Tourism and water inequity in Bali: A social-ecological systems analysis

This paper is a social-ecological systems (SES) analysis of tourism and water inequity in Bali. It uses Elinor Ostrom’s SES model to look at the particular niche of Bali’s tourism and water nexus. Re-analysis of previous qualitative research revealed that the vulnerability of the SES was due to numerous characteristics. In particular, user groups are highly diverse, transient and stratified, thereby inhibiting communication and knowledge sharing. This, in combination with weak governance systems and the economic power of the tourism industry, interact to affect declining water resources and the iniquitous impact of this. Whilst there are obvious indications that Bali’s water resources are over stretched, there is no feedback loop to the institutional structures that would help enable appropriate responses from the user groups or governance system

Beyond a Dichotomy of Perspectives: Understanding Religion on the Basis of Paul Natorp’s Logic of Boundary

Based on Paul Natorp’s (1854–1924) late post-Neo-Kantian “Logic of Boundary” (German: “Grenzlogik”) I will offer a methodically controlled, non-reductionist and equally anti-essentialist reconstruction of the notion of religion. The pre-eminent objective of this reconstructive work is to overcome the well-known epistemological as well as methodological problem of a dichotomy between inside and outside perspectives on the subject of religion. Differently put, the objective consists in an attempt to demonstrate that there actually is “reason in religion” that is intellectually accessible for academic knowledge production. Following Natorp’s splendid formulation I will argue that religion operates neither ‘within’ nor ‘beyond’ the ‘boundary of humanity’ but exactly on [or ‘in’] this boundary. More precisely, I will explicate that religious praxis (including its specific production of knowledge) from Natorp’s standpoint can be understood as the performative realization, and habitual embodiment of the (contextually concrete) boundary of humanity or human reason itself. Due to its principial self-referentiality this boundary carries the crucial sense of a first and last positive and, therefore, both in theoretical terms definitive and in practical terms eminently instructive notion of boundary with no outside. This paradoxically all-enclosing, positive boundary, while explicitly including life’s inevitable negativity but, nonetheless, able to ideally sublate it, is the reason why the practice of religion, as empirical evidence unmistakably documents, can provide an incommensurably fulfilling, significant and meaningful closure with regards to the innermost self-perception of its practitioners (concerning their self-determination or agency)

Experiencing Diversity: Complexity, Education, and Peace Construction

AbstractThe relationship with diversity is one of the basic aspects of human experience. In the present contribution, a broad definition of diversity is proposed, which includes, but is not limited to, cultural diversity. The analysis of the experience of diversity is especially focused on children's attitudes and behavior. The role of education is also highlighted. Though education is generally considered by the author in its broad sense, namely, as the sum of all the elements of reality that in one way or another affect human development, a special emphasis here is given to school. The main assumption of this chapter is that complexity, diversity, education, and peace construction are intimately interrelated. Diversity is one of the essential components of complexity, and considerations regarding the reality of complexity should be the prerequisite of any educational program and of any effort toward peace construction. These reflections partly draw on a number of studies (especially through the use of anonymous open-ended essays) we conducted in Italian secondary schools on children's (aged 9–18) attitudes toward multiculturalism. Some suggestions are also prompted by a brief analysis of a passage from the Australian novel My Place by Sally Morgan

Toward conservational anthropology: addressing anthropocentric bias in anthropology

Anthropological literature addressing conservation and development often blames 'conservationists' as being neo-imperialist in their attempts to institute limits to commercial activities by imposing their post-materialist eco-ideology. The author argues that this view of conservationists is ironic in light of the fact that the very notion of 'development' is arguably an imposition of the (Western) elites. The anthropocentric bias in anthropology also permeates constructivist ethnographies of human-animal 'interactions,' which tend to emphasize the socio-cultural complexity and interconnectivity rather than the unequal and often extractive nature of this 'interaction.' Anthropocentrism is argued to be counteractive to reconciling conservationists' efforts at environmental protection with the traditional ontologies of the interdependency of human-nature relationship

Mobile social group sizes and scaling ratio

Social data mining has become an emerging area of research in information and communication technology fields. The scope of social data mining has expanded significantly in the recent years with the advance of telecommunication technologies and the rapidly increasing accessibility of computing resources and mobile devices. People increasingly engage in and rely on phone communications for both personal and business purposes. Hence, mobile phones become an indispensable part of life for many people. In this article, we perform social data mining on mobile social networking by presenting a simple but efficient method to define social closeness and social grouping, which are then used to identify social sizes and scaling ratio of close to “8”. We conclude that social mobile network is a subset of the face-to-face social network, and both groupings are not necessary the same, hence the scaling ratios are distinct. Mobile social data mining