Suchergebnisse

The aim of this article is to explore the various ways in which people represent social groups. The author shows that a prominent role in such processes is played by psychological essentialism. People represent some of their social identities as inherent qualities that are based on the sharing of a presumed 'essence': something unobservable, diffi cult to remove, irreversible, and causally responsible for overt behaviours. Empirical evidence suggests that no particular causal process of essence acquisition is constitutive for essentialism in folk models of society. Some authors believe that folk essentialism is necessarily connected with the presumed innateness of an essence (its biological transmission across generations). Innate potential and biological inheritance, however powerful they may be for the human cognitive mind in the domain of folk models for biology, are far from necessary in essentialist folksociological classifications. Essentialism in folk sociology is not defined by any particular causal process of essence acquisition. Even when it is possible to detect that a given group of people claim the innate essence of a particular folk sociology, it is always necessary to look for other features of essentialism (inherence, sharp boundaries, the immutability of identity, etc.). The article reviews some influential cognitive proposals concerning folk models of society (Astuti, Gil-White, Hirschfeld) and ethnicity, and provides arguments and empirical evidence collected in Western Ukraine in support of the claim that presumed innateness is not the constitutive part of folk models of society, let alone of psychological essentialism.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of the commercial diplomacy of Ukraine on its export. Within this field of research we mutually compare various official representations abroad and their effects on export flows. We consider embassies, consulates general and honorary consulates as commercial diplomacy actors abroad. The main contribution of the paper is that it is the first empirical study of Ukrainian commercial diplomacy in terms of export promotion. We use an empirical trade model to verify the impact of economic, cultural, geographical and diplomatic factors on Ukrainian exports. The panel data incorporates 1386 export flows to 198 destinations during the period from 2007 to 2013. In the end, we conclude that embassies are more relevant instruments of export stimulation than consulates general or honorary consulates. Adapted from the source document.

The author treats the topic of AIDS as a focal point for artistic politics in the United States and, eventually, in a larger international context as well. He considers a range of representations of AIDS in contemporary art since the 1980s & considers how AIDS became a pivotal point around which thinking about artists' activism & art as social intervention turned. He discusses AIDS as a paradigmatic case for a new global, biopolitical, & mediatized cultural phenomenon that bore with it a new ensemble of political, moral, & economic effects, in turn profoundly affecting conceptions of aesthetics & activist art. In the latter part of the essay, he develops a typology of strategies utilized by artists in addressing the problem of AIDS: 1) transcoding strategies; 2) media critiques and/or critiques of culture industry representations of AIDS; 3) alternative publicity; 4) AIDS exemplars; & 5) strategies of mourning & memoralization. Adapted from the source document.