Configuration of social actors among negotiation arenas for rural territorial development project in Brazil

The complexification and diversification of public policies have led to start to analyze them as social constructions and complex conjunctions of institutional agreements. Those agreements exist among economic and social agents who hold divergent interests. The notion of public action has been mobilized to take into account the renovation of the management processes of policy making: the fragmentation of power spaces, the actors' interdependence and the presence of confrontation and conflict in the public action arena, the last being more and more canalized into negotiation spaces created to host negotiation mechanisms. The paper analyses one aspect of the interaction between social movements and territorialized public policies through the different configurations among social actors in the negotiation arena of Brazilian federal Programme for Sustainable Development of Rural Territories (PSDRT). The main question is how do civil society actors appropriate, adapt and tailor public policy instruments in the negotiation arena in order to use them to their own contexts? Our hypothesis is that it is possible to enrich the production of knowledge on those mechanisms revealing dialogue, power interplay, status asymmetries among heterogeneous actors through the analysis of the actors' social configurations (individual and institutional) implied in those negotiation processes. The paper examines two cases in the territory of Aguas Emendadas (DF region in the Cerrados area), the territory of Portal da Amazônia (State of Mato Grosso). First results have shown an institutionalisation process of territorial development framework with the emergence and empowerment of new rural leaders, but a precarious quality of the local projects elaborated and negotiated in these arenas, as well as a small territorial impact. (Résumé d'auteur

Jeux de pouvoir et configurations d'acteurs autour des projets territoriaux : le cas Aguas Emendadas -Brésil

Le Territoire Aguas Emendadas (situé autour du point de partage des eaux de trois bassins ; Paraná, Tocantins et São Francisco et à l'intersection de trois Etats) est le seul au Brésil a réunir des municipalités appartenant à trois Unités Fédératives (le District Fédéral et les Etats de Goiás et de Minas Gerais). Cette particularité se superpose à la spécificité administrative du district fédéral et à la complexité bureaucratique liée à la dépendance de sentier du principe de subsidiarité de la structure fédérative qui reconnait trois pouvoirs législatifs et exécutifs : la municipalité, l'Etat fédéré et l'Union. Cette situation spécifique confère un fort pouvoir aux représentants du District fédéral majoritaires dans le Conseil du territoire et une configuration d'acteurs dominées par le réseau de techniciens des services publics et des ONG (agronomes, gestionnaires et économistes) qui constitue de fait le maillon fort en terme de compétences et le seul dénominateur commun aux trois unités fédératives au sein du Conseil territorial. La communication illustre l'évolution du pouvoir des techniciens avec la mise en place du programme de développement des territoires ruraux du Ministère du développement agraire, à travers l'analyse de l'évolution de la configuration sociale autour de deux projets territoriaux de mise en marché des produits agricoles. (Résumé d'auteur

Abordagem metodológica das diversas dimensões da sustentabilidade em projetos de uma rede interamericana

Since its creation in 2004 this South American network of researchers (Strategic Monitoring of South American Regional Transformations - SMART) has been trying to face the challenges brought about the expectations ofimprovement on farmers' performance, the concerns on natural resources preservation and the legitim desires of social justice and equity In this sense, the network has chosen the analysis of the movements and their links (the territorial dynamics, regional transformations, mobility). This paper analyzes the approaches and tools used in the network's researches to deal with different dimensions of sustainability: the transdisciplinary approach, participative methods associated to modelling (simulation, multi agent models) and the political analysis based on the construction of scenarios. (Résumé d'auteur

Language athletes: Dual-language code-switchers exhibit inhibitory control advantages

Recent studies have begun to examine bilingual cognition from more nuanced, experienced-based perspectives. The present study adds to this body of work by investigating the potential impact of code-switching on bilinguals’ inhibitory control abilities. Crucially, our bilingual participants originated from a predominantly dual-language environment, the interactional context which is believed to require (and therefore, potentially train) cognitive control processes related to goal-monitoring and inhibition. As such, 266 French Canadian bilinguals completed an online experiment wherein they were asked to complete a domain-general (Flanker) and a language-specific (bilingual Stroop) inhibitory control task, as well as extensive demographic and language background questionnaires. Stepwise multiple regressions (including various potential demographic and linguistic predictors) were conducted on the participants’ Flanker and Stroop effects. The results indicated that the bilinguals’ propensity to code-switch consistently yielded significant positive (but unidirectional) inhibitory control effects: dual-language bilinguals who reported more habitual French-to-English switching exhibited better goal-monitoring and inhibition abilities. For the language-specific task, the analysis also revealed that frequent unintentional code-switching may mitigate these inhibition skills. As such, the findings demonstrate that dual-language code-switchers may experience inhibitory control benefits, but only when their switching is self-reportedly deliberate. We conclude that the bilinguals’ interactional context is thus of primary importance, as the dual-language context is more conducive to intentional code-switching. Overall, the current study highlights the importance of considering individualistic language experience when it comes to examining potential bilingual executive functioning advantages

The Couples' Illness Communication Scale (CICS): development and evaluation of a brief measure assessing illness-related couple communication.

When one member of a couple has a chronic illness, communication about the illness is important for both patient and partner well-being. This study aimed to develop and test a brief self-report measure of illness-related couple communication

The Debate on Maturational Constraints in Bilingual Development: A Perspective from First-Language Attrition

A controversial topic in research on second-language acquisition is whether residual variability and optionality in high-proficiency late second-language (L2) learners is merely the outcome of cross-linguistic transfer, competition, and processing limitations, or whether late learners have an underlying representational deficit due to maturational constraints on ultimate attainment in L2. This study argues that insights into this question can be gained by comparing advanced late L2 learners with late bilinguals who grew up with the language under investigation as their first language (L1), prior to emigrating to another country. The latter group, who use the language of the host country predominantly in their daily lives, typically exhibit increased optionality in their native language as a result of cross-linguistic transfer and L1 attrition. They do not, however, have a representational deficit in their L1, having acquired it monolingually during childhood. Such a comparison has the potential to distinguish grammatical features that are prone to bilingualism effects from those that natives can maintain but with which L2ers struggle persistently, possibly due to maturational limitations. This study compares 20 long-term attriters (English L2) with 20 highly advanced immersed learners of German (English L1) and 20 predominantly monolingual controls. The bilingual populations are matched for proficiency and for their use of German in daily life. The analysis comprises a group comparison and an investigation of individual performance, to assess whether there are L2 speakers who perform within the accuracy ranges of a larger population of attriters (n = 53) on all features, and similarly, whether any of the attriters perform within the accuracy range of a population of native controls (n = 53). The findings indicate that there are some areas of grammar (e.g., obligatory word order) where the L2 speakers are similar to the L1 attriters, and others (in particular noun phrase morphology) where attriters and monolinguals behave differently from the L2ers. This finding is interpreted as being consistent with an account that assumes some form of maturational constraint on language learning