scholarly journals Where Humans and the Planetary Conflate—An Introduction to Environing Media

Humanities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Adam Wickberg ◽  
Johan Gärdebo
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
Historical Ecology ◽  
Rapid Evolution ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Information Storage ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Integrative Research

In this essay, we provide an outline of historical and contemporary examples to illustrate the theoretical concept of environing media. We first discuss how humans have environed their surroundings long before the advent of scientific modernity and the rapid evolution of media technologies that helped in making the planet governable. Against this background, we argue that a fundamental shift in the human–Earth relation happened after 1500 and that this shift is attributable to the development of environing media employed in the process of terrestrial globalisation. We see the present profound renegotiation of the human–Earth relation as a continuity, albeit with a different intensity as exemplified by the work in Earth system science. Finally, we invert Mike Hulme’s call for scientists to meet the humanities into an appeal to humanists to embrace the environmental sciences and pursue more integrative research. Recent developments in environmental history have seen an increased interest in the shaping of environments by means of technology. To this end, scholars have developed theoretical concepts like “environing technologies”, which are based on the premise that the environment is a historical formation by people and societies who form their surroundings as well as their sense of place. In the same vein, historical ecology has shown that premodern peoples also shaped the natural world to their purposes far more than what has generally been understood. The central premise is that what is understood as the environment is the result of human intervention and that environing technologies structure the way that it is used, perceived, and understood. These insights resonate with core notions in media theory, but they have never before been brought together. Given that all of our understanding of the environment today is the product of several processes of mediation, the theory of environing technology would benefit from stronger theorisation of the role of media. While the scale and intensity of information storage, processing, and transmission by media today are unprecedented, the logic of mediated data processing essentially remains the same as five centuries ago when agents of the Spanish Empire took part in shaping the understanding of the environment of the Americas and the globe. For these purposes, we propose the concept of environing media, as a means of both joining intellectual forces and pushing theoretical analysis of both branches further. The paper outlines the theory of environing media using examples from the Global South, in particular the shaping and sensing of landscapes in and around the Philippines. From early modern to late modern times, this region of the world has been influenced by environing media, most importantly circumnavigating ships and orbiting sensing satellites. The result is landscapes made and remade according to colonial and later capitalist priorities operating on a global, and eventually a planetary, scale.

The environmental history of Australian rivers: a neglected field of opportunity?

2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul I. Boon
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Historical Ecology ◽  
Numerical Data ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Capital Cities ◽  
Perceptions And Attitudes ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Australian Community ◽  
History Of

Historical ecology documents environmental change with scientific precepts, commonly by using statistical analyses of numerical data to test specific hypotheses. It is usually undertaken by ecologists. An alternative approach to understanding the natural world, undertaken instead by historians, geographers, sociologists, resource economists or literary critics, is environmental history. It attempts to explain in cultural terms why and how environmental change takes place. This essay outlines 10 case studies that show how rivers have affected perceptions and attitudes of the Australian community over the past 200+ years. They examine the influence at two contrasting scales, namely, the collective and the personal, by investigating the role that rivers had in the colonisation of Australia by the British in 1788, the establishment of capital cities, perceptions of and attitudes to the environment informed by explorers’ accounts of their journeys through inland Australia, the push for closer settlement by harnessing the country’s rivers for navigation and irrigation, anxiety about defence and national security, and the solastalgia occasioned by chronic environmental degradation. Historical ecology and environmental history are complementary intellectual approaches, and increased collaboration across the two disciplines should yield many benefits to historians, to ecologists, and to the conservation of Australian rivers more widely.

Environment and the Natural World

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alix Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Historical Ecology ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Environmental Humanities ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The World ◽  
Modern Term

Over the course of the early modern period, Europeans came to look at, engage with, and even transform nature and the environment in new ways, as they studied natural objects, painted landscapes, drew maps, built canals, cut down forests, and transferred species from one continent to another. The term “nature” meant many things during this period, from the inmost essence of something to those parts of the world that were nonhuman, such as the three famous “kingdoms” of nature: the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral. This article focuses on nature in this latter sense and broadens it out to include more recent understandings of the modern term “environment,” so as to encompass not only plants, animals, and rocks but also entire landscapes. Scholars from a wide variety of fields, ranging from the histories of science, art, and literature through historical geography, historical archeology, historical ecology, and landscape history, have long been interested in issues related to the environment and the natural world; more recently, they have been joined by practitioners of “environmental history” and additional branches of the environmental humanities and social sciences, who have drawn on these preexisting approaches and brought still further perspectives to the table.

The development and application of new media technology in news communication industry

2021 ◽  
pp. 002072092199659
Author(s):  
Hong Guo
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Data Storage ◽  
News Media ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Information Storage ◽  
Media Technology ◽  
Communication Industry ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Tv News ◽  
New Media Technologies

Many new media technologies have emerged in modern society. The application of new media technologies has impacted traditional TV news media, which not only faces great challenges, but also brings some lessons for the development of TV news media. New media technology relies on powerful information processing technology and data storage technology to develop and grow continuously. Compared with traditional news, new media technology has more powerful information storage capacity and dissemination capacity. Firstly, this paper briefly introduces the concept of new media technology, summarizes the typical characteristics of new media technology, and analyzes the existing problems in the application of new media technology in the news communication industry based on the necessity of applying new media technology. Finally, some Suggestions are put forward based on this, hoping to provide some reference for the development of news communication industry.

Language competence, identity construction and discursive boundary-making: Distancing and alignment in domestic migrant worker narratives

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (262) ◽  
pp. 97-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans J. Ladegaard
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
English Language ◽  
Migrant Worker ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Language Competence ◽  
Boundary Making

AbstractMany people in developing countries are faced with a dilemma. If they stay at home, their children are kept in poverty with no prospects of a better future; if they become migrant workers, they will suffer long-term separation from their families. This article focuses on one of the weakest groups in the global economy: domestic migrant workers. It draws on a corpus of more than 400 narratives recorded at a church shelter in Hong Kong and among migrant worker returnees in rural Indonesia and the Philippines. In sharing sessions, migrant women share their experiences of working for abusive employers, and the article analyses how language is used to include and exclude. The women tell how their employers construct them as “incompetent” and “stupid” because they do not speak Chinese. However, faced by repression and marginalisation, the women use their superior English language skills to get back at their employers and momentarily gain the upper hand. Drawing on ideologies of language as the theoretical concept, the article provides a discourse analysis of selected excerpts focusing on language competence and identity construction.

scholarly journals Accumulative pension system in Ukraine: theoretical and applied discourse

2021 ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Lyudmyla Alekseyenko
Keyword(s):  
Social Insurance ◽  
Pension System ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Active Role ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Social Insurance System ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Working Age

Introduction. The study of theoretical and empirical aspects of the accumulative pension system should help to identify patterns and contradictions of its development in society. In order to conduct an effective economic policy on the introduction of a funded pension system, it is necessary to define a theoretical concept of a model of the active role of the state in socio-economic processes or a moderate liberal model. Reforming the pension system is a rather long process and requires both the definition of the main directions, principles and measures for the development of the funded pension system, and changes in the values, principles and norms of behavior of citizens.The purpose is to substantiate the theoretical concept, trends, problems of the accumulative pension system and the directions of its introduction into society.Research methods are based on the dialectical method of scientific knowledge and a systematic approach to knowledge of economic phenomena and processes, theoretical generalization, systematization, which allowed to reveal the problems of the accumulative pension system based on theoretical concepts and economic-statistical analysis of demographic load of working age and after working age.Results. The indicators influencing the introduction of the second level of the pension system were monitored. The dynamics of indicators of demographic load of the population of pre-working and post-working age is analyzed. The focus is on the peculiarities of wages and final consumer expenditures of households and the general government sector. It was found that in general, citizens belong to the elderly population, so to prevent further deterioration of the ratio between age groups, it is advisable to increase the effectiveness of the social insurance system. The expediency of paying more attention to actuarial statistics to determine the future size of pensions and their exact calculation is substantiated.Prospects. Further research is important to focus on improving the efficiency of the multi-component funded pension system in the context of ensuring compliance with the values, principles and norms of the society.

THEORETICAL DEFINITIONS FOR AUXILIARY CONCEPTS OF VARIOUS LEVELS OF ABSTRACTION

2020 ◽  
pp. 28-31
Author(s):  
Valentin Karpovich
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Subject Area ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Theoretical Knowledge ◽  
Practical Application ◽  
Levels Of Abstraction ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Logical Constraints

Theoretical knowledge may contain various levels of abstraction represented by logical constructions from the observed characteristics of objects from the subject area of the theory. The degree of abstractness can be de-scribed by the complexity of the structures obtained from the initial observational terms. Such auxiliary construc-tions are characterized as explicit or implicitdefinitions of theoretical concepts in terms of observational. One of the techniques for constructing such definitions is the operationalization of abstractions by a system of reduction sentences. In this case a theoretical concept is characterized as “open” and plays a role of logical and methodo-logical constraints for expanding the possible connections of the theoretical model with the help of concepts from the domain of intended practical application.

The Role of Agricultural and Environmental History in East African Developmental Discourse

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daryl Stump
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Historical Ecology ◽  
Wildlife Conservation ◽  
Landscape Management ◽  
Resource Exploitation ◽  
World Systems Theory ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
The Past

The past, or the perception of the past, plays a pivotal role in the formation of modern policies on land-use, since the rhetoric of conservation favours the protection of ‘ancient’ or ‘pristine’ landscapes, whilst the focus on economic or environmental sustainability has led to the endorsement of apparently long-lived ‘indigenous’ practices, especially where these appear to have permitted extended periods of cultivation whilst conserving local soil, water, and forest resources. Focusing on examples of locally developed intensive agriculture from Kenya and northern Tanzania, this chapter aims to highlight how the history of landscape management in these areas—although still poorly understood—continues to be cited within developmental and conservationist debates. It will outline how a combination of archaeological, historical, and palaeoenvironmental research might be employed to produce a more complete understanding of these agronomies, and argues that work of this kind is essential to qualify the historical assumptions that have been used to justify external intervention. The invocation of historical arguments in support of either economic intervention or wildlife conservation is not a recent phenomenon, but the critical appraisal of such arguments has gained momentum over the last two to three decades. It is by no means a coincidence that this is also the period that has seen a rise in interest in the precepts of ‘historical ecology’ (e.g. Balée 2006; Crumley 1994) and in resilience theory (e.g. Walker et al. 2004), both of which emphasize the need to study social, economic, and environmental factors from a long-term historical perspective in order to fully understand the relationships between them in any given place or time, and both stress the importance of seeing modern landscapes and resource exploitation strategies as legacies of former periods of land-use. More recently, a resurgence in interest in world systems theory—itself formerly influential on developmental thinking via dependency theory (e.g. Frank 1969)—raises similar themes through the notion that most if not all local economies have been influenced by their interaction with broader webs of trade relations at regional and global scales for several centuries (e.g. Hornberg and Crumley 2007).

Economy, Environment and Environmental History: Case Notes from Agriculture

Rural History ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Turner
Keyword(s):  
International Symposium ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Great Work ◽  
Conservation Movement ◽  
Natural Agents ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Man And Nature ◽  
The Face

In 1956 in an international symposium at Princeton on the theme Man's role in changing the face of the Earth, one of the principal contributors, Carl Sauer, reflected that as much as anything it was a festival of remembrance to George Perkins Marsh. Marsh was perhaps the inspiration for viewing man within his natural world, within his ecological setting, but a setting which had evolved as much as anything by the actions of his own hand as it had been by natural agents. Marsh's great work Man and Nature, has been dubbed ‘the fountainhead of the conservation movement.’ Thus Sauer suggests that this study is based on man's:

Time-Linearized Forced Response Analysis of a Counter Rotating Fan: Part I — Theoretical Concept of a Fully Time-Linear Forced Response Analysis

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Blocher ◽  
Io Eunice Gómez Fernández
Keyword(s):  
Time Frame ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Forced Response ◽  
Response Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Flow Solver ◽  
Loosely Coupled ◽  
Rotor Stator Interaction ◽  
German Aerospace ◽  
Time Linear

From 2010 to 2013, several institutes of the German Aerospace Center investigated a counter rotating fan arrangement called CRISP2. While having efficiency advantages over rotor-stator arrangements, counter rotating fans might be subject to increased aerodynamic excitation as well. It is well known that rotor-stator interaction (in this case rotor-rotor-interaction) can result in aerodynamic excitation of blades leading to high cycle fatigue. Therefore, forced response calculations and an estimation of the static and dynamic loads during operation are essential prior to production and rig tests. At the Institute of Aeroelasticity, loosely coupled approaches for forced response calculations have been employed for a number of years (Vasanthakumar [1]). Due to a limited time frame for the forced response simulation, it was decided to use this loosely coupled approach for the forced response simulations in CRISP2 as well and to reduce its time consumption even more by using a time-linear approach for the forcing calculations. The theoretical concepts and their implementation into a forced response simulation are highlighted. Special consideration is given to the linearized unsteady simulations with gust boundary conditions that have been implemented into the DLR in-house flow solver TRACE [2]. The advantages and drawbacks of a fully time-linear loosely coupled method compared to more accurate and complicated approaches are discussed.

scholarly journals ecoEd: Cohesive training and skill development for digital ecoscience tools

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chantal Huijbers
Keyword(s):  
Training Program ◽  
Spatial Data ◽  
Environmental Science ◽  
Skill Development ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Research Network ◽  
Ecosystem Research ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Industry Professionals

Digital research infrastructures such as data portals and virtual laboratories enable easier access to data and analytical tools. Such infrastructures are essential to deliver research excellence that drives innovation, but we also need to ensure that we have a skilled workforce that can use these infrastructures. Therefore, training and skill development of students, researchers, government practitioners and industry professionals is key to the long-term success of this investment. In Australia, a suite of digital infrastructures has been developed for environmental sciences to enhance our understanding of the natural world and making forward projections into novel conditions (e.g. Atlas of Living Australia, Biodiversity and Climate Change Virtual Laboratory, ecocloud, Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network). To provide users with a holistic approach to environmental spatial data discovery and analysis, these infrastructures have joined forces to deliver an exciting and innovative new training program. This program, called ecoEd, provides cohesive training and skill development to university lecturers, researchers and industry professionals enabling them to combine theoretical concepts with real-world applications. In this presentation, I will present how ecoEd was developed and the outcomes of the training sessions in which a group of ecoEd Champions absorbed ready-to-use lecture and workshop modules along with tools and knowledge on how to use the platforms. These resources can immediately be used in undergraduate courses that focus on topics such as ecology, biogeography, conservation biology, environmental management and spatial analysis as well as in stand alone workshops for researchers and practitioners. The training program aims to provide the Champions with the resources and knowledge required so that they can confidently re-deliver the lectures and workshops in their own institutions. As such, ecoEd is increasing the capacity of Australia’s environmental science community to advance science and deliver outcomes that underpin the sustainable use of our ecosystems using the latest advances in digital technologies. Moreover, it is enabling first-rate science education in Australia by supporting and nurturing our future scientists.

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