‘Lost in Thailand’: the popular geopolitics of film-induced tourism in northern Thailand

The recent blockbuster hit ‘Lost in Thailand’ had more than USD $200 million in ticket sales in China in 2012, and quickly became the nation’s highest-grossing homegrown film ever. Set in northern Thailand, the film has since contributed to the prodigious growth of Chinese tourism in the region. Among other experiences, film-induced tourism in northern Thailand includes the re-enactment of scenes from the film on university campuses, in temples and around the city of Chiang Mai. These intertextual performances have made headlines in national and international media for how they reflect various articulations of cultural dissonance. This paper draws on structured interviews among Thai residents and Chinese tourists, as well as a discourse analysis of English- and Thai-language media reports to argue that popular responses to the impact of film-induced tourism in the region are strongly embedded in historical and contemporary Sino-Thai political-economic relations and corollary geopolitical imaginaries of place. These imaginaries are frequently reconstituted through the ambivalent economies of tourism encounters. This paper contributes to emerging research on how geopolitical assemblages are co-constituted by a range of popular discourses, tourism practices, media engagements, and political-economic relations and how they inform popular geopolitical experience of and in place.     

Population growth,climatic cooling,and the development of collector strategies on the Southern Plateau,western North America

A change in human adaptations on the Southern Plateau during the fourth millennium B.P offers the opportunity to investigate the process by which immediate-consumption strategies are replaced by delayed consumption strategies among hunter-gatherers. Assemblage structure and settlement pattern are used to infer the nature of resource acquisition strategies between 2000 and 6000 radiocarbon years B.P., and the results are compared with a proxy record of population and a detailed reconstruction of terrestrial and riverine paleoenvironments. Results show that a strategy of mobile and later occasionally sedentary foraging with little use of storage technology persisted until as late as 3500 B.P and was abruptly and without detectable gradation replaced by a strictly scheduled, semisedentary, logistically organized, storage-dependent collector strategy. The change took place at a time of depressed population and 400 years after a period of climatic cooling had begun, thus eliminating both demographic pressure and environmental determinism as explanations. The evidence could be explained by prolonged selective pressure of an increasingly seasonal environment acting on successively attempted behavioral variants, but the widespread rise of collector-like strategies throughout the west at about the same time leaves open the question of exogenous development and highlights the importance of climatic change.     

论“女性经济”时代的女性旅游市场开发

“女性经济”的出现促进了女性旅游的进一步发展。这一时期,女性旅游者的旅游动机比以往更为强烈,出游人数不断增加,出游方式渐趋多样,安全认知增强。本文在分析女性旅游消费特征的基础上讨论了女性旅游市场的细分和女性旅游产品的设计与开发策略。     

The development of competitiveness clusters in Croatia: a survey-based analysis

ABSTRACT

In order to stimulate growth and competitiveness, many EU member states have implemented cluster-based development strategies. Several works underline the benefits of policy-driven clusters, but understanding how clusters can create value for their members is still an open issue. This work contributes to the literature by investigating 13 Competitiveness Clusters in Croatia, a special type of policy-driven clusters developed within the country’s smart specialization strategy, using original data from a survey on 250 cluster members. Our results indicate the existence of very different attitudes towards the rationale for the initiative. In particular, while some members are more interested in lobbying activities, others see networking and innovation as the most important objectives of clusters. Findings also show that the evaluation of cluster management, governance and performance varies according to the desired objectives. Overall the Competitiveness Clusters initiative in Croatia did not meet members’ expectations.     

Sir Philip Mitchell and the Indian Ocean, 1944–49

This article examines the strategic initiatives that Sir Philip Mitchell, governor of Kenya, brought to Great Britain’s Indian Ocean imperial and diplomatic policy in the years following the Second World War. Seeking to give strategic shape to his own coastal Islamic sympathies, Mitchell encroached on high-level policy debates with a proposal to reorganise Britain’s Western Indian Ocean around a political directorate to administer the coastal zones from Aden to Tanganyika. Such a cadre, Mitchell argued, would provide a valuable defensive bulwark against nationalist agitation and a ‘civilised’ foundation for local government initiatives. This paper brings together biography, strategic policy and area studies to demonstrate how Africa’s decolonisation shaped and limited the strategic options for Britain’s post-war Indian Ocean policy. Mitchell’s proposal broached a fascinating debate concerning the Indian Ocean as a realm of historical experience and future political construction.     

美国国家安全战略中的地缘政治思想

地缘政治在美国影响深远,根植于人们的意识中,成为政治家、战略家们观察国际事务、思考战略问题的一种习惯性观念。在美国的国家安全战略中,始终隐含和贯穿着深厚的地缘政治思想,它的战略是以稳定的地理考虑为基础的。本文以《美国国家安全战略报告》为据,阐明这种特征。     

对我国世界遗产品牌价值的保护策略研究

我国对遗产旅游以及相关的开发利用都制定了保护措施,然而针对遗产品牌价值的保护问题却一直缺乏相应的规定。加之世界遗产的公共资源属性而使我国许多地区出现企业争抢使用遗产品牌的混乱局面。为此,笔者通过相关网站对我国部分世界遗产品牌的使用状况进行搜索,并通过发放调查问卷等方式,对社会公众的世界遗产品牌认知情况和被企业使用后的态度等问题进行了抽样调查。通过统计软件的分析可以看出世界遗产品牌价值的使用已严重影响了世界遗产文化价值的传播、发展与实现,从而指出保护世界遗产品牌价值的必要性。最后,结合我国世界遗产品牌的使用现状提出了相应的保护策略。     

建国以来若干军事战略方针探析

50年代中至 60年代末是新中国面临严峻考验的时期 ,我国诸多军事战略方针在这个时期凸显、定型、变化 ,其中有的战略方针一直影响至今。本文简要分析了在这时期制定的具有重大影响的“积极防御”方针、“北顶南放”方针、“诱敌深入”方针、准备“早打、大打、打核战争”方针和“对付四面八方”战略     

试论宁夏扶贫移民的发展方略

扶贫移民是宁夏实施反贫困战略的重要组成部分,对脱贫致富起到了积极的作用。其主要经验是:采取了"吊庄"移民的方式并辅之以相应政策,多渠道的资金筹措方式,以水资源管理为核心的社区组织方式,多元化的开发模式。但也存在着规划方面的一些失误、生态环境问题突出、农业生产效益低下、行政区划和隶属关系不确定、文化类型单一层次低等问题,限制扶贫移民的成效。为此,要通过推行节水灌溉技术创建节水社会、调整农业结构建立现代市场农业、走多元化开发的道路、创建文明有序的移民社区等措施促使扶贫移民吊庄走出停滞,积极发展。     

2008年奥运旅游效应与中国奥运旅游圈构想

举办奥运会最大的经济受益点是旅游业,中国旅游业应充分抓住奥运给旅游业带来的各种效应,充分利用良好的区位条件,合理确定和设计旅游区位,确立"一个核心、多中转辐射地、五圈共享"的"中国奥运旅游圈"区位开发模式,构建北部历史古迹都市文化核心旅游圈、东部东方文化现代都市旅游圈、南部经济特区热带风情都市旅游圈、中西南奇山丽水民族风情旅游圈、西部神奇景观旅游圈,实施整体形象设计与促销战略、多等级多系列产品战略、网络化大交通战略、信息化战略、区域协作战略、规模化战略、可持续发展战略,把握机遇,发挥奥运旅游的最大效应。