Community, Forest Carbon & Indigeneity: A Case Study of the Loru Project in Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu

<p>Forest carbon farming offers customary landowners an alternative livelihood to socially and environmentally unsustainable logging, through the sale of carbon offset credits. REDD+, the global forest carbon scheme to address deforestation in developing countries, has attracted scholarly criticism for the risks it poses to communities. Critics warn that REDD+: (1) benefits may be captured by elites, (2) threatens forest-dependent livelihoods, (3) reduces local forest governance, and (4) a results-based payments mechanism can undermine conservation. Community-owned forest carbon farming may mitigate these risks by empowering communities to manage forest resources locally. The Loru project in Vanuatu is the first of its kind, and Indigenous landowners legally own the carbon rights and manage the carbon project. This thesis examines the community ownership and the social impact of the Loru project on its Indigenous project owners, the ni-Vanuatu Ser clan. The thesis uses a ‘semi’-mixed-methods approach, based primarily on interviews conducted in in Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu with Indigenous landowners and supplemented with quantitative data from a monitoring exercise conducted by the author. Grounded in social constructivism, the thesis makes a genuine attempt to decolonize the research process, adopting a self-reflexive approach. The research finds that the project is leading to positive social and economic impacts at the community level. Further, the Loru project is legitimately community-owned and driven, meaning it adapts effectively to the local context. Overall, the findings suggest that implementing REDD+ through a multi-scalar institutional network and building local capacity could mitigate the risks of REDD+ to forest communities.</p>

Community, Forest Carbon & Indigeneity: A Case Study of the Loru Project in Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu

<p>Forest carbon farming offers customary landowners an alternative livelihood to socially and environmentally unsustainable logging, through the sale of carbon offset credits. REDD+, the global forest carbon scheme to address deforestation in developing countries, has attracted scholarly criticism for the risks it poses to communities. Critics warn that REDD+: (1) benefits may be captured by elites, (2) threatens forest-dependent livelihoods, (3) reduces local forest governance, and (4) a results-based payments mechanism can undermine conservation. Community-owned forest carbon farming may mitigate these risks by empowering communities to manage forest resources locally. The Loru project in Vanuatu is the first of its kind, and Indigenous landowners legally own the carbon rights and manage the carbon project. This thesis examines the community ownership and the social impact of the Loru project on its Indigenous project owners, the ni-Vanuatu Ser clan. The thesis uses a ‘semi’-mixed-methods approach, based primarily on interviews conducted in in Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu with Indigenous landowners and supplemented with quantitative data from a monitoring exercise conducted by the author. Grounded in social constructivism, the thesis makes a genuine attempt to decolonize the research process, adopting a self-reflexive approach. The research finds that the project is leading to positive social and economic impacts at the community level. Further, the Loru project is legitimately community-owned and driven, meaning it adapts effectively to the local context. Overall, the findings suggest that implementing REDD+ through a multi-scalar institutional network and building local capacity could mitigate the risks of REDD+ to forest communities.</p>

La participación de los exiliados del noroeste hispánico en los Centros Gallegos de Buenos Aires y Caracas

El exilio gallego de la Guerra Civil española se inició en 1936 y se prolongó, con distintas características e intensidad, hasta la caída del régimen franquista. Los países americanos se convirtieron en los destinos preferenciales de estas corrientes forzadas, por la presencia de comunidades emigratorias peninsulares que facilitaron los procesos de traslado y acogida. En este artículo analizaremos la inserción de los exiliados gallegos en el movimiento asociativo de este colectivo en Buenos Aires y Caracas, desde una perspectiva comparativa y haciendo hincapié en su participación en los centros gallegos de ambos ámbitos urbanos. La interacción de los refugiados con la comunidad migratoria organizada en una y otra ciudad fue disímil, pues mientras que en la capital argentina el tejido institucional galaico se encontraba ampliamente desarrollado, en la capital venezolana era prácticamente inexistente. Ello condicionó la capacidad de acción de los exiliados y sus logros concretos. The Galician exile of the Spanish Civil War began in 1936 and continued, with different characteristics and intensity, until the fall of the Franco regime. American countries became the preferential destinations of these forced flows, because of the presence of peninsular migrant communities that facilitated the displacement and reception processes. In this article we will analyze the insertion of Galician exiles into the association movement of this group in Buenos Aires and Caracas, from a comparative perspective and emphasizing their participation in the Galician centers of both urban areas. The interaction of refugees with the organized migration community in one and the other city was dissimilar, because while in the Argentine capital the Galician institutional network was widely developed, in the Venezuelan capital was virtually non-existent. This conditioned the ability of the exiles to act and their concrete achievements.

Când totul e pierdut, ai grijă să cazi cu stil. Istoria lui Iovănel: note, completări, provocări

I will analyse the correspondences between two critical ambitions cultivated a century apart, those of the liberal ideological critic Lovinescu and of a young literary critic who reads Romanian literature through a minimally progressive grid, sensible to liberal nuances and with leftist interpretative undertones (considering the evolution of class representation and of the “social”) in discussing recent literature, a point of view having a devastating effect on many writers (in light of the fact that the regime change has occasioned an upsurge in racism, sexism, and all other imaginable phobias, which have nonetheless been cultivated in the last stage of nationalist propaganda of the 70s-80s as well). I will pursue the evolution of several writers against the backdrop of the ideological mainstream, as well as the manner in which Iovănel interprets them: Mircea Cărtărescu, Adrian Schiop, and Lavinia Braniște. I will also attempt to establish the limitations of Iovănel’s approach, residing in the conflict between established literary criticism and a literary production which has been completely underprivileged within the free market, enjoying weak institutional support, and whose sales and popularity are rapidly diminishing. The literary critic, still part of a somewhat stable institutional network, seems to be confined in a depressingly marginal literary underbrush, whose growth was sparked by the cataclysm of anti-communist “cultural revolution” and savage capitalism. One of the greatest constructs of communist modernity, mass culture, which was to transform into one of the greatest post-communist utopias, commercial culture, was of great importance for the present debate.

Social tipping processes for sustainability: An analytical framework

&lt;p&gt;Societal transformations are necessary to address critical global challenges, such as mitigation of anthropogenic climate change and reaching UN sustainable development goals. Recently, social tipping processes have received increased attention, as they present a form of social change whereby a small change can shift a sensitive social system into a qualitatively different state due to strongly self-amplifying (mathematically positive) feedback mechanisms. Social tipping processes have been suggested as key drivers of sustainability transitions emerging in the fields of technological and energy systems, political mobilization, financial markets and sociocultural norms and behaviors.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Drawing from expert elicitation and comprehensive literature review, we develop a framework to identify and characterize social tipping processes critical to facilitating rapid social transformations. We find that social tipping processes are distinguishable from those of already more widely studied climate and ecological tipping dynamics. In particular, we identify human agency, social-institutional network structures, different spatial and temporal scales and increased complexity as key distinctive features underlying social tipping processes. Building on these characteristics, we propose a formal definition for social tipping processes and filtering criteria for those processes that could be decisive for future trajectories to global sustainability in the Anthropocene. We illustrate this definition with the European political system as an example of potential social tipping processes, highlighting the potential role of the FridaysForFuture movement. Accordingly, this analytical framework for social tipping processes can be utilized to illuminate mechanisms for necessary transformative climate change mitigation policies and actions.&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;

Vilniaus universiteto literatų būrelis sovietmečio literatūros lauke

The circle of literary enthusiasts operating at the Vilnius State V. Kapsukas University during the Soviet era was one of the most prominent gatherings of young writers. The circle was attended by many poets, prosaists, literary critics, and scholars, who took part in it during their study years and later left a distinctive mark in the history of Lithuanian literature. However, the history of the circle’s literary and cultural life has not been described yet, and the texts representing its activities are mostly fragments of memories. Thus, based on the collected and systematised material (memoirs, specially prepared interviews, archived documents, and Soviet press), this article attempts to reconstruct the circle’s life in chronological order and highlight its most important aspects. The article is divided into three parts according to the leadership periods of curators who led the circle the longest: Adolfas Sprindis, Elena Bukelienė, and Marcelijus Martinaitis. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s conception of the literary field, the article raises the following questions: What place did the circle occupy in the institutional network of young writers’ (self-) education during the Soviet era? Was the circle ideologically monitored, tracked, controlled? What functions did the circle’s leaders and chairpersons perform, and what influence did their attitudes have on the circle’s activities? Was the symbolic capital accumulated by attending the circle important to a writer’s career? What influence could the gender of a circle member have had on the evaluation of their work (and position in the circle hierarchy)? Did the experience of participating in the circle regulate its participants’ illusio – belief in the meaningfulness of the literary field itself?

Comparing Governance Networks and Human Security Outcomes in Six Ecuadorian Provinces

Chapter 4, the first chapter of the empirical core of the book, introduces the context of the northern border region of Ecuador and the six provinces in which subnational comparative field research was conducted. Drawing primarily on survey data from more than 650 foreign (95% Colombian) migrants, the chapter maps the institutional network structure of six major migrant-receiving provinces, including capital cities of Esmeraldas, Tulcán, Lago Agrio, Ibarra, Quito, and Santo Domingo. The chapter compares the institutional relations and the level of coordination in each locality with the human security and peacebuilding outcomes experienced by the migrants who live there. Using network analysis and comparisons across localities, it provides evidence for the claim that state capacity and economic development level are less persuasive as explanations for human security experienced by migrants than network density and diversity.

From a Sociological Given Context to Changing Practice: Transforming Problematic Power Relations in Educational Organizations to Overcome Social Inequalities

In 2012, the international PISA survey reinforced the observation that the French educational system is one of the most unequal among OECD countries. The observation of serious inequalities in access to educational success for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds could lead to a pessimistic vision suggesting that any possibility of transformation of the system is doomed to failure. Thus, the fight against inequalities in access to educational success is a form of runaway object which constitutes a challenge for research which treats the social context as evolving and susceptible to significant and novel transformations. Developmental work research aims to support the work of professionals in the re-elaboration of their practices by seeking to go beyond the status quo of an unequal school. Drawing on this framework within an institutional network of schools, we seek to show how the intervention has highlighted power issues inscribed in the structures and how the actors, through their commitment in the research collaborative process, seek to go beyond the power issues inscribed in their work routines and enacted during the research process by different kinds of antagonism. We will argue that the fight against educational inequality involves overcoming systemic power relations crystallized in institution. This systemic power is expressed by a form of episodic power. Our results show restrictive and constructive effect on the expansive learning process and on the construction of a collective in the formative interventions. The restrictive side of epistemic power should be linked to systemic power which is historically inherited. We discuss the results in the light of the emergence of a fourth generation of activity theory. Our research makes it possible to make conceptual and methodological progress in the construction of a fourth generation of activity theory by showing the need for analysis and expansively learn about problematic power relations in heterogeneous collectives.