This article focuses on the question of the function of imitation and whether current accounts of imitative function are consistent with our knowledge about imitation's origins. We first review theories of imitative origin concluding that empirical evidence suggests that imitation arises from domain‐general learning mechanisms. Next, we lay out a selective account of function that allows normative functions to be ascribed to learned behaviours. We then describe and review four accounts of the function of imitation before evaluating the relationship between (...) the claim that imitation arises out of domain‐general learning mechanisms and theories of the function of imitation. (shrink)

Background The prioritization protocols for accessing adult critical care in the extreme pandemic context contain tiebreaker criteria to facilitate decision-making in the allocation of resources between patients with a similar survival prognosis. Besides being controversial, little is known about the public acceptability of these tiebreakers. In order to better understand the public opinion, Quebec and Ontario’s protocols were presented to the public in a democratic deliberation during the summer of 2022. Objectives (1) To explore the perspectives of Quebec and Ontario (...) citizens regarding tiebreakers, identifying the most acceptable ones and their underlying values. (2) To analyze these results considering other public consultations held during the pandemic on these criteria. Methods This was an exploratory qualitative study. The design involved an online democratic deliberation that took place over two days, simultaneously in Quebec and Ontario. Public participants were selected from a community sample which excluded healthcare workers. Participants were first presented the essential components of prioritization protocols and their related issues (training session day 1). They subsequently deliberated on the acceptability of these criteria (deliberation session day 2). The deliberation was then subject to thematic analysis. Results A total of 47 participants from the provinces of Quebec (n = 20) and Ontario (n = 27) took part in the online deliberation. A diverse audience participated excluding members of the healthcare workforce. Four themes were identified: (1) Priority to young patients - the life cycle - a preferred tiebreaker; (2) Randomization - a tiebreaker of last resort; (3) Multiplier effect of most exposed healthcare workers - a median acceptability tiebreaker, and (4) Social value – a less acceptable tiebreaker. Conclusion Life cycle was the preferred tiebreaker as this criterion respects intergenerational equity, which was considered relevant when allocating scarce resources to adult patients in a context of extreme pandemic. Priority to young patients is in line with other consultations conducted around the world. Additional studies are needed to further investigate the public acceptability of tiebreaker criteria. (shrink)

Social support networks play a key role in human livelihood security, especially in vulnerable communities. Here we explore how evolutionary ideas of kin selection and intrahousehold resource competition can explain individual variation in daily support network size and composition in a south-central Ethiopian agricultural community. We consider both domestic and agricultural help across two generations with different wealth-transfer norms that yield different contexts for sibling competition. For farmers who inherited land rights from family, firstborns were more likely to report (...) daily support from parents and to have larger nonparental kin networks. Compared with other farmers, firstborns were also more likely to reciprocate their parents’ support, and to help nonparental kin without reciprocity. For farmers who received land rights from the government, middle-born farmers reported more nonparental kin in their support networks compared with other farmers; nonreciprocal interactions were particularly common in both directions. This suggests a diversification of adult support networks to nonparental kin, possibly in response to a long-term parental investment disadvantage of being middle-born sons. In all instances, regardless of inheritance, lastborn farmers were the most disadvantaged in terms of kin support. Overall, we found that nonreciprocal interactions among farmers followed kin selection predictions. Direct reciprocity explained a substantial part of the support received from kin, suggesting the importance of the combined effects of kin selection and reciprocity for investment from kin. (shrink)

In organic philosophy, the concept of naturalness is of major importance. According to the organic interpretation of animal welfare, natural living is considered a precondition for accomplishing welfare and the principal aims of organic production include the provision of natural living conditions for animals. However, respective regulations are lacking in organic legislation. In practice, the life of a calf in organic rearing systems can deviate from being natural, since common practices in dairy farms include early weaning, dehorning, or cow-calf separation (...) soon after birth. This case study explores how calf welfare is approached in six different organic dairy farms and how far the concept of naturalness is implemented. The farms included in this study were located in Norway and Sweden. A semi-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The interviewed farmers approach the concept of welfare in various ways and state that naturalness is an aspect of animal welfare. However, in practice in the calf rearing systems under study, only a few naturalness aspects were implemented. Reasons for the observed discrepancy might lie in differing understandings of naturalness, in economic restrictions, and in other trade-offs resulting from production system inherent characteristics and in limited regulation concerning provision of natural living aspects. (shrink)

This study investigated poultry farmers’ perceptions, preferences, and use of commercially compounded and self-compounded feeds in the Oyo Area of Oyo State, Nigeria. Data were collected from 120 poultry farmers through a structured interview schedule. The study concluded that poultry farmers prefer and use self-compounded feeds (SCF) instead of commercially compounded feeds (CCF) because (a) self-compounded feeds are of better quality than commercially compounded feeds, (b) there are no quality control measures in the poultry feed industry in the Oyo Area, (...) (c) commercially compounded feeds cost more than self-compounded feeds, and (d) farmers choose feed based on the perceived quality of the feed, their technical ability to produce feed by themselves, the cost of CCF, the storability of feed, and the cost and availability of transportation. Based on these findings, it is recommended that interested public and private agencies should organize annual extension workshops and training for poultry farmers in the study area on (a) feed formulation; (b) feed ingredient mixing and compounding; (c) selection of ingredients, mixtures, and additives; and (d) the establishment, operation, and maintenance of feed mills. Farmers should be encouraged to form feed mill cooperative societies. The performance of the Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON) should be monitored and evaluated to ensure its effective oversight of quality standards for agricultural products and inputs such as feeds and feed ingredients. (shrink)

Farmer participatory approaches were used to identify problems and needs as perceived by local people and to develop strategies to achieve fodder security in south Indian villages. Indigenous knowledge systems as they relate to agroforestry were explored. The farmer participatory approaches have laid the foundations for selecting appropriate agroforestry technologies and developing suitable fodder security policy options. Potential benefits and risks as a result of implementing agroforestry projects were also discussed.

This paper addresses the reasons why US meat goat producers selected to engage in meat goat production. A mail survey of US meat goat producers was conducted. Potential reasons for entering meat goat production included those associated with lifestyle, farm management, productivity, and economics. Reasons for entering meat goat production were assessed and analyzed using ordered probit models. The most important reasons for entering meat goat production included enjoyment working with goats, goat production fitting well into the farm management plan, (...) goats could be raised on a relatively small acreage, goat grazing preferences were different from other species, and the family could be involved in the goat enterprise. The 12th and 13th most important reasons were goat production profitability and low cost associated with purchasing and raising goats. Larger-scale farmers were more likely to have selected meat goat production for profitability and productivity reasons while smaller-scale farmers were more likely to have selected it for lifestyle reasons. Farmer demographics, farm characteristics, and farm location also impacted reasons why the farmer selected the goat enterprise. Results have implications for development of the meat goat industry. (shrink)

Promoting Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) aims to increase the productive capacities of farmer households. Under FMNR, farmers select and manage natural regeneration on farmlands and keep them under production. While FMNR contributes to the wealth of farming communities, its contribution to household food security has rarely been researched. We, therefore, used a mixed-methods approach to address the research gap by measuring FMNR’s contribution to food security among farmer households in the Talensi district of Ghana. We adopted the Household Dietary (...) Diversity Score (HDDS) and Food Consumption Score (FCS) to estimate food security status among 243 FMNR farmer households and 243 non-FMNR farmer households. Also, we performed a Chi-square test of independence to compare the frequency of each food group (present vs not present) between FMNR adopters and non-FMNR adopters to establish the relationship between adopting FMNR and consuming the FCS and HDDS food groups. Our results reveal that FMNR farmer households are more food secure than non-FMNR farmer households. The HHDS of the FMNR farmer households was 9.6, which is higher than the target value of 9.1. Conversely, the HHDS of the non-FMNR farmer households was 4.3, which is lower than the target value of 9.1. Up to 86% and 37% of the FMNR farmer households and non-FMNR farmer households fell within acceptable FCS; 15% and 17% of FMNR farmer households and non-FMNR farmer households fell within borderline FCS. While none of the FMNR farmer households fell within poor FCS, 46% of non-FMNR farmer households fell within poor FCS. Adopting FMNR is significantly related to consuming all food groups promoted and benefiting from FMNR practices. The paper recommends enabling farmers in semi-arid environments to practice and invest in FMNR for long-term returns to food security. (shrink)

Science and technology studies (STS) research challenges the concept of technological determinism by investigating how the end users of a technology influence that technology’s trajectory. STS critiques of determinism are needed in studies of agricultural technology. However, we contend that focusing on the agency of end users may mask the role of political-economic factors which influence technology developments and applications. This paper seeks to mesh STS insights with political-economic perspectives by accounting for relationships between availability of diverse technologies, variations in (...) political-economic structures, and farmer interests and characteristics. We present the results of an analysis on the recent development of three wheat varieties: (a) a wheat variety that was modified genetically to tolerate the herbicide glyphosate, (b) wheat varieties with characteristics selected to serve specific markets, (c) and emerging research and development of perennial wheat varieties. Using data obtained through a survey of wheat growers in Washington State, we analyzed whether farmer interest in these three clusters of wheat varieties was associated with distinct individual characteristics and attitudes and whether those characteristics and attitudes are consistent with political economic structures. Although our analysis did not allow us to assess the degree of direct influence that farmers have on the technological development trajectory for these types of wheat, we were able to document variation in technological alternatives and farmer characteristics related to different political-economic trends. (shrink)

Recent decades have seen a rapid increase in the rate of conversion from conventional to organic farming, as organic farming shifted from an alternative production approach practiced by a small number of idealists, to the de facto alternative to mainstream conventional production. Although there has been considerable academic debate as to the role of agri-business penetration into the production and marketing chains of organic farming (‘conventionalization’), less is known about how the economic drivers of conventionalization are negotiated into practices at (...) the farm level. Drawing on Bourdieu’s conceptualization of economic and cultural capitals, the direct connection between symbols of ‘good farming’ and the economic requirements of maintaining a viable farming business (i.e., the ‘taste of necessity’) is demonstrated. Findings indicate that conventional and organic farmers in the study sites identified a similar range of cultural symbols, but organic farmers emphasized different symbols within this range. This diversity and selectivity demonstrates the fragmentation and contestation of ideals resulting from economic challenges at the time of the study. Economic capital is important to the decision to consider conversion to organic farming, but formal conversion reflects re-weighting of forms of cultural capital. The author argues that recognition of the impact of economic pressures on conventional farming, which in the study sites often led to reduced input use rather than intensification, is missing from the conventionalization debate. The mainstreaming of organic farming production has presented conventional farmers with a set of alternative or re-weighted symbols and a crucible for reflexive consideration of their own standards and practices of farming. (shrink)

Farmers of the Peruvian Andesmake use of seed-size variation as a source offlexibility in the production of ``nativecommercial'' farmer varieties of Andeanpotatoes and ulluco. In a case study of easternCuzco, the use of varied sizes of seed tubers isfound to underpin versatile farm strategiessuited to partial commercialization (combinedwith on-farm consumption and the next season'sseed). Use of seed-size variation also providesadaptation to diverse soil-moistureenvironments. The importance and widespread useof seed-size variation among farmers isdemonstrated in the emphasis and consistency oflinguistic expressions about (...) this trait. Smalland small-medium seed is typically sown in thecommunity's ``Hill'' unit of sub-humid,upper-elevation agriculture. Seed tubers ofmedium-size and larger are needed fordrought-stressed locales in lower-elevationlandscape units. Farm-level preferences for theseed-size of tubers also suggest potentialrelations to resource endowments of farmhouseholds and gender-related management,although these tendencies were notstatistically significant in the study. Anintra-varietal, landscape-environmentalperspective on seed-size management, whichincludes an emphasis on within-fieldversatility, helps to strengthen the researchsupport of local seed production in policiesand programs aiming for in situagrobiodiversity conservation, marketingcapacity, and food security. (shrink)

Critical food scholars have long noted that much of local food discourse in the US is underwritten by a deeply regressive agrarian imaginary that valorizes “small family farms” while erasing historical legacies of racism. In this paper, I examine one influential expression of the agrarian imaginary that I call the fantasy of “real food,” and illustrate how that discourse contributes to ongoing exclusions in farmers markets. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis, I explain how the fantasy of real food positions white middle-class (...) consumers to view themselves as protagonists in a romantic narrative of loss and recovery, in which their enlightened consumption practices precipitate the return of authentic social relations and connections to nature. I then trace the influence of this fantasy through a reading of selected popular media, and illustrate how the racist, classist, and patriarchal antipathies of the agrarian imaginary find legitimate expression in an alternate form as affectively charged moral and aesthetic commitments. Finally, I show how this fantasy logic makes both the exclusion of outsiders and the policing of farmers appear not only reasonable but morally righteous. I conclude by arguing that we cannot rely on the reflexivity of the privileged to deliver justice, no matter how well-meaning they may be, and suggest that we need new imaginaries and new narratives to guide our politics of consumption. (shrink)

Rural queer studies, viewed through the lens of relational agriculture, offer critiques of heteropatriarchal norms in farming and highlight strategies used by queer farmers to manoeuvre discrimination and thrive in rural areas. This paper responds to recent calls for further scrutiny of the experiences of gender and sexually underrepresented groups in community-supported agriculture (CSA). It investigates the empowerment of rural queer people in CSA Guadiana, South Portugal, through the experiences of 12 queer members. I collected data through participant observation, semi-structured (...) interviews and a focus group and analysed them through open coding, followed by focused coding. Results indicate that CSA Guadiana, despite not originally designed for this purpose, facilitates various forms of empowerment and active engagement among queer members, particularly influenced by the leadership of queer producers and recurrent gatherings in queer-owned farmland. Three key lessons of queer empowerment in CSA Guadiana emerge from the analysis and contribute to debates on the politics of recognition, queer community action and visibility in the rural context: (i) self-confidence to perform queerness may be restricted to a selective rural community; (ii) partnerships between producers and co-producers may enable reciprocal queer empowerment; and (iii) queer leadership in agri-food community action may quietly represent gender and sexual diversity in the countryside. These findings offer the rural queer literature novel insights into the complexities, contradictions and limitations of empowerment experienced by queer farmers, artisanal food producers and consumers in a rural CSA. (shrink)

Donors, scientists and farmers all benefit when research and development projects have high impact. However, potential benefits are sometimes not realized. Our objective in this study is to determine why resource-poor farmers in Togo (declined to) adopt recommended practices that were promoted through a multi-organizational project on soil fertility management. We examine the processes and outcomes related to the adoption process. The project was undertaken in three villages in the Central Region of Togo in West Africa. The development and research (...) processes that took place during the implementation of the project were critically analyzed using a conceptual framework that may be useful for improving the impact of future participatory projects. At the macro level, opportunities for innovation were not deliberately explored with participating farmers and other village members; consequently “pre-analytical choices” made during the planning phase resulted in practices that resource-poor farmers were, for a variety of reasons, unable or unwilling to adopt. From the outset, donors and scientists focused on soil fertility management, but failed to take into account the wider economic context within which soil fertility management took place. This was a major obstacle to the subsequent adoption of recommended management strategies. Scientists and donor partners measured the success of the Project in terms of crop productivity, but farmers’ choices were influenced by a complex mix of socio-economic, political and technical factors. We also illustrate the importance of selecting appropriate categories of farmers for a particular experiment. We conclude that for participatory research and development projects to be successful, it is not enough to develop technologies that “work” in a technical sense. In order to be scaled up and widely implemented, such technologies must also meet a variety of needs of resource-poor farmers and be acceptable from a socio-cultural point of view. (shrink)

In the early 2000s, the development of local food systems in advanced industrial countries has expanded beyond creation and support of farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture farms and projects to include targeted Buy Local Food campaigns. Non-governmental groups in many U.S. places and regions have launched such campaigns with the intent of motivating and directing consumers toward more local food purchasing in general. This article examines the current manifestations and possibilities for social justice concerns in Buy Local Food campaigns, (...) by considering them within the more general category of “selective patronage“ campaigns. Historical campaign examples, such as Buy Union, Buy American, and Buy Black campaigns, offer instructive comparisons to contemporary consumer campaigns promoting local food. Through examining the construction of threats, intended beneficiaries, products to be avoided, and those to be preferentially selected, the paper demonstrates how selective patronage campaigns have emphasized social justice needs and concerns for designated groups in ways that have been potentially exclusionary of other disadvantaged groups and thus undermining of social justice more broadly. As a contemporary instance of “selective patronage,“ Buy Local Food campaigns exhibit similar contradictory impulses, which are intensified by the conceptual and practical pitfalls in designating “local.“ The article concludes by considering how the challenges and prospects for commitments to social justice in local food consumer campaigns reinforce the importance of emerging initiatives centered on domestic fair trade. (shrink)

Easy-care or natural lambing pertainsto those sheep able to successfully lamb andrear at least one lamb without human assistancein a difficult environment. Such sheep may havea higher survival rate, lower lamb mortality,and require less shepherding at lambing thanother sheep breeds or strains. The farmer orshepherd account of easy-care lambing revealsseveral themes. Firstly, stock were bred tosurvive or suit local environments orconditions, particularly steep hill country inNew Zealand. This involved extensive culling ofundesirable dams, regardless of how well theymight perform in traits (...) other than the abilityto survive and to produce live lambs atweaning. Sheep that did have problems wereoften assisted, recorded or marked and thenculled at an appropriate time; thus bothartificial (culling) and natural selection wereused. Secondly, natural selection enabled theimportant traits to be identified and they weresubsequently incorporated into artificialselection programs. Thirdly, the practice wasnecessitated by the impracticality ofsupervising lambing in difficult terrain andthe cost of skilled farm labor. Finally, it wasacknowledged that disturbance at lambingcreated problems and most importantly, theeasy-care approach reduced some of the problemstraditionally associated with lambing.Easy-care lambing systems thus aim to minimizesome of the detrimental effects associated withcarefully supervised lambing in someenvironments, by selecting sheep to suit boththat environment and modern farm management.They overcame pervasive influences our culturallegacy was exerting on the way we interact withanimals, and may have produced a system more inkeeping with the biology of the animal in anextensive environment. (shrink)

The conservation of in situ crop diversity is a key issue to ensure food security. Understanding the processes that shape it is crucial for efficiently managing such diversity. In most rural societies, crop diversity patterns are affected by farmers’ practices of seed exchange, transmission, and selection, but the role of social organization in shaping those practices has been overlooked. This study proposes an ecological anthropology approach to investigate the relation between crop diversity patterns and the social organization of Tharaka (...) farmers in Kenya. The Tharaka are organized in neighborhood-groups, clans, and age-sets. We quantified the influence of these three major social institutions on crop diversity patterns, for both crop species and sorghum landraces. General linear models were used to test the relations between crop species richness and each social factor, while the crop species and sorghum landraces compositions of cropping systems were compared separately through a between-class correspondence analysis. Crop species and sorghum landraces are not randomly distributed among farms, and neighborhood-groups constitute a significant factor organizing crop diversity at both specific and infraspecific levels. Adjacent neighborhood-groups present significantly different crop richness and composition. The results for species were consistent with those obtained for sorghum landraces, confirming that crop diversity was socially structured. The influence of social organization on seed networks and selection processes is discussed. (shrink)

Although inclusion in formal value chains extends the prospect of improving the livelihoods of rural small-scale producers, such a step is often contingent on compliance with internationally-promoted food safety standards. Limited research has addressed the challenges this represents for small rural producers who, grounded in culturally-embedded food safety conceptions, face difficulties in complying. We address this gap here through a multiple case study involving four public school feeding programs that source meals from local rural providers in the Bolivian Altiplan. Institutional (...) logics theory is used to describe public food safety regulations and to compare them to food safety conceptions in the local indigenous Aymara rural setting. We identify a value-based conflict that leads to non-compliance of formal food safety rules that jeopardizes the participation of small farmers in the market. These include: partial adoption of formal rules; selective adoption of convenient rules; and ceremonial adoption to avoid compliance. Decoupling strategies allow local actors to largely disregard the formal food safety regulations while accommodating traditional cultural practices and continuing to access the market. However, these practices put the long-term sustainability of the farmers’ participation in potentially favorable opportunities at risk. (shrink)

Eleven organic and two conventionalSwedish livestock farmers and two initiators(non-farmers who took part in shaping earlyorganic livestock production in Sweden) wereinterviewed, using a semi-structured method.Respondents were selected through purposive andheterogeneous sampling with regard toconversion year, type of production, and sizeof farm. Conversion of the animal husbandrytook place between 1974 and 2000. All but twohad positive attitudes towards organiclivestock production and saw it as a wayforward for Swedish livestock production,although especially the latecomers did notperceive it as the only alternative. There wasa (...) distinct difference in values between thepioneers, who converted their farms early, andthose converting later. Pioneer farmers sharedthe values of the initiators. They expressed amore ecocentric view emphasizing a systemicapproach, and displayed a more holisticapproach to questions, interpreting them inlarger frameworks. They also had a moreecocentric understanding of animal welfare. Thelater the conversion, the more important theeconomic reason for conversion appeared to be.Those converting later also tended to have amore superficial relationship to organicprinciples. However, the farmers also tended tobe more influenced by organic values the longerthey worked with organic farming. (shrink)

This paper offers a conceptualmodel for participatory research projects thataim to improve the sustainability ofagriculture and natural resource management.The purpose of the model is to provide asystematic framework that can guide the designof participatory research projects, theiranalysis, and the documentation of results. Inthe model, conceptual boundaries are drawnbetween research and development, developmentand extension and between extension andimplementation. Objectives, activities, andactors associated with each of these realmsneed to be carefully selected, monitored, andevaluated throughout the course of a projectusing well-designed indicators. The (...) depth ofdisciplinary and methodological integration,and quality of participation needed to reachthe desired impact effectively and efficiently,however, needs to be determined on acase-by-case basis depending on the context andissues surrounding each particular project. (shrink)

Increasing interest in farmers’ local soil knowledge and soil management practice as a way to promote sustainable agriculture and soil conservation needs a reliable means to connect to it. This study sought to examine if Visual Soil Assessment and farmer workshops were suitable means to engage, communicate and preserve farmers’ LSK in two mountainous communes of Central Vietnam. Twenty-four farmers with reasonable or comprehensive LSK from previously studied communes were selected for the efficacy of VSA and farmer workshops for integrating (...) LSK into a well-accepted soil assessment tool. In field sites chosen by the farmers, VSA was independently executed by both farmers and scientists at the same time. Close congruence of VSA scores between the two groups highlighted that farmers could competently undertake VSA. Farmers’ VSA score was compared with their perception of field’s soil quality. For the majority of farmers’ perception of soil quality was consistent to their VSA score, while the remainder perceived their soil quality was lower than their VSA score. For most farmers their assessment of soil quality using VSA valued their LSK, and the two measures were well aligned. Soil colour and presence or vulnerability to erosion were common soil characteristics mentioned by farmers and affected the final VSA score. Farmers’ participation in VSA and workshops strengthen farmers’ confidence in their LSK and provided guidance on the impact of their soil management on soil improvement and conservation. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to examine the challenges facing fish farmers in the use of information and communication technology in information sharing on fish farming. Design/methodology/approach This study used both quantitative and qualitative methods. It involved 240 fish farmers who were randomly selected. Questionnaires, focus group discussions, observation and key informant’s interviews were used as methods of data collection. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse quantitative data, while content analysis was used for qualitative data. Findings It was (...) found that the most frequently used ICTs by fish farmers in sharing agricultural information were mobile phones, radio and television. Also, the study revealed that major challenges facing fish farmers in sharing information include unfavourable radio or television broadcasting time, high cost of acquiring and maintenance of ICT facilities, lack of training on ICT, poor network connectivity and low level of literacy. Moreover, it was further found that there was negative significant relationship between challenges associated with the use and degree of ICT usage by fish farmers. Originality/value The study is original with the exception of areas where citations have been made. Besides, it provides awareness and understanding of the challenges facing fish farmers in ICT usage in information sharing on fish farming, and this will enable improvement of timely provision and access to relevant information and hence improved fish farming production. (shrink)

Mass media images offer audiences models for how to perform the social roles they depict. Opinions and other attributes of credible media models may likewise be embraced by audience members seeking to identify with those models. Thus farm magazine narratives about “successful” farmers may encourage readers to model or aspire to featured farmers' production and management techniques and ascribe legitimacy to models' responses to current agricultural issues. However, production of agrarian images in the mass media — including images of farms, (...) farmers, and farmers' values — are inevitably biased such that media representations of successful farmers selectively present objective characteristics in terms of the media's own ideological frameworks, which in turn reflect the dominant ideology of the social relations in which the media are engaged. As a first step in identifying farm magazines' role in creating social models for farmers, this study analyzes articles featuring “successful,” “leading,” or “innovative” farmers in leading agricultural magazines. The featured farmers are categorized according to enterprise characteristics and characterizations of them and their management philosophies. Findings show that farmers in farm magazines have larger than average operations and are portrayed in a way that blends a “farming as business” orientation with more conventional agrarian values but that generally omits non-business aspects of farm life. (shrink)

Cornell University and Zamorano (ThePanamerican School of Agriculture) facilitatedworkshops that provided Honduran and Nicaraguanfarmers new experience with plant diseases and helpedfarmers assimilate information and identify diseasemanagement alternatives. After learning about thebiology of plant diseases, farmers were able toidentify disease problems in their field, enablingthem to use pesticides more selectively. Furthermore,participants of seven courses conceived 273 pathogen-specificmanagement alternatives, and they identifiedon average 66 percent of the common recommendations by plantpathologists for the control of general disease types.Many ideas were novel and may (...) represent newopportunities for improving the practice of diseasemanagement. (shrink)

Indigenous agricultural knowledge (IAK) can be analyzed for its technical role in food production strategies, and for its role as cultural knowledge producing and reproducing mutual understanding and identity among the members of a farming group. IAK can also be approached from the perspective of critical theory, analyzing the relationship between knowledge and relations of power, with the goal of liberating indigenous farmers from forms of domination. The paper considers relationships between the different aspects of IAK, using examples of the (...) influence of non-local technologies and ideas on indigenous agricultural practices in the Ecuadorian Andes. The examples elucidate how technical change is a signifier of the changing relationship between indigenous farmers and wider society. The political implications of these changes are ambiguous, however, because the change is not necessarily one of social and cultural assimilation. As indigenous peasant organizations in Ecuador now reflect on these changes, they are connecting the questions of IAK, indigenous cultural identity and political strategy. Some organizations speak of recovering and revalorizing indigenous technologies as a tool for, and symbol of, resistance to domination by wider society. Others see selective modernization of indigenous agriculture as a necessary strategy to sustain the social and cultural cohesion of the group, even if this implies social changes. The different perspectives reflect both different conditions facing the organizations, and their varying approaches. That peasant organizations have these discussions suggests that they should constitute an important meeting point for farmers and crop researchers to discuss technology development strategies as equal partners. The organizations can provide an institutional forum in which participants reflect critically on the agrarian knowledge that they have, why they have it, and what it can contribute to future strategies of agrarian and social change. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Arguing about PsychiatryNatural Selection, Austinian Conservatism, and Finding Our Way to the BestJoseph Gough (bio)Professors Murphy and Lieberman have offered two generous and interesting commentaries on my article, each very insightful and helpful in its own way, and each offering an interesting alternative characterization of the subject matter of psychiatry. I found each extremely thought-provoking, hence this rather bloated response. I strongly disagree with each. In brief, I (...) disagree with the 'preliminaries' of each commentary, struggle to see the tension between Hull's view of science and my view of psychiatry, reject Lieberman's appeal to the history of mind-like and mental-illness-like concepts, and finally, believe my position neither suffers from the instability of psychiatry, nor blocks the route to best practice, nor counsels despair.Metaphysical Precision and Conceptual Evolution: Response to MurphyMurphy begins by offering some helpful context for the debate, and for our disagreement within that debate. Partly it is helpful because it raises a cluster of questions, which I agree with him, are related to the topic at hand. Partly it is helpful because it lays out Murphy's background metaphysics, with which I broadly agree, but where I think it is important to be more pedantic than Murphy himself is. Murphy and I agree that there are animate objects, importantly different from inanimate objects; we also agree that there is no object in nature that is a mind. However, in that [End Page 45] opening paragraph, there are a few things that look to me a little like conflations—and while I am happy to grant this as pedantry, I am not happy to deny its importance.First, not everything animate is intelligent and unpredictable—a presumably accidental implication of Murphy's use of 'these' throughout the paragraph. Second, intelligence and unpredictability do not in my view cluster in the way that Murphy suggests in the passage—a highly intelligent system may be exceptionally predictable at least so long as its goals and knowledge are fixed, and a highly unpredictable system may, of course, be entirely unintelligent. Of course, when some systems behave other than we expect, we count this as a failing of the system; but this is a feature of artifacts as well as animate systems, and perhaps also of objects that are neither artifacts nor animate (think of a farmer whose crops fail to go—might they not think there is something wrong with the soil?). The class of 'predictions' Murphy identifies is what I would describe as a class of normative expectations, that, of course, must be somewhat in line with the way things actually are, but are not 'predictions' in the paradigmatic sense of guesses about what will happen.This pedantry matters because this implied (or perhaps less charitably, enforced) alignment between non-coextensive categories in this picture of Murphy's is leveraged, I think, to gesture towards an objection. First, Murphy claims that this class of systems has required a special vocabulary, 'mental' vocabulary. Second, it is, I think, suggested in Murphy's set-up (and perhaps in Murphy's work; Murphy & Stich, 1999) that at some level this vocabulary anchors what we are talking about when we are talking about 'mental illness.'But here, of course, I disagree—or at least, I might disagree if I were clear what is being claimed. Which class of systems is that gives rise to this 'special vocabulary? Several have been mentioned. It should also come as no surprise that I think it is deeply unclear what counts as 'mental' vocabulary. Is it the vocabulary of animacy? Of normative expectation and function-ascription? Perhaps of intentionality? Or of consciousness? Maybe it is defined 'ostensively' with respect to terms like belief and desire?After these preliminaries, Murphy offers an objection to my position, and a brief defense of his own. I would like to begin with his defense of his own position:the best way to think about the claim that mental illnesses are brain diseases … is to see them as committing us to a form of explanation that treats psychiatry as continuous with other sciences of mind, in... (shrink)

Multisensory stimulation has been shown to alter the sense of body-ownership. Given that perceived similarity between one’s own body and those of others is crucial for social cognition, we investigated whether multisensory stimulation can lead participants to experience ownership over a hand of different skin colour. Results from two studies using introspective, behavioural and physiological methods show that, following synchronous visuotactile stimulation, participants can experience body-ownership over hands that seem to belong to a different racial group. Interestingly, a baseline measure (...) of implicit racial bias did not predict whether participants would experience the RHI, but the overall strength of experienced body-ownership seemed to predict the participants’ post-illusion implicit racial bias with those who experienced a stronger RHI showing a lower bias. These findings suggest that multisensory experiences can override strict ingroup/outgroup distinctions based on skin colour and point to a key role for sensory processing in social cognition. (shrink)

We establish natural criteria under which normally iterable premice are iterable for stacks of normal trees. Let Ω be a regular uncountable cardinal. Let m < ω and M be an m-sound premouse and Σ be...

This is a review essay of Lagasnerie, Judge and Punish and Fassin, The Will to Punish. It explores the way that these two books challenge conventional thinking about the relationship between crime and punishment.

In contemporary philosophy of religion, the doctrine of omniscience is typically rendered propositionally, as the claim that God knows all true propositions (and believes none that are false). But feminist work makes clear what even the analytic tradition sometimes confesses, namely, that propositional knowledge is quite limited in scope. The adequacy of propositional conceptions of omniscience is therefore in question. This paper draws on the work of feminist epistemologists to articulate alternative renderings of omniscience which remedy the deficiencies of the (...) traditional formulation. (shrink)

According to a theorem due to Kenneth Kunen, under ZFC, there is no ordinal [Formula: see text] and nontrivial elementary embedding [Formula: see text]. His proof relied on the Axiom of Choice (AC), and no proof from ZF alone is has been discovered. [Formula: see text] is the assertion, introduced by Hugh Woodin, that [Formula: see text] is an ordinal and there is an elementary embedding [Formula: see text] with critical point [Formula: see text]. And [Formula: see text] asserts that (...) [Formula: see text] holds for some [Formula: see text]. The axiom [Formula: see text] is one of the strongest large cardinals not known to be inconsistent with AC. It is usually studied assuming ZFC in the full universe [Formula: see text] (in which case [Formula: see text] must be a limit ordinal), but we assume only ZF. We prove, assuming ZF [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text] “[Formula: see text] is an even ordinal”, that there is a proper class transitive inner model [Formula: see text] containing [Formula: see text] and satisfying ZF [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text] “there is an elementary embedding [Formula: see text]”; in fact we will have [Formula: see text] ⊆[Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] witnesses [Formula: see text] in [Formula: see text]. This result was first proved by the author under the added assumption that [Formula: see text] exists; Gabe Goldberg noticed that this extra assumption was unnecessary. If also [Formula: see text] is a limit ordinal and [Formula: see text]-DC holds in [Formula: see text], then the model [Formula: see text] will also satisfy [Formula: see text]-DC. We show that ZFC [Formula: see text] “[Formula: see text] is even” [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text] implies [Formula: see text] exists for every [Formula: see text], but if consistent, this theory does not imply [Formula: see text] exists. (shrink)

This paper studies homogeneously Suslin (hom) sets of reals in tame mice. The following results are established: In 0 ¶ the hom sets are precisely the [Symbol] sets. In M n every hom set is correctly [Symbol] and (δ + 1)-universally Baire where ä is the least Woodin. In M u every hom set is <λ-hom, where λ is the supremum of the Woodins.

As a highly technological innovation, cultured meat is the subject of techno-optimistic as well as techno-sceptical evaluations. The chapter discusses this opposition and connects it with arguments about seeing the world in the right way. Both sides not only call upon us to see the world in a very particular light, but also point to mechanisms of selective attention in order to explain how others can be so biased. I will argue that attention mechanisms are indeed relevant for dealing with (...) the Anthropocene, but that dualism has paralysing effects. In a dualistic framework, cultured meat is associated with ecomodernist optimism, bold technological control over nature and alienation from animals. But interested citizens and farmers in focus groups rather envisioned the future of cultured meat through small scale production on farms combined with intensive relations with animals. Such scenarios, involving elements from both sides of the dualistic gap, depend on constructive ways of dealing with dualisms and ambivalence. (shrink)

A significant open problem in inner model theory is the analysis of HODL[x] as a strategy premouse, for a Turing cone of reals x. We describe here an obstacle to such an analysis. Assuming sufficient large cardinals, for a Turing cone of reals x there are proper class 1-small premice M,N, with Woodin cardinals δ,ε, respectively, such that M|δ and N|ε are in L[x], M and N are countable in L[x], and the pseudo-comparison of M with N succeeds, is in (...) L[x], and lasts exactly ω1L[x] stages. Moreover, we can take M=M1, the minimal iterable proper class inner model with a Woodin cardinal, and take N to be M1-like and short-tree-iterable. (shrink)

Assume. Let κ be a cardinal. A ‐ground is a transitive proper class W modelling such that V is a generic extension of W via a forcing of cardinality. The κ‐mantle is the intersection of all ‐grounds. We prove that certain partial choice principles in are the consequence of κ being inaccessible/weakly compact, and some other related facts.

Tamsin Jones believes that locating Jean-Luc Marion solely within theological or phenomenological discourse undermines the coherence of his intellectual and philosophical enterprise. Through a comparative examination of Marion’s interpretation and use of Dionysius the Areopagite and Gregory of Nyssa, Jones evaluates the interplay of the manifestation and hiddenness of phenomena. By placing Marion against the backdrop of these Greek fathers, Jones sharpens the tension between Marion’s rigorous method and its intended purpose: a safeguard against idolatry. At once situated at the (...) crossroads of the debate over the turn to religion in French phenomenology and an inquiry into the retrieval of early Christian writings within this discourse, A Genealogy of Marion’s Philosophy of Religion opens up a new view of the phenomenology of religious experience. (shrink)

There has recently been a resurgence of philosophical and scientific interest in the foundations of self-consciousness, with particular focus on its altered, anomalous forms. This paper looks at the altered forms of self-awareness in Depersonalization Disorder (DPD), a condition in which people feel detached from their self, their body and the world (Derealisation). Building upon the phenomenological distinction between reflective and pre-reflective self-consciousness, we argue that DPD may alter thetransparencyof basic embodied forms of pre-reflective self-consciousness, as well as the capacity (...) to flexibly modulate and switch between the reflective and pre-reflective facets of self-awareness. Empirical evidence will be invoked in support of the idea that impaired processing of bodily signals is characteristic of the condition. We provide first-hand subjective reports describing the experience of self-detachment or fracture between an observing and an observed self. This split is compared with similar self-detachment phenomena reported in certain Buddhist-derived meditative practices. We suggest that these alterations and changes may reveal the underlying and tacit transparency that characterises the embodied and basic pre-reflective forms of self-consciousness, in the same way that a crack in a transparent glass may indicate the presence of an unnoticed window. (shrink)

Multisensory stimulation has been shown to alter the sense of body-ownership. Given that perceived similarity between one’s own body and those of others is crucial for social cognition, we investigated whether multisensory stimulation can lead participants to experience ownership over a hand of different skin colour. Results from two studies using introspective, behavioural and physiological methods show that, following synchronous visuotactile stimulation, participants can experience body-ownership over hands that seem to belong to a different racial group. Interestingly, a baseline measure (...) of implicit racial bias did not predict whether participants would experience the RHI, but the overall strength of experienced body-ownership seemed to predict the participants’ post-illusion implicit racial bias with those who experienced a stronger RHI showing a lower bias. These findings suggest that multisensory experiences can override strict ingroup/outgroup distinctions based on skin colour and point to a key role for sensory processing in social cognition. (shrink)

The fifth book in the series offers an historical and conceptual account of the criminal law, as it has developed in England and spread to common law jurisdictions around the world. It traces how and why criminal law has come to be accorded with a central role in securing civil order in modernity, and justifies who and what should be treated as criminal under the law. Farmer argues that the emergence of the modern state in which criminal law is recognized (...) as an instrument of government is a result of the distinct body of rules which have emerged from the modern criminal law. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

We propose, following Clark, that generative models also play a central role in the perception and interpretation of linguistic signals. The data explanation approach provides a rationale for the role of prediction in language processing and unifies a number of phenomena, including multiple-cue integration, adaptation effects, and cortical responses to violations of linguistic expectations.