The purpose of this study is to identify China’s indigenous conceptual dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and to increase the knowledge and comprehension about CSR in specific context. We conducted an inductive analysis of CSR in China based on an open-ended survey of 630 CEOs and business owners in 12 provinces (municipalities) in China. In the survey, we collected CSR sample responses. After examining the qualitative data, we identified nine dimensions of CSR, among which six dimensions are similar (...) to their western counterparts; however, the other three dimensions were never mentioned in previous literature, which mostly study the cases in the western world. In addition, two of the widely accepted CSR dimensions in the western world have no embodiments in China. A comparative study of CSR between China and western countries also unveiled some unique dimensions of CSR in China. In conclusion, CSR manifested in China is different from that in western countries, and China’s CSR is closely related to its social and cultural background. (shrink)

From its inception to the 4th century CE, Christianity experienced a formative process composite of three catalytic phases characterised by distinctive events (i.e. Jewish-Christian Schism, Hellenism and imperial intervention). From the aforementioned era emerged an orthodoxy fostered by an imperial-ecclesiastical link. There appears to have been a parallel story with regard to certain elements of African Christianity, in particular, Ethiopian Christianity. What can be made of the gap regarding Jewish Christianity combined with the absence of African Christianity from Bauer’s modular (...) theory on heresy and orthodoxy in the development of early Christianity? Despite the dominant story of the development of an imperial religious establishment at the turn of the 4th century, could there be an alternative narrative to Christianity in the African region derivate from Ethiopia? Reviewing the emergence of a religious political Christianity in this era as modular against Ethiopian Christianity in tangent with its links with Christianity in Roman Africa, establishment of the nature and development of Ethiopian Christianity was performed. This was performed through documentary analysis. Bauer’s (1971) theory of orthodoxy and heresy in early Christianity did not exhaustively account for Jewish Christianity and North African distinct intransigent tradition characteristic of Carthage. By extension to African Egyptian, Alexandria is Ethiopian Christianity that was characterised by Judaic tradition in contrast to anti-Judaism. This established a parallel history of Christianity in Africa inclusive of Ethiopia. A review of this perspective contains contemporary momentum in view of the focus on Ethiopian Jews, for example, as religious praxis was as important as ethnicity in determining the Jewishness of whole tribes. (shrink)

Law's Indigenous Ethics examines the revitalization of Indigenous peoples' relationship to their own laws and, in so doing, attempts to enrich Canadian constitutional law more generally. Organized around the seven Anishinaabe grandmother and grandfather teachings of love, truth, bravery, humility, wisdom, honesty, and respect, this book explores ethics in relation to Aboriginal issues including title, treaties, legal education, and residential schools. With characteristic depth and sensitivity, John Borrows brings insights drawn from philosophy, law, and political science to bear (...) on some of the most pressing issues that arise in contemplating the interaction between Canadian state law and Indigenous legal traditions. In the course of a wide-ranging but accessible inquiry, he discusses such topics as Indigenous agency, self-determination, legal pluralism, and power. In its use of Anishinaabe stories and methodologies drawn from the emerging field of Indigenous studies, Law's Indigenous Ethics makes a significant contribution to scholarly debate and is an essential resource for readers seeking a deeper understanding of Indigenous rights, societies, and cultures. (shrink)

Une modernité indigène: Ruptures et innovations dans les théories politiques japonaise du xviiie siècle, by Olivier Ansart, is a thoughtful, elegantly written book that offers valuable insights into Japanese political thought in an era that culminated in the Meiji Restoration. Despite the specific characteristics of the rigid centralized feudal structure of Tokugawa society, Ansart argues, political ideas generally associated with the advent of “modernity” in the West were generated indigenously in a context in which knowledge of the West was (...) limited primarily to science and technology.The main focus of the book is the thought of Kaiho Seiryō.1 Seiryō was inspired by two schools of thought that... (shrink)

Farmers in developed countries have established various tillage practices for crop production. These include plowing, disking, subsoiling, harrowing, field cultivating, rotary hoeing, and row-crop cultivating. But these conventional tillage practices necessitate the use of heavy equipment that often causes soil compaction, impairs soil physical conditions, and creates conditions leading to soil erosion. Many Western countries, studying their conventional tillage systems through the new perspective of sustainable approaches to agriculture, are developing new tillage practices, called conservation tillage, which limit tillage to (...) essential operations and prevent damage to soil. The majority of the small-scale farmers in developing countries use indigenous tillage systems. These are low-cost, locally adapted technologies that reflect considerable knowledge of sustainable agriculture. Ironically, the new conservation tillage systems currently being developed in the West have many characteristics of indigenous tillage systems. This paper compares conventional, conservation, and indigenous tillage practices, using examples from the United States and India, and concludes that, for sustainable food production, indigenous tillage practices in developing countries should continue to be used. (shrink)

Departing from Christian spiritualities, even those emerging from feminist theologians and Latin American eco feminist liberation theologies, the indigenous women´s movements started to propose their own “indigenous spirituality.” In some key meetings like the “First Summit of Indigenous Women of the Americas” and at other later meetings, their basic documents, final declarations, collective proposals have a spiritual component that departs from the influences of the largely Christian Catholic background of the country. Their discourses, demands, and live presentations (...) have also expressed this religious background. Through several years of interactions and sharing with women in the indigenous worlds of Mexico, the author has systematized a series of characteristics that emanate from a particular cosmovision and cosmogony. These religious references to an indigenous spirituality are inspired on ancestral references re-created today as the women struggle for social justice. The inspiration for their social justice fight is often anchored in these beliefs and practices. It is a reference to worlds of ritual, liturgy, and collective worship that—although being often attired in Catholic and Christian imagery—reveal a deep disjuncture with Christianity and affirm their epistemic particularity. Working from these “cracks of epistemic differences” (Mignolo 2006) the author presents them as a de-colonial effort. Women are actively proposing to recapture ancestral spiritualities to decolonize both the religious universes they were forced to adopt during the historical colonial invasion as well as from the influences of a neo-colonial feminist frame for gender equality. (shrink)

People who identify as members of religious communities, such as the Amish and Low German Mennonites, face challenges obtaining quality health care and engagement in research due in part to stereotypes that are conveyed through media and popular discourses. There is also a growing concern that even when these groups are engaged in research, the guiding frameworks of the research fail to consider the sociocultural or historical relations of power, further skewing power imbalances inherent in the research relationship. This paper (...) aims at discussing the uses of cultural safety in the context of health research and knowledge translation with groups of people that are associated with a specific religion. Research with the Amish and Low German Mennonites is provided as examples to illustrate the use of cultural safety in this context. From these examples, we discuss how the use of cultural safety, grounded in critical theoretical perspectives, offers new insight into health research with populations that are traditionally labeled as minority, vulnerable, or marginalized, especially when a dominant characteristic is a unique religious perspective. (shrink)

This essay critically examines the emerging view among some ethnologists that replicable models of sustainable management of tropical forests may be found within the knowledge systems of contemporary indigenous peoples. As idealized epistemological types, several characteristics distinguishing “indigenous” from “modern” knowledge systems are described. Two culturally distinctive land use systems in Latin America are compared, one developed by an indigenous group, the Huastec Maya, and the other characteristic of colonist farms in Rondonia, Brazil. While each of (...) these systems reflects a different cultural-historical tradition, I argue that the process of knowledge formation and cultural adaptation is coevolutionary and continuous in both cases. The very concept of “indigenous” as a discrete analytic category is questioned; indigenicity alone cannot explain local adaptation of farming systems. Rather than dichotomize indigenous and colonist knowledge as inherently different categories, differences in land use patterns between such social groups may be more accurately viewed as reflecting different points on a single epistemological continuum. (shrink)

The importance of the working document is that it allows the analysis of the information and the status of cases associated with (SARS-CoV-2) COVID-19 as open data at the municipal, state and national level, with a daily record of patients, according to a age, sex, comorbidities, for the condition of (SARS-CoV-2) COVID-19 according to the following characteristics: a) Positive, b) Negative, c) Suspicious. Likewise, it presents information related to the identification of an outpatient and / or hospitalized patient, attending (...) to their medical development, identifying: a) Recovered, b) Deaths and c) Active, in Phase 3 and Phase 4, in the five main population areas speaker of indigenous language in the State of Veracruz - Mexico. The data analysis is carried out through the application of a data mining algorithm, which provides the information, fast and timely, required for the estimation of Medical Care Scenarios of (SARS-CoV-2) COVID-19, as well as for know the impact on the indigenous language speaking population in Veracruz. For this purpose, the following study zones are presented: a) Totonacapan Zone, b) Huasteco from the Tantoyuca Zone, c) Otomi from the Inxhuatlan de Madero Zone, d) Nahuatl from the Zongolica Zone, e) Nahuatl from the Chicontepec Zone, f) Nahualt from the Pajapan Zone and g) Popoluca from the Soteapan Zone. This data article presents the information as of August 1, 2020 corresponding to the Totonacapan Area. (shrink)

The importance of the working document is that it allows the analysis of the information and the status of cases associated with (SARS-CoV-2) COVID-19 as open data at the municipal, state and national level, with a daily record of patients, according to a age, sex, comorbidities, for the condition of (SARS-CoV-2) COVID-19 according to the following characteristics: a) Positive, b) Negative, c) Suspicious. Likewise, it presents information related to the identification of an outpatient and / or hospitalized patient, attending (...) to their medical development, identifying: a) Recovered, b) Deaths and c) Active, in Phase 3 and Phase 4, in the five main population areas speaker of indigenous language in the State of Veracruz - Mexico. The data analysis is carried out through the application of a data mining algorithm, which provides the information, fast and timely, required for the estimation of Medical Care Scenarios of (SARS-CoV-2) COVID-19, as well as for know the impact on the indigenous language speaking population in Veracruz. For this purpose, the following study zones are presented: a) Totonacapan Zone, b) Huasteco from the Tantoyuca Zone, c) Otomi from the Inxhuatlan de Madero Zone, d) Nahuatl from the Zongolica Zone, e) Nahuatl from the Chicontepec Zone, f) Nahualt from the Pajapan Zone and g) Popoluca from the Soteapan Zone. This data article presents the information as of August 1, 2020 corresponding to the Otomi of the Ixhuatlan de Madero area. (shrink)

The importance of the working document is that it allows the analysis of the information and the status of cases associated with (SARS-CoV-2) COVID-19 as open data at the municipal, state and national level, with a daily record of patients, according to a age, sex, comorbidities, for the condition of (SARS-CoV-2) COVID-19 according to the following characteristics: a) Positive, b) Negative, c) Suspicious. Likewise, it presents information related to the identification of an outpatient and / or hospitalized patient, attending (...) to their medical development, identifying: a) Recovered, b) Deaths and c) Active, in Phase 3 and Phase 4, in the five main population areas speaker of indigenous language in the State of Veracruz - Mexico. The data analysis is carried out through the application of a data mining algorithm, which provides the information, fast and timely, required for the estimation of Medical Care Scenarios of (SARS-CoV-2) COVID-19, as well as for know the impact on the indigenous language speaking population in Veracruz. For this purpose, the following study zones are presented: a) Totonacapan Zone, b) Huasteco from the Tantoyuca Zone, c) Otomi from the Inxhuatlan de Madero Zone, d) Nahuatl from the Zongolica Zone, e) Nahuatl from the Chicontepec Zone, f) Nahualt from the Pajapan Zone and g) Popoluca from the Soteapan Zone. This data article presents the information as of August 1, 2020 corresponding to the Popoluca from the Soteapan Area. (shrink)

RESUMEN: El presente trabajo propone un análisis de los Derechos Fundamentales de los pueblos indígenas a la luz de los principios internacionales de Libre Determinación y Consulta Previa, como fundantes y presupuestos de los demás Derechos Indígenas. En consecuencia, se analiza el Derecho a la Consulta, que debe ser previa, libre, informada, de buena fe, culturalmente adecuada y con el propósito de obtener el consentimiento; donde todas éstas características son el estándar mínimo a cumplir en cualquier proyecto de desarrollo o (...) extractivo que afecte a pueblos indígenas, por lo que debe explicarse también el extractivismo al interior de los estados-nación y su modus operandi, que ha provocado la existencia de zonas y regiones que algunos autores caracterizan como “estados de excepción” o estados de “de no-derecho”. El análisis propuesto contrasta las bases mencionadas con algunos casos llevados ante la jurisdicción del Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos, cuya última fase descansa en las sentencias de la Corte IDH.ABSTRACT: The present paper proposes an analysis of the Fundamental Rights of the indigenous peoples in the light of the international principles of Free Determination and Prior Consultation, as foundations and budgets of the other Indigenous Rights. Consequently, the Right to Consultation is analyzed, which must be prior, free, informed, in good faith, culturally appropriate and with the purpose of obtaining consent; where all these characteristics are the minimum standard to be met in any development or extractive project that affects indigenous peoples, so the extractivism within the nation-states and its modus operandi, which has caused the existence of zones and regions that some authors characterize as "states of exception" or "non-right" states. The proposed analysis contrasts the mentioned basis with some cases brought before the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Human Rights System, whose last phase rests on the judgments of the Inter-American Court.PALABRAS CLAVE: Libre determinación y consulta, Derechos Fundamentales, pueblos indígenas. KEYWORDS: Free determination and consultation, Fundamental Rights, indigenous peoples. (shrink)

Due to the growth of neo-liberalism with its emphasis on “market-driven courses,” the humanities, of which philosophy is a part, find themselves disparaged and under-funded. As a result, some African philosophers have yielded to the temptation to deploy the empirical methodology of the natural and social sciences in a bid to illustrate the practical value of their discipline, thereby eroding philosophy’s distinctive characteristic, namely, reflection. Consequently, drawing from the contemporary discourse on methodology in African philosophy, this article argues that in (...) order to preserve the distinctive character of their discipline, philosophers who inquire into indigenous African thought ought to treat the collection of empirical data on the subject as a preliminary step to the core task of philosophical reflection that deploys such techniques as criticism, linguistic analysis, and systematic speculation. Only then will African philosophy make its proper contribution to the interdisciplinary field of African studies. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Global biodiversity declines are increasingly recognized as profound ecological and social crises. In areas subject to colonialization, these declines have advanced in lockstep with settler colonialism and imposition of centralized resource management by settler states. Many have suggested that resurgent Indigenous-led governance systems could help arrest these trends while advancing effective and socially just approaches to environmental interactions that benefit people and places alike. However, how dominant management and conservation approaches might be decolonized (i.e., how their underlying colonial (...) structure might be addressed, transformed, and replaced) is not always clear. Here, we describe a ‘Decolonial Model of Environmental Management and Conservation’ as an alternative paradigm to dominant approaches of conservation and management. The tenets of the model describe characteristics that might be expected of decolonized management, contrasted with those of dominant state-led approaches such as those embedded in the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. The model does not prescribe how Indigenous governments or communities ought to govern their own territories, but instead offers insights into how external management and conservation agencies and practitioners might support (or stop impeding) Indigenous-led governance. We illustrate the model with a conservation ‘bright spot’: grizzly bear stewardship in the area now referred to as the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, Canada, with a focus on work led by or in collaboration with, and within the territories of, the Haíɫzaqv, Kitasoo/xai’xais, Nuxalk, and Wuikinuxv First Nations. While acknowledging the important context-specific variability among place-based management and conservation applications, we also discuss the model’s broader applicability. (shrink)

Although awareness of cultural differences that distinguish Indigenous peoples has increased worldwide following attention from international human rights bodies, Indigenous cultural values have had little influence in shaping research agendas or methods of inquiry. Self‐determination and reconciliation policies have been part of the decolonisation agenda of governments for several decades; however, these have not, until recently, been considered of relevance to research. Indigenous peoples feel that they are the most studied population in Australia, to the point where (...) even the word research arouses feelings of suspicion and defensive attitudes. Indigenous people are generally cynical about the benefits of research and cautious toward what many perceive to be the colonial mentality or ‘positional superiority’ ingrained in the psyche of western researchers. This article examines the characteristics and colonising effects of traditional research methods and describes an alternative, decolonising approach. Decolonising research methodology is congruent with Indigenous epistemology and is guided by the values and research agenda of Indigenous people. TheGuidelines for ethical conduct in Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander health research, developed by the National Aboriginal and Islander Health Organisation (NAIHO) with the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) in 2003 are examined, as they exemplify a decolonising paradigm for researchers. (shrink)

In order to protect indigenous cultures, their knowledge and their ways of living, it is necessary to analyse the mechanisms of cultural change, with a special focus on those factors that lead to the destabilisation, and even deletion, of formerly autonomous social systems. -/- Cultures consist of human beings, and the mechanisms and interactions within and between cultures consist of human behaviour. Generally, the mutual influences between cultures do not occur in a symmetrical way. Rather, one side is usually (...) exposed to effects of the cultural dominance, which the other side exercises upon it. Within the macrostructure of intercultural influences, cultural elements of indigenous cultures are deleted and replaced by the cultural elements of the dominant culture. In the progress of globalisation, consent among the participants with regard to behaviour patterns and cognitive styles leads to the obliteration of traditional knowledge and behaviour which until then had been characteristic for the respective cultural group. -/- Meanwhile, indigenous cultures are endangered worldwide, and the process of globalisation is determined predominantly by the industrial culture. The transfer of the dominant cultural elements does not only lead to the deletion of specific knowledge of indigenous cultures, but also of context-relevant behaviour patterns of those concerned, who then participate in the destruction of the environment with the further effects of erosion, loss of species, and climate change. Yet, a representation of those mechanisms in functional models helps to define effective methods of intervention. (shrink)

Introduction Reza Davari Ardakni, the Iranian contemporary philosopher, distinguishes development from Western modernity; in that it considers modernity as natural and organic changes that Europe has gone through, but sees development as a planned design for implementing modernity in other countries. As a result, the closedness of development concerns only the developing countries, not Western modern ones. Davari emphasizes that the Western modernity has a universality that pertains to a unique reason and a unified world. The only way of thinking (...) in this world is a philosophical thought based on human self-centered reason, and given the pervasiveness of Western civilization. Therefore, Davari does not consider Westernization as mere imitation of Western customs and methods, but rather as a way of existence in the world. Westernization is a subjective view of the world and beings. Westernization is not optional, enabling non-Western people to avoid it. According to the Westernization scenario, the world today is entirely Westernized, and Davari considers Westernization as the inevitable fate of the people of this era, seeing two alternatives for them, both of which ultimately lead to the same destination, which is to embrace development; either they seize the power of science and technology and join the process of global modernization and participate in it, or they become subdued by this process and accept it without participation. Davari regards the first type of Westernization as active and the second type as passive. Problematique Therefore, underdevelopment is not a concept of the ancient world, nor even of a world between the ancient and the modern, or on the threshold of modernization. Underdevelopment is a condition of suspension and timelessness and being exposed to modernization. To escape the paradox of underdevelopment, which is the inevitable historical fate of non-modernized societies, Davari sees no way out other than embracing development. In other words, Westernized societies, which have become confused due to modernization, have no escape route other than turning to development. Therefore, some critics of Davari accuse the theory of Westernization of being a theoretical rupture. M. T. Tabatabaei, by rejecting the theoretical rupture in the theory of Westernization, believes that in the argument of Davari, we are only faced with a shift from a philosophical to an intellectual level. Tabatabaei, by avoiding providing a philosophical response to the critics of the theoretical rupture, believes that the introduction of active Westernization and collaboration in science and technology as a solution to escape from underdevelopment conditions, is only a shift from a philosophical level to an intellectual level and does not involve a rupture. Therefore, it seems that the philosophical issue of how or the possibility of escaping from underdevelopment conditions is still an open non answered problem. In this study, seeking a philosophical answer to this problem, an attempt has been made to summarize Davari's definitions of development, underdevelopment, participation in the world of science, and the role of humanities and social sciences in development, using his writings and speeches. It is proposed that a way to escape from the clesedness of development based on Davari's views, is to make use of analytical method with emphasizing on concepts and theories of the philosophy and metaphysics of science. Argument According to Davari, the social and human sciences that are responsible for development planning in underdeveloped societies must consider the characteristics of underdevelopment in order to facilitate the transition to more favorable conditions. Davari identifies the following conditions for successful development: 1) replacing tradition with science as the organizing and coordinating principle in society, 2) recognizing the universality of philosophy and science of the Western modernity and the impossibility of blindly imitation and adopting it, 3) inevitability of actively engaging and interacting with development, 4) recognizing the internal dynamics of scientific progress and avoiding authoritarian control, and 5) promoting free participation in the scientific paradigms. Therefore, Davari suggests the following steps towards development: 1) recognizing and understanding the problems of society and the local ecosystem, 2) understanding the philosophical and cultural foundations of Western civilization, 3) understanding the historical context and paradigms of science, 4) understanding the philosophical and metaphysical foundations of science, 5) recognizing the intellectual and philosophical capacities of our own community, and 6) reflecting our own philosophical and metaphysical assumptions in the scientific world in a way that is compatible with scientific methods. Given the motivations for change in science at both the global and national levels, including the emergence of heterodox or indigenous sciences, and the inevitable nature of development, Davari points to the possibility of a path between absolute rejecting or accepting the mainstream social and human sciences. However, this path is challenging and contingent upon the aforementioned conditions and steps of transition. Conclusion It is necessary to seek this path within the realm of the philosophy and metaphysics of science, particularly in the origins and foundations of the social and human sciences. Research in the metaphysics and philosophy of the social sciences provides the opportunity for active scientific engagement in the scientific paradigms and a reconsideration of the foundations of science, allowing for different philosophical foundations while are compatible with scientific methods. Successfully finding a path between absolute rejecting or accepting the existing social sciences will lead to an internal transformation within the field of science and, in fact, will advance the boundaries of knowledge. Therefore, it is possible, while adhering to the conditions of transition and actively participating in the world of science and technology, and accepting the unity of modernity and avoiding selectivity and imitation, to search for a way to overcome the closedness of development through a reconsideration of the philosophical and metaphysical foundations of science, while recognizing our own intellectual heritage and critically assessing Western science and technology. (shrink)

In studying the characteristics of cultures, literature and philosophies of different civilisations, scholars inevitably wish to search for similar and different features inherent in particular societies. When this desire is completely justified, then certain questions remain that require additional reflection. For instance, studying the cosmological and natural-philosophical ideas inherent in Ancient China and among Native Americans, scholars face the difficult task of logically substantiating the possibility of studying these two diametrically opposed cultures together. This article is based on a (...) general overview of cosmological and philosophical views in Ancient China and among Native Americans. The authors reveal an important principle that significantly distinguishes “non-Western” cultures and manifests itself in ethnocentrism and harmonization of the relationship between humans and nature. The article gives a logical basis for research and attempts to answer the question of whether Feng shui practice is a science or a religion. To this end, the legacy of Yang Yunsong, one of the founders of the teachings of Feng shui, a Chinese sage of the Tang era from Guangdong province, was studied. The authors suggest that Yang Yunsong’s cosmology, geomancy, and Feng shui practice have much in common with the worldview of indigenous peoples around the world, particularly the Native Americans. (shrink)

The cultural characteristics of any country generally give shape to the educational system. However, no country can assert its own educational system to be wholly indigenous. All the systems come into being as a synthesis of various ingredients of the home country and other countries. And it is quite natural to make use of the experiences and stock of knowledge of the others. This fact is indispensable especially when education is concerned. The curicial problem is to what extent (...) the “borrowing process” should be used. When the process of borrowing ideas become to take the form of “imitation” or “copy”, unexpected results and failure are unavoidable. (shrink)

One of the prime characteristics of the increasingly technological and interconnected world is the disappearance of analogue experience in all aspects of life. Due to technological invention, we are exposed to a variety of news and information, checking emails in private and business accounts for a significant amount of time each day. Our information-driven minds are constantly occupied by the desire to seek out more information. The ways we engage in music also have changed. We now download mp3 files (...) and listen to music on iPods. People are used to web-based, digitalized music listening.1 It is in this context that many people in the modern world are turning to indigenous forms of music that allow them to.. (shrink)

Pidgin languages are generally languages which are more or less rudimentary languages developing in situations of contacts between two different cultures, one of them dominant in the contact situation, with the use of such languages restricted to certain limited contacts such as trading, plantation work involving the employment of indigenous labour, master-servant relationships, and similar types of contact situations. Much of the vocabulary of a pidgin language consists of elements of the language of the dominant culture in a more (...) or less distorted, and often semantically changed, form with elements from the language of the non-dominant culture playing a less important part in its vocabulary. Its structural features do not as a rule reflect structural characteristics of the language of the dominant culture, unless the languages of both the dominant and the non-dominant culture are closely related and structurally very similar, though even in such situations quite significant deviations from the structural set-up of the language of the dominant culture can be observed in the pidgin language. Some to many of the structural features of a pidgin language may reflect features of the language of the non-dominant culture but, in pidgin languages, a number of unique structural and grammatical features can be observed which appear to reflect some basic simplifications in language use in contact situations between speakers of different languages. In any event, in the usual type of pidgin language, the overall vocabulary is small and limited in its usefulness to the specific types of contact situations in which the language is used and its grammatical complexity is greatly reduced when compared with both the language of the dominant culture and the nondominant culture. Also, as a rule, the sound system of a pidgin language constitutes a considerable simplification when compared with the sound system of both these languages. (shrink)

Every civilized society treasures through its folk tales and folk myths the elements of its native tribal life as points of cultural reference. The tribe not only acts as a foil to our culture, but also sustains its very being and gauges the degree of progress and change in the civilization that we uphold. This interdependence has a vital force: insofar as civilized societies define themselves by the distance they have built up between themselves and their respective primitive societies, a (...) civilized culture without its indigenous tribal past risks the authenticity of its process of change to challenge and doubt. Hence, our adulation of distance in both time and space between ourselves and our tribal forefathers, and our eagerness to recognize, maintain, and even glorify our tribes—a necessary syllogism in our postulation of a self-preserving argument. In a peculiarly chiastic way, we thrive on our existential reliance on the very primitiveness that we seek to repudiate as characteristic of a world past. We celebrate our present by eulogizing our past, and to fit the tribes in the large scheme of our self-definition we iconize them. These idealized images hide a creative mask through which we embrace the romantic myths of our respective origins and progress; the parades we arrange for our tribal history—through performance on our streets, or through semantics in our literature—subtly embody this dependence. (shrink)

In 1920, Eugen Steinach and Paul Kammerer reported experiments showing that exposure to high temperatures altered the structure of the gonad and produced hyper-sexuality in "heat rats," presumably as a result of the increased production of sex hormones. Using Steinach's evidence that the gonad is a double gland with distinct sexual and generative functions, they used their findings to explain "racial" differences in the sexuality of indigenous tropical peoples and Europeans. The authors also reported that heat induced anatomical changes (...) in the interstitial cells of the gonad were inherited by the heat rats' descendants. Kammerer used this finding to link endocrinology to his long-standing interest in the inheritance of acquired characteristics. The heat rats supported his hypothesis that the interstitial cells of the double gland were the mechanism of somatic induction in the inheritance of acquired characteristics. The Steinach-Kammerer collaboration, Kammerer's use of Steinach's "puberty gland" to explain somatic induction, and his endocrine analysis of symbiosis reveal Paul Kammerer's late career attempt to integrate endocrinology and genetics with the political ideals of Austrian socialism. With them he developed a bioethics that challenged the growing reliance on race in eugenics and instead promoted cooperation over competition in evolution. I relate his attempt to the controversies surrounding the interstitial cells, to the status of extra-nuclear theories of heredity, and to Kammerer's commitment to Austromarxist social reforms during the interwar period. (shrink)

Mongolian traditional botanical knowledge has been rarely researched concerning the ethnobotany theory and methodology in the last six decades ). However, most of the known literature of indigenous knowledge and information regarding the use of local wild plants among Mongolian herders was first documented by several botanical research of Russian researchers in Mongolia through the 1940s and 1950s. One of the most comprehensive works was completed by A. A. Yunatov, which is known as “Fodder Plants of Pastures and Hayfields (...) of the People’s Republic of Mongolia”. Yunatov’s research sampled forage plants in Mongolia from 1940 to 1951 and subsequently published a study in 1954. The original transcript of FPM was later translated into Chinese and Mongolian during 1958 and 1968. In addition to morphological characteristics, distribution, habitat, phenology, palatability, and nutrition of forage plants, Yunatov`s record collected local names, the folk understanding and evaluation of the forage, as well as other relevant cultural meanings and the use of local wild plants in FPM through interviews. The book contains the most precious records created in the 1940s and 1950s on folk knowledge of the Mongolians' wild plants in Mongolia. It was composed of 8 chapters and 351 pages in total. The fifth chapter of FPM, entitled “The systematic overview of forage plants,” making up 272 pages. The order and content of the book-oriented along with profiles of specific plants. Yunatov collected detailed information on plants, such as the local name, morphology, distribution, habitats, ecological characteristics, and phenology. He also discussed the palatability of livestock, particular forage use, other usages, and chemical composition. Through careful reading and understanding of all three versions of the book ), the FPM-listed information of edible plants was categorized using ethnobotanical dependent analysis. The list of edible plants was ranked based on purposes and ethnobotanical inventories as per methodology and analysis used in the ethnobotany research. FPM listed 35 species are part of 15 families and 25 genera of wild edible plants. Most species belong to Liliaceae and Allium. Naturally grown grain and some food substitutes come from the starchy organs, such as seeds, bulbs, roots, and rhizomes of 12, accounting for 34.28% of all species. Wild vegetables come from the parts of a young plant, tender leaves, young fruits, lower leg of stems, and bulbs of 9 species, accounting for 25.71% of all species. There are only three species of wild fruits, accounting for 8.57% of all edible plant species. Tea substitutes consist of leaves, roots, follicle, and aboveground parts of 8 wild plant species, accounting for 22.85% of all species. Seasonings from the wild were made of the elements such as seeds, rhizomes, tender leaves of 7 species, accounting for 20.00% of all species. Similarities and differences are noticeable in utilizing wild edible plants among Mongolian populations living in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. Six species of wild edible plants listed in FPM have been proven to be collected and consumed by Mongolians from the Genghis Khan era in the twelfth century to the present day. This proved that the Mongolians have a tradition of recognizing and utilizing wild plants, demonstrating historical and theoretical value. Seven species of plants mentioned in this book were closely correlated to the locals' processing of traditional dairy products, meat, and milk food. Yunatov was not an ethnobotanist, but his accurate documentation of interviews and surveys with Mongolians represents valuable information about the collection and consumption of local wild plants during 1940–1951 in Mongolia. His research mission meant to focus on forage grass, the feed plant that sustained livestock, while he also recorded plants consumed by humans. His records on the edible parts and intake methods of some plants are incomplete. Still, it provided ethnobotanical materials of a remarkable scientific value and a living history of ethnobotany in Mongolian regions. Even by today`s standards, it will be challenging to obtain first-hand information of the richness and to the extent of Yunatov’s research. (shrink)

In her essay ‘The Curious Coincidence of Feminine and African Moralities’ (1987), Sandra Harding was perhaps the first to note parallels between a typical Western feminist ethic and a characteristically African, i.e., indigenous sub-Saharan, approach to morality. Beyond Harding’s analysis, one now frequently encounters the suggestion, in a variety of discourses in both the Anglo-American and sub-Saharan traditions, that an ethic of care and an African ethic are more or less the same or share many commonalities. While the two (...) ethical perspectives are indeed sisters, in this article I argue, first, that they are not identical twins, and, more strongly, that the family resemblance between the two is significantly less than has been recognized. I highlight key differences between representative forms of an ethic of care and a sub-Saharan communitarian morality, after which I argue, second, that the latter better captures some central feminist concerns and moral considerations generally. That is, I maintain that an African ideal of community, when understood in a philosophically refined way, provides an important, relational corrective to the ethic of care. (shrink)

Given a 21st century context of sophisticated market economies and other Western influences such as Christianity, what similarities and differences are there between characteristic indigenous values of sub-Saharan Africa and China, and how do they continue to influence everyday life in these societies? Establishing that central to both non-Western, indigenous value systems are ideals of harmonious relationships, I compare and contrast traditional African and Chinese conceptions of harmony and analyze a number of respects in which an appeal to (...) this value affects contemporary political, economic and social interaction. (shrink)

In this article, I expound and assess two theories of meaning in life informed by the indigenous sub-Saharan African philosophical tradition. According to one principle, a life is more meaningful, the more it promotes community with other human persons. According to the other principle, a life is more meaningful, the more it promotes vitality in oneself and others. I argue that, at least upon some refinement, both of these African conceptions of meaning merit global consideration from philosophers, but that (...) the vitality approach is more promising than the community one for capturing a wider array of intuitions about what confers meaning on a life. I further argue, however, that there are objections that apply with comparable force to both theories; neither one does a good job of entailing that and explaining why certain types of reason and progress can make a life more meaningful. Although these objections are characteristic of a ‘modern’ western outlook, I maintain that they are difficult for contemporary African philosophers to ignore and consider some ways they might respond to the objections. (shrink)

This article draws on the indigenous African intellectual tradition to ground a moral-philosophical theory of leadership that is intended to rival accounts prominent in the East Asian and Western traditions. After providing an interpretation of the characteristically sub-Saharan value of communion, the article advances a philosophical account of a good leader as one who creates, sustains and enriches communal relationships and enables others to do so. The article then applies this account to a variety of topics, including what the (...) final end of an organisation should be, how decisions ought to be made within it, who counts as a stakeholder and how to deal with non-performing or misbehaving employees. For each topic, the article notes respects in which Afro-communal leadership supports approaches that differ from those prescribed by other, more internationally familiar philosophies such as Confucianism and Kantian contract theory, and it suggests that its implications are prima facie attractive relative to them. (shrink)

Research on women in U.S. agriculture highlights how, despite real challenges, women have made and continue to make spaces for themselves in this male-dominated profession. We argue that, partly due to data accessibility limitations, this work has tended to use white women’s experiences in agriculture as universal. Analyzing micro-data from the 2017 Census of Agriculture, this paper offers descriptive statistics about women and race in U.S. agriculture. We examine numerous characteristics of U.S. farms, including their spatial distribution, the average (...) number of acres farmed, predominant crop types, and other characteristics to describe how white, Black, Indigenous, and Pacific Islander/Asian women farmers are faring. Our findings suggest significant differences in women’s farms by race. We argue that these are related to the history of forced and voluntary migration within the U.S. Our results indicate that understanding women’s experiences in farming requires understanding the impact of race and these broader historical patterns. Finally, because of these differences across races, we suggest that supporting “women in agriculture” may require tailored responses from agricultural policy and programming that addresses unique needs in specific communities. (shrink)

There is ongoing debate on whether Juche (주체/主體), the North Korean state ideology, is indigenous, Marxist-Leninist, or Confucian—or if it’s a real philosophy at all. In this article, I introduce Juche and show how characteristics that philosophers identify to be unique or pronounced in premodern Korean philosophy can be found in Juche as well. Intellectual adaptation, pragmaticism, and an emphasis on continual improvement are prominent in both premodern Korean thought and Juche. Juche should be understood as a politically (...) inflected outgrowth that is embedded within the larger context of Korean philosophy. (shrink)

Many normative political theorists have engaged in the systematic collection and/or analysis of empirical data to inform the development of their arguments over the past several decades. Yet, the approach they employ has typically not been treated as a distinctive mode of theorizing. It has been mostly overlooked in surveys of normative political theory methods and methodologies, as well as by those critics who assert that political theory is too abstracted from actual political contestation. Our aim is to unearth this (...) grounded normative theory (GNT) approach – to identify its definitive practices and highlight its potential significance. We detail four overlapping commitments characteristic of GNT. These include commitments to expanding the comprehensiveness of input for normative arguments through original empirical research and/or analysis, recursivity in the development of normative claims, attentiveness to the systematic inclusion of a range of voices and ways of knowing, and accountability to those engaged by the theorist in empirical contexts. We discuss methodological distinctions within GNT, including between more- and less-solidaristic approaches. We discuss how GNT answers calls for theorists to engage more closely with empirical political dynamics and we consider responses to possible critiques. (shrink)

Environmental justice seeks fairness in how environmental burdens and risks are visited on poor people, women, communities of color, Indigenous peoples, minorities, and citizens of developing countries. It also concerns whether members of these same groups have fair access to environmental goods such as urban green spaces, forested areas, and clean water. Environmental goods extend, also, to opportunities to benefit from enterprises such as tourism and green infrastructure (Shrader-Frechette 2002; Bullard 2000; Taylor 2000; Whyte 2010). The moral wrongs characteristic (...) of environmental injustices often do not resonate with members of dominant societies. In some cases, those injustices are unknowable. To say that .. (shrink)

Recent work by comparative philosophers, global ethicists, and cross-cultural value theorists indicates that, unlike most Western thinkers, those in many other parts of the globe, such as indigenous Africa, East Asia, and Latin America, tend to prize relationality. These relational values include enjoying a sense of togetherness, participating cooperatively, creating something new together, engaging in mutual aid, and being compassionate. Global economic practices and internationally influential theories pertaining to justice, development, and normative economics over the past 50 years have (...) been principally informed by characteristically Western and individualist values such as utility, autonomy, and capability. In this article I consider what economic appropriation, production, distribution, and consumption would look like if they were more influenced by relational values typical of non-Western worldviews, and especially the sub-Saharan ethic of ubuntu. (shrink)

Incentives for improving research productivity at universities prevail in global academia. However, the rationale, methodology, and impact of such incentives and consequent evaluation regimes are in need of scrutinization. This paper explores the influences of financial and career-related publishing incentive schemes on research cultures. It draws on an analysis of 75 interviews with academics, senior university administrators, and journal editors from China, a country that has seen widespread reliance on international publication counts in research evaluation and reward systems. The study (...) focuses on humanities and social sciences as disciplinary sites, which embody distinct characteristics and have experienced the introduction of incentive schemes in China since the early 2000s. Findings reveal tensions between internationalization and indigenization, quality and quantity, integrity and instrumentalism, equity and inequity in Chinese academia. In particular, we argue that a blanket incentive scheme could reinforce a managerial culture in higher education, encourage performative objectification of academics, and jeopardize their agency. We thereby challenge ‘one-size-fits-all’ policymaking, and suggest instead that institutions should have the opportunity to adopt an ethical and ‘human-oriented’ approach when developing their research incentives and evaluation mechanisms. (shrink)

The historical formation of Brazil is distinguished from the majority of ex-colonial nations by one factor that is especially characteristic: an intense process of ethnic and cultural mixing. The Portuguese colonisers, who, unlike the English Puritans in North America, left their families and arrived in Brazil in small groups mainly composed of men, naturally tended to pair off with the women they found available - first of all indigenous women and later African women. There was nothing in Brazil to (...) prevent this spontaneous behaviour similar to the role played in the English colonies of North America by the strength of the family group or the strict religious observance of the community. Thus from the outset Brazil tended to accept racial mixing as a de facto reality. As Gilberto Freyre correctly noted in his book Casa Grande e Senzala:They mixed happily with women of colour from the very first contacts and many mixed-race children resulted, so much so that only a few thousand men were enough to colonize vast areas and compete with the greatest and most numerous peoples as regards the extent of the colonial territory and the effectiveness of colonizing activity. (shrink)

When Australia was circumnavigated by Europeans in 1801–02, French and British natural historians were unsure how to describe the Indigenous peoples who inhabited the land they charted and catalogued. Ideas of race and of savagery were freely deployed by both British and French, but a discursive shift was underway. While the concept of savagery had long been understood to apply to categories of human populations deemed to be in want of more historically advanced ‘civilisation’, the application of this term (...) in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was increasingly being correlated with the emerging terminology of racial characteristics. The terminology of race was still remarkably fluid, and did not always imply fixed physical or mental endowments or racial hierarchies. Nonetheless, by means of this concept, natural historians began to conceptualise humanity as subject not only to historical gradations, but also to the environmental and climatic variations thought to determine race. This in turn meant that the degree of savagery or civilisation of different peoples could be understood through new criteria that enabled physical classification, in particular by reference to skin colour, hair, facial characteristics, skull morphology, or physical stature: the archetypal criteria of race. While race did not replace the language of savagery, in the early years of the 19th century savagery was re-inscribed by race. (shrink)

In this remarkable and often dazzling book, Paul Carter explores the conditions for sociability in a globalized future. He argues that we make many assumptions about communication but overlook barriers to understanding between strangers as well as the importance of improvisation in overcoming these obstacles to meeting. While disciplines such as sociology, legal studies, psychology, political theory, and even urban planning treat meeting as a good in its own right, they fail to provide a model of what makes meeting possible (...) and worth pursuing: a yearning for encounter. The volume's central narrative-between Northern cultural philosophers and Australian societies-traverses the troubled history of misinterpretation that is characteristic of colonial cross-cultural encounter. As he brings the literature of Indigenous and non-Indigenous anthropological research into dialogue with Western approaches of conceptualizing sociability, Carter makes a startling discovery: that meeting may not be desirable and, if it is, its primary objective may be to negotiate a future of non-meeting. To explain the phenomenon of encounter, Carter performs it in differing scales, spaces, languages, tropes, and forms of knowledge, staging in the very language of the book what he calls "passages." In widely varying contexts, these passages posit the disjunction of Greco-Roman and Indigenous languages, codes, theatrics of power, social systems, and visions of community. In an era of new forms of technosocialization, Carter offers novel ways of presenting the philosophical dimensions of waiting, meeting, and non-meeting. (shrink)

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. This book offers a devastating look at deeply flawed development processes driven by international finance, African governments and the global consulting industry. It examines major river basin development underway in the semi-arid borderlands of Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan and its disastrous human rights consequences for a half-million indigenous people. The volume traces the historical origins of Gibe III megadam construction along the Omo River in Ethiopia-in turn, enabling (...) irrigation for commercial-scale agricultural development and causing radical reduction of downstream Omo and (Kenya's) Lake Turkana waters. Presenting case studies of indigenous Dasanech and northernmost Turkana livelihood systems and Gibe III linked impacts on them, the author predicts agropastoral and fishing economic collapse, region-wide hunger with exposure to disease epidemics, irreversible natural resource destruction and cross-border interethnic armed conflict spilling into South Sudan. The book identifies fundamental failings of government and development bank impact assessments, including their distortion or omission of mandated transboundary assessment, cumulative effects of the Gibe III dam and its linked Ethiopia-Kenya energy transmission 'highway' project, key hydrologic and human ecological characteristics, major earthquake threat in the dam region and widespread expropriation and political repression. Violations of internationally recognized human rights, especially by the Ethiopian government but also the Kenyan government, are extensive and on the increase-with collaboration by the development banks, in breach of their own internal operational procedures. A policy crossroads has now emerged. The author presents the alternative to the present looming catastrophe-consideration of development suspension in order to undertake genuinely independent transboundary assessment and a plan for continued development action within a human rights framework-forging a sustainable future for the indigenous peoples now directly threatened and for their respective eastern Africa states. Claudia Carr's book is a treasure of detailed information gathered over many years concerning river basin development of the Omo River in Ethiopia and its impact on the peoples of the lower Omo Basin and the Lake Turkana region in Kenya. It contains numerous maps, charts, and photographs not previously available to the public. The book is highly critical of the environmental and human rights implications of the Omo River hydropower projects on both the local ethnic communities in Ethiopia and on the downstream Turkana in Kenya. David Shinn Former Ambassador to Ethiopia and to Burkina Faso Adjust Professor of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington D.C. (shrink)

In common with much of the Western world, agrarianism—valuing farmers and agricultural activity as intrinsically worthwhile, noble, and contributing to the strength of the national character—runs through Australian culture and politics. Agrarian sentiments and attitudes have been identified through empirical research and by inference from analysis of political debate, policy content, and studies of media and popular culture. Empirical studies have, however, been largely confined to the US, with little in the way of recent re-evaluations of, or developments from, early (...) work. This paper reports on research that seeks quantitative empirical evidence for the existence of agrarianism in the Australian community and seeks to identify its core characteristics. Using a purpose-designed sub-set of items within a large, omnibus-style survey of regional and rural Australia, we demonstrate that agrarianism exists as a scientifically quantifiable concept identifiable through responses to four key propositions: that Australians should support policies aimed at improving the position of the agricultural industries; that working in agriculture and associated industries brings out the best in people; that agricultural producers make a major contribution to environmental protection and biodiversity conservation; and that the development of agriculture in Australia contributed to the development of the national character. We found very little variation in the degree to which different demographic groupings agree with agrarianism. Older people, farmers, and non-Indigenous Australian-born respondents were among those who were statistically significantly more likely to agree with the defining propositions of agrarianism, but their scores were only very slightly higher than those of other sub-populations in the sample. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 10.2 (2005) 101-135 [Access article in PDF] Truth, Knowledge and the Wild World Jim Cheney One ought not to put too much stock in the word 'philosophy'.... [T]here are alternative ways of intelligently engaging the world. To construe one's thinking in terms of belief is characteristic of a particular kind of world view and it remains to be seen whether those who share an (...) class='Hi'>indigenous world view conceive of experience in such an overtly intellectualized manner. Leroy N. Meyer and Tony Ramirez (1996, 104)1 Wilderness treats me like a human being. Tom Birch2As Holmes Rolston III has said, "A principal characteristic of human life is that it develops into biography. In that sense, humans do not want their values in nature, any more than they want other goods in life, to come seriatim, like beads on a string.... Humans want a storied residence in nature where the passage of time integrates past, present, and future in a meaningful career" (Rolston 1988, 351). This is what I had hoped for: a narrative of storied residence in Midwest prairie, lake, and river country, and in the mountains and deserts of Idaho, with the history of the development of an environmental ethic (or ethos) left largely implicit within that larger narrative, leaving readers to reflect as they may on the philosophical dimensions of the journey. To leave traditional philosophical [End Page 101] modes of expression completely behind proved impossible (for now), but it has been for me a worthwhile exercise to locate my reflections on "truth, knowledge, and the wild world" in something of a narrative form. It is the lakes and rivers, prairies, mountains, and deserts that have remained implicit. They have cast their spell, however, on any attempt to impose cultural order on the relationship between truth, knowledge, and the wild world. I Looking back on it, it seems that my entire philosophical career has been implicated—in one way or another, directly and indirectly—in these two questions: "How important is truth to knowledge and epistemology?" and "What is the role of natural environments in the production of knowledge?" Furthest back, at the very origin of my philosophical life, reflections on philosophical knowledge were inevitably posed and thought about in natural environments, particularly in my meditations as I drifted in the early morning mist on the St. Croix River and several Minnesota lakes, especially Cedar Lake. Even now, when I am trying to make my way to a new understanding of some philosophical issue, I walk along the shores of Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee River, or sit by rivers and lakes in Idaho, a place that became my second home after meeting my partner, Fran. Northern White Cedars stand in our yard, front and back; Western Red Cedar holds our house in its embrace.There is no question in my mind that natural environments are the deepest sources of whatever philosophical understandings I may have come to. In terms of formal studies, however, the question of the role of natural environments in the production of knowledge did not emerge for me until, well into my teaching career, I discovered the newly-emerging field of environmental ethics. It was at that point that the deepest wellspring of my philosophy and my life came together with my professional philosophical interests—in an uneasy balance. Until that time, as I think of it now, my philosophical track through the curious environment of the academy, however well it prepared me to think about central issues in environmental ethics, was mostly marked by a fascination with glittering baubles and gemstones and did not truly touch the soil, water, and atmosphere of my life.Questions of truth, knowledge, and epistemology took center stage from the beginning of my formal philosophical studies. As an undergraduate [End Page 102] at Berkeley, Thompson Clarke introduced me (in three courses) to the skeptical implications of Ordinary Language Philosophy that had escaped the attention of J. L. Austin and others. This baptism into the rigors of skeptical philosophy left me pretty much convinced, as my partner and... (shrink)

A political challenge facing constitutional democracies in Africa is the lack of adequate representation and participation of citizens in democratic processes and institutions. This challenge is manifest in the vesting of power solely in, and the exercise of this power by, a sectional group – the majority party – to the exclusion of others; as evinced in the liberal democratic systems extensively practised on the continent. Wiredu proposes as a solution to these challenges the adoption of consensual democracy; an (...) class='Hi'>indigenous, non-party democratic system rooted in the traditional African humanist and communitarian conceptions of the individual and the community, in which political decisions are characteristically reached by consensus. In this article, I present a critical exposition of Wiredu’s consensual democracy and defend it against liberal democracy on the one hand, and criticisms levelled against it on the other hand. I also offer some modifications to Wiredu’s theory in a bid to render it more suitable for practice in Africa. (shrink)

This paper discusses the vast continuum between the letter of the law (legality) and the spirit of the law (ethics or morality). Further, the authors review the fiduciary duties owed by the firm to its various publics. These aspects must be considered in developing a corporate code of ethics. The underlying qualitative characteristics of a code include clarity, comprehensiveness and enforceability. While ethics is indigenous to a society, every code of ethics will necessarily reflect the corporate culture from (...) which that code stems and be responsive to the innumerable situations for which it was created. Several examples have been provided to illustrate the ease of applicability of these concepts. (shrink)

Architectural style is a medium for the promotion of cultural identities and cohesion. South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation nations provide a prism through which all forms of vernacular architecture can be viewed. This study is presented through the lens of the soul of the eye coupled with the power of technological probing. This synthesis affords a most appealing and lyrical exploration of the course of the development of cities within the SAARC nations. It showcases research results combining the above (...) stated synergy—starting from some of SAARC’s sophisticated historic cultures, cultures that ebbed and flowed along its shores and valleys. This paper shall touch upon unique cultural roots stretching back to the Dravidian civilization that flourished over 3500 years ago and also look at the grouping of houses within the Indus Valley Civilization in Lothal and the Sarasvati Valley Civilization in Kalibangan. The sensitivity underlying SAARC architecture and its traditions are seen in many communal settlements, profoundly so in the Indian subcontinent and in Sri Lanka. The paper shall showcase two specific, but nevertheless, distinct styles of communal functioning within unique architectural strongholds in the ancient Ratnagiri University in Odisha, India, and also touch upon a unique blend of styles of landscape architecture in Sri Lanka. The overarching emphasis of this study is that throughout SAARC’s history, architecture has been creatively adopted to the need of its users and the characteristics of its climate and location. It has always fulfilled the needs and nourished the spirit of its people, promoting cultural cohesion even today. In this context, it is interesting to explore traditional techniques of vernacular architecture in houses in Andhra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The common thread linking mass housing in Lothal, Kalibangan, Anuradhapura and Ratnagiri about 2 millennia ago, with present day housing patterns, is in the application of sustainable building practices using intelligent building forms, fabric and orientation. This paper explores this commonality from a modern perspective using CFD. As the SAARC countries still struggle to get a fuller understanding of their unique ecology and the complexity of their diverse cultures, revisiting the architectural legacy of their indigenous societies might prove insightful. The need for this revisit becomes even more relevant in the wake of the Paris Agreement and more recently the Kigali Agreement. The discourse on providing indoor thermal comfort to the SAARC people cannot be decoupled from the climate change story—heating, ventilation and cooling consume a large amount of energy and have a deep underlying link with the targets set at Paris and Kigali. The onus will be on a large number of stakeholders to meet these targets—engineers, architects, manufacturers, policy-makers, researchers and consumers. This paper aims at reminding the stakeholders of the richness and the usefulness of their vernacular architecture in upholding the ideal of sustainability. (shrink)

Summary The Sanskrit term ‘Yavana’, originally a transliteration of ‘Ionian (Greek)’ but later applied to other foreigners as well, was used throughout the common era to designate various foreign importations in the exact sciences. Likewise, the name ‘Indian’ was attached to several mathematical concepts and techniques in the Islamic world (as well as Europe) from about the seventh century onward. However, not all innovations adopted from or into the Indian tradition were labeled ‘Indian’ or ‘Yavana’ respectively. This paper examines the (...) question of what characteristics marked some borrowed techniques and concepts as ‘foreign’ and stamped them with their outlandish origin, while others were quietly assimilated into ‘indigenous’ learning. (shrink)

This article examines a range of problems centring on the theorization of cultural identity and cultural property by reference to debates about the appropriation of the Maori `tattoo' or ta moko and the authenticity of contemporary Maori tattooing practices. Through a consideration of the relationship between cultural identity and tattooing, it addresses a problematic concerning the articulation of indigenous `property', `ownership' or `authority' in legal, anthropological and philosophical discourses. Theorizations of `tattoo' as `cultural property', for example, generally assume a (...) certain `proper' relationship between subject and object, precomprehended in terms of Western legal-philosophical concepts. Against the background of these issues, the use of ta moko as a form of signature or authorizing mark of identification is taken to highlight issues concerning the complex relationship between the attribution of certain cultural practices, characteristics or `properties' to a certain group and the notions of authorship and authority that underwrite such designations. (shrink)

This essay analyses how Australian postcolonial discourses, influenced by both Republicanism and Reconciliation, deploy the trope of woman to signify political change in both feminist and cultural debates about belonging, national legitimacy and sovereignty. I point out that white feminist rejection of the Queen in favour of embracing indigeneity is itself complicit with a history of ‘incorporating’ and assimilating indigeneity – a complicity that is sublimated in favour of a triumphant rejection of Imperial white womanhood. The essay looks at a (...) contemporary Australian novel, media depictions of Paul Keating's ‘embrace’ of Queen Elizabeth II (as a kind of captivity narrative), critical whiteness studies’ ‘rejection’ of the Queen and the misrecognition of Australia's distinct characteristics as a ‘settler culture’ (that incorporates indigeneity) within Australian feminist debates and claims of ‘transgression’ that are made for interracial relationships in Australia. (shrink)

The term social license is generally understood as an intangible representation of ongoing approval or acceptance of a project by affected communities, which can be withdrawn at any time, distinct from a legal or regulatory license granted by a government. This paper looks at the concept through the lens of the extractive sector in the developing world and explores the history of violations of land and human rights of indigenous and rural communities living around these resources. While corporate actors (...) often maintain that acquiring a social license is voluntary and different from obtaining consent, this paper suggests instead that the idea of a license that can be withdrawn represents an assertion of power by people whose land and human rights have been consistently violated, and a recognition of that power by the corporate sector. This article will explore the relationship between the need for a social license and institutional characteristics related to land rights; the FPIC and CSR constructs as respo.. (shrink)