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.     

Is off-farm income reforming the farm? Evidence from Mexico

Does access to off-farm income complement or compete with agricultural production? This article explores the effect of off-farm income on agricultural production activities, using data from the 2003 Mexico National Rural Household Survey. We first discuss the theoretical conditions under which access to off-farm income may influence production in an agricultural household model. Instrumental-variable (IV) estimation methods are then used to test whether agricultural production activities, technologies, and input use differ between households with and without access to off-farm income. We find that off-farm income has a negative effect on agricultural output and the use of family labor on the farm, but a positive impact on the demand for purchased inputs. There is also a slight efficiency gain in households with access to off-farm income. Findings offer insights into how household production evolves as rural households increasingly engage in off-farm income activities.     

Unit Root Testing under a Local Break in Trend using Partial Information on the Break Date*

We consider unit root testing allowing for a break in trend when partial information is available regarding the location of the break date. This takes the form of knowledge of a relatively narrow window of data within which the break takes place, should it occur at all. For such circumstances, we suggest employing a union of rejections strategy, which combines a unit root test that allows for a trend break somewhere within the window with a unit root test that makes no allowance for a trend break. Asymptotic and finite sample evidence shows that our suggested strategy works well, provided that, when a break does occur, the partial information is correct. An empirical application to UK interest rate data containing the 1973 ‘oil shock’ is also considered.     

Sorting it out: pile sorting as a mixed methodology for exploring barriers to cancer screening

We discuss a mixed methodology for analyzing pile sorting data. We created a list of 14 barriers to colon cancer screening and recruited 18, 13, and 14 participants from three American Indian (AI) communities to perform pile sorting. Quantitative data were analyzed by cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling. Differences across sites were compared using permutation bootstrapping. Qualitative data collected during sorting were compiled by AI staff members who determined names for the clusters found in quantitative analysis. Results showed five clusters of barriers in each site although barriers in the clusters varied slightly across sites. Simulation demonstrated type I error rates around the nominal 0.05 level whereas power depended on the numbers of clusters, and between and within cluster variability.     

Editorials and geopolitical explanations for 11 September

In the wake of the 11 September attacks, public intellectuals, editorialists and newspaper columnists began to attempt to offer largely geopolitical explanations for the attacks through editorials and op-ed pieces. In this essay we analyze some sixty editorials and op-ed pieces from a range of perspectives. We classify the editorials under five main categories of geopolitical explanation: imperialism, ‘blowback’, state decline, Islamism, and the ‘clash of civilizations’ perspectives. We then discuss each category of explanation, highlighting the arguments made, the theoretical perspectives which inform them, and counterarguments, when presented. In our conclusion we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the categories and suggest that geographers might help provide some integration of these varying perspectives.     

Domain‐Relevant Commitment and Individual Technical Innovation Performance

Individual innovators play a critical organizational role in that they generate and often champion technology and product ideas. Amidst an ongoing stream of organizational and team innovation research, few empirical studies focus on differences in individual innovation performance despite the importance of the individual innovator to a firm's innovation efforts. Based on goal commitment theory, we introduce a new domain‐relevant commitment construct and develop a conceptualization of conditional indirect effects. Our model suggests that relevant individual abilities enhance commitment to technical innovation and innovation performance while also insulating against the impact of situational variables, making employees' commitment to innovation performance less dependent upon context. Hypotheses are tested using two sources of data and a sample of 339 R&D professionals from a Fortune 100 industrial firm. Results suggest that commitment to innovation is a key motivational factor in explaining individual technical innovation performance. Situational characteristics impact motivation differently for individuals with lower vs. higher ability levels, even in this context in which truly low‐ability individuals, in the absolute sense, have been screened out by the employment selection process. The relationship between commitment and innovation performance is strengthened by higher levels of individual ability.     

Effects of Free Trade on Women and Immigrants: CAFTA and the Rural Dominican Republic

We construct a disaggregated rural economywide model with a focus on gender and immigration as well as on the allocation of time to wage work, household production activities, and housework (reproduction). We use this model to simulate the impacts of the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) on rural incomes and welfare in the Dominican Republic. We find that elimination of agricultural import tariffs hurts both agricultural and non-agricultural households, via adverse factor-market effects, but impacts vary substantially by workers’ gender and country of origin. Females and Haitian immigrants tend to fare better than Dominican males, and there are ramifications for both market and non-market activities.     

The effects of role strain on the consumer decision process for groceries in single-parent households

Single-parent families are becoming a larger part of American society. But what is known about their decision-making processes? Role strain is of particular interest when studying single parents because of their need to serve multiple family roles otherwise carried out by dual-parent families. In this study, the consumer decision process for single parents is empirically examined in the context of grocery shopping. Role strain was found to have a significant effect on problem recognition style and reactive shopping behaviors. Advertising positively influenced proactive shopping behaviors and had a negative relationship with reactive shopping behaviors. Implications for food retailers are provided.     

The Effect of Country‐Level Investor Protection on the Voluntary Assurance of Sustainability Reports

Over the last several years, sustainable (or socially responsible) investing has experienced rapid growth around the world reflecting an increasing awareness by investors of social, environmental, ethical, and corporate governance issues. This heightened awareness among investors has resulted in a demand for sustainability reporting and a corresponding increase in demand for assurance of sustainability information to enhance its credibility. Using an investor‐based view, we examine the impact of country‐level investor protection on reporting companies’ voluntary sustainability assurance decisions. We find that both the decision to obtain voluntary sustainability report assurance and the decision to obtain higher quality assurance are more likely for firms domiciled in countries that have weaker investor protection. Our results indicate that managers in low investor protection countries use voluntary sustainability assurance as a substitute monitoring mechanism.