Literature Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 9

Literature - Essay Example She has been judged to be good at her art despite being a woman, because she fosters patriotism, however the poet questions the patriarchal roots of society that mandate the raising of boys as little soldiers and demanding the ultimate sacrifice from women rather than from men. According to Cooper (1988:147) the poem â€Å"Mother and Poet† appears to be an indictment of patriarchy. This work of the poet must be examined within the context of her earlier work in Aurora Leigh, where she described the poet’s act of creation as one that is invariably attributed to be male, since poets are those who produce poems which â€Å"are men, if true poems.† (Barrett-Browning, AL:5,1181, 3:90-91). However, in the poem â€Å"Mother and Poet†, the male figure of the boys’ father is dispensed with altogether and the mother appears to be the all encompassing figure in the poem, subtly alluding to the need for a resurgence of the importance of females. The entire poem is centered upon the female figure of the mother and the deliberate exclusion of the father figure appears to reinforce an underlying indictment of patriarchy which decries the ability of women to produce poetry, as illustrated in Browning’s earlier Aurora poem. The growing awareness of the poet about the tragedy of war is reflected in the poem â€Å"Mother and Poet†. The poet upholds the ideals behind the war, especially in the context of the Italian struggle for independence, and believes that the war is succeeding. But her focus in the poem is on the experiences of Italian women and she has highlighted how women actually give up more than the men, during a war, because â€Å"the birth pangs of nations will wring us [women] at length into wail such as this – and we sit on forlorn† (Barrett-Browning:93-94). Even the woman who is able to bear the pains of child birth

Socrates Theory Essay Example for Free

Socrates Theory Essay Socrates’ claim that the â€Å"unexamined life is not worth living† is very true. Imagine if you were to just go through the motions from birth to death and never be able to put meaning to any of it, why do it at all? Going through the motions is just a step in life, however learning which motions to repeat and which should never be repeated again is how life is measured. Examine everything you do from your morning ritual to your nightly routines. In the morning, you brew some coffee or stop by your favorite store for your cup of java. Why would you keep doing it? Simple answer without examining it closely would be because it helps motivate me and wakes me up. What you typically don’t stop and examine is that in order for you to make it or go get it, you are already awake. It motivates you is simply a response when in fact you motivate the purchasers to ensure you have the coffee accessible. You have simply put yourself, mentally, in a routine and justify it with responses you tell yourself so that you keep doing it. Simply replace your coffee with tea or water and your mind will keep telling you it helps you wake up and motivates you. In the evening you go home and prioritize the rest of your day. Meals for the family, laundry, clean, homework with the kids, and if there is time enjoy some outside or event with the family. Again without examining each step, it just seems like a routine. Instead ask yourself why you do these things and in what order; all of a sudden your day will make sense! You ensure your family is well nurtured to achieve greater things and enable them to live longer through smart diets and good eating habits. Your might prepare meals due to the fact your spouse never really cooks for flavor! You do laundry and clean to ensure a neat environment and might entice your family to assist so that there is more family time to have fun with instead of just doing chores. Doing homework with the kids is not to make sure they are understanding the material, it is staying connected with your children and taking notes along the way to keep your knowledge up to date and informed of what they are being taught. In fact you might be able to schedule events around what they are learning to enhance their experiences as well as bonding time.

Role of Women in Jane Eyre Essay -- Charlotte Bronte Woman Female Jane

Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre represents the role of women in the Victorian era by giving the reader an insight into the lives of women from all social classes. Jane Eyre therefore represents figures of the Victorian time yet the character of Jane Eyre, herself, can be seen as very unconventional for the Victorian society. England, in the eighteenth century, was driven by class distinction and wealth. In the lower class there was always a desperate struggle to survive which contrasted to the life led by the upper class, socializing with people like themselves. The servant trade, made up by the lower class, allowed the upper class to live their desired life whilst constantly maintaining superiority based on their position in society. Women, in all classes, were still living in a world which was misogynistic and male-dominated. Their purpose in life was to produce male heirs and maintain the home by hiring and overseeing servants. It was also taboo for one to marry significantly below one’s social class. This is one reason that Jane is not a conventional heroine for the society of her time. Although, as a governess, she is not considered to be as low as a housemaid, she is still part of the hired help in the house. This is why it is unconventional for her and Mr Rochester to be in a relationship. Yet this is not as peculiar as how Jane Eyre ends their relationship due to her sense of betrayal. It would have been considered extremely foolish for a working-woman’s sense of betrayal to end and turn down a man of great wealth. Many women in this period would engage in â€Å"arranged† marriages which were widely accepted and indeed, one of the most practiced forms of marrying at this time. Usually a marriage of convenience rather... ...rotagonist, Jane is presented in the role of a lower class woman. This is evident in the way that she must work to support herself. Mrs. Fairfax, the tenant at Thornfield Hall is presented in the role of a middle to upper class woman. Although she does not have a family of her own, which is uncharacteristic of middle class women in Victorian times, she has a well paid job and a wonderful house to live in. Charlotte Bronte has given the reader an insight into the role of upper class women through the character of Miss Ingram. She has no job, as her principle in life is to bear a child. Her days consist of social outings and reading or playing the piano. It is therefore evident that there was a great division between the social classes with women. The roles of women altered largely between classes, and Charlotte Bronte has focused on this significantly in her novel. Role of Women in Jane Eyre Essay -- Charlotte Bronte Woman Female Jane Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre represents the role of women in the Victorian era by giving the reader an insight into the lives of women from all social classes. Jane Eyre therefore represents figures of the Victorian time yet the character of Jane Eyre, herself, can be seen as very unconventional for the Victorian society. England, in the eighteenth century, was driven by class distinction and wealth. In the lower class there was always a desperate struggle to survive which contrasted to the life led by the upper class, socializing with people like themselves. The servant trade, made up by the lower class, allowed the upper class to live their desired life whilst constantly maintaining superiority based on their position in society. Women, in all classes, were still living in a world which was misogynistic and male-dominated. Their purpose in life was to produce male heirs and maintain the home by hiring and overseeing servants. It was also taboo for one to marry significantly below one’s social class. This is one reason that Jane is not a conventional heroine for the society of her time. Although, as a governess, she is not considered to be as low as a housemaid, she is still part of the hired help in the house. This is why it is unconventional for her and Mr Rochester to be in a relationship. Yet this is not as peculiar as how Jane Eyre ends their relationship due to her sense of betrayal. It would have been considered extremely foolish for a working-woman’s sense of betrayal to end and turn down a man of great wealth. Many women in this period would engage in â€Å"arranged† marriages which were widely accepted and indeed, one of the most practiced forms of marrying at this time. Usually a marriage of convenience rather... ...rotagonist, Jane is presented in the role of a lower class woman. This is evident in the way that she must work to support herself. Mrs. Fairfax, the tenant at Thornfield Hall is presented in the role of a middle to upper class woman. Although she does not have a family of her own, which is uncharacteristic of middle class women in Victorian times, she has a well paid job and a wonderful house to live in. Charlotte Bronte has given the reader an insight into the role of upper class women through the character of Miss Ingram. She has no job, as her principle in life is to bear a child. Her days consist of social outings and reading or playing the piano. It is therefore evident that there was a great division between the social classes with women. The roles of women altered largely between classes, and Charlotte Bronte has focused on this significantly in her novel.

Hawaiian Islands

Hawaii and Tourism â€Å"Hawaii is like no other place on earth† (Goshawks). Hawaii attracts many tourists per year because of Its history, geography, and entertainment This state is known for its many islands, volcanoes, and climate as well. When I think about Hawaii all imagine is standing on the beach overlooking the ocean getting hit with the nice warm breeze hearing laughter and seeing smiles. Since â€Å"Hawaii Is one of the most isolated places on Earth† It makes vacationing there completely stress and worry free, because you are far away from home and nothing n your mind but having a great vacation (Inner p. ). The state was founded by the Polynesians and it was also named by them. The word Hawaii in the Polynesian language meaner â€Å"Homeland† (Wisped). Having a name with such a powerful meaning says a lot about the state. I think It shows that anyone could look to Hawaii as their own homeland. Hawaii's communication with Europe started when it was fou nded by two British Explorers (Wisped). James Cook and captain clerk were suppose to be searching for the Northwest Passage, and discovered the Hawaiian Islands on January 18, 1778 They then spent the majority of he year searching for the Northwest Passage.When Cook had no luck, he abandoned his search and turned their ship south towards the islands. Cook and Clerk arrived in Hawaii between November of 1778 and January 1779 where they landed at Keelhaul Bay. Awaiting their arrival were thousands of excited natives. When Cook decided to leave the newly found island he found that the natives had stolen one of his ships. Cook proceeded to leave, however a few days later returned with marines to take the king hostage. The king had no objections to abandoning his Island and ongoing with Cook and the marines, however the fellow natives tried convincing the king not to go.The attitudes of everyone quickly changed when word that a chief had been killed, not far up the Island. â€Å"The nat ives attacked and the marines fired back with guns and bayonets. The battle only lasted a few minutes but when it was over, Cook lay dead on the beach† (south-pole). Since the Europeans had now discovered the Islands It progressively grew until It became the fiftieth state to Join the U. S. â€Å"Hawaii's tourism industry officially began in 1927. That year. The first luxury passenger ship, the S. S. Mallow, began voyages between San Francisco and the Islands† (En p. 34).With the new ship making voyages It brought great new revenue to the islands. However, the world changed forever when the Japanese bombed the U. S. Navy that was stationed In Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7th 1941. This attack made Americans weary tot the Japanese and soon the Japanese were singled out; to show how loyal they were to America they signed up to fight in World War II (Inner p. 3536). Things finally started looking up for Hawaii; on August 21, 1959 It was announced that Hawaii was now a part tot the united States tot America. The tourism coming into Hawaii was finally picking back up too (Inner p. 36).The amount of tourism Hawaii sees Is constantly rising. As of September 2012 Hawaii has had 583,363 total visitors. Exactly one year ago in September tot 2011 Hawaii only and 553,187 total visitors, that's a 5. 5% change over one year (Hawaii Tourism Authority). Many tourists go to Hawaii Just because of the history of the islands, however many go for the geography as well. â€Å"There are six major islands to visit in Hawaii: Kuaka, AAU, Monomial, Lana', Mama, and Hawaii Island† (Goshawks). No matter which of the six ajar islands you are on; the weather is the roughly the same with very little changes throughout the year.The fact that â€Å"tourists are attracted by Hawaii's pleasant, sunny climate† makes Hawaii such a desirable place to vacation (Inner p. 13). Hawaii only has two seasons all year long summer, which ranges from May to October, and winte r, which ranges from November to April. The temperatures in the summer range from a low of OFF to a high of OFF; in the winter the temperatures range from a low of OFF to a high of OFF (Goshawks). Many people think of the islands as Just an island, but they are not. The Hawaiian Islands are really tops of volcanic mountains. The Hawaiian islands were created when boiling lava surged upward through almost 2,000 miles of cracks in the floor of the Pacific Ocean† (Inner p. 8). When the hot lava met the mildly cold water it became hard. As the years progressed this happened more and more eventually causing it to appear above the water as an active volcanic island. It took many years for the Hawaiian Islands to actually get carved out into what it is today (Inner p. 8-9). Kuaka is one of the prettiest islands to visit from Hawaii. It is one of the top five largest islands to see and it will take your breath away.This island is used to film movies that have major Jungles and beautif ul beaches. Also this island is full of beautiful coconut trees (Inner p. 55). AAU is the closest island to Kuaka and is the home of Pearl Harbor. This island is known for its pineapples and coffee fields (Inner p. 56-57). This island is also home to the â€Å"Triple Crown of Surfing competition† which is held on the â€Å"beaches of Williwaw, Waianae Bay, Sunsets, Chukka, and other world-famous North Shore beaches† (Inner p. 57). This island is mostly sited to see the historical attributes that is offered here.Monomial is the second closest island to Kuaka and is shaped like a shoe. This island is the fifth largest island in Hawaii (Inner p. 59). This island is the best island out of them all to have a lazy vacation. It is a â€Å"great place to go snorkeling or swimming or to enjoy a sightseeing tour, complete with the African wildlife† (Inner p. 60). The people that reside on this island are never in a hurry to do anything and are some of the nicest people yo u would ever meet (Inner p. 60). Lanai is the most self contained island of them all. It is the best island to go for peace and quiet.The island only has two hotels and hardly anywhere to shop. This island only attracts tourists that want beautiful clear water and to see the beauty of the island. This island is best suited for big city tourists (Inner . 60). The island Mama is â€Å"actually two inactive volcanoes connected by an isthmus, or strip of land† (Inner p. 62). This island is perfect for tourists visit so they can see volcanoes. Also, this island has the best tour to see a whale shooting water out of its blowhole, which is absolutely an unforgettable sight (Inner p. 64). The last major island to visit is Hawaii itself.This is the island that gave the state its name. This island is the largest of them all in fact â€Å"Hawaii is twice as big as the other islands added together† (Inner p. 64). This island is home to several volcanoes, including the most active one in the entire world, Killable. Watching this volcano erupt is absolutely breathtaking, but it is extremely dangerous. It has completely engulfed over two hundred homes and covered several beaches. The only g detect the volcanic eruptions have to this island is the fact that it is growing. â€Å"Its lava flows have added almost 600 acres of new land to the island's coast since 1983† (Inner p. 5). This island in my opinion would be the best island to visit due to the fact it is the most breath taking island because of its scenery. I have never been to Hawaii but from the pictures I have seen I'm sure it is absolutely gorgeous. The last reason I feel Hawaii is such a great tourist spot is the entertainment and the enthusiasm of the state. Hawaii is home to the Luau and the Hula dance. Americans have parties with a Luau theme all the time. Luaus are â€Å"traditional native Hawaiian feasts† that are â€Å"held in nor of graduations, weddings, or a baby's first birthda y' (Inner p. 7). The luau is now used as a theme for all kinds of parties whether it is a birthday or Just a get together. Americans have also adapted the â€Å"flower garlands, called leis† (Inner p. 4). The leis are the number one symbol that is best known in Hawaii (McCain p. 88). Whether you are in Hawaii or any state, when you see leis it automatically brings Hawaii to your mind. I see them garlands hanging on rear view mirrors in vehicles all the time. I also see this at the luau theme based parties. When tourists visit Hawaii here is always a Luau going on because it is such a popular event.Another popular event for tourists to learn and experience while at the Luau is the Hula. The Hula dance was used during religious gatherings. â€Å"Both men and women learned to dance, but only men performed in the temples† (McCain p. 89). The dance is mostly made up of hip and hand movements, which make up the words of the song that is being played while the dance is perfor med. Many people still practice and study the Hawaiian culture and are always creating different ways to act out the symbols of the state (McCain p. 89-90). I know when I see someone on TV doing the Hula dance it brings the great state of Hawaii to mind.In conclusion, the history, geography, and entertainment of Hawaii are what attract tourists to this state. The fact that the climate is always the same and that there is so much history to learn from the islands. While also gaining new ways to entertain is what makes this state amazing. From doing this research on the state has Just made me want to visit the islands even more then I did before. It has made me believe that Hawaii is the best vacation spot, no matter what time of the year. Works Cited Hawaii's Official Tourism Site. Hawaii's Official Tourism Site, 2012.

Background of the Study Essay

In the recent years, mobile phone usage has been in its rapid growth. 80% of the world’s population now has a mobile phone. Based on the statistics, there are 5 billion mobile phones in the world out of which only 1. 08 billion are smartphones. According to the research compiled by GfK Asia, smartphones have taken over the market for mobile handsets in Southeast Asia. Also GfK Asia says that in countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines and Cambodia, growth in smartphone use year over year ranged from 40% to as high as 400%. The smartphones market in the Philippines grew the fastest among Southeast Asian countries over the past year, which also recorded the fastest increase in market share versus feature phones. Most of the mobile phones nowadays are addressed as â€Å"Smartphone†; because they just not only provide original telephone features, but also various functions that can be done with other devices, such as PDAs or computers. Along with the smartphone fundamental capabilities to make voice call, video call, SMS, and MMS, smartphone have been repositioned as a ? new information medium (May & Hearn, 2005). These new functions make smartphones different from regular feature phones. Therefore, the society has slowly moved their cell phone purchasing decision to smartphone (Min, et al. , 2012). Smartphone technology is inevitably changing peoples’ behaviors; especially young adults using smartphone frequently today. CourseSmart, which is the world‘s largest provider of digital course materials and eTextbooks, found that university students can‘t go long without checking their digital devices, including smartphone, laptop and more (CourseSmart, 2011) University students are very in to checking their accounts in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or even sending emails etc. using smartphone with their web connection feature. Today, students are using their smartphones for nearly everything and they consume mobile information almost everywhere that allows them. Therefore, consumers are highly concern with technologies that they might change their devices from time to time. In other words, due to the advancement of technology devices can be easily replaced. Hence, for the smartphone manufacturers it is essential to know what factors that actually affecting purchase intention of smartphone among young adults.

Systems of government in Ancie essays

Systems of government in Ancie essays Ancient Greece was on of the first ever cultures (that is known today) to develop a rand of different systems of government. These systems, although most have been dramatically changed, are still used today. These government forms lasted throughout the Ancient Greek times- from 3000BC onwards to 300BC. The four most important types of government in Ancient Greece were Monarchy, Oligarchy, Democracy and Tyranny. Monarchy was the first of the forms of governments to be developed by the ancient Greeks. In this type of government, rule was passed down through the ruling family, and when a child was born, who would one day become the potential and sole ruler of the Greece, they were raised from birth to do so. Problems did arise through this form of government. Because the rule was passed down through birth, who was to know if the next ruler would become a Tyrant? And many of the rulers did. The citizens couldnt really do much to change the ruler if he was- unless they somehow overpowered him. Oligarchy was the next form of government developed by the ancient Greeks. As opposed to Monarchy, the rule was not passed down through birth, but rather, the rulers, or the oligarchs were drawn from the noble classes or they were some of the wealthiest citizens in Greece. Oligarchy means rule by a few. Oligarchy means rule by a few- and that is how some of the problems arose- because each of the rulers saw themselves as most elite, they couldnt decide between themselves and they fought amongst themselves. Also, the poor were treated very badly and they stayed poor, while the rich people got richer. Quality of work went down as well, because people were getting hired, not because they were good at he job, but because they were rich/commendable. ...

Epicenter vs. Center

Epicenter vs. Center Epicenter vs. Center Epicenter vs. Center By Simon Kewin In an article on the BBC website just recently, the head of a computer game industry body described the city of Dundee as the epicentre for the industry in Scotland. A little earlier, in an article about renewable energy on the same site, the First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, described the city of Glasgow as the epicentre for renewable energy engineering. Now, either someone has been secretly building a network of vast tunnels underneath Scottish cities, or these are two examples of a widely misused and misunderstood word. Epicenter (epicentre in British English) refers to a point over or above the centre of something. It is most commonly used to identify the point on the Earths surface that lies directly above the focus of an earthquake. Increasingly, however, the term is used in a vague and lazy way to make the word center seem more dramatic and interesting. Reporters are forever standing at the epicenter of something, apparently unaware that the events they describe must, logically, be happening underground. Of course, you could argue that epicenter is a word whose meaning is in transition; that it is acquiring a secondary sense of, simply, center (especially the center of something dramatic or calamitous.) For now, the best advice is not to confuse the two. Center and epicenter are two perfectly good words, meaning two different things. You can read more from Simon on his blog, Spellmaking. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Bare or Bear With Me?Writing the CenturyEnglish Grammar 101: Sentences, Clauses and Phrases

Four Censor Words to Keep Straight

Four Censor Words to Keep Straight Four Censor Words to Keep Straight Four Censor Words to Keep Straight By Simon Kewin Dont mix up censor, censure, sensor and censer.   These four words sound very similar when spoken, making them easy to mix up. Censor and censure, particularly, are often muddled as they are related words coming from the same Latin root. However, they do have distinct meanings and you should be aware of what the differences are.   Both censor and censure derive ultimately from the same Latin word censere meaning to assess. However, their meanings have diverged. To censor something (typically a film or a book) means to suppress or remove those parts of it that are considered unacceptable for some reason. To censure something, on the other hand – a term often applied to a person or an organization means to express strong disapproval about it; to criticize harshly or condemn.   So, for example, early editions of D. H. Lawrences Lady Chatterleys Lover, were famously censored, with various words and passages removed. Of course, its fair to say that those responsible for censoring this book would also have censured it if asked : they would have strongly disapproved of it. But its possible to censure something without censoring it. Politicians or companies, for example, can be censured for some perceived mistake without something they’ve written or said being censored. A UK newspaper, for example, recently reported that the food group Kraft â€Å"has been censured by the body that polices City takeovers† for breaking a promise to keep a Cadbury factory in the UK open.   Both censor and censure can also be nouns as well as verbs. A censor is someone who performs the examination of books, films etc, to decide whether they should be censored. A censure, meanwhile, is simply a statement of strong disapproval or condemnation.   Sensor, meanwhile, is always a noun and refers to some device or apparatus that detects or measures a physical property of something. In Star Trek, for example, sensors are routinely used to analyse the physical surroundings of a spaceship or an individual.   Censer, finally, is an unrelated word meaning a container in which incense is burnt during a religious ritual. Its origin is a different Latin word : incendere, meaning to burn. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:10 Rules for Writing Numbers and NumeralsOne Sheep, Two Sheep, One Fish, Two Fish . . .30 Nautical Expressions

Human Resource Management take home exam (various topics) Essay

Human Resource Management take home exam (various topics) - Essay Example In IT industry, the human element plays a major part in the overall success of the industry. "There must be effective management of human resources - there must be an effective personnel function" (Ulrich, Lake, 1990). HRM systems can be the source of organizational capabilities that allow firms to learn and capitalize on new opportunities especially in IT industry which operates in rapidly changing environment. While innovations in high technology often receive the greatest publicity, advances have been made in many fields and at many levels of Information Technology. Some theorists argue that HRM is used to exploit workers in order to achieve strategic goals. It is possible to agree and disagree with this view because much depends upon the conception employed by the researchers. Speaking about IT industry it is possible to say that HRM can be identified as an element or support concept of the industry. In many organizations, including IT sector, human resources is very much part of the productive process and will be a task function. For example, in the IT industry many members of the workforce are seen as being involved in achieving the objectives of the organization creating a new product or service. In this case, people are part of the finished product for which the customer is paying. Customer satisfaction is likely to be affected as much by the courtesy, helpfulness and personal qualities of the staff as by the standard of services provided. This places particular importance on the managerial function which manipulates workforce to achieve o rganizational tasks (Tyson, 1997). Training, as investment in people, is also a form of manipulation. Training requires the co-operation of managers, adequate finance and resources, time, skilled staff and a supporting appraisal system: from top management and throughout all levels of the organization. Most programs of IT development are designed in accordance with the culture and specific requirements of the particular segment of IT industry or department, and the demands of particular managerial jobs. There should be a clear development policy together with regular reviews of individual performance and a program of career progression. All the forms mentioned above explain manipulation of HR through HRM systems as the inevitable part of management. The overall purpose of HRM can be seen as manipulation as well as it aims to ensure that the organization is able to achieve success through people. "HRM systems can be the source of organizational capabilities that allow firms to learn and capitalize on new opportunities" (Campbell, 1997). On the other hand, it is possible to say that training of IT personnel for its own sake achieves little. Training must be real and rewarding. The rationale for strategic HRM within IT industry is also built on the idea of manipulation which means that people and organizations engage in basically consistent, value-maximizing calculations or adaptations within certain constraints and competitive advantage. The rational model works as follows: an employee has goals or objectives and has a payoff, utility, or preference function that permits that person to rank all possible alternative actions by the action's contribution to the desired goals. The IT organization is presented with and understands alternative courses of action. Each

Pluralist Model and the Instrumentalist Model Essay

Pluralist Model and the Instrumentalist Model - Essay Example Jerry Kloby in his book Inequality, Power, and Development, he discusses two theories to explain the modern world, the pluralist and the instrumentalist model, the pluralist model indicates that power in the society is not held by a few people while the instrumentalist model indicates that power is held by only a few people and therefore high levels of inequality. This model focuses on the relationships that exist between the state and society, it focuses on the various important ways in which citizens control their leaders and also shape public policies. Citizens therefore are involved in public policy making, to this model power is possessed by the society as a whole, power is considered as a resource in society in attainment of goals. This model argues that bureaucrats, capitalist and political leaders are unified into a single group by their common origin, lifestyles and values, public policies are made through the networks that exist between these groups. According to this model power in the society is only held by a few individuals who use it to further their own interests, therefore public policies are made by the ones who have institutional, political and economic power. In the society we live it is true that power is only held by a few people, they will shape the societies policies for their own interest and not the interest of the people. The instrumental

Your opinion about illegal immigration ( is it good or bad for the Essay

Your opinion about illegal immigration ( is it good or bad for the U.S.) - Essay Example Looking to explore immigration policies and the recent desire in the United States to allow immigrants to apply for legal immigration despite the fact that many have resided in the United States illegally for years, the following essay will argue that the United States has a duty to protect the most vulnerable citizens of the world. Accordingly, this essay will argue that the legalization of migrant workers is a positive step for the United States of America (Pew Research Center, 2009). Migration is an important issue which is gaining increasing attention in an era of economic interdependence, the movement of people across borders and the globalization phenomenon. Today, it is estimated that up to million people live in the United States illegally as undocumented workers and illegal aliens (Pew Research Center, 2009). Why do people choose to migrate from one place to another? Economic opportunity is one of the most important factors which draws people to the United States of America, the unequivocal land of opportunity. Accordingly, the decision of the Irish to immigrate to the United States during the height of the Potato Famine – it estimated that approximately 3.5 million Irishmen and women immigrated to the United States alone from 1820 to 1880 – supports some the idea that economic opportunity draws people to the United States. As a result, extreme and unfavorable conditions in Ireland paved the way for a large influx of migrants to the United St ates following economic crisis in the homeland. According to the Pew Research Center, California is the home of the largest number of undocumented workers and illegal migrants, largely as a result of the belief of opportunity in that state. Immigrants today, particularly from the poorer regions of the world, immigrate to the United States for similar reasons and their status should be legalized in order to facilitate the growth of this country, a nation of immigrants since it

Analysis on Home Burial by robert frost Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Analysis on Home Burial by robert frost - Essay Example The very first line suggests the strange and dubious aspects of her action as it is perceived by the man. It is absolutely incomprehensible and irksome to him. Making up his mind to confront her openly, he demands to know what it is that attracts her attention at the top of the stairs. He makes this demand when he sees her at the top of the stairs in the house, about to start down, but looking over her shoulders â€Å"at some fear†. She takes a doubtful step and withdraws to have one more glance. He sees her before she sees him, thus getting the full benefit of witnessing her action. He asks her to describe what she sees there â€Å"always†. When she reacts to his query by turning and sinking upon her skirts, her facial expression changing â€Å"from terrified to dull†, he asks the question again to â€Å"gain time† and starts mounting the stairs. His approach towards her is very calculated as if he is dealing with someone who has unpredictable behavioral patterns. She cowers under him as he reaches the top and refuses to offer any help: â€Å"With the least stiffening of her neck and silence she let him look†. She is firm in her belief that he will not see what she sees as he is a â€Å"blind creature† in her opinion. The woman seems to have preconceived notions with regard to his possible responses. It is also possible that she has formed her opinions based on her real experiences of living with him as his wife. But quite contrary to her notions, though he takes a while, he finally spots out the object in question without any help of even confirmation from her. When he mourns â€Å"Oh,oh† as if he is at last convinced innate justifiability of her action, she is still doubtful, rather quite convinced that he has mistaken something else for it. She demands a clarification and eventually gets it in fairly good detail. But instead of feeling surprised at his â€Å"lack of blindness† and regretting

Strategic planning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Strategic planning - Essay Example Apart from UK, Next plc has major operational bases in Sri Lanka, India, and China. As of last year, the revenue of the organisation stood at GBP 3.7 billion while registering GBP 695 million in pre-tax profits (Next plc, 2014). Apart from its well-organised workforce, the operations of the enterprise mainly depend on its sound business model, which appreciates the input of all the stakeholders involved, including the customers and shareholders. Next plc assures its shareholders of extensive returns that come in the form of sustainable growth in earnings, shares and cash disbursements (Next plc, n.d). To the customers, the organisation routinely develops a broad range of classy products that gratify the needs of children and adults across both genders. Next plc has made it simple for its customers to make purchases, as they have the provision of making both online orders and payments. Most of the deliveries are often made within a twenty-four hour period, with the online platform serving customers in over seventy nations. Over and above, the administrators of the o rganisation run the business in a responsible manner, taking into consideration all the environmental, social, and ethical aspects of the market. The fluctuation of the global market makes it mandatory for businesses to be malleable and ready to adapt to alterations. These changes are routinely achieved in the form of business policies that are adapted by the management and employees of the entity involved (Bensoussan et al. 2013, pg. 317). The next segment of the essay aims to use various strategic tools to make sense of most of the methodologies employed by Next plc in an attempt to ensure that it habitually realizes its business objectives, and remains relevant for a considerable duration. The pestle tool has often been appreciated across several industries because it provides businesses with the opportunity to understand the political, economic,

Business Ethics Degree Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Business Ethics Degree - Case Study Example If the business goes down and profitability gets affected, this will have a direct impact on the salaries and perks of the workforce. On the other hand if there are more activities on the runway, expansion of the functional areas, addition of another runway, that implies better promotional avenues for the workforce and more job opportunities. The management (top management): The top management can be clubbed with the workforce as well, but this body being a policy making body, is supposed to be answerable to the adverse reactions in the media, NGO's concerns, passengers woes etc. Therefore if the functioning is smooth at the airport, that's a happy situation for the top management as it gets a pat on the back, besides of course, hefty remuneration. The passengers i.e. air travellers: Air travellers are the key customers of the services being offered by an airport. If there are additions in the facilities, it results in reduction of the waiting time in queues, better ambience, more spacious waiting lounges, more facilities at the airport etc. Such additions are bound to delight the customer. If the runway capacity increases, that implies lesser delay in landing and take-offs. This works to the advantage of the air travellers. The investors: Since BAA is a public... All this certainly helps the investor as better dividend can be expected on the investments. The residents living in the vicinity of the airport: Adding another runway implies more aircrafts landing and taking-off in quick succession. This might lead to more noise pollution in the surrounding areas, which might rob off the area residents from their well-deserved peaceful time with their family members, guests etc. BAA will therefore have to take extra care towards reducing the noise levels, which could imply making some additional investments. The airlines: Airlines will of course be the happiest lot with the addition of another runway, because that results in; Less fuel consumptions, as the aircraft doesn't have to hover over the airport, waiting for its turn to get the landing space. Customer satisfaction, as the carrier is now able to maintain time discipline in landing as well as in take-offs More parking space for the aircrafts near the runway, which saves time and money incurred on towing the aircraft to another corner of the airport. The suppliers and other business associates: More business implies more business activities for the suppliers and business associates of the airport as well as the concerned airlines. The Government: If BAA is able to satisfy its customers, able to maintain international quality standards, earn more profits, that implies a happy situation for the government. But if the airport gets a flak for its functioning, NGOs are up in arms against the policies, the governments has to spend considerable amount on placating those concerns. 1.2. From a utilitarian perspective, would you argue for or against the proposed new runway From the utilitarian perspective I will surely argue for the proposed new

Strategic planning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Strategic planning - Essay Example Apart from UK, Next plc has major operational bases in Sri Lanka, India, and China. As of last year, the revenue of the organisation stood at GBP 3.7 billion while registering GBP 695 million in pre-tax profits (Next plc, 2014). Apart from its well-organised workforce, the operations of the enterprise mainly depend on its sound business model, which appreciates the input of all the stakeholders involved, including the customers and shareholders. Next plc assures its shareholders of extensive returns that come in the form of sustainable growth in earnings, shares and cash disbursements (Next plc, n.d). To the customers, the organisation routinely develops a broad range of classy products that gratify the needs of children and adults across both genders. Next plc has made it simple for its customers to make purchases, as they have the provision of making both online orders and payments. Most of the deliveries are often made within a twenty-four hour period, with the online platform serving customers in over seventy nations. Over and above, the administrators of the o rganisation run the business in a responsible manner, taking into consideration all the environmental, social, and ethical aspects of the market. The fluctuation of the global market makes it mandatory for businesses to be malleable and ready to adapt to alterations. These changes are routinely achieved in the form of business policies that are adapted by the management and employees of the entity involved (Bensoussan et al. 2013, pg. 317). The next segment of the essay aims to use various strategic tools to make sense of most of the methodologies employed by Next plc in an attempt to ensure that it habitually realizes its business objectives, and remains relevant for a considerable duration. The pestle tool has often been appreciated across several industries because it provides businesses with the opportunity to understand the political, economic,

Critical Article Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Critical Review - Article Example It is essential therefore for a financially responsible college or university to have a balanced budget within which expenditures remain contained in the available revenues available. A significant reduction in the available net assets of such an institution thus becomes a cause of concern and might signify financial instability. This paper summarizes the ideas expressed in an article done by Dr. Houston Davis. It focuses majorly on higher education, accounting and how technology has affected budgeting in these institutions. Biography of the author Dr. Houston Davis, a native of Clarksville was recently named as the university system of Georgia’s new chief academic officer and executive vice chancellor. Over the years Dr. Houston has been identified for his valuable experience combined with his fine ability in providing leadership in pertinence to the system’s core academic mission purposing to create a twenty first century educational model. He holds a PhD from Vanderb ilt University, Nashville; a Master’s in education from Tennessee state university and a bachelor’s in political science from the University of Memphis. He is and has been continuously involved in writing and research projects in areas of governance, higher education access, accountability and fund management in higher education and economic development. He serves on several national and regional advisory groups in higher education policies academic preparation, accountability and degree completion. Dr. Houston Davis has served in the educational sector for quite some time. In (2001-2005) he worked in the field of academic leadership for Austin Peay State University in Clarksville. In addition to these professional duties he served in the role of director for the National Educational Needs Index between 2004 and 2011. This initiative was aimed at measuring educational, social, economic and intense population pressure among the 50 states which affect policy and planning in national, regional and local levels. Following this until 2007, he worked in the same field serving as associate vice chancellor for Academic affairs for the Tennessee Board of Regents. He had also worked previously worked in the Tennessee higher education commission in the areas of fiscal and academic affairs between 1997 and 2001. It is recorded that he worked as a regional student recruitment and advancement representative in the University of Memphis. (1995-1997) Summary of the article Accounting With reference to a 1996-1997 data from the national center for education statistics, net revenues in public institutions have their source in four main channels; tuition and fees (19%), state funds (36%), sales and services (22%) and federal funds (11%). Private institutions on the other hand receive their revenues from the same categories though in different degrees; tuition and fees (43%). State funds (2%), sales and services (21%) and federal funds (14%). Although a significant amount does come from the government in public institutions, both the public and private sector have increased their reliance upon revenues from tuition and fees for their improvement funding (National Center for Education Statistics, 2000). With expenditures majorly being

Education Essay Example for Free

Education Essay Someone once told me that â€Å"Education is the building blocks of one’s character†. As much as it sounds too much of a cliche’ I couldn’t help but agree with this well known quotation. Although it may be true, that one’s education cannot define a man, it also holds true that different forms of education is readily available and it makes or breaks a man into who he is in his current disposition and into who he may want to be in the future. Some people claim that education is a matter of circumstance and privilege, that in this modern day and age, only those with the proper resources can have the proper education that one may need in order to be successful. If you ask me, this is only true in the terms of getting a degree to get all the right opportunities. But in reality, real education that will lead you towards the ends of your goals in life is the education you gain in life experiences. Let’s take Bill Gates and Albert Einstein who both didn’t finish college for example, they only succeeded in their personal aspirations by learning in the arena of their life and living itself. It may be important to note that in life, one must need a model to see how life is lived and how we learn from everything we see and experience in our day to day living. It may not always be formal education that we may attribute our learnings all the time, but it is imperative that any form of education should take place in order for us to grow in all different aspects of our lives. May it be in our professional lives, personal lives or for social reasons, a learning curb can be gained by us through the years because we were educated not only on how to live life, but most importantly how to be continuously educated till there is nothing more to learn in this life which may bring us to the breaking point of death or suicide. But in both scenarios, we still know that it is an imperative that a learning experience should be observed for us to prosper in a game called life.

Essay --

Racism In A Worn Path And Desiree's Baby In both of the stories A Worn Path by Eudora Welty, and Desiree‘s Baby by Kate Chopin. The encounters of Phoenix and Desiree show two different readings that deal with a common theme of impending the black and white racial issue in America. There are lots of references to racism in both of the readings. Throughout the short story A Worn Path, there are many events related to racism when Phoenix walking along an extremely difficult path to the town and get the medicine for her grandson. The first event is that when she meets the white hunter. First he appears as a kind and a friendly person , he suggested Phoenix to return home , however , she refused the hunter 's suggestion , because she is on a mature and important mission of love. Then the hunter made a racist joke to Phoenix, "I know you colored people! Wouldn't miss going to town to see Santa Claus!" Second event is that when Phoenix entered clinic, she has been treated unfairly because she is black. "A charity case, I suppose," said an attendant who sat at the desk before her."(Welty70) ,"" Are you deaf?" cried the attendant."(Welty 75). The attendant rudely asked whether she is deaf because she didn't answer her questions immediately and Phoenix referred as a charity case .Phoenix performed a great sacrifice for her gran dson, but the attendant 's behavior shows she is childish. Phoenix Jackson accepted the harsh circumstances of her life and moves on. The racism feature is the main theme in the short reading " Desiree's Baby. There are racism events happens when throughout the story. Desiree's Baby took place when racism was way too prevalent. After Desiree married to Armand , they birthed a baby. When the child grows, the ski... ...t not judge the people by looking at their races, like the old says" don't judge a book by its cover. In the reading, the pride of Armand was greater than the love for his wife and their baby, which destroyed Desiree and their baby's life and led to a sad ending. In Welty 's short story "A Worn Path", Phoenix is an old black woman who has no education after Phoenix was freed from slavery, and the racism was still way too prevalent after the Civil War. Her pride of love that she wants to get the medicine for her grandson and go through the woods no matter how difficult was it and no matter how unfair the society is ,there is nothing can able to stop her way. In both stories Desiree's baby and A Worn Path showed a great representation to the readers about the struggles of racial issues in South U.S and people went through. The world has changed when time moves on.

Freud’s Impact on Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and Giorgio de Chirico’s T

Freud’s Impact on Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and Giorgio de Chirico’s The Vexations of the Thinker      Ã‚   The 1920 publication of Beyond the Pleasure Principle formalized a meaningful shift in Sigmund Freud's theory of sexual drive: his original hypothesis distinguished the ego instincts from the sexual instincts.   Subsequent psychoanalytic researches force him to refine this configuration:    . . . psycho-analysis observed the regularity with which libido is withdrawn from the object and directed on the ego   (the process of introversion); and, by studying the libidinal development of children in its earliest phases, came to the conclusion that the ego is the true and original reservoir of libido, and that it is only from that reservoir that libido is extended on to objects. [1]    Freud recognizes the narcissistic nature of sexual instinct yet clings to a dual (read: non-Jungian) model for instinctual drive.   He ". . . describe[s] the opposition as being, not between ego-instincts and sexual instincts but between life instincts and death instincts"   (Freud 64).   Freud sees the natural goal of the sexual drive as reproduction - life - and the natural goal of the ego as death.   This newest polarity leads to Freud's exploration of the so-called "perversions", sadism and masochism, as they characterize the death instinct.      It may seem odd to equate sadism with narcissism considering that a sadist receives pleasure only from another's pain.   "[But] is it not plausible," Freud asks, "to suppose that this sadism is in fact a death instinct which, under the influence of the narcissistic ego, has been forced away from the ego and consequently only emerged in relation to the object?"   He goes on to explain tha... ...irico builds a wall of narcissism to entrap his solitary figure.   This fact leads me to draw a parallel between the figure in de Chirico's painting and Charlotte Brontà «'s Heathcliff.   Both suffer unnecessarily.   Arguably, both would be better off dead.   But their pain keeps them going even as it slowly kills them.   Life serves death serves . . . life.   Yes, we are slowly moving toward death, but each step is a lively one.       Works Cited    [1] Sigmund Freud.   Beyond the Pleasure Principle.   New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1961 (62).   Hereafter cited parenthetically. [2] During the oral stage of organization of the libido, the act of obtaining erotic mastery over an object coincides with that object's destruction   (Freud 65). [3] Charlotte Brontà «.   Wuthering Heights.   New York: TOR Books, 1989 (177).   Hereafter cited parenthetically.   

Egypt’s Culture and Political System Essay

The Egyptian culture is considered one of the oldest cultures in human history. Surprisingly, it almost has some of gender equality except that it needs more to consider, in order achieving the third Millennium Development Goal, which talks of achieving gender equity/equality and women empowerment by 2015. I would recommend that the Egyptian constitution considers enacting and/or passing several legislations in favor of women and as well give recognition to the informal market sector, where bulks of the women are making meaningful contribution to the economy. I would also recommend that this ancient nation and culture acknowledges the home, where the men considerably have all the major decision making powers. I am of the conviction that women make sound and major decisions as well and can provide better and transformation ideas, realizing the remarkably undeniable work of the women of Liberia during the civil war. I believe that if our generation begins to identify the errors of past generations, relative to gender-related issues, and if we address those issues in more formal ways by beginning to give women their rightful places in society; ensuring that opportunities and privileges are equally and equitably distributed, our world can be the most enjoyable place even for generations unborn. In an effort to do this, we must begin with an identification of the problems as stated above, discuss them thoroughly as a way of enabling us to craft or design ideas that would amicably resolve them for the better of our general world, beginning with the Egyptian society. In Egypt the political system of policies and regulations of its political structure is based on its fundamental laws and practices. Most of which shows how the Egyptian government positions its power on the state and the society it governs. Egypt started out being a Republic adopting a democratic system. This system  defines the way i n which it uses its public authority. There are basically six parts to this system. The first is the constitutional system. There was a constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt in 1971 that was used but then had a written amendment to it in 1980. The actual amendment had commonality in the English Common Law which came from the Napoleonic Code. It simply explains that Egypt declares it’s self as an Arab Republic with a democratic system. The second part is called the Executive Branch. The president is called the Head of State. The head of state is selected by a minimum one-third majority of the Majlis ash-Sha’ab, which is the â€Å"People’s Assembly. The People’s Assembly must approve by a minimum of two-thirds and have to be elected by a majority referendum. The election term is for six years with the possibility for re-election with conditional reasons for return. Putting into to play the general state policy is made up and supervised by the Head of State. He also rules the Armed Force. The last elected president of the republic was Mohammed Hosni Mubarak. The supreme executive and administrative organ of the State is the government; they are comprised of the Council of Ministers. This is ruled by the Prime Minister and he is the overseer of the work of the government. The highest part of the government is the Executive and administrative part of the Egyptian Republic is the Council of Ministers. The Ministers are together responsible for the policy and procedure of the State before the People’s Assembly, every Minister is responsible for the performance of his Ministry and is held to accountability to do so. The Parliament has great power as well. They have the power to withdraw confidence from the Cabinet or from any Cabinet member and leave them powerless. The fourth part of this system is the Legislative Branch. This branch of the Egyptian Parliament is a reflection in character and consists of the People’s Assembly, or Majlis El-Shaab and the Advisory Council or Majlis El-Shourah. â€Å"The People’s Assembly is the legislative branch of the State consisting of 444 directly elected members and 10 members appointed by the President, who serve for a term of five years. It has the power to approve the general policy, new laws, the budget and the development plans of the government. It also has the authority to undertake investigations and to levy taxes, besides appointing the Presidential candidate and passing a vote of no-confidence in the cabinet. The Advisory Council with 140 members, out of which 70 members  are nominated by the President, is Egypt’s consultative council. It offers advices and consultation and proposes to the Assembly new laws and regulations† (Haas, F. 2008). The fifth part of the system is the Judicial Branch. The Judicial branch System was brought into the country introduced into the country in 1854 and predicated on the English common law, Islamic law, and Napoleonic codes system to go through for four categories of courts of justice. Almost like the United States the highest judicial body is the Supreme Constitutional Court, the Court of Cessation. There are seven courts of Appeal in the various systems, and the Summary Tribunals in the districts are the principal court system in Egypt. It guarantees the independence of the judicial system. The fifth system is the Party of Power. This system is ruled on a multi-party system. â€Å"The Law 40 of 1977 regulates the development of political parties in Egypt. Though there is currently 17 active political parties representing various stands across the political spectrum, the law prohibits the creation of religious-based political parties in the state. Presently the National Democratic Party holds the majority of seats in the People’s Assembly† (History. 2012). The sixth system is the local government. This is headed by a Governor who is appointed by the President which is very different as to how they are selected in the US. â€Å"Egypt is administratively divided into 26 Governorates. Within their districts, local government units establish and run all public utiliti es, provide services and designate industrial areas. Working closely at various levels with local government is the Local Popular Councils. The basics: Egypt is a large, mostly Arab, mostly Muslim country. At around 80 million people, it has the largest population in the Middle East and the third-largest in Africa. Most of Egypt is in North Africa, although the part of the country that borders Israel, the Sinai Peninsula, is in Asia. Its other neighbors are Sudan to the South, Libya to the West, and Saudi Arabia across the Gulf of Aqaba to the East. It has been was ruled by Hosni Mubarak since from 1981 until February 11th†( Pew Research Center 2011, November 17). As to what is going on today in Egypt. There has been fierce protest in Egypt that has been promoted by the recent protests in which led to the fall of the Tunisian government as well as getting rid of longtime Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The Egyptians have gathered momentum to get support of other protesters across the Arab world in Algeria, notably in  protesting their autocratic governments, high levels of corruption, and grinding pove rty. This is a big reason Why Egyptians unhappy and disturbed about the government. They feel they have no basic freedom than Tunisians. â€Å"Egypt is ranked 138th of 167 countries on The Economist’s Democracy index, a widely accepted measure of political freedom. That ranking puts Egypt just seven spots ahead of Tunisia. And Egyptians are significantly poorer than their cousins to the west† (Mislan, D. 2012). How did this all start? These protests started with the protests in Tunisia. Just like their Tunisian counterparts, â€Å"Egyptian protesters have pointed to a specific incident as inspiration for the unrest. Many have cited the June 2010 beating death of Khaled Said, allegedly at the hands of police, as motivation for their rage. But it’s also clear that the issues here are larger† (Prager, D. 2012). This seems to be complicated for the US more than Tunisia was. The â€Å"Tunisian regime was a key ally for the US in the fight against Al Qaeda. But the US government’s ties to Tunisia’s Ben Ali pale in comparison to American ties to Egypt. Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution, a centrist think tank, explains: Predictions that a Tunisia-like uprising will soon topple Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak are premature the Egyptian regime, with its well-paid military, is likely to be more unified and more ruthless than its Tunisian counterparts were. The U.S. is the primary benefactor of the Egyptian regime, which, in turn, has reliably supported American regional priorities. After Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel, Egypt is the largest recipient of U.S. assistance, including $1.3 billion in annual military aid. In other words, if the army ever decides to shoot into a crowd of unarmed protestors, it will be shooting with hardware provided by the United States. As Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations points out, the Egyptian military is â€Å"not there to project power, but to protect the regime (History. 2012)†. There was a movement started in Egypt called the Egyptian Movement for Change (EMC). It also has another name called, Kefaya which in English means â€Å"Enough†. This came about in 2004. Almost immediately its importance to Egyptian political life was recognized, though not understood. Both Egyptian and Western analysts have mischaracterized the movement. Interpretations have been too narrow, focusing on specific details and ignoring the movement’s broad vision, or too broad, mistaking Kefaya for a generic social movement in the Western mode. All such approaches fail to  appreciate Kefaya’s real contribution. This essay argues that Kefaya’s significance lies in its transformative potential as a broad political force that is uniquely suited to the needs of the moment in Egypt. It is at once a cross-ideological force that has the potential, in the long run, of creating a new mainstream and a movement of a new kind that is creating a distinctive and promis ing form of politics for Egypt. Egypt’s political system has reached a dead end in the early twenty-first century. The opposition political parties are locked in their headquarters, unable to communicate with the public. Virtually acquiescing to the siege of an arsenal of restrictive laws, these political parties have for years suffered from an increasingly diminishing membership, a lack of operational funds, and internecine internal feuds. The â€Å"illegality† of the Muslim Brothers (MB) has paradoxically liberated that organization from restrictions that come with governmental licensing. However, the ideology, posture, secrecy, and political tactics of the grassroots-based MB engender the mistrust of many political forces, including some Islamists. At the same time, the secularist-Islamist polarization hinders the possibility of reaching any meaningful consensus on critical issues. This blockage is not lost on the regime, the clear beneficiary of such divisions among its adversaries, and it does not augur well for the future of the brothers in a lead role in shaping Egyptian political life. Amid this political disarray, a new generation of Egyptians holds the promise for transforming politics in Egypt. They have found a home and an instrument in Kefaya and in the process have invented a new form of politics. Their innovations are historically grounded on the specifics of Egypt’s political life in recent decades. Unique Egyptian circumstances have shaped their experiences, aspirations, and vision for the future. With the seething political discontent on the one hand and the ideologically based mistrust and mutual exclusion among the political forces on the other, Egypt needs today, more than ever, a new form of politics that pulls together diverse ideas from across the political spectrum to forge a new national project. For more than a decade, a group of activists and intellectuals have interacted across ideological lines to reach a common ground. Kefaya emerged as one manifestation of these efforts and as an important illustration of the possibilities of this new politics.  While such collaborative work across ideological lines is not unique in democratic experiences around the world, Kefaya represents the first successful effort of that sort in modern Egyptian politics. This essay, based on primary sources, including open-ended interviews, statements, newspaper articles, and reports, as well as unpublished documents, is composed of three main parts. The first part explains in more detail the reasons why Kefaya has been widely mischaracterized; the second illustrates why and how Kefaya represents a new force with the potential of creating a new mainstream; and the third explores the new politics invented by Kefaya. There has been Misunderstanding Kefaya Since its early days, there have been various critical interpretations of Kefaya by politicians and intellectuals alike, at times citing deficiencies in the movement’s profile, actions, and approach, while at other times dismissing the movement outright as being a â€Å"foreign puppet† or the pastime of â€Å"a bunch of kids.† The most serious and widely noted critique of Kefaya is that it has been essentially a mere protest movement, targeting President Mubarak personally, without putting forward an alternative candidate or articulating a constructive vision for political transformation. The critique along these lines has gained more momentum since the 2005 presidential election. Because Kefaya’s main slogan expressed the rejection of a fifth term for Mubarak as well as the succession of his son, the argument goes that Kefaya lost its raison d’etre with the end of the election. â€Å"Except for rejecting the election results, symbolized by the slogan of ‘Batel’, nothing new was produced.† When Kefaya played a leading role in the formation of the National Front for Change on the eve of the subsequent parliamentary elections, it was criticized as passing the torch to the old opposition parties, the very same entities whose inaction it has been formed to face. (Haas, F. 2008)†.The EMC had been â€Å"dragged into sitting together with the leaders of the tamed opposition, instead of putting forward a demand for changing the electoral system.† While critics clearly question Kefaya’s contribution to Egyptian politics, even the more positive assessments of the EMC mischaracterize it. For example, the American Left sees Kefaya as the beginning of â€Å"the process of rebuilding an Egyptian Left crushed by decades of police oppression† and a reverse of its â€Å"political marginalization caused by the rise of political Islam (Haas, F. 2008)†. Some Egyptian analysts as well characterize Kefaya  as a â€Å"secular† protest movement and thereby implicitly expect its role to be the containment of the Islamists. Kefaya has been so widely misunderstood in the West as well as among the Western-educated elite in Egypt because of the reliance on Western social scientific classifications, notably the social movement literature, to make sense of a phenomenon emerging from the very different Egyptian context. This shortcoming is compounded by looking at Kefaya with an ideologically selective eye. While Kefaya has indeed demonstrated several of the characteristics highlighted in the literature on new social movements, it is neither single issue oriented nor concerned with identity two of the most important features of new social movements. Shoehorning Kefaya into a category derived from the experience of postindustrial societies obscures more than it illuminates. Nevertheless, the concept of the new social movement comes closest to capturing certain features of Kefaya. The movement is one of dissent, aiming in a constant and persistent endeavor toward the transformation of Egypt.4 It is a loose network of small groupings around the country. Like social movements, it aims at generating public attention and has emerged from a realization of the perils involved in conventional party politics in Egypt, marked by debilitating restrictions and dilemmas. In other words, Kefaya emerges out of realization that the institutional channels are neither neutral nor amenable to the demands for change. However, unlike conventional social movements and because of the specific necessities of the Egyptian context, Kefaya is not focused on a single issue. The same, incidentally, is true of the Islamic movement whose platform also embraces a range of issues. In addition to the breadth of the issues addressed by Kefaya, the movement is ideologically diverse. In this way, it differs from the Islamic movement. While the latter has a concrete ideology shaping its project, Kefaya goes beyond any single ideology to be the only movement in contemporary Egypt that emerged out of serious political interactions across ideological lines. Approaching Kefaya through the prism of the social movement literature, with its American scholarship emphasis on resource mobilization and political processes, blinds analysis to this distinctive feature, which is in fact one of the most important contributions of Kefaya to Egypt’s political life. There is concern about the momentum behind Egypt’s emergency law, and what it means for progress both the incredible progress that has already been  made and the equally incredible progress that has yet to be made. There is concern about the treatment and status of the Copts and other members of the Christian Egyptian minority. There is concern about the security of the Egyptian–Israeli border and about relations between the two countries in general. There is concern that the progress that has been made thus far could actually lead to a reversal of Egypt’s progress, should the freedom to elect lead to a government that constricts the freedom of the Egyptian people even more than we have seen over the past 30 years And the list could go on. Indeed, there is no shortage of things about which to worry. There is a fine line between worrying and believing. Similarly, there is a fine line between two, seemingly contradictory, truths: Some degree of discontent with our present circumstances is healthy and necessary, because discontent fuels progress; at the same time, being happy requires that we make a point of being happy wherever we are. There is a fine and difficult line between making the best of our current reality and not giving up. It is necessary to think through all possible outcomes, including the undesirable and even the remote ones. Both worrying and believing are the result of thinking. Worry and anxiety result from focusing on undesirable outcomes no matter how probable or improbable. Belief, on the other hand, is the result of focusing on the best possible outcomes again, no matter how probable or improbable. Whereas worrying fuels panic and skepticism, believing fuels faith and hope. Positive action rarely results from the chaos, fear, or feelings of scarcity that often accompany worry. Faith and hope lead to trust and courage; and trust and courage lead to positive, prosaically action. So, yes, there does seem to be a great deal to worry about right now. Even still, if there’s even the remotest possibility that believing instead of worrying will lead to continued progress, and then it seems to me that believing is what we have to do. Positive Psychology has been described by Martin Seligman and others as the science of what makes life worth living; of what is working for individuals, families, communities, and society more broadly. The Positive Psychology experiment with which we are now charged is to, together, choose belief over worry. At least between now and Egypt’s presidential election, let us together make a conscious, deliberate decision to focus on what is working and how it can lead to the best possible future for Egypt and for the world as a whole. References Mislan, D. (2012). Cross Cultural Perspectives. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Haas, F. (2008). German Science and Black Racism–Roots of the Nazi Holocaust. FASEB Journal, 22(2), 332-337. History. (2012). Germany Country Review, 7-14. Ninkovich, F. (2001). The United States and Imperialism. Wiley-Blackwell. Pew Research Center. (2011, November 17). The American-Western European Values Gap. Retrieved fromhttp://www.pewglobal.org/2011/11/17/the-american-western-european-values-gap/ Prager, D. (2012). Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. HarperCollins.

Tourism and Social Exclusion in the Dominican Republic

Latin American Perspectives http://lap. sagepub. com/ Tropical Blues : Tourism and Social Exclusion in the Dominican Republic Amalia L. Cabezas Latin American Perspectives 2008 35: 21 DOI: 10. 1177/0094582X08315765 The online version of this article can be found at: http://lap. sagepub. com/content/35/3/21 Published by: http://www. sagepublications. com On behalf of: Latin American Perspectives, Inc. Additional services and information for Latin American Perspectives can be found at: Email Alerts: http://lap. sagepub. com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://lap. sagepub. om/subscriptions Reprints: http://www. sagepub. com/journalsReprints. nav Permissions: http://www. sagepub. com/journalsPermissions. nav Citations: http://lap. sagepub. com/content/35/3/21. refs. html Downloaded from lap. sagepub. com at University of Sheffield on September 8, 2011 Tropical Blues Tourism and Social Exclusion in the Dominican Republic by Amalia L. Cabezas Tourism development is the backbone of many Carib bean economies, and its advocates argue that it contributes to sustainable development, the alleviation of poverty, and integration into the globalized economy.Scholars and activists, in contrast, point to tourism-related ecological deterioration, profit leakage, distorted cultural patterns, rising land values, and prostitution. They suggest that tourism perpetuates existing disparities, fiscal problems, and social tensions. Examination of tourism development in the Dominican Republic indicates that it deskills and devalues Dominican workers, marginalizing them from tourist development and sexualizing their labor.The majority of people are relegated, at best, to positions of servitude in low-paid jobs in the formal sector, unemployment, or unstable activities in the informal sector that include the commoditization of sexuality and affective relations. Keywords: Tourism, Caribbean, Dominican Republic, Capitalism, Social exclusion In A Small Place, the Caribbean writer Jamaica Kincaid elaborates on the inequities of tourism (1988: 18–19): â€Å"Every native of every place is a potential tourist, and every tourist is a native of somewhere. But some natives—most natives in the world—cannot go anywhere. They are too poor. They are too poor to go anywhere. In international tourism, only some people are able to travel and experience a respite from the crushing banality of their lives; others, too poor to go anywhere, are relegated to servicing the needs of foreign travelers. Travel and tourism are among the most important economic activities of the global economy not just for the transnational monopolies that control them but also for those who dream of traveling and perhaps being able to turn someone else’s commonplace reality into the source of their own pleasure. This is the reality of the tropical blues. Tourism development is the backbone of many Caribbean economies.For the small island nations, tourism today represents what sugar wa s a century ago: a monocrop controlled by foreigners and a few elites that services the structures of accumulation for global capitalism. 1 Can tourism change the economic context of small nation-states in the Caribbean by creating possibilities for the population to improve its standard of living? Tourism promoters, policy makers, experts, and development officials certainly think so. They Amalia L. Cabezas teaches at the University of California, Riverside, and is a coordinating editor of Latin American Perspectives.She thanks the Centro de Promocion y Solidaridad Humana (a nongovernmental organization working in Sosua, Puerto Plata, and the surrounding communities) and the Movimiento de Mujeres Unidas for research assistance. LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 160, Vol. 35 No. 3, May 2008 21-36 DOI: 10. 1177/0094582X08315765  © 2008 Latin American Perspectives 21 Downloaded from lap. sagepub. com at University of Sheffield on September 8, 2011 22 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES hav e historically made enthusiastic claims about the positive impact of tourism on host societies.From fostering world peace to preserving biodiversity and indigenous cultures, tourism has been considered a panacea for societies’ ills (Castellanos de Selig, 1981). More recently, tourism has been seen not only as generating foreign exchange and employment but also as contributing to sustainable development, the alleviation of poverty, and integration into the globalized economy. Governments and multilateral organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and United Nations development agencies promote tourism as a viable mechanism for economic and social development.It is easy to understand why so much hope is riding on tourism. Tourism is a vital component of the spread of global capitalism. It accounts for one-third of the global trade in services and is expanding at twice the growth rate of world output (El Beltagui, 2001). Tourist arrivals, which stood at 25 million in 1950, are projected to reach 1. 6 billion by 2020 (WTO, 1999). According to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC, 2005), the travel and tourism industry accounts for US$4. 4 trillion of economic activity worldwide. In the Caribbean region, tourism development is of paramount importance as an indispensable source of foreign exchange (ILO, 2001). Judged by the International Labor Organization as the most tourism-oriented region in the world, the Caribbean is a region where a fifth of the gross domestic product is produced for tourists, directly or indirectly, by one out of every seven workers (ILO, 2001: 119). Scholars and activists working in the field of tourism are much more critical of tourism than policy makers and politicians.In the past three decades, assessments of tourism’s socioeconomic impact have included discussions of ecological deterioration, profit leakage, social displacement, distorted cultural patter ns, rising land values, drugs, and prostitution (Harrison, 1992; Crick, 1996; Pattullo, 1996). Tourism has also been linked to the creation of demand for foreign-made goods, consumerism, the commodification of culture, trafficking in women and children, internal migration, and the disruption and corruption of traditional values and behaviors (see, e. g. McElroy, 2004; Mowforth and Munt, 1998; Pattullo, 1996). Furthermore, scholars postulate that tourism perpetuates existing disparities, fiscal problems, and social tensions (Britton, 1996; Greenwood, 1989). Given such incongruities in opinions and assessments, I seek to examine the framework within which tourism development takes place and to explore why tourism has failed to raise the standard of living and create better life chances for people in the Caribbean region. The concern here is with the political economy of tourism development in the Dominican Republic.In this article I argue that the history of economic, political, and s ocial subjugation within the global capitalist system determines the institutional framework for the current tourism trade. I offer the interpretation that the international division of labor in tourism deskills and devalues Dominican workers, marginalizing them from the process of tourism development and sexualizing their labor. I am concerned with the impact of these processes on the most vulnerable elements of the population. This case study is based on fieldwork undertaken in the Dominican Republic.Beginning in 1997, participant observation was conducted on the Downloaded from lap. sagepub. com at University of Sheffield on September 8, 2011 Cabezas / EXCLUSION IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 23 northeast coast of the country in Puerto Plata and the neighboring beach resort developments of Playa Dorada and Sosua. Puerto Plata, a historic city with a population of over 60,000, was targeted for development during the boom in tourism growth in the 1970s. It is the oldest and one of the m ost developed tourism areas of the country, and it continues to grow (ASONAHORES, 2004).Its port attracts cruise lines, and it has an abundance of luxury resorts located east of the city in an area known as Playa Dorada. Sosua, a few kilometers up the coast, is a small beachside community settled by European Jews brought into the country by the former dictator Rafael L. Trujillo to â€Å"whiten the nation† (Symanski and Burley, 1973). It has many businesses owned by expatriates and continues to attract European travelers, many from Germany. The north coast area has a large transient population of internal migrants who come to work in the tourism industry, its informal trade, and the free-trade zone.My research was assisted by two nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Puerto Plata and Sosua that are concerned with community health. Taperecorded interviews were conducted in 1997 at a community clinic with women who identified themselves as sex workers, many of whom were affil iated with the Movimento de Mujeres Unidas (Movement of United Women—MODEMU), an NGO that advocates for the labor and human rights of women in the sex industry. Further research for this project was carried out in 2004, 2005, and 2007, including work in the capital city of Santo Domingo and in the nearby tourist beach resort of Boca Chica.Data collection involved interviews with hotel workers, sex workers, community activists, members of MODEMU, people involved in the informal economy, local businessmen, and tourists. STRUCTURAL INEQUALITIES AND THE CAPITALIST GLOBAL SYSTEM Tourism exists within a political-economic framework characterized by monopoly capital—a system of global capital that has evolved over the past 500 years and is in a new stage of accumulation characterized by the transnationalization of state formation, production, and consumption (Robinson, 2004; 2007).It is important to keep the colonial patterns of capitalist accumulation in mind when examining tourism development, since global inequities lie at the heart of the tourism project. The capitalist world system has continually expanded through access to cheap labor, land, resources, and markets. These processes are clearly evident in the commercial and organizational systems of the hospitality and travel industries. Transnational tourism reflects the asymmetrical distribution of power and economic resources between former colonies and their colonizers (Fanon, 1963).As Britton (1982: 355) declares, â€Å"The more a Third World country has been dominated by foreign capital in the past, the greater likelihood there is of the prerequisites for establishing a local tourist industry being present. It is metropolitan tourism capital that is the single most important element in determining the organization and characteristics of tourism in underdeveloped countries. † Time and resources have been important in the development of tourism, but so has economic power. While tourism is a global industry, the Downloaded from lap. sagepub. om at University of Sheffield on September 8, 2011 24 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES majority of the receipts accrue to Europe and the United States (ILO, 2001; WTO, 2002). Indeed, the new forms of global capitalist domination, as manifested in the tourism and travel market, demonstrate that Dominicans face an â€Å"empire of global capital† (Robinson, 2007: 19). The Caribbean is thus relegated to a â€Å"pleasure periphery† within the international division of labor, a â€Å"host† region that accommodates leisure travelers and the demands of transnational corporations (Turner and Ash, 1975).The tourism industry in the global North emerged with subsidized state-led development. Growth in infrastructure and technology benefited from statesponsored research and development. In the 1950s the U. S. Senate authorized more than US$12 million to support the development of improved transport aircraft, and U. S. policy e ncouraged the development of civil aeronautics and air commerce both within and outside of the United States (Truong, 1990). The use of U. S. aviation equipment, U. S. eronautical procedures, and the English language as the world standard in aviation guaranteed the United States dominance in civil aeronautics globally. In Western Europe, the concept of â€Å"participatory enterprise,† by which airlines are owned in part or wholly by governments, helped to cover the losses incurred by the operation of unprofitable but strategically important routes (Truong, 1990). Both the United States and Western Europe subsidized and cultivated the global travel infrastructure and established the regulations and norms of the travel industry, facilitating their control and domination.Travel and tourism enterprises experienced rapid growth and expansion as they sought to capture the disposable earnings of wage workers in the booming economies of Western Europe and the United States during the late 1950s and 1960s. Their growth was enhanced by new patterns of production and consumption in the global North and the creation of social legislation ensuring holiday time off. It was advantageous for the United States to further its political and commercial interests in the Caribbean by promoting the growth of tourism as a form of economic development.As Truong (1990: 104) explains, The advocated tactical and strategic flexibility in the execution of civil aviation policy has been translated into the use of multilateral aid channels to cover U. S. interests and overt intervention in international aviation and tourism. The promotion of tourism itself mirrored the awareness of the relation between air transport and economic development. This intervention has two main advantages for the United States. From a commercial perspective, such intervention contributes to the strengthening of the U.S. position as a manufacturer and exporter of aircraft and navigation equipment. From a pol itical perspective, it helps to consolidate the direction of social and economic development in the third world, which benefits U. S. interests under a screen of peaceful understanding. In due course, the growth of the tourism industry became a â€Å"peaceful† method of attaining long-lasting political power and financial control in the markets and politics of the South (Lanfant, Allcock, and Bruner, 1995).The framework for the development of the travel and tourist industry impedes poor countries from generating foreign exchange, increasing employment, or promoting the participation of the most marginal segments of the community (Britton, 1996). It enables transnational corporations to use their superior technology, resources, and commercial power to control Third World Downloaded from lap. sagepub. com at University of Sheffield on September 8, 2011 Cabezas / EXCLUSION IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 25 tourist destinations.Tourism’s tendency to perpetuate patterns of econo mic dependency and vulnerability for developing countries is evident in the island nations of the Caribbean, where small local suppliers have limited access to tourist-generating markets monopolized by powerful wholesalers and retailers (Ashley et al. , 2006). Tour operators—a transnational industry based in Western Europe and the United States—can project an image of a country through worldwide marketing campaigns that ensure a steady flow of visitors. Because of economies of scale, they can control tourist packages and demote or promote particular destinations (Britton, 1996).They unite suppliers and consumers in the pursuit of profits and pleasure; with direct contact with travel consumers through vertically integrated travel agencies, they can control particular destinations and dominate the flow of visitors. They can pressure hotels to operate in certain ways and negotiate low prices, especially in beach resorts. They favor a standardized product, such as the all- inclusive deal, a comprehensively controlled tourist experience in which the familiarity of the brand and the security of the travel experience are more important than local differentiation. The all-inclusive tourist package allows tour operators and travel agencies to combine all of the components of a destination’s attractions—recreation, meals, food, lodging, and transportation—into a single product paid for at the point of origin. This limits the participation of local producers and confines the profits to the global North. As the Dominican Republic has adopted the all-inclusive model, the earnings per tourist have decreased: per-room spending has declined from a high of US$318 in 1982 to the current low of US$154 (UNDP, 2005: 73).The all-inclusive package is only one component of the revolution in information technology that has integrated travel and tourism into a circuit that combines air transport, sea cruises, tours, and car rentals into a worldwide mon opoly. Further vertical integration of airlines, car rental, and tour operators has been facilitated by the Internet. 4 Electronic commerce in tourism services, which represents a new possibility for online holiday booking for tourism providers, works to the disadvantage of developing countries, which have only limited access to the Internet.Other practices include the mergers of transnational corporate giants in the areas of technology, travel, hospitality, and media. HOTELS, CRUISE LINES, AND DISASTERS In an increasingly globalized industry, the trend in the hospitality industry is from independently owned and owner-operated hotels to the multinational hotel chains that have become the industry standard. In the Dominican Republic, hotels with more than 400 rooms have the highest and least volatile occupancy rates (UNDP, 2005: 75; Secretaria de Estado de Turismo, 2007).In the accommodations industry, an impressive amount of consolidation took place in the 1980s, resulting in hotel brands under fewer and larger corporate umbrellas. Major multinational hotel chains have been involved in important acquisitions and mergers (ILO, 2001: 38). Cendant, the largest hotel chain in the world, operates 6,000 hotels with 500,000 rooms. Some major hotel Downloaded from lap. sagepub. com at University of Sheffield on September 8, 2011 26 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES corporations, such as Best Western, operate in almost 100 countries (ILO, 2001: 120). Since the mid-1990s, multinational hotel companies entering foreign markets have used consolidation strategies to strengthen their position vis-a-vis local markets. Furthermore, brand-name hotels promote themselves by advertising their own products—facilities, amenities, services, and prices—more than any particular country. Because so many corporations strive for a standardized and homogeneous product, one facility is the same as any other, regardless of geographic destination. The disdain for difference and diver sity is part of what some scholars have identified as the â€Å"McDisneyization† of post-tourism (Ritzer and Liska, 1997).The promotion of industry control through monopolistic practices is also noticeable in the increasing number of strategic alliances aimed at supplying diversified products and services that strengthen the hotel corporations’ market position. 6 The ILO (2001) indicates that major multinational corporations such as Hyatt and Starwood are partnering with Microsoft’s Expedia in the acquisition of new information and communication technology. In the distribution of products and cross-marketing between food service providers and hotels, Marriott and Hilton are now linked with Pizza Hut.Strategic alliances between multinationals also include distribution and cross-promotion between financial services, credit cards, and hotels. In this area, American Express is now working with Accor Hotels and Visa and American Express are partnered with Bass Hotels and Resorts. The consolidation of hotels and transportation means that some hotels, such as Cendant, have now partnered with more than 20 airlines. Cendant’s holdings also include vehicle rental companies, online ticket sales enterprises such as Orbitz and CheapTickets, and major resort condominiums and real estate holdings.In media and entertainment, the copromotion of hotels and films has combined the resources of industry giants such as Marriott and Bass Hotels and Resorts with ESPN, Discovery, and E-Entertainment (ILO, 2001: 3). The Disney Corporation, with its Caribbean Disney Cruises that target all age-groups, has been able to create all-encompassing corporate control by combining cruises and airfare with its own private depopulated Caribbean islands. 6 Disney cruises feature Disney merchandise, entertainment, and films. Through these methods, cruises operate as the ultimate product-placement scheme.This represents a significant impact on the region on a number of lev els. Not only is the Caribbean the most important geographic market for the cruise industry (ILO, 2001) but that industry is one of the most egregious violators of labor and environmental standards (Wood, 2000). For example, the majority of its workers come from Southeast and South Asia and are paid wages as low as US$1. 55 an hour (Wood, 2000). As a deterritorialized industry, cruise lines are able to evade labor standards such as minimum wage and restrictions on overtime that are established by national laws.The interaction with actually populated islands is limited to a few hours of shopping for souvenirs. Consequently, the overall market for cruise tourism in the Caribbean translates into lower earnings for the region, since its participation in the profits is restricted to, at best, a few hours of shopping in a port community. The increasing horizontal integration of the travel and tourism industry is manifested in the computerized reservation systems, with high access charges, that have rapidly become the industry norm. Tourism services are increasingly Downloaded from lap. sagepub. om at University of Sheffield on September 8, 2011 Cabezas / EXCLUSION IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 27 being purchased on the Internet via three main mechanisms: a computer reservations system known as Global Distribution Systems (GDS), third-party web sites such as Orbitz and Travelocity, and hotel- and airline-owned-and-operated direct booking. GDS is used primarily by tour operators and travel agents in destination countries to book not only travel and accommodations but other tourism products as well. The cost of GDS fees and technology is prohibitive for small and medium-sized enterprises.Orbitz, one of the two biggest online travel agents, is owned by the five biggest U. S. airlines—American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, and United. Travelocity is owned by Sabre Holdings, the world’s largest travel agent reservations system, and GDS (PSTT, 2004). At an impr essive rate, consolidation and strategic alliances by multinational corporations have limited the opportunities for small and medium-sized suppliers in the tourism industry, thereby restricting access to profits to those aligned with transnational capital.With few alternatives, largely because of their lack of technological development and capital, small nation-states cannot eliminate these powerful intermediaries and deal with tourists directly. A number of other structural issues are associated with the vulnerability of Caribbean destinations and the impediments to their benefiting from tourism development. One alarming concern is the â€Å"leakage† of foreign exchange earnings in the amount of imported consumer goods required to sustain the tourism industry.As John Urry (1996: 215) explains, â€Å"Much tourist investment in the developing world has in fact been undertaken by large-scale companies based in North American or Western Europe, and the bulk of such tourist expe nditure is retained by the transnational companies involved; only 22–25 percent of the retail price remains in the host country. † A major problem is the high import content of construction material and equipment and the many consumable goods required to cater to the needs of tourists.It is difficult to bring local suppliers into the supply chain, since the goods required by tourists may not be produced locally, and, when they are, tourists tend to reject them (Ashley et al. , 2006). Another source of leakage is the repatriation of income and profits to metropolitan locations through generous tax incentives created to stimulate investment (Urry, 1996: 215). Finally, excessive reliance on one industry renders tourist destinations extremely vulnerable to external markets. Anything that weakens demand for a destination undermines the national economy.Circumstances such as the September 11 attacks and the weather can generate a considerable downturn in the tourism economy. With the acceleration of global climate change, the Dominican Republic, for example, is increasingly susceptible to more powerful and frequent hurricanes. Stronger tropical storms and the rise in sea levels could cause the disappearance and erosion of beaches? the main engine of the economy and a source of livelihood for the nation. Hurricane Noel in 2007 devastated parts of the islands, killing hundreds and generating an epidemic of leptospirosis. The minister of tourism, Felix Jimenez, reported that news of the epidemic had tainted the national image and that the images of Hurricane Noel’s destruction televised in Europe had led tour operators to cancel charter flights (Hoy, November 25, 2007). However, the majority of areas and people directly suffering from the catastrophic effects of the hurricane were those already living in extreme poverty, certainly not in tourist zones. Downloaded from lap. sagepub. com at University of Sheffield on September 8, 2011 28 LATIN AMERICA N PERSPECTIVESThe government appears more preoccupied with its image than with creating an infrastructure that reduces damage. One family of five, for example, has been living in a temporary shelter since Hurricane Jeanne destroyed their home in September 2004 (Listin Diario, November 20, 2007). INTERNATIONAL TOURISM IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC While Barbados, Cuba, and Jamaica developed their tourism infrastructure in the early twentieth century to accommodate North American travelers, the Dominican Republic did not become a tourist destination until close to 70 years later.The nation’s negative image during the era of dictator Rafael Trujillo reflected fear of a violent political system. 8 The political instability that followed the U. S. assassination of Trujillo in 1961 and the subsequent invasion and occupation by 23,000 North American troops did not support an alluring image of a tropical paradise. The physical security of guests, an essential component in the packaging o f tourist destinations, could not be ensured.In 1966 Joaquin Balaguer, an old crony of Trujillo and an anticommunist ally of the United States, came to power through corruption and force. Balaguer’s regime, in concert with multilateral agencies, sought to capture the U. S. tourist market that had been temporarily displaced since the Cuban Revolution. Through World Bank loans and development packages, the productive structure of the country was transformed and its economic strategy redirected toward absorbing foreign investment in tourism. Tax concessions that amounted to more than 10 years of tax exemptions for investment in tourism development were established by Law 153-71. 10 International tourism in the Dominican Republic grew slowly at the end of the 1960s as a way of generating development without making large investments in manufacturing and technology. Since tourism relies on the packaging of natural assets, it was considered to support economic growth by using existi ng resources, such as sandy beaches, a warm and sunny climate, â€Å"friendly people,† and local arts and music (Tavares, 1993).In 1968 the Plan Nacional de Desarrollo established the outline of a strategy for the tourism sector (Castellanos de Selig, 1981). In 1971 the Central Bank established a department for the promotion of tourism development to be financed by the World Bank. Through loans and with the technical expertise of the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank, in the 1970s the Dominican Republic began to move away from state-led industrialization and sugar toward tourism and free-trade zones (Atkins and Wilson, 1998).The acceleration of its incorporation into the global economy was facilitated by structural adjustment programs that, for example, devalued the Dominican peso in 1987 to help the country compete for foreign investment. Tourism rapidly displaced sugar as the main source of earnings, and by 1997 it was generating more than half of the countryâ €™s total foreign exchange (Jimenez, 1999). The government created generous tax concessions to stimulate foreign investment with the goals of producing employment, paying off the foreign debt, and generating revenue.In the long run, however, this approach failed to create sustainable development or to enhance the well-being of the Downloaded from lap. sagepub. com at University of Sheffield on September 8, 2011 Cabezas / EXCLUSION IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 29 majority of the population. National elites have benefited, as the increasing polarization of income indicates, but the majority of the population has been relegated to positions of servility in a competitive labor market that provides predominantly low-paid, seasonal, and unstable jobs.EXCLUSION AND MARGINALIZATION OF THE LABOR FORCE The exploitation of labor and natural resources in beachfront resorts is particularly acute on the north coast of the Dominican Republic, where the environment is showing signs of degradation due to the extensive development that has taken place in the area. Over 95 percent of the resorts operate under the all-inclusive enclave model (Departamento de Estadisticas, interview, ASONAHORES, October 2005), and over 60 percent also use time-share allocation (ASONAHORES, 2004). Enclave resorts have a reputation for being â€Å"gilded ghettoes†? egregated spaces that exclude Dominicans while providing luxury accommodations to foreigners. The resorts are small cities and, as such, are developed with all kinds of facilities (UNDP, 2005: 68). They represent foreign, exclusive spaces that keep tourists from seeing the local poverty that might make them uncomfortable and keep them from wanting to stay in the country. The latest development scheme, the 30,000-acre mega-resort Cap Cana, features four luxury hotels including the Ritz Carlton, apartments, villas, five golf courses, condominiums, boutiques, restaurants, a convention center, and a marina.This resort complex will tar get the high-end market instead of the mass tourism market that the country has sought for decades. These tourism compounds provide electricity, sewerage, paved roads, and running water for their pleasure- and leisure-oriented guests, but basic infrastructure development in the country remains chaotic, lacking planning, development, and environmental control. Shantytowns often lack plumbing, electricity, and paved roads. This neglect represents a hidden cost to the host society and a urther appropriation of social and environmental resources by foreign capital. 11 The United Nations Human Development Report for the Dominican Republic (UNDP, 2005) indicates that the tourism labor force is made up primarily of young women, over half of them younger than 39 and with fewer than eight years of schooling (UNDP, 2005: 77). The salary for tourism workers is below the national average (UNDP, 2005: 78), with women earning approximately 68 percent of a man’s salary in the industry.Women are nearly absent from supervisory and management positions. This reflects an industry norm, for, as the ILO (2001: 86) points out, women globally have little access to the higher levels of corporate management in the hotel, catering, and tourism sector. Globally, women also experience income disparities vis-a-vis men at all levels of hotel, catering, and tourism employment. They generally occupy the lower echelons in the tourism labor market, with few career opportunities and low levels of remuneration.While Dominican women experience greater vulnerability and gender discrimination in the workforce, Dominican men are displaced and excluded from employment and meaningful participation. Camilo, an informal tourist guide in his late twenties, has been working for the past 10 years in activities Downloaded from lap. sagepub. com at University of Sheffield on September 8, 2011 30 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES connected with tourism. He and other guides idle outside of the Playa Dorada re sort complex hoping to befriend the rare tourist or, better, tourist group that ventures outside the all-inclusive beachfront compound on foot.The modus operandi of these well-dressed young men is to approach foreigners with multiple offers—for example, to dine with them at a typical Dominican restaurant, to show them around town, and to teach them how to dance merengue. The day that I met Camilo, he was angry to hear that resort’s management had been making disparaging comments about Dominicans during orientation meetings for their guests. He explained: I want to fight against the lack of information or disinformation about Dominicans and the Dominican Republic.I would like to have a crew secretly filming in the hotel, and I want to send that to the national media. The agents of these corporations are talking bad about us, about assaults, assassinations, and such things. We are walking guides; we provide a service. My friends and I speak different languages. Why is it that all the hotels and the travel agencies and the stores in the resorts have to use foreigners to work there? Why, if I speak German, I can defend myself in Italian, I am excellent in English? I can sell anything in German.It is something that I do not understand. If I go to Germany, they will not let me work. I used to sell horseback riding tours; now all those are owned by Germans. They are displacing us in our own country. Camilo’s statements address the massive displacement of Dominican workers. With the majority of resorts managed by expatriates, many of whom do not appreciate the cultural, social, and economic realities of the countries in which they work, locals are frustrated by the lack of respect accorded them by foreigners and the severe competition for the tourist market.Camilo had started out with a small business that took tourists on horseback riding trips and had been forced out of the market when the resorts begun offering these excursions to their guests. Such displacement has led many citizens to feel like foreigners in their native land. Most resorts keep the local populations out with security personnel and by requiring guests to wear wrist-bands during their stay. Treated like outsiders, Dominicans are turned away at the front gate unless they come as workers.This exclusion positions Dominican labor as a marginalized and deterritorialized workforce, performing roles and functions similar to those they would carry out as foreign, undocumented workers in Europe or North America. The common practice of the resort enclaves in the Caribbean region of recruiting top management and skilled labor from Western Europe and the United States means that Dominicans seldom work in positions of management or as chefs in the resorts, and, as Camilo mentions, they are even excluded from retail operations.These exclusionary practices marginalize the local population—not just the working class but also nationally trained executives and mid-l evel managers. Dominican men are relegated to service labor such as work in accommodations, reception, security, and grounds-keeping or, as Camilo does, scrape out a living in unstable and contingent activities in the informal sector. Gender also creates labor hierarchies within hotels. Dominican men are excluded from management, but gender stereotypes also give them access to positions with more opportunities for gratuities, such as bartender and luggageDownloaded from lap. sagepub. com at University of Sheffield on September 8, 2011 Cabezas / EXCLUSION IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 31 handler. Dominican women, in contrast, are employed in gender-designated positions of domesticity such as housekeeping. There are few opportunities for Dominicans to participate directly in the tourism economy. To escape this predicament, many cultivate relationships of companionship, friendship, and romance with tourists and other foreigners as a way to access the global economy, travel to the global No rth, and improve their lives.Many relationships between Dominican women and foreign men mingle intimate, affective relations with economic activity, but others emphasize payment for sexual services. While some studies indicate that Caribbean formal tourism workers have sex with tourists in the resorts (Cabezas, 2004; CEPROSH, 1997; Crick, 2001), many more reports reveal that it is people hustling in the informal economy who provide tourists with sexual and affective exchanges (Herold et al. 2001; Padilla, 2007; Gregory, 2007).In the Dominican Republic the young men are popularly known as sanky panky, heterosexually identified men who provide romance, companionship, and sex to men and women. These new sexual formations have also appeared in other touristdependent islands such as Jamaica (rent-a-dreads), Barbados (beach boys) and Cuba (pingueros and jineteros) (Hodge, 2002). Although many men are able to exploit foreigners’ fantasies of racial eroticism to enhance their life ch ances and masculinity, women who use intimate relationships with foreigners to support their households bear a heavy burden of stigma and riminalization (Cabezas, 2004; 2005). It is primarily working-class women of color who bear the burden of state-inflicted violence, harassment, extortion, and rape (Cabezas, 1999; 2005). Miriam, a 23-year-old mother of two, had one child when she met the father of her youngest, a vacationing African-American police officer from New York in his late thirties. John visits Miriam often and sends approximately US$60 a month to support his eight-month-old daughter. However, Miriam must continue to seek out relationships with foreign and local men to supplement his support.Her oldest daughter has liver disease, and the doctor visits and medication are costly. She tells me fearlessly, â€Å"From luck and death no one can escape. † Johanna, a 20-year-old single mother of two, cannot find any type of work that would allow her to support her mother a nd two children. She was fired from her job as a waitress when she got pregnant and began selling sex to foreign men who live or vacation in Boca Chica. Her aim is to meet a tourist who will provide her with travel to a foreign country. Any place is better than here,† she tells me. When I asked her if she was frightened by reports of sex trafficking or other forms of exploitation that could potentially take place in a country where she knows no one, she looked down and replied intensely, â€Å"I have to assume that risk, because here I am going to either go crazy or die of hunger. † HIV/AIDS Discussions of travel associated with work or leisure have increasingly pointed to the risks involved in mobility and HIV/AIDS. 2 Paul Farmer (1992) has argued that the HIV virus was introduced to Haiti by gay North American men vacationing on the island, and the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre indicates Downloaded from lap. sagepub. com at University of Sheffield on September 8, 2011 32 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES that this is true for the Caribbean as a whole (Camara, 2001) and that the countries that are the most economically dependent on tourism in the region have the highest prevalence of HIV cases (Camara, 2001; Padilla, 2007: 171).Padilla (2007) maintains that tourism in the Dominican Republic â€Å"continues to function as an important source of new infections, exerting an ongoing influence on the scope and impact of AIDS in specific locales. † This assertion is confirmed by the UNDP report (2005: 85), which indicates that the areas with the highest incidence of HIV in the country are also those with the highest rates of tourism. However, there has been little prevention education targeting tourism-sector workers.Padilla argues that this is because of the fear of fostering a negative image that could potentially â€Å"contradict the escapism, exoticism, and consequence-free environment that compose at least part of the tourism package offered to foreigners† (2007: 172). The women informants for my study, who worked primarily with tourists, were adamant in attesting to their use of condoms and resistance to offers of unsafe sex for higher compensation. Mari explained, â€Å"This is my body; it is the only thing I can count on to support my children.I’m not going to risk everything for a few extra dollars. They can’t pay me enough. † Another woman exclaimed, â€Å"If I get sick, are they going to take care of me? Are they going to take care of my children? † These statements are representative of what many women told me; however, a few caveats are in order. First, the women I interviewed were associated with MODEMU and CEPROSH, two organizations that provide peer-to-peer safer-sex education. Also, Puerto Plata has a governmentmandated policy of condom use in sex establishments (Haddock, 2007).These women were educated and aware of the dangers of unprotected sex. Secondly, most of the women id entified with the term â€Å"sex worker,† meaning that many of their relations with foreigners were direct sex-for-money exchanges. Women who engage in less rigidly structured and more ambiguous relationships, in which the conditions of the exchange deemphasize economic factors, may take more risks to prove that they are not â€Å"from the street. † Research from the Caribbean also confounds easy assumptions about sexual identity, sexual practice, and HIV/AIDS.Padilla’s (2007) research in the Dominican Republic and that of Fosado (2004) and Hodge (2002) from Cuba testify to the difficulty of categorizing the mode of HIV transmission in these countries as â€Å"heterosexual,† given the growth of same-sex male sex work with tourists. The political economy of tourism serves as the context for straightidentified men to engage in same-sex relations with foreign men to support wives, girlfriends, and families. The notion of sex workers as vectors of disease als o needs to be reexamined. My research with 30 women infected with HIV/AIDS, who worked in sex stablishments serving a predominantly Dominican clientele in Santo Domingo, indicates that all were infected by their husbands or regular boyfriends, with whom they did not use safer-sex techniques. Thus far, all the women that I have interviewed claim to use condoms for protection with their clients and to let their guard down with regular partners. Third, many of the young single workers are internal migrants to tourist areas and are more likely to engage in riskier practices and have a less stable lifestyle (UNDP, 2005). There are few educational and prevention programs to target this population.These are two areas in which more research is needed. Downloaded from lap. sagepub. com at University of Sheffield on September 8, 2011 Cabezas / EXCLUSION IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 33 CONCLUSION Few viable alternatives exist to the current structure of travel, leisure, and tourism, which consign s people in the South to poorly remunerated labor. The Dominican Republic, along with other Caribbean nations, attracts foreign investment by offering a low-cost labor force, tax exemptions, and other incentives, but tourism denies the majority of its working people â€Å"decent work. 13 The squeezing of labor power and natural resources has left the country with a massive tourism infrastructure, with more than 60,000 hotel rooms, and over 3 million pleasure visitors a year (Secretaria de Estado de Turismo, 2004–2007) in an ecology of disaster. These figures continue to grow every year without concern for the quality of life of Dominicans. The majority of people are relegated, at best, to positions of servitude in low-paid jobs in the formal sector, underemployment, or unstable activities in the informal sector that include the commoditization of sexuality and affective relations.Dominicans dream of being leisure travelers, holding decent jobs, and securing a better future f or their children, but the transnational tourism industry cannot provide them decent wages and higher standards of living. Various scholars have documented the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the Caribbean people in acting on the tourism infrastructure (Cabezas, 2004; Fosado, 2004; Padilla, 2007), but the opportunities and potential for significant democratization are modest or absent.Tourism may provide the opportunity for people from the global North to re-create themselves, but people from the South have access to this opportunity only through sexual exchanges that place their lives at risk. Reciprocal leisure travel is what every native needs to dispel the tropical blues. NOTES 1. Tourism and travel are considered export-oriented services. 2. Increasingly tourism is one of the world’s largest generators of jobs. The WTTC (2005) calculates that the sector accounted for 10 percent of total employment in 1997 worldwide and is expected to generate an estimated 328 million jo bs by 2010. . The UNDP (2005) is rather critical of the all-inclusive model of development in the Dominican Republic. It contends that this model offers a homogeneous product marked by the stereotypical image based on sun, sand, and sea, a tourism product with facilities that face away from local populations and one characterized by constant competition and lack of state regulation. While I support this spatially concentrated form of development and the general segregation of tourists from local populations, my point here is to express concern for the lack of human capital development of the population.Further, tourism development generally promotes a â€Å"slash, burn, and move on† approach to the environment. Leisure travel in the Dominican Republic follows the pattern of exploitation of natural resources and cheap labor prevalent in neocolonial regimes whereby transnational finance capital and local elites benefit from these structures and the local people are left to suff er the consequences. 4. According to one estimate, 33–50 percent of Internet use is based on tourism (ILO, 2001). 5. The trend in consolidation is evident in ILO’s data (2001). It maintains that in 1999 the 10 biggest companies controlled 2. 4 million rooms but by 2000 9 giants controlled 2. 98 million hotel rooms. 6. In the Caribbean, of the eight major cruise lines operating, â€Å"six own their own private islands which they include among their ports of call† (Wood, 2000: 361). 7. Leptospirosis is caused by a bacterium, Leptospira, that can be transmitted through exposure to water, food, or soil containing the urine of infected animals. The epidemic had killed 27 people by November 20, 2007. Downloaded from lap. sagepub. com at University of Sheffield on September 8, 2011 34 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES 8. Trujillo was dictator from 1930 to 1961.His regime was characterized by extreme violence and repression, the massacre of 12,000 Haitians in 1938, and the ac cumulation of immense personal wealth. He created state structures and placed his cronies in offices within them to perpetuate his power (Betances and Spalding, 1995). 9. Various multilateral agencies created specialized units for the evaluation, approval, and funding of the projects of member countries. In the 1960s the Inter-American Development Bank, the U. S. Agency for International Development, and the World Bank, for example, directed their lending in Latin America toward tourism development (Monge, 1973).The Organization of American States also promoted financial resources for tourism development. All these efforts were enhanced in the Dominican Republic by Law 153, which granted tax concessions to tourism investors and corporations. Thus foreign entities took the lead in creating highly favorable conditions for foreign investment. 10. The legislation that governs these practices established an incentive system to stimulate development in the tourism sector by providing an i nitial 10-year 100 percent tax exemption on earnings, imports, and construction. 11.Environmental costs are borne entirely by the local population, since the enforcement of environmental regulations is nearly nonexistent (see UNDP, 2005: 86–87; Gregory, 2007). 12. 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