Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: From Cows on the Corner to Peanuts in the Park: A Visual Analysis of Temporary Public Art Statues

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper is an exploration of how the oppressive practice of raising cows for “beef” has affected humans and other animals in Latin and South America. It is suggested that the practice of “beef” eating, a practice primarily of the elite -- past and present -- is promoted by large transnational corporations and protected by the U.S. state and its military apparatus. Countless other animals and humans have been displaced or killed, and countless others will experience this fate, as the profitable but devastating “hamburger culture” expands in the 21st century.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper seeks to make sense of recent public discourses about hygiene, disease, contamination and disgust that have developed in the wake of the mad cow crisis and the bird flu scare in many highly industrialized nation-states. From Western Europe to East Asia, North America to Australia, national anxieties about viruses, bugs, germs, pathogens, or pollutants have rekindled a public debate over the safety of borders and the meaning of national identity. Increasingly, national security in the developed world becomes redefined in terms of fending off threats from unhealthy neighbors or deadly animal-borne viruses dispatched by some distant or foreign part of the globe where people (often said to be of a different race, language, color, or creed) are believed to be dirty, promiscuous and, ultimately, the originators of the new deadly global outbreaks and contagions. In many late-industrial countries, a reinforcement of national identity traits and traditional cultural beliefs is taking place in the wake of such national insecurity panics allegedly caused by some neighboring nation that has sought to mess up with traditional, pastoral farming (as was argued in the context of the mad cow discourse in Europe, for example) or, worse yet, launched by some Asian, African, or Eastern European groups of individuals whose bad and unhealthy cultural habits have turned into the next global plague (SARS, the bird flu epidemic, or AIDS even). This paper analyzes how questions about national identity in highly developed countries are being re-filtered through such health panics. But it also offers a critical reflection on how a very traditional, state-centered, and national-sovereignty driven discourse of securitization is slowly but surely taking over the public sphere in ways that (contrary to the more blatant securitization and militarization of everything cultural and social deployed by the United States after 9/11, for example) are not often visible or found to be problematic by the global public. Indeed, by medicalizing or viralizing national identity and its alleged new threats, the discourses on securitization today appear far more normal and innocent, if not downright natural, to many individuals in late-industrial countries.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The focus of this paper is the effects of raising cows for “beef,” and the accompanying increase in the production of feed crops, in Latin America. It is suggested that the practice of “beef”-eating, a practice primarily of the elite and of the masses in affluent nations, has been promoted in the last century by large transnational corporations and protected by Latin American governments, with the support of the United States government and its military apparatus. Countless other animals and humans have been killed, and many others displaced, impoverished and exploited, as the profitable but devastating “hamburger culture” expands in the 21st century.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This research analyzes U.S. and Japanese press coverage of mad cow disease and its impacts on beef trade relations in terms of economic consequences, health concerns, conflict, and solutions. Findings show that, in their coverage of mad cow disease, U.S. newspapers present more health concerns, conflict, and solutions than Japanese newspapers. The tone of news frames is found to be different, however, with Japanese newspapers portraying health concerns as a major problem and calling for stricter measures to prevent mad cow disease more than U.S. newspapers. Implications are discussed in terms of frame resonance and cultural understanding.