4,247 research outputs found
The Empowering Effects of Cooperative Development Among Indigenous Women in Southern Mexico
Abstract
The Zapatista uprising, rebellion, and ongoing attempts to create a new way of life inside Mexico is unique. While Zapatistas have purposely isolated themselves from the Mexican government, they are not isolated from surrounding communities. Zapatista influences can be seen in the practices and organization of cooperatives and in the altered role of indigenous women in the surrounding communities. This study focuses on four cooperatives: one located in the city of San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, and the others in rural surrounding areas. The selected collectives produce traditional artisan work, basic food staples, natural personal care products, and herbal medicines. Using a snowball sampling technique, the investigator identified prospective interview participants. Nineteen women participated in 1-2 hour formal interviews, four individually and the others in small group settings; all formal interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Participants ranged in age from early 20s to early 50s; the majority self-identified as Tzotzil and Tzeltal, which represent approximately 71% of the indigenous population in Chiapas. Of the four cooperatives represented, two had direct working relationships with Zapatista cooperatives, and all had practices modeled on the Zapatista movement. Based on a phenomenological analysis of the transcripts, this paper argues that while the cooperatives were developed in response to forced internal displacement and extreme poverty, they were sustained because they provided a new kind of partnership, influenced by the Zapatista Movement, for the women to participate in the support and survival of their families. These findings suggest the potential of cooperatives as a cost-effective tool of development to promote gender role equality worldwide as well as provide recognition that this complex study and novel findings were only possible through a multidisciplinary and transnational academic and community partnership, integrating social work, women’s studies, and geography
Uniqueness of the Fock quantization of the Gowdy model
After its reduction by a gauge-fixing procedure, the family of linearly
polarized Gowdy cosmologies admit a scalar field description whose
evolution is governed by a Klein-Gordon type equation in a flat background in
1+1 dimensions with the spatial topology of , though in the presence of a
time-dependent potential. The model is still subject to a homogeneous
constraint, which generates -translations. Recently, a Fock quantization
of this scalar field was introduced and shown to be unique under the
requirements of unitarity of the dynamics and invariance under the gauge group
of -translations. In this work, we extend and complete this uniqueness
result by considering other possible scalar field descriptions, resulting from
reasonable field reparameterizations of the induced metric of the reduced
model. In the reduced phase space, these alternate descriptions can be obtained
by means of a time-dependent scaling of the field, the inverse scaling of its
canonical momentum, and the possible addition of a time-dependent, linear
contribution of the field to this momentum. Demanding again unitarity of the
field dynamics and invariance under the gauge group, we prove that the
alternate canonical pairs of fieldlike variables admit a Fock representation if
and only if the scaling of the field is constant in time. In this case, there
exists essentially a unique Fock representation, provided by the quantization
constructed by Corichi, Cortez, and Mena Marugan. In particular, our analysis
shows that the scalar field description proposed by Pierri does not admit a
Fock quantization with the above unitarity and invariance properties.Comment: 14 page
A unique Fock quantization for fields in non-stationary spacetimes
In curved spacetimes, the lack of criteria for the construction of a unique
quantization is a fundamental problem undermining the significance of the
predictions of quantum field theory. Inequivalent quantizations lead to
different physics. Recently, however, some uniqueness results have been
obtained for fields in non-stationary settings. In particular, for vacua that
are invariant under the background symmetries, a unitary implementation of the
classical evolution suffices to pick up a unique Fock quantization in the case
of Klein-Gordon fields with time-dependent mass, propagating in a static
spacetime whose spatial sections are three-spheres. In fact, the field equation
can be reinterpreted as describing the propagation in a
Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetime after a suitable scaling of the field by a
function of time. For this class of fields, we prove here an even stronger
result about the Fock quantization: the uniqueness persists when one allows for
linear time-dependent transformations of the field in order to account for a
scaling by background functions. In total, paying attention to the dynamics,
there exists a preferred choice of quantum field, and only one
-invariant Fock representation for it that respects the standard
probabilistic interpretation along the evolution. The result has relevant
implications e.g. in cosmology.Comment: Typos correcte
Quantum unitary dynamics in cosmological spacetimes
We address the question of unitary implementation of the dynamics for scalar
fields in cosmological scenarios. Together with invariance under spatial
isometries, the requirement of a unitary evolution singles out a rescaling of
the scalar field and a unitary equivalence class of Fock representations for
the associated canonical commutation relations. Moreover, this criterion
provides as well a privileged quantization for the unscaled field, even though
the associated dynamics is not unitarily implementable in that case. We discuss
the relation between the initial data that determine the Fock representations
in the rescaled and unscaled descriptions, and clarify that the S-matrix is
well defined in both cases. In our discussion, we also comment on a recently
proposed generalized notion of unitary implementation of the dynamics, making
clear the difference with the standard unitarity criterion and showing that the
two approaches are not equivalent.Comment: 18 page
Enhancing the movement of natural persons in the ASEAN region: Opportunities and constraints
The overall objective of the movement of natural persons (MNP) in the ASEAN region is to contribute to expanding trade in services and to deepening economic integration. However, the regional movement of human resources has proceeded beyond the expansion of trade and has persisted in response to labor market imbalances.Movement of Natural Persons (MNP),ASEAN Framework Agreements on Services (AFAS)
A uniqueness criterion for the Fock quantization of scalar fields with time dependent mass
A major problem in the quantization of fields in curved spacetimes is the
ambiguity in the choice of a Fock representation for the canonical commutation
relations. There exists an infinite number of choices leading to different
physical predictions. In stationary scenarios, a common strategy is to select a
vacuum (or a family of unitarily equivalent vacua) by requiring invariance
under the spacetime symmetries. When stationarity is lost, a natural
generalization consists in replacing time invariance by unitarity in the
evolution. We prove that, when the spatial sections are compact, the criterion
of a unitary dynamics, together with the invariance under the spatial
isometries, suffices to select a unique family of Fock quantizations for a
scalar field with time dependent mass.Comment: 11 pages, version accepted for publication in Classical and Quantum
Gravit
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