The paper explores the relationship between environmental knowledge and farming and fallowing strategies on degraded forest land in the Upper Manya Krobo district of southeastern Ghana. Changes in cropping strategies are related to the expansion and transformation of frontier agrarian settlement, increasing population density, social differentiation, and land hunger. As a consequence land degradation has become a serious problem among the smaller farmers with insufficient land to allow fallow recuperation. Small farmers' awareness and perceptions of the processes of degradation are (...) explored, as are possible innovative contributions to the development of agroforestry research. But labor constraints often prevent the farmer from developing practical systems of fallow management. Local environmental knowledge reveals important insights into the processes of fallow degradation, potentials for fallow management, constraints that farmers face, and some problems that might emerge with the transformation of current agroforestry technology to farmers' fields. It is suggested that this knowledge should not be abstracted from its socio-economic context. The problems that local farmers' knowledge reveal are in this respect as important as questions of its efficacy and potential as a resource. (shrink)

The individual informed consent model remains critical to the ethical conduct and regulation of research involving human beings. Parental informed consent process in a rural setting of northern Ghana was studied to describe comprehension and retention among parents as part of the evaluation of the existing informed consent process.

Seeking consent for genetic and genomic research can be challenging, particularly in populations with low literacy levels, and in emergency situations. All of these factors were relevant to the MalariaGEN study of genetic factors influencing immune responses to malaria in northern rural Ghana. This study sought to identify issues arising in practice during the enrolment of paediatric cases with severe malaria and matched healthy controls into the MalariaGEN study.

Background: Seeking consent for genetic and genomic research can be challenging, particularly in populations with low literacy levels, and in emergency situations. All of these factors were relevant to the MalariaGEN study of genetic factors influencing immune responses to malaria in northern rural Ghana. This study sought to identify issues arising in practice during the enrolment of paediatric cases with severe malaria and matched healthy controls into the MalariaGEN study. Methods: The study used a rapid assessment incorporating multiple qualitative methods (...) including in depth interviews, focus group discussions and observations of consent processes. Differences between verbal information provided during community engagement processes, and consent processes during the enrolment of cases and controls were identified, as well as the factors influencing the tailoring of such information. Results: MalariaGEN participants and field staff seeking consent were generally satisfied with their understanding of the project and were familiar with aspects of the study relating to malaria. Some genetic aspects of the study were also well understood. Participants and staff seeking consent were less aware of the methodologies employed during genomic research and their implications, such as the breadth of data generated and the potential for future secondary research.Moreover, trust in and previous experience with the Navrongo Health Research Centre which was conducting the research influenced beliefs about the benefits of participating in the MalariaGEN study and subsequent decision-making about research participation. Conclusions: It is important to recognise that some aspects of complex genomic research may be of less interest to and less well understood by research participants and that such gaps in understanding may not be entirely addressed by best practice in the design and conduct of consent processes. In such circumstances consideration needs to be given to additional protections for participants that may need to be implemented in such research, and how best to provide such protections.Capacity building for research ethics committees with limited familiarity with genetic and genomic research, and appropriate engagement with communities to elicit opinions of the ethical issues arising and acceptability of downstream uses of genome wide association data are likely to be important. (shrink)

Departing from the relationship between the texts of the Ghanaian poet and novelist Kojo Laing and a recent international art exhibition, this article traces the relationship between style and the multivalent activity of flight across Laing’s work. Drawing upon an intercontinental range of philosophers – from Deleuze and Guattari to contemporary Akan thinkers – it analyses the intersections between gender, geography, and language in Laing’s texts, and demonstrates their value within the context of discussion of contemporary literature’s investment in (...) possible futures. Laing’s transnational aesthetic foregrounds lines of flight across and between different linguistic and cultural communities, and traces relentlessly emerging or possible constellations of relation. Situating Laing in the context of his interdisciplinary reception, this article seeks to explore the aesthetic and ethical ramifications of the unusual networks of affiliation and response of one of West Africa’s most important, yet critically undervalued, contemporary writers. (shrink)

1. Singminjijŏk sayu ŭi chŏnbok ŭl wihae.

1. T'oegye wa Hip'ok'ŭrat'esŭ ka mannagi kkaji -- 2. Taehwa e ch'amyŏ hasin pundŭl -- 3. Che 1-il. 'Kojŏn muksang' : kijon ŭi palgyŏndŭl ŭl ch'ulbalchŏm ŭro samaya -- 4. Che 2-il. 'Chonjaeron': mom an ŭi param ŭn hohŭp, mom pak ŭi param ŭn konggi -- 5. Che 3-il. 'Chŏngsŏ haengdongnon': chari ŭi ch'ai ro inhae sŏro tarŭda -- 6. Che 4-il. 'Kongburon': chonjae haji annŭn ŭisul ŭn ŏpta -- 7. Che 5-il. 'Chihaengnon': maŭm i p'yŏnhaji anŭl ttae nŭn han (...) kŏrŭm kŏrŏra -- 8. Che 6-il. 'Yulliron': kajang hullyunghan ŭihak ŭn ŭihak ŭl p'iryo ro haji ank'e hanŭn kŏt -- 9. Che 7-il. 'Chilli nŭn kat'ŭn kot e': modŭn kŏt ŭi sijak kwa kkŭt ŭn hana ida -- 10. Hip'ok'ŭrat'esŭ myŏngŏndŭl. (shrink)