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This article asks the question, "How do Western men who travel to Thailand to pay for sex with Thai women morally justify their actions?" In order to answer this, the study frames the question in terms of debates about "dirty work" and introduces the concept of "dirty customers" to analyze sex tourists and to highlight the potential stigma and moral taint involved in their engagement with sex workers. The research methodology involved content analysis of website discourse among Western men who visit Thailand for paid sex; examining their discussions and debates, and thereby identifying key themes and patterns in their exchanges. The study found that although sex work can arguably be categorized as "dirty work," sex tourists resist such characterizations of sex work and of their role in it. The article thereby analyses how sex tourist discourse neutralizes external moralities of stigma and shame. It shows why neutralization is significant for understanding how sex tourism is sustained as an industry and how it is significant at the theoretical level for our understanding of "dirty work" and "dirty customers" as analytical concepts.

This paper draws upon an ongoing study into gambling in the United Kingdom to examine off-course betting as a form of social life. Through such an approach it identifies several features of betting shop life that complement and refine the research literature to date: the different sub-groups within the off-course betting population; how they manage their activities in terms of their finances and their domestic and work responsibilities; the often subtle social dynamics of the betting shop. Through an analysis of these features of the punter's world, the paper investigates the rationality of the activities of loss-making punters, and shows how this differs markedly from the rationalities employed by those who win at the game - bookmakers and professional gamblers. One common concern for many punters is the dream of the `big win' for a little stake - a concern not shared by the other two groups - a dream that undermines their ability to win, and thus compounds their losses. The paper then identifies the different sub-groups involved in off-course betting, and discusses the different times at which they bet and the different strategies they use. In such a way the paper contributes to the debate through identifying groups and social processes not addressed in the literature, and shows how they refine the categories and concepts used to date.

Argues that multinational companies (MNCs) are agents of peace & democracy in developing countries & that much misguided governmental & intergovernmental policy has resulted from criticisms of MNC investment in developing economies. Major prevailing critiques are examined, & a call is made for a more balanced assessment of what MNCs are & what they do. Through examining the reality of foreign direct investment in the world's poorer countries, it is shown how MNCs undermine nondemocratic regimes, & thus encourage democracy & peace in developing areas. Adapted from the source document.

A reply to a comment by Scott Bennett on Neal's article (see abstracts 9706780 & 9706808, respectively) on multinational corporations. It is maintained that opening developing economics to the world market is worth the price because development of this caliber includes social peacemaking & democracy building. It is suggested that "enrichment of the people" is a term to describe rising incomes that result from this progress. The negative effects of Western media & the problems of free trade & industrialization are concluded to be counteracted by the positive impacts of investment-based development & the possibility of sustainable economic growth. The importance of national leaders in promoting their own markets to establish a functioning democratic economy is emphasized. Steps toward globalization are deemed nothing less than pragmatic for developing countries. S. Hansen

In Soul Babies, Mark Anthony Neal explains the complexities and contradictions of black life and culture after the end of the Civil Rights era. He traces the emergence of what he calls a "post-soul aesthetic," a transformation of values that marked a profound change in African American thought and experience. Lively and provocative, Soul Babies offers a valuable new way of thinking about black popular culture and the legacy of the sixties

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 A Foot Deep in the Culture -- 2 "My Passport Says Shawn" -- 3 The Block Is Hot -- 4 R. Kelly's Closet -- 5 Fear of a Queer Soul Man -- Postscript -- Notes -- Index -- About the Author

Abstract
The essay explores how the invisibility and trauma of Black women are negotiated in Black sonic culture, utilizing Ricardo Cortez Cruz's experimental novel Five Days of Bleeding (1995), in which the primary female character, Zu-Zu, speaks (and sings) primarily using obscure song lyrics and titles, largely drawn from an archive of Black women's performance.

Argues that the "chattel slavery" of Southern plantations persists today whenever labor itself is a commodity. The focus is on the exploitation of black expression in the recording industry. Although "Hip Hop Moguls" like Russell Simmons give the impression of "black" control of black cultural products, they are primarily "gatekeepers" who protect the economic interests of global conglomerates that back their labels. Simmons's rise as the consummate Hip Hop Mogul is traced, noting similarities between his autobiography, Life and Def: Sex, Drugs, Money, and God, & Booker T. Washington's, Up from Slavery. Special attention is given to the Jun 2001 Hip-Hop Summit that brought together black leaders, intellectuals, & hip-hop industry insiders/gatekeepers. Members of the black political mainstream were focused on gaining access to hip-hop's corporate coffers while Simmons was intent on securing mainstream validation as a legitimate "race man." It is concluded that Simmons is "redefining the stature & function of the traditional black gatekeeper" even though his business practices indicate he is not adverse to exploiting black labor or culture. J. Lindroth

This article explores how and why some national governments seek to manage and control tourist-oriented narratives about historic sites and artefacts. Discussing ethnographic research among tour guides, tourists and government representatives in Oman, the paper reveals how the country's historic sites are overwhelmingly staged and presented without historical information. Instead, history is displaced by sanitised presentations of cultural heritage, the display of which draws an "exotic veil", crafted to enchant and deflect tourist attention from politically sensitive historical events and legacies. The study examines reasons for this policy, and its implications for tourists and those working in the tourism industry. Many of Oman's tour guides and site representatives are from marginalised groupings, experiencing inequalities due to historical family, tribal and former slave status. The state-sustained exotic veil on history means that such workers are obliged to collude in denying the historical reasons for their own experiences of injustice and inequality.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the service profit chain (SPC) in a Thai bank, to identify which service features customers understand to be most important in their customer satisfaction and engagement. Through this it is intended to evaluate and refine the SPC model.Design/methodology/approachThe research involved two phases: a qualitative inductive process of interviews with bank customers to identify what they considered to be the most important aspects of service in their own customer satisfaction/engagement; second, a survey phase, which theoretically developed these aspects of service, and operationalized them as variables for testing in a refined SPC model.FindingsThe key service features for customers in their satisfaction and engagement were found to be convenience, courtesy, competence and internal branding. All had positive relationships with customer satisfaction/customer engagement. Customer engagement/satisfaction were further found to correlate with customer retention and acquisition. Interestingly, whereas all four service variables correlated with customer engagement and satisfaction, two of the variables – courtesy and internal branding – had stronger relationships with customer engagement.Practical implicationsThe inductive modeling and refinement of the SPC approach can be employed in different companies and cultural contexts to identify which features of service are most important to customers in influencing their customer satisfaction/engagement.Originality/valueThis is the first study to use/evaluate the SPC approach in the Thai banking context; the first to use inductive methods to identify relationships between service features and customer satisfaction/engagement; and the first to examine courtesy, competence, convenience and internal branding in a holistic model with customer satisfaction/engagement and customer retention/acquisition.