März 22, 2012, 9:59 am, Alexa Maria Kunz,
Higher education studies,
Semester break,
Spatial concepts,
Spatial Cybernetics,
Study time allocation,
Time institutions,
Topics.
This paper was developed from a presentation hold on the annual convention of the department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Karlsruher Institute of Technology (KIT) in February 2012. Since the beginning of the Bologna Process the controversial issue of students’ time allocation has been occasionally discussed in the scientific community as well as in public media. It is ambiguous how much time students spend for studying and how they get along with their workload. For the first time a research group at the KIT collected and analysed a large scale of data on students’ time allocation, students’ workload as well as motives for studying during the semester break. This paper contrasts ‘time institutions’ of employees like the 40-hour working week with student time structures.
Abstract Based upon flyers and advertisements for the contraceptive pill from 1961 until 2005, this paper discusses the ways in which
the drug and its female users were represented in the marketing of two West European countries, France and…
März 20, 2012, 4:46 pm, Lisa Xanke,
Artificial human,
Artificial intelligence,
Cyborgs,
Posthuman age,
Sociohistorical analysis,
Terminator,
Topics,
Transhumanism.
The article deals with the idea of artificial people in literature and film, using examples from the literature and the history of film it is shown that the idea of artificial people has always existed. With the increase of technical innovations, more and more scenarios developed by artificial people, to the formation of the idea of the cyborg.
The historian Imanuel Geiss who died in Bremen on February 20 at age 81 was one of the few internationally renowned representatives of German historic teaching. His works about WW I, he history of racism, but especially his Encycplopedia of Global History “Geschichte griffbereit” (1979ff.) will be rememberd as milestones of .scholarship.
März 14, 2012, 9:55 pm, ALLAN WATSON, Allgemein.
In this article, I present a social network analysis that explores and maps relational urban networks of production within the global recorded music industry. Within the analysis, recorded music albums are viewed as temporary market-based projects that bring together teams of skilled creative workers in recording studios across the globe. New tools and techniques for networking studios in geographically distant locations give mobile musically creative workers the ability to coordinate musical recordings on a global scale, resulting in new relational geographies of music production. An innovative approach is taken to the social network analysis to assess the connectedness of cities and determine the centrality and power of cities within networks of production for three major Anglophone digital music markets. The result is a mapping of the relational urban networks of music production as indicated through the interdependencies between projects, studios and local urban agglomerations.
März 14, 2012, 9:53 pm, JOHN SALT, PETER WOOD, Allgemein.
The international mobility of MNE personnel has been increasing in recent years both through traditional forms of expatriation and short-term assignments and through business travel. These overall ‘portfolios of mobility’, however, have been complemented by intensified virtual communication and growing localization of recruitment in developing production and market regions. In this article, we report on a return survey of the impacts of the 2008 recession on the mobility portfolios of a sample of UK-based MNEs and consider how far it has affected established trends. We begin by reviewing evidence from recent large-scale surveys on corporate staff mobility. We then focus on how the relationship between established business goals and global mobility strategies was rebalanced within individual companies as the recession took hold. Our evidence indicates the widely variable effects of recession, strongly affecting operations in some parts of the world, but making little, if any, change elsewhere. In many cases, corporate restructuring or the increased focus on emerging markets were already reshaping mobility portfolios. Diversification and flexibility have underlain the development of these portfolios over the last decade. The recession has accelerated several processes already under way, including a shift towards alternatives to traditional assignments and the closer incorporation of new and emerging markets into mobility systems. It has also allowed companies to drive through changes that might otherwise have been more contentious, such as reducing the financial incentives for assignment.
März 14, 2012, 9:52 pm, CÉSAR DUCRUET, THEO NOTTEBOOM, Allgemein.
Port and maritime studies dealing with containerization have observed traffic concentration and dispersion throughout the world. Globalization, intermodal transportation, and technological revolutions in the shipping industry have resulted in both network extension and rationalization. However, lack of precise data on inter-port relations prevent the application of wider network theories to global maritime container networks, which are often examined through case studies of specific firms or regions. In this article, we present an analysis of the global liner shipping network in 1996 and 2006, a period of rapid change in port hierarchies and liner service configurations. While we refer to literature on port system development, shipping networks, and port selection, the article is one of the only analyses of the properties of the global container shipping network. We analyse the relative position of ports in the global network through indicators of centrality. The results reveal a certain level of robustness in the global shipping network. While transhipment hub flows and gateway flows might slightly shift among nodes in the network, the network properties remain rather stable in terms of the main nodes polarizing the network and the overall structure of the system. In addition, mapping the changing centrality of ports confirms the impacts of global trade and logistics shifts on the port hierarchy and indicates that changes are predominantly geographic.
März 14, 2012, 9:51 pm, MASJA VAN MEETEREN, Allgemein.
The literature on immigrant transnationalism and on irregular immigration suggests irregular migrants engage relatively little in transnational activities because of the obstacles associated with their legal and economic statuses. Drawing on participant observation and in-depth interviews with a diverse population of irregular migrants in Belgium and the Netherlands, however, I shall demonstrate in this article that irregular migrants do indeed engage in various transnational activities. Moreover, I argue that a focus on aspirations helps to understand why irregular migrants either do or do not engage in specific transnational activities. Distinguishing between investment, settlement and legalization aspirations, I analyse whether and for what reasons irregular migrants carry out economic, social and political transnational activities. I conclude that future research on transnationalism and on the incorporation of irregular and regular migrants alike could benefit from contextualizing the agency of migrants by taking their aspirations into account.
März 14, 2012, 9:48 pm, JOANNA HERBERT, Allgemein.
In this article, I map the diverse allegiances and changing conceptions of home expressed by British Ugandan Asians. Drawing on in-depth interviews, I situate the analysis within the wider literature on diaspora, belonging and home. By revealing their different trajectories of belonging, I challenge much of the current literature on the South Asian diaspora, which focuses on connections to India as the principal homeland. Their complex relationship to Britain in the aftermath of the expulsion provides an alternative insight to previous research, which has stressed their commitment to the UK. I trace how they constructed their sense of ‘home’ in Uganda, how their forced migration transformed this and how they responded to their contested and multiple belongings. The respondents‘ emphasis on their previous attachments to Uganda helps to challenge stereotypes about South Asians in Uganda and can partly be seen as an attempt to reclaim their place in Uganda’s history.
März 14, 2012, 9:48 pm, MIRCA MADIANOU, Allgemein.
This article is concerned with the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on Filipina transnational mothers‘ experience of motherhood, their practices of mothering and, ultimately, their identities as mothers. Drawing on ethnographic research with Filipina migrants in the UK as part of a wider study of Filipino transnational families, this article observes that, despite the digital divide and other structural inequalities, new communication technologies, such as the internet and mobile phones, allow for an empowered experience of distant mothering. Apart from a change in the practice and intensity of mothering at a distance, ICTs also have consequences for women’s maternal identities and the ways in which they negotiate their ambivalence towards work and family life. In this sense, ICTs can also be seen as solutions (even though difficult ones) to the cultural contradictions of migration and motherhood and the ‘accentuated ambivalence’ they engender. This, in turn, has consequences for the whole experience of migration, sometimes even affecting decisions about settlement and return.