International and Area Studies Commons^™

转基因话语、利益结构与基因竞赛 = Transgenicdiscourse, Interest Structure And Gene Competition, Li Zhou

South South Forum 南南論壇

由于近些年生物技术的突飞猛进，世界各国已经展开了一场类似于核竞赛，又远比核竞赛更为隐秘和严重的基因竞赛，我们需要认识转基因竞赛甚至战争的性质，走出技术化的缺乏主体性的转基因话语讨论。转基因研发推广过程中，有七股力量已经联合，形成一个利益共同体，使得转基因大潮势不可挡：跨国粮商得利润、外国政府得战略、地方政府得政绩、中资公司得好处、科研院所得经费、国家部门得租金、种粮农民得闲暇。我们需要认识让生存逻辑和生命逻辑，服从于商业逻辑和政治逻辑的转基因利益结构，认识其可能导致人类生存危机等系统性风险，旗帜鲜明地反对转基因育种和产业化推广；退一步讲，即使进行转基因技术的研发，也要采用国家集中体制，以防止类似核扩散的基因技术不可控行为的发生，阻止一场在种子领域的殖民掠夺；同时重点发展和推广常规育种，强化农田水利建设，采用更为安全可行的措施，以阻止人类在转基因领域的自杀式竞争。

Since the rapid development of the biotechnology in recent years, the countries in the world have already started a new kind of competition—genetic competition, which is similar to nuclear arms race but far more secret and serious. We need to recognize the nature of the transgenic contest and genetic war, getting out from the subjectivity-absent technical discussion on transgenic technology. In the process of transgenic research and development(R&D), seven forces have already jointed and formed a “community of interests”, pushing the transgenic trends overwhelming: the international food dealers gain profits, foreign government wins strategy, local government achieves performance, Chinese-funded …

Structural Crisis, Speculative Attacks And Food Sovereignty, Pedro Paez

South South Forum 南南論壇

The present crisis is not only a financial one. It is a crisis of civilization. The convergence of long term contradictory processes in several levels (economic, demographic, ecological, etc.) has reduced capital’s margin of maneuvering with historical progressive projection, opening the room for very painful situations for large segments of Earth’s population.

The anti-fascist forces victory in the Second Word War triggered the constitution of a series of regimes of accumulation with significant endogenous dynamics of growth based upon re-distributive patterns at the domestic and the international levels that expressed the new balance of power. The pervasive destruction of local …

Feeding World’S Hungry-Food Security Or Food Sovereignty, Vinod Raina

South South Forum 南南論壇

The increased wealth creation by nations stands in contrast with the extent of hunger around the World. By hunger we simply mean the want or scarcity of food in a country. The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) estimates that 925 million people in the World are hungry. Against a total World population of 6.8 billion, this means 1 out of every 7 in the World goes hungry. Most of them live in developing countries, and sixty-five percent of them live in only seven countries: China,India,Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo,Indonesia,PakistanandEthiopia(FAO, 2011). Furthermore, each year more people die due to hunger …

Economic Resilience : Including A Case Study Of The Global Transition Network, Julie Richardson

South South Forum 南南論壇

This paper explores the dynamic properties of organisms and ecosystems that make them so resilient and capable of adapting to changing circumstances, allowing them to maintain an overall condition of coherence, wholeness and health while living in balance within the resources of the planet. Key principles of resilient ecological systems are explored including: self-regulation; positive and negative feedback; diversity; scale and context; cooperation; emergence and novelty; and ecological tipping points. In contrast, market based economic systems can produce unstable growth with unintended destruction of cultural and species diversity and homogenisation of global life-styles. The paper re-examines fundamental economic principles using …

Alternatives In Times Of The Reinvention Of Capitalism, Pablo Solon

South South Forum 南南論壇

Crisis & reconfiguration

1. A new attack to the labor force
2. Privatization of public services and knowledge (the commons)
3. The expansion of financialisation
4. A new assault to Mother Earth: Natural capital
5. Intervention, criminalization and war

The Implosion Of The Contemporary Global Capitalist System = 当代资本主义体系的内爆, Samir Amin

South South Forum 南南論壇

Contemporary capitalism is a capitalism of generalized monopolies. By this I mean that monopolies are now no longer islands (albeit important) in a sea of other still relatively autonomous companies, but are an integrated system. Therefore, these monopolies now tightly control all the systems of production. Small and medium enterprises, and even the large corporations that are not strictly speaking oligopolies are locked in a network of control put in place by the monopolies. Their degree of autonomy has shrunk to the point that they are nothing more than subcontractors of the monopolies. This system of generalized monopolies is the …

主权外部性与币缘战略 : 关于发展陷阱的案例研究 = Sovereignty Externalities And Currency-Strategy Development Trap Case Studies, Tiejun Wen

South South Forum 南南論壇

本报告以全球化危机向发展中国家转嫁为据，提出两个论点。其一，大多数发展中国家因“成本转嫁”而沉落于发展主义陷阱的根本教训，在于其在向殖民主义宗主国争取国家“合法”独立的交易中，已经形成了失去资源和经济主权的负外部性。其二，当前金融资本时代强权政治控制的币缘战略不同于传统的产业资本时代的地缘战略，并且在以国家为单位的全球竞争框架中，客观地形成了金融主导国家币权为核心的“币权三角”；由此衍生出国家竞争的微笑曲线，乃是制造业国家承担金融化制度成本的内在机制。

这些理论创新，可以解释包括中国在内的一般发展中国家的困境成因。

本文把通过非暴力形式的政治谈判这种“交易”来形成发展中国家独立主权进程中与生俱来的制度性缺陷，称为“主权外部性”；把金融资本阶段凭借政治强权维护世界储备货币地位、并据此向能源和食物市场释放过剩流动性，借以把巨额债务转化为他国通胀危机的“巧实力”运作，称为“币缘战略”。

这两者都是发展中国家难以改出发展陷阱的主要原因，也是金融全球化阶段内在形成国家竞争的微笑曲线的前提条件。

Based on an understanding that the crises of core nations are being transferred to developing countries and thus globalized, two perspectives are highlighted here: first, the development trap most developing countries are caught in due to “cost transfer” by advanced countries can be attributed to the negative externalities of having lost part of their resources and economic sovereignty in the transaction with their former suzerains for gaining “legitimate” independence; second, the currency-strategy of political dominance by the super power in contemporary financial capitalism is different from traditional geo-strategy in the age of industrial capitalism. In the …

The Roof With No Ceiling: Couch Surfing And The New Vagabond's Trek Through Nation-States, Cyberspace, And Global Consciousness, Kathryn Giroux

Honors Theses

In an era of "stranger danger" where society indoctrinates fear of "the other," hospitality exchange and social networking website www.couchsurfing.org offers an alternative movement to these trends. Couchsurfing.org connects travelers with locals offering free accommodation in exchange for meaningful connection, cultural exchange, and the opportunity to "create inspiring experiences" within a rapidly growing, transnational community encompassing over 5 million members. This thesis takes a creative journalism approach to uncovering CouchSurfing's inner workings and impacts, understanding its historical context within globalization and the growth of hospitality exchange networks, and discovering its implications for the global community and global consciousness of vagabonds …

Modernization, Sexual Risk-Taking, And Gynecological Morbidity Among Bolivian Forager-Horticulturalists, Jonathan Stieglitz, Aaron D. Blackwell, Raúl Quispe Gutierrez, Edhitt Cortez Linares, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

Sexual risk-taking and reproductive morbidity are common among rapidly modernizing populations with little material wealth, limited schooling, minimal access to modern contraception and healthcare, and gendered inequalities in resource access that limit female autonomy in cohabiting relationships. Few studies have examined how modernization influences sexual risk-taking and reproductive health early in demographic transition. Tsimane are a natural fertility population of Bolivian forager-farmers; they are not urbanized, reside in small-scale villages, and lack public health infrastructure. We test whether modernization is associated with greater sexual risk-taking, report prevalence of gynecological morbidity (GM), and test whether modernization, sexual risk-taking and parity are …

Why Chinese Neo-Confucian Women Made A Fetish Of Small Feet, Aubrey L. Mcmahan

Grand Valley Journal of History

Abstract for “Why Chinese Neo-Confucian Women Made a Fetish of Small Feet”

This paper explores the source of the traditional practice of Chinese footbinding which first gained popularity at the end of the Tang dynasty and continued to flourish until the last half of the twentieth century.[1] Derived initially from court concubines whose feet were formed to represent an attractive “deer lady” from an Indian tale, footbinding became a wide-spread symbol among the Chinese of obedience, pecuniary reputability, and Confucianism, among other things.[2]^,[3] Drawing on the analyses of such scholars as Beverly Jackson, Valerie Steele …

Deep Cooperation: A Report On Successful Cooperative Strategies, Paul M. Gherman

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

No abstract provided.

The Flow Of Water, Power, And Ideas: Water Commodification In Cape Town, South Africa And The Stratified Experiences Of Time And Space Compression, Jenna Washburn

Master's Theses

I use the neoliberalization of the water sector in Cape Town, South Africa in order to test my theory of unequal development. I assert that the neoliberal economic practices of water commodification, business-friendly tariff policies, and prepaid management devices keep people along the periphery from accessing water, power, and ideas – thus causing a stratification of time and space compression between the core and the periphery.

By painting a theoretical picture of world cities, I wish to complicate the dominant views of time/space compression and suggest that, much like development and arguably because of it, time and space compression actually …

Langue Et Identité Chez Leïla Sebbar. Vers Une Filiation Renégociée, Cécilia W. Francis

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

In Je ne parle pas la langue de mon père (2003), L’arabe comme un chant secret (2010a), as well as in other components of her intimate prose, Leïla Sebbar reflects on her sense of dispossessed identity due to linguistic exile and an unknown heritage, resulting from ruptures in her paternal filiation. Drawing from the works of Jacques Derrida, Régine Robin and Simon Harel, which form the basis of our argumentation, we examine various dimensions of the severed parental bond. The article proposes to examine how Sebbar’s autobiographical writings, which incorporate scenarios dealing with legacy transmission expressed in terms of auditory …

The Unending Cycle Of Political Violence In Haiti A Case Study Of The 1991 Coup D'Etat, Lourdes Eliacin Mars

HIM 1990-2015

Deye mo-n se mo-n is a proverb in Haiti that roughly translates to "Beyond the mountains, more mountains." This saying holds a deep meaning to the Haitian peoples, who have lived through unrelenting violence and poverty. In its 200 years of independence, Haiti's inhabitants have seldom known a decade without political violence. Like the chain of mountains, political violence in Haiti seems to go on forever with no end in sight. Not only are the devastating effects of violence felt within politics, but also in the economic and social sectors of the country. The collapse of these sectors has created …

A Comparative Analysis Of The Immigration Policy In Italy, France, Norway, And The Role Of The European Union, Christina Belmonte

HIM 1990-2015

This thesis analyzes the differing immigration policies and issues within Italy, France and Norway by looking at the factors of historical background, politics, and economics. Each of these factors plays a different role in shaping immigration. Italy with a shift to the center right politically although currently with a technocratic government in power; a large unstable economy; and also a society not quite standardized culturally yet becoming increasingly multi-ethnic with immigration, is beginning to become stricter with immigration policy as it has been increasing in recent years. France with a newly left-wing socialist political party in power after a many …

Women's Rights In Iran During The Years Of The Shah, Ayatollah Khomeini, And Khamenei, Andrea De La Camara

HIM 1990-2015

Women's rights have been a historically controversial issue. This is no exception in Iran, where the struggle between modernization and keeping with traditional Islamic values has been a topic of constant disagreement between political leaders. Women in Iran have experienced many changes in their personal rights and freedoms throughout the decades. This research focuses on religion and culture, the policies of the main leaders of Iran in the past decades, and the role of non-governmental organizations as factors that expand or limit the rights and freedoms of women. It attempts to identify which factor is mostly responsible for the position …

Living A Parallel Life: Memoirs And Research Of A Transnational Korean Adoptee, Mary C. Robinson

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

This thesis project consists of two parts: a memoir of my experience as a Korean adoptee, and a research paper examining how transracial, transnational adoption affects identity development in Korean adoptees. The memoir, as a first person narrative, gives voice to the research as one example of the findings. The majority of research on Korean adoptees has focused on levels of adjustment within a short time frame after adoptees’ placement in their adoptive homes. While the overwhelming majority of the prior research has declared positive and overall satisfactory adjustment for most adoptees, serious flaws exist in the methodologies that do …

The Ozark Historical Review, V. 41, 2012 Entire_Issue

The Ozark Historical Review

No abstract provided.

Aesthetic Constructions Of Korea Nationalism: Spectacle, Politics And History, Yooil Bae

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Mapping Xenophobic Violence In South Africa: Modeling Spatial Relationships Between Group Grievances And Opportunities To Measure The Propensity For Xenophobic Violence, Eric Holder

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Xenophobia can be defined as the hatred or fear of foreigners or strangers or of their politics or culture (Ngwane et al., 2008). This sentiment reached its tipping point in urban areas across the Republic of South Africa in May 2008 when mass, widespread and systematic attacks against African non-nationals took place across the country. Although previous research agrees on who played the various roles during this crisis event (Everatt, 2010), little research has been carried out to create a predictive model to assess where future violence could occur based on a set of conflict indicators. The purpose of this …

The New Hong Kong Mediation Ordinance: Much Ado About Nothing?, Nadja Alexander

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In this post on the Kluwer Mediation Blog, the purpose of the Mediation Ordinance (MO) passed in June 2012 by the Hong Kong Legislative Council is discussed.

Taking Crime Out Of Crime Business, Mark James Findlay, Nafis Hanif

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

It is one thing to assert that conventional market analysis is critically useful in understanding criminal enterprise. It is more challenging to suggest that corrupt and compromised legal regulation interacts with other critical market variables to maximise market advantage for crime business in a similar manner to legitimate regulatory forces in their protection and enhancement of legitimate business enterprise. The central argument of this paper is that crime business mirrors other business forms when considered in terms of critical market variables, and that in particular regulatory forces when inverted from their original purposes can influence market conditions in the same …

Fuelling The Asian Growth Engine: Talent Challenges, Strategies And Trends, Mario Ferraro, Catherine Mudford, Karina Kuok, Saumya Sindhwani, Rebecca Siow

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The emerging economies of Asia are increasingly playing a critical role in the global arena, even as there is continuing turmoil and uncertainty in other parts of the world due to economic, financial and political upheavals. While Asian economies are undoubtedly impacted by global headwinds, most of them have been buffered by their sound economic and policy fundamentals, healthy domestic demand and continued inflow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Meanwhile, Asia is undergoing its own transformation: many countries in Asia are experiencing greater economic prosperity and rising affluence, translating into higher demand for goods and services. As businesses flock to …

Policy-Making Under Evo Morales: Explaining Ethnopopulist Redistributive Measures In Bolivia, Luis Ferreira

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The Evo Morales administration has radically transformed the Bolivian state since his election in 2005. As a result of Morales' indigenous identity and overt ethnic tensions in this state, there is a perception that this factor plays a decisive role in Bolivia's policymaking. However, as the 'renegotiation' of the hydrocarbon industry in 2006 demonstrates, ethnopopulism and political survival provide the most comprehensive approach to predicting the policies of the current Bolivian government.

The resistance to liberalization efforts, the success of redistributive measures and the role identity has had in Bolivia explains why this approach to policy-making has allowed Morales to …

Taiwanese Willingness To Communicate In English: Can Watching American Television Programs Help?, Yu-Ting Chien

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study explored the relationship between Taiwanese audiences' use of American television programs and their willingness to communicate in English. Taiwanese participants filled out an online survey consisted of questions from uses and gratifications constructs and willingness to communicate constructs. In addition, different subtitle settings were also examined.

Results indicated that participants with high integrative motivation consuming information from American television programs, in addition, the setting of subtitles were associated with perceived communication competence, integrative motivation, language anxiety and social interaction motivation.

Shall The Twain Never Meet? Competing Narratives And Discourses Of The Rule Of Law In Singapore, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article aims to assess the role played by the rule of law in discourse by critics of the Singapore Government’s policies and in the Government’s responses to such criticisms. It argues that in the past the two narratives clashed over conceptions of the rule of law, but there is now evidence of convergence of thinking as regards the need to protect human rights, though not necessarily as to how the balance between rights and other public interests should be struck. The article also examines why the rule of law must be regarded as a constitutional doctrine in Singapore, the …

A Preliminary Survey Of The Right To Presumption Of Innocence In Singapore, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The right to presumption of innocence is said to exist in almost all criminal justice systems, including Singapore. Curiously, however, no Singapore case has ever attempted to establish the exact source and contours of this longstanding right. This is unsatisfactory, as this diminishes the meaningfulness of what is supposed to be a fundamental right in the criminal justice process. The primary aim of this article is thus to conduct a preliminary survey of the law on the presumption of innocence in Singapore. It begins by proposing the Woolmington conception as a workable starting point, but posits a guiding principle to …

From Building Evaluation Capacity To Supporting Evaluation Capacity Development: The Cases Of Democratic Republic Of Congo, Niger, And South Africa, Michele Tarsilla

Dissertations

Building on both the current thinking among international development practitioners and the on-going scholarly debate on evaluation capacity development (ECD), this study aims to identify strategies that might help to strengthen national evaluation capacity in a variety of countries in a more inclusive and sustainable fashion in the future. Based on a case study design featuring an extensive literature review of specialized literature (both within and outside the evaluation field), a series of semi-structured interviews and three rounds of online validation sessions held with ECD researchers, funders and implementers; this study aims at three main objectives. First, in an attempt …

China's Rare Earths Export Quotas: Out Of The China-Raw Materials Gate, But Past The Wto's Finish Line?, Han-Wei Liu, John Maughan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Several recent studies have discussed the ramifications of the China – Raw Materials case for China's rare earths. However, none of these studies has conducted a thorough investigation of China's current export quota regime for rare earths or how it might stand up under WTO rules, assuming that it would be treated the same. This article makes no such assumption, investigating China's export quota regime for rare earths as it stands in early June 2012. The regime is somewhat improved over that applied during the Raw Materials case and could allow a more favourable WTO ruling. However, if General Agreement …

Singapore Inflation Expectations: Expecting The Unexpected, Aurobindo Ghosh, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

The study of inflation expectations of Singapore house-holds is a multi-disciplinary industry-relevant research that comes out of a partnership between Singapore Management University (SMU) and MasterCard. The research team for this MasterCard-SKBI Singapore Index of Inflation Expectations (SInDEx) project applied rigorous methods using current internet-based marketing survey tools for data-collection and advanced econometric techniques to analyse the data. The updates from the quarterly waves are keenly followed by policymakers, market watchers and the media because of the enormous importance of cost of living to individuals and businesses alike.