Globalization,Recession and the Internationalization of Industrial Districts: Experiences from the Italian Gold Jewellery Industry

Abstract

Globalization and the recent recession crisis are significantly challenging Italian industrial districts (IDs), leading to deep transformations in their internationalization, innovation and organization strategies. With our empirical focus on a single industry (gold jewellery) and a specific country (Italy) and through the theoretical lenses of the global value chain (GVC) approach, the evidence in this article sheds light on the differences in how three IDs within Italy's gold jewellery sector (Valenza Po, Arezzo and Vicenza) compete in the global arena. Our comparative analysis reveals striking differences among these districts with regard to their upstream and downstream internationalization strategies in response to two industry shocks: increasing global competition in the early 2000s and the world economic recession of 2008–2009. Our explanation for the varied gold jewellery district responses to these two global crises involves both internal and external factors: (1) structural differences between the three IDs; (2) distinct business strategies; and (3) how these districts are linked to the gold jewellery GVC.     

Trafficking in women? Or multicultural family? The contextual difference of commodification of intimacy

This article attempts to link commercially arranged cross-border marriages to the discussion of the commodification of intimacy and to explore how a transnational phenomenon is contextualized in national politics. The question of commodification – what can or cannot be assigned economic value – has been a contentious area of intersection between economics and ethics, and intimacy has often been at the heart of the recent debate on commodification. Yet, commercially arranged cross-border marriages are perceived differently in Vietnam, a country that sends brides, and in Korea, a country that receives brides. In Vietnam, cross-border marriage has been portrayed negatively and is often associated with trafficking in women. Although a similar discourse exists in Korea, the official discourse on cross-border marriage has focused on supporting multicultural families. The difference in discourse with respect to the same phenomenon suggests that the tension around commodification is not necessarily shaped uniformly across the national border. In this article, I juxtapose the contrasted discourses and policies on commercially arranged cross-border marriages in both countries and discuss the contexts that may have contributed to the difference in discourse. By doing this, I show that the global trend of commodification of intimacy and the cultural meaning of this phenomenon cannot be divorced from national politics.     

The Romney Street Group: Its Origins and Influence--1916-1922

Contemporary historians tend to be drawn to study formal institutions,largely because they leave formal records. But as politicalscientists have long argued, informal networks can be of equalimportance and influence. Throughout the last century, dininggroups were amongst the most common of these networks; and theRomney Street Group, which has been existence in various guisessince 1917, is eminent amongst them. This article looks at themethodological problems of analysing such groups, as well asits early history. Amongst its early members were R.H. Tawneyand Tom Jones, symbolizing the link the group forged betweenthe liberal intellectuals behind The Athenaeum and Lloyd George'snewly formed Cabinet Secretariat. Its principal focus was thepostwar reconstruction of industrial and international relations.Although its immediate impact appears to have been small, itcontinued to keep reconstruction ideals alive, in general throughjournalism and the private contacts of its members and in particularthrough Tom Jones, who was successively the confidant of LloydGeorge and Baldwin.     

A nuclear North Korea and the stability of East Asia: a tsunami on the horizon?

This article aims to assess the strategic implications of North Korea's nuclear development. It calls into question the conventional wisdom that Pyongyang's atomic weapons will not only undermine the state of deterrence on the Korean peninsula, but also will trigger a nuclear domino effect throughout East Asia. A nuclear-armed North Korea, I argue, still cannot win a major victory over the South and the United States; Pyongyang's bombs somewhat decrease—rather than increase, as many believe—the risk of US preventive attack. And the regional US military presence as well as the available missile defence technology is sufficient to persuade Seoul and Tokyo not to pursue nuclear arsenals for the foreseeable future. While I reject the alarmist view, I find that North Korea's armament nevertheless carries two significant—albeit less grave—risks that have received little scholarly scrutiny. First, I argue that the risk of inadvertent war through pre-emption will increase with Pyongyang's armament. I also argue that the strengthening of US alliances in the region as well as the US development of a missile defence capability in response to the North Korean threat could exacerbate the security dilemmas among major powers. I conclude, however, that these potential dangers do not markedly threaten regional stability.     

Nuclear Sisyphus: the myth of denuclearising North Korea

Is North Korea ready and willing to give up its nuclear weapons? Proponents of arms control and sustained engagement with North Korea maintain that Pyongyang's desire to acquire nuclear weapons stemmed from ingrained insecurity vis-à-vis the United States or more specifically, the threat that the US poses to fundamental regime security.

However, the primordial source of Kim Jong Il's existential insecurity stems largely from the abnormal, structural idiosyncracies of his regime and not, as many naively believe, the hardline policies of the Bush administration. Accordingly, the Kim Jong Il regime's fundamental dilemma boils down to the fact that the domestic political costs of giving up its nuclear capabilities are just as high as the costs of retaining them.

Debunking the myth that the US, rather than North Korea, poses the greater challenge to South Korean security is as important as ensuring that North Korea dismantles its nuclear arsenal.     

Centripetal settlement and segmentary social formation of the Banpo tradition

Creating a spatial environment to facilitate social operation is a common practice among human groups. Segmentary social formations have limited regulatory capacity due to the lack of formally sanctified authorities. The pressure is on the emergency of atternative mechanisms that regulate the practice of segmentary principles. The Neolithic site at Jiangzhai in North China is a classic archaeological example of using the centripetal plan and demarcated space to support the working of segmentary organization. The occupation was partitioned into three concentric divisions of the central plaza, residential and burial zones. The later two zones were further demarcated into spatially discrete areas for allocating the social segments comprising the community. The arrangement translated the abstract segmentary principles into tangible space where everyday practices played out. It created a spatiality that placed individual acts under the watch of the entire community, thus enabling the effective policing against deviated practices by public opinions. Analyses of the material remains distributed in the highly ordered built environment indicate that food sharing was practiced in the communal level, and craft production of the ceramics was likely organized in the household level. Patterns of monochrome paintings and etched signs on the ceramics suggest the sharing of symbolism in a pan-community network. The study also isolates the budding of non-conforming acts that would one day fracture the segmentary community.     

Memory and Non-Place: Visual Testimonies of Japanese American Internment During World War II

This article addresses the little-known history of Japanese Latin American internment during WWII. Classified as ‘illegal aliens’ and ‘enemy aliens’, 2,264 Japanese Latin Americans were stripped of citizenship from their home countries, denied rights in the United States, and ultimately deprived reconciliation due to their undocumented status. Using the traces of this history as a case study, I explore the strategic memories Japanese Latin Americans create about non-place – spaces of statelessness or states of exception – that allow them to make claims about state violence committed against them under these conditions, and, second, argue that demands for justice against political violence entail not only bringing light to erased histories but also developing engaged acts of reception that account for survivors’ claims to the memories of non-place. Visual testimonies, such as the Denshō Digital Archive and the short documentary Hidden Internment: The Art Shibayama Story (2004), affectively connect a viewer/listener to the memory of trauma, to an inexpressible haunting, and thus are critical platforms for creating a collective memory between survivors and the digital generation of postmemory.     

Postcolonial cultural governance: a study of heritage management in post-1997 Hong Kong

This paper seeks to unpack the politics of heritage preservation in post-1997 Hong Kong. Referring to international frameworks on heritage preservation, it seeks to position Hong Kong’s cultural resource management on par with international discourses for the advancement of heritage governance. Debates surrounding heritage are indeed a part of the wider picture of Hong Kong’s cultural and identity politics and the Hong Kong-China relationship. By examining various contested cases of heritage conservation, and by linking those debates back to the government’s responses within the context of cultural governance, we suggest that heritage management has become a hot stove for cultural politics in post-colonial Hong Kong with deep repercussions in the political, social and economic spheres. The paper examines the rising social debates concerning the removal and conservation of built heritage, and the various government attempts to address these debates. It argues that the current heritage governance mechanism has failed to meet social needs and provide an articulated heritage policy. We propose that a coherent organisational structure is required to better accommodate diverse and contradictory views and discourses surrounding heritage and cultural governance and to tackle the various cultural challenges in postcolonial Hong Kong.