International Itinerants

Very interesting article about the definition and analysis of international itinerants.. I finally found a description for my personal attitude to career/work :)

BANAI,M AND HARRY,W (2004) "Boundaryless Global Careers: The International Itinerants"
Int. Studies of Mgt. & Org., 34(3): 96–120.

A few prepositions that have been highlighted by the author can be found below.

Self-managed careers
Proposition 1: The more that international managers, rather than their organizations, are in charge of their careers, the more likely they are to be international itinerants.

Loyalty to professional development
Proposition 2: The higher the international managers’ loyalty to their profession, rather than to their organizations, the more likely they are to be international itinerants.

Employment in multiple firms
Proposition 3: The more organizations independent of each other the international managers work for, the more likely are these managers to be international itinerants.

Transferable skills
Proposition 4: The more likely international managers are to acquire transferable skills, the more likely they are to be international itinerants.

Learning-related milestones
Proposition 5: The more likely international managers are to measure their career’s progress by assessing their level of learning, rather than by comparing their rank with that of their age group, the more likely they are to
be international itinerants.

Psychological meaningful work as measure of success
Proposition 7: The more international managers measure their success by psychologically meaningful work, rather than by pay, promotion, and status, the more likely they are to be international itinerants.

Reasons for identity changes, and needs for life reevaluation.

An Extract from EEVA KOHONEN (2005)
"Learning Through Narratives About the Impact of International Assignments on Identity"International Studies of Management and Organization, vol.34-3,pp 27-45

Traveling, cross-cultural contacts, and frequent job changes between organizations may stimulate and intensify our reflexive capacity so that we come to understand better who we are (Lindgren and Wåhlin 2001). It can be assumed that in the absence of stable, supporting social networks, the boundaries of the self dissolve, and one’s identity comes under scrutiny. Osland (2000) found in her study that an overseas assignment was a transformational experience for expatriates. As a consequence, they questioned many of the taken-for-granted aspects of their life— identity, values, and everyday assumptions—and discovered hidden resources and skills. Furthermore, Sussman (2000) pointed out that successful adaptation to the host culture predicts a significant change in one’s cultural identity, and this may result in a more difficult repatriation period.

The capacity to endure

The masters' thesis has been started and from now on I will be posting interesting facts/extracts from researched material related to Russian character, Russian history etc. My dissertation will be trying to identify the reasons for many occasions of miscommunication between western and Russian businesses and trying to find ways for its resolutions. i believe that much of Russian character is shaped by its intense and unique, extremely violent and unstable history (which is supported by many scholar's observations and studies). I believe that any behaviour, no matter how strange it might seem to us, has an explanation. Therefore I will try and explain the current lack of trust in the west among Russians.

It has been known for centuries about the Russian ability to survive under inhuman conditions, which has been trained for centuries.

An extract from Kets de Vers, M.F.R. The Anarchist Within: Clnical Reflections on Russian Character, Leadership Style, and organizational Practices 98/96/ENT describes it perfectly.

The Capacity to endure

In spite of (or perhaps because of) the harsh circumstances under which the Russians have lived – predominantly on vast, empty plains or on the Siberian taiga-Russians also come across as a people of enormous endurance and stamina. Their history is illustrative. The creation of their nation, a process marked by hardship, was preceded by centuries of social unrest. People in what is now Russia had to deal with Viking raiders from the north, the Tatar-Mongol domination, the Teutonic invasion, the Don Cossacks, and the Turks. Indeed, unrest has been Russia’s constant companion. Not surprisingly, then, the “Times of Troubles” (1598-1613) – a period of social and political upheaval during and after the reign of Boris Godunov, a period of great suffering caused by famine, epidemics, and incursions by Cossack soldiers and Polish adventures – continues to resonate with the Russian collective memory. Nor has Napoleon’s invasion or Hitler’s military campaign been forgotten. But the Russians, with their indomitable stamina, have risen above the many evil forces around them- the irrational authority, the violent changes of regime, the civil wars, the social disorder, the foreign intervention.

This ability to endure, this capacity for survival, has prompted some observers to offer ice fishing – an activity pursued by many Russians – as a metaphor of their character, of the hardiness and mysticism of the Russian soul. Standing for hours in front of a hole on a frozen lake in Siberia under arctic conditions in the hope of catching a fish is an unattractive proposition to most people. It looks like an open invitation for frostbite or even death. But in spite of its predictable discomforts, a large number of Russians find pleasure in this pursuit. Their pleasure could be seen as an expression of the love of suffering – even the assertion of a death wish; at the very least it could be seen as passive consent to a miserable situation. Yet it also illustrates the desire for solitude and the need for mystical unity with nature – traits that exemplify the deep spiritual character of the Russians.

Human Rights & Visual Culture

Birbeck College
University of London
11th June 2010

How are human rights represented and disseminated through visual culture? What is the role of visual culture in the formation of human rights politics and practices? How radical is the use of visual, online and web based media by human rights activists? Is there a visual politics of human rights?
This colloquium will bring scholars, campaigners and practitioners together to show examples of human rights in film, television, digital media and photography and discuss ways in which we can conceptualise and understand the emergence of visual culture in the human rights political arena.
The review will be coming soon.
SPEAKERS include
Costas Douzinas (Birkbeck) a regular contributor to The Guardian on human rights, and author of Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism and The End of Human Rights;
Oscar Guardiola- Rivera (Birkbeck) author of What If Latin America Ruled the World? How the Second World Will Take the First into the 22nd Centuryand Being Against the World, Rebellion and Constitution;
Roger Hallas (Syracuse)author of Reframing Bodies: AIDS, Bearing Witness, and the Queer Moving Image and co-editor of Image and the Witness: Trauma, Memory and Visual Culture;
Jacqueline Maingard (Bristol) author of South African National Cinema and engaged in scholarship on visual culture on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC);
Les Moran (Birkbeck) author of Sexuality and the Politics of Violence and Safety and co- editor of Law’s Moving Image;
Gita Sahgal filmmaker and journalist, and former Head of the Gender Unit for Amnesty International; credits include Love Snatched and The War Crimes File, co-editor of Refusing Holy Orders, Women and Fundamentalism in Britain;
Emma Sandon (Birkbeck) co-editor of Law’s Moving Image, has taught on the EIUC summer school on Cinema and Human Rights.
Michael Uwemedimo (Roehampton)curator, filmmaker and member of Vision Machine Film Project which produced The Globalisation Tapes and currently working on the Niger Delta advocacy project

LECTURE REVIEW "The Truth will be known when the last witness is dead"

17/05/2010
University of London, Birbeck College
Speaker: Peter Osborne

The Memory Model:

• Misunderstands the constructed character of historical representation.
• Reduces history to representations of past events.
• Assumes a set of relations betweeen individual subjectivity, social subjects, collectivity and the process of history which, while still ideologically dominant, is being fundamentally historically transformed.

My DIRECTION : CULTURE and GLOBALIZATION

Many people ask me what is it that I do.. impossible to explain, as the area of expertise is way too wide to cover in few words. So I thought, it is best if I give a definition of each, culture and globalization, and then compare both. The latest book by Helmut Anheier and Yughishthir Raj Isar "Conflicts and Tensions" provides us with some in-depth research in this area, and this entry is mostly based around their words.

SO.. what is culture? CULTURE is the lived and creative experience for individuals and a body of artifacts, symbols, texts and objects (all closely related to graphic design and other kinds of communication, such as textual, audio and visual). Culture involves enactment and representation. It embraces art and art discourse, the symbolic world of meanings, the commodified output of the cultural industries as well as the spontaneous or enacted, organized or unorganized cultural expressions of everyday life, including social relations. It is constitutive of both collective and individual identity. Closely related to culture is the concept of COMMUNICATION, which refers to the ways in which meanings, artifacts, beliefs, symbols and messages are transmitted through time and space, as well as processed, recorded, stored, and reproduced. Communication requires media of storage and transmission, institutions that make storage and transmission possible, and media of reception.

GLOBALIZATION involves the movement of objects (goods, services, finance and other resources, etc), meanings (language, symbols, knowledge, identities, etc.) and people across regions and intercontinental space. The notion of CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION involves three movements: flows of investments and knowledge, flows of cultural goods, and flows of people. Cultures or aspects of cultures are globalized to the extent to which they involve the movement of specified objects, systems of meanings and people across national/regional borders and continents. Yet these processes, so closely related to the globalization of communication, the media and the cultural industries, are for one thing inaccessible to the majority of the world's population and actually appear to generate countless counter-affirmations at the level of local reception.

The relationship between cultures and globalization is not only multifaceted from a systematic perspective, in each case, it also involves different units of analysis such as individuals, organizations, professions, institutional patterns, communities, societies, as well as nation-states. The different units, in turn, may be interrelated and affect each other over time. In making observations, and in reaching conclusions about this relationship, it is important to specify the units of analysis involved.

To summarize, culture, globalization and communication are all interconnected, and in order to achieve great results in one industry, it is impossible to escape other industries, that are all interconnected. Global economy, politics.. it is a never ending circle. And my challenge is to explore these dimensions. The greatest challenge will be not to get lost within them - wish me luck!

KORAKOR

Keveen, the founder of Korakor, is an amazing, inspirational individual, who have great ideas of helping, loving and caring. Everyone should consider helping him out. You can donate him using a link on his site, or you can get involved and join him in his adventures. He welcomes everyone who is willing to give a piece of themselves by teaching children in disadvantaged communities, and spreading the knowledge around. Great ideas!