Translations of press articles, letters, commentary, memorandums and unrelated documents, that are gathered in a file title "Classified information". Its content is about politics, critiques to the government of President Cárdenas, relations between Mexico and the United States and speeches. Letter from Gen. Agustín Olachea, delegate of Tijuana, Baja California to Gen. Plutarco Elías Calles who is in Honolulu, Hawaii. He informs that he was in Mexico City and that President Cárdenas dismissed him from his appointment. He will be replaced by Gen. Gilgardo Magaña. He also informs that he transmited Gen. PEC's message to the President but he replied that he had already ordered to stop the "chismografía" campaign (gossip). He expresses that he does not know if the situation is due to a government policy to eliminate his friends or due to his friends' attitude. Either way, the situation is worsen. Finally, he informs that he visited the children and that they miss him but they are fine. He is leaving to Tehuacán to have a break and then work on his mining business. Bill sent by President Gen. Lázaro Cárdenas and Secretary of Finance Eduardo Suárez to the Congress, so it can be added a law for national assets. Said law establishes the assets for public services and buildings assigned by the President for public works, although private institutions carry the works out. Article without date nor place, signed by Luis del Toro and titled "Calles and his Work", in which the author exposes the campaign against Gen. Plutarco Elías Calles. Within the campaign they praised his works but also condemned him as a person without considering that those two aspects cannot be separated. He considers irrational the attitude of many individualx who say they are engaged with Calles' project, such as the Six Year Plan and organizations created by him like the PNR, but at the same time, they denigrate and persecute Calles and his supporters. Translation of the letter publish in the Los Angeles Examiner on October 27, 1935 sent by Reverend Charles L. Brooks from the First Methodist Church in Mangum, OK to President Roosevelt and that is titled "The New Program is infested with Socialism". According to the translator, this document is written with biblical language and reveals a deep knowledge of the economic issues. Reverend Brooks thanks for the good things during Roosevelt's administration but warns against socialism, which is getting more supporters. He recognizes that Roosevelt's intentions are not socialist but his actions indeed are. He lists some of the actions like the taxes on industrial management, the Guffey Bill on coal and the Wagner-Connery labor Bill that privileges majorities. He points out the ineptitude, mismanagement and waste of political advisers. He tags the social security legislation as complicated and socialist. He attributes the disaster to the economic policy installed. Letter with illegible signature that could belong to Abelardo L. Rodríguez. It does not include the recipient and is dated on Mexico City on November 1935. It is a reply to a letter sent regarding "President Van Beuren" with opinions about the recipient's trips to China and Japan. The author informs the recipient of personal matters and the progress of public affairs in the country. Regarding the personal matters, he mentions the trial of Díaz and the judicial process. He informs about paperwork with the Secretariat of Communications for the itineraries of "El Sauzal" and the annulation of the contract for not meeting the requirements established in the law of roads of communication. He mentions that Secretary Múgica gave instructions to the Department of Navy to pass the affairs with Gaxiola to the court, which shows hostility and partiality. Regarding the national situation, he expresses that it is increasingly worse and anarchic. The President is ill of brucellosis and is very weak. Portes Gil is inciting agrarian movements and is apparently allied with Cedillo. Múgica, committed to demagogic excesses, informs that Melchor spoke in Washington with Ambassador Castillo Nájera, who recently had been invited by President Roosevelt to the White House. He was informed that the U.S. government would take measures to solve the religious conflict in Mexico, since many foreigners had asked the U.S. government to define its position. In view of this threat, Cárdenas ordered to reopen the temples in Sonora. Regarding the land grant, the U.S. government is suspicious, according to what was informed to Castillo Nájera. It is known that a group of generals is upset with the president's policy, so dissatisfaction is extended and divisions are evident. He advises to be careful and offers to see him in New York. He informs that he is sending a copy of the letter to Gen. Plutarco Elías Calles who is in San Diego. He says goodbye and sends greetings to Lalo and … (it continues in the next record) / Traducciones de artículos de prensa, cartas, comentario, memorándums, documentos sin relación entre sí, reunidos en un archivo titulado "Confidencial" cuyo contenido es en general sobre política, críticas al gobierno del Presidente Cárdenas, relaciones México-Estados Unidos, discursos. Carta del Gral. Agustín Olachea, delegado del gobierno en Tijuana, Territorio Norte de Baja California al Gral. PEC que se encuentra en Honolulu, Hawaii, informándole que estuvo en la ciudad de México y que el Presidente lo relevó del cargo que desempeñaba y que lo va a sustituir el Gral. Gildardo Magaña; que trasmitió al Presidente su mensaje y que él le dijo que ya había ordenado se suspendiera la campaña de chismografía. Le manifiesta que no sabe si la situación se deba a una política de gobierno para eliminar a todos sus amigos o la actitud de sus amigos, pero que la situación empeora. Por último le comunica que visitó a los niños, que lo extrañan pero que están bien y que él se va a Tehuacán a descansar para después dedicarse a su negocio de minas. Iniciativa que el Presidente Gral. Lázaro Cárdenas y el Secretario de Hacienda Eduardo Suárez envían al Congreso de la Unión para adicionar la ley de bienes inmuebles de la nación, del 18 de diciembre de 1902, por la cual se quedan equiparados a los bienes destinados a un servicio público los predios o edificios que el Ejecutivo Federal destine a una obra de interés social, aunque la misma esté a cargo de entidades privadas. Artículo sin fecha ni lugar, firmado por Luis del Toro y titulado "Calles y su obra" en el que el autor denuncia la campaña emprendida contra el Gral. PEC, ya que si bien alaban su obra pública condenan a su persona sin tomar en consideración que el hombre es indivisible de su obra; por ello es irracional la actitud de muchos individuos afines al régimen que se dicen comprometidos con los proyectos de Calles como el Plan Sexenal y las organizaciones por él creadas como el PNR; pero lo denigran como persona y lo persiguen a él y a sus partidarios y amigos. Traducción de carta publicada en LOS ANGELES EXAMINER, el 27 de octubre de 1935, que le dirige el Rvdo. Charles L. Brooks de la First Methodist Church de Mangum, Oklahoma al Presidente Roosevelt y que se titula "El nuevo programa está plagado de socialismo". Este documento, según hace constar el traductor, está escrito en lenguaje bíblico y revela un profundo conocimiento de los problemas económicos; agradece todo lo bueno que ha dado la administración de Roosevelt pero le previene contra el socialismo que cada vez gana más adeptos; reconoce que sus intenciones no son socialistas pero insiste en que sus acciones sí lo son y enumera algunas de ellas como el impuesto sobre procedimientos industriales; la iniciativa Guffey sobre el carbón; la iniciativa laboral Wagner-Connery que privilegia a las mayorías para contratar colectivamente en perjuicio de las minorías; acusa la ineptitud, mala administración y desperdicio de algunos consejeros políticos, al Presidente; tacha de complicada y socialista la legislación del Seguro Social; augura el desastre por la política económica instaurada. Carta cuya firma es ilegible, que pudiera ser de Abelardo L. Rodríguez, sin nombre de destinatario, fechada en México, D.F. el 9 de noviembre de 1935, que es contestación de una enviada a bordo del "Presidente Van Beuren" con observaciones sobre los comentarios del viaje del destinatario a China y Japón, que difieren de las hechas por Bojórquez; el autor de la carta informa al destinatario sobre sus asuntos personales y sobre el desarrollo de los acontecimientos públicos en el país; en cuanto a los asuntos privados comenta el juicio de Díaz y cómo va el procedimiento judicial sobre el cual se dictaminará sentencia proximamente. Trámites ante la Secretaría de Comunicaciones sobre los itinerarios de El Sauzal y declara la caducidad del contrato por no haberse cumplido algunos requisitos que exige la Ley de Vías Generales de Comunicación; comenta que el Ministro Múgica dio orden al Departamento de Marina, para que todos los asuntos de Gaxiola pasarán al jurídico con lo que se demuestra animadversión y parcialidad. En cuanto a la situación del país comenta que es cada vez más grave y más anárquica, que el Presidente está enfermo de fiebre de malta, que está muy débil, que Portes Gil está dedicado a agitar a los elementos agrarios, aparentemente aliado con Cedillo; Múgica entregado a excesos demagógicos; comenta que Melchor (?) habló en Washington con el Embajador Castillo Nájera quien recientemente había sido invitado por Roosevelt a la Casa Blanca para informarle que el gobierno de Estados Unidos iban a tomar medidas para resolver el problema religioso en México ya que eran muchos los requerimientos que extranjeros le habían hecho para que la administración norteamericana definiera su postura, ante esta amenaza Cárdenas ha ordenado que se abran los templos en Sonora; en cuanto al reparto agrario, la Casa Blanca también está muy recelosa y así se lo han informado a Castillo Nájera; se sabe que un grupo de generales está muy molesto con la política del Presidente, con lo que el descontento está muy extendido y la dispersión de fuerzas evidente; le aconseja obrar con cautela y se ofrece a esperarlo en Nueva York; le informa que envía copia de la carta al Gral. Calles a San Diego, se despide y envía saludos a Lalo y . (Continúa en el siguiente registro)
Mozambique has enjoyed strong economic growth but poverty levels are still unacceptably high. Mozambique is now in a transition period with an opportunity to plan for how resource revenues can contribute to poverty reduction and inclusive growth. Any policy to scale-up a cash transfer program will operate with a limited budget, meaning that decisions will need to be made on the optimal design choice in Mozambique. The objective of this policy note is to generate debate on implementing a scaled-up cash transfer in Mozambique's future resource-rich environment, as part of a broader strategy to reduce poverty. The scope of this note is focused on distributing resource revenues through a scaled-up cash transfer program, and not the broader management of resource revenues. Section one discusses growth and poverty dynamics. Section two presents the existing social protection system. Section three discusses policy options for implementing a scaled-up cash transfer program using a simulation exercise to estimate poverty and welfare effects for a given fiscal envelope. Section four discusses how to address the risks of financing a scaled-up cash transfer program from resource revenues. Section five focuses on the practicalities of how the social protection system should be strengthened to implement scaled-up cash transfer program and the final section concludes.
La tesis ofrece una nueva base de datos de gasto militar en España desde mediados del siglo diecinueve hasta la actualidad, así como tres análisis de los condicionantes y las consecuencias económicas y políticas del gasto militar en el largo plazo. En concreto, el primer capítulo presenta nuevas estimaciones de los recursos públicos destinados al ámbito militar en España desde 1850 hasta 2009, así como la desagregación económica, administrativa y funcional de dicho gasto. La nueva base de datos ha sido elaborada siguiendo el criterio metodológico de la OTAN, que es uno de los criterios más utilizados por parte de las instituciones internacionales dedicadas a la compilación de datos de gasto militar a nivel mundial. Dicho criterio permite obtener una nueva base de datos homologable a lo largo del tiempo y comparable con otros países del entorno europeo e internacional. El segundo capítulo de la tesis analiza la influencia de los regímenes políticos en la evolución del gasto militar en España desde principios de la Restauración Española hasta la actualidad. En contraste con los análisis cuantitativos anteriores, que generalmente destacan la influencia negativa de los regímenes democráticos en la evolución del gasto militar, el capítulo sugiere que las instituciones democráticas pueden estar asociadas a mayores niveles de gasto militar en determinados contextos históricos. En concreto, el análisis de puntos de ruptura de las series de gasto militar, así como los análisis econométricos subsiguientes y la revisión de la historiografía militar española, muestra que los primeros gobiernos democráticos establecidos después de la dictadura Franquista aumentaron significativamente el gasto militar en relación con las décadas anteriores. Ese aumento, que fue debido a los esfuerzos de dichos gobiernos para reorientar el ejército hacia misiones internacionales y para facilitar su adaptación a las nuevas instituciones democráticas, dio lugar al único punto de ruptura positivo de la serie histórica de gasto militar total que no guarda relación con el inicio o el final de un conflicto bélico. A su vez, el análisis sugiere que la nueva orientación de las políticas militares democráticas conllevó un esfuerzo financiero en pro de un ejército intensivo en capital que pudiera participar en nuevas misiones internacionales. El tercer capítulo analiza más a fondo los condicionantes políticos del gasto militar y su potencial impacto en términos de estabilidad institucional. Como es bien sabido, los ejércitos han intervenido recurrentemente en política mediante golpes de estado. Diversos autores sugieren que los gobiernos autocráticos o parcialmente democráticos han usado eventualmente el gasto militar como estrategia para contentar a las fuerzas armadas y evitar así su insubordinación. Aún así, y a pesar de la solidez del argumento, los análisis cuantitativos recientes basados en amplias bases de datos internacionales no han encontrado una relación significativa y concluyente entre la evolución del gasto militar y la frecuencia y el éxito de los golpes de estado. En ese tercer capítulo sugiero que el gasto militar total – medida comúnmente utilizada por parte de dicha literatura cuantitativa – puede no ser un buen indicador del esfuerzo financiero realizado por parte de los gobiernos para conseguir la lealtad del ejército. Aunque el gasto militar total no refleje ninguna relación con la frecuencia y el éxito de los golpes de estado, puede que los cambios en la composición del gasto sí que guarden una relación significativa con dicho fenómeno. El capítulo pretende abrir esa 'caja negra' del gasto militar estudiando el impacto de la evolución de la remuneración salarial de los oficiales en España desde mediados del siglo diecinueve hasta finales de la Restauración Española. En línea con la hipótesis apuntada, el análisis sugiere que los aumentos en la remuneración de los oficiales durante la segunda mitad del siglo diecinueve y principios del siglo veinte – junto con otras estrategias políticas y militares – están relacionados con una menor frecuencia de golpes de estado, mientras que el gasto militar total no parece mostrar ninguna relación al respecto. Finalmente, el cuarto capítulo examina el impacto de la guerra y el gasto militar en la evolución de los sistemas fiscales de una muestra de trece países europeos y norteamericanos en el largo plazo. La guerra y la competición militar han sido a menudo definidas como fuerzas motoras relevantes de la expansión de la capacidad fiscal de los estados durante la época contemporánea. Aún así, la evidencia empírica no ha sido concluyente, y aún se carece de una narrativa histórica que explique cómo los cambios en la naturaleza de la guerra han afectado a la evolución de los sistemas fiscales contemporáneos. El cuarto capítulo tiene como objetivo rellenar ese vacío mediante el análisis del impacto de la guerra en la evolución de la capacidad fiscal contemporánea a la luz de las llamadas 'Revoluciones de los Asuntos Militares' que tuvieron lugar en occidente desde mediados del siglo diecinueve hasta la actualidad. Los resultados sugieren que la relación entre la guerra y la expansión fiscal ha seguido una curva de U invertida, según la cual los cambios en las tácticas y la tecnología militar presionaron los recursos públicos al alza hasta que la capacidad destructiva de los ejércitos sobrepasó el umbral nuclear. Adicionalmente, los resultados sugieren que los sistemas políticos han sido relevantes para completar esa narrativa histórica, aunque hayan sido en ocasiones olvidados en ese tipo de análisis. ; The thesis offers a new database of military expense in Spain from middle of the century nineteen up to the current importance, as well as three analyses of the determining ones and the economic and political consequences of the military expense in the long term. In I make concrete, the first chapter presents new estimations of the public resources destined for the military area in Spain from 1850 until 2009, as well as the economic, administrative and functional disaggregation of the above mentioned expense. The new database has been elaborated following the methodological criterion of the OTAN, which is one of the criteria most used on the part of the international institutions dedicated to the compilation of information of military expense worldwide. The above mentioned criterion allows to obtain a new database throughout the time and comparably with other countries of the European and international environment. The second chapter of the thesis analyzes the influence of the political rate in the evolution of the military expense in Spain from beginning of the Spanish Restoration up to the current importance. In contrast with the previous quantitative analyses, which generally emphasize the negative influence of the democratic rate in the evolution of the military expense, the chapter suggests that the democratic institutions can be associated with major levels of military expense in certain historical contexts. In I make concrete, the analysis of points of break of the series of military expense, as well as the analyses econometrics subsequent and the review of the military Spanish historiography, it shows that the first democratic governments established after the Pro-Franco dictatorship increased significantly the military expense in relation with the previous decades. This increase, which was due to the efforts of the above mentioned governments to re-orientate the army towards international missions and to facilitate his adjustment to the new democratic institutions, gave place to the only positive point of break of the historical series of military total expense that does not guard relation with the beginning or the end of a warlike conflict. In turn, the analysis suggests that the new orientation of the military democratic policies carried a financial effort in favor of an intensive army in the capital that could take part in new missions international. The third chapter analyzes more thoroughly the determining politicians of the military expense and his potential I affect terms of institutional stability. Since it is known well, the armies have intervened suddenly in politics coups d'état. Diverse authors suggest that the autocratic or partially democratic governments have used eventually the military expense as strategy to satisfy to the armed forces and to avoid this way his insubordination. Nonetheless, and in spite of the solidity of the argument, the quantitative recent analyses based on wide international databases have not found a significant and conclusive relation between the evolution of the military expense and the frequency and the success of the coups d'état. In this third chapter I suggest that the military total expense - measured commonly used on the part of the above mentioned quantitative literature - cannot be a good indicator of the financial effort realized on the part of the governments to obtain the loyalty of the army. Though the military total expense does not reflect any relation with the frequency and the success of the coups d'état, it is possible that the changes in the composition of the expense yes that guard a significant relation with the above mentioned phenomenon. The chapter tries to open this ' black box ' of the military expense studying the impact of the evolution of the wage remuneration of the officials in Spain from middle of the century nineteen until ends of the Spanish Restoration. On line with the pointed hypothesis, the analysis suggests that the increases in the remuneration of the officials during the second half of the century nineteen and beginning of the century twenty - together with other political and military strategies - they are related to a minor frequency of coups d'état, whereas the military total expense does not seem to show any relation in the matter. Finally, the fourth chapter examines the impact of the war and the military expense in the evolution of the fiscal systems of a sample of thirteen European and North American countries in the long term. The war and the military competition have been defined often as forces relevant motorboats of the expansion of the fiscal capacity of the conditions during the contemporary epoch. Nonetheless, the empirical evidence has not been conclusive, and still one lacks a historical narrative that explains how the changes in the nature of the war they have concerned the evolution of the fiscal contemporary systems. The fourth chapter has as aim refill this emptiness by means of the analysis of the impact of the war in the evolution of the fiscal contemporary capacity in the light of so called ' Revolutions of the Military Matters ' that took place in west from middle of the century nineteen up to the current importance. The results suggest that the relation between the war and the fiscal expansion has followed a curve of Or invested, according to which the changes in the tactics and the military technology pressed the public resources to the rise until the destructive capacity of the armies exceeded the nuclear threshold. Additional, the results suggest that the political systems have been relevant to complete this historical narrative, though they have been in occasions forgotten in this type of analysis.
Work shown as part of 'Mind Rhymes', curated by Tom Benson at Hidde van Seggelen Gallery, London Mind Rhymes Curated by Tom Benson 24 July – 31 August 2013 This show is about ideas, likes and dislikes. And as far as we can know anything about anyone else, it's dependant on how much we can put ourselves in the place of the other, of their likes and dislikes. It's more or less a form of collaboration. Tom Benson: So, two characters in the background would be Marcel Duchamp and John Cage. John Cage having written a piece of music called Music for Marcel Duchamp for a film by Hans Richter, with a little excerpt in it on Duchamp. It was one of the very, very early prepared piano pieces by Cage and it's a relatively short piece, but in it. I've thought for a long time that it encapsulates a particular quality, which is a quality of thought happening rather than having happened. There are points, in the way that the rhythm is built up and held, where it hovers before some sort of direction is taken. I didn't think to look up very much about the piece when I first heard it, but when I finally did, years later, I was surprised to discover that it was one of the first pieces that Cage had written where he deliberately tried to explore silence in a structured way. So there are bars of silence and bars of sound. These gaps, or these spaces, were spaces that I felt somehow offered me the ability to enter into the piece with my own thinking. Spaces for thought, if you will, within the music, rather than a wall of sound that is all-invading. And also with Cage, as we know, there is an interest in the I Ching and various strategies that were used to generate musical compositions that would remove him to some extent from a more authoritative position of his own subjectivity. The idea of the grid—I was struggling with how to bring a number of disparate works together into a space and give them the same space. It was a question of how to address the space as well as the works within it, in a subtle but determined way. I was thinking about devising a band system, so there would be three bands, a tripartite division running horizontally around the space. It could be black, white, grey, whatever. It would give me different tiers to include works that could exist above, along side, in parallel, askance from other works. But I thought that that would almost be too crude. A much, much simpler way was just a very lightly drawn, using a 4H pencil, linear grid that would run across all the wall surfaces from floor to ceiling, that would give a more planular space, a more extensive space, so that it didn't feel—because of the proportion, because it's 50 centimetres across every facet of the space—it wouldn't feel like, 'that's at the top, and that's at the bottom'. Just, 'it's located on the grid'. It equalises the space. For the name of the show, I was first thinking along the lines of 'rhyme and reason', rather than 'rhyme or reason', to include the analytic and conceptual as well as the emotive and the subjective. Because it seems to me that some of the most interesting works do that - however obdurate they might be, there is a sort of feeling of a mind at work, the mind that brought that thing into existence. But in having a dialogue with so many artists about their work and realising that I was being shown things I wouldn't have thought about otherwise, and also in being slightly worried that 'rhyme and reason' sounded almost too clear and understandable. to come across this term 'mind rhyme'—which does exist—I thought was fantastic, because it included both the conceptual and the poetic, the rhyme and the reason, but in a much more interesting way. A mind rhyme is a situation set up through language, poetry, rhyming, where the mind will anticipate the word that's coming next. So it's possible to have a joke, a pun, an innuendo. A lot of these things revolve around a mind rhyme. But I was more thinking about, if you like, a visual mind rhyme, where you are presented with one artist's work, and you might begin to develop an understanding of that work, but because of what else is situated with it, you are somewhat confounded, or are lead to a point where there's a kind of bifurcation, or split, and the directions are unpredictable. It creates another type of gap for the mind to work with, a space between what might have been anticipated and all kinds of unexpected associations. In thinking about another person's work, it enters into my frame of reference and it becomes sort of a touchstone, and an important thing. It influences my own thinking. It's a form of collaboration. — As told to Kyra Kordoski Jenna Bliss uses video, performance, sound and text, to navigate public spheres intimately through letter writing and ambivalent fandom. Dreaming of singularity and collectivity simultaneously, she creates and then destroys her singular voice. Much of this work began by performing at pub open mic nights in London. Bliss recently exhibited at Woburn Slade Research Centre, London (2012); White Building [SPACE], London (2012); Piet Zwart Institute, NL (2012); and Camden Arts Centre, London (2012). She was born in Yonkers, New York, USA and currently lives and works in London. Joey Bryniarska's practice is concerned with technology, ornament, subjection, power, vitality. Within the self-reflexivity of reprographic mediums, she creates parallels between this technological food-chain and a larger system of parasitical dependency, reproduction, ornamental deceit and conditions of spectatorship. Bryniarska has exhibited at Post Box Gallery, London (2012); Collective Gallery, Edinburgh (2010); Complesso Monumentale Santo Spirito, Rome, IT (2010); and Royal Academy of Arts, London (2008). Born in Swindon, she currently lives and works in London. Céline Condorelli works, broadly speaking, with art and architecture, combining a number of approaches such as developing possibilities for 'supporting' the work of others, resulting in projects merging exhibition, politics, fiction, public space and whatever else feels urgent at the time. One of her long-term projects, Support Structure (in collaboration with Gavin Wade), has been exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2008); GIL, Guangzhou, Beijing, CN (2007); and Chisenhale Gallery, London (2003). Other recent exhibitions include: Centre d'Art Contemporain de Brétigny, FR (2013); Nottingham Contemporary (2012); Victoria & Albert Museum, London (2011); Tate Modern, London (2011); and Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR (2010). Condorelli lives and works in London. Claudia Doms runs a graphic design studio and frequently collaborates with artists and editors from the UK and abroad. Since 2010 she has made a drawing a day and uses these as formal spurs for her songs, music, videos and paintings. Her work has been shown at: London Design Week (2011); Cream Espai Creatiu, Barcelona, ES (2011); Bulthaup Gallery, St. Petersburg, RU (2010); Witzenhausen Gallery, New York, USA (2010); Red October, Moscow, RU (2010); City Gallery, Tallinn, EE (2010); Meneer de Wit Gallery, Amsterdam, NL (2009); and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, IT (2007). Born in Germany, Doms currently lives and works in London. Kati Kärki's explorations in art have taken her through a combination of media, encompassing photography, printmaking, sculptural furniture, writing and spoken word. She has arranged discursive events, providing intimate settings for discussions about and around art. Recently she performed at Art13 London (2013), and organized a daylong event at Whitechapel Gallery, London (2013). Kärki was born in Finland and currently lives and works in London. Elizabeth McAlpine works with video, film, installation and photography. Her work often engages with ideas of temporality, the passage of time, its tones and textures, and various ways of registering it. Recent solo exhibitions include: Laura Bartlett Gallery, London (2012); Laurel Gitlen, New York, USA (2012); Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2010); and Ballina Arts Centre, IE (2007). Her work is currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum, New York, USA. Recent group exhibitions include: Royal Standard, Liverpool (2013); Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, AU (2013); deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, USA (2012); and Barbican Centre, London (2010). Born in London, McAlpine currently lives and works in London. Fay Nicolson's practice spans a set of associations around educational structures, material understanding and knowledge while approaching the difficulties of recording, coding and distributing presence and experience as information. Recent solo exhibitions include: Künstlerhaus Wien, Vienna, AT(2013); and PLAZAPLAZA, London (2012). Current group exhibitions include White Cube, Masons Yard, London (2013); and The Newbridge Project, Newcastle (2013). Other group exhibitions in 2013 include: Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen; Limoncello; and The London Art Fair, Art Projects. Born in Derby, Nicolson currently lives and works in London. Philomene Pirecki works across painting, photography, drawing, sculpture, projected image and language. Her work addresses memory, time, perception, and their representations. Pirecki often physically and conceptually references her existing works and considers how they can adapt and respond to new conditions and change over time. Recent solo exhibitions include: Green on Red Gallery, Dublin, IE (2013); MOTInternational, Brussels, BE (2012); Clockwork Gallery, Berlin, DE (2012); and Laure Genillard, London (2011). Selected group exhibitions include: Wilfried Lentz Gallery, Rotterdam, NL (2013); Wysing Art Centre, Cambridge, (2013); Supplement, London (2012); Cristina Guerra Gallery, Lisbon, PT (2012); Chelsea Space, London (2011); and The Barbican Art Gallery, London, (2010). Born in Jersey, and currently living and working in London, Pirecki founded the curatorial platform, Occassionals, a peripatetic project for artists, writers and curators to make their work public, usually over a single day or an evening. Laure Prouvost's approach to filmmaking, often situated within atmospheric installations, employs story-telling, quick cuts, montage and deliberate misuse of language to create surprising and unpredictable work. Recent solo exhibitions include the Max Mara Prize for Women at Whitechapel Gallery, London (2013); and Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, IT (2013). Her works have also been on view at Morra Greco Foundation, Naples, IT (2013); Tate Britain, London (2013); MOTInternational, London (2012); Sculpture Center, New York, USA (2011); and The Serpentine Gallery, London (2010). Born in Lille, France, and currently living and working in London, she is a Turner Prize 2013 nominee and was the winner of the Max Mara Prize for Women in 2011. Chooc Ly Tan's practice is multi-disciplinary and incorporates sculpture, video, installations and performances. Through her work she attempts to see beyond the physical constants that govern people's lives, their significance, and to make the possibility of their subjugation all the more fantastic. She asks, "what would a world devoid of physical laws, such as gravity and frames of references, geometry and time, be like"? Selected solo and group exhibitions include: Circa Projects, Newcastle (2012); Carlos/Ishikawa Gallery, London, (2012); Drawing Room, London (2012); Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2011); and The Royal Society, London (2011). Tan was born in La Roche sur Yon, France and currently lives and works in London.
Tutkimus käsittelee sitä, miten vanhat ihmiset puhuvat omasta vanhenemisestaan ja terveydestään sekä vanhuudesta ja terveydestä yleensä. Erityisenä kiinnostuksen kohteena oli, millaisena osallistujat näkivät vanhojen ihmisten sosiaalisen aseman yhteiskunnassa ja suhteessa nuorempiin ihmisiin. Toiseksi tutkimuksessa selvitettiin sitä, mitä ajatellaan yksilön vastuusta ja mahdollisuuksista vaikuttaa terveyteen omilla toimillaan ja valinnoillaan. Aineistona oli 90 vuotta täyttäneiden pirkanmaalaisten miesten ja naisten elämäkerrallisia haastatteluja ja 70 vuotta täyttäneiden tamperelaisten miesten ja naisten ryhmäkeskusteluja. Tutkimus osoitti, että vanhan ihmisen sosiaalinen asema näyttäytyi ongelmallisena. Monet kokivat, että vanhat ihmiset nähdään ulkopuolisina ja tarpeettomina yhteiskunnassa. Osa kritisoi tätä näkemystä ja toi esille erilaisia tapoja miten he itse toimivat omassa lähipiirissään ja yhteisössään ja omalta osaltaan auttavat muita ihmisiä. Yleinen kokemus oli myös se, että tietyn iän ylittäneet ihmiset nähdään ja heitä kohdellaan yhtenä vanhojen ryhmänä, ja sivuutetaan yksilölliset erot ihmisten välillä. Suhteessa nuorempiin ihmisiin monien kokemus oli se, että heitä kohdellaan holhoavasti lapsina , joiden puolesta tehdään päätöksiä. Toisaalta tutkittavat toivat esille, että pitkä elämä tuo väistämättä elämänkokemusta, jota nuoremmilla ei voi olla. Tällaiseen puheeseen liittyi yleensä laajaa perustelua ja argumentointia, mikä voi kertoa siitä, että vanhat ihmiset itse kokevat ettei näkemys vanhuudesta viisautena ole elettyä todellisuutta nykykulttuurissa. Tutkittavat tasapainoilivat kahden näkemyksen välillä: onko vanhuus lainomainen kohtalo, johon ei voi itse vaikuttaa muuten kuin sopeutumalla terveyden heikkenemiseen ja menetyksiin, vai onko niin, että omilla teoilla ja valinnoilla voi vaikuttaa omaan terveyteensä ja siihen millaista elämä vanhana on? Vanhuuden kokemukseen liitettiin terveysongelmat ja se ettei enää selviä omillaan ja tarvitsee muiden apua. Huononevan terveyden koettiin johtavan eristyneisyyteen muista ihmisistä, yksinäisyyteen ja jopa unohdetuksi tulemiseen. Vanhuus ei tule yksin - tyyppiset sanonnat kiteyttävät ajatuksen siitä, että vanhuus on kaikille yhteinen kohtalo, johon ei voi vaikuttaa. Toisaalta tuotiin esille, että omaan elämään ja terveyteen vanhana voi ja on syytä yrittää vaikuttaa omilla toimillaan. Keskeisinä keinoina vaikuttaa terveyteen nähtiin fyysinen ja sosiaalinen aktiivisuus sekä kaikenlainen aivovoimistelu . Lisäksi monet kertoivat terveellisistä elintavoistaan. Useat niistäkin, jotka kertoivat terveyden heikenneen, kertoivat pyrkivänsä huolehtimaan terveydestä ja olleensa aktiivisia ja omatoimisia aikaisemmin. Aktiivisuuden ideaali koskee näiden tulosten mukaan myös hyvin vanhoja ihmisiä. Tulokset viittaavat myös siihen, että julkisissa keskusteluissa usein käsitellyt terveysteemat ovat osa vanhojen ihmisten terveyttä koskevaa ajattelua. Yhteenvetona tuloksista voi todeta, että yhtäältä terveyden ja toimintakyvyn huononeminen vanhuudessa ja elämän rajallisuus koetaan pakkona, johon on sopeuduttava. Toisaalta koetaan että ihminen ei ole vain lastu laineilla , vaan voi itse jossakin määrin vaikuttaa omaan terveyteensä ja siihen millaista elämää vanhana elää. Tutkimus osoitti, että vanhuuden kokemus on monitasoinen ilmiö. Tutkittavat puhuivat paljon itsenäisyydestä ja omillaan pärjäämisestä ja siitä, että ainakin yritetään selvitä itse ja yksin. Toive olla hyväkuntoinen ja terve on varmaankin kaikille yhteinen iästä riippumatta, mutta miksi avuntarvetta ylipäätään pitää perustella? Nykyisissä yhteiskunnallisissa keskusteluissa korostetaan paljon yksilön mahdollisuuksia vaikuttaa terveyteen ja vastuullisuutta omasta elämästä. Tutkimustulosten pohjalta voi herättää keskustelua siitä, onko aktiivisuudesta ja terveydestä huolehtimisesta, sekä yksin ja itse pärjäämisestä tullut jo moraalinen vaade nyky-yhteiskunnassa? Tätä taustaa vasten ajatus vanhuudesta lainomaisena kohtalona, joka aiheuttaa terveyden heikkenemisen ja kohtaa kaikkia samalla tavoin, voikin auttaa yksilöä oikeuttamaan ja hyväksymään avuntarpeen, ja sen, ettei enää kykene huolehtimaan terveydestään. Mutta toisaalta on tärkeää tuoda esille myös se, että terveyteen vanhuudessa voidaan vaikuttaa ja vanhat ihmiset ovat myös aktiivisia ja omatoimisia. Tämä näkemys auttaa kyseenalaistamaan näkemyksen vanhuudesta vain ja ainoastaan raihnautena ja yhteiskunnasta irtaantumisena. ; In this research the aim was to find out how old age and health are discussed by people who themselves are seen and treated as old. Its focus was to study these people s talk about their experiences of old age and health. While I do not believe that other people s experiences are directly available for us to discover, it is still important to analyse what kinds of elements are included in people s talk about their experiences and in their self-identities. This information will help gain a deeper understanding of how being old and health are perceived by those people who may see themselves, and who are seen and treated by others, as ageing or old. The focus of the research was to identify the different perspectives raised by people in their talk and to find out how those perspectives were used in talk. The research questions were concerned with how people defined old age and being old as a social position, in relation to other people and in the context of one s own life entity, and with what meanings health received in this context. I was particularly interested to learn how people talked about their own and other people s chances to influence their health and ageing, and whether they felt that people were responsible for their own health. The theoretical framework for the research was underpinned by social constructionism and the discursive perspective, which entail the idea that talk is action. The datasets consisted of biographical interviews with people aged 90 or over and group discussions in which the participants were 70 years or over. The main tools of analysis came from discourse and rhetoric analysis. These ! methods made it possible to study how diff erent arguments were used in talk to explain, defend and legitimate one s own decisions and actions as well as other people s actions. The research findings showed that it is too simplistic to talk about the experience of old age in terms of denying age or resisting negative stereotypes of old age. Rather, older people have various ways of thinking about and defining old age and health. Being old is an ambivalent position. Mobilizing the category of old age in talk about oneself seemed to make the agentic position problematic. In their talk about old age and health, the people in this study balanced between different views and ways of talking. I called these different ways of talking the decline, activity and wisdom discourse. Discourses are cultural resources that people use to construct meanings of old age and health and their own identity as old. In the decline discourse, the participants in this study constructed old age as self-evidently a time of poor health and losses, which serve to explain and legitimate ill health,dependence on other people and need for help. The activity discourse was used to construct old age as something the individual can choose and have an influence on. It was used to construct oneself as active, healthy, a needed member of society and independent. Within the activity discourse, health was constructed as something that is malleable by means of one s own actions and as a matter of individual responsibility. On the other hand, the participants qualified the idea of responsibility by mentioning various factors that are beyond the individual s influence. Talk about old age as wisdom was the weakest discourse in this data, possibly indicating that that there is little real support for the idea that old age is seen in society as a time of wisdom and that older people represent that wisdom. The most important discovery, however, was that these different discourses were used by the same people to give meaning to and construct their identities. These discourses were also contrasted with one another, but talk about old age is best described in terms of negotiation and renegotiation about one s positions and the meaning of one s own actions and decisions. Both old age and health talk involved moral argumentation. People s talk revolved around chances to influence one s own health and life in old age, and on the other hand, around the question of how far old age is a fate that is beyond individual influence. I approached the interviews and group discussions as interaction situations in which both interviewer and interviewee are active participants. Individual interviews place more pressure on the individual interviewee. Health proved to be a particularly dilemmatic topic in this regard because of the heavy ideological and moral baggage it carries in contemporary western culture, and talk about one s own health can present a threat to one s face. A common concern in individual interviews was to explain and justify one s own health-related choices and actions. Various discursive and rhetorical devices were applied to construct one s own activity and good health. The research showed that the group discussions involved more negotiation between different views. Sensitive and conflicting views were also raised in group discussions. In other words this research did not support the view that group discussions are conducive to unitary views and discourage talk about sensitive issues. The social constructionist view on reality and social facts is that for analytical reasons, it is important to look at the meanings given to old age and health by older people themselves. This does not mean to say that social constructionist research ignores social facts , structures, bodily being or power relations. These, too, can be made a topic of analysis in order to see whether and how they become visible, are made a meaningful and important part of one s own ageing. Rhetorical studies provide a powerful tool for exploring the argumentative basis of age categories and identities. Rhetoric analysis, importantly, pays attention to how talk about old age and health is a presentation of identity and a way of constructing an accountable and worthy identity. The particular benefit of this enterprise is that it allows us to study the arguments applied in making some versions of reality look more plausible or better and to ignore or silence other versions. Discursive studies have demonstrated their strength in showing how one and the same person can use diff erent and even conflicting age categories and discourses, and how the meaning of the topic at hand is constructed in interaction, negotiated and accepted or refuted. Both discursive and rhetorical analysis provide tools for studying the ideological and moral meanings of old age and health an important topic in times when health seems to carry strong ideological and moral connotations, and when the growth of the elderly population is repeatedly brought up in public debate. I see that constructionist and discursive studies have a crucial role to play in ageing research in addressing the different ways in which old age is made reality physiological, political or experiential and in studying what is achieved with different versions of reality. What kind of identities, politics, services, demands of individual conduct do they make appear natural, inevitable and reasonable, or alternatively, unnatural, avoidable, impossible and irrational? How is age used to classify and categorize people into different sites of everyday life? How individual and groups themselves use different age categories and whether and how these are linked to social and political rights and valued or devalued social positions? How category of old age is used either to enable agency or what type of reasons and justifi cations are used to curtail people s potential? How do older people see their prospects of enacting agency? Some of the topics were approached in this study. All of these deserve further research.
Se demuestran las falencias e insuficiencias de los tres títulos tradicionales de imputación de responsabilidad al Estado por las actuaciones judiciales para garantizar el derecho a la indemnidad de los ciudadanos, teniendo en cuenta el rol actual del juez y los postulados teóricos a los cuales debería responder esta institución jurídica. Al confrontar la responsabilidad del Estado por las actividades administrativas y por las actuaciones judiciales, a la luz de las reflexiones sobre los fundamentos teóricos de la responsabilidad civil y de la identidad del juez en el Estado contemporáneo, surge la necesidad de replantear esta institución, con el propósito de que sea expresión de las teorías de la justicia que le subyacen, garantice el derecho a la indemnidad de los ciudadanos y responda a la concepción actual de la judicatura. La estructura del texto consta de tres capítulos teóricos y uno propositivo en el cual se responden las preguntas de investigación planteadas, haciendo uso de la información reseñada al inicio de la investigación. El primer capítulo desarrolla los fundamentos filosóficos y jurídico políticos de la responsabilidad, empleando como método una aproximación teórica conceptual con un componente histórico o contextual, cuya función es la de ser un objetivo investigativo en sí mismo y servir de base para el análisis de las reglas jurisprudenciales expuestas posteriormente, de tal forma que logre llamar la atención sobre la importancia de que el Estado responda equitativamente a los ciudadanos por los daños antijurídicos que le cause con independencia de la rama del poder público que los ocasione, así como sobre las exigencias del Estado social de Derecho a la responsabilidad estatal. El segundo capítulo, denominado "Quién es el juez", empleando la metodología de la primera parte, desarrolla los siguientes aspectos: el rol del juez en los Estados liberal, constitucional y neoconstitucional; los pilares teóricos para develar la identidad del juez en el Estado contemporáneo; y los órganos de cierre en el ordenamiento jurídico colombiano, resaltando el aumento en la importancia de la labor de este sujeto y que las decisiones judiciales son una expresión de los modelos de Estado. En este capítulo se identifica quién es el juez, cómo actúa, cómo se controlan sus actuaciones y de qué forma el Estado asume las consecuencias de estas. Por su parte, el tercer acápite, llamado "Cómo responden el juez y la administración pública", situado en el ordenamiento jurídico colombiano, expone los elementos de la responsabilidad en general, para posteriormente confrontar el desarrollo legal y jurisprudencial de la responsabilidad del Estado por las actuaciones de la administración con la responsabilidad por las actuaciones judiciales, haciendo uso del método comparativo con variables y un componente evolutivo. De esta forma se busca analizar el desempeño de la jurisprudencia; determinar la correspondencia entre la praxis judicial, los fundamentos teóricos y el mandato de indemnidad; y recorrer el camino de la lógica evolutiva de la responsabilidad, según el cual el aumento en las actividades e intervención estatal potencializa la posible causación de daños antijurídicos, como sucede con la creciente importancia del juez en el Estado contemporáneo. Finalmente, el cuarto capítulo, consiste en un diagnóstico cruzado, aplicando a la jurisprudencia las teorías contenidas en los dos primeros capítulos, a raíz de lo cual surgen algunos aspectos propositivos. Este acápite fue titulado "desafíos de la responsabilidad del Estado por las actuaciones judiciales" y se subdivide en tres partes: el análisis de las perspectivas filosóficas que subyacen al desarrollo jurisprudencial de la responsabilidad estatal en Colombia; la explicación de la importancia de que el Estado responda por las actuaciones del juez teniendo en cuenta su identidad en el Estado contemporáneo y los desafíos que ello presenta; y el planteamiento de nuevos escenarios de responsabilidad del Estado juez, distintos a la privación injusta de la libertad, el error judicial y el defectuoso funcionamiento de la administración de justicia. Los desafíos encontrados para el reconocimiento de la responsabilidad del Estado juez son la intangibilidad de la cosa juzgada, la independencia judicial y la responsabilidad de los órganos de cierre de la jurisdicción. De otra parte, los nuevos escenarios de responsabilidad planteados son la responsabilidad por la ejecución de sentencias internacionales, por la adopción de laudos arbitrales y por el cambio de línea jurisprudencial, profundizando en los dos últimos. Con esta propuesta se pretende ajustar la institución estudiada al modelo actual de Estado, respondiendo a fenómenos contemporáneos como la internacionalización del derecho, la privatización de la justicia y la alteración de las fuentes del derecho. ; The lacks and insufficiencies of the three traditional titles for the allocation of responsibility to the State for the legal proceedings in order to guarantee the right to indemnity of the citizens are demonstrated; taking into account the current role of the judge and the theoretical postulates to which this Legal institution should response. When facing the responsibility of the state for the administrative activities and for the legal actions, in the light of the reflections upon the theoretical basis of the civil liability and the identity of the judge in the contemporary State, the need for restating the responsibility of the judge - State arises; with the purpose that this become an expression of the theories of justice that underlie it, guarantees the right to indemnity of the citizens and respond to the current concept of the judiciary The structure of the text consists of three theoretical chapters and a propositional one, in which the research questions are answered. This, using the information referred at the beginning of the research. The first chapter develops the philosophical, legal and political bases of the liability, using as method, a conceptual theoretical approach with a historical or contextual component; which function is to be a research objective itself and serve as a base for the analysis of the jurisprudence rules explained later on; in such a way that it can call the attention about the importance that the state respond equally to the citizens for the wrongful damages that it causes regardless of the branch of public power that cause them, as well as on the exigencies of the Social State of Law to the State liability. The second chapter, called "Who is the judge", using the methodology of the first part, develops the following aspects: the role of the judge in the liberal, constitutional and neoconstitutional states; The theoretical pillars to unveil the identity of the judge in the contemporary state; And the closing bodies in the Colombian legal system, highlighting the increase in the importance of the role of the judge and that the judicial decisions are an expression of the state models. This chapter identifies who the judge is, how he or she acts, how his or her actions are controlled, and the way in which the State assumes the consequences of its actions. As for the third section, called "How the Judge and the Public Administration Respond", located in the Colombian legal system, it exposes the general elements of the responsibility, to confront the legal and jurisprudential development of State responsibility for the actions of the administration with the responsibility for the judicial proceedings, using the comparative method with variables and an evolutionary component. In this way, the aim is to analyze the performance of jurisprudence; to determine the correspondence between judicial praxis, the theoretical foundations and the mandate of indemnity; And to follow the path of the evolutionary logic of responsibility, according to which the increase in activities and state intervention optimize the occurrence of wrongful damages, as with the increasing importance of the judge in the contemporary State. Finally, the fourth chapter consists of a cross-diagnosis, applying to jurisprudence the theories contained in the first two chapters, as a result of which some propositional aspects arise. This section was entitled "Challenges of State Responsibility for Judicial Proceedings" and is divided into three parts: the analysis of the philosophical perspectives that underlie the jurisprudential development of state responsibility in Colombia; The explanation of the importance that the State respond for the actions of the judge, considering its identity in the contemporary State and the challenges that it presents; And the establishment of new scenarios of responsibility of the State-judge, other than the unjust deprivation of freedom, the judicial error and defective functioning of the administration of justice. The challenges encountered for the recognition of the responsibility of the State judge are the intangibility of res iudicata, the judicial independency and the responsibility of the closing bodies of the the jurisdiction. On the other hand, the new scenarios of responsibility presented are the responsibility for the execution of international judgments, for the adoption of arbitration awards and for the change of jurisprudential line, deepening into the last two. This proposal aims to adjust the institution studied to the current state model, responding to contemporary phenomena such as the internationalization of law, the privatization of justice and alteration of the sources of law.
Author's introductionNon‐human animals constitute an integral part of human society. They figure heavily in our language, food, clothing, family structure, economy, education, entertainment, science, and recreation. The many ways we use animals produce ambivalent and contradictory attitudes toward them. We treat some species of animals as friends and family members (e.g., dogs and cats), while we treat others as commodities (e.g., cows, pigs, and chickens). Our constructions of animals and the moral and legal status we grant them provide rich topics for sociological study.This teaching and learning guide can serve as a resource for those who want to learn more about the field or for those preparing to teach a course on animals and society. The materials have the common theme of examining animals within the context of larger social issues. The guide begins with an annotated list of major works in the area. It then lists useful online resources. Finally, it provides a sample syllabus, concluding with ideas for course projects and assignments.Author recommends:Arnold Arluke and Clinton R. Sanders, Regarding Animals (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1996). Regarding Animals was the first book‐length sociological work on human‐animal relationships. Arluke and Sanders focus on the ambivalent and contradictory ways that we humans view other species. It examines how we cherish some animals as friends and family members, while we consider others as food, pests, and resources. Based on research in animal shelters, veterinary clinics, primate research laboratories, and among guide‐dog trainers, the book provides sociological insight into how we construct animals – and how in the process we construct ourselves.Arnold Arluke and Clinton R. Sanders, Between the Species: A Reader in Human‐Animal Relationships (Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2009).Arluke and Sanders have divided this reader into three units. The first, animal, self, and society, includes topical sections on 'Thinking with Animals', 'Close Relationships with Animals', 'The Darkside', and 'Wild(life) Encounters'. The second unit, which focuses on animals in institutions, includes readings on science, agriculture, entertainment and education, and health and welfare. The third unit is organized around the 'changing status and perception of animals'. Its chapters examine healing, selfhood, and rights. The articles, drawn largely from social science journals, have been edited for readability at the undergraduate level.Clifton Flynn, Social Creatures: A Human and Animal Studies Reader (New York, NY: Lantern, 2008).Flynn's edited volume examines the role of animals in language, as food, and as companions. It delves into issues of animal abuse and grief after pet loss. It contains over 30 chapters, mostly reprints of articles in scholarly journals, representing a range of perspectives. Part I gives an overview of the field of human–animal studies. Part II focuses on studying human‐animal relationships. Part III offers comparative and historical perspectives on those relationships. Animals and culture is the focus of Part IV. Part V examines attitudes toward animals. Part VI offers essays on criminology and deviance. Inequality and interconnected oppression focuses the essays in Part VII. The chapters in Part VIII concern living and working with animals, and Part IX includes readings on animal rights, as both philosophy and social movement. Each chapter offers study questions for study and discussion.Adrian Franklin, Animals & Modern Cultures: A Sociology of Human‐Animal Relations in Modernity (London, UK: Sage, 1999).This book examines the changes in human‐animal relationships over the 20th century. It argues that at the start of the century, animals were regarded most often as resources. Moreover, we drew a distinct boundary between humans and other animals. By the end of the century, our attitudes toward animals had changed, and we began to question the subordination implicit in the human–animal boundary. Franklin highlights companionship with animals, hunting and fishing, the meat industry, and leisure activities involving animals, such as bird watching and wildlife parks. He emphasizes variations by gender, class, ethnicity, and nation.Leslie Irvine, If You Tame Me: Understanding our Connection with Animals (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2004).This book examines our relationships with dogs and cats, arguing that animals have a sense of self. Drawing on research conducted at an animal shelter, in dog parks, and in interviews and observation, the author argues that animals become such important parts of our lives because of the subjective experience they bring to the relationship. Challenging the view that we simply anthropomorphize animals, Irvine offers a model of animal selfhood that explains what makes relationships with animals possible. Offering an alternative to George Herbert Mead's perspective on the self, Irvine argues that interaction with animals reveals complex subjectivity, emotionality, agency, and memory.Linda Kalof and Amy Fitzgerald, The Animals Reader: The Essential Classic and Contemporary Writings (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).This edited volume is notable for its diversity in perspectives. It includes readings on ethics, philosophy, sociology, cultural studies, environmental studies, history, and anthropology. It examines questions ranging from 'what is an animal?' to those surrounding the ethics of cloning. Part I examines animals as philosophical subjects. Part II includes essays that suggest that animals are reflexive thinkers. Part III considers the various roles of animals as domesticates, 'pets', and food. The chapters in Part IV focus on animals in sport and spectacle. Part V focuses on animals as symbols. Part VI examines animals as scientific objects. Each chapter offers an introduction and list of further readings.David Nibert, Animal Rights/Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation (Lanham MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002).David Nibert connects oppression based on species, gender, ethnicity, and social class to the institution of capitalism. By modifying Donald Noel's theory of ethnic stratification, Nibert explains the oppression of non‐human animals in all forms, from meat eating to vivisection. He then argues that the systematic oppression of animals led to the oppression of other humans.Online materials Animals and Society Section of the American Sociological Association http://www2.asanet.org/sectionanimals/ This website offers membership information specifically for sociologists interested in human–animal studies. It is especially notable for its online syllabi from courses on animals and society. Animals and Society Institute http://www.animalsandsociety.org/ The Animals and Society Institute includes programs in three areas: Human–animal Studies; AniCare, a program dedicated to animal abuse and other forms of violence; and the Animals' Platform, a set of guidelines for animal protection legislation at the state, local, or national levels. The website's homepage includes a link to a video introducing the institute and its programs. The 'Resources' link leads to useful web and print documents and other web pages, including lists of human–animal studies centers and courses. Animal Studies Bibliography http://ecoculturalgroup.msu.edu/bibliography.htm This extensive, well‐organized bibliography is the project of the Ecological & Cultural Change Studies Group at Michigan State University. It includes works on Animals as Philosophical and Ethical Subjects; Animals as Reflexive Thinkers; Domestication and Predation; Animals as Entertainment and Spectacle; Animals as Symbols and Companions; Animals in Science, Education, and Therapy; and a 'miscellaneous' category. HumaneSpot.org http://www.humanespot.org/node HumaneSpot is the creation of the Humane Research Council. It requires registration as a user, and users must complete a short online application and attest that they are animal advocates, but advocacy in the form of scholarship counts. Once registered, users have access to extensive research on all aspects of animal welfare. Users can also have summarized updates of recent studies delivered by email. The Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium (HARC) http://www.tufts.edu/vet/cfa/hoarding/ The HARC website offers a collection of research on animal hoarding or 'collecting'. The studies address issues of animal welfare, public health, mental health, connections with other forms of abuse, and intervention. Pet‐Abuse.com http://www.pet‐abuse.com/ Alison Gianotto started Pet‐Abuse.com after someone kidnapped one of her cats and set him on fire. The cat died of the subsequent injuries and the abuser was never caught. Despite its name, Pet‐Abuse addresses abuse among many species, not just those commonly kept as pets. The project tracks incidents of cruelty throughout the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and Spain. The website offers a database that is searchable by location, type of cruelty, gender of offender, and more. It also allows for the creation of real‐time graphic displays of statistics on cruelty cases.Sample syllabusPart I: introduction and overviewWhat is human–animal studies? How can we study animals sociologically? What can the study of animals offer to the field?Reading:Arnold Arluke, 'A Sociology of Sociological Animal Studies,'Society & Animals 10 (2002): 369–374. Leslie Irvine, 'Animals and Sociology,'Sociology Compass 2 (2008):1954–1971. Jennifer Wolch, 'Zoöpolis,' In: Jennifer Wolch and Jody Emel (eds), Animal Geographies: Identity in the Nature Culture Borderlands (London, UK: Verso), 119–138.From Social Creatures:Kenneth J. Shapiro, 'Introduction to Human: Animal Studies'Clifton Bryant, 'The Zoological Connection: Animal‐related Human Behavior'Barbara Noske, 'The Animal Question in Anthropology'Part II: studying human‐animal relationshipsHow can we study our interactions and relationships with animals? What approaches have been used, and what are their strengths and weaknesses?Leslie Irvine, 'The Question of Animal Selves: Implications for Sociological Knowledge and Practice,'Qualitative Sociology Review 3 (2007): 5–21.From Social Creatures:Kenneth J. Shapiro, 'Understanding Dogs through Kinesthetic Empathy, Social Construction, and History'Alan M. Beck and Aaron H. Katcher, 'Future Directions in Human – Animal Bond Research'Clinton R. Sanders, 'Understanding Dogs: Caretakers' Attributions of Mindedness in Canine – Human Relationships'Part III: historical and comparative perspectivesIn this section, we examine how people have regarded animals in other times and places.Reading:Lynda Birke, 'Who – or What – are the Rats (and Mice) in the Laboratory?'Society & Animals 11 (2003): 207–224.From Social CreaturesBarbara Noske, 'Speciesism, Anthropocentrism, and Non‐Western Cultures'Michael Tobias, 'The Anthropology of Conscience'Harriet Ritvo, 'The Emergence of Modern Pet‐keeping'Part IV: animals and cultureThis section focuses on how animals are portrayed in language, advertisements, and other media. It also considers how culture influences our attitudes toward animals.Reading:Rhonda D. Evans and Craig J. Forsyth, 'The Social Milieu of Dogmen and Dogfights,'Deviant Behavior 19 (1998): 51–71.Fred Hawley, 'The Moral and Conceptual Universe of Cockfighters: Symbolism and Rationalization,'Society & Animals 1 (1992): 159–168.Linda Kalof and Amy Fitzgerald, 'Reading the Trophy: Exploring the Display of Dead Animals in Hunting Magazines,'Visual Studies 18 (2003): 112–122.Jennifer E. Lerner and Linda Kalof, 'The Animal Text: Message and Meaning in Television Advertisements,'The Sociological Quarterly 40 (1999): 565–585.From Social Creatures:Andrew Linzey, 'Animal Rights as Religious Vision'Leslie Irvine, 'The Power of Play'Tracey Smith‐Harris, 'There's Not Enough Room to Swing a Dead Cat and There's No Use Flogging a Dead Horse'Part V: attitudes toward other animalsThis part of the course examines how we think about animals, including what research reveals about how our attitudes develop.Reading:Mart Kheel, 'License to Kill: An Ecofeminist Critique of Hunters' Discourse,' In: Carol J. Adams and Josephine Donovan (eds), Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995): 85–125.From Social Creatures:Harold Herzog, Nancy S. Betchart, and Robert B. Pittman, 'Gender, Sex‐role Orientation and Attitudes toward Animals'Elizabeth S. Paul and James A. Sarpell, 'Childhood Pet Keeping and Humane Attitudes in Young Adulthood'David Nibert, 'Animal Rights and Human Social Issues'Part VI: criminology and devianceThis section examines animal abuse and neglect, and its possible connections to other forms of violence, particularly that directed at human beings.Reading:Arnold Arluke, 'Animal Abuse as Dirty Play,'Symbolic Interaction 25 (2002): 405–430.From Social Creatures:Frank R. Ascione, 'Children Who Are Cruel to Animals: A Review of Research and Implications for Developmental Psychology'Linda Merz‐Perez, Kathleen M. Heide, and Ira J. Silverman, 'Childhood Cruelty to Animals and Subsequent Violence against Humans'Clifton P. Flynn, 'Women's Best Friend: Pet Abuse and the Role of Companion Animals in the Lives of Battered Women'Gary J. Patronek, 'Hoarding of Animals: An Under‐recognized Public Health Problem in a Difficult‐to‐study Population'Part VII: inequality – interconnected oppressionsThis section considers how our treatment of other animals influences our treatment of others, especially women and people of color.Reading:Isabel Gay Bradshaw, 'Not by Bread Alone: Symbolic Loss, Trauma, and Recovery in Elephant Communities,'Society & Animals 12 (2004): 144–158.Linda Kalof, Amy Fitzgerald, and Lori Baralt, 'Animals, Women, and Weapons: Blurred Sexual Boundaries in the Discourse of Sport Hunting,'Society & Animals 12 (2004): 237–251.From Social Creatures:Marjorie Spiegel, 'An Historical Understanding'Carol J. Adams, 'The Sexual Politics of Meat'David Nibert, 'Humans and Other Animals: Sociology's Moral and Intellectual Challenge'Part VIII: living and working with other animalsWe hold contradictory attitudes toward animals. We love our pets, but we consider some animals as disposable. What do our close living and working relationships with animals reveal about the roles of animals in society?Reading:Leslie Irvine, 'Animal Problems/People Skills: Emotional and Interactional Strategies in Humane Education,'Society & Animals 10 (2002): 63–91.Rik Scarce, 'Socially Constructing Pacific Salmon,'Society & Animals 5 (1997): 115–135.From Social Creatures:Andrew N. Rowan and Alan M. Beck, 'The Health Benefits of Human—Animal Interactions'Rose M. Perrine and Hannah L. Osbourne, 'Personality Characteristics of Dog and Cat Persons'Gerald H. Gosse and Michael J. Barnes, 'Human Grief Resulting from the Death of a Pet'Stephen Frommer and Arnold Arluke, 'Loving Them to Death: Blame‐displacing Strategies of Animal Shelter Workers and Surrenderers'Mary T. Phillips, 'Savages, Drunks, and Lab Animals: The Researcher's Perception of Pain'Part IX: animal rights – philosophy and social movementThis section examines the leading animal rights perspectives. It also considers who animal activists are and how animal rights exists as a social movement.Corwin Kruse, 'Gender, Views of Nature, and Support for Animal Rights,'Society & Animals 7 (1999): 179–197.From Social Creatures:Peter Singer, 'All Animals are Equal'Tom Regan, 'The Case for Animal Rights'Josephine Donovan, 'Animal Rights and Feminist Theory'Lyle Munro, 'Caring about Blood, Flesh, and Pain: Women's Standing in the Animal Protection Movement'Project ideasEssay topicsWrite an essay on each of the following topics: Topic 1: Focus on any species (other than dog or cat) and explore and present the nature of human–animal relations for that species. You should find and evaluate scholarly and popular print and Internet resources regarding this species and its relationships with humans. At least two of your sources should come from articles in scholarly journals.Topic 2: Find current media coverage of an event or issue that applies and extends material in the assigned text. This can involve an individual animal, a group of animals, or an entire species. For example, coverage of the role of livestock in global warming could be approached through several of the readings in the course. You cannot predict when these events will occur, so be continually on the lookout throughout the semester. JournalingTo help you think about the readings and ideas we are discussing, as well as relate the material to your own lives, you must keep a journal throughout the semester. You must have two entries per week. These need not be long; one page for each entry will suffice. However, they must demonstrate that you are thinking about the issues we are studying. The entries are to be analysis, not cute stories of how much you love animals. You must apply the material to your thoughts about and/or your interaction with animals. Each entry should have three parts: a personal reflection, a sociological insight, and an action step.1. Personal reflection (In this section, note any new observations, feelings, epiphanies, or other insights prompted by the course material.) Example: I never knew, or even thought about, the emotional lives of farm animals. Somehow, I have been able to draw a line between pets and other animals. I know many wild animals have emotions. I have seen programs about elephants experiencing grief, for example. However, I always bought into the idea that cows, chickens, and pigs were 'dumb'. I guess we have to think of them that way in order to treat them the way that we do. I was particularly struck by ... 2. Sociological insight (In this section, draw out some of the sociological relevance of the material.) Example: Farm animals have such a huge role in so many institutions. So much of the economy has to do with raising animals, transporting animals, killing them, processing their skin, muscle, organs, coats, and bones. It makes sense that we have commercials promoting 'Beef, it's what's for dinner' and 'Got Milk' ads. If it were 'natural' and necessary to consume animals, we would not need advertising campaigns designed to encourage us to do so. The 'animal industrial complex' depends on a steady supply of consumers. Vegetarians and vegans are very threatening to the status quo. No wonder popular culture makes fun of them.Farm animals also have a huge role in families. We eat animals on most of our holidays and other occasions. In addition, the histories of agricultural families go back ... 3. Action Step(s) (In this section, note at least one and as many as three ways that you will share your new knowledge. Action steps might include taking your cat to the vet, finding out about volunteering at an animal shelter, or becoming vegetarian.) Example: I intend to tell my roommates about the emotional lives of farm animals, and about the animal industrial complex. I will look for information about Farm Sanctuary online and pass it on to my sister.
Tunisia emerges today the only success story of the Arab Spring revolution that swept the Arab world five years ago. This poverty assessment seeks to learn from the pre and post revolution periods with a view of avoiding the repetition of past mistakes in the future. Specifically, it will provide Tunisians with a more detailed and updated diagnostics of poverty, regional disparities, trends over time and the strong links between poverty, inequality, opportunities, and vulnerability. Beyond statistics, this report will also provide a somber but more balanced alternative explanation of socioeconomic development in the country, which will hopefully complement the efforts of the Government of Tunisia to develop and implement its strategic development plan. This poverty assessment questions the extent to which growth was truly pro-poor in Tunisia and, more importantly, capable of reducing inequalities and increasing inclusion in society. This questioning sheds light on Tunisia's prospects for a more prosperous society if substantive changes in the socioeconomic model are not introduced. The poverty assessment analysis goes into a post-2010 analysis; expanding as well the analysis of monetary poverty to broader concepts of vulnerability and equal opportunities; and by enriching traditional instruments with more sophisticated tools to measure poverty, analyze poverty dynamics, and simulate the effects of certain policy reforms for the first time in Tunisia.
Donors increasingly fund interventions to counteract inequality in developing countries, where they fear it can foment instability and undermine nation-building efforts. To succeed, aid relies on the principle of upward accountability to donors. But federalism shifts the accountability of subnational officials downward to regional and local voters. What happens when aid agencies fund anti-inequality programs in federal countries? Does federalism undermine aid? Does aid undermine federalism? Or can the political and fiscal relations that define a federal system resolve the contradiction internally? This study explores this paradox via the Promotion of Basic Services program in Ethiopia, the largest donor-financed investment program in the world. Using an original panel database comprising the universe of Ethiopian woredas (districts), the study finds that horizontal (geographic) inequality decreased substantially. Donor-financed block grants to woredas increased the availability of primary education and health care services in the bottom 20 percent of woredas. Weaker evidence from household surveys suggests that vertical inequality across wealth groups (within woredas) also declined, implying that individuals from the poorest households benefit disproportionately from increasing access to and utilization of such services. The evidence suggests that by combining strong upward accountability over public investment with extensive citizen engagement on local issues, Ethiopia's federal system resolves the instrumental dissonance posed by aid-funded programs to combat inequality in a federation.
Droughts are phenomena that occur worldwide, in humid and arid environments as well as in the Global North and the Global South. They are considered as slow onset hazards that affect more people than any other natural process with an estimated economic damage of USD 135 Billion and 12 Million casualties globally between 1900 and 2013 (Masih et al., 2014, p. 3636). Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is a major drought hot-spot due to vulnerable livelihoods (e.g. dominance of rain-fed agriculture), limited capacities (e.g. financial, institutional), weak infrastructure (e.g. water, mobility) and political instability (e.g. conflicts, corruption). When droughts occur, as recently triggered by El Niño (2015/2016), vulnerability conditions of the affected societies determine, if drought risk manifests as a disaster. As a critical, recent example, the drought in Somalia resulted in a serious humanitarian disaster primarily as the precarious vulnerability situation was further deteriorated by political and violent conflicts (Maxwell et al., 2016). Overall, SSA faces severe challenges to manage drought risk, primarily due to two reasons: First, despite progress, the living conditions remain difficult with prevailing poverty, limited health services and ongoing political unrest in many regions (UNECA et al., 2015). This is alarming, especially against the projected population growth of about 1.3 Billion people in Africa until 2050 (UN-DESA, 2015, p. 3). Second, achieving good living conditions for all, as envisioned by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), is a challenge, as climate projections indicate a likely increase of drought frequency and severity in SSA. Higher rainfall variability paired with a strong increase in average temperatures (Niang et al., 2014) will render today's exceptional droughts as the new normal in the near future. These urgent problems require sustainable solutions to improve short- and long-term adaptation. Transdisciplinary science that conflates the strengths of academic disciplines and stakeholders from politics and society is needed to develop risk reduction strategies. Under the umbrella of the Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL), this thesis makes a contribution to integrated drought risk management schemes by assessing the drought hazard conditions and the societal vulnerability settings in a case study region: the Cuvelai-Basin. This transnational region across Namibia and Angola regularly experiences droughts as recently during 2012 – 2015 with hundreds of thousands of people being water and food insecure (DDRM, 2013; UN-OCHA, 2012). Environmentally, it covers a gradient from humid in the north to semi-arid conditions in the south with associated vegetation patterns. The population practices subsistence agriculture and livestock herding with tendencies of urbanization and lifestyle changes. The societal pre-conditions in both countries are heterogeneous with Angola having experienced decades of civil war until 2002 while Namibia saw continuous institutional and infrastructural development particularly after independence in 1990. To capture the multi-layered impacts of droughts on people's livelihoods, the thesis follows an interdisciplinary approach in the sense of integrating methodologies from physical and human geography. Key questions to be answered are (i) how droughts impact on local livelihoods, (ii) how the environmental drought hazard manifests, (iii) which societal groups are most vulnerable and (iv) what are risk mitigation strategies. Based on the theory of societal relations to nature, a guideline for a social-ecological drought risk assessment is proposed and exemplarily carried out in this thesis. First, a qualitative research phase was conducted to gain system knowledge, followed by quantitative analyses of environmental parameters on the drought hazard and socio-economic variables for drought vulnerability. Finally, this data was conflated in the Household Drought Risk Index (HDRI) to gain orientation knowledge and quantify risk levels among the households in the basin. This provided transformation knowledge to develop and identify risk mitigation strategies. The initial qualitative survey (n = 26) explored the drought impact on local livelihoods. It revealed structural insights into people's utilization of water resources and the negative impacts of drought on physical and mental health, family/community life and livelihood maintenance. Coping mechanisms were identified on multiple levels from the household level (e.g. selling of agricultural products) via the community (e.g. neighbourly support) to the governmental level (e.g. drought relief). As critical entry point for droughts, the water and food consumption patterns were identified that shape a household either more or less sensitive. The internal capital endowment (human, social, financial, physical and natural) and the infrastructural and institutional endowment of an area determine a household's ability to cope with drought. These qualitative insights culminated in the construction of the HDRI indicator that was populated with data in the subsequent research phases. To capture the drought hazard, three common drought indicators were combined in the Blended Drought Index (BDI). This integrated drought indicator incorporates meteorological and agricultural drought characteristics that impair the population's ability to ensure food and water security. The BDI uses a copula function to combine common standardized drought indicators that describe precipitation, evapotranspiration, soil moisture and vegetation conditions. Remote sensing products were processed to analyse drought frequency, severity and duration. In this regard, the uncertainty among a range of rainfall products was evaluated to identify the product that corresponds best to local rain gauge measurements. The integrated drought hazard map indicates the north of the Etosha pan and the area along the Kunene River to be most threatened by droughts. Temporally, the BDI correlates well with millet/sorghum yield (r = 0.51) and local water consumption (r = -0.45) and outperforms conventional indicators. The vulnerability perspective was captured using primary socio-economic data from a household survey (n = 461). The consumption patterns reveal a statistically significant switch from critical sources (e.g. wells, subsistence products) during the rainy season to more reliable sources (e.g. tap water, markets) during the dry period. Households with a high dependence on critical sources are particularly sensitive to drought. The capital endowment of households is heterogeneous, especially on a rural-urban gradient and between Namibia and Angola. Human and financial capital turned out to be important control variables in addition to the infrastructural and institutional endowment of an area. Overall, the HDRI results show that the Angolan population shows higher levels of risk, particularly caused by less developed infrastructural systems, weaker institutional capabilities and less coping capacities. Urban inhabitants follow less drought-sensitive livelihood strategies, but are still connected to drought conditions in rural areas due to family relations with obligations and benefits. Furthermore, the spatial HDRI estimates point to areas in Angola and Namibia that are both drought-threatened and vulnerable. The thesis results indicate the following recommendations for policy and science: First, the continuous monitoring of drought patterns in the basin should consider drought indicators that go beyond precipitation metrics and incorporate people's vulnerability to develop integrated Drought Information Systems. Second, reducing the sensitivities of the population requires enhanced local water buffers via better water use efficiencies. This is true for both blue and green water flows. Water-saving irrigation schemes in combination with decentral rain- and floodwater harvesting are promising opportunities. Furthermore, centralized backup infrastructures of water supply and market systems need to be expanded. Third, local community solidarity is an important institutional backbone for the population to cope with drought and adapt to future changes. In particular rural development efforts should go beyond technological interventions and support community-building, collective-action and capacity development in water management and agricultural production to decouple livelihoods from local rainfall. ; Dürren sind Phänomene, die weltweit sowohl in humiden als auch ariden Räumen sowie im Globalen Norden und im Globalen Süden auftreten. Sie gelten als langsam einsetzende Gefahren, die mehr Menschen betreffen als jeder andere natürliche Prozess mit einem geschätzten wirtschaftlichen Schaden von 135 Mrd. US-Dollar und 12 Mio. Toten weltweit zwischen 1900 und 2013 (Masih et al., 2014, p. 3636). Sub-Sahara Afrika gilt als Krisenherd aufgrund vulnerabler Lebensgrundlagen (z.B. Dominanz des Regenfeldbaus), begrenzter Kapazitäten (z.B. finanzielle, institutionelle), schwacher Infrastruktur (z.B. Trinkwasser, Mobilität) und politischer Instabilität (z.B. Konflikte, Korruption). Treten Dürren auf, wie kürzlich verstärkt durch El Niño (2015/2016), bestimmt die Vulnerabilität der Gesellschaft, ob sich das Dürrerisiko als Katastrophe manifestiert. Ein kritisches Beispiel ist die Dürre in Somalia, die v.a. zu einer humanitären Katastrophe wurde, da die prekären Vulnerabilitäts-bedingungen durch gewaltsame, politische Konflikte weiter verschlechtert wurden (Maxwell et al., 2016). Insgesamt steht Afrika aus zwei Gründen vor großen Heraus-forderungen bei der Bewältigung des Dürrerisikos: Erstens, sind die Lebensbedingungen u.a. aufgrund anhaltender Armut, begrenzter Gesundheitsversorgung und politischer Unruhen weiterhin schwierig (UNECA et al., 2015). Dies ist alarmierend, v.a. vor dem Hintergrund eines prognostizierten Bevölkerungswachstums von 1,3 Mrd. bis 2050 (UN-DESA, 2015, p. 3). Zweitens, ist die Schaffung guter Lebensbedingungen nach den Zielen für nachhaltige Entwicklung (SDG) eine Herausforderung, da mit dem Klimawandel eine Zunahme von Dürrehäufigkeit und -stärke zu erwarten ist. Höhere Niederschlags-variabilität gepaart mit einem starken Anstieg der Durchschnittstemperatur (Niang et al., 2014) werden die heutigen extremen Dürren in Zukunft zur neuen Normalität machen. Diese Probleme erfordern nachhaltige Lösungen, um kurz- und langfristige Anpassungen zu ermöglichen. Transdisziplinäre Forschung ist gefordert, welche die Stärken wissenschaftlicher Disziplinen und Akteure aus Politik und Gesellschaft bündelt, um geeignete Strategien zur Risikominderung zu erarbeiten. Unter dem Dach des Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL) leistet diese Dissertation einen Beitrag zu integrierten Managementansätzen von Dürrerisiken, indem sie die naturräumliche Gefährdung kombiniert mit der gesellschaftlichen Vulnerabilität anhand einer Fallstudie untersucht: dem Cuvelai-Becken. Diese transnationale Region in Namibia und Angola ist regelmäßig Dürren ausgesetzt, wie zuletzt in den Jahren 2012 – 2015 mit Wasser- und Ernährungsunsicherheit für Hunderttausende von Menschen (DDRM, 2013; UN-OCHA, 2012). Naturräumlich erstreckt sich die Region von einem humiden Norden in einen semi-ariden Süden mit entsprechenden Vegetationsverhältnissen. Die Bevölkerung betreibt Subsistenzland-wirtschaft und Viehzucht, wobei Urbanisierungstendenzen und Lebensstiländerungen an Dynamik gewinnen. Die gesellschaftlichen Voraussetzungen sind heterogen: Während Angola bis 2002 Jahrzehnte des Bürgerkriegs erlebte, erfuhr Namibia v.a. nach der Unabhängigkeit 1990 eine kontinuierliche institutionelle und infrastrukturelle Entwicklung. Um die vielschichtigen Auswirkungen von Dürren auf die Lebensgrundlagen zu erfassen, verfolgt diese Dissertation einen interdisziplinären Ansatz im Sinne der Integration von Methoden aus der Physischen- und Humangeographie. Kernfragen darin sind (i) wie sich Dürren auf die Lebensgrundlagen auswirken, (ii) wie sich die naturräumliche Dürregefährdung manifestiert, (iii) welche gesellschaftlichen Gruppen vulnerabel sind und (iv) welche Strategien zur Risikominderung geeignet sind. Dabei entwickelt die Dissertation auf Basis der Theorie gesellschaftlicher Naturverhältnisse einen Leitfaden für eine sozial-ökologische Risikoabschätzung und wendet diesen in der vorliegenden Fallstudie an. Zunächst wurde eine qualitative Forschungsphase durchgeführt, um Systemwissen zu gewinnen, gefolgt von einer quantitativen Analyse von Umweltparametern zur Abschätzung der Dürregefahr sowie sozioökonomischer Variablen für die Abschätzung der Vulnerabilität. Schließlich wurden diese Daten im Household Drought Risk Index (HDRI) zusammengeführt, um Orientierungswissen zu generieren und das Dürrerisiko der Haushalte zu bestimmen. Daraus abgeleitetes Transformationswissen ermöglichte dann die Identifizierung geeigneter Risikominderungsstrategien. Die qualitative Erhebung (n = 26) explorierte die Wirkung von Dürren auf die lokalen Lebensbedingungen. Sie eröffnete Einblicke in die Nutzung von Wasserressourcen und die negativen Auswirkungen von Dürren auf die körperliche/geistige Gesundheit, das Familien-/Gemeinschaftslebens sowie den Lebensunterhalts. Bewältigungsmechanismen konnten auf mehreren Ebenen identifiziert werden, vom Haushalt (z.B. Verkauf landwirtschaftlicher Produkte) über die Gemeinde (z.B. Nachbarschaftshilfe) bis hin zur staatlichen Ebene (z.B. Dürrehilfe). Als kritische Wirkpunkte für Dürren wurden Nutzungsmuster von Wasser- und Nahrungsmitteln identifiziert, die einen Haushalt mehr oder weniger anfällig machen. Die interne Kapitalausstattung (Humanes, Soziales, Finanzielles, Physisches und Natürliches) und die infrastrukturelle und institutionelle Ausstattung eines Gebiets bestimmen weiterhin die Fähigkeit eines Haushalts, mit der Dürregefahr umzugehen. Diese Erkenntnisse ermöglichten die Konstruktion des HDRI Indikators, der in den Folgephasen mit entsprechenden Daten bestückt wurde. Zur Erfassung der Dürregefahr wurden drei Dürreindikatoren im Blended Drought Index (BDI) zusammengefasst. Dieser integrierte Dürreindikator berücksichtigt meteorologische und landwirtschaftliche Merkmale, die die Ernährungs- und Wassersicherheit der Bevölkerung beeinträchtigen. Der BDI verwendet eine Copula-Funktion, um gängige Dürreindikatoren zu kombinieren, die auf Niederschlag, Evapotranspiration, Bodenfeuchte und Vegetation zurückgreifen. Fernerkundungsprodukte wurden verarbeitet, um Häufigkeit, Stärke und Dauer der Dürren zu analysieren. Dabei wurden verschiedene Niederschlagsprodukte einer Unsicherheitsanalyse unterzogen, um jenes Produkt zu identifizieren, das am besten mit lokal gemessenen Stationsdaten korrespondiert. Die resultierende, integrierte Dürregefahrenkarte zeigt den Norden der Etosha-Pfanne und das Gebiet entlang des Kunene-Flusses als am stärksten von Dürren bedroht an. Zeitlich korreliert der BDI gut mit den Daten des Hirseertrages (r = 0,51) und dem lokalen Wasserverbrauch (r = -0,45) und übertrifft dabei konventionelle Indikatoren. Die Vulnerabilität wurde anhand von sozioökonomischen Daten aus einer Haushalts-befragung (n = 461) erfasst. Die Nutzungsmuster zeigen einen statistisch signifikanten Schwenk von kritischen Wasser- und Nahrungsquellen (z.B. Brunnen, Subsistenz-produkte) hin zu verlässlichen Quellen (z.B. Leitungswasser, Märkte) während der Trockenzeit. Haushalte mit einer starken Abhängigkeit von kritischen Quellen sind besonders sensitiv gegenüber Dürren. Die Kapitalausstattung der Haushalte variiert v.a. zwischen Land und Stadt sowie zwischen Namibia und Angola. Dabei treten Human- und Finanzkapital gemeinsam mit der infrastrukturellen und institutionellen Raumausstattung als wichtige Kontrollvariablen hervor. Die HDRI Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die angolanische Bevölkerung ein höheres Risiko aufweist, was v.a. durch weniger entwickelte Infrastruktursysteme, schwächere institutionelle- und geringere Bewältigungskapazitäten verursacht wird. Insgesamt gehen Stadtbewohner weniger dürresensitiven Nutzungsmustern nach, sind aber aufgrund familiärer Beziehungen weiterhin mit den ländlichen Gebieten verbunden. Die integrierte, räumliche Risikoabschätzung zeigt Gebiete in Angola und Namibia die sowohl dürregefährdet als auch vulnerabel sind. Die Ergebnisse erlauben zentrale Empfehlungen für Politik und Wissenschaft: Erstens sollte die Dürrebeobachtung im Cuvelai-Becken ein breiteres Spektrum von Indikatoren berücksichtigen und zusätzlich die Verwundbarkeit der Bevölkerung einbeziehen. Dies ermöglicht die Entwicklung von integrierten Dürreinformationssystemen. Zweitens, zur Verringerung der Sensitivität der Bevölkerung müssen lokale Wasserspeicher durch eine verbesserte Wassernutzungseffizienz erhöht werden. Dies gilt sowohl für blaues als auch grünes Wasser. Wassersparende Bewässerungssysteme in Kombination mit dezentralen Regen- und Flutwasserspeichern sind vielversprechende Möglichkeiten. Darüber hinaus müssen zentrale Infrastrukturen der Wasserversorgung und der Marktsysteme ausgebaut werden. Drittens, ist der Zusammenhalt der lokalen Gemeinschaften ein wichtiges institutionelles Rückgrat zur Bewältigung von Dürren und zur Anpassung an künftige Veränderungen. Anstrengungen zur Entwicklung des ländlichen Raums sind erforderlich, die über technische Interventionen hinausgehen und Gemeinschaften durch kollektive Maßnahmen und Ausbildung sowohl in der Wasserwirtschaft als auch der Landwirtschaft unterstützen und so die Lebensgrundlagen von den Niederschlägen entkoppeln.
Engr. Luis L. León sends a letter to Gen. Plutarco Elías Calles giving news of his daily life, the sale of his house to settle the debts and the serious economic situation of the country. He analyzes the agricultural situation and states that productivity has decreased. He claims that farmers and "ejidatarios" need stability and guarantees from the government. He states it is necessary to enforce the law, respect small properties, stablish the legal bases to give and restitute "ejidos"and respect the property of harvests, buildings and tools. He claims that the government is moving to the extreme left, which is provoking chaos in agriculture. Memorandum signed by Juárez on March 31, 1938 in which he analyzes the economic situation since 1932. He states that commerce increased until 1937 and then it started to decrease. He also claims that agriculture is in crisis due to corruption and a disorganized structure. Regarding financial policies, he states there has been serious mistakes in the administration of public funds. The author analyzes the agricultural situation as well as the situation of the workers and worker unions. He states group interests are favored, which causes distrust, unproductiveness and discouragement. On the other hand, he states that the government is using funds of institutions such as Bank of Mexico and National Railroads for government programs, which in addition to the oil expropriation is creating a disturbing scenario. The author analyzes the situation of the Bank of Mexico, the monetary system, the National Railroads, industry, mining, and silver and oil production. Juárez obtained the information from the Bulletin of the National Bank Commission from November to December 1937. In October 1939, Gen. Plutarco Elías Calles sends a letter to Luis L. León discussing the report by Juárez. However, he refers to an analysis of the European conflict, which is not mentioned in the previous report. Therefore, he is probably refering to a different report presented by Juárez. Gen. Plutarco Elías Calles analyzes the European conflict and press articles published in London in which David Lloyd George; former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom talks about Chamberlain and Churchill. Gen. Plutarco Elías Calles also discusses a speech given by Hitler, which according to him, represents an important and clever political document. Gen. Plutarco Elías Calles states that Germany, after the victory in Poland, is not interested in war and that it is necessary to wait to know the position of England and France. He asserts it is likely that the U.S. will work as a mediator. Lastly, he mentions politics in Mexico. Reply by Luis L. León expressing that the perspective of Gen. Plutarco Elías Calles regarding the European conflict is realistic. Engr. Luis L. León sends a letter to Gen. Plutarco Elías Calles regarding the situation in Mexico with the administration of President Manuel Ávila Camacho. He asserts President Manuel Ávila Camacho will work to solve the issues with oil, railroads, agriculture, small property and entitlement of "ejidos". Memorandum related to rubber by Engr. Luis L. León, signed on February 1942 and sent to Mr. Jorge Henríquez in which he informs that due to the war in the Pacific, there is a shortage of rubber. He says it is urgent to establish plantations in intertropical zones to produce rubber. He makes a study of the viability to create a rubber company in Mexico, the investment needed, markets, etc. / El ingeniero Luis L. León escribe al general PEC, que vive en San Diego, Cal., en el exilio, comentando los problemas de su vida cotidiana, la venta de su casa para pagar deudas, lo grave de su situación económica que es reflejo de la del país, ya que no hay crédito y la moneda no tiene estabilidad, con lo que el clima de desconfianza es generalizado. En seguida analiza la situación de la agricultura, cuya productividad ha disminuido notablemente lo que está creando una corriente de opinión a favor del respeto a la pequeña propiedad porque algunos se dan cuenta de que el agrarismo es destructor y anárquico; la agricultura como actividad económica para ganarse la vida requiere seguridad y garantía por parte del estado más aún en un país tan individualista como el nuestro, donde el agricultor si no tiene certidumbre en la propiedad de su parcela no siembra. Lo mismo el pequeño propietario que el ejidatario si no hay garantía baja su producción. El remedio para estos males es hacer cumplir la ley, respetar la pequeña propiedad, y las bases legales para la tramitación de dotación y restitución de ejidos; respetar la propiedad de cosechas, aperos, edificaciones y herramientas. Que el campo y sus productos no sean botín de líderes, caciques y burócratas. Pero este programa no es el vigente para los altos mandos del gobierno que cada vez avanza más hacia la extrema izquierda sin que nadie oponga firme resistencia al agrarismo a ultranza que sólo ha provocado caos y anarquía en el campo. Memorándum firmado por Juárez y fechado el 31 de marzo de 1938 en el que analiza los diferentes rubros de la economía nacional desde el crecimiento y desarrollo que tuvo en 1932 cuando adquirió un impulso que se mantiene a pesar de la política social extremista que se ha ido poniendo en práctica. el comercio y la industria crecieron y se desarrollaron en forma sostenida hasta 1937 cuando, afirma, se inicia un descenso serio. La agricultura está en grave crisis provocada por una acción agraria demagógica, corrupta y desorganizada. En cuanto a las políticas financiera y económica del país se han cometido errores fundamentales en el manejo de los fondos públicos. El autor analiza la situación del campo, de los empresarios, de la industria, de la clase trabajadora, de los sindicatos, etc., que se manejan con demagogia, favoreciendo intereses de grupúsculos sobre los de los actores reales de la economía, lo que ha provocado desconfianza, improductividad y desánimo. Por otro lado el gobierno aumenta impuestos, echa mano de los fondos de instituciones que siempre habían sido respetadas como El Banco de México o Ferrocarriles para allegarse fondos que destina a proyectos populistas; y si a ello se agrega la expropiación petrolera con todo lo que conlleva: disminución de la producción, de los impuestos que pagaban las compañías, pago de nómina, etc., además del descrédito internacional, el panorama es desolador. De acuerdo con las estadísticas publicadas y los informes que tiene a la mano expone y analiza la situación del Banco de México, del Sistema Monetario, del crédito, de los Ferrocarriles, de la industria, la minería y de la producción de plata y de petróleo. Maneja números, datos, estadísticas, utilidades, pérdidas, pasivos y activos; Juárez obtiene la información del Boletín de la Comisión Nacional Bancaria, de noviembre y diciembre de 1937. En octubre de 1939 el general PEC escribe a Luis L. León comentando el informe de Juárez pero da a entender también que en el mismo se analiza el conflicto europeo, así como la situación económica nacional y el informe de Juárez que aparece en este expediente no menciona la situación europea, por lo que debe referirse a otro. El general PEC sí hace a Luis L. León un análisis del conflicto europeo; de artículos de prensa aparecidos en Londres en los que David Lloyd George, ex primer ministro inglés cuando la Primera Guerra Mundial, quien hace una requisitoria contra la política de Chamberlain y los exaltados estilos de Churchill; también comenta un discurso de Hitler que según el general PEC es el documento político más hábil, medular y de mayor importancia en los últimos tiempos en el que hace un llamado a la paz y propone un arreglo definitivo a todos los conflictos europeos. Afirma que Alemania ha demostrado, después de su conquista de Polonia, que no tiene interés en la matanza, por lo que la guerra se encuentra en estado de quietud, que hay que esperar las posturas de Inglaterra y Francia. Comenta la actitud de Rusia ante la toma de Polonia, cuya atracción por los Balcanes no es posible ignorar. Afirma que es posible que Estados Unidos entre como entidad mediadora, con lo que es posible se llegue a un arreglo que evite el cataclismo. Por último al comentar la política mexicana asegura que las perspectivas son halagadoras. Respuesta de Luis L. León afirmando que la percepción del general PEC sobre el conflicto europeo es realista y clara y sus apreciaciones apegadas a la verdad. El ingeniero Luis L. León escribe al general PEC con optimismo respecto a la situación del país con el nuevo gobierno del Presidente Ávila Camacho, quien corregirá los errores que han sumido al país en la bancarrota y la desorganización: que la Hacienda Pública enfrenta un terrible déficit; los ferrocarriles, petróleo, servicios, agricultura, etc., enfrentan grandes problemas, que tendrán que ir solucionándose. En cuanto a la producción agrícola, la política agraria demagógica y caótica ha provocado una disminución de la producción, todos estos problemas parece que don Manuel los enfrenta con serenidad y ponderación ya que no ha perseguido a nadie, sus acciones se han encaminado a sustraer al Ejército de la política; a liberar a los Ferrocarriles del caos; a dar un programa a las dependencias del gobierno; ha instaurado medidas de respeto a la pequeña propiedad y de transparencia al manejo de titulación de parcelas ejidales a fin de dar garantías al hombre del campo. Todas las medidas tienden a restablecer la confianza perdida después del gobierno cardenista que llevó al país al desorden y a la debilidad económica. "Memorándum sobre hule" elaborado por el ingeniero Luis L. León, firmado en México en febrero de 1942, y dirigido a la atención del señor Jorge Henríquez en el que expone que a causa de la guerra del Pacífico se presenta en América una terrible escasez de hule o caucho al grado que ya se anuncia el control y racionamiento de artículos fabricados con este material, que la crisis tiende a agudizarse por lo que es urgente establecer plantaciones de árboles productores de hule en regiones intertropicales para producir el hule que se consume en el continente y hace un estudio de la viabilidad y éxito de crear una industria del hule con plantaciones en México; la inversión necesaria, el plazo de recuperación de la misma, los mercados, etc. El estudio se divide en tres partes. La primera se refiere a la plantación de árboles de hule, qué países lo producen, cuáles lo consumen y qué cantidades y en qué condiciones está México a ese respecto. Concluye que el negocio es remunerativo en México siempre que se plantee sobre bases económicas y de técnica agrícola moderna. La segunda parte analiza las posibilidades de plantar hule en México de acuerdo con su clima y tierras; qué tipo de planta sería la más conveniente y cuál es el estado de las plantaciones de hule en México; y la posibilidad de cultivos alternos. Concluye que México es un país indicado para hacer plantaciones huleras, que tiene regiones propicias para ello y aconseja qué tipo de planta debe considerarse de acuerdo a su productividad y cómo debe ser el cultivo para alcanzar el mayor provecho posible. Por último en el tercer capítulo analiza cuáles son las bases sobre las que debe planearse una explotación hulera para atraerse la fuerte inversión de capitales que requiere. En las conclusiones hace una síntesis de sus propuestas y soluciones.
This paper aims to discuss how institutional racism plays a part in the continued criminalisation of cannabis in the United Kingdom. I will start with a short history of usage and attitudes toward cannabis in the United Kingdom, mainly England. I will then assess the relationship that the criminal justice system has with cannabis and its users, and delve into how racial bias operates within law enforcement, using stop and search as a point of focus. This paper will explore how these biases lead to a disproportionate application of the law on certain groups of people. It will be argued while using Canada as point of comparison, that cannabis is being used in the United Kingdom as a political tool to favour voters of certain demographics, and that while more research is needed to fully assess the effects of cannabis, the reasoning behind maintaining cannabis' status as a dangerous substance is both absurdly hypocritical and entirely no longer necessary. Medicinal, recreational, and the law The United Kingdom first listed cannabis as a prohibited drug in 1928 by adding it to the Dangerous Drugs Act 1920 in accordance with the International Opium Convention 1912. For an immeasurable amount of time the cannabis plant has been used recreationally, medicinally, and industrially across the planet, including many former British colonies and overseas territories.[1] The Misuse of Drugs Act currently lists cannabis and cannabis derivatives as Class B controlled drugs.[2] This classification means that it is a criminal offence in the United Kingdom to possess, grow, or supply cannabis to others. Section 6 of the act outlines the cultivation of any species of cannabis plant as a specific offence. Cannabis related offences are punishable through schedule 4 of the act. On indictment production or supplying of cannabis could result in up to fourteen years in prison, whilst possession alone, up to five years in prison, (an unlimited fine, or both). In 2004 cannabis was moved from Class B to Class C, which holds less prison time for possession while retaining the same fourteen years penalty for production and supply.[3] This was done after the Advisory Council claimed that even though cannabis was harmful, it was not as harmful as other Class B drugs; amphetamines, methylamphetamine, barbiturates, and codeine.[4] Another driving point was to take the pressure off arrests for possession of small amounts of cannabis to shift the focus of law enforcement toward other more dangerous drugs and crime.[5] This reclassification only stood for five years as cannabis returned to Class B in 2009 against the advice of the Advisory Council.[6] Currently in the United Kingdom a person can get a warning or Penalty Notice for Disorder (PND) for possession of small amounts instead of being arrested.[7] The United Kingdom was once the world's largest exporter of cannabis for medical and scientific use, producing around 95,000 kilograms of cannabis in the year 2016.[8] In 2015, that production was at 41,706 kilograms.[9] For a country so determined to prohibit the use and supply of cannabis within its borders, it is quite ironic that businesses are being licensed for production for export, and that production doubled in that year. Law and Enforcement: stop and search and racial bias Canada, having legalised recreational cannabis in October 2018, will be used as a point of comparison to explore the UK's complex legal and political relationship with cannabis. While recreational cannabis is still considered illegal in most of the world, many countries seem to not strictly enforce their laws. In pre-legalised Canada, cannabis use became increasingly socially acceptable. The enforcement of possession laws became less and less important to society, which was reflected in the prioritisation used by the police.[10] While unregulated sales remained illegal post the legalisation of medical cannabis in 2001, there still existed brick and mortar dispensaries where the public was able to purchase cannabis illegally. For the most part, law enforcement would leave them to their business unless they suspected a connection to gang violence, sale to minors, or other crime. It was common to see them reopen after being raided and shutdown.[11] Law enforcement in the United Kingdom has a lot of say about the way that perpetrators of cannabis-related crimes are dealt with. The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) in the UK released an official policing guideline for cannabis possession for personal use in 2009 following the substance's return to a Class B status in the UK.[12] This document outlines whether a warning or PND should be issued in place of an arrest and explains the 'escalation policy' used to determine which of the three the perpetrator will receive. To determine the severity of the possession they look at 'aggravating factors' such as whether they were caught in a public place, whether a young person is involved or could be exposed to drug use, and repeat offences.[13] This document states the purpose of these 'aggravating factors' as 'The circumstances of the offence form part of the consideration in determining whether an arrest can be made and justified'.[14] So in theory as per this document an adult over the age of 18 with no prior history caught in possession of cannabis for personal use and not falling under any of the aggravating factors should be let off with a warning (which would not show up on a standard criminal record check) even though it is a Class B illicit drug. There are two important points regarding these guidelines. The first is that even though cannabis at this point had returned to Class B status, it was not being treated the same as other Class B substances – it is now being treated more leniently by law enforcement in comparison to other Class B substances. These more forgiving rules send a message to the public that even though cannabis was moved back to Class B status, it is accepted to be not as 'sinister' as the others. It begs the question of whether moving the drug back to Class B even had any bearing or real practical purpose. Herein lies an interesting unsynchronized relationship between the statute regarding the legality of cannabis and the approaches taken by law enforcement. Law enforcement is seemingly doing a better job than legislature at keeping up with public opinion by relaxing their approaches. Secondly, while they cover England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in a uniform manner, they are just that: guidelines. Each local policing authority has the prerogative of deciding how they may deal with a case of cannabis possession.[15] What is evident is that this prerogative is used, to varying degrees. Some policing authorities, such as Durham, have made public statements in which they have announced they will not be targeting individuals for possession for personal use.[16] An article in the Canterbury Journal interviews a resident that describes the city as 'weed central', indicating the city even has its own cannabis club (the Canterbury Cannabis Collective) that lobbies politicians at Westminster.[17] It would suffice to say that being affiliated with this cannabis club would be enough to fulfil the 'reasonable belief' that law enforcement needs to target someone. They are lobbying openly for the legalisation of cannabis, which indicates that law enforcement is largely just allowing it to happen. So, if the people want recreational cannabis legalised (or are indifferent to it), and law enforcement has begun acknowledging that it is not a priority for them to police, why has Westminster not caught up? Interestingly, in the same article another interviewee who is opposed to legalisation said she thinks, 'it'll increase the number of people smoking it by making it socially acceptable, like areas of Canada where people started smoking it openly and regularly once it had been legalised.'[18] This is statistically not true. According to Statistics Canada, self-reported cannabis use amongst Canadians rose from 14.9% before legalisation to 16.8% after legalisation. However, most of that difference of 1.9% could simply be accounted for by less hesitation to admit usage once it was not a criminal offence since results are self-reported. Additionally, respondents were to only report on whether they used in the three months prior to being surveyed.[19] So this is evidence of some apparent misconceptions about legalisation, and while a lax attitude from law enforcement may make cannabis users in those areas very happy, it is arguable that this prerogative in law enforcement's hands is a detriment to equal treatment of perpetrators of the same crime from different backgrounds. There are many facets to consider when discussing the United Kingdom's relationship to cannabis. For one, it is not a plant native to the country and its use was introduced during the colonial period mostly through the Indian subcontinent.[20] In South Asia, cannabis was widely used medicinally and recreationally and is considered in Hindu Ayurveda to be one of five sacred plants that relieve anxiety.[21] While many may think of cannabis in the context of a relaxed Caribbean stereotype (or even particularly Jamaican), the plant was first introduced to the Caribbean through the movement of Indian indentured workers brought there by the British regime.[22] The origins of this plant are culturally and socially connected to (but not exclusively) two racial groups, people of South Asian and of African descent. Its history plays a part in the way that it is viewed socially. It is no secret that both of these racial groups have faced tribulations at the hands of British colonialism, the legacy of which still lingers. One of these tribulations that has spilt into our modern existence is the entrenched racism that plagues the criminal justice system in the United Kingdom, of which law enforcement plays a huge part. The demonisation of dark skin leads to a disproportionate treatment of people of colour by law enforcement, and a disproportionate number of arrests and convictions. Crimes involving cannabis are one of the ways in which this disproportionality is manifested, but it is in no way the only one. Stop and Search, and the Macpherson Report The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, which in 1999 generated the Macpherson Report, followed the racially motivated murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993.[23] It was an important conversation-starter on the processes used when investigating a racially charged crime, in this case the murder of a black British teenager by a group of white youths. Under 'stop and search' police officers can search you if they have 'reasonable grounds' to suspect you are carrying illegal drugs (or similar), or without reasonable grounds if it was approved by a senior officer.[24] According to the Home Office, as of the 2011 census, persons of black ethnicity comprise about 4% of the population of the UK, yet the Ministry of Justice reports that they are involved in about 20% of all drug stop and searches as well as prosecutions for cannabis.[25] With people of black ethnicity there is also a higher number of prosecutions than there are stop and searches in comparison with people of white ethnicity. The racial element of these statistics is clear. If only 4% of the population is represented by black ethnicity, why are they involved in 20% of the searches? There is no correlation to suggest people of black ethnicity consume more cannabis in the UK. According to statistics on drug misuse available through the UK Government's website, in the 2018/2019 findings of adults aged 16 to 59, 8% of the white respondents versus 6.7% of the 'Black or Black British' respondents reported use of cannabis in the previous year.[26] Stop and search gives individual police officers the power to use their own judgement to decide whether a person may be involved in a crime of some sort without seeing a crime being committed (in this case, in possession or planning to supply illicit drugs). Stop and search methods have been thoroughly scrutinised and continuously reformed as many do believe that they are not effective or an efficient use of law enforcement's time and resources.[27] The idea of law enforcement being able to search anyone they feel necessary could lead to a gross misuse of power. Figure 1[28] Figure 1 illustrates the bias that exists within this system of law enforcement. The dotted flat line represents the likelihood of a person of white ethnicity being stopped within the years 2014-2016. Every non-white group surveyed had a higher probability of being involved in a stop and search. The black community does not consume more cannabis, and therefore should not be any more likely than someone of white ethnicity to be in possession of cannabis. Yet black individuals are still 6.5 times more likely to be stopped. According to the same data bank, people of black ethnicity used all surveyed drugs (powder cocaine, ecstasy, hallucinogens, amphetamines, mephedrone, ketamine and cannabis) less commonly than those of white ethnicity.[29] The obvious link: racial bias. By this logic, police officers are, even unconsciously, under the impression that a black person is more likely to be involved in something illegal. The result of that is that the black population are being disproportionally affected by the law – a gross miscarriage of justice. We as citizens may want to believe that these statistics are an improvement, that the racial bias in the United Kingdom is a work in positive progress. However, 'figures for 1997/98 show that "black people were, on average, five times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police than white people." Black people are also "more likely to be arrested than white or other ethnic groups."'[30] Many of these statistics are also based on self-identified ethnicity, where as to clearly see a bias or prejudice, one must know what others assume that person's ethnicity to be. What they identify themselves as, may be a useful indicator of how others view them, but it does not necessarily facilitate an understanding of the exact impact of racial identity on law enforcement. The Macpherson Report is arguably one of the most important modern documents outlining the racial biases within the UK's criminal justice system. What it found was astonishing evidence exposing racial bias within the response and investigation of the death of Stephen Lawrence. No police officer on the scene performed any form of first aid after finding him, nor did they check his vitals to see if he was still alive.[31] The victim's parents reported being treated unprofessionally with insensitivity and were deprived of information regarding the case which they were entitled to. There was evidence suggesting that the perpetrators were not arrested for the crime, because they were white even though they were suspects with sufficient evidence to procure a warrant. In general, they found that there was a lack of enthusiasm to find the murderers of a black man by white suspects.[32] While murder is beyond the scope of this essay, the findings of this report solidify the notion that in multiple ways people of black ethnicity are victims to the institutional racism present in the criminal justice system. Cannabis and politics The current Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party's political crusade to legalise recreational cannabis use in Canada sat on two very important points: to make it harder for minors to access cannabis, and to tackle gang violence associated with cannabis sales.[33] Legalisation of cannabis was just one of the ways in which Justin Trudeau managed to rally two unlikely voter demographics: people of colour, and young voters between the age of 18-25. This won him two consecutive federal elections, while remaining at the time relatively appealing to the older voters.[34] With the changing demographic in Canada, rallying these voters was, and remains, a key political tool to holding power. He, like his father, former Prime Minister the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau, prized multiculturalism in his political platform – a concept very important to the Canadian identity and society. The Canadian Multiculturalism Act is a law passed in 1985 by the late Trudeau outlining all the ways in which it is expected that multiculturalism is to be upheld by the federal government. This includes, but is not limited to, 'ensur[ing] that all individuals receive equal treatment and equal protection under the law, while respecting and valuing their diversity.'[35] This policy of upholding diversity is part of the Canadian constitution. The closest comparable statute existing in the United Kingdom is the Equality Act 2010. This piece of legislation covers a wider breadth of demographical information that may lead to discrimination, including, but not limited to, race, religion, gender, and age. Section 1 of the Act outlines the duty that public figures such as ministers, courts, police, and councils have toward socio-economic inequalities: An authority to which this section applies must, when making decisions of a strategic nature about how to exercise its functions, have due regard to the desirability of exercising them in a way that is designed to reduce the inequalities of outcome which result from socio-economic disadvantage.[36] What is compelling is that Section 3 states that any breach of section 1 'does not confer a cause of action at private law,'[37] which limits how these public bodies are held accountable for breaching the Act and is realistically mostly just applicable to employers' relations with employees. The purpose of this act reads like a guide on what your legal options are if you feel that you were wrongly discriminated in the workplace by any of the protected demographics. The purpose of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act is to focus much more on the acts and efforts that are expected of the Federal Government to uphold the integrity of diversity by recognising differences and adopting practices to accommodate them. This also includes promoting the use of languages other than English and French, the two official languages.[38] The entrenchment of this Act into the Canadian constitution, and the language used within it, shows just how important it is to Canadian society, run by a liberal government, as it holds everyone, including federal bodies, accountable for nurturing diversity in Canada. Whether or not it always plays out that way is beyond the scope of this paper. There is a political connection with the way in which cannabis is 'officially' viewed versus the way that it is socially viewed when comparing Canada and the United Kingdom. Dalhousie University in Halifax published a study suggesting that 68% of Canadians (another 6.9% were indifferent) supported the legalisation of recreational marijuana in September 2017.[39] In a poll by YouGov for the Conservative Drug Policy Reform Group in the UK, 48% supported legalisation while only 24% opposed.[40] If that was not enough, a government survey found in 2017/2018 that 30% of adults aged 16 to 64 have tried cannabis at least once.[41] If the majority of the country is supportive or indifferent to the legalisation of recreational cannabis, why are the two governments approaching the idea so differently? This puts into question the strength of democracy in the United Kingdom as well, since the existing legislation does not reflect public opinion. In 2019 three Members of Parliament from three parties visited Canada in order to evaluate the legal cannabis sector first-hand. Not surprisingly, the Liberal Democrat and Labour MPs later declared that they would support a change in 'cannabis legislation in the next five to ten years'. Only the Conservative MP did not show support for cannabis legalisation following the visit.[42] The Conservative Party of the UK has historically maintained that cannabis should remain an illegal substance.[43] There have also been allegations of racism linked to the Conservative Party and its leaders. One such point is the commentary on Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech in 1968 which, riddled with racist undertones, was aimed against the 1968 Race Relations Bill.[44] This bill made it illegal to refuse employment, public services, or housing to any person based on colour, race, or ethnic origin.[45] More recently, the current Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been quoted numerous times making racist comments. An article for the Guardian mentions that in articles written by Johnson before becoming Prime Minister he has referred to black people as 'piccaninnies with watermelon smiles' as well as claiming that the police were 'cowed' by the Macpherson Report.[46] While these claims were not made while he was in office, they are a glimpse into the rhetoric that has been accepted by the Conservative Party. An NHS study suggested that while around 10% of cannabis users may develop an addiction to cannabis, 32% of tobacco users and 15% of alcohol users will become addicted to tobacco and alcohol, respectively. There is also no recorded case of death caused by cannabis in the United Kingdom.[47] Alcoholchange.org has compiled statistics from the government showing that 24% of adults in England and Scotland regularly drink more than what is considered low-risk[48]; they found that in 2016 there were 9,214 alcohol-related deaths.[49] The Office for National Statistics found that 14.7% of adults over 18 years of age smoked cigarettes in the UK in 2018. In the same year there were 77,800 deaths attributed to smoking tobacco in the UK.[50] So, on the basis of death and addiction, cannabis seems to be relatively low risk compared to two substances that are legal and regulated. Yet, it is health concerns that are repeatedly cited when officials are asked about why there has been no significant movement toward legalisation of cannabis.[51] Conclusion: A long road to legalisation There is a worldwide shift happening in terms of social views of cannabis use. In Canada, while cannabis was still illegal it was clearly not a major concern of law enforcement, and there seems to be a similar attitude in the United Kingdom where other forms of crime take a greater importance. There is a complex web of connection between institutionalised racism, parliament, law enforcement, and politics regarding cannabis. There is a visible lag when it comes to legislation and law enforcement being up to date with social attitudes and there is clearly a disconnect between them. It seems even law enforcement does not stand on the same side of legalisation as current legislation. They seem to be shifting toward polled public attitudes that possession of cannabis and personal recreational use should not be criminalised. Talking about the impact of a law moves far past the wording of the provision or the sentencing for the crime. Law enforcement is a key piece of the system that perpetuates this racial oppression. Even with the public support for cannabis legalisation, changing social attitude, and the prevalence of usage it does not necessarily look like the English Parliament will be pushing any bills forward to make that a reality anytime soon, especially not under a Conservative government. By looking at two multicultural countries we are able to see how political differences impact the legality of cannabis. The uses of cannabis in many other countries are tied to cultural significance as well as social tolerance such as in India, mentioned previously. Cannabis is not the problem; it is the connection to organised crime and violence which can be tackled through government regulation. This has been shown in the data gathered by statistics Canada showing that in every province and territory, legalisation has brought at minimum a 26% decrease in police reported cannabis offences.[52] It is important that we continue to question the legitimacy of the claims the government makes about why they refuse to legalise and regulate cannabis as well as the institutionalised racism involved. There is evidence to suggest that the government has been using cannabis as a proverbial 'garden tool' to weed-out groups that they choose to target, or they believe are less important, and there is plenty of evidence showing that it is the black community that received the short end of that stick. All should be equal before the law, but this is virtually impossible to uphold when the law is represented through people, because people make judgements based on their inherent biases. There is no one statistic, statute, or study that will conclusively prove that politicians through the ages have used cannabis to paint a target on the backs of the black community, but there is evidence of it everywhere. With the information that we do have in consideration, cannabis is no more dangerous to human health than alcohol and tobacco. Continuing to demonise cannabis and insist that it should have no place in the UK's society is hypocritical. Based on the attitudes of the public, as well as law enforcement, its criminal status is also completely unnecessary. There are better things for the justice system to be focusing on, and worse things to be keeping out of society. [1] Mohamed Ben Amar, 'Cannabinoids in Medicine: A Review of Their Therapeutic Potential' (2006) 105 Journal of Ethnopharmacology 1. [2] Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, Schedule 2 Part II. [3] ibid Schedule 4. [4] Patrick McCrystal and Kerry Winning, 'Cannabis Reclassification: What is the Message to the Next Generation of Cannabis Users?' (2009) 15 Child Care in Practice 57. [5] 'Cannabis Reclassification' (Press Releases, 28 January 2005) accessed 20 April 2020. [6] McCrystal and Winning (n 4). [7] Simon Byrne, 'ACPO Guidance on Cannabis Possession for Personal Use: Revised Intervention Framework' (Association of Chief Police Officers, 28 January 2009). [8] '420: Seven Charts on How Cannabis Use Has Changed' (BBC News, 20 April 2019) accessed 12 March 2020. [9] 'Comments on the Reported Statistics on Narcotic Drugs' (International Narcotics Control Board, 18 October 2012) accessed 28 April 2020. [10] Marc I D'Eon, 'Police Enforcement of Cannabis Possession Laws in Canada: Changes in Implementation by Street-Level Bureaucrats' (Master's thesis, University of Saskatchewan 2017) accessed 28 April 2020. [11] Zach Dubinsky and Lisa Mayor, 'Who's Really behind Toronto's Chain of Illegal Pot Shops That Won't Quit?' (CBC News, 19 July 2019) accessed 28 April 2020; Robert Benzie, 'Trudeau urges police to "enforce the law" on marijuana' (The Star, 3 December 2016) accessed 4 May 2020. [12] Byrne (n 7). [13] ibid 4. [14] ibid 9. [15] Tom Harper, 'Police "Going Soft" on Cannabis Users' (The Times, 6 April 2019) accessed 2 May 2020. [16] Damian Gayle, 'Durham Police Stop Targeting Pot Smokers and Small-Scale Growers' (The Guardian, 22 July 2015) accessed 25 April 2020. [17] Pub Spy, 'Canterbury is "weed central" so why don't we just legalise it, say potheads' (The Canterbury Journal, 2 March 2018) accessed 28 April 2020. [18] ibid. [19] Michelle Rotermann, 'What has changed since cannabis was legalized?' (Statistics Canada, 19 February 2020) accessed 28 April 2020. [20] Leslie L Iversen, The Science of Marijuana (OUP 2008). [21] Chris Conrad, Hemp for Health: The Medicinal and Nutritional Uses of Cannabis Sativa (Healing Arts Press 1997). [22] Ivelaw Lloyd Griffith, Drugs and Security in the Caribbean: Sovereignty under Siege (Pennyslvania State UP 1997). [23] William MacPherson, The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (The Stationery Office 1999). [24] Government Digital Service, 'Police Powers to Stop and Search: Your Rights' (GOV.UK, February 23, 2017) accessed 28 April 2020. [25] Benzie (n 11). [26] 'Drug Misuse: Findings from the 2018 to 2019 Crime Survey for England and Wales' (Home Office, 19 September 2019), 18. Available at . See Figure 3.1 'Proportion of 16 to 59 Year Olds Reporting Use of Illicit Drugs in the Last Year by Personal Characteristics'. [27] 'Stop and Search: How successful is the police tactic?' (BBC News, 4 April 2018) accessed 28 April 2020. [28] Jodie Hargreaves, Chris Linehan, and Chris McKee, 'Police powers and procedures, England and Wales, year ending 31 March 2016' (Home Office, 27 October 2016), 26. [29] 'Stop and Search…' (n 28). [30] MacPherson (n 23). [31] ibid. [32] ibid. [33] Benzie (n 11). [34] 'Youth Voter Turnout in Canada' (Publication No. 2016-104-E, Library of Parliament, Canada, 13 October 2016). Available at . [35] Canadian Multiculturalism Act 1985 s3(1)(e). [36] Equality Act 2010 s1(1). [37] ibid s3. [38] ibid s3(1)(i). [39] Sylvain Charlebois and Simon Somogyi, 'Marijuana-infused food and Canadian consumers' willingness to consider recreational marijuana as a food ingredient' (September 2017) accessed 28 April 2020. [40] Elena Mazneva, 'U.K. Legalizing Cannabis Supported by Near-Majority of Voters' (Bloomberg, 14 July 2019) accessed 28 April 2020. [41] 'Drug Misuse: Findings from the 2017/18 Crime Survey for England and Wales' (Home Office, July 2018). Available at . [42] Emily Ledger, 'Cannabis Policy of the Political Parties – the Conservatives' (The Cannabis Exchange, 30 November 2019) accessed 26 April 2020. [43] ibid. [44] Michael Savage, 'Fifty Years on, what is the legacy of Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" speech?' (The Guardian, 15 April 2018) accessed 26 April 2020. [45] Race Relations Act 1968. [46] Frances Perraudin, 'New controversial comments uncovered in Historical Boris Johnson articles' (The Guardian, 9 December 2019) accessed 27 April 2020. [47] Maria Correa, 'How Close Is the UK to Legalising Cannabis?' (The Lawyer Portal, 8 January 2019) accessed 26 April 2020. [48] 'Alcohol Statistics' (Alcohol Change UK, 2 March 2020) accessed 27 April 2020. [49] Melissa Bennett, 'Dataset: Alcohol-related deaths in the UK' (ONS, 7 November 2017) accessed 26 April 2020. [50] Danielle Cornish and others, 'Adult smoking habits in the UK: 2018' (ONS, 2 July 2019) accessed 26 April 2020. [51] Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, 'Cannabis: Classification and Public Health' (Home Office, April 2008) accessed 27 April 2020. [52] Gregory Moreau, 'Police-reported cannabis offences in Canada, 2018: Before and after legalization' (Statistics Canada, 24 July 2019) accessed 27 April 2020.
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The study of International Relations is founded on a series of assumptions that originate in the monotheistic traditions of the West. For Siba Grovogui, this realization provoked him to question not only IR but to broaden his enquiries into a multidisciplinary endeavor that encompasses law and anthropology, journalism and linguistics, and is informed by stories and lessons from Guinea. In this Talk, he discusses the importance of human encounters and the problem with the Hegelian logic which distorts our understanding of our own intellectual development and the trajectory of the discipline of IR.
Print version of this Talk (pdf)
What is, according to you, the biggest challenge / principal debate in current IR? What is your position or answer to this challenge / in this debate?
I don't want to be evasive, but I actually don't think that International Relations as a field has an object today. And that is the problem with International Relations since Martin Wight and Stanley Hoffmann and all of those people debated what International Relations was, whether it was an American discipline, etc. I believe you can look at International Relations in multiple ways: if you think of à la Hoffmann, as a tool of dominant power, International Relations is to this empire what anthropology was to the last. This not only has to do with the predicates upon which it was founded initially but with its aspirations, for International Relations shares with Anthropology the ambition to know Man—and I am using here a very antiquated language, but that is what it was then—to know Man in certain capacities. In the last empire, anthropology focused on the cultural dimension and, correspondingly separated culture from civilization in a manner that placed other regions of the world in subsidiarity vis-à-vis Europe and European empires. In the reigning empire, IR has focused on the management and administration of an empire that never spoke its name, reason, or subject.
Now you can believe all the stories about liberalism and all of that stuff, but although it was predicated upon different assumptions, the ambition is still the same: it is actually to know Man, the way in which society is organized, to know how the entities function, etc. If you look at it that way, then International Relations cannot be the extension of any country's foreign policy, however significant. This is not to say that the foreign policies of the big countries do not matter: it would be foolish not to study them and take them into account, because they have greater impact than smaller countries obviously. But International Relations is not—or should not be—the extension of any country's foreign policy, nor should it be seen as the agglomeration of a certain restricted number of foreign policies. International Relations suggests, again, interest in the configurations of material, moral, and symbolic spaces as well as dynamics resulting from the relations of moral and social entities presumed to be of equal moral standings and capacities.
If one sees it that way then we must reimagine what International Relations should be. Foreign policy would be an important dimension of it, but the field of foreign policy must be understood primarily in terms of its explanations and justifications—regardless of whether these are bundled up as realism, liberalism, or other. Today, these fields provide different ways of explaining to the West, for itself, as a rational decision, or a justification to the rest, that what it has done over the past five centuries, from conquest to colonization and slavery and colonialism, is 'natural' and that any political entities similarly situated would have done it in that same manner. It follows therefore that this is how things should be. Those justifications, explanations, and rationalizations of foreign policy decisions and events are important to understand as windows into the manners in which certain regions and political entities have construed value, interest, and ethics. But they still belong, in some significant way, to a different domain than what is implied by the concept of IR.
I am therefore curious about the so-called debates about the nature of politics and the proper applicable science or approach to historical foreign policy realms and domains, particularly those of the West: I don't consider those debates to be 'big debates' in International Relations, because they are really about how the West sees itself and justifies itself and how it wants to be seen, and thus as rational. For the West (as assumed by so-called Western scholars), these debates extend the tradition of exculpating the West and seeing the West as the regenerative, redemptive, and progressive force in the world. All of that language is about that. So when you say to me, what are the debates, I don't know what they are, so far, really, in International Relations. The constitution of the 'international', the contours and effects of the imaginaries of its constituents, and the actualized and attainable material and symbolic spaces within it to realize justice, peace, and a sustainable order have thus far eluded the authoritative disciplinary traditions.
Consider the question of China today, as it is posed in the West. The China question, too, emerges from a particular foreign policy rationale, which may be important and particular ways to some people or constituencies in the West but not in the same way to others, for instance in Africa. The narrowness of the framing of the China question is why in the West many are baffled about how Africa has been receiving China, and China's entry into Latin America, etc. In relation to aid, for instance, if you are an African of a certain age, or you know some history, you will know that China formulated its foreign aid policy in 1964 and that nothing has changed. And there are other elements, such as foreign intervention and responsibility to self and others where China has had a distinct trajectory in Africa.
In some regard, China may even be closer in outlook to postcolonial African states than the former colonial powers. For instance, neither China nor African states consider the responsibility to protect, to be essentially Western. In this regard, it is worth bearing in mind for instance that Tanzania intervened in Uganda to depose Idi Amin in 1979; Vietnam ended the Khmer Rouge tyranny in Cambodia in 1979; India intervened in Bangladesh in 1971—it wasn't the West. So those kinds of understandings of responsibility, in the way they are framed today in the post-Cold War period, superimposes ideas of responsibility that were already there and were formulated in Bandung in 1955: differences between intervention and interference, the latter of which today comes coded as regime change, were actually hardly debated. So our imaginaries of the world and how it works, of responsibility, of ethics, etc., have always had to compete with those that were formulated since the seventeenth century in Europe, as "international ethics", "international law", "international theory". And in fact that long history full of sliding concepts and similar meanings may be one of the problems for understanding how the world came into being as we know it today. And this is why actually my classes here always begin with a semester-long discussion of hermeneutics, of historiography, and of ethnography in IR and how they have been incorporated.
How did you arrive at where you currently are in IR?
I came to where I am now essentially because of a sense of frustration, that we have a discipline that calls itself "international" and yet seemed to be speaking either univocally or unidirectionally: univocally in imagining the world and unidirectionally in the way it addresses the rest of the world, and a lot of problems result from that.
I had trained as a lawyer in Guinea, and when I came to the US I imagined that International Relations would be taught at law school, which is the case in France, most of the time, and also in some places in Germany in the past, because it is considered a normative science there. But when I came here I was shocked to discover that it was going to be in a field called Political Science, but I went along with it anyway. In the end I did a double major: in law, at the law school in Madison, Wisconsin, and in political science. When I came to America and went the University of Wisconsin, I first took a class called "Nuclear Weapons and World Politics" or something of the sort, it was more theology and less science. It was basically articulated around chosen people and non-chosen people, those who deserve to have weapons and those who don't. There was no rationale, no discussion of which countries respected the Non-Proliferation Treaty, no reasoning in terms of which countries had been wiser than others in using weapons of mass destruction, etc.: there was nothing to it except the underlying, intuitive belief that if something has to be done, we do it and other people don't. I'm being crass here, but let's face it: this was a course I took in the 1980s and it is still the same today! So I began to feel that this is really more theology and less science. Yes, it was all neatly wrapped in rationalism, in game theory, all of these things. So I began to ask myself deeper questions, outside of the ones they were asking, so my Nuclear Weapons and World Politics class was really what bothered me, or you could say it was some kind of trigger.
This way of seeing IR is related to the fact that I don't share the implicit monotheist underpinnings of the discipline. That translates into my perhaps unorthodox teaching style, unorthodox within American academia anyway. Teaching all too often tends to be less about understanding the world and more about proselytizing. In order to try to explore this understanding I like to bring my students to consider the world that has existed, to imagine that sovereignty and politics can be structured differently, especially outside of monotheism with its likening of the sovereign to god, the hierarchy modeled on the church, Saint Peter, Jesus, God, uniformity and the power of life (to kill or let live), and to understand that there have always been places where the sovereign was not in fact that revered. Think of India, for example, where people have multiple gods, and some are mischievous, some are promiscuous, some are happy and some are mean, so there are lots of conceptions and some of these don't translate well into different cultural contexts. The same, incidentally, goes for the Greek gods. Of course, we had to make the Greeks Christians first, before we drew our lineage to them. You see what I mean? Christianity left a very deep impact on Western traditions. Whether you think of political parties and a parallel to the Catholic orders: if you are a Jesuit, the Jesuits are always right; if you are a Franciscan, the Franciscans are always right. The Franciscans for instance think they have the monopoly on Christian social teaching. In a similar way, it doesn't matter what your political party does, you follow whatever your party says. The same thing happens when you study: are you a realist, are you liberalist, etc. You are replicating the Jesuits, the Franciscans, those monks and their orders. But we are all caught within that logic, of tying ourselves into one school of thought and going along with one "truth" over another, instead of permitting multiple takes on reality..
For me, as a non-monotheist myself, everything revolves around this question of truth: whether truth is given or has to be found and how we find it. Truth has to be found, discovered, revealed—we have to continuously search. The significant point is that we never find it absolutely. Truth is always provisional, circumstantial, and pertinent to a context or situation. We all want truth and it is always evading us, but we must look for it. But I don't think that truth is given. It is in the Bible, the Quran, and the Torah. And I am comfortable with that but I am not in the realm of theology. I dwell on human truths and humans are imperfect and not omniscient, at least not so individually.
If I had the truth, then I might be one of those dictators governing in Africa today. I was raised a Catholic by the way, I almost went to the seminary. If you just think through the story of the Revelation in profane terms, you come to the realization that ours are multiple revelations. Again in theology, one truth is given at a time—the Temple Mount, the Tablets, and all that stuff—but that is not in our province. I leave that to a different province and that is unattainable to me. The kind of revelation I want is the one that goes through observing, through looking, through deliberating, through inquiry—that I am comfortable with. There can be a revelation in terms of meeting the unexpected, for example: when I went to the New World, to Latin America for the first time, I said, 'wow, this is interesting'. That was through my own senses, but it had a lot to do with the way I prepared myself in order to receive the world and to interact with the world. That kind of revelation I believe in. The other one is beyond me and I'm not interested in that. When I want to be very blasphemous, even though I was raised a Catholic, I tell my students: the problem with the Temple Mount is that God did not have a Twitter account, so the rest of us didn't hear it—we were not informed. I don't have the truth, and I don't really don't want to have it.
What would a student need to become a specialist in IR or understand the world in a global way?
I am not sure I want to make a canonical recommendation, if that's what you are asking me for. Let me tell you this: I have trained about eleven PhD students, and none of them has ever done what I do. I am not interested in having clones, I don't want to recreate theology, and in fact I feel this question to betray a very Western disposition, by implying the need to create canons and theology. I don't want that. What I want is to understand the world, and understanding can be done in multiple ways: people do it through music, through art, through multiple things. The problem for me, however, is actually the elements, assumptions, predicates of studies and languages that we use in IR, the question to whom they make sense—I am talking about the types of ethnographies, the ways in which we talk about diplomatic history, and all of those things. The graduate courses that I was talking about have multiple dimensions, but there are times in my seminars here where I just take a look at events like what happened in the New World from 1492 to 1600. This allows me to talk about human encounters. The ones we have recorded, of people who are mutually unintelligible, are the ones that took place on this continent, the so-called New World. And what this does is that it allows me to talk about encounters, to talk about all of the possibilities—you know the ones most people talk about in cultural studies like creolization, hybridization, and all those things—and all of the others things that happened also which are not so helpful, such as violence, usurpation, and so forth.
What that allows me to do is to cut through all this nonsense—yes I am going to call it nonsense—that projects the image that what we do today goes back to Thucydides and has been handed down to us through history to today. There are many strands of thought like that. If you think about thought, and Western thought in general, all of those historically rooted and contingent strands of thought have something to do with how we construct social scientific fields of analysis today—realism, liberalism, etc.—so I'm not dispensing with that. What I'm saying is that history itself has very little to do with those strands of thought, and that people who came here—obviously you had scientists who came to the New World—but the policies on the ground had nothing to do with Thucydides, nothing to do with Machiavelli, etc. Their practices actually had more to do with the violence that propelled those Europeans from their own countries in seeking refuge, and how that violence shaped them, the kind of attachments they had. But it also had to do with the kind of cultural disposition here, and the manner in which people were able to cope, or not. Because that's where we are today in the post-Cold War era, the age of globalization, we must provide analyses that are germane to how the constituents (or constitutive elements) of the historically constituted 'international' are coping with our collective inheritance. For me, this approach is actually much more instructive. This has nothing to do with the Melian Dialogue and the like.
All of the stuff projected today as canonical is interesting to me but only in limited ways. I actually read the classics and have had my students read them, but try to get my students to read them as a resource for understanding where we are today and how we were led there, rather than as a resource for justifying or legitimating the manner in which European conducted their 'foreign' policies or their actions in the New World. No. I know enough to know that no action in the New World or elsewhere was pre-ordained, unavoidable, or inevitable. The resulting political entities in the West must assume the manners in which they acted. It is history, literally. And of course we know through Voltaire, we know through Montaigne, we know even through Roger Bacon, that even in those times people realized that in fact the world had not been made and hence had not been before as it would become later; that other ways were (and still) are possible; and that the pathologies of the violence of religious and civil wars in Europe conditioned some the behaviours displayed in the New World and Africa during conquest and enslavement.
For the same reason I recommend students to read Kant: I tell them to read Kant as a resource for understanding how we might think about the world today, but I am compelled to say often to my students that before Kant, hospitality, and such cultural intermediaries as theDragomans in the Ottoman Empire, the Wangara in West Africa, the Chinese Diaspora in East and Southeast Asia, and so forth, enabled commerce across continents for centuries before Europe was included into the existing trading networks. This is not to dismiss Kant, it is simply to force students to put Kant in conversation with a different trajectory of the development of commercial societies, cross-regional networks, and the movements to envisage laws, rules, and ethics to enable communications among populations and individual groups.
This approach causes many people to ask whether the IR programme at Johns Hopkins really concerns IR theory or something else. I actually often get those kinds of questions, and they are wedded to particular conceptions of IR. I am never able to give a fixed and quick answer but I often illustrate points that I wish to make. Consider how scholars and policymakers relate the question of sovereignty to Africa. Many see African sovereignty as problem, either because they think it is abused or stands in the way of humanitarian or development actions by supposed well-meaning Westerners. I attempt to have my students think twice when sovereignty is evoked in that way: 'sovereignty is a problem; the extents to which sovereignty is a problem in Africa; and why sovereignty is unproblematic in Europe or America'. This questioning and bracketing is not simply a 'postmodernist' evasion of the question.
Rather, I invite my students to reconsider the issue: if sovereignty is your problem, how do you think about the problem? For me, this is a much more interesting question; not what the problem is. For instance, if you start basing everything around a certain mythology of the Westphalia model, particularly when you begin to see everything as either conforming to it (the good) or deviating from it (the bad), then you have lost me. Because before Westphalia there were actually many ways in which sovereigns understood themselves, and therefore organized their realms, and how sovereignty was experienced and appreciated by its subjects. Westphalia is a crucial moment in Europe in these regards—I grant you that. If you want to say what is wrong with Westphalia, that's fine too. But if Westphalia is your starting point, the discussion is unlikely to be productive to me. Seriously!
In your work on political identity in Africa, such as your contribution to the 2012 volume edited by Arlene Tickner and David Blaney, the terms periphery, margin, lack of historicity recur frequently. What regional or perhaps even global representational protagonism can you envisage for IR studies emerging from Africa and its spokespeople?
The subjects of 'periphery' and 'marginalization' come into my own thinking from multiple directions. One of them has to do with the African state and the kind of subsidiarity it has assumed from the colonization onward. That's a critique of the state of affairs and a commentary on how Africa is organized and is governed. But I do also use it sometimes as a direct challenge to people who think they know the world. And my second book, Beyond Eurocentrism and Anarchy (2006), was actually about that, and that book was triggered by an account of an event in Africa, that everybody in African Studies has repeated and still continues to repeat, which is this: in June 1960, Africans went to defend France, because France asked them to. This is to say that nobody could imagine that Africans—and I am being careful here in terms of how people describe Africans—understood that they had a stake in the 'world' under assault during World War II. And so the book actually begins with a simple question: in 1940, which France would have asked Africans to defend it: Vichy France which was under German control, or the Germans who occupied half of France? But the decision to defend France actually came partly from a discussion between French colonial officers in Chad and African veterans of World War I, who decided that the world had to be restructured for Africa to find its place in it. They didn't do it for France, because it's a colonial power, they did it for the world. That's the thing. And Pétain, to his credit, is the only French official who asked the pertinent question about that, in a letter to his minister of justice (which is an irony, because justice under Pétain was a different question) he said: 'I am puzzled, that in 1918 when we were victorious, Africans rebelled; in 1940, we are defeated, and they come to our aid. Could you explain that to me?' The titular head of Vichy had the decency to ask that. By contrast, every scholar of Africa just repeated, 'Oh, the French asked Africans to go fight, and the Africans showed up'.
Our inability to understand that Africa actually sees itself as a part of the world, as a manager of the world, has so escaped us today that in the case of Libya for instance, when people were debating, you saw in every single newspaper in the world, including my beloved Guardian, that the African Union decided this, but the International Community decided that, as if Africans had surrendered their position in the international society to somebody: to the International Community. People actually said that! The AU, for all its 'wretchedness', after all represents about a quarter of the member states of the UN. And yet it was said the AU decided this and the International Community decided that. The implication is that the International Community is still the West plus Japan and maybe somebody else, and in this case it was Qatar and Saudi Arabia: "good citizens of the world", very "good democracies" etc. That's how deeply-set that is, that people don't even check themselves. Every time they talk they chuck Africa out of the World. Nobody says, America did this and the International Community decided that. All I am saying is that our mindscapes are so deeply structured that nothing about Africa can be studied on its own, can be studied as something that has universal consequence, as something that has universal value, as something that might be universalizing—that institutions in Africa might actually have some good use to think about anything. Otherwise, people would have asked them how did colonial populations—people who were colonized—overcome colonial attempts to strip them of their humanity and extend an act of humanity, of human solidarity, to go fight to defend them? And what was that about? Even many Africans fail to ask that question today!
And it could be argued that this thinking is, to some degree, down to widespread ignorance about Africa. We all are guilty of this. And oddly, especially intellectuals are guilty of this, and worse. Let me give you an example: recently I was in Tübingen in Germany, and I went into a store to buy some shoes—a very fine store, wonderful people—and I can tell you I ended up having a much more rewarding conversation with the people working in the shoe shop than I had at Tübingen University. Because there was a real curiosity. You would like to think that it is not so unusual in this day and age that a person from Guinea teaches in America, but you cannot blame them for being curious and asking many questions. At the university, in contrast, they actually are making claims, and for me that is no longer ignorance, that is hubris.
Your work presents an original take on the role of language in International Relations. How is language tied up with IR theory?
The language problem has many, many layers. The first of these is, simply, the issue of translation. If I were, for instance, to talk to someone in my father's language about Great Power Responsibility, they would look totally lost. Because in Guinea we have been what white people call stateless or acephalous societies, the notion that one power should have responsibility for another is a very difficult concept to translate, because you are running up against imaginaries of power, of authority, etc. that simply don't exist. So when you talk about such social scientific categories to those people, you have to be aware of all the colonial era enlightenment inheritances in them. When we talk about International Relations in Africa, we thus bump into a whole set of problems: the primary problem of translating ideas from here into those languages; another in capturing what kind of institutions exist in those languages; and a third issue has to do with how you translate across those languages. Consider for instance the difference between Loma stateless societies in the rain forest in Guinea, and Malinke who are very hierarchical, especially since SundiataKeita came to power in the 13th century. But the one problem most people don't talk about is the very one that is obsessing me now, is the question how I, as an African, am able to communicate with you through Kant, without you assuming that I am a bad reader of Kant.
The difference that I am trying to make here is actually what in linguistics is called vehicular language which is distinct from vernacular language. Because a lot of you assume that vehicular language is vernacular—that there is Latin and the rest is vernacular; that there is a proper reading of Kant and everything else is vernacular; or you have cosmopolitan and perhaps afropolitan and everything else is the vernacular of it. But this is not in fact always the case. The most difficult thing for linguists to understand, and for people in the social sciences to understand, is that Kant, Hegel and other thinkers can avail themselves as resources that one uses to try to convey imaginaries that are not always available to others—or to Kant himself for that matter. And it is not analogical—it is not 'this is the African Machiavelli'. It is easy to talk about power using Machiavelli, but to smuggle into Machiavelli different kind of imaginaries is more difficult. Nonetheless, I use Machiavelli because there is no other language available to me to convey that to you, because you don't speak my father's language.
Moreover, there is a danger for instance when I speak with my students that they may hear Machiavelli even when I am not speaking of him, and I warn them to be very careful. Machiavelli is a way to bring in a different stream of understanding of Realpolitik, but it's not entirely Machiavelli. If you spoke my father's language, I would tell you in my father's language, but that is not available to me here, so Machiavelli is a vehicle to talk about something else. Sometimes people might say to me 'what you are saying sounds to me like Kant but it's not really Kant' then I remind them that before Kant there were actually a lot of people who talked about the sublime, the moral, the categorical imperative, etc. in different languages; and if you are patient with me then we will get to the point when Kant belongs to a genealogy of people who talked about certain problems differently, and in that context Kant is no longer a European: I place Kant in the context of people who talk about politics, morality, etc. differently and I want to offer you a bunch of resources and please, please don't package me, because you don't own the interpretation of Kant, because even in your own context in Europe today Kant is not your contemporary, so you are making a lot of translations and I am making a lot of translations to get to something else: it is not that I am not a bad reader.
At an ISA conference I once was attacked by a senior colleague in IR for being a bad reader of Hegel, and I had to explain to him that while my using Hegel might be an act of imposition, and a result of having been colonized and given Hegel, but at this particular moment he should consider my gesture as an act of generosity, in the sense that I was reading Hegel generously to find resources that would allow him to understand things that he had no idea exist out there, and Hegel is the only tool available to me at this moment. But because all of you believe in one theology or another, he insisted that if I spoke Hegelian then I was Hegelian, and I retorted that I was not, but that deploying Hegel was merely an instance of vehicular language, allowing me to explore certain predicates, certain precepts and assumptions, and that is all. In this way, I can use Kant, or Hegel, or Hobbes, or Locke, and my problem when I do this is not with those thinkers—I can ignore the limitations of their thinking which was conditioned by the realities of their time—my problem is with those people who think they own traditions originating from long dead European thinkers. Thus, my problem today is less with Kant than with Kantians.
Or take Hobbes: Hobbes talked about the body in the way that it was understood in his time, and about human faculties in the way that they were understood at that time. Anybody who quotes Hobbes today about the faculties of human nature, I have to ask: when was the last time you read biology? I am not saying that Hobbes wasn't a very smart man; he was an erudite, and I am not joking. It is not his problem that people are still trivializing human faculties and finding issue with his view of how the body works—of course he was wrong on permeability, on cohabitation, on what organs live in us, etc.—he was giving his account of politics through metaphors and analogies that he understood at that time. When I think about it this way, my problem is not that Hobbes didn't have a modern understanding of the body, the distribution of the faculties and the extent of human capacities. Nor is my problem that Hobbes is Western. My problem is not with Hobbes himself. My problem is with all these realists who based their understanding of sovereignty or borders strictly on Hobbes' illustrations but have not opened a current book on the body that speaks of the faculties. If they did, even their own analogies may begin to resonate differently. There is new research coming out all the time on how we can understand the body, and this should have repercussions on how we read Hobbes today.
The absence of contextualization and historicization has proved a great liability for IR. Historicity allows one to receive Hobbes and all those other writers without indulging in mindless simplicities. It helps get away from simplistic divisions of the world—for instance, the West here and Africa there—from the assumptions that when I speak about postcolonialism in Africa I must be anti-Western. I am in fact growing very tired of those kinds of categories. As a parenthesis, I must ask if some of those guys in IR who speak so univocally and unidirectionally to others are even capable of opening themselves up to hearing other voices. I must also reveal that Adlai Stevenson, not some postcolonialist, alerted me to the problem of univocality when he stated in 1954 during one UN forum that 'Everybody needed aid, the West surely needs a hearing aid'. Hearing is indeed the one faculty that the West is most in need of cultivating. The same, incidentally, could be said of China nowadays.
One of the things I would like to deny Western canonist is their inclination to think of the likes of Diderot as Westerners. In his Supplément au Voyage a Bougainville (1772), Diderot presents a dialogue between himself and Orou, a native Tahitian. Voltaire wrote dialogues, some real, some imaginary, about and with China. The authors' people were reflecting on the world. It is hubris and an act of usurpation in the West today to want to lay claim to everything that is perceived to be good for the West. By the same token that which is bad must come from somewhere else. This act of usurpation has led to the appropriation—or rather internal colonization—of Diderot and Voltaire and like-minded philosophers and publicists who very much engaged the world beyond their locales. I have quarrels with this act of colonization, of the incipit parochialization of authors who ought not to be. I have quarrels with Voltaire's characterization of non-Europeans at times; but I have a greater quarrel with how he has been colonized today as distinctly European. Voltaire rejected European orthodoxies of his day and opted explicitly to enter into dialogue with Chinese and Africans as he understood them. Diderot, too, was often in dialogue with Tahitians and other non-Europeans. In fact, the relationship between Diderot and the Tahitian was exactly the same as the relationship between Socrates and Plato, in that you have an older person talking and a younger person and less wise person listening. A lot of Western philosophy and political theory was actually generated—at least in the modern period—after contact with the non-West. So how that is Western I don't know. I encounter the same problem when I am in Africa where I am accused of being Western just because I make the same literary references. It is a paradox today that even literature is assigned an identity for the purpose of hegemony and/or exclusion. Francis Galton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Galton) travelled widely and wrote dialogues from this expedition in Africa, so how can we say to what extent the substance of such dialogues was Western or British?
So in sum you are not trying to counter Western thought, but do you feel that the African political experience and your own perspective can bring something new to IR studies?
I am going to try and express something very carefully here, because the theory of the state in Africa brought about untold horrors—in Sierra Leone, in Liberia, and so on—so I am not saying this lightly. But I have said to many people, Africans and non-Africans, that I am glad that the postcolonial African state failed, and I wish many more of them failed, and I'm sure a lot more will fail, because they correspond to nothing on the ground. The idea of constitutions and constitutionalism came with making arrangements with a lot of social elements that were generated by certain entities that aspired to go in certain directions. What happened in Africa is that somebody came and said: 'this worked there, it should work here'—and it doesn't. I'll give you three short stories to illustrate this.
One of the presidents of postcolonial Guinea, the one I despise the most, Lansana Conté (in office 1984-2008), also gave me one of my inspirational moments. Students rebelled against him and destroyed everything in town and so he went on national TV that day and said: 'You know I'm very disheartened. I am disheartened about children who have become Europeans.' Obviously the blame would be on Europe. He continued, 'They are rude, they don't respect people or property. I understand that they may have quarrels with me, but I also understand that we are Africans. And though we may no longer live in the village', and it is important for me that he said that, 'though we may no longer live in the village, when we move in the big city, the council of elders is what parliament does for us now. We don't have the council of elders, instead we have parliament. They, the students, can go to parliament and complain about their father. I am their father, my children are older than all of them. So in the village, they would have gone to the council of elders, and they could have done this and I would have given them my explanation'. And the next morning, the whole country turned against the students, because what he had succeeded in doing was to touch and move people. They went to the head of the student government, who said: 'The president was right. We had failed to understand that our ways cannot be European ways, and we can think about our modern institutions as iterations of what we had in the past, suited to our circumstances, and so we should not do politics in the same way. I agree with him, and in that spirit I want to say that among the Koranko ethnic group, fathers let their children eat meat first, because they have growing needs, and if the father doesn't take care of his children, then they take the children away from the father and give them to the uncle. Our problem at the university is that our stipends are not being paid, and father has all his mansions in France, in Spain, and elsewhere, so we want the uncle.' He was in effect asking for political transition: he was saying they were now going to the council of elders, the parliament, and demand the uncle, for father no longer merits being the father. He was able to articulate political transition and rotation in that language. It was a very clever move.
The second one was my mother who was completely unsympathetic to me when I came home one day and was upset that one of my friends who was a journalist had been arrested. She said, 'if you wish you can go back to your town but don't come here and bother me and be grumpy'. So I started an exchange with her and explained to her why it is important that we have journalists and why they should be free, until our discussion turned to the subject of speaking truth to power. At that moment she said, 'now you are talking sense' and she started to tell me how the griot functioned in West Africa for the past eight hundred years, and why truth to power is part of our institutional heritage. But that truth is not a personal truth, for there is an organic connection between reporter and the community, there is a group in which they collect information, communicate and criticize, and we began to talk about that. And since then I have stopped teaching Jefferson in my constitutional classes in Africa, as a way of talking about the free press, instead I talk about speaking truth to power. But it allows me not only to talk about the necessity of speaking truth to power, but also to criticize the organization of the media, which is so individualised, so oriented toward the people who give the money: think of the National Democratic Institute in Washington, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Germany, they have no organic connection to the people. And my mother told me, 'as long as it's a battle between those who have the guns and those who have the pen, then nobody is speaking to my problems, then I have no dog in that fight'. And journalists really make a big mistake by not updating their trade and redressing it. Because speaking truth to power is not absent in our tradition, we have had it for eight hundred years, six centuries before Jefferson, but we don't think about it that way. I have to remind my friends in Guinea: 'you are vulnerable precisely because you have not understood what the profession of journalism might look like in this community, to make your message more relevant and effective'. You see the smart young guys tweeting away and how they have been replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood, because we have not made the message relevant to the community. We are communicating on media and in idioms that have no real bearing on people's lives, so we are easily dismissed. That is in fact the tragedy of what happened in Tunisia: the smart, young protesters have so easily been brushed aside for this reason.
The third story is about how we had a constitutional debate in Guinea before multipartism, and people were talking about the separation of powers. And I went to the university to talk to a group of people and I put it to them: why do you waste your time studying the American Constitution and the separation of powers in America? I grant you, it is a wonderful experiment and it has lasted two hundred years, but that would not lead you anywhere with these people. The theocratic Futa Jallon in Guinea (in the 18th and 19th centuries) had one of the most advanced systems of separation of powers: the king was in Labé, the constitution was in Dalaba, the people who interpreted the constitution were in yet another city, the army was based in Tougué. It was the most decentralised organization of government you can imagine, and all predicated on the idea that none of the nine diwés, or provinces, should actually have the monopoly of power. So those that kept the constitution were not allowed to interpret it, because the readers were somewhere else. But to make sure that what they were reading was the right document, they gave it to a different province. So the separation of powers is not new to us.
In sum, the West is a wonderful political experiment, and it has worked for them. We can actualize some of what they have instituted, but we have sources here that are more suited to the circumstances of the people in that region, without undermining the modern ideas of democratic self-governance, without undermining the idea of a republic. Without dispensing with all of those, we must not be tempted to imagine constitution in the same way, to imagine separation of powers in the same way, even to imagine and practice journalism in the same way, in this very different environment. It is going to fail. That is my third story.
Siba N. Grovogui has been teaching at Johns Hopkins University after holding the DuBois-Mandela postdoctoral fellowship of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor in 1989-90 and teaching at Eastern Michigan University from 1993 to 1995. He is currently professor of international relations theory and law at The Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Sovereigns, Quasi-Sovereigns, and Africans: Race and Self-determination in International Law (University of Minnesota Press, 1996) and Beyond Eurocentrism and Anarchy: Memories of International Institutions and Order (Palgrave, April 2006). He has recently completed a ten-year long study partly funded by the National Science Foundation of the rule of law in Chad as enacted under the Chad Oil and Pipeline Project.
Related links
Faculty Profile at Johns Hopkins University Read Grovogui's Postcolonial Criticism: International Reality and Modes of Inquiry (2002 book chapter) here (pdf) Read Grovogui's The Secret Lives of Sovereignty (2009 book chapter) here (pdf) Read Grovogui's Counterpoints and the Imaginaries Behind Them: Thinking Beyond North American and European Traditions (2009 contribution to International Political Sociology) here (pdf) Read Grovogui's Postcolonialism (2010 book chapter) here (pdf) Read Grovogui's Sovereignty in Africa: Quasi-statehood and Other Myths (2001 book chapter in a volume edited by Tim Shaw and Kevin Dunn) here (pdf)
This overview summarizes the key findings of the eight chapters and one policy note. It is organized as follows. The first section provides a background of Guangdong, while the second describes the current situation of inequality in the province. Next is a discussion of the potential impacts of the transfer of industrial activities ('industrial transfer') in mitigating regional disparity, followed by the recommendation of a three pillar strategy for Guangdong. The fifth section focuses on the elimination of absolute poverty through the minimum living allowance (Dibao) system, and the sixth turns to policy actions needed to increase opportunities for the rural population by moving them to jobs, increasing their access to finance, and ensuring that their land rights are better protected. The seventh section further assesses Guangdong's options for investing in people through more equitable service delivery in compulsory education, skill development, and health care, with the aim of enhancing the capacity of the poor to seize and utilize opportunities. The last section concludes this overview.
