18 research outputs found
The marketing media's portrayal of the contemporary African woman: Impact on the youth in Ghana
No full textUndergraduate thesis submitted to the Department of Business Administration, Ashesi University, in partial fulfillment of Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, May 2021In this study, the researcher examines the impact of the marketing media's sexualized
representation of the contemporary African woman on African youth. Using Ghanaian youth,
as representatives of the African youth, the researcher explored the youth's perceptions on how
the present-day African woman is presented in most advertisements and other media; compared
male and female perceptions; and extrapolated the youth's perceptions of media that employ
sexualized images of females. For the purposes of the study, a qualitative exploratory
phenomenological research design was used. Six Ghanaian youth of varying gender, religion,
and university type served as the study participants. The results of the research study included the youth's belief
that the media impact on them and society outweighed the impact of society
on the media. The media capitalizes on readily available and easily accessible technology often
frequented by youth such as Twitter and Instagram. The study revealed that the female youth
were not impacted directly by the media's portrayal of women as sexualized images, but the males were. The media's depictions had made the males perceive the contemporary African
woman as lacking depth of knowledge and self-respect. They felt that the women were
contributing to the problem by accepting the contract or agreement presented to them by the
marketing media. According to the youth, the marketing media and firms are concerned with
profits alone. Most study participants suggested educating society on gender equality and
utilizing public outcry to hold firms accountable. They also recommended mitigating such
portrayals of females through policies of governmental agencies to reduce the influence of
marketing media on shaping the image of the contemporary African female.Ashesi Universit
The sea is no longer sweet. Gender and kinship relations in Anomabu in times of dwindling fish stocks.
No full textAnomabu is a fishing community in the central regions of Ghana. In recent years, fisher families in this community have been experiencing dwindling fish stocks. Coupled with this is the fact that the seasons for fishing are also changing, and taken together, these factors are adversely affecting the main source of livelihood of the people of this community. This thesis uses ethnographic methods to explore the ways in which gender and kinship relations in Anomabu are undergoing change, and examines the significance of dwindling fish stocks for these changes. This line of enquiry is necessary because the fishing sector is very much gendered, in the sense that men go to sea while women process and sell the fish. The respective roles played by men and women in this sector affect how and to what extent they are able to access resources in the fishing sector. This study draws upon perspectives from gender and political ecology to examine the ways in which gender roles are naturalized and used to rationalize social behavior and organization. Various feminist scholars have showed that the various meanings given to gender, as well as the socio- economic institutions within which these meanings operate, goes a long way to influence the ways in which women are made subordinate to men. Perspectives from political ecology have also contributed to the analysis in this thesis of how power structures and dynamics within the Anomabu community influence access to resources within the fishing sector. Anomabu is a matrilineal society, but very patriarchal in how power is organized and distributed. Women in this community play important roles in the post-harvest sector of fishing occupation. This does not, however, translate into women having a greater say as to how resources in the sector are shared. Men are the ones who decide to a greater extent how resources are distributed in this community; often with the implication that women's labor and efforts are made less visible. Considering that most of the daily activities in this community revolve round the availability of fish, the thesis explores how changes in fish stock would affect gender and kinship relations. Evidence from the study shows that the fisher folks were concerned that the phenomenon of dwindling fish stocks was affecting their ability to live up to gender expectations and ideals. Evidence from the study also shows that the family as a social institution was undergoing some changes in the way in which it operates. There seems to be a shift from the communal way of living to a more individuated one. Fisher folks are now more concerned about taking care of the needs of their immediate family to the neglect of the larger extended family
Facing the Future: the Changing Shape of Academic Skills Support at Bournemouth University
No full textThis paper explores the potential impact of changes to higher education in England on student expectations, engagement, lifestyles and diversity, and outlines implications for the development of digital literacy within academic skills support at Bournemouth University (BU). We will investigate how tackling resource constraints with organisational change can also enable efficient, centralised provision of support materials that utilise networks to overcome the risk of fragmented support for digital literacy. We will also look at how changing delivery modes for support can accommodate changing student lifestyles whilst tackling a weakness of centralised support for digital literacy: that it can become detached from the student’s subject-focused academic practice. Finally we will explore how involving students in developing support can help us to face changes to student expectations and engagement whilst ensuring that materials are authentic and speak to learners in their own voice
Conditions and development trends of the flexible use of the European airspace
No full textW artykule przedstawiono przebieg zmian, jakie dokonały się w ostatnich dwóch dekadach w sposobie organizacji i zarządzania europejską przestrzenią powietrzną oraz wskazano kierunki doskonalenia. Na podstawie krytycznej analizy aktów prawa lotniczego Unii Europejskiej oraz dokumentów normatywnych Europejskiej Organizacji ds. Bezpieczeństwa Żeglugi Powietrznej Eurocontrol scharakteryzowano działalność obu tych organizacji w zakresie implementacji koncepcji elastycznego użytkowania przestrzeni powietrznej (FUA). Zaprezentowano zasady i procedury tej koncepcji, jak również wybrane systemy techniczne wspomagające proces zarządzania przestrzenią powietrzną w Europie. W końcowej części artykułu opisano elementy składowe koncepcji zaawansowanego elastycznego użytkowania przestrzeni powietrznej (AFUA) oraz korzyści wynikające z wdrożenia jej innowacyjnych rozwiązań. Przedstawiono ponadto funkcje scentralizowanej usługi CS4 - AFUAS, która zapewnić ma skuteczne stosowanie koncepcji AFUA w państwach członkowskich Eurocontrol. W podsumowaniu zaprezentowanych treści podkreślono znaczenie cywilno-wojskowej współpracy i koordynacji w procesie doskonalenia organizacji i operacyjnego wykorzystania przestrzeni powietrznej nad Europą.The article discusses a process of changes of the organization and management of the European airspace that have been made in the last two decades and identifies ways for improvement. Based on a critical analysis of the air legislation of the European Union and the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation Eurocontrol normative documents activities of the two organisations in implementation of the Flexible Use of Airspace (FUA) concept were also described. Rules and procedures of the concept as well as some technical systems supporting the process of the airspace management in Europe were also presented in the paper. The final section of the article describes components of the Advanced Flexible Use of Airspace (AFUA) concept and benefits of the implementation of the concept’s innovative solutions. Moreover, the section shows features of the centralised service called CS4 - AFUAS, which is to ensure the effective application of the advanced concept AFUA in the Eurocontrol Member States. Finally, the author highlights the importance of civil-military cooperation and coordination in the process of improvement of the organization and use of the European airspace
The Skin I'm In
No full text“The Skin I’m In” is a striking, engaging and well-argued podcast transcript that questions racial equality in today’s so-called “diverse” Canada. By referring to many contemporary scholars and activists, such as bell hooks, Desmond Cole, Afua Cooper, and others, the author exposes issues that black men face daily. Aside from the author's personal experience, the transcript contains news, interviews and popular culture references that many can relate to. It creates a big picture that, once again, reminds us of the question: “For how long will this kind of injustice prevail?
Turning Global Rights into Local Realities:Realizing Children’s Rights in Ghana’s Pluralistic Society
No full textFocusing on Ghana, the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence from European colonial rule and the first in the world to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, this book explores how dominant children’s rights principles interact with the lived realities of a range of children’s lives. The author considers the changeability and inconsistencies of childhoods within this context and the factors that underpin these varied intersections, including cultural norms, British colonial legacy, the influence of Christianity, urbanization, and social, economic and political transformations. Challenging one-dimensional portrayals of childhoods in the Global South, the author highlights the need for more holistic approaches to the study of children’s lives and children’s rights realization in Southern contexts
Suggested Improvements for the Allergenicity Assessment of Genetically Modified Plants Used in Foods
No full text# The Author(s) 2011. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Genetically modified (GM) plants are increasingly used for food production and industrial applications. As the global population has surpassed 7 billion and per capita consumption rises, food production is challenged by loss of arable land, changing weather patterns, and evolving plant pests and disease. Previous gains in quantity and quality relied on natural or artificial breeding, random mutagenesis, increased pesticide and fertilizer use, and improved farming techniques, all without a formal safety evaluation. However, the direct introduction of novel genes raised questions regarding safety that are being addressed by an evaluation process that considers potential increases in the allergenicity, toxicity, and nutrient availability of foods derived from the G
Do differences in the scale of irrigation projects generate different impacts on poverty and production?
No full textThis paper investigates differences in household production and consumption among small- and large-scale irrigators to assess whether the scale of an irrigation project increases household welfare in Mali. Much of the evidence of the impact of irrigation does not use counterfactual analysis to estimate such impact or distinguish between the scale of the irrigation projects to be evaluated. In the dataset collected by the author, both a large-scale irrigation project and small-scale projects are used to construct counterfactual groups. Propensity score matching is used to estimate the average treatment effect on the treated for small and large irrigators relative to nonirrigators on agricultural production, agricultural income, and consumption per capita. Small-scale irrigation has a larger effect on agricultural production and agricultural income than large-scale irrigation, but large-scale irrigation has a larger effect on consumption per capita. This suggests that market integration and nonfarm externalities are important in realizing gains in agricultural surplus from irrigation.Irrigation, program evaluation,
Extractive landscapes: complex ontologies, political ecology and gendered health geographies of Ghana’s gold mining industry
No full textThis dissertation investigates indigenous mining practices and implications for gender, health, and gold access. The study is based on eight months of in-depth ethnographic fieldwork in two mining communities (one hard rock and one alluvial mining site). In Ghana, understandings of gold as reproductive, interactive, temporal, and shifting have shaped extractive practices in ways that complicate power relations and gold access. Chiefs, spiritualists, and other non-state authorities have come to play important role in mining because of the immaterial character of gold, despite a greater commitment to neoliberal reforms. Also, mine laborers whose bodies secrete certain reproductive substances are prohibited from mining in certain spaces. While such embodied taboos prohibit certain miners to avoid contact with the extractive landscape, women are generally banned from working underground. Women’s activities are, thus, relegated to above-ground surfaces, thereby creating gendered-specific spaces of extraction that shape health vulnerabilities.
This dissertation engages indigenous (feminist) political ecology and health geographies of extraction to understand how indigenous ontologies shape extractive practices. I draw attention to the reciprocal relationship of the extractive landscape as it becomes produced through livelihood-making while disrupting ecologies, particularly human ecologies. While much has been written about extraction, the relationship between indigenous ontologies of gold and bodily materials has been underexplored. Moreover, scholars acknowledge that geological and cosmological understandings of mineral deposits shape extractive practices, yet analyses have not gone far to engage with ontologies, gendered mining practices, and health vulnerabilities.
In this dissertation, I demonstrate that resource ontologies profoundly shape extractive practices in ways that create unequal access to resources and health vulnerabilities. The findings indicate that meanings attached to the extractive landscape, gold’s distinctive characteristics, and human reproductive substances create differences in mining spaces, gender roles, subjectivities, and affective emotions. The findings suggest that the invisible environment (e.g. spirits), bodily fluids, and orebodies are all entangled in relational practices that affect emotions, gold production, and everyday use of mining spaces. The study argues for engagement with diverse ontologies to account for the multiplicity of forces that shape mineral extraction.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference
