Ethnosciences - A step towards the integration of scientific and non-scientific forms of knowledge in the management of natural resources for the future

Integration of indigenous knowledge and ethnoscientific approaches into contemporary frameworks for conservation and sustainable management of natural resources will become increasingly important in policies on an international and national level. We set the scene on how this can be done by exploring the key conditions and dimensions of a dialogue between ‘ontologies’ and the roles, which ethnosciences could play in this process. First, the roles which ethnosciences in the context of sustainable development were analysed, placing emphasis on the implications arising when western sciences aspire to relate to indigenous forms of knowledge. Secondly, the contributions of ethnosciences to such an ‘inter-ontological dialogue’ were explored, based on an ethnoecological study of the encounter of sciences and indigenous knowledge in the Andes of Bolivia, and reviewed experiences from mangrove systems in Kenya, India and Sri Lanka, and from case-studies in other ecosystems world-wide.

Transformation of local medicinal knowledge in the Andean Highlands: Case studies from Peru and Bolivia

In the Andean highlands, indigenous environmental knowledge is currently undergoing major changes as a result of various external and internal factors. As in other parts of the world, an overall process of erosion of local knowledge can be observed. In response to this trend, some initiatives that adopt a biocultural approach aim at actively strengthening local identities and revalorizing indigenous environmental knowledge and practices, assuming that such practices can contribute to more sustainable management of biodiversity. However, these initiatives usually lack a sound research basis, as few studies have focused on the dynamics of indigenous environmental knowledge in the Andes and on its links with biodiversity management. Against this background, the general objective of this research project was to contribute to the understanding of the dynamics of indigenous environmental knowledge in the Andean highlands of Peru and Bolivia by investigating how local medicinal knowledge is socially differentiated within rural communities, how it is transformed, and which external and internal factors influence these transformation processes. The project adopted an actor-oriented perspective and emphasized the concept of knowledge dialogue by analyzing the integration of traditional and formal medicinal systems within family therapeutic strategies. It also aimed at grasping some of the links between the dynamics of medicinal knowledge and the types of land use systems and biodiversity management. Research was conducted in two case study areas of the Andes, both Quechua-speaking and situated in comparable agro-ecological production belts - Pitumarca District, Department of Cusco (Southern Peruvian Highlands) and the Tunari National Park, Department of Cochabamba (Bolivian inner-Andean valleys). In each case study area, the land use systems and strategies of 18 families from two rural communities, their environmental knowledge related to medicine and to the local therapeutic flora, and an appreciation of the dynamics of this knowledge were assessed. Data were collected through a combination of disciplinary and participatory action-research methods. It was mostly analyzed using qualitative methods, though some quantitative ethnobotanical methods were also used. In both case studies, traditional medicine still constitutes the preferred option for the families interviewed, independently of their age, education level, economic status, religion, or migration status. Surprisingly and contrary to general assertions among local NGOs and researchers, results show that there is a revival of Andean medicine within the younger generation, who have greater knowledge of medicinal plants than the previous one, value this knowledge as an important element of their way of life and relationship with “Mother Earth” (Pachamama), and, at least in the Bolivian case, prefer to consult the traditional healer rather than go to the health post. Migration to the urban centres and the Amazon lowlands, commonly thought to be an important factor of local medicinal knowledge loss, only affects people’s knowledge in the case of families who migrate over half of the year or permanently. Migration does not influence the knowledge of medicinal plants or the therapeutic strategies of families who migrate temporarily for shorter periods of time. Finally, economic status influences neither the status of people’s medicinal knowledge, nor families’ therapeutic strategies, even though the financial factor is often mentioned by practitioners and local people as the main reason for not using the formal health system. The influence of the formal health system on traditional medicinal knowledge varies in each case study area. In the Bolivian case, where it was only introduced in the 1990s and access to it is still very limited, the main impact was to give local communities access to contraceptive methods and to vaccination. In the Peruvian case, the formal system had a much greater impact on families’ health practices, due to local and national policies that, for instance, practically prohibit some traditional practices such as home birth. But in both cases, biomedicine is not considered capable of responding to cultural illnesses such as “fear” (susto), “bad air” (malviento), or “anger” (colerina). As a consequence, Andean farmers integrate the traditional medicinal system and the formal one within their multiple therapeutic strategies, reflecting an inter-ontological dialogue between different conceptions of health and illness. These findings reflect a more general trend in the Andes, where indigenous communities are currently actively revalorizing their knowledge and taking up traditional practices, thus strengthening their indigenous collective identities in a process of cultural resistance.

Privacy Policies and Users’ Trust: Does Readability Matter?

Over the years, a drastic increase in online information disclosure spurs a wave of concerns from multiple stakeholders. Among others, users resent the “behind the closed doors” processing of their personal data by companies. Privacy policies are supposed to inform users how their personal information is handled by a website. However, several studies have shown that users rarely read privacy policies for various reasons, not least because limitedly readable policy texts are difficult to understand. Based on our online survey with over 440 responses, we examine the objective and subjective readability of privacy policies and investigate their impact on users’ trust in five big Internet services. Our findings show the stronger a user believes in having understood the privacy policy, the higher he or she trusts a web site across all companies we studied. Our results call for making readability of privacy policies more accessible to an average reader.

Family diversity in social exclusion situations. Results and reflections on research, teaching and knowledge transfer activities

The purpose of this paper is to characterize the configurations of the families that live in contexts of social exclusion; provide conceptualizations of their operation mode; highlight the formative effects that neighborhood interdisciplinary practices with such families produce in the just graduated psychologists, included on the Extension Program. We wish to contribute to produce systematic knowledge that can account for such family configurations as potential receiver of integration policies. We are also interested on transferring the approach to diversity in the training of young professionals, in order not to be regarded as a deviation from ideal models, but as an expression of different strategies built by members of a community, to resolve children breeding and to bear their existences. This work is the result about reflections on productions inside a research fellowship: The complexities that takes the breeding in families who lives in a social exclusion situation; researches about breeding, carried out from signature Developmental Psychology II, and from de interdisciplinary work with psychologically assisted families in twelve suburbs of the city of La Plata (University Extension Program "Free Legal Offices" (Convention between Law and Social Sciences and Psychology Faculties, U.N.L.P.). From a qualitative methodology and an interdisciplinary participation, the results have arrive at the characterization and proposed conceptualizations of the included families and at the same time determine the benefits that brings with the work that articulates research and extension activities for the training of advanced students and young graduates.

Family diversity in social exclusion situations. Results and reflections on research, teaching and knowledge transfer activities

The purpose of this paper is to characterize the configurations of the families that live in contexts of social exclusion; provide conceptualizations of their operation mode; highlight the formative effects that neighborhood interdisciplinary practices with such families produce in the just graduated psychologists, included on the Extension Program. We wish to contribute to produce systematic knowledge that can account for such family configurations as potential receiver of integration policies. We are also interested on transferring the approach to diversity in the training of young professionals, in order not to be regarded as a deviation from ideal models, but as an expression of different strategies built by members of a community, to resolve children breeding and to bear their existences. This work is the result about reflections on productions inside a research fellowship: The complexities that takes the breeding in families who lives in a social exclusion situation; researches about breeding, carried out from signature Developmental Psychology II, and from de interdisciplinary work with psychologically assisted families in twelve suburbs of the city of La Plata (University Extension Program "Free Legal Offices" (Convention between Law and Social Sciences and Psychology Faculties, U.N.L.P.). From a qualitative methodology and an interdisciplinary participation, the results have arrive at the characterization and proposed conceptualizations of the included families and at the same time determine the benefits that brings with the work that articulates research and extension activities for the training of advanced students and young graduates.

Family diversity in social exclusion situations. Results and reflections on research, teaching and knowledge transfer activities

The purpose of this paper is to characterize the configurations of the families that live in contexts of social exclusion; provide conceptualizations of their operation mode; highlight the formative effects that neighborhood interdisciplinary practices with such families produce in the just graduated psychologists, included on the Extension Program. We wish to contribute to produce systematic knowledge that can account for such family configurations as potential receiver of integration policies. We are also interested on transferring the approach to diversity in the training of young professionals, in order not to be regarded as a deviation from ideal models, but as an expression of different strategies built by members of a community, to resolve children breeding and to bear their existences. This work is the result about reflections on productions inside a research fellowship: The complexities that takes the breeding in families who lives in a social exclusion situation; researches about breeding, carried out from signature Developmental Psychology II, and from de interdisciplinary work with psychologically assisted families in twelve suburbs of the city of La Plata (University Extension Program "Free Legal Offices" (Convention between Law and Social Sciences and Psychology Faculties, U.N.L.P.). From a qualitative methodology and an interdisciplinary participation, the results have arrive at the characterization and proposed conceptualizations of the included families and at the same time determine the benefits that brings with the work that articulates research and extension activities for the training of advanced students and young graduates.

Is FTA/EPA effective for a developing country to attract FDI? : simulation analysis based on an extended knowledge-capital model

To prepare an answer to the question of how a developing country can attract FDI, this paper explored the factors and policies that may help bring FDI into a developing country by utilizing an extended version of the knowledge-capital model. With a special focus on the effects of FTAs/EPAs between market countries and developing countries, simulations with the model revealed the following: (1) Although FTA/EPA generally ends to increase FDI to a developing country, the possibility of improving welfare through increased demand for skilled and unskilled labor becomes higher as the size of the country declines; (2) Because the additional implementation of cost-saving policies to reduce firm-type/trade-link specific fixed costs ends to depreciate the price of skilled labor by saving its input, a developing country, which is extremely scarce in skilled labor, is better off avoiding the additional option; (3) If a country hopes to enjoy larger welfare gains with EPA, efforts to increase skilled labor in the country, such as investing in education, may be beneficial.

Human resources policies for strategic csr. The experience of ree (Red Eléctrica de España)

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies have a strong link with human resources policies. Not only because employees are one of the main stakeholders and because leaders’ style is directly related to the deployment of the strategy, but also, and with a growing importance, because a company culture aligned with CSR values could be a key competitive factor. The relationships among CSR values, employees’ commitment and productivity is one of the research lines of the GIOS (Grupo de Investigación de Organizaciones Sostenibles, Sustainable Organizations Research Group). Employees’ commitment management is one of the main challenges managers face, particularly in companies with a high proportion of knowledge workers. Many pieces of research indicate the direct relationship between employees’ commitment and company success. In this paper the results of a case study in REE (Red Eléctrica de España) identify some key variables to demonstrate that relationship. Based on commitment construct with the duality of emotional and rational commitment, and on the REE employee satisfaction survey, a direct relationship with organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) variables appears. These OCB variables are an intermediate step with CSR values.From the results analysis of this survey a direct linear relationship can be seen between commitment and organizational citizenship behaviours. The relationships among emotional and rational commitment and OCB are examined separately with the conclusion being reached that there is a strong correlation in both cases. Moreover, the correlation between emotional commitment and OCB is somewhat stronger than that existing between rational commitment and OCB. it can also be seen how emotional commitment increases more strongly than rational commitment as organizational citizenship behaviours are gradually incorporated.

Troubled Waters Ahead: An Evaluation of Shoreline Land Use Policies for Water Quality Protection in Renfrew County, Ontario

Increases in the rate and extent of lakeshore development along inland lakes in Ontario are adversely impacting water quality. Despite growing awareness, there is a lack of knowledge about the land use policies and tools in place to protect inland lakes in rural Ontario. This research evaluated official plans for water quality protection policies for inland lakes in the County of Renfrew, Ontario to address this gap. The findings suggest that municipalities implicitly link water quality to land use planning policy and fail to incorporate innovative methods to protect water quality.

Play the game or get played? Researchers’ strategies around R&D policies

This chapter focuses on possible effects of current R&D policies in the scientific work, exploring some of the dilemmas they cause to researchers. In a transnational scale, R&D policies embrace performance-based research funding systems, calling for a growing accountability and a more useful and published research. Often justified by the importance of knowledge in public policies or as part of the new managerialism regime, these trends emphasize performativity on research. In this scenario, how researchers receive and interpret R&D policies is influenced according to their values and interests? Do they play the game or do they get played by it? These questions rely on a conceptual framework that conceives the research as a political scene, where researchers and R&D policies meet. Moreover, researchers’ strategies are perceived as political, considering that it is in the context of the practices that policy is interpreted and reinvented. The chapter presents an empirical study conducted in Portugal, which will be taken as an example of what Waitere et al (2011) already named as “choosing whether to resist or reinforce” R&D policies. In fact, the study revealed a strategic calculation made by researchers and the coexistence of convergent and divergent strategies concerning R&D policies. I will argue that the tensions in this strategic game are both a reflex and generator of the dilemmas of scientific work today and a sign of the complexity of public policies.

Real options in the context of innovation and development policies and practices. ACES Working Papers, 2012

This paper proposes to build on previous research on the use of real options in strategic decision making (Carayannis and Sipp, 2010) and instill some real options-related concepts stemming from systems design, more particularly engineering. It also builds on previously-established concepts of strategic knowledge serendipity and arbitrage and strategic knowledge co-opetition, co-evolution and co-specialization developed by Carayannis (2009). The application of real options “in” system and real options to innovation and innovation policies demonstrate how embedded real options can more effectively be identified and therefore the decision to execute them or not more effectively made.

Knowledge-Bearing Elites and Industrial Performance in France and Germany. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 04.5, December 1993

Most comparative studies of public policies for competitiveness focus on the links among public agencies and industrial sectors. This paper argues that the professions---or knowledge-bearing elites-that animate these organizational links are equally significant. For public policies to promote technological advance, the visions and self-images of knowledge-bearing elites are par­ ticularly important. By examining administrative and technical elites in France and Germany in the 1980s, the paper identifies characteristics that enable these elites to implement policy in some cases, but not in others. France's "state-created" elites were well-positioned to initiate and implement large technology projects, such as digitizing the telecommunications network. Germany's state-recognized elites were, by contrast, better positioned to facilitate framework­ oriented programs that aimed at the diffusion of new technologies throughout industry. The linkages among administrative and technical elites also explain why French policymakers had difficulty adapting policy to changing circumstances over time while German policymakers managed in many cases to learn more from previous policy experiences and to adapt subsequent initiatives accordingly.

The Knowledge development agenda.

May 1980.