7,776 research outputs found

    Resilience and food security in a food systems context

    Get PDF
    This open access book compiles a series of chapters written by internationally recognized experts known for their in-depth but critical views on questions of resilience and food security. The book assesses rigorously and critically the contribution of the concept of resilience in advancing our understanding and ability to design and implement development interventions in relation to food security and humanitarian crises. For this, the book departs from the narrow beaten tracks of agriculture and trade, which have influenced the mainstream debate on food security for nearly 60 years, and adopts instead a wider, more holistic perspective, framed around food systems. The foundation for this new approach is the recognition that in the current post-globalization era, the food and nutritional security of the world’s population no longer depends just on the performance of agriculture and policies on trade, but rather on the capacity of the entire (food) system to produce, process, transport and distribute safe, affordable and nutritious food for all, in ways that remain environmentally sustainable. In that context, adopting a food system perspective provides a more appropriate frame as it incites to broaden the conventional thinking and to acknowledge the systemic nature of the different processes and actors involved. This book is written for a large audience, from academics to policymakers, students to practitioners

    Serving to secure "Global Korea": Gender, mobility, and flight attendant labor migrants

    Get PDF
    This dissertation is an ethnography of mobility and modernity in contemporary South Korea (the Republic of Korea) following neoliberal restructuring precipitated by the Asian Financial Crisis (1997). It focuses on how comparative “service,” “security,” and “safety” fashioned “Global Korea”: an ongoing state-sponsored project aimed at promoting the economic, political, and cultural maturation of South Korea from a once notoriously inhospitable, “backward” country (hujin’guk) to a now welcoming, “advanced country” (sŏnjin’guk). Through physical embodiments of the culturally-specific idiom of “superior” service (sŏbisŭ), I argue that aspiring, current, and former Korean flight attendants have driven the production and maintenance of this national project. More broadly, as a driver of this national project, this occupation has emerged out of the country’s own aspirational flights from an earlier history of authoritarian rule, labor violence, and xenophobia. Against the backdrop of the Korean state’s aggressive neoliberal restructuring, globalization efforts, and current “Hell Chosun” (Helchosŏn) economy, a group of largely academically and/or class disadvantaged young women have been able secure individualized modes of pleasure, self-fulfillment, and class advancement via what I deem “service mobilities.” Service mobilities refers to the participation of mostly women in a traditionally devalued but growing sector of the global labor market, the “pink collar” economy centered around “feminine” care labor. Korean female flight attendants share labor skills resembling those of other foreign labor migrants (chiefly from the “Global South”), who perform care work deemed less desirable. Yet, Korean female flight attendants elude the stigmatizing, classed, and racialized category of “labor migrant.” Moreover, within the context of South Korea’s unique history of rapid modernization, the flight attendant occupation also commands considerable social prestige. Based on ethnographic and archival research on aspiring, current, and former Korean flight attendants, this dissertation asks how these unique care laborers negotiate a metaphorical and literal series of sustained border crossings and inspections between Korean flight attendants’ contingent status as lowly care-laboring migrants, on the one hand, and ostensibly glamorous, globetrotting elites, on the other. This study contends the following: first, the flight attendant occupation in South Korea represents new politics of pleasure and pain in contemporary East Asia. Second, Korean female flight attendants’ enactments of soft, sanitized, and glamorous (hwaryŏhada) service help to purify South Korea’s less savory past. In so doing, Korean flight attendants reconstitute the historical role of female laborers as burden bearers and caretakers of the Korean state.U of I OnlyAuthor submitted a 2-year U of I restriction extension request

    Endogenous measures for contextualising large-scale social phenomena: a corpus-based method for mediated public discourse

    Get PDF
    This work presents an interdisciplinary methodology for developing endogenous measures of group membership through analysis of pervasive linguistic patterns in public discourse. Focusing on political discourse, this work critiques the conventional approach to the study of political participation, which is premised on decontextualised, exogenous measures to characterise groups. Considering the theoretical and empirical weaknesses of decontextualised approaches to large-scale social phenomena, this work suggests that contextualisation using endogenous measures might provide a complementary perspective to mitigate such weaknesses. This work develops a sociomaterial perspective on political participation in mediated discourse as affiliatory action performed through language. While the affiliatory function of language is often performed consciously (such as statements of identity), this work is concerned with unconscious features (such as patterns in lexis and grammar). This work argues that pervasive patterns in such features that emerge through socialisation are resistant to change and manipulation, and thus might serve as endogenous measures of sociopolitical contexts, and thus of groups. In terms of method, the work takes a corpus-based approach to the analysis of data from the Twitter messaging service whereby patterns in users’ speech are examined statistically in order to trace potential community membership. The method is applied in the US state of Michigan during the second half of 2018—6 November having been the date of midterm (i.e. non-Presidential) elections in the United States. The corpus is assembled from the original posts of 5,889 users, who are nominally geolocalised to 417 municipalities. These users are clustered according to pervasive language features. Comparing the linguistic clusters according to the municipalities they represent finds that there are regular sociodemographic differentials across clusters. This is understood as an indication of social structure, suggesting that endogenous measures derived from pervasive patterns in language may indeed offer a complementary, contextualised perspective on large-scale social phenomena

    Examples of works to practice staccato technique in clarinet instrument

    Get PDF
    Klarnetin staccato tekniğini güçlendirme aşamaları eser çalışmalarıyla uygulanmıştır. Staccato geçişlerini hızlandıracak ritim ve nüans çalışmalarına yer verilmiştir. Çalışmanın en önemli amacı sadece staccato çalışması değil parmak-dilin eş zamanlı uyumunun hassasiyeti üzerinde de durulmasıdır. Staccato çalışmalarını daha verimli hale getirmek için eser çalışmasının içinde etüt çalışmasına da yer verilmiştir. Çalışmaların üzerinde titizlikle durulması staccato çalışmasının ilham verici etkisi ile müzikal kimliğe yeni bir boyut kazandırmıştır. Sekiz özgün eser çalışmasının her aşaması anlatılmıştır. Her aşamanın bir sonraki performans ve tekniği güçlendirmesi esas alınmıştır. Bu çalışmada staccato tekniğinin hangi alanlarda kullanıldığı, nasıl sonuçlar elde edildiği bilgisine yer verilmiştir. Notaların parmak ve dil uyumu ile nasıl şekilleneceği ve nasıl bir çalışma disiplini içinde gerçekleşeceği planlanmıştır. Kamış-nota-diyafram-parmak-dil-nüans ve disiplin kavramlarının staccato tekniğinde ayrılmaz bir bütün olduğu saptanmıştır. Araştırmada literatür taraması yapılarak staccato ile ilgili çalışmalar taranmıştır. Tarama sonucunda klarnet tekniğin de kullanılan staccato eser çalışmasının az olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Metot taramasında da etüt çalışmasının daha çok olduğu saptanmıştır. Böylelikle klarnetin staccato tekniğini hızlandırma ve güçlendirme çalışmaları sunulmuştur. Staccato etüt çalışmaları yapılırken, araya eser çalışmasının girmesi beyni rahatlattığı ve istekliliği daha arttırdığı gözlemlenmiştir. Staccato çalışmasını yaparken doğru bir kamış seçimi üzerinde de durulmuştur. Staccato tekniğini doğru çalışmak için doğru bir kamışın dil hızını arttırdığı saptanmıştır. Doğru bir kamış seçimi kamıştan rahat ses çıkmasına bağlıdır. Kamış, dil atma gücünü vermiyorsa daha doğru bir kamış seçiminin yapılması gerekliliği vurgulanmıştır. Staccato çalışmalarında baştan sona bir eseri yorumlamak zor olabilir. Bu açıdan çalışma, verilen müzikal nüanslara uymanın, dil atış performansını rahatlattığını ortaya koymuştur. Gelecek nesillere edinilen bilgi ve birikimlerin aktarılması ve geliştirici olması teşvik edilmiştir. Çıkacak eserlerin nasıl çözüleceği, staccato tekniğinin nasıl üstesinden gelinebileceği anlatılmıştır. Staccato tekniğinin daha kısa sürede çözüme kavuşturulması amaç edinilmiştir. Parmakların yerlerini öğrettiğimiz kadar belleğimize de çalışmaların kaydedilmesi önemlidir. Gösterilen azmin ve sabrın sonucu olarak ortaya çıkan yapıt başarıyı daha da yukarı seviyelere çıkaracaktır

    The place where curses are manufactured : four poets of the Vietnam War

    Get PDF
    The Vietnam War was unique among American wars. To pinpoint its uniqueness, it was necessary to look for a non-American voice that would enable me to articulate its distinctiveness and explore the American character as observed by an Asian. Takeshi Kaiko proved to be most helpful. From his novel, Into a Black Sun, I was able to establish a working pair of 'bookends' from which to approach the poetry of Walter McDonald, Bruce Weigl, Basil T. Paquet and Steve Mason. Chapter One is devoted to those seemingly mismatched 'bookends,' Walt Whitman and General William C. Westmoreland, and their respective anthropocentric and technocentric visions of progress and the peculiarly American concept of the "open road" as they manifest themselves in Vietnam. In Chapter, Two, I analyze the war poems of Walter McDonald. As a pilot, writing primarily about flying, his poetry manifests General Westmoreland's technocentric vision of the 'road' as determined by and manifest through technology. Chapter Three focuses on the poems of Bruce Weigl. The poems analyzed portray the literal and metaphorical descent from the technocentric, 'numbed' distance of aerial warfare to the world of ground warfare, and the initiation of a 'fucking new guy,' who discovers the contours of the self's interior through a set of experiences that lead from from aerial insertion into the jungle to the degradation of burning human feces. Chapter Four, devoted to the thirteen poems of Basil T. Paquet, focuses on the continuation of the descent begun in Chapter Two. In his capacity as a medic, Paquet's entire body of poems details his quotidian tasks which entail tending the maimed, the mortally wounded and the dead. The final chapter deals with Steve Mason's JohnnY's Song, and his depiction of the plight of Vietnam veterans back in "The World" who are still trapped inside the interior landscape of their individual "ghettoes" of the soul created by their war-time experiences

    Strategies for Early Learners

    Get PDF
    Welcome to learning about how to effectively plan curriculum for young children. This textbook will address: • Developing curriculum through the planning cycle • Theories that inform what we know about how children learn and the best ways for teachers to support learning • The three components of developmentally appropriate practice • Importance and value of play and intentional teaching • Different models of curriculum • Process of lesson planning (documenting planned experiences for children) • Physical, temporal, and social environments that set the stage for children’s learning • Appropriate guidance techniques to support children’s behaviors as the self-regulation abilities mature. • Planning for preschool-aged children in specific domains including o Physical development o Language and literacy o Math o Science o Creative (the visual and performing arts) o Diversity (social science and history) o Health and safety • Making children’s learning visible through documentation and assessmenthttps://scholar.utc.edu/open-textbooks/1001/thumbnail.jp

    Child exploitation in Cape Town : an exploratory-criminological investigation

    Get PDF
    Abstract in English, Afrikaans and XhosaHuman trafficking, which incorporates child exploitation, as interrogated and presented in this thesis, accentuates the significant contribution of criminology to comprehending the illegal manipulation, exploitation, and trafficking of persons, and specifically children. It expands and enhances the theoretical constructs and recommends justice through decisive, dedicated, and holistic intervention programmes and relevant strategies to defend the inherent rights of all citizens. This study serves as an instrument to profile human traffickers and their victims as well as their target selection and recruitment approaches. The research concerns South African child exploitation in the context of human trafficking and employs specific criminological theories to promote effectiveness and discovery. These theories are uncovered, scrutinised, and examined in this research to ascertain the correlation and alignment (or lack thereof) with the human trafficking phenomenon. This study contributes to the field of human trafficking in post-modern criminology. The data obtained from the participants during the interviewing phase, together with information from the literature review, confirms evidence of human trafficking incidents occurring in Cape Town with a strong undercurrent of child exploitation practices. The overall conclusion is that certain forms of child exploitation are visible, namely forced labour practices that include domestic servitude, and children engaged in street hawking and sexual exploitation. Furthermore, Cape Town is perceived as a sex tourism hotspot and the involvement of local gangs and taxi operators in the sex industry is obvious. The sexual exploitation of minors by parents on the Cape Flats, in particular, is an issue fuelled by poverty, unemployment, and alcohol and substance abuse that affect numerous households in impoverished areas. Since Cape Town is a major seaport city with a constant movement of foreign vessels, there is evidence of foreign fishing boats that employ forced labour practices. Abandoned seamen in need of care are often discovered on foreign vessels in Cape Town harbour, which is a transgression that requires more attention. This study shows that the basic principles of human trafficking, namely the recruitment, movement, and control of victims, apply and are manifest in numerous incidents in South Africa. The general view of all participants is that the South African government has made significant progress with the establishment of the Prevention and Combatting of Trafficking in Persons (PACOTIP) Act (2013) and there is an expectation amongst participants that the act will serve as a benchmark to assess trafficking going forward. Considering the hidden nature of trafficking and the scarcity of South African research on the subject, the overall findings of this study are significant. This probe into trafficking contributes to the discipline of Criminology as indicated in this study.Mensehandel, wat die uitbuiting van kinders insluit, soos ondersoek en aangebied word in hierdie proefskrif, beklemtoon die beduidende bydrae van kriminologie tot die begrip van die onwettige manipulasie, uitbuiting en handel in persone en spesifiek kinders. Dit brei die teoretiese konstruksies uit en versterk dit en beveel geregtigheid aan deur besliste, toegewyde en holistiese intervensieprogramme en relevante strategieë om die inherente regte van alle burgers te verdedig. Hierdie studie dien ook as 'n instrument om mensehandelaars en hul slagoffers te profileer, wat ook hul teikenkeuse en werwingsbenaderings uitlig. Die navorsing handel oor Suid-Afrikaanse kinderuitbuiting binne die konteks van mensehandel en wend spesifieke kriminologiese teorieë aan om doeltreffendheid en ontdekking van die misdaad te bewerkstellig. Hierdie teorieë word in hierdie navorsing ontbloot en ondersoek om die korrelasie en aansluiting (of gebrek daaraan) aan die mensehandelverskynsel vas te stel. Die verwagting is dat hierdie studie 'n beduidende bydrae sal lewer tot die veld van mensehandel in die post-moderne kriminologie. Die gegewens wat tydens die onderhoudfase van die deelnemers verkry is, sowel as inligting wat voortspruit uit die literatuur, bevestig dat daar getuienis is van mensehandel-voorvalle wat in Kaapstad plaasvind met 'n sterk onderstroom van kinderuitbuitingspraktyke. Die algehele gevolgtrekking is dat verskillende vorme van uitbuiting van kinders sigbaar is, wat dwangarbeid en huishoudelike dienste insluit, kinders wat besig is met straatsmousery asook die seksuele uitbuiting van kinders. Verder word Kaapstad as 'n brandpunt vir sekstoerisme beskou en die betrokkenheid van plaaslike bendes en taxi-operateurs in die seksbedryf is voor die hand liggend. Veral die seksuele uitbuiting van minderjariges deur ouers op die Kaapse Vlakte is 'n kwessie wat aangevuur word deur armoede, werkloosheid en drank- en dwelmmisbruik wat talle huishoudings in arm gebiede raak. Aangesien Kaapstad 'n belangrike hawestad is met 'n voortdurende beweging van buitelandse seevaartuie, is daar bevestiging van buitelandse vissersbote wat van dwangarbeid gebruik maak. Verlate seevaarders wat sorg benodig word gereeld op buitelandse bote in die Kaapstadse hawe ontdek en is 'n oortreding wat meer aandag verg. Hierdie studie toon dat die basiese beginsels van mensehandel, naamlik die werwing, beweging en beheer van slagoffers, van toepassing is en manifesteer in talle voorvalle in Suid-Afrika. Die algemene siening van alle deelnemers in hierdie ondersoek is dat die Suid-Afrikaanse regering beduidende vordering gemaak het met die instelling van die Wet op die Voorkoming en Bestryding van Mensehandel (2013) en dat daar onder die deelnemers 'n verwagting is dat die wet 'n maatstaf sal wees om mensehandel te beoordeel in die toekoms. Met inagneming van die verborge aard van handel en die gebrek aan Suid-Afrikaanse navorsing oor hierdie onderwerp, is die algehele bevindings van hierdie studie betekenisvol. Hierdie ondersoek na mensehandel dra by tot die dissipline van kriminologie soos in die studie aangedui word.Ukurhweba ngabantu ngokungekho mthethweni, okubandakanya ukuxhaphaza abantwana, njengoko kugocagocwayo kwaye kwenziwa kule thisisi, kugxininisa igalelo elibalulekileyo lolwaphulo-mthetho ekuqondeni ukuxhaphaza ngokungekho mthethweni, ukuxhaphaza, ukurhweba ngabantu, ngakumbi abantwana. Iyakwandisa kwaye iphucule ukwakhiwa kweethiyori kwaye icebisa ubulungisa ngokusebenzisa iinkqubo zokungenelela ezigqibeleleyo, ezinikeleyo, nezibandakanya konke kunye nezicwangciso ezifanelekileyo zokukhusela amalungelo abo bonke abemi. Olu phononongo lukwasebenza njengesixhobo sokubonisa ukurhweba ngabantu ngokungekho mthethweni kunye namaxhoba abo kunye neendlela zabo zokukhetha kunye neendlela zokugaya abantu. Olu phando luchaphazela izenzo zokuxhaphaza abantwana zoMzantsi Afrika kwimeko yokurhweba ngabantu ngokungekho mthethweni kwaye lisebenzisa iithiyori ezithile zolwaphulo-mthetho ukukhuthaza ukusebenza ngokukuko kunye nokufumanisa. Ezi ithiyori ziyavezwa, ziphicothwe, kwaye zavavanywa kolu phando ukuqinisekisa ulungelelwaniso kunye nokulungelelaniswa (okanye ukusilela kwako) kunye nomcimbi wokurhweba ngabantu. Kulindelwe ukuba olu phononongo luza kuba negalelo kwicandelo lokurhweba ngabantu ngolwaphulo-mthetho lwasemva kwexesha langoku. Idatha efunyenwe kubathathi-nxaxheba ngexesha lesigaba sodliwanondlebe, kunye nolwazi oluvela kuncwadi, iyangqina ukuba bukhona ubungqina bezehlo zokurhweba ngabantu ezenzeka eKapa ezinesimo esomeleleyo sokuxhaphaza abantwana. Isiphetho esipheleleyo kukuba iindlela ezithile zokuxhaphaza abantwana ziyabonakala, nezinyanzelisa imisebenzi yabasebenzi ebandakanya ukukhonzwa emakhayeni, kunye nabantwana ababandakanyeka ekuthengiseni ezitalatweni nasekuxhaphazeni ngokwesondo. Ngapha koko, iKapa lithathwa njengeyona ndawo yokhenketho lokwabelana ngesondo kwaye ukubandakanyeka kwamaqela emigulukudu nabaqhubi beeteksi kuyacaca. Ukuxhatshazwa kwabantwana ngokwesondo ngabazali kwiCape Flats, ngakumbi, ngumba ophenjelelwa yindlala, ukungabikho kwemisebenzi, kunye nokusetyenziswa gwenxa kotywala neziyobisi ezichaphazela amakhaya amaninzi kwiindawo ezihlwempuzekileyo. Kuba iKapa sisixeko esisesona zibuko likhulu sihamba rhoqo kwiinqanawa zakwamanye amazwe, kukho ubungqina bokuba amaphenyane okuloba aphesheya aqeshe abantu ukuba basebenze ngenkani. Oomatiloshe abalahliweyo abafuna ukhathalelo bahlala befunyanwa kwiinqanawa zamanye amazwe kwizibuko laseKapa, ulwaphulo mthetho olufuna ingqalelo engakumbi. Olu phononongo lubonisa ukuba imigaqo-siseko yokurhweba ngabantu ngokungekho mthethweni, eyile yokugaya, ukuhamba, nokulawula amaxhoba, iyasebenza kwaye iyabonakala kwiziganeko ezininzi eMzantsi Afrika. Uluvo ngokubanzi lwabo bonke abathathi-nxaxheba kukuba urhulumente woMzantsi Afrika wenze inkqubela phambili ebonakalayo ngokusekwa koMthetho woThintelo nokuLwa ukurhweba ngabantu ngokungekho mthethweni (2013) kwaye kukho ulindelo phakathi kwabathathi-nxaxheba lokuba lo mthetho uzakusebenza njengomlinganiso wokuvavanya ukurhweba ngabantu ngokungekho mthethweni. ukuya phambili. Ukuthathela ingqalelo imeko efihliweyo yokurhweba ngabantu ngokungekho mthethweni kunye nokunqaba kophando lwase Mzantsi Afrika ngalo mbandela, iziphumo zophando zizonke zibalulekile. Le projekthi yokurhweba ngabantu ngokurhabaxa inegalelo kuqeqesho lweCriminology njengoko kubonisiwe kolu phando.Criminology and Security ScienceD. Lit. et Phil. (Criminology

    Time- and value-continuous explainable affect estimation in-the-wild

    Get PDF
    Today, the relevance of Affective Computing, i.e., of making computers recognise and simulate human emotions, cannot be overstated. All technology giants (from manufacturers of laptops to mobile phones to smart speakers) are in a fierce competition to make their devices understand not only what is being said, but also how it is being said to recognise user’s emotions. The goals have evolved from predicting the basic emotions (e.g., happy, sad) to now the more nuanced affective states (e.g., relaxed, bored) real-time. The databases used in such research too have evolved, from earlier featuring the acted behaviours to now spontaneous behaviours. There is a more powerful shift lately, called in-the-wild affect recognition, i.e., taking the research out of the laboratory, into the uncontrolled real-world. This thesis discusses, for the very first time, affect recognition for two unique in-the-wild audiovisual databases, GRAS2 and SEWA. The GRAS2 is the only database till date with time- and value-continuous affect annotations for Labov effect-free affective behaviours, i.e., without the participant’s awareness of being recorded (which otherwise is known to affect the naturalness of one’s affective behaviour). The SEWA features participants from six different cultural backgrounds, conversing using a video-calling platform. Thus, SEWA features in-the-wild recordings further corrupted by unpredictable artifacts, such as the network-induced delays, frame-freezing and echoes. The two databases present a unique opportunity to study time- and value-continuous affect estimation that is truly in-the-wild. A novel ‘Evaluator Weighted Estimation’ formulation is proposed to generate a gold standard sequence from several annotations. An illustration is presented demonstrating that the moving bag-of-words (BoW) representation better preserves the temporal context of the features, yet remaining more robust against the outliers compared to other statistical summaries, e.g., moving average. A novel, data-independent randomised codebook is proposed for the BoW representation; especially useful for cross-corpus model generalisation testing when the feature-spaces of the databases differ drastically. Various deep learning models and support vector regressors are used to predict affect dimensions time- and value-continuously. Better generalisability of the models trained on GRAS2 , despite the smaller training size, makes a strong case for the collection and use of Labov effect-free data. A further foundational contribution is the discovery of the missing many-to-many mapping between the mean square error (MSE) and the concordance correlation coefficient (CCC), i.e., between two of the most popular utility functions till date. The newly invented cost function |MSE_{XY}/σ_{XY}| has been evaluated in the experiments aimed at demystifying the inner workings of a well-performing, simple, low-cost neural network effectively utilising the BoW text features. Also proposed herein is the shallowest-possible convolutional neural network (CNN) that uses the facial action unit (FAU) features. The CNN exploits sequential context, but unlike RNNs, also inherently allows data- and process-parallelism. Interestingly, for the most part, these white-box AI models have shown to utilise the provided features consistent with the human perception of emotion expression

    Microfinance as a tool for socio-economic empowerment of rural women in Northern Malawi : a practical theological reflection

    Get PDF
    Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2022.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Poverty is a multifaceted, gendered global challenge that affects women significantly more than men. To alleviate poverty and achieve sustainable development, women in the Global South are engaging in microfinance. Microfinance is the provision of financial services to underprivileged people who cannot access credit from commercial banks and is proving to be a tool of socio-economic empowerment of women from rural areas. This study explores the ways in which the church can promote the microfinance model of savings and loans in a holistic and sustainable way. This study discusses poverty and the feminisation of poverty in the light of the gender and development (GAD) approach and explores the status of women in Malawi in terms of education, health, agriculture, the environment, politics, issues of gender-based violence and socio-economic empowerment. African women theologies and transnational feminism are the theoretical lenses used to explore the advancement of the socio-economic empowerment of rural women in the Global South in the context of economic globalisation. Identified as feminist liberation theologies that seek justice and liberation of all people, African women theologies, are used as the theological lens to analyse the socio-economic empowerment of women in order to explore how women can be liberated from the oppression caused by economic injustice. As a qualitative empirical study, this research explores the nature and impact of existing savings and loans groups run by rural women in the communities of Bwengu and Bolero in Northern Malawi. With a view to understanding the role of the church in microfinance with regards to rural women, clergy from the Henga and Nyika Presbyteries and church leaders of the CCAP Synod of Livingstonia and the Malawi Council of Churches were also included in the study. The findings from the empirical research indicate that microfinance is beneficial to individual women, their families and communities as the savings and loan model encourages women to save money from their resources. Through the savings and loan groups, it appears that women are empowered socio-economically and they become financially independent. The findings also indicate that women who are involved in savings and loan groups can now participate in decision making at household and community levels. Furthermore, women’s involvement in such groups assists in reducing incidents of gender-based violence at the household level because women are making a substantial contribution to the household income. The microfinance model of savings and loans is, therefore, deemed to be both holistic as it encourages women to save from what they have and to generate social capital and spiritual inspiration as they work together in solidarity through the groups. These findings call the church to engage with such models of economic development as they highlight the fact that the churches are aware of microfinance initiatives but the churches have not engaged in the initiatives. However, there is need for the churches to engage in such initiatives because they empower the communities. In order to promote holistic and sustainable microfinance, the church has to advocate for economic justice and build the capacities of its members concerning microfinance. The church should, therefore, seek to encourage all including men, women and youth to engage in microfinance so that the entire community is lifted and empowered socio-economically.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Armoede is 'n veelvlakkige globale uitdaging waarby gender ook 'n rol speel; dit raak vroue beduidend meer as mans. Vroue in die Globale Suide maak gebruik van mikrofinansiering om armoede te verlig en volhoubare ontwikkeling te bewerkstellig. Mikrofinansiering is die voorsiening van finansiële dienste aan minderbevoorregtes wat nie toegang tot krediet van kommersiële banke het nie en blyk 'n instrument van sosio-ekonomiese bemagtiging van vroue in landelike gebiede te wees. Hierdie studie ondersoek maniere waarop die kerk die mikrofinansieringsmodel van spaar-en-leen op 'n holistiese en volhoubare manier kan bevorder. Die studie bespreek armoede en die feminisering van armoede volgens die gender en ontwikkeling (GAD) benadering, en ondersoek die status van vroue in Malawi wat betref onderwys, gesondheid, landbou, die omgewing, politiek, gender-gebaseerde geweld, en sosio-ekonomiese bemagtiging. Die teoretiese lense van Afrika-vroue-teologieë en transnasionale feminisme word gebruik om die bevordering van die sosio-ekonomiese bemagtiging van landelike vroue in die Globale Suide in die konteks van ekonomiese globalisering te ondersoek. Afrika-vroue-teologieë, wat geïdentifiseer word as feministiese bevrydingsteologieë wat geregtigheid en bevryding van alle mense nastreef, word gebruik as die teologiese lens om die sosio-ekonomiese bemagtiging van vroue te analiseer ten einde te ondersoek hoe vroue bevry kan word van die onderdrukking wat deur ekonomiese onreg veroorsaak word. Hierdie kwalitatiewe empiriese studie ondersoek die aard en impak van bestaande spaar-en-leningsgroepe wat deur landelike vroue in die gemeenskappe van Bwengu en Bolero in Noord-Malawi bestuur word. Predikante en kerkleiers van die Henga- en Nyika-sinodes, die Livingstonia-sinode van die Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) en die Malawi Raad van Kerke is ook by die studie betrek met die oog daarop om die rol van die kerk in mikrofinansiering met betrekking tot landelike vroue te verstaan. Die bevindings van die empiriese navorsing dui daarop dat mikrofinansiering voordelig is vir individuele vroue, hul gesinne en gemeenskappe, aangesien die spaar-en-leningsmodel vroue aanmoedig om van hul middele te spaar. Dit blyk dat spaar-en-leningsgroepe bydra tot die sosio-ekonomiese bemagtiging en finansiële onafhanklikheid van vroue. Die bevindinge dui ook daarop dat vroue wat by spaar-en-leningsgroepe betrokke is, betrek word by besluitneming op huishoudelike en gemeenskapsvlakke. Verder dra vroue se betrokkenheid by sulke groepe by om voorvalle van gender-gebaseerde geweld op huishoudelike vlak te verminder omdat vroue 'n beduidende bydrae tot die huishoudelike inkomste lewer. Die mikrofinansieringsmodel van spaar-en-lenings word dus as holisties beskou, aangesien vroue van die middele tot hul beskikking spaar; dit genereer ook sosiale kapitaal en geestelike inspirasie aangesien die vroue in solidariteit in die groepe saamwerk. Hierdie bevindinge roep die kerk op om met sulke modelle van ekonomiese ontwikkeling in gesprek te tree, aangesien dit beklemtoon dat kerke bewus is van mikrofinansierings-inisiatiewe, maar nie aan die inisiatiewe deelneem nie. Daar is egter 'n behoefte daaraan dat kerke aan sulke inisiatiewe deelneem omdat dit gemeenskappe bemagtig. Ten einde holistiese en volhoubare mikrofinansiering te bevorder, moet die kerk pleit vir ekonomiese geregtigheid, en lidmate se vermoëns rakende mikrofinansiering opbou. Die kerk moet dus poog om almal, insluitend mans, vroue en jongmense, aan te moedig om mikrofinansiering te beoefen sodat die hele gemeenskap sosio-ekonomies opgehef en bemagtig word.Doctora
    corecore