Distribution without representation? Beyond the rights of nature in the southern Ecuadorian highlands

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-23
Author(s):  
Erin Fitz-Henry
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
Silver Mine ◽  
The World ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Mining Projects ◽  
National Investment ◽  
Southern Highland

Despite the fact that Ecuador has arguably the most biocentric constitution in the world, deepening national investment in extractive development projects has left communities on the frontlines of these projects desperate for greater participation in decision-making processes currently monopolized by centralized ministries. The result has been a flourishing over the past two years of sub-national judicial and non-judicial challenges to strategic mining projects. Integral to these challenges is the constitutional language of rights for nature (Articles 71–4). Drawing on ethnographic research around the Río Blanco gold and silver mine in the southern highland province of Azuay, this article explores the diverse and surprising ways in which these environmental rights are being taken up as part of fundamental challenges to the decision-making monopolies of the Ministries of the Environment and of Mining. While numerous scholars of human and indigenous rights have recently lamented the fact that ‘rights-talk’ often appears unable to arrest or destabilize extractive imperatives, the case of Río Blanco suggests that, when embraced as part of wider social struggles for representation, rights-based approaches might be more potent than is currently being recognized. They may even encourage an important reorientation of some of the binaries that continue to preoccupy critical scholars of development.

scholarly journals Therapeutic Abortion and Psychiatric Disturbance in Canadian Women

1976 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 453-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther R. Greenglass
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Suicide Attempts ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Psychiatric History ◽  
Legal Abortion ◽  
Therapeutic Abortion ◽  
Psychiatric Disturbance ◽  
The Past ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Psychiatric Problems

Summary The majority of one hundred and eighty-eight women interviewed after having legal, therapeutic abortions did not experience psychiatric disturbance. While women with a psychiatric history were more likely than their more mentally healthy counterparts to experience some psychiatric disturbance afterwards, the majority of those with psychiatric problems in the past appeared to be coping reasonably well afterwards. It was pointed out that factors and circumstances other than the abortion itself, but occurring around the same time, may constitute reasons for the subsequent appearance of psychiatric disturbance, such as suicide attempts. Finally, the grounds for legal abortion in Canada were questioned — particularly the artificial practice of compartmentalizing and labeling reasons for abortion as psychiatric and non-psychiatric. While such practices may facilitate the decision-making processes involved in reviewing applications for abortion, they do not take account of the full range of human and social need.

scholarly journals Corruption and Combating Corruption: A Framework for Peace, Human Rights and Sustainable Development in Post-Independent Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 9-17
Author(s):  
Eric Che Muma
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Sustainable Peace ◽  
The World ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Global Peace ◽  
The Way

Abstract Since the introduction of democratic reforms in post-independent Africa, most states have been battling corruption to guarantee sustainable peace, human rights and development. Because of the devastating effects of corruption on the realisation of peace, human rights and sustainable development, the world at large and Africa in particular, has strived to fight against corruption with several states adopting national anti-corruption legislation and specialised bodies. Despite international and national efforts to combat corruption, the practice still remains visible in most African states without any effective accountability or transparency in decision-making processes by the various institutions charged with corruption issues. This has further hindered global peace, the effective enjoyment of human rights and sustainable development in the continent. This paper aims to examine the concept of corruption and combating corruption and its impact on peace, human rights and sustainable development in post-independent Africa with a particular focus on Cameroon. It reveals that despite international and national efforts, corruption still remains an obstacle to global peace in Africa requiring a more proactive means among states to achieve economic development. The paper takes into consideration specific socio-economic challenges posed by corruption and the way forward for a united Africa to combat corruption to pull the continent out of poverty, hunger and instability, and to transform it into a better continent for peace, human rights and sustainable development.

scholarly journals ‘When the Numbers Stop Adding’: Imagining Futures in Perilous Presents Among Youth in Nairobi Ghettos

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi van Stapele
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Youth Gangs ◽  
Social Navigation ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Relational Concept ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
Over Time

AbstractStudying the aspirations of young men, in Mathare, Nairobi, highlights their social becoming in contexts in which they incessantly risk social and physical death. Taking aspiration as a relational concept brings into view the temporal and spatial interactions between different aspirations and how these connect to emerging and future pathways of these young men. The ensuing relationalities at play are analysed through their context-bound negotiations of dominant gender norms to elucidate how these inform their social navigation towards male respectability, now and in the future. Adding the dimension of positionality here is useful to bring out how individual negotiations of gender norms in space and over time allows a nuanced view on situated entanglements of aspirations, pathways and dominant discourses and how these convolute and intensify in particular decision-making processes. The analyses are based on longitudinal ethnographic research with youth gangs in Nairobi for four months annually on average since 2005.

Marshmallows and Braking Systems

2021 ◽  
pp. 105-122
Author(s):  
Craig J. Bryan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Suicide Attempt ◽  
Social Influence ◽  
Emotional Distress ◽  
Basic Concept ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
The Past ◽  
Internal States ◽  
Decision Making Processes

This chapter argues that suicide can be more usefully understood as a consequence of decision-making processes that are vulnerable to environmental and social influence rather than a consequence of internal states or traits such as mental illness. Mental illness and emotional distress more generally are better understood as one particular context within which the decision to make a suicide attempt or not often presents itself, but this does not mean that mental illness is the only context within which this choice is considered. This also does not mean that mental illness causes suicide. The basic concept involved in the marshmallow experiment—decision-making under different conditions—has received increased attention in the past decade among suicide researchers. Studies reveal that the decision-making process of someone who almost died as a result of a suicide attempt was no different from the decision-making process of someone who had never attempted suicide, was not currently suicidal, and did not have a mental illness. This finding lines up with the idea that there can be multiple pathways to suicide.

Educación financiera: ¿por qué la necesitamos?

2021 ◽  
pp. 16-29
Author(s):  
Adriana Toledo
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Economic System ◽  
Financial Education ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
For Profit ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Entire Nation ◽  
The Right

For the longest time, roughly from the 16th century, with the establishment of capitalism around the world, people have been working towards ways of ensuring their survival by accumulating assets and money. Capitalism is a system predominated by private ownership and the constant quest for profit and the accumulation of wealth. Despite being conceived as an economic system model, it influences political, social, cultural, ethical and many other spheres, encompassing our affecting our entire nation. With the onset of globalization over the past 50 years, the capitalist system has become the predominant system throughout the world and effects all beings in one way or another. In an effort to generate wealth, many factors influence decisions made within the world of finances, and ignorance of the theme is no longer an option. Financial education is an important discipline in providing citizens the opportunity to exercise their rights and duties within the financial world, allowing for more accurate decision-making. Financial citizenship entails an individual’s ability to make the right choices, exercising their rights and fulfilling the associated duties. It is a concept taken from the term citizenship.

Health Technology Funding Decision-Making Processes Around the World

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 475-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania Stafinski ◽  
Devidas Menon ◽  
Donald J. Philippon ◽  
Christopher McCabe
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Health Technology ◽  
Funding Decision ◽  
The World ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Technology Funding

Territorial Changes to Municipalities and Inter-Municipal Cooperation: A Comparative Overview and Orientations for Slovenia

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 731-748 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iztok Rakar ◽  
Bojan Tičar ◽  
Maja Klun
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Local Democracy ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
To Receive ◽  
Public Decision

Local self-government has faced a number of challenges over the past decade. The financial crisis has revealed new dimensions of the eternal question of financing self-governing local communities, while distrust and a lack of interest in participation in local democracy among the people have led to considerations of different approaches to public decision-making concerning local issues. A comparative overview shows that the question of the “perfect size” of municipalities is currently very relevant and aimed at finding dimensions that would enable the municipality to ensure both local-level democracy and identity and economic efficiency in the delivery of public services. The most popular tool for achieving this goal is the merger of municipalities, although other approaches also exist, including various forms of inter-municipal cooperation. Some forms of inter-municipal cooperation have already taken firm hold in Slovenia, although the question of the potential impacts of alternative forms of inter-municipal cooperation on the democratic legitimacy of decision-making processes and the potential of these processes for the developmental breakthrough of Slovenian municipalities has yet to receive adequate attention.

scholarly journals A Turing test for free will

2012 ◽  
Vol 370 (1971) ◽  
pp. 3597-3610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seth Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Decision Maker ◽  
Turing Test ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Theory Of Computation ◽  
Alan Turing ◽  
The World ◽  
Decision Making Processes

Before Alan Turing made his crucial contributions to the theory of computation, he studied the question of whether quantum mechanics could throw light on the nature of free will. This paper investigates the roles of quantum mechanics and computation in free will. Although quantum mechanics implies that events are intrinsically unpredictable, the ‘pure stochasticity’ of quantum mechanics adds randomness only to decision-making processes, not freedom. By contrast, the theory of computation implies that, even when our decisions arise from a completely deterministic decision-making process, the outcomes of that process can be intrinsically unpredictable, even to—especially to—ourselves. I argue that this intrinsic computational unpredictability of the decision-making process is what gives rise to our impression that we possess free will. Finally, I propose a ‘Turing test’ for free will: a decision-maker who passes this test will tend to believe that he, she, or it possesses free will, whether the world is deterministic or not.

scholarly journals Post-Normal Science in a German Landscape

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger A. Pielke
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Normal Science ◽  
Technological Changes ◽  
Eastern Germany ◽  
The Past ◽  
Future State ◽  
The World

This essay explores the management and creation of ignorance via an exploration of the landscape of eastern Germany, which has seen profound social, political, and technological changes over the past several decades. Like in many places around the world decision makers in eastern Germany are seeking to reach a future state where seemingly conflicting outcomes related to the economy and the environment are simultaneously realized. The management of ignorance is an important but often overlooked consideration in decision making that the concept of "post-normal science" places into our focus of attention.

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