Smoke Screen

Author(s):  
Gregory L. Simon

This chapter presents three cases that illustrate how the underlying drivers of wildland-urban interface (WUI) wildfires frequently mischaracterize the relative role of ecological and social structures of influence. The first case explores the rather unscientific origins of the term firestorm and the credibility it is afforded as a legitimate fire classification through its normative use and acceptance in mainstream fire discourse. This process diminishes the very social and profitable origins of the WUI fire problem and naturalizes these areas as a hazardous by-product of larger, exogenous, and inviolable environmental forces such as climate change. The second case examines recent efforts to study and explain the relationship between mountain pine beetles and fire activity in the western United States. The third case describes the deeply political and protracted process of challenging the economically powerful wood shingle and cedar shake industry. Collectively all three cases illustrate how contemporary discourses on fire tend to truncate the scope of what counts (or is allowed to be brought to the debate table) as an underlying driver of increased fire activity in the West.

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul Sattar

This study is intended to describe the meaning of the architectural pattern and family relationship among Madurese society. There are three points that will be discussed in this article. The first, the meaning behind Madurese choice in building their home in tanian lanjang. The second, the vital role of kobhung on the pattern of tanian lanjang. The third, the metamorphosis of tanian lanjang: changable and unchangable pattern. To describe all of these aspects and to know what is really meant by Madurese society, it is extremely needed to be part of this society; living with them for a temporal time is a must. The result of this research consists of three important points. The first, the meaning of house building in tanian lanjang is to present the seniority of the inhabitants. The oldest always stays in the west position and the youngest always stay in the east position. A house also becomes a private place for women and kids. Women are also the inhabitants and the owners of houses. The second, kobhung has a vital role in tanian lanjang. It is used to become the centre of all activities done by men. The third, the existence of tongghuh and kobhung is one of unchangable pattern of tanian lanjang.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-40
Author(s):  
Archana Prasad

This article explores some questions arising from recent debates on patriarchy and capitalism. The focus is on the role of women in communist-led peasant movements in India and the implications of such struggles on the project of women’s emancipation. The first section lays out a framework for discussing the interface between class consciousness and the anti-patriarchal project, whereby patriarchy is located within the structural contradictions arising out of the contestations within the process of accumulation. The second section documents the historical context, focusing on the relationship between land reforms and social transformation in semi-feudal and early capitalist contexts, and analyzes the extent to which communist-led struggles are anti-patriarchal in character. The third section turns to the participation of women in the contemporary struggles of both agricultural workers and peasant movements and underlines the new emerging dialectics between women’s and peasant organizations under a neoliberal state and with deepening agrarian distress.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 305-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas T Hirblinger ◽  
Dana M Landau

‘Inclusion’ has emerged as a prominent theme in peacemaking. However, its exact meaning remains vague, as do assumptions about the relationship between inclusion and peace. This article seeks to problematize the research, policy and practice of inclusion. Focusing on United Nations (UN) peacemaking, we ask how the object of inclusion has been framed, and based on what strategies and underlying rationales. We do so against the backdrop of emerging debates about an agonistic peace, which suggest that violent antagonistic relationships can be overcome if peace processes enable contestation between adversaries. This requires that peacemakers recognize the constitutive role of difference in political settlements. We identify three distinct strategies for inclusion, with corresponding framings of the included. Firstly, inclusion can be used to build a more legitimate peace; secondly, to empower and protect specific actor groups; and thirdly, to transform the sociopolitical structures that underlie conflict. The first strategy frames the included in open terms that can accommodate a heterogeneity of actors, the second in closed terms pertaining to specific identity traits, and the third in relational terms emerging within a specific social, cultural and political context. In practice, this leads to tensions in the operationalization of inclusion, which are evidence of an inchoate attempt to politicize peace processes. In response, we argue for an approach to relational inclusion that recognizes the power relations from which difference emerges; neither brushing over difference, nor essentializing single identity traits, but rather remaining flexible in navigating a larger web of relationships that require transformation.


Slavic Review ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 661-684
Author(s):  
Theodora Dragostinova

This article examines Bulgarian cultural relations with India and Mexico in the 1970s to explore the role of cultural diplomacy in the relationship between the Second and the Third Worlds during the Cold War. In 1975, Liudmila Zhivkova, the daughter of the Bulgarian leader, became the head of the Committee for Culture; under her patronage, Bulgarian officials organized literally hundreds of exhibitions, concerts, academic conferences, book readings, cultural weeks, and visits that involved the three countries in an intense cultural romance. Even though Bulgaria was known as the “Soviet master satellite,” culture provided a considerable level of independence in Bulgarian dealings with international actors, which often caused Soviet irritation. In the end, by using culture, in addition to political and economic aid, Bulgaria managed to forge its role as an intermediary between the Second World and the Global South, and to project its notions of development on a global scene.


2012 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-53
Author(s):  
Edmund Burke

There is something seriously flawed about models of social change that posit the dominant role of in-built civilizational motors. While “the rise of the West” makes great ideology, it is poor history. Like Jared Diamond, I believe that we need to situate the fate of nations in a long-term ecohistorical context. Unlike Diamond, I believe that the ways (and the sequences) in which things happened mattered deeply to what came next. The Mediterranean is a particularly useful case in this light. No longer a center of progress after the sixteenth century, the decline of the Mediterranean is usually ascribed to its inherent cultural deficiencies. While the specific cultural infirmity varies with the historian (amoral familism, patron/clientalism, and religion are some of the favorites) its civilizationalist presuppositions are clear. In this respect the search for “what went wrong” typifies national histories across the region and prefigures the fate of the Third World.


1985 ◽  
Vol 117 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Safranyik ◽  
D.A. Linton

AbstractThe relationship between the density of insect holes in the bark (X1) and the density of emerged mountain pine beetles (Y) was investigated in naturally infested lodgepole pine in south-central British Columbia. The density of exit and ventilation holes (Ho) that were present in the bark prior to emergence by mountain pine beetle averaged 10% of all holes present following the emergence period. There was a weak but significant inverse relationship between Ho and both phloem thickness and density of emerged mountain pine beetles. Painting the bark with light-color latex paint did not affect survival or the temporal pattern of emergence by mountain pine beetle but ensured identification and greatly enhanced counting of fresh exit holes. Of the several regression models investigated, the relation between Y and both X1 and X2 (= X1 – Ho) was best fitted by a log-log linear model. A method is suggested for setting limits on the size of exit holes cut by mountain pine beetle in order to exclude from X2 much of the variation caused by exit holes cut by associated insects. A simple mathematical model was developed of the relationship between mean density of exit holes and the density of emerged mountain pine beetles.


2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (45) ◽  
pp. 13811-13816 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juulia T. Suvilehto ◽  
Enrico Glerean ◽  
Robin I. M. Dunbar ◽  
Riitta Hari ◽  
Lauri Nummenmaa

Nonhuman primates use social touch for maintenance and reinforcement of social structures, yet the role of social touch in human bonding in different reproductive, affiliative, and kinship-based relationships remains unresolved. Here we reveal quantified, relationship-specific maps of bodily regions where social touch is allowed in a large cross-cultural dataset (N = 1,368 from Finland, France, Italy, Russia, and the United Kingdom). Participants were shown front and back silhouettes of human bodies with a word denoting one member of their social network. They were asked to color, on separate trials, the bodily regions where each individual in their social network would be allowed to touch them. Across all tested cultures, the total bodily area where touching was allowed was linearly dependent (mean r2 = 0.54) on the emotional bond with the toucher, but independent of when that person was last encountered. Close acquaintances and family members were touched for more reasons than less familiar individuals. The bodily area others are allowed to touch thus represented, in a parametric fashion, the strength of the relationship-specific emotional bond. We propose that the spatial patterns of human social touch reflect an important mechanism supporting the maintenance of social bonds.


1994 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. P. Salt

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the relationship between constitutional ideas and political action during the 1630s by comparing the privately expressed ideas of Sir Simonds D'Ewes regarding ship money with his conduct regarding the levy, especially while he was sheriff of Suffolk in 1639–40. The first section investigates the constitutionalist views expressed in D'Ewes's ‘autobiography’, unpublished during his lifetime, and their relationship to D'Ewes's attitude to the political role of the levy. The second section studies D'Ewes's conduct as sheriff, in which he gave almost no expression to constitutionalist ideas, and suggests that he struck a middle course between neglect and zeal, while finding means to oppose the levy through his connections at court. The third section seeks to establish the reasons for the inconsistencies between D'Ewes's privately expressed ideas and his public conduct, which may have lain in a belief that, in the prevailing political situation, criticism of the levy had, in order to be effective, to be expressed in terms acceptable to potentially sympathetic courtiers; D'Ewes adapted the tone of his comments on ship money to his audience in order to achieve political ends, but had also to act in ways which would make that tone convincing. Participation in the collection of ship money was therefore not inconsistent with opposition to it.


Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Bellingtier ◽  
Marcus Mund ◽  
Cornelia Wrzus

AbstractAlthough long postulated, it has been scarcely researched how personality traits play out differently in distinct situations. We examined if Neuroticism and Extraversion, personality traits known to moderate stress processes, function differently in highly stressful situations requiring reduced social contact, that is, the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on past findings, we expected neuroticism to be associated with exacerbated perceptions of stress. In contrast to past findings, we expected extraversion, which usually ameliorates stress, to be associated with intensified perceptions of stress, especially in regard to the sociability facet. During the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, one-hundred-thirty adults (age M = 21.7 years) reported on their personality traits including their facets with the BFI-2, COVID-19-related stressors, and their perceived stress during the last month (using the PSS). Findings indicated that neuroticism was associated with higher perceived stress regardless of the COVID-19-related stressors experienced. Facet level analysis revealed differences for anxiety, depression, and volatility. Importantly, trait extraversion was unassociated with stress experiences, whereas specifically the facet of sociability was associated with higher perceived stress. Also, the facets of assertiveness and energy both moderated the relationship between COVID-19-related stressors and perceived stress. In line with the transactional theory of stress, our findings indicate that perceptions of stress were best understood by looking at the interaction of environmental stressors and personality differences. Furthermore, the study substantiates that facets of personality traits offer unique information beyond broad traits in specific contexts.


Author(s):  
А. Kaihe ◽  

There is limited research on the relationship between the Manju aristocrats in the Ch’ing Empire and the West. As the only family in the Ch’ing Empire that continued to focus on Western academic research, the emergence and existence of the Hošoi Delengge Family and the continued cognition and understanding of the Manju Group and the absorption of Western civilization in the history of the Ch’ing Empire should have special era significance and historical reference value. At a time when the research on the history of the relationship between officials and merchants in the coastal Han people and Westerners in the Ch’ing has attracted much attention, the author of this article argues that it is necessary to select Yihui, the third-generation owner of his family, as the research object, and investigate his life experience and personal learning. It analyzes the specific thoughts and academic achievements embodied in the process of understanding Western civilization, combining family history documents and official documents to draw a relatively complete image of the Manju aristocracy who actively learns and absorbs Western civilization. Investigate the formation and development of a handful of academic families among the Manju aristocrats who are minority of foreign races.


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