Review of Modern Babylon? Prostituting Children in Thailand by Heather Montgomery

Johnson reviews Modern Babylon?: Prostituting Children in Thailand by Heather Montgomery.

Factors to consider in Micronesian food-based interventions: a case study of preventing Vitamin A deficiency

Background: Many factors need to be considered in a food-based intervention. Vitamin A deficiency and chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer, have become serious problems in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) following the decreased production and consumption of locally grown foods. However, agricultural and social conditions are still favourable for local food production. Aim: To identify key factors to consider in a Micronesian food-based intervention focusing on increased production and consumption of four major Micronesian staple foods: banana, breadfruit, giant swamp taro and pandanus. Methods: Ethnographic methods including key informant interviews and a literature review. Results: Pacific and Micronesian values, concepts of food and disease, and food classifications differ sharply from Western concepts. There are few FSM professionals with nutrition expertise. Traditional foods and food cultivars vary in nutrient content, consumption level, cost, availability, status, convenience in growing, storing and cooking, and organoleptic factors. Conclusions: A systematic consideration of the factors that relate to a food-based intervention is critical to its success. The evaluation of which food and cultivar of that food that might be most effectively promoted is also critical. Regional differences, for example FSM inter-island differences between the staple foods and cultivars, must be considered carefully. The evaluation framework presented here may be relevant to Pacific island and other countries with similar foods where food-based interventions are being planned. An ethnographic approach was found to be essential in understanding the cultural context and in data collection and analysis.

Archaeology, diaspora and decolonization

Archaeologists in settler societies need to find theoretically well-founded ways of understanding the sociopolitical milieux in which they work if they are to deal sensibly and sensitively with the colonizers as well as the colonized in their communities. This article explores one avenue that the author has found helpful in a number of contexts. He advances the proposition that, with certain qualifications, the social conditions of settler nations might usefully be approached as the products of a single social condition - diaspora - in a manifestation that is unique to such societies because it positions indigenous peoples as well as settlers as diasporic.

EM FAVOR DOS POBRES: CONCEPÇÕES DE OPRESSÃO-LIBERTAÇÃO NA PEDAGOGIA FREIRIANA EM ARTICULAÇÃO COM O CRISTIANISMO DE LIBERTAÇÃO

O cristianismo de libertação pode ser considerado uma terminologia para designar como as ações de libertação surgem na religião de matriz cristã-católica. Nele, está implícito o conceito de que Deus encontra-se no meio do povo para proporcionar experiências de libertação do sujeito consigo e do sujeito na sociedade. Libertação processual que desencadeie ações libertadoras. Aqui, interessa mais a ação do que a fé. Pensar o cristianismo traduz-se por pensar em ações salvíficas em situações opressoras. A fé que salva a alma, mas aprisiona o corpo não salvou. As experiências espirituais devocionais, deslocadas das atitudes de justiça e de amor em favor dos pobres, passaram por um difícil crivo de senso e valor social, em período histórico concomitante ao surgimento da Teologia da Libertação na América Latina. A igreja, por sua vez, condenou seus melhores pensadores acusando-os de profanos, pois estes preocupavam-se demais com a questão social dos sujeitos-fiéis. Entretanto, o próprio Cristo priorizou salvar as condições sociais dos seus seguidores. Cristo, assim, deu destaque ao corpo do sujeito. Seu contato pessoal com os seus seguidores materializam a verdade de suas palavras libertadores. Nesse sentido, pode-se dizer que Paulo Freire promoveu uma educação cristã. Uma espécie de libertação dos pobres mediada pelo recurso da palavra.

Micro-redes de solidariedade e legitimação: A liderança de mulheres na periferia do poder clérigo-institucional das igrejas pentecostais clássicas na cidade de Diadema

Desde o surgimento do Movimento Pentecostal, mulheres tiveram participação ativa e fundamental para a consolidação do Movimento. Entretanto, com sua institucionalização, o Movimento Pentecostal passou a segregar as mulheres, restringindo sua atuação a funções eclesiais subalternas. Mulheres foram relegadas ao esquecimento. Contudo, a hegemonia do poder masculino não impediu que as mulheres criassem suas redes de sentido nas igrejas pentecostais, através de sociedades de mulheres que funcionam como espaços de socialização e humanização, geralmente em contextos de alta vulnerabilidade social. A presente pesquisa procura visibilizar e problematizar estas redes de socialização e de produção de sentido. O objeto de pesquisa são essas micro-redes sociais constituídas e lideradas por mulheres pentecostais. O método de pesquisa utilizado foi o da História Oral, o qual foi muito útil para compreender, através de depoimentos, como se formam as teias, tramas, interações e redes por onde flui a solidariedade entre as mulheres e a legitimação do poder que as próprias mulheres pentecostais alcançam e usufruem nessas micros-redes. Procurou-se deixar as mulheres falarem por si mesmas. Com a vez e a voz, as mulheres pentecostais!

Language and peace

This study seeks to demonstrate how critical discourse analysis can elucidate the relationship between language and peace. It provides a view on the notion of peace put forward by peace researchers, namely that peace includes not only the absence of war or physical violence, but also the absence of structural violence. Approaching the topic from various perspectives, the volume argues that language is a factor to be considered together with social and economic factors in any examination of the social conditions and institutions that prevent the achievement of a comprehensive peace. It illustrates a framework of concepts and methodologies that offer to help guide future linguistic research in this area, and also calls for foreign language, second language and peace educators to include critical linguistic education into their curricula and describes an approach for doing so.

Political corruption in the Caribbean Basin: A comparative analysis of Jamaica and Costa Rica

Political corruption in the Caribbean Basin retards state economic growth and development, undermines government legitimacy, and threatens state security. In spite of recent anti-corruption efforts of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations (IGO/NGOs), Caribbean political corruption problems appear to be worsening in the post-Cold War period. This dissertation discovers why IGO/NGO efforts to arrest corruption are failing by investigating the domestic and international causes of political corruption in the Caribbean. The dissertation's theoretical framework centers on an interdisciplinary model of the causes of political corruption built within the rule-oriented constructivist approach to social science. The model first employs a rational choice analysis that broadly explains the varying levels of political corruption found across the region. The constructivist theory of social rules is then used to develop the structural mechanisms that further explain the region's levels of political corruption. The dissertation advances its theory of the causes of political corruption through qualitative disciplined-configurative case studies of political corruption in Jamaica and Costa Rica. The dissertation finds that IGO/NGO sponsored anti-corruption programs are failing because they employ only technical measures (issuing anti-corruption laws and regulations, providing transparency in accounting procedures, improving freedom of the press, establishing electoral reforms, etc.). While these IGO/NGO technical measures are necessary, they are not sufficient to arrest the Caribbean's political corruption problems. This dissertation concludes that to be successful, IGO/NGO anti-corruption programs must also include social measures, e.g., building civil societies and modernizing political cultures, for there to be any hope of lowering political corruption levels and improving Caribbean social conditions. The dissertation also highlights the key role of Caribbean governing elite in constructing the political and economic structures that cause their states' political corruption problems. ^

Environment, culture, and medicinal plant knowledge in an indigenous Amazonian community

Diminishing cultural and biological diversity is a current global crisis. Tropical forests and indigenous peoples are adversely affected by social and environmental changes caused by global political and economic systems. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate environmental and livelihood challenges as well as medicinal plant knowledge in a Yagua village in the Peruvian Amazon. Indigenous peoples’ relationships with the environment is an important topic in environmental anthropology, and traditional botanical knowledge is an integral component of ethnobotany. Political ecology provides a useful theoretical perspective for understanding the economic and political dimensions of environmental and social conditions. This research utilized a variety of ethnographic, ethnobotanical, and community-involved methods. Findings include data and analyses about the community’s culture, subsistence and natural resource needs, organizations and institutions, and medicinal plant use. The conclusion discusses the case study in terms of the disciplinary framework and offers suggestions for research and application.