scholarly journals A Place-Based Pedagogical Action Study to Enrich Rural Sustainability: Knowledge Ties of National Taiwan University’s 10-Year Partnership with Pinglin

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2916
Author(s):  
Shenglin Elijah Chang ◽  
Ming-Yang Kuo
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Tacit Knowledge ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Cultural Landscapes ◽  
Rural Livelihoods ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
Rural Sustainability ◽  
Pedagogical Action

This study focuses on the loss of youth and talent as one of the most pressing social justice issues leading to unsustainable and inequitable development in rural communities. With the backdrop of the rapid decline in the young rural population and loss of local tacit knowledge, we question how to balance rural sustainability through place-based critical pedagogy by integrating rural societies, agri-economics, and cultural landscapes. To confront the crisis of a loss of young rural talent and local wisdom, interdisciplinary professors from the National Taiwan University initiated place-based pedagogical action research from winter 2011 to winter 2019. This interdisciplinary place-based pedagogy approach supported hundreds of students and educators by nurturing socio-cultural and economic networks that benefit both urban universities and rural communities. Using the curriculum outcomes of this study, we propose the concept of “Knowledge-Ties Youth Rural Sustainability” (KYRS). The KYRS framework addresses two questions: (1) how to bring young talent to rural everyday landscapes in order to sustain rural livelihoods, and (2) how to integrate rural tacit knowledge with contemporary sciences to create new technologies that sustain the environment. The KYRS framework serves as a pedagogical action research blueprint for university educators encountering similar rural challenges and opportunities to those faced by the National Taiwan University in Pinglin.

Pathways ahead for New Zealand hill country farming

2016 ◽  
Vol 78 ◽  
pp. 73-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
F.G. Scrimgeour
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Farming Systems ◽  
Hill Country ◽  
The Status ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Hill Farming ◽  
The Hill

This paper provides a stocktake of the status of hill country farming in New Zealand and addresses the challenges which will determine its future state and performance. It arises out of the Hill Country Symposium, held in Rotorua, New Zealand, 12-13 April 2016. This paper surveys people, policy, business and change, farming systems for hill country, soil nutrients and the environment, plants for hill country, animals, animal feeding and productivity, and strategies for achieving sustainable outcomes in the hill country. This paper concludes by identifying approaches to: support current and future hill country farmers and service providers, to effectively and efficiently deal with change; link hill farming businesses to effective value chains and new markets to achieve sufficient and stable profitability; reward farmers for the careful management of natural resources on their farm; ensure that new technologies which improve the efficient use of input resources are developed; and strategies to achieve vibrant rural communities which strengthen hill country farming businesses and their service providers. Keywords: farming systems, hill country, people, policy, productivity, profitability, sustainability

A critical review and re-assessment of theories of smallholder decision-making: a case of conservation agriculture households, Zambia

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bridget Bwalya Umar
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Potential Role ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Rural Livelihoods ◽  
Conservation Agriculture ◽  
Economic Incentives ◽  
Uncertain Environments

AbstractDifferent theories have been posited that try to explain the decision-making process of smallholders especially regarding the adoption of new technologies or new agricultural techniques. The objective of this paper is to review and re-assess the dominant household production theories to explain the decision making of smallholders practicing conservation agriculture (CA) in the southern, eastern, and central provinces of Zambia. It also discusses the potential role of CA toward economic development. It finds that the CA smallholders studied did not aim to maximize profits but tried to secure household consumption from their own production before any other considerations in risky and uncertain environments. Their response to economic incentives was contingent on minimizing risks associated with securing a minimum level of livelihood and investing into local forms of insurance. This paper concludes that the ability for CA to contribute to rural livelihoods and economic development would depend on how adequately the factors that hinder smallholder agricultural development in general are addressed.

scholarly journals Systems analysis – complex interactions of factors that influence the sustainability of access to improved water services in a rural municipality in South Africa

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Calvin Sambo ◽  
Aidan Senzanje ◽  
Mutanga Onisimo
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Rural Livelihoods ◽  
Water Services ◽  
Critical Factors ◽  
Rural Municipality ◽  
Effect Relationship ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Limited Budget ◽  
Relationship Of

Abstract Limited understanding of the complex interactions of factors that influence the sustainability of access to improved water services poses a threat to rural livelihoods. The study assessed the complex interactions of the factors using a network approach. The assessment was to understand the complex interaction of the factors resulting from their cause-effect relationship that influence the sustainability of access to improved water services in a rural municipality of South Africa. The results highlighted that limited budget, limited or no water supply and improper operation and maintenance were critical factors resulting from the cause-effect relationship of other factors that influenced the sustainability of access to improved water services in the study area. We conclude that critical factors with a cause-effect relationship can influence the sustainability of access to improved water services. As a result, this deprives rural communities of the benefits derived from accessing improved water services. We recommend the use of the findings by the relevant authorities responsible for water services provision to inform planning, management, policies to address challenges identified to contribute to sustainability of access to improved water services.

IS-Related Organizational Change and the Necessity of Techno-Organizational Co-Design(-In-Use)

2012 ◽  
pp. 289-310
Author(s):  
Chiara Bassetti
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Change ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Change Management ◽  
Emergency Response ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Cooperative Work ◽  
Medical Emergency ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Everyday Work

This chapter considers some aspects of an ethnomethodologically oriented ethnography that has been carried out in a medical Emergency Response Centre (ERC) before, during, and after an IS-related organizational change. After a description of the everyday work in the ERC and its larger social arena, the authors discuss the main changes and the users group’s resistance that mediated the new technologies’ transformative potential: the rejection of abandoning ‘old’ cooperative work practices, and the emergence of an innovative one, with its own condition of appropriateness, applicability, and accountability. Finally, starting from the evidence that solutions to problems emerging in a field must be coherent with the endogenous organization of activities of that field, with the configuration of inter-actions that actually sets up that context, the authors discuss the necessity of co-design(-in-use), and the possibilities provided by ethnomethodological ethnography as a tool for action research in IT design and techno-organizational change management.

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