Abstract not available.

Satellite television, an often-cited example of globalization, has proliferated in India since 1991. Although primarily a transnational pan-Asian phenomenon, satellite television's growth in India was aided by the rise of local cable providers and the government's economic liberalization policies. Global media corporations however emphasized Indian film based programs over Western programs in a bid to enter the Indian market. This strategy, in conjunction with the music and film industries, has made music television a pervasive phenomenon which includes channels like MTV and Channel V and musk based programs in other channels like Star, Zee, Sun, and ETV. Music television mainly features Indian film songs and pop music, but follows certain global genres and conventions such as the top ten format and VJs. This study situates the social and cultural impact of music television in the experience of globalization in India through a reception study conducted in Hyderabad. The main findings of this study are: (a) the discourses of music television and globalization are meaningful only to young middle class participants and not to older middle class and working class participants; (b) these participants decode music countdowns as enabling representation of the public to a greater extent than was possible under Doordarshan (state television) monopoly; (c) they decode the music video of “Made in India” in emotional/relational terms as a global recognition of India's national culture and perceive globalization as the rise of India to global prominence rather than the influx of global culture into India. While emotional/relational experiences in watching music television are common to all participants, only young middle class participants assume authority as the public and the nation through the orientalistic representations of the same on music television by situating their emotional/relational experiences in discourses of liberalization and globalization. The modern worldview that arises through these discourses is hence characterized as a hegemonic globality which arises in the negotiation between the imperial globality of capitalist modernity and the familial globality of emotional/relational values. The fact, however, that the discourses of imperial globality do not permit recognition of the epistemic authority or globality of emotional/relational values is taken as evidence of cultural imperialism.

No description available.

The purpose of this project is to demonstrate that the rational-legal bureaucratic institutions inherited by post-colonial states from their former colonial patrons have clashed with indigenous cultural norms, leading to legitimation failure. This lack of legitimacy, in turn, leads to political and bureaucratic corruption among the individuals tasked with embodying and enforcing the norms of these bureaucratic institutions. Instances of corruption such as bribery and solicitation of bribes, misappropriation of public funds, nepotistic hiring practices, and the general placement of personal gain over the rule of law on the part of officials weaken the state’s ability and willingness to enforce its laws, promote stability and economic growth, and ensure the welfare of its citizens. This corruption and its multidimensional detrimental effects on the lives of citizens are forms of what has been called structural violence. In this project, I examine four case studies of Indian subnational states that have experienced varying degrees and types of colonial bureaucratic imposition, resulting in divergent structurally violent outcomes. Deeming these systems “violent” has normative implications regarding responsibility for the problems of the post-colonial world. Corruption is often cited as a reason not to give loans or aid to certain developing countries; but viewing the matter in terms of structural violence highlights the need for not only economic assistance but also institutional overhaul. / Political Science

<p> Adventure is a relic of imperialism and the European romanticization of place. It has evolved from quests for domination of place and people (colonialism), to spiritual or consumeristic escape from the modern world, to an attempt to return or reconnect to nature. This paradigm implies that if humans must reconnect to nature, there is an inherent disconnect or a separation. This reconnection is rooted in romantic notions and Cartesian duality of man and nature. However, approaches towards adventure and tourism apart from such dominant Western mountain traditions focus on the critical and contextually based aspects of adventure experiences. These approaches, informed by indigenous meanings of place, traditional ecological knowledge, and ecofeminism, decenter human experience. Likewise, a feminist new materialist approach towards understanding place and materiality also allows for an awareness of entanglements and intra-active relationships of human and more-than-human to emerge, as did this research. </p><p> This dissertation examined place in the context of adventure trekking tourism in the upper Solukhumbu District, Nepal through a walking ethnography of the trails in and around Mount Everest base camp. This research was based on the following questions: 1. How can the future of development of Nepali Himalayan adventure tourism industry move forward ethically and with reciprocity towards the interconnectivity of mountains and people; 2. How can the adventure tourism industry consider the complexities of influence on a place&mdash;from both a direct impact and that of greater anthropogenic impacts? This research was grounded in the background and orientations of Everest tourism, which developed within discourse and materiality of Khumbu, shifting with local identities and meanings of place. Tourism in this context mangles in the edges of local and global cultures looming within immanent threats of the Anthropocene. Discourse composed and idealized from outside the mountain boundaries contributes to motivations for traveling to the Khumbu and perceptions of this place, in turn shaping the expectations of the tourist. In these contact zones mountains are sacred, a business venture, a personal challenge, place of revelation and spirituality, imperial conquest, neocolonial stomping ground, to scientific object of study. Within these complexities, this dissertation examined the concept of place and how meaning and agency develop in relation to adventure tourism experiences in Khumbu and the Anthropocene. A reciprocity develops in which human amongst more-than-human becomes embedded and inseparable. Shifting an anthropocentric gaze that privileges and sets matter apart as isolated and constrained by boundaries determined by humans, demonstrated the vibrant agential reality of more-than-human intimacies such as forgotten landscapes, rocks, dirt, glaciers, and altitude. Nature is not a passive object upon which humans descend, but rather an entangled subjectivity. This awareness allows for a rethinking of human enactments of Anthropocene and complicit behaviors of this epoch, reframing approaches to adventure. The conclusions of this research found that mountains&mdash;more-than-human&mdash;have agency and meaning and are not passive or in the background of human experience. This applies to a practical application of the research through a praxis tool for new materialist research and the adventure industry, in turn decentering the human/anthropocentrism and identified practices of tourism that are both sustainable and more inclusive of the entanglements of people and place.</p>

<p>This thesis research examines changes in food culture as a means of adaptation for Cambodians, who migrated to Long Beach, California after the Cambodian genocide (1975- 1979). This research examines how ?place,? defined as experience and neighborhood, influences the ability or desire to maintain certain cultural food practices of the homeland such as passing down the knowledge to the Cambodian younger generation in order to sustain their cultural heritage. An array of qualitative methods was employed for this thesis research which included participant observation, structured interviews, and semi-structured interviews in both Cambodia and Long Beach. For the older Cambodian generation, adaptation of their food culture has occurred through home gardens, shopping at Asian markets in the Long Beach area, and importing certain dried ingredients from Cambodia. The translation of the Khmer food culture transpires when the Cambodian youth takes an interest and they watch their parent(s) prepare the meals. Overall, their place of residence and the willingness to travel a certain distance to shop were influencing factors for Cambodians in the Long Beach area in terms of what types of meals they prepared which included dishes from Asian influences in the surrounding area.

<p> Smokeless tobacco use is an increasingly growing health concern among South Asians immigrants. Different studied suggested that prolonged use of smokeless and chewing tobacco has adverse impact on physical and neurological health. However, there is lack of research on psychological effects of smokeless tobacco among South Asian population. The purpose of the present study was to examine the psychological dependence that develops from using smokeless and chewing tobacco among South Asian immigrants in the USA. The study utilized a quantitative research design using survey method including standardized questionnaires. Interviews were conducted with 24 male and 48 females (N=72) from South Asian immigrants in the USA. Overall, there was no significant differences were found between gender, level of education, types of employment, and attempts to stop and positive dependence. Although there is a small positive correlation between age and positive dependence (r=.26). Results suggest that there is strong correlation between positive dependence and tolerance (r=.95) and strong positive correlations between positive dependence and cravings (r=.92). The results also indicated a positive relationship between positive relations and smokeless tobacco use (r=.91, ?.05) and secondary dependence and smoke?less tobacco use (r=.98, ?.05). The study also showed that there is a positive correlation between behavior patterns (frequency of daily use and number of use) and level of craving and withdrawals was higher. The implications of the study for both researchers and health professionals need to understand the culture-specific reasons for its use along with other covariates to assess the prevalence, screen for risks, and build culture specific intervention strategies. </p><p>

<p> This article considers the gendered processes of social change in Nepal. In particular, I examine how young working class women in urban Nepal articulate their modern subjectivities. In the last thirty years women have been making significant inroads into Nepal&rsquo;s public sphere, troubling long-held normative assumptions about women&rsquo;s place in modern Nepal. In particular, historically dominant high-caste Hindu norms that disapprove women&rsquo;s public visibility and mobility are challenged by new opportunity structures for women and an emergent structure of feeling advocating women&rsquo;s equal participation in Nepal&rsquo;s development projects. Rapid democratization of the political sphere, urbanization, and expansion of capitalist markets has precipitated enormous shifts in Nepal&rsquo;s social organization including how women from diverse caste and ethnic backgrounds participate in the newly monetized economy as laborers and consumers. Young working class women have unprecedented access to disposable income. With their wages, they enjoy the pleasures of purchasing power and, through consumptive practices, craft their identity as modern commodity consumers. At the same time, as participants in the public sphere of wage labor, working class women are deeply aware of the social risks they are taking as publicly visible women. These risks include the danger of being labeled &ldquo;over modern&rdquo; and &ldquo;open&rdquo;&ndash;descriptors with undertones of sexual immorality. Drawing on 20 months of ethnographic research conducted with one group of young working class women: female trekking guides, I contextualize my informants&rsquo; experiences of wage earning and consumption. I explore the justifications my informants use to legitimate their public visibility and the pleasure they take in commodity consumption as well as the strategies they deploy to counter negative stereotypes associated with their status as public women. I end with a discussion of anxiety as a productive force in the lives of my informants and show how tensions between the pleasures of purchasing power and the dangers of being labeled &ldquo;over modern&rdquo; bracket their experiences of day-to-day living.</p>

During the second half of the nineteenth century, peasant smallholders in the Bengal delta – an alluvial tract formed out of the silt deposits of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna river-systems – expanded their cultivation of jute, a fibrous plant that was the world’s primary packaging material. Jute fibres were spun and woven into course cloths used to pack the world’s commodities – its grains, sugar, coffee, cotton, wool, and so forth – in their journey from farms and plantations to urban and industrial centres of consumption. The fibre connected the Bengal delta and its peasant smallholders to the vicissitudes of global commodity markets. This dissertation examines connections between the delta and international commodity markets from the 1850s to the 1950s – it is a local history of global capital. I explore how the commodity shaped the delta’s economic, political and intellectual history, how economic lives, social and cultural formations, and political processes in eastern Bengal were informed and influenced by the cultivation and trade of jute fibres. First, I look at how commodity production changed peasant households’ economic lives, particularly intensifying peasant interactions with markets. I focus on peasant households’ market-based consumption, and argue that consumption informed peasant politics during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Second, I look at how the circulation of the commodity transformed the physical and ecological landscape of the delta. I focus on the emergence of jute-specialized market towns along the delta’s rivers and railways, where jute was bulked, assorted and packaged before being dispatched to metropolitan Calcutta. Third, I look at how the commodity emerged as a political and intellectual concept, as imperialists, anti-colonial nationalists, post-colonial statesmen, intellectuals and poets imbued fibre with meaning – relating jute to ideas of poverty and prosperity, religious ethics and practice, economic development and modernization and territorial nationalism. / History

<p>This dissertation examines the place of traditional songs in the Tibetan Buddhist culture of the former Himalayan kingdom of Ladakh. I look at how Buddhism and pre-Buddhist religion informed the texts and performance contexts of traditional songs, and how Ladakhi songs represent cultural self-images through associated musical, textual, and visual tropes. Many songs of the past, both from the old royal house and the rural Buddhist populations, reflect the socio-political structure of Ladakhi society. Some songs reflect a pan-Tibetan identity, connecting the former Namgyal dynasty to both the legendary King Gesar and Nyatri Tsangpo, the historical founder of the Tibetan Yarlung dynasty. Nevertheless, a distinct Ladakhi identity is consistently asserted. A number of songs contain texts that evoke a mandala or symbolic representation of the world according to Vajrayana Buddhist iconography, ritual and meditative visualization practices. These mandala descriptions depict the social order of the kingdom, descending from the heavens, to the Buddhist clergy, to the king and nobles, to the common folk. </p><p> As the region has become more integrated into modern India, Ladakhi music has moved into modern media space, being variously portrayed through scholarly works, concerts, mass media, and the internet. An examination of contemporary representations of &ldquo;tradition&rdquo; and ethnic identity in traditional music shows how Ladakhis from various walks of life view the music and song texts, both as producers and consumers. </p><p> Situated as it was on the caravan routes between India, Tibet, China, and Central Asia, Ladakhi culture developed distinctive hybrid characteristics, including in its musical styles. Analysis of the performance practices, musical structures, form, and textual content of songs clearly indicates a fusion of characteristics of Middle Eastern, Balti, Central Asian, and Tibetan origin. Looking at songs associated with the Namgyal dynasty court, I have found them to be part of a continuum of Tibetan high literary culture, combined with complex instrumental music practices. As such, I make the argument that these genres should be considered to be art music. </p>