scholarly journals Epistemic Challenges in the Studies of Remittances: Denomination and Ostensive Definition in the Exploratory Research on Informal Value Transfer System

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-114
Author(s):  
Fernando César Costa Xavier

There are certain areas of study in which researchers deal with and even create a plethora of terms. The Informal Transfer of Values Systems (IVTS) are one of these areas. There are many terms available in the lexicon of research on IVTS around the world, such as hawala, hundi, fei ch’ien, encomenderos etc. The informal remittance system, typical of Venezuelan migration, appears to be located in the grey zone between the large irregular money transfer markets and the modest, informal systems allowing money transfers to people who are struggling in their countries. That is why it is important that Venezuela’s IVTS receive a unique label. In search of an appropriate label that reflects the peculiarities of Venezuela’s IVTS, it is important to pay attention to the linguistic aspects that come with the epistemological challenges. Almost a century ago, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein highlighted the importance of the ostensive definition to make sense of the words we use ordinarily. Without neglecting his epistemological warnings, this article argues that migration studies have advanced in expanding their own terminology, in a relatively consistent way with the Wittgensteinian linguistic approach.

2017 ◽  
pp. 120-130
Author(s):  
A. Lyasko

Informal financial operations exist in the shadow of official regulation and cannot be protected by the formal legal instruments, therefore raising concerns about the enforcement of obligations taken by their participants. This paper analyzes two alternative types of auxiliary institutions, which can coordinate expectations of the members of informal value transfer systems, namely attitudes of trust and norms of social control. It offers some preliminary approaches to creating a game-theoretic model of partner interaction in the informal value transfer system. It also sheds light on the perspectives of further studies in this area of institutional economics.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-62
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Sirkeci

The World Bank’s latest brief on migration and development launched in October 2017 revealed that remittances to developing countries comprising three quarters of the total global remittance flows are set to grow about 4.8% to reach $450 billion. This is seemingly a reflection of the economic growth recorded in Europe and North America. Therefore not surprising to see the receiving countries in this period will be the migrant sending countries to these destinations. Hence India continues to be the top recipient. As we have analysed in the case of remittances from the UK (See Sirkeci and Privara, 2017), cost of sending money to the poorest parts of the world is the most expensive while overall remittance costs remain very high in contrast to the target of 3%, the Sustainable Development Goal. The World Bank brief pins the high cost down to exclusive deals between post offices and money transfer operators in certain countries and the security concerns resulting in higher processing costs for the operators and banks. This is very relevant to the discussions presented in this issue of Remittances Review investigating Hawala system in the Gulf countries and the use of virtual currencies in cross border money transfers. Both trends are benefiting from high costs of traditional money transfer methods via banks and money transfer operators.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Livio Corselli

Purpose This paper aims to offer a general overview of money transfers in Italy and Europe focussing specifically on the migrant community. This is of particular interest because it is in that community where money transfers are most prevalent. This shows the money transfer system as a tool that could guarantee the financial inclusion of migrants but at the same time being used in a distorted and unlawful manner. Design/methodology/approach After a brief introduction focussed on working principles and legal frameworks, the paper will go deeper in evaluating money transfer data. This data, which comes from various legal authorities, will show the extent to which different migrant communities who reside in Italy are able to carry out illicit activity using money transfers. It will also highlight the existence of legislative inconsistencies through a case by case approach. Findings This paper shows the reason why people find it relatively easy to use money transfers to launder money or in a broader sense, take part in other illicit financial operations such as financing terrorism. Originality/value This study will examine recent Italian criminal cases concerning the unlawful use of money transfers. This paper is the original study of the author and has not been submitted elsewhere for publication.


2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zsófia Demjén

This paper demonstrates how a range of linguistic methods can be harnessed in pursuit of a deeper understanding of the ‘lived experience’ of psychological disorders. It argues that such methods should be applied more in medical contexts, especially in medical humanities. Key extracts from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath are examined, as a case study of the experience of depression. Combinations of qualitative and quantitative linguistic methods, and inter- and intra-textual comparisons are used to consider distinctive patterns in the use of metaphor, personal pronouns and (the semantics of) verbs, as well as other relevant aspects of language. Qualitative techniques provide in-depth insights, while quantitative corpus methods make the analyses more robust and ensure the breadth necessary to gain insights into the individual experience. Depression emerges as a highly complex and sometimes potentially contradictory experience for Plath, involving both a sense of apathy and inner turmoil. It involves a sense of a split self, trapped in a state that one cannot overcome, and intense self-focus, a turning in on oneself and a view of the world that is both more negative and more polarized than the norm. It is argued that a linguistic approach is useful beyond this specific case.


Author(s):  
I. Dezhina

The article evaluates science sectors and effectiveness of scientific research in the countries forming the BRICS group, as well as the current state of scientific and technological cooperation among the group members. The science sectors of the countries under consideration differ markedly, while facing similar problems relating to government regulations and external environments. The differences exist in total expenditures on research and development (as a share of GNP), in the scope of governmental funding (large in Russia and India, but small in China), and in the distribution of allocations among various areas and types of R&D activities. China appears to have the most well-adjusted science sector among the BRICS members. It includes not only strong universities but also high-tech companies that invest actively into research and development. The overall impact (inferred from citation indexes) of fundamental and exploratory research performed in BRICS countries remains low. BRICS's scientists prefer to collaborate with their colleagues from the world-leading countries rather than with their fellows from BRICS. Yet, in contrast to the world trend, in all BRICS countries, except Russia, a share of internationally co-authored publications is now decreasing. BRICS members have more similar interests and priorities in technological development, including infrastructural and large technological projects, than in science. Currently, bilateral cooperation in technology prevails, while the projects involving all members of the group still remain at the stage of preliminary evaluation and discussion. Russia cooperates most closely with China and India, including joint projects in such high-priority directions as new materials, photonics, biomedical, space and information technologies. For Russia, cooperation in technological development appears to be of most interest because it can lead not only to introduction of new technologies but also help to create large Russian innovative companies. Development of successful multilateral cooperation in science and technology among the BRICS members is the key for this group, originally formed for geopolitical reasons, to evolve into an effective economic union.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (167) ◽  
pp. 46-50
Author(s):  
S. Burlutska ◽  
O. Chabanenko

The world has not yet come up with a single recipe for fighting corruption. But thanks to constant progress, anti-corruption strategies are replenished with effective innovation mechanisms. The global experience of using blockchain opens up new prospects for eliminating corruption in the world. Blockchain is an opportunity not only to modernize outdated functional systems, but also to apply new, more effective means of combating corruption and cybercrime. One of the main advantages of the blockchain is that all network participants have a register of transaction data. Therefore, if someone decides to hide, delete or change their recalculations in the accounting book, then copies of these transactions still remain in tens of thousands of other users and the system immediately accesses them. Therefore, a few minutes will be enough to solve the issues of detecting a crime. Today, it is worth highlighting 3 types of widespread use of blockchain technology in the fight against corruption: identity verification, asset registration and tracking of monetary transactions. For example, you can check the purpose of money transfers in real time, see salary payments, and compare prices among suppliers. Like any type of crime, corruption in human society cannot be completely excluded. However, decentralized platforms functioning on blockchain technology, already today, firstly, can directly bring together the customer and the executor, and secondly, all the conditions agreed upon by the participants can then be easily verified (thus, it will be impossible to imperceptibly inflate the price when using blockchain). Blockchain technology is in demand because it creates an unprecedented degree of trust in information in relationships between individuals and public organizations, or between the state, people and private institutions.


2021 ◽  
Vol VI (II) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Shabnam Gul ◽  
Muhammad Faizan Asghar ◽  
Shujat Ali

There is a plethora of international organizations that has been formed to maintain peace in the world. FATF is such an organization that has been formed in order to scrutinize and control the menace of money laundering and that of the terror financing. In a third world state like Pakistan where there is dearth of transparent mechanisms of money transfers and where there is no rule of law, it has become easy for the individuals to carry out the illicit activities like money laundering (Dube and Vargas, 2013). Pakistan has been in the grey list from the last few years and it has dramatically affected the economy of Pakistan. Pakistan has established a number of centralized mechanisms that are, without a doubt, on the correct track for monitoring the financial transaction system, which is currently very near to meet the certain much needed criteria for finding and freezing the founded and highlighted money laundering cases and that of the terrorist financing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Merry Lapasau ◽  
Sulis Setiawati

This study aims at finding the use of life metaphors in tetralogy Laskar Pelangi (hereinafter TLP). Data were analyzed in the framework of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) by using a descriptive qualitative approach. We found 21 life metaphors in TLP and the finding shows that the conceptual metaphor of life as a target domain is mapped into several diverse source domains, and they are: life is a fluid in a container, life is a journey, life is a living organism, life is a precious possession, life is dedication to others, life is a struggle,life is guidance, life is war, and life is hard work. It can be concluded that TLP is rich with the use of metaphors in describing the cultural events of the Malays in detail. The way how the Malay master the problems in their lives, how they see and understand the world, is made clear by their language, which is reflected in conceptual metaphors. The results of this research support the idea that metaphors are not just rhetorical devices to say something more stylistically but they are conceptual in nature and its existence can be different in each culture.


Author(s):  
Aglaia Tourimpampa ◽  
Athanasios Drigas ◽  
Alexandra Economou ◽  
Petros Roussos

This study is a comprehensive attempt to assess the impact of the cognitive skill of perception in the ability to comprehend a text. More specifically, it investigates the function of perception as a primary structure of the human brain to contact the world and examines the certain cognitive processes of perception that affect text comprehension. It is also presented the relation between cognitive perception and the linguistic approach of pragmatics in order the subject to comprehend the text. Perception is the organization, identification and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the environment. Pragmatics is the linguistic field that studies how people comprehend and produce speech or a text as a communicative act. Furthermore, it features the current scientific achievements on the ICTs processes and tools, which exploit the assessment of perception in text comprehension.


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