Suchergebnisse

Summary
This conclusion to the forum on diplomatic gifts goes on to note two historical types of such gifts. They are, first, fostering of a royal child at another royal court and, second, royal and noble marriage exchanges. Using these examples as a stepping stone, this essay goes on to formulate a co-ordination system of giver and receiver assessments of gift value, ranging from low to high. This yields four types of gifts: personalised gifts (low value to giver, high value to receiver); unique gifts (high value to both parties); culturally irrelevant gifts (high value to giver, low value to receiver) and fluff (low value to both parties). The essay hypothesises that polities that approach one another in a situation of contacts with low density will tend to aim for unique gifts, while polities whose relations are dense will aim for gifts that are of equal value to both parties.

The so-called hotspots—identification and registration centres on the Aegean Islands in Greece and in Italy—are not only sites of remote detention, European intervention or differential inclusion, but also logistical set-ups, where data is generated and spread across state institutions. Such socio-technical assemblages are hard to research not only because of state actors' desire to keep things secret but also because of methodological issues. How does one disentangle their extensive, complex and rhizomatic nature? Which trajectories does one follow and which actors and voices does one assemble? Following recent work in the realm of STS, methods are understood as (b)ordering devices, which performatively enact an ordered world and produce accounts of the social, including some realities while excluding others. This article considers mapping a well-suited method for studying widespread socio-technical assemblages, but only if it is handled with caution. Based on an empirical inquiry into the Moria hotspot and following a praxeographic research approach, different types of small maps are developed that enfold complexity by being attentive to situatedness, symmetry, multi-sitedness and multiplicity. Furthermore, it emphasizes an on-going process of reflexive inversion of the mapping process that makes the crafted accounts contestable and its boundaries and blind spots visible. Finally, the article discusses how mappings can be used not only as research but also as a political device that contributes to the work of other collectives beyond the scientific production of truth.

This paper will start by clarifying what I mean by the tourism ordering. For many years tourism theory was inhibited by narrow structuralist theorizing and the notion of 'places on the margin'. Consequently tourism was considered both socially and spatially marginal to the main business of contemporary life and most often a problem in both senses. As a result, its wider effects were never adequately theorized. Using a mix of ideas from Foucault, Latour, Law, Deleuze and Guattari as well as those who advocate a sociology of orderings, the tourism ordering seeks not only to theorize the place of tourism in contemporary societies but to demonstrate its rather potent impact as an ordering of modernity. While not seeking absolute redemption for tourism this paper will seek to identify some of the more positive and interesting 'ordering effects' this ordering has had. Adapted from the source document.

Privileged Mobilities contributes to a growing school of critical studies of tourism. Mobility is about power and space. In this anthology, a series of questions are raised regarding privileged mobiles - who travels, where and whence, and why - not least from the standpoint of class, gender, ethnicity and citizenship. The authors portray tourism as a force of re- and de-territorialization: tourism conquers, re-encodes and exploits everything from sea bottom to outer space: places, cultures, histories and life sequences.To paraphrase Guy Debord, tourism "is the mode of appropriation of the natural and human environment by capitalism, which true to its logical development toward absolute domination, can (and now must) refashion the totality of space into its own decor." In a touristified world, we all become tourists and are fostered to see, experience and act accordingly - whether we want to or not. The tourist emerges as the ideal subject, an a-political being, steeped in experience, adventure and enjoyment

This article argues that, in public and policy contexts, the ways in which many scientists talk about uncertainty in simulations of future climate change not only facilitates communications and cooperation between scientific and policy communities but also affects the perceived authority of science. Uncertainty tends to challenge the authority of chmate science, especially if it is used for policy making, but the relationship between authority and uncertainty is not simply an inverse one. In policy contexts, many scientists are compelled to talk about uncertainty but do not wish to imply that uncertainty is a serious challenge to the authority of scientific knowledge or to its substantial use in policy making. "Boundary-ordering devices, " the contextual discursive attempts to reconcile uncertainty and authority in science, depend critically for their success on their "dual" interpretation: at a general level across a boundary and differently on either side of it. The authors empirically identify a range of such boundary-ordering devices in the climate field.