The human genome diversity project

This article examines the relationship between indigenous sovereignty and identification as instanced by the legal and political debates informing the Human Genome Diversity Project. The HGDP proposes to map the history of human origins and migrations by the identification and measurement of populations. I analyze the impact of the criticisms of this agenda and methodology by indigenous nations, organizations, and advocacy groups, focusing on the incommensurability of populations with indigenous identifications as peoples. My argument is that the work of identification is the mediation of the terms and conditions of indigenous sovereignty in the very real places where their intellectual property rights and the ethics of scientific research are negotiated.     

The individual,racism and transformation: a psychoanalytic case

This paper engages transformation processes by focusing on the racism that characterised pre‐1994 South Africa. Through analysis of an individual life‐history, it argues that individuals engage with contexts of racism in ways that are particular to their intrapersonal and intrapsychic processes. Foregrounding these, the paper argues for the legitimacy of the individual as a site of intervention in transformation processes, and posits that transformation processes that do not account for intrapersonal and intrapsychic dynamics are compromised at best and futile at worst.     

Talking about trees: Environment and society in forest workers' culture*

Ce texte se base sur des données tirées des interviews ouverts et de reserche ethnographique avec des travailleurs(euses) des forêts du nord-ouest de l'Ontario. II tente a analyser les relations entre ces travailleurs(euses) et l'environnement aussi bien que leurs images des environnementalistes. L'argument fait est que les interprétations des travailleurs(euses) des forets sur les sujets environnementaux et les environnementalistes ne sont pas seulement déterminées par les intérêts étroitement économiques. L'environnementalisme et les environnementalistes sont connotativement liés à des oppositions de classe et de région et done, deviennent des symboles métaphoriques et métonymiques d'autres conflits de classe et de région. La compréhension de quoi les sujets environnementaux signifient dans la culture des travailleurs(euses) des forêts demande une analyse de la manière par laquelle cette signification est surdéterminée par les discours existants à propos les divisions sociales enracinées en classe et en espace, dans le procès que les travailleurs(euses) des forêts constituent leur identité. This paper draws on data from open-ended interviews and ethnographic research with forest workers in northwestern Ontario to analyse their relationship to the environment and their representations of environmentalists. It argues that forest workers' interpretations of environmental issues and environmentalists are not solely determined by narrow economic concerns. Environmentalism and environmentalists are connotatively linked to class and regional oppositions so that they become metaphoric and metonymic symbols of other class and regional conflicts. Understanding the specific meaning of environmental issues in forest workers' culture requires an analysis of the way in which their meaning is overdetermined by existing narratives about social divisions rooted in class and space in the process by which forest workers constitute their identity.     

The structural roots of food insecurity: How racism is a fundamental cause of food insecurity

Rates of food insecurity skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, doubling overall and tripling among households with children. Even before the pandemic, the rate of food insecurity in the United States was “unusually high” compared to other rich democracies, and rates have not improved substantially over the last 25 years. What explains the lack of progress in addressing food insecurity? This article maps out an overview of the experiences, causes, and consequences of food insecurity in the United States. We demonstrate that racism is a fundamental cause of food insecurity, both because racism contributes to racial disparities in income and wealth, and because racism is linked to food insecurity independent of poverty and socioeconomic status. For example, people of color are more likely to experience racial discrimination, which is associated with food insecurity, and to live in states where stricter regulations and harsher punishments are tied to social assistance programs, including food assistance programs. Because racism is a fundamental cause of food insecurity, eliminating it requires going beyond “just” eliminating poverty. Instead, the fundamental cause must be tackled directly: racism itself, which is built into the structure of American society and entrenched in its institutions.     

The outsider looks in: Constructing knowledge about american collegiate racism

This study tackles one of the most complex and intriguing issues in contemporary society, namely, the phenomenon of racism. Instead of examining the structural dimensions of racism, it focuses on the interpersonal “everyday racism” that occurs among students. Using the University of Minnesota as a case study, the study employs qualitative research methods to offer new perspectives on everyday racism as perceived through the eyes of a Black foreign female student. Popular portrayals of the midwestern United States present a relatively liberal milieu where racism only subtly affects social relations, and where there is “zero tolerance” for the politics of exclusion. However, the findings of this study illustrate that everyday racism is alive and well in the collegiate environment. Epistemological issues are elaborated, arguing for the position of an interpretive and reflexive rather than a positivist approach to social research.     

The problems of project implementation:: a post-mortem study of Thika Dam project, Kenya

This paper analyses the problems of project implementation programmes. Taking a case study of Thika Dam Component of the Third Nairobi Water Supply Project, the analysis reveals that delays in land acquisition among other factors had a serious impact on the overall performance of development project. The impact of delays in acquisition resulted into cost overruns due to price variations and time overruns. In this paper, the main focus is on the impact that the delays in land acquisition had on the successful completion of a development project. It further discusses the contribution of land availability to the realisation of project planning objectives. The macro-economic instability that Kenya faced during the project implementation is also highlighted. It is hoped that the findings of this study will provide useful insights into policy matters concerning land acquisition in project implementation.     

Colonialism as a continuing project: The portuguese experience

The end of the American Civil War began a lengthy period of Southern inferiority vis-?-vis the North-a period so lengthy that some Southerners argue that it lasts to this day. Not until Woodrow Wilson's election in 1913 did the United States have a Southern-born president after the Civil War. Southerners sought novel means to assert some degree of superiority over their Northern neighbors. College football became a primary means of reasserting a Southern sense of identity and superiority. In inter-regional games in the 1920s and 1930s, the martial spirit of college football allowed Southerners to reassert their sense of honor, which had been maligned since defeat in the Civil War. As Bertram Wyatt-Brown (1982) has shown, the concept of honor defined Southern males' outlook; secession from the Union and civil war occurred when Southerners perceived Abraham Lincoln's election to the Presidency as the culmination of anti-slavery assaults upon their honor. Such racial definitions of Southern identity became problematic as the civil rights movement gained impetus in the 1950s and 1960s. To remain competitive with teams from other regions, Southern football teams began to recruit black players; The University of Alabama fielded its first black football player in 1971. However, transition from segregation to inclusion has not been easy. Symbols of white Southern pride highlight lingering racial difficulties, as a 1997 controversy over use of the "Rebels" nickname and fans' waving of the Confederate battle flag at The University of Mississippi illustrates. Controversies like this raise troubling questions about Southern identity, namely "Whose South is it?" and "Can expressions of Southern nationalist feelings possibly escape racial implications?"     

The politics of collective repair: examining object-relations in a postwork society

In this paper, we look at repair as an emergent focus of recent activism in affluent societies, where a number of groups are reclaiming practices of repair as a form of political and ecological action. Ranging from those that fight for legislative change to those groups who are trying to support ecological and social change through everyday life practices, repair is beginning to surface tensions in everyday life and as such poses opportunities for its transformation. We survey a few of the practices that make up this movement in its various articulations, to take stock of their current political import. While we suggest that these practices can be seen as an emergent lifestyle movement, they should not be seen as presenting a unified statement. Rather, we aim to show that they articulate a spectrum of political positions, particularly in relation to the three specific issues of property, pedagogy and sociality. These three dimensions are all facets of current internal discrepancies of repair practices and moreover express potential bifurcations as this movement evolves. Drawing on a diverse methodology that includes discourse analysis and participant observation, we suggest some of the ways in which this growing area of activity could play a significant role in resisting the commodification of the everyday and inventing postwork alternatives.     

Developing a civilised society in transition economies: The Post Keynesian paradigm

A Post Keynesian paradigm of transition requires the exposition of what I define as primary elements: economic analysis; definition of a good society; speed; political structure; ideological structure and the role of initial conditions. The next step is to identify secondary elements, the desired changes with respect to: price liberalisation-stabilisation; privatisation; institutional structure; monetary policy and the financial system; fiscal policy; international trade and social policy. It is argued that Post Keynesianism clarifies the reasons why the orthodox model of transition implemented in transition economies was inappropriate and unsuccessful. The Post Keynesian recommendations would have resulted in a more sensible and successful transition.     

浅谈建设单位工程造价全过程控制

工程造价管理是建设工程管理的一个重要环节,投资方能否让有限的资金发挥最大的效用、施工单位能否实现利润最大化的经营目标都与工程造价管理的作用密不可分.工程造价控制贯穿于项目的全过程,即项目决策阶段、设计阶段、招投标与施工阶段、竣工结算阶段.每个阶段都对建设项目的造价有很大的影响.因此要全面有效控制工程造价并及时修正项目建设过程中发生的偏差,取得社会效益与经济效益的最优化,就必须对影响工程造价的四个阶段实施全过程的控制.     

The future of universities in a global risk society

This contribution concurs with Mittelman and also considers the quest for truth a core purpose of universities. However, it rejects the idea that there is one panoptical view of the world, one single truth that could guide such a quest. Drawing on a systems-theoretical perspective and its emphasis on specialization and fragmentation, I rather explore the role of universities in a world that can only partially be known. Such a perspective sheds fresh light on the rise of external quality assurances agencies as a second-order observation that enables further specialization of universities. The study of the rise of this remote steering mechanism reminds us of the limits of a country comparison that does not account of the multiscalarity of policy making, particularly in Europe. However, I will also highlight how most recent changes in higher education policy are characterized by a return to a stronger governmental oversight, undoing some of the liberalization steps taken in the late 1990s, early 2000s. This transformation not only indicates that we are moving towards an end of globalization as we know it. It can, but does not have to, undermine the universities capacity to deal with complexity, as I will show.