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The author comments in detail K. Tololyan's observation that the diasporic communities are sometimes the paradigmatic Other of the nation-state and at other times its ally, lobby, or precursor. He further suggests that the relationship of diaspora to nationalism is not extrinsic, causal or historical but intrinsic and contradictory; with the contradiction to be understood in the dialectical sense of a unity of opposites, with the one set against the other but at the same time incomprehensible without reference to the other. Hence, there is a fundamental contradiction built into the diaspora discourse that while it seeks to negate the nation-state, it is itself incomprehensible without reference to it. The analysis of this contradiction may be crucial, as the author suggests, for distinguishing a critical diaspora discourse from a conservative, reactionary, or establishmentarian one. These observations are largely commented with reference to Asian, and more particularly, Chinese diasporic communities.
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The article comments the concepts of Europe and the Balkans as culture images and identities, delineating their discursive, evaluative and complementary character. Their inherent dynamics - historical, structural and in terms of evaluation - are under discussion. The second part of the article presents the results from an inquiry, entitled „We and Europe“ and carried out in May 2001 among university undergraduate and graduate students in Bulgaria. The major questions this inquiry seeks to answer are about the way young educated Bulgarians imagine Europe and the Europeans, what is their self-perception as Europeans, what is the nature of their interest towards Europe. The conclusion drawn out is that in the context of intensive political and media discourses about Bulgaria's association to the European structures, peoples' attitudes towards Europe and European-ness have significantly shifted towards incorporation and overcoming exclusion and stigmatization.
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The article develops the hypothesis that the paradoxes of Bulgarian identity, torn between acculturating occidentalism and rebellious indigenism, is linked to a certain discrepancy between discursive and figural representations of the nation. Taking examples from the domains of urbanism, plastic arts, museology, cinema, etc. it argues that the incapacity of the European periphery to „catch up“ with the technologies of the imaginary of nation-building in the sphere of the visual representation accounts for the constant influx of foreign seductive images that undermine the national unity. Instead of establishing a modern identity based on desire and choice, those countries exalt moral belonging - nation tends to be essentially defined as an ethnic community.
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The article summarizes findings from the „The Exile. Problems of the identity and adaptation of Bulgarian Turks exiled in Turkey“ project. Individual and group strategies for adaptation to the new environment, as well as the exiles' attitude towards their Bulgarian homeland are presented. An outline is given of the problems the exiles face as „strangers“ in their Turkish homeland and the characteristics of their cultural identity.
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The research is a part of an educational project supported by Phare Lien Program of the European Union. The autobiographical essays written by secondary school pupils from two West Rhodope villages inhabited by Muslim Bulgarians (Pomaks) have been analysed in the article. The life prospects of the pupils from Ribnovo village evolve along three basic trajectories: (1) family: becoming a respectable parent (getting married, bringing up two children, building a comfortable house); (2) religion (being modest and hard working, compassionate to poor people, loyal to the native place, kin and community); (3) profession (being a good student, getting higher education and a good profession). The analysis reveals the tensions between different sources of influence: the mosque; the school, the local tradition, and the media (TV, video, newspapers). The essays of Ribnovo pupils are compared to the similar essays of Christian pupils living in the town of Gotse Delchev.
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The author discusses the issue of locality in traditional cultures. The first example he gives is of the St. Bess cult in the Italian Alps, analysed from the point of view of the oral/written relation. Next comes his example of French rural architecture, which invariably reveals the power of tradition in constructing local culture. In conclusion, the author states his inference about imaginary tradition as part of the process of turning an idealised past into a heritage.
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The author of this paper presents some results and observations from a large-scale research program, focused at the most popular immigrant community in the Netherlands - that in Lombok, Utrecht. Her observations concern the festivities of the population in this multiethnic neighbourhood, and their role for the development of intercultural communication. The interacting parties are those of Turkish and Morrocan immigrants, as well as local Dutch. The article views the celebration of three popular holidays of a different origin - Saint Nickolas' day, Christmas and the break of Ramadan. Their celebration is viewed on two planes - in the public and the private sphere.
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In the present article the ritual cross-dressing has been analysed as characterstic of specific biosocial communities. The stress is put on the syncretism as a possible discourse of the cross-dressing ritual complex. The analysis is based on the Bulgarian folk masquerade tradition.
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There is a basic lateralisation in our archaic experience of space. The pathways of projection in paranoid patients can be followed outwards into external space, with the right side of the body and environment being associated with the primary mother-imago. This holds whether the individual is right-handed or not. The author marshals evidence for this hypothesis from his analytic work with numerous paranoid patients and from the study of the spatial structure of dreams and the system in the localisation of certain psychopathological symptoms. He suggests that the concept of archaic space can help us extend our knowledge of the structure of the pre-oedipal psychopathology: the splitting-projection of the primary mother-imago to the right, the spatial structure of paranoia, the acting out in perversions.
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The article comments the results of an investigation carried out in the village of Zagrazhden, which is situated high up in the middle parts of the Rhodope Mountain. The basic method of field work used is non-structured interview. Local people identify themselves religiously and ethnically as Bulgarian Muslims. However they do not consider themselves different from the majority population in the country. The process of ethnic and religious determination of the Bulgarian Muslims for over a century has been shaped by extremely dramatic events which had a strong impact on the construction of their collective identity. As a result, middle-aged and young people in the village do not conceive themselves as followers of Islam. There is a difference between the individual religious self-determination and the group religious identification. This statement is supported by the way basic components of ethnic and religious identity are interpreted, such as language, names, religion, rituals and festivities, clothing and so on.
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In contrast to the key role and importance attributed to the institution of godparenthood in Bulgarian customary law, Bulgarian epic songs reveal the godfather in a rather negative, derogatory and parodied way. In the folklore epics he is regularly shown as a coward, a treacherous evil-doer, and a cunning competitor to the bridegroom in the wedding procession. The article proposed here attempts to analyse this paradoxical incoincidence between the high status, ascribed to the godfather in the customary law, and the representations, which his figure receives in the folk epics. The various inversions of the godfather's status are viewed as predetermined by the specific mediating role he holds in the system of kinship relationships, and by the epic context, which encodes and interprets this role according to an internal epic logic.
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Internationally, in the last decades, the public sector accounting harmonization process has been considered more and more concerning. The elaboration and development of EPSAS (European Public Sector Accounting Standards) is considered the keystone of accomplishing the public sector accounting harmonization within the European Union. The paper is a qualitative research and represents a summary of some stakeholders vision regarding the potential EPSASs implementation, considering the measures and decisions that should be taken within EPSASs elaboration process, and also the obstacles that hinder this process. The findings reveal the fact that, at least for the moment, the EPSASs are not a real necessity for the European Union as an economic community.
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The emergence of the production relocation factor that generates external capital flows, promotes the transfer of production technologies from developed countries to developing countries contributes increasingly to business growth of Côte d’Ivoire. This relocation factor is characterized overall by the foreign direct investment that increases national productivity and the increase not only benefits the investor, other actors in the national productive system and some economic agents will benefit directly. The general objective of this study is to analyze the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on exports of Côte d’Ivoire to determine the economic policy measures likely to attract those investments and strategies to Côte d’Ivoire to draw the best profits for export growth. Following econometric tests for the orientation of the variables on the last 30 years (1983-2012), we present the main conclusion of elements and their economic implications in our study.
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This paper aims to analyze the applicability of classical bankruptcy prediction models for the Romanian companies listed at the Bucharest stock exchange. Using four models, the original Altman Z-Score model, the Z”-Score model, the Springate model and the model used to determine insolvency probability for the emerging markets, a study was conducted to see if they apply to Romanian companies’ financial statements for the years between 2007 and 2008 and compare the obtained results. Each model will be presented separately, testing their accuracy ratio using the “Type I and II errors” method. In the end, the results will be combined to establish the applicability of these models to the Romanian companies.
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