Social and economic implications of the fishery distribution patterns on Lake Victoria, Uganda

The fisheries of Lake Victoria have undergonea dramatic transformation during the last two decades. From being a locally based fishery with little intervention and capital investment from outside,the present fishery is dominated by national and international capital penetrating the industry. It is explosion in the growth of nile perch and the strong demand devloped for this fishin the global markets, which have transformed the fisheries of the Lake victoria. This report presents the results of a survey carried out between October 2001 and February 2002 about the fishery distribution patterns and their impacts on fisher communities of Lake Victoria. The fisheries distribution pattern of the lake is described as well as the flows and benefits from the fisheries resource and the resource constraints and sustainability options. A major part of the paper discusses some of the socio-economic impacts of the rapid changes that are responsible for the present fisheries. It particularly focuses on the effect of the Nile perch boom, its globalization and the development of the fish industry in Uganda, on food security and employment for the local population.

The socio-economic and cultural structures of the fisherfolk communities

Fishing communities that have exploited the resource for generations constitute the main stakeholder groups in the fisheries of Lake Victoria. Several studies have examined Uganda's Lake Victoria fishing communities and characterised key stakeholders at community level over the last decade (SEDAWOG 1999a and b; Geheb 1997; FeSEP 1997; Kitakule 1991). The communities are made up of scattered settlements at the shores and on islands. The categories of people living in these communities include fishers who consist primarily of large numbers of male youths who provide labour to boat and gear owners. There are resident and non-resident fish traders who after securing their supplies at the beaches, depart for their market destinations. In addition, there are fish processors, mostly operating traditional and improved smoking kilns. Many other people, dealing in provisions and supplies also stay at the beaches, their activities depending on the level of fish catch. The fishing communities of Lake Victoria, Uganda, include auxiliary livelihood activities such as boat building, net repairing and transportation; bait supply and beachside kiosks, video halls and retail shop business. Other economic activities are brick making, charcoal burning/wood trade, farming and livestock keeping.

Social and gender analysis report: Barotse Floodplain, Western Province,Zambia

There is increasing awareness that integrating gender into development frameworks is critical for effective implementation of development strategies. In working to alleviate rural poverty, the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS) recognizes that “business as usual” gender integration approaches will not deliver lasting and widespread improvements in agricultural productivity, poverty reduction and food security. In response, AAS operationalized a gender transformative approach. The approach is informed by conceptual frameworks that explicitly recognize the potent influence of social relations on creating and perpetuating gender inequalities. In this way, AAS aims to address the underlying causes of rural poverty and gender inequality in Zambia’s Barotse Floodplain, where people rely extensively on riverine and wetland ecosystems for food and livelihood security. A central question guiding the research program is “How do social norms and gendered power relations influence agricultural development outcomes?” The findings presented in this report provide insights that help answer this question. The report presents a review of literature relevant to livelihoods, ecosystem services, and gender and social relations in Zambia, with a specific focus on Western Province, where AAS is currently implemented. It also presents a synthesis of findings of a social and gender analysis conducted in 2013 in 10 focal communities situated in and around the Barotse Floodplain.

Negative Effects of Relative Proximity and Absolute Geography on Open Innovation Practices in High-tech SMEs in the UK

© 2014 IEEE. This exploratory study addresses a gap in management literature by addressing the role of location in the continuously expanding field of open innovation research. In this context, we analyze potential negative effects of absolute geography and relative proximity on open innovation practices in high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the United Kingdom. Drawing upon cluster theory and business ecosystem literature, the analysis from three SME case studies in the East of England suggests that presumed 'favorable' location variables, such as close relative proximity between partners and the presence of economic clusters, can have certain negative effects on open innovation practices.

Social and ecological influences on dispersal and philopatry in the plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae)

Benefits and costs of dispersal and philopatry of the social plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae) were studied on the Tibetan plateau for 3 years. Although short-lived, plateau pikas live in cohesive family groups that occupy burrow systems in sedge meadow habitat Most (57.8%) plateau pikas were philopatric, and dispersal movements were extremely restricted. No juvenile females or adult pikas moved more than two family ranges between years; the greatest observed dispersal distances were by two juvenile males that moved five family ranges from the family of their birth. Traversing unfamiliar habitat was not a cost of pika dispersal because most dispersers settled in families that they could easily visit before dispersal. Dispersal movements appeared to result in equalization of density among pika families, an expected result if competition for environmental resources influenced dispersal. Males did not disperse to gain advantages in competition for mates, as evidenced by their moving to families with significantly fewer females. Females, however, moved to families with significantly more males. Males provide abundant paternal care, and significantly more offspring per female survived to become adults from families with more adult males per adult female. Evidence concerning the influence of inbreeding avoidance on natal dispersal was indirect. Some males exhibited natal philopatry; thus some families had opportunity for close inbreeding. Males and females that dispersed had no opposite-sex relatives in their new families. Philopatric pikas may have benefited by remaining in families that exhibited low local densities, and philopatric females might have benefited from social cooperation with relatives.

Taxi! Urban economies and the social and transport Impacts of the taxicab.

The taxicab provides a significant contribution to the accessibility of a city and provides a wide range of services across many social groups. Considering the role of the taxi this books examines the impacts that the mode currently has, and how it may continue to develop in the provision of access within the city.

Indian Architecture: Social and Political Challenges

The objective of this paper is to reassess the central factors which have shaped the Indian architecture. The author puts forward the concept of plurality introduced by Western art historians and argues that the diversity of the Indian architecture should not be explained in terms of religious differences, but in terms of the socio-economical situation in South Asia. He also elaborates on the Hindu caste system and its impact on the Indian architecture.

A Theological Challenge: Coordinating Biological, Social, and Religious Visions of Humanity

This paper attempts two tasks. First, it sketches how the natural sciences (including especially the biological sciences), the social sciences, and the scientific study of religion can be understood to furnish complementary, consonant perspectives on human beings and human groups. This suggests that it is possible to speak of a modern secular interpretation of humanity (MSIH) to which these perspectives contribute (though not without tensions). MSIH is not a comprehensive interpretation of human beings, if only because it adopts a posture of neutrality with regard to the reality of religious objects and the truth of theological claims about them. MSIH is certainly an impressively forceful interpretation, however, and it needs to be reckoned with by any perspective on human life that seeks to insert its truth claims into the arena of public debate. Second, the paper considers two challenges that MSIH poses to specifically theological interpretations of human beings. On the one hand, in spite of its posture of religious neutrality, MSIH is a key element in a class of wider, seemingly antireligious interpretations of humanity, including especially projectionist and illusionist critiques of religion. It is consonance with MSIH that makes these critiques such formidable competitors for traditional theological interpretations of human beings. On the other hand, and taking the religiously neutral posture of MSIH at face value, theological accounts of humanity that seek to coordinate the insights of MSIH with positive religious visions of human life must find ways to overcome or manage such dissonance as arises. The goal of synthesis is defended as important, and strategies for managing these challenges, especially in light of the pluralism of extant philosophical and theological interpretations of human beings, are advocated.

Genteel revolutionaries: the lives of Anna and Thomas Haslam

The lives of Thomas and Anna Haslam were dedicated to the attainment of women's equality. They were feminists before the word was coined. In an era when respectable women were not supposed to know of the existence of prostitutes, Anna became empowered to do the unthinkable, not only to speak in public but to discuss openly matters sexual and to attack the double standard of sexuality which was enshrined in the official treatment of prostitutes. Their life-long commitment to the cause of women's suffrage never faltered, despite the repeated discouragement of the fate of bills defeated in the House of Commons. The Haslams represented an Ireland which did not survive them. While they were dedicated to the union with Westminster, they worked happily with those who applied themselves to its destruction. Although in many ways they exemplified the virtues of their Quaker backgrounds, they did not subscribe to any organised religion. Despite living in straitened circumstances, they were part of an urban intellectual elite and participated in the social and cultural life of Dublin for over fifty years. It is tempting to speculate how the Haslams would have fared in post independence Ireland. Hanna Sheehy Skeffington who had impeccable nationalist credentials, was effectively marginalised. It is likely that they would have protested against discriminatory legislation in their usual law abiding manner but, in a country which quickly developed an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic ethos, would they have had a voice or a constituency? Ironically, Thomas's teaching on chastity would have found favour with the hierarchy; his message was disseminated in a simple and more pious manner in numerous Catholic Truth Society pamphlets. The Protestant minority never sought to subvert the institutions of the state, was careful not to criticise and kept its collective head down. Dáil Éireann was not bombarded with petitions for the restoration of divorce facilities or the unbanning of birth control. Those who sought such amenities obtained them quietly 'in another jurisdiction.' Fifty years were to pass before the condom wielding 'comely maidens' erupted on to the front pages of the Sunday papers. They were, one imagines, the spiritual descendants of the militant rather than the constitutional suffrage movement. "Once and for all we need to commit ourselves to the concept that women's rights are not factional or sectional privileges, bestowed on the few at the whim of the many. They are human rights. In a society in which the rights and potential of women are constrained no man can be truly free." These words spoken by Mary Robinson as President of Ireland are an echo of the principles to which the Haslams dedicated their lives and are, perhaps, a tribute to their efforts.

Inclusive education policy, the general allocation model and dilemmas of practice in primary schools

Background: Inclusive education is central to contemporary discourse internationally reflecting societies’ wider commitment to social inclusion. Education has witnessed transforming approaches that have created differing distributions of power, resource allocation and accountability. Multiple actors are being forced to consider changes to how key services and supports are organised. This research constitutes a case study situated within this broader social service dilemma of how to distribute finite resources equitably to meet individual need, while advancing inclusion. It focuses on the national directive with regard to inclusive educational practice for primary schools, Department of Education and Science Special Education Circular 02/05, which introduced the General Allocation Model (GAM) within the legislative context of the Education of Persons with Special Educational Needs (EPSEN) Act (Government of Ireland, 2004). This research could help to inform policy with ‘facts about what is happening on the ground’ (Quinn, 2013). Research Aims: The research set out to unearth the assumptions and definitions embedded within the policy document, to analyse how those who are at the coalface of policy, and who interface with multiple interests in primary schools, understand the GAM and respond to it, and to investigate its effects on students and their education. It examines student outcomes in the primary schools where the GAM was investigated. Methods and Sample The post-structural study acknowledges the importance of policy analysis which explicitly links the ‘bigger worlds’ of global and national policy contexts to the ‘smaller worlds’ of policies and practices within schools and classrooms. This study insists upon taking the detail seriously (Ozga, 1990). A mixed methods approach to data collection and analysis is applied. In order to secure the perspectives of key stakeholders, semi-structured interviews were conducted with primary school principals, class teachers and learning support/resource teachers (n=14) in three distinct mainstream, non-DEIS schools. Data from the schools and their environs provided a profile of students. The researcher then used the Pobal Maps Facility (available at www.pobal.ie) to identify the Small Area (SA) in which each student resides, and to assign values to each address based on the Pobal HP Deprivation Index (Haase and Pratschke, 2012). Analysis of the datasets, guided by the conceptual framework of the policy cycle (Ball, 1994), revealed a number of significant themes. Results: Data illustrate that the main model to support student need is withdrawal from the classroom under policy that espouses inclusion. Quantitative data, in particular, highlighted an association between segregated practice and lower socioeconomic status (LSES) backgrounds of students. Up to 83% of the students in special education programmes are from lower socio-economic status (LSES) backgrounds. In some schools 94% of students from LSES backgrounds are withdrawn from classrooms daily for special education. While the internal processes of schooling are not solely to blame for class inequalities, this study reveals the power of professionals to order children in school, which has implications for segregated special education practice. Such agency on the part of key actors in the context of practice relates to ‘local constructions of dis/ability’, which is influenced by teacher habitus (Bourdieu, 1984). The researcher contends that inclusive education has not resulted in positive outcomes for students from LSES backgrounds because it is built on faulty assumptions that focus on a psycho-medical perspective of dis/ability, that is, placement decisions do not consider the intersectionality of dis/ability with class or culture. This study argues that the student need for support is better understood as ‘home/school discontinuity’ not ‘disability’. Moreover, the study unearths the power of some parents to use social and cultural capital to ensure eligibility to enhanced resources. Therefore, a hierarchical system has developed in mainstream schools as a result of funding models to support need in inclusive settings. Furthermore, all schools in the study are ‘ordinary’ schools yet participants acknowledged that some schools are more ‘advantaged’, which may suggest that ‘ordinary’ schools serve to ‘bury class’ (Reay, 2010) as a key marker in allocating resources. The research suggests that general allocation models of funding to meet the needs of students demands a systematic approach grounded in reallocating funds from where they have less benefit to where they have more. The calculation of the composite Haase Value in respect of the student cohort in receipt of special education support adopted for this study could be usefully applied at a national level to ensure that the greatest level of support is targeted at greatest need. Conclusion: In summary, the study reveals that existing structures constrain and enable agents, whose interactions produce intended and unintended consequences. The study suggests that policy should be viewed as a continuous and evolving cycle (Ball, 1994) where actors in each of the social contexts have a shared responsibility in the evolution of education that is equitable, excellent and inclusive.

Embodied sexualities: Exploring accounts of Irish women's sexual knowledge and sexual experiences, 1920-1970

This chapter explores the ways in which sexuality has been understood, embodied and negotiated by a cohort of Irish women through their lives. It is based on qualitative data generated as part of an oral history project on Irish women’s experiences of sexuality and reproduction during the period 1920–1970.1 The interviews, which were conducted with 21 Irish women born between 1914 and 1955, illustrate that social and cultural discourses of sexuality as secretive, dangerous, dutiful and sinful were central to these women’s interpretative repertoires around sexuality and gender. However, the data also contains accounts of behaviours, experiences and feelings that challenged or resisted prevailing scripts of sexuality and gender. Drawing on feminist conceptualisations of sexuality and embodiment (Holland et al., 1994; Jackson and Scott, 2010), this chapter demonstrates that the women’s sexual subjectivities were forged in the tensions that existed between normative sexual scripts and their embodied experiences of sexual desires and sexual and reproductive practices. While recollections of sexual desire and pleasure did feature in the accounts of some of the women, it was the difficulties experienced around sexuality and reproduction that were spoken about in greatest detail. What emerges clearly from the data is the confusion, anxiety and pain occasioned by the negotiation of external demands and internal desires and the contested, unstable nature of both cultural power and female resistance.

Remembrance of the ancestors in contemporary paganism: Lineage, identity, and cultural belonging in the Irish context

This article explores some of the ways of remembering and honouring the ancestors in contemporary Pagan religious traditions, with a focus on the Irish context. An overview is provided of how the "ancestors" are conceptualised within Paganism, as well as where they are believed to be located in the afterlife or Otherworld. Veneration of ancestral peoples is a significant part of many Pagan rituals. Some methods of honouring the dead, and contacting the dead, through ritual practices are described. Remembering and honouring the dead, whether distant forebears or more recent relatives, is particularly important during the Pagan celebration of the festival of Samhain, feast of the dead, on October 31. Issues around ancestors, lineages and ethnicity are significant in many Pagan traditions, and attention is paid to these factors in terms of the Irish Pagan community's sense of cultural belonging as well as their sense of place in a physical respect in relation to the landscape, proximity of sacred sites, and other features of their geographical location.

El problema social y cultural de la población sorda en el aprendizaje de las matemáticas se minimiza con la intervención del profesor

Este artículo tiene como objeto de investigación el aprendizaje y como objeto matemático el concepto de función con estudiantes sordos de educación básica y media, con el propósito de mostrar cómo el problema social y cultural que tiene esta población para el aprendizaje de las matemáticas puede ser minimizado mediante la intervención del profesor, a partir de secuencias didácticas de enseñanza y la asistencia de un entorno informático. Para ello, se ha utilizado como marco teórico las situaciones didácticas de Brousseau y los registros de representación semiótica de Duval, y como metodología la Ingeniería didáctica.