The Road to Taisha: Indigenous Protests for Road Infrastructure in the Ecuadorian Amazon and the Ontological Turn

Sociologus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-32
Author(s):  
Victor Cova
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Environmental Conflicts ◽  
Environmental Challenges ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Core ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
Ecuadorian Amazon ◽  
Ontological Turn

This contribution examines protests by Shuar people in the Ecuadorian Amazon during the summer of 2015 in favour of the construction of a road through their territory. Can the ontological turn help us understand such events? Debates around the ontological turn have hinged around its potential contribution to the analysis of environmental challenges and political conflicts. In this article, I argue that central concepts from the ontological turn – such as animism (Descola 2005) or perspectivism (Viveiros de Castro 2004) – may add nuance but not substance to anthropological understandings of environmental conflicts. I focus on the stakes of these conflicts, the construction of alliances, and the tactics used by the different stakeholders. Taking to heart one of the core premises of the ontological turn, we may think that Western concepts of “nature” and “culture” may hinder our understanding of indigenous Amazonian people’s participation in these conflicts. I argue on the contrary that efforts to overcome these concepts may precisely risk concealing or distorting the actions and statements of indigenous people involved in the conflict.

scholarly journals THE ENGINEERING DESIGN COMPETENCY

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Angeles ◽  
Ron Britton ◽  
Liuchen Chang ◽  
Franҫois Charron ◽  
Peter Gregson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Education ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Global Competition ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Environmental Challenges ◽  
Research Results ◽  
The Core ◽  
Product And Process ◽  
Value Added Products

There is increasing global competition for better product and process functionality, higher quality, lower costs, and other considerations including energy and environmental challenges. This trend requires that Canadian industry be more innovative and responsive in order to stay competitive internationally. The Canadian capability in Engineering Design is at the core of our ability to achieve this goal. At both the undergraduate and graduate levels, we must improve the capability and capacity of engineering graduates so that they are capable of leading innovation, and converting research results into value-added products and services. This paper addresses the engineering design competency, identifies needs in engineering design training, and describes directions for the design content in engineering education programs.

scholarly journals Elemental Enrichment in Shallow Subsurface Red Sea Coastal Sediments, Al-Shuaiba, Saudi Arabia: Natural vs. Anthropogenic Controls

Minerals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 898
Author(s):  
Ibrahim M. Ghandour ◽  
Mohammed H. Aljahdali
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Red Sea ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Road Construction ◽  
Coastal Sediments ◽  
Medieval Climate Anomaly ◽  
Climate Anomaly ◽  
Shallow Subsurface ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Core

Geochemical analysis of the 23 sediment samples collected from a short (0.6 m long) core retrieved from the coastal creek that was previously connecting the northern and southern Al-Shuaiba Lagoons, Red Sea, Saudi Arabia, was accomplished to assess the elemental enrichment levels and the natural and anthropogenic driving forces for this enrichment. Statistical analysis and upcore variation in elemental concentrations enabled subdivision of the core formally into three units, lower, middle, and upper. The enriched elements in the lower and middle units display poor to negative correlations with the enriched elements in the upper unit. The lower unit is enriched in elements (Mo, As, U, and Re) suggesting deposition under anoxic conditions, possibly related to the Medieval Climate Anomaly. The middle unit is enriched in the carbonate-related constituents (CaCO3, Ca, and Sr). The upper unit is enriched in elements that co-vary significantly with Al suggesting increased terrigenous supply associated with the construction of the road between the two lagoons. The enrichment of elements in the lower and middle units is naturally driven, whereas the enrichment of lithogenic elements in the upper unit, though of geogenic origin, is induced after the road construction.

Volunteering at Landsmót: gaining knowledge and experience.

2021 ◽  
pp. 99-112
Author(s):  
Kari Jæger ◽  
Guðrún Helgadóttir
Keyword(s):  
Volunteer Management ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
The Core ◽  
Icelandic Horse ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
Management Approaches ◽  
International Volunteer ◽  
Core Activity

Abstract Landsmót (the National Championship of the Icelandic horse), the main equestrian event in Iceland, provides an opportunity to present Icelandic nature and culture in many ways, through horses, clothing, equipment and food. Landsmót is a biennial sports event which has become a meeting place for local and national participants (audience and volunteers) and also international audiences and volunteer tourists. It provides access to what is commonly termed 'the world of the Icelandic horse'. The findings in this chapter are based on interviews with volunteers and fieldwork at the Landsmót event at Hólar, Iceland, in 2016. There were two types of volunteers at the event: volunteer tourists who signed up due to their interest in the core activity; and members of local non-profit associations that took on tasks for the event as a fundraising activity. The findings suggest that these two groups require different volunteer management approaches and that a clearer strategy for managing international volunteer tourists is needed to meet their needs and expectations of the event community and to facilitate their co-creation of memorable experiences.

How We Do Race

On Inhumanity ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 34-42
Author(s):  
David Livingstone Smith
Keyword(s):  
Human Beings ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Core Elements ◽  
On The Road ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter teases out the core elements of the ordinary conception of “race.” This does not include a scientific or philosophical definition of race. Rather, the chapter talks about the view of race that most people just slip into when going about the everyday business of life. It is a conception that has been taken so thoroughly for granted that many do not even question it. The chapter argues that understanding the conception of race is key to understanding dehumanization, because beliefs about race lie at the heart of the dehumanizing process. It shows that dividing human beings into races—into “our kind” and “their kind”—is the first step on the road to dehumanizing them.

New Countries, Old Problems

2021 ◽  
pp. 52-73
Author(s):  
Benjamin Hoy
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
Border Control ◽  
Sexual Morality ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Immigration Laws ◽  
The Core ◽  
Racial Background ◽  
The Family

Chapter 3 focuses on the Great Lakes in the 1860s and 1870s to argue that the border’s importance shifted in response to Reconstruction and Confederation. National consolidation encouraged each nation to rethink how African Americans, Indigenous people, immigrants, and settlers fit into each country. By dividing those who constituted the nation from those who threatened it, battles over belonging helped to usher in new immigration laws and extradition provisions. Debates over suffrage required each country to outline the core tenants of the socieities they intended to create. This forced them to weigh the relative importance of cultural beliefs, gendered norms, contract freedom, racial background, and private property against one another. In this uncertain environment, sexual morality, suffrage rights, citizenship, and ideas about the family created the terrace that border control grew from.

scholarly journals Conclusion: the road ahead: where should we go now to improve healthcare quality in acute settings?

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 99-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Braithwaite ◽  
Natalie Taylor ◽  
Robyn Clay-Williams ◽  
Hsuen P Ting ◽  
Gaston Arnolda
Keyword(s):  
Quality Improvement ◽  
Healthcare Quality ◽  
Quality And Safety ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Core ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
No Gold Standard ◽  
Main Message ◽  
Over Time

Abstract This final article in our 12-part series articulating a suite of quality improvement studies completes our report on the Deepening our Understanding of Quality in Australia (DUQuA) program of work. Here, we bring the Supplement’s key findings and contributions together, tying up loose ends. Traversing the DUQuA articles, we first argued the case for the research, conducted so that an in-depth analysis of one country’s health system, completed 5 years after the landmark Deepening our Understanding of Quality Improvement in Europe (DUQuE), was available. We now provide a digest of the learning from each article. Essentially, we have contributed an understanding of quality and safety activities in 32 of the largest acute settings in Australia, developed a series of scales and tools for use within Australia, modifiable for other purposes elsewhere, and provided a platform for future studies of this kind. Our main message is, despite the value of publishing an intense study of quality activities in 32 hospitals in one country, there is no gold standard, one-size-fits-all methodology or guarantee of success in quality improvement activities, whether the initiatives are conducted at departmental, organization-wide or whole-of-systems levels. Notwithstanding this, armed with the tools, scales and lessons from DUQuA, we hope we have provided many more options and opportunities for others going about strengthening their quality improvement activities, but we do not claim to have solved all problems or provided a definitive approach. In our view, quality improvement initiatives are perennially challenging, and progress hard-won. Effective measurement, evaluating progress over time, selecting a useful suite of quality methods and having the persistence to climb the improvement gradient over time, using all the expertise and tools available, is at the core of the work of quality improvement and will continue to be so.

DWELLING ON THE ROAD: ROUTINES, RITUALS AND ROADBLOCKS IN SOUTHERN GHANA

Africa ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 446-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Klaeger
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Core ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
On The Road ◽  
Southern Ghana

ABSTRACTThe Accra–Kumasi road, one of Ghana's most important trunk roads, traverses numerous towns and settlements whose residents at times engage intimately with the road on their doorstep. In this article, I provide ethnographic insights into the ways in which roadside dwellers conceptualize – and spatialize – the road and its roadside through distinct repertoires of movement (performed and encountered), through localized storytelling and narratives, through self-reflection, and also through disruptive and vigilante actions. I describe the spatial practices that are at the core of the dwellers' ‘anthropological’ experience of the road and its roadside, a space that is continuously domesticated, appropriated and, thus, implicated in the mundane and everyday. The dwellers' everyday practices, as well as the exceptional performances oriented to the road, appear as closely intertwined both with the liveliness, socialities and opportunities the road affords, as well as with its dangers and potential for destruction and death. Thus the ‘ambivalent nature of road experiences’, in Masquelier's phrase – namely the experience of the road as a space of both perils and possibilities – is crucial to how roadside dwellers socially produce the Accra–Kumasi road.

Peace in Lebanon and the Middle East

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-155
Author(s):  
Salim El Hoss
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Core ◽  
Road Map ◽  
Sustainable Peace

Lebanon has never experienced an extended interval of sustainable peace since its independence. In 1975, Lebanon was the scene of a civil war. In 1982, a full-scale war was mounted by Israel. In the process massacres were perpetrated by the Israelis. The current crisis has been punctuated by momentous tragic events which brought salient changes in the sordid course of life in the country, unleashing a prolonged cabinet crisis, and finally an intricate, highly critical discord over the election of a new president. It was no accident that so many spots of tension are boiling at the same time in the Middle East in Lebanon, in Palestine, in Iraq, and in Sudan. The conventional wisdom is that, in the final analysis, Palestine lies at the core of all the mayhem. The linkage between the repeated Lebanese crises and the Palestinian issue is only too obvious. The proclivity of Arab officialdom is to negotiate within the context of what is known as the Arab initiative. The Euro–American declared position is that any negotiations should be conducted in accordance with the Road Map sponsored by the Quartet. Both initiatives leave a lot to be desired.

La participation des forces démocratiques à l'expérience française de planification régionale

1972 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Alain Baccigalupo
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Regional Planning ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Administrative Reform ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Core ◽  
On The Road ◽  
And Function ◽  
And Control ◽  
Vast Range

After briefly pointing out the weakness of participation at the core of the Regional Committees for Economic Expansion (CREE), the author analyses in depth the notion of participation as it has existed in France since the administrative reform of March 14, 1964, within the Commissions of Regional Economic Development (CODER).Having touched on the place occupied by and the role played by these organizations throughout the process of elaboration, execution, and control of the plan at the regional districts level, the author then turns to an examination of the composition and function of these consultative processes.As far as the composition of the CODER is concerned, the article deals with three main features: the tripartite nature of the commissions; the imbalance of forces particularly to the detriment of the trade unions; and the major reforms capable of improving the representativeness of the commission.Regarding the functioning of the CODERs, the author, having described the vast range of duties which are devolved on them by the texts, puts into perspective the extreme weakness of their “powers” in contrast to the unquestionable authority of the regional prefect. Thus, the CODERs are described as bodies directly under prefectorial control, veritable registry offices deeply divided at their centre, without real expertise and without great impact on public opinion.At the end of the study the author recalls the abortive attempt at regional reform on April 27, 1969, and concludes that it will be necessary to set to work on a far-reaching reform in order to get France on the road towards real democratization of the process of regional planning.

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