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This article examines the four primary discourses of judging that dominate discussion of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and its role in the process of European integration. These discourses present sharply contrasting views of what the Court does and what role it plays in the EU's legal system. The article argues that these conflicting discourses are not merely rival depictions of the ECJ, but that they have also influenced the process of European legal integration – and not always in the ways those voicing them intended.

This chapter provides an overview of the South Pacific states from geographic, environmental, cultural, political, economic and demographic perspectives. Topics covered include environments and hazards, climate change, cultural diversity, colonialism and late independence, economic development, population and migration, trade, and aid. The contribution of the most important industries of agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining and tourism are reviewed. In terms of the future, it is argued that the key challenge in the South Pacific states is that of creating sustainable development, alongside employment and growth, and coping with environmental change.

This article presents the results of a 15-year longitudinal study of the major educational peacebuilding initiatives in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, during times of relative peace and of acute violence (1993–2008). Using longitudinal field research data and surveys, it examines how peace initiatives, that work across conflict lines, adapt to hostile and unfavorable environments. Additionally, it investigates the criteria that allows some peacebuilding initiatives to survive and persist, when the large majority do not. Building on the organizational and social movement studies literature, I contend that organizations need to successfully attend to a variety of challenges such as maintaining resources, maintaining legitimacy, managing internal conflict, and maintaining commitment to have a significant chance for survival. Moreover, I argue that for organizations committed to working across difference and inequality in unfavorable and hostile conflict environments, it is critical for organizational effectiveness and survival to pay heed to the quality of the cross-conflict relationships, as well as, to matters of equality.

Purpose – This chapter is about the author's experience working for Barack Obama's presidential campaign and the racial as well as race–gender dynamics of such work.

Methodology/approach – An autoethnographic analysis was conducted based on participant observation, primarily, door knocking in California and Texas and phone canvassing Americans across the country on a daily or weekly basis.

Findings – The fieldwork revealed the persistence of racially unequal discourse and stratification, not the workings of a post-racial society. While some Americans openly used the word “nig*er” or referenced lynching, more common were the coded forms of racism, such as the notion of “good” (Obama) versus “bad” Blacks. Also, terms like “Muslim” or “not-American” revealed a citizenship-based racism usually reserved for Asian Americans and Latinos now being levied against Black Americans. This more coded racialization hinged on a combination of subordinating Muslims as perpetual racial foreigners and fearing the “browning of America” brought on by immigration.

Research limitations/implications – As this study of a campaign assessed one point in time from an autoethnographic perspective, it is not generalizable to the United States. It, however, is an important window into the social processes involving race (and gender) when historic candidates and elections move the country in a direction it has never been to before and perhaps will never be to again.

Originality/value of paper – Although many scholars have done racial analyses of Obama's campaign and of our society's negotiation of race in relation to the man, few have conducted in-depth analyses from the vantage of a full-scale Obama campaign volunteer.

The author explores the contemporary logics of branding and authenticity among contestants in the reality television show, RuPaul’s Drag Race. In the chapter, the author points to the inherent tension in performing a drag persona that is perceived as authentic by audiences whilst at the same time looking to take advantage of any financial opportunities that being on the show may generate. This tricky balancing act is examined in relation to the case of the drag persona, Tina Burner, who was criticised for not being authentic enough and overbranding herself. The chapter highlights the competing demands that contestants on a high-profile reality show must deal with and the difficulty of deciding ‘when to keep it real in reality TV’.

Depending on whether one premises academic literature, press reports, or vernacular folklore, the origin stories of microcelebrity cultures can differ greatly. As academics, we are often inclined to deem as canon and factual the descriptions detailed in refereed academic publications, viewing them as scientific truths that take precedence over other forms of written records such as traditional press or popular media reports. But what happens if the origin stories of cultural phenomena are not logged in these traditionally privileged outlets that are often in the English language, and in a vocabulary not usually accessible to the general populace? What happens if the origin stories of cultural happenings remain within the domains of material or oral folklore without ever being logged as transmittable text? How do researchers go about reading theory, applying concepts, and interpreting their data while maintaining the critical lens of cultural relativism? In this chapter I contemplate the origin stories of my research on microcelebrity cultures between 2009 and 2018 both thematically and conceptually, by biographically recounting my methodological and theoretical trajectories in studying internet celebrities. As an act of radical transparency in displaying some of my most intimate fieldnotes – such as how I came upon particular schools of thought and theories – and as a reflexive mode of transcribing from material and oral culture the earliest beginnings of microcelebrity culture in Singapore as a participant observer, I hope this methodological biography will contribute toward rethinking the politics of our knowledge production as researchers.