Considering the normative, systemic and procedural dimensions in indicator-based sustainability assessments in agriculture

This paper develops a framework for evaluating sustainability assessment methods by separately analyzing their normative, systemic and procedural dimensions as suggested by Wiek and Binder [Wiek, A, Binder, C. Solution spaces for decision-making – a sustainability assessment tool for city-regions. Environ Impact Asses Rev 2005, 25: 589-608.]. The framework is then used to characterize indicator-based sustainability assessment methods in agriculture. For a long time, sustainability assessment in agriculture has focused mostly on environmental and technical issues, thus neglecting the economic and, above all, the social aspects of sustainability, the multifunctionality of agriculture and the applicability of the results. In response to these shortcomings, several integrative sustainability assessment methods have been developed for the agricultural sector. This paper reviews seven of these that represent the diversity of tools developed in this area. The reviewed assessment methods can be categorized into three types: (i) top-down farm assessment methods; (ii) top-down regional assessment methods with some stakeholder participation; (iii) bottom-up, integrated participatory or transdisciplinary methods with stakeholder participation throughout the process. The results readily show the trade-offs encountered when selecting an assessment method. A clear, standardized, top-down procedure allows for potentially benchmarking and comparing results across regions and sites. However, this comes at the cost of system specificity. As the top-down methods often have low stakeholder involvement, the application and implementation of the results might be difficult. Our analysis suggests that to include the aspects mentioned above in agricultural sustainability assessment, the bottomup, integrated participatory or transdisciplinary methods are the most suitable ones.

Normative, systemic and procedural aspects: a review of indicator‐based sustainability assessments in agriculture

Several methods for assessing the sustainability of agricultural systems have been developed. These methods do not fully: (i) take into account the multi‐functionality of agriculture; (ii) include multidimensionality; (iii) utilize and implement the assessment knowledge; and (iv) identify conflicting goals and trade‐offs. This paper reviews seven recently developed multidisciplinary indicator‐based assessment methods with respect to their contribution to these shortcomings. All approaches include (1) normative aspects such as goal setting, (2) systemic aspects such as a specification of scale of analysis, (3) a reproducible structure of the approach. The approaches can be categorized into three typologies. The top‐down farm assessments focus on field or farm assessment. They have a clear procedure for measuring the indicators and assessing the sustainability of the system, which allows for benchmarking across farms. The degree of participation is low, potentially affecting the implementation of the results negatively. The top‐down regional assessment assesses the on‐farm and the regional effects. They include some participation to increase acceptance of the results. However, they miss the analysis of potential trade‐offs. The bottom‐up, integrated participatory or transdisciplinary approaches focus on a regional scale. Stakeholders are included throughout the whole process assuring the acceptance of the results and increasing the probability of implementation of developed measures. As they include the interaction between the indicators in their system representation, they allow for performing a trade‐off analysis. The bottom‐up, integrated participatory or transdisciplinary approaches seem to better overcome the four shortcomings mentioned above.

Women in art: the last taboo

The intention of this paper is to explore traditions and current trends in art with particular reference to the depiction of female experiences such as pregnancy, abortion, birth and motherhood. The inclusion and exclusion of such images in art history over time and across societies reflects prevailing attitudes, whilst affirming various stereotypical and gendered constructions developed and sustained within those societies. These constructions in turn relate to criteria defined by class, access to education and notions of femininity. Work by artists which feature aspects of these experiences (particularly childbirth), is considered taboo by many in a Western society which continues to render the essentially female experience as private, invisible and stigmitised and confuses the natural with the sexual. The work of undergraduate art students, inspired by the artwork of women artists who make explicit or are influenced by essentially female experiences, is discussed and attempts made to connect their work to the issues outlined.

Normative, systemic and procedural aspects: a review of indicator-based sustainability assessments in agriculture

Methods for assessing the sustainability of agricultural systems do often not fully (i) take into account the multifunctionality of agriculture, (ii) include multidimensionality, (iii) utilize and implement the assessment knowledge and (iv) identify conflicting goals and trade-offs. This chapter reviews seven recently developed multidisciplinary indicator-based assessment methods with respect to their contribution to these shortcomings. All approaches include (1) normative aspects such as goal setting, (2) systemic aspects such as a specification of scale of analysis and (3) a reproducible structure of the approach. The approaches can be categorized into three typologies: first, top-down farm assessments, which focus on field or farm assessment; second, top-down regional assessments, which assess the on-farm and the regional effects; and third, bottom-up, integrated participatory or transdisciplinary approaches, which focus on a regional scale. Our analysis shows that the bottom-up, integrated participatory or transdisciplinary approaches seem to better overcome the four shortcomings mentioned above.

How large is congressional dependence in agriculture. Bayesian inference about ‘scale’ and ‘scope’ in measuring a spatial externality

The political economy literature on agriculture emphasizes influence over political outcomes via lobbying conduits in general, political action committee contributions in particular and the pervasive view that political preferences with respect to agricultural issues are inherently geographic. In this context, ‘interdependence’ in Congressional vote behaviour manifests itself in two dimensions. One dimension is the intensity by which neighboring vote propensities influence one another and the second is the geographic extent of voter influence. We estimate these facets of dependence using data on a Congressional vote on the 2001 Farm Bill using routine Markov chain Monte Carlo procedures and Bayesian model averaging, in particular. In so doing, we develop a novel procedure to examine both the reliability and the consequences of different model representations for measuring both the ‘scale’ and the ‘scope’ of spatial (geographic) co-relations in voting behaviour.

The absent body: representations of dying early modern women in a selection of seventeenth-century diaries

This article seeks to explore the absence of the body in the depiction of dying women in a selection of seventeenth-century diaries. It considers the cultural forces that made this absence inevitable, and the means by which the physical body was replaced in death by a spiritual presence. The elevation of a dying woman from physical carer to spiritual nurturer in the days before death ensured that gender codes were not broken. The centrality of the body of the dying woman, within a female circle of care and support, was paradoxically juxtaposed with an effacement of the body in descriptions of a good death. In death, a woman might achieve the stillness, silence and compliance so essential to perfect early modern womanhood, and retrospective diary entries can achieve this ideal by replacing the body with images that deflect from the essential physicality of the woman.