Changing Islam,changing the world: contrasting visions within political Islam

ABSTRACT

How do political Islamists, movements and thinkers view political change? To what extent do they promote violence as a means of bringing about change? Are they themselves willing to change and adapt to modern political systems? There is a wide array of movements in the Muslim world that grapple with these questions and as a consequence, numerous answers and disagreements. This paper will focus on three cardinal and contested issues: Is violence a legitimate means to bring about change? Is it legitimate to adopt Western political institutions? How should Muslim movements and regimes coexist with ancient political entities such as tribes and ethnic groups? By comparing and contrasting the political outlooks of the Muslim Brothers and the Salafi-Jihadis, the article highlights the ideological gaps between moderate and militant political Islam.     

Economic importance,taxonomic representation and scientific priority as drivers of genome sequencing projects

Background

Of the approximately two hundred sequenced plant genomes, how many and which ones were sequenced motivated by strictly or largely scientific considerations, and how many by chiefly economic, in a wide sense, incentives? And how large a role does publication opportunity play?

Results

In an integration of multiple disparate databases and other sources of information, we collect and analyze data on the size (number of species) in the plant orders and families containing sequenced genomes, on the trade value of these species, and of all the same-family or same-order species, and on the publication priority within the family and order. These data are subjected to multiple regression and other statistical analyses. We find that despite the initial importance of model organisms, it is clearly economic considerations that outweigh others in the choice of genome to be sequenced.

Conclusions

This has important implications for generalizations about plant genomes, since human choices of plants to harvest (and cultivate) will have incurred many biases with respect to phenotypic characteristics and hence of genomic properties, and recent genomic evolution will also have been affected by human agricultural practices.

     

From Tribal Hut to Royal Palace: The Dialectic of Equality and Hierarchy in Austronesian Southeast Asia

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I will compare and contrast the Austronesian symbolic elements of the two social formations within which I have conducted extensive ethnographic and archival research, that of the highly egalitarian Buid of Mindoro, Philippines and that of the equally hierarchical Makassar of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. I will demonstrate both that their cosmological structures are built out of common symbolic elements and that these structures could be used to legitimate vastly different political systems. The common symbolic elements included a gendered cosmos inhabited by a series of parallel societies composed of animal, human and spirit subjects; the conceptualisation of human sociality as generated by shared experience within a nested series of bounded spaces; and the ability of certain agents to move between these spaces by way of specialised training, vehicles and portals.     

The human dynamics of migrant transnationalism

Abstract

How is migrant transnationalism shaped by the human dynamics of relationships between migrants and non-migrants? This question is addressed through an analysis of asymmetries between migrants and non-migrants in three spheres of transnational life: the moralities of transnationalism, information and imagination in transnational relations, and transnational resource inequalities. Understanding transnational practices such as sending remittances and facilitating migration, it is argued, requires attention to the dynamics of the relationships between individuals. Fieldwork material from Cape Verde and the Netherlands is combined with secondary literature from other parts of the world in order to develop an analytical framework for comparative research.     

Cross-Cultural aspects of bereavement. II: Ethnic and cultural variations in the development of bereavement practices

Despite a growing interest in bereavement in cross-cultural perspective, few reports have described a comparative analysis of bereavement. By examining the social contexts in the transformations of Western bereavement practices, structures common to bereavement in a range of cultures can be identified. The paper compares the contemporary bereavement practices of several ethnic and cultural groups in North America: Blacks; ethnic Chinese; Southeast Asian refugees; Haitians; Italians; Greeks; and Spanish-speaking groups. Consideration is given to the state of widowhood in different cultural systems. The impact of modernization among traditional societies demonstrates that even though Western technologies are incorporated into the procedures followed by these modernizing societies, the deep cultural code remains intact. Five questions require further clarification: is bereavement an illness, or a rite de passage and a normal life event? How widespread and useful are protective factors, such as group support, that facilitate successful resolution of grief? How effective are mourning practices of various ethnic groups in preventing “bad grief”, and might some of these practices be beneficial if taken up by other ethnic groups? How can the Western health practitioner know that a bereaved person from an unfamiliar cultural group is suffering “bad grief”? How acceptable is Western grief counseling to non-Western clients?     

Giving Voice to Children's Voices: Practices and Problems, Pitfalls and Potentials

In this article, I explore the lessons that the anthropological debates of the 1980s about writing culture might have for contemporary childhood research within anthropology and the social sciences more generally. I argue that the current rhetoric about "giving voice to children," commonplace both inside and outside the academy, poses a threat to the future of childhood research because it masks a number of important conceptual and epistemological problems. In particular, these relate to questions of representation, issues of authenticity, the diversity of children's experiences, and children's participation in research, all of which need to be addressed by anthropologists in their own research practices with children. Unless anthropologists do so, childhood research risks becoming marginalized once more and will fail to provide an arena within which children are seen as social actors who can provide a unique perspective on the social world about matters that concern them as children.     

Enhancing Research Ethics Review Systems in Egypt: The Focus of an International Training Program Informed by an Ecological Developmental Approach to Enhancing Research Ethics Capacity

Recently, training programs in research ethics have been established to enhance individual and institutional capacity in research ethics in the developing world. However, commentators have expressed concern that the efforts of these training programs have placed ‘too great an emphasis on guidelines and research ethics review’, which will have limited effect on ensuring ethical conduct in research. What is needed instead is a culture of ethical conduct supported by national and institutional commitment to ethical practices that are reinforced by upstream enabling conditions (strong civil society, public accountability, and trust in basic transactional processes), which are in turn influenced by developmental conditions (basic freedoms of political freedoms, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees, and protective security). Examining this more inclusive understanding of the determinants of ethical conduct enhances at once both an appreciation of the limitations of current efforts of training programs in research ethics and an understanding of what additional training elements are needed to enable trainees to facilitate national and institutional policy changes that enhance research practices. We apply this developmental model to a training program focused in Egypt to describe examples of such additional training activities.     

Can hydrologic management practices of rice fields contribute to macroinvertebrate conservation in southern Brazil wetlands?

The expansion of rice fields is one of the main human activities responsible for the decline of natural wetlands throughout the world. However, rice fields have been recognized as having considerable potential value for many aquatic species. In this sense, an important question from the point of view of biodiversity conservation is the adequacy of these agricultural wetlands as an integrated managed landscape that contributes to maintain a rich biodiversity. The two main questions of this study were: (1) Do richness, density, and composition of macroinvertebrates differ in rice fields with different management practices (flooded and dry)?; and, (2) Do richness, density and composition of macroinvertebrates change in rice fields over the rice cultivating phases? Six collections were carried out in six rice fields with different management practices after cultivation (three dry and three flooded during the fallow phase). The macroinvertebrates were sampled using a corer (7.5-cm diameter) inserted 10 cm into the substratum of the rice fields. We recorded 6,425 macroinvertebrates, comprising 71 macroinvertebrate taxa. Macroinvertebrate richness and density varied over the rice cultivating cycle. The different management practices adopted after cultivation did not influence the macroinvertebrate richness and density; however, they influenced composition. Thus, the mosaic created by the variation of flooded and dry rice fields would provide the setting for a greater number of taxa within the agricultural landscape. The difference in taxa composition between flooded and dry rice fields is an interesting result in terms of biodiversity conservation. Rice producers could maintain part of their agricultural land flooded during the fallow phase. These management practices adopted could be an important strategy for biodiversity conservation in areas where the natural wetlands were converted into rice fields.     

Pesticide Use in Commercial Potato Production: Reflections on Research and Intervention Efforts towards Greater Ecosystems Health in Northern Ecuador

Since 1990, an interdisciplinary and interinstitutional team of scientists has led a research-intervention initiative examining pesticide impacts on agricultural production, human health, and the environment in the highly commercial potato growing province of Carchi, Ecuador. This article synthesizes the key results of that initiative, analyzes the lessons concerning the process of transdisciplinary ecosystems health research from a methodological perspective, and identifies priority future research opportunities. Research on this initiative has covered a broad range of activities with a full spectrum of rural stakeholders. These have included: health studies of the incidence of pesticide poisonings and the neurological impacts of pesticide exposure on farmers and their families; environmental and personal exposure studies; economic studies on the role of pesticides in agricultural production; sociological studies of farmers attitudes, knowledge, and practices related to pesticide use; and participatory interventions to reduce pesticide-related impacts. Research results have shown that pesticide poisoning incidence in the potato growing zones of Carchi, Ecuador match the highest reported rates in the world. A majority of farm household members suffer significant neurological impairment. Economic and participatory research has shown that there are viable alternatives to the use of Class 1 highly toxic pesticides in the zone. Nevertheless, cultural and political factors are impeding substantial changes in current practices. Future research-intervention activities include longitudinal analyses of the health, environmental, and production impacts of participatory interventions, and a scaling up of analyses to encompass other regions in the Andean mountain ecosystem with more limited indicators of key constructs.     

Establishing the ecological planning principles from empirical studies in agricultural environments of Taiwan

Studies have suggested that the heterogeneity and arrangement of landscape structures are influential to the faunal biodiversity of environments. How does the landscape structure in agricultural landscape arrangements improve the functions of the natural ecosystem? Previous research has uncovered a great amount of information on the relationships between landscape structure and wildlife; however, for landscape designers and planners, such information is site-specific and has limited utilization. Hence, this study aimed to organize and categorize the relationships between environments and biodiversity and transfer this information into design principles in agricultural landscapes. This study attempted to integrate aspects of previous research into a systematic framework. The current study searched literature between 2007 and 2016 from the following journals: Landscape Ecology, Landscape and Urban Planning, and Journal of Applied Ecology. In all, this study collected 58 empirical studies of agricultural environments similar to that of Taiwan and revealed the valuable relationship between wildlife and agricultural environments. The outcomes reviewed from the literature were categorized by semi-natural elements and divided into six sub-categories: forests, hedgerows, grasslands, flowers, water, and heterogeneity of the natural landscape. The landscape attributes that were frequently discussed included patch number, patch area, connectivity, species richness, edge area, distance from semi-natural elements, and complexity. The landscape attributes formed by these elements were organized into a table as a checklist for designers’ convenience. The checklist will help landscape planners and designers to create agricultural landscapes with integral ecosystems.

     

Introduction: Patterns of generational change: convergent,reactive or emergent?

Abstract

The aim of this special issue is to map the extent of generational change among Britain's ethnic minority population and to understand some of the underlying processes involved. Is there greater integration across generations, or has the ‘new second generation’ in Britain remained isolated from the mainstream, perhaps as a result of the prejudice and discrimination from the white British that they have encountered or because of desires to maintain ethnic values and resist western practices? We also ask whether processes of generational change have proceeded at the same pace and direction in different domains – notably cultural, social, structural and political – and whether it has proceeded at the same pace among different minorities.     

Can we develop ethically universal embryonic stem-cell lines?

Human embryonic stem-cell (hESC) research faces opposition from those who object to the destruction of human embryos. Over the past few years, a series of new approaches have been proposed for deriving hESC lines without injuring a living embryo. Each of these presents scientific challenges and raises ethical and political questions. Do any of these methods have the potential to provide a source of hESCs that will be acceptable to those who oppose the current approaches?     

Misconceptions in biology: a meta-synthesis study of research, 2000–2014

Abstract

Teachers need to be aware of biology misconceptions in their classrooms and how to address them. In response, researchers and science educators have suggested and examined effective practices to prevent and ameliorate misconceptions. An extensive review of the literature gives researchers and educators insights into trends, practices, and gaps in the misconceptions research and helps decide which issues to address and why. The current study shares how researchers in Turkey conduct a content analysis of published misconception research in Turkey by using a form. The analysis resulted in a meta-synthesis (thematic content analysis) that inventoried and compared the purposes, research methods, data collection instruments, and findings of the selected publications. Biology educators in other regions of the world can inform their practice by using this instrument and research methods to learn about trends and patterns in misconception research. Researchers will gain insights into effective methods that have been used to examine misconceptions and will be able to identify biology misconceptions that have been under-investigated and need further analysis.     

City Visualscapes,an Introduction

Socio-anthropological studies on the city have addressed directly the audiovisual recently. This trend emerges from the awareness that the textual materials usually employed in research too often show their limits, given the complexity of the urban phenomena. The increasing use of audiovisual research raises a crucial question: what is the added value of photography and video, as well as of the many extra textual languages that increasingly are complicating research work? The simple diffusion of electronic text and the use of devices have taught us to manipulate text and images simultaneously, but in the process have changed the methodological approach of social sciences from the definition of questions and research hypotheses to the construction of the empirical basis, and finally the writing and analysis, seen as experimental practices that flow into what we might call an expanded search. Urban studies, having complexity as their main object as well as an undeniable encounter of paradigms and disciplines, have implicitly encouraged and made common the use and testing of audiovisual technology. City Visualscapes is an attempt to focus on those experiences of urban research that privilege languages employing experimental visual practices alongside more traditional research tools.     

The moral polity of forced migration

We can speak of a moral polity, in which many countries in Europe receiving refugees have signed human rights conventions. Yet we also find externalization of migration control and widespread rejection towards receiving forced migrants. This observation raises two questions. First, what are the main mechanisms fuelling the dualism of human rights on the one hand and an unwillingness to accept forced migrants on the other hand? More generally, what is driving political perceptions around forced migration? Second, the practical question is: How can we (de)construct political perceptions around forced migration which lead to categorizations that exclude migrants from living in safety? In doing so, this analysis seeks to deconstruct forced migration from the point of view of critical theory, literary theory and social theory. The conclusion then asks, inspired by feminist-queer theory, whether there is a creative opening in escaping inequality-producing categorizations of forced migration.     

Trans-Kemalism: the politics of the Turkish state in the diaspora

Abstract

In contrast to the huge amount of research on Turkish migration and migrants, the diasporic politics of the Turkish Kemalist state constitutes a neglected research subject in the scholarship on Turkish diaspora. How does the Turkish state reach out to its nationals and expatriates abroad? In what ways does the Turkish Republic seek to make Islam (as it does in Turkey) into an instrument legitimizing its politicizing and mobilizing enterprises? To explore these questions, this article investigates the long-distance Kemalism engaged in by the Turkish state to Turkify and secularize its nationals in the diaspora, using its activities in Australia as its case study. In sketching out trans-Kemalism's dimensions, the analysis directs attention to the intimate relationship between the political and religious fields of transnationalism manufactured by the state. The paper concludes that the intense political polarization in Turkey in the present makes the future of trans-Kemalism abroad somewhat uncertain.     

Institutions and Cultural Diversity: Effects of Democratic and Propaganda Processes on Local Convergence and Global Diversity

In a connected world where people influence each other, what can cause a globalized monoculture, and which measures help to preserve the coexistence of cultures? Previous research has shown that factors such as homophily, population size, geography, mass media, and type of social influence play important roles. In the present paper, we investigate for the first time the impact that institutions have on cultural diversity. In our first three studies, we extend existing agent-based models and explore the effects of institutional influence and agent loyalty. We find that higher institutional influence increases cultural diversity, while individuals'' loyalty to their institutions has a small, preserving effect. In three further studies, we test how bottom-up and top-down processes of institutional influence impact our model. We find that bottom-up democratic practices, such as referenda, tend to produce convergence towards homogeneity, while top-down information dissemination practices, such as propaganda, further increase diversity. In our last model—an integration of bottom-up and top-down processes into a feedback loop of information—we find that when democratic processes are rare, the effects of propaganda are amplified, i.e., more diversity emerges; however, when democratic processes are common, they are able to neutralize or reverse this propaganda effect. Importantly, our models allow for control over the full spectrum of diversity, so that a manipulation of our parameters can result in preferred levels of diversity, which will be useful for the study of other factors in the future. We discuss possible mechanisms behind our results, applications, and implications for political and social sciences.     

Homeland origins and political identities among Chinese in Southern California

Abstract

This research project seeks to understand the scope and sources of ethnic and other political identities among US residents of Chinese descent whose families originated from the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia. In what ways, to which extent and why do these individuals from various homeland origins identify themselves politically in the United States? Informed by past research on ethnic identity formation and political transnationalism, this research analyses a large-scale public opinion survey of Chinese in Southern California to report the contours and sources of political identities and their relationship to homeland origins, transnational ties and adaptation experiences in the Unites States, while controlling for the influence of sociodemographic factors. By separating out socialization contexts and types of transnational practices, the findings provide important modification to the scholarship on immigrant assimilation and transnationalism.     

Photosystem 2 and the oxygen evolving complex: a brief overview

These special issues of photosynthesis research present papers documenting progress in revealing the many aspects of photosystem 2, a unique, one-of-a-kind complex system that can reduce a plastoquinone to a plastoquinol on every second flash of light and oxidize 2 H₂O to an O₂ on every fourth flash. This overview is a brief personal assessment of the progress observed by the author over a four-decade research career, including a discussion of some remaining unsolved issues. It will come as no surprise to readers that there are remaining questions given the complexity of PS2, and the efforts that have been needed so far to uncover its secrets. In fact, most readers will have their own lists of outstanding questions.

     

Biomedical research practice and therapeutic practice: to whom does the human body belong?

Who owns the human body? This issue has been formerly raised about the status of the slave. Today, it has become a prominent stake for when reflecting on biomedical research and healthcare practices. In our cultures, many answers may be given to this question : they are derived from philosophical or theological traditions ; they are borrowed from anthropological, sociological or psychological knowledge ; they may be formulated in a moral or political perspective. All of them give different insights and reveal one of the various dimensions of the question. When examining the status of the body and its relation to the human subject in the various stages of his/her life (including his/her death), one of the main difficulties is to deal with each of these answers and to understand how they meet and interact in the public debate. Another matter is related to the fact that law also plays a crucial role in the process of giving an answer to this question. In our book, A qui appartient le corps humain ? Médecine, politique et droit (Paris, Belles Lettres, 2004), Claire Crignon-De Oliveira and I have tried to deal with both difficulties. In this article, I focus on the meaning of the various law traditions. In western world, the laws are all derived, up to a certain extent, from the Roman tradition. Whether they have chosen to consider the human body as a property or to associate the body to the person, they have taken very different options. However, an examination of the ways laws are elaborated on this topic shows that these two conceptions can meet in unexpected manners and that lawmaking can give creative answers to both the problem of protecting the person and to the requirements of biomedical research and healthcare practices.