What is the Working Environment like on Organic Farms?

A good working environment is part of the fundamental values in organic farming. In Denmark the association of organic farmers state, that the aim of organic farming is "to give everyone involved in the organic production a high quality of living". But how do the organic farmers actually experience their own working situation? And what factors play a part in their daily physical as well as psychological working environment? These were the questions we set out to answer in a project at the Danish Institute of Agricultural Science

Bøgerne om alt – fortalt af mange: Lene Andersens globale eksistentialisme

In Books about the lot - told by a lot. Lene Andersen's global existentialism, Kim Toft Hansen presents and analyzes Baade og, a comprehensive and distinctive work in five volumes by Lene Andersen. You can place this intellectual performance as a kind of map in which different genres and sciences are mixed. An especially interesting theme in this issue of Academic Quarter is Lene Andersen's ideas of a global existentialism containing a critique of religion, science and business: scientific arrogance, religious stupidity and commercial cynicism. Simultaneously there is an appeal to those cultural and economic systems to work as centripetal forces and to contribute to the common good acting positively e.g. promoting prosperity, education, formation, community and awareness about responsibilities.&nbsp

Nature and Nature Values in Organic agriculture an analysis of contested consepts and values among different actors in organic farming

The relationship between agriculture and nature is a central issue in the current agricultural debate. Organic Farming has ambitions and a special potential in relation to nature. Consideration for nature is part of the guiding principals of organic farming and many organic farmers are committed to protecting natural qualities. However, the issue of nature, landscape, and land use is not straightforward. Nature is an ambiguous concept that involves multiple interests and actors reaching far beyond farmers. The Danish research project Nature Quality in Organic Farming has investigated the relationship between nature and organic farming. This article will focus on an expert workshop held in connection with the project that investigates the way different actors conceptualize nature. Farmers, scientists, and non-governmental organizations came together to discuss their experiences of nature and expectations of organic agriculture. From this interaction, it was clear that nature is a contested notion. Different understandings of nature exist within the three groups and there is disagreement as to whether emphasis should be given to biological qualities, production values, or experiential and aesthetic perspectives. This complexity provides a challenge to organic farming as well as to the implementation of nature considerations in general. It illustrates an underlying battle for the right to define nature and nature quality and essentially decide what organic farmers should work towards. We argue that successful implementation requires organic farmers to carefully consider what expectations they wish to meet. Optimally it is dependent on a dialog between stakeholder interest groups that allows for multivocality and pluralism

Securitization and the global politics of cybersecurity

In ‘Digital disaster, cyber security, and the Copenhagen school’, published in 2009, Lene Hansen and Helen Nissenbaum suggest ways in which securitization theory can help understand the politics of cybersecurity and cyberwar. What was significant about Hansen and Nissenbaum’s article was the way it attempted to add new approaches and questions to a topic that tended to occupy a space in an often highly technical discourse of security, technology and strategy, a discourse that extended in to all aspects of life in a digitizing society. This article asks: What should international relations scholars be doing in addition to the challenge and task – to become more interdisciplinary in order to be able to engage with the potential technification and hypersecuritizations of cybersecurity policy and discourse – that was set out in Hansen and Nissenbaum’s article

REDD+ and the Collaboration between Practitioners and Experts

REDD+ is a response to the growing urgency of mitigating climate change and hindering the deforestation of tropical forests. The simple thought of “making trees worth more standing up, then cut down” and therefore storing carbon in trees, has proven to be quite complicated and complex, especially as bilateral agreements are based on result-based payments. However, what is considered a result can be much more than just the amount of reduced carbon-emission. Brazil is the country with the most tropical rainforest in the world, and Indonesia is home to the world's third largest tropical forest, and therefore important partners in the work towards reducing GHG emissions. These two countries and their bilateral agreement between Norway will be in focus in this thesis. After over 13 years, the programme has met many challenges, including miscommunication and inconsistent approaches in the bilateral agreements. Another concerns safeguarding, a requirement to have a system for in REDD+ agreements. This has proven to be almost impossible to monitor and report on. Further, the funding from Norway comes through the ODA budget, which presents additional requirements which have caused difficulties. The programme goes through evaluations, and the government does use research in their strategic planning and in the development of REDD+. Still, there are lessons learned after these years which suggests that better understanding and collaboration between researchers and practitioners is beneficial. This thesis investigates the issues with REDD+ agreements being funded through the ODA budget, and the difficulties of safeguarding as part of the requirements to receive result-based funding. Further it explores how practitioners and experts in Norway collaborate towards REDD+ today, how they share knowledge, how they interact with each other and if they have the same understanding of what the programme is trying to achieve - and what is necessary to achieve the set goals. It argues that more informal collaboration between practitioners and experts to create a common understanding and connection is necessary and would be beneficial in gaining more information regarding national contexts before mapping out plans or setting goals, which could be part of resolving issues found in connection with having safeguarding and ODA finds connected with result-based payments

Securitization and the construction of security

Those interested in the construction of security in contemporary international politics have increasingly turned to the conceptual framework of `securitization'. This article argues that while an important and innovative contribution, the securitization framework is problematically narrow in three senses. First, the form of act constructing security is defined narrowly, with the focus on the speech of dominant actors. Second, the context of the act is defined narrowly, with the focus only on the moment of intervention. Finally, the framework of securitization is narrow in the sense that the nature of the act is defined solely in terms of the designation of threats. In outlining this critique, the article points to possibilities for developing the framework further as well as for the need for those applying it to recognize both limits of their claims and the normative implications of their analysis. I conclude by pointing to how the framework might fit within a research agenda concerned with the broader construction of security

“Christian Stalin” – The Paradox of Contemporary Georgian Politics

The following study sets as the starting point of analysis the paradox which one can observe in contemporary Georgian public space. Religious discourse refers to Stalin as a believer and even talks of his contribution to the revival of Christianity in the Soviet Union, despite the vast historical evidence suggesting otherwise. A considerable part of the Georgian population expresses respect or sympathy towards this historical figure. In this research, it is argued that explanations stemming from memory politics, nationalism or from the attempts of turning the image of Stalin into a commodity, fail to substantially address the puzzle and shed light on the phenomenon. Hence, the following study proposes a chain of signification developed within the discourse theory as a theoretical and methodological tool for looking at these developments. The discourse on national identity with Orthodox Christianity as a nodal point explains the possibility of such an image, religious Stalin, coming into existence

The 2011 Debacle over Danish Border Control: A Mismatch of Domestic and European Games. EU Diplomacy Paper 01/2012, January 2012

In May 2011 the Danish minority government successfully obtained the support of the Danish People’s Party to carry out a comprehensive pension reform. In return, it was agreed that Denmark would reintroduce border controls. However, this appeared to be at odds with the Schengen Agreement and prompted a heated response from Berlin and Brussels. The Danish government had to backtrack and insist that the proposed initiatives would not violate the Schengen acquis. This paper examines how a purely domestic issue galvanized into a strong diplomatic pressure on Denmark, and what that tells us of modern diplomacy in an integrated Europe. It argues that by linking its pension reform with border controls, the Danish government introduced the international level into its national negotiations. This illustrates that the two levels cannot be kept entirely separate in the European Union and diplomacy increasingly becomes a part of daily policy-making

Existential Concerns About Death:A Qualitaive Study of Dying Patients in a Danish Hospice

Research suggests that addressing dying patients’ existential concerns can improve their quality of life. We aimed to illuminate dying patients’ existential concerns about the impending death through a descriptive analysis of semistructured interviews with 17 patients in Danish hospices. The main findings demonstrated how the patients faced the imminent death without being anxious of death but sorrowful about leaving life. Some patients expressed that they avoided thinking about death. They wished to focus on positive aspects in their daily life. We argue that the patients’ existential concerns could not be fully captured by Yalom’s existential psychology or by Kübler-Ross's theory about death stages. Patients’ complex concerns could be more fully explained taking an outset in Heidegger's phenomenological thinking. </jats:p