Heterogeneity,Group Size and Collective Action: The Role of Institutions in Forest Management

Collective action for sustainable management among resource‐dependent populations has important policy implications. Despite considerable progress in identifying factors that affect the prospects for collective action, no consensus exists about the role played by heterogeneity and size of group. The debate continues in part because of a lack of uniform conceptualization of these factors, the existence of non‐linear relationships, and the mediating role played by institutions. This article draws on research by scholars in the International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) research network which demonstrates that some forms of heterogeneity do not negatively affect some forms of collective action. More importantly, IFRI research draws out the interrelations among group size, heterogeneity, and institutions. Institutions can affect the level of heterogeneity or compensate for it. Group size appears to have a non‐linear relationship to at least some forms of collective action. Moreover, group size may be as much an indicator of institutional success as a precondition for such success.     

Re‐locating Moroccan Women’s identities in a transnational world: the ‘woman question’ in question

This article considers the situation of women in politics and the overall politicization of the ‘woman question’ in Morocco in its historical context in order to suggest why, despite enormous changes in women’s daily lives and roles in society, continued attempts to gain greater rights for Moroccan women and improve their status have been met with strong resistance by certain political groups. Working with interviews conducted with activists during fieldwork in Morocco, I focus on an analysis of two recent sets of events—debates around the Plan for Action to Integrate Women into Development and the Moroccan March 2000 for Women in Rabat and its counter‐march in Casablanca—to discuss how the various oppositional positions on the ‘woman question’ have developed and persisted in Morocco. I argue that unresolved and renewed national conflicts in Morocco, which in part are fueled by the success of transnational feminisms and fundamentalisms, perpetuate the manipulation of the ‘woman question’ for short‐term political gains in such a way that significant progress on this issue has been repeatedly thwarted. I address the tension in transnational feminism between ‘universalist’ and ‘cultural difference’ positions as they have been manifested in the Moroccan context and suggest that a way forward involves problematizing both poles of this dichotomy.     

Dedicated spirits: religious mediators and romantic ideas in the late nineteenth century

This article reconstructs a transatlantic community of discourse that used Romantic ideas to mediate between science and religion in order to create a framework for modern belief. The pragmatist William James, Scottish freelance intellectual Thomas Davidson, and ethical culturalist William Mackintire Salter in the United States, and the psychic researcher Frederic Myers and self‐published philosopher Shadworth Hollway Hodgson in England inherited a supreme concept of immanence from Romanticism, which they brought to their fight against dogmatism in religion and materialism in science. Emphasizing the freedom of the individual mind to believe on the basis of experience, these religious mediators oriented their new science of religions by the compass of democratic values. Their approach to modern belief contributes to the current revision of a strictly declensionist secularization by suggesting, in part, that religion among intellectuals was neither exclusively Christian in the late nineteenth century nor necessarily stifled by the impact of Darwinian evolution.     

Measuring prehistoric mobility strategies based on obsidian geochemical and technological signatures in the Owens Valley,California

We compare the organization of obsidian flaked stone technologies in two different time periods at CA-INY-30, a village site in southern Owens Valley, eastern California. Previous archaeological studies suggest a reorganization in settlement patterns between the Newberry (ca. 3500–1500 BP) and Marana (ca. 650-contact) periods, from a highly mobile to a more residentially sedentary one. New geochemical data, based on laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) analyses of obsidian artifacts associated with discrete house floors, support this basic settlement model, but reveal new detail in how people moved across the landscape and accessed, extracted, reduced and used obsidian resources. In the earlier Newberry period, there is no relationship between flake size and distance-to-source, and the falloff curve relating frequency of obsidian against distance is more gradual, as expected, but contrary to our expectations, source diversity is not higher. These factors suggest extremely high mobility, but also selective extraction of particular sources. Newberry obsidian may have been acquired by groups of hunters who embedded quarrying within long-distance trips to distant hunting grounds, and subsequently transported bifacial cores to base camps. By contrast, Marana patterns show strong relationships between flake size and distance from source and steeper fall-off curves, suggesting groups acquired their obsidian primarily from closer sources, likely via exchange networks. At the same time, geochemical diversity, especially among smaller resharpening flakes, is higher in the Marana period, highlighting the wide-ranging conveyance systems through which obsidian moved.     

Linguistic boundaries as barriers to exchange

Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) data are used to explore the structure of obsidian acquisition for groups in the King Range National Conservation Area of northern California. The data indicate that, contrary to a distance-decay model, obsidian from more distant sources in the Medicine Lake Highlands, dominates the obsidian found at sites in the area. Furthermore, metric data indicate a positive relationship between size and distance to source with more distant sources represented by larger flakes. It is suggested that this pattern is the result of culturally mediated exchange relations under which Athabaskan speakers concentrated trade relations with one another to the exclusion of trade with linguistic groups to the south, with longer histories in the area, such as the Pomo and Yuki. Additionally, the use of redwood dugouts on rivers in northern California and the importance of northeastern Californian obsidian in ritual practices of California Athabaskan groups may have further encouraged the use of more distant, northeastern Californian, sources.     

Legislation has safeguarded the self-determination of Tibetan people——Interviewing Mr.Leque,the Chairman of the People s Congress of TAR

My last interview of Mr.Leque was when he was the Chairman of the Government of Tibet Autonomous Region(TAR).As time went by,Mr.Leque became the Chairman of the People's Congress of TAR.Following the custom,I paid my respects by presenting a delicate Karta whereupon,he gracefully gifted me another in return.Talking and laughing between us put me at ease and then led naturally into my questions.     

Navigating the Social Safety Net: A State‐Level Analysis of the Relationship between Medicaid and Consumer Bankruptcy

The social safety net in the United States consists of a variety of programs administered by both federal and state governments. Although the populations served by social programs such as Medicaid and consumer bankruptcy likely overlap, policymakers tend to look at individual programs unilaterally and often fail to communicate appropriately with legislators and political leaders at differing levels of government. The result of such an incremental approach to policy reform is a fragmented social safety net system in the United States. In this study, the relationship between two social programs belonging to the larger social safety net is examined, and recommendations for policymakers are offered.     

你该越域去哪里

你的行为出卖了你的心,这有时或许是好事。至少,它让你通过以下问卷知道,你对旅行的依赖程度和哪个目的地更适合你。下个假期来临时,你能很从容地有个准备,而不是因不知道去哪儿消磨它而抓狂。