Conundrums in the House of Wailing

differences ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 114-146
Author(s):  
Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf
Keyword(s):  
Local Communities ◽  
Physical Suffering ◽  
Property Inheritance

This essay examines widowhood rites and traditions in Northern Muslim Sudan, including those sanctioned by religion (that is, property inheritance and widows’ internment) and those endorsed by local communities. The microhistorical ethnographic accounts in this essay illustrate the deep psychological and physical suffering that narrators experienced as they navigated the labyrinth of socially sanctioned practices in their communities. They also communicate lessons about deep structures of power and the blurred boundaries of religion and ritual. The narratives reveal that despite the tenacity of male governance, female in-laws wield tremendous power in the rites that widows deem discriminatory. While interlocutors in this essay stress the near impossibility of a widow escaping the tentacles of authority and the empathy deficit stemming from it, others who have resisted these widowhood rituals show us how women can conjure the agency to negotiate both the bottlenecks and the thresholds in their paths.

Adventure Capitalists

2019 ◽  
pp. 89-147
Author(s):  
Cathal Kilcline
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Sports Media ◽  
Death Toll ◽  
Physical Suffering ◽  
The World ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Adventure Sports

The popularity of the Paris-Dakar rally in the 1980s drew on both a growing market for new adventure sports in France and nostalgia for colonial-era narratives of desert exploration. Since its inception, the event has provided a spectacle of motorised speed, physical suffering, technical prowess and logistical expertise, set against a backdrop of splendid scenery. The race has also been criticised for transforming some of the poorest locations in the world into a playground for a (predominantly) Western and wealthy elite and for the death toll that it has incurred in its wake. Such criticisms followed the rally along its various African itineraries and on its transposition to South America in 2009. In its early versions, the Paris-Dakar was the vehicle for the nostalgic re-enactment of French colonial-era exploits in Africa, and the subject of virulent criticism for its neo-colonial connotations and material effects. The contemporary ‘Dakar’ emerges in this analysis as a demonstration of the ‘deterritorialising’ potential of the sports-media nexus, with its opponents attesting to its contribution to the global disenfranchisement of local communities.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Paul Apostolidis
Keyword(s):  
Popular Education ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Day Laborers ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
Geographical Mobility ◽  
Physical Suffering ◽  
Everyday Work ◽  
Political Commitments

In today’s precaritized world, working people’s experiences strangely are becoming more alike even as their disparities increase. This puzzling situation characterizes workers’ intensified psycho-physical suffering, increasing atomization, growing geographical mobility, and mounting struggles with temporal compressions and discontinuities. Yet precarious workers are fighting back, as worldwide upsurges on the left demonstrate. Migrant day laborers’ experiences and reflections offer promising grounds for crafting a critical approach to precarity that addresses both its exceptional and its widely encompassing aspects. Day labor centers are expanding in numbers, tethering dislocated migrants to local communities, building multiscalar networks, innovating organizationally as unions decline, and repurposing temporal gaps in everyday work-life. In addition, day laborers’ lively intellectual culture of popular education suggests new ways to activate theoretically and politically sharpening contact between popular ideas and scholars’ critiques of precarity. This introduction sets the stage for such inquiry by describing the project’s fieldwork, analytical process, and political commitments.

A Court in Decline? Examining the Regality Court Records of Melrose, Roxburghshire, 1657–84

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Vivienne Dunstan
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Local Area ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Court Records ◽  
Seminal Work

McIntyre, in his seminal work on Scottish franchise courts, argues that these courts were in decline in this period, and of little relevance to their local population. 1 But was that really the case? This paper explores that question, using a particularly rich set of local court records. By analysing the functions and significance of one particular court it assesses the role of this one court within its local area, and considers whether it really was in decline at this time, or if it continued to perform a vital role in its local community. The period studied is the mid to late seventeenth century, a period of considerable upheaval in Scottish life, that has attracted considerable attention from scholars, though often less on the experiences of local communities and people.

TERRITORIAL MANAGEMENT CONTRACTS: A MODEL FOR A GLOBAL MANAGEMENT OF THE TERRITORY

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucia ROCCHI ◽  
Adriano CIANI
Keyword(s):  
Local Communities ◽  
Social Activities ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Global Management ◽  
Single Solution ◽  
Territorial Management ◽  
Management Contracts

Bottom-up solutions for managing the territory have been increase their importance in the last years. Local communities want to be involved in the management of the territory to avoid problems and to promote economic and social activities. Several different forms of participatory contracts have been developed during the last decades. However, a framework to enforce each single solution are required. The Territorial Management Contracts (TMCs) would like to give a contribute in such a direction. The contribute briefly illustrates the Territorial Management Contracts, to open a debate on them.

Preliminary Report on the Research of “Activity Centers” in Taidong, Taiwan

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-125
Author(s):  
Petr Janda
Keyword(s):  
Preliminary Report ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Traditional Beliefs ◽  
Aboriginal Communities ◽  
Religious Significance ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Symbolic Value ◽  
Suitable Location

This report presents current research on aboriginal activity centers in Taidong County, Taiwan, primarily in the townships of Chishang and Yanping with over 30% of the population being of aboriginal ancestry. Taidong County is the region with the most distinctive aboriginal communities in Taiwan. The research attempts to identify the actors behind the operation of such centers and their significance for aboriginal communities. The research investigates the process of selecting suitable location for the facilities, the specific features of such centers, the potential religious significance of the locations including the role of traditional beliefs in predominantly Christian aboriginal communities, the symbolic value of structures built in the traditional style for construction of ethnicity and financing that enables the construction of the facilities and the organization of the festivities held in them. The principle research method used was interviews with local actors including local representatives, organizers of festivities, as well as members of local communities. The research began in 2017.

A Real Or a Marginal Trend in Participatory Budgets in Local Governments

e-Finanse ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 12-21
Author(s):  
Beata Zofia Filipiak ◽  
Marek Dylewski
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Social Participation ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Current Practice ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Public Expenditures ◽  
Public Funds ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Participatory Budget

AbstractThe purpose of the article is analysis of participatory budgets as a tool for shaping decisions of local communities on the use of public funds. The authors ask the question of whether the current practice of using the participatory budget is actually a growing trend in local government finances or, after the initial euphoria resulting from participation, society ceased to notice the real possibilities of influencing the directions of public expenditures as an opportunity to legislate public policies implemented. It is expected that the conducted research will allow us to evaluate the participatory budget and indicate whether this tool practically acts as a stimulus for changes in the scope of tasks under public policies. The authors analyzed and evaluated the announced competitions for projects as part of the procedure for elaborating participatory budgeting for selected LGUs. Then, they carried out an in-depth analysis of the data used to assess real social participation in the process of establishing social policies.

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