Islam und Entwicklungszusammenarbeit: Projekte des Aga Khan Development Networks im Lichte transregionaler Dynamiken

Der Aga Khan IV. ist zugleich religiöser Führer der schiitischen Ismailiten, die in Zentralasien schwerpunktmäßig im tadschikischen Autonomen Gebiet Berg-Badachschan (GBAO) leben, und Vorsitzender des Aga Khan Development Networks, einer in Zentralasien wie vielen anderen Staaten der Erde aktiven Entwicklungsorganisation. Im Rahmen einer Analyse ihrer gegenwärtigen Entwicklungsprojekte in Zentralasien beleuchtet dieser Artikel zum einen den komplexen Zusammenhang zwischen Entwicklungszusammenarbeit und schiitisch-ismailitischer Globalisierung. Zum anderen zeigt er, dass diese Verbindung vor dem Hintergrund kontinuierlicher, grenzüberschreitender und transregionaler Prozesse ausgehandelt wird, die bis ins frühe 20. Jahrhundert zurückreichen

Whither West Asia? Exploring North-South perspectives on Eurasia

The introduction to the Special Issue explores the relevance of the concept of West Asia for understanding connections between East Asia, Eurasia and the Middle East. It seeks to go beyond the tendency in much scholarly work concerning regional connectivity in Asia to fixate on various permutations of the “Silk Road” or East-West ties more generally. We bring attention, rather, to the simultaneous significance of dense North-South connections that enable the interpenetration of varying parts of Asia and argue that West Asia is analytically helpful in bringing analytical definition to such ties

Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia

Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia offers a new understanding of how technological innovation, geopolitical ambitions, and social change converge and cross-fertilize one another through infrastructure projects in Asia. This volume powerfully illustrates the multifaceted connections between infrastructure and three global paradigm shifts: climate change, digitalization, and China’s emergence as a superpower. Drawing on fine-grained analyses of airports, highways, pipelines, and digital communication systems, the book investigates infrastructure both “from above,” as perceived by experts and decision makers, and “from below,” as experienced by middlemen, laborers, and everyday users. In so doing, it provides groundbreaking insights into infrastructure’s planning, production, and operation. Focusing on cities and regions across Asia, the volume combines ten tightly interwoven case studies, from the Bosphorus to Beijing and from the Indonesian archipelago to the Arctic. Written by leading global infrastructure experts in the fields of anthropology, architecture, geography, history, science and technology studies, and urban planning, the book establishes a dialogue between scholarly approaches to infrastructure and the more operational perspective of the professionals who design and build it. This multidisciplinary method sheds light on the practitioners’ mindset, while also attending to the materiality and agency of the infrastructures that they create. Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia is conceived as an act of translation: linking up related—yet thus far disconnected—research across a variety of academic disciplines, while making those insights accessible to a wider audience of students, infrastructure professionals, and the general public

History of malaria control in Tajikistan and rapid malaria appraisal in an agro-ecological setting

10.1186/1475-2875-7-217Malaria Journal721

Here and there, now

A textile installation shaped by traditional embroidery, geographical differences, technology and novel natural dye is the focus of this paper. ‘Through the globe’ [Através do globo] is the result of a six week artist in residency at Contextile 2016 in Guimarães, Portugal.1 It builds upon environmental pest invasive weed dye research, interprets ‘traditional’ embroidery illustrating the poetics of place.2 The essence of Guimarães embroidery provides the narrative along the fourteen metre length and is the physical embodiment of the antipodal link between and Wellington, New Zealand. The challenge offered by Contextile 2016 was to collaborate with Oficina embroiderers to learn, then use traditional Guimarães embroidery, and, then exhibit the work at Residências Artistícas at Casa da Memória [House of Memory] in the Contextile 2016 triennial.3 During a period in the late nineteenth century a desire for the creation of national identity existed and the documentation of Guimarães embroidery began to ensure it gained visibility.4 The embroidery arose from a range of other factors including human will, sensibility, and dexterity to create a united unique style. Traditionally, rural women’s waistcoats were richly embroidered, such as one included in the University of Aberdeen Needlework Development Scheme collection. 5 Now, Guimarães embroidery is mostly used to adorn home ware products for the tourist market

Emic and Etic

The emic/etic distinction originated in linguistics in the 1950s to designate two complementary standpoints for the analysis of human language and behaviour. It has been subject to debates in the humanities and social sciences ever since. Imported into anthropology in the 1960s, etic came to stand for ambitions to establish an objective, scientific approach to the study of culture, whereas emic refers to the goal of grasping the world according to one’s interlocutors’ particular points of view. While the distinction lost traction as an analytical instrument in anthropology in the 1990s, emic and etic have become concepts used by various other disciplines and subfields in the humanities and social sciences. In these contexts, they continue to be used to address a range of different epistemological and methodological issues, such as the relationship between researcher and research subject or the question of how to legitimately interpret social practices. For this reason, the emic/etic distinction remains relevant. It draws attention to fundamental differences in the way scholars and students of various disciplines approach and discuss research, data, and comparison