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1 – 10 of 503The purpose of this paper is to examine residents’ perception on the polluting effects of the disposal of the dead in Ile-Ife, a traditional African city. This came about based on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine residents’ perception on the polluting effects of the disposal of the dead in Ile-Ife, a traditional African city. This came about based on the recognition of the disposal of corpses and carcasses as sources of environmental pollution in the built environment. The perception study becomes imperative since introduction of perception is adjudged a tool for proffering solution to different problems in the different human endeavours and a method of getting policy information from the people that will be eventual subjects of the policy.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used household survey through questionnaire administration. The city of Ile-Ife was stratified into residential zones comprising the traditional zone, the transition zone and the peripheral zone. Across the zones, a total of 306 residents were systematically sampled on which the designed questionnaires were administered.
Findings
Dumping was the commonest method of the disposal of carcasses and burial was the commonest for corpses. The practices of the disposal of dead in the city were without consideration for its polluting effect and public health concern.
Research limitations/implications
The study is capable of generating hypotheses for future research in the area of environmental studies, especially in the global south.
Practical implications
The findings and recommendations of this study can provide information on future policy making, review and implementation on the disposal of the dead and other related issues in environmental studies both in the city and others with similar setting.
Originality/value
This paper is based on primary data from a survey of residents of Ile-Ife, Nigeria in March 2015. Its value lies in its capacity to suggest policy response for enhanced liveable environment through a study on residents’ perception, a bottom-up approach to policy making.
Reviews the perceived and actual threats to the book publishing industry arising from electronic storage, management and distribution of information. It argues that publishing has…
Abstract
Reviews the perceived and actual threats to the book publishing industry arising from electronic storage, management and distribution of information. It argues that publishing has always been primarily a content‐management industry and if not entirely free from technological obsolescence, it has at least been relatively insulated from its worst effects by concentrating on the maintenance of quality and authority of the information it provides. Greater challenges may arise from other quarters, Including globalisation, threats to intellectual property regimes, and changes in retailing and distribution, and publishers must think about the impacts of these on their businesses.
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Primoz Juznic, Jose Urbanija, Edvard Grabrijan, Stasoa Miklavc, Damijana Oslaj and Sonja Svoljsak
Reports the findings of an investigation carried out in Slovenian public libraries, which was designed to determine whether librarians would be reluctant to provide information or…
Abstract
Reports the findings of an investigation carried out in Slovenian public libraries, which was designed to determine whether librarians would be reluctant to provide information or materials on ethically disputed topics. The three topics used in the test were: suicide, necrophilia, and photographs or pictures of corpses. The conclusions were that the issue was a matter of quality of reference services,
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In 1867, the author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, undertook a great pleasure excursion across Europe. Visiting a range of sites, from those associated with…
Abstract
Purpose
In 1867, the author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, undertook a great pleasure excursion across Europe. Visiting a range of sites, from those associated with the Christian Cult of Death to the notable cultural heritage attractions of the time, Twain published his experiences in what would later become one of the world's best‐selling travelogues; The Innocents Abroad, or the New Pilgrim's Progress. This essay offers a rereading of Twain's encounters, proposing examination of Twain's encounters as timely and useful in addressing what Seaton identifies as a gap in data on thanatourism consumption.
Design/methodology/approach
The essay draws on contemporary thanatourism theoretical frameworks, including Seaton's “Continuum of intensity” and “Thanatourism developmental sketch”; Sharpley's “Matrix of dark tourism supply and demand” and Stone and Sharpley's “Dark tourism consumption framework”, among others, to explore Twain's encounters.
Findings
Supplemented by a review of recent theoretical thanatourism research, the essay proposes three findings. Finding one illustrates that Twain's encounters, although not always pre‐motivated or purposefully supplied, were emotionally charged and deeply affective experiences, which had the potential to provoke ontological insecurity. Finding two highlights the potential of the geography of death to stimulate emotional reactions and configure individual and societal interactions with death. Finding three argues a need for new methodological approaches to understanding the thanatourism experience; approaches that are empathetically sensitive to the potentially powerful impact of the thanatourism experience.
Originality/value
The essay draws on a classic travelogue to help address the imbalance in knowledge of the thanatourism experience. The essay argues that thanatourism is a layered and complex phenomenon, highly personal and often a potentially powerful and emotionally affective experience.
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Antonio Profico, Mary Anne Tafuri, Fabio Di Vincenzo, Francesca Ricci, Laura Ottini, Luca Ventura, Gino Fornaciari, Savino Di Lernia and Giorgio Manzi
Medical imaging applied to archaeological human remains represents a powerful tool for the study of specimens of exceptionally fragile nature. Here, the authors report a…
Abstract
Purpose
Medical imaging applied to archaeological human remains represents a powerful tool for the study of specimens of exceptionally fragile nature. Here, the authors report a tomographic computerized investigation on the naturally mummified human remains from the Takarkori rock shelter (Libyan Sahara), dated to the Middle Pastoral Neolithic (ca. 6100-5600 uncal BP). The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
Medical radiological techniques allowed us to discriminate and isolate the tissues preserved thanks to their different electron density, driving us to detailed examinations of features of interest.
Findings
With a focus on anatomy and taphonomy, the authors infer on post-depositional phenomena in a way that could not be achieved through traditional approaches.
Originality/value
The investigation of digital data allows to acquire new sets of information with no risk for the original object. This case study is especially important considering that the human remains from Takarkori are currently not available to the scientific community due to political instability in Lybia.
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The idea of “African Management” is compelling when considering the complex social and organizational changes under way in South Africa today. Sets out to critically evaluate the…
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The idea of “African Management” is compelling when considering the complex social and organizational changes under way in South Africa today. Sets out to critically evaluate the concept of “African Management” as used by Mbigi and Maree (1995). Argues that, while the book contains many weaknesses, it documents an idiosyncratic, but valuable view for interpreting the world. Further argues that it is important to compare this view with management theory which has been developed in the West in order to understand the similarities and differences that may exist, and how these might best be exploited to achieve healthy organizations.
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THE centenary celebration is that of the apparently prosaic public library acts ; it is not the centenary of libraries which are as old as civilization. That is a circumstance…
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THE centenary celebration is that of the apparently prosaic public library acts ; it is not the centenary of libraries which are as old as civilization. That is a circumstance which some may have overlooked in their pride and enthusiasm for the public library. But no real librarian of any type will fail to rejoice in the progress to which the celebration is witness. For that has been immense. We are to have a centenary history of the Public Library Movement—that is not its title—from the Library Association. We do not know if it will be available in London this month; we fear it will not. We do know its author, Mr. W. A. Munford, has spent many months in research for it and that he is a writer with a lucid and individual Style. We contemplate his task with a certain nervousness. Could anyone less than a Carlyle impart into the dry bones of municipal library history that Strew these hundred years, the bones by the wayside that mark out the way, the breath of the spirit that will make them live ? For even Edward Edwards, whose name should be much in the minds and perhaps on the lips of library lovers this month, could scarcely have foreseen the contemporary position ; nor perhaps could Carlyle who asked before our genesis why there should not be in every county town a county library as well as a county gaol. How remote the days when such a question was cogent seem to be now! It behoves us, indeed it honours us, to recall the work of Edwards, of Ewart, Brotherton, Thomas Greenwood, Nicholson, Peter Cowell, Crestadoro, Francis Barrett, Thomas Lyster, J. Y. M. MacAlister, James Duff Brown and, in a later day without mentioning the living, John Ballinger, Ernest A. Baker, L. Stanley Jast, and Potter Briscoe—the list is long. All served the movement we celebrate and all faced a community which had to be convinced. It still has, of course, but our people do now allow libraries a place, more or less respected, in the life of the people. Librarians no longer face the corpse‐cold incredulity of the so‐called educated classes, the indifference of the masses and the actively vicious hostility of local legislators. Except the illuminated few that existed. These were the men who had the faith that an informed people was a happier, more efficient one and that books in widest commonalty spread were the best means of producing such a people. These, with a succession of believing, enduring librarians, persisted in their Struggle with cynic and opponent and brought about the system and the technique we use, modified of course and extended to meet a changing world, but essentially the same. Three names we may especially honour this September, Edward Edwards, who was the sower of the seed; MacAlister, who gained us our Royal Charter ; and John Ballinger, who was the person who most influenced the introduction of the liberating Libraries Act of 1919.
Joseph Scanlon and Terry McMahon
There are many differences in how authorities handle the dead during mass death incidents involving disasters and pandemics. These differences would suggest that planning for a…
Abstract
Purpose
There are many differences in how authorities handle the dead during mass death incidents involving disasters and pandemics. These differences would suggest that planning for a disaster death and planning for a pandemic death should be done separately. This may be true to some extent, however, there are many similarities between the two that this article will seeks to examine. The main objective of this study is to show that planning for both disasters and pandemics should either be done by a single entity that coordinates both types of responses, or by agencies that communicate closely and frequently.
Design/methodology/approach
This study compared mass death incidents predominantly within the Canadian historical record, including disasters and pandemics. It took a specific look at the influenza pandemic of 1918 in North America and how the dead were handled.
Findings
Both disasters and pandemics offer unique challenges in handling the dead and documenting the incident. In a pandemic the cause of death is usually clear, while in a disaster it is not always understood. However, the similarities they hold in common must not be overlooked. They will involve immense and complicated amounts of paperwork, cause a shortage of supplies (be it medical, food or otherwise) and create the need for assistance.
Originality/value
The research finds that though disasters and pandemics are often handled differently by the various agencies involved, they should be treated alike and dealt with in the same manner.
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Oludayo Tade and Yikwab Peter Yikwabs
This study aims to examine contemporary factors underlying farmers and pastoralists’ conflict in Nasarawa state. These two communities had rosy and symbiotic relationships which…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine contemporary factors underlying farmers and pastoralists’ conflict in Nasarawa state. These two communities had rosy and symbiotic relationships which have transmogrified into sour tales of mutual suspicion, destruction, deaths and violence.
Design/methodology/approach
Exploratory research design was used. Data was collected using qualitative tools of data collection such as in-depth interview (IDI) and key informant (KII) guides to extract responses from farmers and pastoralists.
Findings
In a bid to end the conflicts between these two groups, Benue State Government enacted the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law also known as anti-open grazing law in 2018. Although the law altered the conflict landscape in Benue, it recorded trans-territorial backlashes in the neighbouring Nasarawa State where herdsmen relocated. The relocation of herders to Nasarawa State, setting up of livestock guards to check open grazing by pastoralists, rumour and politics triggered contemporary violent conflicts between these groups.
Originality/value
As against existing studies, this study examines contemporary trigger of the conflict.
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