From high-touch to high-tech: COVID-19 drives robotics adoption

Abstract

Global economic and social life has been severely challenged since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 disease a pandemic. Travel, tourism and hospitality, in particular, has been massively impacted by the lockdowns used to maintain social distance to manage the disease. Robotics, artificial intelligence, and human-robot interactions have gained an increased presence to help manage the spread of COVID-19 in hospitals, airports, transportation systems, recreation and scenic areas, hotels, restaurants, and communities in general. Humanoid robots, autonomous vehicles, drones, and other intelligent robots are used in many different ways to reduce human contact and the potential spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, including delivering materials, disinfecting and sterilizing public spaces, detecting or measuring body temperature, providing safety or security, and comforting and entertaining patients. While controversial in the past due to concerns over job losses and data privacy, the adoption of robotics and artificial intelligence in travel and tourism will likely continue after the COVID-19 pandemic becomes less serious. Tourism scholars should seize this opportunity to develop robotic applications that enhance tourist experiences, the protection of natural and cultural resources, citizen participation in tourism development decision making, and the emergence of new ‘high-touch’ employment opportunities for travel, tourism and hospitality workers.     

From temporary to permanent townsmen: migrants from the Malalaua District,Papua New Guinea

An attempt is made to explain how a group of people moved from being newcomers to town in the 1940s to being one of the most permanent and stable residential elements in Papua New Guinea's towns in the 1970s. Circular and permanent migration, as Young maintains, are not 2 distinct processes, and both initial rural urban movements and migrants' decisions to return or not to return home are examined simultaneously. The hypothetical career of a migrant is considered all the way from village residence to permanent urban residence along with the different decision points that might vary this career. In this case study focus is on 2 sets of factors that affect migration decisions: an imbalance in rural and urban economic conditions and the effects of the migration process itself. The people discussed come from what is now known as the Malalaua District of the Gulf Province and are referred to as Malalauas. Historically, there are several feastures of Malalaua urban migration that are important. Malalaua migration began earlier than that of most urban migrant groups in Papua New Guinea. In the 1963 urban population there were a number of Malalauas who first came to Port Moresby before or during World War 2. Migration from the Malalaua District has continued in a steady stream from the 1940s to the 1970s, although there is no evidence on absolute numbers of new migrants in any 1 year. The pattern of Malalaua migration to towns over the entire period has been largely one of the movement of young single adult males and young female adults moving to town on marriage. Both the absolute numbers of migrants and the proportion of Malalauas absent from the District have risen rapidly over the 20 years to 1972. Finally, children are being born to Malalaua migrants in town. Malalauas are possibly the migrant group most firmly established in town. The Malalauas are one of the most longterm and residential groups in Port Moresby. In Papua New Guinea as a whole they must be one of the migrant groups with the greatest commitment to urban living. Economic factors have been very important in Malalau decisions to leave the village, particularly the decisions of adult males. The migration process itself has increasingly affected migrant decisions: factors such as the diminished attraction of a depopulated rural community, a change in tastes towards urban based ways of living, the growth of strong personal and family ties among urban residents, and a simultaneous reduction in such ties with rural residents. It is argued that this 2nd set of factors over time increases in importance relative to rural-urban economic imbalance as an explanation of migration behavior. In general, rural urban economic opportunities have become less important over time. So in the 1970s and 1980s it would be argued that many Malalauas would not respond to increases in urban unemployment of rural incomes by moving back to the village. They would be permanent townspeople. This explanation of migration decisions is dynamic: in the history of individuals and groups the context and thus the explanation of decisions change.     

ICT,Social Media,and the Arab Transition to Democracy: From Venting to Acting

There is widespread use of information and communications technology (ICT) in the Middle East and North African countries. Blogging and social media have played an important role in the recent calls for reform and change. Using these new communication systems and devices, citizens have been venting their anger and frustration with their autocratic governments and rulers. Most recently, the venting has turned into action, as shown by the eradication of the old regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, as well as the ongoing struggle in Syria. The most notable issues include lack of individual freedoms, deteriorating economic conditions, high unemployment, increased corruption, and violent treatment of citizens at the hands of security forces. The Arab Spring, or Awakening, and the events that have since followed have, in part, been promoted by ICT and other means of modern communications. Along with the popular Arab traditions of oral communication as well as Friday and Sunday sermons at mosques and churches, social media were used by organizers of the Arab Spring to call for and coordinate demonstrations against the regimes. Access to this newer media has circumvented the established and government‐controlled media such as printed press, radio, and television—outlets bent on appeasing the rulers and misinforming the masses. Arab authoritarian systems have discovered that they cannot simply flip a big red switch to stop the flow of information that they would rather keep hidden from the masses. Further discussed are digital democracies that are currently emerging because of the growing population of netizens, bloggers, and social media political activists throughout the Arab world and the many attempts to silence them.     

Crafting Social Networks: the Production of Obsidian Stemmed Tools in the Willaumez Peninsula,Papua New Guinea

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory - Widely held assumptions about static societies during the early-middle Holocene (c. 10,000–3300 BP) in the Willaumez Peninsula, Papua New Guinea...     

全球化时代的社会史研究

历史科学是以热潮的方式前进的。有些人或许也会说,它是一个依赖于时尚的专业,但这样说就太消极了。因为,尽管提问、专题与研究领域以相当快的替换频率崛起、占据主要位置,然后又退居后位,人们在回顾时还是能够看到,它们有过长期性影响,产生了许多成果,哪怕起初对它们的期望与要求被证实为过高了。这有点像众所周知的荒漠考察队的故事,必须有一个海市蜃楼来吸引它,它才会向前挪进一段路。另外,如果我们对眼前发生并不断变化的当代重大问题以及新历史学者队伍的不同经历不做出反应的话,那么我们的专业会是多么枯燥无味!     

云锡公司印尼归侨社会适应研究

以云南锡业公司归侨为研究对象,通过历史资料和研究文献,结合深入访谈,从工作、婚姻、教育和福利等方面阐述了这些归侨五十年来的生活、生产情况;分析了七十年代部分归侨移居香港的原因和移居模式以及归侨群体对新社会环境的适应过程;并对云南锡业公司归侨群体鲜明的特点进行了归纳。     

Romania's Roma Population: From Marginality to Social Integration

Abstract

Among several groups vulnerable to discrimination in 21st century Europe, Roma loom large because the poorer, traditionally-minded elements continue to resist integration and remain on the margins of society. Most of the people involved have become EU citizens as a result of recent accession by East Central European countries where marginalisation has been tolerated, with varying degrees of discrimination, ever since the 19th century abolition of feudalism. In the interest of a more inclusive society, Roma are now being encouraged to strive for living standards comparable with those enjoyed by the mainstream population. This paper concentrates on Romania, which has one of the largest Roma communities in Europe. We profile the situation with some reference to regional geographies and previous policy history. We examine the key concepts relevant to marginality, arguing for an element of self-exclusion, because while many Roma elements have been successfully assimilated over the years, a large residual element insists on preserving elements of ‘identity’, implying separation from the mainstream in terms of the modernising ethos and the rule of law. The main thrust of the paper rests with a comprehensive programme to improve the condition of the Roma community as a major element among a number of other factors which are working towards the same objective. We give particular attention to the education programme that is now making significant progress.     

Petztorme Women: Responding to Change in Lihir,Papua New Guinea

The goldmining project on Lihir Island in New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea, has brought dramatic socio‐economic changes. In this matrilineal society, while women's economic contributions were substantial, their political status was not. Women's participation in decision‐making about the mine has been restricted, mainly because men have excluded them. The mining company established a women's section that has supported the development of women's organizations and a range of economic development projects. The women's organizations provide the context for new political roles for women but have experienced many setbacks that are common in such groups across Papua New Guinea. Through the Lihir experience in the first five years of the mine, this paper examines the tensions and divided loyalties that constrain women's organizations and often lead to the failure of income‐generating women's projects in Papua New Guinea.     

Warfare,Social Organisation and Resource Access Amongst the Wosera Abelam of Papua New Guinea

In the precolonial period warfare was endemic amongst the Wosera Abelam and social organisation was sufficiently flexible to permit the movement of people between villages and groups, and their full incorporation into their host societies. In the contemporary context of increasing population pressure, and in the absence of warfare, a significant response is a general tightening of the rules governing group membership and resource access. This response, it is argued, may represent a shift from a patrifilial system of social organisation to one based on patrilineal-like principles, resulting in a legacy of marginalised immigrant lineages of three generations or less of village residence.     

从Travel到Tourism--论19世纪英国旅游概念的变易

19世纪初期“tourism”见诸英语,后又取代“travel”的主流地位,标志着英国古典旅行观向现代旅游观的转变。“tourism”概念由于适应了工业文明时代旅游大众化、市场化、产业化的需要,因而从市井俚语上升为20世纪西方旅游理论的主流概念。厘清它与汉语中“旅游”概念之间深刻的文化差异,是中国旅游学界应对西方旅游理论的一大关键。     

From Tobacco Revolt to Youth Rebellion: A Social History of the Cigarette in Iran

Focusing on the cultural influence of the cigarette, this paper synthesizes a wide range of evidence to argue that the cigarette was a fundamental primer for Iran's encounter with modernity, especially as understood in the context of western influence. Applying the dramaturgical theories of sociologist Erving Goffman, it is argued that the cigarette is an instantiation of the “sign-equipment” of modernization used to refashion the identity and subjectivity of Iranian men and women. This refashioning has occurred in three distinct periods. In the first period (1860–1930), cigarette smoking was a habit adopted by the Persian elite in an attempt to mediate the encounter with European colonial figures. In the second period (1930–70), cigarettes were leveraged by Iranians who wished to be seen as upwardly mobile. In the final and contemporary period (1970–present), cigarettes have become ubiquitous among the adult population, but smoking itself has become the act of youth rebellion as experimentation occurs at increasingly young ages.     

Women,Pigs, God and Evolution: Social and Economic Change Among Kubo People of Papua New Guinea

This paper depicts connections and interactions between several apparently disparate themes of change observed in recent years at a village in the interior lowlands of Western Province, Papua New Guinea. Changes in patterns of association between men and women can be traced, in the first instance, to altered management practices necessitated by intensified pig production. That intensification, in turn, reflects the growing importance of money in the local economy, a shift which, through its predication on recognising the commensurability of differences, has ramifications far beyond the economics of pig production. An earlier emphasis on equivalence in exchanges has been replaced by a recognition of substitutability, with a consequent reification of categories at the expense of individuality. This trend has been reinforced by the influence of a new Christian cult that, in emphasising the distinction between men and women, has reified gender categories as a basis for structuring social action. The declining association between men and women which emerged as an adaptive response to changing economic realities has thus become incorporated as a structural transformation in Kubo social life.