Transformation of local medicinal knowledge in the Andean Highlands: Case studies from Peru and Bolivia

In the Andean highlands, indigenous environmental knowledge is currently undergoing major changes as a result of various external and internal factors. As in other parts of the world, an overall process of erosion of local knowledge can be observed. In response to this trend, some initiatives that adopt a biocultural approach aim at actively strengthening local identities and revalorizing indigenous environmental knowledge and practices, assuming that such practices can contribute to more sustainable management of biodiversity. However, these initiatives usually lack a sound research basis, as few studies have focused on the dynamics of indigenous environmental knowledge in the Andes and on its links with biodiversity management. Against this background, the general objective of this research project was to contribute to the understanding of the dynamics of indigenous environmental knowledge in the Andean highlands of Peru and Bolivia by investigating how local medicinal knowledge is socially differentiated within rural communities, how it is transformed, and which external and internal factors influence these transformation processes. The project adopted an actor-oriented perspective and emphasized the concept of knowledge dialogue by analyzing the integration of traditional and formal medicinal systems within family therapeutic strategies. It also aimed at grasping some of the links between the dynamics of medicinal knowledge and the types of land use systems and biodiversity management. Research was conducted in two case study areas of the Andes, both Quechua-speaking and situated in comparable agro-ecological production belts - Pitumarca District, Department of Cusco (Southern Peruvian Highlands) and the Tunari National Park, Department of Cochabamba (Bolivian inner-Andean valleys). In each case study area, the land use systems and strategies of 18 families from two rural communities, their environmental knowledge related to medicine and to the local therapeutic flora, and an appreciation of the dynamics of this knowledge were assessed. Data were collected through a combination of disciplinary and participatory action-research methods. It was mostly analyzed using qualitative methods, though some quantitative ethnobotanical methods were also used. In both case studies, traditional medicine still constitutes the preferred option for the families interviewed, independently of their age, education level, economic status, religion, or migration status. Surprisingly and contrary to general assertions among local NGOs and researchers, results show that there is a revival of Andean medicine within the younger generation, who have greater knowledge of medicinal plants than the previous one, value this knowledge as an important element of their way of life and relationship with “Mother Earth” (Pachamama), and, at least in the Bolivian case, prefer to consult the traditional healer rather than go to the health post. Migration to the urban centres and the Amazon lowlands, commonly thought to be an important factor of local medicinal knowledge loss, only affects people’s knowledge in the case of families who migrate over half of the year or permanently. Migration does not influence the knowledge of medicinal plants or the therapeutic strategies of families who migrate temporarily for shorter periods of time. Finally, economic status influences neither the status of people’s medicinal knowledge, nor families’ therapeutic strategies, even though the financial factor is often mentioned by practitioners and local people as the main reason for not using the formal health system. The influence of the formal health system on traditional medicinal knowledge varies in each case study area. In the Bolivian case, where it was only introduced in the 1990s and access to it is still very limited, the main impact was to give local communities access to contraceptive methods and to vaccination. In the Peruvian case, the formal system had a much greater impact on families’ health practices, due to local and national policies that, for instance, practically prohibit some traditional practices such as home birth. But in both cases, biomedicine is not considered capable of responding to cultural illnesses such as “fear” (susto), “bad air” (malviento), or “anger” (colerina). As a consequence, Andean farmers integrate the traditional medicinal system and the formal one within their multiple therapeutic strategies, reflecting an inter-ontological dialogue between different conceptions of health and illness. These findings reflect a more general trend in the Andes, where indigenous communities are currently actively revalorizing their knowledge and taking up traditional practices, thus strengthening their indigenous collective identities in a process of cultural resistance.

Speciating Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli isolates from poultry and humans using six PCR-based assays

Six previously published polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays each targeting different genes were used to speciate 116 isolates previously identified as Campylobacter jejuni using routine microbiological techniques. Of the 116 isolates, 84 were of poultry origin and 32 of human origin. The six PCR assays confirmed the species identities of 31 of 32 (97%) human isolates and 56 of 84 (67%) poultry isolates as C. jejuni. Twenty eight of 84 (33%) poultry isolates were identified as Campylobacter coli and the remaining human isolate was tentatively identified as Campylobacter upsaliensis based on the degree of similarity of 16S rRNA gene sequences. Four of six published PCR assays showed 100% concordance in their ability to speciate 113 of the 116 (97.4%) isolates; two assays failed to generate a PCR product with four to 10 isolates. A C. coli-specific PCR identified all 28 hippuricase gene (hipO)-negative poultry isolates as C. coli although three isolates confirmed to be C. jejuni by the remaining five assays were also positive in this assay. A PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism assay based on the 16S rRNA gene was developed, which contrary to the results of the six PCR-based assays, identified 28 of 29 hipO-negative isolates as C. jejuni. DNA sequence analysis of 16S rRNA genes from four hipO-negative poultry isolates showed they were almost identical to the C. jejuni type strain 16S rRNA sequences ATCC43431 and ATCC33560 indicating that assays reliant on 16S rRNA sequence may not be suitable for the differentiation of these two species.

The Role of Small and Medium-sized Centers for Territorial Development in Switzerland

This paper describes the role of small and medium-sized urban centers in Switzerland. Switzerland is a highly urbanized country where small and medium-sized urban centers play an important role in ensuring a balanced national urban system. Besides the four largest metropolitan regions （Zurich, Geneva, Basel and Bern）, small and medium-sized towns function as central places for a wider, often extensive hinterland. They provide opportunities for living and working and they connect rural and mountain regions to national and international networks. Using secondary statistics and a case study, the paper shows that small and medium-sized urban centers are home to significant concentrations of export-oriented industries. Firms in these value-adding secondary sectors are rooted in these places and benefit from strong local embeddedness while also being oriented towards global markets. Small and medium-sized urban centers also profit from their strong local identities. While these places face various challenges, they function as important pillars in creating a balanced regional development pattern. Swiss regional development policy follows the goal of polycentric spatial development and it employs various instruments that aim to ensure a balanced urban system.

Identity, Philosophy, and the Problem of Armenian History in the Sixth Century

History and Identity in the Late Antique Near East gathers together the work of distinguished historians and early career scholars with a broad range of expertise to investigate the significance of newly emerged, or recently resurrected, ethnic identities on the borders of the eastern Mediterranean world. It focuses on the "long late antiquity" from the eve of the Arab conquest of the Roman East to the formation of the Abbasid caliphate. The first half of the book offers papers on the Christian Orient on the cusp of the Islamic invasions. These papers discuss how Christians negotiated the end of Roman power, whether in the selective use of the patristic past to create confessional divisions or the emphasis of the shared philosophical legacy of the Greco-Roman world. The second half of the book considers Muslim attempts to negotiate the pasts of the conquered lands of the Near East, where the Christian histories of Hira or Egypt were used to create distinctive regional identities for Arab settlers. Like the first half, this section investigates the redeployment of a shared history, this time the historical imagination of the Qu'ran and the era of the first caliphs. All the papers in the volume bring together studies of the invention of the past across traditional divides between disciplines, placing the re-assessment of the past as a central feature of the long late antiquity. As a whole, History and Identity in the Late Antique Near East represents a distinctive contribution to recent writing on late antiquity, due to its cultural breadth, its interdisciplinary focus, and its novel definition of late antiquity itself.

Adult parent-child relationships: Relationship quality, support, and reciprocity

In accordance with Bengtson's model of intergenerational solidarity (e.g. Bengtson & Roberts, 1991), the interrelations between adult daughters' family values, their perception of the relationship quality with their parents, the support they reported to give to and to receive from their parents, and their perception of reciprocity in intergenerational support exchange were investigated for N = 265 middle-aged women in Germany. It was also asked whether the support given to parents and perceived reciprocity are related to daughters' felt burden as a result of their support. Cross-sectional, self-report data were examined with multiple and multinomial logistic regression analyses. The analyses revealed positive relations between family values, relationship quality, and support to parents. Perceived reciprocity was associated with the exchange of intergenerational support and imbalance in support had negative effects on the relationship quality. Felt burden was predicted by the extent of support and the perceived reciprocity. However, specific correlational patterns depending on the kind of support as well as differences in the importance of mother and father occurred. The findings are discussed against the background of the meaning of family obligations and reciprocity in a Western culture.

God, the WTO – and hunger

Considering that endemic hunger is a consequence of poverty, and that food is arguably the most basic of all human needs, this book chapter shows one of the more prominent examples of rules and policy fragmentation but also one of the most blatant global governance problems. The three monotheistic religions Judaism, Christians and Islam are surprisingly unanimous about God’s prescriptions on hunger or, put theologically, on what can be said, or should be said, about the interpretations and traditions which, taken together, form the respective and differentiated traditions, identities and views of these beliefs on how to deal with poverty and hunger. A clear social ethos, in the form of global needs satisfaction, runs through both Jewish and Christian texts, and the Qur’an (Zakat). It confirms the value inversion between the world of the mighty and that of the hungry. The message is clear: because salvation is available only through the grace of God, those who have must give to those who have not. This is not charity: it is an inversion of values which can not be addressed by spending 0.7% of your GDP on ODA, and the implication of this sense of redistributive justice is that social offenders will be subject to the Last Judgement. Interestingly, these religious scriptures found their way directly into the human rights treaties adopted by the United Nations and ratified by the parliaments, as a legal base for the duty to protect, to respect and to remedy. On the other side the contradiction with international trade law is all the more flagrant, and it has a direct bearing on poverty: systematic surplus food dumping is still allowed under WTO rules, despite the declared objective ‘to establish a fair and market-oriented agricultural trading system’. A way forward would be a kind of ‘bottom up’ approach by focusing on extreme cases of food insecurity caused by food dumping, or by export restrictions where a direct effect of food insecurity in other countries can be established. Also, international financing institutions need to review their policies and lending priorities. The same goes for the bilateral investment treaties and a possible ‘public interest’ clause, at least in respect of agricultural land acquisitions in vulnerable countries. The bottom line is this: WTO rules cannot entail a right to violate other, equally binding treaty obligations when its membership as a whole claims to contribute to the Millennium Development Goals and pledges to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.

Conflicting Cantonalisms: Disputed Sub-national Territorial Identities in Switzerland

The importance of constituent units for democratic federations, in general, and of the Swiss cantons for the Swiss Confederation, in particular, is beyond doubt. What is less clear, however, is how to solve conflicting views on the number and type of such units. The Swiss case offers two highly topical examples in this regard: the merger of the two ‘half-cantons’ Basel-City and Basel-Country, on the one hand, and the creation of a new canton encompassing canton Jura and the French-speaking area of canton Berne, on the other. In comparing different sub-national political identities at play in these two cases, the strength of ‘cantonalism’—understood as attachment to and identification with a canton—in Switzerland in the 21st century is shown. Second, different manifestations of cantonalism are compared: centre-periphery in Basel, linguistic vs. religious in Jura. Finally, the similar direct-democratic pathways chosen to solve both conflicting understandings of cantonalism testify to the Swiss commitment to peaceful, negotiated and popularly sanctioned settlements.

“Facebook Style”: The Use of Emoticons and Graphic Signs by Users in the Cape Flats

Over the last few years Facebook has become a widespread and continuously expanding medium of communication in Africa and worldwide. Being a new medium of social interaction, Facebook produces its own communication style. It is a style conditioned by the medium and the community of users. My focus of analysis is how Facebook users from the city of Cape Town create this style by means of emoticons and other graphic signs in order to reflect the reality of living in Cape Town’s underprivileged areas. This study is based on a theoretical framework which combines sociolinguistics with Computer-Mediated-Communication to study the emergence of a style peculiar of the online social networks. In a corpus of Coloured Facebook users from the Cape Flats, I have analysed the emergence of emoticons and other graphic signs related to Capetonian gang culture and then tracked the spread of these features to the extensive use by users not related to gangs. It can be deduced that in this process the analysed features amplify their meaning and are employed in a much broader context as their original use. Due to the development and spread of these features we can consider the peculiar electronic communication of Facebook as a style constrained by the electronic medium and its users. It is a style which serves the users to create social meaning and to express their linguistic identities.

A genomic perspective on a new bacterial genus and species from the Alcaligenaceae family, Basilea psittacipulmonis

BACKGROUND A novel Gram-negative, non-haemolytic, non-motile, rod-shaped bacterium was discovered in the lungs of a dead parakeet (Melopsittacus undulatus) that was kept in captivity in a petshop in Basel, Switzerland. The organism is described with a chemotaxonomic profile and the nearly complete genome sequence obtained through the assembly of short sequence reads. RESULTS Genome sequence analysis and characterization of respiratory quinones, fatty acids, polar lipids, and biochemical phenotype is presented here. Comparison of gene sequences revealed that the most similar species is Pelistega europaea, with BLAST identities of only 93% to the 16S rDNA gene, 76% identity to the rpoB gene, and a similar GC content (~43%) as the organism isolated from the parakeet, DSM 24701 (40%). The closest full genome sequences are those of Bordetella spp. and Taylorella spp. High-throughput sequencing reads from the Illumina-Solexa platform were assembled with the Edena de novo assembler to form 195 contigs comprising the ~2 Mb genome. Genome annotation with RAST, construction of phylogenetic trees with the 16S rDNA (rrs) gene sequence and the rpoB gene, and phylogenetic placement using other highly conserved marker genes with ML Tree all suggest that the bacterial species belongs to the Alcaligenaceae family. Analysis of samples from cages with healthy parakeets suggested that the newly discovered bacterial species is not widespread in parakeet living quarters. CONCLUSIONS Classification of this organism in the current taxonomy system requires the formation of a new genus and species. We designate the new genus Basilea and the new species psittacipulmonis. The type strain of Basilea psittacipulmonis is DSM 24701 (= CIP 110308 T, 16S rDNA gene sequence Genbank accession number JX412111 and GI 406042063).

Perception of critical situations involving football fans: dynamics of conflict escalation and de-escalation

Title: The perception of critical situations involving football fans – how conflicts escalate or de-escalate Authors: Brechbühl, A.1, Schumacher, A.1 & Seiler, R.1 1Institute of Sport Science, University of Bern, Switzerland Abstract: Introduction: Fan violence in the context of football matches is a prominent issue in today’s western societies and Switzerland presents no exception. A lot of research has been conducted on reasons for fan violence, mostly with fans of national teams. A prominent model is the Elaborated Social Identity Model (ESIM; Drury & Reicher, 2000): ESIM highlights the importance of interactions between the involved groups and their effect on the development of social identities. Another model is the aggravation mitigation model (AM model; Hylander & Guvå, 2010) which illustrates factors that can contribute towards an escalation or non-escalation of group violence, such as the “categorization” of the opponent group. Despite these models, research about the individual perceptions, and in particular, what factors distinguish between an escalation versus a non-escalation of a potentially violent situation in domestic football, is as yet scarce. This explorative study examines perceptions of critical situations in the domestic football fan context in Switzerland. Methods: An explorative qualitative design was employed to gather data about critical situations (CS) around football matches of two clubs of the Raiffeisen Super League. A CS is defined as a setting in or around the football stadium where violence between football fans and another group could occur. Eight CS were identified and analysed. Fifty-nine narrative interviews with individuals involved in a CS, e.g. fans, police officers or security personnel, were conducted. Interviews were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Results: The involved opposing groups expressed group-specific perceptions. Furthermore a strong tendency to negatively stereotype the opponent group was observed. Provocative symbols, such as balaclavas or riot-gear uniforms, were considered as highly relevant for the interpretation of the situation. Successful communication and sufficient distance between opponent groups supported the appeasement of a CS. These findings also underline the importance of knowledge about the local fan culture. This culture serves as basis for the perception of legitimacy, which was assessed to be essential for a de-escalation of a CS by fans. Discussion/Conclusion: This study improves the understanding of fan violence in the domestic football context in Switzerland. Based on the results it is suggested to deploy security or police forces without riot gear but with the goal of seeking dialogue with the fans to increase the likelihood of a peaceful ending in a CS. The findings also support the applicability of the ESIM (Drury & Reicher, 2000) and the AM model (Hylander & Guvå, 2010) in the context of domestic fan violence. Due to possible differences in the local fan cultures in Switzerland, research in this area should be continued. References: Drury, J., & Reicher, S. (2000). Collective action and psychological change: The emergence of new social identities. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 579-604. Hylander, I., & Guvå, G. (2010). Misunderstanding of out-group behaviour: Different interpretations of the same crowd events among police officers and demonstrators. Nordic Psychology, 62, 25-47.

Does context matter? Analysing structural and individual factors of member commitment in sport clubs

This article addresses factors that infl uence member commitment in sport clubs. Based on the theory of social action and the economic behaviour theory, it focuses not only on individual characteristics of club members but also on the corresponding structural conditions of sport clubs. Accordingly, a multilevel framework is developed for explaining member commitment in sport clubs. Different multilevel models were estimated in order to analyse the infl uences of both the individual and corresponding context Level in a sample of n = 1,699 members of 42 Swiss and German sport clubs. The multilevel analysis permitted an adequate handling of hierarchically structured data. Results of These multilevel analyses indicated that the commitment of members is not just an outcome of individual characteristics such as strong identifi cation with their club, positively perceived (collective) solidarity, satisfaction with their sport club, or voluntary engagement. It is also determined by club-specific structural conditions: commitment proves to be more probable in rural sport clubs and clubs that explicitly support sociability. Furthermore, cross-level effects in relation to member commitment were also found between the context variable sociability and the individual variable identification.

The Almost Person: Myth, Narrative and The Doctor

Paul Ricœur describes selfhood as the product of a communal narrative. Communal narratives structured as symbolic myths provide a narrative identity and an ethic of selfhood. The psychologist Jerome Bruner, for instance, places the source of such a narrative identity in the family, where ‘canonical stories’ are formed. ‘Home’ becomes a mode of discourse, a way of recognizing ourselves in the narratives given to us by others. This paper will draw on these concepts of narrative identity in order to investigate the problems to selfhood which face the character of The Doctor in the BBC series Doctor Who. I will identify The Doctor as a character who acts within a self-constructed narrative vacuum, reading the character by contrasting two types of personal myth-making, one ‘real’, as in a lived narrative, and one ‘counterfeit’; a conjured myth to replace and obscure the lived self. The paper will pay particular attention to the twenty-first century reincarnations of Doctor Who. I will argue that the writing of Russell T. Davis and later Steven Moffat in particular directly address this tension of myth and selfhood, as The Doctor struggles between his self-imposed role as a modern Prometheus and the insistent haunting and return of his own story. In these incarnations, his companions become mirrors to The Doctor, bringing with them their own narrative and ethical identities. In turn, it is through his companions that The Doctor is able to build his own lived narrative of sorts, which challenges his self-created ‘mythology’. In contrast to the weeping angels, whose horrific agency manifests only when not apprehended, the Doctor’s story continues to become more real the more he is ‘perceived’, both by the human race and by the viewer.

First thoughts on surface tonal patterns in Amawaka, a Panoan language of Peru and Brazil

Amawaka ([ɑmɨ̃ˈwɐkɑ]) is a highly endangered and underdocumented tonal language of the Headwaters (Fleck 2011) subgroup of the Panoan family in the Southwest Amazon Basin, spoken by approximately 200 people. Undocumented phonetic and phonological phenomena of Amawaka include its tonal structure, both in terms of surface realizations and the patterns underlying these realizations. Original audiovisual data from the author’s fieldwork in various Amawaka communities at the Peru-Brazil border will illuminate the as-yet obscure tonal systematicity of the language. Unlike other elements, monosyllabic bimoraic phonological nominal words with long vowels display variation in their surface realization. All the words with the open back unrounded /ɑ/, like /ˈkɑ̀:/ (patarashca, a traditional Amazonian dish), /ˈnɑ̀:/ “mestizo” etc. [with the exception of /ˈtɑ:/ “reed”, which surfaces with either a H or L tone] bear a low tone in isolation. This realization contrasts with all the encountered nominal monosyllables with vowels from the close and close-mid front and central spectrum /i, ɘ, ɨ, ɨ̃/, which clearly surface as high tone words in isolation, for example /ˈmɨ̃́:/ (a clay-lick for animals), /ˈwí:/ “Anopheles, spp. mosquito”. Monosyllables with close-mid back rounded /o/ have a less restrictive pitch that varies among speakers from low to high realizations, and sometimes even across the speech tokens from an individual speaker, e.g. /wó:/ or /wō:/ “hair”, /ɧō:/ or /ɧò:/ (a type of tarantula). Phrasal tonal phonology is more complex, when these three kinds of monosyllables appear in larger noun phrases. Some retain the same surface tones as their isolation form, while others seem to vary freely in their surface realization, e.g. /ˈtɘ́:.nɑ̀:/ or /ˈtɘ́:.nɑ́:/ ‘one mestizo’. Yet other monosyllables, e.g. /mɑ̀:/, exhibit a falling tone when preceded by a H syllable, suggesting probably latent tone sandhi phenomena, e.g /ˈtɘ́:.mɑ̂:/ (one clay-lick for parrots). In disyllabic, trisyllabic and quadrisyllabic nouns, tonal and stress patterns generally seem to be more consistent and tend to be retained both in isolation and in larger intonational phrases. Disyllabic nouns, for instance, surface as L-H or L-L when a glottal stop is in coda position. The association of L with a glottal stop is a feature that occurs in other Panoan languages as well, like Capanahua (Loos 1969), and more generally it is an areal feature, found in other parts of Amazonia (Hyman 2010). So, tone has significant interactions with the glottal stop and glottalization, which generally co-occurs with L. The data above suggest that the underlying tonal system of Amawaka is much more complex than the privative one-tone analysis (/H/ vs. Ø, i.e. lack of tone) that was proposed by Russell and Russell (1959). Evidence from field data suggests either an equipollent (Hyman 2010) two-tone opposition between /H/ and /L/, or a hybrid system, with both equipollent and privative features; that is, /H/ vs. /L/ vs. either Ø or /M/. This first systematic description of Amawaka tone, in conjunction with ongoing research, is poised to address broader questions concerning interrelationships between surface/underlying tone and other suprasegmental features, such as nasality, metrical stress, and intonation. References Fleck, David W. 2011. Panoan languages and linguistics. In Javier Ruedas and David W. Fleck (Eds.), Panoan Histories and Interethnic Identities, To appear. Hyman, Larry. 2010. Amazonia and the typology of tone systems. Presented at the conference Amazonicas III: The structure of the Amazonian languages. Bogotá. Loos, Eugene E. 1969. The phonology of Capanahua and its grammatical basis. Norman: SIL and U. Oklahoma. Russell, Robert & Dolores. 1959. Syntactotonemics in Amahuaca (Pano). Série Lingüistica Especial, 128-167. Publicaçoes do Museu Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.