The relationship between tourism and conservation was investigated in the Indonesian national park of Bromo Tengger Semeru, in East Java. Beforehand, the salient features and contradictions of sustainability, tourism and protected areas management were examined. It was found that some development strategies failed to achieve the desired outcomes through incompatibility with the socio-cultural circumstances where they were applied, particularly in the case of biodiversity conservation through protected areas establishment. More recent strategies were seen to take the realities of context into account. Aspects of the Indonesian socio-political context relevant to natural resource management and tourism were researched, and local aspects of resource utilisation at Bromo Tengger Semeru were investigated. The tripartite relationship between the local people (the Tenggerese), the tourists, and the national park was studied. The Tenggerese are farmers who relied on the national park for fuelwood and were heavily involved in providing tourism services in certain places. They maintained a strong position in tourism by retaining ownership of basic elements of the product and by demonstrating a high degree of reflexivity in reacting to available opportunities. The quality of local leadership was significant in whether social and economic initiatives were taken. Tourism-induced prosperity seemed to be reducing reliance on fuelwood by fostering a switch to convenience fuels, but only where tourism levels were substantial. A majority of tourists (70%) were domestic visitors, while the remainder were mainly East Asians and Northerners. There was little awareness amongst park administrators of the needs of different groups, and the regulatory framework designed to protect the park was not enforced. Revenues earned from the park had not resulted in improved park protection. Underlying the weak protection measures was a low level of conservation consciousness amongst the Indonesian population. Although tourism was currently successful in terms of attracting large numbers of people, and it was fostering some social and economic development amongst the Tenggerese, the conservation benefits for the national park were very limited, and it seemed unlikely that tourism here could be judged to be truly sustainable

<p> Patronage networks are said to help elites advance into a regime's inner circle or lead to their downfall, as well as influence regime stability and other political outcomes. But researchers have only systematically studied individual patron-client ties instead of taking advantage of the tools provided by social network analysis (SNA). In three related papers, this dissertation evaluates the best method to measure patronage networks, develops a theory of coalition formation along them, and tests it on the members of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee from 1982 until 2012.</p><p> The first paper argues that informal politics is better conceptualized through networks than factions, and identifies and evaluates two common approaches to measure such networks: the inductive approach, which relies on a qualitative assessment of insider sources, and the deductive approach, which infers the network from publicly available data. The paper evaluates several commonly used approaches to deduce networks among Chinese political elites. Using methods and concepts developed in Social Network Analysis, it finds that coworker networks perform best in these tests, but can be further refined by noting the number of instances of working together, or by taking into account promotions that have occurred while the two individuals were coworkers.</p><p> The second paper develops a model in which one or two leaders form their coalitions along network ties connecting the relevant political elites, the selectorate. Simulations on random networks and real-life patronage networks among Chinese elites illustrate how all but the regular (lattice or complete) network lead to power differentials between the members of the selectorate. The model identifies three specific network positions: those that increase the chances of entering the winning coalition, those that enable coalition leaders to remain in charge of the coalition, and those that help a ruler fend off the opposition. It discusses their respective properties, and shows that powerful Chinese elites do indeed hold the corresponding positions. Furthermore, in a model with two competing leaders the network structure provides an endogenous explanation for winning coalition sizes smaller than the bare majority.</p><p> The third paper tests the theory on promotion networks - indicating who has been promoted under whom - among the Chinese Communist elite 1982-2012. A hazard analysis demonstrates that direct connections to patrons double the chance of being appointed to the Politburo. But links to current and former subordinates - unlike those to superiors - among the other elite also have a significant positive effect. Finally, network centrality measures can identify current patrons and predict appointments to the inner circles five or ten years later even if the identity of the patrons is unknown. Future Politburo members are found in network positions that capture popularity as a coalition partner (closeness centrality), while patrons hold network positions from which they can preempt opposition from within their coalition (betweenness centrality).</p><p> The dissertation thus shows the importance of analyzing informal elite networks instead of just the ties between one specific leader and his or her followers. It also proposes SNA as a new theoretical and empirical approach to the understudied informal institutions of authoritarian regimes, suggesting a more principled, but also more nuanced way of measuring one such institution: political patronage.</p>

<p> The twofold purpose of this study is to present the story of a Taiwanese Hakka family which had generational experiences of mother-child separation, and also to explore the impact of mother-child separation on second generation attachment representations. The mother-child separation of this Taiwan Hakka family is defined as having the experience of being either an &ldquo;adopted child&rdquo; or a &ldquo;little daughter-in-law&rdquo; in early childhood, which is generally termed tung-yang-xi (special characters omitted) in Chinese. Participants were recruited from a specific Hakka family with generational experiences of mother-child separation. In this research, the researcher uses the term <i>tung-yang-xi</i> to address both adopted child and little daughter-in-law. Three generations of <i>tung-yang-xi </i> participants were interviewed by the researcher to acquire their life stories. The second generation of <i>tung-yang-xi</i> were assessed for their attachment representations by the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP). All participants (28 participants) were classified as insecure. Six participants (21.4%) were classified as Preoccupied, eight participants (28.6%) were classified as Dismissing, and 14 participants (50.0%) were classified as Unresolved. There was no difference regarding the gender of participants nor the age when mother-child separation happened. The AAP revealed participants&rsquo; high tendency to adopt a &ldquo;deactivation&rdquo; strategy under emotional and relational dysregulation. The classification result and the analysis of defense process were consistent with the researcher&rsquo;s hypothesis on the intergenerational transmission of internal working models. The researcher discusses cultural factors in understanding the attachment phenomenon among the Taiwanese Hakka population.</p>

In this work, the writer has provided a detailed analysis of .Anglo-Burmese relations between 1795 and 1826. In Chapter I, Part I, the Burmese incursions of 1787 and 1794 are examined and are shown not to have been hostile. The factors which led the British to despatch an embassy to Burma in 1795 are examined in detail, and the Burmese Court's amenability to contact with foreign powers is high-lighted. In Chapter I, Part II, the state of Anglo-Burmese trade at this time is examined. In Chapter I, Part III, the Symes mission is discussed. His instructions are examined in detail. His threat at Rangoon to leave Burma is shown to have been 11--f an error. A number of issues which cropped up at the capital are examined including the question of the Burmese attitude to the Governor-General's status. The Burmese response to Symes' proposals was friendly, although they refused to abandon their neutrality. In Chapter II, the Cox mission is discussed. His instructions are examined in detail, as also his violations of these instructions. His diary for the period between November 1797 and April 1798 is also examined. The unsuccessful attempts by the Burmese to secure arms are also discussed. In Chapter III, Part I, the events at the Chittagong-Arakan frontier between 1799 and 1800 which, together with the Cox mission and the failure to obtain arms, generated considerable ill-feeling for the British in King Bodawpaya's mind, are examined. Lord Wellesley's policy towards Burma is examined also. The mission sent to Burma in 1802, it is shown, did not succeed in its aim of a subsidiary alliance, but it succeeded in re-establishing cordial relations. The King also promised not to revive the embarrassing demand for the surrender of refugees in Chittagong (made in 1799 and 1802). In Chapter III, Part II, the reasons for the despatch of Lt. Canning to Rangoon are examined. The reasons for the arrival of a French ship at Rangoon are examined, as also the reasons for Canning's departure in November 1803, and the Yewun's conduct on that occasion (which is shown to have been defensible). In Chapter IV, the failure (on two occasions) of British sea captains to respect Burmese territorial integrity, and the Canning mission of 1809 to 1810, are discussed. Certain features of this mission - Canning's intrigue with the Ein-gyi Paya, the questions of the Governor-General's status, the Burmese response to the blockade of Mauritius and Bourbon and the King's apparent desire to gain possession of parts of Bengal - are high-lighted. In Chapter V, the Canning mission of 1811 to 1812, the result of the invasion and temporary conquest of Arakan by Arakanese from Chittagong, is discussed. The Burmese response was initially conciliatory, but subsequently, the King apparently attempted (unsuccessfully) to have Canning sent up to the capital, by force if necessary. A new interpretation of the origins of Chin Pyan's rebellion is suggested in this chapter. Chapter VI examines the Burmese demand for extradition of refugees (revived, in consequence of Chin Pyan's insurrection, for the first time since 1802), the letters of 1817 and 1818, demanding (respectively) the expulsion of refugees and the surrender of parts of Bengal, Burmese expansion into Northeast India and the emergence of new refugee problems, British policy towards Assam, the resulting anti-British feeling at the Burmese capital and the Burmese missions to Vietnam and the Sultan of Kedah, which show that despite worsening relations with the British, the Court's preoccupation, at the time of the outbreak of the Shahpuri crisis was the conquest of Siam. In Chapter VII, VIII and IX, the outbreak of the war from 1824 to 1826, and the political aspect of the war are discussed. The Burmese claim to Shahpuri island, it is shown, was made in good faith, like the British. The Court was prepared to uphold its claim to Shahpuri even at the cost of war, but so were the British. Subsequently, the Court received the wrong impression that the British were willing to give up Shahpuri. It then decided to demand a surrender of refugees and the ruler of Cachar,who would be made tributary ruler of Cachar. There is no satisfactory evidence to show that the Court still intended to fight the British. Initially, British policy aimed mainly at chastising the Burmese, so as to ensure their future good behaviour, and securing a strategically viable frontier. Subsequently, after the war had dragged on for over a year, new demands were made on the Burmese, for a variety of reasons, and in the last stages of the war, it was decided, solely for strategic reasons, to separate Pegu from Ava. This decision was rendered inapplicable by the conclusion of peace.

<p>This research investigates Taiwanese dancers? practice of international folk dancing through interviews and participant-observation. International folk dancing is a specific dance genre, in which its practitioners explore various regional folk dances around the world, regardless of their ethnicities. I define this practice as a transnational embodiment, because it not only covers folk dances from different countries, but also was a government-sanctioned exercise during the Taiwanese Martial Law Period (1945-1987). Furthermore, many Taiwanese immigrants in California are still practicing this dance for the purpose of connecting with people with similar backgrounds. In this regard, international folk dancing is a historical product from Taiwan?s Martial Law Period, and it also functions as an instrument to scrutinize some Taiwanese immigrants? conceptions of national and cultural identity in California. My dissertation starts from post-World War II Taiwan, when international folk dancing was introduced from the United States and became a mass exercise of the Taiwanese people during Martial Law. For the National Government at this time, international folk dancing was a means of presenting Taiwan?s political alignment with the United States. For the Taiwanese people, however, this dance form was a way to understand the outside world under extreme limitations on information access outside Taiwan during Martial Law. My investigation then shifts to Taiwanese immigrants? current practice of international folk dancing in California. Though these immigrants do not limit their practice to Taiwan-specific dances and are embodying cultures of others, international folk dancing is a strong transnational embodiment that enables these Taiwanese immigrants to reconstruct their idea of home in the United States and to present a new definition of Taiwanese identity through practicing others? nationalisms. Furthermore, I demonstrate that Taiwanese dancers of different generations in both regions are constantly constructing the notions of ?folk? and ?international? through their diverse living and dancing experiences. I argue that international folk dancing challenges these concepts when compared to previous scholars? examinations. Additionally, this dance form demonstrates its practitioners? cultural awareness that even though the practice seems to be inclusive, its dancers are much aware of issues of authenticity, appropriation, and cross-cultural politics. Finally, this sub-genre of self-choreographed dancing indicates a Taiwanized international folk dancing practice. Self-choreographed dancing was developed by the Taiwanese international folk dancing community during the Martial Law Period, and in California, it is practiced more in the Taiwanese international folk dancing groups but is missing in Western dancers? community. As this sub-genre stretches the ideas of ?folk,? ?international,? and the sense of cultural awareness, the dissertation also explores this difference between Taiwanese and Western international folk dancing communities to emphasize the notion of Taiwanese-ness. International folk dancing serves to scrutinize relationships between Taiwan and the United States after World War II. Meanwhile, California-based Taiwanese immigrants apply their past dancing memories to their current practice of international folk dancing, suggesting new definitions to existing conceptions of Taiwanese identity. Moreover, the unstableness in the dance form?s translations in Mandarin Chinese?tu-feng-wu or shi-jie min-su wu-dao?indicates that there is no consistent understanding of ?folk,? ?international,? and even ?international folk dancing? itself. The lack of coherent translation furthermore signals varied interpretations of Taiwanese-ness by Taiwanese people from different places and of different generations.

<p> The study explored the impact of acculturation on the stigma associated with mental illness and the relationship of shame with stigma towards mental illness in an Asian Indian sample. The participants of the study were college students residing in the USA and India who responded to one of two randomly assigned vignettes describing a hypothetical cousin who was either experiencing the symptoms of moderate depression or schizophrenia. Correlation, multivariate analysis, and regression analysis were conducted on the acquired data. The results indicated that level of acculturation had a statistically significant relationship with stigma in both samples. However, when specific aspects of stigma were examined, such as expected consequences, disclosure, concealment and help-giving attitudes, no significant relationships were found. Exploratory analyses were conducted to examine associations between other variables and it was found that expected consequences and shame were strongly related.</p><p>

<p> Classical dance has been tightly woven into discourses of national and international heritage as a representation of Cambodian cultural identity, particularly after the country&rsquo;s devastating civil war in the 1970s. This dissertation articulates how Cambodia&rsquo;s classical dancers and teachers negotiate the effects of large-scale processes, such as heritage development policies, on the art form and their bodies. Several scholars and dancers have developed perspectives on the revitalization efforts of the classical dance form in the period after the Khmer Rouge Regime, but this dissertation fills a gap in the documentation of the role that international nongovernmental organizations and tourism have on dance production. </p><p> The dissertation research in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap in 2011 and 2012 traced the training and performance activities of practitioners at a broad range of arts NGOs and tourism venues to examine the large-scale processes that affected the lives of practitioners. To demonstrate the deeply woven connections among global heritage, tourism, NGOs, nationhood and Cambodia&rsquo;s dance artists, this dissertation first articulates the process through which classical dance transformed from ritual practice to global commodity while maintaining ritual functions. Second, it demonstrates how practitioners navigate their personal corporeal economies&mdash;the labor of practice and performance&mdash;to balance the benefits of their bodily work with the possible alienation of their bodies being commoditized. Third, it shows how UNESCO intangible heritage directives are interpreted and embedded in local context, creating paradoxes for dance practitioners. Fourth,it develops a web-based model for understanding classical dance production, preservation and development in Cambodia&mdash;a social web that practitioners must navigate to survive. And finally, it further develops Bruner&rsquo;s (2005) borderzone concept, expanding it into a borderzone field, to analyze the experiences of both audiences and performers in tourist settings. </p><p> The amalgamated framework proposed in the dissertation, including tourism, heritage, development, and economic theory is necessary to peel away layers of phenomena from the global to the local while unpacking their links to the lived experiences of classical dance practitioners.</p><p>

<p> The effect of culture on leadership strategies, goals, and behavior of business organizations have been a major focus of leadership researchers. The current study is a significant addition to the broader field of leadership studies involving ethnic and socio-cultural aspects of a prominent but understudied population in leadership literature. Asian Indian immigrants play a vital role in the US Information Technology Industry. However, no extensive research has been published on Asian Indian techno-immigrants. Study of the available literature indicated a general problem of underrepresentation of Asian Indian immigrants in IT organizations at high-level leadership positions in the United States. Despite the perceived glass ceiling, several Asian Indian immigrants have achieved notable success and attained high-level leadership positions in the U.S. IT industry. The current hermeneutic phenomenological study focuses understudied areas within scholarly literature. The study explored the lived experience of Asian Indian immigrants in high-level leadership positions in the U.S. Information Technology industry and the impact of their racial and sociocultural identity on being high-level leaders in the U.S. IT sector. The current phenomenological inquiry uncovered six essential themes from the data analysis that includes: (1) socio-cultural experience, (2) advanced technology skills, (3) leadership competency, (4) ethnic identity and assimilation, (5) personal and family sacrifices and (6) sustainment of motivation. And, the study provides an in-depth insight of the lived experiences, perspectives, and thoughts of IT leaders of Asian Indian origin about winning themes and address "glass ceiling" issues that limit the growth of aspiring leaders. </p><p>

<p> Since China's shift to market socialism, many marginalized by this process work as informal street vendors where they reappropriate public space in order to survive&mdash;a practice at odds with urban authorities' modernizing agenda. In relation to these competing logics concerning public space's use value versus its exchange value, this dissertation examines the practices, experiences, and agency of informal street vendors working in Sanjingwuwei, an ordinary, yet rapidly gentrifying, neighborhood of Nanchang, capital and largest city of southeastern China's Jiangxi Province. After describing the growth of an informal economy in modern China and providing a history of street vending, I describe the everyday practices of vendors and their reappropriation of public space in Nanchang and the Sanjingwuwei neighborhood. I then provide the socio-demographic details of Sanjingwuwei&rsquo;s vendors and use their voices to demonstrate how city image protection, a burgeoning informal sector, and the globalization of urban space bring challenges to their already precarious work in the streets. The dissertation concludes by linking the practices and agency of Nanchang&rsquo;s vendors into a theoretical discussion concerning the agency of informal street workers. Despite daily attempts by the local state to remove them, this study shows how Nanchang's street vendors, continue to actively engaging in alternative forms of urban space-making through reappropriating of public space. Therefore, this dissertation shows how vendors challenge the city as a system by downscaling, slowing down, decommodifying, and ultimately, deglobalizing urban space to neighborhood-level through their reappropriation of public space.</p><p>

<p> Wuhan Han Opera Theater (WHOT, formerly Han Opera) is a 400-year old regional opera based in Wuhan, in Hubei Province, in China. WHOT&rsquo;s recent designation as a <i>public institution</i> under China&rsquo;s neoliberal creative economy initiative to enter the global market has necessitated its transformation from a <i>cultural institution</i> (<i> wenhua jigou</i>) into a <i>creative industry</i> (<i> wehua chanye</i>). As such, WHOT must now create adaptive strategies, alter traditional conventions of performance, infrastructure, education and community presence, reconstitute traditional social functions at the national level, and most importantly, manage a relationship with the government that is entirely novel for both. In the summer of 2016, WHOT participated in two government-led projects: Opera into Campuses and the Chinese National Arts Fund. These programs were the focus of my ethnographic fieldwork, to identify possible effects of the creative economy initiative on a traditional musical institution. Specifically, inquiry was made as to whether and how creative musical and organizational adaptations were being decided, implemented and executed, and as to how the outcomes of these adaptations were being evaluated. Despite using an ethnographic approach, findings from the preliminary study were found to be much more broadly generalizable and applicable across disciplines than expected. As a result, this thesis makes the following arguments: for modernization of an institution of traditional music to be effective, a relationship must exist whereby the transitioning institution is given creative license to generate continued socio-cultural productivity through its creative class (&ldquo;talent&rdquo;) in joint cooperation with, rather than dependence on, government agencies. The goal must be to revitalize rather than simply preserve such an institution, and to avoid cultural attrition of unique musical qualities of the institution.</p><p>