8,111 research outputs found
The Bittersweet Taste of “Miracle Growth”: A Political Economy Analysis of Poverty, Labour, and Economic Growth in the Coffee Heartlands of Laos and Rwanda
No full textLaos and Rwanda have recorded two decades of sustained and fast economic “miracle growth”. The nature of these processes and their impact on the livelihoods of the rural population are, however, strongly contested. This dissertation adopts a comparative political economy approach to examine the under-researched employment nexus as a key mediator between growth and poverty. It builds on extensive mixed methods fieldwork in the main coffee-producing zones of Laos (the Bolaven Plateau) and Rwanda (Nyamasheke district), including two household surveys, ethnographic methods, and over 100 qualitative interviews ranging from semi-structured to life history interviews and focus group discussions. The dissertation starts by developing a new framework to conceptualize pro-poor growth trajectories in developing economies (paper I). By integrating political settlements and pro-poor development strategy approaches, this framework not only accounts for the key mechanisms linking growth and poverty but also for the underlying political conditions. Its empirical application to Laos and Rwanda reveals that structural change has been limited in both cases and that most households continue to make a living in casual agricultural work or petty commodity production amid increasing land pressure. In Laos, inequality has risen, and growth has not been pro-poor in monetary terms, while in Rwanda, questions around official data do not allow a conclusive assessment. Nevertheless, non-monetary poverty has been significantly reduced in both countries, not least due to major investments in the provision of basic services. Using the two household surveys, the dissertation zooms in on the coffee heartlands in the Bolaven Plateau and Nyamasheke (paper II) and identifies key markers of non-monetary poverty by conceptually and empirically comparing the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) with the Extreme Deprivation Index (EDI) framework for the first time. Both locally adapted indices find that poor households are strongly characterized by lower levels of secondary education and literacy, rudimentary sanitation conditions, a relative lack of access to land, and a high dependence on casual agricultural wage employment. Additional regression and classification analysis shows that the EDI framework may be most appropriate in rural high deprivation contexts, whereas the MPI framework may be preferable in relatively low deprivation contexts. Quantitative stratification, however, is limited in its understanding of the processes through which economic growth can both reinforce and reduce poverty. This dissertation therefore argues for a relational shift in the study of social differentiation and poverty to overcome these limitations. It undertakes a literature review within agrarian studies (paper III) to outline the implications of such a shift. Drawing on detailed mixed methods data, a relational approach is then applied to a case study of class dynamics in Nyamasheke (paper IV). It shows that a focus on labour relations – examining underlying drivers, functions, and power relations – between and within land-poor households can uncover avenues of accumulation and exploitation that would otherwise remain invisible. Instead of the commonly portrayed mass of undifferentiated smallholders, households ingeniously construct piecemeal livelihood patchworks under intense temporal and commodification pressure in localized patterns of micro-capitalism. While the recent growth experiences in Laos and Rwanda have been astonishing indeed, it is a bittersweet success riddled with contradictions and mounting pressures on rural households. The integrated framework and relational approach presented here offer conceptual and methodological tools to help make sense of these processes both in the aggregate as well as in lived experiences on the ground. The dissertation further demonstrates that the MPI and EDI frameworks can be useful for beneficiary targeting as well as for programme or policy evaluation depending on the context, programme needs, and resources. Finally, it shows why safeguarding land access of the poorest and promoting policies to tighten rural labour markets should be key ingredients of any pro-poor development strategy
Art, Biography, Sexuality: Patrick Procktor and Keith Vaughan
No full textThis critical review forms a reflection on the research published within the following publications:
Patrick Procktor: Art and Life (Unicorn Press, 2010)
Keith Vaughan: The Mature Oils 1946-1977, (Sansom & Co., 2012)
The research is on two artists, Patrick Procktor (1936-2003), and Keith Vaughan (1912-1977). The monograph on Procktor – previously one of the least documented of the generation of artists who came to prominence in London in the Sixties – positions him in a history of art from which he had been notably absent. The research on Vaughan asserts a new reading of his work, one that is both deeper and more nuanced in its analysis of the ways in which personal experience and sexuality are encoded autobiographically within his work. Crucially, in both artists biography and work are symbiotically linked; the research therefore examines the links between life and art.
Revisionary in intent, the work examines trajectories of experience of gay British (or rather, English) artists in the twentieth century, artists who sought to express themselves and forge careers within the constraints of a heteronormative society, albeit one in which attitudes to sexuality were undergoing change. As gay men, both were constrained by the social mores of their times, and each used painting as a means to affirm personal and sexual identities. A key research interest is in the ways in which sexuality and persona are reflected in critical responses to the artist’s work: in Vaughan, Procktor and other gay male artists of the period. The writing on both Procktor and Vaughan examines the relationship between their personal and professional/artistic lives, framed within a broader socio-political and art historical context. It asserts the place of biography as a means to understand and form new readings of the work. The work adds substantially to the literature and wider discourse on post-war British painting and social history
Coffee and the agrarian questions in Laos and Rwanda: Taking a bottom-up perspective
Full text linkThis study systematically explores the agrarian questions of capital, labor and gender in the fast-growing post-conflict economies of Laos and Rwanda. In both countries, export-led agricultural intensification is reshaping rural livelihoods. The article uses mixed methods fieldwork to re-think the agrarian questions from the ground up. It discusses the methodological implications of taking such a bottom-up perspective and provides tools for operationalization. The empirical application then traces the effects and manifestations of capitalist development in the political economies and everyday lives of people in the coffee heartlands of Laos (the Bolaven Plateau) and Rwanda (Nyamasheke district). To this end, local accumulation strategies as well as changing rural labor relations and their implications for women and female-headed households are explored using comparative survey and qualitative interview data. The findings reveal mounting land pressures, widespread commodification of subsistence and growing social differentiation, although to a lesser extent in Laos. There, petty commodity producers increasingly expand by multiplication while in Rwanda many are subject to a reproduction squeeze that forces them into classes of labor characterized by precarious wage employment. Finally, women continue to face multiple barriers to accumulation, particularly in Rwanda where land access is often mediated through male family members in practice, women's agricultural wages are systematically lower and female-headed households remain especially vulnerable. The article concludes that the agrarian questions are neither dead nor resolved but need to be re-thought to address the pressing challenges of late development
Patrick Chamoiseau Recovering Memory
No full textThis timely new book skillfully examines the work of the award-winning writer Patrick Chamoiseau. Considered by many as one of the most innovative writers to hit the French literary scene in over 40 years, Chamoiseau made his name with his book Texaco (published in 1992 and winner of the highest literary prize in France, the Prix Goncourt). His books have gone on to sell millions and his work has been translated by a number of academic presses. McCusker sets the author in context, providing a valuable contribution to 'memory studies' by looking at literary representation of memory in Martinique, a society founded on slavery but now politically assimilated to the metropolitan centre, France.Title Page -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1: Beginnings: The Enigma of Origin -- 2: 'Une tracée de survie': Autobiographical Memory -- 3: Memory Re-collected: Witnesses and Words -- 4: Memory Materialized: Traces of the Past -- 5: Flesh Made Word: Traumatic Memory in Biblique des derniers gestes -- Afterword -- Notes -- Bibliography -- IndexThis timely new book skillfully examines the work of the award-winning writer Patrick Chamoiseau. Considered by many as one of the most innovative writers to hit the French literary scene in over 40 years, Chamoiseau made his name with his book Texaco (published in 1992 and winner of the highest literary prize in France, the Prix Goncourt). His books have gone on to sell millions and his work has been translated by a number of academic presses. McCusker sets the author in context, providing a valuable contribution to 'memory studies' by looking at literary representation of memory in Martinique, a society founded on slavery but now politically assimilated to the metropolitan centre, France.Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
Political settlements analysis and the study of pro-poor development: Laos and Rwanda compared
Full text linkPolitical settlements analysis is a framework that helps us understand different development trajectories. While it has been used to study the politics of pro-poor growth, there has been little explicit engagement with the economic mechanisms that may alleviate or reproduce poverty. This article extends the political settlements approach to that effect and presents a new, integrated framework to account for pro-poor economic development by conceptualizing political conditions as well as key mechanisms – employment and social provision – linking growth and poverty. This framework is empirically applied to scrutinize two recent development ‘success stories’, those of Laos and Rwanda. Both countries have emerged from a violent past to record over two decades of fast economic growth. The paper assesses how they have done so and to what extent their development strategies have been pro-poor. We demonstrate that the combination of economic growth and of centralized and ideologically committed ruling coalitions has enabled large-scale investments in social service provision that have spearheaded significant reductions in multidimensional poverty in Laos and Rwanda. Moreover, key governance capabilities have enabled both countries to achieve a certain degree of structural change. Yet, this change has been misdirected to extractive industries and hydropower (Laos) and high-end services (Rwanda) with weak employment and limited forward and backward linkages, compounded by a relative lack of productivity growth in the historically more relevant agricultural and manufacturing sectors. This has intensified land pressures and vulnerability, leading to increased inequality in Laos and sustaining already high levels of inequality in Rwanda. Using the ambitious conception of pro-poor development that underpins our integrated framework, we problematize these growth trajectories and argue that neither of them has been pro-poor. We recommend that researchers advance political settlements analysis to examine and strengthen the possibilities for social justice-oriented and bottom-up pro-poor development strategies more systematically
Replication Data for: Endogenous Price Commitment, Sticky and Leadership Pricing: Evidence from the Italian Petrol Market
No full textThe do-file contains the code to replicate "Endogenous Price Commitment, Sticky and Leadership Pricing: Evidence from the Italian Petrol Market", published in the International Journal of Industrial Organization, vol. 40(C), pages 32-48, by Patrick Andreoli-Versbach and Jens-Uwe Franck.
Contact author is Patrick Andreoli-Versbach. E-Mail: [email protected]
Replication Data for: Endogenous Price Commitment, Sticky and Leadership Pricing: Evidence from the Italian Petrol Market
No full textThe do-file contains the code to replicate "Endogenous Price Commitment, Sticky and Leadership Pricing: Evidence from the Italian Petrol Market", published in the International Journal of Industrial Organization, vol. 40(C), pages 32-48, by Patrick Andreoli-Versbach and Jens-Uwe Franck.
Contact author is Patrick Andreoli-Versbach. E-Mail: [email protected]
The investigation in "Dora Bruder" of Patrick Modiano
No full textreservedIl presente lavoro si propone di affrontare il tema dell’indagine, dell’inchiesta investigativa nel romanzo “Dora Bruder” dello scrittore francese Patrick Modiano, pubblicato nel 1997. Si tratta del più noto successo editoriale dell’autore, il quale, in una narrazione al contempo biografica ed autobiografica, si mette sulle tracce di Dora Bruder, una giovane ragazza ebrea scomparsa nel 1941, di cui si sono perse definitivamente le tracce. La presente tesi si compone di tre capitoli. Nel primo, si analizzeranno i motivi che spingono l’autore ad occuparsi della vicenda della giovane ragazza scomparsa proprio durante la seconda guerra mondiale. Successivamente, nel secondo capitolo, si passerà ad affrontare come l’autore compie la propria indagine per comprendere che cosa le sia accaduto, diventando una sorta di investigatore su un vecchio caso di scomparsa. Ed infine, nell’ultimo capitolo, si analizzerà quale sarà l’esito della sua indagine.This work proposes to deal with the subject of investigation in the novel "Dora Bruder" by French writer Patrick Modiano, published in 1997. It’s the most known publishing success of the author, which, in a narrative in the meantime biographical and autobiographical, goes on the trail of Dora Bruder, a young Jewish girl disappeared in 1941, of whom all traces have been definitively lost. This thesis is composed by three chapters. In the first, we will analyse the reasons why the author deal with the story of the young girl vanished during the Second World War. Then, in the second chapter, we will approach how the author does his own investigation to understand what happened to her, becoming sort of a detective on an old case of disappearence. Finally, in the last chapter, we focus on which it’ll be the outcome of his investigation
William Patrick, 15th Annual ODU Literary Festival
No full textWilliam Patrick has published a collection of poetry, Letter to the Ghosts, and a novel in poetry and prose, Roxa, which won the 1990 Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award for the best first work of fiction. He has also written an original teleplay, Rachel\u27s Dinner , which aired in 1991, and starred Olympia Dukakis and Peter Gerety. Mr. Patrick\u27s most recent screenplay, Brand New Me , has been optioned by Force Ten Productions in Hollywood, and he is the author of Who All Killed Cock Robin?, the play which was adapted from The Death of Cock Robin by W.D. Snodgrass and DeLoss McGraw, and whose premiere opens this year\u27s Literary Arts Festival. He is the Coordinator of the Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University, and Director of this year\u27s Literary Arts Festival
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