Gabriela Coronado

Competing Health Models in Mexico: An Ideological Dialogue between Indian and Hegemonic Views

Models of health in Mexico emerge out of a conflictive interaction between two systems of knowledge and values: one from Western culture, considered superior and legitimate (by the majority), and an Indian one, regarded as inferior. The conflicts that arise from this ideological difference affect the success of public health programs directed to broad sectors of population with an indigenous culture. This gives rise to many problems in the treatment of Indian peoples, limiting their chances of a more adequate health system. This article focuses on how ideologies are negotiated between agents from the national hegemonic health system and the traditional healers, using as an example an interethnic health program developed in a mostly Indian municipality, Cuetzalan, in the Mexican state of Puebla. In this program intercultural interaction established a dialogue between the two health models, explicitly aiming to generate more adequate health programs for Indian communities. The attempt however was permeated by ideological resistance within an interethnic relationship framed by national and local interpretations of the value of indigenous knowledge.

Imagining Latin America in Australia: Migration, Culture and Multiculturalism

This special issue draws on a workshop organised by the editors in 2011 at the Institute for Culture and Society, University of Western Sydney. Its focus was to explore the increasing flows of people, commodities, ideas and practices between Latin America and Australia. Taken as a whole, the issue considers how Latin America is represented in popular culture, how Latin American communities represent themselves and how these communities interact with each other and with other communities within multicultural Australia. It also addresses the ways in which these migrants keep connections with their home countries and the place of Australia within a network of sites of the Latin America diaspora. It is difficult to provide an exact number of Latin Americans in Australia. Available 2011 Australian Census data identify them under regional aggregates (South America, Central America and the Caribbean), and when by country, they only mention those with a high number of migrants. Similarly, it is difficult to get

Using hypertext ethnography to understand corporate‐stakeholder relations in CSR

Purpose – Within the context of a broader project that analysed CSR practices, this paper seeks to explain a methodological approach to web-based research that the authors call “hypertext ethnography”. This approach aims to enable the paper to focus on the relations between three publicly listed corporations in Australia and the recipients of a selection of their CSR programs. Design/methodology/approach – Informed by ethnographic principles, hypertext ethnography provided the research protocols and analytical frame that were used to deconstruct the meanings in web texts that represented the connections between the corporations and their CSR stakeholders. Findings – The corporations and the stakeholders articulated their perspectives on CSR in affirmative ways, apparently to maintain their positive benefactor-recipient relations. While these discourses held the potential to mask more complex tensions in their relationships, the web was found to provide a rich hypertextual story that had a vastly broader scope than the self-contained corporate and stakeholder agendas. Research limitations/implications – The research approach presented here provides a useful first approximation to the study of CSR, through self representations, and offers a rigorous critical understanding of the practice of CSR. The approach can achieve much with only limited resources, but it could be developed through on-site ethnographic research. Practical implications – Because image-conscious corporations are often reluctant to participate in CSR research, the unobtrusive approach of hypertext ethnography can provide access to important data for the researcher. This is especially significant in the case of critical research, and when the characteristics of the CSR contributions or stakeholder relations are to be investigated. Originality/value – This paper offers a new way for approaching the study of CSR, by taking advantage of rich sources of data that are publicly available. Treating the web texts as primary data and critically analysing them following rigorous research protocols, enable new opportunities for understanding the public representations of CSR.

From Autoethnography to the Quotidian Ethnographer ‐ Analysing Organisations as Hypertexts

This paper is the result of a reflection on my personal experience while researching the politics of culture and identity in intercultural collaborations in Mexico. It deals with how autoethnography transformed my relationship with the way of doing research and particularly how a dream at the beginning of my ethnographic research changed my assumptions of my role as interpreter. Using the analysis of the dream as a guide for understanding the dynamics of intercultural organisations in Mexico, I conceptualised organisations as open systems whose meanings are organised and interlinked, forming hypertexts. I considered participants in those organisations, and myself, as quotidian ethnographers, able to create meanings and make sense of them for action. In that light, I listened to the stories from some organisations and ‘read’ their meanings by following the links between multiple representations, in different kinds of cultural narratives emerging from anywhere and manifested in any medium.

Apuntes sobre la relación entre la cultura virtual y la cultura mexicana en la Internet

La creciente difusion de significados provenientes de culturas diversas que circulan en los nuevos medios de comunicacion global ha generado una transformacion de las culturas contemporaneas que ya no pueden entenderse alejadas del efecto del intercambio de significados culturales multiples. El creciente acceso al nuevo medio de comunicacion global, la Internet, y sus potencialidades, esta permitiendo nuevas formas de produccion e interaccion asi como respuestas culturales creativas y novedosas. El articulo hace una reflexion inicial sobre las condiciones de la interaccion entre la llamada cultura virtual y la cultura mexicana. El intercambio cultural vertiginoso de significados locales y globales esta produciendo manifestaciones que rebasan los limites del ciberespacio y que se desarrollan simultaneamente como mexicanas y globales

Fuzzy and Amorphic Boundaries in Intercultural Space: The Case of Mexico and the USA

We will use a specific social science project we are currently investigating as an instance of the kind of issues that are raised by social phenomena, addressing ways in which these problems pose challenges to Fuzzy Logic different from what is the case with engineering applications. We will use our project as a task, presented in a ‘natural language’, for fuzzy analysis, for it to develop (in a fuzzy fashion) basic principles and specific analytic tools from fuzzy logic that can perform social analysis. We hope to feed these back recursively into the specific instance, our research project, to fine-tune our analytic process, and at the same time to fine-tune the models of fuzzy logic we have adapted.

Towards a Hybrid Approach to the Governance of Islamic Schools in NSW

This chapter proposes an approach that draws on a hybrid model of governance. The text outlines an empirical study of the governance and management practices in Islamic schools in New South Wales, Australia. The Islamic worldview was used to guide this research, and governance theories form the theoretical framework. Findings suggest that the issues of compliance, accountability and transparency with schools’ registration and stakeholder needs are influenced by confusion between a stewardship model of governance and directors’ sense of ownership of the institutions. The study proposes a hybrid approach to the governance of these schools, by adopting a combination of stewardship theoretical attributes and the Islamic worldview.

Natural and Cultural Commons and the Organisation of Community Tourism Projects in Mexico

This paper aims to advance the understanding of the link between culture, territory and organisation in Mexico. My analysis considered how legal and customary access to natural and cultural Commons impacts on the governance and cultural control of two tourism projects in rural Mexico, and the products they offer. Using a tourist/quotidian ethnography and critical readings of cultural texts, produced to promote their tourist products, this study highlights tensions that have emerged when the appropriation of the natural and cultural Commons benefits specific groups to the exclusion of others. In this context organisational characteristics associated with territory, land tenure and customs are relevant to understanding the challenges alternative tourism projects have, both in terms of managing multiple pressures and taking advantage of emerging opportunities that nature and culture provide for offering a meaningful tourism cultural experience.

De la profundidad a la superficie cultural: Lucha de significados y migración

What migrants suppose is common sense is shaped by cultural logic subjacent in cultural behaviours learned, practiced and changed in everyday life. In the new society their culture is ignored but cultural elements are represented as exotic. As Mexican migrant in Australia I analyse representations of mexicanness to show how cultural meanings are transformed and distorted. Out of the relationship between “surface culture” and “deep culture” I explain how migrant cultures are alienated ignoring the underlying culture that influences the negotiations of cultural values.

Fuzzy Identities for an Inclusive Anglohispanic Dialogue

When constructed in linear terms, cultures and identities misrepresent other people, constructing crisp boundaries that separate groups as if completely different. To demonstrate the negative impact of such views, I analyze cultural texts such as songs, films, and Web pages, showing the intercultural complexity existing in different constructions of Mexicanness as part of the dialogue arising in the political, social, and cultural interaction between Mexico and the United States. I emphasize the contrast between examples that reinforce identities that can be interpreted as fuzzy and inclusive, against those promoting and generating discrimination and exclusion.