Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Daguerre
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Government Intervention ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Variable Speed ◽  
Political Tradition ◽  
The World ◽  
Contested Terrain ◽  
Strong Attachment ◽  
Partial Success

The introductory chapter sets out the broad political context that helps explain the Obama partial success in terms of antipoverty policies. It points out to major contradictions in the American political tradition: a deep-seated suspicion of government intervention combined with a strong attachment for entitlement programs, the paradox of a presidential institution portrayed as one of the most powerful in the world but that faces considerable constraints in terms of enacting domestic reforms. The introduction enumerates the structural constraints – constitutional and institutional - that limit the president’s capacities for action. In essence, the legitimacy of the federal government intervention has always been a contested terrain. This has resulted in variable-speed federalism, with a strong pattern of state diversity, especially in relation to welfare.

Traveling the Uncharted Path of Leadership in Federal Anthropology

2005 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 25-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marybeth MacPhee ◽  
Suzanne Heurtin-Roberts ◽  
Chris Foster
Keyword(s):  
Health Disparities ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Good News ◽  
Raising Awareness ◽  
The World ◽  
Anthropological Research ◽  
Government Work ◽  
The Government ◽  
Research And Policy

For those of us who have fantasized over the years that the world would be a better place if anthropologists had a voice in government, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that applied anthropologists working in government settings have succeeded in raising awareness of, and respect for, anthropological ideas beyond the classroom. The bad news is that anthropologists face a long road ahead before the field is ready to exercise this newfound agency in leading the direction of research and policy on social problems. Our recent work on health disparities found that the obstacles we encountered were rooted in the habits of practicing anthropology rather than in any oppressive force of bureaucracy or hierarchy of professional knowledge underlying the structure of the government work context. Anthropology is most comfortable on the margins of both community and debate. Our methods and ethics prioritize the values and desires of the communities with which we work above our own bias; our theories and analyses produce holistic perspectives and cultural criticism rather than definitive stances. Although the position of informed outsider has its advantages in the contexts of anthropological research, it has proven to interfere with our work in the community of the federal government.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Hannah Holleman
Keyword(s):  
Global Market ◽  
Dust Storms ◽  
Dust Bowl ◽  
Static Electricity ◽  
Southern Plains ◽  
The World ◽  
Dry Conditions ◽  
Crop Agriculture ◽  
The U.S

This introductory chapter provides a background of the 1930s Dust Bowl on the U.S. southern plains, where the ancient grasslands that protected the soil from prairie winds and rains and nourished regional species were destroyed within just a few decades, following the violent opening of the plains to white settlement and the global market in the 1800s. Under pressure from the vagaries of the world economy, settlers sheared the land to expand cash-crop agriculture and ranching. As major drought descended on the plains, winds and static electricity lifted the desiccated, exposed topsoil, forming dust storms on an unprecedented scale. Such massive loss of soil and continued dry conditions meant the land could no longer support life as it once had. By the end of the 1930s, tens of thousands of people were displaced. Hence, when scientists today predict the increasing possibility of Dust Bowl-like conditions, they are signaling a particular kind of extreme ecological and social change.

The Beginnings

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Pierotti ◽  
Brandy R. Fogg
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Gene Pool ◽  
Southern Asia ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
The World ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The Relationship

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the relationship between humans and wolves. The relationship began as coevolutionary, with the species cooperating at times but also capable of functioning independently. This state of affairs dominated early stages of the relationship between the two species and may have persisted for 20,000 years or longer. In other parts of the world, for example, southern Asia, humans began to shape wolves into clearly domestic forms: animals phenotypically distinct from wolves, especially in body size. This latter process involves various aspects of the wolf gene pool being essentially divided, with many individuals staying true wolves while others changed in form, becoming what people now describe as “dogs” without losing their genetic links to their wolf ancestry or their ability to interbreed with wolves.

On The Way to Global Peace

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sujoy Kumar Saha
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Ultimate Truth ◽  
Present Book ◽  
The World ◽  
Transitory Phase ◽  
Global Peace ◽  
New Perspective

The present book starts with an introductory chapter in which the contents of the previous book have been dealt with in a whole new perspective and the ways and means to move forward towards global peace have been delineated in the concluding chapter of the book. In the process, “Life, Mind, Brain, Cognition, Existentialism, Matter, Memory, Consciousness, Mysticism, Ontology, Psychology, Parapsychology, Ecology and Phenomenology” have been dealt with. This is followed by the discussion of “ Philosophy, Renaissance, Soul, Theosophy, Cosmology, Universe, The Witness and The Ultimate Truth”. It has been revealed that there is a whole new world of Existence on a new uncharted plane; the present day world-drama is not matured enough and not qualified enough with a sense of unselfishness to foster Global Peace. None-the-less, the destiny of the world and the whole human race, nay the entire manifested world is set to reach a spirited esoteric plane of Blissful Existence, this being a matter of eternity. The current situation in this planet is no more than a transitory phase.

Introduction

Krupp ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold James
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Business Organization ◽  
Global System ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Exclusive Focus

This introductory chapter sketches a brief portrait of the Krupp company. It first explores the various symbolisms of the Krupp name over the years, the criticisms and praise leveled at the company, and considers how this company had become as iconic as was and is, especially in the world of business. The chapter examines three themes which it credits with the development of the Krupp company: the absence of an exclusive focus on profitability, an acknowledgement that technically advanced enterprises exist in an international and even global system, and the company's position between family affairs on the one hand and the establishment of a business organization on the other.

The Contested Terrain of Sufism

2018 ◽  
pp. 195-225
Author(s):  
Muhammad Qasim Zaman
Keyword(s):  
Modern State ◽  
Considerable Influence ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Common People ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The World ◽  
Contested Terrain ◽  
Core Part

This chapter considers other expressions of contestation in the religious sphere taking place on the once expansive terrain of Sufism. Long a core part of Muslim identity, Sufi practices, doctrines, and institutions have continued into modern times to exercise considerable influence not only on common people but also on the religious and political leaders of the community. Though many among the `ulama, including the reformists in their ranks, have often had a relatively seamless relationship with Sufism, the Islamists, too, and even the modernists have been receptive to the appeal of Sufism. Yet, the conditions of modernity, the claims of the modern state, and modernist and Islamist efforts to radically reshape Islam in a particular image, with some recent help from militant Islamist groups, have hit institutional Sufism hard. Sufism has some other vulnerabilities which have also contributed to a certain shrinking of the space it has traditionally occupied in this part of the world.

Introduction

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Sun
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
World Religion ◽  
World Religions ◽  
The West ◽  
The World ◽  
Chinese Religions ◽  
Religious Nature

This introductory chapter talks about the confusions and controversies over the religious nature of Confucianism. It argues that the confusions come mainly from three sources. First, they come from the conceptualization of Confucianism as a world religion at the end of the nineteenth century in Europe, which was a historical product of the emergence of the “world religions” paradigm in the West. Second, they are caused by the problematic way in which Confucianism—and Chinese religions in general—has been studied and represented by questions which are based on a Judeo-Christian framework that cannot capture the complexity of Chinese religious life. Finally, confusion arises from the often contradictory development of Confucianism in today's China.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Arunabh Ghosh
Keyword(s):  
Probability Theory ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Real World ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Statistical System ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The World ◽  
Century Science ◽  
Statistical Work

This introductory chapter introduces a “crisis of counting” during the early years of the People's Republic of China (PRC). In its simplest form, the crisis in the PRC was understood as a problem of building a centralized statistical system. At the heart of the varied solutions attempted by Chinese statisticians was a contentious debate about the very nature of social reality and the place and efficacy of mathematical statistics—in particular, probability theory—in ascertaining that reality. This debate played out against a backdrop populated by three divergent methodological approaches to statistics and statistical work. After all, abstract ideas about the nature of the world, whether defined by chance or certainty, have real world consequences. Chinese deliberations over such questions and their engagement with the Ethnographic, Exhaustive, and Stochastic approaches during the 1950s exemplify some of those consequences. The chapter unpacks these choices and traces how statistics in its various forms—as a (social) science, as a profession, and as an activity—came to be formulated and practiced, shedding light on fundamental questions germane to the histories of the People's Republic, statistics and data, and mid-century science.

Introduction: The Veil

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Harris
Keyword(s):  
Professional Autonomy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Specialized Training ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Dinner Party ◽  
The World ◽  
Technical Material ◽  
The Veil

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book is about how it feels to live a mathematician's double life: one life within this framework of professional autonomy, answerable only to their colleagues, and the other life in the world at large. It is written for readers without specialized training, which means it is primarily an account of mathematics as a way of life. Technical material is introduced only when it serves to illustrate a point and, as far as possible, only at the level of dinner-party conversation. The reader is warned at the outset that the author's objective is not to arrive at definitive conclusions but rather to elaborate on what Herbert Mehrtens calls “the usual answer to the question of what mathematics is,” namely, by pointing: “This is how one does mathematics.”

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Brenda Hollweg ◽  
Igor Krstić
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
World Cinema ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

In this introductory chapter readers are made familiar with the expanding research field of essayistic filmmaking in world cinema-contexts around the globe. Brenda Hollweg and Igor Krstíc argue that the essay film is a privileged political and ethical tool by means of which filmmakers around the world approach historically specific and locally, geographically concrete issues against larger global issues and universal concerns. The chapter also includes a genealogical overview of important moments in the development of essay filmmaking, particularly during the 1920s and 1960s, and provides readers with short abstracts on the individual chapters and their specific transnationally inflected case studies on essay film practitioners from around the world.

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