There is increasing recognition that sustainable diets need to be ‘culturally appropriate’. In relation to food consumption, however, it is often unclear what cultural appropriateness–or related terms, such as cultural or social acceptability–actually means. Often these terms go undefined, and where definitions are present, they vary widely. Based on a systematic literature review this paper explores how cultural appropriateness of food consumption is conceptualised across different research literatures, identifying six main themes in how cultural appropriateness is understood and applied. (...) The paper then critically analyses these themes in relation to sustainable food system transformation. We explore how the themes conceptualise change, finding that cultural appropriateness is viewed in two main ways: either as a relatively static obstacle to be overcome, or as a dynamic and negotiated process. Both perspectives, we argue, entail different scientific, practical and political effects. Each perspective offers particular affordances for understanding and governing sustainable food system transition, although between perspectives there is likely to be a trade-off between theoretical sophistication and practical operationalizability. Based on this analysis we argue that researchers, policymakers and practitioners should be explicit about their commitment to a particular understanding of cultural appropriateness, as this will have implications for scientific and societal applications of their work. This is particularly the case, we suggest, in relation to the transdisciplinary collaborations necessary to effectively address the ‘wicked problem’ of food system sustainability. We conclude by offering a tentative general definition of cultural appropriateness as it relates to food consumption. (shrink)

Part of current pragmatics research aims at opening up new avenues of inquiry by revisiting and revising some of its central topics and keywords, such as implicature, explicature, truth, varieties of meaning, meaning inference, relevance, politeness, and face. This review article attempts to contribute to this endeavor by making some comments on and beyond Kecskes and Horn's Explorations in Pragmatics: Linguistic, Cognitive and Intercultural Aspects. With reference to certain Chinese linguistic and interactional actualities, this paper argues, among other things, that (...) a speaker who conveys some truth to a hearer does not necessarily mean that the speaker is committed to that truth, that people with little social power may also manipulate the power of words in actual interaction, and that when it comes to making politeness evaluations, what one does may turn out to be more important and decisive than what one says. (shrink)

Thousands of youth suffering from acquired brain injury or other early-life neurological disease live, mature, and learn with only limited communication and interaction with their world. Such cognitively capable children are ideal candidates for brain-computer interfaces. While BCI systems are rapidly evolving, a fundamental gap exists between technological innovators and the patients and families who stand to benefit. Forays into translating BCI systems to children in recent years have revealed that kids can learn to operate simple BCI with proficiency akin (...) to adults. BCI could bring significant boons to the lives of many children with severe physical impairment, supporting their complex physical and social needs. However, children have been neglected in BCI research and a collaborative BCI research community is required to unite and push pediatric BCI development forward. To this end, the pediatric BCI Canada collaborative network was formed, under a unified goal to cooperatively drive forward pediatric BCI innovation and impact. This article reflects on the topics and discussions raised in the foundational BCI-CAN meeting held in Toronto, ON, Canada in November 2019 and suggests the next steps required to see BCI impact the lives of children with severe neurological disease and their families. (shrink)

As a fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) term, the concept of “ignorance” ex-presses uncertainties in legal transactions and, in Islamic law, is accepted as a situation that negatively impacts the legitimacy of contracts. If the sale is deferred, clarification of the delivery time of the price to be paid for the goods sold, the number of installments, etc. during the contract is considered essential for the validity of the transactions in order not to damage the principle of mutual consent in purchase and (...) sale transactions and to avoid conflicts between the parties. However, not every uncertainty is considered an obstacle to the validity of the contract, and minor uncertainties that do not lead to disputes are tolerated. The fiqh sources of four Islamic sects contain many examples of these uncertainties. This study firstly examines the effect of ignorance on the validity of purchasing contracts in Islamic law using the issues in classical fiqh sources and then analyses the housing sales contract of TOKI’s (housing development administration of Turkey) “my first house social housing project” in this context from a fiqh perspective. In addition, the study addresses the related housing sales contract in terms of the juristic preference method by considering the aspect of meeting an important need of society and realizing the purpose of this project. Then, while evaluating the issue from a juris-prudential point of view, the study discusses that the absolute and strict interpretation of the rule of “ignorance renders the contract void,” which is adopted by ignoring the public interest, does not produce favorable results. (shrink)

The article presents the reasons for which the issue of providing housing to low-income citizens has been a real challenge in Addis Ababa during the recent years and will continue to be, given that its population is growing extremely fast. It examines the tensions between the universal aspirations and the local realities in the case of some of Ethiopia’s most ambitious mass pro-poor housing schemes, such as the “Addis Ababa Grand Housing Program” (AAGHP), which was launched in (...) 2004 and was integrated in the “Integrated Housing Development Program” (IHDP) in 2006. The article argues that the quotidian practices of communities and their socio-economic and cultural characteristics are related to the spatial attributes of co-housing practices. Drawing upon the idea that there is a mutual correspondence between social and spatial structures, it places particular emphasis on the analysis of the IHDP and aims to show that to shape strategies that take into account the social and cultural aspects of daily life of the poor citizens of Addis Ababa, it is pivotal to invite them to take part in the decision-making processes regarding their resettlement. Departing from the fact that a large percentage of the housing supply in Addis Ababa consists of informal unplanned housing, the article also compares the commoning practices in kebele houses and condominium units. The former refers to the legal informal housing units owned by the government and rented to their dwellers, whereas the latter concerns the housing blocks built in the framework of the IHDP for the resettlement of the kebele dwellers. The article analyzes these processes of resettlement, shedding light of the fact that kebele houses were located at the inner city, whereas the condominiums are located in the suburbs. Despite the fact that the living conditions in the condominium units are of a much higher quality than those in the kebele houses, their design underestimated or even neglected the role of the commoning practices. The article highlights the advantages of commoning practices in architecture and urban planning, and how the implementation of participation-oriented solutions can respond to the difficulties of providing housing. It argues that understanding the significance of the endeavors that take into account the opinions of dwellers during the phase of decision-making goes hand in hand with considering commoning practices as a source of architecture and urban planning frameworks for low-cost housing in this specific context. The key argument of the article is that urban planning and architecture solutions in Addis Ababa should be based on the principles of the so-called “negotiated planning” approach, which implies a close analysis of the interconnections between planning, infrastructure, and land. (shrink)

This article presents research on robot therapy for elderly residents in a care house. Experiments were conducted from June 2005, lasting more than 2 months. Two therapeutic baby seal robots were introduced to the residents, and activated for over 9 hours daily. To investigate the psychological and social effects of the robots, the residents’ activities in public areas were recorded using video cameras, during the daytime for over 2 months. In addition, urinalysis of the residents was performed for 17-ketosteroid (...) sulfate and 17-hydroxycorticosteroid. Results of the video analysis indicated that social interaction increased through interaction with the seal robots. Results of the urine tests showed that the reactions of the subjects’ vital organs to stress improved after the introduction of the robots. (shrink)

Jane Addams's early attempt to empower the people with information.

In 2015, the predominantly visible minority immigrant community of Herongate, in Ottawa, Ontario, was slated for redevelopment by its landlord, Timbercreek Asset Management. This redevelopment involved mass eviction of the incumbent tenants, demolition of the existing affordable housing and its replacement with luxury rentals, which, by all indications, are beyond the financial reach of the former Herongage tenants. This paper seeks to problematize large-scale residential real estate redevelopment in Canada and examine its impact, using the Herongate situation as a (...) case study. Among other things, it profiles the Herongate community, its history and present redevelopment, and explores the legal framework, and the limits thereof, constraining mass evictions of this type in Ontario. The findings indicate that the selection of Herongate for redevelopment was not fortuitous; generally, racialized and immigrant communities like Herongate are disproportionately likely to be selected for large-scale redevelopment projects, and thus subjected to mass-evictions. Further results suggest that the dissolution of the Herongate community – and the attendant dislocation of its members – has exacted a pronounced social and economic toll and compounded the racial discrimination already experienced by the former Herongate residents, most of whom are visible minorities. The paper concludes with an appeal to imbue the redevelopment process with a greater regard for social justice, and a right to housing as a policy solution to address the injustice caused by real estate redevelopment. (shrink)

Social insects show us very little about the evolution of complex human society. As more relevant literature demonstrates, ultrasociality is a cause rather than an effect of human social evolution.

This note analyses the decision of the House of Lords in Fitzpatrick, which held that gay partners could fall within the legal definition of ‘family’ for some purposes. The note argues that despite the real (if overstated) benefits that this case bestows on gay partners in the form of legal rights, under analysis, the decision self-deconstructs to reveal that it is grounded on the principle of discrimination on the basis of sexuality. However, it is also suggested that the encounter between (...) discursive legal reasoning (underpinned by normative heterosexuality), and aversion of the family which is ‘other’ to this discourse, is one which leaves its mark on law, as the potential undermining or deconstruction of law’s normative assumptions. The note further argues that although this decision is properly seen as a moment in the struggle for gay rights, it also serves as a reminder that the fortunes of critical theories and political movements that seek to challenge the legal paradigm of the white, heterosexual male are inextricably linked. Fitzpatrick, whatever else it is, is also an object lesson in the debt that current campaigns for gay legal rights owe to feminist critiques of, and campaigns that have successfully challenged, the role of this norm in legal discourse. (shrink)

The research focuses on the study of public housing built in response to the urgent housing needs in Europe throughout the 20th century. These developments share many of the characteristics of their European counterparts. The Spanish case presents certain peculiarities in its development. The research aims to analyse the context -social, economic and political- that conditioned the massive construction of housing in Spain between 1939 and 1976. An analysis is made of the approved urban planning legislation, (...) housing regulation and the identification of the responsible bodies. (shrink)

El presente trabajo investiga las tesis sobre el poder civil de Alonso de la Veracruz que buscan incorporar en la comunidad política española a los habitantes autóctonos del Nuevo Mundo, tesis que suelen relacionarse con F. de Vitoria y el tomismo español, y que últimamente son consideradas parte del republicanismo novohispano elaborado desde la periferia americana. Se busca demostrar que su propósito era aplicar una teoría de derechos naturales, sin que ello implique participación política de los indios americanos. Se analiza (...) la postura del fraile frente a la diversidad cultural y la guerra contra los indios. The paper explores Alonso de la Veracruz's theses on civil power, which sought to integrate the native inhabitants of the New World into the Spanish political community. These theses, which have usually been associated with F. de Vitoria and Spanish Thomism, have recently come to be considered part of a Novohispanic republicanism developed in the American periphery. The article seeks to show that the purpose of such theses was to apply a theory of natural rights that did not entail the political participation of the indigenous population, as well as to analyze Veracruz's position regarding cultural diversity and the war against the indigenous peoples. (shrink)

The subject of the current study is the process of implementing the social housing policy and its impact on increasing the quality of life of vulnerable people. The analysis is related to the Social Housing Program introduced by the city of Gdańsk. The study has been carried out using the case study method with the use of document analysis, analysis of existing data, and five in-depth interviews with program managers. The theoretical framework has been developed around (...) three major explicatory perspectives: multi-level governance, QOL, and social exclusion. Meeting the housing needs is one of the primary tasks of local governments. If such a policy is to be called positive, it should be combined with social policy tasks related to social inclusion, and it should be carried out through partnerships forming housing cooperation networks. A characteristic feature of the cooperation is the cross-sectoral nature of the actors. The results have revealed a significant positive relationship between the use of social housing tools and the quality of satisfying the living needs of the residents. This study contributes to the discussion by revealing the role of social work and social and professional activation in meeting housing needs. The results suggest that a combination of housing and social policy measures can help vulnerable people develop social competencies conducive to housing maintenance and increase the social cohesion of local environments. (shrink)

Cultural critics say that 'science is politics by other means,' arguing that the results of scientific inquiry are profoundly shaped by the ideological agendas of powerful elites. Physicist Alan Sokal recently poked fun at these claims, touching off a still-unabated torrent of heated discussion. This hard-hitting collection picks up where Sokal left off, offering crisp, detailed critiques of case studies presented by cultural critics as evidence that scientific results tell us more about social context than they do about the (...) natural world. Comprising new essays by distinguished scholars of history, philosophy, and science, this book raises a lively debate to a new level of seriousness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Cardboard Houses with Wings:The Architecture of Alabama's Rural StudioThorsten Botz-Bornstein (bio)IntroductionThe Rural Studio, which was founded by Samuel Mockbee in 1992 and lead by him until his death in 2001, continues its activities. Its specialty is, now as before, the design of innovative houses for poor people living in Alabama's second-poorest county, Hale County, by relying largely on donated and salvaged materials. The houses are made of car windshields, (...) surplus carpet tiles, baled cardboard, old street signs, license plates, etc. Alexis de Tocqueville has said that democracy lowers the standards of creation,1 and it seems that, for architecture, this has become a sad truth in many cases in industrialized countries. The Rural Studio wants to contradict this tendency by showing that even within the context of civic engagement, elements like style and art are not bound to disappear. "Participatory design" as well as "community design" are common in the United States in the public as well as in the private sector.2 The Rural Studio's aim to offer decent architecture in terms of material quality as well as remain consistent when it comes to aesthetics sticks out of the landscape not only of community design but even the history of modern Western architecture. There is nothing new in reducing rich people's lives to functionalism, but the ambition to enhance poor people's lives through art can still be considered as rather eccentric.Kitsch Culture and Junk CultureNegotiating style when being engaged in compassionate projects is certainly a difficult task. Everybody needs food, clothing, and shelter, but who needs [End Page 16] art? The worst outcome that such negotiations can have is, of course, the victory of social pragmatism over art, simply declaring that "they don't need that." However, this is not the only miscarriage to be expected. Another likely disaster is that the suggested artistic activity will be refused by the clients at the onset. Community design architects confirm that "when it comes to houses people are much more conservative."3 The aesthetic standards of the lower middle class especially are often determined by numerous prejudices about "what a house should look like."The aesthetic standards of the status-seeking middle class, however, are generally more open, as their visions of an ideal house are often determined by a moderately adventurous hedonism striving to conquer new aesthetic models and experiences. The problem is that, sometimes, their projects will run directly into the aesthetic dead end of kitsch, or camp, because their openness is often superficial; instead of being determined by a kind of postmodern self-criticism, it remains rather dependent on thoughtless consumer attitudes. The desire to display and impress at any cost—a strain already put forward by Tocqueville—corrupts the taste of many American middle-class members and makes truly artistic architectural expressions oftentimes impossible. In the worst case, this attitude will be conducive to the desire to "acquire beautiful junk," which is, according to the aesthetician Matei Calinescu, the classical mechanism leading to the creation of kitsch culture.4 The original German definition of "kitsch" is that "which makes use of refuse taken bodily from the rubbish dump."5The architects of the Rural Studio use predominantly junk, which forces us to consider the question: How do they manage to escape the aesthetics of kitsch? From a historical perspective, kitsch culture is the product of the European middle classes (though it has also constantly been imitated by lower-income classes). It becomes clear that the Rural Studio operates on a completely different anthropological ground. The typical clients of the Rural Studio are not integrated in the spectrum of capitalist societies, as their social habitus eludes most attributes of hedonistic consumer society and comes amazingly close to that of traditional, precapitalist societies. The main characteristics of their economies are frugality and thriftiness. This shows that the success of the Rural Studio depends on the particularity of its place: only within the limited social sphere in which they act can an architecture using junk and waste become a distinct style.It is well known that elements of waste, once they are employed in an artistic context... (shrink)

This article deals with property laws, based on two premises. Firstly, property law as means to a contemporary comprehension of social and crime control. Secondly, it posits that the focus has shifted from law and society to law in society. It is concerned with the ways in which law and legality are interpreted and invoked in social life and focuses specifically on their role in the commonplace construction of home, tenure, exclusion, and jurisdiction. It analyses the relationship between (...) the meanings of home and the relationship of home with housing tenure. It identifies defense and exclusion as particular aspects of the property relation, and draws on research into gated communities as a particular example of that relation. This article then proceeds to link this notion of exclusion with broader studies into mapping and jurisdiction. It emphasizes the formal and informal mechanisms through which the notions of home and tenure are thought. It draws on the law–geography interface as an example of research, which has the potential to extend the boundaries of our appreciation of property in law. (shrink)

Deleuze and Guattari develop a notion of “minor literature” in their short book on Kafka, and the opposition major/minor has been used with varying degrees of success by critics working in a range of disciplines including architectural theory. Teasing out the potentially subversive implications of the major/minor opposition requires reading it in relation to other binarisms developed by Deleuze and Guattari in those same years, e.g., state/nomadic science, striated/smooth space, optic/haptic, as well as Guattari’s useful concept “machinic heterogenesis.” Then, one (...) ends up with a minor architecture concerned with partially subversive practices rather than with structure per se. A building’s minor status is figured through its deployment in and production of a space that is a technological, social and political pattern as well as a line of flight. This paper reads minor architecture by examining the minor house built by Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond and those currently being assembled by the Mad Housers in Atlanta, Georgia. (shrink)

We examine market reactions to publicly held multinational firms announcing their affiliation with the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). The UNGC is a voluntary initiative to support four areas of United Nations viz. Human Rights, Labor, Environmental, and Anti-Corruption. Because firms must file annual Communication on Progress (COP) reports toward these initiatives, we argue this creates a differentiating transparency of interest to stakeholders. Using a sample of 175 global firms, we find support to the theory for joining the UNGC. Returns (...) differ markedly, however, between multinational firms headquartered in the United States (negative) and Europe (positive). We also find that failing to complete the annual COP generates a negative market reaction. (shrink)

The scale of homelessness in Europe throws a stark light on the right to housing that exists in many European states and in European and International Law. This disparity between legal right and the social reality of homelessness and housing precarity begs the question as to the efficacy of a rights-based approach to housing.This article examines the ‘enforceable’ right to housing in France, in place since 2007, to explore the efficacy of approaching a chronic lack (...) of housing through justiciable rights. The lack of progress in over a decade of jurisprudence highlights the challenges posed to legal advocacy in this area, particularly when combined with a lack of political will. The article concludes by reflecting on alternative approaches, in which justiciable rights have played less of a role, stressing the need for political and financial commitment over legal rights. (shrink)

This article examines the tradition of punitive house demolition during the Roman Republic, but from a sociocultural rather than institutional-legal perspective. Exploiting recent scholarship on the Roman house, on exemplarity, and on memory sanctions, I argue that narratives of house demolition constitute a form of ethically inflected political discourse, whose purpose is to stigmatize certain social actors as malefactors of a particular sort . The demolition itself is symbolically resonant, and the resultant stigma is propagated by subsequent monuments—various structures, (...) toponyms, narratives, etc.—that attach to the housesite. These monuments are thought to bear the trace of what went before, hence transmit an account of the alleged malefactor's deed and disgrace. Far from obliterating the doer of misdeeds, then, the discourse of punitive house demolition fixes him in cultural memory as a negative exemplum. (shrink)

“Medicalization” has been a contentious notion since its introduction centuries ago. While some scholars lamented a medical overreach into social domains, others hailed its promise for social justice advocacy. Against the backdrop of a growing commitment to health equity across the nation, this article reviews historical interpretations of medicalization, offers an application of the term to non-biologic risk factors for disease, and presents the case of housing the demonstrate the great potential of medicalizing poverty.

This article is currently available as a free download on ingentaconnect.

Judeo-Christian and Anglo-Saxon forms of marriage have injected patrilineal values and companionate expectations into the Akan matrilineal family structure. As Anthony Appiah demonstrates, these infusions have generated severe strains in the matrikin social structures and, in extreme cases, resulted in the break up of families. In this essay, I investigate the ideological politics at play in this patrilinealization of Asante society.

As the development trend of the future housing field, green housing is an effective way to reduce pollution, save energy, and promote industrial upgrading. At the same time, the green house is of great significance to change the development mode of the construction industry and promote the sustainable development of the social economy. This study proposes a comprehensive research model to examine the influencing mechanism of residents’ intention to purchase green buildings. The proposed model is empirically tested (...) using data collected from 1,338 urban residents in China. Based on logit, probit, and ivprobit models, factors such as personal characteristics, housing price, and the number of real estate ownership are selected to conduct empirical analysis and mechanism analysis on willingness that affects consumers’ purchase of green houses. The results show that housing assets significantly affect the willingness of householders to pay for green houses. The more houses they own, the higher their willingness to pay for a green house will be. Similarly, if the housing prices are higher, householders are more willing to buy a green house. The amount of housing assets will affect the willingness of householders to pay for green housing through the way of individual happiness. In terms of the characteristics of the householder, if the householder is more educated, unmarried, his willingness to buy a green house will be stronger, and owning housing assets may affect the individual happiness due to the housing wealth effect brought by rising housing prices. People with more housing assets are more likely to have the happiness brought by higher wealth, which may affect the purchase intention of householders. (shrink)

The first two volumes on patrimonialism in Ugarit and the ancient Near East, this book opens with a lengthy introduction on the interpretation of social action and households in the ancient world.

I defend the relatively orthodox view that reasons for action are premises in good practical reasoning, against recent counterexamples that suggest that, like “government house” moral justifications, some reasons are to be ignored in deliberation. I also explain, positively, what is right about the orthodoxy. Unless reasons are premises in good practical reasoning, reasons cannot be normative in the way they are usually taken to be, and relatedly, are unfit to play certain familiar theoretical and related everyday roles that give (...) many appeals to reasons their distinctive point. (shrink)

At any age, the pursuit of a good life is easier in a physical environment that promotes health, supports activities important to self‐fulfillment, and facilitates connections to the larger community. In old age, the home and neighborhood environments are particularly important: they are the locations where older people spend most their time, and they can have a great impact on independence, social connection, feelings of self‐worth, and physical and emotional well‐being.Within the urban planning field, home and neighborhood characteristics are (...) important dimensions of debates about the measurement of human progress and quality of life, particularly as an alternative to purely economic measures. They are also key issues in public health, particularly as they relate to physical, social, and mental well‐being. Here, we focus on how to improve the fit of environments for people as they age. (shrink)

This article makes a case for the capacity of "social practice" accounts of agency and freedom to criticize, resist, and transform systemic forms of power and domination from within the context of religious and political practices and institutions. I first examine criticisms that Michel Foucault's analysis of systemic power results in normative aimlessness, and then I contrast that account with the description of agency and innovative practice that pragmatist philosopher Robert Brandom identifies as "expressive freedom." I argue that Brandom (...) can provide a normative trajectory for Foucault's diagnoses of power and domination, helping to resolve its apparent lack of ethical direction. I demonstrate that Foucault, in turn, presents Brandom with insights that might overcome the charges of abstraction and conservatism that his pragmatic inferentialism frequently encounters. The result is a vindication of social practice as an analytical lens for social criticism that is at once both immanent and radical. (shrink)

This paper is a philosophical, socio-political, analysis of the problem of democratic despair and the possibility of finding hope in the midst of it. The analysis spring boards from a dialectical discussion on the state of Black America between Harry Belafonte, Minister Louis Farrakhan, and Cornel West, to an examination of the reasons for believing this house called America is on fire. The paper then moves to two possible responses for African Americans to the burning house: separatism (physical or psychological), (...) and radical cultural pluralism grounded in a transformative deep democracy. The paper opts for the latter, concludes by offering a new cultural pluralistic democracy as a model for hope, and suggests the basic tools necessary for building such a transformative democracy. (shrink)