Cultural tourism between local and transnational identities: Jewish heritage in Syracuse,Italy

Abstract

This article focuses on the management of heritage and cultural tourism related to the complex identity of minority groups, where different components tend to produce different visions and practices. It highlights the impacts of globalized transnational networks and influences on political, cultural and religious identities and affiliations over long distances. In fact, diverse views, approaches, perceptions and representations may lead to disagreement and conflicts even within apparently compact ethnic or religious communities. The issues related to dissonant heritage management strategies and the related authorized heritage discourse, in terms of unbalanced power relations and diverging narratives, are considered. The theme of Jewish heritage tourism (J.H.T) is analysed, with a focus on the case of Syracuse, Italy. This historically cosmopolitan and multicultural city specializes in cultural tourism and tends to develop niche products, including J.H.T, in order to strengthen and diversify its international cultural destination status. Different components of the Jewish world, as well as non-Jewish stakeholders, practice different approaches to heritage tourism. Actors, discourses and reasons behind Jewish culture management and promotion will be highlighted and the reactions, perceptions and suggestions by the various stakeholders and groups involved will be portrayed, with the aim of contributing to the discussion about the complexity of niche heritage tourism processes in a multi-ethnic site.     

The Formation of a Composite Urban Image

Since image formation depends on the cognitive organization of perceptions, a change in the individual's available cognitive structure may affect his or her perceptual selectivity. This, in turn, might lead to a reconstruction of the image through selected fields of attention. Although this process is widely accepted, little is known of its neurophysiology, and the formation of an image, therefore, is drawn inferentially from introspective reports. This paper presents, accordingly, a conception of image formation and tests it with a model presenting paths among locational and nonlocational environmental stimuli and an introspective measure of a composite urban image. Changes in the paths due to information and personal attributes that reflect different realms (for example, fields of attention) are further examined with an expanded version of the model. Across the realms, the perceived residential appeal and the perceived level of activities are the main determinants of the composite urban image. Information and personal attributes not only affect the mix of image determinants, but also rearrange their relative effects on the emerging image.     

Epilepsia Verminosa

Epilepsy is a major public health threat in the developing world, with much higher prevalence and incidence rates than those observed in developed countries. At present, one of the most common causes for epilepsy worldwide is the parasitic worm, Taenia solium, and the associated neurocysticercosis (NCC) that may often result from this infestation. Worm infestation was already recognized as a cause of epilepsy by the middle of the 18th century. Helminths and their effects on health were a daily medical concern in the 18th and 19th centuries--with prevailing views ranging from the beneficial effects of the presence of adult worms in the gut, to considering them as culprits for a wide variety of diseases. A number of cases followed longitudinally by various nineteenth-century French physicians showed that there was good reason to believe that the verminous influence on seizures was real, as the expulsion of the T. solium often coincided with a notable amelioration of symptoms. Several theories were proposed to account for how the worms could lead to Epilepsia nervosa, including notions of competition for nutritional resources between the host and the parasite, and irritation of the medulla and of peripheral nerve endings predisposing to epileptiform episodes. Recently, after almost a century of quiet, interest in the neurological effects of helminths has been rekindled, due in part to the growing number of cases in the United States with NCC-related neurological disorders. In this article, we review the history of our understanding of the relationship between seizure disorders and parasitic worms, and we relate this history to contemporary epidemiologic and public health issues in developing countries.     

From the School Yard to the Conservation Area: Impact Investment across the Nature/Social Divide

In the face of planetary crises, from inequality to biodiversity loss, “impact investing” has emerged as a vision for a new, “moral” financial system where investor dollars fund socio-environmental repair while simultaneously generating financial returns. In support of this system elite actors have formed a consensus that financial investments can have beneficial, more-than-financial outcomes aimed at solving social and environmental crises. Yet critical geographers have largely studied “green” and “social” finance separately. We propose, instead, a holistic geography of impact investing that highlights the common methods used in attempts to offset destructive investments with purportedly reparative ones. This involves interrogating how elite-led ideas of social and environmental progress are reflected in investments, as well as deconstructing the “objects” of impact investments. As examples, we use insights from both “green” and “social” literatures to analyse the social values embedded in projects of financialisation in schooling and affordable housing in the US.