International Experiences with Decentralisation

Effective decentralisation requires the clear assignment of duties and responsibilities (functions); sufficient resources (funds) and staff (functionaries) needed to carry out public duties at each level of government. The 3Fs as they are commonly known are critical to the design of any decentralised system and must be carefully sequenced to ensure their success. This paper looks at how three countries – Bolivia, Switzerland and Uganda – have devolved the 3Fs to local governments.Decentralization; local governance; federalism

No. 05: The Urban Food System of Bangalore, India

Bangalore (officially Bangaluru) is one of India’s fastest-growing cities. It is now the fifth-largest urban agglomeration in India, and the capital and primate city of the state of Karnataka in terms of area, population and economic output. With no natural features restricting its development, Bangalore’s spatial growth patterns are characterized by urban sprawl. Although it accounts for only 0.4% of the area of Karnataka and about 16% of the total population of the state, Bangalore has the highest district income in the state, contributing approximately 34% to Gross State Domestic Product at current prices and is a magnet for investment and employment in Karnataka. The history of Bangalore is marked by two significant political developments: the Vijayanagara Empire in the 1500s and the British Empire in the 1800s. The patterns of urbanization that emerged from both forms of control – the British and the royal families – shaped current-day Bangalore. This report provides an overview of the city focusing on demography, spatial and physical growth, and governance structures. Although the focus is largely on food-related issues, it also provides a larger contextual picture of the city’s evolution. While there is currently little detailed information available about Bangalore’s food economy, or the larger food sector at the city scale, the report also includes information about national and regional policies and programmes that have an impact on local systems

Gutless Bitch Camouflage : Post-Postmodern Barbarism and Shifting Gender Performativity in AMC\u27s The Walking Dead

AMC’s The Walking Dead is part of Robert Kirkman’s franchised juggernaut, The Walking Dead. Within this world, humans struggle to survive as they band together in groups to fight against the zombie hoard and monstrous elements of humanity. As survival is their main priority, established roles from pre-fall society no longer function as all genders, races, ages, and classes of people actively fight to live. Using Judith Butler’s gender performance theory and Julia Kristeva’s description of the abject, this thesis questions how and if gender functions when culture is destroyed and civilization breaks down. Gender markers of femininity are lost as women embrace masculinity and become stronger. There is no time for luxuries or girly things when life centers on food, water, shelter, and safety. Women can no longer function as mothers because if they do, either they or their children die. Instead, women become friends to children and others. The wild barbarity of an apocalyptic world tilts masculine and men are better prepared to survive, but women are right with them and learn quickly. In addition, women are allowed more room to function on the gender spectrum and when they are most shrewd, they can use assumptions about their gender, feminine weakness and fear, to manipulate and disarm their adversaries. It remains to be seen if the flexibility of movement on the spectrum is lasting or if the psychological damage peeking through the storyline are the result of women taking on and preforming extreme masculinity. This thesis argues that the extremes of gender performance are damaging, death for extreme femininity and insanity for extreme masculinity, as people move towards preforming as a humanity within a more neutral presentation of gender. Feminist goals of gender equality seem possible after the destruction of the culture that perpetuates repressive femininity. Without pop culture, media, and big culture, small groups of people can find more similarity in the ability of people without the labels and stereotypes, allowing great feats of teamwork, survival, and action to occur

The importance of social entrepreneurship in national systems of innovation - An introduction

This special issue links "National Systems of Innovation" with "Social Entrepreneurship" to showcase how social entrepreneurship enables the diffusion of new technologies to make a social impact and engender "creative destruction" through the value generating activities of economic actors ranging from individuals, micro-enterprises to large organizations. The special issue calls attention to the importance of social entrepreneurship in the national system of innovation and the need for analysis at multiple levels ranging from micro to macro. It also calls for research on new actors and models for the diffusion of new technologies in sectors where markets do not exist and where the lack of immediate returns inhibits investment by for-profit organizations. While highlighting the growing prominence of social entrepreneurship at the micro level, the special issue also notes the paucity of measures to account for the impact of social entrepreneurship organizations and the need for more research in this area

“We Are Human Beings:” Humanitarian Confinement, Refugee Bodies, and Human Rights

Focusing on humanitarian aid to refugees in the Nyarugusu Refugee Camp in Western Tanzania, this dissertation argues that humanitarianism has shifted from the care of the bodily and immediate material needs to a form of moral care inflected by contemporary human rights discourse. The camp, in operation for over 17 years, became the site of a pedagogical intervention aimed at teaching refugees human rights. Informed by essentialist understandings of Congolese culture, aid agencies enforce a version of human rights in which only women’s rights are human rights. Refugees respond to this in a variety of ways, by contesting, appropriating, or exiting the framework of rights entirely. In reading human rights discourse as a site for an anthropology of ethics, this dissertation argues against simply understanding humanitarian confinement in terms of biopolitics, and looks to black feminist theorizations of the “human” to gesture beyond human rights. It shows how Nyarugusu residents make claims based on bodily vulnerability to decolonize the “human” of “human rights,” and how, in doing so, they point us towards a politics of vulnerability grounded in an ethics of sincerity

Unburdening Humanity of “Man”: Black Studies and the Emancipatory Possibilities of the Flesh

What would the future look like if we didn’t think about politics in terms of resistance and agency? What if we eschewed such terms that only allow us to conceptualize meaningful political change in the language of revolutionary action? What if, instead of accepting as universal the Western ideation of humanity, we privileged the particularities of non-white being-in-the-world, and not just as markers of locality

No. 05: The Urban Food System of Bangalore, India

Bangalore (officially Bangaluru) is one of India’s fastest-growing cities. It is now the fifth-largest urban agglomeration in India, and the capital and primate city of the state of Karnataka in terms of area, population and economic output. With no natural features restricting its development, Bangalore’s spatial growth patterns are characterized by urban sprawl. Although it accounts for only 0.4% of the area of Karnataka and about 16% of the total population of the state, Bangalore has the highest district income in the state, contributing approximately 34% to Gross State Domestic Product at current prices and is a magnet for investment and employment in Karnataka. The history of Bangalore is marked by two significant political developments: the Vijayanagara Empire in the 1500s and the British Empire in the 1800s. The patterns of urbanization that emerged from both forms of control – the British and the royal families – shaped current-day Bangalore. This report provides an overview of the city focusing on demography, spatial and physical growth, and governance structures. Although the focus is largely on food-related issues, it also provides a larger contextual picture of the city’s evolution. While there is currently little detailed information available about Bangalore’s food economy, or the larger food sector at the city scale, the report also includes information about national and regional policies and programmes that have an impact on local systems