scholarly journals The Social Disruptiveness of Digital Agricultural Technologies: Asking Questions in the Context(s) that Matter

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul-Rahim Abdulai
Keyword(s):  
Food System ◽  
Satellite System ◽  
Agricultural Technologies ◽  
Rural Landscapes ◽  
Incremental Change ◽  
System A ◽  
Rural Settings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Asking Questions ◽  
Agriculture And Food

Agriculture and food, the sector at the centre of many debates on technology driven human civilization, may be at the onset of another transformation: a transformation showing glimpse of both old and new revolutionary and incremental change in what farming means, where and how it is done and our relationship to the land, especially within rural settings. Today, food and agricultural systems are once again experiencing what can be described as another technological surge, a digital-driven potential transition. Emerging technologies including mobile support systems, precision agricultural tools, drone technologies, RFID and blockchain, sensors, satellite system, just to mention a few, are being employed across the food system, a system intrinsically and extrinsically connected to the what and the how of the countryside. There is no hiding that these recent development holds broader implications for both agriculture and farming, and rurality at large. However, at present, we are oblivious to the particularities of these implications. But we need to start the conversations about the implications for the rural to adequately prepare for what it has in stock for rural development and restructuring. What I seek to do in my research is to begin to ask some social questions on the digital surge in agriculture, with specific emphasis on how it will affect practices and performalities of rurality across rural landscapes. It is my intention to spur initial discussions with this preliminary presentation and engage audiences in exploring specific forms of the rural and farming that should be considered in this emerging field.

The life cycle of alternative agricultural research

1995 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Molly D. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Food System ◽  
Agricultural Research ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Agricultural Systems ◽  
Agricultural Technologies ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
The Social

AbstractThe acceptance and utility of alternative agricultural research can be enhanced by better incorporating social sciences and issues and by broadening its scope to the entire food system rather than focusing only on food production. Researchers have made strong contributions in developing and evaluating alternative agricultural technologies, but research attention also is needed to articulate strategies for synthesizing those technologies into coherent strategies, to examine the social effects of different scenarios, and to create better decisionmaking processes for ensuring broad-based knowledgeable participation in the choices among alternative strategies. Research that addresses human needs beyond food and fiber will help build truly alternative and desirable agricultural systems.

scholarly journals Destitute and vulnerable- Fear of crime and victimisation among the homeless in urban and rural settings in South Africa

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lufuno Sadiki ◽  
Francois Steyn
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Fear Of Crime ◽  
Homeless People ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Sampling Strategies ◽  
Rural Landscapes ◽  
Homeless Men ◽  
Rural Settings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Context Specific

In 2019, the murders of five homeless men in Pretoria drew attention to the vulnerability of people living on the street. Despite more than two decades of democracy, social injustices and inequality continue to characterise post-apartheid South Africa. In addition to rampant poverty burgeoning informal settlements and poor housing, homelessness forms an integral part of the country’s urban and rural landscapes. However, homelessness is often accompanied by victimisation, racial and social injustices, and human rights violations. This paper reports on the victimisation of homeless people in South Africa, their patterns of reporting such incidences, and interactions with criminal justice agents. The paper also contextualises a fear of crime among the homeless and evaluates the limitations of the lifestyle exposure, routine activities, and deviance place theories to adequately explain injustices committed against the homeless. Implications for context-specific and global realities regarding homeless people are discussed. Quantitative data was obtained through non-probability sampling strategies from 40 urban and 30 rural homeless people. More than half of respondents felt unsafe while living on the streets (55.8%), feared becoming a victim of crime in the next year (54.5%) and the greater proportion of respondents (57.1%) had fallen victim to crime in the past. Statistically significant differences (p<0.05; r>0.4) featured between urban and rural respondents in terms of theft and harassment and anticipating victimisation. The findings highlight the social injustices suffered by homeless people, often at the hand of those who are supposed to protect vulnerable groups.

Coronavirus: Towards controlling of the pandemic - Indian scenario

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (SPL1) ◽  
pp. 462-468
Author(s):  
Latika kothari ◽  
Sanskruti Wadatkar ◽  
Roshni Taori ◽  
Pavan Bajaj ◽  
Diksha Agrawal
Keyword(s):  
Control Measures ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Medical Treatments ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Infection Control Measures ◽  
The Social ◽  
Asking Questions ◽  
The Government ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a communicable infection caused by the novel coronavirus resulting in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV). It was recognized to be a health crisis for the general population of international concern on 30th January 2020 and conceded as a pandemic on 11th March 2020. India is taking various measures to fight this invisible enemy by adopting different strategies and policies. To stop the COVID-19 from spreading, the Home Affairs Ministry and the health ministry, of India, has issued the nCoV 19 guidelines on travel. Screening for COVID-19 by asking questions about any symptoms, recent travel history, and exposure. India has been trying to get testing kits available. The government of India has enforced various laws like the social distancing, Janata curfew, strict lockdowns, screening door to door to control the spread of novel coronavirus. In this pandemic, innovative medical treatments are being explored, and a proper vaccine is being hunted to deal with the situation. Infection control measures are necessary to prevent the virus from further spreading and to help control the current situation. Thus, this review illustrates and explains the criteria provided by the government of India to the awareness of the public to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

scholarly journals Enhancing the Glopan Food Systems Framework by Integrating Gender: Relevance for Women in African Agriculture

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8564
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Mkandawire ◽  
Melody Mentz-Coetzee ◽  
Margaret Najjingo Mangheni ◽  
Eleonora Barusi
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Gender Barriers ◽  
Nutrition Security ◽  
African Agriculture ◽  
Agriculture And Food ◽  
Systems Framework

Globally, gender inequalities constrain food security, with women often disproportionately affected. Women play a fundamental role in household food and nutrition security. The multiple roles women play in various areas of the food system are not always recognised. This oversight emerges from an overemphasis on one aspect of the food system, without considering how this area might affect or be affected by another aspect. This study aimed to draw on international commitments and treaties using content analysis to enhance the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Security food systems framework by integrating a gender perspective. The study found that generally, there is a consensus on specific actions that can be taken to advance gender equality at specific stages of the food system. However, governance and social systems constraints that are not necessarily part of the food system, but have a significant bearing on men and women’s capacity to effectively participate in the food system, need to be addressed. While the proposed conceptual framework has some limitations, it offers a foundation on which researchers, policymakers and other stakeholders can begin conceptualising the interconnectedness of gender barriers in the food system.

scholarly journals The Meaning of the Matrix: Towards a Cybernetic Critical Theory of Capitalism

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Shay Hershkovitz
Keyword(s):  
Social Systems ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
System A ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Entity ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Operational Logic

Marxist criticism is most discernible; despite the oft-repeated claim that it is now irrelevant, belonging to an age now past. This essay assumes that criticism originating in the Marxist school of thought continue to be relevant also in this present time; though it may need to be further developed and improved by integrating newer critical approaches into the classic Marxist discourse. This essay therefore integrates basic Marxist ideas with key concepts from ‘social systems theory’; especially the theory of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann's. In this light, capitalism is conceptualized here as a ‘super (social) system’: a meaning-creating social entity, in which social actors, behaviors and structures are realized. This theoretical concept and terminology emphasizes the social construction of control and stability, when discussing the operational logic of capitalism.

Political Competition, Partisanship and Interpersonal Trust in Electoral Democracies

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan E. Carlin ◽  
Gregory J. Love
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Social Preferences ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Interpersonal Trust ◽  
The United States ◽  
Behavioral Experiments ◽  
Minimal Group ◽  
System A ◽  
The Social ◽  
Osama Bin Laden

How does democratic politics inform the interdisciplinary debate on the evolution of human co-operation and the social preferences (for example, trust, altruism and reciprocity) that support it? This article advances a theory of partisan trust discrimination in electoral democracies based on social identity, cognitive heuristics and interparty competition. Evidence from behavioral experiments in eight democracies show ‘trust gaps’ between co- and rival partisans are ubiquitous, and larger than trust gaps based on the social identities that undergird the party system. A natural experiment found that partisan trust gaps in the United States disappeared immediately following the killing of Osama bin Laden. But observational data indicate that partisan trust gaps track with perceptions of party polarization in all eight cases. Finally, the effects of partisanship on trust outstrip minimal group treatments, yet minimal-group effects are on par with the effects of most treatments for ascriptive characteristics in the literature. In sum, these findings suggest political competition dramatically shapes the salience of partisanship in interpersonal trust, the foundation of co-operation.

Confrontation and Responsiveness

2006 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 44-56
Author(s):  
Eric Nelson ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Existence ◽  
Being And Time ◽  
Moral Code ◽  
Ethical Dimension ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Practical Activity ◽  
System A ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ethical Failures ◽  
Identity And Difference

Heidegger’s critique of ethics has been interpreted as an abolition of the ethical that nihilistically precludes the possibility of ethics. Yet Heidegger questioned ethics as systematizing discourses about hierarchies of values, prescriptions, norms, and axioms cut off from their worldly and factical contexts. I argue that this questioning of rule-based ethics does not necessarily entail a denial of the ethical, since it has its own ethical preoccupations in the sense of reflection on practical activity (praxis) and the formal indication of how Dasein factically exists. This reading is supported by Heidegger’s later depiction of the ethical as the ethos of an originary dwelling. Further, Heidegger’s practice of thinking indicates and enacts the ethical as confrontation and responsive encounter: (1) even if he did not formulate an ethical system, a universal prescriptive principle, or a moral code; and (2) despite his own undeniable ethical failures. This promising yet underdeveloped ethical dimension is visible both in the style, method, and event of his philosophizing and in his attention to the issue of individuation in the context of the Dasein’s conformity to the power of everydayness and the social. Individuation, a primary issue of Being and Time and other works of the 1920’s, occurs through the attuned comportment and understanding that Dasein each time is, yet as individuation it takes place in being-with others. The identity and difference of human existence is formed in social comportment and understanding—in addressing and being addressed, in the interdependent and interpretive setting apart of encountering and being encountered, in the responsive confrontation, differentiation, and separation of Auseinandersetzung.

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