scholarly journals When Culture Materializes: Societal Dynamics in Resilience of Social-Ecological Systems in the Case of Conch Management on Abaco, The Bahamas

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1080 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Bomhauer-Beins ◽  
Corinna de Guttry ◽  
Beate Ratter
Keyword(s):  
Ecological Resilience ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
The Bahamas ◽  
Scientific Discussion ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Resilience Process ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Societal Dynamics

The concept of resilience has greatly contributed to the scientific discussion on human–nature interactions by analysing the dynamics, relationships and feedbacks between society and the natural environment at different levels. In this paper, we analyse how culture and societal dynamics influence those connections and, at the same time, have the potential to eventually hinder or foster social-ecological resilience. In order to do so, we take the example of a natural element which is also a cultural icon: the Conch (pronounced ‘konk’). Conch is a marine mollusc with significant social and cultural value for the islands’ society of The Bahamas. In the last decade, a decline in several Conch stocks has been documented, calling for an urgent sustainable management strategy. Nevertheless, only little efforts are happening. This case study offers an innovative understanding of resilience by introducing an aspect which is too often overseen: the role of culture in shaping social-ecological resilience. In this case study, the role of culture proved to be crucial as the cultural significance and embeddedness of Conch has made the management process challenging. But at the same time, culture can be used as a positive impulse towards adaptive management and as a starting point for sustainability. When culture materializes, it affects not only societal dynamics but also the vulnerability and the resilience process of the entire social-ecological system.

scholarly journals The role of farm diversification and peasant habitus for farm resilience in mountain areas: the case of the Ötztal valley, Austria

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rike Stotten
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Ecological Resilience ◽  
Mountain Areas ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Farm Diversification ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
The Social

PurposeBy examining a case study in Tyrol, Austria, the paper aims to demonstrate the role of farm diversification and the influence of the peasants’ habitus on social-ecological resilience.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on a field study conducted in two remote villages of the Ötztal valley, Austrian Alps, this study provides insights into the interplay of tourism and farming and its impact on farm resilience. Qualitative narrative interviews, the so-called farm biographies, served to investigate these issues. Interpretations of data are based on qualitative content analysis.FindingsThe results highlight that farming and tourism are highly enmeshed in the case study area and that the additional income creates room for manoeuvre for the farms to activate their adaptive capability. At the same time, peasant values guide the farming activities. The farms in this study demonstrate a strong farm resilience that is enabled by farm diversification and rooted in their peasant habitus. This positively affects the social-ecological resilience.Originality/valueIn contrast to other studies, which have mainly applied the concepts of social or community resilience to investigate the resilience and vulnerability of rural areas, this study highlights the resilience of farms in mountain areas.

scholarly journals Aquaculture-capture fisheries nexus under Covid-19: impacts, diversity, and social-ecological resilience

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aisa O. Manlosa ◽  
Anna-Katharina Hornidge ◽  
Achim Schlüter
Keyword(s):  
Coping Strategies ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Ecological Resilience ◽  
Food Sources ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological

AbstractThe Covid-19 pandemic is a global shock that is significantly affecting coastal social-ecological systems (SES) in different parts of the world. Its widespread impacts have unravelled vulnerabilities in many aspects of society, including food systems. Our study investigated the impacts of a lockdown associated with the pandemic in the province of Bulacan, in the region of Central Luzon, Philippines, where aquaculture and capture fisheries are important and interconnected sectors. In particular, we focused on impacts related to production and market. We considered people’s coping strategies and the factors that enabled such strategies. Our investigation adopted a case study approach and drew on qualitative data analysed through thematic analysis. The findings revealed differentiated mechanisms through which aquaculture and capture fisheries production were impacted. Both were strongly affected by market disruptions but through slightly different ways. In effect, the lockdown provided the impetus for the uptake and spreading of practices that were previously peripheral, particularly in relation to market exchanges. The study also identified a variety of coping strategies, as well as the importance of social support in the form of food aid, financial assistance, and institutional livelihood assistance. Finally, it discusses the importance of diversity in food sources, the role of local food systems, and governance implications for foregrounding social-ecological resilience in short-term response and long-term recovery.

Deepfaking Keanu: YouTube deepfakes, platform visual effects, and the complexity of reception

2021 ◽  
pp. 135485652110304
Author(s):  
Lisa Bode
Keyword(s):  
Film Studies ◽  
Media Theory ◽  
Digital Rhetoric ◽  
Visual Effects ◽  
After Effects ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Media Creation ◽  
Media Practices

On July 14, 2019, a 3-minute 36-second video titled “Keanu Reeves Stops A ROBBERY!” was released on YouTube visual effects (VFX) channel, Corridor. The video’s click-bait title ensured it was quickly shared by users across platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. Comments on the video suggest that the vast majority of viewers categorised it as fiction. What seemed less universally recognised, though, was that the performer in the clip was not Keanu Reeves himself. It was voice actor and stuntman Reuben Langdon, and his face was digitally replaced with that of Reeves, through the use of an AI generated deepfake, an open access application, Faceswap, and compositing in Adobe After Effects. This article uses Corridor’s deepfake Keanu video (hereafter shorted to CDFK) as a case study which allows the fleshing out of an, as yet, under-researched area of deepfakes: the role of framing contexts in shaping how viewers evaluate, categorise, make sense of and discuss these images. This research draws on visual effects scholarship, celebrity studies, cognitive film studies, social media theory, digital rhetoric, and discourse analysis. It is intended to serve as a starting point of a larger study that will eventually map types of online manipulated media creation on a continuum from the professional to the vernacular, across different platforms, and attending to their aesthetic, ethical, cultural and reception dimensions. The focus on context (platform, creator channel, and comments) also reveals the emergence of an industrial and aesthetic category of visual effects, which I call here “platform VFX,” a key term that provides us with more nuanced frames for illuminating and analysing a range of manipulated media practices as VFX software becomes ever more accessible and lends itself to more vernacular uses, such as we see with various face swap apps

scholarly journals Women, Water & Well-Being: A Case Study of ‘Kuttadampadam’ in Palakkad, Kerala

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-49
Author(s):  
V Shinju ◽  
Aswathi Prasad
Keyword(s):  
Resource Management ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Water Resource ◽  
Water Resource Management ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Role Of Women

The natural resources are repository for the survival of all of us, so they must be used efficiently to meet the present needs while conserving them for future generations. An action to develop capacities from global to household levels for their sustainable management and regulation is required henceforth. Of these natural resources, water resources are most precious. If there is no water; there would be no life on earth. Since ‘water is the elixir of life’, water resource management has been considered as one of the most relevant areas of intervention. Understanding the gender dimensions of water resource management is a starting point for reversing the degradation of water resources. Women play an important role here since they have to access the water resources for almost all the activities on a daily basis. As the women are the strong social agents, effective and improved water preservation techniques could be achieved through their empowerment that may eventually lead to the well-being of the households in particular and of the community in general. Therefore, the major research question posed in this study is to analyze the role of women in the preservation and management of water, an inevitable, precious but diminishing natural resource. The study also intends to describe the relationship between the three ‘W's-Women, Water & Well-being. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches are essential here as it is a contingent issue in the present scenario. Psychological dimensions were also explored since the issue is affecting the routine life of the community. The case study of women belonging to the Kuttadampadam region was done to explain the role of women in preserving water resources in the areas affecting severe water scarcity.

Electoral Identity and Individual–Societal Dynamics

2020 ◽  
pp. 184-211
Author(s):  
Michael Bruter ◽  
Sarah Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Direct Translation ◽  
Sports Events ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Societal Dynamics

This chapter develops a model of electoral identity. The starting point is that virtually all electoral science is based on a silent assumption: that the vote is a direct translation of electoral preference. This corresponds to an intrinsic tenet of representative democracy, the idea that elections are intended to aggregate citizens' preferences, which representative institutions will thereby reflect. There is, however, nothing to suggest that those original intentions are necessarily confirmed by how citizens behave in elections. The chapter therefore asks a question which has the potential to invalidate the single most important premise of electoral research: what if citizens do not go to the polling booth to register a raw preference, but instead inhabit a certain role when they go to vote? It hypothesizes that the vote is not a straightforward measure of spontaneous preference, but that instead, citizens' behaviour is shaped by how they perceive the function of elections, and in turn their role as voters. Using the analogy of sports events, whereby parties and candidates represent the competing teams, the chapter identifies two key alternative perceptions of the role of voters: ‘referees’ and ‘supporters’.

Localising Global Norms: The Case of Family-Friendly Parliaments

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia Palmieri ◽  
Kerryn Baker
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
Norm Diffusion ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Family Friendly ◽  
Global Norms

Abstract In this article, we extend empirical understandings of feminist institutionalism by outlining a new methodological approach to the study of parliament as a gendered workplace. We argue that while a localised approach to studying institutional change allows a more nuanced appreciation of the role of local cultural context, internationalised norms can be an interesting starting point to work back from. A case study of the New Zealand parliament’s ‘family-friendly’ workplace practices illustrates this methodological approach. By tracing the establishment of family-friendly practices in this parliament, our study shines a light on the intractable nature of local institutional context in global norm diffusion and hints at the next phase of work required to further the agenda of transformational gender-sensitive parliaments.

scholarly journals Resilience for Whom? A Case Study of Taiwan Indigenous People’s Struggle in the Pursuit of Social-Ecological Resilience

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 7472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hsing-Sheng Tai
Keyword(s):  
Central Government ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ecological System ◽  
Ecological Resilience ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Trade Offs

While the notion of social-ecological system resilience is widely accepted and applied, the issue of “resilience for whom” is clearly ignored. This phenomenon has also occurred in Taiwan. This article explores the roots of, and a possible solution to, this issue through a case study in the context of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples. The Danungdafu area, the focal social-ecological system, was studied. Qualitative research methods and an action-oriented research approach were employed. For a long period, the central government shaped the political, economic, social, institutional, and ecological contexts; dominated resilience discourses and determined the problem-framing and problem-solving agenda; defined the scale and levels at which social-ecological system governance issues were addressed; and determined the knowledge system used to define and solve problems. After 2011, a new participatory governance regime emerged. Multiple stakeholders, including indigenous communities, began to contribute to resilience discourses and influenced governance and trade-offs among differing governance goals. However, under the established structures dominated by Han people, indigenous views, rights, and well-being continue to be ignored. Affirmative action is required to recognize and safeguard indigenous rights. A practical institutional pathway is available to facilitate the transformation from “resilience for mainstream society” to “resilience for indigenous people” in indigenous territories.

scholarly journals Further refinement of the Corbelling Theory for the equilibrium analysis of corbelled domes

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-40
Author(s):  
Aguinaldo Fraddosio ◽  
Nicola Lepore ◽  
Mario Daniele Piccioni
Keyword(s):  
Laser Scanner ◽  
Equilibrium Analysis ◽  
Structural Safety ◽  
Structural Behavior ◽  
Thick Shell ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Load Conditions

Abstract The aim of this paper is to present a further development of the Corbelling Theory [1] for assessing the structural safety of “false domes” constructions like Trulli, and more generally for corbelled domes. In particular, it is well-known that a corbelled dome of a Trullo is a layered thick shell and that only the thin inner layer (candela) has a structural role. The proposed procedure extends the capabilities of the approach proposed in [2] to more general load conditions, including the infill. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is discussed through the analysis of a paradigmatic case study of a Trullo located in Alberobello. Since the geometry of the construction plays a fundamental role in the structural behavior, the starting point of the analysis was an accurate 3D-laser scanner survey of the dome. The obtained results give some interesting insights about the role of the infill load on the equilibrium of such kind of corbelled domes.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document