Thomas Klak

The inscription of difference: news coverage of the conflicts in Rwanda and Bosnia

Abstract There are many parallels between the current civil wars in Rwanda and Bosnia. Similarities can be found in military tactics and in how external imperialism, ethnicity, rural underdevelopment and even topography shape various parameters of the conflicts. Despite the comparable message potential inherent in these parallels, the US news media have elected to cast their coverage of the two wars in two different frameworks of understanding. Through content and intertextual analysis of six major US newspapers, and through juxtaposition of news coverage of Bosnia, we reveal how the press distorts Rwanda coverage to fit a frame. This frame relies almost entirely on non-African sources, depicting Africa as a timeless and placeless realm of “tribal” conflict, the repository of deep-seated US fears of African “others”. This inscription of difference implicates the news media as a central player in the social construction, categorization and defamation of peoples and places in the emerging post-Cold-War geopolitical (dis)order.

Do university-sponsored international cultural events help students to appreciate “difference”?

Abstract Hosting large-scale events that celebrate the diversity of global cultures is one way that colleges and universities are responding to the imperative of increasing students’ intercultural sensitivity. The effectiveness of such cultural events for promoting an appreciation of cultural difference remains unclear, however. This research examines shifts in students’ attitudes toward cultural difference while students participated in one such celebration that focused on Latin American cultures and was held at Miami University (Ohio) during the fall semester of 1996. Our research question is “Was there a correlation between student participation in the Latin American Celebration and positive change in the same students’ intercultural sensitivity?” By employing a developmental model of intercultural sensitivity and an associated survey instrument, we measured students’ attitudes toward cultural difference and how they changed following intercultural exposure. Our preliminary results indicate that the Celebration may have helped to deepen students’ intercultural appreciation. Students’ attitudes shifted on several dimensions of intercultural sensitivity in the predicted direction of greater openness to other cultures. The most notable shift was toward greater engagement with and Acceptance of cultural difference. These were in fact among the central messages of the Latin American Celebration. Although producing fully “intercultural global citizens” is realistically beyond the scope of most on-campus education, the research suggests that progress toward greater intercultural understanding seems possible through a combination of special events, related courses and a supportive campus environment. Our study also suggests that campus activities aimed at promoting diversity will be more successful when they extend from an understanding of the cognitive processes leading individuals toward or away from increased intercultural sensitivity.

From protectionism towards neoliberalism: Ecuador across four administrations (1981–1996)

Ecuador since 1980 illustrates many features of Latin America’s neoliberal transsition. Ecuador shifted from a state-oriented development model and towards a neoliberal approach across four ideologically-diverse administrations. Although the four presidents implemented reforms inconsistently, they have reoriented the country’s development strategy towards neoliberalism. Four contextual factors explain this sustained transition: (1) financial problems, (2) global ideological factors, (3) a perceived lack of alternatives, and (4) weakness of popular opposition. These factors are mutually reinforcing and each need not bear directly on each decision for neoliberal reforms to be chosen. Their combined force sustains the neoliberal transition despite considerable negative social and economic effects.

Gender and state bias in Jamaican housing programs

Abstract Women head over 40% of Jamaican households and have grave housing needs. We examine womens access to Jamaicas National Housing Trust (NHT), created to finance housing for those most in need. We identify two gender biases. (a) The stronger gender bias is created by economic obstacles, cultural prejudices and institutional rules that prevent many women, especially poorer ones, from becoming eligible for housing loans. Despite womens greater housing need, NHT allocates most of its loans to men. (b) Among eligible loan recipients, who are primarily more secure formal sector employees, women have a higher probability of obtaining a loan. Additionally, while most of NHTs loans go to state employees, men in both the public and private sectors capture a disproportionate share of NHTs loans.

A Framework for Studying Caribbean Industrial Policy

Like much of the Third World, Caribbean countries have in recent years aggressively pursued an industrial policy that seeks to attract foreign industrialists to produce for export. Researchers, although fiequently lacking evidence for key variables and their interrelationships, have rendered an unwarranted final judgment that the current development model is negative for the Caribbean. In response, this paper develops a broad fiamnework for understanding the constraints on, and the potential of, Caribbean industrial policy. The fiamework (1) situates the prevailing industrial policy among interrelated issues, such as Caribbean development strategy, debt, trade, race, gender, and technology; (2) highlights important concerns for which we thus far lack details, such as the performance of domestic manufacturers and the fuill costs of industrial policy; and (3) provides an organizational tool for empirically informed research on industrial policy in developing countries. The framework offers a pessimistic interim evaluation of Caribbean industrial policy, suggesting many reasons why it is unlikely to repay host societies with social development. It leaves open the possibility, however, that further empirically informed analysis will find that the prospects are more favorable in some countries, and for more specific goals, such as expanded industrial export opportunities, economic diversification, and the acquisition of managerial skills.

Conceptual Linkages in the Study of Production and Reproduction in Latin American Cities

This essay presents a conceptual framework integrating production and reproduction issues in the Latin American urban context. We identify central concepts in need of further theoretical and empirical elaboration and advocate research integration. This integration is across concepts, contexts, issues, and scales of analysis. Through examples of conceptual linkages, we argue for research dealing with the intersections among topics such as womens increasing participation in the workforce, expansion of low-income households, and crises in urban service provision. The result is a research agenda involving systematic integration of concepts, analyses, and interpretations.

Inclusive neoliberalism? Perspectives from Eastern Caribbean farmers

Banana farming in the Eastern Caribbean has gone from riches to rags since the 1990s, as the region’s economic and social mainstay has severely contracted. This article reports on interviews conducted at the grassroots level with about 150 current or former banana farmers in Dominica and St. Lucia, and at the administrative level with numerous government and banana sector officials and other stakeholders. The interviews sought to answer two interrelated questions: (a) How have farmers experienced and responded to this severe contraction in the banana export industry? and (b) To what extent does current development policy support farmers’ economic needs? Indeed, many of the stated goals of the current development paradigm, referred to as ‘inclusive neoliberalism’, align with the farmers’ stated needs. We seek to understand the extent to which this development policy manifests itself at the grassroots level in the form of support that small farmers can actually use to help sell their products. Our interviews document multiple ways that banana farmers have been hurt by changes in international trade policy. The interviews also reveal a considerable gap between the stated desires and development policy priorities of farmers, on the one hand, and the impacts of development policy at the grassroots level, on the other. We conclude with suggestions on how to bridge the gap between inclusive neoliberal development policy and the needs of small farmers, who for decades have been the social and economic bedrock of Eastern Caribbean societies.

The discursive tactics of neoliberal development in small Third World countries

Abstract This paper draws from the regulation approach and from discourse analysis to contextualize and evaluate current trends in the industrial development policies of small Third World countries. The investment promotion guidebooks of eight economically-weak states of the Caribbean Basin and littoral Africa provide evidence for the construction of Third World mediascapes. Through promises of a pro-investor climate, images of scientific production, and avoidance of the reality of social discontent, the guidebooks signal that the country is a signatory to the neoliberal world order and is ripe for investment in export-oriented manufacturing. The guidebooks demonstrate considerable homogeneity regarding discursive tactics, messages, and promises to capital. The typical advertising package combines three themes: neoliberal and contextual depiction (pledges of subsidies, an open economy, and cheap and unorganized labour; tropical paradise and friendly natives), science fiction (dreams of high technology, telecommunications, and informatics), and strategic omission (exclusion of strife, resistance, hardship, and societal degradation). The homogeneity of incentives causes the generous incentive packages across the Third World to cancel each other out, thereby raising the stakes necessary to lure fastidious investors. Homogenization through mediascapes is not total, however. The invitations to international capital are trapped by local context. Investors discover either through the guidebooks or on site that local history and struggle preclude an unproblematic absorption and implementation of the neoliberal hegemonic project.

Does High Technology Polarize the Work Force

The well-known argument that high-technology industry polarizes the work force appears to be an extrapolation primarily from two patterns: The occupational characteristics of the semiconductor industry, and the seeming occupational polarization of the US economy as a whole. The proposition that high-technology industry is responsible for the polarization of work forces is operationalized and statistically assessed in this paper. Operating from a definition of ‘high technology’ used by government agencies, a county-level analysis of the relation between employment in high-technology firms and in various higher-skill and lower-skill occupations reveals only limited empirical support for the ‘high-technology work force polarization’ (hereafter HTWFP) argument. This suggests that generalizations about the occupational impacts of high technology have been overdrawn, and that further research should focus less on extrapolating to the general case and more on examining and comparing a variety of high-technology industries and their relationships to local labor-markets.

Geographies of Power in the Post-Cold War World-System

For a half-century the United States and the USSR oversaw a bi-polar world neatly divided into their spheres of influence. But the Cold War division abruptly ended with the Soviet Bloc’s collapse (1989–1991). How can we understand the present geographical organization of the international system of states? This is an important question: we must understand the sources and dynamics of international power if we are to effectively participate in creating a more just world order.