Public Forums (public + forums)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Pasifika in the news: the portrayal of Pacific peoples in the New Zealand press

JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2006
Robert Loto
Abstract Pacific Islanders have faced discrimination in New Zealand particularly since the 1960s when communities began to be transplanted from their home nations to Aotearoa as cheap immigrant labour. Subsequently, the New Zealand vernacular has contained references to Pacific Islanders as ,overstayers', ,coconuts', ,bungas' and ,fresh off the boat' [FOB]. However, the legacy of a domineering relationship between the Palagi1 majority group and Pacific minorities2 that is captured by such derogatory terms is still evident in public forums such as the media. Using a quantitative content and qualitative narrative analysis, this paper documents portrayals of Pacific Islanders in New Zealand print media reports (n,=,65) published over a 3 month period. Findings reveal that Pacific people are predominantly portrayed as unmotivated, unhealthy and criminal others who are overly dependent on Palagi support. We consider this offered pacific identity formation with that implied for Palagi, which is active, independent, competent and caring. Issues in coverage are discussed in relation to how Pacific Islanders are encouraged to see themselves, and the health and social consequences of dominant practices in press coverage. We offer some suggestions as to how more equitable representations of Pacific people could be fostered in news media. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


The relationship between NGOS and businesses in the public arena: An empirical analysis for Spain

JOURNAL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, Issue 1 2009
Carmen Valor
At the beginning of this century, corporate social responsibility was included in the public agenda. In certain countries, policy-making takes place in semi-public forums, in which NGOs are asked to participate. However, a different situation may be found in other countries. This paper analyses the relationship between businesses and NGOs in the public arena in Spain. By applying grounded theory, the authors summarize this relationship in the dynamics of approach-withdrawal. Firms have pushed to withdraw Advocacy NGOs from public forums, whose main purpose was policy-making. The explicit argument to justify this collective decision is the lack of foundational legitimacy of NGOs. Firms understand that these NGOs are not legitimized to be a counterbalancing force of corporations. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Role of Ethics Committees, Ethics Networks, and Ethics Centers in Improving End-of-Life Care

PAIN MEDICINE, Issue 2 2001
Myra Christopher BS
This article chronicles the work of Midwest Bioethics Center, several community-state partnerships, and other local and national initiatives to determine their proper role and appropriate contribution. Professional education and development, institutional reform, and community engagement are areas of concern because ethics committees, networks, and centers sponsor workshops and conferences on palliative care for healthcare professionals, hold public forums, develop advance care planning projects, and provide expertise to legislators and other policymakers. The leading edge of the work being done by ethics committees, networks, and centers appears to be using continuous quality improvement methods, specifically the development of quality indicators, to promote accountability in end-of-life care reform efforts. This work is something that ethics committees can and should take on. [source]


"Unsightly Huts": Shanties and the Divestment Movement of the 1980s

PEACE & CHANGE, Issue 3 2007
Bradford Martin
This article analyzes students' efforts to pressure American colleges and universities to divest their South African investments during the 1980s, focusing on the movement's most visible feature, the shantytowns students built to express solidarity with black South Africans and to oppose their institutions' investment policies. I argue that the shanties were constructed in spaces chosen to achieve maximum symbolic power and often succeeded in spatially transforming campuses into public forums that heightened students' capacity to affect the institutional decision-making process. Not surprisingly, the shanties evoked fervent responses. Shantytown residents identified with the plight of black South Africans under apartheid, while opponents called them "eyesores," and, as in the notorious case at Dartmouth, even forcibly destroyed them. When set against the conservative tenor of the Reagan/Bush 1980s, the varying responses to campus shantytowns, at both elite private institutions as well as large public ones, raise important questions about the cultural constructedness of "vision" and aesthetics and about the efficacy and the limits of using public space for symbolic oppositional politics. [source]


Documenting Accountability: Environmental Impact Assessment in a Peruvian Mining Project

POLAR: POLITICAL AND LEGAL ANTHROPOLOGY REVIEW, Issue 2 2009
Fabiana Li
Over the past two decades, practices of accountability have acquired a new presence in neoliberal governance and resource extraction in Peru. In the context of mining activity, accountability generally refers to public mechanisms of evaluation and record-keeping through which citizens can make corporations and governments answerable to them. However, I argue that these practices often prioritize mining interests by enabling corporations to define and ultimately enforce standards of performance. This article focuses on a key process in the making of social and environmental accountability in mining projects: Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). I show that the form of the documents produced for the EIA (i.e., their required components, as established in legal frameworks) and the process of making them public (participatory meetings and public forums) can take precedence over their content. I examine two aspects of the EIA that make this possible. First, the risks that are identified in the EIA are those that a company deems to be technically manageable based on the solutions and interventions that it has to offer. Second, the participatory process of the EIA creates collaborative relationships among state agents, corporations, NGOs, and communities that strengthen the EIA's claims of accountability while circumscribing the spaces for opposition to a proposed project. [source]