Seventh Forum on China-US Folklore and Intangible Cultural Heritage

A project report chronicles the Seventh Forum on China US Folklore and Intangible Cultural Heritage held on May 19–22, 2019 in Being, China. Organized within a binational cooperation project of the American Folklore Society and the China Folklore Society, the theme of the forum was Collaborative Work in Museum Folklore and Heritage Studies. In the report, some contexts for the gathering are noted, participants and organizations represented are discussed, and some general themes emerging from the conference are identified.

A Cooperation Project in Lesotho: Renewable Energy Potential Maps Embedded in a WebGIS Tool

In this paper the background, activities undertaken, and main outcomes of the cooperation project “Renewable Energy Potential Maps for Lesotho” are presented. The project was launched in 2018 in fulfilment of the Paris Agreement by the Italian Ministry for the Environment and the Lesotho Ministry of Energy and Meteorology, with the aim to facilitate the local Government in the future planning and development of renewable energy in the country. A user-oriented WebGIS platform was utilised to share and analyse the outcomes of the project: a hydrological map to recognize potential areas for power generation; a wind atlas to identify specific sites with the most potential for wind energy generation; a solar radiation map, defining the different levels of radiation intensity, useful to localise sites for photovoltaic production. Human capacity building and technology transfer were carried out to strengthen the local expertise and ability to manage and plan renewable energy sources exploitation. The implementation of the project was based on a fruitful collaboration between scientists and stakeholders at the same time giving the local authorities a useful dataset and tool for renewable energy growth in Lesotho.

Improving the quality control of drinking water in Nicaragua through proficiency testing in a metrological multilateral cooperation project

The United Nations General Assembly explicitly recognized the human right to water and sanitation and acknowledged that drinking water is essential to the realization of all human rights in a 2010 resolution. Supporting and strengthening the quality infrastructure in countries throughout the world guarantees more reliable water quality analyses, thus reducing the risks to consumers’ health. The present paper describes a multilateral cooperation project developed in Nicaragua to improve the country's quality infrastructure and, in turn, the quality control of drinking water. The project was developed with the support of National Metrology Institutes (NMIs) from the Inter-American Metrology System (SIM), the Physikalisch Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) and the participation of research institutes and laboratories in Nicaragua. Several mechanisms such as awareness seminars, workshops, metrological screenings, peer review of the laboratories’ quality systems, and organizing proficiency testing (PT) were used to successfully achieve the cooperation goal. As a result, technical infrastructure for the organization of PT rounds in Nicaragua was implemented to evaluate the relevant physicochemical parameters such as pH, chloride (Cl−), and nitrate (NO3−) in drinking water. The results from the PT rounds which took place during the two-year cooperation project showed substantial improvement in the performances of the participating laboratories, and therefore, in their measurement methods. Finally, this article shows how multilateral cooperation projects can strengthen the quality infrastructure, improving and ensuring the quality control of drinking water.

Cooperation for the implementation of digital applications in rural cultural tourism marketing

Purpose This study aims to identify pitfalls in the use of cooperation for the implementation of digital applications in rural cultural tourism marketing and derive practical implications for avoiding them. Design/methodology/approach A total of 14 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with the participants of the cooperation project around the Web app “The Legend of the Call of the Mountain” in the Zugspitz Region in Germany. Findings The study has identified four key pitfalls: challenges in the long-term financing, destination-specific characteristics of rural areas, doubts about the use of evaluations and the limited horizon of many cultural institutions. Research limitations/implications Because of the qualitative approach and the single case study, the results may lack generalisability. Therefore, future research should place the results to a larger scale, for example, with a mixed methods approach. Practical implications Practical implications can be derived from the study for avoiding pitfalls and thus for a successful use of such cooperation projects. The implications draw attention to the different possibilities of long-term financing, the important role of a central tourism organisation, the special possibilities of evaluations and the important role of general awareness raising for the added values of such cooperation. Originality/value By examining an exemplary cooperation project, the paper fills an existing research gap, as there has been little knowledge in empirical cultural tourism research about the special conditions for using cooperation to implement digital applications in rural cultural tourism marketing.

When cooperation turns ugly: exploring the dark side of social capital

PurposeThis article explores theoretical assumptions regarding negative consequences of social capital in the empirical case of a failed cooperation project, and how these consequences are related to processes involving people, structures and environments.Design/methodology/approachThe article is based on a case study of a cooperation project within municipal labor market services. The methodology followed a theorizing process, where data were collected through ethnographical methods and analyzed in relation to existing concepts from theories describing negative effects of social capital and shadow organizing.FindingsThe results highlight how the development of negative social capital in the project can be understood through three relational processes, namely the social dynamics of insulation, homogenization and escalating commitment. The authors conclude that the quality of social capital is conditional upon complex interactions within social structures. Moreover, the results highlight the importance of studying organizing practices outside explicit structures, in order to identify the development of non-canonical practices and their consequences.Practical implicationsOrganizing cooperation projects that aim to bridge professional competencies or organizational boundaries have to be attentive toward informal organizing practices which if remaining unrecognized may grow and threaten the original intentions.Originality/valueThe study makes a theoretical contribution by combining a shadow organizing approach with literature on social capital. This combination proves especially useful for analyzing how organizational dynamics can influence the development of social capital into producing negative effects.