[T]he distribution of global poverty has changed and that most of the world’s poor no longer live in countries officially classified as low-income countries (LICs). It is estimated that the majority of the world’s poor, or up to a billion people, live in middle-income countries (MICs). This pattern is largely as a result of the recent graduation into the MIC category of a number of populous countries. The paper discusses the trends in the distribution of global poverty, and opens a wider discussion on the potential implications for aid and development cooperation.
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what’s good for science isn’t necessarily good for science publishers, whose interests have drifted far out of alignment with ours. Under the old model, publishers become the owners of the papers they publish, holding the copyright and selling copies around the world – a useful service in pre-internet days. But now that it’s a trivial undertaking to make a paper globally available, there is no reason why scientists need yield copyright to publishers.
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Academic publishers have become the enemies of science | Dr Mike Taylor | Science | guardian.co.uk
Is this the dawn of a new dark ages?
This conference will bring together scholars and practitioners to explore the resonances between digital networks and “older” (perhaps still emergent) systems of circulation; from roads to cables, from letter-writing networks to digital ink. Drawing on recent research in media archaeology, we see network archaeology as a method for re-orienting the temporality and spatiality of network studies. Network archaeology might pay attention to the history of distribution technologies, location and control of geographical resources, the emergence of circulatory models, proximity and morphology, network politics and power, and the transmission properties of media. What can we learn about contemporary cultural production and circulation from the examination of network histories? How can we conceptualize the polychronic developments of networks, including their growth, adaptation, and resistances? How might the concept of network archaeology help to re-envision and forge new paths of interdisciplinary research, collaboration, and scholarship?
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Postal Systems, Tiny Mix Tapes, and Aesthetic Solidarity
Network Archaeology
Conference at Miami University, Oxford OH
April 20-21, 2012
orup:
A father stares at the hands of his five year-old daughter, which were severed as a punishment for having harvested too little rubber.
This is what was happening in the Congo at the hands of the Belgians under King Leopold. Let us be clear dear people who like to claim that because their parents were immigrants to America they never benefited from the slave trade. People were taken from Africa & exported as slaves to other countries, but Africans were also enslaved & killed on the continent. For generations. That’s the legacy of the colonialism & imperialism that made the West so wealthy & created the “Third World”.
“Opendata.rs is an independent research project which collects, analyzes and visualizes data about Serbia during the last 20 years. ”(via Open Data RS | Scoop.it)
Call For Papers! Fourth Annual Conference in Critical Social Research
CALL FOR PAPERS
Fault Lines of Revolution!
The Fourth Annual Conference in Critical Social Research
Friday, May 4th, 2012
Carleton University Ottawa, ON
In the last year the world has witnessed many destabilizing movements against neoliberalism, austerity, and authoritarian regimes:
Popular movements from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park of Occupy Wall Street have revitalized the belief in the organizational capacities of peoples to challenge authority and transform relations of power. Postcolonial struggles from those of the Athivasis to the Tamils have echoed the subaltern voices of the world. Imperial wars from Afghanistan to the Somali territories have stimulated discussions on popular armed struggle and renewed criticisms of imperialism. Neoliberal challenges to organized labour, from the continued neglect of precarious working conditions to policies of austerity, have in some instances united workers in defiance and solidarity.
These movements are clearly challenging the status quo in different forms and diverse spaces. Yet it remains to be seen how these destabilizing forces will unfold, and whether they will provoke the fault lines of a much broader revolutionary shake-up.
In light of present global political economic context, we intend to re-visit theoretical and practical issues concerning these ‘revolutionary’ moments and spaces by asking critical questions:
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What can be learned from (un)finished revolutions of the past?
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How should the revolutionary moments of the present be unpacked theoretically?
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What are the ideological inspirations (if any) of these revolutionary attempts?
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What do today’s social movements have to say about relations of race, class, and gender?
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How do feminist approaches to politics respond to these movements?
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What are the implications of contemporary revolutionary movements?
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Where does revolutionary philosophy stand with regard to the present moment of dissent?
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What does the future hold in store given present environmental and ecological crises?
The Critical Social Research Collaborative (CSRC) is inviting academics, researchers, graduate students and activists to submit proposals for panels and individual presentations that explore the ‘fault lines of revolution’ from diverse theoretical and methodological orientations in historical and/or contemporary contexts.
Please send your proposal, including an abstract of no more than 250 words, title, your name and a brief biography to the conference organizing committee atcsrcproject@live.ca by February 20, 2012. Decisions on proposals will be communicated in mid-March. Accepted submissions may be solicited for publication.
The CSRC is dedicated to organizing inclusive events; there will be no registration fee.
For more information, visit the website!
Object-Oriented Ontology: To see the world of things as things in a world, rather than our world, with things in it.
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