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Local Discourse (local + discourse)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences100%

Selected Abstracts

Local discourse and global competition: production experiences in family workshops of the Brianza

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2003
Simone Ghezzi
One of the most important consequences of post-Fordist global restructuring has been the ,deterritorialization' of capital and its increasing geographic expansion. Another and quite different view emphasizes the fact that capitalist activity can be organized by means of localized or territorially based systems of specialized production. In this article my purpose is to show how these two disciplinary discourses are actually not mutually exclusive. Developed local economies are not immune from concerns of deterritorialization, nor should their economic achievement gloss over the glitches that are emerging at the local level due to stiffer global competition. These two aspects become immediately apparent as I illustrate the local discourse that emerges among workshop owners within an industrial district of the Brianza in the Italian region of Lombardy. After a discussion about the origin and the characteristics of this regional economy, I illustrate by way of ethnographic examples how innovation and competitiveness within and outside this industrial district mask forms of exploitation and contradictions amidst family-run workshops. In discursive terms, exploitation is articulated in various ways, but two in particular seem to be most recurrent in the narrative of small entrepreneurs of this region. One is the ideology of ,hard work' and the other, more recently heard of, is the ideology of ,high quality product'. In the brief concluding section I will stress the point that these two discourses emerging from exploitative social relations of production are to be viewed as responses to the concerns regarding the possible deterritorialization of some factories and the increasing competition with crossboundary markets. L'une des plus importantes conséquences de la restructuration mondiale post-fordiste a été la ,déterritorialisation' du capital et son expansion géographique croissante. Une autre opinion, tout à fait différente, avance que l'activité capitaliste peut s'organiser grâce à des systèmes localisés,ou liés à un territoire,de production spécialisée. Cet article a pour but de démontrer que ces deux discours disciplinaires ne sont, en fait, pas mutuellement exclusifs. Les économies locales développées ne sont pas à l'abri de problémes de déterritorialisation, pas plus que leurs résultats économiques ne doivent dissimuler les complications locales qui naissent d'une concurrence mondiale plus dure. Ces deux aspects se dégagent immédiatement du discours local émanant d'artisans du district industriel italien de Brianza en Lombardie. Après avoir présenté l'origine et les caractéristiques de cette économie régionale, l'article illustre par des exemples éthnographiques les façons dont innovation et compétitivité internes et externes à ce district masquent des formes d'exploitation et des contradictions au sein d'entreprises familiales. Logiquement, l'exploitation s'articule de manières diverses, mais deux d'entre eles semblent revenir très souvent dans le récit des petits entrepreneurs locaux. L'une tient à l'idéologie du ,dur labeur' et l'autre, plus récente, à celle du ,produit de qualité supérieure'. Une courte conclusion souligne que ces deux discours issus de relations sociales d'exploitation industrielle doivent être considérés comme des réactions aux préoccupations liées à la déterritorialisation de certaines usines et à la concurrence accrue avec des marchés transfrontaliers. [source]

Gender, Caste and Matchmaking in Kerala: A Rationale for Dowry

DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 2 2008
Praveena Kodoth
ABSTRACT The matrilineal castes of northern Kerala consider dowry demeaning and resort to it only in ,exceptional' circumstances. In local discourse, dowry is transacted when women are considered ,old' by the standards of the marriage market, where over-age is a condition reached usually on account of what is considered a deficit of a normative conception of femininity. Dowry is practised openly only by poor and socially vulnerable households, as the relatively affluent could mask dowry with hidden compensations. This article explores the ways in which gender mediates matchmaking and generates a residual category of women for whom dowry is openly negotiated. Open negotiation on the margins of the marriage market expose the terms of exchange in ,respectable' society, where matchmaking strategies reveal the emphasis placed on conjugality and on caste in the social construction of women's interests and identity. Up to the mid-twentieth century, matrilineal women derived their identity from their natal families. The political economy of marriage in Kerala brought a new emphasis to bear on conjugality and on caste, which generated new restrictions on women and produced a rationale for dowry. [source]

Local discourse and global competition: production experiences in family workshops of the Brianza

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2003
Simone Ghezzi
One of the most important consequences of post-Fordist global restructuring has been the ,deterritorialization' of capital and its increasing geographic expansion. Another and quite different view emphasizes the fact that capitalist activity can be organized by means of localized or territorially based systems of specialized production. In this article my purpose is to show how these two disciplinary discourses are actually not mutually exclusive. Developed local economies are not immune from concerns of deterritorialization, nor should their economic achievement gloss over the glitches that are emerging at the local level due to stiffer global competition. These two aspects become immediately apparent as I illustrate the local discourse that emerges among workshop owners within an industrial district of the Brianza in the Italian region of Lombardy. After a discussion about the origin and the characteristics of this regional economy, I illustrate by way of ethnographic examples how innovation and competitiveness within and outside this industrial district mask forms of exploitation and contradictions amidst family-run workshops. In discursive terms, exploitation is articulated in various ways, but two in particular seem to be most recurrent in the narrative of small entrepreneurs of this region. One is the ideology of ,hard work' and the other, more recently heard of, is the ideology of ,high quality product'. In the brief concluding section I will stress the point that these two discourses emerging from exploitative social relations of production are to be viewed as responses to the concerns regarding the possible deterritorialization of some factories and the increasing competition with crossboundary markets. L'une des plus importantes conséquences de la restructuration mondiale post-fordiste a été la ,déterritorialisation' du capital et son expansion géographique croissante. Une autre opinion, tout à fait différente, avance que l'activité capitaliste peut s'organiser grâce à des systèmes localisés,ou liés à un territoire,de production spécialisée. Cet article a pour but de démontrer que ces deux discours disciplinaires ne sont, en fait, pas mutuellement exclusifs. Les économies locales développées ne sont pas à l'abri de problémes de déterritorialisation, pas plus que leurs résultats économiques ne doivent dissimuler les complications locales qui naissent d'une concurrence mondiale plus dure. Ces deux aspects se dégagent immédiatement du discours local émanant d'artisans du district industriel italien de Brianza en Lombardie. Après avoir présenté l'origine et les caractéristiques de cette économie régionale, l'article illustre par des exemples éthnographiques les façons dont innovation et compétitivité internes et externes à ce district masquent des formes d'exploitation et des contradictions au sein d'entreprises familiales. Logiquement, l'exploitation s'articule de manières diverses, mais deux d'entre eles semblent revenir très souvent dans le récit des petits entrepreneurs locaux. L'une tient à l'idéologie du ,dur labeur' et l'autre, plus récente, à celle du ,produit de qualité supérieure'. Une courte conclusion souligne que ces deux discours issus de relations sociales d'exploitation industrielle doivent être considérés comme des réactions aux préoccupations liées à la déterritorialisation de certaines usines et à la concurrence accrue avec des marchés transfrontaliers. [source]

Global schemas and local discourses in Cosmopolitan

JOURNAL OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS, Issue 4 2003
David Machin
This paper investigates the representation of female identity and practice in the U.K., Dutch, German, Spanish, Greek, Finnish, Indian and Taiwanese versions of Cosmopolitan magazine. It shows how a ,problem,solution' discourse schema underlies a range of articles that do not all use a problem,solution genre. While this schema is clearly global and occurs in all the versions of the magazine, it allows for local variation in terms of the kinds of problems and solutions it can accommodate. The schema is described as an interpretive framework which constructs social life as an individual struggle for survival in a world of risky and unstable relationships. The community of readers of the magazine is described as a globally dispersed and linguistically heterogeneous speech community which nevertheless shares an involvement with the same modalities and genres of language and the same linguistic constructions of reality and which can signify its allegiance to the values of the magazine through dress, grooming and other behaviours. [source]

The memorialization of September 11: Dominant and local discourses on the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site

AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 3 2004
Setha M. Low
ABSTRACT An inherent tension exists between the meanings of the World Trade Center site created by dominant political and economic players and the significance of the space for those who actually live near it. Most of the writing on and analysis of the site have focused on the construction of a memorial space for an imagined national and global community of visitors who identify with its broader, state-produced meanings. But New Yorkers, in general, and downtown residents, in particular, bring to meaning making their own personal involvement in and knowledge of a located history that has social, political, and economic significance for their everyday lives. These meanings are as much a part of memorialization as the dominant players' political machinations and economic competition for space and status. Uncovering and eliciting these local memorial discourses is part of an ethnographic project that focuses on how personalized narratives of loss emerge and are manipulated within mass-mediated representations of the World Trade Center space. My contribution to understanding how the memorial process works has been to analyze what downtown residents say about their experience of September 11 and its aftermath, to record their feelings about a memorial, and, in so doing, to contest, expand, and modify the dominant media and governmental representations of September 11 and its memorialization. [source]