Humanities & Social Sciences

In recent decades, the technical handling of custody business in the OHADA region has undergone a lasting change. There has been a shift from a direct to an indirect holding system, in which the interests of an investor in respect of the underlying securities are recorded in the books of an intermediary (such as a bank or a securities firm). Under the law of all states within the OHADA region, the traditional conflict of laws rule for determining the enforceability of a securities pledge that occurs in the indirect holding system is the lex rei sitae (or the lex cartae sitae or the lex situs ) rule. However, the traditional lex rei sitae rule cannot be appropriately applied to a system where the dematerialised securities are held through multiple layers of intermediaries located in different jurisdictions. Yet, until the intermediated system and the collateralisation of intermediated securities in the OHADA region will continue to operate in somewhat legally murky waters, leading to more instability in the financial markets. Therefore, Justin Monsenepwoaims to find an appropriate and consistent approach that reflects the reality of the indirect holding system in the OHADA region. “This publication is essential reading for policy makers, academics, market participants, and legal practitioners in the OHADA region and beyond. I am convinced that its in-depth analysis of OHADA’s substantive and conflict of laws rules will go a long way in filling the gap in this area and encouraging further development in the future.” Christophe Bernasconi, Secretary General of the „Hague Conference on Private International Law“ – HCCH in the foreword

This study treats ecotourism in National Protected Areas of Lao PDR as a “recreational frontier” which instrumentalizes the recreation of human natures in capitalism’s centers for that of nonhuman natures at capitalism’s (closing) frontiers. This world-ecological practice of ecorational instrumentality – i.e. of nature domination in the name of “Nature” – presents a remedy for capitalism’s crisis that is itself crisis-ridden, enacting a central tension of ecocapitalism: that between “conservation” and “development”. This epistemic-institutional tension is traced through the preconditions, modes and effects of ecotourism in Laos by gradually zooming from the most general scale of societal nature relations into the most detailed intricacies of ecotouristic practice. The combination of Bourdieu, Marx and Critical Theory enables a systematic analysis of the recreational frontier as enactment of various contradictions deriving from the “false-and-real” Nature/Society dualism.

For over four decades, Ruskin Mill Trust has worked with young people with special educational needs and behavioural issues who learn traditional crafts and organic farming as part of an integrated curriculum of therapeutic education, overcoming barriers to learning and re-engaging with the wider world. This accessible and inspiring book showcases how an appreciation of place, traditional crafts, farming and transformative education offers a wider route to human well-being for all. The authors outline the different fields of the “Practical Skills Therapeutic Education” method, which includes developing practical skills, learning the ecology of the farm and understanding therapeutic education, holistic care, health and self-leadership. Taking the reader on a tour of Ruskin Mill’s many extraordinary provisions across Britain, and going deeper in conversation with its founder, Aonghus Gordon, this book is an outstanding story of creative thinking in an age of narrow focus on classrooms and written examinations, presenting a transformative perspective on education and care. Being grounded in work supporting young people with complex additional needs, it provides a rare insight into the work of one of the world’s leading charities working with neurodiversity. With its non-specialist language, Place, Craft and Neurodiversity offers ideas and resources for work in different areas of education and therapy. It will inspire parents, educators and care workers around the globe.

The project reported on in this monograph has been concerned with the archaeology of the Batanes Islands, an archipelago that must have been settled quite early in the process of Austronesian dispersal from Taiwan southwards into the Philippines. A multi-phase archaeological sequence covering the past 4000 years for the islands of Itbayat, Batan, Sabtang and Siayan is presented, extending from the Neolithic to the final phase of Batanes prehistory, just prior to the late 17th century arrivals of foreign navigators such as Jirobei (Japan) and William Dampier (England), followed by the first Spanish missionaries. So far, no traces of preceramic settlement have been found in Batanes, but the archaeological sequence there from the Neolithic onwards, like that in the Cagayan Valley in northern Luzon, is now one of the best-established in the Philippines.

Durch die steigende Nachfrage nach Bauteilen mit hoher Funktionsdichte gewinnen metallische Komponenten mit texturierter Oberfläche an Bedeutung. Texturierte Oberflächen sind häufig aus der Natur inspiriert und können verschiedene Funktionen wie eine reduzierte Reibung oder eine angepasste Benetzbarkeit bereitstellen. Konventionelle Herstellungsverfahren solcher Bauteile geraten durch lange Prozesszeiten und hohe Fertigungskosten bisweilen an ihre Grenzen. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wird daher ein kombiniertes Umformverfahren untersucht, das die Herstellung von Bauteilgrundkörpern mit der Texturierung der Oberfläche in einem ressourceneffizienten Prozess verbindet. Die Zielsetzung der Arbeit ist die Erarbeitung eines grundlegenden Prozessverständnisses der umformtechnischen Fertigung dünnwandiger Komponenten mit mikrogeprägten Strukturen in einem einstufigen Verfahren. Die Prozessanalyse erfolgt anhand der Untersuchung von bauteil- und prozessspezifischen Herausforderungen sowie der anschließenden Ableitung von Grenzen der Formgebung. Eine systematische Einflussanalyse zudem Aufschluss über die Wirkmechanismen der Prozesskombination. Darauf basierend werden Methoden zur Erweiterung der Prozessgrenzen erarbeitet und bereitgestellt. Im Hinblick auf den industriellen Einsatz wird das werkzeugseitige Verschleißverhalten in der Fertigung großer Stückzahlen untersucht. Aus den erzielten Erkenntnissen werden anwendungsnahe Empfehlungen für kombinierte Texturierungsprozesse abgeleitet.

This book analyses young people’s societal participation as a central dimension of their well-being and as vitally important to secure the sustainable future of humankind and the whole eco-social system. It develops a theoretical framework for analysing youth participation holistically, embedded in its everyday context, and as a relational phenomenon, underpinned by universal human needs. It introduces innovative methodological approaches to study youth engagements in society. This book will appeal to scholars and students of youth studies, sociology, sustainable development, youth participation and education. It also offers new knowledge and theoretical readings for policy experts on youth and sustainable development, as well as for NGOs working with youth.

Since 1945, camps as temporary mass accommodation have long been ignored in the history of architecture. Antje Senarclens de Grancy examines the camps at the beginning of the 20th century for the first time in the context of modern architecture and urban planning. The focus is on the refugee camps of the Habsburg monarchy during the First World War as instant cities for internment and control, set up by the state and planned by trained architects.

What does wordplay teach us about the function of language and communication? What creative open spaces are used in wordplay, and what are the rules and limits that govern the game? The volume presents ideas of masters of wordplay from literature, film, cabaret, and poetry slams along with brief scientific analyses. The dialogue between theory and practice reveals the diverse complexity of language play.

Almost 10 years ago the mineral-rich country of Mongolia experienced very rapid economic growth, fuelled by China’s need for coal and copper. New subjects, buildings, and businesses flourished, and future dreams were imagined and hoped for. This period of growth is, however, now over. Mongolia is instead facing high levels of public and private debt, conflicts over land and sovereignty, and a changed political climate that threatens its fragile democratic institutions. Subjective Lives and Economic Transformations in Mongolia details this complex story through the intimate lives of five women. Building on long-term friendships, which span over 20 years, Rebecca documents their personal journeys in an ever-shifting landscape. She reveals how these women use experiences of living a ‘life in the gap’ to survive the hard reality between desired outcomes and their actual daily lives. In doing so, she offers a completely different picture from that presented by economists and statisticians of what it is like to live in this fluctuating extractive economy.

Management is enabled by media, just as media give life to management. Studying the management innovations learned through media uncovers the evolving relationship between workers and employers. With a view to history, Media and Management shows the interdependence of hardware, software, and human experience adjusting to algorithmically defined rhythms.

Der Kollaps der US-Investmentbank Lehman Brothers löste 2008 eine globale Finanzkrise aus, die Millionen von Menschen ihren Job, ihr Zuhause und ihre medizinische Versorgung gekostet hat. Systemische Banken- und Finanzmarktrisiken sind damit nicht nur eine ökonomische, sondern auch eine ethische Herausforderung. Vandad Sohrabi untersucht das Problem des Too Big to Fail aus risikoethischer Perspektive und beantwortet eine Kernfrage: Zählen Too Big to Fail-Banken zu den tolerierbaren Risiken einer Marktwirtschaft oder handelt es sich um unzumutbare Risikoaussetzungen? Eine Antwort ist dringender denn je: Über 10 Jahre nach der Finanzkrise sind die größten Banken noch größer, die Verschuldung der globalen Wirtschaft noch höher und das Finanzsystem noch fragiler. Der Autor diskutiert verschiedene Lösungen, die das Bankensystem sicherer machen können. Die Zeit zum Handeln läuft jedoch ab.

1948, zwei Jahre nach der Wiederaufnahme der diplomatischen Beziehungen, schloss die Schweiz einen Handelsvertrag mit der Sowjetunion, auf dessen Basis sich die Handelsbeziehungen erfolgreich entwickelten. In der Breschnew-Zeit, dem Hauptzeitraum der Untersuchung, standen Handels- und Wirtschaftsfragen im Zentrum des schweizerisch-sowjetischen Verhältnisses. Sie bildeten ungeachtet des geringen Volumens die stabilisierende Grundlage fur die Beziehungen der beiden Länder im Ganzen und liessen nach dem Zerfall der Sowjetunion schweizerische Unternehmen zu den ersten Investoren in Russland werden. Die vorliegende Studie basiert auf umfangreichem schweizerischem Archivmaterial, im Fokus steht die Bedeutung der wirtschaftlichen Beziehungen fur die Schweiz. Die Entwicklung der Handelsbeziehungen wird chronologisch aufgezeigt und auf der wirtschaftspolitischen, der unternehmerischen und der personellen Ebene untersucht. Ein Schwerpunkt liegt auf den Besonderheiten und Herausforderungen der Kooperation zweier komplett unterschiedlicher Systeme, der zentral verwalteten sowjetischen Staatswirtschaft und der liberal organisierten schweizerischen Privatwirtschaft.

The volume explores the role of images and visual languages as devices and modes of visibility through which the “values” of tangible and intangible cultural heritage are constructed, negotiated, and actualized. It brings together contributions that reflect on knowledge, methods, and experiences across the fields of management, education, research, and professional practice. Both the starting point and the ultimate aim of the volume are to investigate the different ways in which cultural heritage is exposed to the public gaze, questioning the process of “making visible” as an action intended to foster the engagement of heritage communities and diverse stakeholders. Every act of “exhibition” is an act of mediation and actualization that, through processes of selection, ordering, and interpretation, produces hierarchies of meaning and value. It is therefore a social, ethical, and political action that shapes the public’s experience. The volume thus focuses on a critical reading of the role of images and practices of visualization as meaning-making devices that interpret and stage cultural heritage, offering an experience that, far from being neutral, actively contributes to orienting its meaning. At the core of this reflection lies the relationship between visual devices and languages, narratives, and forms of experience, considered both as theoretical constructs and as the outcomes of practices and design choices through which cultural heritage is made visible, interpreted, and actualized. The intention is to address practices ranging from drawing and representation to photography and digital reconstructions, from museography to information design, and from artistic practices to participatory communication strategies, in order to outline a possible critical taxonomy of languages and devices. Such a taxonomy seeks to reveal how heritage becomes visible, which narratives can be constructed, what kinds of relationships are activated, and which forms of experience are proposed.

Plastikmüll ist überall auf unserem Planeten zu finden. Er hinterlässt einen augenscheinlichen Fußabdruck des menschlichen Konsumverhaltens und der Massenproduktion. Unser ungebremster Plastikkonsum und dessen Auswirkungen prägen die gesellschaftlichen Naturverhältnisse in einer so tiefgreifenden Weise, dass wir vom Plastikzeitalter sprechen. Um Ansätze für einen Umgang mit diesem Problem zu entwickeln, müssen wir das Phänomen umfassend verstehen: Die Autor:innen beleuchten es aus interdisziplinärer Perspektive. Sie zeigen, welche Rolle Kunststoffe in unserer Gesellschaft spielen und welche Auswirkungen sie auf die Umwelt und die menschliche Gesundheit haben. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.de

The specifics of ecological destruction often take a cruel turn, affecting those who can least resist its impacts and are least responsible for it. Deep Horizons: A Multisensory Archive of Ecological Affects and Prospects gathers contributions from multiple disciplines to investigate intersectional questions of how the changing planet affects specific peoples, communities, wildlife species, and ecosystems in varying and inequitable ways. A multisensory, artistic-archival supplement to the Mellon Sawyer Environmental Futures Project, the volume enriches current conversations bridging the environmental humanities and affect theory with insights from Native and Indigenous philosophies as well as by highlighting artistic practices that make legible the long-term durational effects of ecological catastrophe. Poems, nonfiction essays, sound-texts, photographs, and other artworks invite readers and viewers to consider the less visible losses and prospects of environmental transformation. Gathering contributions from multiple disciplines, this multimodal, multisensorial volume pushes the boundaries of scholarship with an experimental, born-digital format that offers a set of responses to collective traumas such as climate change, environmental destruction, and settler colonialism. The artists and authors honor the specificity of real historical and material injustices while also reflecting the eclectic nature of such assorted feelings, working through them in creative and border-crossing modes. With contributions from Robert Bailey, Nina Elder, Erin Espelie, Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds, Maya Livio, Erika Osborne, Craig Santos Perez, Kim Tallbear, Julianne Warren, and Kyle Powys White. ""The compelling juxtaposition of poetry, music, video, audio, photography, printmaking, and traditional essays is among Deep Horizons' considerable strengths. I don’t know of any other project quite like this one. The subject is timely—indeed, urgent—and the innovative approach to archiving environmental change will interest scholars and artists in a range of disciplines and resonate with a wide audience."" —Jennifer Ladino, University of Idaho