Recycling the evidence: Different approaches to the reanalysis of elite life histories

The chapter considers the re-analysis of a specific data set, the life histories of a select group of pioneers of geriatric medicine collected by Professor Margot Jefferys' in 1991. It considers what these interviews demonstrate about changing attitudes to family and community amongst one particular group of professionals. The chapter concludes that to some extent the interviewees' professional identity and ability to develop geriatrics as a specialty in its own right depended on their recognition of family and community. However, in relation to policy, community and family are terms which have much changed in their meanings over the last twenty years and the interviews require reading with these changing contexts in mind

Post 'Celtic Tiger' Ireland, Silver Vigilantes and Public Sociology: Protesting Against Global Neoliberalisation

It is not just publicly funded universities that are facing a cold and hard future in the aftershock of the 2008 global banking crisis. Nations, such as Ireland, are similarly affected as states seek to appease 'the markets' and cover private banks' losses at the public's expense. As this wave of neoliberalisation, or market fundamentalism, proceeds we may ask: what is the role of sociology? Drawing from an exploratory study of financial activism, notably silver vigilantism and the Crash JP Morgan Campaign, this paper endorses global public sociology among threatened publics. As per Michael Burawoy's calls for public sociology, this entails promoting reflexive knowledge and democratic dialogue in the defence of civil society. After outlining the core tenets, strengths and weaknesses of silver vigilantism, the role of public sociology and the need for further research are underscored as the economic crisis continues in post 'Celtic Tiger' Ireland and beyond.Public Sociology; Neoliberalisation; Money; Protest; the Internet

Interorganizational Networks : the Issue of Global Sovereignty

One of the most striking phenomena of the past decade has been the internationalisation of service firms (Tersen and Bricout, 1996). Previously considered “un-exportable” (Segal-Horn, 1993), they have proven day after day that they have the necessary characteristics to undertake an international development, and even a globalization of their offering systems (Vandermerwe, 1989 ; Campbell and Verbeke, 1994 ; Gadrey, 1994 ;). Retail banking and financial services are remarkable illustrations of this phenomenon (Michalet, 1985 ; Andreff, 1995). And bank cards in the first place. However, management scholars have been slow in reacting to this challenge. Focused on industry (and surprisingly enough on the automotive industry), the scholars have rather neglected the emerging field of international service firms. This Research gap has motivated our project on the international deployment of services. The field study we have selected is relative to the bank card organizations. This industry illustrates the functioning of service firms as political institutions. A striking example relates to the emergence and development of international standards bodies, specifically in the area of Internet payments. We are faced here with the construction of a transnational regulation. This paper brings twofold a contribution. On one hand, it enriches the interpretation of a very important, peculiar and potentially generic research object, through the lenses of the translation theory. On the other hand, it has key managerial implications regarding « political » strategies with regard to positioning as a regulatory institution. Discussion follows on the consequences of these agencies' activities for business enterprises.

DETERMINANTS OF GRASSLAND USE RIGHT TRANSFER IN INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE: EVIDENCE FROM PASTORAL CHINA

This paper focuses on factors influencing grassland lease, which will contribute to the heated debate about land use in China by extending to more extensive and vulnerable grassland regions. Based on review of grassland institutional change and analysis of data from 12 villages, this paper examines the impact of variables such as grassland property rights, grazing policies and physical attributes of actors on grassland lease. This paper also draws attention to widely existed illegal grazing and the implementation of grazing quota, as well as their impact on grassland lease and governance.Land Use, Land Ownership and Tenure, Grassland lease, China, Landnutzen, Landbesitz, Graslandleasing, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, Land Economics/Use,

OVERCOMING TECHNICAL DESPOTISM IN THE UPLAND RICE PRODUCTIVE CHAIN

N° ISBN - 978-2-7380-1284-5International audienceThis paper presents an experiment aimed at developing sustainable rice production in the State of Mato Grosso (Brazil). It shows results from the Perception Method of Upland Rice Cropping System' Sustainability (MPSAT), which is a tool for joint analysis of technicians and stakeholders considering sustainability of upland rice productive chain within a region. It highlights the relevance of this method to overcome some undesirable practices and attitudes of many technicians in conducting research and diffusion of innovation which reduce the effectiveness and expected results

Bringing the Copenhagen Global Climate Change Negotiations to Conclusion

In this paper we discuss the global negotiations now underway and aimed at achieving new climate change mitigation and other arrangements after 2012 (the end of the Kyoto commitment period). These were initiated in Bali in December 2007 and are scheduled to conclude by the end of 2009 in Copenhagen. As such, this negotiation is effectively the second round in ongoing global negotiations on climate change and further rounds will almost certainly follow. We highlight both the vast scope and vagueness of the negotiating mandate, the many outstanding major issues to be accommodated between negotiating parties, the lack of a mechanism to force collective decision making in the negotiation, and their short time frame. The likely lack of compliance with prior Kyoto commitments by several OECD countries (some to a major degree), the effective absence in Kyoto of compliance/enforcement mechanisms, and growing linkage to non-climate change areas (principally trade) all further complicate the task of bringing the negotiation to conclusion. The major clearage we see that needs to be bridged in the negotiations is between OECD countries on the one hand, and lower wage, large population, rapidly growing countries (China, India, Russia, Brazil) on the other.climate change, global negotiation

Overcoming technical despotism in the upland rice productive chain.

This paper presents an experiment aimed at developing sustainable rice production in the State of Mato Grosso (Brazil). It shows results from the Perception Method of Upland Rice Cropping System Sustainability (MPSAT), which is a tool for joint analysis of technicians and stakeholders considering sustainability of upland rice productive chain within a region. It highlights the relevance of this method to overcome some undesirable practices and attitudes of many technicians in conducting research and diffusion of innovation which reduce the effectiveness and expected results.hal-0053978

Two legged wombs: surrogacy and margaret atwood’s the handmaid’s tale.

Published in 1985, The Handmaid’s Tale is Margaret Atwood’s most famous work and her first dystopian novel, since all her previous fiction had adjusted to the conventions of realism. In general the plot of any dystopia should be based on factuality, or in other words, it has to be a plausible representation of the future of a concrete society. However, either when the novel was published or now that more than thirty years have passed, there is no such thing as “handmaids.” Nothing of the sort exist in any democratic country (Kay n.p.). However, as Chaterjee points out, there are many “disturbing” overlaps between Atwood’s handmaids’ struggle and the real experience and events that take place in contemporary surrogacy agreements. (n.p.). This paper examines Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale from a 21st- century posthumanist perspective, which discusses the economic and ethical implications and no insignificant shocking similarities between the handmaids in the novel and our present-day surrogate mothers

Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality

Building upon a process-and context-oriented information quality framework, this paper seeks to map and explore what we know about the ways in which young users of age 18 and under search for information online, how they evaluate information, and how their related practices of content creation, levels of new literacies, general digital media usage, and social patterns affect these activities. A review of selected literature at the intersection of digital media, youth, and information quality -- primarily works from library and information science, sociology, education, and selected ethnographic studies -- reveals patterns in youth's information-seeking behavior, but also highlights the importance of contextual and demographic factors both for search and evaluation. Looking at the phenomenon from an information-learning and educational perspective, the literature shows that youth develop competencies for personal goals that sometimes do not transfer to school, and are sometimes not appropriate for school. Thus far, educational initiatives to educate youth about search, evaluation, or creation have depended greatly on the local circumstances for their success or failure

An Examination of the Online Transnational Networks of the Nigerian Diaspora

Diasporic discourses reflect the sense of being part of an ongoing transnational network that includes the homeland not as something simply left behind but as a place of attachment in contraptual modernity (Clifford, 1997: 256). The paper contends that in moving, seeking integration, trading across borders, acquiring properties abroad, and visiting the homeland, Nigerian Diaspora members are active in transnational spaces. They are found in different locations, and they interrelate from those locations. Modern media like the Internet facilitates these interactions. The paper maps how online media enhances the transnational activities of the migrants, by discussing how the migrants’ cross border activities have become banal, and how the Internet makes this possible. In this context, transnationalism is discussed as being made possible by the larger framework of globalisation, and the inevitable role of communication in its processes