scholarly journals Brief Communication: Vehicles for development or disaster? The new Silk Route, landslides and geopolitics in Nepal

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Sudmeier-Rieux ◽  
Brian G. McAdoo ◽  
Sanjaya Devkota ◽  
Purna Lal Chandra Rajbhandari

Abstract. The One Belt, One Road (OBOR) policy, one of China's most ambitious foreign investment and policy initiatives, portends significant changes in the social, cultural and critically, the physical landscape of Nepal, which became a signatory in May 2017. The small, mountainous nation is sandwiched between the massive Indian and Chinese economies and the roads that link these two signify vehicles of change. There are plans for expanding several major trunk roads to pass from Tibet to India along existing routes that are already being impacted by increased trade, and the recent landslide victory of the left alliance (Communist and Maoists Centre) auger greater openness toward China. Rural villages adjacent to these roads will undoubtedly continue to tie into these roads via a network of poorly constructed feeder (rural) roads which are likely to increase environmental, economic and human risks associated with roadside landslides. This commentary elaborates on the above issues based on research on the occurrence of roads and landslides in Nepal with recommendations for improved road governance.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-25
Author(s):  
Anatoli Beifert ◽  
Gunnar Prause ◽  
Yury Shcherbanin

Abstract Land-based Trans-Eurasian transport corridors, their current development and perspectives have been high on the political agenda in the last two decades not only in Europe and China but also in the transit countries such as russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. A number of conceptual initiatives are already being implemented. The Belt and road or the one Belt, one road (oBor) initiative on the Chinese side and the rail Baltica project from the European perspective have gained special attention. Big-scale infrastructural projects are also being implemented by transit countries, e.g., the construction of a motorway from China to Europe—from Kazakhstan via russia to Belarus—to facilitate the land-based shortcut for cargo transport within the Eurasian transport corridor. This article investigates the general framework conditions of infrastructural investments into projects related to Eurasian logistics and discusses strategic areas of intersection between the European activities and the new Silk Way. in the framework of the oBor initiative, this article also addresses the interaction of the Chinese–Kazakh–russian–Belarusian –polish railway transport, with a special focus on Belarusian–polish cross-border issues. The authors have participated in several projects focusing on transport corridors and discuss the research question of how different Eurasian land-based transport corridors can be integrated and which strategic role can the rail Baltica project play in the context of the new Silk route. The research is based on surveys, expert interviews, secondary data research and case studies.


Author(s):  
Ping Zhou ◽  
Zhanwen Zhang ◽  
Siwei Sun

The “One Belt One Road” strategy has been fully implemented since 2016, and the unlimited potential of Macau needs to be developed. The excellent geographic location enables Macau to be a significant geographic node on the maritime silk route; the internalized business regulation and advantages in talent enables Macau to be a significant regulation node of system ensuring the operation of the policy “One Belt One Road”; the advantages in political aspect enables Macau to be a significant financial node of the process of “One Belt One Road” financing and management.


Author(s):  
Hasan H. Karrar

This chapter describes overland trade between Pakistan and China since 1969 until the present. Overland trade between the two countries takes place over the high-altitude Karakoram Highway, connecting Pakistan’s mountainous Gilgit-Baltistan region to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in western China. The Karakoram Highway is popularly described as a contemporary silk road; this idea has been reinforced by the 2013 announcement of the One Belt One Road initiative, which includes the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. In this chapter, I explore the relationship between a documented, regulated silk route trade and its shadows; shadows take the form of traditional pathways between the two countries that are no longer used, as well as the undocumented movement of licit goods and smuggling of illicit substances.


1977 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asa Cristina Laurell ◽  
José Blanco Gil ◽  
Teresa MacHetto ◽  
Juan Palomo ◽  
Claudia Perez Rulfo ◽  
...  

It is suggested that the problem of the social causes of disease should be analyzed on the basis of the significant social processes of a given society. In this theoretical framework, a comparative study of two Mexican rural villages at different degrees of development is presented in order to clarify two related questions: what is the impact on morbidity of the rural development process, and what is the influence of socio-economic conditions on the distribution of disease in the population? It was found that morbidity was significantly higher in the more “developed” village than in the one characterized by a predominantly subsistence economy. This finding is ascribed to the character of Mexican rural development, similar to that of other subordinated countries, which implies a change from subsistence agriculture to cash-crops in an unstable market, a massive conversion of peasants into wage laborers with unstable employment, and substantial migration; these phenomena give rise to new, unfavorable living and working conditions for large parts of the rural population. It is argued that it is not development as such that is responsible for the increase in morbidity, but the particular form that it assumes in the dependent countries. It was also found that socioeconomic characteristics such as people's position in production, the sector of economic activity, and migration patterns define groups of high and low morbidity more clearly than do sanitary conditions and access to professional medical care. These results suggest that the success of public health activities depends on the possibility to plan the process of change.


1970 ◽  
pp. 38-45
Author(s):  
May Abu Jaber

Violence against women (VAW) continues to exist as a pervasive, structural,systematic, and institutionalized violation of women’s basic human rights (UNDivision of Advancement for Women, 2006). It cuts across the boundaries of age, race, class, education, and religion which affect women of all ages and all backgrounds in every corner of the world. Such violence is used to control and subjugate women by instilling a sense of insecurity that keeps them “bound to the home, economically exploited and socially suppressed” (Mathu, 2008, p. 65). It is estimated that one out of every five women worldwide will be abused during her lifetime with rates reaching up to 70 percent in some countries (WHO, 2005). Whether this abuse is perpetrated by the state and its agents, by family members, or even by strangers, VAW is closely related to the regulation of sexuality in a gender specific (patriarchal) manner. This regulation is, on the one hand, maintained through the implementation of strict cultural, communal, and religious norms, and on the other hand, through particular legal measures that sustain these norms. Therefore, religious institutions, the media, the family/tribe, cultural networks, and the legal system continually disciplinewomen’s sexuality and punish those women (and in some instances men) who have transgressed or allegedly contravened the social boundaries of ‘appropriateness’ as delineated by each society. Such women/men may include lesbians/gays, women who appear ‘too masculine’ or men who appear ‘too feminine,’ women who try to exercise their rights freely or men who do not assert their rights as ‘real men’ should, women/men who have been sexually assaulted or raped, and women/men who challenge male/older male authority.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 157-175
Author(s):  
Wécio Pinheiro Araújo

Resumo: Em O Capital, Marx nos alertou que a mercadoria tem um caráter misterioso que carrega “sutilezas metafísicas e argúcias teológicas”. Este artigo tenta decifrar um pouco desse mistério buscando decodifica-lo naquilo que denominamos como a estranha objetividade do valor. Para isso, analisamos a relação entre a ideologia e o valor a partir da crítica marxiana à mercadoria, consignada à lógica de Hegel. Vemos que o valor se constitui como razão ontológica da mercadoria enquanto produto do processo de trabalho que carrega uma racionalidade imanente, isto é, um espírito socialmente produzido que se objetiva à medida que é vivenciado pelos indivíduos como uma lógica social que rege as relações nesta sociedade. Isso se dá por meio de “sutilezas metafísicas” na formação da realidade social marcada por contradições estabelecidas entre, de um lado, o conteúdo objetivo das relações sociais, e de outro, a forma como essas relações são vivenciadas pela consciência na sociedade capitalista. Nesta relação entre conteúdo e forma, encontramos determinações de profundidade ontológica entre o valor e a ideologia, enquanto forma social que opera harmonizando as contradições constituintes da realidade social, a exemplo do que acontece no trabalho assalariado. A mediação ideológica se põe como uma progressão imanente à materialização da vivência concreta da relação entre capital e trabalho no salário, de maneira a naturalizar a exploração que se esconde na estranha objetividade do valor que se realiza na troca de mercadorias. Concluímos que a conexão ontológica entre o ser social e a mercadoria é socialmente ubíqua, precisamente por conta do seu caráter ideológico na formação da sociabilidade a partir do processo de trabalho subjugado ao capital.  Palavras-chave: Valor. Ideologia. Trabalho, Capital. Salário.  Abstract: In Capital, Marx warned us that the commodity has a mysterious character bearing "metaphysical subtleties and theological insights." This article attempts to decipher a little of this mystery by decoding it into what we call the strange objectivity of value. For this, we analyze the relation between ideology and value from the Marxian critique of the commodity, consigned to the Hegelian logic. We see that value is constituted as the ontological reason of the commodity as the product of the labor process that carries an immanent rationality, that is, a socially produced spirit that is objectified as it is experienced by the individuals as a social logic that governs the relations in this society. This is done through "metaphysical subtleties" in the formation of social reality marked by contradictions established between, on the one hand, the objective content of social relations, and on the other, the way in which these relations are experienced by consciousness in capitalist society. In this relationship between content and form, we find determinations of ontological depth between value and ideology, as a social form that operates by harmonizing the constituent contradictions of social reality, as in wage labor. Ideological mediation is seen as an immanent progression to the materialization of the concrete experience of the relation between capital and labor in wage, in order to naturalize the exploitation that is hidden in the strange objectivity of the value that is realized in the exchange of commodities. We conclude that the ontological connection between the social being and the commodity is socially ubiquitous precisely because of its ideological character in the formation of sociability from the labor process subjugated to capital.  Keywords: Value. Labor. Ideology. Capital. Wage.  REFERÊNCIAS  ADORNO, Theodor W. Teoria Estética. [Asthetische Theorie]. Tradução de Artur Morão. – São Paulo : Livraria Martins Fontes, 1988.  ADORNO, Theodor W. Três estudos sobre Hegel. [Drei Studien zu Hegel]. Tradução: Ulisses Razzante Vaccari. – 1. Ed. – São Paulo: Editora Unesp, 2013.  ARAÚJO, Wécio Pinheiro. Ideologia e capital: crítica da razão imanente à sociedade moderna. Tese de doutorado. João Pessoa, PB; Leipzig, Saxônia, UFPB/UFPE/UFRN-HGB, 2018.  ARTHUR, Christopher J. A nova dialética e “O Capital” de Marx. Tradução de Pedro C. Chadarevian. – São Paulo : Edipro, 2016.   DUSSEL, Enrique. A Produção Teórica de Marx: um comentário sobre os Grundrisse. Tradução de José Paulo Netto. – 1 ed. – São Paulo : Expressão Popular, 2012. GERAS, Norman. Marx and the Critique of Political Economy. In: Ideology and Social Science: politics, sociology, anthropology, economics, history. – Ed. by Robin Blackburn, Fontana/Collins, 1977, p. 284-305.  JAEGGI, Rahel. Alienation: News directions in Critical Theory. Columbia Uni. Press, 2014.  HERÁCLITO, de Éfeso. Heráclito : fragmentos contextualizados. Tradução, apresentação e comentários Alexandre Costa. – São Paulo : Odysseus Editora, 2012.  HEGEL, G. W. F. Fenomenologia do Espírito [Phänomenologie des Geistes]. Tradução de Paulo Meneses; com a colaboração de Karl-Heinz Efken, e José Nogueira Machado. – 5. ed. – Petrópolis, RJ : Vozes : Bragança Paulista, Editora Universitária São Francisco, 2008.  MARX, Karl. Das Kapital: Der Produktionprozess des Kapitals. Erster Band, Erstes Buch (Kapitel XVI-LII). Hamburg, Nikol Verlag., 2016.  MARX, Karl. Grundrisse: manuscritos econômicos de 1857-1858 : esboços da crítica da economia política. – supervisão editorial Mario Duayer; tradução Mario Duayer, Nélio Schneider (colaboração de Alice Helga Werner e Rudiger Hoffman). – São Paulo : Boitempo; Rio de Janeiro: Ed. UFRJ, 2011.  MARX, Karl. Manuscritos econômico-filosóficos. [Ökonomie-philosophische Manuskripte] Tradução, apresentação e notas de Jesus Ranieri. - 2. reimp. - São Paulo : Boitempo Editorial, 2008.  MARX, Karl. O Capital – Crítica da Economia Política. Livro 1 – O Processo de Produção do Capital. Vol. I – 10 ª. Edição, Tradução de Reginaldo Sant’ Anna. Do original em alemão: DAS KAPITAL – Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (Buch I: Der Produktionsprozes des Kapitals, Quarta edição, 1890). São Paulo : DIFEL, 1985.  MARX, Karl. O Capital – Crítica da Economia Política. Livro 1 – O processo de produção do capital. Do original em alemão: DAS KAPITAL – Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (Buch 1: Der Produktionsprozess des Kapitals.  – São Paulo: Boitempo, 2013.   NICHOLS, Bill. Ideology and the Image: Social Representation in the Cinema and Other Media. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (11) ◽  
pp. 11-15
Author(s):  
Gan N.Yu. ◽  
Ponomareva L.I. ◽  
Obukhova K.A.

Today, worldview, spiritual and moral problems that have always been reflected in education and upbringing come to the fore in society. In this situation, there is a demand for philosophical categories. One of the priority goals of education in modern conditions is the formation of a reasonable, reflexive person who is able to analyze their actions and the actions of other people. Modern science is characterized by an understanding of the absolute value and significance of childhood in the development of the individual, which implies the need for its multilateral study. In the conditions of democratization of all spheres of life, the child ceases to be a passive object of education and training, and becomes an active carrier of their own meanings of being and the subject of world creation. One of the realities of childhood is philosophizing, so it is extremely timely to address the identification of its place and role in the world of childhood. Children's philosophizing is extremely poorly studied, although the need for its analysis is becoming more obvious. Children's philosophizing is one of the forms of philosophical reflection, which has its own qualitative specificity, on the one hand, and commonality with all other forms of philosophizing, on the other. The social relevance of the proposed research lies in the fact that children's philosophizing can be considered as an intellectual indicator of a child's socialization, since the process of reflection involves the adoption and development of culture. Modern society, in contrast to the traditional one, is ready to "accept" a philosophizing child, which means that it is necessary to determine the main characteristics and conditions of children's philosophizing.


2018 ◽  
pp. 13-38
Author(s):  
N. Ceramella

The article considers two versions of D. H. Lawrence’s essay The Theatre: the one which appeared in the English Review in September 1913 and the other one which Lawrence published in his first travel book Twilight in Italy (1916). The latter, considerably revised and expanded, contains a number of new observations and gives a more detailed account of Lawrence’s ideas.Lawrence brings to life the atmosphere inside and outside the theatre in Gargnano, presenting vividly the social structure of this small northern Italian town. He depicts the theatre as a multi-storey stage, combining the interpretation of the plays by Shakespeare, D’Annunzio and Ibsen with psychological portraits of the actors and a presentation of the spectators and their responses to the plays as distinct social groups.Lawrence’s views on the theatre are contextualised by his insights into cinema and its growing popularity.What makes this research original is the fact that it offers a new perspective, aiming to illustrate the social situation inside and outside the theatre whichLawrenceobserved. The author uses the material that has never been published or discussed before such as the handwritten lists of box-holders in Gargnano Theatre, which was offered to Lawrence and his wife Frieda by Mr. Pietro Comboni, and the photographs of the box-panels that decorated the theatre inLawrence’s time.


Author(s):  
Alexandra-Niculina Babii

The digital era has determined a very easy creation and propagation of fake news. As a consequence, it has become harder for people to fight this malicious phenomenon. However, the only weapon that can have results in this informational war is critical thinking. But who should use it? The creators of fake news that do this for different reasons? The social platforms that allow the circulation of fake news with ease? Mass media which does not always verify with much attention and rigour the information they spread? The Governments that should apply legal sanctions? Or the consumer that receives all the fake news, him being the final target? Even if critical thinking would be useful for every actor on fake news’ stage, the one who needs it the most is the consumer. This comes together with the big responsibility placed on his shoulders. Even if others are creating and spreading disinformation, the consumer must be aware and be careful with the information he encounters on a daily basis. He should use his reasoning and he should not believe everything just because it is on the Internet. How can he do that? Critical thinking seems to be a quite difficult tool to use, especially for non-specialized individuals. This paper’s aim is to propose a simplified model of critical thinking that can contribute to detecting fake news with the help of people’s self judgement. The model is based on theories from Informal Logic considering the structure of arguments and on Critical Discourse Analysis theories concerning the patterns found in the content of the information.


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