High Bridewealth, Migrant Labour and the Position of Women in Lesotho

1977 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Murray
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Professional Life ◽  
Economic Perspective ◽  
Kinship Structure ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Traditional Paradigm ◽  
Over Time

This essay is an attempt to explain the persistence of high bridewealth in Lesotho. I argue that the structural conditions of its persistence have changed over time and I develop a macro-economic perspective in which to apprehend its contemporary significance. This approach exposes the weakness of the anthropologist's traditional paradigm of discovering functional consistencies between variables of kinship structure within a relatively homogeneous “society”. For an understanding of social systems on the rural periphery of southern Africa critically depends on assumptions about the way in which these are articulated with the larger political and economic system of the region as a whole. From a methodological point of view the essay may be seen as an attempt to work out systematically the implications of a view that Isaac Schapera has argued in essence throughout his professional life: that piece-meal ethnography can only make sense within its full political, economic and social context.

Crime Films

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferdinando Spina
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Crime Films ◽  
Cultural Transformations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Film Genres

Cinema, together with television, has proved to be perhaps the most extensive, popular, and powerful medium in the representation of crime. From a criminological point of view, the crime films are all those movies whose central theme is crime and its consequences. The crime films should be defined on the basis of their relationship with society. On one hand, crime films say something important about the social context that they represent and from which they have been fashioned. On the other hand, they themselves have an effect on the social context, since their representation of crime, law, justice, and punishment itself becomes culture, acquires meaning, and provides an interpretation of reality. The approach of criminology to crime films has a series of important theoretical and methodological consequences. It leads to a fundamental enrichment of academic knowledge, for example, regarding the themes to be tackled, the disciplines and research methods to be used, and even the forms of teaching. Indeed, the analysis of crime films can help to better investigate many aspects of the perception and understanding of crime, law, and justice in society. The criminological study of crime requires a multifaceted approach, looking at the changing representation of crime and criminals in relation to the wider political, economic, and cultural transformations, and to the commercial and technological development of the cinematographic industry. The historical and thematic reconstruction of the productive and stylistic cycles of crime films comprehends the gangster, noir, detective, courtroom, and prison film genres. Moreover, this perspective deals with the main reasons for the success of crime films, the elements that influence their production, and finally the thorny topic of the effects of crime films.

scholarly journals Shifts in EU Cohesion Policy and Processes of Peripheralization: A View from Central Eastern Europe

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
László Faragó ◽  
Krisztina Varró
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Economic Perspective ◽  
Cohesion Policy ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
Steering Mechanism ◽  
Central Eastern ◽  
Political Economic

The increasing dominance of neoliberalism as the key steering mechanism of the European Union (EU) since the early 1990s has implied the competitiveness-oriented reshaping of cohesion policy. The aim of this paper is to initiate a debate from a critical political economic perspective on the implications of this shift for Central Eastern European (CEE) member states. To this end, the paper discusses the formation of EU centre-periphery relations from a CEE point of view and formulates some preliminary suggestions as to how cohesion policy would need to be rethought in order to ensure the better integration of lagging CEE regions.

scholarly journals Representing the victorious past: Chinese revolutionary TV drama between propaganda and marketization

2021 ◽  
pp. 016344372110227
Author(s):  
Yingzi Wang ◽  
Thoralf Klein
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Fictional Characters ◽  
Production Environment ◽  
Cultural Transformations ◽  
The One ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Revolutionary History ◽  
Over Time

This paper examines the changes and continuities in TV representations of Chinese Communist Party’s revolutionary history and interprets them within the broader context of China’s political, economic and cultural transformations since the 1990s. Drawing on a comparative analysis of three state-sponsored TV dramas produced between the late 1990s and mid-2010s, it traces how the state-sanctioned revolutionary narratives have changed over time in response to the Party’s propaganda imperatives on the one hand, and to the market-oriented production environment on the other. The paper argues that while recent TV productions in the new century have made increasing concessions to audience taste by adopting visually stimulating depictions and introducing fictional characters as points of identification for the audience, the revolutionary narratives were still aligned with the Party’s propaganda agenda at different times. This shows the ongoing competition between ideological and commercial interests in Chinese TV production during the era of market reforms.

scholarly journals From Substitutive to Supplementary: Institutional Interplay between Public and Occupational Sickness Benefits in Finland, 1947-2016

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-80
Author(s):  
Laura Järvi
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Sickness Benefit ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Blue Collar Workers ◽  
Sickness Benefits ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Benefit System

In the context of the Finnish welfare state, this article examines the role of occupational welfare in the interplay between public and occupational sickness benefits from 1947 to 2016, to analyse how the two sickness benefits have interacted over time and the role occupational welfare has played in sickness provision. Previous research has noted that occupational benefits may support or compensate for the much-debated declining welfare state. Hence, it is important to acquire greater knowledge about the public-occupational interplay. The study uses in-depth individual-level analysis from a retrospective point of view, which has been rare in previous research, and examines the public-occupational interplay in the Finnish sickness benefit system from the first national collective agreements to 2016. Based on the reforms made to the public system, the article identifies and utilises six different phases of the Finnish sickness allowance system in the main analysis. The institutional development of sickness provision is investigated by analysing the compensation rate and benefit period, using metalworkers as a representative example of blue-collar workers. The results indicate that occupational benefits are strongly institutionalised in the Finnish sickness benefit system. The interplay between statutory and occupational sickness benefits has taken different forms over time, and occupational benefits have been re-negotiated as the statutory system has been reformed. The article provides valuable information on the historical development and relevance of occupational welfare, in terms of not only understanding its significance for individuals but also comprehending the logic of the interplay in the public-private mix of welfare provision.

Explaining the Epigraphic Habit in the Roman Empire: The Evidence of Epitaphs

1990 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 74-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Over Time

It is now notorious that the production of inscriptions in the Roman Empire was not constant over time, but rose over the first and second centuries A.D. and fell in the third. Ramsay MacMullen pointed this out more than five years ago, with conclusions more cautionary than explanatory: ‘history is not being written in the right way’, he said, for historians have deduced Rome's decline from evidence that–since it appears only epigraphically–has merely disappeared for its own reasons, or have sought general explanations of decline in theories political, economic, or even demographic in nature, none of which can, in turn, explain the disappearance of epigraphy itself. Why this epigraphic habit rose and fell MacMullen left open to question, although he did postulate control by a ‘sense of audience’. The purpose of this paper is to propose that this ‘sense of audience’ was not generalized or generic, but depended on a belief in the value of romanization, of which (as noted but not explained by MacMullen's article) the epigraphic habit is also a rough indicator. Epitaphs constitute the bulk of all provincial inscriptions and in form and number are (generally speaking) the consequence of a provincial imitation of characteristically Roman practices, an imitation that depended on the belief that Roman legal status and style were important, and that may indeed have ultimately depended, at least in North Africa, on the acquisition or prior possession of that status. Such status-based motivations for erecting an epitaph help to explain not only the chronological distribution of epitaphs but also the differences in the type and distribution of epitaphs in the western and eastern halves of the empire. They will be used here moreover to suggest an explanation for the epigraphic habit as a whole.

Inclusive vis-à-vis Exclusionary Constitution: An Analysis of the Current Constitutions of Nepal and Bhutan from Ethnic Lens

2021 ◽  
pp. 097639962097863
Author(s):  
Krishna Prasad Pandey
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
Narrow Sense ◽  
Large Section ◽  
Royal Decree ◽  
Constituent Assembly ◽  
Democratic Rights ◽  
Political Economic

Nepal and Bhutan, two Shangri-las of South Asia, share similar geo-political features but substantially differ in terms of demographic size and ethno-political history. The Constitution of Nepal 2015 which was promulgated by the second Constituent Assembly formed in 2013 came up with its inclusive character as it secured reasonable space for the ethnic minorities and owned their political, economic and cultural concerns. On the contrary, Bhutan adopted a different course in terms of accommodating ethnic and minority aspirations, although the country has also chosen parliamentary democracy in a narrow sense since 2008. From constitutional point of view, Nepal’s move from a liberal to an inclusive constitution made strenuous effort to bring all sections of Nepali society on board but Bhutan’s shift from a royal decree to an exclusionary constitution consciously left a large section of minority behind by suppressing their legitimate claims for basic democratic rights. This article explores the inclusive and exclusionary characters of the current constitutions of these countries from ethnic perspective.

scholarly journals Psychology in an Indeterminate World

2021 ◽  
pp. 174569162095800
Author(s):  
Ludger van Dijk
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Ecological Perspective ◽  
Ecological Approach ◽  
Material World ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
The World ◽  
Indeterminate World ◽  
Over Time

By sharing their world, humans and other animals sustain each other. Their world gets determined over time as generations of animals act in it. Current approaches to psychological science, by contrast, start from the assumption that the world is already determined before an animal’s activity. These approaches seem more concerned with uncertainty about the world than with the practical indeterminacies of the world humans and nonhuman animals experience. As human activity is making life increasingly hard for other animals, this preoccupation becomes difficult to accept. This article introduces an ecological approach to psychology to develop a view that centralizes the indeterminacies of a shared world. Specifically, it develops an open-ended notion of “affordances,” the possibilities for action offered by the environment. Affordances are processes in which (a) the material world invites individual animals to participate, while (b) participation concurrently continues the material world in a particular way. From this point of view, species codetermine the world together. Several empirical and methodological implications of this view on affordances are explored. The article ends with an explanation of how an ecological perspective brings responsibility for the shared world to the heart of psychological science.

Overall Planning of Shanghai New Trade Zone from an Ecological Economic Perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 40-44
Author(s):  
Wence Yu ◽  
Hao Chen ◽  
LiQiang Yang
Keyword(s):  
Free Trade ◽  
Free Trade Area ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Free Trade Zone ◽  
System Structure ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Economic Perspective ◽  
Free Trade Areas ◽  
Ecological Economic ◽  
Trade Area

Since the reform and opening up, the economy of China has rapidly developed. The system, structure, mode, and pattern of the foreign trade in China must be adjusted accordingly to adapt to new economic normality. In this study, the main types of free trade areas worldwide were analyzed, and the necessary conditions for their successful development were examined on the basis of an ecological economic perspective. The Shanghai free trade area is a typical representative of a new type of Trade Zone in China. It introduces the principles of sustainable development, people oriented, green, low-carbon and other eco free trade zones. The planning characteristics of Shanghai free trade zone were studied from the point of view of planning economy and land use. Taking Shanghai Yangshan land free trade zone as an example, the planning research was carried out in terms of functional zoning, environment, transportation and facilities. In summary, this study provided theoretical and technical references for the construction of free trade areas and for the formulation of significant policies.

A network case of knowledge brokering

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joelle Rodway ◽  
Stephen MacGregor ◽  
Alan Daly ◽  
Yi-Hwa Liou ◽  
Susan Yonezawa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Knowledge Exchange ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Network Activity ◽  
Centrality Measures ◽  
Knowledge Brokering ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Knowledge Brokers ◽  
Over Time

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is two-fold: (1) to offer a conceptual understanding of knowledge brokering from a sociometric point-of-view; and (2) to provide an empirical example of this conceptualization in an education context.Design/methodology/approachWe use social network theory and analysis tools to explore knowledge exchange patterns among a group of teachers, instructional coaches and administrators who are collectively seeking to build increased capacity for effective mathematics instruction. We propose the concept of network activity to measure direct and indirect knowledge brokerage through the use of degree and betweenness centrality measures. Further, we propose network utility—measured by tie multiplexity—as a second key component of effective knowledge brokering.FindingsOur findings suggest significant increases in both direct and indirect knowledge brokering activity across the network over time. Teachers, in particular, emerge as key knowledge brokers within this networked learning community. Importantly, there is also an increase in the number of resources exchanged through network relationships over time; the most active knowledge brokers in this social ecosystem are those individuals who are exchanging multiple forms of knowledge.Originality/valueThis study focuses on knowledge brokering as it presents itself in the relational patterns among educators within a social ecosystem. While it could be that formal organizational roles may encapsulate knowledge brokering across physical structures with an education system (e.g. between schools and central offices), these individuals are not necessarily the people who are most effectively brokering knowledge across actors within the broader social network.

Neformalni obrazovni kontekst i nastava prirode i društva u izmenjenom društvenom kontekstu – metodički pristup i značaj

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milana Pivaš
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Practical Implication ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Traditional Paradigm ◽  
Informal Context

Equally effective and demanding for all students, the traditional paradigm prevents independent acquisition of knowledge in a changed social context. Students should be able to independently research and analyze natural and social phenomena and processes. The role of the teacher is to create a complete picture, and not to interpret the content knowledge as biological, geographical, or historical. To avoid the passivity of students in the teaching process, it is necessary to choose an informal context and adapt it to the content being learned. In this paper, we have tried to point out the importance of an integrative approach in the non-formal educational context within the content of the subject Science and Social studies. We have presented the practical implication regarding natural and social contents. Lack of resources, time and interest of teachers are cited as obstacles to this way of working. In addition to pointing out the effective application of the informal context in a changed social context, we also provided suggestions for future research to improve teaching practice.

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