Download or read book The Research System in Transition written by Susan E. Cozzens and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a mountainside in sunny Tuscany, in October 1989, 96 people from 23 countries on five continents gathered to learn and teach about the problems of managing contemporary science. The diversity of economic and political systems represented in the group was matched by our occupations, which stretched from science policy practitioners, through research scientists and engineers, through academic observers of science and science policy. It was this diversity, along with the opportunities for infonnal discussion provided by long meals and remote location, that made the conference a special learning experience. Except at lecture time, it was impossible to distinguish the "students" at this event from the "teachers," and even the most senior members of the teaching staff went away with a sense that they had learned more from this group than from many a standard conference on science policy they had attended. The flavor of the conference experience cannot be captured adequately in a proceedings volume, and so we have not tried to create a historical record in this book. Instead, we have attempted to illustrate the core problems the panicipants at the conference shared, discussed, and debated, using both lectures delivered by the fonnal teaching staff and summaries of panel discussions, which extended to other panicipants and therefore increased the range of experiences reponed.

Download or read book Pulping the South written by Ricardo Carriere and published by Zed Books. This book was released on 1996-08-15 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The expansion of the pulp and paper industry is one of the most important causes of land and water conflicts in the South. This book examines the threat to livelihood, soil and biodiversity generated by large-scale pulpwood plantations in the South.

Download or read book Imagined Globalization written by Néstor García Canclini and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2014-03-07 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading figure in cultural studies worldwide, Néstor García Canclini is a Latin American thinker who has consistently sought to understand the impact of globalization on the relations between Latin America, Europe, and the United States, and among Latin American countries. In this book, newly available in English, he considers how globalization is imagined by artists, academics, migrants, and entrepreneurs, all of whom traverse boundaries and, at times, engage in conflicted or negotiated multicultural interactions. García Canclini contrasts the imaginaries of previous migrants to the Americas with those who live in transnational circuits today. He integrates metaphor and narrative, working through philosophical, anthropological, and socioeconomically grounded interpretations of art, literature, crafts, media, and other forms of expression toward his conclusion that globalization is, in important ways, a collection of heterogeneous narratives. García Canclini advocates global imaginaries that generate new strategies for dealing with contingency and produce new forms of citizenship oriented toward multiple social configurations rather than homogenization. This edition of Imagined Globalization includes a significant new introduction by George Yúdice and an interview in which the cultural theorist Toby Miller and García Canclini touch on events including the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street.

Download or read book Social Innovation and Territorial Development written by Diana MacCallum and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of social innovation offers an alternative perspective on development and territorial transformation, one which foregrounds innovation in social relations. This volume presents a broad-ranging and insightful exploration of social innovation and how it can affect life, society and economy, especially within local communities. It addresses key questions about the nature of social innovation as a process and a strategy and explores what opportunities may exist, or may be generated, for social innovation to nourish human development. It puts forward alternative development options which variously highlight solidarity, co-operation, cultural-artistic endeavour and diversity. In doing so, this book offers a provocative response to the predominant neoliberal economic vision of spatial, economic and social change.

Download or read book Emotional Lexicons written by Ute Frevert and published by . This book was released on 2014-02 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emotions are as old as humankind. But what do we know about them and what importance do we assign to them? Emotional Lexicons is the first cultural history of terms of emotion found in German, French, and English language encyclopaedias since the late seventeenth century. Insofar as these reference works formulated normative concepts, they documented shifts in the way the educated middle classes were taught to conceptualise emotion by a literary medium targeted specifically to them. As well as providing a record of changing language use (and the surrounding debates), many encyclopaedia articles went further than simply providing basic knowledge; they also presented a moral vision to their readers and guidelines for behaviour. Implicitly or explicitly, they participated in fundamental discussions on human nature: Are emotions in the mind or in the body? Can we "read" another person's feelings in their face? Do animals have feelings? Are men less emotional than women? Are there differences between the emotions of children and adults? Can emotions be "civilised"? Can they make us sick? Do groups feel together? Do our emotions connect us with others or create distance? The answers to these questions are historically contingent, showing that emotional knowledge was and still is closely linked to the social, cultural, and political structures of modern societies. Emotional Lexicons analyses European discourses in science, as well as in broader society, about affects, passions, sentiments, and emotions. It does not presume to refine our understanding of what emotions actually are, but rather to present the spectrum of knowledge about emotion embodied in concepts whose meanings shift through time, in order to enrich our own concept of emotion and to lend nuances to the interdisciplinary conversation about them.

Download or read book Can Neighbourhoods Save the City written by Frank Moulaert and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-07-12 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades, neighbourhoods been pivotal sites of social, economic and political exclusion processes, and civil society initiatives, attempting bottom-up strategies of re-development and regeneration. In many cases these efforts resulted in the creation of socially innovative organizations, seeking to satisfy the basic human needs of deprived population groups, to increase their political capabilities and to improve social interaction both internally and between the local communities, the wider urban society and political world. SINGOCOM - Social INnovation GOvernance and COMmunity building – is the acronym of the EU-funded project on which this book is based. Sixteen case studies of socially-innovative initiatives at the neighbourhood level were carried out in nine European cities, of which ten are analysed in depth and presented here. The book compares these efforts and their results, and shows how grass-roots initiatives, alternative local movements and self-organizing urban collectives are reshaping the urban scene in dynamic, creative, innovative and empowering ways. It argues that such grass-roots initiatives are vital for generating a socially cohesive urban condition that exists alongside the official state-organized forms of urban governance. The book is thus a major contribution to socio-political literature, as it seeks to overcome the duality between community-development studies and strategies, and the solidarity-based making of a diverse society based upon the recognising and maintaining of citizenship rights. It will be of particular interest to both students and researchers in the fields of urban studies, social geography and political science.

Download or read book Modernity and Whiteness written by Bolivar Echeverria and published by Polity. This book was released on 2019-11-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bolívar Echeverría was one of the leading philosophers and critical theorists in Latin America and his work on capitalism and modernity offers a distinctive account, informed by the experiences of Latin American societies, of the social and historical forces shaping the modern world. For Echeverría, capitalism and modernity do not coincide: modernity is a long-term historical phenomenon that involved a new set of relations between human beings and nature and between the individual and the collective, while capitalism is a particular form in which modernity has been realized. As Marx showed, capitalism is a mode of reproduction that involves the growing commodification of social life – everything, even human labor power itself, is turned into a commodity. Echeverría introduces the notion of blanquitud or “whiteness” to capture the new form of identity that is brought into being by the totalizing and homogenizing character of capitalism. While blanquitud includes certain ethnic features, it is not so much an ethnic category as an ethical and cultural one, referring to a type of human being, homo capitalisticus, which threatens to spread throughout the world, overcoming and integrating identities that might otherwise resist it. But capitalism is not the only form of modernity – there are alternative modernities. In the final part of the book Echeverría explores the baroque as a characteristic of Latin American identity and sees it as a way of theatricalizing and transforming reality that takes some distance from Eurocentric paradigms and resists the homogenizing forces of capitalism. Echeverría’s analysis of the dynamics of capitalism and modernity represents one of the most important contributions to critical theory from a Latin American perspective. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of critical theory and postcolonial theory and anyone concerned with the global impact of capitalism on social and cultural life.

Download or read book Fair Shared Cities written by Marion Roberts and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together a diverse team of leading scholars and professionals, this book offers a variety of insights into ongoing gender mainstreaming policies in Europe with a focus on urban/spatial planning. Gender mainstreaming was first legislated for in the European Union with the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1999 and, although many interesting developments have occurred throughout the decade that followed, there is still much to do in terms of policy, knowledge production, dissemination and education. This work contributes to all three objectives, by advancing the state of knowledge, as well as providing educational and professional tools in the field of gender sensitive planning in Europe. The volume begins by explaining the concept of gender mainstreaming in relation to its origins in the 'second wave' of the women's movement and critiques of planning, architecture, transport planning and other built environment disciplines. It then provides a brief history of how gender mainstreaming was incorporated into European law, before focussing on the theoretical issues and questions that surround the concept of gender mainstreaming as they relate to urban space and the planning of cities and regions, including a discussion of the persistence of inequalities between the sexes in their access to urban space and services. In particular, the division between waged and unwaged work and its impact on the social construction of gender and of the physical built environment is considered. The differences between definitions of feminism and their implications for action in planning and design are also explored, paying regard to the tensions between a feminist vision of a transformation of gender relations and the requirements of gender mainstreaming to accommodate the different needs of women and men in their everyday lives in urban space. Throughout the book, key issues recur, such as the importance of time and space in the experience of urbanism, resistances to change on the part of institutions and social structures, and the importance of networks. Education and training also appear as common themes, as do citizen participation and the structures of governance. The chapters are organised into four sections: concepts, structures, empowerment and spatial quality. Contributors demonstrate a variety of approaches to the intersections of gender, women, cities, and planning, dealing with substantive and procedural issues in planning, at both local and regional scales. They stress the links between environmental sustainability and gender-sensitive urban development. The book concludes by putting forward an outlook for future action.

Download or read book The Challenge of Slums written by United Nations Human Settlements Programme and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-05-23 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Challenge of Slums presents the first global assessment of slums, emphasizing their problems and prospects. Using a newly formulated operational definition of slums, it presents estimates of the number of urban slum dwellers and examines the factors at all level, from local to global, that underlie the formation of slums as well as their social, spatial and economic characteristics and dynamics. It goes on to evaluate the principal policy responses to the slum challenge of the last few decades. From this assessment, the immensity of the challenges that slums pose is clear. Almost 1 billion people live in slums, the majority in the developing world where over 40 per cent of the urban population are slum dwellers. The number is growing and will continue to increase unless there is serious and concerted action by municipal authorities, governments, civil society and the international community. This report points the way forward and identifies the most promising approaches to achieving the United Nations Millennium Declaration targets for improving the lives of slum dwellers by scaling up participatory slum upgrading and poverty reduction programmes. The Global Report on Human Settlements is the most authoritative and up-to-date assessment of conditions and trends in the world's cities. Written in clear language and supported by informative graphics, case studies and extensive statistical data, it will be an essential tool and reference for researchers, academics, planners, public authorities and civil society organizations around the world.

Download or read book Dictators and Democrats written by Stephan Haggard and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rigorous and comprehensive account of recent democratic transitions around the world From the 1980s through the first decade of the twenty-first century, the spread of democracy across the developing and post-Communist worlds transformed the global political landscape. What drove these changes and what determined whether the emerging democracies would stabilize or revert to authoritarian rule? Dictators and Democrats takes a comprehensive look at the transitions to and from democracy in recent decades. Deploying both statistical and qualitative analysis, Stephen Haggard and Robert Kaufman engage with theories of democratic change and advocate approaches that emphasize political and institutional factors. While inequality has been a prominent explanation for democratic transitions, the authors argue that its role has been limited, and elites as well as masses can drive regime change. Examining seventy-eight cases of democratic transition and twenty-five reversions since 1980, Haggard and Kaufman show how differences in authoritarian regimes and organizational capabilities shape popular protest and elite initiatives in transitions to democracy, and how institutional weaknesses cause some democracies to fail. The determinants of democracy lie in the strength of existing institutions and the public's capacity to engage in collective action. There are multiple routes to democracy, but those growing out of mass mobilization may provide more checks on incumbents than those emerging from intra-elite bargains. Moving beyond well-known beliefs regarding regime changes, Dictators and Democrats explores the conditions under which transitions to democracy are likely to arise.

Download or read book Peasant Society in the Colombian Andes written by Orlando Fals-Borda and published by . This book was released on 1955 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Democracy as Problem Solving written by Xavier De Souza Briggs and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2008-07-18 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Case studies from around the world and theoretical discussion show how the capacity to act collectively on local problems can be developed, strengthening democracy while changing social and economic outcomes. Complexity, division, mistrust, and “process paralysis” can thwart leaders and others when they tackle local challenges. In Democracy as Problem Solving, Xavier de Souza Briggs shows how civic capacity—the capacity to create and sustain smart collective action—can be developed and used. In an era of sharp debate over the conditions under which democracy can develop while broadening participation and building community, Briggs argues that understanding and building civic capacity is crucial for strengthening governance and changing the state of the world in the process. More than managing a contest among interest groups or spurring deliberation to reframe issues, democracy can be what the public most desires: a recipe for significant progress on important problems. Briggs examines efforts in six cities, in the United States, Brazil, India, and South Africa, that face the millennial challenges of rapid urban growth, economic restructuring, and investing in the next generation. These challenges demand the engagement of government, business, and nongovernmental sectors. And the keys to progress include the ability to combine learning and bargaining continuously, forge multiple forms of accountability, and find ways to leverage the capacity of the grassroots and what Briggs terms the “grasstops,” regardless of who initiates change or who participates over time. Civic capacity, Briggs shows, can—and must—be developed even in places that lack traditions of cooperative civic action.

Download or read book Urban Fortunes written by John R. Logan and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2007-08-28 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sociological classic is updated with a new preface by the authors looking at developments in the study of urban planning during the twenty-year life of this influential work.

Download or read book The Spivak Reader written by Gayatri Spivak and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-18 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the foremost feminist critics to have emerged to international eminence over the last fifteen years, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has relentlessly challenged the high ground of established theoretical discourse in literary and cultural studies. Although her rigorous reading of various authors has often rendered her work difficult terrain for those unfamiliar with poststructuralism, this collection makes significant strides in explicating Spivak's complicated theories of reading.

Download or read book The Future of Development written by Gustavo Esteva and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2013-10-09 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On January 20, 1949 US President Harry S. Truman officially opened the era of development. On that day, over one half of the people of the world were defined as "underdeveloped" and they have stayed that way ever since. This book explains the origins of development and underdevelopment and shows how poorly we understand these two terms. It offers a new vision for development, demystifying the statistics that international organizations use to measure development and introducing the alternative concept of buen vivir: the state of living well. The authors argue that it is possible for everyone on the planet to live well, but only if we learn to live as communities rather than as individuals and to nurture our respective commons. Scholars and students of global development studies are well-aware that development is a difficult concept. This thought-provoking book offers them advice for the future of development studies and hope for the future of humankind.

Download or read book Planning and Design for Future Informal Settlements written by David Gouverneur and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-08-13 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to address future informal settlements at the global scale. It argues that to foster favourable conditions for the sustainable evolution of future informal cities, planners must consider the same issues that are paramount in formal urban developments, such as provision of: balanced land uses energy efficiency and mobility water management and food sufficiency governance and community participation productivity and competitiveness identity and sense of place Planning and Design for Future Informal Settlements makes a call for responsible action to address the urban challenges of the developing world, suggesting that the vitality of informality, coupled with spatial design and good management, can support the efficient use of resources in better places to live. The book analyses the strengths and weaknesses of informal urbanism and the challenges faced by the fast growing cities of the developing world. Through case studies, it demonstrates the contributions and limitations of different attempts to plan ahead for urban growth, from the creation of formal housing and urban infrastructures for self-built dwellings to the improvement of existing informal settlements. It provides a robust framework for planners and designers, policy-makers, NGOs and local governments working to improve living conditions in developing cities.

Download or read book Drug Trafficking Corruption and States written by Luis Jorge Garay Salamanca and published by . This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drug Trafficking, Corruption and States is cutting edge research. Garay Salamanca and Salcedo-Albarán, along with their contributing authors help document the transition from economic to political imperatives within transnational drug cartels. The break from the Zetas by La Familia Michoacana is one example contained in their empirical survey. Social Network Analysis is their tool for illuminating the varying dynamics of cartel-state inter-penetration and reconfiguration. In doing so they clearly discern between State Capture (StC) and Co-opted State Reconfiguration (CStR). As the drug wars and criminal insurgencies rage in the Americas and beyond, this seminal framework will facilitate efforts by scholars, law enforcement officials, intelligence analysts and policymakers to understand shifts in sovereignty, and to illuminate the mechanisms of transnational illicit networks and their interaction with the state.