Search

Across a crisis-stricken Europe battles rage for post-neoliberal hegemony, with "race" and "austerity" as central signifiers. One of the places where the frontlines are most pregnant is Sweden; long perceived as a role model for its welfare state, cultural equity and social equality. Sweden is, however, facing social conflicts following in the tracks of a deep transformation in terms of welfare cuts, racialization and growing social polarization, targeting in particular a disadvantaged migrant and post-migrant population. On that background, the paper focuses on the upsurge of mutually antagonistic popular movements - "racist" and "anti-racist". We use Sweden as an exemplary case of Europe's present Polanyian moment, reminiscent of the 1930s. Yet, current upheavals expound, the authors claim, a different configuration of crisis and racism as well as a dissimilar utopia for the imagineering of nation and community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This survey focuses on food history writing on nineteenth and twentieth-century Europe, by using a selection of book introductions, colloquium papers, critical reviews, and papers from specialized journals. It provides a chronological survey that starts in the 1980s, and ends with recent trends. It explores tensions between socioeconomic traditions and ethnological approaches, looks for the cultural, linguistic and other turns, and puts forward as a promising field of study the integrated approach of the food chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the juridical Genetic Modified Organisms statu artis and its legal definition in Italy, Europe and in the rest of the world in order to compare different cultural approaches to needs, interests, fears and precautions against a not scientifically certain innovation. It also stresses the legislative processes towards an extended participation that unifies economic interests, political goals, customer satisfaction, collective safety, and human construction for a sustainable future, a new form of governance. The paper ends with a sociological and comparative analysis of needs, fears, interests and responsibilities related to GMO in Italy and Europe, with the aim of defining some possible evolutions of ruling uncertainty today.

This paper seeks to understand the way in which social capital resources are incorporated, appropriated and distributed by different social classes in Europe. Its main goal is to produce a conceptual framework by linking the concepts of social capital with the different theoretical assessments made by the sociology of social classes. We use multivariate analysis to work a set of quantitative indicators from the European Social Survey 2008 in order to assess the relationship between these concepts. Our methodological approach combines transnational levels, i.e., it is not an international comparison between European countries but an analysis of individual people and their belonging to social classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I try to 'think Europe' through a cosmopolitan city like Trieste, and its recent and not so recent past. I develop my argument through the analysis of two powerful 'myths' that, I argue, limit understandings of Europe and the European project today: (1) the 'myth of diversity'; and (2) the 'myth of an identity in crisis'. In doing so, I rely in great part on the work of French sociologist and philosopher Edgar Morin and his conceptualisation of European identity as a permanent negotiation of difference; what Morin (1990) terms 'a permanent dialogical simmer'. Starting from Morin's critical genealogy of European identity, I try to consider some of the ways in which we can go beyond territorial understandings of identity and citizenship, using Trieste's experience as a mirror of the broader European condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since McCallum's (1995) finding of surprisingly high border effects on trade between the US and Canada, there have been a number of studies on other parts of the world, and improvements made to the gravity model to measure this effect accurately. This paper suggests some other modifications to the model, and applies it to a region of the world that presents a distinctly interesting case. Changes in border effects of formerly socialist countries in Central and East Europe, and countries in the former Soviet Union are analyzed during 1976-2002 at country and sectoral levels, and also with respect to blocs of countries. A discussion on cross-country variations in border effects follows the computations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, many major Western cities aim to be attractive to new and economically successful high-tech industries, financial and business services, cultural industries and consumer services industries. Most of these new activities are dependent upon well-skilled creative workers, which will be followed by those who will work in personal services. It is said that a large share of the well-skilled and creative workers requires impulse-rich and attractive urban environments. The idea has arisen that highly segregated, socially and culturally less integrated cities, do not match the newly required city profiles. On the contrary, these cities would exacerbate urban poverty and deter skilled people from settling there. Consequently, some believe that today's cities should also be socially and culturally cohesive. This hypothesis parallels policies against segregation and policy interventions in favour of more mixed and balanced local communities. The latter type of policy is also driven by the idea that more mixed neighbourhoods will enhance individual social opportunities and thus, on aggregate, strengthen the urban economy. This paper elaborates on these ideas and hypotheses and focuses on the rise of new economic activities and the locations they aim for, their potential relation with the social (and ethnic) segregation of the population and the related impact upon the attraction of creative workers and the possible impact on the social mobility of the population. Empirical data from Europe are used to support the arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

British migration to Tenerife has increased dramatically over recent years, with a visible rise in young British settlers who seek jobs in tourism-related sectors. Yet despite significant numbers of young British migrants to Mediterranean and Canarian destinations, the existence of young British people as a newly emergent migrant group has to date received little sociological attention. However, recent theoretical developments in the migration literature have begun to draw attention to new migration typologies, and the fact that the old political and sociological concerns and dichotomies within migration analyses (forced versus voluntary, skilled versus unskilled, legal versus illegal and poor versus rich) have become increasingly blurred and so not entirely useful in addressing questions about the new, diverse motivations and modalities within more recent migration (King, 2002; Cohen, 1995 ). Russell King has recommended that analyses of new European migrant phenomena should recognise that migrant narratives of self-improvement and self-realisation can be pivotal. Drawing on interviews and survey data, this paper discusses young British migrant discourses in Tenerife, in terms of how they might fit with King's theoretical concerns with identity reproduction. Central themes include the desire to escape a crest-fallen and 'overrun' Britain, the self-reflexive significance of 'sun-seeking' and travel, and Tenerife as an idealised geographical and cultural destination. It will look at how specifically classed, raced, gendered and nationalised identities are lived out within this particular location and how these processes can inform the discursive reproduction of a white, British working-class utopia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This issue of "The Information Society" journal features four articles and a perspective piece, and eight book reviews. While the topics vary among the five papers, they tend to fall into two clusters: works that create integrative conceptual frameworks and highly textured case studies that provide critical insights. Gripenberg et al. study how the macro level "European information society for us all" policy discourse translates into projects on the ground via their examination of four ICT development projects sponsored by European national governments and the European Union. The second paper "Conceptualizing the ICT Artefact: Toward Understanding the Role of ICT in National Development," takes the discussion to higher conceptual plane in a an area largely marked by descriptive case studies.