The commodification of culture in the Thai tourism context: a study of culinary experiences in touristic traditional markets

The purpose of the thesis is to examine the relationship between tourism and the local culture expressed in culinary experiences offered in the traditional, nostalgic-themed markets that have arisen as popular attractions in the 21 st century. Central to the thesis is an examination of how the traditional cultural values are articulated in the production, promotion and consumption of culinary experiences in order to understand the value of culture when embedded in the process of commodification, as well as to understand influential socio-cultural factors. The thesis investigates the potential of traditional markets to promote food as the main attraction in the market. Field studies were conducted from December 2012–March 2014 in eight traditional markets in the central region of Thailand. Based on the ethnographic approach in studying the narratives in the markets, a variety of methods were implemented in the process of data collection. Besides observational analysis of the venue, semi-structured interviews and the self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data from actors who engage in food experiences, including management team members, food traders and visitors. Data was also collected from interviews with officers working for Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).  Keys findings of the thesis reveal that the cultural expressions of food experience in each market is an outcome of both the interactions of worldviews expressed by actors involved in the traditional market and the socio-cultural condition of Thailand. The relationships between stakeholders’ attitudes towards food experiences and the commercial potentials and limitations of food were analysed. The analysis of the cultural value of culinary experiences demonstrates that the existing academic discussions of the authenticity of tourism are insightful in explaining the character of food experiences offered in this tourism scenario. Most importantly, authenticity in tourism experiences, being a desirable element in culinary experiences, is a reflection of the how the pre-modern aspect of Thai society is embraced in a contemporary context. In addition, the commodification of culinary culture generates multidimensional consequences on the value of traditional culture and local lives. Moreover, the performance of culinary experiences can be viewed from the perspective of how Thai society interacts with globalization. The thesis also points out that it is possible to compare the situation of the traditional markets with the marketing positioning of food in Thai tourism marketing policy.

Practical linkages between cultural policy and education policy in promoting a creative workforce for youth in Tanzania

The broad aim of of this thesis is to contribute to understanding how the relationships between culture, employment and education can help Tanzania's young people secure jobs, and survive in the creative workforce so as to better their future. Based on a range of interviews and other data in Tanzania, the study considers how to integrate cultural expressions into arts education (education in art and education through art) as a tool for nurturing young people's creative talents for their future sustainable employment in Tanzania.

Liberdade e identidade: uma abordagem filosófica acerca da proteção à diversidade cultural nas democracias liberais

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo analisar os conceitos de liberdade e identidade através da proposta de um "liberalismo cultural", apresentada pelo filósofo canadense Will Kymlicka, tal como defendida em suas obras Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (1995), Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship (2001) e Multicultural Odysseys. Navigatingthe New International Politics of Diversity (2007). Através dessas leituras, buscou-se compreender em particular de que modo a língua e o território se configuram como elementos definidores das culturas de povos nacionais e étnicos que empenham suas lutas para garantir a permanência desses atributos, tanto em nível doméstico como no plano internacional, a fim de assegurar a singularidade de seus modos de vida e de suas visões de mundo, enquanto grupos diferenciados. Para tanto, tornou-se fundamental a realização de uma análise crítica do processo de construção nacional dos Estados modernos, como um projeto levado a cabo por parte de inúmeros países na modernidade com o intuito de promover a unidade nacional de seus Estados, através da invisibilização das expressões culturais e da participação política de grupos culturalmente minoritários. Ao final, desenvolve-se uma pequena reflexão sobre como esse debate pode contribuir para uma melhor compreensão acerca das reivindicações de populações indígenas e remanescentes de quilombos no Brasil pela regularização de seus territórios e reconhecimento de suas práticas culturais.

The Cultural Dimensions of the Vietnamese Private Entrepreneurship

In this essay, we explore cultural impacts on the private entrepreneurship in the post-Doi Moi Vietnam. Some important aspects of the traditional cultural values of the Vietnamese society are explored in conjunction with the socio-economic changes over the past two decades. Traditional cultural values continue to have strong impacts on the Vietnamese society, and to a large extent to adversely affect the entrepreneurial spirit of the community. Typical constraints private entrepreneurs face may have roots in the cultural facet as legacy of the Confucian society, such as relationship-based bank credit. Low quality business education is both victim and culprit of the long-standing tradition that looks down on the role of private entrepreneurship in the country.

New Irish speakers and the ‘gaelicisation’ of Belfast

New Irish speakers in Belfast play a crucial, complex part in the revitalization and change of both the city and Irish within Northern Ireland. This paper examines the role of new Irish speakers in transforming Belfast, whose emergence from a post-conflict period involves a reassessment of communal cultural expressions. Markers of ethno-national identity are bitterly contentious locally, and yet increasingly celebrated, in line with international trends, as high status cultural forms and potentially profitable tourist attractions. Irish in Belfast currently occupies an ambiguous position: divisive enough for a sign reading ‘Happy Christmas’ in Irish to be experienced as an insult by some city councillors, yet a secure enough part of the establishment for a neighbourhood to be officially rebranded as the Gaeltacht Quarter.
When, how and where new Irish speakers use the language in Belfast has implications for the relationship of Irishness to the Northern Irish state and for the place of Belfast within regional frameworks across the UK, Ireland and Europe. Adult learners and young people exiting Irish medium education have an impact on life in Belfast beyond its small population of Irish speakers. Urbanisation fuelled by new speakers, which shifts the balance of Irish language resources and speakers away from traditional rural Gaeltacht areas and towards cities, also has implications for the language itself. Recent increase in new Irish speakers in Belfast is due to expansion in the Irish-medium sector as well as to adult learners, whose decisions contribute to the school expansion.
Urbanisation, multilingualism and intergenerational shift combine in Belfast to produce new linguistic norms. Moreover, in a minority language community where hierarchies of ‘authenticity’ are weighted towards the rural and the native speaker, where the rural and the native have traditionally been conflated, and where indigeneity is a central concept to contested nationalisms, the emergence of a self-confident, youthful Irish speaking community in Northern Ireland’s biggest city involves a recalibration of the qualities signifying ‘gaelicness’. As students, professionals, hobbyists and activists, new Irish speakers in Belfast occupy a vital position at the crux of changing ideas about place, language and identity.

Turismo cultural na ZEPH-Ribeira: possibilidades e limitações

Considering that urban interventions, planned and executed recently at Natal, RN, should put Ribeira - one of the town centers - in the new limits of the expanded center of the city, this work examines the use of this new accessibility for the benefit of the development of an infrastructure to support a type of tourism currently seen as an alternative to diversification into areas dominated by entertainment tourism (the case of Natal). A local with city's traditional cultural facilities and holder of a set built that is a synthesis of the images of the neighborhood, it fears that this increase in the potential for movement and flows of use stimulate speculation and deployment of a bulk type of activity incompatible with the preservation the architectural heritage. Important economy for the city, tourism has been showing a factor propellant processing urban related changes in accessibility. It is argued that cultural tourism, often used in plans and projects of revitalization across the country, may be factor for sustainable development and conserve the assets, and contributes to the process of revitalization of the historic cultural center as Ribeira. Intended to illustrate the need to consider other information that might help in the revitalization of the neighborhood, this research presents the offer cultural tourism of Ribeira and identifies and maps certain physical attributes that, combined with functional attributes, can stimulate or inhibit the diversity and vitality in the region

Cultura popular no Guamá: um estudo sobre o boi bumbá e outras práticas culturais em um bairro de periferia de Belém

Esta dissertação trata da cultura popular existente no bairro do Guamá em Belém do Pará, partindo da premissa de que algumas expressões culturais existentes no bairro fortalecem a relação de identificação entre os ditos “produtores culturais” e o espaço de vivência. A produção do boi bumbá será utilizada como parâmetro para se tecer um painel dos costumes populares e das práticas tradicionais presentes na periferia de Belém. Sua lógica de organização, a relação com outras experiências culturais, como o carnaval, festas religiosas e os sentidos atribuídos pelos seus produtores culturais serão tratados como pontos importantes de constituição da identidade cultural de parte dos moradores do bairro do Guamá na segunda metade do século XX.

Pescadores da reserva extrativista marinha de Soure: práticas sociais no território

O objeto deste estudo são as práticas sociais de pescadores artesanais inseridos em Unidades de Conservação, em especial na Reserva Extrativista Marinha de Soure, localizada a leste do município de Soure, no Estado do Pará. Esta RESEX é uma unidade de conservação federal, de uso sustentável, criada através do Decreto s/n de 22 de novembro de 2001, de conformidade ao estabelecido no SNUC e cujos órgãos gestores são o Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação e Biodiversidade – ICMBio e a Associação dos Usuários da Reserva Extrativista Marinha de Soure – ASSUREMAS. Segundo o ICMBio, a RESEX compreende todas as comunidades e bairros de Soure classificados como usuários da mesma: Araruna; Barra Velha; Bom Futuro; Cajuúna, Centro de Soure, Céu, Macaxeira, Matinha, Bairro Novo, Pacoval, Pedral, Pesqueiro, Pua, São Pedro, Tucumanduba e Umirizal. O trabalho de campo foi realizado nos meses de maio, junho, julho e outubro/2013 em três comunidades: Cajuúna, Céu e Pesqueiro, localizadas dentro dos limites desta UC. A pesquisa empírica objetivou refletir a realidade social da comunidade Cajuúna por meio de abordagem qualitativa e quantitativa, enquanto o Povoado do Céu e a Vila do Pesqueiro por meio de abordagem qualitativa. Para identificar os recursos florestais e hídricos realizou-se levantamento de produtos da economia pesqueira: peixe, camarão, caranguejo e turu; também aquela voltada aos produtos florestais, como o coco, o muruci e as sementes de andiroba, entre outros. Para a coleta destas informações e sobre a saúde foram aplicados, respectivamente, 61 (sessenta e um) e 20 (vinte) questionários e realizadas 55 (cinquenta e cinco) entrevistas. Observou-se que as famílias vivem da pesca na época da safra e, na entressafra, há redirecionamento para outras atividades como a construção civil, a carpintaria, o comércio; valem-se também dos programas governamentais. Na RESEX Marinha de Soure, apesar das potencialidades naturais, conferem-se limitações para garantir a reprodução econômica e social dos extrativistas. Este estudo interdisciplinar fundamenta-se no saber local dos pescadores e propôs a identificação das práticas sociais baseadas nos seus conhecimentos tradicionais, assim como compreender as organizações sociais que contribuem para a reprodução econômica e social dos agentes sociais e para a preservação ambiental deste território. As práticas sociais no território de pescadores são apreendidas como produto das suas atividades de cooperação mutua quanto ao uso dos recursos naturais e suas formas de organizações sociais, assim como, as expressões culturais manifestadas através da religiosidade e das festas, cujos ritos fortalecem as interações sociais “de dentro” e “de fora” das unidades sociais.

Interrogating the spaces of personal photography : women, identity, and the cultural formation of photographic practice

Personal photographs permeate our lives from the moment we are born as they define who we are within our familial group and local communities. Archived in family albums or framed on living room walls, they continue on after our death as mnemonic artifacts referencing our gendered, raced, and ethnic identities. This dissertation examines salient instances of what women “do” with personal photographs, not only as authors and subjects but also as collectors, archivists, and family and cultural historians. This project seeks to contribute to more productive, complex discourse about how women form relationships and engage with the conventions and practices of personal photography. In the first part of this dissertation I revisit developments in the history of personal photography, including the advertising campaigns of the Kodak and Agfa Girls and the development of albums such as the Stammbuch and its predecessor, the carte-de-visite, that demonstrate how personal photography has functioned as a gendered activity that references family unity, sentimentalism for the past, and self-representation within normative familial and dominant cultural groups, thus suggesting its importance as a cultural practice of identity formation. The second and primary section of the dissertation expands on the critical analyses of Gillian Rose, Patricia Holland, and Nancy Martha West, who propose that personal photography, marketed to and taken on by women, double-exposes their gendered identities. Drawing on work by critics such as Deborah Willis, bell hooks, and Abigail Solomon-Godeau, I examine how the reconfiguration, recontextualization, and relocation of personal photographs in the respective work of Christine Saari, Fern Logan, and Katie Knight interrogates and complicates gendered, raced, and ethnic identities and cultural attitudes about them. In the final section of the dissertation I briefly examine select examples of how emerging digital spaces on the Internet function as a site for personal photography, one that both reinscribes traditional cultural formations while offering new opportunities for women for the display and audiencing of identities outside the family.

The UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity: An Appraisal Five Years after Its Entry into Force

The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted in 2005 the first legally binding international instrument on culture. The Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions was agreed upon with an overwhelming majority and after the swiftest ratification process in the history of the UNESCO entered into force on 18 March 2007. Now, five years later and with some 125 Members committed to implementing the Convention, not only observers with a particular interest in the topic but also the broader public may be eager to know what has happened and in how far has the implementation progress advanced. This is the question that animates this paper and which it seeks to answer by giving a brief background to the UNESCO Convention, clarifying its legal and political status and impact, as well as by looking at the current implementation activities in the domestic and international contexts.

The New Audiovisual Media Services Directive : Television without Frontiers, Television without Cultural Diversity

After long deliberations, the European Community (EC) has completed the reform of its audiovisual media regulation. The paper examines the main tenets of this reform with particular focus on its implications for the diversity of cultural expressions in the European media landscape. It also takes into account the changed patterns of consumer and business behaviour due to the advances in digital media and their wider spread in society. The paper criticises the somewhat unimaginative approach of the EC to new media and the political (and at times protectionist) considerations behind some of the Directive's provisions.

The Protection and Promotion of Cultural Diversity at the International Level

The Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, adopted under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) in 2005, entered into force on 18 March 2007 after an incredibly swift ratification process. The Convention is the culmination of multiple-track efforts that spread over many years with the objective of providing a binding instrument for the protection and promotion of cultural diversity at the international level. These efforts, admirable as they may be, are not however isolated undertakings of goodwill, but a reaction to economic globalisation, whose advancement has been significantly furthered by the emergence of enforceable multilateral trade rules. These very rules, whose bearer is the World Trade Organization (WTO), have been perceived as the antipode to "culture" and have commanded the formulation of counteracting norms that may sufficiently "protect" and "promote" it. Against this backdrop of institutional tension and fragmentation, the present chapter explicates the emergence of the concept of cultural diversity on the international policy- and law-making scene and its legal dimensions given by the new UNESCO Convention. It critically analyses the Convention's provisions, in particular the rights and obligations of the State Parties, and asks whether indeed the UNESCO Convention provides a sufficient and appropriate basis for the protection and promotion of a thriving and diverse cultural environment.

The UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity : An Appraisal Five Years after its Entry into Force

The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted in 2005 the first legally binding international instrument on culture. The Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions was agreed upon with an overwhelming majority and after the swiftest ratification process in the history of the UNESCO entered into force on 18 March 2007. Now, five years later and with some 125 Members committed to implementing the Convention, not only observers with a particular interest in the topic but also the broader public may be eager to know what has happened and in how far has the implementation progress advanced. This is the question that animates this paper and which it seeks to answer by giving a brief background to the UNESCO Convention, clarifying its legal and political status and impact, as well as by looking at the current implementation activities in the domestic and international contexts.

Cultural Diversity

The concept of cultural diversity has emerged as an influential one having impact on multiple policy and legal instruments especially following the adoption of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions in 2005. The discussions on its appropriate implementation are however profoundly fragmented and often laden with political considerations. The present brief paper offers some thoughts on the meaning of cultural diversity and its implementation in the digital networked environment, taking into account the effects of digital media upon cultural content creation, distribution and consumption. The paper was meant to be part of a document prepared by a civil society organisation for the OECD ministerial meeting in Seoul 2008 on the future of the Internet.

The European Union, the World Trade Organization and Cultural Diversity

The chapter maps these trade versus culture developments in the WTO and the positions of the European Union (EU or the Union) and its member states, which were not always coherent. It also looks at the actual results of the trade versus culture contestation – that is, the rules on trade in goods and services in the WTO and how they reflect the need for more policy space in matters of cultural policy, which the EU so ardently pressed for. The chapter further analyses the evolution of both the international trade regulation and the discourse on cultural policy. This discourse has in fact undergone a major transformation in the last two decades, as it has moved from the ‘exception culturelle’ rhetoric, which dominated the Uruguay trade talks, towards a more positive but also more pro-active agenda under the slogan of cultural diversity. The EU has been a major driver of this transformation, which has succeeded in mobilising the international community and ultimately led to the adoption of the 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The chapter concludes by appraisal of the current state of the debate situating it into the broader picture of contemporary global governance. It asks how the EU could effectively pursue its cultural policy aspirations and endorse its cultural diversity agenda in a world of complexity and rapid technological change, in particular in view of the affordances of digital media.