For Whom the Ontology Turns Boellstorff, Tom
Current anthropology,
08/2016, Volume:
57, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
A diverse body of work known as the “ontological turn” has made important contributions to anthropological theory. In this article, I build on this work to address one of the most important ...theoretical and political issues haunting contemporary theories of technology: the opposition of the “digital” to the “real.” This fundamentally misrepresents the relationship between the online and offline, in both directions. First, it flies in the face of the myriad ways that the online is real. Second (and just as problematically), it implies that everything physical is real. Work in the ontological turn can help correct this misrepresentation regarding the reality of the digital. However, this potential contribution is limited by conceptions of difference the ontological turn shares with the interpretive frameworks it turns against. Drawing on ontological-turn scholarship, my own research, and a range of thinkers, including Tarde, I work to show how an ontological approach that problematizes both similitude and difference provides valuable resources for understanding digital culture as well as for culture theory more generally.
Although conspiracy theories have long been a staple of American political culture, no research has systematically examined the nature of their support in the mass public. Using four nationally ...representative surveys, sampled between 2006 and 2011, we find that half of the American public consistently endorses at least one conspiracy theory and that many popular conspiracy theories are differentiated along ideological and anomic dimensions. In contrast with many theoretical speculations, we do not find conspiracism to be a product of greater authoritarianism, ignorance, or political conservatism. Rather, the likelihood of supporting conspiracy theories is strongly predicted by a willingness to believe in other unseen, intentional forces and an attraction to Manichean narratives. These findings both demonstrate the widespread allure of conspiracy theories as political explanations and offer new perspectives on the forces that shape mass opinion and American political culture.
In order to advance the micro-foundations of institutional theory, we explore how individuals within organizations experience and respond to competing institutional logics. Starting with the premises ...that these responses are driven by the individuals' degree of adherence to each competing logic (whether novice, familiar, or identified), and that individuals may resort to five types of responses (ignorance, compliance, resistance, combination or, compartmentalization), we develop a comprehensive model that predicts which response organizational members are likely to activate as they face two competing logics. Our model contributes to an emergent political theory of institutional change by predicting what role organizational members are likely to play in the organizational battles for logics dominance or in organizational attempts at crafting hybrid configurations. Adapted from the source document.
Public trust in tourism institutions Nunkoo, Robin; Ramkissoon, Haywantee; Gursoy, Dogan
Annals of tourism research,
July 2012, 2012-7-00, 20120701, Volume:
39, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
► The study tests a model of public trust in tourism institutions. ► Economic and political performance of institutions are good predictors of trust. ► Public trust is also influenced by level of ...power and interpersonal trust. ► Trust in tourism institutions is a good determinant of support for tourism. ► Results confirm the superiority of the institutional theory of political trust over the cultural theory.
Political trust is important for good governance. However, there is a paucity of research on this topic in the tourism literature. This paper tests a model of public trust in tourism institutions developed on the premise of the institutional and cultural theories of political trust. Results from the structural equation modeling analysis suggest that perceived economic and political performance of institutions, residents’ power in tourism, and interpersonal trust are good determinants of political trust in tourism institutions. A significant relationship is also noted between public trust and political support for tourism. The theoretical and practical implications, of the findings, the study’s limitations, and some directions for future research are discussed.
This article examines why global corporate social responsibility (CSR) frameworks have gained popularity in the past decade, despite their uncertain costs and benefits, and how they affect adherents' ...behavior. We focus on the two largest global frameworks—the United Nations Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative—to examine patterns of CSR adoption by governments and corporations. Drawing on institutional and political-economy theories, we develop a new analytic framework that focuses on four key environmental factors—global institutional pressure, local receptivity, foreign economic penetration, and national economic system. We propose two arguments about the relationship between stated commitment and subsequent action: decoupling due to lack of capacity and organized hypocrisy due to lack of will. Our cross-national time-series analyses show that global institutional pressure through nongovernmental linkages encourages CSR adoption, but this pressure leads to ceremonial commitment in developed countries and to substantive commitment in developing countries. Moreover, in developed countries, liberal economic policies increase ceremonial commitment, suggesting a pattern of organized hypocrisy whereby corporations in developed countries make discursive commitments without subsequent action. We also find that in developing countries, short-term trade relations exert greater influence on corporate CSR behavior than do long-term investment transactions.
In today's world, the corporate image of the largest companies is closely linked to their performance in the field of corporate social responsibility and the disclosure of information on that topic, ...specifically, on climate change. Since the Board of Directors is the body responsible for this process, the aim of this article is to show the role that companies' Boards of Directors play in the accountability process vis-à-vis stakeholders in relation to one specific aspect which has enormous significance in environmental information: practices used to monitor greenhouse gas emissions. In order to achieve this, we shall verify certain business characteristics, in addition to the size and activity of the Board of Directors, and we shall take different dependence models into consideration. These models will include variables related to the level of independence and diversity of the Board of Directors, which interact with dummy variables representing the company's litigation risks regarding environmental behavior and the institutional macro-context of the organization's country of origin. The results make it clear that Boards of Directors are basically focused on the traditional responsibility of creating economic value, instead of dealing with today's broader business world concepts, which include social responsibility. This focus, therefore, does not favor the accountability process before other stakeholders, if this makes it more difficult to protect the interests of shareholders.
En lo que sigue se pondrán en diálogo tres obras representativas de la crítica literaria del medio siglo en España: La hora del lector (1957) de Josep María Castellet, Problemas de la novela (1959), ...de Juan Goytisolo, y la menos conocida, mucho menos asimilada, Problemática de la literatura (1951, 1958, 1966) de Guillermo de Torre. Se tratará de mostrar que en los primeros casos estamos ante teorías de la política por su fuerte carácter militante, deudor de los posicionamientos políticos de sus autores, mientras que la aportación de Torre se aproxima más al concepto de teoría literaria, a la cual, precisamente por su ausencia de intervención partidista, se la desplazó a los márgenes del sistema literario español, entonces fuertemente instrumentalizado. La buena recepción de La hora del lector y Problemas de la novela, que acaudillaron el canon contemporáneo, así como su legitimación en la Historia de la literatura española como teorías-críticas emblemáticas, estorbaron la asimilación de Problemática de la literatura, a pesar de que su acercamiento al fenómeno literario es de índole más propiamente estética y, por ello, mucho más eficaz para comprender la producción de nuestro siglo XX.
In the current economic crisis, social movements are simultaneously facing two types of challenges: first, they are confronting institutions which are less able (or willing) to mediate new demands ...for social justice and equity emerging from various sectors of society, and second, given the highly individualised structure of contemporary society, they are also experiencing difficulties in building bonds of solidarity and cooperation among people, bonds which are a fundamental resource for collective action. It is in this context that protests waves, which may be very relevant, are in fact often short-lived, and it is in this context that we detect the rise and consolidation of new mutualistic and cooperative experiences within which (similarly to the past) new ties and frames for collective action are created. This article discusses and analyses social movement organisations which focus on both the intensification of economic problems and the difficulties of rebuilding social bonds and solidarity within society, emphasising solidarity and the use of ‘alternative’ forms of consumption as means to re-embed the economic system within social relations, starting from the local level. While discussing what is new and/or what has been renewed in new Sustainable Community Movement Organisations, the article will develop an analytical framework which will combine social movements and political consumerism theories by focusing on two basic dimensions: consumer culture and identity and organisational resources and repertoire of action.
As a reaction against global problems such as climate change and peak oil, localisation movements gathered renewed momentum during the last decade. Prominent amongst these is Transition Towns, a ...movement which advocates the development of resilient local communities to deal with these challenges in an adequate way. On the basis of extensive qualitative research of the movement's rise in Flanders (Belgium), this article studies the way Transition Towns represents the local. It shows that the movement is vulnerable for what has been called the ‘local trap’, and argues that the latter should actually be conceived as a post-political trap. The representation of the local is depoliticised when it conceals the fact that it is always a hegemonic construction which inevitably entails exclusions and the exercise of power. Drawing on post-foundational political theory, this article not only provides a novel interpretation of Transition Towns, but also aims to recast the ongoing localisation debate by showing that post-politics represents a fundamental problem for it. At the same time, however, the political can never be completely abolished, but always comes back with a vengeance. This ambiguity and complexity are central to this article's analysis of how Transition Towns deals with the local and the political.
•We recast the localism debate from the angle of post-foundational political theory.•What is often called the ‘local trap’ is actually a ‘post-political trap’.•We illustrate this with qualitative research on the Transition Towns movement.•The way Transition Towns maps the local makes it vulnerable for post-politics.•We analyse both germs of politicisation and depoliticisation and their consequences.
Spain’s evolution from an authoritarian regime to a well-established multi-governed democracy in a short period of time, has been accompanied by incredibly rapid social change and a varied (depending ...on the governmental period), but overall steady, consideration of gender equality as a political priority. This has also led to the rapid development and consolidation of women’s and equality machineries–state feminism–and well-established policies devoted to promoting gender equality over the last three decades, both at national and regional governmental levels. This article aims to present a consolidated policy area which has enough elements to survive and to keep on developing, although in an increasingly fragmented manner, among regions, despite the ongoing economic crisis and the conservative political turn. Based on theories of state feminism and discursive politics, this article analyzes four important elements for understanding this claim and the evolution of national and regional Spanish gender policies and institutions during the last three decades: women’s machinery, the relations between that machinery and women’s and feminist movements, the policy discourses present in gender equality policies, and the policy instruments used by those machineries and policies.
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