scholarly journals The Dynamics behind the Likelihood of Adopting Inclusive Agrarian Innovations in Disadvantaged Central American Communities

Agriculture ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 85
Author(s):  
Rafael A. Araque-Padilla ◽  
Maria Jose Montero-Simo

Although innovation studies form a consolidated field in developed countries, the same is not true in disadvantaged countries especially in agriculture, despite the importance of innovation in generating wealth and inclusiveness. With this study, we aim to contribute to the knowledge of the processes of adopting innovation in agrarian contexts of poverty. Thus, we examined the main factors that influence the probability of accepting a new product, and their interrelationships in a Central American community. Based on a qualitative methodology, we held 42 in-depth interviews with small-scale producers. All the information collected was the subject of a discursive and content analysis, with support from the NVivo 12 software programme. The results show how key factors such as culture, the market, networks, attitudes, expectations, and social references are interrelated and enhanced or hindered by other social dynamics. These findings underline the idea that the entrepreneur’s relationship with innovation is a dynamic reality where the probability of acceptance is the outcome of combining cultural, individual, institutional, and organisational factors. Any innovation support policy that arises in these contexts should be based on more systemic approaches if the acceptance of inclusive innovation is to be improved.

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (14) ◽  
pp. 2371-2376
Author(s):  
Mofoluwake P. Ajayi ◽  
Emmanuel O. Amoo ◽  
Tomike I. Olawande ◽  
Tunde C. Iruonagbe ◽  
Olujide A. Adekeye

BACKGROUND: There are no general consensuses on why the lifetime risk of dying from breast and cervical cancer in African is several times higher than that of developed countries. However, a notable window of opportunity for prevention and treatment are often wasted where there are little or no awareness and low level of screening. AIM: To specifically highlight the awareness, knowledge and determinants of participation in the screening exercise for possible prevention or control of the diseases. To also provide insights on the development of contextual and relevant timely detection for effective early interventions. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in southern and northern geopolitical zones of Nigeria. The respondents, which consisted of 1,023 women aged 15-49 years, completed a 116-item questionnaire assessing the correlation between cancer awareness and participation in screening. Nineteen, In-depth interviews were also conducted for this study. The outcome measured included awareness of breast and cervical cancer, how it can be prevented or detected, and the availability and actual participation in screening exercises. RESULTS: While women are familiar with breast cancer, little is known about cervical cancer, and the awareness of the former is not correlated with participation in screening. The lack of enthusiasm to seek screening exercise is rooted in three key factors: lack of specific information, belief, economic and inadequate screening facilities. CONCLUSION: The study thus recommends that policies and programs aimed at the breast and cervical cancers awareness and early intervention should address the underlying problems.


Author(s):  
Ronel Sanet Davids ◽  
Mariana De Jager

An estimated 90 per cent of children with a hearing loss are born to hearing parents. Most parents are unprepared for the diagnosis, leaving them shocked, confused, sad and bewildered. This article reports on a study aimed at exploring and describing the experiences of hearing parents regarding their child’s hearing loss. The study was conducted in Cape Town, South Africa. The study applied a qualitative methodology with a phenomenological design. Purposive sampling was implemented and data were collected by means of unstructured in-depth interviews. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Ethical considerations were adhered to. The main findings of the study indicated that hearing parents experience a myriad of emotions when their child is diagnosed with a hearing loss. This study advocates for various stakeholders in the helping profession to collaborate in the best interest of hearing parents and a child with hearing loss. Furthermore, these findings serve as guidelines for professionals working with these families.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4902
Author(s):  
Zia Ullah ◽  
Rana Tahir Naveed ◽  
Atta Ur Rehman ◽  
Naveed Ahmad ◽  
Miklas Scholz ◽  
...  

The literature on sustainable tourism is scant, particularly in the least developed countries. Very few studies touch upon the concept and no holistic theoretical or conceptual frameworks around the idea of sustainable tourism have been formulated. This study aims at exploring the role of tour operators in developing sustainable tourism in Pakistan and how the tour operators (TOs) conceive their role in this regard. TOs were reached through phone calls, emails, and virtual sources as face-to-face interviews were not possible due to COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions on travel by the government. In-depth interviews were conducted to gather data. Results suggest that the TOs although realize the importance of social, environmental, and economic dimensions of tourism on the communities but have no management systems in place to cater accordingly. There are no incentives in place by the government facilitate TOs to design and implement such systems. The TOs do not select a destination based on Global Sustainable Tourism Council criterion, but rather the selection of destination is mostly demand-based and profit-oriented. The study suggests that corporate profit motive is the sole criterion for decision making and is one of the major causes impeding sustainable tourism in Pakistan. The role of TOs in developing sustainable tourism is vague as the TOs do not have any systems in place to implement sustainable models. The study recommends that efforts need to be put in place to incentivize sustainable tourism in Pakistan and proper laws should be set forth by the authorities to comply by the TOs. The role of TOs is important and understood, however, there is a need to put proper systems in place.


Author(s):  
Lina Lee ◽  
Mary Lou Maher

Smart environments and the use of interactive technology has the potential to improve the quality of life for the senior community as well as to support the connections among the senior community and the world outside their community. In addition to the increasing number of studies in the field of aging and technologies, research is needed to understand the practical issues of user focus, adoption, and engagement for older adults to accept interactive technologies in their lives. In this study, we use two commercial technological interventions (uDraw and GrandPad) to understand technology-related perceptions and behaviors of older adults. We present five case studies that emerge from empirical observations of initial engagement with technology through research methods such as focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, observations, and diary studies. The contributions of this study are identification of the key factors that influence the initial engagement with interactive technology for older adults.


Südosteuropa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-195
Author(s):  
Petru Negură

Abstract The Centre for the Homeless in Chișinău embodies on a small scale the recent evolution of state policies towards the homeless in Moldova (a post-Soviet state). This institution applies the binary approach of the state, namely the ‘left hand’ and the ‘right hand’, towards marginalised people. On the one hand, the institution provides accommodation, food, and primary social, legal assistance and medical care. On the other hand, the Shelter personnel impose a series of disciplinary constraints over the users. The Shelter also operates a differentiation of the users according to two categories: the ‘recoverable’ and those deemed ‘irrecoverable’ (persons with severe disabilities, people with addictions). The personnel representing the ‘left hand’ (or ‘soft-line’) regularly negotiate with the employees representing the ‘right hand’ (‘hard-line’) of the institution to promote a milder and a more humanistic approach towards the users. This article relies on multi-method research including descriptive statistical analysis with biographical records of 810 subjects, a thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with homeless people (N = 65), people at risk of homelessness (N = 5), professionals (N = 20) and one ethnography of the Shelter.


2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (43) ◽  
pp. 12114-12119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke Glowacki ◽  
Alexander Isakov ◽  
Richard W. Wrangham ◽  
Rose McDermott ◽  
James H. Fowler ◽  
...  

Intergroup violence is common among humans worldwide. To assess how within-group social dynamics contribute to risky, between-group conflict, we conducted a 3-y longitudinal study of the formation of raiding parties among the Nyangatom, a group of East African nomadic pastoralists currently engaged in small-scale warfare. We also mapped the social network structure of potential male raiders. Here, we show that the initiation of raids depends on the presence of specific leaders who tend to participate in many raids, to have more friends, and to occupy more central positions in the network. However, despite the different structural position of raid leaders, raid participants are recruited from the whole population, not just from the direct friends of leaders. An individual’s decision to participate in a raid is strongly associated with the individual’s social network position in relation to other participants. Moreover, nonleaders have a larger total impact on raid participation than leaders, despite leaders’ greater connectivity. Thus, we find that leaders matter more for raid initiation than participant mobilization. Social networks may play a role in supporting risky collective action, amplify the emergence of raiding parties, and hence facilitate intergroup violence in small-scale societies.


This article advocates a new agenda for (media) tourism research that links questions of tourist experiences to the role and meaning of imagination in everyday life. Based on a small-scale, qualitative study among a group of seventeen respondents of diverse ages and backgrounds currently residing in the Netherlands, we offer an empirical exploration of the places that are of importance for people’s individual state of mind and investigate how these places relate to (potential) tourist experiences. The combination of in-depth interviews and random-cue self-reporting resulted in the following findings: 1) all our respondents regularly reside in an elaborate imaginary world, consisting of both fictional and non-fictional places; 2) this imaginary world is dominated by places which make the respondents feel nostalgic; 3) in this regard, the private home and houses from childhood are pivotal; 4) the ‘home’ is seen as topos of the self and contrasted with ‘away’; 5) the imagination of ‘away’ emerges from memories of previous tourist experiences, personal fantasies and, last but not least, influences from popular culture. We conclude that imagining and visiting other locations are part of a life-long project of ‘identity work’ in which personal identities are performed, confirmed and extended. By travelling, either physically or mentally, individuals anchor their identity - the entirety of ideas about who they are, where they come from and where they think they belong - in a broader, spatial framework.


2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-194
Author(s):  
Alin Croitoru

This paper contributes to the growing literature on the diversity of return migration by analysing the different types of small-scale entrepreneurship among returnees. Data from an original survey conducted among Romanian returnees and in-depth interviews with returnees in entrepreneurship are combined to reveal distinct profiles of returnee entrepreneurs and to illustrate their specific ways of thinking about entrepreneurship and migration. Currently, Romania is one of the most fertile settings to research intra-European return migration due to its important flows of temporary international migrants. The paper highlights that there are major differences between business owners and self-employed returnees in terms of entrepreneurship. Returnees who are business owners are those who benefited significantly more from migration than non-entrepreneur returnees—in terms of economic savings, human capital accumulation, and enhancement of their stocks of social capital; while returnees in self-employment reveal no significant differences for these migration outcomes compared to non-entrepreneur returnees. The distinction between the two groups of entrepreneurs has certain implications for origin states’ policies oriented towards stimulating return migration through programmes oriented towards returnees’ entrepreneurship. Keywords: Return Migration; Intra-European Migration; Entrepreneurship; Self-Employment; Multi-Method Social Research. „„„„ Articolul contribuie la literatura dedicată diversității migrației de revenire prin analiza unor tipuri diferite de antreprenoriat în rândul migranților reîntorși în țara de origine. Pentru a documenta profilurile specifice ale migranților care sunt antreprenori după revenire, sunt combinate date culese printr-un sondaj cu migranți reveniți în România și interviuri de profunzime cu migranți care au statutul de antreprenori după revenirea din străinătate. În prezent, România reprezintă unul dintre contextele excelente pentru cercetarea migrației de revenire datorită fluxurilor importante de migranți temporari internaționali. Lucrarea subliniază o serie de diferențe majore între migranții reveniți care au deschis mici afaceri și cei care lucrează pe cont propriu (de exemplu, sub formă de persoană fizică autorizată). Pe de o parte, migranții reveniți care dețin mici afaceri sunt cei care au beneficiat semnificativ mai mult din experiența de migrație comparativ cu reveniții non-antreprenori, în termeni de bani economisiți din migrație, acumulare de capital uman în străinătate și reconfigurarea capitalului social. Pe de altă parte, compararea profilurilor celor care lucrează pe cont propriu cu non-antreprenorii nu arată diferențe semnificative între cele două categorii în termeni de resurse acumulate prin experiența de migrație. Distincția dintre cele două tipuri de antreprenori poate avea implicații pentru politicile statelor de origine orientate către stimularea migrației de revenire prin programe centrate spre antreprenoriatul migranților reveniți. Cuvinte-cheie: migrație de revenire; migrație intra-europeană; antreprenoriat; angajare pe cont propriu; cercetare multi-metodă.


Author(s):  
Joyce Ayikoru Asiimwe

This paper communicates the results of a diagnostic evaluation of the performance of boys and girls in physical sciences at Ordinary level in Uganda after the adoption of the compulsory science policy. The objectives of the study were twofold: to examine the academic performance of boys and girls in the Uganda National Examinations from 2007 to 2010, and to highlight key factors that continue to influence the achievement of students, especially girls in sciences. Data was obtained from five co-educational secondary schools using documentary reviews, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The results revealed that the performance of both boys and girls have further declined after the implementation of the compulsory science policy. However, in comparison to the boys, girls in co-educational schools were still more likely to be among the poorest performers in sciences. This was attributed to a number of factors, key among them being girls' self-concept in sciences, and teachers' perception of girls' abilities in sciences. These findings reiterate the need to mainstream gender into both policy design and implementation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. S. Ajala ◽  
A. Gana

Rice is the most economically important food crop in many developing countries and has also become a major crop in many developed countries where its consumption has increased considerably. It has become necessary to meet the demand of the world’s current population growth rate, and the least costly means for achieving this aim is to increase rice productivity, wherever possible. The main challenges encountered by rice processors in Nigeria are to find appropriate solutions for quality rice processing. Therefore this work provides basic information about the challenges of rice processing and focuses on the challenges faced by the small scale rice processors and reasons for continuous rice importation with a view to guiding decision-making to be self-sufficient in rice production, thereby making some improvement in Nigerian economy.


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