Deconstructing the indigenous in tourism. The production of indigeneity in tourism-oriented labelling and handicraft/souvenir development in Northern Europe

ABSTRACT

In literature on tourism in northern or ‘Arctic’ areas and on regions and places in northern areas, terms such as ‘indigenous’ and ‘non-indigenous’ are often used to distinguish people and places from each other. The aim of this paper is to deconstruct the ‘indigenous’/‘non-indigenous’ categories as well as the geographical categories to which they are linked, using examples from tourism in northern Fennoscandia and northwest Russia, selected as areas with circumstances that vary greatly both locally and regionally. Specific focus is on the construction of labels and restrictions of use, particularly regarding handicrafts/souvenirs as a specific object of indigeneity to separate it from other objects. The study reviews the processes in tourism for constructing, labelling, and valuing – and thereby also exerting power upon – specific conceptions, and thereby also on the contesting of such processes amongst broader, but often unacknowledged, local groups.     

Knowing how to use and understand recipes: What arithmetical understanding is needed when students with mild intellectual disabilities use recipes in practical cooking lessons in Home Economics?

The aim of this study was to explore what arithmetical understanding is needed when students with mild intellectual disabilities use recipes during practical cooking lessons in Home Economics. The settings were compulsory schools in Sweden attended by students with intellectual disabilities. Sixteen lessons in Home Economics during which cooking took place were observed. In total, 37 students and three teachers participated. All students had a mild intellectual disability. Their ages varied, but most were between 13 and 14 years old. The sociocultural perspective on learning, combined with a literacy framework, was used as a theoretical foundation for the study. Main findings are that students need an arithmetical understanding of (i) how to interpret numbers, (ii) how to interpret and use units, and (iii) how to compute when using recipes. The knowledge and skills needed to be able to use a recipe are featured in the concept recipe literacy, capturing both theoretical, declarative knowledge and the more practical, procedural knowledge. Recipe literacy can be used to theorize the use of recipes when learning to cook, as in Home Economics.     

Symmetric Coalitional Binomial Semivalues

We introduce here a family of mixed coalitional values. They extend the binomial semivalues to games endowed with a coalition structure, satisfy the property of symmetry in the quotient game and the quotient game property, generalize the symmetric coalitional Banzhaf value introduced by Alonso and Fiestras and link and merge the Shapley value and the binomial semivalues. A computational procedure in terms of the multilinear extension of the original game is also provided and an application to political science is sketched.     

On the robustness of risk-based asset allocations

Since the subprime crisis, portfolios based on risk diversification are of great interest to both academic researchers and market practitioners. They have also been employed by several asset management firms and their performance appears promising. Since they do not rely on estimates of expected returns, they are assumed to be robust. The same argument holds for minimum variance and equally weighted portfolios. In this paper, we consider a Monte Carlo simulation, as well as an empirical global portfolio dataset, to study the effect of estimation errors on the outcomes of two recently proposed asset allocations, the equally weighted risk contribution (ERC) and the principal component analysis (PCA) portfolio. The ERC portfolio is more robust to changes in the input parameters and has a smaller estimation error than the Markowitz approaches, whereas the PCA portfolio is even more unstable than the classical approaches. In the worst-case scenario, neither approach delivers what it promises. However, in every case the resulting return?Crisk relationship is dominated by the Markowitz approaches.     

The population migration climate in the Baikal region (Based on sociological research)

In this article we consider the migration climate for the inhabitants of the Baikal region according to polls and we investigate their motives for migration and possible means of workforce consolidation in the study area.     

Exchange-rate Regimes and the Transition Process in the Western Balkans

Although the importance for successful transition of a monetary policy aiming at a sustainable price level has often been stressed in the academic literature, there is still ample room for further research into the choice of the exchange-rate system throughout the different phases of the transition process. This article deals with the question of how the choice of a specific exchange-rate system affects the economic success of a country in transition and, above all, its gradual integration into the European Union (EU) and European Monetary Union (EMU). It focuses on the transition process in five South-Eastern European countries (SEECs). The authors are grateful for valuable comments received from participants in the EUROFRAME 2006 Conference in Berlin, Germany, the ICMAIF 2007 Conference in Rethymno, Greece, and the EEFS 2007 Conference in Sofia, Bulgaria.     

Short-circuiting cruise tourism practices along the Russian Barents Sea coast? The case of Arkhangelsk

The growth and popularity of polar cruise tourism in the Arctic region have raised expectations about the opportunities in this part of the world. However, the existing academic literature has never ventured further than to recall these expectations and opportunities, which means that there is hardly any insight into what is actually happening in Russian Arctic cruise tourism. This paper aims to provide a practice-based perspective with a special focus on performed and integrated practices in the production of cruise tourism along the Russian Barents Sea coast. Semi-structured interviews with key actors involved in the production of cruise tourism serve as the main source of information along with observations made during fieldwork in the Arkhangelsk region. Cruise tourism practices are facing a number of challenges in their reproduction and lack both consistency and regularity. The practice-based perspective helps to reveal how groups of actors collectively produce activities and itineraries for cruise tourists despite the structural constraints. Moreover, the paper shows how local private entrepreneurs are actively trying to configure and connect the constituting cruise tourism practices.     

Equilibrium model with default and dynamic insider information

We consider an equilibrium model à la Kyle–Back for a defaultable claim issued by a given firm. In such a market the insider observes continuously in time the value of the firm, which is unobservable by the market makers. Using the construction in Campi et al. (http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00534273/en/, 2011) of a dynamic three-dimensional Bessel bridge, we provide the equilibrium price and the insider’s optimal strategy. As in Campi and Çetin (Finance Stoch. 11:591–602, 2007), the information released by the insider while trading optimally makes the default time predictable in the market’s view at the equilibrium. We conclude the paper by comparing the insider’s expected profits in the static and dynamic private information case. We also compute explicitly the value of the insider’s information in the special cases of a defaultable stock and a bond.