Social Categories are Natural Kinds, not Objective Types (and Why it Matters Politically)

There is growing support for the view that social categories like men and women refer to “objective types” (Haslanger 2000, 2006, 2012; Alcoff 2005). An objective type is a similarity class for which the axis of similarity is an objective rather than nominal or fictional property. Such types are independently real and causally relevant, yet their unity does not derive from an essential property. Given this tandem of features, it is not surprising why empirically-minded researchers interested in fighting oppression and marginalization have found this ontological category so attractive: objective types have the ontological credentials to secure the reality (and thus political representation) of social categories, and yet they do not impose exclusionary essences that also naturalize and legitimize social inequalities. This essay argues that, from the perspective of these political goals of fighting oppression and marginalization, the category of objective types is in fact a Trojan horse; it looks like a gift, but it ends up creating trouble. I argue that objective type classifications often lack empirical adequacy, and as a result they lack political adequacy. I also provide, and in reference to the normative goals described above, several arguments for preferring a social ontology of natural kinds with historical essences

Water Supply or ‘Beautiful Latrines’? Microcredit for Rural Water Supply and Sanitation in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam.

Around half of the Mekong Delta’s rural population lacks year-round access to clean water. In combination with inadequate hygiene and poor sanitation this creates a high risk of diseases. Microcredit schemes are a popular element in addressing such problems on the global policy level. The present paper analyses the contradictory results of such a microcredit programme for rural water supply and sanitation in the context of the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, through a qualitative study primarily based on semi-structured interviews in rural communes of Can Tho City. We come to the conclusion that the programme has a positive effect regarding the safer disposal of human excreta as well as surface water quality, but a marginal impact on poverty reduction as it only reaches better-off households already having access to clean water. The paper shows how the outcome of rural water supply and sanitation policies are strongly infl uenced by the local ecological, technological, and social settings, in particular by stakeholders’ interests. The authors challenge the assumption that water supply and sanitation should be integrated into the same policy in all circumstances

Aggregation and management of metadata in the context of Europeana

The creation of connected content and the linking of metadata are basic requirements for the realisation of the semantic web. Semantic linkage of data enables the joint search of heterogeneous databases and facilitates future machine learning. The present article outlines the metadata management and metadata linking activities of the European Digital Library. A short overview on the current core research areas and implementation strategies in this field is presented. Various projects and metadata services tailored to natural history data, regional cultural heritage data and audio collections are described

Collective emotions and joint action : beyond received and minimalist approaches

In contemporary philosophy of collective intentionality, emotions, feelings, moods, and sentiments do not figure prominently in debates on the explanation and justification of joint action. Received philosophical theories analyze joint action in terms of common knowledge of cognitively complex, interconnected structures of intentions and action plans of the participants. These theories admit that collective emotions sometimes give rise to joint action or more typically, unplanned and uncoordinated collective behavior that falls short of full-fledged jointly intentional action. In contrast, minimalist theorists pay some attention to affective elements in joint action without much concern about their collective intentionality. They refer to an association between low-level synchrony in perceptual, motor, and behavioral processes, and increased interpersonal liking, feelings of solidarity, and cooperativeness. In this paper, we outline an account of collective emotions that can bridge this theoretical divide, linking the intentional structure of joint actions and the underlying cognitive and affective mechanisms. Collective emotions can function as both motivating and justifying reasons for jointly intentional actions, in some cases even without prior joint intentions of the participants. Moreover, they facilitate coordination in joint action.Peer reviewe

Restoring State Control Over Forest Resources Through Administrative Procedures: Evidence From a Community Forestry Programme in Central Java, Indonesia

In recent years, community forestry has emerged as a means to reform power constellations with regard to forest governance. Through community forestry, the central state promised to devolve several forest rights to local communities and encouraged them to get involved in decision making processes and the implementation of forest activities. However, experience in some countries indicates that the implementation of community forestry programmes is rarely followed by genuine power devolution to local forest users. Instead, these programmes may even serve as a means to retain or restore the central state’s control over forests. Using a case study of a community forestry programme implemented in Java, Indonesia, by a state forest company, this paper argues that the implementation of community forestry is also driven by the state’s interests to regain control over the forests. Research in eight villages in Central Java province reveals that the community forestry programmes are carefully structured according to numerous administrative procedures and estab- lish a mode of control through a bureaucratic design. ----- In den letzten Jahren hat sich community forestry als Mittel zur Reform von Machtkonstellationen in Bezug auf die Verwaltung von Wäldern herausgebildet. Der Zentralstaat versprach durch community forestry bestimmte Waldrechte an lokale Communities abzugeben und ermutigte sie, sich an Entscheidungsprozessen und der Implementierung von Forstaktivitäten zu beteiligen. Erfahrungen in einigen Ländern zeigen jedoch, dass die Implementierung von community forestry-Programmen selten mit einem tatsächlichen Machttransfer an lokale ForstnutzerInnen einhergeht, sondern diese Programme sogar als Mittel zur Rückgewinnung von zentralstaatlicher Kontrolle über Wälder dienen können. Anhand eines Fallbeispiels eines community forestry-Programms, das in Java, Indonesien, von einem staatlichen Forstunternehmen implementiert wird, argumentiere ich in diesem Artikel, dass die Implementierung von community forestry auch von den Interessen des Staates, Kontrolle über die Wälder zurückzugewinnen, vorangetrieben wird. Meine Forschung in acht Dörfern in der Provinz Zentral-Java zeigt, dass die community forestry-Programme sorgfältig nach zahlreichen administrativen Verfahren strukturiert sind und eine Art der Kontrolle durch bürokratisches Design etablieren

Progress and Challenges of Combating Climate Change in Indonesia: An Interview with Prof. Rachmat Witoelar, the President’s Special Envoy for Climate Change

Professor Rachmat Witoelar, former Minister of the Environment in Indonesia, heads the National Council on Climate Change in Indonesia (DNPI) and Indonesia’s delegations to negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This interview was conducted during the most recent UNFCCC negotiations in Bonn in May 2012 and contains refer- ences to specific agreements in that process. As the Kyoto Protocol – which includes binding targets for countries in the Global North (so-called Annex 1 countries) – is drawing to an end, negotiations revolve around a new protocol, but last year’s high level talks in Durban only came up with a fairly vague result – the Durban Platform – without binding emission reduction targets. In this context, Indonesia’s announcement to pursue its own unilateral reduction target is significant. The progress and challenges of achieving this target are the focus of the following interview. ----- Professor Rachmat Witoelar, ehemaliger Umweltminister Indonesiens, leitet sowohl den Nationalen Rat für Klimawandel in Indonesien (DNPI) als auch Indonesiens Delegation zu den Verhandlungen im Rahmen der United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Dieses Interview wurde während der letzten UNFCCC Verhandlungen in Bonn im Mai 2012 durchgeführt und bezieht sich auf spezifische Vereinbarungen im Rahmen dieses Verhandlungsprozesses. Aufgrund des baldigen Auslaufens des Kyoto-Protokolls, welches verpflichtende Ziele für die Länder des globalen Nordens (sogenannte Annex 1 Länder) beinhaltet, konzentrieren sich die laufenden Verhandlungen auf ein neues Protokoll. Die Gespräche auf höchster Ebene, die vergangenes Jahr in Durban geführt wurden brachten mit der Schöpfung der Durban Platform jedoch nur ein vages Ergebnis hervor und legten keine bindenden Emissionsreduktionsziele fest. In diesem Kontext ist Indonesiens Ankündigung, unilateral eigene Reduktionszieles festzulegen, bedeutend. Die Fortschritte und Herausforderungen, dieses Ziel zu erreichen, stehen im Fokus des folgenden Interviews

Christian Enichlmayr, Leiter der Oberösterreichischen Landesbibliothek von 1999 bis 2015, beantwortet 10 Fragen von Bruno Bauer

In this 10-question interview Christian Enichlmayr tells us about the start of his career in the publishing business, his library employment at the University Linz and his job change to the Federal Study Library Linz. He was the head of the descendent organization from 1999 to 2015 and therefore responsible for the transformation and modernisation of the former study library into the Upper Austrian State Library. During this time the library building had a major refurbishment and got outstanding annexe. The interview covers important topics at the Upper Austrian State Library from the last 17 years, including NS provenance research, the advancement of the digital library and the promotion of the library in order to become a substantial part of the Upper Austrian cultural live. Furthermore Mr. Enichlmayr explains the significance of cooperation among libraries and gives a summary of the meeting of the Austrian Librarian Association in Linz in 2004. In a final point he mentions possible prospects of libraries