Capacity development and higher education

Capacity development in Small Island Developing Countries (SIDCs) is a core development priority reflected in Sustainable Development Goal 17. For universities located in SIDCs countries, a key strategy for capacity development has been to build collaborations with researchers and institutions in developed countries. However, in most cases, Pacific researchers participating in collaborative projects are only seen as a local contacts or consultants with limited contribution to projects. This lack of parity, despite scientific research being undertaken in developing countries, has led to challenges of ‘neo-colonial science.’ In this chapter Krishna Kumar Kotra and Naohiro Nakamura draw on collaborative research between The University of the South Pacific’s Emalus Campus, Vanuatu, and institutions located in developed countries to highlight strategies and tensions of achieving capacity development. The authors outline appropriate and relevant practices for future collaborative partnerships focusing on student mentoring, training, and research participation

Children's media cultures in comparative perspective

This handbook offers a comprehensive overview of the complexity and diversity of audience studies in the advent of digital media

Consumer Power to Change the Food System? A Critical Reading of Food Labels as Governance Spaces: The Case of Acai Berry Superfoods

This article argues that the marketing claims on food labels are a governance space worthy of critical examination. We use a case study of superfood açaí berry products to illustrate how marketing claims on food labels encapsulate dominant neoliberal constructions of global food systems. These marketing claims implicitly promise that by making careful choices consumers can resist and redress the ravages of unbridled global capitalism. Food labels suggest that consumers can use market signals to simultaneously govern our own selves and the market to ensure sustainable, fair, and healthy consumption. In response, this article develops, justifies and applies a socio-legal approach to researching food chain governance which uses the food label as its unit of analysis and traces from the micro level of what the everyday consumer is exposed to on a food label to the broader governance processes that the food label both symbolizes and effects. We demonstrate our approach through a “label and chain governance analysis” of açaí berry marketing claims to deconstruct both the regulatory governance of the chain behind the food choices available to the consumer evident from the label and the way in which labels seek to govern consumer choices. Our analysis unpacks the nutritionist, primitivist undertones to the health claims made on these products, the neo-colonial and racist dimensions in their claims regarding fair trade and rural socio-economic development, and, the use of green-washing claims about biodiversity conservation and ecological sustainability. Through our application of this approach to the case study of açaí berry product labels, we show how food labels can legitimize the market-based governance of globalized food chains and misleadingly suggest that capitalist production can be adequately restrained by self-regulation, market-based governance and reflexive consumer choices alone. We conclude by suggesting the need for both greater deconstruction of the governance assumptions behind food labels and to possibilities for collective, public interest oriented regulatory governance of both labelling and the food system

The role of" Special Economic Zones"(SEZ) of the ICT industry for the development of the creative industry in Kazakhstan

Nowadays, the creative industry in Kazakhstan is a young direction of the economy. The government supports this industry with tax benefits, the provision of infrastructure, as well as the creation of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in large megacities of the country like Nur-Sultan (Astana) and Almaty. "Astana Hub” and the park of innovative technologies “Alatau" are the main centers of development of the organization of the ICT industry as cluster formations. In this paper, an overview study was conducted to determine the role of these SEZs for the development of the creative industry in Kazakhstan. Firstly, the concept of the creative industry was considered, then a literary review of the creative industry and special economic zones was conducted, and thirdly, a review was made on special economic zones that contribute to the development of the creative industry in Kazakhsta

A Comparative Discourse Analysis of TRT World and Al Jazeera News Channels on the News Reports of the Syrian War

In the last two decades, we have witnessed the rising of new international news networks such as Al Jazeera, Russian Today, and TRT World in order to challenge the main media corporations of the Western world like, CNN, BBC, and MSNBC, etc. particularly on the news regarding the Middle East. While the results of the Gulf War in 1990 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003 have made checks and balances on Western news associations necessary, Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based broadcaster, emerged as a remarkable voice by taking the role of a contra-flow news agency, and succeeded in producing different and original opinions within its region in the international news arena. In this context, this study selected a critical approach to TRT World, one of the recent news players in the region of the Middle East, in order to identify if it is achievable for the channel to bring a unique perspective on the news regarding the Middle East, as Al Jazeera has accomplished. A critical discourse analysis was conducted by analyzing the news reports of TRT World and Al Jazeera’s stories regarding the Syrian Civil War. However, the study results suggest that TRT World misses the claim of ‘‘new and accurate perspectives ‘to the international arena due to political factors

New media art: curating social justice in contemporary art museums and arts organizations

My research project includes case studies in which I interviewed nine new media art curators and directors whose curatorial practices offer historical analyses and theoretical perspectives that address the dynamics of social justice by using new media art. I investigate the ways in which social justice is presented in museums and arts organizations. Central to this project is an examination of museum practices where the use of new media art becomes a central platform to showcase issues of social justice

Liveability analysis of gated and non-gated low middle income communities in kuala lumpur, Malaysia

The aim of this paper is to examine the liveability conditions in gated and non-gated low middle income communities in Kuala Lumpur where rapid urban growth has led to many disruptions in the urban living environment. Hence, a livability framework was developed with dimensions from housing condition, economic condition, functional environment, social relations and community safety towards achieving the research objectives of – a) to study the liveability level in gated and non-gated communities, b) to compare the level of liveability between gated and non-gated communities, and c) to determine the dimensions and indicators which influence the level of liveability in both communities. Residents’ views were collected through a questionnaire survey which consisted of twenty-four indicators of liveability belonging to five dimensions from three communities in Kuala Lumpur. Two communities belong to non-gated and one community had gated living status. The findings of the research revealed that gated community has a better living conditions compared to the non-gated community. Thus, this research can be used as a turning point to improve the living environment of both gated and non-gated communit

Xenophobia towards asylum seekers: A survey of social theories

In recent decades, there has been a global rise in fear and hostility towards asylum seekers. Xenophobia - or \u27fear of the stranger\u27 - has become a pressing issue in a range of disciplines. Several causal models have been proposed to explain this fear and the hostility it produces. However, disciplinary boundaries have limited productive dialogue between these approaches. This article draws connections between four of the main theories that have been advanced in the existing literature: (1) false belief accounts, (2) xenophobia as new racism, (3) sociobiological explanations and (4) xenophobia as an effect of capitalist globalisation. While this article cannot provide an exhaustive review of theories of xenophobia, it aims to present a useful comparative introduction to current research into the social aspects of xenophobia, particularly as these theories have been applied to asylum seekers. In bringing together divergent models, it also invites interdisciplinary engagement