Community-based climate change adaptation strategies for integrated prawn-fish-rice farming in Bangladesh to promote social-ecological resilience

Farming freshwater prawns with fish in rice fields is widespread in coastal regions of southwest Bangladesh because of favourable resources and ecological conditions. This article provides an overview of an ecosystem-based approach to integrated prawn-fish-rice farming in southwest Bangladesh. The practice of prawn and fish farming in rice fields is a form of integrated aquaculture-agriculture, which provides a wide range of social, economic and environmental benefits. Integrated prawn-fish-rice farming plays an important role in the economy of Bangladesh, earning foreign exchange and increasing food production. However, this unique farming system in coastal Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to climatechange. We suggest that community-based adaptation strategies must be developed to cope with the challenges. We propose that integrated prawn-fish-rice farming could be relocated from the coastal region to less vulnerable upland areas, but caution that this will require appropriate adaptation strategies and an enabling institutional environment.

Nationalised large-scale mining, trade unions and community representation: perspectives from Northern Madagascar

This article critically explores the nature and purpose of relationships and inter-dependencies between stakeholders in the context of a parastatal chromite mining company in the Betsiboka Region of Northern Madagascar. An examination of the institutional arrangements at the interface between the mining company and local communities identified power hierarchies and dependencies in the context of a dominant paternalistic environment. The interactions, inter alia, limited social cohesion and intensified the fragility and weakness of community representation, which was further influenced by ethnic hierarchies between the varied community groups; namely, indigenous communities and migrants to the area from different ethnic groups. Moreover, dependencies and nepotism, which may exist at all institutional levels, can create civil society stakeholder representatives who are unrepresentative of the society they are intended to represent. Similarly, a lack of horizontal and vertical trust and reciprocity inherent in Malagasy society engenders a culture of low expectations regarding transparency and accountability, which further catalyses a cycle of nepotism and elite rent-seeking behaviour. On the other hand, leaders retain power with minimal vertical delegation or decentralisation of authority among levels of government and limit opportunities to benefit the elite, perpetuating rent-seeking behaviour within the privileged minority. Within the union movement, pluralism and the associated politicisation of individual unions restricts solidarity, which impacts on the movement’s capacity to act as a cohesive body of opinion and opposition. Nevertheless, the unions’ drive to improve their social capital has increased expectations of transparency and accountability, resulting in demands for greater engagement in decision-making processes.

Strong armies, slow adaptation: civil-military relations and diffusion of military power

Why are some states more willing to adopt military innovations than others? Why, for example, were the great powers of Europe able to successfully reform their military practices to better adapt to and participate in the so-called military revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries while their most important extra-European competitor, the Ottoman Empire, failed to do so? This puzzle is best explained by two factors: civil-military relations and historical timing. In the Ottoman Empire, the emergence of an institutionally strong and internally cohesive army during the early stages of state formation—in the late fourteenth century—equipped the military with substantial bargaining powers. In contrast, the great powers of Europe drew heavily on private providers of military power during the military revolution and developed similar armies only by the second half of the seventeenth century, limiting the bargaining leverage of European militaries over their rulers. In essence, the Ottoman standing army was able to block reform efforts that it believed challenged its parochial interests. Absent a similar institutional challenge, European rulers initiated military reforms and motivated officers and military entrepreneurs to participate in the ongoing military revolution.

Community perceptions of four protected areas in the Northern portion of the Cerrado hotspot, Brazil

Establishing effective networks of protected areas (PAS) is one of the major goals of conservation strategies worldwide. However, the success of PAS in promoting biodiversity conservation depends on their integration to local and regional contexts, reducing and mitigating human impacts originating from buffer zones. Community perceptions affect interactions between residents and PAS, and thereby conservation effectiveness. Research at Tocantins state (northern Brazilian Cerrado), aimed to analyse local community perceptions of four PAs, discussing how different factors may influence these. Perceptions were assessed through standardized interviews applied to PA employees and 275 local inhabitants. There was modest community participation in PA establishment and management. Residents were aware of the PAS` existence, but were unfamiliar with their goals. Length of residency and occupation of inhabitants influenced their PA perceptions, shaping different people-park relations in each of the four studied PAs. Involvement of local residents in PA planning and management represents a central strategy to strengthen local support for PAS over the long term. In those areas that still have settlements inside their boundaries, community relocation should follow a careful participatory process to avoid significant changes in local perceptions and attitudes towards these PAS, crucial for conserving Brazilian biodiversity.

Models of Community Investment and Partnership Strategies and Processes for Ensuring Mutual Benefit between Institution and Community

Institutions continue to face increasing pressure from faculty, students, and other concerned constituents to divest endowment holdings from perceived social injustices. In this report, investment officers and advisory committee members offer insight into institutional practices used to respond to these concerns through the adoption of socially responsible investment policies and other socially responsible investment options. Contacts offer recommendations on balancing the administration’s fiduciary responsibility to ensure maximum endowment returns with the social concerns of institutional constituents.

Escola pública e comunidade : relações em d'obras

Apresentamos neste trabalho um estudo sobre a processualidade das relações da escola pública com a comunidade, enfocando os agenciamentos que operam na constituição de diferentes modos de relação em uma instituição situada na região metropolitana de Porto Alegre. Sob os referenciais de Gilles Deleuze e Félix Guattari, procuramos pensar as relações como acontecimentos, efeitos de sentidos, agenciados coletivamente por instâncias heterogêneas que compõem o real social. Nosso problema se inscreve no âmbito do discurso e da subjetividade, partindo da hipótese de que é possível pensar as relações nas instituições, para além das representações individuais, para além das relações interpessoais, para além do pressuposto da reprodução social. Procuramos articular conhecimentos da Análise de Discurso na vertente Francesa com as discussões empreendidas por Deleuze e Guattari sobre uma Filosofia da Linguagem e uma Teoria da Subjetividade. Utilizamos o recurso cartográfico proposto por estes autores, trabalhando com os discursos produzidos no encontro da escola com a comunidade. Para tal acompanhamos as atividades de uma escola durante um ano, realizando entrevistas, observações, leitura de documentos, participando de reuniões e encontros festivos. Encontramos em nosso estudo algumas dobras das relações da escola com a comunidade, dobras que nos falam da sua complexidade, a qual temos deixado escapar, ao entendermos as relações, marcados pelo modo-indivíduo de subjetivação, que ganhou força desde a modernidade. Nossa cartografia registrou várias dobras, algumas um pouco mais intensas, como a dobra burocrática, a qual impede que outras forças possam ser potencializadas na escola. Procuramos aqui construir um modo de pensar as relações nas instituições, um pensar nas dobras, para regar um pouco o campo da Análise Institucional no âmbito da Psicologia e da Educação.

Nervos: rede de discursos e práticas de cuidado na atenção básica no município de Natal/RN

The Primary Health Care and one of its main strategies, the Family Health Strategy (ESF), are framed as the gateway to the Public Health System (SUS). Thus, most of the incident and prevalent health problems in the population attended should be solved at this level of care, including psychological suffering, and the so-called complaint of nerves. Nerves and nervous denote a complexity that is not always well comprehended by health workers, in such a way that the care to this kind of problem is usually inadequate. In this line of thought, the general objective of this study is to analyze the network of discourses and the care to the psychological suffering, expressed as nerves, in SUS daily Primary Health Care. Besides and more specifically, it aims at identifying the principles and guidelines of the Primary Health Care in mental health; to investigate health workers positioning before psychological suffering and complaints of nerves, and also analyze different actions and practices of care carried out in different Health Units towards complaints like nerves. Institutional Ethnography was the theoreticalmethodological perspective adopted for the work. This approach seeks to understand and analyze the institutional relationships in a particular context considering sociostructural influences and power relations, as well as daily discourses and practices. Based on interviews with health professionals, informal conversations and observations in six Health Units with ESF teams from different sanitary districts in Natal/RN, it was possible to check that the index of complaint of nerves is high. The referral to psychologists and psychiatrists, as well as the prescription of psychotropic drugs appear as the most common intervention at this level of care. In general, the participants complain that they have poor specialized knowledge about the theme of mental health. They face the problem of bad work conditions and the lack of institutional support, which make actions of illnesses prevention and health promotion even more difficult. Besides, there are different ongoing practices such as meetings for hypertensive and aged people, walk, visit, round-table discussions and community therapy. However, not all of these actions are aimed at the care of psychological suffering. It is observed that the Matrix Support, which is a methodological strategy of supervision and follow up forcases of mental health, hasn t been totally implemented in the municipal system, although it is a tool that has been used by psychologists in some Health Units in the city. It was also verified that the health care practices to the problem of nerves strongly depend on the professional s commitment with the PSF guidelines and on mental health policies, in addition to continued support, when available, from other professional who works as matrix supporter

Território e ambiente institutional: O arranjo produtivo local (APL) bordados de Ibitinga-SP

This study shows the importance of the institutional environment in which the local productive arrangements are entered. It shows that the specifics of each case are historical knowledge fundamental to the studies of APLs. It also shows that in areas of traditional sectors with intensive use of labor, low innovative capacity and low barriers to entry, relations that historically will be developing between firms, workers and market can be considered strong constraints of the trajectory of success or failure. The case study is a set of companies producing textiles and confecciones (products of bed, table and bath) located in the municipality of Ibitinga-SP, of great importance in the region, the high generation of employment and income. It is the study of a particular case in the context of studies on local productive arrangements (APLs), because it serves to highlight the importance of the institutional environment as a prerequisite to overcome the difficulties and consolidation of APLs.

Sustainable development: changing production patterns, social equity and the environment

Includes bibliography

Forum for East Asia-Latin America Cooperation (FEALAC): new biregional trade and investment relations in a changing world economic environment$c

Includes bibliography

Economic relations between Latin America and the high-performing Asian developing economies

Includes bibliography

Building community social capital

Includes bibliography

The relations between different levels of government in Argentina

Includes bibliography

Institutional elements of a new diplomacy for development: notes for a book of memoirs

Examina las caracteristicas principales de la nueva diplomacia para el desarrollo, originada a partir de la primera reunion de la UNCTAD, y su evolucion hasta la actual situacion de estancamiento derivada de la existencia de un fuerte conflicto de interes entre los paises desarrollados y en desarrollo, agravada por un conjunto de problemas institucionales. Subraya la necesidad de romper el presente estancamiento en el dialogo Norte-Sur y sugiere algunas medidas encaminadas a lograrlo.