Disciplining the body? Reflections on the cross disciplinary import of ‘embodied meaning’ into interaction design

The aim of this paper is above all critically to examine and clarify some of the negative implications that the idea of ‘embodied meaning’ has for the emergent field of interaction design research. Originally, the term ‘embodied meaning’ has been brought into HCI research from phenomenology and cognitive semantics in order to better understand how user’s experience of new technological systems relies to an increasing extent on full-body interaction. Embodied approaches to technology design could thus be found in Winograd & Flores (1986), Dourish (2001), Lund (2003), Klemmer, Hartman & Takayama (2006), Hornecker & Buur (2006), Hurtienne & Israel (2007) among others. However, fertile as this cross-disciplinary import may be, design research can generally be criticised for being ‘undisciplined’, because of its tendency merely to take over reductionist ideas of embodied meaning from those neighbouring disciplines without questioning the inherent limitations it thereby subscribe to. In this paper I focus on this reductionism and what it means for interaction design research. I start out by introducing the field of interaction design and two central research questions that it raises. This will serve as a prerequisite for understanding the overall intention of bringing the notion of ‘embodied meaning’ from cognitive semantics into design research. Narrowing my account down to the concepts of ‘image schemas’ and their ‘metaphorical extension’, I then explain in more detail what is reductionistic about the notion of embodied meaning. Having done so, I shed light on the consequences this reductionism might have for design research by examining a recently developed framework for intuitive user interaction along with two case examples. In so doing I sketch an alternative view of embodied meaning for interaction design research. Keywords: Interaction Design, Embodied Meaning, Tangible User Interaction, Design Theory, Cognitive Semiotics</p

Inequality and Political Clientelism: Evidence from South India

Political parties can be vehicles for economic and social development in poor countries. They can also serve as rent seeking instruments. Uncovering how parties function is therefore key to establishing the preconditions for good governance. The paper discusses when and why clientelism on the basis of party affiliation may arise. Operationally, party-based clientelism is defined as a bias of public policy in favour of members of the governing political party. In a sample of local governments in India, party-based clientelism is shown to exist in two out of four states and to be strongly affected by economic inequality.decentralization; patronage; clientelism; inequality; poverty; India

Democracy, Redistributive Taxation and the Private Provision of Public Goods

The paper studies in a simple, Downsian model of political competition how the private provision of public goods is affected when it is embedded in a system of democracy and redistributive taxation. Results show that the positive effect of inequality on public goods production, which Olson (1965) pointed to, is weakened and might even be reversed in this context. Also, the median voter may choose a negative tax rate, even if he is poorer than the mean, in order to stimulate public goods production. The relevance of the model is illustrated with an application to the finance of higher education.public goods; political economy; inequality; taxation; higher education

When Does Ethnic Diversity Lead to Violence? Evidence from the 2007 Elections in Kenya

Some people have a concern for a fair distribution of incomes while others do not. Does such a concern matter for majority voting on redistribution? Fairness preferences are relevant for redistribution outcomes only if fair-minded voters are pivotal. Pivotality, in turn, depends on the structure of income classes. We experimentally study voting on redistribution between two income classes and show that the effect of inequality aversion is asymmetric. Inequality aversion is more likely to matter if the “rich” are in majority. With a “poor” majority, we find that redistribution outcomes look as if all voters were exclusively motivated by self-interest.Conflict; ethnicity; poverty; unemployment; public services; Kenya

Political Connections and Investment in Rural Vietnam

This paper uses household panel data from rural Vietnam to explore the effects of having a relative in a position of political or bureaucratic power on farmers. agricultural investment decisions. Our main result is that households significantly increase their investment in land improvement as a result of relatives moving into public office. Connections to office holders appear to be important for investment because they strengthen de facto land property rights and improve access to off-farm employment and to informal loans. The findings underline the importance of informal networks for economic behaviour in environments with developing institutions and markets. They also suggest the presence of an untapped potential for economic development: if households without connections could obtain equally strong property rights and accessto credit and insurance as the well-connected households, investment levels would risesubstantially.political connections, informal networks, land property rights, investment,credit, Vietnam

Serving the Public Interest

We present a model of political selection in which voters elect a president from a set of candidates. We assume that some of the candidates are benevolent and that all voters prefer a benevolent president, i.e. a president who serves the public interest. Yet, political selection may fail in our model because voters cannot easily tell benevolent from egoistic candidates by observing their pre-election behavior. Egoistic types may strategically imitate benevolent types in the pre-election stage to extract rents once in office. We show that strategic imitation is less likely if the political system is likely to produce good governance. That is, if benevolent candidates are common, if the president has little discretionary power, and if the public sector is effective. We analyze the role of institutions like investigative media and re-election and show that they can improve or further hamper political selection, depending on the parameters of the political game.Political selection, elections, social preferences, political leadership

Serving the Public Interest

We present a model of political selection in which voters elect a president from a set of candidates. We assume that some of the candidates are benevolent and that all voters prefer a benevolent president, i.e. a president who serves the public interest. Yet, political selection may fail in our model because voters cannot easily tell benevolent from egoistic candidates by observing their pre-election behavior. Egoistic types may strategically imitate benevolent types in the pre-election stage to extract rents once in office. We show that strategic imitation is less likely if the political system is likely to produce good governance. That is, if benevolent candidates are common, if the president has little discretionary power, and if the public sector is effective. We analyze the role of institutions like investigative media and re-election and show that they can improve or further hamper political selection, depending on the parameters of the political game.political selection; elections; social preferences; political leadership

Inequality and Political Clientelism:Evidence from South India

International audiencePolitical parties can be vehicles for economic and social development in poor countries. They can also serve as rent seeking instruments. Uncovering how parties function is therefore key to establishing the preconditions for good governance. The paper discusses when and why clientelism on the basis of party affiliation may arise. Operationally, party-based clientelism is defined as a bias of public policy in favour of members of the governing political party. In a sample of local governments in India, party-based clientelism is shown to exist in two out of four states and to be strongly affected by economic inequality