Academic literature on the topic 'Costa Chica (Mexico)'

The afterlives of slavery and colonialism have haunted ruralities in the Costa Chica region of Guerrero, Mexico, during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Engaging with rural geographic scholarship, this commentary unpacks how these afterlives have shaped racialised development, negatively impacting the quality of life of Costa Chica’s human and nonhuman life.

Este artículo delinea la forma en que dos relatos de un pueblo ‘afromexicano’ de la Costa Chica de México apuntan a tensiones entre gente "negra" e "india.” Los relatos, que tratan del santo patrimonio del pueblo y de un naufragio de un barco con cargo de gente esclavizada, arrojan luz sobre las afirmaciones de identidad ancladas en la raza y el lugar, especialmente en la fusión de negrura e indigeneidad en la forma del ‘moreno,’ una categoría racial asociada con la Costa Chica. A la vez, los relatos convergen alrededor de eventos históricos concretos y la penetración mutua caracterizada por movimientos espaciales y temporales que han afectado tanto a negros como a indios. Estos movimientos incluyen el comercio de esclavos, el colonialismo, la búsqueda de tierras cultivables, y las migraciones contemporáneas. La historia etnográfica cuyas narraciones entretejo, ubica el desarraigo y la contestación en el centro de los procesos culturales a través de los cuales se construyen lugares e identidades.Abstract: This article examines two stories from an ‘Afromexican’ village on the Costa Chica of Mexico that point to tensions between" black "and" “Indian” peoples. The stories, which deal with the patron saint of the village and the wreck of a slave ship, shed light on affirmations of identity anchored in race and place, especially in the fusion of blackness and indigeneity in the form of ‘moreno’ a racial category associated with the Costa Chica. At the same time, the stories converge around specific historical events and the mutual penetration characterized by spatial and temporal movements that have affected both blacks and Indians. These movements include the slave trade, colonialism, the search for arable land, and contemporary migrations. The ethnographic history whose narrations I interweave, place uprooting and contestation at the center of the cultural processes through which places and identities are constructed.

In this issue: Regions & Cohesion is proud to present a selection of four photographs submitted by Mauricio Salas Cervantes and taken by Felipe Morales Leal that describe a research visit within a multidisciplinary and multinational project in the transboundary Guatemala–Mexico region with a perspective of a landscape analysis. These pictures taken in the Suchiate river in Soconusco region show the complexity and plurality of one of the most transited crossing points between Mexico and Guatemala. We also publish two photographs by our editors Carmen Maganda and Harlan Koff that illustrate their research visit to the Costa Chica Guerrero, Mexico. These photos juxtapose the co-existence of two worlds in this region: one local and one global.

AbstractThis paper provides data on the salt industry along Guerrero's Costa Chica and on itinerant salt trading conducted by highland Nahuatl villagers. The findings are compared with studies of salt production elsewhere in Mesoamerica, and the nature and quality of oral-historical sources are evaluated. Based primarily on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, the paper explores technical and social-organizational features of salt production and marketing useful for model building among archaeologists and ethnohistorians. In crossing disciplinary boundaries the paper raises methodological issues of concern to scholars who attempt to reconstruct historical or contemporary Mesoamerican cultural and economic patterns.

Late colonial Mexico possessed one of the largest free-colored populations in Spanish America, numbering around 370,000 in 1793. The colony's pardos, morenos, and mulattos were highly dispersed, being found throughout the major urban centers, coastal zones, rural areas, and in selected portions of the northern frontier. Studies conducted over the past two decades have assisted enormously in reconstructing the free-colored demographic profile, with particular emphasis on occupational and marriage patterns. Much of this research has resulted from sustained examinations of the caste vs. class debate, which has attempted to understand the manner in which the caste system worked in structuring colonial social relations. Broader, regional histories have added even more to our understanding by situating Blacks within the economic, cultural, and social context of important towns and their hinterlands. Institutional studies have also referenced the Afro-Mexican presence and contributions. However, numerous gaps still exist in our portrait of colonial Afro-Mexicans. Notably, the Pacific coastal regions have received proportionately little attention in comparison to the area of Veracruz. This is surprising since the Costa Chica, occupying portions of the modern states of Guerrero and Oaxaca, remains home to some of the more significant concentrations of Afro-Mexicans.

Blooms of Pyrodinium bahamense var. compressum were detected from July to December 2010 in Costa Chica, Guerrero. To estimate the cell abundance of this dinoflagellate, phytoplankton samples were collected from 7 July to 9 December 2010 at five sampling sites. Wild rock oysters and specimens from fishing cooperatives were only collected during November-December 2010. Abundance of P. bahamense var. compressum ranged from < 1000 to 194000 cells L–1 in the first three samplings performed in July. Low densities (< 9000 cells L–1) were observed at the end of November and December. Rock oyster toxicity from the fishing areas ranged from 46.24 to 788.85 μg STXeq 100 g–1. Rock oyster samples collected in the fishing cooperatives had toxicity from 52.2 to 440.88 μg STXeq 100 g–1. Although rock oysters were collected at the end of the blooms, their toxicity could be associated to this dinoflagellate both during this period and during previous blooms that occurred from on July-August in the study area. Florecimientos de Pyrodinium bahamense var. compressum y toxicidad en ostión de roca en Costa Chica, Guerrero, México Se detectaron florecimientos de Pyrodinium bahamense var. compressum de julio a diciembre de 2010 en Costa Chica, Guerrero. Con el fin de calcular la abundancia de este dinoflagelado se recolectaron muestras de fitoplancton desde el 7 de Julio hasta el 9 de diciembre en cinco estaciones de muestreo. Asimismo, se recolectó ostión de roca en los sitios naturales de captura y en cooperativas pesqueras de la región de noviembre a diciembre. La abundancia de P. bahamense var. compressum alcanzó valores < 1000 y máximos 194000 céls L–1 en los tres primeros muestreos realizados en julio; se observaron bajas densidades (< 9000 cells L–1) a finales de noviembre y diciembre. La toxicidad del ostión de roca recolectado en los sitios de captura comercial varió entre 46.24 y 788.85 μg STXeq 100 g–1. La toxicidad en las muestras de ostión recolectado en las cooperativas pesqueras varió entre 52.2 y 440.88 μg STXeq 100 g–1. Aunque el ostión de roca fue recolectado al final de los florecimientos, su toxicidad puede asociarse a la presencia del dinoflagelado, tanto en estas fechas como por los florecimientos previos ocurridos entre julio-agosto en el área de estudio.

The adoption of the neo-liberal model in the mid-1980s has forced the governing elites to reconfigure the Mexican State. However, the consolidation of a neoliberal State continues to be incomplete and it has been problematic to fully integrated the Mexican economy in the global market due to the increasing organized crime, the dismantling of previous post-revolutionary control mechanisms, and the growing mobilisation of organised indigenous opposition ranging from the peaceful obstruction of hydroelectric mega-projects in their territories to armed struggle. In view of the State crisis, this thesis argues that there has been a shift in the system of control mechanisms of the State that is leaning towards a more recurrent use of open violence to implement its neo-liberal State project. From a theoretical perspective, the research proposes an innovative approach to understanding the formation of the post-revolutionary State, which transcends the State violence dichotomy established between the ´corporatist´ and the ´critical´ approaches in the contemporary literature. The research highlights the wide spectrum of control mechanisms from hegemonic domination to violence used by the governing elites to compensate the unfinished State formation process in order to maintain socio-political stability without profound structural changes. It explores the enhanced tendency of State violence to replace incorporation in Statesociety relations since the efforts to restructure the economy from the 1980s onwards. The thesis analyses how this tendency has grown particularly in response to indigenous movements in the South of Mexico. The argument is substantiated empirically with two case studies undertaken in the sub-region of Costa Chica-Montaña of Guerrero with data from 79 semi-structured interviews with a wide range of social and political actors, and participant observation in ten indigenous communities. The case studies explore the different State control mechanisms used to advance the State formation model in the post revolutionary period; the impact of the crisis of those mechanisms in the sub-region; the violent resistance of local bosses to the loss of power, and the multiples indigenous responses to the implementation of neoliberal policies in their territories. This research also includes a comparative study to explain some factors that strengthen indigenous articulations, as well as their limits in an era of neoliberal globalisation. One of the most important research findings is that neoliberalism has further weakened the 'civilianisation' power of the State to deal peacefully with civil society sectors, particularly with indigenous peoples, while it has strengthened its 'centralised-coercive' power to carry out the imposed State model. Another finding is that the indigenous initiatives that have reinvented themselves through a new version of their practices and broader alliances have consolidated their alternative models. In contrast, the indigenous responses that have reproduced their traditions have failed.

Dans la côte du Pacifique mexicain, chez les peuples afro-mexicains, danseurs du Jour des Morts représentent des personnages prototypiques analogues aux nahuales étant donné qu'ils ont en commun une série de caractéristiques, comme leur formation en armées, c'est-à-dire en collectifs dirigés par des chefs, la hiérarchie par âges dans les formations et groupements, la gestualité qui exprime l'incorporation des autres, ainsi que la construction de leurs dirigeants rituels et surtout la répétition des formes élémentaires de relations dans les groupes. C'est ainsi que cette représentation établit une correspondance entre les différentes catégories d'êtres (diables et nahuales) en une conjonction symbolique de la pensée chez les Noirs de la Costa Chica
In the Mexican Pacific coast, among the Afro-Mexican peoples, the Day of the Dead dancers represent prototypical protagonists similar to the Nahuales since they share a common set of characteristics, such as their formation in armies, that is, to say in collectives directed by leaders, the hierarchy by ages in the formations and groupings, the gestuality which expresses the incorporation of the others, as well as the construction of their ritual leaders and especially the repetition of the elementary forms of relations in the groups. Thus this representation establishes a correspondence between the different categories of beings (devils and nahuales) in a symbolic conjunction of thought among the blacks of the Costa Chica

Être Noir au Mexique c’est avant tout ne pas exister. Ne pas exister pour la Nation : aucune reconnaissance officielle dans le cadre de la pluriculturalité de l’État-nation actée constitutionnellement depuis 2001. Ne pas exister aussi pour les Mexicains eux-mêmes qui ne savent pas qu’ils ont des compatriotes noirs. Et pourtant les Afro-mexicains sont bien présents, sur les côtes de Veracruz, mais surtout sur la côte pacifique, et plus précisément sur la Costa Chica entre les États de Guerrero et Oaxaca. Présents physiquement mais aussi culturellement. Ce qui caractérise la situation des Afro-mexicains est cette tension entre invisibilité et visibilité. L’objectif de cette thèse est de questionner cette tension à travers un corpus de chanson (cumbia et chilena) issu de la tradition populaire afro-mexicaine de la Costa Chica. Chansons qui s’accompagnent toujours de danse et d’une certaine pratique orale spécifique. Plus précisément, on se demandera en quoi la musique-danse-oralité peut-elle être considérée comme une forme de langage de la culture afro-mexicaine, c’est-à-dire dans quelle mesure la musique-danse-oralité des Afro-mexicains est-elle une représentation (une sorte de miroir) de leur identité culturelle ? Ou encore, peut-on analyser la musique-danse-oralité chez les Afro-mexicains comme un espace-temps d’épanouissement (conscient, inconscient ?) de leur culture dans un pays dominé par l’idéologie du métissage. Idéologie excluante, car construite comme un unique dialogue entre Blancs et Indigènes ?
In Mexico, Black people are deprived of a real existence. The Nation ignores their existence. They have no official status within the framework of the pluriculturality of the nation which was constitutionally enacted in 2001. Mexican people also ignore them because they do not know that they have black fellow citizens. Yet Afro-Mexican people do exist on the Coast of Veracruz, and mainly on the Pacific Coast, and more precisely on Costa Chica between the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca. Not only do they exist physically-speaking but they also do culturally-speaking. What characterizes the situation of Afro-Mexican people is this duality between invisibility and visibility. The aim of this doctorate is to deal with that duality through a corpus of songs (cumbia and chilena) from the Afro-Mexican popular songs of Costa Chica. These songs always include dances and a specific oral practice. The question is to know how music, dance and orality can be regarded as a form of language of Afro-Mexican culture, that is to say to what extent Afro-Mexican music, dance and orality is a representation –a kind of mirror –of their cultural identity. Or, in other words, can Afro-Mexican music, dance and orality be analysed as a pattern within space and time that enables the fulfillment –either conscious or unconscious- of their culture in a country dominated by the ideology of melting pot ? That ideology excludes some people because it is based upon a dialogue between White people and indigenous people only

In dieser Arbeit wurden Angebotskurven für 22 bedeutende Ölförderländer ermittelt und anschließend zu globalen Angebotskurven aggregiert. Gemäß den ermittelten Angebotskurven sind nahezu alle gegenwärtig in der Förderphase befindlichen Ölprojekte in den Untersuchungsländern auch beim aktuellen Ölpreis von 35 bis 40 US-$ je Barrel unter Berücksichtigung der kurzfristigen Grenzkosten rentabel. Sollte der Ölpreis jedoch in den kommenden Jahren auf diesem Niveau verharren, wird es bis zum Jahr 2024 zu einem Angebotsengpass auf dem globalen Ölmarkt kommen, da zur Deckung der zukünftigen Nachfrage die Erschließung kostenintensiver, unkonventioneller Lagerstätten und von Lagerstätten in tiefen und sehr tiefen Gewässern notwendig ist. Damit es bis zum Jahr 2024 nicht zu einem solchen Angebotsengpass kommt, ist gemäß des ermittelten langfristigen Marktgleichgewichts ein Ölpreis von mindestens 80 (2014er) US-$ je Barrel notwendig.

This book explores the impact of Chinese growth on Latin America since the early 2000s. Some twenty years ago, Chinese entrepreneurs headed to the Western Hemisphere in search of profits and commodities, specifically those that China lacked and that some Latin American countries held in abundance—copper, iron ore, crude oil, fishmeal and soybeans. Focusing largely on Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Peru, the book traces the evolution of political and economic ties between China and these countries back to the 1950s and explores how more recent and ongoing interaction with China has shaped the respective political economies of these country cases. Drawing on the development economics literature as an analytical roadmap, the book offers two sets of findings. First, the three small, open economies—Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru—outperformed Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico by a wide margin during the China 2003–2013 boom and thereafter. Second, success in dealing with China has varied by sector, project, and country. The author argues that while opportunities for closer economic integration with China are seemingly infinite, so are the risks. The best outcomes have stemmed from endeavours where the rule of law, regulatory oversight, and a clear strategy exist on the Latin American side.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

The build-up of export-oriented companies since 1990s on the Mexico-USA boarder, and their recent decline, is no surprise to many policy analysts. The focus on the use of low-wage employees, neglecting skills, and infrastructure creation was doomed to fail. Much of the Mexican maquila operations and jobs have gone to China and other low-wage countries. Are maquiladoras technologically competent to ward-off competitive forces from China and other parts of the world? This chapter presents an exploratory study of IT usage and managerial perceptions of IT-related costs and benefits in maquiladoras. The relevant data was gathered through a survey questionnaire. The results show that IT had a positive impact on maquila business performance. These findings will be useful to managers in assessing their organization and taking corrective actions to become further competitive.

This chapter argues that China’s incorporation of Latin America into its internationalized development strategy stems from China’s need for resources from emerging economies to sustain its domestic development, but this has highlighted the stark differences in institutional strength between LAC countries. To bear this claim out, the author examines the history of China-LAC commercial relations, as well as the similarities and differences between China’s developmental path and that of other East Asian Developmental States. Based upon three developmental themes, the author delineates six of China’s strategic partners in the region into three case studies: first, the free trade agreements pursued by Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru; second, the institutional resource curse suffered by Argentina and Brazil; and finally, the FDI export–led industrialization strategy adopted by Mexico. The countries in the first two case studies have built tighter economic ties with China, opening up more space for policymaking and innovation, while Mexico in the final case study has had less export-led trade with China and comparatively weaker economic growth.

This chapter provides a historical overview of the evolution of China-LAC relations from that of third world peers with distinct political and economic interactions in the postwar years to a takeoff in economic ties at the turn of millennium. It focuses on five of the six strategic partners with which China had the strongest bonds: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Peru, excluding Costa Rica because it did not recognize China diplomatically until 2007. The author argues that although China’s rapid ability to become such a significant force within the economies of these countries is due to the sudden boom in commodity prices around 2003, the ties formed were largely an extension and exaggeration of much earlier trends. Thus, the sheer magnitude of the expansion in China–LAC economic relations in the 2000s may have caught policymakers and producers off guard, but the relationship itself was already under way and fairly well defined.

Enterprises inside and outside the IT industry have long used offshore developments and outsourcing methods to reduce information system development and maintenance costs and as a source of specialized, low-wage workers. In the last decade, there has been a spur of activities in offshore outsourcing, which is driven by the e-business revolution and a worldwide demand for IT skills. This contributed to the growth of IT-related industries in countries such as Ireland and India. Meanwhile, vendors from the Philippines, Russia, Hungary, China, Taiwan, Mexico, and other countries entered the market; and in some cases, adapted business models established by Indian firms that have dominated the services sector in the past decade. The emergence of new offshore centers has been marked by new approaches and skill sets, adding to the services and value propositions that define the offshore sector today. In this paper, we will identify the main risk factors and best practices in global IT outsourcing. In addition, we will delve into some important issues on IT outsourcing, particularly the challenges as well as the benefits. Finally, we will present case studies of two Global 200 organizations and validate some of the claims made by previous researchers on IT outsourcing. This study will help management to identify risk factors and take the necessary remedial steps.

According to Michael Zarin, Director of Government Relations with Vestas Wind Systems, there is nothing “alternative” about wind power anymore (Biello, 2010). After all, wind generation is the most cost-effective option for new grid-connected power in markets like Mexico, South Africa, New Zealand, China, Turkey, Canada, and the United States (Renewable Energy Policy Network [REN21], 2016). At 433 GW of cumulatively installed capacity in 2015 worldwide, more than half was added in the past 5 years (REN21, 2016). This technology may be used by individuals, communities, and utilities. It can be grid-connected or off- grid, and be used onshore or offshore. This chapter examines the influences and evolution of the Danish wind transition, highlighting how ingenuity and often less-obvious incremental advances produced a world-class industry. It reveals how citizens can be important catalysts of energy system change. The case also indicates that innovations can emerge in practices and policy, not just technology, science or industry. Denmark is a cultural and traditional technology leader for modern wind power. This country of roughly 5.6 million people and GDP of approximately $65 billion in 2016 (ppp) (Central Intelligence Agency [CIA], n.d.) is where today’s dominant, wind turbine design was established and where state-of-the art wind technology testing centers are based. It is also the site of the first, commercial-scale offshore wind farm, built in 1991. Denmark has a world-class hub for wind energy technology (Megavind, 2013; State of Green, 2015; Renewable Energy World, 2016). Top-ranked companies like Vestas, LM Wind Power, Siemens Wind Power, A2SEA, and MHI Vestas Offshore Wind are among those that base core parts of their global operations in Denmark. A close network of wind engineers and their professional affiliates drives the industry, which includes ancillary services and subcomponent supplies. Wind energy technology also represents one of Denmark’s top-ranked exports (United Nations Comtrade, n.d.). Currently, Denmark has more wind power capacity per person than does any other country in the world (REN21, 2017). This Northern European nation is on track to derive 50% of its electricity from wind power by 2020.

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) are playing an increasingly vital role in the daily lives of all communities by revolutionizing their working procedures and rules of governance. ICTs offer a unique opportunity for governing elite to overcome the crisis of representative democracy, as ICT and the Internet empower civil society to play its role more effectively and facilitate the performance of governments’ main function-serving the people who elect them (Misnikov, 2003). In the realm of government, ICT applications are promising to enhance the delivery of public goods and services to common people not only by improving the process and management of government, but also by redefining the age-old traditional concepts. Community networking groups and local government authorities are well placed to campaign for greater inclusion for all members of the community in the information society. Possible areas to target include the provision of technology at low or no cost to groups through community technology centres or out of hours school access. There are many possibilities and local government must take a significant role in these activities (Young, 2000). Information society is based on the effective use and easy access of information and knowledge, while ICT for development (or ICTD) is not restricted to technology itself but focusing on manifold development and diverse manifestations for the people to improve their well-being. ICTD has deep roots in governance, is part of governance and has effects on governance patters and practices at both central and local level. By recognizing these facts, UNDP focuses on technologies to end poverty at WSIS Cyber Summit 2003, and emphasizes on ways that new technologies can help lift more than one billion people out of extreme poverty (UNDP, 2003). Apart from the four Asian IT giants (Korea, Rep., Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, China, and Japan), most of the Asian countries have fallen under the “low access” category of the Digital Access Index. This has also been referred in the WSIS Cyber Summit 2003, until now, limited infrastructure has often been regarded as the main barrier to bridging the digital divide (ITU, 2003). Among the countries with ICT spending as share of their GDP, Sweden, UK, The Netherlands, Denmark, and France (8.63, 7.97, 7.39, 7.19, and 6.57% respectively during 1992-2001) remain at the top (Daveri, 2002, p. 9), while countries like Bangladesh, Greece, Mexico, Niger, and many more remain at the bottom (EC, 2001; ITU, 2003b; Miller, 2001; Piatkowski, 2002). In a similar research it has been found that in terms of average share of ICT spending GDP, New Zealand, Sweden, Australia, USA, and UK (9.3, 8.4, 8.1, 8.1, and 7.8% respectively during 1992-1999) were among the highest (Pohjola, 2002, p. 7), though most of the countries in the Asian and African regions remain below the average of 5%. The disadvantaged communities in the countries staying below average in ICT spending seem to be lagging in forming appropriate information-based economy and eventually fall behind in achieving proper e-government system. The e-government system in those countries need to enhance access to and delivery of government services to benefit people, help strengthen government’s drive toward effective governance and increased transparency, and better management of the country’s social and economic resources for development. The key to e-government is the establishment of a long-term dynamic strategy to fulfill the citizen needs by transforming internal operations. E-government should result in the efficiency and swift delivery and services to citizens, business, government employees and agencies. For citizens and businesses, e-government seems the simplification of procedures and streamlining of different approval processes, while for government employees and agencies, it means the facilitation of cross-agency coordination and collaboration to ensure appropriate and timely decision-making. Thus, e-government demands transformation of government procedures and redefining the process of working with people and activities relating to people. The outcome would be a societal, organizational, and technological change for the government and to its people, with IT as an enabling factor. E-government should concentrate on more efficient delivery of public services, better management of financial, human and public resources and goods at all levels of government, in particular at local level, under conditions of sustainability, participation, interoperability, increased effectiveness and transparency (EU, 2002). ICT brings pertinent sides more closely by prioritizing partnerships between the state, business and civil society. A few East European countries have became economically liberal with the high level of foreign direct investment per capita and at the same time became ICT-advanced regional leaders in terms of economic reform. These countries also present the region’s most vivid examples of partnerships and collaboration. They have clearly manifested the importance of the public-private partnerships, transparent bottom-up strategies, involvement of all stakeholders, total governmental support, capturing economic opportunities, and enabling electronic mediated businesses, responding to the challenges of globalization.

In order to take advantage of the global economy, manufacturing companies have developed a complex and an extended supply chain which includes manufacturing components or parts in LCCs (low-cost countries) and shipping them to factories near to their consumer market for final assembly, customization and distribution. These activities involve several different organizations that follow widely different approaches in logistical management. In order to sustain the long shipment distances in different geographic regions, (i.e. China-Mexico-US-Europe), handling & environmental conditions & shipping modes (Air vs Ground vs Sea); suitable, flexible and economical packaging solutions are required. This flow of semi-finished goods usually requires packaging materials such as carriers (i.e. wooden pallets) and moisture inhibitors (i.e. desiccants) to protect the goods. Competitive pressures, environmental consciousness, customer awareness and legislative requirements have driven manufacturers to review business practices and redesign solutions that are environmentally friendly, as well as help reduce costs in the long run. The author of this paper will present an experience where "non-traditional" packaging is used as an economical and environmental friendly solution to globally transport goods between multiple facilities.

The work analyzes and finds out the difference in the charging systems of air navigation service providers in selected countries of the world regions, which is the main financial and economical factor to cover the costs of providing air navigation services. It deals with various charging systems in selected regions of the world by specific air navigation service providers of countries (China, Mexico and the Eurocontrol area), and identifies howindividual differences in charging systems act in total amount of en-route charges. In general, the key factor for considering air navigation service providers is the price of services, but in our work we also deal with the influence of the distance factor on the total amount of the charge and the weight factor, which can be determined in different regions of the world by various approaches. These are two ways determining the number of providers' services which are subsequently subject to a price per unit of that service. The finding of the work is that charging systems for air navigation services which use categorization methods of maximum take-off weight (wingspan), which have the ability to influence the total amount of charges by two factors, first is a unit rate (price) of individual categories, and the second is a change in size of category. Unlike charging systems, where the uniform formula is used to calculate the weighting factor, only changes in the value of the unit rate can be used to change charges.