Arts and Social Sciences Journal

The purpose of this paper is to explore the marketing implications of the Nigerian bank consolidation with a view to theorizing the marketing challenges which Third World countries wishing to embark on the same exercise should watch out for. The research used secondary data sources to expose the status of marketing in the pre-consolidation era and goes further to put forward the marketing implications and challenges of the exercise. Delivery of quality services, repositioning of brand identities and branch expansion were found as the leading challenges of the Nigerian bank consolidation. Other Third World economies wishing to undertake bank consolidation was advised to consider certain structural variables evident in their countries before embarking on such reforms.
 

Globalization implies a general shift in spatio-temporal relations and the simultaneous deterritorialization of cultural phenomena orchestrated by the multiple global flows of people, ideas, and fashions. Within the context of globalization, it is troublesome for social scientists to continue using the “urban–rural” dichotomy as distinctive analytical and methodological categories because it tends to suggest a contingency in the pattern and character of social phenomena. This article sets out to theoretically rethink this conceptualization because of the multi-stranded and culturally embedded nature of human behavior in both space and time which has led to difficulties in delineating rigid subject boundaries today unlike in the past. Drawing on empirical data from diverse social phenomena, but particularly from the urban procurement and consumption of medicinal plant recipes, “dualistic” religious inclination and urban agriculture, we demonstrate that the geographic, spatio-temporal conceptualization of distinctive urban and rural phenomena are problematic. We suggest the notions of “urban-ruralism” and “rural-urbanism” as theoretical and methodological reconceptualizations to capture multiple embedded processes and to show that there exists a type of behavioral continuum/consistency because individuals have adopted hyphenated identities.
 

The increasing vehicular traffic and the consequent over-consumption have emerged as the results of rapid motorization and urbanization throughout the world. Variety of measures have been attempted to deal with the vehicular problems. This paper was intended to investigate the potential of an individual tradable permit system in an experimental two-sided repeated double auction market to overcome over-consumption through road demand management. The auction began with the local authority distributing access rights to the vehicular owners. The owners could either use up the permit or to purchase permit from the open market. The latter allowed usage beyond the owner’s quota. The system showed that traders exhibited strong dependence on reservation price and there were significant transfers of permit from low-value users to high-value users: low-value owners sold access rights to high-value owners. Consequently, in the peak hours, the permit price increased owing to high demand, so the cost of using the road was high during congestion. This created incentive for low-value drivers to postpone their trips and resold permits in the peak hours to gain profit. The results showed the delayer pays principle, in which drivers who valued highly had to pay drivers who were willing to stay off the road during peak hours.
 

Obstetric fistula (OF) continues to devastate the lives of women in sub-Saharan Africa. Many women with the condition are suffering in silence. They are unaware of the available treatment options or unaware of where to get treatment.Yet,the condition is treatable and preventable. Recently,many countries and nongovernmentalorganizations (NGOs) in the region embarked on interventions to address the impact of the condition,however,much emphasis is putto identifying and treating the existing cases with less emphasis putto public health interventions that can help to prevent and eventually eradicate the condition in sub-Saharan Africa. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to explore the impact of obstetric fistula in the region and to propose effective public health interventions that can help to prevent the condition with a long-term goal of eradicating the condition

Globalization implies a general shift in spatio-temporal relations and the simultaneous deterritorialization of cultural phenomena orchestrated by the multiple global flows of people, ideas, and fashions. Within the context of globalization, it is troublesome for social scientists to continue using the “urban–rural” dichotomy as distinctive analytical and methodological categories because it tends to suggest a contingency in the pattern and character of social phenomena. This article sets out to theoretically rethink this conceptualization because of the multi-stranded and culturally embedded nature of human behavior in both space and time which has led to difficulties in delineating rigid subject boundaries today unlike in the past. Drawing on empirical data from diverse social phenomena, but particularly from the urban procurement and consumption of medicinal plant recipes, “dualistic” religious inclination and urban agriculture, we demonstrate that the geographic, spatio-temporal conceptualization of distinctive urban and rural phenomena are problematic. We suggest the notions of “urban-ruralism” and “rural-urbanism” as theoretical and methodological reconceptualizations to capture multiple embedded processes and to show that there exists a type of behavioral continuum/consistency because individuals have adopted hyphenated identities.
 

This paper revisits Wuthering Heights, a great yet controversial nineteenth-century novel, by adopting a Deleuzian perspective/micropolitics of (minor) literature in the sense thatall great literature in a broader sense is minor literature, for it deconstructs and dislocates the long-established tradition and its “language seems foreign, open to mutation, and the vehicle for the creation of identity rather than the expression of identity”. In other words, in this novel, the protagonists’ identities are rather created, not just expressed. Looking further into the underlying transforming forces in this novel, the spectator/reader could perceivea variety of minoritarian “becomings”/mutations in Wuthering Heights, the process of liberating/deterritorializing a work of art, in Deleuzian terms, from the hierarchy or subjugation of a privileged/majoritarianmode of representation.

This study focuses on the strategic region of the Persian Gulf and its oil resources, the US energy policy, and the Iraq War as a case in point. It refers to the importance of the Persian Gulf oil in the US policies and the US geopolitical practices to launch conflicts and wars in the post-Cold War era that scholars have categorized as “resource wars.” Reviewing relevant studies has revealed that amongst the natural resources oil as the most vital commodity has always played a major role in wars and conflicts. These studies also emphasized that access to oil reservoirs in the Persian Gulf as well as control of these resources have been vital to the United States because it answers the country’s domestic needs, supporting oil companies, and controlling its rivals to preserve its hegemonic leadership.  

The trend of writing Quranic exegesis manuscripts in the Malay Archipelago during the first part of the 20th century was very much influenced by the Islamic reformation in Egypt initiated by Syaykh Muhammad `Abduh, which was then expanded by his disciples such as Sayyid Muhammad Rasyid Rida and Syaykh Mustafa al-Maraghi. Several reformation activities carried out by them had inspired local scholars; most of them were graduates of Al-Azhar University, to reform, specifically in the field of Quranic exegesis studies in that part of the world. Therefore, this paper aims to discuss the extent of the influence of Egyptian reformists on the development of Quranic exegesis manuscripts in the Malay Archipelago; particularly in Malaysia and Indonesia.
 

The original idea for a feature film may come from a writer, director or a producer. Director is the person responsible for the creative aspects, both interpretive and technical, of a motion picture production in a film. Director may be shot discussing his project with his or her cowriters, members of production staff and producer, and director may be shown selecting locales or constructing sets. All these activities provide, of course, ways of externalizing director’s ideas about the film. A director sometimes pushes both the film image and techniques of narration to new artistic limits, but main responsibility of director is take the spectator to an original opinion in his philosophical approach. Director tries to find an artistic angle in every scene and change screenplay into an effective story and sets his film on a spiritual and philosophical base.