scholarly journals Infrastructure and inequality: An archaeology of the Inka road through the Amaybamba cloud forests

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darryl Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Human Subjects ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Infrastructure Projects ◽  
Cloud Forests ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Inka Empire ◽  
State Infrastructure

One of the most important ways in which material inequalities are reproduced is through state infrastructure projects. Although infrastructure has long been studied in archaeology, this has mainly been as an index of complexity and centralized government—and less so as a means to create social distinctions among human subjects. This article therefore examines a precolonial highway built under the auspices of the Inka Empire, located in the cloud forests of the eastern Andes. In particular, it emphasizes the radically divergent experiences of the elites, who mostly interacted with roads as instrument of travel and knowledge, as compared with nonelites, who encountered them as objects of maintenance, cleaning, and repair. Although ethnographic research centered on modern nation-states tends to focus on variable access to infrastructure as the basis for inequality, I argue that inequality is also manifest through radically different experiences of the same infrastructures, a fact which is particularly relevant in many nonmodern contexts.

Preparedness for Mass Casualty Incidents: The Effectiveness of Current Training Model

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Seema Biswas ◽  
Hany Bahouth ◽  
Evgeny Solomonov ◽  
Igor Waksman ◽  
Michael Halberthal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Disaster Management ◽  
Emergency Services ◽  
Traumatic Event ◽  
Management Training ◽  
Training Model ◽  
Mass Casualty ◽  
The Public ◽  
Physical Injuries ◽  
Nation States ◽  
State Infrastructure

Abstract The importance of MCI organization and training was highlighted by the events of September 11, 2001. Training focuses on the management of physical injuries caused by a single traumatic event over a well-defined, relatively short timeframe. MCI management is integrated into surgical and trauma training, with disaster management training involving the emergency services, law enforcement, and state infrastructure agencies. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed gaps in the preparedness of nation states and global partners in disaster management. The questions that arose include ‘has training really prepared us for an actual emergency,’ ‘what changes need to be made to training to make it more effective,’ and ‘who else should training be extended to?’ This article focuses on the importance of involving multiple sectors in mass casualty training and asks whether greater involvement of non-medical agencies and the public, in operational drills might improve preparedness for global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Mayan ontology of poultry: Selfhood, affect, animals, and ethnography

2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Kockelman
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
William James ◽  
Linguistic Anthropology ◽  
Charles Sanders Peirce ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
George Herbert ◽  
George Herbert Mead ◽  
Cloud Forests ◽  
The World

AbstractThis article has three key themes: ontology (what kinds of beings there are in the world), affect (cognitive and corporeal attunements to such entities), and selfhood (relatively reflexive centers of attunement). To explore these themes, I focus on women's care for chickens among speakers of Q'eqchi' Maya living in the cloud forests of highland Guatemala. Broadly speaking, I argue that these three themes are empirically, methodologically, and theoretically inseparable. In addition, the chicken is a particularly rich site for such ethnographic research because it is simultaneously self, alter, and object for its owners. To undertake this analysis, I adopt a semiotic stance towards such themes, partly grounded in the writings of the American pragmatists Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and George Herbert Mead, and partly grounded in recent and classic scholarship by linguists, psychologists, and anthropologists. (Linguistic anthropology, political economy, ontology, affect, selfhood, animals, chickens, Mesoamerica, Maya, Q'eqchi')*

“Make Holy the Bare Life”

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-291
Author(s):  
Steve Pavey ◽  
Marco Saavedra
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Collaborative Work ◽  
The United States ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
Undocumented Immigrant ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Bare Life ◽  
Undocumented Youth ◽  
Nation States

This article examines thevivencias en la vida cotidiana(everyday lived experiences) of undocumented youth activists in theusaat the intersection where dislocated “bare lives” encounter the hegemonic sovereign power of the nation-state (Agamben 1998). As nearly 2.1 million undocumented immigrant youth in the United States face the precarious reality of “learning to be illegal” (Gonzales 2011) and the threat of “deportability” (De Genova and Peutz 2010), a growing movement of undocumented youth fight for the dignity and liberation of their community while the light of their activism illuminates the majority who remain in the shadows. Based on three years of ethnographic research and action within the undocumented youth activist movement, this article utilizes a dialogical framework through collaborative and participatory based research methods to examine the theological dimensions of “illegal” and “bare” lives on the margins lived between the borders of citizenship and human dignity, between nation-states and the kingdom of God. The research and writing are grounded in a methodological and theological praxis with the marginalized, embodied most poignantly in the co-authors collaborative work and friendship.

The Eyes of Odars

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Randa Nucho
Keyword(s):  
Social Conditions ◽  
Infrastructure Projects ◽  
Municipal Governance ◽  
Neighborhood Scale ◽  
State Infrastructure ◽  
The Way

This chapter jumps beyond the neighborhood scale to a city-to-city collaboration between Bourj Hammoud and a foreign municipality as a means of challenging Lebanese state infrastructure projects. It analyzes the ways in which the overlapping jurisdictions of power go far beyond the fragmented infrastructures of the neighborhood block to transnational circulations of expertise and resources. In doing so, it demonstrates how the popular notion that Lebanon's infrastructural and conflict-oriented problems could be solved through a strong centralized state or through the ideology of decentralization completely ignores the way that municipal governance works through overlapping jurisdictions. While Lebanese centralized state-sponsored infrastructure projects have had a destructive impact on environmental and social conditions in Bourj Hammoud, municipality-endorsed initiatives have often been equally destructive.

Ethics Review and the Minority Ethnographer

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Tapia ◽  
Rubén O. Martinez
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Public University ◽  
Systematic Investigation ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Institutional Review ◽  
Risk Research ◽  
Regulatory Landscape

This article examines some of the implications of the current human subjects regulatory landscape for conducting “high-risk” ethnographic research. We synthesize a classical Weberian framework with recent sociological literature on bureaucratic hybridization to theorize on this aspect of the academy. This perspective frames an autoethnographic case study on administrative dynamics at a large, public university to illustrate how certain racialized biases can hinder a research agenda. Broader issues in the current institutional review board (IRB) reform process contextualize this study on the potential for the invalidation of certain forms of criminological ethnography by pretenured minority scholars. To the extent that such experiences are common among untenured minority ethnographers, this article addresses racialized bias at the institutional, ideological, and individual levels. These forces can stratify even the most egalitarian of institutions along race–ethnic lines, impacting the production and legitimation of knowledge. We make recommendations to young academics engaging in high-risk research with human subjects and call for a more systematic investigation of researchers’ experiences with the IRB.

scholarly journals Family lives on hold: Bureaucratic bordering in male refugees’ struggle for transnational care

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-454
Author(s):  
Lena Näre
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Family Relations ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Transnational Families ◽  
Refugee Families ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Forced Migrants ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Migration Regimes

This article analyses practices of transnational care and the lives of male asylum seekers and refugee families in the context of increasingly restrictive border and migration regimes. Research on transnationalism, transnational families, and care among forced migrants has emphasised the importance of the institutional context in transnational care and family relations across borders. This article contributes to the extant literature by examining how bureaucratic bordering – within nation states and beyond – restricts the possibilities of refugees in providing care to their family members and reuniting. The article also examines the struggles experienced by male refugees at bureaucratic borders. These struggles reveal a central dimension to transnational care that relates to the bureaucracy of visas and residence permits. The article highlights the importance of temporality and examines how the lives of refugee families are affected by extended and bureaucratically induced waiting. The article is based on ethnographic research conducted on Iraqi and Afghan asylum seekers in Finland in 2017–2019 and focuses on three asylum seekers in particular – namely, Amal, Sajed, and Yasin.

Elevated level of circulatory sTLT1 induces inflammation through SYK/MEK/ERK signalling in coronary artery disease

2019 ◽  
Vol 133 (22) ◽  
pp. 2283-2299
Author(s):  
Apabrita Ayan Das ◽  
Devasmita Chakravarty ◽  
Debmalya Bhunia ◽  
Surajit Ghosh ◽  
Prakash C. Mandal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Coronary Artery Disease ◽  
Coronary Artery ◽  
Chronic Inflammation ◽  
Ex Vivo ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease ◽  
Tnf Α ◽  
Artery Disease

Abstract The role of inflammation in all phases of atherosclerotic process is well established and soluble TREM-like transcript 1 (sTLT1) is reported to be associated with chronic inflammation. Yet, no information is available about the involvement of sTLT1 in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Present study was undertaken to determine the pathophysiological significance of sTLT1 in atherosclerosis by employing an observational study on human subjects (n=117) followed by experiments in human macrophages and atherosclerotic apolipoprotein E (apoE)−/− mice. Plasma level of sTLT1 was found to be significantly (P<0.05) higher in clinical (2342 ± 184 pg/ml) and subclinical cases (1773 ± 118 pg/ml) than healthy controls (461 ± 57 pg/ml). Moreover, statistical analyses further indicated that sTLT1 was not only associated with common risk factors for Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) in both clinical and subclinical groups but also strongly correlated with disease severity. Ex vivo studies on macrophages showed that sTLT1 interacts with Fcɣ receptor I (FcɣRI) to activate spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK)-mediated downstream MAP kinase signalling cascade to activate nuclear factor-κ B (NF-kB). Activation of NF-kB induces secretion of tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) from macrophage cells that plays pivotal role in governing the persistence of chronic inflammation. Atherosclerotic apoE−/− mice also showed high levels of sTLT1 and TNF-α in nearly occluded aortic stage indicating the contribution of sTLT1 in inflammation. Our results clearly demonstrate that sTLT1 is clinically related to the risk factors of CAD. We also showed that binding of sTLT1 with macrophage membrane receptor, FcɣR1 initiates inflammatory signals in macrophages suggesting its critical role in thrombus development and atherosclerosis.

Intradermal challenge with interleukin-8 causes tissue oedema and neutrophil accumulation in atopic and non-atopic human subjects

1996 ◽  
Vol 26 (12) ◽  
pp. 1371-1379 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Douglass ◽  
D. Dhami ◽  
M. Bulpitt ◽  
I. J. Lindley ◽  
J. Shute ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Subjects ◽  
Interleukin 8 ◽  
Neutrophil Accumulation ◽  
Tissue Oedema

Research Recommendations for Applying Vitamin A-Labelled Isotope Dilution Techniques to Improve Human Vitamin A Nutrition

2014 ◽  
Vol 84 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 52-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sherry A. Tanumihardjo ◽  
Anura V. Kurpad ◽  
Janet R. Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Vitamin A ◽  
Vitamin A Deficiency ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
The Body ◽  
Pool Size ◽  
Serum Retinol ◽  
Vitamin A Status ◽  
Status Assessment ◽  
Total Body

The current use of serum retinol concentrations as a measurement of subclinical vitamin A deficiency is unsatisfactory for many reasons. The best technique available for vitamin A status assessment in humans is the measurement of total body pool size. Pool size is measured by the administration of retinol labelled with stable isotopes of carbon or hydrogen that are safe for human subjects, with subsequent measurement of the dilution of the labelled retinol within the body pool. However, the isotope techniques are time-consuming, technically challenging, and relatively expensive. There is also a need to assess different types of tracers and doses, and to establish clear guidelines for the use and interpretation of this method in different populations. Field-friendly improvements are desirable to encourage the application of this technique in developing countries where the need is greatest for monitoring the risk of vitamin A deficiency, the effectiveness of public health interventions, and the potential of hypervitaminosis due to combined supplement and fortification programs. These techniques should be applied to validate other less technical methods of assessing vitamin A deficiency. Another area of public health relevance for this technique is to understand the bioconversion of β-carotene to vitamin A, and its relation to existing vitamin A status, for future dietary diversification programs.

Delay Discounting in Impulsive Behavior

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 312-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Moreira ◽  
Fernando Barbosa
Keyword(s):  
Delay Discounting ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Cochrane Collaboration ◽  
Initial Assessment ◽  
Impulsive Behavior ◽  
Manual Search ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
The Future

Abstract. Delay discounting (DD) is the process of devaluing results that happen in the future. With this review, we intend to identify specificities in the processes of DD in impulsive behavior. Studies were retrieved from multiple literature databases, through rigorous criteria (we included systematic reviews and empirical studies with adult human subjects), following the procedures of the Cochrane Collaboration initiative. Of the 174 documents obtained, 19 were considered eligible for inclusion and were retained for in-depth analysis. In addition, 13 studies from the manual search were included. Thus, a total of 32 studies were selected for review. The objectives/hypotheses, results, and the main conclusion(s) were extracted from each study. Results show that people with pronounced traits of impulsivity discount rewards more markedly, that is, they prefer immediate rewards, though of less value, or postponed losses, even though they worsen in the future. Taken together, the existing data suggest the importance of inserting DD as a tool for initial assessment in conjunction with measures of addiction and stress level, as well as the consideration of new therapies.

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