Indigenous Development: Poverty, Democracy and Sustainability

The contributions included in this volume reflect both the challenges and opportunities of an incipient process of reflection and dialogue between indigenous peoples, governments and development agencies on a subject of vital importance for the approximately 40 million indigenous people of the hemisphere. In addition to the critical issues of poverty reduction, self-development, indigenous rights and secured access to land and natural resources, a common thread throughout this volume is the close interrelationship between sound and sustainable socioeconomic development and the preservation and strengthening of cultural identity. This volume contains the English translation of a selection of essays and presentations made during the International Seminar on Indigenous Development: Poverty, Democracy and Sustainability, organized on the occasion of the First General Assembly of the Fund for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, May 22 and 23, 1995).Democracy, Afro Descendents & Indigenous Peoples, Culture & Arts, Poverty, indigenous peoples, poverty, democracy, sustainability, culture and arts

Cultural and Media Identity Among Latvian Migrants in Germany

This chapter explores how transnational media and culture impacts on the identity formation of recent Latvian migrants in Germany. In the context of the EU, Germany opened its labour market to the new EU countries rather late, when compared to other ‘old’ EU countries. This has had an effect on the composition of the group of Latvian migrants going to Germany, and their identities. In the light of this, this chapter examines how Latvian migrants in Germany feel and experience their belonging to Latvia and its culture. It analyses the social and communicative practices crucial for the development of belonging, including the rootedness in the country where they live and the cultural references that are important for them. The evidence for the analysis in this chapter comes from in-depth interviews, open media diaries and network maps of Latvian migrants in Germany. The chapter situates the description of evidence in the framework of cultural identity concepts and discusses the role of culture and media in the process of building migrant identity. The chapter argues that culture is shaping the transnational self-perception of Latvian migrants in Germany – as it provides collective narratives of imagined common frames of references, and confirms feelings of belonging and distinction

Perceptions of institutional complexity and lobbyists’ decisions to join lobbying coalitions – evidence from the European Union context

YesWe use data from in-depth interviews with business lobbyists in Brussels to investigate why they choose to join lobbying coalitions. We find that lobbyists face two competing institutional incentives. First, they are confronted with incentives to ally with other European organisations, develop multilateral policy messages, and communicate messages to the Commission and the Parliament. Simultaneously, they face inducements to join narrower coalitions, develop bilateral policy messages, and direct those messages at the Council. Lobbyists’ receptivity to these incentives – and thus their choices of lobbying coalitions – differs with their age, educational background, and with the type and ownership structure of the organisations they represent. Combined, our findings contribute to the limited, mainly American literature on interest coalitions by demonstrating that lobbyists operate in complex institutional environments, and that their interpretations of and reactions to institutional complexity are shaped by individual- and organisational-level factors

ZB MED - Information Centre for Life Sciences: An academic library as an engine for open access

ZB MED - Information Center for Life Sciences, Europe's most important medical library, outlines its view of the entire scope of open access: Since 2003 ZB MED has been intensely committed to open access. Beside the practical service of non-commercial user-friendly publication platforms for fast dissemination of scientific research results, ZB MED has gradually expanded its advisory services like FAQs, training sessions and scientific lectures since 2014. The library's strategic focus on integrating numerous open access publications into its catalogue is accompanied by the license department's commitment to enter into transformation contracts. Overall these various opportunities offered by ZB MED represent its claim to be the driving force for open Access in the field of life sciences.ZB MED - Informationszentrum Lebenswissenschaften, wichtigste europäische Medizin-Bibliothek, stellt in diesem Artikel sein gesamtinstitutionelles Open-Access-Angebot vor: Bereits seit 2003 engagiert sich ZB MED aktiv im Bereich Open Access. Neben dem praktischen Angebot alternativer, nicht-kommerzieller Publikationsplattformen zur leichten und schnellen Verbreitung wissenschaftlicher Forschungsergebnisse hat ZB MED seit 2014 zusätzlich sein Beratungsangebot z.B. durch detaillierte FAQs, Inhouse-Schulungen bei Partnern und Vorträge sukzessive ausgebaut. Die strategische Ausrichtung der Bestandsentwicklung, Open-Access-Publikationen in den Katalog aufzunehmen, wird durch das Engagement der Lizenzabteilung, Transformationsverträge zu schließen, ergänzt. ZB MED ist mit seinen Angeboten Motor für Open Access in den Lebenswissenschaften