Harm as a Psychological Concept: Some Fragmentary Reflections

This paper outlines the not-so-sharp contours of the concept of harm. It sees harm as largely a psychological concept and argues for the need of a third concept — harm, in addition to the two incumbents upon us — violence and trauma. It also argues that it is the relative blur in the use of the concept of harm that makes it fecund in terms of its capacity to unveil multiple forms and facets of human experience, including the process of self-harm

Interrogating Inclusive Development in India’s Transition Process

This paper makes two related contributions. First, the dual economic structure underlying development is shown as producing a distinct conception of other comprising of a devalued third world which is foregrounded and world of the third which is excluded. This dyad of inclusion-exclusion of other is produced in relation to the centers of capitalism and modernism. The category of third world helps to displace the language-experience-logic-ethos of the other a la world of the third such that development works over and transforms world of the third, but via the trope of a devalued third world. We then use this framework to explore the relation of global capitalism with world of the third in the Indian context, a relation that is shown to be two fold. There is on one hand an attempt to dismantle world of the third as part of the development trope of overcoming the third world. On the other, through inclusive development, an attempt is made to directly intervene in the economy of world of the third so as to address the problems of income inequality and social exclusion, again under the trope of uplifting the devalued third world

Tobacco Use during Pregnancy and Its Associated Factors in a Mountain District of Eastern Nepal: A Cross-Sectional Questionnaire Survey

BackgroundTobacco using among women is more prevalent in Nepal as compared to other South-East Asian countries. The effect of its use is seen not only on the pregnant women, but also health of the growing fetus is compromised. Currently, little is known about the tobacco use among women especially during pregnancy in Nepal. This study explored the tobacco use prevalence and its associated factors during pregnancy.Materials and methodsA cross-sectional study was conducted in Sankhuwasabha, a mountain district of eastern Nepal. Representative sample of 436 women of reproductive age group with infant were selected by stratified simple random sampling. Data were collected by face-to-face interviews of selected participants. Data were analyzed with SPSS version 16.0. Binary logistic regression was used to analyze the relationship among variables.ResultsThe study revealed that the prevalence of tobacco use during pregnancy was 17.2%. Only one fifth of the research participants were asked to quit tobacco by health workers during last pregnancy. Multivariable analyses revealed that illiteracy (AOR: 2.31, CI: 1.18–4.52), more than two parity (AOR: 2.45, CI: 1.19–5.07), alcohol use during last pregnancy (AOR: 3.99, CI: 1.65–9.68), and having tobacco user within family (AOR: 2.05, CI: 1.11–3.78) are more likely to use tobacco during pregnancy.ConclusionTobacco use during pregnancy was widely prevalent. Tobacco-focused interventions are required for antenatal women to promote cessation among user and prevent initiation with focus on overcoming problems like illiteracy, high parity, alcohol use, and having other tobacco user family members in family

Transformation of phthalaldehyde to indenoisoxazole derivatives^†

1140-1143Phthalaldehyde has been converted to l-stilbenyl-2-nitroethane derivatives, which afford 3-arylindenoisoxazoles via silylnitronate or nitrile oxide cycloaddition reactions

What if, the 'rural' is the future; and not the past?

This chapter is based on the study of economic qua labour qua class processes in a village, called Emaliguda, in the Rayagada district of South Odisha. It often happens that the standard ‘answer’ to a particular question only appears to be an answer. The genealogy of the term ‘rural’ shows that one of the origins of the term can be traced to the Latin noun rus, meaning an “open area”, at times described as a “space that lay outside the cities”; in other words, that which was outside4 the urban. In addition, what remains paradigmatic of rural myths, idylls, descriptions, prescriptions, characteristics, and representations (whether these be imagined, material, social construct, understood through rural practices, or a category of thought), is that rural has always been rendered as that which is not-urban or not-yet-urban

Rethinking development communication

Here we, on the one hand, revisit the standard operating procedure in development strategies—“communication (technologies) for development”—and move instead to “development for facilitating communication” through exploring questions such as: Does communication facilitate development? Or does development facilitate communication? Which kind of communication can engender development? Which kind of development can ensure communication with the “margins”? We thus tighten and deepen the connection between the nature of development and the nature of communication; in the process we see communication for development and development for communication as mutually constitutive. We also invoke the question of praxis in three forms: (a) by exploring the connection between praxis and communication and seeing communication as not just a technique but as a question of praxis—where theories of communication and practices of communication are in a relationship, (b) by seeing developmental praxis as intimately tied to the question of communication, and (c) by letting praxis emerge as the “middle term” or the connecting link between development and communication. We deconstruct three discourses of development: the growth-centric discourse, those offering “developmental alternatives” (like human developmental perspectives), and those presenting “alternatives to development” (like postdevelopmentalist positions focused on “third world” or the “local,” etc.), to move to a fourth discourse that problematizes both modernism and capitalism, as it opens up the discourses of communication (modernist, dependency theory, participatory approach, etc.) for inquiry. We attempt to go beyond the modernist and capitalist understandings of development to introduce the logic-language-ethos of “world of the third” as against third world-ist imaginations. This helps us rethink the praxis of communication in creating, on the one hand, community- or social movements–driven developmental futures and, on the other, engendering post-Orientalist and postcapitalist forms of life in local or world of the third contexts. We also emphasize the need to reflect on the question of the “subject” (as also psychoanalytic conceptualizations of the “psyche”) and the need to learn to “work through” “groups” in order to usher in depth and nuance in the praxis of development communication