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The term ‘infrastructure’ commonly refers to the partly naturally given, partly manmade constitutive conditions that affect, enable, and ensure our everyday lives. This concept is generally used in an economic sense and highlights the material and institutional facilities of our environment that can be summed up as the tangible means which our societies are based upon. Consequently, talking about ‘intangible infrastructures’ may appear to be a somewhat unusual concept. The term ‘intangible’ includes areas of our lives that are not (or are not primarily) represented physically; it points to invisible realms of the human existence, both intellectually or knowledge-based; to cultural and even ethical matters, and to the social adhesives and cultural techniques that civilizations are being built on. As ‘intangible infrastructures’, we regard them as fundamental for our well-being and for a good quality of life. This volume is a result of a two-day conference held in December 2012 in Salzburg, Austria, which brought together researchers and practitioners from manifold scientific backgrounds, including sociology, philosophy, social geography, economics, urban studies, political science, history, communication sciences and public communication. The text draws a map of current discourse on intangible infrastructures, and provides strategies of strengthening intangible infrastructures.
The experience of displacement is shared by people who work internationally. The capacity to be displaced is a necessary strength and skill for people working across cultures, particularly for missionaries. In order to deal with the stressful nature of displacement people need to be resilient, resilience makes people flourish in adverse circumstances. This volume presents a specific type of resilience, namely “resilience nourished by inner sources.” Cultivating inner resilience draws on all the facets of a person’s interior life: thoughts and memories, hopes and desires, beliefs and convictions, concerns and emotions. The notion of inner strength and resilience from within is developed using many examples from missionaries and development workers as well as case studies from all over the world.
Concepts of social capital play a well-established role in a number of academic disciplines and continue to grow in popularity in the discourses of the sciences, as well as those of civil society and social practice. As an element that is fundamental and constitutive of various forms of societal coexistence and wellbeing, social capital apparently generates positive effects. However, it also contributes to inequalities and unequal distribution of power, and is, consequently, a rather controversial subject. This collection of essays represents reflections and case studies from all over the world. They step out of well-known paths of discourse and discuss the phenomenon of social capital in manifold ways and from new perspectives. In addition to rethinking social capital theoretically and methodologically, the authors focus especially on issues and challenges of its practical application. The contributions come from researchers and practitioners of different backgrounds including sciences such as sociology, philosophy, social geography, economics, health studies, history, interpersonal communication studies and cultural studies, as well as social practice in development aid. The volume will appeal to a broad audience from diverse disciplines, both academic and practical.
Early in the twenty-first century, a quiet revolution occurred. For the first time, the major developed economies began to invest more in intangible assets, like design, branding, and software, than in tangible assets, like machinery, buildings, and computers. For all sorts of businesses, the ability to deploy assets that one can neither see nor touch is increasingly the main source of long-term success. But this is not just a familiar story of the so-called new economy. Capitalism without Capital shows that the growing importance of intangible assets has also played a role in some of the larger economic changes of the past decade, including the growth in economic inequality and the stagnation of productivity. Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake explore the unusual economic characteristics of intangible investment and discuss how an economy rich in intangibles is fundamentally different from one based on tangibles. Capitalism without Capital concludes by outlining how managers, investors, and policymakers can exploit the characteristics of an intangible age to grow their businesses, portfolios, and economies.
A rare and powerful illustration of what it takes to become a sustainable, community-embedded organization that continually grows the next generation of compassionate leaders. This essential, timely book meets us at our current moment of crisis to offer hope that American democracy’s stalled trajectory toward its founding creed to embrace all, and not just some, can indeed be re-invigorated. Pedagogy of a Beloved Commons is about low-income youth of color working within justice-oriented, community-based organizations to improve the social and spatial conditions in their surroundings. It draws from hundreds of pages of data, some collected over a decade ago by graduate research assistants at three universities and some collected recently by a graduate research assistant at a fourth university, to present verbatim quotes from interviews with constituents of three youth-serving organizations. The book posits that the disinvested neighborhoods where youth experience abandonment and marginality in fact can serve as a call to action, given appropriate organizational support. Pedagogy of a Beloved Commons envisions a place-based critical pedagogy that can provide young people with the practical skills and deep values to engage with today’s economic, racial, and ecological crises. It offers a welcome antidote to a neoliberal education system that has not only veered away from its public mandate to advance democratic citizenship but that has also reinforced today’s insidious economic inequality, rendering illusive the idea that rich and poor can work together toward a common good. Between these pages resonates a passionate call for an approach to cultivating citizens who have the critical skills to challenge injustice, the courage to hold the rich and powerful accountable, and the empathy to advance not just their own self-interest but also the health and well-being of their communities and the planet. The author proposes that such citizens develop by exercising collective agency in “the commons,” a political and psychic space whose values are mapped out in physical space. Through the expert use of an architect’s lens, this groundbreaking book argues that the three-dimensional concreteness of the nation’s disinvested neighborhoods provides a virtual stage where disenfranchised youth can experiment with collective life, become more discerning about the forces that have shaped their communities, and practice working toward just and inclusive futures. Merging Paolo Freire’s seminal theory of critical pedagogy with Grace Lee Boggs’s belief that hands-on community-building can disrupt the ever more destructive forces of neoliberal capitalism, Pedagogy of a Beloved Commons refines an aspirational framework for a pathway forward through a careful analysis of three exemplar organizations. It offers rich, unique portraits of young people transforming their communities in southwest Detroit, Wai’anae, and Harlem, respectively illustrating place-based activism through theater, organic farming, and critical inquiry. Here activism is framed as the hands-on engagement of youth in addressing inequities in the commons of their neighborhoods through small but persistent interventions that also help them learn the language of solidarity and collectivity that a sustainable democracy needs. Pedagogy of a Beloved Commons is a must-read for our times and for our future.
In the light of the globalization, (post-)modernization, social fragmentation, and economization of many of today’s living contexts, local knowledge is receiving increasing attention in various sciences. Commonly, local knowledge indicates a counterpart to both rational forms of an explicit knowledge of facts and knowledge of universal validity. Local knowledge attempts to appreciate a more comprehensive view of people’s skills, capabilities, experience, and sophistication. On the other hand, the reference to ‘local’ implies an idea of bounded applicability of knowledge in a specific environment. Beyond this scope of application, local knowledge can be acknowledged either as instrumental in order to achieve specific goals or as an intrinsic value in order to deal with social relations, solidarity, common values and norms accordingly. Social and spatial settings are influential for everybody’s quality of life, personal identity, and political commitment – and local knowledge is the essential foundation in turning these settings into a vivid arena. This volume is a result of a two-day conference held in November 2013 in Salzburg, Austria, dedicated to bringing together researchers from different scientific disciplines, including sociology, philosophy, social geography, economics, history, interpersonal communication studies, cultural studies, and theology, in order to draw distinct trains of thought about local knowledge in a transdisciplinary fashion: the phenomenon, its epistemic and philosophical reflection, its methodological comprehension, and its practical application.
This book explores the philosophical, and in particular ethical, issues concerning the conceptualization, design and implementation of poverty alleviation measures from the local to the global level. It connects these topics with the ongoing debates on social and global justice, and asks what an ethical or normative philosophical perspective can add to the economic, political, and other social science approaches that dominate the main debates on poverty alleviation. Divided into four sections, the volume examines four areas of concern: the relation between human rights and poverty alleviation, the connection between development and poverty alleviation, poverty within affluent countries, and obligations of individuals in regard to global poverty. An impressive collection of essays by an international group of scholars on one of the most fundamental issues of our age. The authors consider crucial aspects of poverty alleviation: the role of human rights; the connection between development aid and the alleviation of poverty; how to think about poverty within affluent countries (particularly in Europe); and individual versus collective obligations to act to reduce poverty. Judith Lichtenberg Department of Philosophy Georgetown University This collection of essays is most welcome addition to the burgeoning treatments of poverty and inequality. What is most novel about this volume is its sustained and informed attention to the explicitly ethical aspects of poverty and poverty alleviation. What are the ethical merits and demerits of income poverty, multidimensional-capability poverty, and poverty as nonrecognition? How important is poverty alleviation in comparison to environmental protection and cultural preservation? Who or what should be agents responsible for reducing poverty? The editors concede that their volume is not the last word on these matters. But, these essays, eschewing value neutrality and a retreat into technical mastery, challenge us to find fresh and reasonable answers to these urgent questions. David A. Crocker School of Public Policy University of Maryland
Global population growth, exposure to climate-driven risks, continuous ongoing economic crises, persistent levels of poverty, migration phenomena, exponential increase in the use of digital technology and consequent digital divide, and the urgent demand for more equal spaces are amongst the major drivers of change within the housing sector. This book seeks to envision some of the future housing scenarios, outlining a series of possible transformations that will affect the global housing models in the coming years. The essays in the book are not intended to provide predictions on housing, but rather to try to grasp how social attitudes, economic values, and technologies employed are changing. The issues addressed range from exploring the potential of green and digital strategies both in regenerating existing building heritage and in new construction within developing countries to addressing the humanitarian challenges of climate change and mitigating social inequality.
This directory provides official information on the mandates, dates of creation and durations of current mandates, membership and chairmanship of the OECD Council and its related committees, sub-committees, working groups and ad hoc groups.
This directory provides official information on the mandates, dates of creation and durations of current mandates, composition of member countries and observers, and chairmanship of the OECD Council and its related committees, sub-committees, working groups, expert groups and ad hoc groups.