Conflict mediation and Bungoma activism in a South African township

The following article draws on fieldwork with traditional African healers in an urban South African township and examines mediation sessions undertaken by a group of healers with a view to contemporary conflicts that emerged during their praxis. I argue that the healers’ mediation practices are a form of activism that addresses the hermeneutical and institutional gap between traditional healing and the magistrates’ court system. This activism further presents a social positioning by healers for greater legitimacy, recognition, and integration with governmental structures. The article introduces the township of Alexandra and two different conflict resolution pathways that exist there, which reflect two divergent judicial moralities of reproduction with their respective cultural frameworks. The article then provides an overview of the institution of traditional healing and, lastly, describes the healers’ mediation as a form of activism.https://brill.com/view/journals/jra/jra-overview.xmlhj2022Political Science

Believing selves and cognitive dissonance : connecting individual and society via “belief”

“Belief” as an analytical tool and critical category of investigation for the study of religion has been a resurging topic of interest. This article discusses the problems of language and practice in the discussion of “belief” and proceeds to map a few of the emergent frameworks, proposed within the past decade, for investigating “belief”. The issue of inconsistency, however, continues to remain a perennial issue that has not been adequately explained. This article argues for the utility and value of the “believing selves” framework, in conjunction with revisionist theories of cognitive dissonance, to advance the claim that beliefs are representations, as well as functions, of cultural history which bind individual and society.http://www.mdpi.com/journal/religionshb2016Anthropology and Archaeolog

Belief and acceptance for the study of religion

„Belief‟ in the study of religion has been vexed by complexities underlying the relationship between language, cognition, and religious behavior. Drawing on anthropological, sociological, and psychological literature, this article discusses the degrees and textures of „belief‟ to highlight the inadequacies of language and the variety of motivations for participating in rituals. Particular emphasis is given to discrimination, implicit bias, and the issue of discrepancy. The article argues that dual-process models of cognition provide a richer account of „belief‟ and maps an epistemological distinction between belief and acceptance as a viable methodology for the investigation of „belief‟ in the study of religion.http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/157006822019-01-31hb2017Anthropology and Archaeolog

The Major Antigenic Membrane Protein of “Candidatus Phytoplasma asteris” Selectively Interacts with ATP Synthase and Actin of Leafhopper Vectors

Phytoplasmas, uncultivable phloem-limited phytopathogenic wall-less bacteria, represent a major threat to agriculture worldwide. They are transmitted in a persistent, propagative manner by phloem-sucking Hemipteran insects. Phytoplasma membrane proteins are in direct contact with hosts and are presumably involved in determining vector specificity. Such a role has been proposed for phytoplasma transmembrane proteins encoded by circular extrachromosomal elements, at least one of which is a plasmid. Little is known about the interactions between major phytoplasma antigenic membrane protein (Amp) and insect vector proteins. The aims of our work were to identify vector proteins interacting with Amp and to investigate their role in transmission specificity. In controlled transmission experiments, four Hemipteran species were identified as vectors of “Candidatus Phytoplasma asteris”, the chrysanthemum yellows phytoplasmas (CYP) strain, and three others as non-vectors. Interactions between a labelled (recombinant) CYP Amp and insect proteins were analysed by far Western blots and affinity chromatography. Amp interacted specifically with a few proteins from vector species only. Among Amp-binding vector proteins, actin and both the α and β subunits of ATP synthase were identified by mass spectrometry and Western blots. Immunofluorescence confocal microscopy and Western blots of plasma membrane and mitochondrial fractions confirmed the localisation of ATP synthase, generally known as a mitochondrial protein, in plasma membranes of midgut and salivary gland cells in the vector Euscelidius variegatus. The vector-specific interaction between phytoplasma Amp and insect ATP synthase is demonstrated for the first time, and this work also supports the hypothesis that host actin is involved in the internalization and intracellular motility of phytoplasmas within their vectors. Phytoplasma Amp is hypothesized to play a crucial role in insect transmission specificity

An intronic microRNA links Rb/E2F and EGFR signaling

The importance of microRNAs in the regulation of various aspects of biology and disease is well recognized. However, what remains largely unappreciated is that a significant number of miRNAs are embedded within and are often co-expressed with protein-coding host genes. Such a configuration raises the possibility of a functional interaction between a miRNA and the gene it resides in. This is exemplified by the Drosophila melanogaster dE2f1 gene that harbors two miRNAs, mir-11 and mir-998, within its last intron. miR-11 was demonstrated to limit the proapoptotic function of dE2F1 by repressing cell death genes that are directly regulated by dE2F1, however the biological role of miR-998 was unknown. Here we show that one of the functions of miR-998 is to suppress dE2F1-dependent cell death specifically in rbf mutants by elevating EGFR signaling. Mechanistically, miR-998 operates by repressing dCbl, a negative regulator of EGFR signaling. Significantly, dCbl is a critical target of miR-998 since dCbl phenocopies the effects of miR-998 on dE2f1-dependent apoptosis in rbf mutants. Importantly, this regulation is conserved, as the miR-998 seed family member miR-29 repressed c-Cbl, and enhanced MAPK activity and wound healing in mammalian cells. Therefore, the two intronic miRNAs embedded in the dE2f1 gene limit the apoptotic function of dE2f1, but operate in different contexts and act through distinct mechanisms. These results also illustrate that examining an intronic miRNA in the context of its host's function can be valuable in elucidating the biological function of the miRNA, and provide new information about the regulation of the host gene itself.This research was supported by grant GM093827 from the National Institutes of Health to MVF, by a Scholar Award from Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to MVF, and by a Postdoctoral Fellowship to MT from the Fonds de Recherches en Santé Québec. NLB acknowledges funding from the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia grant number SAF2009-06954. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscrip