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Historical Analysis (historical + analysis)
Selected AbstractsGender, Class and Historical Analysis: A CommentaryGENDER & HISTORY, Issue 1 2001Thomas Dublin No abstract is available for this article. [source] A Pragmatic Guide to Qualitative Historical Analysis in the Study of International RelationsINTERNATIONAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVES, Issue 4 2002Cameron G. Thies Researchers using qualitative methods, including case studies and comparative case studies, are becoming more self,conscious in enhancing the rigor of their research designs so as to maximize their explanatory leverage with a small number of cases. One aspect of qualitative research that has not received as much attention is the use of primary and secondary source material as data or evidence. This essay explores the potential problems encountered by political scientists as they conduct archival research or rely on secondary source material produced by historians. The essay also suggests guidelines for researchers to minimize the main problems associated with qualitative historical research, namely, investigator bias and unwarranted selectivity in the use of historical source materials. These guidelines should enable advanced undergraduates and graduate students to enhance the quality of their historically minded political science scholarship. [source] On Population Growth and Technological Change: Selectivity Bias in Historical AnalysisJOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2000Jean-Paul Chavas This paper investigates the relationship between population growth and technological change. After an historical overview of the evolution of world population, alternative models of population growth are examined. They include a Malthusian model, a model of endogenous technological change, and a model of population growth that allows for switching regimes between Malthusian resource limitation and endogenous technological change. The regime-switching model stresses the potential for a biased interpretation of historical data. While there is strong empirical evidence supporting endogenous technical change, it is argued that the Malthusian scenario should not be overlooked even if the odds of facing it are low. [source] Historical Analysis of Siderail Use in American HospitalsJOURNAL OF NURSING SCHOLARSHIP, Issue 4 2001Barbara L. Brush Purpose: To explore the social, economic, and legal influences on siderail use in 20th century American hospitals and how use of siderails became embedded in nursing practice. Design: Social historical research. Methods: Numerous primary and secondary sources were collected and interpreted to illustrate the pattern of siderail use, the value attached to siderails, and attitudes about using siderails. Findings: The persistent use of siderails in American hospitals indicates a gradual consensus between law and medicine rather than an empirically driven nursing intervention. Use of siderails became embedded in nursing practice as nurses assumed increasing responsibility for their actions as institutional employees. Conclusions: New federal guidelines, based on reports of adverse consequences associated with siderails, are limiting siderail use in hospitals and nursing homes across the United States. Lowering siderails and using alternatives will depend on new norms among health care providers, hospital administrators, bed manufacturers, insurers, attorneys, regulators, and patients and their families. [source] ,New Green' Pragmatism in Germany , Green Politics beyond the Social Democratic Embrace?1GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 4 2004Ingolfur Blühdorn Coalitions with left-of-centre parties have traditionally been regarded as the only viable option for Green parties that have shed their stance of radical opposition. The German Greens are investigated as a case study putting this assumption into doubt. Historical analysis of their relationship with the Social Democratic Party reveals how they slipped into life-threatening dependency on the latter. A survey of consecutive reinterpretations of the positioning formula ,Neither right, nor left but ahead' maps the struggle for an independent Green identity. An appraisal of recent debates about Conservative, Green alliances investigates the basis for Green coalition politics beyond the Social Democratic embrace. [source] On the brink of change?INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MENTAL HEALTH NURSING, Issue 3 2001Implications of the review of undergraduate education in New Zealand for mental health nursing ABSTRACT: A New Zealand Nursing Council review of undergraduate education provides an ideal opportunity to make much needed changes to the system of preparation for mental health nurses. This article critiques comprehensive nursing education through an examination of its history in New Zealand, recent mental health reports and a projected estimate of workforce needs. Historical analysis reveals a process of marginalization and invisibilization of psychiatric/mental health nursing within comprehensive programmes with a consequent reduction of skills and a weakening of the profession. The author concludes that psychiatric/mental health nursing is a distinct scope of practice which requires specialty undergraduate preparation. [source] Bertha Harmer's 1922 textbook , The Principles and Practice of Nursing: clinical nursing from an historical perspectiveJOURNAL OF CLINICAL NURSING, Issue 19 2009Geertje Boschma Aims and objectives., This study analyses the origins of a widely used textbook of nursing, commonly utilised in North American Schools of Nursing since 1922, and eventually worldwide. A biography of its first author, Bertha Harmer, is also included. Background., Tracing central ideas of nursing throughout the various editions, the book provides a commentary on the cultural,historical context of nursing and reveals how nursing leaders conceptualised the day-to-day knowledge base nurses would need for their practice. Design and methods., Historical analysis. Results., The core nursing concept of ,human needs' was central to Harmer's work and thinking. Conclusions., Its continuous development by her and her later co-author, Virginia Henderson, reflected broader changes in nursing that were central to the construction of nursing as hospital-based care during the twentieth century. Relevance to clinical practice and conclusion., Renewal of nursing practice exists by the virtue of nurses' collective ability to question continuously and critically, the foundations of their practice. Historical analysis of core nursing concepts is one approach to further such critique. [source] Symbols, not data: rare trees and vegetation history in MaliTHE GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL, Issue 4 2003Chris S Duvall Historical analysis of botanical literature concerning the trees Gilletiodendron glandulosum and Guibourtia copallifera in Mali's Manding Plateau reveals that the dominant representation of these plants has helped to perpetuate colonial-era theories of vegetation history, African land management, and natural resource politics in West Africa. The French botanist Aubréville described these plants as proof of the theory of vegetation history that blamed poor land management by rural Africans for a steady and continuing destruction of vegetation from its presumed original forest climax. Although Aubréville's representation of these trees was justified within the 1930s scientific context he worked, subsequent researchers uncritically maintained his conclusions even though the changed scientific context in which they worked did not justify such representation. Subsequent ecological research also failed to substantiate Aubréville's representation of these trees, yet several influential modern botanical works have uncritically accepted colonial-era botanical literature founded on his ideas. Thus, modern botanical works have perpetuated a simplistic and inaccurate narrative of resource use under an appearance of objectivity. As a result, policy recommendations based on the modern botanical sources remain almost identical to colonial-era policies. Based on the similarity of colonial-era and modern portrayals of these trees, this paper argues that a regional discursive formation recently described by other authors may be expanded to include southern Mali, which carries negative implications for decentralization reform in Mali. [source] Citizenship and Female Catholic Militancy in 1920s SpainGENDER & HISTORY, Issue 3 2007Inmaculada Blasco Herranz The aim of this article is to offer a new interpretation of the role of women in the Catholic movement in 1920s Spain. It responds to historical analyses that view this mobilisation as the product of clerical manipulation and that consider its feminist aspects to be flawed. The new interpretation presented here is based on a notion of citizenship understood as both a process and as a form of identity construction, and which was configured historically as a result of the incorporation of modern ideas of women, the nation and religion. As a result, this analysis examines the relationship between Catholicism and modernity in greater complexity than the dichotomous views frequently encountered in Spanish historiography. [source] A paradigmatic and methodological examination of information systems research from 1991 to 2001INFORMATION SYSTEMS JOURNAL, Issue 3 2004WenShin Chen Abstract., The field of information systems (IS) has evolved for more than three decades. Although many schools of thought have emerged and even become well established, few historical analyses of research paradigms and methodologies have been undertaken. One of the rare exceptions is Orlikowski & Baroudi (1991). Yet, the IS research community has evolved substantially since 1991 in many aspects. A variety of journal outlets have emerged and become well established. More attention has been paid to paradigmatic and methodological issues. Political and professional contexts have also changed noticeably. Therefore, it should be an opportune time for the field to ask: ,What changes are manifested in journal publications?',Is the field making progress regarding pluralism in IS research?',How will the field's publications practices change in the future?' The purpose of this paper is to investigate these questions and, in turn, reflect on the paradigmatic and methodological progress made since 1991. We examined 1893 articles published in eight major IS publication outlets between 1991 and 2001. Our findings suggest that the long-term endeavours of interpretivist researchers might need to continue because the paradigmatic progress appears somewhat inconsequential; positivist research still dominates 81% of published empirical research. In particular, US journals, as opposed to European journals, tend to be more positivist, quantitative, cross-sectional and survey oriented. With respect to research design, survey research is still the most widely used method (41%), although case studies have gained substantial recognition (36%). Further, the increase of qualitative research (30%), empirical studies (61%) and longitudinal cases (33%) at the expense of laboratory experiments (18%) might suggest that IS researchers have become more interested in obtaining scientific knowledge in real world settings. In summary, we suggest that the field has been dominated by the positivist paradigm, despite calls to the contrary. Indeed, if the field was to truly embrace pluralism, it would have to find ways to fundamentally change the publication practices of the journal system, including the current tenure and promotion system, which pose considerable obstacles for the acceptance of alternative paradigms. [source] Against the notion of a ,new racism'JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 6 2005Colin Wayne Leach Abstract Despite the de jure equality achieved in the second half of the 20th century, racial discrimination and racist political movements persist. This has encouraged the orthodoxy that a ,new racism' serves as an ideological basis of contemporary white investment in racial inequality in Western Europe, North America and Australasia. It is argued that this ,new racism' is shown in more subtle and indirect formal expressions, such as a denial of societal discrimination, rather than the once popular expressions of ,old-fashioned' genetic inferiority and segregationism. In opposition to this conceptualization, I review quantitative and qualitative studies from social psychology, sociology and political science, as well as historical analyses, to show that the ,old-fashioned' formal expression of racism was not especially popular before de jure racial equality and is not especially unpopular now. I also show that there is nothing new about formal expressions that criticize cultural difference or deny societal discrimination. Thus, there is greater historical continuity in racism than the notion of a ,new racism' allows. This suggests that the first task of a critical social psychology of racism is a proper conceptualization of racism itself. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] A Critique of Occidental Geist: Embedded Historical Culturalism in the Works of Hegel, Weber and HuntingtonJOURNAL OF HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2006FETHI AÇIKEL Hegel's contribution to the philosophy of history is most clearly seen where he introduces a theory of historical development based on the secularisation of Christian cosmology. With Hegel, the Spirit (Geist), previously theologically understood, gradually becomes the embodiment of historical development. In the Hegelian vocabulary, the phenomenology of religion is formulated along with the theory of historical progress. In this article, I will argue that the question of historical development has been continuously elaborated in a culturalist fashion in works of Friedrich Hegel, Max Weber and Samuel Huntington as those scholars, through different intellectual traditions, essentialises the spiritual backgrounds of world religions and ties the phenomenology of religion with the philosophy of history in their historical analyses. This paper will argue that these scholars, by relying on the idealised images of religions and particularly of the Occidental Spirit, subtly elaborate the historical culturalist notion of development within Western thought. By arguing for an inherent link between religion and development, these scholars implicitly institutionalize a Eurocentric understanding of Western Christianity and the Occidental path of development within mainstream social theory. Be they philosophical (Hegel), sociological (Weber) or political (Huntington), the historical culturalism of these approaches shape our understanding of historical change, and ironically, instead of countering the excesses of crude materialism, they lead social theory into a form of Eurocentic historical culturalism. [source] Understanding the temporal dynamics of the wandering Renous River, New Brunswick, CanadaEARTH SURFACE PROCESSES AND LANDFORMS, Issue 10 2005Leif M. Burge Abstract Wandering rivers are composed of individual anabranches surrounding semi-permanent islands, linked by single channel reaches. Wandering rivers are important because they provide habitat complexity for aquatic organisms, including salmonids. An anabranch cycle model was developed from previous literature and field observations to illustrate how anabranches within the wandering pattern change from single to multiple channels and vice versa over a number of decades. The model was used to investigate the temporal dynamics of a wandering river through historical case studies and channel characteristics from field data. The wandering Renous River, New Brunswick, was mapped from aerial photographs (1945, 1965, 1983 and 1999) to determine river pattern statistics and for historical analysis of case studies. Five case studies consisting of a stable single channel, newly formed anabranches, anabranches gaining stability following creation, stable anabranches, and an abandoning anabranch were investigated in detail. Long profiles, hydraulic geometry, channel energy, grain size and sediment mobility variables were calculated for each channel. Within the Renous study area, the frequency of channel formation and abandonment were similar over the 54 years of analysis, indicating that the wandering pattern is being maintained. Eight anabranches were formed through avulsions, five were formed through the emergence of islands from channel bars and 11 anabranches were abandoned. The stable anabranch pair displayed similar hydraulic geometry and channel energy characteristics, while unstable anabranch pairs did not. The anabranch pair that gained stability displayed more similar channel energy characteristics than the anabranch pair that was losing stability (abandoning). It appears that anabranch pairs with similar energy characteristics are more stable than anabranches where these characteristics are out of balance. This is consistent with the hypothesis that anabranch pairs of similar length will be more stable than those with dissimilar lengths. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] DERRIDA'S RIGHT TO PHILOSOPHY, THEN AND NOWEDUCATIONAL THEORY, Issue 3 2009John Willinsky In this essay, a tribute to Jacques Derrida's educational efforts at expanding access to current work in philosophy, John Willinsky examines his efforts as both a public right and an element of academic freedom that bear on the open access movement today. Willinsky covers Derrida's extension and outreach work with the Groupe de Recherches pour l'Enseignement de la Philosophie in the 1970s and a decade later with Collège International de Philosophie that provided public access to ongoing and leading-edge philosophical work, as well as supporting the teaching of philosophy in the schools. Willinsky also relates Derrida's dedicated, practical educational work, his historical analysis of Descartes's decision to write in French, and more recent initiatives that are using Internet technologies to increase public and educational access to published scholarly work in the humanities in a very similar spirit. [source] Lessons from the past: the collapse of Jamaican coral reefsFISH AND FISHERIES, Issue 2 2009Marah J. Hardt Abstract Since Pre-Columbian times, humans have exploited Jamaican marine ecosystems with significant consequences for flora and fauna. This study focuses on the history of reef fish exploitation in Jamaica, from first human occupation to the present day, to determine how past fishing activities contributed to subsequent declines in the coral reef ecosystem. The pattern of declining reef fish populations was nonlinear. Reef fish first declined in prehistoric times but then potentially recovered, following genocide of the native human population. Reduced fishing pressure lasted until the mid-19th century. At that time, depletion of reef fish populations again occurred with a precipitous decline from the 1850s to the 1940s. The final shift from relatively abundant to overfished marine fauna corresponded to subtle changes in fish trap design as well as development of recreational fishing. Government subsidies throughout the second half of the 20th century exacerbated the declines. This analysis shows that local artisanal fisheries with relatively low levels of effort and seemingly subtle shifts in technology can significantly impact the coral reef ecosystem and that declines occurred decades to centuries before modern ecological studies began. This research shows how historical analysis can be a powerful tool to minimize shifted baselines and establish realistic targets for recovery and sustainable management of marine ecosystems. [source] The Burning of Sampati Kuer: Sati and the Politics of Imperialism, Nationalism and Revivalism in 1920s IndiaGENDER & HISTORY, Issue 2 2008Andrea Major Sati, the immolation of a Hindu widow on her husband's funeral pyre, is a rare, but highly controversial practice. It has inspired a surfeit of scholarly studies in the last twenty years, most of which concentrate on one of two main historical sati ,episodes': that of early-colonial Bengal, culminating with the British prohibition of 1829, and that of late twentieth-century Rajasthan, epitomised by the immolation of Roop Kanwar in 1987. Comparatively little detailed historical analysis exists on sati cases between these two events, however, a lacuna this paper seeks to address by exploring British and Indian discourses on sati as they existed in late-colonial India. The paper argues that sati remained a site of ideological and actual confrontation in the early twentieth century, with important implications for ongoing debates about Hindu religion, identity and nation. It focuses on the intersection between various colonial debates and contemporaneous Indian social and political concerns during the controversy surrounding the immolation of Sampati Kuer in Barh, Bihar, in 1927, emphasising resonances with postcolonial interpretations of sati and the dissonance of early nineteenth-century tropes when reproduced in the Patna High Court in 1928. Thus, while Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid have suggested that ,ad hoc' attempts to piece together a ,modern' narrative of widow immolation began in the 1950s, this paper will suggest that various contemporary discursive formations on sati can be observed in late-colonial India, when discussions of sati became entwined with Indian nationalism and Hindu identity politics and evoked the first organised female response to sati from an emergent women's movement that saw it as an ideological, as well as physical, violation of women. [source] Frontier Masculinity in the Oil Industry: The Experience of Women EngineersGENDER, WORK & ORGANISATION, Issue 1 2004Gloria E. Miller This study contributes to the empirical evidence in the area of gendered organizations (Martin and Collinson, 2002) and their effects on the women who work in them through an interpretive, ethnographic analysis of the oil industry in Canada, specifically Alberta. The study combines data from interviews with women professionals who have extensive employment experience in the industry, a historical analysis of the industry's development in the area and the personal contextual experience of the author. It is suggested that there are three primary processes which structure the masculinity of the industry: everyday interactions which exclude women; values and beliefs specific to the dominant occupation of engineering which reinforce gender divisions; and a consciousness derived from the powerful symbols of the frontier myth and the romanticized cowboy hero. In this dense cultural web of masculinities, the strategies that the women developed to survive, and, up to a point, to thrive, are double-edged in that they also reinforced the masculine system, resulting in short-term individual gains and an apparently long-term failure to change the masculine values of the industry. [source] From "New Institutionalism" to "Institutional Processualism": Advancing Knowledge about Public Management Policy ChangeGOVERNANCE, Issue 4 2006MICHAEL BARZELAY Research on public management reform has taken a decidedly disciplinary turn. Since the late 1990s, analytical issues are less often framed in terms of the New Public Management. As part of the disciplinary turn, much recent research on public management reform is highly influenced by the three new institutionalisms. However, these studies have implicitly been challenged by a competing research program on public management reform that is emphatically processual in its theoretical foundations. This article develops the challenge in a more explicit fashion. It provides a theoretical restatement of the competing "institutional processualist" research program and compares its substantive findings with those drawn from the neoinstitutionalisms. The implications of this debate about public management reform for comparative historical analysis and neoinstitutional theories are discussed. [source] Kabbalah: A Medieval Tradition and Its Contemporary AppealHISTORY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 2 2008Hava Tirosh-Samuelson Popular culture today is suffused with kabbalah, an elitist, intellectual strand of medieval Judaism that claimed to disclose the esoteric meaning of the rabbinic tradition. While rooted in esoteric speculations in late antiquity, kabbalah emerged in the tenth century as an internal debate among Jewish theologians about the ontological status of divine attributes. At the end of the twelfth century speculations about the nature of God emerged among the Pietists of Germany and the ,masters of kabbalah' in Provence. During the thirteenth century kabbalah flourished in Spain where its self-understanding as redemptive activity was expressed in two paradigms , the ,theosophy-theurgic' and the ,ecstatic-prophetic'. Kabbalah continued to evolve in the early modern period, shaping both Jewish and European cultures. The modern period saw the rise of the academic study of kabbalah, but it was employed in two conflicting manners: in the nineteenth century scholars associated with the Enlightenment used historical analysis of kabbalah to debunk Jewish traditionalism, but in the first half of the twentieth century, the academic study of kabbalah was used to generate a secular, collective Zionist identity. Although scholarship on kabbalah has flourished in the twentieth century, kabbalah has become a variant of New-Age religions, accessible to all, regardless of ethnic identity or spiritual readiness. [source] Global Order, US Hegemony and Military Integration: The Canadian-American Defense RelationshipINTERNATIONAL POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY, Issue 4 2008Bruno Charbonneau This article argues that the contemporary IR literature on global order and American hegemony has limitations. First, the critical discourse on hegemony fails to adequately examine the deeply embedded nature of regularized practices that are often a key component of the acceptance of certain state and social behaviours as natural. Second, much of the (neo)Gramscian literature has given primacy to the economic aspects of hegemonic order at the expense of examining global military/security relations. Lastly, much of the literature on global order and hegemony has failed to fully immerse itself within a detailed research program. This article presents an historical sociology of Canada-US defense relations so as to argue that the integrated nature of this relationship is key to understanding Canada's role in American hegemony, and how authoritative narratives and practices of "military integration" become instrumental and persuasive in establishing a "commonsensical" worldview. The effects of such integration are especially clear in times of perceived international crisis. Our historical analysis covers Canada's role during the Cuban missile crisis, Operation Apollo after 9/11, and the current war in Afghanistan. [source] Economic Nationalism as a Challenge to Economic Liberalism?INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2002Lessons from the 19th Century What kind of challenge does economic nationalism pose to economic liberalism in today's global political economy? Conventional wisdom holds that economic nationalism is an outdated ideology in this age of globalization and economic liberalization. But this argument rests on understandings of economic nationalism that are increasingly being called into question by recent scholarship. In this article, I show how the history of economic nationalism in the 19th century provides strong support for two important but potentially controversial arguments made in recent literature about the nature of economic nationalism: (1) that this ideology is most properly defined by its nationalist content (rather than as a variant of realism or as an ideology of protectionism), and (2) that it can be associated with a wide range of policy projects, including the endorsement of liberal economic policies. With these two points established through historical analysis, I conclude that economic nationalism should be seen still to be a powerful ideology in the current period, but that its relationship to the policy goals of economic liberals is an ambiguous one, just as it was in the 19th century. [source] Elephants caught in the middle: impacts of war, fences and people on elephant distribution and abundance in the Caprivi Strip, NamibiaAFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY, Issue 2 2009Michael J. Chase Abstract We conducted wet [26 March,4 April 2003 (Apr03)] and dry [1,8 November 2005 (Nov05)] season aerial surveys of African elephants (Loxodonta africana Blumenbach) in the Caprivi Strip, Namibia to provide an updated status report on elephant numbers and distribution and assist with a historical analysis of elephant distribution and abundance in the Caprivi Strip. During the wet season when water was available in seasonal pans, elephants were widely distributed throughout the survey area. In contrast, during the dry season, a majority of elephant herds occurred within 30 km of the perennial Kwando, Linyanti and Okavango rivers and few herds occurred within the West Caprivi Game Reserve where water in the seasonal pans was limited. We estimated 5318 elephants for the 7731-km2 survey area (0.71 elephants km,2) for the Apr03 wet season survey and 6474 elephants for the 8597-km2 survey area (0.75 elephants km,2) for the Nov05 dry season survey. Based on our aerial surveys and reports of elephant numbers and distribution from historical aerial surveys and telemetry studies, civil war, veterinary fences and human activities appear to have effected changes in African elephant abundance, distribution and movements in the Caprivi Strip, Namibia since 1988 when the first comprehensive aerial surveys were conducted. Résumé En saison des pluies (avril 2003) et en saison sèche (novembre 2005), nous avons réalisé des contrôles aériens des éléphants africains (Loxodonta africana Blumenbach) dans la Bande de Caprivi, en Namibie, pour pouvoir fournir un rapport actualisé sur le statut du nombre et de la distribution des éléphants, et aider une analyse de longue durée de la distribution et de l'abondance des éléphants dans la Bande de Caprivi. Pendant la saison des pluies, lorsque l'eau était disponible dans les « pans » saisonniers, les éléphants étaient largement distribués dans toute la zone étudiée. Par contre, en saison sèche, la grande majorité des troupeaux d'éléphants se trouvaient dans les 30 km des rivières permanentes Kwando, Linyanti et Okavango, et peu de troupeaux se trouvaient dans la West Caprivi Game Reserve, où l'eau était limitée dans les pans saisonniers. Nous avons estimé le nombre d'éléphants à 5 318 dans les 7 731 km² de la zone étudiée (0,71 éléphant km,²) pour l'étude faite en saison des pluies d'avril 2003, et à 6 474 éléphants dans les 8 597 km²étudiés (0,75 éléphant km,²) pendant la saison sèche de novembre 2005. En se basant sur nos contrôles aériens et sur des rapports concernant le nombre et la distribution des éléphants provenant de contrôles aériens et d'études télémétriques anciens, il s'avère que la guerre civile, les barrières vétérinaires et les activités humaines ont provoqué des changements de l'abondance, de la distribution et des déplacements des éléphants dans la Bande de Caprivi depuis 1988, date où les premiers contrôles aériens complets ont été effectués. [source] Problematizing special observation in psychiatry: Foucault, archaeology, genealogy, discourse and power/knowledgeJOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRIC & MENTAL HEALTH NURSING, Issue 6 2006C. STEVENSON rmn ba(hons) msc phd Special observation by mental health professionals is the recommended approach for those people deemed as at risk or risky. Recent research and academic writing have challenged the benefits of observing people/patients who are defined as ,at risk', and a more human engagement process is being recommended. Despite this assault, practice has not changed substantively, suggesting a need for a thorough exploration and questioning of the practices and process. The paper outlines three Foucaultian approaches to historical analysis. It applies aspects of Foucault's archaeology/genealogy, discourse and power/knowledge to explore the practices of special observation as a means of controlling risk, especially suicide risk. We identify the regulatory function of the ,gaze', professional codes and government policy in relation to restricting professional practices. We argue that observation can be related to moral therapy, wherein the person relinquishes madness for responsibility through a disciplinary process and, in governing risk, a ,professional industry' is created. The regulation of statements about people with mental health issues are exposed and related to what can be said and done by professionals. Finally, we look at productive power in relation to observation, and how it is intimately related to resistance. We conclude with ,soft' recommendations for practice discursively produced through the writing of the paper. [source] A short history of muddy floodsLAND DEGRADATION AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 4 2010J. Boardman Abstract The term ,muddy flood' has been used widely in the lowland, arable areas of western and central Europe to describe muddy runoff from arable fields that causes damage to property. There is some evidence that muddy floods are much more frequent in the last two decades than previously. It is clear though that there is very substantial under-reporting of the phenomena even in areas where they have been recognised for 20 years e.g. UK and France. Reconstructions based on questionnaires, news media and local authority records have had some success in historical analysis of muddy flood frequency but there is still a huge data deficiency. Records from some countries are woefully lacking e.g. Germany, Spain and Italy. Costs of muddy flooding are substantial especially in the loess belt of Belgium. The number of properties flooded in France suggests also that costs are high; similarly in England (UK) where costs for case studies are known but not for the country as a whole. There are two quite different solutions to the problem of muddy flooding. Protection can be provided by engineering devices: retention ponds, dams, trenches. This is an ,end of pipe' solution with severe cost implications and risks with regard to the design return period. Alternatively, land use change on relatively small areas of catchments, can be shown to be effective at reducing flood-risk hazard. A combination of the two has proved most effective at several sites in Europe. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Development policies and tropical deforestation in the southern Yucatán peninsula: centralized and decentralized approachesLAND DEGRADATION AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 6 2003P. Klepeis Abstract It is well established that for multiple biophysical contexts there are legacies of past government policies in present land conditions. Despite this recognition, however, investigation of ongoing tropical deforestation dynamics often de-emphasizes the past. The case of the southern Yucatán peninsula demonstrates the need for historical analysis in identifying key drivers of deforestation. The most important land-use changes in the region over the past 100 years are connected to shifts in national development policies. These shifts represent tensions between centralized and decentralized approaches to land management,as represented by the policies of Presidents Díaz (1876,1910) and Cárdenas (1934,40),that persisted throughout the 20th century. The legacies of these reoccurring development strategies include depleted hardwood reserves, large areas of permanently cleared forest, a complicated system of land allocation, and long-standing tensions between economic, social welfare, and environmental conservation goals. These findings suggest that while centralized and decentralized approaches to development both focus on natural resource exploitation, the rates of deforestation tend to be faster, the patterns of forest clearing more pronounced, and land-use decision making less democratic under systems of centralized control. These conclusions hold implications for land-use decision making today. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Population fragmentation leads to spatial and temporal genetic structure in the endangered Spanish imperial eagleMOLECULAR ECOLOGY, Issue 3 2007B. MARTÍNEZ-CRUZ Abstract The fragmentation of a population may have important consequences for population genetic diversity and structure due to the effects of genetic drift and reduced gene flow. We studied the genetic consequences of the fragmentation of the Spanish imperial eagle (Aquila adalberti) population into small patches through a temporal analysis. Thirty-four museum individuals representing the population predating the fragmentation were analysed for a 345-bp segment of the mitochondrial control region and a set of 10 nuclear microsatellite loci. Data from a previous study on the current population (N = 79) were re-analysed for this subset of 10 microsatellite markers and results compared to those obtained from the historical sample. Three shared mitochondrial haplotypes were found in both populations, although fluctuations in haplotype frequencies and the occurrence of a fourth haplotype in the historical population resulted in lower current levels of haplotype and nucleotide diversity. However, microsatellite markers revealed undiminished levels of nuclear diversity. No evidence for genetic structure was observed for the historical Spanish imperial eagle population, suggesting that the current pattern of structure is the direct consequence of population fragmentation. Temporal fluctuations in mitochondrial and microsatellite allelic frequencies were found between the historical and the current population as well as for each pairwise comparison between historical and current Centro and historical and current Parque Nacional de Doñana nuclei. Our results indicate an ancestral panmictic situation for the species that management policies should aim to restore. A historical analysis like the one taken here provides the baseline upon which the relative role of recent drift in shaping current genetic patterns in endangered species can be evaluated and this knowledge is used to guide conservation actions. [source] A historical analysis of the relationship between encephalitis lethargica and postencephalitic parkinsonism: A complex rather than a direct relationship,MOVEMENT DISORDERS, Issue 9 2010Joel A. Vilensky PhD Abstract Postencephalitic parkinsonism has been considered unique among disorders with parkinsonian features because it is believed to have a unitary etiology associated with the virus that presumably caused encephalitis lethargica. Careful analysis of the historical record, however, suggests that this relationship is more complex than commonly perceived. In most cases, the diagnosis of acute encephalitis lethargica was made post hoc, and virtually any catarrh-like illness was considered to have represented encephalitis lethargica, often after an oral history-taking that was undoubtedly subject to patient recall and physician bias. Also, postencephalitic parkinsonism and oculogyric crises were not recognized as sequelae to encephalitis lethargica until well after other sequelae such as movement disorders and mental disturbances had been identified (see previous paper). We suggest here that the relationship between encephalitis lethargica and postencephalitic parkinsonism is not simplistic, i.e., encephalitis lethargica was not solely responsible for the etiology of postencephalitic parkinsonism, thus aligning the latter with most other parkinsonian disorders that are now believed to have multiple causes. © 2010 Movement Disorder Society [source] Ethno-religious ,unmixing' of ,Turkey': 6,7 September riots as a case in Turkish nationalism,NATIONS AND NATIONALISM, Issue 3 2005Ali Tuna Kuyucu This article examines the structural and ideological factors that paved the way for the eruption of violence against non-Muslims in Turkey on 6 September 1955. I argue that the conventional explanations that treat this instance of collective violence either as spontaneous rioting caused by over-excited masses or as a government conspiracy that eventually got out of control are insufficient in that they fail to answer how and why so many people participated in these riots when we know that nothing on this scale ever took place in the history of the republic. In order to adequately understand the dynamics behind these riots one first needs to situate them in the broader historical context of the emergence, development and crystallisation of Turkish nationalism and national identity that marked the non-Muslim citizens of the republic as the ,others' and potential enemies of the real Turkish nation. This historical analysis constitutes the first part of the article. Since ethno-national riots do not always occur whenever there are conflicting identities, one also needs to explain the processes through which ethno-national identities become radicalized and polarized. Thus, in the second part of the article, I focus on the economic, political and social conditions of the post-single-party era (post-1950) that helped to radicalise the sentiments of the growing urban populace against the non-Muslim ,others'. I argue that it was the socio-economic, ideological and political transformations of the Democrat Party era that made it possible for ethnic entrepreneurs and state provocateurs to mobilise the masses against a fictitious enemy. [source] The Inuulitsivik Maternities: culturally appropriate midwifery and epistemological accommodationNURSING INQUIRY, Issue 2 2010Vasiliki K Douglas DOUGLAS VK. Nursing Inquiry 2010; 17: 111,117 The Inuulitsivik Maternities: culturally appropriate midwifery and epistemological accommodation This is a literature-based historical analysis that uses Michel Foucault's technique of tracing epistemological change over time to understand the epistemological changes and their outcomes that have occurred in Nunavik, the Inuit region of Northern Quebec, with the introduction of modern techniques and technology of childbirth in the period after the Second World War. Beginning in 1986, in the village of Puvurnituq, a series of community birthing centres known as the Inuulitsivik Maternities have been created. They incorporate biomedical techniques and technology, but are incorporated into the Inuit epistemology of health, in which the community is the final arbitrator of medical authority. This epistemological accommodation between modern biomedicine and the distinctly premodern Inuit epistemology of health has led to the creation of a new and profoundly non-modern approach to childbirth in Nunavik. [source] Keeping the lid on infection: infection control practices of a regional Queensland hospital 1930,50NURSING INQUIRY, Issue 2 2000Wendy Madsen Keeping the lid on infection: infection control practices of a regional Queensland hospital 1930,50 Nurses have played an important role in infection control practices throughout the past century. However, the desire for minimisation of cross infection has not always been the basis for many of the activities undertaken by nurses within the general ward. This paper is a historical analysis of those practices that formed the basis of infection control within the medical and surgical wards of the Rockhampton Hospital between 1930 and 1950. In particular, those activities dealing with the disposal of body fluids, ward cleaning, aseptic techniques and associated sterilisation of instruments and articles, the nurses' personal cleanliness and isolation nursing have been addressed. This study has identified economic factors, professional image and local traditions as being influential in the origins and persistence of many activities which may be loosely grouped as infection control measures. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||