scholarly journals Resilience Theory and Praxis: a Critical Framework for Architecture

Author(s):  
Michelle Laboy ◽  
David Fannon

The growing use of resilience as a goal of architectural practice presents a new challenge in architects’ responsibility for health, safety, welfare and poetic expression of human-building interaction. With roots in disaster response, resilience in the building industry emphasizes the preservation and rapid restoration of the physical environment’s normal function in the face of shocks and disturbances of limited duration. The focus on maintaining function, and/or rapidly returning to the status quo ante necessarily affords a narrow understanding of architecture and a limited view of the concept of resilience. While useful at certain scales of time and inquiry, this so-called engineering resilience approach is only one among many within the broad discourse across diverse disciplines such as psychology, economics, and ecology.  Drawing on the academic and professional literature of resilience outside the discipline, this paper explores the multiple competing frameworks represented; considers their influences and implications for architecture and the built environment at multiple scales; and examines the overlaps with existing discourse on change, architecture and time. The analysis of alternative concepts enables a critical perspective to move beyond the circumscribed, functionalist approach afforded by engineering resilience currently guiding architecture practice, towards a framework of social- ecological resilience that can fully embrace the richness of architecture, and results in a necessary and clear theoretical basis for the resilience of architecture over time in a climate of increasing uncertainty.

Author(s):  
Jennifer Knust

The pericope adulterae (John 7:53–8:11) is often interpreted as an inherently feminist story, one that validates women’s humanity in the face of a patriarchal order determined to reduce sexual sinners and women more generally to the status of object. Reading this story within a framework of queer narratology, however, leads to a different point of view, one that challenges the consequences of seeking rescue from a god and a text that are both quite willing to forge male homosocial bonds at a woman’s expense. As the history of this story also shows, texts and their meanings remain unsettled and therefore open to further unpredictable and contingent elaboration. Pondering my own feminist commitments, I attempt to imagine a world and a story where a woman is a person and Jesus is in need of rescue. Perhaps such a world is possible. Or perhaps it is not.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Rachel A. Schwartz

ABSTRACT The coexistence of predatory informal rules alongside formal democratic institutions is a defining, if pernicious, feature of Latin America’s political landscape. How do such rules remain so resilient in the face of bureaucratic reforms? This article explicates the mechanisms underlying the persistence of such rules and challenges conventional explanations through process-tracing analysis in one arena: Guatemala’s customs administration. During Guatemala’s period of armed conflict and military rule, military intelligence officers introduced a powerful customs fraud scheme that endured for more than 20 years, despite state reforms. Its survival is best attributed to the ability of the distributional coalition underwriting the predatory rules to capture new political and economic spaces facilitated by political party and market reforms. This illustrates that distributional approaches to institutional change must attend to how those with a stake in the status quo may continue to uphold perverse institutional arrangements on the margins of state power.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4339
Author(s):  
Aditi Khodke ◽  
Atsushi Watabe ◽  
Nigel Mehdi

In the face of pressing environmental challenges, governments must pledge to achieve sustainability transitions within an accelerated timeline, faster than leaving these transitions to the market mechanisms alone. This had led to an emergent approach within the sustainability transition research (STR): Accelerated policy-driven sustainability transitions (APDST). Literature on APDST asserts its significance in addressing pressing environmental and development challenges as regime actors like policymakers enact change. It also assumes support from other incumbent regime actors like the industries and businesses. In this study, we identify the reasons for which incumbent industry and business actors might support APDST and whether their support can suffice for implementation. We examine the actor strategies by drawing empirical data from the Indian national government policy of mandatory leapfrog in internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle emission control norms, known as Bharat Stage 4 to 6. This leapfrogging policy was introduced to speed up the reduction of air pollutants produced by the transport sector. A mixed-methods approach, combining multimodal discourse analysis and netnographic research, was deployed for data collection and analysis. The findings show that unlike the status quo assumption in STR, many incumbent industry and business actors aligned with the direction of the enacted policy due to the political landscape and expected gains. However, the degree of support varied throughout the transition timeline and was influenced by challenges during the transitioning process and the response of the government actors. The case suggests we pay more attention to the actors’ changing capacities and needs and consider internal and external influences in adapting the transition timelines. This study contributes to the ongoing discussion on the implementation of APDST, by examining the dynamism of actor strategies, and provides an overview of sustainability transitions in emerging economies.


foresight ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 362-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.E.A. Ashu ◽  
Dewald Van Niekerk

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the status quo of disaster risk reduction (DRR) policy and legislation in Cameroon. Design/methodology/approach Using a qualitative method, this paper examines historical data from sectoral administrative reports, plans, declarations, commitments and speeches, texts and peer-reviewed journals on disaster and risk management in Cameroon for the period 1967-2017. Empirical data from ten selected government sectors were used to analyze the status quo, together with quantitative data collected by using four instruments (i.e. HFA Priority 1 & 4, USAID Toolkit, GOAL Resilience Score and the Checklist on Law and DRR). Findings Findings show that Cameroon largely still practices disaster response through the Department of Civil Protection. Transparency and accountability are the sine qua non of the state, but the lack thereof causes improper implementation of DRR within development institutions. DRR is seen as an ad hoc activity, with the result that there is not effective institutional capacity for implementation. The need to develop a new national DRR framework is evident. Originality/value Analyzing the status quo of DRR in Cameroon could assist with the review and reevaluation of a new DRR framework within the Cameroonian territory.


2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-91
Author(s):  
Merrilee Proffitt

Articles in our professional literature and conference presentations reporting on new initiatives are quite common. In presenting the brave and the new, however, librarians rarely discuss activities they have stopped doing. Since 2008, when libraries began to face budget cuts in the face of the recession, I have heard anecdotally about furloughs, hiring freezes, and layoffs, but not about attendant elimination of services or other existing functions. When reaching out to speakers for a seminar on “What to stop doing,” at the RBMS 2010 preconference in Philadelphia, I envisioned finding speakers who would report on the ways in which cessation . . .


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyeongho Choi ◽  
Euipyeong Lee

32,000 fire fighters from 451 fire departments in 41 prefectures were mobilized to support and assist fire extinguishing and lifesaving in the Hyogo Prefecture Nanbu Earthquake that occurred on January 17, 1995. Based on this experience, the emergency fire response team for disaster response (EFRT) was established by the Fire and Disaster Management Agency (FDMA) on June 30, 1995. When large scale disasters occur over wide areas, EFRTs in Japan are dispatched to the disaster places to assist fire fighting on demand or by the order of the commissioner of the FDMA. This study analyzed the background required for establishing the EFRT; the process and details of the legislation; the establishment of basic plans, organizations, and operation plans; and assistance dispatch along with the plan for receiving outside support; registration and the plan for reinforcing equipment; the status of training for preparing assistance dispatch; and activity results in order to provide basic information to prepare large scale disasters and establish coping policies in Korea.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Muhammad Akrom Adabi ◽  
Neny Muthi'atul Awwaliyah

AbstractThe Qur’an, which has the status of a Muslim holy book, is experiencing "alienation" because it is considered unable to make practical contributions to various new challenges that arise. Al-Qur’an and Pancasila, which are the two important handles of Indonesian Muslims, are expected to not only keep up with the times. More than that, the al-Qur’an and Pancasila must really be able to fill the void and give an active role through its values, to bring the progress of Indonesia with a distinctive personality in the face of the Industrial 4.0 era. This paper tries to review the strengthening of Muslim Hub as a strategy in dealing with Industry 4.0 through contextualization of the values of the Koran and Pancasila. This study uses Max Weber's theory of Protestant ethics. In a book entitled The Protestant Ethics and Spirit of Capitalism, Weber has done a thorough analysis of the relationship between capitalism and religion. AbstrakAl-Qur’an dan Pancasila harus betul-betul mampu mengisi kekosongan dan memberi peran aktif melalui nilai-nilainya, untuk membawa kemajuan Indonesia dengan kepribadian yang khas dalam menghadapi era Industri 4.0. Tulisan ini mencoba mengulas seputar penguatan muslim hub sebagai strategi dalam menghadapi Industri 4.0 melalui kontekstualisasi nilai al-Qur’an dan Pancasila. Dalam penelitian ini ada dua bukti empiris yang pertama order monastic, dimana orang saleh ternyata juga memiliki prestasi yang gemilang dari sisi material. Kedua sekte protestan yang memiliki prestasi yang gemilang dalam fase awal munculnya kapitalisme modern. Penelitian ini menggunakan teori Max Weber tentang etika Protestan. Dalam buku yang berjudul The Protestan Ethics and Spirit of Capitalism, Weber telah melakukan analisa yang mendalam mengenai relasi kapitalisme dan keagamaan yang menunjukkan betapa agama memiliki pengaruh kuat dalam pembentukan karakter pemeluknya. Jika ditarik ke kajian yang lebih luas, maka ideologi memiliki peran kuat dalam mempengaruhi perilaku pengikutnya, baik ideologi keagamaan maupun ideologi kenegaraan. Kata Kunci: Kontekstualisasi, Al-Qur’an, Pancasila, Industri 4.0.


2021 ◽  
pp. 251660692110572
Author(s):  
Mohammad Omar Faruk ◽  
Sanjeev P. Sahni ◽  
Gerd Ferdinand Kirchhoff

Though a few provisions for the victim of crimes were indirectly recognized since the nineteenth century, from 2000 onwards, legal entitlements for crime victims are realized in Bangladesh with a specific focus on women and children. So far, few analyses are found to be performed mainly by the legal experts, emphasizing legal rights and remedies with recommendations for legal reform. However, studies on the status of victims’ rights seem to be incomplete without considering administrative as well as social reality—dominated by colonial legacy and traditional practices—beyond the written clauses in the law books. This study is one of the pioneering attempts in Bangladesh to understand the status of crime victims against the backdrop of recent legal changes and to examine the argument whether the legal provisions itself are enough in providing victims with intended benefits without simultaneous social and administrative changes. Within the theoretical framework of balancing victim’s rights and informal social control (victim blaming), this qualitative study (through content analysis) reviewed all criminal laws and research findings related to victim’s rights within a socio-legal approach in terms of victim’s access, participation, protection, services and compensation. Along with the rights legally granted to victims, available research findings were interpreted in connection to those particular rights. It is found that there are unsupportive social milieu, administrative subculture and political practices, where victims of crime are strongly restrained from enjoying their rights. Particularly, the status of crime victims is found to be undermined in the face of corruption, low public confidence on enforcing agencies, gross withdrawal or discharge of criminal cases on political grounds, limited geographical coverage of victim support services and shelter homes, lengthy process for compensation and unavailability of rules or guidelines to enforce the rights.


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