scholarly journals Are ‘the destitute’ destitute? Understanding micro-inequalities through the concept of defiled surpluses

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 251-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Jackman

The poorest and most marginalized people in cities are often understood to be those living in the worst forms of shelter or with none at all. They are labelled the “homeless”, the “destitute” and the “extreme poor”. Based on ethnographic research in Dhaka, Bangladesh, this article challenges this association, arguing that living in the worst conditions can enable people to earn, save, and invest in lives and livelihoods elsewhere. Their capacity to do so is generally related to the urban potential for creating “defiled surpluses”, resources that can be productively exploited but at the cost of an association with the defiled. These costs and opportunities are not however equally distributed, and recognizing this helps us to understand the nature of micro-inequalities. In Dhaka the presence of people living on pavements and in markets, parks and transport terminals can represent destitution, but also the astute negotiation of the city.

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-72
Author(s):  
Ade Irma

This research is based on the background of the custom of the people who still do land cultivation by burning. This happens because people assume that the technique of burning is cheaper and faster, but this technique has many negative impacts. The technique of processing land without combustion is a recommended technique to use because it is safer and environmentally friendly, but there are still many people who are reluctant to do so because the cost is very large. The purpose of this research is to find out the land management system that is commonly carried out by the community and analyze the process of adopting innovations in land processing without burning by the people in Dumai City. This research method uses survey and interview methods. Sampling using the snowballsampling method was 14 respondents. Based on the results of the study, the treatment system carried out by the people in Dumai City experienced a transition, from how to burn without burning. The level of adoption of non-roasted land processing innovations in Dumai City through the process of community knowledge, persuasion, adoption decisions, implementation, and confirmation with a medium category indicated by the score category of 3.30.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 374-395
Author(s):  
Rafael Ignacio Estrada Mejia ◽  
Carla Guerrón Guerron Montero

This article aims to decrease the cultural invisibility of the wealthy by exploring the Brazilian emergent elites and their preferred living arrangement: elitist closed condominiums (BECCs) from a micropolitical perspective.  We answer the question: What is the relationship between intimacy and subjectivity that is produced in the collective mode of existence of BECCs? To do so, we trace the history of the elite home, from the master’s house (casa grande) to contemporary closed condominiums. Following, we discuss the features of closed condominiums as spaces of segregation, fragmentation and social distinction, characterized by minimal public life and an internalized sociability. Finally, based on ethnographic research conducted in the mid-size city of Londrina (state of Paraná) between 2015 and 2017, we concentrate on four members of the emergent elite who live in BECCs, addressing their collective production of subjectivity. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-86
Author(s):  
Cinthia Torres Toledo ◽  
Marília Pinto de Carvalho

Black working-class boys are the group with the most significant difficulties in their schooling process. In dialogue with Raewyn Connell, we seek to analyze how the collective conceptions of peer groups have influenced the school engagement of Brazilian boys. We conducted an ethnographic research with students around the age of 14 at an urban state school in the periphery of the city of São Paulo. We analyzed the hierarchization process between two groups of boys, demonstrating the existence of a collective notion of masculinity that works against engagement with the school. Well-known to the Anglophone academic literature, this association is rather uncommon in the Brazilian literature. We have therefore attempted to describe and analyze here the challenges faced by Black working-class Brazilian boys to establish more positive educational trajectories.


Journal ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carole McGranahan

How do we teach undergraduate students to think ethnographically, to recognize something as ethnographic and not just as qualitative? Importantly, how do we do so not in the field, where students might learn by doing their own research, but in the static classroom? One approach is to have students cultivate a concept, awareness, and practice of an ethnographic sensibility, that is, of a sense of the ethnographic as the lived expectations, complexities, contradictions, possibilities, and ground of any given cultural group. Such a view opens up an understanding of ethnography and ethnographic research as more than available qualitative methods. Instead, it takes an ethnographic approach to be an epistemological one. Yet, how might we do this? In this article, I discuss my pedagogical strategies for teaching students an ethnographic sensibility without having them conduct fieldwork. I argue that it is both possible and valuable to generate an ethnographic sensibility in the classroom. 


Author(s):  
Mirza Sangin Beg

The second part of the translation has three segments. The first is dedicated to the history of Delhi from the time of the Mahabharat to the periods of Anangpal Tomar to the Mughal Emperor Humayun as also Sher Shah, the Afghan ruler. In the second and third segments Mirza Sangin Beg adroitly navigates between twin centres of power in the city. He writes about Qila Mubarak, or the Red Fort, and gives an account of the several buildings inside it and the cost of construction of the same. He ambles into the precincts and mentions the buildings constructed by Shahjahan and other rulers, associating them with some specific inmates of the fort and the functions performed within them. When the author takes a walk in the city of Shahjahanabad, he writes of numerous residents, habitations of rich, poor, and ordinary people, their mansions and localities, general and specialized bazars, the in different skills practised areas, places of worship and revelry, processions exemplifying popular culture and local traditions, and institutions that had a resonance in other cultures. The Berlin manuscript gives generous details of the officials of the English East India Company, both native and foreign, their professions, and work spaces. Mirza Sangin Beg addresses the issue of qaum most unselfconsciously and amorphously.


1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 461-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. E. Albertson ◽  
P. Hendricks

A 1630 L/s activated sludge plant at Phoenix was limited to an average rate of 1050 L/s and operated, at 400-600 mg/L MLSS and 0.8-1.3 day solids retention time (SRT) due to bulking sludge and limited clarification capacity. Higher SRTs also produced uncontrolled Nocardia foaming and low dissolved oxygen due to partial nitrification. The City retained the services of a team of consultants to resolve these problems as well as to upgrade the plant to provide nitrification and total nitrogen removal. An anoxic selector design was implemented within the existing basin and the clarifiers were modified to improve inlet design and sludge transport. The modified advanced wastewater treatment (AWT) plant operating at 1450 L/s has averaged an effluent of 7.6 mg/L BOD5, 8.2 mg/L TSS, 1.3 mg/L NH4N, 4.1 mg/L NO3N and 2.9 mg/L TP. Oxygen transfer efficiency has increased about 80% in the nitrification-denitrification (NdeN) mode. The cost of modification/upgrading to AWT was approximately $730,000 and a 400 L/s increase in hydraulic capacity was realized. Upgrading costs were $5.63/m3 ($0.02/gal.)


2021 ◽  
pp. 147447402110205
Author(s):  
Shruti Ragavan

Balconies, windows and terraces have come to be identified as spaces with newfound meaning over the past year due to the Covid-19 pandemic and concomitant lockdowns. There was not only a marked increase in the use of these spaces, but more importantly a difference in the very nature of this use since March 2020. It is keeping this latter point in mind, that I make an attempt to understand the spatial mobilities afforded by the balcony in the area of ethnographic research. The street overlooking my balcony, situated amidst an urban village in the city of Delhi – one of my field sites, is composed of middle and lower-middle class residents, dairy farms and farmers, bovines and other nonhumans. In this note, through ethnographic observations, I reflect upon the balcony as constituting that liminal space between ‘field’ and ‘home’, as well as, as a spatial framing device which conditions and affects our observations and interactions. This is explored by examining two elements – the gendered nature of the space, and the notion of ‘distance and proximity’, through personal narratives of engaging-with the field, and subjects-objects of study in the city.


Author(s):  
Khee Giap Tan ◽  
Nguyen Trieu Duong Luu ◽  
Le Phuong Anh Nguyen

Purpose Cost of living is an important consideration for the decision-making of expatriates and investment decisions of businesses. As competition between cities for talent and capital becomes global instead of national, the need for timely and internationally comparable information on global cities’ cost of living increases. While commercial research houses frequently publish cost of living surveys, these reports can be lacking in terms of scientific rigour. In this context, this paper aims to contribute to the literature by formulating a comprehensive and rigorous methodology to compare the cost of living for expatriates in 103 world’s major cities. Design/methodology/approach A cost of living index for expatriates composed of the ten consumption categories is constructed. The results from the study covers a study period from 2005 to 2014 in 103 cities. More than 280 individual prices of 165 goods and services have been compiled for each city in the calculation of the cost of living index for expatriates. New York has been chosen as the base city for the study, with other cities being benchmarked against it. A larger cost of living index for expatriates implies that the city is more expensive for expatriates to live in and vice versa. Findings While the authors generate the cost of living rankings for expatriates for 103 cities worldwide, in this paper, the authors focus on five key cities, namely, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Zurich, as they are global financial centres. In 2013, the latest year for which data are available, Zurich was the most expensive for expatriates among the five cities, followed by Singapore, Tokyo, London and Hong Kong. These results pertain to the cost of living for expatriates, and cities compare very differently in terms of cost of living for ordinary residents, as ordinary residents follow different consumption patterns from expatriates. Originality/value Cost of living in the destination city is a major consideration for professionals who look to relocate, and organisations factor such calculations in their decisions to post employees overseas and design commensurate compensation packages. This paper develops a comprehensive and rigorous methodology for measuring and comparing cost of living for expatriates around the world. The value-addition lies in the fact that the authors are able to differentiate between expatriates and ordinary residents, which has not been done in the existing literature. They use higher quality data and generate an index that is not sensitive to the choice of base city.


2021 ◽  
Vol 182 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-162
Author(s):  
I. G. Loskutov

Among the chronicles relating the heroism of the besieged Leningrad, there are pages dedicated to the deeds performed by the staff the world-famous All-Union Research Institute of Plant Industry (VIR, now the N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources). With the beginning of the war, even before the city was surrounded by the Nazi troops, the government decided to evacuate a number of factories and institutes from Leningrad, including VIR, but the plan failed. Only in winter did the Institute start partial evacuation, although preparations had been going on for a long time. The largest and most important part of the collection was left behind in the besieged city. The remaining employees were forced to work under the hardest conditions of the siege, in unheated premises. In the harsh reality of the winter in 1941–1942, the daily bread rationing was cut down, and hunger raged in the city, killing tens of thousands of city residents, including VIR employees who kept the stored seeds and tubers untouched. The most difficult part was preserving the potato collection. In the spring of 1942, preparations were made for sowing to restore the viability of seeds and tubers in the fields of Leningrad’s suburban area under the fire from the enemy artillery. Only the heroic efforts of VIR’s staff helped to save the collection from destruction and loss of germination. This heroism cost more than 20 experts and scientists their lives. So, the most dangerous period for the Institute was overcome at such price. Immediately after the siege was lifted, a group of experts was sent to Leningrad from Krasnoufimsk to help with selecting seed accessions for urgent reproduction. Working under extreme physical exhaustion in frozen premises, without water or electricity, under continuous shelling, they saved, many at the cost of their own lives, the collection of cultivated plants and their wild relatives, the herbarium, and the scientific library for future generations. 


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