Disclosure, discrimination and desire: experiences of Black and South Asian gay men in Britain

Using findings from a qualitative investigation based on in-depth email interviews with 47 Black and South Asian gay men in Britain, this paper explores the cross-cutting identities and discourses in relation to being both gay and from an ethnic minority background. Taking an intersectional approach, detailed accounts of identity negotiation, cultural pressures, experiences of discrimination and exclusion and the relationship between minority ethnic gay men and mainstream White gay culture are presented and explored. The major findings common to both groups were: cultural barriers limiting disclosure of sexuality to family and wider social networks; experiences of discrimination by White gay men that included exclusion as well as objectification; a lack of positive gay role models and imagery relating to men from minority ethnic backgrounds. Among South Asian gay men, a major theme was regret at being unable to fulfil family expectations regarding marriage and children, while among Black gay men, there was a strong belief that same-sex behaviour subverted cultural notions related to how masculinity is configured. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of social location, particularly education and income, when examining the intersection of ethnicity and sexuality in future research.

Increasing Food Production in Africa by Boosting the Productivity of Understudied Crops

The Green Revolution has enabled Asian countries to boost their crop production enormously. However, Africa has not benefitted from this agricultural revolution since it did not consider local, but important crops grown in the continent. In addition to their versatile adaptation to extreme environmental conditions, African indigenous crops provide income for subsistence farmers and serve as staple food for the vast majority of low-income consumers. These crops, which are composed of cereals, legumes, vegetables and root crops, are commonly known as underutilized or orphan crops. Recently, some of these under-researched crops have received the attention of the national and international research community, and modern improvement techniques including diverse genetic and genomic tools have been applied in order to boost their productivity. The major bottlenecks affecting the productivity of these crops are unimproved genetic traits such as low yield and poor nutritional status and environmental factors such as drought, weeds and pests. Hence, an agricultural revolution is needed to increase food production of these under-researched crops in order to feed the ever-increasing population in Africa. Here, we present both the benefits and drawbacks of major African crops, the efforts being made to improve them, and suggestions for some future directions.

The Long Tail of the Rainbow Serpent: New Technologies and the Protection and Promotion of Traditional Cultural Expressions

New technologies, in particular those stemming from digitisation, allow amongst other things the production of perfect copies, instantaneous and ubiquitous distribution of and easy access to information with no real location restrictions. The effects of these technological advances have largely been perceived as negative for the protection of traditional cultural expressions (TCE), both because of the peculiarities of the digital networked environment and because of the lack of appropriate intellectual property protection models for TCE. The purpose of this article is, while accounting for the diversity and complexity of issues related to TCE, to reveal a more positive side of digital technologies. It shows the potential of these to be proactively applied and the further reaching possibilities for designing an efficient multi-level and multi-faceted toolbox for the protection and promotion of TCE in the digital ecology.

Approaching diplomatic and courtly gift-giving in Europe and Mughal India. Shared practices and cultural diversity

This article deals with courtly gift-giving practices in Europe and Mughal India from a comparative and interwoven perspective. Given the historiographical lacunae on Mughal gift-giving, the article presents preliminary observations for further research. Unlike most contributions to this volume, this article understands the notion of diversity in terms of an intercultural diversity that came to the fore in courtly contexts and in diplomatic encounters. My arguments are bifold. On the one hand, European and Mughal rulers and their envoys shared a common ground of diplomatic gift-giving practices that were shaped by an understanding of what was worthy of giving and of the symbolic power of the given objects. On the other hand, courtly gift-giving practices were embedded in different social and cultural environments in Europe and India. By looking at the notion of the ‘gift’ and the social organisation of the Mughal elite, it becomes clear that pīshkash was an idiosyncratic concept in South and Central Asian contexts and that offerings of manṣabdārs to the Mughal emperor had a different character than those of European courtiers to their rulers.

New Technologies and the Protection and Promotion of Traditional Cultural Expressions

New technologies, in particular those stemming from digitization, allow amongst other things the production of perfect copies, instantaneous and ubiquitous distribution of and easy access to information with no real location restrictions. The effects of these technological advances have largely been perceived as negative for the protection of Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCE), both because of the peculiarities of the digital networked environment and because of the lack of appropriate intellectual property protection models for TCE. The purpose of this article is, while accounting for the diversity and complexity of issues related to TCE, to reveal a more positive side of digital technologies. It shows the potential of these to be proactively applied and the further reaching possibilities for designing an efficient multi-level and multi-faceted toolbox for the protection and promotion of TCE in the digital ecology.

Enquiry into the Notion of Cultural Protectionism in the Media and its Dimensions in Cyberspace

Cultural protectionism has been an element of national and foreign policies, as an extension of state sovereignty expressed both in a defensive and offensive manner. While the generic protectionist formula in the sense of restraining trade between states through measures such as import tariffs or quotas and through privileging domestic production has somewhat disintegrated over time under the rationale for free trade and the strong practical evidence of its benefits, the particular case of cultural protectionism has persevered. As we reveal in this paper, however, it has been modified, or at least its rhetoric has changed. The enquiry into the notion of cultural protectionism or cultural diversity, as the current political jargon would have it, is but one of the paper’s objectives. Its second and certainly more ambitious goal is the search for the normative dimensions of cultural diversity policies in the global digital space, asking what adjustments are needed and how feasible the entire project of diversity regulation in this environment may be. Taking into account the specificities of cyberspace and in a forward-looking manner, we propose some adjustments to current media policy practices that could better serve the goal of a sustainably diverse cultural environment.

Mobilities and Pottery Production Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives

Our workshop aims at a deeper understanding of various itineraries of pottery and dif-ferent forms of human mobilities in which pottery is relevant, bringing together archae-ological and anthropological perspectives. For thousands of years, pottery has been an important part of many societies’ material culture and therefore a major research topic in both disciplines. In past and present societies the material existence of ceramic vessels is informed by various movements across time and space but also by periods of stasis: from the mo-ment of their production until their exclusion from daily practices, either disposed as waste, excluded as funerary objects or stored as collectibles. In their seemingly endless material durability, ceramic vessels might outlive their human producers, distributors or consumers and travel farther and longer. Still they are embedded in the regimes of human mobility, ranging from daily subsistence-based mobility to long-term migrations. In such processes, pottery shifts between spatial, temporal, social, economic and cultural contexts. Thereby ceramic vessels are appropriated and integrated in new contexts of action and meaning, sometimes leading to material transformations. This workshop takes place in the context of our archaeological research project „Mobili-ties, Entanglements and Transformations in Neolithic Societies on the Swiss Plateau (3900-3500 BC)“ to which our PhDs are connected. We address the above outlined topic by analysing the production of pottery. Based on dendrochronologically dated settle-ments between 3900 and 3500 BC, two regional pottery styles and their local variations are well known, Pfyn and Cortaillod. The vessels share the same habitus and were made of clays and temper deriving from the settlements’ surroundings. However, some vessels specific to other pottery styles are also present on the sites. They are characteristic for pottery styles known from more or less far off regions (Michelsberg, Munzingen or Néo-lithique Moyen Bourguignon). Some of them were travelling objects, as their non local raw materials show. Others seem to have been produced locally, pointing to long-term mobility and a change of residence from neighbouring social groups.

Why Do Economies Enter into Preferential Agreements on Trade in Services? Assessing the Potential for Negotiated Regulatory Convergence in Asian Services Markets

More than one-third of the World Trade Organization-notified services trade agreements that were in effect between January 2008 and August 2015 involved at least one South or Southeast Asian trading partner. Drawing on Baier and Bergstrand’s (2004) determinants of preferential trade agreements and using the World Bank’s database on the restrictiveness of domestic services regimes (Borchert, Gootiiz, and Mattoo 2012), we examine the potential for negotiated regulatory convergence in Asian services markets. Our results suggest that Asian economies with high levels of preexisting bilateral merchandise trade and wide differences in services regulatory frameworks are more likely candidates for services trade agreement formation. Such results lend support to the hypothesis that the heightened “servicification” of production generates demand for the lowered services input costs resulting from negotiated market openings.

Why do Countries Enter into Preferential Agreements on Trade in Services? Assessing the Potential for Negotiated Regulatory Convergence in Asian Services Markets

More than a third of the World Trade Organization (WTO)-notified services trade agreements (STAs) in effect over January 2008 - August 2015 have involved at least one (South or Southeast) Asian trading partner. Drawing on Baier and Bergstrand's (2004) determinants of preferential trade agreements and using the World Bank's database on the restrictiveness of domestic services regimes (Borchert et.al. 2012), we examine the potential for negotiated regulatory convergence in Asian services markets. Our results suggest that countries within Asia with high levels of pre-existing bilateral merchandise trade and wide differences in services regulatory frameworks are more likely candidates for STA formation. Such results lend support to the hypothesis that the heightened "servicification" of production generates a demand for the lowered service input costs resulting from negotiated market opening.