1,720,954 research outputs found
Superstition or social reality? Approaches to witchcraft-related conflict in Ghana
No full text© 2024 Issah WumblaMedia accounts and research have highlighted the plight of accused witches in Ghana, but the genuine fears that motivate witchcraft accusations are rarely addressed. Approaching witchcraft as a social reality rather than superstition, this ethnographic study traces how diverse actors—family heads, traditional priests, Christian prophets, NGOs, and state institutions—manage witchcraft suspicions before they escalate to violence or banishment. I explore how these approaches are changing and suggest that they are effective as far as they adequately address witchcraft fears.
Based on data collected from extended fieldwork in Northern Ghana, this thesis explores how different worldviews shape the approaches to managing witchcraft-related disputes. The study contrasts the secular approaches of the state and NGOs with those of traditional ritual specialists and other religious actors who take witchcraft seriously. Indigenous worldviews shape the understanding of ordinary Ghanaians and local spiritual experts. This shared understanding influences their strategies and techniques for dealing with witchcraft-related conflicts. On the other hand, NGOs and the state take a rational-legal approach that dismisses the concerns of rural people who dread witches.
I argue that whether one believes in the supernatural force of witchcraft and witch-finding shrines or accepts human rights and modern justice, these are systems influenced by different worldviews. The shared spiritually oriented views by ordinary Ghanaians, traditional authorities, and the rational-legal/human rights-oriented perspectives of modern institutions highly contradict and sometimes frustrate each other in the management of witchcraft-related conflicts in Ghana. The processes of modern institutions do not work effectively in practice because people rarely send concerns about witchcraft to the police or courts, for instance. NGOs also only have an impact when they collaborate effectively with indigenous structures
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
"Things Fall Apart?" Prospects of Solidarity in a Precarious World
Get PDFIn this article, we examine the potential of solidarity to address global challenges in an increasingly precarious world. Solidarity involves individuals or groups supporting causes - whether ideas, people, or contexts - to combat marginalisation and injustice, even as such efforts frequently encounter resistance. This prompts the critical questions: What motivates solidarity, how is it expressed, and how effective is it in resolving the issues it seeks to address? Drawing on illustrative examples from a variety of social movements worldwide, we analyse the diverse forms of solidarity and the tensions that arise when dissent and resistance intersect with collective action. Despite these challenges, we argue that solidarity remains a viable framework for addressing some of today's most pressing and complex issues. By exploring both the opportunities and obstacles it presents, we highlight solidarity's enduring relevance and transformative potential in fostering meaningful change
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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