bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
‘Stalinization’ and its Limits in the Saxon KPD, 1925–28
Authors: LaPorte Norman H.
Published: February 2009

Using newly available documentation, this article re-examines the debate on the political development of the German Communist Party (KPD) during the mid-1920s. Initially, the history of the KPD was written as the history of the party’s subordination to Moscow. However, with the rise of social history, historians shifted the focus of their research to the ‘view from below’. Moscow’s omnipresence in the history of German communism was replaced by the KPD’s ability to formulate policy in response to specifically German socio-economic and political developments. Taking a position between the poles of this polarized debate, Saxony is used as a case study to demonstrate that although the party per se was ‘Stalinized’ it proved impossible to uproot the local membership from their immediate local environment. Factionalism represented the organized response of local activists against the intrusions of a remote leadership, whose promotion of Moscow’s ‘line’ clashed with their own everyday experience.
“I’ve a Feeling We’re Not in Kansas Anymore”: The Commercialmzation and Commodification of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
Authors: Grineski Steve
Published: February 2009

This article examines and analyzes the private sector’s commercialization and commodification of teaching and learning in higher education. An important issue related to this fast-growing relationship is the blind acceptance of the marketplace model as it relates to technology use, teaching, and learning in higher education. This relationship is suspect from the outset because the goals and purposes important to the private sector do not blend with those important to educational communities. Moreover, there appears to be little concern about implications and consequences associated with the marketing and selling of teaching and learning. An argument is made that by commercializing and commodifying teaching and learning, training becomes confused with education and teaching, and learning becomes decontextualized, simplistic, and mechanistic; void of human interactions; focused on competition and securing profit margins; and the means to prepare for a future emphasizing individualism and the lifestyle goals of control, efficiency, and predictability. Higher education professionals are urged to think carefully about teaching and learning becoming just another commodity that is conveniently packaged for student customers in academic settings turned virtual marketplaces.
Balancing Instructional Integrity With Stakeholder Concerns in Technology-Based Educational Collaboratives: Is the Tail Wagging the Dog?
Authors: Fossum Paul R. , Lenze James S.
Published: February 2009

This article discusses ethical problems related to postsecondary–K-12 collaborative work involving instructional technologies. Technology related school-university collaboration in particular can give rise to some ethical dilemmas, due to the variety of skills, interests, and obligations of participating teachers, tech specialists, professors, and school administrators. Participants, in promoting narrow interests and concerns too immoderately, can lose sight of a learning-driven framework for decision making. Ethics are implicated, because student learning should be at the heart of the codes that guide all educators in their professional behavior. This article begins by identifying potential advantages of using technology to enrich teacher education classes. The article then describes problems related to initiating access to K-12 classrooms and to negotiating a plan of action. The article seeks to reconcile the concerns of school administrators’and information technology officers’typical concerns with those of K-12- and university-based instructors.
“Did Somebody Say Computers?” Professional and Ethical Repercussions of the Vocationalization and Commercialization of Education
Authors: Akindes Simon Adetona
Published: February 2009

The federal and corporate initiative to technologize education has transformed schools, colleges, and universities into a new frontier for the computer industry. While educational institutions have maintained an equivocal relationship with markets and the state, they had striven to preserve a simulacrum of independence until the early 1980s. Then, neoconservative ideologies and their accompanying discourse on restructuring education discovered in the computer the ideal neutral tool to promote, in its virtual clothes, their gospel. The Clinton administration and big corporations, taking advantage of the myth of the computer and the new vocabulary associated with computers, launched a massive program of wiring schools. The process, still unfolding at a rapid pace, poses grave problems for the teaching profession and the role of schools in society. The author argues that the unethical ways in which computers force their ways into many educational institutions, the values they embody, the contexts of their multiple usages, the hyperfragmentation and increasing commodification of knowledge that they cause through online education, the vocationalization of education, and the atomization of teachers are likely to shrink pedagogical and democratic possibilities both at local and global levels.
Teaching Scientists to Be Incompetent: Educating for Industry Work
Authors: Steiner Carol J.
Published: February 2009

The expectations of governments, science students, and employers of science graduates seem to be reshaping science education and redefining science work to make them more relevant to industry’s needs. But the skills, attitudes, and values required for science work in industry have not been clearly articulated. As a result, science teaching innovations may not be adequately addressing the challenges of preparing science students for a socially significant role in industry. This article reports some qualitative research on the characteristics of innovators and then explores the nature of the problem facing science educators interested in nurturing those characteristics in their students. It suggests the desirable characteristics of innovators might be inconsistent with conventional notions of scientific competence. It suggests critical engagement with science’s fundamental beliefs and values is called for before the problem of teaching scientists to be “in-competent” can be tackled.
Ambiguous Legacy: The Social Construction of the Kuhnian Revolution and Its Consequences for the Sociology of Science
Authors: Baber Zaheer
Published: February 2009

In this article, the impact of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions on the sociology of science is evaluated. The main argument is that a questionable construction of Kuhn’s work heralded the constructivist revolution that ultimately contributed to the division between sociology of science and sociology of scientific knowledge. A reorientation of sociology of science that combines institutional and constructivist perspectives is advocated.
Technology, Sustainability, and Development
Authors: Jürgensen Arnd
Published: February 2009

This article critically examines the notion of development and how it has been transformed by concerns about the environment and sustainability. The concept of industrial ecology is explored to clarify the idea of sustainability. Industrial ecology relies on the notion of a circular industrial metabolism as a benchmark to define the notion of sustainability. The problem with modern industrial systems is the linearity of their metabolism, the extensive use of resources, and the generation of waste. To become sustainable, these systems must reduce their use of resources and generate fewer wastes. The idea of a circular industrial metabolism is applied to two models of development: one based on sustainable development as defined in Agenda 21 and relying on globalized production; the second based on local self-sufficiency and small-scale production methods.
The Use of Academic Controversy in Elementary Science Methods Classes
Authors: Monhardt Rebecca M. , Monhardt Leigh C.
Published: February 2009

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of academic controversy as a teaching strategy in elementary science methods classes. The academic controversy model was used with 80 elementary science methods students in one class at Utah State University and two classes at Westminster College in Pennsylvania. Small groups of students engaged in one of the following class-selected controversies: (1) the effects of smoking; (2) genetic engineering, and (3) an environmental issue dealing with the widening of a canyon road. Qualitative data were collected from student note cards, transcriptions of taped controversies, synthesis papers, and a post-controversy survey. Results were consistent, regardless of the topic or group of students. Outcomes indicated that (a) students demonstrated a high level of task commitment as they participated in this learning model, (b) students had a positive attitude toward the use of the academic controversy model, (c) students perceived a high level of content attainment, and (d) students exhibited positive attitudes toward other members of their controversy group.
The Mythos of Educational Technology
Authors: Engle Randall K.
Published: February 2009

In this article, the author examines the seemingly privileged position of technology in current educational thought. The article begins by considering Lewis Mumford’s notion of the myth of the machine and his insistence that only when tool making/using is modified by linguistic symbols, esthetic design, and socially transmitted knowledge does it become a significant contributor to human development. Through a sociohistorical critique, the author establishes a relationship between the ubiquity of the mythos and current educational discourse. The author provides examples from various historical events that have contributed to (a) the tradition of print-based culture, (b) the origins of the mythos of technology, (c) the increasingly popular notion that technology offers apanacea for educational woes, (d) the marginalization of critical discourse in regard to educational technology, and (e) corporate involvement in maintenance of the mythos.
Class, Gender, and Interest in Science: The Singapore Case
Authors: Khondker Habibul Haque
Published: February 2009

Based on a survey of junior college and polytechnic students in Singapore, this article argues that there is a gender gap concerning sustainable interest in science. In Singapore, both male and female students perform well in science subjects in the high school leaving examination, but by the time they begin their course of studies in the junior colleges and polytechnics, the female students do not retain interest in science. The relationship between class as well as parental educational background and interest in science is not very strong. The disadvantages set by the class background are to some extent mitigated by the school system, which takes a meritocratic and thus somewhat performance-based egalitarian approach. Recommendations are made to help motivate female students to take an interest in science such as presentation of the role models of female scientists. However, the main target ought to be changes in the culture that promote more gender equality.
Green Advertising and Green Public Relations as Integration Propaganda
Authors: Nakajima Nina
Published: February 2009

When faced with an environmental problem, corporations can either deal with it or merely give the appearance of managing it. The latter is often the case cause the corporation can maintain a positive public image while not actually doing anything to solve the problem. Advertising and public relations are the tools that are commonly utilized to create this illusion. The first part of this article illustrates the variety of ways in which green advertising and green public relations are exploited to mislead the public regarding environmental issues. The many examples cover issues such as global warming, toxic chemicals, the precautionary principle, and environmental education. The second part of the article shows that Jacques Ellul’s theory of integration propaganda provides a good explanation for what has been observed about green advertising and green public relations.
Is the American Public Ready to Embrace DNA as a Crime-Fighting Tool? A Survey Assessing Support for DNA Databases
Authors: Dundes Lauren
Published: February 2009

States began passing legislation mandating the collection of genetic material from certain convicted offenders in 1988. By 1998, all 50 states had passed laws allowing DNA databases for convicted sexual offenders, and some states collected DNA from all those convicted of a felony. A survey of 416 persons in Maryland revealed wide support for the inclusion of convicted violent offenders (89%) in DNA databases, in sync with most states’ policies. Between two thirds and three quarters of respondents also supported expanding DNA databases to include those suspected of a violent offense, any convicted felon, as well as all convicted offenders, minor and major. Support for collecting the DNA of those suspected of any crime and for all newborns was considerably less (44% to 45%). Although a comprehensive database is most effective for solving and deterring crimes, vigorously enforced protections against abuse of this technology must be in place.
A Critique of Soil Contamination and Remediation: The Dimensions of the Problem and the Implications for Sustainable Development
Authors: Gilmore Elisabeth
Published: February 2009

Contaminated land is a global concern and can be considered a major barrier to sustainable development. The purpose of this article is to examine how the technological, economic, environmental, social, legal, and political framework of contaminated sites and the current remediation strategies hinder progress toward sustainability. Conflicts between various dimensions of sustainability reveal that the only long-term solution to this problem is prevention. This article will place particular emphasis on the technological dimension of remediation practices and how a reliance on technological solutions may well propagate the problem by diverting the focus from preventive measures.
Renewable Energy for Rural Sustainability: Lessons From China
Authors: Zhou Aiming , Byrne John
Published: February 2009

Rural electrification is now and will remain an essential element for rural development in China and other developing countries. With more than half of the world’s population living in rural communities, lessons for rural renewable energy applications and assessment from China can be very helpful in defining a global sustainable development strategy. This paper describes energy needs in rural China, examines the resource availability of three provinces (Inner Mongolia, Qinghai and Xinjiang in Western China), and evaluates rural energy options and the economics of stand-alone off-grid renewable energy technologies for rural application in this region. An eight-year collaborative effort between several of China’s leading energy and environmental research institutes and the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy demonstrates the existence of a viable renewable energy-based strategy to address rural electricity needs in a socially and environmentally sustainable manner.
Education and Technology: A Cultural Faustian Bargain
Authors: Barnes Susan B.
Published: February 2009

American government and industry are encouraging educators to adopt the computer as a primary educational medium. However, efforts to use educational software have been disappointing and computer literacy has not been widely adopted as a basic literacy skill. This article will explore the advantages and disadvantages of integrating computers into education and describe their cultural implications for educational policy.
The Social Construct of Writing and Thinking: Evidence of How the Expansion of Writing Technology Affects Consciousness
Authors: Corso Gail S. , Williamson Sandra C.
Published: February 2009

The technology for the digitized text creates fluid meaning, representing its culture in transition from the dominance of the single-authored text with its hierarchically ordered system. This new architecture for the digitized word has been making explicit the shift from human consciousness reflecting the interiority of the self to a human consciousness reflecting self in relation to others. Educators using the technology of networked writing environments need to understand how the technology functions and intervenes for pedagogical processes during models of asynchronous and synchronous collaborative writing. Both models support a constructivist view of learning; however, for each, educators need to consider the ethos of the writer as inhabiting a negotiated, shared space with readers during text production. As a consequence, cocognition may occur when writers share ideas and engage in the process of collaboration.
Toward a Rational Policy for the Management of High-Level Radioactive Waste: Integrating Science and Ethics
Authors: Hadjilambrinos Constantine
Published: February 2009

The disposal of high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) is an issue that has seemed to defy not only solution but even a rational approach. This article reviews the development of U.S. HLRW disposal policy, focusing on the role of the scientific establishment. The failure of policymakers and their expert advisers is traced to the nature of the issues that need to be resolved to guarantee the safety of present and future generations. Scientific analysis cannot be used to predict the significance and impact of human actions at disposal sites in the distant future. Consequently, it cannot provide a comprehensive risk assessment of any permanent HLRW disposal options. Perpetual management of HLRW in monitored retrievable facilities can address this issue. A management process that is guided by both science and ethics is best suited to protecting health and the environment, as well as intergenerational equity and justice.
Education Technology and the Professional in Brazil: His or Her Formation and the Possibility of Human Culture
Authors: Ferreira Naura Syria Carapeto
Published: February 2009

The formation of the education professional has been a top subject of studies during the history of education in Brazil and must be a human formation directly related to his or her emancipation as a social, individual person. This is his or her truth citizenship and sine qua non to the formation of a new man for the construction of a human culture. In this sense, the concept of man is the fundamental axis of formation of the education professional. Theoretical matrices that have given rise to individualism and its powerful concepts are analyzed, as well as the new dominant ideas that, in an explicit or implicit way, construct in our society by different forms of social consciousness. There is a firm conviction that the understanding of man as alive, active, and conscious in material existence, according to concrete life, looks as the formation of consensus, organic emancipating scientific fundamental of radial change in social relations on a global society and with the possibility of human culture.
Knowledge Building by Full Integration With Virtual Reality Environments and Its Effects on Personal and Social Life
Authors: Fialho Francisco Antonio Pereira , Catapan Araci Hack
Published: February 2009

It is primordial to insist on a continuous education that is open, flexible, and personalized, allowing the individual to update and make his or her knowledge adequate throughout life. The creation of distributed environments for constructivist learning is a challenge. Research in this field is needed for the development of cooperative learning tools able to facilitate and motivate learning. The development of intelligent didactic systems is complex, demanding the support of knowledge coming from different fields. That is why to develop this class of systems a multidisciplinary team is needed, including pedagogues; educational psychologists; specialists in the knowledge domain; and technicians in computer graphics, programming, multimedia, virtual reality, project management, and so forth. Virtual immersion introduces new resources for interindividual communications that deal with reality interpretation. The authors outline the beginning of a long journey on how imagination power can be used for the collective creation of worlds able to improve learning.
Radical Assumptions for a New Philosophy of Technical Education
Authors: Guenther Charles J.
Published: February 2009

Technical expertise must be accompanied by an appreciation of the social, political, and moral questions involved in its application. However, because such questions do not serve a utilitarian purpose in achieving short-term economic advantage, they are generally considered as superfluous frills, lying outside the framework of technical education. Therefore, a new philosophy is proposed—one that incorporates values thought to be important for a humane, just, and sustainable society. The author shares a perspective gained from 15 years of engineering experience in industry and 15 years of community college teaching in engineering and technology.
Science, Pollution, and Clean Drinking Water: Choosing Between Tap Water, Bottled Water, and Home Purification
Authors: Foltz Franz
Published: February 2009

Focusing on the recent explosion in the use of bottled water, this article—originally written for my NASTS conference presentation—will examine the rhetoric used by the bottled water industry and home purification system providers to affect the public’s idea of clean, pure, dirty, and polluted water. Bottlers argue that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provides better regulation of bottled water than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could ever do for tap water, though the EPA and the FDA use basically the same set of guidelines. The EPA and FDA definitions in terms of concentrations of specific substances are very different from the ideas of muddy or “dirty” water. This article will examine the impact of the public’s perception of good drinking water and the perception that if it is off the shelf, it is cleaner and tastier.
The Iowa State University Model Bioethics Institutes
Authors: Comstock Gary
Published: February 2009

How should universities help their life science faculty members to integrate discussions of ethics into their courses? The Iowa State University Model Bio-ethics Institutes offer one model.
What Do Secondary Science and Mathematics Teachers Know About Engineering?
Authors: Robinson Michael , Maddux Cleborne D.
Published: February 2009

The article describes a capstone engineering course for preservice and inservice secondary science and mathematics teachers and shows teacher attitudes toward engineering before and after the course and results of a comparison with a convenience sample. It also gives the results of the attitudes of high school student experimental and control groups toward engineering in a pretest-posttest design. Four findings were made: (a) The science and mathematics preservice and inservice teacher attitudes toward engineering became more favorable after the capstone course; (b) the attitudes of the convenience sample of secondary graduate students were less favorable toward engineering than they were among the treatment group in the capstone course; (c) the attitudes of the experimental group of high school students became significantly more favorable toward engineering after a 3-week unit on engineering; and (d) the attitudes of the experimental group became significantly more favorable toward engineering than did those of the control group after the 3-week unit.
Environmentalism: The Relation of Environmental Attitudes and Environmentally Responsible Behaviors Among Undergraduate Students
Authors: Thapa Brijesh
Published: February 2009

The growing collective consensus among the public is to possess environmental attitudes, as the majority consider themselves to be “environmentalists.” However, does the public’s environmental attitudes or concern translate into environmentally responsible behaviors? This study sought to verify among undergraduate students the level of environmentalism—the relation of environmental attitudes and responsible behaviors. College students were targeted because they will be the future custodians, planners, policy makers, and educators of the environment and its issues. Environmental attitudes were analyzed using the revised New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale, and behaviors were measured with the Environmentally Responsible Behavior Index. Overall, college students in this sample were sympathetic toward the environment, and they supported the NEP ideology. However, except for recycling, students were not very participative in various environmentally responsible behaviors. Additionally, consistent with previous studies, the attitude-behavior relations were weak or modest at best.
Efficient Global Warming: Contradictions in Liberal Democratic Responses to Global Environmental Problems
Authors: Byrne John , Yun Sun-Jin
Published: February 2009

As liberal democracies, what can the United States, Europe, and Japan be expected to embrace as “democratic” solutions to global environmental problems such as climate change? It is our argument that contradictions in liberal democratic politics lead these states to advocate solutions that are nature-as-commodity oriented and that idealize the notion of “managed nature.” In the case of climate change, we specifically argue that liberal democracies can be expected to pursue a policy regime of “efficient global warming.”
Attribution, Cooperation, Science, and Girls
Authors: McGowan Garrett J. , McGowan Richard J.
Published: February 2009

In this article, we argue that science textbooks do not present an accurate account of how scientific inquiry has been conducted and is conducted now. The chemistry textbooks that are used in middle school and high school use a “Great Man” theory in which all scientific discovery is attributed to a single man. However, scientific inquiry is a cooperative, collaborative effort, and it has been that sort of activity for at least the last 150 years. If girls, in general, tend toward greater cooperation, as many social scientists suggest, a more accurate account of how science is done would bring more girls into the study of science. These authors suggest that science textbooks used during the times at which girls are formulating their opinions of science (the middle and high school years) should be modified to correctly reflect the fact that science and scientists are cooperative.
Urban Anthropology and the `Urban Question' in China
Authors: Xin Liu
Published: February 2009

■ Despite a long tradition of urban history or, more precisely, a long history of urban life, the study of it might well seem to have been very short. My question in this article is not concerned with various forms of urban transformation taking place in today's China, nor with expressions of the best and the worst extremes of human potentials in the development of large metropolises, nor with the effort of the state to control and manage a growing number of urban populations. Rather, my inquiry is into the historical meaning of the notion of `urban' in Chinese anthropology and the `urban question', as Manuel Castells called it, in the context of China at the very present moment.
Development, Impact Assessment and the Praise Culture
Authors: Phillips Sue , Edwards Richard
Published: February 2009

This article uses the concept of discourse to analyse an assessment of the impacts of a development project. Impact assessment can never achieve the objectivity that development practitioners seek. The truth is not something ‘out there’ waiting to be documented, but rather a story to be written by those performing the assessment. Moreover, the resistance and negotiation strategies used by both the ‘assessors’ and those being ‘assessed’ can have a profound influence on what is known about a project and its impacts.
Censoring Race in ‘Post-colonial’ Anthropology
Authors: Cowlishaw Gillian K.
Published: February 2009

This article is about an intellectual practice – the rejection of the analysis of race as an operative principle in the social world in favour of a focus on hybrid forms and flexible categories. While grounded in a worthy fear of reinforcing racial categories, there is a squeamishness here that reveals a fear of the body, and of what dealing with actual bodies might expose. Despite some intellectual labour to the contrary, this deeply embedded characteristic of liberal scholarship has restricted attention to the ubiquitous power of race and all its euphemisms as it is lived out in today’s world. I illustrate the omnipresence of race and racism and then show how the analysis of racial processes is censored. Finally I will argue for a positive evaluation of racialized bodies.
Of Cabbages and Kin
Authors: Goddard Michael
Published: February 2009

This article argues for the maintenance of the traditional anthropological analytic distinction between gifts and commodities, against a recent trend to refer to all objects as commodities when exchange is their socially relevant feature. It examines Marx’s notions of alienation and commodity fetishism in the context of human praxis and suggests that rigorous, rather than impressionistic, use of these analytic concepts in anthropology can clarify a distinction between gifts and commodities in relation to praxis and intention, rather than exchange.
Economic Development in the Siki Settlement Scheme, West New Britain
Authors: Kean Peter
Published: February 2009

Post development theorists argue that western development discourse, in the post Second World War period, colonized the minds of people living in the third world. This process of colonization, it is argued, has blinded third world people to the poverty of development discourse and ensured third world subjection to western economic and political ideas. In this article I analyse this proposition in relation to the people living on the Siki Settlement Scheme in West New Britain, Papua New Guinea. I argue that the notion of discursive colonization implies a docility on the part of Siki residents. It is a conceptualization which infers settlers have been fooled by development rhetoric. In contrast to post development theory’s notion of colonization I argue Siki settlers actively and thoughtfully participate in the development process.
The Politics of Religion in the Reconstruction of Identities
Authors: Doja Albert
Published: February 2009

In order to appreciate the very historical significance of the successive processes of conversion and reconversion among Albanians and other Southeast European populations, and to subject them to a more effective anthropological analysis, this article argues that they should be understood in terms of the dynamics of objectification and resistance against pressures exerted by authorities holding political and religious power. This approach allows us to put the meaning of religious affiliations into the perspective of negotiation and redefinition of social identities, leading to the transformation of Albanian identity and ethnicity, and re-establishing traditions of political, social and national history.
Putting Meritocracy in its Place
Authors: Neves Livia Martins Pinheiro
Published: February 2009

The aim of this article is to explore two of the basic attributes of modernity – equality and meritocracy – in a cross-cultural perspective. Based on empirical research in the USA, Brazil and Japan this article explores the cultural content of those categories and their links with the different ways these societies build their notion of the individual – as proposed by Dumont (1992). This article presents a new contribution to the discussion on modernity, in the sense that it extends this discussion to other societies where these values were not first articulated but to where they have spread and where they have found some room for themselves.
Critique in Interaction
Authors: Rampton Ben
Published: February 2009

This article looks at issues of critique from the perspective of interactional sociolinguistic (IS) discourse analysis. Using a small case study of the ways in which social class is both reproduced and problematized in the speech of inner London adolescents, it elaborates on the tensions between ‘behavioural’ and ‘established ideology’ that lie at the heart of IS research, and points to the changing intellectual environment in which the assessment of its practical value needs to be made.
Critique and Sociolinguistic Analysis of Discourse
Authors: Heller Monica
Published: February 2009

My point of departure for this paper is that ‘critique’ is fundamentally about identifying and explaining the construction of relations of social difference and inequality (and then deciding what position to take about such processes, and what, if any, action that might lead to). I focus on one particular theoretical and methodological dimension of this project; namely the linkage between local linguistic practices and processes of social structuration (Giddens,1984). This discussion is based on sociolinguistic ethnographic materials exploring how some very local processes (debates over organizational structure and vision in one small community association in Ontario, Canada) are linked to broader concerns about social difference and inequality.
Presuming Scale, Making Diversity
Authors: Wastell Sari
Published: February 2009

The ‘new essentialism’ in both cultural and legal theory is the tendency to treat ‘diversity’ as a monolithic concept which exists logically prior to law or culture’s efforts to engage or reconcile it. By using analogies of scale and measurement, and borrowing from Luhmann’s theory of self-referential social systems, the article argues that there is no such thing as a diversity which does not emanate from an ‘impulse to measure’. Thus, ‘global:local’ is a presupposition which underpins certain systems’ way of imagining the world and not an observation available from an inaccessible God’s-eye view. Contrary to popular mythology, the article seeks to understand the law as yet another conjurer of difference rather than its great leveller, and to understand the way different legal paradigms might conceptualize diversity in very distinct ways.
Moral Panic and the Construction of National Order
Authors: Fordham Graham
Published: February 2009

This article examines some of the major concepts used to model the Thai AIDS epidemic and to direct interventions, in particular, the concepts of discrete risk groups and of the sequential spread of HIV from group to group in a wave-like fashion which, although they have been largely discredited in the international AIDS literature, retain a high degree of currency in Thailand. I argue that Thailand’s HIV/AIDS epidemic had the effect of bringing sexual practices from the private sphere into the public arena, where the concept of risk group rendered visible the social body of modern Thailand as a hierarchy of risk, with specific groups attributed behaviours necessitating control. This notion found enduring favour in Thailand because it reinforced existing social prejudices about members of groups such as the male underclass, prostitutes and injecting drug users, and legitimated the claims of government and non-government organizations for the monitoring and control of these groups. There has been a high level of consensus over this strategy, and a lack of competing discourses. Thus Thai AIDS discourse has not only failed to transcend state and middle-class notions of morality and normativity, but it has also failed to come to terms with Thailand’s changing sexual cultures.
In and Out of Culture
Authors: Finnström Sverker
Published: February 2009

This article aims at exemplifying war’s violation of cosmologies as well as of people, and the ways in which experiences of war and violence are domesticated in cosmological terms as strategies of coping. I argue that the diverging experiences of the anthropologist, and of her/his assistants and informants, can fruitfully be communicated through an intercultural understanding of the conflict at issue, and of its local implications. Such a communication can provide us with a framework for dealing with the uncertainties of research in war.
A Distant Jaguar
Authors: Doane Molly
Published: February 2009

Civil society has become an important unit of analysis in the context of the globalization of politics and political discourse and the decentralization of nation-states. At a discursive level, it is a concept which elides notions of democracy with privatization. This elision makes for confusion at the analytical level, since civil society rhetoric is deployed by state agencies and those social actors, like NGOs, that see themselves as autonomous from the state. Within Mexico, social actors represent civil society as separate and opposed to the ‘state’. But a history of cooperation and cooptation between organs of the state and the social sector blurs these lines, practically if not ideologically. These issues are explored through a case study of an NGO/community environmental mobilization in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Civilizing the Popular?
Authors: Medeiros Carmen
Published: February 2009

In the context of the Bolivian state’s strategy to construct a strong ‘civil society’, the ‘Popular Participation Law’ (LPP) appears as a response to long term popular demands. Situating this law within the context of hegemonic processes which have aimed at incorporating Andean peasants/‘Indians’ into the Bolivian nation state, this article discusses the effects that this highly regulated construction of a modern participatory citizenry has on rural areas. The case of a rural province in the highlands of Cochabamba suggests that while the establishment of a framework for the emergence of a rural civil society does entail a potentially significant reconfiguration of rural power and ethnic relations, the subtle works of these hegemonic strategies also predefine the limits to what can name=be achieved in the space opened for participatory citizens.
From ‘Cultures of Fear and Terror’ to the Normalization of Violence
Authors: Margold Jane A.
Published: February 2009

This article critically examines the widespread usage of such constructs as ‘culture of terror’ and ‘culture of fear’ to characterize settings in which state power is based on the intimidation of civilians. ‘Cultures of fear and terror’, it is argued, are at once inflationary and reductive tropes which obscure the political agency and cultural resources that are called upon to end regimes of coercion. As an alternative, it is suggested that state-authorized aggression is neither equivalent to culture nor a characteristic of a cultural group, but a historically specific means and rationale for disciplining particular categories of people. Ethnographic evidence from the rural Philippines is presented in support of a more practice-oriented approach toward conceptualizing what scholars now term ‘civil wrongs’.
Cultural Preservation Reconsidered
Authors: Sharma B. R.
Published: February 2009

Hybrid art forms are emerging more than ever now that advances in global communication link the world’s societies. James Clifford, Trinh T. MinhHa, Valerie Dominguez and other eminent scholars champion such hybrid culture. They argue that it leads to greater acceptance of others and otherness, and destroys notions of ‘others’ as aesthetically unsophisticated. While there is merit in such claims, this article sheds a different light on the nature of hybrid culture. It argues that in some instances, such culture is the by-product of cultural imperialism – first-world socio-economic and cultural policies imposed on ‘Second’ and ‘Third World’ communities. The article concentrates on the dichotomy between native Canadian and Anglo-American Canadian mass culture and adopts Minh-Ha’s claim that a First World and a Third World can exist in the same country.
Migrant Labor Takes a Holiday
Authors: Mills Mary Beth
Published: February 2009

This paper examines the practice of working-class group excursions in Thailand, organized by and for rural labor migrants in Bangkok. These trips involve traditional forms of Buddhist ceremonial as well as more self-consciously ‘modern’ sightseeing activities in distant regions of the country. More than just a welcome respite from the drudgery and discipline of factory jobs, these excursions allow labor migrants to make important claims about their experiences as members of the Thai nation-state. As tourist-consumers, migrant workers appropriate powerful signs and symbols of modern Thai identity and status; in so doing they contest (and at least partly rework) their material and ideological marginalization within contemporary Thai society.
Bittersweet Harvest
Authors: Levine Susan
Published: February 2009

This article explores recent transformations in child labour legislation in the wake of rapid democratic political change in South Africa. It reflects on working children’s agency and their defence of their rights to work, drawing on ethnographic research in the wine lands of the Western Cape Province. The article argues that recent anti-child labour campaigns in South Africa fail to provide economic solutions for destitute black and coloured children who depend on remunerated vineyard work to sustain household economies. It contends that international legislation prohibiting child labour is myopic because it ignores the key role that children play in the global flexible labour market and, by disaggregating child from adult exploitation, perpetuates the economic conditions which give rise to child labour.
After the ‘Raskol’ Feast
Authors: Sykes Karen
Published: February 2009

Youths’ alienation from both the exchange networks of their kin and the wage economy in urban Papua New Guinea depletes their spirit and will, thereby challenging that aspect of personal identity which establishes their relations to others. Their thefts, violence and gluttony exceed conventional habits of consumption and distinguish many youth as ‘rascals’ (in Tok Pisin, raskols), who have ‘no shame nor respect’ ( nogat sem). In this article I analyse the practice of excessive consumption in light of the ethos of sem amongst kin in village mortuary feasts and amongst friends in urban settlements, thereby showing that nogat sem approximates the condition of alienation in Melanesia. By assessing consumption theory in light of its ability to account for alienation, I conclude that practices of consumption not only produce and reproduce mutually recognized hierarchical relations, but also fracture those relations and dismember the actors’ identities.
Initiation Society, Learned Society and Knowledge Society
Authors: Memel-Fotê Harris
Published: February 2009

Knowledge is a social institution, a social activity, as well as the product of that social activity. All known societies incorporate several modes of hierarchical knowledge. Three styles of knowledge co-exist in the transitional societies of the third world in general and of contemporary Africa in particular (even though in each of the latter, only one style tends to predominate). The first are initiation societies - where power is conferred on the initiated; the second are learned societies (or academies) - which handle science and technologies; and the third are industrial societies - whose enterprises apply the technologies in order to improve humankind's material and cultural condition. The initiation, learned and industrial societies were developed in a pre-modern, pre-industrial context which was monarchic, sacred, anti-democratic or endowed with a tribal democracy. A gradual opening can be seen in the passage of initiation societies (where power is the perquisite of the initiated) towards learned societies and then, later, to industrial ones. Here, the problem is knowing whether and how to bring into play a fourth style of society - cognitive society - which requires relatively advanced conditions of democracy.
Knowledge from Outside: Knowledge for ‘Divertissement’ and Beyond
Authors: Hamashita Masahiro
Published: February 2009

Many cultures have had knowledge imposed from outside, whether by force or for reasons of power, to the detriment of their own endogenous knowledge and the wisdom developed throughout their history. Would Japan's acquisition of Western knowledge have led but to the development of a lesser know-how, devoid of meaning or sense, or even of knowledge which it might be better to ignore? Far from benefiting from an endogenous development or a modernization respectful of beings and of their environment, the developing countries that superficially adopt this unilateral knowledge undergo a type of ‘self-colonization’. Although concurring with biologist Keiko Nakamura's theory that scientific attitudes must be studied from within, Masahiro Hamashita considers that knowledge from outside allows for more solid internal reflection. He thus advocates the development of an integrated, hybrid knowledge, where external knowledge is mixed with internal knowledge in a spontaneous, harmonious way, as was the case with the traditional knowledge that Japan acquired from China.
Coercion, Co-optation, or Cooperation?
Authors: Fjelde Hanne , De Soysa Indra
Published: February 2009

Recent research identifies state capacity as a crucial determinant of civil peace. Scholars often interpret the association between wealth and peace as state capacity effects, but they have not clearly distinguished the impact of administrative reach and capacity for coercion from those effects that may capture good governance related to the provision of political goods and quality of institutions.We revisit the relationship between state capacity and civil peace by suggesting three different pathways through which the state avoids violent challenges to its authority: coercion, co-optation, and cooperation.We evaluate these three different notions of governing capacity both analytically and empirically, and we find that high levels of government spending on political goods and trustworthy institutions are more significant predictors of civil peace than are states' coercive capacities.The results suggest that civil peace is co-produced by social and state forces, where quasi-voluntary cooperation from society increases state capacity for maintaining peace.This is good news for policies aimed at building state capacity, since there seems to be room for agency beyond simply waiting for societies to become wealthy.
Trade Dependence or Size Dependence?
Authors: Hegre Håvard
Published: February 2009

The gravity model of trade states that the volume of trade between two countries is proportional to the product of the sizes of the two countries and the inverse of the distance between them. The gravity model, however, was initially suggested for other types of social interactions, and it also predicts well the probability of militarized disputes. This raises a concern about omitted-variable bias in the literature on trade and conflict: if the gravity model is correlated with both trade and conflict, it is necessary to control for the size of both countries in the dyad. In this article, I analyze the nature of this bias both empirically and theoretically. I find that a correct model specification leads to a stronger relationship between trade and conflict than in the traditional models. However, the empirical finding must be reinterpreted: what is crucial is not the relationship between the value of the bilateral trade and the size of the larger economy in the dyad (`trade dependence'), but rather `trade efficiency'—the extent to which the two countries trade more than expected from the gravity model.