Suchergebnisse

In her most admired novella, Lucy, Jamaica Kincaid deploys a diasporic narrative to re-consider the atrocious British colonial ideology, on the one hand, and to level against the first world woman discourse, on the other. Set in 1969, the novel manifests how the Mariah's first woman discourse places the heroine in the dilemma of assimilation and resistance; nevertheless, it confirms Lucy's politics of location. Drawing on Frantz Fanon's insight into colonialism—particularly his analysis of atrocious colonialism in erasing the subjectivity of the colonized—this paper, first of all, argues that Mariah's white woman discourse is thinly disguised colonialism which distorts Lucy's conception with her whiteness. Moreover, this paper employs contemporary discourses on the politics of differences to argue that: first, Lucy's identity is constructed around the coercive colonial ideology apparatus—the atrocity of which causes tremendous trauma—and is meanwhile predicated on the difference between her and Mariah. Secondly, Mariah's hospitality and generosity dissipating the difference of black women should be perceived as an alternative "gaze of the colonizer." Thirdly, Lucy's divergent identity cannot be totalized by any essentialism and her becomingness deconstructs any essentialist understanding of cultural identity. As an immigrant who is from Antiqua, Lucy's ethnicity offers her a lens to counteract Mariah's generosity and hospitality narcissistic and to detach herself from Mariah's white universalism. In conclusion, the dialectics of Lucy and Mariah embedded in his novel bespeaks well the contingency of self-reflection on cultural identity. Thus, this paper will assert that Kincaid's Lucy epitomizes the black diaspora's "politics of location." Article DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.20319/pijss.2017.32.18691884 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.

Fragmented Citizenship in a Quasi-Nation: The Case of Hong Kong / Ka-ki Chan, Department of Social Work, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong -- Writing the "Nation-Like Space" / Lucy Hamilton, School of English, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK -- An Examination Intergenerational Controversies and the Concerns of the Youths in Hong Kong under the Socio-Political Disturbances / Vincent W. P. Lee, PhD Research Assistant Professor, Department of Applied Social Sciences, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Henry W. H. Ling Assistant Lecturer [Practice Consultant], Department of Social Work and Social Administration, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, and Johnson C. S. Cheung, DSW Senior Lecturer, Department of Social Work and Social Administration, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong -- The Future of Hong Kong English: Codification and Standardisation? / Ka Long Roy Chan, Department of English, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, Hong Kong.

AbstractMunicipal mergers have become a worldwide phenomenon in the past few decades, primarily advanced to exploit economies of scale. While most evaluations of municipal mergers have focused on the efficiency of local public goods provision, it is rare in the literature to explore how such mergers promote economic growth in a developing country context. This research investigates the economic consequences of a policy experiment of city–county mergers (che xian she qu) in China during the period 2000–2004. Using comprehensive datasets at city, county and firm levels, we present evidence that the merger significantly increases local economic development, and the magnitude of the effect depends on local endowments related to agglomeration forces. The results are robust to a number of different model specifications. We further verify that improved transport infrastructure and urban agglomeration economies after merger are potential contributors to the positive merger effects.

This paper models the lessee's default options and estimates the economic value of the options for a lessee using a discrete time binomial American option pricing model. Results show a positive relationship of the option premium with the original rent and a negative relationship with the relocation costs. Finds that the default probability is higher for lessees who are more sensitive to rental changes and place less emphasis on the fitting‐out quality. Suggests that rental volatility and rental growth rate are two significant factors that have positive relationships with the default option values. The risk‐free rate, on the other hand, has an inverse relationship with the default option values because a higher risk‐free interest rate reduces the present value of rental savings. Lease term length to expiration has a positive effect on the default option value, implying that the default option premium will decay as the term to expiry is shortened.