Food biotechnologies in Italy: a social psychological study

This dissertation presents an analysis of the representations of food biotechnologies in Italy. The thesis uses the analysis of discourse to illustrate the articulated ways in which representations are instantiated in different contexts. The theoretical thrust of the work resides in its discussion of the basic tenets of both Social Representations Theory and Discursive Psychology. The thesis offers a detailed description of the two frameworks; affinities and difference are highlighted, and a serious effort is made to develop an integrated set of theoretical resources to answer the research questions. The thesis proposes to combine a discursive methodology with Social Representations Theory. After a description of the relevant legislative framework follows an illustration of the categories used for the textual analysis. The study proposes the textual analysis of the following data: the first declaration issued by a small Italian council rejecting biotechnologies; four texts which focus on positions taken by the Catholic Church in the matter of food biotechnologies; several transcripts from a public debate in a small community of the north west of Italy. The latter study, which included an ethnographic dimension, focuses on recordings from interviews, a focus group, a public meeting and newspaper articles. Particular attention is paid to ideological representations and to the relevance of citizenship and governance to debates about food biotechnologies.

La modernización entre cafetales : San José, Costa Rica, 1880-1930

This work examines the urban modernization of San José, Costa Rica, between 1880 and 1930, using a cultural approach to trace the emergence of the bourgeois city in a small Central American capital, within the context of order and progress. As proposed by Henri Lefebvre, Manuel Castells and Edward Soja, space is given its rightful place as protagonist. The city, subject of this study, is explored as a seat of social power and as the embodiment of a cultural transformation that took shape in that space, a transformation spearheaded by the dominant social group, the Liberal elite. An analysis of the product built environment allows us to understand why the city grew in a determined manner: how the urban space became organized and how its infrastructure and services distributed. Although the emphasis is on the Liberal heyday from 1880-1930, this study also examines the history of the city since its origins in the late colonial period through its consolidation as a capital during the independent era, in order to characterize the nineteenth century colonial city that prevailed up to 1890 s. A diverse array of primary sources including official acts, memoirs, newspaper sources, maps and plans, photographs, and travelogues are used to study the initial phase of San Jose s urban growth. The investigation places the first period of modern urban growth at the turn of the nineteenth century within the prevailing ideological and political context of Positivism and Liberalism. The ideas of the city s elite regarding progress were translated into and reflected in the physical transformation of the city and in the social construction of space. Not only the transformations but also the limits and contradictions of the process of urban change are examined. At the same time, the reorganization of the city s physical space and the beginnings of the ensanche are studied. Hygiene as an engine of urban renovation is explored by studying the period s new public infrastructure (including pipelines, sewer systems, and the use of asphalt pavement) as part of the Saneamiento of San José. The modernization of public space is analyzed through a study of the first parks, boulevards and monuments and the emergence of a new urban culture prominently displayed in these green spaces. Parks and boulevards were new public and secular places of power within the modern city, used by the elite to display and educate the urban population into the new civic and secular traditions. The study goes on to explore the idealized image of the modern city through an analysis of European and North American travelogues and photography. The new esthetic of theatrical-spectacular representation of the modern city constructed a visual guide of how to understand and come to know the city. A partial and selective image of generalized urban change presented only the bourgeois facade and excluded everything that challenged the idea of progress. The enduring patterns of spatial and symbolic exclusion built into Costa Rica s capital city at the dawn of the twentieth century shed important light on the long-term political social and cultural processes that have created the troubled urban landscapes of contemporary Latin America.

Problems of Proto-Slavic Historical Nominal Morphology : On the Basis of Old Church Slavic

In this study I offer a diachronic solution for a number of difficult inflectional endings in Old Church Slavic nominal declensions. In this context I address the perhaps most disputed and the most important question of the Slavic nominal inflectional morphology: whether there was in Proto-Slavic an Auslautgesetz (ALG), a law of final syllables, that narrowed the Proto-Indo-European vowel */o/ to */u/ in closed word-final syllables. In addition, the work contains an exhaustive morphological classification of the nouns and adjectives that occur in canonical Old Church Slavic. I argue that Proto-Indo-European */o/ became Proto-Slavic */u/ before word-final */s/ and */N/. This conclusion is based on the impossibility of finding credible analogical (as opposed to phonological) explanations for the forms supporting the ALG hypothesis, and on the survival of the neuter gender in Slavic. It is not likely that the */o/-stem nominative singular ending */-u/ was borrowed from the accusative singular, because the latter would have been the only paradigmatic form with the stem vowel */-u-/. It is equally unlikely that the ending */-u/ was borrowed from the */u/-stems, because the latter constituted a moribund class. The usually stated motivation for such an analogical borrowing, i.e. a need to prevent the merger of */o/-stem masculines with neuters of the same class, is not tenable. Extra-Slavic, as well as intra-Slavic evidence suggests that phonologically-triggered mergers between two semantically opaque genders do not tend to be prevented, but rather that such mergers lead to the loss of the gender opposition in question. On the other hand, if */-os/ had not become */-us/, most nouns and, most importantly, all adjectives and pronouns would have lost the formal distinction between masculines and neuters. This would have necessarily resulted in the loss of the neuter gender. A new explanation is given for the most apparent piece of evidence against the ALG hypothesis, the nominative-accusative singular of the */es/-stem neuters, e.g. nebo 'sky'. I argue that it arose in late Proto-Slavic dialects, replacing regular nebe, under the influence of the */o/- and */yo/-stems where a correlation had emerged between a hard root-final consonant and the termination -o, on the one hand, and a soft root-final consonant and the termination -e, on the other.

Observations sur les termes culinaires dans deux San-Antonio de Frédéric Dard

Pro gradu-työni aihe on ruokaterminologiaa käsittelevät ranskan puhekielen ja Pariisin slangin lainasanat sekä kirjailija Frédéric Dardin alias San-Antonion (1921-2000) luomat, ruokatermistöön kuuluvat uudissanat ja -sanonnat kahdessa San-Antonio-romaanissa C'est mort et ça ne sait pas sekä Le fil à couper le beurre. Näissä ns. kioskikirjallisuutta edustavissa rikosromaaneissa seikkailee puheenparttaan ruoka-alan termeillä höystävä, "erikoistehtäviä" hoitava komisario ja naistenmies, San-Antonio. Ranskankielisessä arjen kielenkäytössä vilisee ruokaan liittyviä sanoja ja sanontoja muissakin kuin varsinaisissa ruuanvalmistus- ja ateriointiyhteyksissä. Halusin tarkastella, millaisena tämä yleisesti havaitsemani ilmiö todentuu Frédéric Dardin kahdessa romaanissa, jotka olen valinnut aineistokseni. Frédéric Dard käyttää romaaneissaan varsin omaperäistä kieltä: sekä puhekieltä että Pariisin slangia. Korpukseni koostuu romaaneista poimimistani ruoka-alan termistöä sisältävistä esimerkeistä, joita valmiiseen työhön tuli 228 kappaletta. Jaoin kaikki korpuksesta löytämäni ruokatermit kahteen luokkaan sen mukaan, oliko kirjailija lainannut käyttämänsä sanan tai ilmauksen puhekielestä tai Pariisin slangista (lainatermit), vai oliko hän luonut termin tai ilmauksen itse (neologismit). Määrittelin termin tai ilmauksen neologismiksi, jos se ei esiintynyt joko laisinkaan tai ainakaan kirjailijan tarkoittamassa merkityksessä seuraavissa sanakirjoissa: Le Dictionnaire du français argotique, populaire et familier; Le Dictionnaire de l'argot moderne; Le Dictionnaire du français non conventionnel; Le Dictionnaire de l'argot; Le Dictionnaire du français argotique et populaire; L'argot chez les vrais de vrai ja Trésor de la langue française. Varsinainen tutkimus perustuu sanojen ja ilmausten merkitysten selvittämiseen ja analysointiin. Lainatermien analyysillä tarkoitan lainatermien merkitysten selvitystä em. sanakirjojen avulla. Neologismit analysoin tarkemmin käyttäen em. sanakirjoja sekä tukeutuen gastronomisten ja erityisesti kielitieteellisten lähdeteosteni tarjoamiin rakenteellisiin ja semanttisiin muodostustapoihin ja tekemällä niistä tarvittavat yhteenvedot oikean merkityksen selvittämiseksi. Käsittelin aineiston kaikki ruokatermit. Niiden valtavan lukumäärän vuoksi analysoitavien esimerkkien määrää piti rajoittaa niin, että valmiiseen työhön jäi jokaisesta termistä enintään kaksi esimerkkiä kummastakin korpuksen kirjasta eli yhteensä 228 esimerkkiä. Muut esimerkit luetteloin työn lopusta löytyvään liitteeseen. Neologismianalyysissä selvisi, että Frédéric Dard suosi erityisesti semanttisia muodostustapoja eli olemassa olevan merkityksen muuttamista metaforien ja kielikuvien avulla. Dardin rikas terminologia ja hänen humoristiset oivalluksensa ovat osaltaan rikastuttaneet ranskan puhekieltä.Työssäni totean, että Pariisin slangia ja puhekieltä on totuttu pitämään sosiaalisesti sopimattomana, marginaalisten ryhmien kielenä, vaikka sen ilmauksia saattaa nykyisin kuulla jopa akateemikkojen käyttävän, ja ilmauksia on siirtynyt slangi- ja puhekielestä yleiskieleen. Toivon työni edistävän kiinnostusta kielitaidon parantamiseen San-Antonion tyyliin tutustumisen avulla sekä herättävän mielenkiintoa ranskan kielen vivahteikkuuteen ja monimuotoisuuteen muullakin kuin yleiskielen tasolla. Kielessä ei mielestäni voi olla sellaisia osa-alueita, joiden opiskelu ja osaaminen olisi tarpeetonta.

Locus Bonus : The Relationship of the Roman Villa to its Environment in the Vicinity of Rome

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship of the Roman villa to its environment. The villa was an important feature of the countryside intended both for agricultural production and for leisure. Manuals of Roman agriculture give instructions on how to select a location for an estate. The ideal location was a moderate slope facing east or south in a healthy area and good neighborhood, near good water resources and fertile soils. A road or a navigable river or the sea was needed for transportation of produce. A market for selling the produce, a town or a village, should have been nearby. The research area is the surroundings of the city of Rome, a key area for the development of the villa. The materials used consist of archaeological settlement sites, literary and epigraphical evidence as well as environmental data. The sites include all settlement sites from the 7th century BC to 5th century AD to examine changes in the tradition of site selection. Geographical Information Systems were used to analyze the data. Six aspects of location were examined: geology, soils, water resources, terrain, visibility/viewability and relationship to roads and habitation centers. Geology was important for finding building materials and the large villas from the 2nd century BC onwards are close to sources of building stones. Fertile soils were sought even in the period of the densest settlement. The area is rich in water, both rainfall and groundwater, and finding a water supply was fairly easy. A certain kind of terrain was sought over very long periods: a small spur or ridge shoulder facing preferably south with an open area in front of the site. The most popular villa resorts are located on the slopes visible from almost the entire Roman region. A visible villa served the social and political aspirations of the owner, whereas being in the villa created a sense of privacy. The area has a very dense road network ensuring good connectivity from almost anywhere in the region. The best visibility/viewability, dense settlement and most burials by roads coincide, creating a good neighborhood. The locations featuring the most qualities cover nearly a quarter of the area and more than half of the settlement sites are located in them. The ideal location was based on centuries of practical experience and rationalized by the literary tradition.

Power and Authority. Birgitta of Sweden and her Revelations

In the High Middle Ages female saints were customarily noble virgins. Thus, as a wife and a mother of eight children, the Swedish noble lady Birgitta (1302/3 1373) was an atypical candidate for sanctity. However, in 1391 she was canonized only 18 years after her death and became a role model for many late medieval women, who were mothers and widows. The dissertation Power and Authority Birgitta of Sweden and Her Revelations investigates how Birgitta went about establishing her power and authority during the first ten years of her career as a living saint, in 1340 1349. It is written from the perspectives of gender, authority, and power. The sources consist of approximately seven hundred revelations, hagiographical texts and other medieval documents. This work concentrates on the interaction between Birgitta and her audience. During her lifetime Birgitta was already regarded as a holy woman, as a living saint. A living saint could be given no formal papal or other recognition, for one could never be certain about his or her future activities. Thus, the living saint needed an audience for whom to perform signs of sanctity. In this study particular attention is paid to situations within which the power relations between the living saint and her audience can be traced and are open to critical analysis. Situations of conflict that arose in Birgitta s life are especially fruitful for this purpose. During the Middle Ages, institutional power and authority were exclusively in the hands of secular male leaders and churchmen. In this work it is argued, however, that Birgitta used different kinds of power than men. It is evident that she exercized influence on lay people as well as on secular and clerical authorities. The second, third, and fourth chapter of this study examine the beginning of Birgitta s career as a visionary, what factors and influences lay behind it, and what kind of roles they played in establishing her religious authority. The fifth, sixth, and seventh chapter concentrate on Birgitta s exercising of power in specific situations during her time in Sweden until she left on a pilgrimage to Rome in 1349. The central question is how she exercised power with different people. As a result, this book will offer a narrative of Birgitta s social interactions in Sweden seen from the perspectives of power and authority. Along with the concept of power, authority is a key issue. By definition, one who has power also has authority but a person who does not have official power can, nevertheless, have authority. Authority in action is defined here as meaning that a person was listened to. Birgitta acted both in situations of open conflict and where no conflict was evident. Her strategies included, for example, inducement, encouragement and flattery. In order to make people do as she felt was right she also threatened them openly with divine wrath. Sometimes she even used both positive persuasion and threats. Birgitta s power seems very similar to that of priests and ascetics. Common to all of them was that their power demanded interaction with other people and audiences. Because Birgitta did not have power and authority ex officio she had to persuade people to believe in her powers. She did this because she was convinced of her mission and sought to make people change their lives. In so doing, she moved from the domestic field to the public fields of religion and politics.

"Towards 'a real reunion'?" : Archbishop Aleksi Lehtonen's efforts for closer relations with the Church of England 1945–1951

Mika KT Pajusen väitös "Towards 'a real reunion'?" – Archbishop Aleksi Lehtonen's efforts for closer relations with the Church of England 1945–1951 on yleiseen kirkkohistoriaan lukeutuva tutkimus Englannin kirkon ja Suomen evankelis-luterilaisen kirkon välisistä suhteista Aleksi Lehtosen arkkipiispakaudella 1945–1951. Suhteita on tutkittu kolmesta näkökulmasta: ekumeenisesta, poliittisesta ja kirkkopoliittisesta. Tutkimuskausi alkaa pastori H.M. Waddamsin joulukuussa 1944 Suomeen tekemän vierailun jälkimainingeista ja päättyy arkkipiispa Lehtosen kuolemaan pääsiäisenä 1951. Kirkollisten suhteiden kehitystä rytmittivät lukuisat vierailut, jotka osoittivat Englannin kirkon asenteen muuttumisen sodan aikaisesta neuvostomyönteisyydestä kylmän sodan aikaiseen täysin vastakkaiseen kantaan. Englantilaiset vieraat kohtasivat Suomessa sekä kirkon että yhteiskunnan ylimmän johdon. Molemmat maat olivat valmiita tukemaan hyviä kirkollisia suhteita tilanteen niin salliessa, joskaan eivät kovin suunnitelmallisesti. Suomen evankelis-luterilainen kirkko käytti hyviä suhteita Englannin kirkkoon saadakseen tukea ja ymmärrystä omalle kirkolleen ja yhteiskunnalleen kokemaansa Neuvostoliiton uhkaa vastaan erityisesti vaaran vuosina 1944–1948. Englannin kirkko halusi tukea suomalaista sisarkirkkoaan, mutta varoi, ettei tuottaisi tuellaan enemmän haittaa kuin hyötyä suhteessa Neuvostoliittoon. Sodan jälkeinen ekumeeninen jälleenrakentaminen lähensi kirkkoja toisiinsa. Lehtonen pyrki jatkamaan 1930-luvun kirkkojen välisiä, ehtoollisvieraanvaraisuuden saavuttaneita neuvotteluita kohti täyttä kirkollista yhteyttä. Häntä motivoi sekä evankelis-katolinen teologia että pyrkimys tukea oman maan ja kirkon läntisiä yhteyksiä. Tämä haastoi Englannin kirkon ekumeenisen linjan, joka Suomen kirkon sijasta pyrki jatkamaan neuvotteluja Tanskan, Norjan ja Islannin luterilaisten kirkkojen kanssa, joilla ei vielä ollut virallista ekumeenista sopimusta Englannin kirkon kanssa. Lehtosen pyrkimyksistä huolimatta Englannin kirkko päätyi jättämään Suomen tilanteen hautumaan. Sillä se tarkoitti suhteiden koetinkivenä olleen historiallisen piispuuden leviämistä läpi Suomen kirkon ennen kuin katsoi olevansa valmis jatkamaan kohti täyttä kirkollista yhteyttä. Molemmissa kirkoissa vaikutti pieni, innokkaiden, lähempiä suhteita toivoneiden kirkollisten vaikuttajien ydinjoukko. Englantilaisia Suomen-ystäviä motivoi tarve auttaa Suomea hankalassa poliittisessa tilanteessa. Suomessa arkkipiispa Lehtonen tuki korkeakirkollista liturgista liikettä, jolla oli läheinen yhteys anglikaanisuuteen, mutta joka sai vastaansa vanhoilliset pietistit. Suomen kirkon yleinen mielipide asettui etupäässä pietistiselle kannalle, jolle anglikaanisuus näyttäytyi teologisesti sekä liian katolisena että liian reformoituna. Kirkolliset suhteet tasaantuivat vuoden 1948 Lambeth-konferenssin jälkeen, joka rohkaisi anglikaanisia kirkkoja hyväksymään 1930-luvun neuvottelujen lähempiin kirkollisiin suhteisiin tähtäävät suositukset. Lehtonen näytti tyytyvän tähän. Samaan aikaan lähempää kirkollista kanssakäymistä tukenut ekumeeninen jälleenrakennus tuli tiensä päähän. Lehtonen jatkoi läheisempien suhteiden edistämistä, mutta hänen intonsa hiipui yhdessä heikkenevän terveydentilan kanssa. Osoituksena Lehtosen linjan kapeudesta Suomen evankelis-luterilaisen kirkon piispoista ei löytynyt hänen kuoltuaan ketään, joka olisi jatkanut hänen aktiivista anglikaanimyönteistä linjaansa.

The church must become the people of Soweto : Manas Buthelezi’s existential-Christocentric understanding of the church

The aim of this study has been to discern what Manas Buthelezi (1935-), a black South African Lutheran theologian and later also a bishop, regards as the requirements a church has to fulfill in order to be credible in the apartheid society. Buthelezi’s dissertation and several articles written between the years 1968 and 1993 are the sources of this study. Also the lectures held in Heidelberg in 1972 are referred to. Systematic analysis is the method used. The question of the credibility of the church is studied through three concepts that play an important role in Buthelezi’s ecclesiological thought, namely the wholeness of life, incarnation and liberation. The notion of the wholeness of life stems from the African tradition. Buthelezi takes the concept into the Christian church: the church should realize that God is the Creator of all life and Christ the lord of every aspect of human existence. Life is one entity coram Deo. However, the church is not to become the world; solidarity between the two must remain critical as the church is also called to play a prophetic role in the society. The church is in an open relationship with the world. It has a unique message of forgiveness and reconciliation. Nevertheless, the message is not a possession of the church but it is addressed to the whole world. The meaning of incarnation comes close to that of the wholeness of life. Following the example of Christ’s incarnation, the church must become human in the reality of the people. The church in Soweto is to become the people of Soweto, that is, the church must become as vulnerable as the people are. An incarnate church cannot be immune to the oppression that people experience, because the people are the church. The church is therefore bound to suffer. Buthelezi’s theology of the cross is pragmatic: the suffering of the church aims at the liberation of the oppressed. At times the physical presence of the church by the side of the suffering people is the only way to preach the incarnate gospel. In the South Africa of the late 1960s onwards the liberation of the oppressed black people was high on the agenda of Black Theology. As a leader of the early South African Black Theology, Buthelezi is concerned about the racial injustice in his country. He urges the churches to join the struggle against it as one people of God. The notions of liberation and the wholeness of life emerge in Buthelezi’s holistic understanding of liberation that involves the inner liberation of the black spirit and the liberation of the economic, social and political aspects of life. Interpreting Tillich’s correlation method in the South African situation, and also paralleling other liberation theologians, Buthelezi takes the existential situation of the people as the starting point for liberation. The gospel has to respond to the existential questions of people. The church is called to work for the liberation of society but it must also be liberated itself. Buthelezi initiated the LWF statement on the status confessionis in South Africa (1977). In line with the statement, he calls for church unity on the human level. For the unity to be true, it has to be experienced on the grassroots’ level. All the three concepts covered urge the church to come down from any ivory tower and out of any spiritual haven it might hide in. A lot of the credibility of the church derives from the behavior of the people. Buthelezi’s concentration on how the people who constitute the church should live their faith leaves less attention to how God constitutes the church. I have labeled Buthelezi’s understanding of the church existential-Christocentric due to the emphasis he lays on the need of the church to take the existential situation of the people seriously and on the other hand, on Christ as the exemplar for the church.

The Church and Its Boundaries : A Study of the Special Commission on Orthodox Participation in the WCC

The relationship between the Orthodox Churches and the World Council of Churches (WCC) became a crisis just before the 8th Assembly of the WCC in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1998. The Special Commission on Orthodox Participation in the WCC (SC), inaugurated in Harare, worked during the period 1999 2002 to solve the crisis and to secure the Orthodox participation in the WCC. The purpose of this study is: 1) to clarify the theological motives for the inauguration of the SC and the theological argumentation of the Orthodox criticism; 2) to write a reliable history and analysis of the SC; 3) to outline the theological argumentation, which structures the debate, and 4) to investigate the ecclesiological questions that arise from the SC material. The study spans the years 1998 to 2006, from the WCC Harare Assembly to the Porto Alegre Assembly. Hence, the initiation and immediate reception of the Special Commission are included in the study. The sources of this study are all the material produced by and for the SC. The method employed is systematic analysis. The focus of the study is on theological argumentation; the historical context and political motives that played a part in the Orthodox-WCC relations are not discussed in detail. The study shows how the initial, specific and individual Orthodox concerns developed into a profound ecclesiological discussion and also led to concrete changes in WCC practices, the best known of which is the change to decision-making by consensus. The Final Report of the SC contains five main themes, namely, ecclesiology, decision-making, worship/common prayer, membership and representation, and social and ethical issues. The main achievement of the SC was that it secured the Orthodox membership in the WCC. The ecclesiological conclusions made in the Final Report are twofold. On the one hand, it confirms that the very act of belonging to the WCC means the commitment to discuss the relationship between a church and churches. The SC recommended that baptism should be added as a criterion for membership in the WCC, and the member churches should continue to work towards the mutual recognition of each other s baptism. These elements strengthen the ecclesiological character of the WCC. On the other hand, when the Final Report discusses common prayer, the ecclesiological conclusions are much more cautious, and the ecclesiological neutrality of the WCC is emphasized several times. The SC repeatedly emphasized that the WCC is a fellowship of churches. The concept of koinonia, which has otherwise been important in recent ecclesiological questions, was not much applied by the SC. The comparison of the results of the SC to parallel ecclesiological documents of the WCC (Nature and Mission of the Church, Called to Be the One Church) shows that they all acknowledge the different ecclesiological starting points of the member churches, and, following that, a variety of legitimate views on the relation of the Church to the churches. Despite the change from preserving the koinonia to promises of eschatological koinonia, all the documents affirm that the goal of the ecumenical movement is still full, visible unity.