Search results

In recent times, extant literature increasingly underscores the importance of indigenous innovations. This chapter provides an empirical illustration that a collaboration between indigenous knowledge systems and mainstream knowledge systems will not only help overcome the shortcomings in both systems, but also result in more cost-effective and environmentally friendly solutions. The chapter also advocates for public policies that facilitate the development and dissemination of such innovations. Using a case study from the Nigerian context, a framework is provided in this chapter, to illustrate how scientific knowledge can be applied to indigenous innovations to result in the next generation of sustainable, cost-effective and environmentally friendly solutions.

In 1920 Margaret Sanger called voluntary motherhood “the key to the temple of liberty” and noted that women were “rising in fundamental revolt” to claim their right to determine their own reproductive fate (Rothman, 2000, p. 73). Decades later Barbara Katz Rothman reflected on the social, political and legal changes produced by reproductive-rights feminists since that time. She wrote: So the reproductive-rights feminists of the 1970s won, and abortion is available – just as the reproductive-rights feminists of the 1920s won, and contraception is available. But in another sense, we did not win. We did not win, could not win, because Sanger was right. What we really wanted was the fundamental revolt, the “key to the temple of liberty.” A doctor’s fitting for a diaphragm, or a clinic appointment for an abortion, is not the revolution. It is not even a woman-centered approach to reproduction (2000, p. 79).

This chapter argues that the Marxian theory of exploitation underlies the concepts of surplus and deficit industries that appear in Sraffa’s (1960) Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities. This is seen from archival research of the unpublished papers of Piero Sraffa housed at the Wren Library, Trinity College, University of Cambridge. There it is shown that the origin of these concepts lies in the Marxian theory of exploitation that Sraffa developed regarding the notion of the ‘pool of profits’ the Italian economist utilized over a 14-year period from 1942 to 1956. The chapter engages in an extensive textual study of the archival evidence and then presents a simple analytical model of these relations.

Dirty work involves contacting “polluting” substances; engaging in unpleasant tasks; and dealing with disvalued people, beings, or other objects. As Hughes (1984) observes:(E)very occupation is not one but several activities; some of them are the “dirty work” of the trade. It may be dirty in one of several ways. It may be simply physically disgusting. It may be a symbol of degradation, something that wounds one's dignity….(I)t may be dirty work in that it in some way goes counter to the more heroic of our moral conceptions. Dirty work of some kind is found in all occupations. (p. 343)

This paper examines the corporate policies on workplace relationships in the insurance industry. It consists of identifying whether the 48 insurance companies found in the Fortune 500 have any policies that restrict employees from dating each other within their organization and if so, what were these restrictions. In addition, 235 employees in the insurance field were surveyed to determine their perceptions of the positive and/or negative effects of romantic relationships had in their workplace environment. These results were examined from a Platonic perspective with a recommendation for a code of ethics developed from policies existing in other insurance companies and suggested by the current literature.

In November 2001, Scott Carlson, in the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote an article on library use titled “The deserted library: As students work online, reading rooms empty out—leading some campuses to add Starbucks” (Carlson, 2001). The essence of this chapter is that many librarians, facing dramatic declines in library gate counts resulting from the wealth of electronic resources accessible remotely, were beginning to move away from traditional conceptions of the library as primarily a repository for print collections. Carlson describes the “tough sell” that the Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville had experienced when planning a $19.5 million library addition in the mid-1990s. In response librarians had begun “fighting back” with “plush chairs, double-mocha lattes, book groups, author readings.” Still, no one knew whether these stratagems would enhance learning or bring its readers back.

For the last two decades economics literature and debates have increasingly referred to institutions as the answers to the long-lasting queries regarding how stock market performance rises and what policies can be implement to encourage best outcomes in terms of stock market performances in Malaysia so that the analysis of the institutional basis under which any stock market functions has now converted an essential issue of investigation. This study attempts to capture the relationship between stock market movements and institutional quality (IQ) using autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach, over 33 years during the period of 1984–2016. The finding suggests that IQ positively and significantly affects stock market performance. Moreover, it is also showing that there is, in fact, a causal relationship between institutions and stock market performance. The findings are robust to changes in specification and a host of transparency measures.

Proponents of critical global studies are committed to identifying the ways in which neo-liberal ideology and an Americanized world picture rationalize the multinational exploitation of impoverished groups and their resources. The authority of this field raises untimely questions about how such a critique can itself avoid rationalization. The influence of critical global studies was manifest in the 2002 Documenta11 in Kassel, Germany, directed by Okwui Enwezor. In its aim to represent the Zeitgeist of contemporary art every five years, the Documenta is widely regarded as the most significant event in the art world. The 2002 Documenta relied predominantly on visual media to archive local instances of socio-economic inequity and persecution. The prestige of this exhibit marks the “global” Documenta11 as a crucial opportunity for studying the strategic deployment of a high cultural venue to promote critical awareness among comfortable spectators from industrialized nations. In officiating an overtly political agenda for the exhibit, the curatorial team took the risk that Documenta11 might encourage visitors to take self-affirming pleasure in their sense of “enlightened” solidarity with its aims. The exhibit was also in danger of reifying the very suffering it displayed as a means to an institutionally sanctioned end. The Frankfurt School explicitly targets the egoism of “affirmative culture” which includes the culture of critique. This case study draws on their theory of reification in order to enunciate the limits of global critique at Documenta11 while highlighting discontinuities in its format and reception that complicate a facile rejection of its archival rationale.