Growing Flowers in the Frost: Civic Activity, Citizenship and Gender in Russia

This study analyzes civic activity, citizenship and their gendered manifestations in contemporary Russia. It is based on a case study conducted in the city of Tver , located in the vicinity of Moscow, during 2001-2005. The data consists of interviews with civic activists and municipal and regional authorities; observations of civic organizations; and a quantitative survey conducted among local civic groups. The theoretical and methodological framework of the study draws upon a micro perspective on organization, discourse analysis, gender and citizenship theories and Pierre Bourdieu s theory of fields and capital. This study develops theoretical understanding of the characteristics and logic of civic organization in Russia. It shows that social class centrally structures the field of civic activity. Organizations can be seen as a vehicle of the educated class to advocate their interests, help themselves and seek both social and individual-level change. The study also argues that civic organizations founded during the post-Soviet era are often an institutionalized form of informal social networks. Networks, which were a central element of everyday interaction in Soviet society, are a resource and often the only resource available that can be made use of in contemporary organizational activities. The study argues that gender operates as a key structuring principle in the Russian socio-political community. Civic activity is often discursively associated with femininity and institutional politics with masculinity. Women tend to participate more than men in civic organizations, while men dominate the formal political domain. The study shows that civic organizations are important loci of communality. This communality, however, differs from the communality envisioned in the communitarian and social capital debates in the West. It is selective communality , as it is restricted to the members of the organizations and does not create generalized reciprocity and trust. Civic organizations tend to build upon and reproduce the traditional Russian organizational form of circles , kruzhki. Along with the analysis of civic activities, the study also examines the redefinition of the role and functions of the state. The authorities interviewed in this study understand civic organizations as serving those goals and interests determined by the authorities, instead of viewing them as sites of citizens self-organization around interests and problems citizens themselves deem important, or as a counterforce to the state. By contrast, civic activists understand the core of organizational activity to be advocacy of their interests and rights, tackling social problems, the pursuit of wider social change and self-help. Co-operation between authorities and organizations tends to be personified and based upon unequal, hierarchical patron-client arrangements, which inhibits the development of democratic governance. The study will be published in Routledge Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe Series later this year.

Generalization of Dynkin's Identity and Some Applications

Let X(t) be a right continuous temporally homogeneous Markov pro- cess, Tt the corresponding semigroup and A the weak infinitesimal genera- tor. Let g(t) be absolutely continuous and r a stopping time satisfying E.( S f I g(t) I dt) < oo and E.( f " I g'(t) I dt) < oo Then for f e 9iJ(A) with f(X(t)) right continuous the identity Exg(r)f(X(z)) - g(O)f(x) = E( 5 " g'(s)f(X(s)) ds) + E.( 5 " g(s)Af(X(s)) ds) is a simple generalization of Dynkin's identity (g(t) 1). With further restrictions on f and r the following identity is obtained as a corollary: Ex(f(X(z))) = f(x) + k! Ex~rkAkf(X(z))) + n-1E + (n ) )!.E,(so un-1Anf(X(u)) du). These identities are applied to processes with stationary independent increments to obtain a number of new and known results relating the moments of stopping times to the moments of the stopped processes.

The international match: Metaphors as vehicles of social identity building in cross-border mergers

This article focuses on cultural identity-building in the cross-border merger context. To provide an alternative to the dominant essentialist analyses of cultures and cultural differences, cultural identitybuilding is conceptualized as a metaphoric process. The focus is on two processes inherent in the cross-border merger context: construction of images of Us and Them and construction of images of a Common Future. Based on an analysis of a special metaphor exercise carried out in a recent Finnish–Swedish merger, the article illustrates how the metaphoric perspective reveals specific cognitive, emotional and political aspects of cultural identity-building that easily remain ‘hidden’ in the case of more traditional approaches.

Gender and National Identity Constructions in the Cross-Border Merger Context

In this article we explore ways in which vertical gender inequality is accomplished in discourse in the context of a recent chain of cross-border mergers and acquisitions that resulted in the formation of a multinational Nordic company. We analyse social interactions of ‘doing’ gender in interviews with male senior executives from Denmark, Finland and Sweden. We argue that their explanations for the absence of women in the top echelons of the company serve to distance vertical gender inequality. The main contribution of the article is an analysis of how national identities are discursively (re)constructed in such distancing. New insights are offered to studying gender in multinationals with a cross-cultural team of researchers. Our study sheds light on how gender intersects with nationality in shaping the multinational organization and the identities of male executives in globalizing business.

Being in between: An Ethnographic Study of Opera and Dialogical Identity Construction

The paradoxical co-existence of conflicting logics governs practices in cultural organizations. This requires ‘balancing acts’ between artistic and managerial efforts, which are often subjects to struggle among the organizational members. This ethnographic study aims to go beyond either-or thinking on the paradoxical organizational context by examining how the organizational members of an opera house construct views on their organization in dialogical meaning-making processes. Various professional groups, dozens of upcoming productions, increased international cooperation, and global competition combined with scarce financial resources make opera houses a complex though interesting context for organization studies. In order to provide a deeper knowledge of the internal dynamics of an opera organization this thesis takes an interpretative view to examine the ways organizational members construct and make sense of their organization. How is the opera organization constructed by the organizational members? How do the members draw on different logics when relating to their organization? Or what are the elements that characterize the relational processes of organizational identity construction in an opera organization? The thesis aims to answer these questions by providing a detailed description of the everyday life of an opera organization and a particular focus put on organizational identity construction. The processes of organizational identity construction are approached from a relational point of view. This may involve various relations between multiple positions, different professional groups, other organizations in the cultural field or between past and present understandings of an organization. The study shows that the construction of an opera organization involves not only the two conflicting logics of art and economy, but also the logic of a national institution. The study suggests also that organizational identities are constructed through processes related to the dialogics of positions, work and management practices. The dialogics involve various struggles through which the organizational members find themselves between the different organizational aspects such as visiting ‘stars’ and an ensemble or between ‘Finnishness’ of opera productions and internationalization. In addition, the study argues that a struggle between different elements is a general mode of relation in cultural organizations and therefore an inherent and enduring aspect in the organizational identity construction. However, the space of ‘being in between’ involves both the enabling and constraining elements in the dialogical identity construction in the context of cultural organizations, which present the struggle in a more generative light.

A matrix identity and perturbation expressions

An identity expressing formally the diagonal and off-diagonal elements of an inverse of a matrix is deduced employing operator techniques. Several well-known perturbation expressions for the self-energy are deduced as special cases. A new approximation and other applications following from the above formalism are briefly indicated through illustrations from a perturbed harmonic oscillator, chemisorption approximations and Kelly's result in the problem of electron correlation.

The Liminality of Cosmopolitanism from the Global South – Transnational Activists in Costa Rica between Colonial Legacies and Decolonial Attitudes

The Master’s thesis examines whether and how decolonial cosmopolitanism is empirically traceable in the attitudes and practices of Costa Rican activists working in transnational advocacy organizations. Decolonial cosmopolitanism is defined as a form of cosmopolitanism from below that aims to propose ways of imagining – and putting into practice – a truly globe-encompassing civic community not based on relations of domination but on horizontal dialogue. This concept has been developed by and shares its basic presumptions with the theory on coloniality that the modernity/coloniality/decoloniality research group is putting forward. It is analyzed whether and how the workings of coloniality as underlying ontological assumption of decolonial cosmopolitanism and broadly subsumable under the three logics of race, capitalism, and knowledge, are traceable in intermediate postcolonial transnational advocacy in Costa Rica. The method of analysis chosen to approach these questions is content analysis, which is used for the analysis of qualitative semi-structured in-depth interviews with Costa Rican activists working in advocacy organizations with transnational ties. Costa Rica was chosen as it – while unquestionably a Latin American postcolonial country and thus within the geo-political context in which the concept was developed – introduces a complex setting of socio-cultural and political factors that put the explanatory potential of the concept to the test. The research group applies the term ‘coloniality’ to describe how the social, political, economic, and epistemic relations developed during the colonization of the Americas order global relations and sustain Western domination still today through what is called the logic of coloniality. It also takes these processes as point of departure for imagining how counter-hegemonic contestations can be achieved through the linking of local struggles to a global community that is based on pluriversality. The issues that have been chosen as most relevant expressions of the logic of coloniality in the context of Costa Rican transnational advocacy and that are thus empirically scrutinized are national identity as ‘white’ exceptional nation with gender equality (racism), the neoliberalization of advocacy in the Global South (capitalism), and finally Eurocentrism, but also transnational civil society networks as first step in decolonizing civic activism (epistemic domination). The findings of this thesis show that the various ways in which activists adopt practices and outlooks stemming from the center in order to empower themselves and their constituencies, but also how their particular geo-political position affects their work, cannot be reduced to one single logic of coloniality. Nonetheless, the aspects of race, gender, capitalism and epistemic hegemony do undeniably affect activist cosmopolitan attitudes and transnational practices. While the premisses on which the concept of decolonial cosmopolitanism is based suffer from some analytical drawbacks, its importance is seen in its ability to take as point of departure the concrete spaces in which situated social relations develop. It thus allows for perceiving the increasing interconnectedness between different levels of social and political organizing as contributing to cosmopolitan visions combining local situatedness with global community as normative horizon that have not only influenced academic debate, but also political projects.

Both Surface Proteins (VP4 and VP7) of an Asymptomatic Neonatal Rotavirus Strain (1321) Have High Levels of Sequence Identity with the Homologous Proteins of a Serotype 10 Bovine Rotavirus

The nucleotide sequence of genes 4 and 9, encoding the outer capsid proteins VP4 and VP7 of a serotype 10 tissue culture-adapted strain, 1321, representative of asymptomatic neonatal rotaviruses isolated from neonates in Bangalore, India, were determined. Comparison of nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequences of 1321 VP4 and VP7 with previously published sequences of various serotypes revealed that both genes were highly homologous to the respective genes of serotype 10 bovine rotavirus, B223. The VP4 of 1321 represents a new human P serotype and the 1321 and related strains represent the first description of neonatal rotaviruses that appear to derive both surface proteins from an animal rotavirus.

Identity, energetics, dynamics and environment of interfacial water molecules in a micellar solution

The structure and energetics of interfacial water molecules in the aqueous micelle of cesium perfluorooctanoate have been investigated, using large-scale atomistic molecular dynamics simulations, with the primary objective of classifying them. The simulations show that the water molecules at the interface fall into two broad classes: bound and free, present in a ratio of 9:1. The bound water molecules can be further categorized on the basis of the number of hydrogen bonds (one or two) that they form with the surfactant headgroups. The hydrogen bonds of the doubly hydrogen-bonded species are found to be, on the average, slightly weaker than those in the singly bonded species. The environment around interfacial water molecules is more ordered than that in the bulk. The surface water molecules have substantially lower potential energy, because of interaction with the micelle. In particular, both forms of bound water have energies that are lower by �2.5-4.0 kcal/ mol. Entropy is found to play an important role in determining the relative concentration of the species.

A taxonomic mystery for more than 180 years: the identity and systematic position of Brachysaura minor (HARDWICKE & GRAY, 1827)

Brachysaura is a monotypic genus of agamid lizard found in the Indian subcontinent; the identity and systematic position of B. minor has been long debated, and it has at times been subsumed into Agama, Charasia and Laudakia, with some authors suggesting affinities to Calotes. We constructed nuclear and mitochondrial phylogenetic trees including Brachysaura and allied agamid genera to resolve its phylogenetic position. We also compared osteology and external morphology with the genera Agama, Calotes and Laudakia. Hemipenial morphology was compared with Calotes and some other agamids from South Asia. Both nuclear and mitochondrial phylogenies demonstrate that Brachysaura is nested within the widespread South and Southeast Asian genus Calotes, with which it also shares certain external morphological, osteological and hemipenial characters. Adaptations to ground dwelling in Brachysaura minor has resulted in unique modifications to its body plan, which is likely why generic allocation has been long confused. This study also highlights the need for an integrated systematic approach to resolve taxonomic ambiguity in Asian agamids.

Generic identity of Camptorrhiza indica (Colchicaceae) based on cytogenetics and molecular phylogenetics

The tribe Iphigenieae (Colchicaceace, Liliales) includes two genera, viz. Camptorrhiza and Iphigenia, which are distributed in Africa, India, and Australasia. Iphigenia is represented by 12 species, of which six occur in India while Camptorrhiza comprises one species each in Africa (C. strumosa) and India (C. indica). The genus Camptorrhiza possesses a knee-shaped tuber attached to the corms, filaments with a thick bulge in the middle and styles with single stigma. Iphigenia on the other hand lacks knee-shaped tuber, bears linear filaments and has styles with three stigmas. Camptorrhiza indica possesses ovoid corms, linear filaments and styles with a single stigma. These characters are intermediate between Iphigenia and Camptorrhiza and hence we studied the cytogenetics and phylogenetic placement of this species to ascertain its generic identity. Somatic chromosome count (2n = 22) and karyotypic features of C. indica are very similar to that of Iphigenia species. Molecular phylogenetic studies based on atpB-rbcL, rps16, trnL, and trnL-F regions showed that C. indica is nested within a lineage of Indian Iphigenia species. Thus, C. indica was reduced to a species of Iphigenia, i.e., I. ratnagirica. Camptorrhiza is now a monotypic genus restricted only to southern Africa. A key to the Indian Iphigenia species is provided. In addition, a new combination Wurmbea novae-zelandiae is proposed for Iphigenia novae-zelandiae.

Some implications of the volcanic theophany of YHWH on his primeval identity

Abstract: YHWH’s theophany and mode of action are frequently evoked in the Bible as a volcanic event. It is shown here that this representation, of central importance in the story of the Sinai Covenant, is probably not anchored in any specific volcanic eruption experienced by the Israelites in the past. In Antiquity, volcanic activity was specifically associated with the gods who patronized metallurgy, given the homology between lava flowing from a volcano and slag released from a furnace at smelting. Evidence towards such a link is also identified in the Bible. Accordingly, rather than being simply a literary artifice imaging the outstanding powers of YHWH, volcanism may reflect the existence of metallurgical roots in Israelite theology. This contention is supported by Biblical evidences associating YHWH with metal production: (i) his primeval dominion in mining areas, (ii) his special worship by metalworkers, (iii) the representation of his celestial universe as a giant furnace. It is concluded that the volcanic representation of YHWH’s theophany and mode of action reveal a surprising level of preservation of the metallurgic religious traditions in the ancient Israelite theology.