Ethnic Violence Across Space

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannes Mueller ◽  
Dominic Rohner ◽  
David Schönholzer

Abstract Spatial analyses focus to a large extent on the ‘bright side of proximity’, namely voluntary (positive-sum) interactions such as, e.g., in trade and innovation. In contrast, the violent ‘dark side of proximity’ has often been overlooked. To address this gap, we study the role of spatial proximity in ethnic conflict, developing a structural model of spatial violence in which ethnic groups recruit fighters strategically across space. The spatial decay of violence determines the equilibrium placement of fighters and drives specific spatial patterns of conflict. The structural parameters of the model are estimated using fine-grained data on ethnic groups and violence from 24 ethnically divided countries. We find that in more than half of these, spatial decay is substantial: half of all ethnic violence dissipates after 350km. Violence is asymmetric, is higher near ethnic borders and typically originates from outside a location. Counterfactual estimates suggest that setting up barriers would reduce violence but pacifying groups suffering from grievances would often be more effective.

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 767-775 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tibor Koltay

Purpose The complex phenomenon of information overload (IO) is one of the pathologies in our present information environment, thus symbolically it signalizes the existence of a dark side of information. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the approaches on mitigating IO. Hence, it is an attempt to display the bright side. Design/methodology/approach Based on a literature review, the sources of IO are briefly presented, not forgetting about the role of information technology and the influence of the data-intensive world. The main attention is given to the possible ways of mitigating IO. Findings It is underlined that there are both technological and social approaches towards easing the symptoms of IO. While reducing IO by increasing search task delegation is a far away goal, solutions emerge when information is properly designed and tools of information architecture are applied to enable findability. A wider range of coping strategies is available when we interact with information. The imperative of being critical against information by exercising critical thinking and critical reading yields results if different, discipline-dependent literacies, first of all information literacy and data literacy are acquired and put into operation, slow principles are followed and personal information management (PIM) tools are applied. Originality/value The paper intends to be an add-on to the recent discussions and the evolving body of knowledge about the relationship between IO and information architecture, various literacies and PIM.


Author(s):  
Maria Weimer

This chapter discusses the ideational foundations of risk and its implications for regulation. It begins with an overview of the risk discourse, focusing in particular on the ‘bright’ and ‘dark’ sides of risk. On its ‘bright’ side, risk is viewed as an achievement of modernity; on its ‘dark’ side, it is described as a new technological and potentially uncontrollable hazard. The chapter then considers the roles played by risk in regulation and explains the distinction between regulation and risk regulation, along with the challenges posed by risk to public regulation. It also examines the contestability of risk and how risk differs from uncertainty, as well as the role of science and risk management principles in stabilizing risk regulation, taking into account the use of the precautionary principle and cost-benefit analysis. Finally, it analyses the rational–instrumental model of evidence-based regulation that distinguishes epistemic authority from governance authority in risk regulation.


Author(s):  
M.D. Tokmazishvili

Resolution of ethno-political conflicts in the Caucasus by political means is in a “deadlock”, and peaceful economic projects in conflict zones face political obstacles. The economic isolation of states and the fragmentation of the regional market impede the development of countries, and the resolution of conflicts is hampered by opposing strategic political vectors of regional states, that negatively affect their economic growth. In this context, the article states that when political tools are not sufficient for integration, economic and social goals should be rationalized for the purpose of cohabitation and coexistence of people of different ethnic groups and cultures in the region. In the article, the author attempts to investigate the role of economic and social events as factors for mitigating ethnopolitical conflicts; determines how the economization of conflicts can affect the integration processes and strategies of Georgia in relation to the breakaway republics.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-130
Author(s):  
Ha Ngan Ngo ◽  
Maya Khemlani David

Vietnam represents a country with 54 ethnic groups; however, the majority (88%) of the population are of Vietnamese heritage. Some of the other ethnic groups such as Tay, Thai, Muong, Hoa, Khmer, and Nung have a population of around 1 million each, while the Brau, Roman, and Odu consist only of a hundred people each. Living in northern Vietnam, close to the Chinese border (see Figure 1), the Tay people speak a language of the    Central    Tai language group called Though, T'o, Tai Tho, Ngan, Phen, Thu Lao, or Pa Di. Tay remains one of 10 ethnic languages used by 1 million speakers (Buoi, 2003). The Tày ethnic group has a rich culture of wedding songs, poems, dance, and music and celebrate various festivals. Wet rice cultivation, canal digging and grain threshing on wooden racks are part of the Tày traditions. Their villages situated near the foothills often bear the names of nearby mountains, rivers, or fields. This study discusses the status and role of the Tày language in Northeast Vietnam. It discusses factors, which have affected the habitual use of the Tay language, the connection between language shift and development and provides a model for the sustainability and promotion of minority languages. It remains fundamentally imperative to strengthen and to foster positive attitudes of the community towards the Tày language. Tày’s young people must be enlightened to the reality their Tày non-usage could render their mother tongue defunct, which means their history stands to be lost.


Author(s):  
Nancy Farriss

Language and translation governed the creation of Mexican Christianity during the first centuries of colonial rule. Spanish missionaries collaborated with indigenous intellectuals to communicate the gospel in dozens of local languages that had previously lacked grammars, dictionaries, or alphabetic script. The major challenge to translators, more serious than the absence of written aids or the great diversity of languages and their phonetic and syntactical complexity, was the vast cultural difference between the two worlds. The lexical gaps that frustrated the search for equivalence in conveying fundamental Christian doctrines derived from cultural gaps that separated European experiences and concepts from those of the Indians. This study focuses on the Otomangue languages of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, especially Zapotec, and relates their role in the Dominican evangelizing program to the larger frame of culture contact in postconquest Mesoamerica. Fine-grained analysis of translated texts is used to reveal the rhetorical strategies of missionary discourse and combines with an examination of language contact in different social contexts. A major aim is to spotlight the role of the native elites in shaping what emerged as a new form of Christianity. As translators, chief catechists, and parish administrators they made evangelization in many respects an indigenous enterprise and the Mexican church it created an indigenous church.


2021 ◽  
pp. 089331892199807
Author(s):  
Jonathan Clifton ◽  
Fernando Fachin ◽  
François Cooren

To date there has been little work that uses fine-grained interactional analyses of the in situ doing of leadership to make visible the role of non-human as well as human actants in this process. Using transcripts of naturally-occurring interaction as data, this study seeks to show how leadership is co-achieved by artefacts as an in-situ accomplishment. To do this we situate this study within recent work on distributed leadership and argue that it is not only distributed across human actors, but also across networks that include both human and non-human actors. Taking a discursive approach to leadership, we draw on Actor Network Theory and adopt a ventriloquial approach to sociomateriality as inspired by the Montreal School of organizational communication. Findings indicate that artefacts “do” leadership when a hybrid presence is made relevant to the interaction and when this presence provides authoritative grounds for influencing others to achieve the group’s goals.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Rivera-Lillo ◽  
Emmanuel A. Stamatakis ◽  
Tristan A. Bekinschtein ◽  
David K. Menon ◽  
Srivas Chennu

AbstractThe overt or covert ability to follow commands in patients with disorders of consciousness is considered a sign of awareness and has recently been defined as cortically mediated behaviour. Despite its clinical relevance, the brain signatures of the perceptual processing supporting command following have been elusive. This multimodal study investigates the temporal spectral pattern of electrical brain activity to identify features that differentiated healthy controls from patients both able and unable to follow commands. We combined evidence from behavioural assessment, functional neuroimaging during mental imagery and high-density electroencephalography collected during auditory prediction, from 21 patients and 10 controls. We used a penalised regression model to identify command following using features from electroencephalography. We identified seven well-defined spatiotemporal signatures in the delta, theta and alpha bands that together contribute to identify DoC subjects with and without the ability to follow command, and further distinguished these groups of patients from controls. A fine-grained analysis of these seven signatures enabled us to determine that increased delta modulation at the frontal sensors was the main feature in command following patients. In contrast, higher frequency theta and alpha modulations differentiated controls from both groups of patients. Our findings highlight a key role of spatiotemporally specific delta modulation in supporting cortically mediated behaviour including the ability to follow command. However, patients able to follow commands nevertheless have marked differences in brain activity in comparison with healthy volunteers.


2021 ◽  
pp. 003329412199778
Author(s):  
Luca Tisu ◽  
Andrei Rusu ◽  
Coralia Sulea ◽  
Delia Vîrgă

Job resources play a prominent role in employee performance literature, yet a fine-grained understanding of how resources are relevant for several performance types is still needed. Relying on the Job Demands-Resources and Conservation of Resources theories, the present study addresses this call in two ways. First, it examines the predictive effect of four job resources (i.e., role clarity, feedback, autonomy, and opportunities for development) on nine types of performance (i.e., proficiency, adaptivity, and proactivity as an individual, team, and organization member). Second, it tests the moderator role of strengths use in these relationships. Data was gathered from a sample of Romanian employees (N = 332) and analyzed via hierarchical multiple linear regression. The results indicate that the selected job resources are, indeed, predictors of different types of employee performance and not in a unitary manner. Role clarity and feedback appear to be the most relevant predictors for various performance types, while autonomy seems to be the least important. Also, strengths use moderates these relationships, but in a reinforcing manner only regarding opportunities for development. The interaction of strengths use with role clarity and feedback renders the latter two obsolete, indicating that individual strategies may act as substitutes for job resources. These findings add to the Job Demands-Resources theory's versatile nature and provide more clarity to practitioners who plan interventions to enhance specific performance types, taking individual strategies into account.


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