Gendered migrations,social reproduction and the household in Europe

As a framework for empirical studies, global chains of care has become the favored theoretical lens to capture the global transfer of physical and emotional labor from less wealthy regions, whether in the South or the poorer regions of the North to wealthy regions. However, the global chains of care literature has tended to channel research into a narrow set of sectors, skills and sites. In particular, its analysis is framed in terms of flows between households, thus rendering invisible the other sites, external agents and institutions of care interacting with the household as well as the diversity of familial arrangements within the household. Moreover, the household in feminist analysis had moved from being a site of unpaid work to a site of unpaid care. In this article, I suggest we need to unpack what is actually happening in the household in a period of economic, social and political change in which inequalities have increased massively, and state intervention is reshaping how and what activities are undertaken in particular sites and institutions. In order to do this, I suggest in this paper that revisiting the concept of social reproduction would enable us to better appreciate the complexity of the transfer of labor, both in relation to different institutional arrangements and the spatial extension of social reproduction. I firstly briefly review the relationship between social reproduction and its relationship with care in the last 30 years and consider some of the initial North American analyses applying the concept of social reproduction to migrant labor and its increasingly globally extended reproduction. The analysis of specific developments of social reproduction in the household focuses on the European Union.     

Land Use and Land Right Dynamics—Determinants for Resource Management Options in Eastern Burkina Faso

The paper first examines established theories on the population-environmental nexus. Farmers' options in responding to declining soil fertility or shortage of land vary from village to village and even household to household. Responses are conditioned by social relations with neighboring villages and the labor availability of individual households. The example from the Boulgou Province in Burkina Faso shows that some farmers have been able to expand their acreage in other villages' territories on a virtually permanent basis, thereby compensating for increased population pressure and for land degradation. Currently, labor availability, social relations, and distance to the land seem to be the main constraints on land expansion. However, the pattern of land use changes is expected to be increasingly influenced by the existence of more formally established rights than at present. In the light of the empirical findings, the relevance of the Gestion des Terroir Villagois concept as a tool for planning for sustainable natural resource management at the village level is discussed. This approach seems imperfectly suited to address a reality in which social and physical environments are superimposed in a spatially complex way.     

Settler agriculture and the dynamics of resource allocation in frontier environments

This article attempts to conceptualize the dynamics of resource allocation by colonist farmers under the unique conditions of land abundance and labor scarcity which characterize frontier environments, such as the smallholder agricultural settlement areas in the Amazon basin. In contrast, most previous theoretical literature on household agricultural decision making and land-use change in rural areas considers conditions of high population density and land scarcity, and is not, therefore, adequate for understanding critical land-use changes which may be occurring in frontier regions. This article first discusses the appropriateness and inadequacies of the analytical frameworks commonly used to explain the expansion of settler agriculture into remote forest regions and the unsustainable land-use practices observed in these areas. This review serves as the basis for characterizing resource allocation under the particular conditions of frontier environments. A conceptual advance in the analysis is its consideration of the way institutional/policy factors and farm-level characteristics can interact to produce land-use outcomes. This knowledge is essential to understand not only the social and economic factors affecting present land use and choice of technology, but also those factors influencing farmers' demand for more optimal systems of land use which are consistent with varying agro-ecological potentials, demographic situations, and their own management capacity.     

Biology,boundaries and borders

Towards Justice and Peace is a splendid title for a symposium and book to honour Professor Sunderland. It is also a very difficult title for a biological anthropologist. I make the distinction from social anthropology with some apology. There are of course many subdisciplines and traditions within Anthropology and I most associate Professor Sunderland's support of my university and myself with our attempts to foster cross-disciplinary discussion, towards a “Biosocial Anthropology”, as it were. So, while for specialists in fossilization of bones, sequences of DNA molecules or analysis of urine, the title, Towards Justice and Peace might cause problems, I should like to discuss some biosocial anthropology on an international frontier, which, after centuries of military aggression and defence, is now a peaceful line on a map within the European Community. HMM.     

Historical links between settlement,ecology, and politics in the mountains of west Nepal

The paper presents a study of settlement processes in western Nepal. It emphasizes the linkages between settlement history, cultural ecology, and political economy as these relate to resources, marginality, and territory. Regional settlement trends are examined in accordance with land occupancy and tenure arrangements. Village settlement strategies are analyzed within a micro-processual framework that incorporates political economic perspectives on village land use and resource distributions. The past, present, and future roles of settlement in the human adaptation process of west Nepal's mountain populations is critically examined in the contexts of historical land policies and current rural political and environmental systems.     

Tradisi and Moderen,Village and State: Emergent Tensions in a Sasak Health Quest

On Lombok island, in the province of West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, indigenous medicine and biomedicine coexist. Nevertheless, biomedicine, a product of modernity and the development of the state has been superimposed on village life along with other state institutions such as education. In this paper I analyse the processes involved in Sasak villagers' quest for health. Operating within various and sometimes overlapping social fields and conflicting discourses, villagers utilise both local indigenous practices as well as the Indonesian national health system in their quest. Because local or ordinary knowledge is a rich resource for interpretation, I describe the health quest through the participant individuals: family members, neighbours, doctors and nursing personnel involved. The subjectivity of the individual participants contributes to the intricate unfolding of health seeking quests to expose the various tensions which emerge between tradition (tradisi [I]) and modernity (moderen [I]) and between state and village.     

Fissioning, Scalar Stress, and Social Evolution in Early Village Societies

Theories of social evolution have predicted that early permanent population concentrations will frequently be unstable, with fissioning the predominant mechanism for resolving intravillage conflict. It has further been suggested that village fissioning will cease with the emergence of higher-level integrative institutions. These processes have remained archaeologically undocumented. In this article I attempt to identify the village fissioning process in the Formative Period of Bolivia's Titicaca Basin. I conclude that village fissioning took place in the Early Formative, and that it ceased with the emergence of a regional religious tradition in the Middle Formative. These results confirm the utility and applicability of the evolutionary model.     

Interclan Cooperation in a Risky Pastoral Ecology: <Emphasis Type="BoldItalic">Some lessons from Eastern Ethiopia</Emphasis>

This paper explores institutional arrangements governing reciprocal grazing resource sharing among different pastoral and agropastoral clans in eastern Ethiopia. It describes and compares multiple institutional arrangements that define non-exclusive property rights in order to increase the social and economic efficiency of grazing resource uses in a risky environment. Results indicate that social capital, explained using lineage as a proxy, plays a crucial role in facilitating the establishment of and negotiation for non-exclusive forms of rights to grazing resources. Nonetheless, socio-political factors, such as clan politics and regulations restricting cross-border herd mobility, limit the role of customary institutional arrangements in sustaining interclan cooperation. Increased threat from climate change (rainfall variability) and the absence of insurance for the livestock increase the necessity to sustain interclan cooperation over the reciprocal sharing of the grazing commons. This suggests the need for a policy shift in favor of reinforcing customary systems of resource governance to ameliorate interclan cooperation to respond to these challenges.     

Successfully Governing the Commons: Principles of Social Organization in an Andean Irrigation System

Throughout the world it is unusual to find irrigation systems that work well, distributing water efficiently and with minimal conflict, especially in situations where the resource is scarce. This paper describes one such system in the Peruvian Andes, a peasant village where irrigation and water management are handled in an unusual way. It analyzes the village principles of social organization, showing that these create a situation of equity and transparency which provides people with a strong incentive to obey the rules and conserve water. By doing so, they are directly maximizing the frequency of irrigation, a benefit that is the same for everyone using a given source of water. The system is argued to be a highly effective and sustainable way of dealing with a scarce and fluctuating resource.     

JUSTICE, STIGMA, AND THE NEW EPIDEMIOLOGY OF HEALTH DISPARITIES

Recent research in epidemiology has identified a number of factors beyond access to medical care that contribute to health disparities. Among the so-called socioeconomic determinants of health are income, education, and the distribution of social capital. One factor that has been overlooked in this discussion is the effect that stigmatization can have on health. In this paper, I identify two ways that social stigma can create health disparities: directly by impacting health-care seeking behaviour and indirectly through the internalization of negative interpersonal judgments. I then argue that social arrangements that foster self-respect can reduce the impact of stigmatization on health disparities. I conclude by showing how John Rawls' conception of justice can be used to address the intersection of stigma, health, and self-respect, in contrast to critics of his position, who have seen him as excessively focused on the allocation of material goods.     

Does Tenure Matter? A Comparative Analysis of Agricultural Expansion in the Mosquitia Forest Corridor

This article compares how public protection of forests and common-property forest institutions serve to control outside encroachment into frontier forests in Honduras and Nicaragua. The article combines institutional analysis with ethnographically based fieldwork and analysis of land-cover images to evaluate how property-rights arrangements influence monitoring, enforcement, and compliance with rules to restrict agricultural expansion in two biosphere reserves in the Mosquitia Corridor. Findings show that territorial demarcation and common-property rights are important components for frontier forest conservation. In areas with weak enforcement mechanisms and heavy reliance on social norms over official regulatory measures, the findings suggest that the perceived legitimacy of tenure arrangements and their respective land-use rules are fundamental to controlling the agricultural frontier.

中国生物科技企业前沿模型的构建与应用研究

综述了前沿模型的产生、发展、分类,并在此基础上根据2004年度中国主要生物科技上市公司样本数据,尝试构建中国生物科技企业前沿模型。分别选用了随机前沿模型、确定性参数前沿模型和确定性统计前沿模型并根据主要统计检验指标进行分析比较,结果发现:2004年度中国主要生物科技企业上市公司样本数据适合于建立确定性统计前沿模型。根据建立的确定性统计前沿模型测定中国主要生物科技企业上市公司技术效果发现:中国主要生科企业普遍存在着技术效率低下、差距大的现状;资本投入对产出的影响大大高于劳动力投入对产出的影响;中国东、中、西部主要生科企业总平均技术效率并无显著差异。     

Market Integration, Livelihood Transitions and Environmental Change in Areas of Low Agricultural Productivity: A Case Study from Morocco

Rural areas of the developing world have become increasingly integrated into the world economy through both production and consumption during the last decades. This growing integration shapes the development of communities and influences their relationship to the natural environment. Where livelihoods are constrained by resource limitations and the productivity of labor in farm activities is low, it may result in a shift to nonfarm activities, which may under some conditions improve wellbeing and relieve pressure on natural resources. The possibility of such a “win-win” development pathway has important implications for development and environmental policy. In this article we use original qualitative and quantitative data to examine environmental and social changes during the last half century in a rural area of Morocco, seeking evidence of such a pathway. While our case study supports the hypothesis that nonfarm diversification in a context of resource scarcity allowed people to improve their material living conditions, the effects of economic integration and nonfarm diversification on the environment were mixed.     

Export agriculture,transnational farmworkers,and labor resistance in the Mexico–US borderlands

This article discusses the system of export agriculture in northern Mexico and its impact on transnational farmworkers employed in both sides of the US–Mexico border. Since the late 1990s, a transnational industry producing fresh produce for consumer markers in the USA has taken hold in the San Quintin Valley in Baja California, transforming the economic and social fabric of this border region. This industry has generated a new labor regime predicated upon the employment of a flexible and cheap source of indigenous workers from the poorest states in southern Mexico. I examine the contours of this regime, the forms of labor resistance it has elicited, and the new types of labor migration it has generated by Mexican workers to the USA. As I show, indigenous farm laborers engage in novel forms of labor and political protests to claim for their rights. These developments, I argue, speak of the class formation of transnational farmworkers who, mobilizing local and transnationally, combine traditional labor demands with wider claims for their civil and political rights.     

The <Emphasis Type="Italic">foraging</Emphasis> gene,behavioral plasticity,and honeybee division of labor

In recent years, the honeybee has emerged as an excellent model for molecular and genetic studies of complex social behaviors. By using the global gene expression methods as well as the candidate gene approach, it is now possible to link the function of genes to social behaviors. In this paper, I discuss the findings about one such gene, foraging, a cGMP-dependent protein kinase. The involvement of this gene in regulating division of labor is discussed on two independent, but not mutually exclusive levels; the possible mechanisms for PKG action in regulating behavioral transitions associated with honeybee division of labor, and its possible involvement in the evolution of division of labor in bees.     

Participatory Resource Monitoring as a Means for Promoting Social Change in Yunnan,China

Recent international forest policies stimulate involvement of communities in forest management as a strategy to improve biodiversity conservation and the quality of local livelihoods. Increasingly, the role of local people in monitoring forest resources is also acknowledged. This paper presents a participatory resources monitoring (PRM) system developed and implemented by representatives of 12 villages, six each within and adjacent to two nature reserves in Yunnan, China. The short-term objectives are to monitor resource and wildlife abundance, resource use, wildlife damage to crops, and land use. Main methods used by the village monitoring team are: (1) observation through forest walk, (2) village interview, and (3) market survey. Monitoring is implemented throughout the year to fit in the daily work of villagers. Staff from the nature reserve or forestry bureau provide support by visiting the villages several days per year. Results indicate that participatory monitoring is a valuable tool for villagers to engage in self-owned management actions. We discuss how monitoring is also a process which could lead to social change. Based on narratives we suggest that participatory monitoring builds trust between stakeholders, changes perceptions and attitudes and leads to more democratic and transparent decision-making. In discussing accuracy, we argue that all stakeholders perceive and interpret nature differently based on different worldviews, knowledge systems, values and beliefs. We argue that if participatory monitoring is to be sustainable, community-based monitoring – preferably linked to scientific monitoring and patrolling – should be designed as a discursive institution where the process of building social capital and inter-actor learning is extremely important. Finally, we briefly reflect upon efforts to scale up participatory monitoring.     

The racialised and classed constitution of English village life

This article explores ethnographically the ‘village’ as a stage for the enactment and reproduction of a racialised set of white middle-class social and moral values. To do this I draw upon interview material with middle-class whites who live in a suburban ‘village’ on the border of rural Leicestershire and urban Leicester in England. I explore the way in which my co-conversationalists reflexively and imaginatively defend their area's ‘village’ identity through a discourse that ‘others’ its wealthy Asian residents. Although these raced others have achieved economic parity with the more affluent wealthy white middle-class residents, they are imagined to lack the ‘proper’ middle-class values of respectability and decorum, which are associated with the traditional white rhythms of English village life.     

Climate change,uncertainty, and natural resource management

Climate change and its associated uncertainties are of concern to natural resource managers. Although aspects of climate change may be novel (e.g., system change and nonstationarity), natural resource managers have long dealt with uncertainties and have developed corresponding approaches to decision-making. Adaptive resource management is an application of structured decision-making for recurrent decision problems with uncertainty, focusing on management objectives, and the reduction of uncertainty over time. We identified 4 types of uncertainty that characterize problems in natural resource management. We examined ways in which climate change is expected to exacerbate these uncertainties, as well as potential approaches to dealing with them. As a case study, we examined North American waterfowl harvest management and considered problems anticipated to result from climate change and potential solutions. Despite challenges expected to accompany the use of adaptive resource management to address problems associated with climate change, we conclude that adaptive resource management approaches will be the methods of choice for managers trying to deal with the uncertainties of climate change. © 2010 The Wildlife Society.     

Swidden, Sawah, and In-Between: Agricultural Transformation in Borneo

The change from swidden to sawah cultivation in Tara'n Dayak villages in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, is presented as a long-term, complex incremental process in which distinct, unstable, and often confusing production technologies figure as transitional forms. The transitional phases are discussed in terms of their efficiency and sustainability. It is argued that the failure to perceive and understand long-term processes of agricultural change may result in both misinterpretation of technological patterns and environmental variables, as well as of rules of labor and resource sharing.