111 research outputs found
The invisible artist: Arrangers in popular music (1950-2000): Their contribution and techniques
No full textThis thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University.This thesis is based on the research conducted by the author for the series,
Richard Niles' History of Pop Arranging, seven thirty-minute documentary
programmes for BBC Radio 2, researched, written and presented by the author and
broadcast in 2003. It also draws on interviews conducted by the author (and other
research) between 2002 and 2007 both for the radio series and for this thesis and on
the author's experience as a professional arranger in popular music working with
many of the genre's significant recording artists including Paul McCartney, Ray
Charles, Cher, Tina Turner, Westlife, Tears For Fears, Dusty Springfield, James
Brown, Pet Shop Boys, Kylie Minogue and producers including Trevor Hom, Steve
Lipson, Steve Mac and Steve Anderson.
It will be argued that the role of the arranger in popular music has often been
undervalued and that during a critical period of popular music history (1950-2000)
arrangers played a significant part in the evolution of musical content. This thesis is,
to the best of the author's knowledge, the first time (apart from the above mentioned
documentary) the subject has ever been examined. The arranger is "invisible" because musical arrangers are often un-credited on
record liner notes or in books or articles concerning popular music. A considerable
amount of research has been necessary to determine who wrote many of the
arrangements considered herein. Motown's Berry Gordy purposely kept the names of
musicians and arrangers off the records because he feared others might 'poach' the
trademark 'Motown Sound'. Other record labels considered the job of the arranger to
be reminiscent of an earlier era, diluting the Rock 'n' Roll image of emotion and
spontanaeity they wished to promote. Some producers and recording artists disliked
sharing credit for their work. Motown arranger David Van dePitte told the author that
arranging was "thankless and anonymous - a very service-oriented profession where
others often take credit for what you've done." Arranging has therefore remained an
intrinsically unseen art created by 'invisible' artists. By analyzing many recordings,
revealing the techniques and concepts they have used in their work to create popular
records, arrangers and their art will be made more 'visible'
Implementing the market approach to enterprise support - an evaluation of ten matching grant schemes
No full textDeveloping viable new business is critical to recovery, and long-term growth, especially in transition economies. There has been a long history of public support of enterprise development, starting with centralized state agency initiatives, but moving more recently to decentralized instruments for development of the business services market. The window of time during which the benefits of intervention are likely to be greatest: when a market is in its infancy, and its development is constrained by uncertainty, and lack of information. Interventions for enterprise support should be demand-responsive, and flexibly organized. In some circumstances, centralized assistance may still be effective, but it is generally better to use competitive private service providers responding to enterprises'changing needs. The main task is to stimulate the private services sector, improving its capacity to respond to the demands of new, and expanding private enterprises. Support for enterprises has tended to be either free, or heavily subsidized. But such subsidies can be justified only if interventions efficiently supply goods. Providing technical, and management know-how can be a public good if it generates externalities- if, for example, know-how benefits can be disseminated at proportionately low additional cost. Any subsidy for an intervention should be temporary, and should be phased out when the main objective of intervention is achieved - that is, when the market takes off. Grants should generally be for know-how, not for equipment. There may be a case for unbundling the know-how component of loans (including feasibility studies, and follow-up expert services) for grant funding. A package combining loans and grants - through a single financial institution, or through separate institutions - may work provided safeguards can be put in place to prevent perverse use of grants. The matching grant model, which is used increasingly in the World Bank, and elsewhere, is one solution - but it must be justified, and carefully designed. After evaluating ten matching grant funds, the author concludes that performance is mixed. Best practice models are needed. Ensuring economic benefits requires proactive management, with clear objectives of market facilitation ("making a market"). And it requires a balance between rapid grant approval procedures, and careful selection of services for grants.Economic Theory&Research,Decentralization,Enterprise Development&Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Health Economics&Finance,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,ICT Policy and Strategies
Investigating the potentially contradictory microfoundations of financialization
No full textThe existing academic literature on financialization points to multiple instances in which firms attempt to demonstrate the vitality of their stock-market position in ways which ultimately prove to be self-harming. I demonstrate, in the first instance as a matt er of immanent logic, that these actions are linked to the interplay of contradictory tendencies in the microfoundations of financialization. Under conditions of financialization, firms create additional sources of credit to capitalize their productive activities by driving their stock price into greater increases than the market average, thereby generating capital gains. Yet, the more it becomes public knowledge that the financing tricks used to inflate the stock price provide no productive benefit to the firm, the more it would seem to create incentives for fund managers to hold portfolios that replicate the stock market as a whole. In this way, they will minimize their exposure to financial misrepresentation. Such a stance undermines financialized business models, but it does in any case conform to fund managers' basic theoretical training, which revolves around the logical demonstration that an individual stock cannot systematically out-perform the market average. I review the available empirical studies of fund manager decision-making to show that they find against the existence of a simple performativity loop operating between finance theory and fund manager behaviour. However, on many points the empirical evidence does confirm the theoretically derived conclusion concerning the potentially contradictory microfoundations of financialization. Fund managers often do act in a way which is consistent with finance theory's core claim that an index-tracking strategy represents the only equilibrium portfolio, even if this is only rarely as a result of the direct performativity of the theory
A typology for vulnerability and agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa:
No full text"This paper considers vulnerability reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) from a more aggregated macro viewpoint. We focus on risk related to agriculture, since vulnerability and agriculture are intimately linked in SSA due to the location of the poor, their dependence on agriculture and the inherent risks of an agricultural livelihood. We argue that agricultural growth is one of the most effective means for improving permanent incomes and reducing vulnerability. However, agriculture is not homogeneous, and the inherent risks vary across countries and regions. Therefore, we also discuss appropriate investment strategies and policy instruments for different sets of risks." from Authors' AbstractAgriculture, Vulnerability, Typology,
Globalizing resistance against war? : a critical analysis of the theoretical debate through a case study of the "new" anti-war movement in Britain
No full textThe study engages with a controversial theoretical debate on ‘global resistance’ in the context of the anti-war movement. Through an empirical case study of four anti-war organizations in Britain, the thesis critically evaluates dominant globalist theoretical discourses and their state-centric critiques from the perspective of ‘critical theory in political practice’ and seeks to develop the theoretical debate further. Acting as a critical mediator in between the metatheories and micropolitics of resistance, the author examines how the theoretical discourses ‘resonate’ with the premises of the current anti-war movement; what the theories fail to consider in terms of political practice; and to which extent the values and normative visions embedded in their broader political projects relate to the movement.
The research demonstrates that the connection between the theories and the political practice is not only inadequate but also problematic in many regards. The divergences between the globalist frameworks and the premises of the movement are particularly substantial; convergence with the state-centric approach is found more often. Although it also succeeds in illustrating serious problems in the globalist frameworks, the thesis argues that the state-centric approach is not without problems either. All three theoretical approaches have a problematic tendency to resort to a dualistic ‘either-or’ logic in conceptualizing power, effective strategies and the primary context of resistance which represents a clear diversion from the understandings held within the movement where analyses and conceptions are overlapping and mixed, echoing often a ‘both-and’ approach. The globalist frameworks are problemactic also because in conceptualizing the multitude and global civil society as consensual global political collectives, they fail to take into account political conflicts and power struggles within the movement. The study shows that below the surface there are many political conflicts and struggles going on. Transforming the movement into something more permanent and global is an extremely challenging endeavor, one that cannot be established ‘from above’.
Instead of defining their political projects of resistance in a way which enables their conceptualizations to be detached from practice and their normative visions and suggestions to diverge from the premises of the movement, the theories must closely engage with the movement in order to establish an emancipatory dialogue in the true sense of critical theory. The study contributes insights for developing the theoretical debate further, suggesting that a ‘both-and’ approach instead of an ‘either-or’ would not only reflect more accurately how the relationship between the local and global – and many other concepts as well – are conceived within the movement, but would also provide a more productive and comprehensive perspective for conceptualizing power and resistance in the context of social movements generally. While revealing many ongoing political conflicts and power struggles between the organizations studied, the thesis brings forward problems and tensions also within the movement and suggests it would benefit from a more open discussion about the complex relationship between unity and diversity.ei tietoa saavutettavuudest
Marine-based ecological education: marine discovery centres, millennium kids, environmental citizenship, and a vision for an eco-camp
No full textThe aim of this thesis is to gain knowledge and understanding about Marine-Based Ecological Education and then apply this knowledge and understanding to form the vision of an Eco-Camp in Western Australia. This has been done in three stages.
Part one is an account of my personal immersion in a grass roots not-for-profit environmental youth organization, Millennium Kids. The most valuable lessons that I learnt during this time came through the Environmental Citizenship program. Initially I was a participant, and then on three other occasions I was a facilitator for the program. It was through these programs that I began to understand the value of facilitating lessons learnt from robust healthy nature.
Part two of my research is concerned with marine education centres and uncovering their stories; documenting their ethos, education and public relations. I aim to focus on what each centre does best and how this has enabled them to become the entity that they are today. Through this process I collect information that will inform the culminating vision of this thesis, the Eco-camp.
Part three is the vision for an Eco-Camp, which has developed organically from my understandings derived from parts one and two. Through both my research on marine education centres and my personal immersion in Millennium Kids Environmental Citizenship program, I began to realize the value and need for an Eco-Camp. The Eco-Camp will be in remote robust healthy nature and will immerse participants in these environments, attuning them to the rhythm of Gaia
Gender, war and militarism: making and questioning the links
No full textThe gender dynamics of militarism have traditionally been seen as straightforward, given the cultural mythologies of warfare and the disciplining of ‘masculinity’ that occurs in the training and use of men's capacity for violence in the armed services. However, women's relation to both war and peace has been varied and complex. It is women who have often been most prominent in working for peace, although there are no necessary links between women and opposition to militarism. In addition, more women than ever are serving in many of today's armies, with feminists rather uncertain on how to relate to this phenomenon. In this article, I explore some of the complexities of applying gender analyses to militarism and peace work in sites of conflict today, looking most closely at the Israeli feminist group, New Profile, and their insistence upon the costs of the militarized nature of Israeli society. They expose the very permeable boundaries between the military and civil society, as violence seeps into the fears and practices of everyday life in Israel. I place their work in the context of broader feminist analysis offered by researchers such as Cynthia Enloe and Cynthia Cockburn, who have for decades been writing about the ‘masculinist’ postures and practices of warfare, as well as the situation of women caught up in them. Finally, I suggest that rethinking the gendered nature of warfare must also encompass the costs of war to men, whose fundamental vulnerability to psychological abuse and physical injury is often downplayed, whether in mainstream accounts of warfare or in more specific gender analysis. Feminists need to pay careful attention to masculinity and its fragmentations in addressing the topic of gender, war and militarism
Prices and protocols in public health care
No full textThe author tries to derive price and rationing rules for public health facilities. He highlights the effect on these rules of different assumptions about the objectives of government (health versus welfare), the limits of available policy instruments, and the market environment in which the public system operates. One recurrent finding: policy reform must be assessed in relation to the changes it induces relative to the status quo before reform. This point may seem obvious, but it represents a distinct gap in the literature on resource allocation in health. To assess changes, the behavior of the private sector must be known in the type of care given in a system and on how this care will change in response to the policy. Substituting for a reasonably well-functioning private sector is not as valuable as providing services that the private sector cannot be expected to sustain. Research is needed to characterize market equilibrium for medical care and its response to policy measures. The author could not examine many issues - most important, those related to uncertainty and insurance. But if the research he calls for in this paper is pursued, those issues must figure prominently as major determinants in the demand for care. This need was originally identified by Arrow, and there is still a long way to go. The author's analysis is not done in terms of preventive or curative care, and he argues for assessing interventions on the basis of changes in the stated objectives of a public system. But there could well be a connection with the preventive-curative dichotomy if there were reason to believe that preventive care will systematically lose out to curative care in a market setting. Onthe basis of people's generally acknowledged undervaluation of preventive services, this may well be the case. Other prevention activities also have many public good features, with few private alternatives, and will look good when improvements over stauts quo are examined for all interventions. But all activities must be evaluated in their improvement over market provision. It is not necessary to prejudge the case for certain types of intervention.Economic Theory&Research,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance,Health Systems Development&Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies
Connecting theory and fiction: Margaret Atwood's novels and second wave feminism
No full textThis thesis undertakes an examination of the manner in which a novelist interacts with a contemporary theoretical discourse. I argue that the novelist and the theoretical discourse enter into a symbiotic relationship in which each influences and is influenced by the other. This process, I suggest, is simultaneous and complex. The thesis demonstrates how the prevailing theoretical discourse is absorbed by the contemporary author, is developed and redefined in conjunction with alternative concerns, and comes to permeate the narrative in an altered state. The novelist's new perspectives, frequently problematising theoretical claims, are then disseminated by the novel, promoting further discussion and development of the theoretical discourse. The thesis focuses on the novels of Margaret Atwood, considering them in relation to the history and development of second wave feminism. "Second wave feminism" is understood as an umbrella term that incorporates a wide variety of related but diverse and occasionally contradictory discourses, centring on the subjects of gender, femininity, and sexuality. The focus of the discussion is dual and presented simultaneously. Atwood's novels are analysed chronologically, and within the parameter of this analysis I demonstrate how her work has been influenced by earlier feminist theories, how it comments upon a variety of contemporary feminist ideas, and how it can be seen to anticipate further discussions within feminist discourse. Finally, I identify moments in Atwood's writing when alternative discourses compete with feminism to create new directions for feminist criticism. Examples of these discourses include Canadian nationalism, liberalism, communitarianism and environmentalism. The specificity of the novelist's interests and politics create a unique site of interaction for feminism which, I argue, benefits feminist theory by challenging, broadening and diversifying its focus. The thesis concludes that the symbiotic relationship of the theorist and the novelist is self-perpetuating and is also necessary and beneficial to both parties
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