Search results

The second decade of the twenty-first century finds Brazil racked by a series of scandals that are extreme even by world standards. This chapter presents an explanation for one of the behaviors that have produced these scandals. Specifically, it is the offering of bribes to public officials by individuals or companies that stand to benefit from contracts to perform public services and, furthermore, the paying of kickbacks to the officials if the contract is awarded. I liken this behavior to the making of vows to the saints in the “popular” or “folk” form of Catholicism – and other popular religions that accept its basic premises – and the fulfillment of the promise if and when the otherworldly being provides what the petitioner requested. Part 1 of the chapter examines an election for mayor of the city of Fortaleza in 2012 in which the office was “bought” for what seemed to be an exorbitant amount of money. I hypothesize that this is to be explained by the anticipation of the city receiving government contracts to build a soccer stadium, a rail system, and other projects related to the 2014 World Cup. In Part 2, I examine Brazil’s religions beginning with popular Catholicism, to show that the normative way of gaining something desired from a supernatural – be it the restoration of health or the recovery of a lost item – is to offer it something it values and then fulfilling the promise if and when the petitioner receives what was requested. I contend that this important religious pattern continues to provide the template for the secular behavior that is being judged to be corrupt by standards other than those found in the religiously based worldview of many Brazilians.

The focus of this paper is a comparative case study of the symbolic role of the Croatian and Serbian languages and writing in discourses of the Nation and the National. Our research is situated at the intersection of the scientific fields of sociolinguistics, memory studies, and studies on nationalism. Using Anthony D. Smith’s ethno-symbolist approach to the study of nationalism, which focuses on the reciprocal relationship between elites and the people, we analyze the case of anti-Cyrillic protests in Vukovar, Croatia, which were triggered by the implementation of Croatian minority rights legislation. This research analyses the role of language and its use as a symbol in memory practices and accompanying discourses in Croatia and its echoes in Serbian public space. The top-down perspective observes state-promoted events and populist implications of language mis(use). Alternatively, the bottom-up approach encompasses various actions and initiatives of so-called “activists” who belong either to “nationalist” organizations or to liberal/democratic NGOs. The majority of voices that are not aligned with the above-mentioned organizations are neglected in the public space (Obradovic-Wochnik, 2013).

We explore the dynamics created between social groups promoting populist ideas, other groups promoting alternative practices, and their influence on the ideological pattern adopted by ruling elites.

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.

Consumption ritual has been used to understand the meanings of consumption and consumer behavior, however less attention has been focused on the role of ritual in connoisseurship consumption and how consumption rituals can transform the consumer’s tastes. What is the role played by consumption ritual in connoisseurship taste?

Drawing on key concepts from ritual and taste theories and a qualitative analysis of the North American specialty coffee context, the authors address this question introducing the idea of connoisseurship taste ritual which is based on novelty coffee consumption practices that are opposite of the traditional or regular practices. The data collection set in the United States and Canada includes 15 consumer in-depth interviews, participant observation in 36 independent coffee shops in Canada and the United States, a Specialty Coffee Association of America event, and three barista coffee competitions. The body of qualitative data was interpreted using a hermeneutic approach.

The authors introduce the connoisseurship taste ritual which has several dimensions: (1) variation in the choices of high-quality products, (2) the place to perform the tasting, (3) the moment of tasting, (4) the tasting act, (5) perseverance, and (6) time and money investment.

This research paper extends the notion of consumption ritual introducing the connoisseurship taste ritual and also extends the theories of taste by explaining how, regarding a specific aesthetic category of product, people develop different tastes through ritualistic consumption.