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Book part
Publication date: 25 September 2023

Claire Rasmussen

The narrative of The Americans weaves together a spy thriller and a family drama, though it drives home the inseparability of the political and the personal through the lives of…

Abstract

The narrative of The Americans weaves together a spy thriller and a family drama, though it drives home the inseparability of the political and the personal through the lives of the central characters, Philip and Elizabeth, a couple whose marriage is a cover for their work as Soviet spies. This chapter provides a queer reading of their marriage, drawing from the real history of the Cold War politics of sexuality that associated American values with the hetero- and gender normative, white, and middle-class nuclear family. In contrast, the Soviet Union was understood to have disrupted this natural order by installing the state as an overbearing patriarch. Philip and Elizabeth’s fictional cover as a nuclear family requires them to perform American marriage, family, and selfhood. In doing so, they reflect the centrality of the family in America’s Cold War self-image in which the family serves as the anchor of the American order, enabling economic and political self-sufficiency. Their performance of the family challenges our ability to differentiate between real, authentic family that can serve as the legitimate source of social reproduction and between the counterfeit, fake family that disrupts the social order. The queer family, refusing to be placed beyond realm of the political by the moral language of family values, subverts our ability to distinguish between genres since the family drama is already a political thriller.

Details

Law, Politics and Family in ‘The Americans’
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-995-6

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 October 2023

Elizabeth Whalen and John Bowen

Four novel trends: water scarcity, income inequality, labor shortage and gentrification, are receiving ever greater attention because of the devastating effects they having on the…

Abstract

Purpose

Four novel trends: water scarcity, income inequality, labor shortage and gentrification, are receiving ever greater attention because of the devastating effects they having on the well-being of humanity. The purpose of this paper is to briefly describe each trend, discuss its effect on tourism and offer support from research as to how tourism can mitigate the effects of these trends.

Design/methodology/approach

The article draws on a literature review to identify comparatively new events, patterns and trends that are likely to impede the development of tourism in the coming years.

Findings

This study documents the negative implications these trends could have for the future of tourism if they are not well managed. Guidance on how destination managers and travel industry managers can mitigate each of these trends is provided.

Research limitations/implications

Given the damage to humanity these trends have created and the potential future damage they will create, there is a call to researchers to both develop and document ways to mitigate the negative effects of these trends.

Practical implications

Suggested actions on how managers can reduce or eliminate the negative impacts of these trends are provided.

Originality/value

This is one of the first studies to link these novel trends to the implications they have for tourism.

Details

Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, vol. 15 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-4217

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 August 2022

Yaming Fu, Elizabeth Lomas, Charles Inskip and Jenny Bunn

The purpose of this paper is to describe, analyze and understand international users' library experience in the Digital Age in order to inform library service design and ensure it…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to describe, analyze and understand international users' library experience in the Digital Age in order to inform library service design and ensure it provides an inclusive environment. In this study, the behavioral and experiential aspects of user library experience are merged to develop essential interconnections between information behavior (IB) and user experience (UX) in the context of the academic library with the goal of constructing a more holistic understanding of ‘library experience.

Design/methodology/approach

The study was built on the concept “library experience” through analyzing its essential components of IB and UX. It was developed through findings from mixed methods research, consisting of the quantitative investigation from a library log analysis, and qualitative investigations via cognitive mapping exercises and semi-structured interviews, both targeted on the largest single group of international students in United Kingdom – international Chinese students.

Findings

The findings demonstrated the complexity and multilayered characteristics of international Chinese students' library context, and three unique contexts emerged from the data shaping their library experience. Building on the previous findings on the connections between IB and UX, the work attempted to redefine “library experience” by joining both behavioral and experiential aspects. It is found that the key components of cultural library experience are the multilayered context, cultural group's perception needs, sense-making process and subjective evaluations.

Originality/value

This study joins the behavioral and experiential perspectives together to explore library experience in a more holistic way and proposes a systematic structure to understand and analyze library experience, especially that of international users in a cross-cultural context, which, in turn, will better serve their information needs and inform the design of a more equal and inclusive library system.

Book part
Publication date: 2 October 2023

Vibha Kapuria-Foreman and Charles R. McCann

Prior to the passage of the 20th amendment to the US Constitution in 1920, several states had extended the suffrage to women. Helen Laura Sumner (later Woodbury), a student of…

Abstract

Prior to the passage of the 20th amendment to the US Constitution in 1920, several states had extended the suffrage to women. Helen Laura Sumner (later Woodbury), a student of John R. Commons at Wisconsin, undertook a statistical study of the political, economic, and social impacts of the granting of voting rights to women in the state of Colorado, and subsequently defended the results against numerous attacks. In this paper, we present a brief account of the struggle for women’s equality in the extension of the suffrage and examine Sumner’s critical analysis of the evidence as to its effects, as well as the counterarguments to which she responded.

Details

Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Selection of Papers Presented at the First History of Economics Diversity Caucus Conference
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-982-6

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 2 August 2023

Katherine Farrimond

The figure of the femme fatale is attached to a range of contested meanings around femininity, sexuality and violence. Despite its ambiguity and its origins in art, myth and…

Abstract

The figure of the femme fatale is attached to a range of contested meanings around femininity, sexuality and violence. Despite its ambiguity and its origins in art, myth and fiction, the term has proven popular in giving a name to violent articulations of female power in non-fictional settings by journalists. In this chapter, I outline the figure of the femme fatale as an archetype of women's violence that appears throughout Western popular culture, and provide an overview of the term's definitions and cultural meanings. In doing so, I trace the figure's movement across different forms and genres of popular culture. I identify a number of themes in the existing scholarship around the figure: feminist criticism of the figure; the value that feminist film scholars have found in the figure as a symbol of power and sexual transgression; the relationship between the femme fatale, race and the colonial imagination; and the way the idea of the femme fatale has been used in reporting of real-life women's violence.

Details

The Emerald International Handbook of Feminist Perspectives on Women’s Acts of Violence
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-255-6

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 August 2023

E.E. Lawrence

Librarianship’s dominant conception of the freedom to read is governed by a liberal principle of noninterference, wherein free readers are those who face no intentional…

Abstract

Purpose

Librarianship’s dominant conception of the freedom to read is governed by a liberal principle of noninterference, wherein free readers are those who face no intentional intervention in their choice of materials. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how this account fails to adequately capture systemic threats that impoverish people’s reading lives.

Design/methodology/approach

This conceptual paper deploys informal argumentation to expose a flaw in the dominant account of the freedom to read. The author uses a case study of comparative titles or comps, an editorial decision-making and justificatory convention that reproduces racial inequality in Anglophone trade publishing.

Findings

Comps present one example of how everyday norms and practices of literary production render people’s reading lives pervasively unfree, even absent some intent to interfere in them. The going account of the freedom to read calls, at best, for a greater diversity of book-commodities from which consumers may choose. However, the comp case suggests that this distributive remedy will be insufficient without relevant changes to the institutional arrangements that condition readers' choices in the first place.

Originality/value

This paper draws together insights from Library and Information Science, political philosophy and print culture studies to illuminate limitations in librarianship’s standard conception of the freedom to read. This reveals the need for an alternative, structural account of that freedom with significant implications for practice.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 80 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 26 August 2022

Sonia Pedro Sebastiao and Isabel Soares

The concept of environmental diplomacy appears associated with events (conventions) promoted between states and transnational organisations to discuss aspects related to…

5637

Abstract

Purpose

The concept of environmental diplomacy appears associated with events (conventions) promoted between states and transnational organisations to discuss aspects related to regulating the use of natural resources and regulating pollution. In this study, the authors intend to highlight the contribution brought to environmental diplomacy by leading television figure David Attenborough and his focus on the destruction of biodiversity by humans (the problem). It is intended to analyse the frames of his public interventions, comparing them with the prevailing frames in the UNFCCC policies.

Design/methodology/approach

A predominantly inductive method of qualitative and interpretative nature is used. In epistemological terms, the framing analysis stems from a social constructivist perspective. A theoretical model for frame analysis was defined by combining the frameworks proposed by Entman (1993) and Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) and considering previous studies (Anholt, 2015; Seelig, 2019). Analysis scrutinised a two-fold corpus comprising articles regarding actions and statements by David Attenborough published in The Guardian between 2018 and 2020, and the UN's legal framework for climate change.

Findings

The most prominent frames regarding climate crisis in transnational policies are responsibilities. Attenborough's calls for action highlight the frames of “morality”, “responsibilities” and “problems”. However, it is necessary to make a distinction between the discourse used in transnational treaties and that by Attenborough. In the former, discourse is more technical and impersonal, presented in a structure of legal diplomas and barely accessible to the public. In contrast, Attenborough's speech is more emotional, appealing and sometimes dramatic. His message is transmitted straightforwardly to the public in a pedagogical, personal tone.

Social implications

The choice of high-profile personalities like David Attenborough as ambassadors has implications in the visibility of the environmental cause, and in the multiplication of initiatives that denounce environmental degradation.

Originality/value

This study explores and analyses the narrative construct regarding climate change as carried out by a trusted and respected media voice. The authors intend to contribute to understanding the amplification role of public figures in controversial issues and diplomatic matters. The main contribution of this study is to highlight the strategic nature of the choice of SDA by political powers to voice the drama of climate emergency.

Details

Journal of Communication Management, vol. 27 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-254X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 March 2023

Raphael Papa Kweku Andoh, Elizabeth Cornelia Annan-Prah, Georgina Nyantakyiwaa Boampong, Josephine Jehu-Appiah, Araba Mbrowa Korsah and Emmanuel Afreh Owusu

Research has established that 38%, 56% and 66% of training is not transferred to work immediately, six months and 12 months after training, respectively. This has led scholars to…

Abstract

Purpose

Research has established that 38%, 56% and 66% of training is not transferred to work immediately, six months and 12 months after training, respectively. This has led scholars to advocate the continuous examination of factors that enhance training transfer to have a comprehensive understanding of the factors that enhance it. As a result, this study aims to examine transfer opportunity as a pretraining factor and its influence on assimilated training content (in-training factor); the influence of assimilated training content on motivation to transfer (post-training factor) and training transfer; the influence of motivation to transfer on training transfer; and the mediating role of motivation to transfer in the relationship between assimilated training content and training transfer.

Design/methodology/approach

A structural equation model is developed to test the five hypotheses formulated in this study using survey data obtained from 195 respondents who attended various training programs across different organizations. Following the assessment of the measurement model, the determination of the significance of the hypothesized paths is assessed based on the bias-corrected and accelerated confidence intervals obtained from the bootstrapping of 10,000 subsamples.

Findings

The findings of this study are that: transfer opportunity positively influences assimilated training content; assimilated training content positively influences motivation to transfer and training transfer; motivation to transfer positively influences training transfer; and motivation to transfer plays a complementary mediation role between assimilated training content and training transfer.

Practical implications

The nature of the work environment regarding the opportunity to transfer training influences trainees’ assimilation of the training content when they undergo training. Hence, organizations need to ensure that employees are always afforded the opportunity to transfer training content assimilated from previously attended training programs to assimilate the content of subsequent training programs. Furthermore, for training to culminate in training transfer, organizations and, more specifically, learning and development practitioners ought to pay attention to trainees’ assimilation of the content of training programs.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to empirically consider transfer opportunity as a direct antecedent of assimilated training content. More so, it is one of few studies to empirically examine the influence of assimilated training content on training transfer.

Details

European Journal of Training and Development, vol. 48 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2046-9012

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 April 2024

Peter Ackers

This paper presents an historical reconstruction of the radicalisation of Alan Fox, the industrial sociologist and a detailed analysis of his early historical and sociological…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper presents an historical reconstruction of the radicalisation of Alan Fox, the industrial sociologist and a detailed analysis of his early historical and sociological writing in the classical pluralist phase.

Design/methodology/approach

An intellectual history, including detailed discussion of key Fox texts, supported by interviews with Fox and other Biographical sources.

Findings

Fox’s radicalisation was incomplete, as he carried over from his industrial relations (IR) pluralist mentors, Allan Flanders and Hugh Clegg, a suspicion of political Marxism, a sense of historical contingency and an awareness of the fragmented nature of industrial conflict.

Originality/value

Recent academic attention has centred on Fox’s later radical pluralism with its “structural” approach to the employment relationship. This paper revisits his early, neglected classical pluralist writing. It also illuminates his transition from institutional IR to a broader sociology of work, influenced by AH Halsey, John Goldthorpe and others and the complex nature of his radicalisation.

Details

Employee Relations: The International Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0142-5455

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 November 2022

Vikki C. Terrile

The purpose of this study was to explore the information behaviors (IBs) of performers and artisan/vendors in American Renaissance faires. This research is exploratory in nature…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to explore the information behaviors (IBs) of performers and artisan/vendors in American Renaissance faires. This research is exploratory in nature and seeks to discover how existing IB theories, including embodied information practices, can explain the information seeking and use of performers and artisan vendors working in American Renaissance faires.

Design/methodology/approach

This study used semi-structured qualitative interviews with three artisan/vendors and 12 performers at Renaissance faires to explore their IBs around the roles at the festivals. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and analyzed from an exploratory framework, looking for how existing IB theories might explain the findings.

Findings

Although the participants in this study described information practices that were embodied and corporeal, they shared more experiences around the complex and fraught nature of information sharing within the Renaissance faire community. Information sharing prohibitions were related to power dynamics and the participants' roles as gig or contingent workers.

Originality/value

This was the first study to explore the IBs of Renaissance faire performers and artisan/vendors and as such, was exploratory in nature. The findings point to several areas for additional research.

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