Constructing and negotiating entrepreneurial agency : A social psychological approach to entrepreneurship discourse in the farm context

Entrepreneurship, understood as the autonomous, effective pursuit of opportunities regardless of resources, is currently subject to a multitude of interests, expectations, and facilitation efforts. On the one hand, such entrepreneurial agency has broad appeal to individuals in Western market democracies and resonates with their longing for an autonomous, personally tailored, meaningful, and materially rewarding way of life. On the other hand, entrepreneurship represents a tempting and increasingly popular means of governance and policy making, and thus a model for the re-organization of a variety of societal sectors. This study focuses on the diffusion and reception of entrepreneurship discourse in the context of farming and agriculture, where pressures to adopt entrepreneurial orientations have been increasingly pronounced while, on the other hand, the context of farming has historically enjoyed state protection and adhered to principles that seem at odds with aspects of individualistic entrepreneurship discourse . The study presents an interpretation of the psychologically and politically appealing uses of the notion of entrepreneurial agency , reviews the historical and political background of the current situation of farming and agriculture with regard to entrepreneurship, and examines their relationships in four empirical studies. The study follows and develops a social psychological, situated relational approach that guides the qualitative analyses and interpretations of the empirical studies. Interviews with agents from the farm sector aim to stimulate evaluative responses and comments on the idea of entrepreneurship on farms. Analysis of the interview talk, in turn, detects the variety of evaluative responses and argumentative contexts with which the interviewees relate themselves to the entrepreneurship discourse and adopt, use, resist, or reject it. The study shows that despite the pressures towards entrepreneurialism, the diffusion of entrepreneurship discourse and the construction of entrepreneurial agency in farm context encounter many obstacles. These obstacles can be variably related to aspects dealing with the individual agent, the action situation, the characteristics of the action itself, or to the broader social, institutional and cultural context. Many aspects of entrepreneurial agency, such as autonomy, personal initiative and achievement orientation, are nevertheless familiar to farmers and are eagerly related to one s own farming activities. The idea of entrepreneurship is thus rarely rejected outright. The findings highlight the relational and situational preconditions for the construction of entrepreneurial agency in the farm context: When agents demonstrate entrepreneurial agency, they do so by drawing on available and accessed relational resources characteristic of their action context. Likewise, when agents fail or are reluctant to demonstrate entrepreneurial agency, they nevertheless actively account for their situation and demonstrate personal agency by drawing on the relational resources available to them.

From ‘Afflicted’ to Activists: Structural Violence and Climate Change Discourse in the States of Pernambuco and Paraíba in Northeast Brazil

This study approaches the problem of poverty in the hinterlands of Northeast Brazil through the concept of structural violence, linking the environmental threats posed by climate change, especially those related to droughts, to the broader social struggles in the region. When discussions about potentials and rights are incorporated into the problematic of poverty, a deeper insight is obtained regarding the various factors behind the phenomenon. It is generally believed that climate change is affecting the already marginalized and poor more than those of higher social standing, and will increasingly do so in the future. The data for this study was collected during a three month field work in the states of Pernambuco and Paraíba in Northeast Brazil. The main methods used were semi-structured interviews and participant observation, including attending seminars concerning climate change on the field. The focus of the work is to compare both layman and expert perceptions on what climate change is about, and question the assumptions about its effects in the future, mainly that of increased numbers of ‘climate refugees’ or people forced to migrate due to changes in climate. The focus on droughts, as opposed to other manifestations of climate change, arises from the fact that droughts are not only phenomena that develop over a longer time span than floods or hurricanes, but is also due to the historical persistence of droughts in the region, and both the institutional and cultural linkages that have evolved around it. The instances of structural violence that are highlighted in this study; the drought industry, land use, and the social and power relations present in the region, including those between the civil society, the state and the private agribusiness sector, all work against a backdrop of symbolic and moral realms of value production, where relations between the different actors are being negotiated anew with the rise of the climate change discourse. The main theoretical framework of the study consists of Johan Galtung’s and Paul Farmer’s theory of structural violence, Ulrich Beck’s theory of the risk society, and James Scott’s theory of everyday peasant resistance.

Segregating Discourse Segments from Engineering Documents for Knowledge Acquisition

The broader goal of the research being described here is to automatically acquire diagnostic knowledge from documents in the domain of manual and mechanical assembly of aircraft structures. These documents are treated as a discourse used by experts to communicate with others. It therefore becomes possible to use discourse analysis to enable machine understanding of the text. The research challenge addressed in the paper is to identify documents or sections of documents that are potential sources of knowledge. In a subsequent step, domain knowledge will be extracted from these segments. The segmentation task requires partitioning the document into relevant segments and understanding the context of each segment. In discourse analysis, the division of a discourse into various segments is achieved through certain indicative clauses called cue phrases that indicate changes in the discourse context. However, in formal documents such language may not be used. Hence the use of a domain specific ontology and an assembly process model is proposed to segregate chunks of the text based on a local context. Elements of the ontology/model, and their related terms serve as indicators of current context for a segment and changes in context between segments. Local contexts are aggregated for increasingly larger segments to identify if the document (or portions of it) pertains to the topic of interest, namely, assembly. Knowledge acquired through such processes enables acquisition and reuse of knowledge during any part of the lifecycle of a product.

La aventura del barco encantado y nuevas notas sobre las escrituras del viaje en el Quijote

Integran este número de la revista ponencias presentadas en Studia Hispanica Medievalia VIII: Actas de las IX Jornadas Internacionales de Literatura Española Medieval, 2008, y de Homenaje al Quinto Centenario de Amadis de Gaula.

La excéntrica centralidad de las materias artúrica y caballeresca en la narrativa gallega y catalana de la década de 1950 (Merlín e familia de Cunqueiro y Llibre cavalleries de Perucho)

Integran este número de la revista ponencias presentadas en Studia Hispanica Medievalia VIII: Actas de las IX Jornadas Internacionales de Literatura Española Medieval, 2008, y de Homenaje al Quinto Centenario de Amadis de Gaula

Translatio materiae : adopción de formas y géneros latinos en las colecciones hispánicas de milagros marianos

Resumen: Un tipo de literatura latina no narrativa, asimilable más bien al discurso doctrinal teológico y mariológico y, por otro lado, a la himnodia litúrgica, deja entrever su influencia en las colecciones ibéricas de milagros marianos en verso del siglo XIII, las Cantigas de Santa María de Alfonso X y los Milagros de Nuestra Señora de Gonzalo de Berceo. Las muy escasas menciones a fuentes en las Cantigas de Santa María no invalidan la evidencia de múltiples “citas” reconocibles. Así, por ejemplo, es posible encontrar himnos y antífonas explícitamente citados (Te Deum laudamus, Salve Regina, Ave Maris Stella, además de glosas al Ave María) y, más allá de estos, se perciben otros modos de inserción de la lírica himnódica en la narración de los milagros. Se propone, entonces, iluminar estos loci donde parece haber un texto aludido o “escondido”, para considerar sus diversos modos de traducción, adopción y reelaboración.

Espacialización del sujeto poético en Bayart (1995) de Pascalle Monnier

Integran este número de la revista ponencias presentadas en Studia Hispanica Medievalia VIII: Actas de las IX Jornadas Internacionales de Literatura Española Medieval, 2008, y de Homenaje al Quinto Centenario de Amadis de Gaula

Pertsonaia protagonista femeninoen ezaugarriak eta bilakaera euskal narratiba garaikidean

361 p.

Amatasunaren gaineko diskurtsoak euskal eleberrigintza garaikidean

[EUS] Artikulu honetan, bi alde aski diferenteak aztertu nahiko genituzke amatasunaren inguruko diskurtsoetan. Batetik, lehen partean, datu soziologikoak eskuan, aztertu nahi ditugu, 1979-2009 bitartean, amatasunak izan dituen gorabeherak. Beraz, datu soziologikoak buruan, literatur testuak aztertu ditugu bigarren atalean. Artikulu hau garatzeko orduan, protagonista ugalkortasun garaian dauden emakumeak dituzten literatur lanen hautua eginda batik bat.

On Mice and Men and De ratones y hombres: Cultural transfer of substandars characters from literary discourse to film discourse

Eguíluz, Federico; Merino, Raquel; Olsen, Vickie; Pajares, Eterio; Santamaría, José Miguel (eds.)

Tipperary, by Frank Delaney: a reading of the rewriting of history of Ireland

O objetivo da presente pesquisa é o de discutir a reescrita da história da Irlanda, mais especificamente aspectos relacionados à construção da identidade nacional e de marcas da tradição, a partir da leitura do romance Tipperary, de Frank Delaney. Publicada em 2007, essa obra aborda de forma singular as querelas sobre identidade nacional, nacionalismo, passado, memória, e seus personagens principais e a trama estão significativamente ligados ao contexto político-social da história da Irlanda. Nessa reconstrução da história, o passado é revisitado através de diferentes pontos de vista. Nossa atenção estará voltada para a seleção de elementos/momentos da história do país que ganham foco na narrativa, e as possíveis repercussões deste processo. Além disso, nos concentraremos na questão das tênues fronteiras entre história e ficção, ou seja, as fronteiras pouco delimitadas entre o discurso histórico e o discurso ficcional. Na escrita da história em Tipperary, Delaney aborda questões relativas a mitos, lendas e tradições como importantes fatores de identidade nacional em uma Irlanda que emerge como uma nação independente. No romance em questão, podemos observar como história e memória se unem na jornada do protagonista, em sua empreitada de narrar a história de sua vida e de seu país

Na sala de espelhos a questão da identidade autoral a partir da figura do duplo em Budapeste e Vom Dorf

A problemática da autoria tem ganhado uma nova roupagem na contemporaneidade. Não se pode mais reconhecer o poder e a influência que o autor outrora exercia sobre suas produções artísticas, pois a sua identidade como tal se confunde com a da "pessoa real". Essa questão da identidade autoral será discutida e problematizada através da figura do duplo. O tema do duplo, tão caro à história da literatura será então empregado como elemento desconstrutor da figura do autor. Esse deixará de ser aquele que carrega consigo uma série de expectativas e juízos de valor com relação ao conjunto de suas produções, dando lugar ao um outro - o duplo -, estranho ao leitor. Assim, cabe a questão do que restará quando a marca do autor for esvaziada, quantas serão as vozes que abrirão caminho ao discurso narrativo e o que irá caracterizar a figura do autor contemporâneo. São estas as questões que impulsionaram a redação da presente dissertação. Neste trabalho será analisada a questão da autoria e da identidade a partir da figura do duplo em dois romances contemporâneos, a saber: Budapeste de Chico Buarque de Hollanda e Vom Dorf de Antje Rávic Strubel. A escolha de um romance brasileiro e de outro alemão visa explicitar que a problemática da autoria é uma questão atual e que encontra expressão em diferentes contextos literários, como o alemão e o brasileiro. A questão é complexa e encontra desdobramentos nas novas formas de comunicação e tem relação direta com o processo de globalização. Iremos fazer um recorte transversal abordando a história do desenvolvimento do duplo na literatura, suas origens, os romances nos quais se manifestam suas diferentes expressões. Em seguida adentraremos o terreno movediço da problemática da identidade sempre tendo como foco a visão diacrônica da questão e em por fim apresentaremos a constituição histórica da figura do autor e suas implicações para a crítica literária. Num outro momento verificaremos como esses elementos são expressos nos romances em questão