Enabling equitable collective action and policy change for poverty reduction and improved natural resource management in the Eastern African highlands:

"The role of local and external institutions in natural resource management (NRM) is gaining attention in the literature, fostering greater understanding of the relationship between collective action and poverty, collective action and equity, and the conditions under which collective action institutions take root. It has also led to increased understanding of how uncritical practices by external development institutions can propagate social inequities in NRM. Yet little research has been conducted to understand how to foster local collective action institutions where they are absent, or to improve institutional practice. This research integrates empirical and action research in an effort to generate ‘working solutions' to problems facing rural communities in their efforts to manage their natural resources in the highlands of Ethiopia and Uganda. Following a brief introduction to the literature and the research, findings are presented according to two distinct phases of research. Data are first presented on existing forms of collective action, the influence of local and external institutions on economic development, and NRM problems that persist despite their negative livelihood consequences. Action research themes selected from a list of identified problems are then presented in greater detail, with lessons learnt thus far in attempting to overcome institutional barriers to improved NRM. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of findings for research, institutional practice, and policy." authors' abstractNatural resource management, Collective action, Equity, Livelihoods, East African highlands, Gender, Environmental management,

Militarised violence in the service of state-imposed emergencies over Palestine and Kenya

States of Emergency are declared against the disorder-ing of state sovereign power by acts of resistance, rebellion and revolt and are characterised by the technologies of control, containment and punishment. Through spatial, archival and visual encounters with emergency landscapes and the geographies of resistance, the essay considers the historic and contemporary operations, provisions, regulations and practices authorised under state-imposed emergencies. It does so in order firstly, to bring attention to the practices authorised through state-imposed emergencies and the currency and saliency of their ongoing effects, and secondly to re-frame the militarised violence of settlement/occupation as an integral part of state-imposed emergencies in which all that is necessary will be done to protect the sovereign state from the resistance of the colonised/occupied and to effect a return to ‘order’.   Through encounters with the archival record, and the architectures, remnants and territorial arrangements found in post-colonial Kenya and across the multiple geographies of Palestine, the essay draws out seven clusters of state imposed emergency practices and effects. The work grapples with a number of questions: what is it that a declared state of emergency performs for the state? Does a state of emergency enable particular forms of militarised violence? Are there common practices to be found across different modes of state-imposed emergencies? What is the genealogy to the states of emergency across Palestine and Kenya? Does our excavation of the practices of state-imposed emergency shed light on the ways we apprehend state violence in colonial, post-colonial and neo-colonial geographies?

Visions beyond violence: Alan Riach examines modern Scottish literature’s response to war

No abstract available

How Do Multinational Corporations Creatively Address D&I Initiatives Through Corporate Social Responsibility?

Question: What are the indicators of a world class Diversity &Inclusion (D&I) program? How do these correlate to business results? Revised Question: How do multinational corporations (MNCs) creatively address D&I initiatives through cultural competence and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

The strategic use of metaphors by political and media elites: the 2007-11 Belgian constitutional crisis

On 9 December 2011 a new Belgian government was sworn in after a record-breaking 541 days of negotiations between all democratic political forces with the aim to alter the constitution and provide more autonomy to the different regions that make up Belgium. In this article, the frequent use of political metaphors by North-Belgian politicians and journalists is analysed through a critical metaphor analysis (CMA) that approaches the different metaphors at a descriptive, an interpretative and a motivational level. Four meta-categories of metaphors were identified - sports and games metaphors, war metaphors, culinary metaphors and transport metaphors. The different metaphors fed into six core frames: expressing immobility, attributing blame, the need for unity, bargaining and teasing, the end is nigh and finally lack of direction and leadership. Metaphors were instrumental in strategies to present the Flemish demands as unquestionable and common sense, while the counter-demands of the French-speaking parties were positioned as unreasonable, impossible to accept. In other words, the strategic use of metaphors, some of which resonated throughout the long period of analysis, not only served to represent complex political issues in an easily digestible language, but also shaped and influenced the negotiations through their various mediations and the ideological intentions embedded within the metaphor

Faith, Ireland and Empire: The Life of Patrick Joseph Clune Cssr 1864-1935

Book Review: Christopher Dowd. Faith, Ireland and Empire: The Life of Patrick Joseph Clune Cssr 1864-1935. Strathfield NSW: St Pauls, 2014

Gower as Data: Exploring the Application of Machine Learning to Gower’s Middle English Corpus

Distant reading, a digital humanities method in wide use, involves processing and analyzing a large amount of text through computer programs. In treating texts as data, these methods can highlight trends in diction, themes, and linguistic patterns that individual readers may miss or critical traditions may obscure. Though several scholars have undertaken projects using topic models and text mining on Middle English texts, the nonstandard orthography of Middle English makes this process more challenging than for our counterparts in later literature. This collaborative project uses Gower’s Confessio Amantis as a small, fixed corpus for analysis. We employ natural language processing to reexamine the Confessio’s themes, adding data analysis to the more traditional close reading strategies of Gower scholarship. We use Gower’s work as a case study both to help reduce the potential variants across textual versions and to more deeply investigate the corpus than distant reading normally allows. Here, we share our initial findings as well as our methodologies. We hope to share resources that will allow other scholars to engage in similar types of projects

T-government for benefit realisation

This paper proposes a model for t-Government and highlights the research agenda needed to increase understanding of transformational government and the processes involved in furthering the agenda of the t-Government. In particular, both an operational and a conceptual model for the effective involvement of citizens and businesses in government functioning have been proposed. This will help to define an agenda for t-Government research that emerges from national UK strategy and policy for e-Government. The main threads of t- Government encompass: (1) A citizen-centric delivery of public services or e-inclusion, (2) A shared services culture to maximize value added to clients, (3) The effective delivery and management of resources and skills within government or professionalism. All three threads should be addressed principally from the perspectives of delivery, evaluation and participation in view of benefit realisation as envisioned by Government strategic planning and policy directives (CabinetOffice, 2005). The management of change dimension of these phenomena have been included in the research agenda. In particular, research is needed to reshape the discourse towards emphasising a citizen centric approach that defines, develops, and benefits from public service. Decision makers in Government will need models of Governance that fulfil transformational objectives. They will also need models of benefits realisation within a strategic Governance framework. It has been argued that t-Government research should be addressing these relative voids