50 research outputs found
Indigenous identity, natural resources, and contentious politics in Bolivia: a disaggregated conflict analysis; 2000-2011
How do natural resources and ethnic identity interact to incite or to mitigate
social conflict? This article argues that high-value natural resources can act as an
important catalyst for the politicization of ethnic, specifically indigenous identity,
and contribute to social conflict as they limit the malleability of identity frames
and raise the stakes of confrontations. We test this argument using unique subnational
data from Bolivian provinces. Drawing on Bolivian newspaper reports,
we code conflict events for all of the 112 provinces from 2000 to 2011. We
join this conflict data with information on local ethnic composition from the
census, the political representation of ethnic groups at the national level, as well
as geo-spatial information on gas deposits. Using time-series cross-sectional
count models, we show a significant conflict-promoting effect of the share of
indigenous people in provinces with gas reserves, but not without
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Allele-specific control of rodent and human lncRNA KMT2E-AS1 promotes hypoxic endothelial pathology in pulmonary hypertension
Hypoxic reprogramming of vasculature relies on genetic, epigenetic, and metabolic circuitry, but the control points are unknown. In pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a disease driven by hypoxia inducible factor (HIF)âdependent vascular dysfunction, HIF-2α promoted expression of neighboring genes, long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) histone lysine N-methyltransferase 2E-antisense 1 (KMT2E-AS1) and histone lysine N-methyltransferase 2E (KMT2E). KMT2E-AS1 stabilized KMT2E protein to increase epigenetic histone 3 lysine 4 trimethylation (H3K4me3), driving HIF-2αâdependent metabolic and pathogenic endothelial activity. This lncRNA axis also increased HIF-2α expression across epigenetic, transcriptional, and posttranscriptional contexts, thus promoting a positive feedback loop to further augment HIF-2α activity. We identified a genetic association between rs73184087, a single-nucleotide variant (SNV) within a KMT2E intron, and disease risk in PAH discovery and replication patient cohorts and in a global meta-analysis. This SNV displayed allele (G)âspecific association with HIF-2α, engaged in long-range chromatin interactions, and induced the lncRNA-KMT2E tandem in hypoxic (G/G) cells. In vivo, KMT2E-AS1 deficiency protected against PAH in mice, as did pharmacologic inhibition of histone methylation in rats. Conversely, forced lncRNA expression promoted more severe PH. Thus, the KMT2E-AS1/KMT2E pair orchestrates across convergent multi-ome landscapes to mediate HIF-2α pathobiology and represents a key clinical target in pulmonary hypertension
Empowerment and Participatory Geographic Information and Multimedia Systems: Observations from Two Communities in Indonesia
Participatory Geographic Information and Multimedia Systems (PGIMSs) were developed and used by two rural communities in Indonesia. This paper reports on the empowerment impacts that resulted from this development project. Empowerment related to PGIMS is examined using a two-dimensional analytical framework that explores the phenomenon at two social scales (individual and community), and is related to four empowerment catalysts associated with the project (information, process, skills, and tools). This paper evaluates the appropriateness of the analytical framework and concludes with general observations about the relationship between empowerment and PGIMS. Copyright (c) 2005 The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Information Technologies and International Development.