Sustainability and the “urban peasant”: rethinking the cultural politics of food self-provisioning in the Czech Republic

From the introduction: The third article, written by environmentalists Petr Jehlička and Joe Smith, overturns accounts of food self-provisioning in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe that are rooted in myths of the “urban peasant”. After reviewing and rejecting those accounts the authors introduce very different explanations for high rates of growing and sharing food outside the market system based in social anthropological research in the region. The authors have extended that work with their own qualitative and quantitative research over a period of six years in the Czech Republic, and here present findings that confirm the contribution that food self-provisioning is making to both the social and ecological sustainability

Czech Green politics after two decades: the May 2010 general election

The article examines the electoral results of the Czech Green Party in the 2010 elections to the lower house of the Czech Parliament, placing those results in both historical and sociological perspective. In particular, the article analyses the social bases of Green Party support in past parliamentary elections, and identifies reasons for the party’s substantial decline in electoral support in 2010

Nondestructive investigation on the 17-18th centuries Sicilian jewelry collection at the Messina regional museum using mobile Raman equipment

In recent years, the use of mobile Raman equipment as an archeological, artistic, and conservation tool has largely increased due to the possibility to obtain quick and nondestructive compositional analysis on precious, vulnerable, and unique art objects. In particular, art and archeological museums can take great advantage in carrying out in situ measurements in short times and without moving the artifacts. In this work, we report on the Raman measurements carried out by portable instruments on an important jewelry collection dated back to 17th-18th centuries and preserved in the Messina Regional Museum (Sicily, Italy) with the goal to verify the identification of the gems and gemological materials of the collection, previously made by conservators. Although most of the previous identifications were confirmed, some important reclassifications have been proposed. Finally, interesting and unusual combinations of different materials were detected in some jewels

Separation of dust particles in the low-pressure pneumatic conveying system

ArticleThis paper focuses on the possibility of separation of dust particle created as a byproduct of technological processing of composite materials. The aim was to design and verify technology for the separation of dust particles from polydisperse granular mixtures, which are created by physical-mechanical processes of materials processing (crushing, sorting, machining or surface treatment of products such as grinding or polishing the surface). Under experimental conditions, a low-pressure pneumatic conveying system was designed and tested in operation, supplemented by a powerful electrostatic dust particles separation system. The entry requirement was to design a system that would be able to work with high separation efficiency using lowpressure suction. The designed separation conveying device consists of three parts: the conveyance section for the grain material suction and conveying, the coarse grain share cyclone separator and the electrostatic precipitator of the dust particles released from the air flow. Operational capacity of the proposed technology was verified by evaluating the separation efficiency of processing the polydisperse granular mixture resulting from the crushing of laser printer toner cartridges. These contain toner powder residues, which are the source of composite dust particles. The separation efficiency of the system was monitored according to the set pressure of the air in front of the electrostatic separator. Evaluation of the results thus obtained confirmed the operational reliability of the system at low-pressure operation and the high separation efficiency of the electrostatic separator under the set operation conditions

Everyday resistance in the Czech landscape: the woodcraft culture from the Hapsburg Empire to the communist regime

Considerable scholarly attention has been given to Charter ’77 as a site of dissent in the former Czechoslovakia. Yet there was a socially embedded site of resistance that was active long before the dissidents. We call this site the Czech woodcraft culture. With its mass popularity and its potent references to Native American anti-colonialism, the woodcraft culture has still barely registered among researchers. In this paper, we offer the first scholarly account of the origins of Czech woodcraft culture, starting in the early twentieth century. We argue that subsequent transformations of the woodcraft culture in the Czech landscape should be understood as popular, complex, and often ambiguous practices of resistance, from the internationalist inversions of a national bourgeois order in the inter-war period, to nostalgic and paradoxically nationalist subterfuges of the Soviet-imposed regime after 1968. We trace how, as a response to the state socialist regime’s cultural and political pressures, the activities of Czech woodcraft culture were “layered with memories and experiences rooted in the pre-communist period” (Bren, 2002: 124). The Czech woodcraft culture as a whole provided its adherents with an autonomous space that enabled new forms of sociality, immersions in the natural world, and a host of long-standing voluntary associative activities that preceded the emergence of localized environmental movements and other sites of dissent around the Czech lands

Differential thermal regulation of the growth of the bee colonies in the early spring period

ArticleThis paper addresses the issue of the control of activity and growth of the bee colonies (brooding) in the early spring period. The bees are brooding up already in the late winter, and the intensity of brooding in this period is determined by daytime tempe ratures and sunshine hours that increase the temperature of the inner hive space. The objective is to design and verify a technology that would ensure the conditions for the optimal brooding in the early spring period and thus the numerically strong bee co lonies. The experimental part was based on the temperature regulation in the inner hive space. A preset temperature was maintained inside the hive by an electric heating system with regulation. A differential thermal regulation which enabled the optimal gr owth of the bee colonies in accordance with the phenophases was chosen for verification. To verify the proposed method, two groups of the bee colonies were assembled. One group of the bee colonies had a heating system with regulation installed inside the h ive. The second group of the bee colonies was in the hives without the heating system installed. The dependence of the brood area on time was monitored for the evaluation of both groups of the bee colonies. It was proven that the differential thermal regul ation enables the optimal growth of the bee colonies in the early spring period in accordance with the phenophases. The brood area increased evenly for the group of the bee colonies with a regulated temperature of the hive space, reaching a larger area

What is the contribution of food self-provisioning towards environmental sustainability? A case study of active gardeners

Food self-provisioning, also labelled as household food production, is a traditional activity persisting in the countries of the Global North. Recently, it has become an object of sustainability oriented research due to the positive social, health and environmental outcomes. However, little is known about the rate of self-sufficiency of the food self-provisioners and about environmental context of this kind of food production, including its actual potential for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. To clarify these topics, we analysed sociological data from a quantitative research study carried out in the Czech Republic in 2015. The data from 775 food growing households were used. The combined rate of self-sufficiency of the households was calculated as the share of home grown fruit, vegetables and potatoes in the overall consumption of the household. The rate of self-sufficiency (33%) was then compared with average food consumption and multiplied by the different values of greenhouse gas emissions reduction potential of home grown food. This led to the reduction of 42–92 kg CO2eq/person/year, which constitutes 3–5% of overall food emissions of Czech households. The research shows that positive environmental effects are not negatively counterweighted either by excessive use of industrial fertilisers or by car transportation to the gardens. Environmental motivation is unimportant for gardeners. Our findings give support to “quiet sustainability” and “sustainable materialism”; two recently advanced concepts highlighting the importance of considering everyday practices in the quest for sustainability