Credit and social relations

Author(s):  
Chris Briggs

In the previous chapters, the dominant view of the creditor-debtor relationship was exploitative – where lenders capitalize on the dependence of the poor borrowers. In this view, the creditors profited while the debtors become poorer as a consequence of their borrowing. This chapter discusses the nature and consequences of the relationships between creditors and debtors, both for the individuals involved and the village society as a whole. It seeks to rebut the above-mentioned observations. In this chapter, it is assumed that the acquisitive behaviour of the lenders has limits and that the exploitative nature of the credit system has boundaries. Although the idea of debt as a malign force has a long tradition within the history of European agrarian societies, this chapter presents a rather different picture of the credit-debtor relationship during the medieval period. Undeniably, the creditors generally profited from the credit system. However, most credit relationships did not result in negative consequences for the borrower. In the villages studied in this chapter, most people who were involved in credit did not experience serious long-term economic problems or exploitation from the creditors. This scenario suggests that many of the borrowers during the period were relatively wealthy with almost the same economic characteristics as those of the lenders. It also established that debtors generally are lessors wherein they lease their parts of land to pay for their debts instead of formally pledging their lands as collateral.

Author(s):  
Daniel Florence Giesbrecht

This article aims to elaborate a historical reconstitution, from the long-term serial, the formation of the Brazilian middle class and also its archetype of class prejudice. We used as a starting point for our reflection the fact that Brazil lived more than three hundred years of slavery, which bequeathed the profusion of a racist imaginary, resulting in prejudiced practices and naturalized to afrodescendant populations, besides having extended to the poor citizen, in general. We try to relate in a historicist way the objects studied to the sociological concepts of socialization, besides characterizing the bourgeois ideas of the middle class and the Brazilian elites from the history of mentalities. We intend to contribute to a better understanding of the obstacles created by the lack of otherness practices in daily social relations. Keywords: Social Class, prejudice, slavery, social exclusion, otherness.


Geophysics ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 77 (6) ◽  
pp. B287-B294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie K. Pringle ◽  
Peter Styles ◽  
Claire P. Howell ◽  
Michael W. Branston ◽  
Rebecca Furner ◽  
...  

The area around the town of Northwich in Cheshire, U. K., has a long history of catastrophic ground subsidence caused by a combination of natural dissolution and collapsing abandoned mine workings within the underlying Triassic halite bedrock geology. In the village of Marston, the Trent and Mersey Canal crosses several abandoned salt mine workings and previously subsiding areas, the canal being breached by a catastrophic subsidence event in 1953. This canal section is the focus of a long-term monitoring study by conventional geotechnical topographic and microgravity surveys. Results of 20 years of topographic time-lapse surveys indicate specific areas of local subsidence that could not be predicted by available site and mine abandonment plan and shaft data. Subsidence has subsequently necessitated four phases of temporary canal bank remediation. Ten years of microgravity time-lapse data have recorded major deepening negative anomalies in specific sections that correlate with topographic data. Gravity 2D modeling using available site data found upwardly propagating voids, and associated collapse material produced a good match with observed microgravity data. Intrusive investigations have confirmed a void at the major anomaly. The advantages of undertaking such long-term studies for near-surface geophysicists, geotechnical engineers, and researchers working in other application areas are discussed.


Author(s):  
Christopher Hamlin

There are many precedents for long-term research in the history of science. Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program’s current identity reflects significant change—intended and accidental, both consensual and conflictual—from research concerns that were prevalent in the 1980s. LTER program has pioneered modes of research organization and professional norms that are increasingly prominent in many areas of research and that belong to a significant transformation in the social relations of scientific research. The essays in this volume explore the impact of the LTER program, a generation after its founding, on both the practice of ecological science and the careers of scientists. The authors have applied the agenda of long- term scrutiny to their own careers as LTER researchers. They have recognized the LTER program as distinct, even perhaps unique, both in the ways that it creates knowledge and in the ways that it shapes careers. They have reflected on how they have taught (and were taught) in LTER settings, on how they interact with one another and with the public, and on how research in the LTER program has affected them “as persons.” A rationale for this volume is LTER’s distinctiveness. In many of the chapters, and in other general treatments of the LTER program, beginning with Callahan (1984), one finds a tone of defensiveness. Sometimes the concerns are explicit: authors (e.g., Stafford, Knapp, Lugo, Morris; Chapters 5, 22, 25, 33, respectively) bemoan colleagues who dismiss LTER as mere monitoring instead of serious science or who resent LTER’s independent funding stream. But more broadly, there is concern that various groups, ranging from other bioscientists to the public at large, may not appreciate the importance of long-term, site-specific environmental research. Accordingly, my hope here is to put LTER into several broader contexts. I do so in three ways. First, to mainstream LTER within the history of science, I show that the LTER program is not a new and odd way of doing science but rather exemplifies research agendas that have been recognized at least since the seventeenth century in the biosciences and beyond.


Rural History ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDY WOOD

AbstractThis article deploys a body of remarkably detailed witness statements to interrogate the nature of popular memory and social conflict in Petworth, Sussex. These depositions are located in two specific contexts: a struggle between the tenants of Petworth and the ninth earl of Northumberland (1591 – 1608) and the broader pattern of resistance and negotiation in the village between the ‘commotion time’ of 1549 and the calling of the Short Parliament. The essay presents a micro-history of local struggles over land, rights and resources and the findings open up questions within the recent historiography of early modern social relations, undermining the notion that authority was flexibly negotiated between ruler and ruled. Instead, it locates negotiation within social structures that gave a powerful advantage to the gentry and nobility. In this respect, the essay builds upon the return in social history to questions of economic inequality and imbalances of political agency.


Author(s):  
Vladimir S. Okolotin ◽  
Svetlana A. Orlova

The establishment of the institution of constitutional oversight in Russia has a long history. With the adoption of the «Fundamental State Laws» on April 23, 1906 (the first constitution of Russia), the functions of constitutional supervision were assigned to the First Department of the Governing Senate. In this paper, we examined the key decisions of the Governing Senate as a body of constitutional oversight during the Monarchy after the Coup of June 3, 1907; as well as February Revolution; and October Revolution. Our research has shown that at the said critical moments in Russian history, the First Department of the Senate adopted political decisions that did not comply with the provisions of the «Basic State Laws» on April 23, 1906, and had long-term negative consequences for the history of Russia. This concerned both the publication of the electoral laws of June 3, 1907, and the acts on the abdication of Nicholas II as emperor and on Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich’s refusal of power. In the last ruling, which was held by the Governing Senate on November 23, 1917 as a body of constitutional supervision, the Soviet power was considered to be illegal and criminal. The Senate refused to obey its pending of the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. The decisions of the Governing Senate analysed in the article make it possible to conclude that it is necessary to observe the principle of legality when exercising constitutional supervision.


Author(s):  
Liliya Mezhevska

Currently, there are a number of negative consequences of the moratorium that need to be addressed immediately, amendments to existing legislation because the moratorium hinders rural development and agriculture, prevents the redistribution of land resources to more efficient owners and producers, reduces rent and owners' incomes, and limits access to credit resources. Under such conditions, there is no land market, farmers and small landowners have no incentive to invest. As a result, a significant part of land plots is leased by large companies, which have a significant impact on the social structure of the village. Land productivity is far from Ukraine's potential, as long-term investments are needed to improve it. Foreign investors, companies with the necessary knowledge and equipment, are reluctant to invest in Ukraine due to imperfect legal guarantees. A favorable legal climate is needed to improve the agricultural sector. In turn, lifting the moratorium could lead to economic growth. But it should be remembered that lifting the moratorium on land is largely not an economic but a political decision, as there is a risk of mass purchase of Ukrainian lands by foreigners, resulting in the complete loss of ownership and control of their territory. Thus, analyzing the current legislation of Ukraine, scientific publications of famous scientists, economists, politicians, lawyers, given their positive and negative statements about the moratorium on the sale of agricultural land, we can conclude that there are both threats and prospects for a land moratorium.


Author(s):  
Camilla Toulmin

Chapter 2 sets the village of Dlonguébougou within its wider region. Long-term shifts in rainfall have shaped the landscape and societies, from prehistory through to the emergence of the Ghana, Mali, and Songhai Empires, relying on trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt, and slaves. The Bambara kingdom of Ségou used warfare to exact tribute and control trade, but by the time of the French conquest, much of the region had been taken under the jihadist rule of El Hajj Oumar Tall. The colonial administration had profound, long-lasting impacts on village life, taxation, forced labour, military recruitment, and legal and political systems. Economic and political events since Independence in 1960 are described, including the growing conflict in the north and centre of the country, sparked by demands for Tuareg autonomy, but now spread into widespread instability.


2002 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 165-183
Author(s):  
Robin Skeates

Using the approach of visual culture, which highlights the embeddedness of art in dynamic human processes, this paper examines the prehistoric archaeology of the Lecce province in south-east Italy, in order to provide a history of successive visual cultures in that area, between the Middle Palaeolithic and the Bronze Age. It is argued that art may have helped human groups to deal with problems in subsistence and society, including environmental changes affecting the cultural landscape and its resources, the breaking up of old social relations and the establishment and maintenance of new ones. More specifically, art appears to have become increasingly related to the expression of religious and even mythical beliefs, and in particular to the performance of ceremonies and rituals in selected spaces such as caves. This may reflect the existence of a long-term tradition of performance art in prehistory, involving performers and viewers, in which art helped to structure and heighten the sensual and social impact of the acting human body.


1981 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard F. Weisfelder

Virtually all analyses of Lesotho's political framework have agreed that strong elements of national identity have neither forestalled domestic conflict nor served to promote a unified assault on awesome economic problems. Hence many writers imply that a major asset, rarely found in independent Africa, has been wasted.1 Roger Leys has perceptively applied dependency theories of a ‘labour reserve’ economy to Lesotho,2 and spends considerable effort on historical analysis aimed at demonstrating the duration and pervasiveness of this process of systematic underdevelopment. In his conclusion he suggests that ‘the long and courageous battle of the Basotho to assert their dignity and worth is in fact a resource and political weapon of incomparable significance in the long-term battle for the liberation of southern Africa.’ Leys infers that national and class identities are interrelated, and possibly reinforcing, when he says that ‘the history of the struggle of the Basotho people and the very degree of their integration into the black working class of South Africa is a formidable weapon.’3


ARCHALP ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2020 (N. 5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Cola

The recent history of urban development in Italy largely stems from a policy – here intended as a set of actions and strategies of administrators, entrepreneurs and experts – which has been incapable of planning transformations and, therefore, adopting a shared and far-sighted approach to development. The urban regeneration of metropolitan areas and their consequent demographic and economic development (70% of the population and 80% of GDP are concentrated in these areas) have often penalised internal areas such as the Alps and Apennines. Some peculiar experiences, including the regeneration of the village of Ostana (Cuneo), the project carried out in Contrada Bricconi (Bergamo), or even the activities of the association Dolomiti Contemporanee (Belluno) – just to mention a few interesting cases in the Italian Alps, – show that the understanding of and care for a unique territory are the pillars on which any informed political, administrative, architectural or territorial project should be based. This approach is all the more important in the framework of those events envisaging the construction of large infrastructures (such as the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina). After these events, such infrastructures are often abandoned because they are useless for the territory, economically unsustainable in the long-term, and not shared with the local community. In this perspective, the work of the association Architetti Arco Alpino (Alpine Arc Architects), whose activities range from architecture awards to photographic surveys, conferences and publications, aims to understand the complexity of mountain areas and to promote architectural quality. In this framework, they have successfully shown how the problems are often the same regardless of geographical and cultural distances. The solution to these problems is to be found primarily in the act of listening to the places and history of the local population; whether in the Alps or elsewhere, every good project based on a contemporary and conscious approach starts from there.


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