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The paper analyses the case of Egyptian footballer Mohamed Salah, from Liverpool FC in England, as a successful example of building a transcultural idol within a scenario of the internationalization of football as business. We study his social medias through organic monitoring from 2021 to 2023, to understand how the athlete image would help overcoming cultural barriers. We established five categories (work, success, family, multiculturalism, and commercial legitimacy) around cultural signs, analysing the posts in the light of the concept of hyper-ritualization. We argue that the football player manages to build a multiculturalist image by overcoming national barriers. We argue that he does this by the positive image he builds on his social medias, allowing him transit through different cultural environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how nursing education both exemplifies the contradictions of neoliberalism alongside its seemingly all-encompassing influence. We conduct a feminist critical policy analysis to trace the histories of nursing as a feminised vocation located outside the academy, and how this is reflected in recent policy. We then critically explore widening participation and social mobility in relation to nursing education, and demonstrate how a discourse of fairness is used to justify market solutions. The 'special case' of nursing is considered through an analysis of how 'the nurse' as subject is constituted in education policy discourse. Our discussion focuses on the effects of these reforms and demonstrates how historical discourses that centre on women as carers are assimilated into the 'neoliberal social imaginary'. The paper's scope is both local – the gendered history of nursing education in England – and global – the force of neoliberal globalisation in education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The English Premier League, the elite division of association football (soccer) in England, exploited commercial opportunities and market growth since its rebranding in 1992. The companies involved in professional football sponsorships represented a variety of industries and origins. How substantial did these representations fluctuate to indicate a periodization of sponsorship eras? This paper provides a systematic and longitudinal review of shirt sponsors within the league. The investigation of historical patterns clarified the changing playing field and the current state of play of sponsorships in English football. The remarkable patterns resulted in an interconnected periodization of five sponsorship industry eras and four sponsorship globalization eras. Future sponsorship challenges were identified regarding the corporate context, community fundamentals and the level of involvement affecting new sponsorship eras. These patterns in the world-leading football competition serve as an excellent case for decision makers in other domains to recognize the dynamics in corporate community involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Austerity politics in Britain are edging towards compressed learning and teaching identities, driven by competition for resources and normative standards. Policy changes since 2010 have impacted particularly on the arts, and have had an adverse effect on cultural diversity across society. This situation has international resonance for those encountering protectionist reactions to globalisation. Practitioners in creative fields face dilemmas of agency, as they seek to maintain the presence of their roles, and ability to make choices. This paper focuses on how practitioners in post-compulsory art and design and gallery education challenge hegemonic constructions of the self through practice. It reflects on Herne’s research of relational differences between teachers and gallery educators, raising points for connective interventions as boundary work. A comparative lens draws upon theories of agency to support critically engaged practice. Empirical data is investigated through Sartre’s concept of free will, and Foucauldian negotiations of autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a framework is developed for analysing the ‘(new) urban politics’ (NUP) of global cities. The paper is structured around three main sections. First, it briefly reviews the global city literature alongside some of its main criticisms, with a particular emphasis on its ‘political deficit’. Secondly, it suggests that this shortcoming can be addressed through the establishment of a conversation with the NUP literature. These scholarships have developed parallel to each other but their relationship has been rather weak. It is argued that such cross-fertilisation presents an opportunity to refashion and bring forward the NUP in the particular context of global cities, but only if it is developed through a historical geographical materialist approach. Finally, the paper draws the contours of a conceptual framework to address the NUP of global cities, drawing mainly from the case of London. The conclusion sets out elements of a future research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Changes related to globalization have resulted in the growing separation of individuals in late modern societies from traditional bases of social solidarity such as parties, churches, and other mass organizations. One sign of this growing individualization is the organization of individual action in terms of meanings assigned to lifestyle elements resulting in the personalization of issues such as climate change, labour standards, and the quality of food supplies. Such developments bring individuals' own narratives to the fore in the mobilization process, often requiring organizations to be more flexible in their definitions of issues. This personalization of political action presents organizations with a set of fundamental challenges involving potential trade-offs between flexibility and effectiveness. This paper analyses how different protest networks used digital media to engage individuals in mobilizations targeting the 2009 G20 London Summit during the global financial crisis. The authors examine how these different communication processes affected the political capacity of the respective organizations and networked coalitions. In particular, the authors explore whether the coalition offering looser affiliation options for individuals displays any notable loss of public engagement, policy focus (including mass media impact), or solidarity network coherence. This paper also examines whether the coalition offering more rigid collective action framing and fewer personalized social media affordances displays any evident gain in the same dimensions of mobilization capacity. In this case, the evidence suggests that the more personalized collective action process maintains high levels of engagement, agenda focus, and network strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing economic focus on knowledge has spurred the growth and development of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). This paper seeks to further understand the evolution and growth of KIBS firms and the nature of their networks and markets. It is argued that changing competitiveness conditions are heightening the requirement for firms in most sectors to innovate and take advantage of their core competences and knowledge. This is resulting in a growing trend by firms to outsource KIBS. The paper draws on interview data from a sample of KIBS firms in London and Helsinki. It is concluded that the growth of KIBS is stretching the limits of globalization through the creation of new spaces of knowledge flow. However, regions continue to be key knowledge bases and remain the primary spatial architecture underlying the systems of innovation within which KIBS are positioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some commentators on globalisation and migration have suggested that a growing number of young, educated individuals regard moving overseas as a vehicle for pursing their project of self-realisation, whether imagined in terms of promoting careers or of the search for adventure and cultural variety or both. Drawing on the experiences of skilled migrants from EU countries living in Manchester, the paper examines the motives which induced them to migrate and suggests that economic constraints were often equally as or more significant in propelling them overseas and in influencing their choice of destination than their personal preferences. The paper then argues that their actual experiences abroad became much more significant to their life trajectories than earlier decisions. Most were propelled towards cosmopolitanism and greater world openness because of their exposure to, and involvement in, post-national relationships and intercultural encounters. Although these tended to push them even further away from their original national origins, thereby creating more scope for re-constructing a chosen life path, they also left them more exposed to, and dependent upon, these new relationships and cosmopolitan influences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'internationalisation' of universities has recently become a keyword in many countries. With the progress of globalisation, the mobility of students and academic staff at universities has drastically increased in the past few decades. As a result, more universities are now trying to bring an international dimension to their institutions. While some universities are focusing on internationalising their curricula to meet the needs of a globalised society, others are emphasising the establishment of new collaboration agreements with foreign universities to raise their profiles further. These changes have made universities main players in the age of global knowledge competition, and consequently it has been important for universities to create solid international strategies in order to survive. In this context, the United Kingdom has probably been one of the most proactive countries in this field. This paper will examine the underlying concepts of internationalisation of universities in England. The aim of the research is to examine the different attitudes towards internationalisation between pre-1992 ('old' universities) and post-1992 (former polytechnic) universities, and to explore what kind of factors influenced their international strategies. This paper will also attempt to provide a possible explanation as to why higher education institutions in England are heading for internationalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of technological change and globalising tendencies on the printing industry. These processes of change have important implications for training. The paper uses available case-study evidence on the print industry in the south-west of England, organised mainly within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It takes as its starting point a limited range of the extensive literature on globalisation, and the literature that relates issues of lifelong learning to globalisation. The period since 1997 has seen an increasingly interventionist approach by the UK government to education and training. In addition, there is a strong emphasis on regional policy, with substantial devolution of power to Wales and Scotland, and the setting up of the Regional Development Agencies in England. Within the south-west England print industry, the initiative to rebuild the training infrastructure, especially for SMEs, has been taken by the Graphical Paper and Media Union. It has used money provided by government primarily through the Trade Union Learning Fund to set up training courses in new print technologies for its members and to begin to create a network of learning representatives to encourage and support members to take up these new opportunities. The paper refers to both quantitative and qualitative data on this work, and reflects on its economic, social, and cultural situatedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the neglected issue in the 'globalisation' debate concerning the contraction and withdrawal of capital from the territories. The analysis is built upon consideration of the institutional architecture, state inter-relations and territoriality and nationality of capital. The paper concludes that historical evolution and contingency are critical to left analysis of the 'globalisation' of capital and may help to resist and contest regressive changes and lay the foundations of collaboration and alliance building for more progressive economic and social strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between education, social exclusion and globalization, especially as it is found in the policies of the emergent supranational 'state' or sub-global bloc. The paper leads to an analysis of the discourse of social exclusion, and focuses on the part that education and training (ET) policies play in the individualization, pathologization and criminalization of socially excluded people. Following an initial sketch of the concept of globalization, the paper considers the development of supranational and nation state ET policy. The next section provides a brief sketch of the historic development of supranational ET policy. The final section returns to the main theme of the paper, namely education and the discourse of social exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities and regions in different political contexts might play different roles in building communities, but when the cities shrink, they share common elements of what can be characterized as a “shrinkage identity”. One well-documented element is the independence from the country political context and a certain dependence on the effects of globalization on local industries. It can be described as economic structural dependency. Two other potential elements received very little attention: social structural dependency (so-called instituted behaviour) and urban sprawl. Case studies from Germany and England and observations in Australia witness that these three elements are specifications of the same analogue on different levels: spatial mismatches of needs and urban functions. This paper poses questions related to the role of the spatial mismatch concept and particularly interrogates social structural dependencies and urban sprawl as examples. It suggests that the latter are certainly contributing to long-term urban shrinkage (as cause and effect) and that spatial mismatches in general are hardly discussed as reasons for it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twinning is a practice that creates formal and informal political, economic, social and cultural relationships between cities throughout the world. Despite its prevalence there has been relatively little academic attention paid to twinning. Indeed, where writers have considered city twinning they have tended to describe local institutional structures and programmes of events rather than theorising the importance of twinning as a global practice. Although producing a detailed picture of current twinning arrangements, existing research has thus glossed over the wider significance of twinning. In this paper, we argue that there is much to be gained from a more focused and sustained theoretical engagement with twinning. We do this by highlighting the twinning activities of the city of Manchester (UK), drawing out two key dimensions of twinning, namely, hospitality and relationality, which reveal twinning as a symptomatic urban process. In doing so we signpost the important contribution that research into twinning can make to broader debates within urban theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cosmopolitanism has been described as the cultural habitus of globalisation. It is therefore, albeit defined somewhat loosely, often associated with ethnically diverse, global cities. This paper considers the extent to which London engenders cosmopolitan values amongst its residents. It draws on survey data from the LOCAL MULTIDEM study of minorities’ political participation to address these themes. The analysis examines perceptions of respect, belonging and geographical imaginaries—amongst established minorities and the ethnic majority—in north London. It is argued that cosmopolitan ethics are transformative and dialectical and, critically, cannot remain the preserve of the privileged in multi-ethnic neighbourhoods. The analysis presented demonstrates that a sense of belonging and cosmopolitan imaginaries are not evenly accessed by different ethnic groups; notably, that Bangladeshi Londoners who are born and bred in the city are less likely to appropriate these discourses than Caribbean, Indian or White residents. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A seeming paradox of globalization is that while innovation and the industries and institutions that support it transcend local and national boundaries, high-tech innovative activity continues to agglomerate in a select number of high-capacity regions. Research, however, suggests that innovative regions must—through collaborative activity and related networks—both economize regional capacities while remaining open to global knowledge and finance. Collaboration and network formation are viewed as critical in this regard, as the competitive pressures of globalization are forcing firms to adopt collaborative and open innovation practices: forging relationships with external partners. Two important sources of knowledge and finance are regionally concentrated venture capital firms and large corporations, often globe-straddling multinational enterprises. While collaboration occurs between these two actors, an understanding of the processes and implications has only begun to emerge. Focusing on collaborative venture capital activity in London and the South East, this exploratory paper presents a preliminary understanding as to the role that this particular collaborative activity plays in the pursuit of complementary, extra-regional knowledge and expertise, and the extent to which this collaboration is recharacterizing the shape of regionally based venture capital networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relevance of Bourdieu's 1980 spatial theorisation in Le Sens Pratique (The Logic of Practice 1990, Polity Press, Cambridge) for understanding intercity relations in contemporary globalisation—specifically, interdependencies between Castells's 'space of flows' and 'places' in advanced business services. Bourdieu's relational concepts are reviewed with reference to evidence from in-depth interviews with business actors in London and Frankfurt at the time of European Economic Monetary Union. The intention is to deepen understanding of emergent relations between the cities and, in so doing, to contribute to the reinterpretation of Bourdieu's input to geographical thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between gentrification and globalisation has recently become a significant concern for gentrification scholars. This has involved developing an understanding of how gentrification has become a place-based strategy of class (re)formation during an era in which globalisation has changed sociological structures and challenged previously established indicators of social distinction. This paper offers an alternative reading of the relationship between gentrification and globalisation through examining the results of a mixed method research project which looked at new-build gentrification along the River Thames, London, UK. This research finds gentrification not to be distinguished by the gentrifer-performed practice of habitus within a ‘global context’. Rather, the responsibility for gentrification, and the relationship between globalisation and gentrification, is found to originate with capital actors working within the context of a neoliberal global city. In order to critically conceptualise this form of gentrification, and understand the role of globalisation within the process, the urban theory of Lefebvre is drawn upon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we argue that a process of super-gentrification, similar to that first identified by Lees (2003 Urban Studies 40 2487–509) in Brooklyn Heights, New York City, is occurring in the already gentrified, inner London neighbourhood of Barnsbury. A new group of super wealthy professionals working in the City of London is slowly imposing its mark on this inner London housing market in a way that differentiates it and them both from traditional gentrifiers and from the traditional urban upper classes. We suggest that there is a close interaction between work in the newly globalizing industries of the financial services economy, elite forms of education, particularly Oxbridge, and residence in Barnsbury which is very different from other areas of gentrified inner London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that key education policy initiatives since the introduction of the National Curriculum in the UK are Government-mediated responses to pressures in the global knowledge economy. Successful implementation of these policies has required a change in the way in which education institutions and professionals are controlled and managed. George Ritzer's ‘McDonaldization’ thesis, a conceptualization of a dominant form of economic and cultural globalization, is outlined and it is then argued that national education policy has led to the ‘McDonaldization’ of the state school education system in England. Benjamin Barber's concept of ‘McWorld’ is used to represent the consumerist world which a narrowed educational vision seeks to serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper Philip Dowdall explores some of the ways in which the discourse of globalization has made itself apparent in the material and cultural fabric of London, and the psyches of the city's inhabitants. The author follows earlier attempts in this journal to describe and analyse the effects of contemporary processes of globalization on the city, and the consequences for those who occupy it (on London, see Michael Edwards and Doreen Massey, in CITY 5(1), for example). Drawing on literary and architectural representations of London from the 17th to the 19th-centuries, Dowdall points out some surprising but clear parallels between recent discourses on the city's global identity, championed by current Mayor Ken Livingstones attempts to redefine metropolitan identity, and earlier efforts to position London as a gateway to the world. The author sees the city as the focus of continuous self-conscious re-invention (340) and writes that 'Britain had to learn how to build globalization into the very foundations of [its] thinking some 300 years before Livingstone believed it to be a necessary means of survival in a competitive global economy'; arguing that the underlying essence of the discourse of globalization has changed little in the meantime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the authors explore data on environmental meanings, and the contextualisation of environmental concerns, that were obtained from a qualitative study of risks to health from air pollution. In-depth interviews were undertaken with 49 people living in two conurbations in north-east England. The findings highlight the importance of the local context (local history, experience, local knowledges and everyday existence) as an arena in which environmental meanings and concerns are constructed and negotiated, and how global environmental issues are also contextualised, and made sense of, within an explicitly local framework. These findings are used as a basis upon which to critically reflect upon the emphasis on globalisation within theoretical debates on 'risk society'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper draws together a number of themes concerned with managerialism, the labour process and the attempt to shape an educational settlement in post-compulsory education and training (PCET) in England. In particular it examines the place of managerialism as a central plank in the PCET settlement in which there is an attempt to construct a social bloc organised around these interests. This discussion involves an examination of the relationship between globalisation, economic relations, technicisation and managerialism itself. This analysis sits alongside an exploration of the relationship between these and state provision of education and welfare. These notions lead into a discussion of values, entrepreneurship, creativity and subjectivity. It is argued that an education system that sees itself as committed to the development of the creative problem solver poses real questions as to whether the social formation can solve the problems of our time. Paradoxically, whilst capitalism requires the value-creating capacity of labour and education is charged to develop this, this capacity is nevertheless one that can be used to debunk capitalist relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considerable debate has occurred over whether ‘global cities’ are witnessing polarization of their labour forces into highly paid professionals and low paid personal service workers. This paper offers evidence on paid domestic labour in London, some of which occurs in the informal sector, and considers its potential significance for the polarization debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author criticizes the paper of David Chandler, a professor at the University of Westminster in Harrow, England, on global civil society. According to the author, Chandler has rejected the concept of a communicative space on which individuals debate on public issues. On the other hand, the author defines civil society as medium through which individuals negotiate and struggle for a social contract.