Taking as Giving, Appropriation as Access: Transfers of Land Development Rights and China’s Recent Experiments

Economic development at both the domestic and global levels is associated with increasing tensions which are inextricably linked to the meaning and allocation of property rights, which has a great impact on appropriation of resources and may lead to different paths of development. “Taking”-- the appropriation of private land for public needs -- is a typical example that exhibits those tensions, posing a challenge to the conventional conception of property as individualistic and exclusive rights of possession, use, and disposition and to the associated neoliberal model of development. Should the individual landowner be left to bear the cost of a regulatory intervention which endures to the wider benefit of the whole community? How to mitigate the tensions between private ownership and public regulation? If we take the liberal concept of property, then private property seems to be in constant conflict with public interests and wider social concerns. Meanwhile, community, situating between the state and the individuals, and community’s relationship to development rights, have not provoked enough discussion. The paper explores the different ways land development rights might be seen both in Western, essentially common law systems, and in China, especially now and in view of two case studies. An empirical example in Wugang, China reveals the importance of integrating the “community lens” proposed by Roger Cotterrell into studies of the transfer of land development rights. Reading through the community lens, taking could be giving and appropriation could also be access. This approach provides a new perspective to re-evaluate the relationship between legal appropriation and development.

A qualitative enquiry into the appropriation of mobile telephony at the bottom of the pyramid

Purpose: The paper aims to analyse Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) customers’ (e.g. Bangladeshi farmers) use and appropriation of mobile telephony and to critically identify a suitable research strategy for such investigation.

Design/methodology/approach: Concentrated ethnographic immersion was combined with both methodological and investigator triangulation during a four-month period of fieldwork conducted in Bangladeshi villages to obtain more robust findings. Concentrated immersion was required to achieve relatively speedier engagement owing to the difficulty in engaging with respondents on a long-term basis.

Findings: The farmers’ use of mobile telephony went beyond the initial adoption, as they appropriated it through social and institutional support, inventive means and/or changes in their own lifestyle. The paper argues that technology appropriation, being a result of the mutual shaping of technology, human skills and abilities and macro-environmental factors, enables users to achieve desired outcomes which may not always be the ones envisaged by the original designers.

Research limitations/implications: The paper contributes to two major areas: first, it identifies technology appropriation as an important and emerging concept in international marketing research; second, it suggests a concentrated form of ethnographic engagement for studying technology appropriation in a developing country context.

Practical implications: A good understanding of the dynamic interplay between users’ skills and abilities, social contexts and technological artefacts/applications is required in order for businesses to serve BoP customers profitably.

Originality/value: The paper presents a dynamic model of technology appropriation based on findings collected through a pragmatic approach by combining concentrated ethnographic immersion with methodological and investigator triangulation

Updating Addison: Culture, Appropriation and The Connoisseur

This article explores The Connoisseur's combined engagement with its most important literary precursor and the society of its day. With its satire on the fashionable leisure culture of the mid-eighteenth century, Bonnell Thornton and George Colman's periodical, published from 1754 to 1756, followed self-consciously in the footsteps of Addison. Yet adopting the Addisonian model at mid-century was no straightforward task. Not only had the cultural landscape shifted during the forty years since The Spectator, but emulating this modern classic raised thorny issues regarding the originality and value of The Connoisseur itself. In appropriating the Addisonian essay, the challenge for Colman and Thornton was thus to update Addison: to adapt their model to changing times. This article examines how Colman and Thornton sought to validate their particular contribution to the polite periodical tradition, along with the difficulties they encountered in maintaining a Spectatorial detachment from the fashionable milieu that was their primary theme.

La transition de deux directions d'établissements scolaires vers l'appropriation des changements préconisés par la réforme en éducation de 1997

Cette thèse a pour but d'explorer, de décrire et de comprendre la période de transition que vivent les directions d'établissements scolaires au regard de leur appropriation des changements de structures et de culture préconisés par la réforme en éducation de 1997. Elle veut également observer l'impact de ces changements sur les rôles et les pratiques des directrices et des directeurs d'école. Cette recherche qualitative a été menée avec la collaboration de deux participants comptant plus de dix années d'expérience à la direction d'école, étant identifiés comme des leaders reconnus dans leur milieu, oeuvrant l'un au primaire, l'autre, au secondaire et provenant de commissions scolaires différentes. Les données recueillis [i.e. recueillies] auprès d'eux se partagent entre des entrevues semi-dirigées effectuées à des fréquences régulières et à des observations participantes réalisées dans le cadre de leurs activités professionnelles entre les mois de février et de novembre 1998. Une étude approfondie des changements apportés par la réforme en éducation, de l'évolution des rôles des directions d'école depuis les années soixante et un regard porté sur les nouvelles organisations ont nourri notre réflexion tout au long de notre démarche de recherche. L'analyse des données a été réalisée à l'aide de la méthode de théorisation ancrée et nous a conduit [i.e. conduits] à la modélisation du processus et des phases liées à la période de transition. Nous avons également élaboré une représentation des pouvoirs et des responsabilités de l'école tel [i.e. tels] que décrits dans la Loi de l'Instruction publique. Les dimensions éducative, administrative et politique identifiées s'inscrivent ensuite de façon dynamique dans les rôles des directions d'école. Donner du sens à l'école, être le gardien de la cohérence entre les intentions et les actions et veiller à la cohésion des partenaires deviennent leurs rôles majeurs. Les résultats de notre recherche nous démontrent qu'entre le changement souhaité et le changement réel existe un passage obligé: celui de la transition. Durant cette période, l'individu se consacre à deux aspects fondamentaux de son évolution à savoir, la quête de sens et la restructuration de son identité personnelle et professionnelle. Trois phases caractérisent ce passage: (1) le départ de la situation antérieure, (2) la traversée d'un entre-deux et (3) l'arrivée dans la nouvelle réalité. À travers le chaos où s'entremêlent les pertes, la confusion, le lâcher-prise émerge un processus de prise en charge, de créativité et de reconstruction. Cette recherche apporte une perspective nouvelle dans la gestion du changement. Elle met en lumière la transformation intérieure exigée de la part des individus impliqués dans le changement ainsi que l'apport essentiel et unique de chacun à sa concrétisation. Il ne suffit pas de décréter le changement, il faut accompagner les personnes dans la reconnaissance du sens qu'elles lui accordent et dans l'identification de leur contribution à sa réalisation. Les résultats de cette étude conduisent vers des pistes à être explorées par des chercheurs et par des formateurs pour soutenir adéquatement les intervenants du milieu scolaire dans la mise en oeuvre de cette réforme en éducation.

L'appropriation d'un dispositif hybride en formation pour adultes le cas du Campus numérique à l'ESSCA

This thesis focuses on the study of setting up a system of innovative distance learning and its appropriation by the involved actors. The researcher tries to understand or to explain the ownership of an innovative educational context, both from a technology and pedagogy, through the mobilization of the actors of the system, and specifically their dynamic capacities. The aim of this research is to clarify the components of such a mobilization, and develop an explanatory model that values the dynamic capacity of actors, and mainly their absorptive capacities. The research strategy is a process case study research: the appropriation by the actors of the ESSCA (École Supérieure des Faculté des sciences Commerciales d'Angers, France), and by the institution itself, of a training distance learning device. The study is located in a interpretative paradigm. Qualitative data were collected since the beginning of the process, ie since 2001. First, the analysis of the appropriation process reveals a pattern of conditions that will allow the recruitment of actors, and promote ownership. The results highlight the crucial role of a common language for all from a structured approach to translation, the need to promote collaboration operations, and given the fundamental motivation for both individual and institutional. Next, the analysis of the appropriation process highlights a procedural model of the absorptive capacity of the institution and its actors. To estimate the value of new knowledge, the actors will be based on prior knowledge from the external domain or from the institution. Feeding their motivation, they will acquire new knowledge to assimilate and transform in the laboratory and prototype stages. The project stage will see the capacity of actors to use this knowledge to generate new knowledge for transfer to other training programs.

Protection to farmers : speech of Hon. D. Wyatt Aiken, of South Carolina, in the House of Representatives, Tuesday, March 6, 1882, upon the Agricultural Appropriation Bill

This speech is about the Agricultural Appropriation Bill, which is a bill making appropriations for the Agricultural Department of the Government for the fiscal year ending in June 30,1883. Mr. Aiken is approved by the chairman to speak and he goes on to explain that he agrees with the majority of the bill with the exception of two or three clauses. He gives the reasoning behind his objections in the rest of the speech.

“Culture Stops Development!”: Bijagó Youth and the Appropriation of Developmentalist Discourse in Guinea-B

African Studies Review, Volume 52, Number 2, pp. 69–

Explicit versus implicit spelling strategy instruction and its effects on grade one children's invented spellings

The intent of this study was to investigate .the effectiveness of teaching thirty-five Grade One children a variety of effective spelling strategies in comparison to tradit~onal spelling instruction. Strategy instruction included training in phonology, imagery and analogy. In addition, the type of instruction pro~ided (implicit versus explicit) was also examined. Children were seen in small groups of four or five, for four, twenty-five minute sessions. All children were tested prior and immediately following the training sessions, as well as at 14-day follow-ups. Pretest and posttest measures included a dictated spelling test (based on words used in training), a developmental spelling test and a sample of each child's writing. In addition, children completed a metacognitive spelling test as a measure of their strategy awareness. Performance scores on the pretest and posttest measures were compared to determine if any differences existed between the three spelling instruction groups using the Dunn-Bonferroni and Dunnett procedures. Findings revealed that explicit strategy instruction was the most effective spelling program for improving Grade One children's invented spellings. Children who received this instruction were able to spell targeted words more accurately, even after a 14-day follow-up, and were able to recall more effective spelling strategies than children who received either implicit strategy instruction or traditional strategy instruction.

Improving grade eight students' spelling performance with a triad strategy approach

Thesis (M.Ed.)-- Brock University, 1996.

Spelling performance of third grade students : a comparison of whole-language-plus-strategy instruction, strategy instruction only, and the whole language approach

This study investigated three methods for teaching children how to spell. Third grade students were divided into three conditions for a one-week training period consisting of 15- to 20-minute lessons. One of the two experimental conditions used a whole language approach along with explicit strategy instruction. The second condition used strategy instruction within a traditional setting. The control used strictly a whole language approach to le~ing hO\\l to spell. The spelling perfonnance of all three conditions improved after the one-week training period. However, students in the strategy instruction groups did significantly better on the study "'7ords than the whole language only group. The students in whole-Ianguage-plusstrateg)! instruction outperformed both other groups. Significantly better spelling perfonnance was observed even at the nine-week posttest. This study frrst supported the hypothesis that children can make significantly greater improven1ents in their spelling when explicitly taught how to use spelling strategies. Secondl)', this study indicated that whole language provided a relevant context for the study words, clearly giving the students in the whole-Ianguage-plus-strategy condition an additional advantage.