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This chapter highlights how Indonesians regard for the Arab world as Islamic religiosity increased in the private and public life. It explains the significance of Islamic religiosity regarding social changes in Indonesia since its transition from autocracy to democracy at the close of the millennium. It also points out the intensified adherence to religious rules, changing dress codes, and new voices in political Islam as a “conservative turn.” The chapter identifies radical representatives within the conservative turn that demand for Islamic praxis to be purified, turning toward Wahhabi interpretations of Islam. It analyzes Orientalizations and Occidentalisms with a focus on South–South transnational linkages and dynamics of Othering in contexts where the Other constitutes part of the Self.

This chapter looks at the cultural integration of Mexican immigrants. In spite of exhausting work days, the immigrants take an active part in artistic, religious, and civic associations, centered mostly though not exclusively around the cultural referents of the places of origin, thus helping to reinforce transnational linkages. Empirical observation confirms that most artistic, cultural, and religious activities adapt to the ethnic segregation of the Los Angeles region and reproduce it through the pursuit of recognition of the immigrants' own cultural referents within a diverse cultural field. This constitutes a differentialist integregation strategy that makes use of specific cultural referents in negotiating inclusion in a heterogenous society. In turn, this suggests that the maintenance of transnational ties with sending communities is not an obstacle but rather a resource, employed in the process of negotiating space in a segmented cultural sphere.

This chapter presents a structural account of East Europe’s industrial transformation during the era of reform socialism. “Reform socialism” refers to institutional reforms socialist states began introducing beginning around 1968, when economic problems like technological backwardness, low productivity and poor product quality became apparent to Communist leaderships across the region. While reforms were carried out unevenly, they are significant in that they coincide with a number of important developments in the world economy. The chapter argues that the 1970s was a crucially transformative decade for socialist economies, and especially for states on the forefront of economic reform. What proved most critical in determining the future industrial fate of socialist countries was the decentralization of trade authority away from central ministries to enterprises and Foreign Trade Organizations. The decentralization of trade authority gave enterprises direct exposure to the competitive pressures—and thus the dominant actors—of the world market.