Confronting sustainable development in two rural heritage valorization models

Many rural areas have reinvented their territorial development through tourism, turning to vernacular heritage to ensure their future. Various models of heritage preservation and valorization are adopted where small-scale agriculture is no longer viable. Among them, ecomuseums and place-based labelization schemes transform rural heritage into an economic resource while remaining grounded in cultural and architectural preservation and identity transmission to future generations. Both face criticisms, including being decried as fostering the museumification and mythification of the rural, effectively holding back rural areas in an imagined and romanticized past rather than providing a vision for a sustainable future. The Association of the Most Beautiful Villages of France and the Ecomusée d'Alsace illustrate the debate. This investigation analyzes how these two initiatives challenge critics. It unveils their respective understandings of the future of rurality and their approach to promoting sustainable communities through tourism. By highlighting responses to tensions between valorizing the past and forward development in the countryside, findings reveal paradigm shifts from traditional habitat preservation to future-oriented architectural pedagogy in one case, while operational exigencies and normative quality principles mitigate opportunities in the other.     

Issues in measuring success in community-based Indigenous tourism: elites,kin groups,social capital,gender dynamics and income flows

Tourism development is a key feature of the neoliberal economic development model. Through a mix of state and private investment, Indigenous communities in Mexico are encouraged to transform local cultural and environmental resources into tourist consumption sites. The process results in a shift toward reliance on tourism, in place of farming, leaving households with few alternative earning strategies amidst fluctuating tourist arrivals and income, confounding the relationship between tourism and sustainability and questioning the utility of tourism as a sustainable tool for development. This article analyses a community-based Indigenous tourism project in a rural Maya village in Mexico's Yucatan, and discusses strategies employed at household level to navigate the arrival of tourism. Funding agencies assessed this project based on a triple bottom line metric that accounts for ecological health, financial sustainability, and its relationship to local social capital; however, these fail to account for differences between local and non-local conceptions of authenticity, indigeneity, and success. From a social perspective, the project has exacerbated existing tensions and has arguably widened the gap between the politically and economically powerful and less powerful, marginalized families in the community. Questions about policy, governance systems, and elite domination and kin group control are raised.     

Empowerment and resident support for tourism in rural Central and Eastern Europe (CEE): the case of Pomerania,Poland

Despite empowerment being a crucial component of sustainable tourism, few scholars have quantitatively operationalized empowerment and looked at how it applies to rural societies within the post-communist European Union (EU) member states. Knowing the high priority of sustainable rural development goals within the EU, empowering residents within these post-communist societies has become a pertinent issue especially where those societies appear more reluctant to engaging in democratic ways of decision-making. In response to this gap, this study tests the cross-cultural validity of the Resident Empowerment through Tourism Scale, and then evaluates how empowerment predicts residents’ support for tourism within the municipality of Choczewo, Pomerania, Poland. Using a theoretical perspective that blends Social Exchange Theory with Weber's Theory of Formal and Substantive Rationality, these non-economic empowerment dimensions are coupled with a measure of resident perceptions of economically benefiting from tourism to see if rural residents in Choczewo, Poland, are more swayed by the economic or non-economic benefits of tourism. Results show that residents within this Central and Eastern Europe setting are more influenced by the pride and self-esteem boost associated with psychological empowerment and the perceptions of increased community cohesion (i.e. social empowerment) than the economic promises of tourism.     

Öffentliches und Geheimes

In the second half of 2009, the entire media agenda in Germany was dominated by the swine flu, next to the German Federal Parliament elections. Criticism was voiced in the media against the pharmaceutical industry for lobbying the nationwide swine flu vaccination, which was widely considered nothing but a product of the industry’s lobbying power. In order to avoid the usual interviews with lobbyists, we attempted to apply a new methodological framework approach in analysing lobbying processes and key stakeholders in the public sphere—and outside. Crucial to the diversified approach, which involves quantitative content analysis of media coverage and press releases, are interviews with journalists, lobbyists’ network analysis and internet research on biographies. Although a conspiracy could not be conclusively proven, the results do indicate associations that validate the criticism of the industry’s lobbying activities.     

Fernseherziehung in der Deutschschweiz

Parents’ influence on and monitoring of children’s television use has been investigated intensely. In recent years international research has identified different environmental and family factors which influence active mediation, restrictive mediation, and co-viewing. However, there has been no systematic simultaneous comparison of the impact of these factors in German-speaking Switzerland. Therefore the present study analyzes the impacts of parental attitudes as well as family and environmental factors on parental mediation of children’s TV use simultaneously. 252 parents of children aged 3 to 14 answered questions concerning the impact factors, their mediation behaviour as well as children’s media use. Results confirm findings from international research: Most important for parental mediation styles are parental attitudes and the family communication style as well as children’s age. Structural and other sociodemographical factors seem to be less important.     

From ‘just a swimmer’ to a ‘swimming mother’: women’s embodied experiences of recreational aquatic activity with pre-school children

Increased academic attention on the gendering of leisure pastimes in recent years has highlighted the centrality of the gendered body in influencing how leisure is accessed, experienced and transformed. To date, however, little attention has been paid to how women experience aquatic leisure activity, the second most popular form of leisure activity in the UK, and where female participation predominates. This paper presents results from research investigating the aquatic leisure experiences of 22 women, with children aged under 3, in the North-East of England. A number of key themes emerged from the data, which highlighted the centrality of the gendered, lived body as a key social construct contouring participant perceptions in the swimming pool environment. Women reflected upon their self-perceived physical deficiencies when wearing revealing swimming costumes, particularly under the critical gaze of ‘other’ bodies, whether present or imagined. The co-presence of other bodies was also central in shaping lived experiences, and the presence of ‘dependent’ children’s bodies shifted bodily intentionality away from the self towards perceived maternal responsibilities and the management of perceived risks, including ‘dirt’ and ‘germs’ and the negotiation of the tacit rules of the swimming pool. Results also suggest that the emphasis on maternal responsibility in aquatic leisure activity and timing of parent-toddler sessions could lead to reproduction of gender inequalities and the exclusion of some fathers from participation.     

An Ecofeminist Narrative of Urban Nature Connection

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to explore meanings, experiences, and perceived impacts associated with an urban nature connection program as narrated by mothers of program participants. “Project Connect”, a charity organization established in 2008, delivers the program investigated in urban parks and green spaces in Toronto, Canada. Drawing on ecofeminism and narrative inquiry, the study reveals a community narrative that depicts how Project Connect serves a group of mothers as an incubator of relationships spanning social and environmental domains, and which enable resistance of status quo forces that shape contemporary cityscapes. Nature connection in this sense is very much a political and cultural process that opens opportunities to challenge but also reproduce aspects of the dominant nature-related discourses. Accordingly, this study prompts consideration of the power of mothers and an ethics of care to transform human-nature relationships, and weaves critical consciousness and cautious re-valuing around the nature narratives we tell.     

Should Cookie Monster adopt a healthy lifestyle or continue to indulge? Insights into brand icons

Developing a brand icon has been a way for marketers to humanize and forge relationships with consumers. Icon development takes time. During this time, marketers have to face how much they stay true and consistent with their icons and how much they allow their icons to adapt to cultural changes in the marketplace. Little is known about how consumers respond to changing icons, and even less is known about whether there may be certain consumer groups that are more or less receptive to such changes. Four experiments and qualitative interviews were undertaken to gain insights into these issues. People who have a low need to belong were most impacted by changes in the icon, with effects most evident among consumers with a fearful attachment style. Feelings of rejection were found to amplify these effects. These findings have implications both for theory and practice.     

An Integrated Model of Quality for Mass Services in the Context of the Ghanaian Retail Banking Sector

This study draws upon the service literature and operationalizes the investment model in the services domain to examine factors that contribute to customers’ desire to maintain service relationships with firms (i.e., retail banks) in an emerging economy in sub‐Saharan Africa: Ghana. We empirically test the explanatory power and robustness of the investment model using 218 customers of various banking institutions in Ghana. Results from partial least squares—structural equation modeling (PLS‐SEM)—reveal that (1) service quality is positively associated with customer satisfaction, investment size, and customer commitment; and (2) while customer satisfaction is positively associated with customer commitment, both investment size and quality of attractive alternatives are not associated with customer commitment. Interestingly, we found investment size to have a positive association with customer commitment only when fully mediated by customer satisfaction. Our model reveals that service quality and customer satisfaction predict 79.3% of the variation in customer commitment toward maintaining a service relationship with their retail banks. Discussion and managerial implications conclude the article. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.