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Problematic Nature (problematic + nature)
Selected AbstractsConsumption, retailing, and medicine in early-modern LondonECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 1 2008PATRICK WALLIS This article examines the early development of specialized retail shops in early modern London. It argues that apothecaries' shops were sites of innovative shop design and display. These practices were responses to attitudes to consumption, the problematic nature of the medical commodities which apothecaries sold, and, particularly, contemporary concerns about their reliability, trustworthiness, and honesty. The article concludes that analyses of the rise of the shop need to be revised to incorporate early developments by producer-retailers, such as apothecaries and goldsmiths, and suggests that investments in retailing were driven more by worries about commodities than enticing customers. [source] The Space of Local Control in the Devolution of us Public Housing PolicyGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 4 2000Janet L. Smith Sweeping changes in national policy aim to radically transform public housing in the United States. The goal is to reduce social isolation and increase opportunities for low income tenants by demolishing ,worst case' housing, most of which is modern, high-rise buildings with high vacancy and crime rates, and replacing it with ,mixed-income' developments and tenant based assistance to disperse current public housing families. Transformation relies on the national government devolving more decision-making power to local government and public housing authorities. The assumption here is that decentralizing the responsibility for public housing will yield more effective results and be more efficient. This paper explores the problematic nature of decentralization as it has been conceptualized in policy discourse, focusing on the underlying assumptions about the benefits of increasing local control in the implementation of national policy. As this paper describes, this conceived space of local control does not take into account the spatial features that have historically shaped where and how low income families live in the US, including racism and classism and a general aversion by the market to produce affordable rental units and mixed-income developments. As a result, this conceived space of local control places the burden on low income residents to make transformation a success. To make this case, Wittgenstein's (1958) post-structural view of language is combined with Lefebvre's view of space to provide a framework in which to examine US housing policy discourse as a ,space producing' activity. The Chicago Housing Authority's Plan for Transformation is used to illustrate how local efforts to transform public housing reproduce a functional space for local control that is incapable of generating many of the proposed benefits of decentralization for public housing tenants. [source] The New Sovereignty in International Relations,INTERNATIONAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 3 2003David A. Lake The academic study of sovereignty is undergoing a mini-renaissance. Stimulated by criticisms of classical conceptions of sovereignty in systemic theories of politics, scholars returned to sovereignty as a topic of inquiry in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Their studies are finally bearing fruit. This essay focuses on the new conceptions of sovereignty that are emerging and (1) discusses the fundamental nature of sovereignty, (2) reviews the classical perspective on sovereignty, (3) surveys new constructivist alternatives to this classical view, (4) examines important new work on the problematic nature of sovereignty, (5) identifies continua of hierarchic relationships that make sense of the various forms of mixed or restricted sovereignty that we observe in world politics, and (6) argues why it is important to study alternative, hierarchic relationships in international relations. The principal themes throughout are that sovereignty is far more problematic than recognized in the classical model, that important elements of hierarchy exist in the global system, and that both our theories and practice of international politics would be improved by explicitly incorporating variations in hierarchy. [source] Some Problems and Possibilities in the Study of Dynamical Social ProcessesJOURNAL FOR THE THEORY OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR, Issue 1 2000John E. Puddifoot The recent challenge of Dynamical Systems Theory (also known as ComplexityTheory or Chaos Theory) to the social sciences, is based largely on the beliefthat processes in the social arena can be considered as analogous to those of the natural world, and that in consequence general theoretical advances in explaining the latter might with advantage be applied to the former. This paper aims to show that claims for Dynamical Systems Theory with respect to the understanding or measurement of social processes would be premature; the reasons for this lying not only in the unfamiliarity and operational difficulties of Dynamical Systems Theory in itself, but also in the problematic nature and history of our usage of the term ,social process'. Reviewing some examples of such usage from Sociology and Social Psychology, it is concluded that Dynamical Systems Theory might serve as a catalyst for a re-examination of existing orthodoxies and major concepts, but that progress would be retarded by the uncritical application of it's terminology, concepts, and techniques of mathematical modelling, without this prior and demanding first step. [source] Chile's Neoliberal Agrarian Transformation and the PeasantryJOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 4 2002Cristóbal Kay In the mid,1970s, following the early shift to neoliberalism, the Chilean rural sector was restructured dramatically, becoming one of the most successful cases of non,traditional agricultural export (NTAE) growth. However, many analysts fail to discuss the problematic nature of Chile's integration into the global market. Underpinning this rapid growth of NTAEs is the exploitation of cheap peasant labour, especially seasonal female wage workers. This article examines the elements of continuity and change in agrarian policy since the transition to democracy in 1990. In particular, it presents the policy debate on the future of the peasantry: capitalization or proletarianization? The dilemma that policy makers face over maintaining high rates of NTAE growth while at the same time attempting to reduce poverty and income inequalities are also highlighted. The Chilean case can be considered as paradigmatic insofar as it exhibits key characteristics of the classical capitalist transformation of agriculture: the emergence of a new class of dynamic agricultural entrepreneurs, renewed proletarianization and land concentration, and intensification of social differentiation. [source] The mismeasurement of sexual selectionJOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, Issue 3 2010H. KLUG Abstract Sexual selection can explain major micro- and macro-evolutionary patterns. Much of current theory predicts that the strength of sexual selection (i) is driven by the relative abundance of males and females prepared to mate (i.e. the operational sex ratio, OSR) and (ii) can be generally estimated by calculating intra-sexual variation in mating success (e.g. the opportunity for sexual selection, Is). Here, we demonstrate the problematic nature of these predictions. The OSR and Is only accurately predict sexual selection under a limited set of circumstances, and more specifically, only when mate monopolization is extremely strong. If mate monopolization is not strong, using OSR or Is as proxies or measures of sexual selection is expected to produce spurious results that lead to the false conclusion that sexual selection is strong when it is actually weak. These findings call into question the validity of empirical conclusions based on these measures of sexual selection. [source] Knowing What You Don't Know?JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 4 2004Contradictions in Knowledge Management Research, Discourses ABSTRACT Even though knowledge management scholars generally advocate explicit management of knowledge, there is research that cautions against the unintended consequences of such efforts. Some researchers go as far as arguing that knowledge and management are contradictory concepts (Alvesson and Kärreman, 2001). This paper explores the apparent double-edged nature of knowledge management by developing a theory-based framework that highlights different fundamental assumptions about knowledge and its management. This framework, which is an adaptation of Burrell and Morgan's four paradigms of social and organizational inquiry, distinguishes among a neo-functionalist, a constructivist, a critical and a dialogic discourse. We use the contradiction of managing tacit knowledge, which has been highlighted in the knowledge management literature, as an analytical device to explore the four discourses in more detail. We show how notions of knowledge, and what it means to manage knowledge, vary across the four discourses. We conclude that all four discourses need to be appreciated, understood and represented in knowledge management research for this area of inquiry to deal with the rich and problematic nature of managing knowledge in practice. [source] An analysis of trust among globally distributed work teams in an organizational settingKNOWLEDGE AND PROCESS MANAGEMENT: THE JOURNAL OF CORPORATE TRANSFORMATION, Issue 3 2007Sue Newell Regardless of whether a project team is located in the same workplace or distributed around the world, trust remains an important element deemed necessary to facilitate knowledge sharing and collaborative work. At the same time, distribution across sites presents challenges to trust building that are not present among co-located teams. A further complicating factor in trust building among distributed teams is national culture. As we demonstrate, the impact of nationality can be increased when organizations put the distributed sites in a competitive frame. Using the Newell and Swan threefold typology of trust, this paper analyzes trust among IT work teams whose members are located at sites that are distributed in the United States, Ireland, and India. Our case analysis confirms the problematic nature of trust building among globally distributed teams. Specifically, we found that due to situational factors and socio-psychological dynamics an ,Us versus Them' attitude prevails among the distributed sites. This paper concludes that the traditional approaches used by organizations to address the challenges of global collaboration are insufficient and that trust building in an organizational setting requires project managers to actively work on relationship management to minimize the impact of an inter-group perspective. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Codification, patents and the geography of knowledge transfer in the electronic musical instrument industryTHE CANADIAN GEOGRAPHER/LE GEOGRAPHE CANADIEN, Issue 3 2006TIM REIFFENSTEIN Recent research in economic geography has emphasized tacit knowledge as the basis of industrial learning. In contrast, codification and the practices of industrial writing have received little attention for the roles they play in mobilizing knowledge across space. This paper offers insight into the geographies of codification through an examination of technology transfer in the electronic musical instrument industry between 1965 and 1995. The research draws on a variety of primary and secondary data that include interviews with inventors, biographical accounts and patent analysis. These sources offer perspective on the career trajectories of three U.S. inventors who transferred knowledge from various contexts in California's high-tech industry to the Japanese firm, Yamaha. Conceptually, the paper draws on the actor,network theory and Latour's idea of translation to highlight the detours inventors must take to register novelty. The analysis reveals the problematic nature of codified knowledge and its transfer; in this case codified knowledge was mobile internationally but not locally, at least until it reached Japan. The paper argues for the need to understand how texts such as patents are produced,the context of their authorship, the geographies of their circulation and their efficacy for shaping further innovative practice. Les recherches actuelles en géographie mettent l'accent sur les connaissances tacites comme fondement de l'apprentissage industriel. Cependant, la codification et les pratiques relatives à la composition industrielle ont été peu étudiées du point de vue de leurs rôles dans la mobilisation des connaissances dans l'espace. Cet article donne un aperçu des géographies de la codification suite à une analyse du transfert technologique dans l'industrie des instruments de musique électronique entre 1965 et 1995. Fondée sur un ensemble de données primaires et secondaires, cette étude présente une série d'entrevues réalisées auprès d'inventeurs, des comptes-rendus biographiques et des analyses de brevets. Ces données permettent de considérer avec recul le cheminement professionnel de trois inventeurs américains responsables du transfert des connaissances depuis différents secteurs de l'industrie de haute technologie californienne vers la société japonaise Yamaha. Sur un plan conceptuel, l'article reprend la théorie acteur-réseau et aborde la notion de traduction développée par Latour afin de mettre en relief les principaux détours qu'empruntent les inventeurs pour obtenir un brevet d'innovation. L'analyse fait ressortir le caractère problématique des connaissances codifiées et de leur transfert; dans ce cas, les connaissances codifiées étaient mobiles à l'échelle internationale et non à l'échelle locale avant qu'elles n'arrivent au Japon. Cet article plaide en faveur de la nécessité de comprendre comment les textes tels que les brevets sont élaborés: le contexte entourant la rédaction du document, les géographies de leur diffusion et les répercutions sur les pratiques novatrices. [source] | |||||||||||||