Framing multiple others and international norms: the migrant worker advocacy movement and Korean national identity reconstruction

ABSTRACT. This paper analyses the discourse of the migrant worker advocacy movement in South Korea to examine how activists' strategic framing can expedite the mobilisation of international norms despite significant cultural barriers. Korean activists argue on behalf of migrant workers that adopting international norms will help the Korean nation gain more respect from other nation‐states and that international norms are not antithetical to the true nature of the Korean nation. These framing strategies have enabled Korean activists to mobilise international norms despite cultural barriers. However, such a framing strategy does not cultivate a truly inclusive nationhood; Korean activists have circumvented cultural barriers, but have not overcome or transformed them.     

COUNTING THREADS. SAFFRON IN AEGEAN BRONZE AGE WRITING AND SOCIETY

The ideogram for saffron has long been recognized on the Linear B tablets from Knossos. Close examination of this corpus allows a distinction in content to be made between the LM II–LM IIIA1 tablets of the Room of the Chariot Tablets and the later LM IIIA1–2 tablets from the North Entrance Passage. It is suggested here that the later material demonstrates an increasing control over saffron production by the palace, with a greater overall quantity of the spice recorded, larger individual contributions, potential supervisors in charge of collection, and pressure to reach targets. This increase in organization coincides with a dramatic decrease in crocus imagery in other media, and may indicate a deliberate Mycenaean rejection of the symbolic world of Minoan floral iconography, and an interest only in the commercial value of the precious spice. Possible antecedents of the saffron ideogram in Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphic are also considered.