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Kinds of Argues Selected AbstractsWhat Do Historians Argue About?HISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 1 2004C. Behan Mccullagh abstract Those who think that general historical interpretations do no more than express a personal point of view deny that arguments over their credibility can have any point. They commonly believe that historians decide upon particular facts about the past in the context of a general interpretation of those facts. Consequently they deny that there is any independent basis for judging the credibility of general interpretations of the past, and conclude that each coherent account is as good as every other. Similarly, those who think causal explanations are arbitrary can make no sense of arguments about their adequacy. They assume that historians simply pick out causes that interest them, and that there is no objective basis for judging the adequacy of the explanations they provide. This essay defends the credibility of interpretations against the skeptics, and the adequacy of causal explanations too. It shows that historians do discover a mass of particular facts independently of the general interpretations they finally provide, facts that provide a basis for assessing the credibility and fairness of those interpretations. It will also show that there is an objective basis for judging the adequacy of causal explanations, as some causes of an event are far more influential in bringing it about than others. A much more difficult problem concerns the need for historical interpretations to provide not just a credible account of the past, but also one that is fair, balanced, not misleading. Historians frequently argue about the fairness of general interpretations. Does this mean that fairness is always required? Quite often historians produce partial interpretations, in both senses, with no apology. It would be wrong to call such interpretations "biased" because they do not pretend to be comprehensive. So long as they are credible, they are acceptable. On the other hand, many interpretations are intended to present a fair, comprehensive account of their subject. When judging the adequacy of interpretations, it is necessary to know whether they are meant to be fair or not. [source] Growth hormone in short children: medically appropriate treatmentACTA PAEDIATRICA, Issue 1 2001R Macklin Bolt and Mul argue persuasively against the "disease" approach and the "client" approach in addressing the question of whether growth hormone for short children properly belongs in the medical realm. Their own preferred approach, the "suffering" approach, is superior to the others but has practical problems that would arise in its application. An additional ethical issue, not addressed by Bolt and Mul, relates to justice in providing access for children from families of limited financial means to growth hormone treatment. [source] Growth hormone in short children: beyond medicine?ACTA PAEDIATRICA, Issue 1 2001LLE Bolt The indications for growth hormone (GH) treatment in non-GH-deficient short children are in debate, with some arguing that this treatment does not belong solely in the medical domain. We describe three different approaches to the issue, and argue that neither a disease-oriented nor client-oriented approach is sufficient. Both lead to withdrawal of medical interventions or to an undesirable application. Conclusion: An approach focusing on suffering as an indication for treatment of short stature is the most appropriate. The challenge is to develop proper tools by which to evaluate suffering and the efficacy of GH treatment in these children in order to relieve or prevent suffering. [source] Mechanisms of exercise-induced improvements in the contractile apparatus of the mammalian myocardiumACTA PHYSIOLOGICA, Issue 4 2010O. J. Kemi Abstract One of the main outcomes of aerobic endurance exercise training is the improved maximal oxygen uptake, and this is pivotal to the improved work capacity that follows the exercise training. Improved maximal oxygen uptake in turn is at least partly achieved because exercise training increases the ability of the myocardium to produce a greater cardiac output. In healthy subjects, this has been demonstrated repeatedly over many decades. It has recently emerged that this scenario may also be true under conditions of an initial myocardial dysfunction. For instance, myocardial improvements may still be observed after exercise training in post-myocardial infarction heart failure. In both health and disease, it is the changes that occur in the individual cardiomyocytes with respect to their ability to contract that by and large drive the exercise training-induced adaptation to the heart. Here, we review the evidence and the mechanisms by which exercise training induces beneficial changes in the mammalian myocardium, as obtained by means of experimental and clinical studies, and argue that these changes ultimately alter the function of the whole heart and contribute to the changes in whole-body function. [source] Quantifying Plant Population Persistence in Human-Dominated LandscapesCONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 4 2008DAWN M. LAWSON Base de Datos de la Diversidad Natural de California; conservación de plantas; crecimiento de la población; especies en peligro; paisajes urbanos Abstract:,We assessed population performance of rare plants across a gradient from rural to urban landscapes and evaluated 2 hypotheses central to strategic conservation planning: (1) population performance declines with increasing human dominance and (2) small populations perform poorly relative to larger ones. Assessing these hypotheses is critical to strategic conservation planning. The current conservation paradigm adheres to the well-established ecology theory that small isolated populations, particularly those in human-dominated landscapes, are the least likely to succeed over the long term. Consequently, conservation planning has strongly favored large, remote targets for protection. This shift in conservation toward ecosystem-based programs and protection of populations within large, remote systems has been at the expense of protection of the rarest of the rare species, the dominant paradigm for conservation driven by the endangered species act. Yet, avoiding conservation of small populations appears to be based more on theoretical understanding and expert opinion than empiricism. We used Natural Heritage data from California in an assessment of population performance of rare plants across a landscape with an urban-rural gradient. Population performance did not decrease in urban settings or for populations that were initially small. Our results are consistent with a pattern of few species extinctions within these landscapes over the past several decades. We conclude that these populations within compromised landscapes can contribute to overall biodiversity conservation. We further argue that conservation planning for biodiversity preservation should allocate relatively more resources to protecting urban-associated plant taxa because they may provide conservation benefit beyond simply protecting isolated populations; they may be useful in building social interest in conservation. Resumen:,Evaluamos el funcionamiento de la población de plantas raras a lo largo de un gradiente de paisajes rurales a urbanos y evaluamos 2 hipótesis centrales para la planificación estratégica de la conservación: (1) declinaciones en el funcionamiento poblacional con el incremento de la dominancia humana y (2) las poblaciones pequeñas funcionan pobremente en relación con las grandes. La evaluación de estas hipótesis es crítica para la planificación estratégica de la conservación. El paradigma actual de la conservación se adhiere a la teoría ecológica bien establecida que propone que las poblaciones pequeñas aisladas, particularmente en paisajes dominados por humanos, tienen menor probabilidad de sobrevivir a largo plazo. Consecuentemente, la planificación de la conservación ha favorecido objetivos grandes y remotos. Este cambio hacia programas de conservación basados en ecosistemas y la protección de poblaciones en sistemas extensos y remotos ha sido a costa de la protección de las especies más raras entre las raras, el paradigma dominante en la conservación conducida por el acta de especies en peligro. No obstante, la evasión de la conservación de poblaciones pequeñas parece estar basada más en entendimiento teórico y en la opinión de expertos que en el empirismo. Utilizamos datos del Patrimonio Natural de California en una evaluación del funcionamiento de plantas raras en un paisaje con un gradiente urbano a rural. El funcionamiento de la población no decreció en sitios urbanos o en poblaciones que eran pequeñas inicialmente. Nuestros resultados son consistentes con un patrón de extinción de especies en estos paisajes en las últimas décadas. Concluimos que estas poblaciones en paisajes comprometidos pueden contribuir a la conservación de la biodiversidad en general. También argumentamos que la planificación de la conservación para la preservación de la biodiversidad debería asignar más recursos para la protección de taxa de plantas asociadas a ambientes urbanos porque pueden proporcionar beneficios de conservación más allá de simplemente proteger poblaciones aisladas; pueden ser útiles para construir el interés social por la conservación. [source] On the Compatibility of a Conservation Ethic with Biological ScienceCONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 2 2007MARK SAGOFF Darwinismo; estética; ética de conservación; teología Abstract:,If value entails or implies purpose, it follows that natural objects (e.g., endangered species) lack value and thus cannot be worth protecting except for a purpose they may serve,either the end for which God created the world (according to natural theology) or some use to which human beings may put them (according to a consequentialist or utilitarian ethic). If value requires purpose, the refutation of natural theology after Darwin implies that humanity has no obligation to respect or preserve the natural world except insofar as it is economically efficient to do so. Drawing on the distinction between explanation and communication found in Calvinist theology, I argue that value does not entail purpose. The expressive, aesthetic, or communicative aspects of nature may be valuable or endow natural objects with value apart from any use or purpose these objects may serve. The crucial distinction between explanation and communication,one scientific, the other aesthetic,offers a rationale for an obligation to protect the natural world that may appeal to members of faith communities and to biologists and other scientists. This approach also helps resolve the "lurking inconsistency" some scholars see in the relationship between a deterministic biological science and a conservationist ethic. Resumen:,Si el valor conlleva o implica propósito, se entiende que los objetos naturales (e.g., especies en peligro) carecen de valor y por lo tanto no merecen ser protegidos excepto porque pueden servir para el fin por el que Dios creó al mundo (de acuerdo con la teología natural) o para algún uso asignado por humanos (de acuerdo con la ética consecuentalista o utilitaria). Si el valor requiere propósito, la refutación de la teología natural después de Darwin implica que la humanidad no tiene obligación para respetar o preservar el mundo natural excepto si es económicamente eficiente hacerlo. Con base en la distinción entre explicación y comunicación encontrada en la teología Calvinista, argumento que el valor no implica propósito. Los aspectos expresivos, estéticos o comunicativos de la naturaleza pueden ser valiosos o proveer valor a los objetos naturales independientemente de cualquier uso o propósito que puedan tener estos objetos. La distinción crucial entre explicación y comunicación,una científica y la otra estética,ofrece un fundamento para la obligación de proteger el mundo natural que pueda interesar a miembros de comunidades religiosas, a biólogos y otros científicos. Este método también ayuda a resolver la "inconsistencia al acecho" en la relación entre una ciencia biológica determinista y una ética conservacionista que algunos académicos ven. [source] Effects of Economic Prosperity on Numbers of Threatened SpeciesCONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 4 2001Robin Naidoo We corrected for factors that might otherwise confound such a relationship. Our study was motivated by the continuing debate over the relationship between environmental degradation and per-capita income. Proponents of the environmental Kuznets-curve hypothesis argue that although environmental degradation may increase initially, increases in per-capita income will eventually result in greater environmental quality. Theoretical objections and the lack of widespread empirical evidence recently have thrown doubt on the existence of such a pattern. Treating threat to biodiversity as one potential indicator of environmental degradation, we divided threatened species into seven taxonomic groups ( plants, mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, fishes, and invertebrates) and analyzed each group separately. Count-data regression analysis indicated that the number of threatened species was related to per-capita gross national product in five of seven taxonomic groups. Birds were the only taxonomic group in which numbers of threatened species decreased throughout the range of developed countries' per-capita gross national product. Plants, amphibians, reptiles, and invertebrates showed increasing numbers of threatened species throughout this same range. If these relationships hold, increasing numbers of species from several taxonomic groups are likely to be threatened with extinction as countries increase in prosperity. A key challenge is to understand the interactions among consumer preferences, biology, and institutions that lead to the relationship observed for birds and to see whether this knowledge can be applied to conservation of other taxa. Resumen: Utilizamos datos de más de 100 países para investigar la relación entre números de especies amenazadas y el producto interno bruto per cápita. Hicimos ajustes para factores que pudieran confundir tal relación. Nuestro estudio fue motivado por el continuo debate sobre la relación entre la degradación ambiental y el ingreso per cápita. Proponentes de la hipótesis de la curva ambiental de Kuznets argumentan que, aunque la degradación ambiental puede aumentar inicialmente, el incremento en el ingreso per cápita eventualmente resultará en una mejor calidad ambiental. Recientemente, objeciones teóricas y la carencia de evidencia empírica generalizada hacen dudar de la existencia de ese patrón. Tratando la amenaza a la biodiversidad como un potencial indicador de la degradación ambiental, dividimos a las especies amenazadas en siete grupos taxonómicos (plantas, mamíferos, aves, anfibios, reptiles, peces e invertebrados) y analizamos cada uno por separado. El análisis de regresión de los datos de conteo indicó que el número de especies amenazadas se relacionó con el producto interno bruto per cápita en 5 de los 7 grupos taxonómicos. Las aves fueron el único grupo en el que el número de especies amenazadas decreció a lo largo del rango del producto interno bruto per cápita de los países desarrollados. Las plantas, anfibios, reptiles e invertebrados mostraron un incremento en el número de especies amenazadas en este mismo rango. Si estas relaciones persisten, es posible que aumente el número de especies, de varios grupos taxonómicos, amenazadas de extinción a medida que los países incrementen su prosperidad. Constituye un reto clave entender las interacciones entre la preferencia de los consumidores y los factores biológicos e institucionales que conducen a la relación observada en las aves, y ver si este conocimiento puede aplicarse en la conservación de otros taxones. [source] An Experimental Investigation of Approaches to Audit Decision Making: An Evaluation Using Systems-Mediated Mental Models,CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 2 2005AMY K. CHOY Abstract The objective of this research is to articulate a decision-making foundation for the systems audit approach. Under this audit approach, the auditor first gains an understanding of the auditee's economic environment, strategy, and business processes and then forms expectations about its performance and financial reporting. Proponents of this audit approach argue that decision making is enhanced because the knowledge of the system allows the auditor to focus on the most important risks. However, there has not been an explicit framework to explain how systems knowledge can enhance decision making. To provide such a framework, we combine mental model theory with general systems theory to produce a hypothesis we refer to as a systems-mediated mental model hypothesis. We test this hypothesis using experimental economics methods. We find that (1) subjects make systematic errors under the setting without an organizing framework provided by the systems information, and (2) the presence of an organizing framework results in lower reporting errors. Importantly, the organizing framework significantly enhances decision making in the settings where the environment changed. Establishing a decision-making foundation for systems audits can provide an important building block that, in part, can contribute to the development of a more effective and efficient audit technology - an important objective now when audits are facing a credibility crisis. [source] SOMATOTYPING, ANTIMODERNISM, AND THE PRODUCTION OF CRIMINOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 4 2007NICOLE RAFTER This study analyzes the work of William H. Sheldon, the psychologist, physician, and advocate of the study of body types. It investigates how he arrived at his much-repeated finding that a correlation exists between mesomorphy (a stocky, muscular body build) and delinquency and how his ideas were validated and perpetuated. It reviews what Sheldon actually said about the causes of crime; identifies his goals in searching for a relationship between body shape and criminality; explains how he found audiences for his biological theory at a time when sociological approaches dominated criminology; and attempts to understand the current criminological ambivalence about the scientific status of Sheldon's work, despite its discreditation decades ago. I argue that the tripartite structure of Sheldon's thought attracted three different audiences,methodologists, social scientists, and supporters,and that it encouraged the supporters to fund his research without reference to the critiques of the social scientists. I also argue that somatotyping was part of a broader antimodernist reaction within international scientific communities against the dislocations of twentieth-century life. To understand the origins, acceptance, and maintenance of criminological ideas, we need a historical perspective on figures of the past. Positivism may inform us about what is true and false, but we also need to know how truth and falsity have been constructed over time and how the ideas of earlier criminologists were shaped by their personal and social contexts. [source] THE EFFECT OF COUNTY-LEVEL PRISON POPULATION GROWTH ON CRIME RATES,CRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 2 2006TOMISLAV V. KOVANDZIC Research Summary: Prior macro-level studies examining the impact of prison population growth on crime rates have produced widely varying results. Studies using national-level time series data find large impacts of prison growth on crime, whereas those using state panel data find more modest ones. Critics of the former studies maintain that the estimates are implausibly large, arguing that the effects are instead due to analysts' inability to control for potential confounding factors. Conversely, critics of the latter studies argue that they underestimate the total impacts of imprisonment by failing to account for potential free-riding effects. This study uses panel data for 58 Florida counties for 1980 to 2000 to reexamine the link between prison population growth and crime. Unlike previous studies, we find no evidence that increases in prison population growth covary with decreases in crime rates. Policy Implications: Our findings suggest that Florida policymakers carefully weigh the costs and benefits of their continued reliance on mass incarceration against the potential costs and benefits of alternatives. If the costs of mass incarceration do not return appreciable benefits, i.e., a reduction in crime, it is time to reconsider our approach to crime and punishment. Other research offers evidence of crime prevention programs operating inside the criminal justice system and in communities that hold promise for reducing crime; our findings indicate that policymakers carefully consider these options as a way to achieve their goals. [source] UNDER THE BARRED UMBRELLA: IS THERE ROOM FOR A WOMEN-CENTERED SELF-INJURY POLICY IN CANADIAN CORRECTIONS?CRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2006JENNIFER M. KILTY Research Summary: This article examines a chain of policy directives concerning self-injury inside federal correctional facilities in Canada. Specific attention is paid to the impact of these policies on federally sentenced women. I argue that the Correctional Service of Canada's focus on risk assessment fails to address the needs of the women they confine. Instead, women's needs are reconceptualized as institutional risk factors. Policy Implications: Women who self-injure are still routinely disciplined for their behaviour in Federal Canadian prisons through admittance to administrative segregation. This policy challenges two sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (s. 7 and s. 15) and must be changed. In this article, I will recommend a new women-centered approach to replace current practice. [source] THE CROSS POLITICS OF ECUADOR'S PENAL STATECULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 3 2010CHRIS GARCES ABSTRACT This essay examines inmate "crucifixion protests" in Ecuador's largest prison during 2003,04. It shows how the preventively incarcerated,of whom there are thousands,managed to effectively denounce their extralegal confinement by embodying the violence of the Christian crucifixion story. This form of protest, I argue, simultaneously clarified and obscured the multiple layers of sovereign power that pressed down on urban crime suspects, who found themselves persecuted and forsaken both outside and within the space of the prison. Police enacting zero-tolerance policies in urban neighborhoods are thus a key part of the penal state, as are the politically threatened family members of the indicted, the sensationalized local media, distrustful neighbors, prison guards, and incarcerated mafia. The essay shows how the politico-theological performance of self-crucifixion responded to these internested forms of sovereign violence, and were briefly effective. The inmates' cross intervention hence provides a window into the way sovereignty works in the Ecuadorean penal state, drawing out how incarceration trends and new urban security measures interlink, and produce an array of victims. [source] COSMOPOLITANISM, REMEDIATION, AND THE GHOST WORLD OF BOLLYWOODCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2010DAVID NOVAK ABSTRACT This essay considers the process of remediation in two North American reproductions of the song-and-dance sequence Jaan Pehechaan Ho from the 1965 "Bollywood" film Gumnaam. The song was used in the opening sequence of the 2001 U.S. independent film Ghost World as a familiar-but-strange object of ironic bewilderment and fantasy for its alienated teenage protagonist Enid. But a decade before Ghost World's release, Jaan Pehechaan Ho had already become the lynchpin of a complex debate about cultural appropriation and multicultural identity for an "alternative" audience in the United States. I illustrate this through an ethnographic analysis of a 1994 videotape of the Heavenly Ten Stems, an experimental rock band in San Francisco, whose performance of the song was disrupted by a group of activists who perceived their reproduction as a mockery. How is Bollywood film song, often itself a kitschy send-up of American popular culture, remediated differently for different projects of reception? How do these cycles of appropriation create overlapping conditions for new identities,whether national, diasporic, or "alternative",within the context of transcultural media consumption? In drawing out the "ghost world" of Bollywood's juxtapositions, I argue that the process of remediation produces more than just new forms and meanings of media, but is constitutive of the cosmopolitan subjects formed in its global circulations. [source] DISLOCATING SOUNDS: The Deterritorialization of Indonesian Indie PopCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2009BRENT LUVAAS ABSTRACT Anthropologists often read the localization or hybridization of cultural forms as a kind of default mode of resistance against the forces of global capitalism, a means through which marginalized ethnic groups maintain regional distinctiveness in the face of an emergent transnational order. But then what are we to make of musical acts like Mocca and The Upstairs, Indonesian "indie" groups who consciously delocalize their music, who go out of their way, in fact, to avoid any references to who they are or where they come from? In this essay, I argue that Indonesian "indie pop," a self-consciously antimainstream genre drawing from a diverse range of international influences, constitutes a set of strategic practices of aesthetic deterritorialization for middle-class Indonesian youth. Such bands, I demonstrate, assemble sounds from a variety of international genres, creating linkages with international youth cultures in other places and times, while distancing themselves from those expressions associated with colonial and nationalist conceptions of ethnicity, working-class and rural sensibilities, and the hegemonic categorical schema of the international music industry. They are part of a new wave of Indonesian musicians stepping onto the global stage "on their own terms" and insisting on being taken seriously as international, not just Indonesian, artists, and in the process, they have made indie music into a powerful tool of reflexive place making, a means of redefining the very meaning of locality vis-à-vis the international youth cultural movements they witness from afar. [source] CONSUMING CLASS: Multilevel Marketers in Neoliberal MexicoCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 3 2008PETER S. CAHN ABSTRACT Since the 1980s, Mexican leaders have followed other Latin American countries in pursuing neoliberal economic policies designed to stimulate foreign investment, reduce public spending, and promote free trade. Recent studies of indigenous movements and popular protests challenge the idea that these market-based economic reforms enjoy a broad consensus and suggest that elites impose them by force. By turning the focus to middle-class Mexicans, I argue that some nonelite sectors of society avidly welcome the reign of the free market. Although they do not profit directly from unregulated capitalism, the middle class looks to neoliberalism to ensure access to the material markers of class status. The rising popularity of multilevel marketing companies in Mexico, which glorify consumption and celebrate the possibilities of entrepreneurship, demonstrates the appeal of neoliberalism to citizens fearful of diminished purchasing power. By tying consumption to globalized free markets, neoliberalism does not need coercion to win acceptance. [source] GOOD GIFTS FOR THE COMMON GOOD: Blood and Bioethics in the Market of Genetic ResearchCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 3 2007DEEPA S. REDDY This article is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with the Indian community in Houston, as part of a NIH,NHGRI-sponsored ethics study and sample collection initiative entitled "Indian and Hindu Perspectives on Genetic Variation Research." At the heart of this research is one central exchange,blood samples donated for genetic research,that draws both the Indian community and a community of researchers into an encounter with bioethics. I consider the meanings that come to be associated with blood donation as it passes through various hands, agendas, and associated ethical filters on its way to the lab bench: how and why blood is solicited, how the giving and taking of blood is rationalized, how blood as material substance is alienated, processed, documented, and made available for the promised ends of basic science research. Examining corporeal substances and asking what sorts of gifts and problems these represent, I argue, sheds some light on two imbricated tensions expressed by a community of Indians, on the one hand, and of geneticists and basic science researchers, on the other hand: that gifts ought to be free (but are not), and that science ought to be pure (but is not). In this article, I explore how experiences of bioethics are variously shaped by the histories and habits of Indic giving, prior sample collection controversies, commitments to "good science" and the common "good of humanity," and negotiations of the sites where research findings circulate. [source] REMEDIATION AND LOCAL GLOBALIZATIONS: How Taiwan's "Digital Video Knights-Errant Puppetry" Writes the History of the New Media in ChineseCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2007TERI SILVIO This article analyzes the Pili International Multimedia Company's "digital video knights-errant puppetry" serials, a popular culture genre unique to Taiwan, to answer two questions. First, how do digital technologies, originally developed to meet the needs of the American military and entertainment industries, become embedded in a different cultural context? Second, how does this embedding allow media technologies to become something through which distinctly local models of globalization itself may be imagined? Analyzing both the style of the serials and the discourse of producers and fans, I argue that new media technologies, despite their foreign origins, may not only be adapted or resisted, but may also come to be imagined as emerging from local aesthetics and local needs. Through the specific ways they utilize both digital and traditional technologies, the Pili producers and fans construct a utopian vision of what globalization might look like if Taiwan were at the center. [source] Longing for the Kollektiv: Gender, Power, and Residential Schools in Central SiberiaCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 4 2005Alexia Bloch Interpretations of post-Soviet subjectivities have tended to emphasize the ways in which subjects experience these with a sense of liberation from a monolithic socialist state; however, local responses to post-Soviet forms of power have varied widely. In the case of indigenous Siberians in the 1990s, an older generation of Evenk women expressed positive feelings about their experience as students in the Soviet-era residential schools that continue to shape their subjectivity in the post-Soviet present. Evenk subjectivities, as with those of other indigenous Siberians, have been significantly formed through the institution of the residential school and, by extension, through a range of interactions with state power as it has been locally remade and interpreted in the 1990s. In this article, I explore the widespread nostalgia associated with the residential school. Drawing on the narratives of elderly Evenk women, I argue that such expressions of Evenk nostalgia for the socialist era are a form of critique of the neoliberal logics emerging in Russia today. In this respect, Evenk women's accounts allow us to explore negotiations of power in a post-Soviet era and to examine how ideologies shape conceptions of self and the social order more broadly. [source] Geeks, Social Imaginaries, and Recursive PublicsCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2005Christopher Kelty This article investigates the social, technical, and legal affiliations among "geeks" (hackers, lawyers, activists, and IT entrepreneurs) on the Internet. The mode of association specific to this group is that of a "recursive public sphere" constituted by a shared imaginary of the technical and legal conditions of possibility for their own association. On the basis of fieldwork conducted in the United States, Europe, and India, I argue that geeks imagine their social existence and relations as much through technical practices (hacking, networking, and code writing) as through discursive argument (rights, identities, and relations). In addition, they consider a "right to tinker" a form of free speech that takes the form of creating, implementing, modifying, or using specific kinds of software (especially Free Software) rather than verbal discourse. [source] Discipline and the Arts of Domination: Rituals of Respect in Chimborazo, EcuadorCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2005Barry J. Lyons Mestizo and indigenous authorities on 20th-century highland Ecuadorian haciendas exercised authority through culturally hybrid practices of ritual discipline. Rather than opposing force to persuasion, I argue that hacienda discipline used coercion as part of a strategy of persuasion. This argument is tied to a social-structural as well as cultural notion of hegemony: By regulating internal social relations, authorities linked their power to the notion of morality and "respect" held by subordinates, thereby also shaping the latter's understanding of resistance. [source] The Artist in Society: Understandings, Expectations, and Curriculum ImplicationsCURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 3 2008RUBÉN A. GAZTAMBIDE-FERNÁNDEZ ABSTRACT Disparate and contradicting assumptions about culture play a significant role in how the artist is constructed in the public imagination. These assumptions have important implications for how young artists should be educated and for the curriculum of artistic education. In this article, I theorize three conceptions of the role of the artist in society and the challenge they present for artistic education. I discuss three theoretical conceptions: the artist as Cultural "Civilizer," the artist as "Border Crosser," and the artist as "Representator." Although markedly different, these three conceptions all view the artist as an agent playing an active role in society, or a type of "cultural worker." I argue that these different views of the artist are grounded on different cultural discourses, that each of these discourses constructs the artist as an individual in a particular way, and that each view of the artist corresponds to specific institutions that mediate the role of the artist in society. Furthermore, I suggest the implications that each of these views has for the curriculum of artistic education and the preparation of cultural workers. I suggest that a contemporary artistic education grounded on these views should affirm the role of the artist in the public sphere of a democratic society. [source] Drifters and the Dancing Mad: The Public School Music Curriculum and the Fabrication of Boundaries for ParticipationCURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 3 2008RUTH GUSTAFSON ABSTRACT Recent reforms in the general music curriculum have, for the most part, failed to lessen the attrition rates of African Americans from public school music programs. In this article I assert that an embodied ideal of cultural nobility, exemplified by Auguste Rodin's famous statue, The Thinker, has unconsciously operated as a template for participation. As a model comportment in the Western musical tradition, The Thinker has a broader relevance insofar as other school subjects emerged from similar cultural ideals. Beginning with the early period of public music instruction up to the present, I examine the construction of racial boundaries by linking a specific body comportment hailed as worthy by the music curriculum to historically constructed notions of Whiteness. This issue has been underexplored in research in both music and general education. For that reason, this article examines overlapping systems of reasoning about music, comportment, class, religion, language, nationality, and race in professional and popular texts from the early 1800s to the present. This positions public music instruction as authored, not by pedagogical insight alone, but through changes in musical taste, social practices, strategies of governing populations, and definitions of worthy citizenship. There are three levels of analysis. The first is a personal account of the early manifestations of attrition of African Americans from school music programs. The second level of analysis brings the problem of equity into proximity with the tradition of genteel comportment that permeated the training of the good ear or listener and the fabrication of the bona fide citizen. These, I argue are congruent with the historical construction of Whiteness as a standard mark of worthiness. At the third level of analysis, I take up present-day curriculum designs. This section discusses how the language of the music curriculum continues to draw boundaries for participation through protocols that regulate musical response. Here, I argue that the exclusion of popular genres such as hip-hop should be rethought in light of the evidence that shifting historical definitions for music fabricated an overly restrictive template for comportment, recognizing the prototype of Whiteness as the sole embodiment of merit. [source] Rereading the Dominant Narrative of MentoringCURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 4 2000Alexandra Semeniuk Mentoring is currently being promoted as an effective means of easing new teachers' transition from preservice programs to the profession.. At the same time it is seen as a way of providing teacher development for those teachers with more experience. Furthermore researchers promote mentoring as a force for change to diminish isolation and promote teacher collaboration. In this article I present an overview,the dominant narrative,of some recent research on formalized mentoring programs in education. Bringing this material together reveals that researchers are virtually unanimous in their enthusiasm for these initiatives. A dialogue which took place between me and a colleague/friend about what we construed as our mentoring relationshippotentially serves as a counternarrative to this prevalent story. Through an analysis of the educational research and the personal narrative, I suggest that the widely accepted view of mentoring may need to be reread, particularly in relation to language: mentoring's meaning is now imprecise because it is used as an umbrella term for many kinds of affiliations in teaching. Inrereading our narrative I argue that my colleague/friend and I did not act as each other's mentor. Rather, our professional association became entwined with the friendship we developed over time. I maintain that by doing a similar rereading of the research on mentoring in education we might find richer and more precise language to describe how we as teachers can assist one another in becoming sophisticated professionals. [source] Learning from Difference: Considerations for Schools as CommunitiesCURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 3 2000Carolyn M. Shields In today's highly complex and heterogeneous public schools, the current notion of schools as homogeneous communities with shared beliefs, norms, and alues is inadequate. Drawing on Barth's (1990) question of how to use ifference as a resource, I take up ideas from feminism, multiculturalism, and inclusive education to consider the development of community in schools. I argue that despite the valuable contributions of these theoretical perspectives, each lso includes the potential for increased fragmentation and polarization. As we consider how to use differences as a foundation for community, it is important ot to reify any particular perspective, thus marginalizing others and erecting new barriers. Explicitly embracing the need to identify and respect difference, being open to new ideas without taking an exclusionary position, and committing to ongoing participation in dialogical processes may help schools to develop as more authentic communities of difference. Among the dominant issues identified in today's climate of turbulent educational reform are concerns about how to restructure schools to ensure equality of student opportunity and excellence of instruction (Elmore, 1990; Lieberman, 1992; Murphy, 1991). Many proposals include modifying present leadership and governance structures, overcoming the hegemony of existing power bases, developing mechanisms for accountability, enhancing professionalism, and co-ordinating community resources. One of the suggestions frequently made to address these issues is to change from a focus on schools as organizations to a recognition of schools as communities (Barth, 1990; Fullan, 1993; Lupart & Webber, 1996; Senge, 1990). However, despite the widespread use of the metaphor of community as an alternative to the generally accepted concept of schools as rational or functional organizations, there seems to be little clarity about the concept of community, what it might look like, how it might be implemented, or what policies might sustain it. Indeed, theories about schools as communities have often drawn from Tönnies (1887/1971) concept of gemeinschaft,a concept which perhaps evokes a more homogeneous and romanticized view of the past than one which could be helpful for improving education in today's dynamic, complex, and heterogeneous context (Beck & Kratzer, 1994; Sergiovanni, 1994a). More recently, several writers (Fine et al., 1997; Furman, 1998; Shields & Seltzer, 1997) have advanced the notion of communities of otherness or difference. These authors have suggested that rather than thinking of schools as communities that exist because of a common affiliation to an established school ethos or tradition, it might be more helpful to explore an alternative concept. A school community founded on difference would be one in which the common centre would not be taken as a given but would be co-constructed from the negotiation of disparate beliefs and values as participants learn to respect, and to listen to, each other. In this concept, bonds among members are not assumed, but forged, and boundaries are not imposed but negotiated. Over the past eight years, as I have visited and worked with a large number of schools trying earnestly to address the needs of their diverse student bodies, I have become increasingly aware of the limitations of the concept of community used in the gemeinschaft sense with its emphasis on shared values, norms, and beliefs, and have begun to reflect on the question framed by Barth (1990): ,How can we make conscious, deliberate use of differences in social class, gender, age, ability, race, and interest as resources for learning?' (p. 514). In this article, I consider how learning from three of these areas of difference: gender, race, and ability, may help us to a better understanding of educational community. This article begins with some illustrations and examples from practice, moves to consider how some theoretical perspectives may illuminate them, and concludes with reflections on how the implications of the combined reflections on practice and theory might actually help to reconceptualize and to improve practice. While it draws heavily on questions and impressions which have arisen out of much of my fieldwork, it is not intended to be an empirical paper, but a conceptual one,one which promotes reflection and discussion on the concept of schools as communities of difference. The examples of life in schools taken from longitudinal research studies in which I have been involved demonstrate several common ways in which difference is dealt with in today's schools and some of the problems inherent in these approaches. Some ideas drawn from alternative perspectives then begin to address Barth's question of how to make deliberate use of diversity as a way of thinking about community. Taken together, I hope that these ideas will be helpful in creating what I have elsewhere called ,schools as communities of difference' (Shields & Seltzer, 1997). [source] Examining the Antecedents and Consequences of CIO Strategic Decision-Making Authority: An Empirical Study,DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 4 2008David S. Preston ABSTRACT Despite the strategic importance of information technology (IT) to contemporary firms, chief information officers (CIO) often still have varying degrees of strategic decision-making authority. In this study, we apply the theory of managerial discretion to define CIO strategic decision-making authority and argue that the CIO's level of strategic decision-making authority directly influences IT's contribution to organization performance. We also draw on the power and politics perspective in the strategic decision-making literature to identify the direct antecedents to the CIO's strategic decision-making authority. A theoretical model is presented and empirically tested using survey data collected from a cross-industry sample of 174 matched pairs of CIOs and top business executives through structural equation modeling. The results suggest that organizational climate, organizational support for IT, the CIO's structural power, the CIO's level of strategic effectiveness, and a strong partnership between the CIO and top management team directly influence the CIO's level of strategic decision-making authority within the organization. The results also suggest that the CIO's strategic decision-making authority in the organization directly influences the contribution of IT to firm performance and that effective CIOs have a greater influence on IT's contribution when provided with strategic decision-making authority. [source] CLINICAL TRIALS AND SCID ROW: THE ETHICS OF PHASE 1 TRIALS IN THE DEVELOPING WORLDDEVELOPING WORLD BIOETHICS, Issue 3 2007JONATHAN KIMMELMAN ABSTRACT Relatively little has been written about the ethics of conducting early phase clinical trials involving subjects from the developing world. Below, I analyze ethical issues surrounding one of gene transfer's most widely praised studies conducted to date: in this study, Italian investigators recruited two subjects from the developing world who were ineligible for standard of care because of economic considerations. Though the study seems to have rendered a cure in these two subjects, it does not appear to have complied with various international guidelines that require that clinical trials conducted in the developing world be responsive to their populations' health needs. Nevertheless, policies devised to address large scale, late stage trials, such as the AZT short-course placebo trials, map somewhat awkwardly to early phase studies. I argue that interest in conducting translational research in the developing world, particularly in the context of hemophilia trials, should motivate more rigorous ethical thinking around clinical trials involving economically disadvantaged populations. [source] The Failure of Popular Justice in Uganda: Local Councils and Women's Property RightsDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 1 2001Lynn Khadiagala Advocates of alternative dispute resolution argue that informal, community-based institutions are better placed to provide inexpensive, expedient and culturally appropriate forms of justice. In 1988, the Ugandan government extended judicial capacity to local councils (LCs) on similar grounds. Drawing on attempts by women in southwestern Uganda to use the LCs to adjudicate property disputes, this article investigates why popular justice has failed to protect the customary property rights of women. The gap between theory and practice arises out of misconceptions of community. The tendency to ascribe a morality and autonomy to local spaces obscures the ability of elites to use informal institutions for purposes of social control. In the light of women's attempts to escape the ,rule of persons' and to seek out arbiters whom they associate with the ,rule of law', it can be argued that the utility of the state to ordinary Ugandans should be reconsidered. [source] Towards a More Rational IMF Quota Structure: Suggestions for the Creation of a New International Financial ArchitectureDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 3 2000Raghbendra Jha The authors of this article argue that, in the absence of a well-founded quota formula, the very basis of the creation of the IMF as an institution at the centre of international financial arrangements was flawed; that there is no clear rationale for the determinants of quota structures and their weighting scheme; and that the quota allocation as an instrument seeks to target too many objectives. As a result, large and arbitrary cross-country variations exist in the relative impact of different determinants on the quota shares of different countries. The quota formulas therefore need to be reviewed and an alternative approach evolved, in which emphasis is placed on the size of the economy rather than its openness, along with efficiency parameters. The authors suggest some principles which might underpin redefined quota structures in support of a new financial architecture. They provide illustrative calculations using India as a case study, and trace the impact of the redefined quota structures against the backdrop of the impact of the Eleventh General Review on India's quota position. [source] An Appeal to Aid SpecialistsDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 1 2010Keith Horton The appeal I am making is (roughly speaking) for aid specialists to do more to help those of us who are not aid specialists to arrive at judgments about the effects of the work of (voluntary) aid agencies that we have at least some reason to think accurate. I argue that the fact that it is so difficult for us to arrive at such judgments at present has certain negative consequences, and that this gives those who are in a position to make it easier for us to arrive at such judgments strong reasons to do so. And I argue that (certain) aid specialists are in such a position. Hence my appeal to them to do so. [source] Loss of the Tg737 protein results in skeletal patterning defectsDEVELOPMENTAL DYNAMICS, Issue 1 2003Qihong Zhang Abstract Tg737 mutant mice exhibit pathologic conditions in numerous tissues along with skeletal patterning defects. Herein, we characterize the skeletal pathologic conditions and confirm a role for Tg737 in skeletal patterning through transgenic rescue. Analyses were conducted in both the hypomorphic Tg737orpk allele that results in duplication of digit one and in the null Tg737,2-3,Gal allele that is an embryonic lethal mutation exhibiting eight digits per limb. In early limb buds, Tg737 expression is detected throughout the mesenchyme becoming concentrated in precartilage condensations at later stages. In situ analyses indicate that the Tg737orpk mutant limb defects are not associated with changes in expression of Shh, Ihh, HoxD11,13, Patched, BMPs, or Glis. Likewise, in Tg737,2-3,Gal mutant embryos, there was no change in Shh expression. However, in both alleles, Fgf4 was ectopically expressed on the anterior apical ectodermal ridge. Collectively, the data argue for a dosage effect of Tg737 on the limb phenotypes and that the polydactyly is independent of Shh misexpression. Developmental Dynamics 227:78,90, 2003. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||