The World Bank on Mind,Behaviour and Society

This article critically analyses the use of psychological and behavioural knowledge in development policy and practice with reference to the World Development Report 2015. It examines the main proposition of the WDR 2015, highlighting the behavioural change framework and policy techniques promoted in the report. The shifts that have taken place in development policy are reviewed from a governmentality perspective which offers a critical view on the psychological and behavioural focus in contemporary development policy. The article focuses specifically on the behavioural techniques the WDR 2015 promotes to show how a certain kind of subjectivity is advanced which not only homogenizes and problematizes non‐Western knowledge systems, subjectivities and agency, but also justifies the economization of social life through development.     

文化、权力与世界历史—兼评埃里克·沃尔夫《欧洲与没有历史的人民》

本文以埃里克·沃尔夫的《欧洲与没有历史的人民》为切入点,探讨了世界历史研究中的文化、权力等问题。文章以唯物史观为理论指导,首先批评了将文化理解为固定的、单一的和以自我为中心的错误观念,指出只有将文化视为开放和互动的系统,才能真正认识世界历史中复杂的联系。同时,文章也分析了世界历史编纂中"欧洲中心主义"背后所体现的知识与权力的纠结,以及欧洲是怎样运用它在知识上的这一权力去书写以自我为中心的世界历史的。在此基础上,文章提出世界历史研究应注意地区性历史与全球性历史的结合,既要看到全球性力量所带来的巨变,也要关注各种地区性力量在这一过程中起到的作用。唯如此,才能理解世界历史中统一性与多样性的联系,而不会将之看成是"欧洲中心"的力量在其中起主导作用的过程。     

Capital, State and Space: Contesting the Borderless World

The globalization of economic activities and transnational corporations (TNCs) has led us to think that we are entering a 'borderless' world. Some prophets of globalization argue that it has led to the end of geography. To them, the state has ceased to be an institution capable of exerting influences on the activities of transnational capital, which has also become increasingly 'placeless'. This paper aims to contest the issue of the alleged end-state discourse of a 'borderless' world. It argues that, despite the accelerated processes of globalization, national boundaries still matter in the decision-making and global reach of capital. The notion of a 'borderless' world is more folklore than reality. Based on theoretical and empirical literature in international political economy and business studies, the paper offers a dialectical perspective that examines the changing relationship between capital and the state, and the embedded relationship between capital and space in the organization of the global space-economy. Together, both arguments point to the importance of understanding dynamic transformations of the global economy, before considering its globalization tendencies.     

Narrating the Self among Arab Americans: A Bridging Discourse between Arab Tradition and American Culture

This article expounds the nature of Arab American identity through an exploration of discourses and practices related to traveling and movement at global and local levels, with a particular emphasis on personal narratives of both men and women of different ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. Travel is dealt with here in its broad meaning and connotes migratory travel, and immigration. It also indicates traveling back and forth between the homeland and new land. Despite the fact that cross‐cultural studies of travel are scant, population movements and transnational migration are currently the focus of broad academic debates and surround such issues as transnational cultural relations, the renovation of migrants' social cosmologies, ¹ and the dynamics of identity reconstruction ( Axel, 2004 ; Clifford, 1988 ; Cohn, 1987 ; Coutin, 2003 ; el‐Aswad, 2004, 2006a ; Euben, 2006 ; Hall, 1990, 1992 ; Julian, 2004 ; Kaplan, 1996 ; Kennedy & Danks, 2001 ; Mintz, 1998 ; Tsing, 2000 ). This inquiry is contingent on ethnographic material gathered from 20 case studies addressing various experiences of Arab Americans living in the community of Dearborn, in the metropolitan Detroit area of Michigan. ² These case studies reveal some important and comparative theoretical insights that help us understand core features of the unity as well as the multiplicity, diversity, and plasticity of Arab American identity. The study concentrates on narratives of personal experience, defined as verbalized, visualized, and/or embodied framings of a sequence of actual or possible life events, through stories, narrations, diaries, memoirs, and letters ( Herman & Vervaeck, 2009 ; Ochs & Capps, 1996 ). Although personal narratives encompass a wide range of daily experiences, they are prototypes that express people's views of other cultures generated by travel or direct contact. Travel is used here to mean a range of material and spatial practices that generate knowledge, stories, traditions, books, and other cultural expressions ( Clifford, 1997 ; Euben, 2006 ). Cultures are understood by studying sites of dwelling, the local ground of collective life, and the effects of travel ( Clifford, 1997 ). Travel and migration or Diaspora ³ are prototypical rites of passage involving transition in space, territory, and group membership. They transform people's sense of themselves and others. For instance, migrants experience profound changes in their outlook and orientation as they move from the state of belonging to the homeland to that of belonging to the new land, generating a unique sense of multiple identities. The article aims to answer these questions: To what extent have travel and migration of the Arabs transformed their worldviews, including images of themselves, of others, and of new and old homelands? To what extent have these experiences of movement been incorporated into Arab American identities and articulated in their narratives as well? Do they view themselves as having one unified transnational identity, as being “Arab American,” or multiple identities? Is there a conflict of having multiple identities and maintaining one encompassing identity? And to what extent can Arab Americans be viewed as cultural mediators or agents bridging the West and the East (the Middle East) as well as the north and the south? These questions are examined within the perspectives and views of both Arab American writers and ordinary Arab immigrants of the Detroit metropolitan area. ⁴