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The article proposes to consider the problem of the erosion and devaluation of the nation as a usurping hierarchical system that sets boundaries in terms of excluding elements that do not fit into the field of national ideology using localization processes, the need to create new institutions and practices for managing economic, political, cultural resources, formalizing individual political consciousness as an independent and active one, capable of updating the local context and its inclusion in the world agenda as an equal and unique phenomenon among others. The article presents the analysis of this decomposition of national as ideological background for unification and selection of elements that play a significant role in the process of consolidation within the borders of national state. Explained how the artistic practices approach the creation and integration the communities into public space to claim and advocate their interests, illustrated the transformational potential of artistic environment for overcoming the historical inertia of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women are emerging as significant actors in international financial industries concentrated in metropolitan cities which function as national and international business hubs. Based on 17 in-depth interviews with Chinese women bankers in Hong Kong, where one finds the highest concentration of banking institutions in the world, this paper examines the interplay between locality, gender performance and the career mobility of women bankers. The author argues that branch location is embedded within hierarchical fields of power and leads to different client groups, and ultimately, to different opportunities for upward mobility. Women bankers in Hong Kong are skilled in displaying multiple identities by using differentiated styles of language and different tongues, or languages, when interacting with different client groups in different branches. This strategy involves evaluative interpretation of perception because clients themselves make class distinctions according to different service settings. Although mid-level management teams in the banking industry have recently been rapidly feminised, this paper demonstrates that the glass ceiling is still real and continues to exert its invisible, negative impact. The upward mobility of Chinese women bankers is often blocked by informal barriers deeply embedded in the social structure and culture of both local society and international companies. These structural barriers and their resultant structured disadvantages for women are the consequence of the intersection, and sometimes the collusion, of ethnic politics, business or capitalist interests and social norms. Factors and structural forces such as race, ethnicity and gender are intertwined with and compounded to produce deep and far-reaching effects that are often beyond the control of the individual actor.

Neste trabalho, procuramos apontar alguns aspectos das políticas de identidades e de representação em torno da figura do informante, em estudos feitos a partir das bases de dados do VARSUL (Variação Lingüística Urbana na Região Sul do Brasil) e do ALERS (Atlas Lingüístico-etnográfico da Região Sul do Brasil). Na primeira base de dados, os pressupostos teóricos e metodológicos são da sociolingüística quantitativa enquanto, na segunda base de dados, os pressupostos teóricos e metodológicos são da geolingüística monodimensional. Nossa base teórica é constituída, principalmente, pelos trabalhos de Rajagopalan (1998; 2003), Hall (1996; 2003) e Bauman (2000; 1997; 1998). Foi possível, assim, observar como a língua e o informante são representados.In this work, we attempt to point some aspects of the politics of identities and of representation around the figure of the informer, in studies done starting from the bases of data of VARSUL (Urban Linguistic Variation in the South Area of Brazil) and of ALERS (Linguistic-Etnographic Atlas of the South Area of Brazil). In the first database, the theoretical and methodological assumptions are of the quantitative sociolinguistics while, in the second database, the theoretical and methodological assumptions are of the monodimensional geolinguistics. Our theoretical base is constituted mainly by of the studies of Rajagopalan (1998; 2003), Hall (1996; 2003) and Bauman (2000; 1997; 1998). Thereby, it was possible to observe as the language and the informer are representated.

The political representation of minority groups in Bulgaria is analyzed from three perspectives. The first relates to political socialization: the mechanisms of minority political preference, and their materialization into political behavior, mostly during elections or through party membership. The second relates to political actors' conduct towards minorities: their attitudes toward minority identities and the significance of minority representation in their practice. The third perspective relates to the institutional framework that politically regulates minority status. This third perspective raises questions of minimum representation, and the legal formalization of minority political parties. Bulgarian ethnic politics is analyzed regarding both the ethnic factors in constructing the political scene and the political factors in structuring the ethnic model. The present article questions the applicability of the distinction between the 'politics of ideas' and the 'politics of identities' to Southeastern Europe in general, and to Bulgaria in particular. This theoretical question is addressed through two empirical comparative analyses: the similarities and divergences of the minority management model in the Bulgarian Constitution and the one applied in the political practice, and the differences between minority representation in Bulgaria and in neighboring countries such as Romania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the visual codes for representing Jews of different origins in Israeli documentary photography in light of the role of photography in constructing the identity of Jewish communities in Israeli space and considering the lack of race discourse in Israel. It reviews the field of Israeli photography while analysing photographs taken in Israel in the 1950s and 1960s and then shows how racist visual codes are replicated in the present. The author argues that, although the concept of race as such does not come up in everyday and academic verbal discourse in Israel, and despite the fact that the State of Israel stresses racial equality in its Declaration of Independence, Israeli photography constructs visual codes that enable a visualisation of race. The discussion points out the dialectic dimension of race in photographs, as both an invented and a camouflaged element which should be attended to, but also as one which should be dismantled and presented as fraudulent and empty. This analysis takes place at the junction of photography, race and nationality in Israeli society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]