scholarly journals Broadening the Scope of Diversity Management : Strategic Implications in the Case of the Netherlands

2005 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 698-724 ◽  
Author(s):  
Folke Glastra ◽  
Martha Meerman ◽  
Petra Schedler ◽  
Sjiera de Vries
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Diversity Management ◽  
The Body ◽  
Organizational Dynamics ◽  
Contextual Approach ◽  
Challenging Tasks

An analysis of theories and practices of diversity management, as illustrated in the case of the Netherlands, shows that they are too narrowly focused on redressing imbalances experienced by ethnic minorities and bridging cultural differences between majorities and ethnic minorities in the workplace. Agencies in the field of diversity management have fallen back on a limited and standardized stock of methods that ignore the specificity of organizational dynamics and largely operate in isolation from existing equity policies. The influence of diversity management has thus remained quite superficial. A contextual approach would broaden both the body of thought and the repertory of methods of diversity management, and strengthen its political and social relations. Such an approach would respond to its most challenging tasks: fostering social justice, enhancing productivity, and breaking the circle that equates cultural difference with social inequality

scholarly journals AT DRIKKE ÆBLETE: Om håndteringen af kulturforskelle i institutioner

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Hvenegård-Lassen
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Social Worker ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
The Other ◽  
Institutional Practices ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family

The title of this article, “Drinking Apple Tea”, refers to the account of a social worker visiting the family of his drug-addicted client. While the visit proceeds in silence, the social worker finds his own frustration rising: “We just sit there and drink apple tea. What am I doing here?” This story points to the fact that cultural differences are difficult to manage within the institutions of the Danish welfare state, since they tend to fall outside the scope of established universal categorizations and norms that form the basis for institutional practices. On the basis of an understanding of cultural encounters that emphasize the creativity of human agency, as well as the institutional fixation of hegemonic norms, the article discusses specific encounters involving majority institutions and ethnic minorities in Denmark. The analysis focuses on the ways cultural differences are either suppressed or displaced as irrelevant factors, or emerge as catchall explanations for the behavior of ethnic minorities. This pattern is to a large extent attributable to the institutional norms and practices that implicitly limit diversity. In some cases, a universal view of human nature means that difference becomes deviance; whilst in others, a focus on cultural difference reduces diversity resulting in stereotypical generalizations of the Other. One way of distributing culture and difference in alternative ways could result from a heightened awareness of the institutional rationalities and practices among the employees.

Receptions of the Past: Commemoration, Racism, Desire

Somatechnics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-303
Author(s):  
Michael Connors Jackman
Keyword(s):  
Critical Point ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Lesbian And Gay ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

This article investigates the ways in which the work of The Body Politic (TBP), the first major lesbian and gay newspaper in Canada, comes to be commemorated in queer publics and how it figures in the memories of those who were involved in producing the paper. In revisiting a critical point in the history of TBP from 1985 when controversy erupted over race and racism within the editorial collective, this discussion considers the role of memory in the reproduction of whiteness and in the rupture of standard narratives about the past. As the controversy continues to haunt contemporary queer activism in Canada, the productive work of memory must be considered an essential aspect of how, when and for what reasons the work of TBP comes to be commemorated. By revisiting the events of 1985 and by sifting through interviews with individuals who contributed to the work of TBP, this article complicates the narrative of TBP as a bluntly racist endeavour whilst questioning the white privilege and racially-charged demands that undergird its commemoration. The work of producing and preserving queer history is a vital means of challenging the intentional and strategic erasure of queer existence, but those who engage in such efforts must remain attentive to the unequal terrain of social relations within which remembering forms its objects.

THE POLITICS OF DANCE: EUNOMIA AND THE EXCEPTION OF DIONYSUS IN PLATO'S LAWS

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Kenneth W. Yu
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
The Body ◽  
Entire Class ◽  
A Site

How to inculcate virtue in the citizens of Magnesia by means of the dance component of choreia constitutes one of the principal concerns in the Laws (= Leg.), revealing Plato's evolving ideas about the expediency of music and paideia for the construction of his ideal city since the Republic. Indeed, a steady stream of monographs and articles on the Laws has enriched our understanding of how Plato theorizes the body as a site of intervention and choral dance as instrumental in solidifying social relations and in conditioning the ethical and political self. As one scholar has aptly put it: ‘a city and its sociopolitical character [are] effectively danced into existence.’ Drawing on this recent work, I focus on an enigmatic passage in Laws Book 7 that merits more attention than it has received, in which Plato curiously singles out Bacchic dances from those that are ‘without controversy’ (815b7–d4): τὴν τοίνυν ἀμφισβητουμένην ὄρχησιν δεῖ πρῶτον χωρὶς τῆς ἀναμφισβητήτου διατεμεῖν. τίς οὖν αὕτη, καὶ πῇ δεῖ χωρὶς τέμνειν ἑκατέραν; ὅση μὲν βακχεία τ᾽ ἐστὶν καὶ τῶν ταύταις ἑπομένων, ἃς Νύμφας τε καὶ Πᾶνας καὶ Σειληνοὺς καὶ Σατύρους ἐπονομάζοντες, ὥς φασιν, μιμοῦνται κατῳνωμένους, περὶ καθαρμούς τε καὶ τελετάς τινας ἀποτελούντων, σύμπαν τοῦτο τῆς ὀρχήσεως τὸ γένος οὔθ᾽ ὡς εἰρηνικὸν οὔθ᾽ ὡς πολεμικὸν οὔθ᾽ ὅτι ποτὲ βούλεται ῥᾴδιον ἀφορίσασθαι: διορίσασθαι μήν μοι ταύτῃ δοκεῖ σχεδὸν ὀρθότατον αὐτὸ εἶναι, χωρὶς μὲν πολεμικοῦ, χωρὶς δὲ εἰρηνικοῦ θέντας, εἰπεῖν ὡς οὐκ ἔστι πολιτικὸν τοῦτο τῆς ὀρχήσεως τὸ γένος, ἐνταῦθα δὲ κείμενον ἐάσαντας κεῖσθαι, νῦν ἐπὶ τὸ πολεμικὸν ἅμα καὶ εἰρηνικὸν ὡς ἀναμφισβητήτως ἡμέτερον ὂν ἐπανιέναι. So, first of all, we should separate questionable dancing far from dancing that is without controversy. Which is the controversial kind, and how are the two to be distinguished? All the dancing that is of a Bacchic kind and cultivated by those who indulge in intoxicated imitations of Nymphs, Pans, Sileni and Satyrs (as they name them), when performing certain rites of expiation and initiation—this entire class of dancing cannot easily be marked off either as pacific or as warlike, nor as of any one particular kind. The most correct way of defining it appears to me to be this—to place it away from both pacific and warlike dancing, and to pronounce that this type of dancing is οὐ πολιτικόν; having thus set aside and dismissed it, we will now return to the warlike and pacific types, which without controversy belong to us.

Outside the Head and Outside Individualism-Collectivism

2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marika Lamoreaux ◽  
Beth Morling
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Power Distance ◽  
Uncertainty Avoidance ◽  
Cultural Products ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
Meta Analyses

Cultural differences and similarities can be documented not only at the level of the psyche (people’s motivations, beliefs, emotions, or cognitions) but also via shared, tangible representations of culture (such as advertising, texts, architecture, and so on). In this report, the authors present the results of some exploratory meta-analyses of cultural products. Data were sufficient to analyze a variety of cultural traits: positivity, modernity, high (vs. low) context, uncertainty avoidance, and power distance, as well as other dimensions. Thus, this article documents cultural products that measured traits other than individualism-collectivism, the trait the authors analyzed in an earlier article. The data reinforce the value of studying cultural products and fit with recent calls to branch out from the familiar, individualism-collectivism construct into new axes of cultural difference.

Cultivating Cultural Differences in Asymmetric Power Relations

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sierk Ybema ◽  
Hyunghae Byun
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Cultural Distance ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Specific Power ◽  
Work Relations ◽  
Organizational Settings ◽  
Japanese Firms ◽  
Intercultural Encounters ◽  
Asymmetric Power

In this article we integrate findings from interviews and ethnographic case studies to explore issues of culture and identity in Japanese—Dutch work relations in two different contexts: Japanese firms in the Netherlands and Dutch firms in Japan. It is suggested that cultural identities do not carry a pre-given meaning that people passively enact, as is sometimes assumed, but become infused with meaning in organizational actors’ interpretations that are embedded in specific social contexts. The research contribution this article makes is twofold. First, it illustrates how, in different organizational settings, cultural differences are enacted differently in people’s identity talk, underlining the context-dependent and constructed nature of culture and cultural distance in intercultural encounters. Second, it highlights the particular relevance of a power-sensitive understanding of claims of cultural difference by revealing small, but significant differences in organizational actors’ cultural identity talk that are intimately related to the specific power asymmetries within our research participants’ organizations.

Young Russians: are they prepared to cybernatization of their own body?

2021 ◽  
pp. 781-800
Author(s):  
M.V. Semina
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
The State ◽  
The Body ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
State Technical ◽  
Technical University

The purpose of this paper is to acquaint readers with the research conducted by students and employees of the State Technical University N.E. Bauman, who reveals the current attitudes of young generation to the issue of cybernatization of their own body. Which part of the body they are ready to transform? How do they visualize this process? Will there be some age, gender, cultural, differences in relations to the parts of the body they want to change? Are there any specific features that distinguish Russians from others in the processes of body cybernatization? This is what this paper says.

Pedagogiczny testament Profesora Andrzeja Jaczewskiego

2021 ◽  
pp. 213-225
Author(s):  
Maciej Tanaś
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
The Body ◽  
New School ◽  
Personal Accounts ◽  
Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Mature Person ◽  
Scientific Achievements

The article presents the enormous scientific, organisational and social achievements of Professor Andrzej Jaczewski – the doyen of Polish sexology, doctor and educator. The author recalls the awarding of the Medal of Merit for the Development of Polish Pedagogy, presented by the Chapter of the Committee of Pedagogical Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The author describes and analyses the various fields of the Professor’s activities, referring to available studies and insightful personal accounts. Undisputed, original and significant scientific achievements at the medical and pedagogical junctions, as well as beautiful accounts from his own life and accomplishments set new perspectives for pedagogical sciences, earning the Professor enormous respect from within and beyond his Polish and German academic cohort and peers. The Professor was and remains to many, a physician of the body, mind and spirit. With his unwavering passion and dedication to his students and the scouts, he truly exemplifies and models a path that seeks truth, beauty and doing good. There is a discussion about the shape of Polish education concerning errors in teaching science and biology, wasting children’s abilities in the sciences more than it is commonly believed, the problem of physical and mental “splitting maturation”, the role of adventure in scouting, “becoming” a mature person, the highest grades on secondary school-leaving certificates and young people’s lack of skills in communicating in other languages. In addition, the discussion addresses the competences needed to build social relations, personal courage and responsibility, tolerance and respect for other people, the ability to cooperate and build a community, the catalogue of values in the process of education, integration of education and upbringing processes, theatre, ballet, classical and opera music concerts, popular culture, as well as digital media and human rights to a life of value, sailing and education reforms. The conversation with professor Andrzej Jaczewski at his home in Ropki in the Beskid Niski leads to the conclusion: “We have to invent a new school. A school worthy of our dreams and the fate of our children and grandchildren”. The author treats it as the Professor’s pedagogical will.

scholarly journals Contractual arrangements and entrepreneurial governance: Flexibility and leeway in urban regeneration projects

Urban Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (16) ◽  
pp. 3217-3235
Author(s):  
Martijn van den Hurk ◽  
Tuna Tasan-Kok
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Urban Regeneration ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Contractual Arrangements ◽  
Public And Private Sector

Urban regeneration projects involve complex contractual deals between public- and private-sector actors. Critics contend that contracts hamper opportunities for flexibility and change in these projects due to strict provisions that are incorporated in legal agreements. This article offers contrary empirical insights based on a study of contractual arrangements for urban regeneration projects in the Netherlands, including an analysis of interviews and confidential documents. It zooms in on provisions on safeguarding and adaptation, finding that urban regeneration projects remain receptive to flexibility and change. Public-sector actors use their room to manoeuvre while operating contracts, seeking to secure social relations and keep projects going. This article taps into data sources that are difficult to access, addressing what is included in contracts and how they are used by practitioners, and presents questions for future research on contracts in the urban built environment.

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