Imagining migration: Placing children's understanding of 'moving house' in Malawi and Lesotho

Research pertaining to children's geographies has mainly focused on children's physical experiences of space, with their 'imagined geographies' receiving far less attention. The few studies of children's imagined geographies that exist tend to focus on children's national identities and their understanding of distant places. However, children's lives are not necessarily static and they often move between places. Research has not so far considered children's images of these transitional spaces or how such images are constructed. Through an examination of over 800 thematic drawings and stories, regarding 'moving house, produced by children aged 10-17 years in urban and rural communities of Lesotho and Malawi, this paper explores southern African children's representations of migration. The research considers how ideas of migration are culturally-constructed based on notions of family, home and kinship, particularly in relation to the fluid family structure characteristic of most southern African societies. The results suggest that most children imagine migration as a household rather than an individual process.. rarely including micro -migrations between extended family households in their drawings. Further, children's images of migration are place-rooted in everyday life experiences. Their representations concentrate on the reasons for migration, both negative and positive, which are specifically related to their local social and environmental situations and whether house moves take place locally or over longer distances. The paper concludes by exploring the implications of these conceptualisations of moving house for children's contemporary migration experiences, particularly in light of changing family structures due to the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandernic. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

The social life of ruins: sites of memory and the politics of a Zimbabwean periphery

This article explores conflicts over a series of ruins located within Zimbabwe's flagship National Park. The relics have long been regarded as sacred places by local African communities evicted from their vicinity, and have come to be seen as their ethnic heritage. Local intellectuals' promotion of this heritage was an important aspect of a defensive mobilization of cultural difference on the part of a marginalized minority group. I explore both indigenous and colonial ideas about the ruins, the different social movements with which they have been associated and the changing social life they have given the stone relics. Although African and European ideas sometimes came into violent confrontation - as in the context of colonial era evictions - there were also mutual influences in emergent ideas about tribe, heritage and history. The article engages with Pierre Nora's notion of 'sites of memory', which has usefully drawn attention to the way in which ideas of the past are rooted and reproduced in representations of particular places. But it criticizes Nora's tendency to romanticize pre-modern 'memory', suppress narrative and depoliticize traditional connections with the past. Thus, the article highlights the historicity of traditional means of relating to the past, highlighting the often bitter and divisive politics of traditional ritual, myth, kinship, descent and 'being first'. It also emphasizes the entanglement of modern and traditional ideas, inadequately captured by Nora's implied opposition between history and memory. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Imagining migration: Placing children's understanding of 'moving house' in Malawi and Lesotho

Research pertaining to children's geographies has mainly focused on children's physical experiences of space, with their 'imagined geographies' receiving far less attention. The few studies of children's imagined geographies that exist tend to focus on children's national identities and their understanding of distant places. However, children's lives are not necessarily static and they often move between places. Research has not so far considered children's images of these transitional spaces or how such images are constructed. Through an examination of over 800 thematic drawings and stories, regarding 'moving house, produced by children aged 10-17 years in urban and rural communities of Lesotho and Malawi, this paper explores southern African children's representations of migration. The research considers how ideas of migration are culturally-constructed based on notions of family, home and kinship, particularly in relation to the fluid family structure characteristic of most southern African societies. The results suggest that most children imagine migration as a household rather than an individual process.. rarely including micro -migrations between extended family households in their drawings. Further, children's images of migration are place-rooted in everyday life experiences. Their representations concentrate on the reasons for migration, both negative and positive, which are specifically related to their local social and environmental situations and whether house moves take place locally or over longer distances. The paper concludes by exploring the implications of these conceptualisations of moving house for children's contemporary migration experiences, particularly in light of changing family structures due to the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandernic. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Nomi di parentela

Encyclopedia entry on "Kinship expressions and terms"

Evaluation of the use of high-density SNP genotyping to implement UPOV Model 2 for DUS testing in barley

Developments in high-throughput genotyping provide an opportunity to explore the application of marker technology in distinctness, uniformity and stability (DUS) testing of new varieties. We have used a large set of molecular markers to assess the feasibility of a UPOV Model 2 approach: “Calibration of threshold levels for molecular characteristics against the minimum distance in traditional characteristics”. We have examined 431 winter and spring barley varieties, with data from UK DUS trials comprising 28 characteristics, together with genotype data from 3072 SNP markers. Inter varietal distances were calculated and we found higher correlations between molecular and morphological distances than have been previously reported. When varieties were grouped by kinship, phenotypic and genotypic distances of these groups correlated well. We estimated the minimum marker numbers required and showed there was a ceiling after which the correlations do not improve. To investigate the possibility of breaking through this ceiling, we attempted genomic prediction of phenotypes from genotypes and higher correlations were achieved. We tested distinctness decisions made using either morphological or genotypic distances and found poor correspondence between each method.

Barn och unga med en nära anhörig som avlidit : Barn och ungas erfarenheter av att delta i stödgrupp

I denna kvalitativa studie har enkäter insamlats från barn och unga som deltagit i stödgruppsverksamhet för barn och unga med en avliden nära anhörig i Dalarnas län. Syftet med studien har varit att beskriva deltagarnas erfarenheter av stödgrupperna. Genom kvalitativ innehållsanalys har tre kategorier identifierats; bearbetning, gemenskap och strukturens betydelse. Studien visar främst på betydelsen av att få träffa andra barn och unga i liknande situation samt indikerar till att deltagarnas KASAM (känsla av sammanhang) förhöjts genom deltagandet i stödgruppen.

Identidade, memória e narrativas na dança de São Gonçalo do povoado Mussuca (SE)

This study deals with the participation of the dance of São Gonçalo of the Mussuca town/SE, in the process of construction of the ethnic identity among this social group. The Mussuca is a grouping recognized as afro-descendents, linked with black enslaved people in the valley of the Cotinguiba region. The collective memory functions as a drive of this linking with the past and if it makes to elaborate narratives on this descent. The objective of this study was to investigate the ways the rite went through to constitute itself as an element of ethnic representation. Internal and external agents had been identified who had participated in different contexts. By means of an ethnographic work we ve reached some aspects of the local structure social which demonstrated the contradictions through the social relations of the group. This process of ethnic autorecognition presents the kinship and the space question as definers of the social arrangements which establish its ethnic boundaries

Quilombo urbano maloca: territorialidade e ressignificação de processos identitários

Currently in the social sciences the question of self-identity and its meanings, absorb as a central objective aspects that concern analysis of an imaginary (re) constructed from processes of identity affirmation. Ethnic discourse in the consolidation of social boundaries (re) assemble a social policy apparatus able to claim their belongings concerning his ancestry, as well as the interpretation of the meanings given to their territory by any group. This dissertation work is the result of an ethnographic study undertaken with the residents of the Community Maloca, Vargas located in the neighborhood adjacent to the commercial center in Aracaju - SE. Since February 2007 the group is certified by FCP - Palmares Cultural Foundation as a lasting community, while it is part of a special gift for being an urban center, varying from the majority of that remaining Maroons in their contexts, outcrops and specific land rural. It focuses on the work process of territorial formation of the hut, and the arrival of their first actors, contextualizing the process of legitimation refers to the territory they live, as well as the various narratives that (re) construct the time he lived, the relations kinship, conflict, the process of self-affirmation as runaways and the relationship of belonging with their living space / living contained in the imaginary city of Aracaju. Attempts are made to the opportunity to understand the meanings that affirm their ethnicity, parallel group for the pursuit of effective policies and guarantee of constitutional rights in the urban context.

Histórias e relatos sobre Pipa: a praia internacional do Rio Grande do Norte

The overwhelming gear that boosted tourism as the main economic activity of Pipa a district formerly agricultural and fishery, that belongs to the municipality of Tibau do Sul/RN produced significant changes in the social, economic and cultural rights of the native population of the place where social relations were narrow and justified in some cases, the line of kinship in an environment where all residents knew each other. However, we can not observe the emergence of this activity just as voracious disarticulator of old local forms of sociability that in a linear process, destroys the old, replacing it with the new. New compositions are generated by merging elements of past and present. Overcoming opposition to simplistic positive or negative impacts of tourism sought especially in this dissertation, review the history of Pipa (told in narrative form), showing how slowly this district has become a major international tourist destination and how its residents were being swallowed by the "whirlwind" that led to this reality. The research used qualitative methodology and was based on photographic, literature and survey, observation, experience, oral and written reports acquired in the field. We conducted in-depth interviews (oral history) with subjects that are the living memory of the place local residents (mostly natives). We found that before the process of "modernization" resulting from the pressure of globalization itself and the capital investment in tourism resulting from the native population is not passive. On the contrary, natives resist, creating mechanisms of material and symbolic reformulations. The present moment is always dynamic. Because of that, the identity of a place is not the crystallization of its past. Many landscapes still reveal materialities of yesteryear, such as registration of social practices in the construction of the place

Relações sociais de callithrix jacchus machos: competição ou cooperação?

The group Callithrichidae is characterized by the flexibility in its mating system. This fact generates questions about the mechanisms that Callithrix jacchus males reach the breeding position in a group and how they prevent the subordinates reproduction, since the competition apparently happens with less intensity when compared to the females. Studies have shown the importance of social interactions and kinship among individuals in the distribution of mating opportunities in a group. This work aimed to evaluate if dyads of Callithrix jacchus males acted socially different due to kinship. We observed the agonistic and affiliative behaviours made by the males when associated in dyads (Phase 1) and when these dyads received a female (Phase 2), which was introduced in the pair`s cage for 45 minutes. In the phase 2, we also accounted for the sexual interactions between males and female in each trio. We used 16 males, 8 related (brothers-R) and 8 nonrelated (NR), as well as 8 females. Each phase lasted 4 weeks, with 3 observations/week, during 15 min/male in phase 1 and 2. In the first phase, two pairs of R males had a contested dominance and the other two, just like in the NR males, had an uncontested dominance. The NR dominant males were more aggressive than the subordinates. With the female`s entrance in the cage, all male pairs began to have an uncontested dominance. The NR males aggression frequency rose along with the subordinates` submission. In the R males, the frequency of grooming and physical contact was higher than in the NR males. So, we conclude that the low levels of agonism presented by the R males, along with the higher tolerance shown amongst them, lead us to believe that kinship attenuate the competition among these males

Significados de família para crianças em abrigo

This research explores the meanings of family for institutionalized children. It identifies, more specifically, how the relationship between the child and his/ her family is. The field work was developed at a municipal shelter in Natal/RN, which houses children aged between 7 and 11 years old. The subjects of research consisted of three children: two boys and one girl. Besides age-group criterion, which facilitates the use of oral language and the procedures, we took into consideration another selection criterion: children whose family configurations were similar. In order to achieve the objectives, we used toys, pictures, collages and semi-structured interviews. Data were examined under the Thematic Content Analysis, with three thematic categories previously chosen: Configuration of geographic area, family composition and family s internal dynamics. Among the results, we highlight that, for children, the concept of family is based essentially on existence of affection ties, regardless of kinship. Through this study, we hope to contribute to the discussion on the rights of institutionalized children, concerning their need of experiencing family life and living in community

Comparative analysis of microsatellite variability in five macaw species (Psittaciformes, Psittacidae): application for conservation

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Produtores familiares e estratégias ligadas à terra

A manutenção e/ou a ampliação da terra compõem o eixo central em torno do qual os produtores familiares organizam sua vida e seu trabalho. Este artigo analisa as estratégias desses produtores em relação à divisão de herança e à sucessão, e as formas que utilizam para aquisição de novas áreas. O levantamento das características das famílias e da propriedade foi realizado por meio de um questionário aplicado junto a 89 produtores familiares de três municípios da mesorregião de São José do Rio Preto (SP). Posteriormente foi entrevistado um terço dos produtores de cada município que havia respondido ao questionário. A análise das estratégias fundiárias mostrou uma grande diversidade na forma de partilhar a herança e de conduzir a sucessão, sendo que ambos os processos são apoiados, basicamente, em regras tradicionais, embora mantenham uma fachada de adequação às normas legais. Quanto às estratégias de aquisição de mais terras, observou-se que os produtores são capazes de organizar complexas formas de capitalização, centradas em maiores esforços no trabalho e na contenção de gastos, além da utilização de políticas públicas favoráveis e de práticas costumeiras. Os arranjos intra-familiares e as formas de cooperação ligadas ao parentesco mais amplo também se mostraram importantes para a ampliação da propriedade.

Estimating coancestry within open-pollinated progenies of a dioecious species: the case study of Myracrodruon urundeuva

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

The contributions of applied anthropology to peasant development

Includes bibliography