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This paper presents work-in-progress analyzing the early stages of development of an internet-connected database for local energy research in Sri Lanka. The Energy Forum, a Colombo-based NGO, expects this database to link university and NGO researchers, government policy makers and functionaries, and government and private-sector energy providers, as well as provide an institutional voice for the nearly one-half of the island's population that is without electricity. The Energy Forum is committed to the most general goals of participatory design-better design and greater democracyhowever organizational constraints force them to consider carefully the possibilities and limitations of participatory design in this specific application. In this paper, I introduce the Energy Forum and describe the context in which they work. Next, I describe the Energy Forum's larger project which the database is part of. Finally, I consider how participatory design fits within the Energy Forum's database design effort, where design is understood to include the entire development cycle from database conceptualization to implementation. The paper presented draws on field research in Sri Lanka during June and July of2000.

Many studies find a higher density of liquor stores in urban communities with predominantly Black and/or low-income residents. Although these business establishments tend to fill commercial voids in these neighborhoods, residents complain that liquor stores often provoke serious problems. Scholars support these claims with findings showing evidence of strong correlations between liquor stores and crime, domestic abuse, and substance abuse. The present study focuses on determining whether liquor store density continues to be higher in Chicago's low-income and Black communities. The results of spatial cluster analysis and geographically-weighted regression analysis run counter to expectations with liquor stores concentrated in wealthier areas and predominantly white communities. Further analysis show that low-income and Black communities mobilized to vote for local moratoriums on the establishments. These results (a) provide evidence of civic engagement and citizen-based political mobilization in low-income and Black communities as well as (b) reinforce the idea that "place matters" with the same institutions playing drastically different roles in different communities. The inequality of spaces perpetuates a system in which the same establishments trigger varying outcomes, thus reactions, according to neighborhood attributes.

Abstract Background While community mobilization has been widely endorsed as an important component of HIV prevention among vulnerable populations such as female sex workers (FSWs), there is uncertainty as to the mechanism through which it impacts upon HIV risk. We explored the hypothesis that individual and collective empowerment of FSW is an outcome of community mobilization, and we examined the means through which HIV risk and vulnerability reduction as well as personal and social transformation are achieved. Methods This study was conducted in five districts in south India, where community mobilization programs are implemented as part of the Avahan program (India AIDS Initiative) of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. We used a theoretically derived "integrated empowerment framework" to conduct a secondary analysis of a representative behavioural tracking survey conducted among 1,750 FSWs. We explored the associations between involvement with community mobilization programs, self-reported empowerment (defined as three domains including power within to represent self-esteem and confidence, power with as a measure of collective identity and solidarity, and power over as access to social entitlements, which were created using Principal Components analysis), and outcomes of HIV risk reduction and social transformation. Results In multivariate analysis, we found that engagement with HIV programs and community mobilization activities was associated with the domains of empowerment. Power within and power with were positively associated with more program contact (p < .01 and p < .001 respectively). These measures of empowerment were also associated with outcomes of "personal transformation" in terms of self-efficacy for condom and health service use (p < .001). Collective empowerment (power with others) was most strongly associated with "social transformation" variables including higher autonomy and reduced violence and coercion, particularly in districts with programs of longer duration (p < .05). Condom use with clients was associated with power with others (p < .001), while power within was associated with more condom use with regular partners (p < .01) and higher service utilization (p < .05). Conclusion These findings support the hypothesis that community mobilization has benefits for empowering FSWs both individually and collectively. HIV prevention is strengthened by improving their ability to address different psycho-social and community-level sources of their vulnerability. Future challenges include the need to develop social, political and legal contexts that support community mobilization of FSWs, and to prospectively measure the impact of combined community-level interventions on measures of empowerment as a means to HIV prevention. ; Peer Reviewed

In 1999, the Ismaili Bohra Community in Yemen's Ḥarāz mountains launched a drug substitution programme in order to replace the cultivation of qat with other economic and social activities. Motivated by religious concern, this campaign aimed at suppressing the consumption of qat. Over 200,000 qat trees were uprooted and coffee and mango trees planted instead. Alternative means of income generation included animal husbandry, beekeeping and handicraft schemes, complemented by irrigation projects, educational programmes and interest free loans for investments in other economic sectors. Even though the programme was hampered from its start by a severe drought, and in spite of the absence of governmental support, it resulted in a sharp reduction in the cultivation and consumption of qat and a significant diversification of the farmers' economy. However, the project led also to rural-urban migration and abandoning agricultural lands. But despite its shortcomings, this project, unique in Yemen by its capacity of social mobilization, provides precious lessons on the political and economical constraints which bear on any attempt to develop in Yemen mountains an agriculture which would be free of qat.

The indefinite mandatory detention on the mainland and in offshore processing centers of asylum seekers applying for protection in Australia is particularly controversial due to the government's notoriously harsh policy. In response, large-scale public protests have been staged across the country in recent years to register popular dissent and convey concerns to decision-makers. However, dominant media representations of protests have historically been largely negative, often cast as ineffectual at best, and at worst, violent clashes that alienate the broader population from the cause in question. This paper outlines a visual analysis of media representations of protests that took place in February 2016 against the proposed deportation of 267 asylum seekers from the Australian mainland as part of the #LetThemStay campaign. Through the analysis of four photographs from a range of media outlets, we found that depicting peaceful protests methods and community mobilization complicated dominant understandings of protests and protesters. Indeed, #LetThemStay demonstrated the political power of compassionate solidarity between participants afforded the privilege of safe residency and citizenship, and those forcibly absent who are denied such rights. As such, the paper highlights the impact of peaceful protesting, while also recognizing its limitations in changing Australia's punitive asylum seeker policies.

It is argued that mobilization of local communities in self-help development efforts, as instituted by Jomo Kenyatta, leader of the successful Kenyan independence struggle in 1963 & its first President, have been increasingly marginalized by larger political forces or co-opted by specific political agendas. Moreover, the emergence of class, ethnic, regional, religious, & other interests have confounded the community mobilization effort. Questions are raised about the ways in which communities can mobilize to alter the terms of exchange by which they relate to the world beyond, & processes are identified by which subordinate groups & classes become empowered & develop the bases for community organization & mobilization. Attention focuses on how economic problems in Kenya, especially relative to the world economy, have engendered shifts in the way in which community mobilization is executed. 41 References. D. Dennis

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- List of illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- List of acronyms -- 1 In the Streets with Mexico's Democracy Movement -- 2 From Global Economy to Local Politics -- 3 Cerro del Cuatro and the Origins of the UCI -- 4 Mobilizing for Basic Needs -- 5 Electoral Strategy and the Diminution of Popular Support -- 6 From Crisis to Survival -- 7 Democratization and Changing Politics -- 8 Democratization, Civil Society, and Class Conflict -- List of references -- Index