scholarly journals A Breath of Fresh Air: Approaches to Environmental Health in Late Medieval Urban Communities

2021 ◽  
pp. 131-151
Author(s):  
Carole Rawcliffe
Keyword(s):  
Human Physiology ◽  
Environmental Health ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Stagnant Water ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Classical Greece ◽  
Clean Air

AbstractThis essay explores the medieval belief that disease was spread by the foul odours arising from such common nuisances as butchers’ waste, dung heaps, stagnant water, and tanneries, as a result of which great importance was placed upon fresh, clean air in medieval cities, especially in times of pestilence. It examines the medical rationale behind these ideas, which derived from Classical Greece and reflect sophisticated assumptions about human physiology. It also considers the numerous sanitary measures that were introduced at both a national and local level in pursuit of a hygienic urban environment, and the extent to which ordinary citizens recognised the vital role played by the air that they breathed in preserving or endangering communal health.

At the Still Point of the Turning World: Freud's Reception of Winckelmann's Greece

2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-152
Author(s):  
Sharon Kool
Keyword(s):  
Vital Role ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
German Culture ◽  
Classical Greece ◽  
Cultural Ideal ◽  
The Past ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
With Memory ◽  
Of Greece

Freud's theory is primarily concerned with memory, about the present contained within the past. It is also rooted to the past in another way; Freud's reception of the Greek classical tradition played a vital role in the genesis of his oeuvre. Winckelmann's revival of ‘Greece’ dominated German culture up to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, yet besides the importance of Bildung in shaping Freud's early Gymnasium experience, his influence upon Freud is often neglected. While Freud's debt to German Hellenism is clearly demonstrated in his library of classical literature and his collection of Greco-Roman antiquities, the afterlife of Winckelmann's legacy is more subtly inscribed upon psychoanalysis. This paper focuses on Winckelmann's aesthetic reconstruction of classical Greece which made beauty, self-restraint and repression a cultural ideal to be imitated and admired. It is argued that hysteria provided one of the most powerful challenges to this ideal. Psychoanalysis can thus be seen as developing out of a milieu that was still overshadowed by Winckelmann's idealization of Greece. Further, it is argued that Winckelmann advanced a homoerotic tradition in German culture and the sedimentation of this tradition can be discerned in Freud's response to hysteria, his privileging of the masculine and his theory of bisexuality.

Suburban Networks and Urban Villages: Community and the Built Environment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taylor Dotson
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Social Ties ◽  
Coarse Graining ◽  
Social Connection ◽  
Third Places ◽  
Jane Jacobs ◽  
Suburban Sprawl ◽  
Ray Oldenburg

This chapter interrogates the built environment with respect to its compatibility with thick community. Echoing and extending the analyses of Jane Jacobs and Ray Oldenburg, it is argued that much of the urban environment in technological societies – from suburban sprawl to urban renewal high rises – effectively legislates that citizens live as networked individuals. Not only does the coarse graining of these spaces functionally segregate different facets of everyday life, they ensure that social ties are diffuse and single-threaded. Their lack of appropriate density and walkable amenities limits serendipitous interactions and other activities that support the growth of place-based social connection. Moreover, their poor affordances for “third places” such as pubs and cafes limits the sociability of most neighborhoods. Finally, the governance structures of most areas is either weakly democratic, unable to support constructive ways of working through conflict, or not scaled so as to match the physical boundaries of urban communities.

scholarly journals Decentralization and Corruption: Does Decentralization Lead to Corruption in Local Level in Nepal?

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 17-36
Author(s):  
Dipesh Kumar Ghimire
Keyword(s):  
Fiscal Decentralization ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
The People ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
Corrupt Behavior ◽  
The Relationship

Federalism has been constitutionally uniting separate political communities in a limited by encompassing political community (Kincaid and Tarr 2005). Federalism as a mode of governance is concerned with combining 'self-rule and shared rule' (Elazar, 1987), where by the constituent members of the federal union can govern themselves autonomously while they and their citizen also participate together in the common national governing regime, which is autonomous within its sphere of constitutional authority (Kincaid, 2011). Federalism is the extreme form of decentralization. Similarly, corruption is defined as exercise of official powers against public interest or the abuse of public office for private gain. Corruption is a symptom of degeneration of the relationship between the state and the people, characterized by bribery, extortion and nepotism (Altas, 1968). Similarly, Sen (1999) defines corruption or corrupt behavior as "the violation of established rules for personal gains and profits". This article tries to explore the relationship among federalism, decentralization and corruption. My finding is: constitutional, political and spatial decentralization is very strong and fiscal decentralization is very weak in Nepal. Fiscal decentralization plays vital role to improve quality of governance. However, lack of proper fiscal decentralization and highly constitutional, political and spatial federalism or decentralization promote corruption in the local level. Similarly the monitoring mechanism and vertical controls system are very weak in Nepal. It shows that the localization process motivate to corrupt behavior among public authorities.

scholarly journals Integrating Food Culture with Socio-Environmental Recovery: Case Study Perspectives from the Global South

Humanities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 134
Author(s):  
Lea Rekow
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Food Culture ◽  
Environmental Restoration ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Restoration Planning ◽  
Environmental Recovery

This paper discusses how local-level food systems, social remediation and environmental restoration can be linked to increase stability and build resilience inside extremely vulnerable communities. Specifically, it details how food culture entwines with socio-environmental restoration to benefit three low-income urban and peri-urban communities located in Thailand, India and Brazil. It aims to add to an existing body of knowledge that resides at the nexus of food, socio-environmental restoration and informality. It details effective, proven initiatives that have been regionally replicated to support marginalized communities to better cope with the negative effects of simultaneous stressors. It posits that imaginative visioning can be applied to simultaneously cultivate food security, remediate neglected lands and improve socio-economic opportunity. It provides a contribution to the field of social-ecological restoration planning in relation to food studies in lowest-income contexts.

Urban minstrels in late medieval southern France: opportunities, status and professional relationships

2000 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 201-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gretchen Peters
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environment ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Professional Relationships ◽  
Working Relationships ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Southern France ◽  
Urban Settings ◽  
Dimensional Image ◽  
Socio Economic Status ◽  
Medieval Europe

By piecing together fragments of diverse archival evidence, it is possible to document a large minstrel population in urban settings in late medieval southern France that was able to support itself through a multiplicity of freelance activities and complex working relationships. Information concerning the urban minstrel in medieval Europe is usually drawn from city accounts and contracts providing details concerning the duties, function and wages of civic musicians. In order to create a multi-dimensional image of the urban minstrel, however, a wide variety of archival sources needs to be explored. Such sources – accounts of confraternities, university statutes, city statutes, tax records, property listings, private notarial contracts, among others – have offered glimpses into aspects of the minstrel community that have tended to remain elusive. This essay first establishes the nature of freelance activities, which were central to the urban minstrel's livelihood. Second, the socio-economic status of minstrels will be investigated, to determine how successful musicians were at supporting themselves in the medieval urban environment.

Leading the Locality: Icelandic Local Government Leadership Dilemma

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 807-826 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Marín Hlynsdóttir
Keyword(s):  
Central Government ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Local Leadership ◽  
Professional Management ◽  
Local Politicians ◽  
The Media ◽  
Job Postings ◽  
Local Leaders

In Iceland there is a growing scepticism towards mayors with executive powers (Kristinsson 2014). At the same time there is also a substantial demand of a responsive, community orientated local leader with strong direct access into central government level. In Iceland, mayors are recruited largely through two processes: through hiring following nationwide job postings (manager-mayors) and through political appointment from within the municipal council (political mayors). This paper explores the dilemma these different role expectations create for local leaders and local leadership on the whole and how democratic renewal may both contributes to the creation as well as solving of this dilemma. Firstly, the paper discusses the foundation for growing criticism towards executive mayors and the counteractions that have been undertaken. Secondly it delves into the foundation of local leadership and looks into what local leaders believe is expected or even demanded of them by citizens, central government or local agencies in the context of democratic renewal. The findings suggest that professional management plays a vital role in democratic renewal at the local level. However, manager-mayors are expected by citizens, central government and to some part the media to behave in similar ways as political mayors. This creates a dilemma as they are expected to be neutral professionals and community oriented “political” leaders at the same time. Finally, the strong emphasis on community role and direct access of local politicians into central government makes the Icelandic mayoral system more compatible to more southern typologies than the northern typology it is usually assigned to?

scholarly journals Cités et Reterritorialisation: La France à l'Heure des Frandes Métropoles

2007 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Jean-Paul Pastorel
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Free Competition ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Treaty Of Rome ◽  
Market Liberalisation ◽  
Take All ◽  
The Way

The structure of local authority power in France, which is heir to a system of fractionalised communities and also to a tradition of downgrading of cities, is a matter of current interest today. This is largely because of the federalisation movement in Europe and the globalisation of economies within the European market. The federalisation movement has been beneficial - integrated inter-communal structures open the way to large metropolises. Metropolises in turn, are connected with more less vast regional areas thereby redrawing the contours of the new directions of development. In this paper on the evolution of the French territorial entities, the author makes clear the consistent way in which the French legislator has moved since the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957, to transform the way in which territorial institutions are organised. The re-organisation of the increasingly urban communities and regions will benefit from a "plan of re-territorialisation". The declared goal is to organise these areas by arranging a network of towns both small and medium sized around metropolises in order to create true competitive areas employment which have the capacity to stimulate economic activity. From being communities of citizens, these contiguous territorial entities, subject both to the rules of free competition and to Community norms, are progressively transformed into economic players. By confirming the role of territorial entities to take all the decisions which can best be exercised at the local level (the principle of subsidiarity), the French constitutional reform of 27 March 2003 paved the way for a degree of flexibility of territorial organisation which can lead to a type of decentralisation to suit each different situation, including by the state towards the territorial entities or between territorial entities. The break with traditional uniformity of the territorial groupings in France is part of the re-territorialisation of local government areas and thus is consonant with rapid metropolisation and market liberalisation.

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