technology, and to create understanding for American policies. Furthermore the Fulbright Program sought approval of the Atlantic Alliance and the American leadership thereof. It tried to achieve this by targeting educators and students and influencing them to become sympathetic interpreters of American history and policies. Tangibly the Commission sought the establishment of American Studies as a prominent feature of Dutch higher education. With the establishment of prestigious research chairs in American history and culture, the Fulbright Commission had achieved these goals by 1990. During the 1970’s and 1980’s, when the respective anti-American and anti-nuclear movements gained traction, the Fulbright Program was re-evaluated in order to better achieve its aims. This confirms that the Fulbright Program in the Netherlands has been political in nature, rather than academic, and has been used by the United States government to manage their informal empire
Wie deed het licht aan in Eindhoven?
No full textWie deed het licht aan in de stad? Wie was de meest machthebbende partij in het Eindhoven van na de Tweede Wereldoorlog? Dit onderzoek richt zich op de totstandkoming van het 'Masterplan' tussen de gemeente Eindhoven en het bedrijf Philips. De onderhandelingen over het Masterplan begonnen kort na de Tweede Wereldoorlog en in 1954 werd er eindelijk een deal gemaakt. Met deze publiek-private samenwerking kwam er een doorbraak in de wederopbouw van de stad en kreeg de gemeente meer grip op de ontwikkeling van Eindhoven. Ook kreeg de stad een meer moderne identiteit en bewoog het weg van haar industriële karakter.
In het Masterplan werden afspraken gemaakt over de economische bezittingen van het bedrijf Philips en de gemeente. Als belangrijkste bedrijf in de stad had Philips een enorme concentratie aan land en middelen in zijn bezit die de verdere ontwikkeling van de stad in de weg stonden. De publiek-private samenwerking, vormgegeven in het Masterplan, moest hier verandering in brengen. Aan de hand van verschillende primaire (archief)bronnen is in dit onderzoek bekeken hoe dit Masterplan tot stand kwam en wat dit zegt over de naoorlogse politieke economie van Eindhoven. Hierin wordt gebruik gemaakt van theorieën uit de literatuur over (urbane) politieke economie en publiek-private samenwerking.
Uit het onderzoek blijkt dat de gemeente met deze vorm van publiek-private samenwerking een flinke verschuiving in de machtsverhoudingen wist te bewerkstelligen. De stad kon mede via het Masterplan een succesvolle wederopbouw tot stand brengen en een moderner stadscentrum bouwen. Eerdere geschiedschrijving heeft de rol van het Masterplan in de stedelijke ontwikkeling van Eindhoven onbesproken gelaten. Met dit onderzoek wordt zo een historiografisch gat opgevuld en een ander beeld geschetst van de rol van Philips in de totstandkoming van het hedendaagse Eindhoven
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