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Using Traditional Patriarchal Institutions to Address Women’s Problems

December 4, 2015
By 19655

That modernity does not necessarily bring secularisation in most parts of the world is knowledge rarely disputed in our times. People working in the field of development are increasingly acknowledging the continuing influence of patriarchal² religious norms on individual and collective life and looking for ways to promote female empowerment within the local reality.³ At the same time, there is growing evidence that gender-specific programmes in the past have produced negative side effects, perhaps because they failed to understand the interdependent livelihoods of men and women in traditional societies. This has led to some efforts to make men and boys central actors of female empowerment.⁴ Ordinary women in more traditional societies still grapple with culture-specific challenges that are rarely addressed in global initiatives. These include fundamentalist wars against their piety, frictions between modernisation and cultural identity, and intergenerational communication problems that interfere with young women’s choices.⁵

These were some of the challenges local people repeatedly conveyed to me through their accounts during a year of research in sub-Saharan Africa. The project described here was designed in response to these findings, and proposes to address asymmetries in the lifestyles and livelihoods of men and women working through the patriarchal institutions that inevitably make up the building blocks of most traditional societies. Pragmatic development must be relevant to the realities of local people, and must work within those realities to create an environment for change from within that is led by the people themselves out of their free choice.

Background

The idea that development programmes need to be cautious not to promote existing inequalities between men and women is the product of Western feminist movements. Gender sensitivity has been a mainstream part of development since at least the 1995 International Conference on Women held in Beijing.⁶ In 2013, in an attempt to understand the need to integrate gender-sensitivity in African agricultural development programmes, I embarked on a year-long fieldwork project in Ghana, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Tanzania.⁷ My methodology was to listen to what men and women had to say about their livelihoods, to observe how men and women lived together, and to become exposed to Western gender and development approaches so as to investigate their impact.

The findings overall revealed a gap between people’s nuanced lifestyles (and the even more nuanced relationships between men and women) and the theoretical assumptions underpinning most gender and development programmes. The mainstream theoretical framework seemed to be premised on a consistent set of assumptions about gender relations in other countries and the implicit idea that most cultural influences are pernicious to women. In addition, the fact that gender analysis was done from the standpoint of leading Western societies meant that the impact of faith on material life was rarely researched or accounted for. In the societies where I lived, however, it was evident that cultural and faith-based ideas and beliefs shaped gender identities and relations, also influencing women’s possibilities as food producers. It was rarely recognised in the programmes I saw that improving women’s livelihoods would require understanding and engaging with these deeply embedded ideas and socialisation norms first. I therefore developed an alternative strategy that would include traditional institutions both in the analysis of gender realities and in sensitisation processes. Getting local religious and patriarchal figures involved in this process was another priority.

My proposal was to achieve this by combining ethnographic methods of research with participatory methodologies for community discussion. The process of group sensitization would be guided by ERDA methodology, a tool developed by research partners at the University of Tennessee to promote collective problem solving in communities.⁸ Through such a process of collective dialogue participants were expected to become more aware of the positives and negatives in their community. The gender-sensitive aspect of the approach would in turn provide a platform for thinking about asymmetries in the livelihoods and social roles of men and women, and trace their origin possibly in religious and cultural conventions. At the same time, ERDA would guide the process of sensitization and reduce my role to that of interlocutor. I employed this approach for the first time in the community of Guédé Chantier in Senegal, in response to an invitation by the mayor, Dr. Ousmane Aly Pame, to support the community’s development in ways that would be inclusive and culture-sensitive.⁹

Socio-economic Conditions through the Gender Lens in Guédé Chantier

Guédé Chantier and the central canal that enables farmers to irrigate their rice fields.

Guédé Chantier was established in 1933 by the French colonial administration as an irrigated agriculture project, resettling some 50 families to the area to grow rice. The original local inhabitants were Fulani, although today Guédé is ethnically diverse. The population is homogenously Muslim, with the majority belonging to the Sufi branch of Islam, and specifically the Tidjanniya brotherhood.¹⁰ Guédé has a population of approximately 7,000, with a large population of young women.

Men are expected to provide for their families. They usually work in pastoralist, agricultural, fishing, artisanal, and entrepreneurial activities in the village and nearby areas. Women are responsible for looking after children and running the house. Many women work small parcels of land to produce vegetables, which they sell to buy cooking materials. Almost all women are involved in the transformation of raw foodstuffs for sale, including preparing salted peanuts and turning rice into flour.

Khadija, a mother of four in a polygynous marriage, preparing salted peanuts.

Currently the community faces a number of problems, including soil depletion, water pollution due to use of synthetic fertilizers, shortage of pastoral land, drought, unstable income due to seasonal problems, and migration. Women have limited control of land, limited access to agricultural inputs, and find it difficult to secure credit. Livelihoods for both men and women are becoming more difficult as the price of living increases. This is felt particularly by women, who must manage daily household needs on very meagre funds.

Project Activities

A. Context Analysis

The project was planned as three rounds of activities to unfold over the period of one year. In the first round, I completed questionnaires with men and women in their homes that asked them about their livelihoods and gender-specific challenges. I also spoke to key informants, representatives from local youth organisations, and ordinary men and women. Two focus group discussions—one with men and another with women—were held to unpack profounder religious and cultural beliefs and norms underpinning girls’ and boys’ socialisation. This information was used to prepare the participatory workshop.

Participants’ own definitions of “development.”

B. Participatory Workshop

The workshop had a timeline of two days; it attracted 14 participants on the first day, and 21 on the second (38% female). The group was diverse in terms of age, education levels, marital status, and other socio-economic characteristics. ¹¹ The workshop followed the ERDA methodology, starting with an evaluation of current realities, followed by exercises to bring out problems caused by the intersection of traditional values and norms and modern influences, to assess possible needs and opportunities, and ultimately to produce a platform for action toward sustainable community growth.

Participants reflecting on how they understand “development” in the context of their own lives.

In the second part of the workshop, a conversation about moral values led participants to examine their ideas and perceptions about people from different backgrounds, and the issue of equality and difference. This led gradually to the topic of the relations between men and women in Pulaar society. Young men and women, both married and single, worked together to list differences and similarities between men’s and women’s livelihoods. Participants also discussed the impact of family, schooling, and religious education on their perceptions about women and men and their respective roles in society. A conversation about spousal and inter-generational communication followed. Although disagreement occasionally halted dialogue early on, by the end of the workshop participants were fully engaged and more aware of their shared identities than differences. Participants also expressed excitement at the ERDA methodology, which they felt could be replicated to promote other communal development initiatives.¹²

C. Meeting with Patriarchal Leaders

Working together to identify differences and shared characteristics between men and women.

In the second round of activities a meeting was held with religious leaders: Muslim clerics and local elders (a total of nine participants). I planned this discussion to summarise the participatory workshop and its findings to the local ‘patriarchs,’ and to discuss issues of equality in Islam as they had been articulated during the workshop, the focus groups and the personal interviews. The aim was to hear how local leaders thought about the intersection of faith-based, culturally embedded norms about men and women and the needs of younger generations in a constantly globalising world. I also wanted to see how they would visualise development in their community, and their role and responsibility in it.

Progress and Future Directions

The ethnographic activities showed that men and women have different roles, responsibilities, and expectations in this society. The asymmetries in livelihoods most likely reflect religious norms compounded by cultural practices. Patriarchal arrangements of social life, such as in the ways land is allocated, did seem to make equality more difficult to sustain. But the real impediment was found in mentalities that viewed women as less capable than men and belonging exclusively in the home. The participatory workshop showed that most people are interested in change and condone equality, but in ways that do not depart from patriarchal structures that they perceive as foundational to either faith or culture. Any intervention that aims to address women's problems would need to take into account this subtle relationship between growing ideas of equality and a strong sense of identity, especially in cases where the latter combines with an androcentric worldview.

It also emerged from the activities that there is much untapped potential for personal and economic growth in women’s agricultural and revenue-generating activities at home. From the conversation with religious leaders it became evident that they would not oppose economic activities led by women, although there was a general preference that women should not work. Because women spend most of their time within the house, growing food in gardens was identified as a possible pathway for providing women with a stable and independent source of income, and also improving their children’s nutritional habits in the long run (which currently lack diversity).

Subsequently, in a third trip to the village, a workshop was held with women on the themes of nutrition and agriculture. The workshop again employed the ERDA methodology of collective dialogue. In the discussions, women recognised linkages between cultural influences and tradition and current nutritional practices and deficiencies, and raised the need for change. Some participants proposed forming an association for women that would pilot a collective project to grow more nutritionally rich foods at the established local genetic centre. In line with this project’s premises that change must be free-willed and start from within, it was left to the local population to decide how they will leverage on the ERDA activities and what changes they will proceed to make.¹³

Objectives, Aims, and Expectations

This project’s objective has been two-fold: first, to see more community members sensitised about differences and asymmetries in the lifestyles and livelihoods of men and women, and second to create an environment for men and women to come together, discuss their problems and needs, and become aware of new collective and individual pathways for action. The underlying aim was to pilot a new approach to development practice that is based on local gender knowledges, and does not attempt to impose change based on a priori conceptualisations of what ideal gender relations should be. The activities in the village also provided the context for my masters research titled “Gender through the Lens of Religion: An Ethnographic Study from Senegal” (University of Sussex, Institute of Development Studies), which should add to the field’s understanding of the intersection of faith-based worldviews and Western ideas of gender equality, as well as the implications of this intersection for sustainable development in African societies and elsewhere.¹⁴

“Power lies with the individual who has the freedom of choice. This choice, however, requires will, maturity and knowledge.” Young woman in Guédé Chantier

¹I would like to thank sincerely the Tokyo Foundation in Japan for believing in the proposal I submitted, and for granting me the means to begin to realise it. I also want to thank Dr. Harwood Schaffer at the University of Tennessee for sharing his work with me and introducing me to the community of Guédé Chantier, and its first Mayor Dr. Ousmane Pame, for willingly accepting my proposal and facilitating my fieldwork and activities there. I also wholeheartedly thank the population of Guédé Chantier for accepting me and for showing patience and willingness to engage with this endeavour.

²‘Patriarchy’ etymologically results from the combination of two words, pater>patria and arkhein, which mean respectively ‘father>family/clan’ and ‘to begin/to rule/to command’ (Online Etymology Dictionary). Patriarchy here then is not defined as androcentrism, but as an organisational structure in which the male plays a central role. Whether a male-led institution becomes unequal will depend on how that subject uses the authority given to him.

³See for example E. Tomalin (ed.), 2015, The Routledge Handbook or Religions and Global Development. Routledge.

⁴See for example E. Esplen and A. Brody, 2007, Putting Gender Back in the Picture: Rethinking Women's Economic Empowerment, http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/sites/bridge.ids.ac.uk/files/reports/BB19_Economic_Empowerment.pdf

⁵It is little surprise that many scholars in developing countries continue to call for alternative epistemological approaches to gender theorisation. See for example O. Oyěwùmí, (ed.), 2011, Gender Epistemologies in Arica: Gendering Traditions, Spaces, Social Institutions, and Identities, Palgrave McMillan. The same position is echoed in anthropological arguments that have long called for practice designed on the basis of local knowledge. See for example L. T. Smith, 1999, Decolonizing Methodologies Research and Indigenous People, London: Zed Books Ltd.

⁶See for example C. Moser, 1993, Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practice and Training, Routledge: London and New York.

⁷I was awarded the Thomas J. Watson fellowship by the eponymous foundation in New York after being nominated by Bates College in 2012. The project was of my own conceptualisation and design, and was implemented during the period of one year.

⁸This tool was developed by research partners at the University of Tennessee. It is known by the acronym ERDA (Evaluate, Research, Develop and Assess), and according to my partner, Dr. Harwood Schaffer, was adapted from a well-known tool in Business Studies called Cycle of Innovation. It was designed to set in motion an ongoing cycle of community insight-sharing and re-assessment, securing community ownership of decision-making, to encourage cooperative problem-solving. It was developed on the idea that when practitioners depart, the community must be able to continue to resolve its problems independently.

⁹Dr. Pame as introduced to me through my research partner at the University of Tennessee, who was at the time working closely with Dr. Pame to address agriculture-related issues in the community. Since Guédé Chantier was upgraded to the status of a commune (2008-2009), Dr. Pame has been committed to mobilising its local population toward more sustainable growth pathways. The community was reportedly the first to be registered as an eco-village.

¹⁰Sufism is the mystical version of Islam, and is defined by the followers’ search for inner spirituality and approximation of God. The Tidjanis share three foundational principles, which are: 1. Praying to be forgiven for your sins (‘Astafiroullah’), 2. Recognising no one as divine but God (‘La Illa Ha Illalah’), 3. Praying to the Prophet Mohammad (‘Salatou Allale Nabby’). (Principal Imam Abdoulaye Ly, personal interview, 1 April 2015, consent granted).

¹¹Participation at this point was self-selected, however an attempt was made to communicate directly with women and men in the community so as to ensure that everyone was informed before the day of the workshop.

¹²Participants proposed various suggestions, but due to the fact that we ran out of time, no action plan was created. The different pathways were discussed in follow-up conversations.

¹³My conviction is that development must respect free choice. This echoes the work of Amartya Sen (Nobel Prize in Economics 1998). My approach takes Sen’s theory seriously and recognises that people value different things and that development must be formulated based on such values. See A. Sen, 1999, Development as Freedom, Oxford University Press.

¹⁴This has become my MA dissertation at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex, under the title “Gender through the Lens of Religion: An Ethnographic Study from a Muslim Community in Senegal”.

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The Socioeconomic Dimension of Irrawaddy Dolphin Conservation

November 9, 2015
By 19660

Sierra Deutsch, a Sylff fellow at the University of Oregon, went to Myanmar and Cambodia to assess the two countries’ different approaches to natural resource management. In this article, she describes the preliminary findings of her research and argues that the experiences of local people affected by natural resource policies are important and may have implications for the success of those policies.

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The Mekong

As concern has grown over the alarming acceleration of environmental problems since the emergence of the industrial era, the science of natural resource management has evolved in an effort to confront such issues. In recent years, conservation efforts have shifted from a focus on individual species to an ecosystem-based management (EBM) approach. With this change, the concept of the “human dimensions” of resource management—which emphasizes the diverse forms of knowledge and beliefs of stakeholders and their incorporation in conservation policy¹—has come to the fore^2,3. It is now widely recognized that natural resource management is really about the management of natural resource users ^1,3,4. Taking it a step further, recent research has pointed to the importance of socioeconomic analyses in conservation research strategies ^5,6.

Historically, the question “Is this conservation project working?” has often been answered without considering the perceptions and experiences of the people whose livelihoods are most directly affected by conservation policies ^7,8. While biological indicators are obviously an important part of conservation work, understanding how conservation programs are perceived and experienced by the local communities most affected by them is also vital—both for the sake of the communities themselves and because support from those communities may have important implications for the long-term success of conservation efforts.

Cambodia critical dolphin habitat and research sites

The Status of the Irrawaddy Dolphin

The Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris) inhabits rivers throughout Southeast Asia and coastal waters in the Indian and Pacific Oceans from the Bay of Bengal to the Philippines ⁹. The species is listed as “threatened” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with five sub-populations listed as “critically endangered.” Since the dolphins are not hunted directly for consumption, they are considered a “nonconsumptive” resource.

The main threats to their survival are upstream industrial pollution, accidental catches by gillnet fishing, and mortalities resulting from electro-fishing ^9,10,11,12.

Myanmar: Critical dolphin habitat and research sites

Conservation measures that seek to aid in the recovery of Irrawaddy dolphin populations must therefore address the socioeconomic factors that indirectly affect their survival, making Irrawaddy dolphin conservation projects an ideal focus for a study on the socioeconomic dimension of conservation initiatives.

Conservation measures for the Irrawaddy dolphin vary by country. They include attempts to mitigate habitat degradation, restrictions on the fishing practices and gear that endanger the dolphins, educational outreach, poverty alleviation through development, encouragement of tourism, and formation of fisher cooperatives ^9,10,12. Each country has had varying success in conservation of the Irrawaddy dolphin and, because of its widespread distribution in multiple countries, the Irrawaddy dolphin is also an ideal subject for a cross-country comparison of conservation projects.

Diversification vs. Preservation: Two Contrasting Approaches

Fisherman on the Ayeyarwady River (Myanmar)

Cambodia’s approach seeks to preserve the status quo of privatized resources and focuses more on the diversification of livelihoods and the economic development of rural communities ¹³. Meanwhile, Myanmar has focused more on the preservation of livelihoods in rural communities ¹⁴. Cambodia’s approach seems to be failing and the imminent extinction of its dolphin population has been predicted ¹⁵, while Myanmar’s approach seems relatively successful ¹⁴. Yet the perceptions and experiences of these policies by the people that are most directly affected, while taken into consideration during planning and implementation ^4,14, seem to have been largely ignored once the policies have been implemented.

Bringing Local People into the Discussion

Fisherman on the Mekong (Cambodia)

I used questionnaires to gather data for the hypotheses I have about different perceptions of conservation among the participants. But I also wanted to make sure that participants were given an opportunity to highlight what was important to them. Too many well-intentioned Western researchers go to “developing”countries and make assumptions about the needs and desires of their participants without bothering to ask the local people in those countries what they think. Of course, I had to set out with at least a few questions and expectations in mind—if only because it is virtually impossible to get funding without them! But I purposely chose to carry out personal interviews and focus-group discussions—in addition to questionnaires and participant observation—to allow participants to tell me what was important to them and what they wanted foreign researchers to help with in the future.

Preliminary Findings

At the conclusion of my fieldwork, I had a total of 128 individual interviews, 275 completed questionnaires, and 25 focus-group discussions. These came from 8 riverside villages in Myanmar and another 8 in Cambodia (16 villages in total). The data are still in the preliminary stages of analysis: All of the audio recordings still need to be transcribed in Burmese and Khmer and then translated. (I felt this was a more accurate way of assessing the data, since the interpreters I used on-site may have left out some of what was said, assuming it wasn’t important enough to repeat). However, I have already seen several themes emerge and hope to confirm them once I have the full translations.

One of the research villages Myanmar

First, virtually all participants seem to think fondly of the Irrawaddy dolphin and expressed a desire to continue to protect it. Second, many participants in both countries seemed to express frustration with ongoing corruption—law enforcement often takes monetary bribes in exchange for “looking the other way” when illegal fishing gear (which unintentionally harms dolphins as well) is used in the river. Many of those participants seemed concerned for the future of the river and its ability to supply the fish that is their primary source of protein. Third, while participants in both countries seem to feel that conditions in their communities have improved over the last 10 years, I was surprised by the differences in how participants expressed that improvement.

Many of the people in Cambodia—where they have experienced a shift toward capitalism since the early 1980s—tended to emphasize the presence and role of money in their lives, often discussing improvements in terms of people having bigger houses, owning motorbikes or cars, and having more money in general (basically, the standard symbols of Western “wealth”). In contrast, participants in Myanmar—where they have just recently begun to experience a shift toward capitalism since 2010—seemed to place more emphasis on community enrichment, frequently discussing improvements in terms of things like better schools, improved medical treatment, and the construction of flood walls. While these are only preliminary findings that need to be confirmed, they are also just a few of the themes immediately obvious from the data. I am confident that many exciting and important findings remain to be made.

Encouraging the Involvement of Underrepresented Groups

Traveling has always been one of my great loves. As I spent more time traveling, particularly in developing countries, I gradually became aware of a desire to address the social and environmental problems that seemed to be everywhere. I had the opportunity to meet many people along the way from diverse geopolitical regions, cultures, ethnicities, religions, genders, and ages who were contributing to solutions for these social and environmental problems.

Around the same time, I began to become aware of my undeserved privilege as a middle-class, white North American to access resources—such as education and the ability to travel abroad—that are not available to the vast majority of the world’s population. Because of this awareness and because of these interactions with the people who inspired me, I decided that even though I enjoyed studying whales and dolphins immensely, I felt a deep responsibility to use the resources available to me to contribute to the peace and well-being of humankind and the planet.

It is my hope that the results of this study will encourage more involvement of underrepresented groups in assessing the effectiveness of environmental and other policies on a local, regional, national, and global scale. I believe that acknowledging the diverse ways in which people experience and perceive conservation initiatives is especially important where conservation policy appears to be failing. The addition of alternative worldviews to a collective analysis may ultimately lead to more effective approaches to, and better solutions for, the environmental problems that affect us all.

Literature Cited

¹ Decker, Daniel J, Riley, Shawn J and Siemer, William F (2012) Human dimensions of wildlife management, JHU Press.

² Berkes, Fikret (2012) ‘Implementing ecosystem-based management: evolution or revolution?’ Fish and Fisheries, 13(4), pp. 465–476.

³ McLeod, Karen and Leslie, Heather (2009) ‘Why ecosystem-based management’, in McLeod, K. L. and Leslie, H. M. (eds.), Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans, Washington, D.C., Island Press.

⁴ Beasley, Isabel (2007) ‘Conservation of the Irrawaddy dolphin, Orcaella brevirostiris (Owen in Gray, 1866) in the Mekong River: biological and social considerations influencing management.’

⁵ Clausen, Rebecca and York, Richard (2008) ‘Global biodiversity decline of marine and freshwater fish: a cross-national analysis of economic, demographic, and ecological influences.’ Social Science Research, 37(4), pp. 1310–1320.

⁶ Clausen, Rebecca and Clark, Brett (2005) ‘The metabolic rift and marine ecology: an analysis of the ocean crisis within capitalist production.’ Organization & Environment, 18(4), pp. 422–444.

⁷ Kellert, Stephen R, Mehta, Jai N, Ebbin, Syma A and Lichtenfeld, Laly L (2000) ‘Community natural resource management: promise, rhetoric, and reality.’ Society & Natural Resources, 13(8), pp. 705–715.

⁸ Moore, Kathleen Dean and Russell, Roly (2009) ‘Toward a new ethic for the oceans’, in McLeod, K. and Leslie, H. (eds.), Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans, Island Press, pp. 325–340.

⁹ Baird, Ian G and Beasley, Isabel L (2005) ‘Irrawaddy dolphin Orcaella brevirostris in the Cambodian Mekong River: an initial survey.’ Oryx, 39(3), pp. 301–310.

¹⁰ Smith, Brian D and Hobbs, Larry (2002) ‘Status of Irrawaddy dolphins Orcaella brevirostris in the upper reaches of the Ayeyarwady River, Myanmar.’ Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, 50, pp. 67–74.

¹¹ Stacey, Pam J and Leatherwood, Stephen (1997) ‘The Irrawaddy dolphin, Orcaella brevirostris: a summary of current knowledge and recommendations for conservation action.’ Asian Marine Biology, 14, pp. 195–214.

¹² Smith, Brian D, Tun, Mya Than, Chit, Aung Myo, Win, Han and Moe, Thida (2009) ‘Catch composition and conservation management of a human–dolphin cooperative cast-net fishery in the Ayeyarwady River, Myanmar.’ Biological Conservation, 142(5), pp. 1042–1049.

¹³ Beasley, Isabel, Marsh, Helene, Jefferson, Thomas A and Arnold, Peter (2009) ‘Conserving dolphins in the Mekong River: the complex challenge of competing interests’, in The Mekong: Biophysical environment of an international river basin, Sydney, Australia, Elsevier Press, pp. 363–387.

¹⁴ Smith, Brian D and Tun, Mya Than (2007) ‘Status and conservation of Irrawaddy dolphins Orcaella brevirostris in the Ayeyarwady River of Myanmar’, in Smith, B. D., Shore, R. G., and Lopez, A. (eds.), Status and Conservation of Freshwater Populations of Irrawaddy Dolphins, WCS Working Paper Series No. 31., New York, Wildlife Conservation Society, pp. 21–40.

¹⁵ Beasley, Isabel, Pollock, K, Jefferson, T A, Arnold, P, et al. (2012) ‘Likely future extirpation of another Asian river dolphin: The critically endangered population of the Irrawaddy dolphin in the Mekong River is small and declining.’ Marine Mammal Science.

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Oil and the City: Hope, Expectation, and Development in Ghana

September 1, 2015
By 19667

How does “oil money” shape a city? ThienVinh Nguyen, a Sylff fellowship recipient at Columbia University now enrolled in a doctoral program at University College London, used an SRA grant to observe how profits from oil are spent for the “development” of a port city in Ghana. During her eight-month-long research in the city, she saw oil companies spend enormous amounts on infrastructure development. Her report raises the question of who are the real beneficiaries of such spending.

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Even without oil, we are doing so well . . . with oil as a shot in the arm, we're going to fly. . . . Oil is money, and we need money to do the schools, the roads, and the hospitals. If you find oil, you manage it well, can you complain about that?

—–Ghanaian President John Kufuor, June 2007

Introduction

Many of Ghana’s offshore oil fields are located in the Western Region, whose capital is Sekondi-Takoradi. Image courtesy of Hufstader/Oxfam America, 2008

After a century of minor oil discoveries, in 2007 President John Kufuor announced that Ghana had discovered commercial quantities of oil in the Jubilee Fields off the coast of Sekondi-Takoradi. The International Monetary Fund estimates that oil and gas revenues from the Jubilee Fields alone could earn the Ghanaian government a cumulative $20 billion between 2012 and 2030, a figure that certainly makes an impact in Ghana’s national budget (Gary, Manteaw, and Armstrong 2009).

The question on everyone’s mind was: Will this be a blessing or a curse? Indeed, oil has been regarded by some as a dark, evil, corrupting resource. My research moves beyond this stereotype to explore the nuances of how the emergence of an oil industry transforms a city. Sekondi-Takoradi continues to change, as do cities all over the world, but the oil boom and the narratives around it enable new, ambitious, and fantastical development-driven visions for the city.

At the same time, we see an increase in citizens advocating for basic amenities and provisions—water, sanitation, electricity, and education—which the city has been slow to deliver in spite of the scale of oil-driven developments. Three major development projects are being promoted: the construction of a luxury shopping mall, the renovation of urban roads, and the expansion of Takoradi Port.

Case Studies

There is a small mention of the need for a mall in the current draft of the city’s development plan, and a South African developer has proposed the construction of a mall valued at between $65 million and $90 million (Ampratwum-Mensah 2015). Even though the local government and some residents support the project—seeing it as a sign of “modern progress”—others believe that there should also be a focus on ensuring that local citizens have access to basic services and provisions. Even with its supporters, however, the mall project has faced serious challenges. For one thing, the developers had to seek the support of the mayor, local government officials, and the police force to relocate the auto mechanics who had been “illegally” operating on the land. Some argue that these mechanics created a thriving local economy, while the developer and others say the mall will create new jobs and new public spaces.

Another development focus has been on roads. Roads are particularly helpful in getting political parties elected. With money from the oil boom, Sekondi-Takoradi has been improving its roads, especially those frequented by oil and gas companies and foreigners. The Jubilee Partners—the consortium of oil companies operating on the Jubilee Fields—also paid for the renovation of a roundabout they use frequently. A number of civil society organizations that I interviewed mentioned that while the paving of roads is welcome, the city is prioritizing development based on aesthetics that serves particular privileged groups, rather than meeting such community needs as water, sanitation, and electricity.

Sekondi-Takoradi, like many other cities, is going through change, where the new and old converge and where different visions of development affect everyday life and the urban form of the city. (Photo by ThienVinh Nguyen, 2015)

Sekondi-Takoradi has historically been and continues to be an important port, shaped by the shipments of resource minerals through the city. Currently, Ghana is investing heavily into the Takoradi Port Expansion Project, with the first and second phases of the project budgeted at well over US$300 million. Financing comes in the form of loans: €197 million from KBC Bank N.V. and about US$176 million from the China Development Bank (“Takoradi Port Expansion: Breakwater Nears Completion” 2014). A core feature of this expansion project is catering to the needs of oil and gas companies, including the creation of an oil storage area. This impressive expansion project will continue to shape the city, with new mineral wealth flowing in and out of the city.

Amidst heightened economic activity and growing possibilities, President Kufuor and other politicians—including US Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, who have both made visits to Ghana—promote the idea of hope and economic prosperity in the light of the oil discoveries, juxtaposing the promise in Ghana with narratives about weak states and the resource curse in Africa. These expectations are embedded in a context where Ghana is seen as a potential exemplar African state, capable of moving beyond the “tragedy” of resource mismanagement by continuing on its path as an international-investor-friendly, democratic nation. Citizens recognize that oil is a valuable commodity (despite declining oil prices) and that perhaps it has the potential to transform the income trajectory of all Ghanaians.

Over eight months in Ghana, I conducted interviews with civil society organizations, traditional authorities, Ghanaian government officials at various levels, local businesses, and transnational companies, including oil-related companies from Britain, the United States, France, and South Africa, among others. Although China provided the Ghanaian government with a $3 billion loan to build natural gas infrastructure (see: Mohan 2010), I learned through my interviews that most of the money was spent outside of the city: in building a major ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) highway and constructing the infrastructure for a natural gas pipeline farther west on the coast. There were also proposed Chinese-coordinated projects in the city, though, in the form of road works and improving the railway system.

In addition to interviews with these stakeholders, I also analyzed various strategic plans for the city over time, including plans financed by oil companies, 20 years’ worth of development plans drafted by the local government, and plans developed by local nongovernmental organizations. Given all these emergent developments, which affect the structure and social landscape of the city, there has been an increased focus on the creation of spatial development plans for the city.

I argue that the process of formulating these plans opens up new opportunities for public engagement and forms of governance. The local government plans have certainly become more ambitious and in-depth, requiring much bigger budgets, following the discovery of oil. Indeed, the major oil company in the city has a field representative in the district assembly who attends the planning meetings. These plans—more so than in the past—serve as strategic tools for garnering donor support and private investment. Indeed, even those cynical of whether these plans will ever be implemented realize that the plans have mobilized a broad range of voices in shaping the future of the city. While implementation may be slow, they do affect the direction and structure of the city.

With a population of 560,000 in a country of 24 million, Sekondi-Takoradi consists of the twin cities of Sekondi and Takoradi and is the capital of the Western Region (Wilde, Adams, and English 2013). This region is known for its rich resources—timber, bauxite, gold, and diamonds, and now, offshore oil and gas. Sekondi-Takoradi lies on the transport route to Kumasi and Accra—thriving cities that are the capitals in their respective regions, with Accra serving also as the capital of the country.

In this vein, this city, as is the case for all cities, is a site of territorialized economic development, given its dependency on natural resources and its role as a major port for Ghana. It has been integrated into the global supply chain, where international capital flows in and out of the city. Now, the Ghana central government insists that oil production will bring the city and country unprecedented wealth. Narratives about the potential for growth highlight how the city will be “one of the modern cities of the world,” with “skyscrapers, six-lane highways and malls” (Walker 2011).

The central market area of Takoradi, where old, colonial-style buildings (on the left) are juxtaposed with the new Ecobank building on the right. (Photo by ThienVinh Nguyen, 2015)

I asked all of my interviewees how the city has changed. Some commented on how there has not been enough change and that money has not “trickled down”—meaning that they would welcome further social and infrastructural development and that the city is still very much lacking. There remain “slum areas,” with many residents lacking access to water, sanitation, and electricity. With regard to electricity, despite having offshore oil and gas, Ghana is undergoing an energy crisis, where the load shedding schedule is 24-hours off/24-hours on.

The city’s central Market Circle consists of an organized, though seemingly chaotic, indoor and outdoor market areas, where one can find practically anything: from live animals and produce to cheap imported goods. This area, though, lacks proper plumbing and trash collection—despite the fact that vendors here pay fees to the city for being there.

Others contend that the city has indeed changed, for better and for worse. With more foreigners in the city, rents and food prices have gone up, and there is increased road congestion. There are large, newly built villas, hotels, and bank buildings in the city. While a public school teacher or taxi driver makes less than US$300 a month, monthly rents for a three-bedroom house in the wealthier neighborhoods range from $2,000 to $5,000.

Given the myriad development issues facing Sekondi-Takoradi, the question is not if change will take place but how, at what rate, and who will benefit from this oil boom.

References:

Ampratwum-Mensah, Akwasi. 2015. “EPA Holds Public Hearing on Proposed Takoradi Mall.” Accessed May 30. http://graphic.com.gh/news/general-news/43877-epa-holds-public-hearing-on-proposed-takoradi-mall.html.

Gary, Ian, Steve Manteaw, and Clive Armstrong. 2009. “Ghana’s Big Test: Oil’s Challenge to Democratic Development.” Oxfam America. Ghana Statistical Service. 2014. “Gross Domestic Product 2014.”

Ghana Statistical Service. www.statsghana.gov.gh/docfiles/GDP/GDP_2014.pdf.

Hufstader, Chris. 2008. “The Coming Oil Boom in Ghana.” Oxfam America. October 1. http://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories//the-coming-oil-boom-in-ghana/.

Mohan, Giles. 2010. China in Ghana: Easing the Shift from Aid Dependency to Oil Economy?(ARI). Real Instituto Elcano. http://biblioteca.ribei.org/1965/1/ARI-149-2010-I.pdf.

“Takoradi Port Expansion: Breakwater Nears Completion.” 2014. May 16. http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/business/artikel.php?ID=309576.

Walker, Rob. 2011. “Oil Boom Changes Face of Ghana City.” BBC, March 8, sec. Africa. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12646359.

Wilde, Alberto, Ishmael Adams, and Brian English. 2013. “Fueling the Future of an Oil City: A Tale of Sekondi-Takoradi in Ghana.” Global Communities. http://www.globalcommunities.org/publications/2013-ghana-fueling-the-future-of-an-oil-city.pdf.

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The Urban Art of Hip Hop among Young Immigrants in Palermo, Italy

July 3, 2015
By 19640

The Migration Observatory of the Institute of Political Education “Pedro Arrupe” is a website that publishes the results of scientific research on migration to the island of Sicily, where the institute is located. Martina Riina, who received a Sylff fellowship in 2014, chose to focus her research for the Observatory on the culture of second-generation migrants by focusing on the ways in which they express themselves through the medium of hip hop.

* * *

Between April 2014 and February 2015 I conducted social anthropological research in Palermo on a form of musical and narrative expression known as hip hop. My research focused on the ways in which young immigrants living in the city express themselves through hip hop culture and on the importance of this form of social and artistic communication in enabling them to find an identity in their new surroundings.

Urban Anthropological Approach

From a theoretical point of view, I tried to analyze the hip hop narrative as expressed mainly in the rap musical genre through sociological and urban anthropological perspectives, focused on the creative expressions of ethnic minorities in big cities, their message, and elements of cultural resistance.

I followed the analytical approach of French sociologist George Lapassade, one of the first scholars to address hip hop culture in his work on immigrants living in the suburbs of Paris. Lapassade compiled his reflections in what soon became the manifesto of youth hip hop culture—Le Rap, ou la Fureur de Dire (Rap, or the Fury of the Word)—a deep investigation into the symbols, practices, beliefs, and lifestyles revolving around this expressive language.

I learned through Lapassade’s analysis about hip hop’s origins in the Afro-American ghettos of New York in the late 1970s. The youth in these communities asserted their freedom of speech through real street expressions of song, music, dance, and mural art, weaving messages of civil rights with a desire to be recognized and to participate actively in the social life of the city’s most deprived neighborhoods, even among those belonging to different ethnic minorities who populated those neighborhoods.

Starting from the history of hip hop, I studied the ways in which young immigrants in Palermo today proclaim their freedom of speech and the right to express themselves, comparing these with the behavior of their native counterparts. I tried to answer two fundamental questions: How do younger immigrants express themselves through the medium of hip hop and how does this “language” help create opportunities for different groups to meet each other and to influence one another through a process of “cultural contamination”?

Presenting Distinctive Narratives

What emerged from my research was that the language of hip hop and, in particular, rap—its main outlet of expression—are significant channels of expression for undertaking a comparison of groups of young people; the fact that many of them, both immigrants and natives, “speak” the same language allows them to talk about themselves, discuss and express their values, and register dissent in ways that are comprehensible to all parties.

In the fieldwork phase of my research, I closely analyzed how this language comes to life—the way it becomes the preferred channel both of communication with others and of self-expression in relaxed, everyday settings, away from family or school.

One of the most interesting aspects of the hip hop language is its manifestation in the form of “verbal challenge” or “poetic duel,” a dimension of rap’s expressive world containing some extremely revealing elements regarding how contemporary youths confront one another and present their distinctive narratives.

The first thing to take note of is that rap is a modern and purely urban form of oral poetry. Given its Afro-American origins, it is characterized by improvisation and interaction with the audience as the “poet” tells their story.

The story may challenge the audience to question their attitudes toward specific issues with which they are involved, encouraging them to listen and respond to statements that affect them as a community.

What young rappers are engaging in are verbal street fights involving blows of rhymes and assonances. The aim of these “duels” is to express their feelings about their rivals and also their frustrations and disappointments in an artistic manner—a process that might help reduce the number of actual, physical brawls. For young immigrants living in Palermo, the improvised dueling of words, known in the hip hop jargon as “freestyle,” is a way of narrating their own stories directly to their peers in a recognizable style, giving them an element of commonality in spite of their uniqueness.

The linguistic specificities, for example, emphasize the different cultural backgrounds and gestures used in the performances. They also have much in common in the ways topics are addressed, the messages contained in both the improvised and structured lyrics of the songs, the problems faced by today’s youth, the performers’ ambitions and desires, how they spend their leisure time, and tastes in fashion, films, and music.

These topics allow immigrants and natives to know each other better, to learn about their differences, and to reduce stereotypes and prejudices.

Educational Potential

During personal observations of these young people’s modes of self-expression, I realized how important it is to formulate project ideas or social initiatives that allow them to be leaders of their own growth and to affirm their communication and artistic practices. Producing rap lyrics, for example, encourages young immigrants to learn the language of the receiving society and, at the same time, gives them a new channel to communicate their experiences. In an increasingly global and interconnected world this is essential in order to gain a better understanding and awareness of multiculturalism.

Stimulating communication and transmitting shared messages are the engines of rap, and it is for this reason that it has the potential to promote creativity and innovative discoveries in educational and training settings, where aggregation and interpersonal relationships are the fundamental conditions of growth.

In conclusion I would like to point out the importance of hip hop today for young people, both immigrants and natives, as an extremely interesting world of artistic expression. The techniques used to create and perform their works require great skill, effort, research, and continuous recombinations of sound and verbal elements. The ready access to multimedia tools helps young people to learn the use of various technologies by themselves. A rap text is often composed of sentences, refrains, and musical elements of songs written by other artists that are mixed together to create new messages with personal, poetic elaborations. This also allows them to “collaborate” with artists far away in time and space—evoking memories of earlier artistic works and building on them through the reappropriation and reinterpretation of their lyrics.

Creative practices like hip hop in contemporary society are, in my opinion, much more than simple artistic genres: they represent people’s inner voice. It is their personal way of saying who they are and where they come from, as well as their conscious attempt to spread a message about their view of the world.

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Sylff’s Role in Hungary’s Democratization
Hungarian Academy of Sciences Celebrates 25 Years of the Fellowship Program

May 14, 2015
By null

The Hungarian Academy of Sciences received a Sylff endowment 25 years ago —the first Sylff endowment awarded to a Central European country — on November 9, 1989, the very day that the Berlin Wall fell. Three Hungarian Sylff fellows, reflecting on this historical fact, write about what the Sylff program has meant in Hungary and how it has nurtured leaders much needed by the country, which was then going through a dramatic process of democratization.

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Participants of the meeting celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Sylff program in Hungary.

Historical Context

On May 20, 2009, Nippon Foundation Chairman Yohei Sasakawa, in his speech at the twentieth anniversary ceremony of the Sylff program at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, placed the program in historical context:

“In 1989, Mr. Németh Miklós, then [minister] president of Hungary, helped tear down the Iron Curtain. In the same year, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences became the 16th Sylff School. Around that time, Central Europe was moving away from communism in the direction of the West. This move required leaders who could build new countries. It makes me very proud that this academy was the first in Central Europe to have a Sylff endowment to help nurture these leaders. . . . When the wall between East and West fell, things began to change. There was political reform in Hungary and other East European countries. A market economy was adopted. Civil society began to develop. The Nippon Foundation wanted to help Central Europe make these changes.”¹

As Mr. Sasakawa summarized, 1989 was a year of miracles, a unique historical moment that transformed Europe and the world—and Hungary was in the center of the events. On August 19, 1989, civil groups organized a demonstration along the Austro-Hungarian border, the so-called Pan-European Picnic, where the border gate was symbolically opened for several hours. Hundreds of East German citizens used the opportunity to enter Austria.

One month later, on September 11, the Hungarian government officially opened the border for East German refugees. These were the first holes in the Iron Curtain, and as the West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl said on October 4, 1990, on the eve of German reunification, it was in Hungary where “the first stone was knocked out of the wall.”²

On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and on the same day Mr. Ryoichi Sasakawa signed the Agreement to found the first Central European Sylff institution in Hungary. This was the year when Hungary started its transition to democracy. A comprehensive amendment to the Hungarian Constitution took effect on October 23—on the anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. This was also the birthday of the new Republic of Hungary.

According to the new preamble of the Constitution, the revision was needed “in order to promote the peaceful political transition into the rule of law realizing the multiparty system, parliamentary democracy and social market economy.”³ The transition from state socialism to democracy and capitalism would be a long process, requiring new approaches and young leaders.

Last year was a historic landmark for Central Europe. It marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the biggest event in recent European history: the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. Germans recalled the “sheer madness” of the night in 1989, when thousands of East Berliners streamed across the border and thousands of helium-filled white balloons were lifted off one by one into the night sky to mark the wall’s fall. Last year’s Lichtgrenze was a light installation running through the city center that recreated this image.⁴

The Iron Curtain was a symbol of the suppression of fundamental rights in the Eastern bloc during the Cold War and represented a violent and ultimately ineffective episode in postwar history. Its downfall, and also the fall of the wall in Berlin, was emblematic of the end of the Cold War, setting the course for the reintegration of Eastern Europe into the Western economic, political, and security frameworks.

The commemoration of the collapse of the Iron Curtain is marked by a degree of poignancy because there is a palpable sense that peace in Europe is still fragile. In her speech at the wall memorial, German Chancellor Angela Merkel explicitly emphasized the geopolitical context of the twenty-fifth anniversary:

“We have the strength to shape things, to turn things from bad to good that is the message of the fall of the wall.”⁵

Similar sentiments were also expressed by Mr. Yohei Sasakawa in his message at Sylff’s twentieth anniversary in Hungary:

“Much has changed in the world since the program was first conceived. With the collapse of the Cold War structure, we have seen the emergence of a global society, one that is composed of many different value systems. Today’s world is a complicated place. It resembles a mosaic of disparate political, ethnic, cultural and religious viewpoints. It confronts us with many challenges, ranging from ethnic and religious conflicts to widening inequality. To find solutions to these problems, we need people who are committed to making the world a better place. Nurturing such people has been Sylff’s goal from the outset.”⁶

Consolidating Democratization

The endgame of communism in Hungary during the second half of the 1980s was more convoluted and confusing than in other East European countries. This was primarily because both the regime and the opposition were more visibly fragmented than in other East-bloc states—and the fragments were less synchronized with one another.⁷ Shedding the communist past has not been easy, moreover, as the legacy of almost half a century of communist rule was deeply embedded in the country’s political institutions and social structure. The radical transition entailed, in some cases, heavy costs, but it also opened up major new opportunities.

Social scientists and political actors are in agreement on the significance of the transformation that former communist countries have undergone since 1989–90. The transition from communism to capitalism is widely regarded as the complete substitution of one social system for another—a rare example of a wholesale system change.⁸ The consolidation of democracy included shaping public policy to promote independent governance, basic rights, and economic reforms. The necessity of achieving an effective economic, political, and social transformation simultaneously became known in the social sciences as the dilemma of simultaneity: “The only circumstance under which the market economy and democracy can be simultaneously implanted and prosper is the one in which both are forced upon a society from the outside and guaranteed by international relations of dependency and supervision for a long period of time. . . . Otherwise, there reigns everywhere an (at least) asymmetrical antagonism: the market requires the development of a democracy, but democracy does not demand the emergence of a market.”⁹

Thus, when the Hungarian Academy of Sciences signed the Agreement in 1989 to introduce the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund program, Hungary was in the midst of great political changes. Since the catalyst for the political transformation in Eastern Europe was the commitment of the elites to the creation of democratic institutions¹⁰, their role was crucial in fostering and consolidating democratization.¹¹ Democracies require competitive elites who are committed to maintaining fair, transparent, and open-minded governance, and they were the ones primarily responsible for the political and economic transition in Eastern Europe. In this respect, the political and functional elites have played a decisive role in the multilayered process of societal transformation.¹²

This is true even today, 25 years later, as relatively young democratic institutions are still cultivating the requisite political culture and trying to achieve an optimum balance between political-administrative regulation and civil society.¹³ Transparency in Central and Eastern Europe remains an issue, and only a few professionals—mainly those active in the entrepreneurial sector of the economy—have attained the economic and social status typical in countries with a long history of parliamentary democracy. Others, mainly those working in the public sphere, are still hindered by the consequences of unequal opportunities. This makes the social cohesion and solidarity of the new middle strata rather fragile.¹⁴ As a consequence, the post-socialist political (and to some extent economic) elites are still fragmented or even divided.¹⁵

International support, however, always provides an impetus for democratization and plays an essential, irreplaceable role in safeguarding citizens’ legitimate rights and interests. In that sense, the signing of the Sylff Agreement in Central and East European states like Hungary undoubtedly had an impact on democratic consolidation in those countries. The benefits were not just financial; the spirit nurtured among the fellows definitely helped Hungary stay on track toward democratization.

One aim of the Hungarian representatives who helped prepare the Agreement was to support talented young students and send them to the international “arena” so they could spearhead the reintegration of Hungarian scholars in the humanities and social sciences into the international mainstream.¹⁶ Now, looking back over the preceding 25 years, we can definitely say that the fellowship recipients have become a determining factor in the formation of professional opinion in the country, and many of them have become leaders in their respective fields. As such, they have had great political and socioeconomic responsibility. Making democracy work requires a certain degree of political competence and commitment on the part of the nation’s citizens and, especially, leaders. Particularly in Eastern Europe, where the values nurtured during the communist era needed to be changed with the rules and norms of a capitalist, liberal democracy, education was an important means of achieving those changes.

Anniversary Gala and Brainstorming

A review of the last 25 years at the Presidential Hall of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

On November 17, 2014, on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Sylff program at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS), a gala event was organized in Budapest entitled “Past, Present and Future: Gala and Brainstorming.” The event was officially part of the Festival of Science in Hungary 2014, a month-long series of events held under the theme of “Far-sighted Science.”

A visible sign of HAS’s support for the Sylff anniversary event was the presence of HAS President László Lovász. Takahiro Tanaka, second secretary at the Embassy of Japan in Hungary, was also among the prominent guests. Organizers also invited past and present fellows, members of the Sylff Steering Committee, tutors, and some young scholars who may become future applicants. Around 50 guests participated in the event to celebrate the anniversary.

After the welcoming remarks, speakers in the plenary session summed up the history of the Sylff program in Hungary and considered future possibilities and challenges. The anniversary proved to be a good occasion to monitor the activities (both the strengths and weaknesses) of Sylff in Hungary. The highlight of the event was a session in which past Sylff fellows, now recognized scholars in their own fields, were invited to talk about their academic achievements and professional careers so as to offer hints for the younger generation. The Sylff fellows were notably proud to be invited and underlined various positive aspects of the Sylff program in Hungary that helped to advance their academic careers.

The fellows making presentations were: Professor Éva Kiss, scientific advisor at the Geographical Institute, HAS; Dr. Eszter Csonka-Takács, director of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Department of the Hungarian Open Air Museum; Professor Ferenc Hörcher, director of the Institute of Philosophy, HAS; Dr. Gábor Nagy, senior research fellow at the Regional Research Institute, HAS; Dr. Júlia Frigyes, psychiatrist, certified midwife, doula, and regular guest lecturer at the Perinatal Expert Consultant Training Program of ELTE University; and Dr. Ferenc Bódi, senior researcher at the Institute of Political Sciences, HAS.

VIPs attending the meeting included three past Hungarian Sylff fellows, of whom we are particularly proud: (from right to left) Gábor Nagy, Ferenc Hörcher, and Ferenc Bódi.

One of the things the Sylff fellows emphasized was the role of the program in their “early career development” planning phase. In the early 1990s, fellowships were provided for a maximum of three years. This ensured two to three years of financial security and established balanced conditions that enabled fellows to set ambitious, long-term goals. The fellows were able to concentrate on their own research, without needing to undertake other projects out of financial considerations. Today, unfortunately, this framework is no longer possible due to financial reasons. Present-day fellows receive a scholarship for 10 months.

To meet future challenges and further develop the fellowship system, Sylff fellows made several recommendations. They proposed strengthening the leadership aspect of the program, such as by enhancing management skills under a more practical-oriented approach. They also pointed to the potential for closer cooperation with other East-Central European countries, both at the individual (Sylff Research Abroad, for example) and collective (promoting joint activities among Sylff fellows associations) levels. The “Sylff fellow” status should be communicated more prominently in one’s professional career (such as through inclusion in CVs), they said, as indicating membership in a prestigious and recognized fellowship community.

During the afternoon brainstorming session on how to raise the efficiency of the Sylff network, a roundtable discussion was held focusing on three topics: reinforcing a functioning national network (through a database, facilitating communication, etc.), creating an inter-generational network (with past fellows serving as mentors for new applicants), and forging closer international links (with other Central-East European Sylff institutions, Sylff Research Abroad, international projects, and the Sylff Fellow Forum 2015).

The celebration confirmed the pride Hungarian fellows feel about having been part of the worldwide Sylff family for a quarter of a century. The event highlighted the significance of the past 25 years and its unbroken continuity, which in itself, we feel, is an outstanding achievement.

An added value of the event was that it generated fresh momentum for closer networking among the Sylff fellows. In mid-January 2015, fellows organized another meeting to establish working groups for various proposed objectives. In the future Hungarian Sylff fellows intend to strengthen their links within this network and make better use of this enormous talent pool. Cooperation and joint efforts with other schools and fellows should yield additional benefits. The 25-year anniversary event has been a tremendous boost for the future of Sylff activities in Hungary.

¹http://www.nippon-foundation.or.jp/en/who/message/speeches/2009/9.html (accessed February 13, 2015).
²http://www.dw.de/the-picnic-that-changed-european-history/a-4580616 (accessed February 13, 2015).
³Gábor Halmai, “The Reform of Constitutional Law in Hungary after the Transition,” Legal Studies: The Journal of the Society of Legal Scholars, Vol. 18, No. 2 (1998), p. 188.
⁴Lichtgrenze: Das Jubiläumsprojekt zu 25 Jahre Mauerfall 2014. http://lichtgrenze.de/ (accessed January 20, 2015).
⁵“Rede von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel anlässlich der Eröffnung der neuen Dauerausstellung der Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer am 9. November 2014.” www.bundesregierung.de/Content/DE/Rede/2014/11/2014-11-09-merkel-gedenkstaette-berliner-mauer.html (accessed January 20, 2015).
⁶https://www.sylff.org/about/message_sasakawa#sthash.UAptIsHK.dpuf (accessed February 14, 2015).
⁷Joseph Rothschild and Nancy M. Wingfield, Return to Diversity. A Political History of East Central Europe Since World War II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 239.
⁸Helmut Wiesenthal, “The Dilemma of Simultaneity Revisited, Or: Why General Scepticism about Large-Scale Reform Did Not Apply to the Postcommunist Transformations” http://www.hwiesenthal.de/downloads/no_dilemma.pdf (accessed January 25, 2015), p. 2.
⁹Claus Offe, “Capitalism by Democratic Design? Democratic Theory Facing the Triple Transition in East Central Europe,” Social Research, Vol. 71, No. 3 (2004), pp. 501–28, particularly pp. 509–10.
¹⁰Nina Bandelj and Bogdan Radu, “Consolidation of Democracy in Postcommunist Europe,” paper 06-04 for the Center for the Study of Democracy, University of California, Irvine, 2006, p. 4.
¹¹Jan Zielonka and Alex Pravda, Democratic Consolidation in Eastern Europe, Vol. 2: International and Transnational Factors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
¹²Heinrich Best, Ronald Gebauer, and Axel Salheiser, “Political and Functional Elites in Post-Socialist Transformation: Central and East Europe since 1989/90: An Introduction,” Historical Social Research, 37 (2012) 2, p. 7–13.
¹³Charles Krupnick, “Expecting More from Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe,” The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University Press, Summer/Fall 2005, p. 149–65.
¹⁴Pavel Machonin, Milan Tucek, Petr Hartosand, and Martin Nekola, “Czech Economic and Political Elites after 15 Years of Postsocialist Transformation,” ed. György Lengyel, Elites in Central-Eastern Europe (Budapest: Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 2007), p. 35–61.
¹⁵Ibid. p.37.
¹⁶Balázs Hámori, “For Talented Young Scholars,” ed. Mariann Tarnóczy, 20 Years Report on the Activities of the Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund in Hungary 1989–2009. Budapest, pp. 40–42, particularly p. 42.

Viktoria Ferenc

Viktoria Ferenc, PhD, received a Sylff fellowship in 2011–12 at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She works as a linguist, dealing with linguistic minorities.

Loretta Huszák

Loretta Huszák, PhD, received a Sylff fellowship in 2004–07 at the University of Leipzig, Germany, while conducting her PhD studies in economic sociology. She is a university lecturer and an intellectual property professional.

Csíky Balázs

Csíky Balázs, PhD, received a Sylff fellowship in 2005–07 at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Is currently a historian.

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Arbitration in Europe: Article 2 of the European Convention on International Commercial Arbitration

February 5, 2015
By 19692

Nērika Lizinska, a Sylff fellow at the University of Latvia, used her Sylff Research Abroad (SRA) award to research state participation in international commercial arbitration in 2014. She conducted her research at the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law. It was in Switzerland that the European Convention on International Commercial Arbitration—which plays a significant role on this issue—was signed. A summary of her research regarding Article 2 of the convention is presented below.

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Introduction

Everything starts with an idea. Parties then enter into a commercial contract with the hope of profiting from it in an optimistic frame of mind. At this stage, unfortunately, not all parties think that a dispute might someday arise and that a mechanism would be needed to resolve it. However, international trade and commercial transactions are specific and linked to particular legal systems (which laws are to be applied and which court will hear the case, etc.), that need to be agreed upon between the parties in any contract.

Businesses mainly choose arbitration (arbitration is the “settlement of a dispute by the decision of a person or persons chosen and accepted as judges”)¹ as a mechanism for dispute resolution, instead of litigation (litigation is “a formal process whereby claims are taken through court and conducted in public. Judgements are binding on the parties subject to rights of appeal” ² ) due to its neutrality (parties can choose the seat of arbitration), flexibility (“parties may control the manner of the proceedings having regard to the nature of the dispute and to their precise needs”), ³finality (there is no appeal), confidentiality, and speed of resolution. “Parties in cross-border disputes may be unfamiliar with the complicated procedure of litigation and the language of the national court. . . . [M]ost businesses want a quick and efficient remedy and are reluctant to wait for an extended period for their disputes to be resolved through national courts.”⁴

Nowadays, it is internationally accepted that a state, too, can conclude international commercial contracts with a private party (for example, to purchase goods) and can choose arbitration as a dispute resolution mechanism by adding an arbitration clause in a commercial contract. This means that in the case a dispute that cannot be otherwise resolved between the parties (for example, by negotiation or mediation, which “is essentially a negotiation facilitated by a neutral third party”)⁵, a claimant can seek arbitration⁶ . Although a state can act like a private party and has similar rights, there are plenty of issues and risks for contracting parties. The main risk is that when a state becomes a contractual party, dispute resolution can take a considerably different course from general procedures. This is why the inclusion of an arbitration clause for a commercial party in such agreements has become a precondition for concluding a commercial contract with the state. The state, too, has many considerations in this regard.

History and Application

At the international level, a document governing the capacity of states to conclude arbitration agreements is the European Convention on International Commercial Arbitration⁷ (hereinafter called the European Convention), signed on April 21, 1961, in Geneva at a meeting convened by United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. More than 30 countries are currently party to the European Convention, including Cuba, Burkina Faso, the Russian Federation, and Turkey,⁸ which became contracting parties in accordance with the provisions of Article 10 (1) and (2) of the European Convention.

Provisions regarding the application of the European Convention are stated in Article 1 (1), according to which “this Convention shall apply: (a) to arbitration agreements⁹ concluded for the purpose of settling disputes arising from international trade between physical or legal persons having, when concluding the agreement, their habitual place of residence or their seat in different Contracting States; (b) to arbitral procedures and awards based on agreements referred to in paragraph 1 (a) above.” This means that if arbitration agreements concluded for the purpose of settling disputes arising from international trade between physical or legal persons having, when concluding the agreement, their habitual place of residence or their seat in countries that are not contracting states—such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Switzerland—the European Convention will not apply.

Historically, “the intention of the European Convention was to introduce the first uniform set of rules concerning international arbitration in order to remove the obstacles created by widely differing national arbitration laws. With its scope focusing on Europe, the aim was to facilitate and promote European trade between the (back then) Eastern and Western block.”¹⁰ “When the European Convention was signed, . . . Europe was still dominated by the East-West conflict. The different political and economic systems made trade between parties coming from the two blocks very difficult. Each side had little confidence in the courts of the other side with the consequence arbitration was often the only option for dispute settlement acceptable to all parties. . . . The main purpose of the European Convention was to overcome these psychological barriers and the legal problems which were affecting arbitration in the East-West trade in Europe.” ¹¹In addition, it should be noted that “in certain countries that were to become Contracting States of the European Convention, public corporate bodies were not allowed to enter into arbitration agreements. This led the draftsmen of the European Convention to include Article 2 (1).”¹²

Right of States to Resort to Arbitration

With regard to the historical circumstances, Article 2 (1) of the European Convention states as follows: “. . . legal persons considered by the law which is applicable to them as ‘legal persons of public law’ have the right to conclude valid arbitration agreements.” The term “legal persons of public law” is used here instead of “state” in order to cover a broader scope of state institutions, such as state agencies, public entities, and governmental institutions.

There have often been cases in which the state argues that in accordance with its domestic laws, it is not entitled (lack of capacity issue) to enter into an arbitration agreement, thus an agreement, even if legally concluded, does not have legal force. There have also been cases where a state party concludes an agreement but then relies on its national (internal) law to prove that a contract is null and void, as its national law prohibits resorting to arbitration. For example, Article 2060 of the Civil Code of France prohibits French state public bodies and institutions from concluding arbitration agreements.¹³ Article 487 of the Latvian Civil Procedure Law states, “any civil dispute may be referred for resolution to an arbitration court, with the exception of a dispute: . . . 2) in which a party, albeit even one, is a State or local government institution or the award of the arbitration court may affect the rights of State or local government institutions.”¹⁴ In Hungary, Act CXCVI of 2011 on National Assets, which came into force on January 1, 2012, states in Article 17 (3) that “in civil law agreements concerning national assets located on the territory of Hungary, the governing language may only be Hungarian, the governing law may only be Hungarian and the jurisdiction for the settlement of disputes may only be that of the Hungarian state courts.” ¹⁵At the same time, for example, Article 177 (2) of the Swiss Private International Act contains advanced regulation stating, “if a party to the arbitration agreement is a state, a stateheld enterprise or a state owned organization, it cannot rely on its own law in order to contest its capacity to be a party to an arbitration or the arbitrability of a dispute covered by the arbitration agreement.”¹⁶

Belgium also has special regulations.¹⁷ In fact, Belgium was involved in one of the first cases¹⁸ in which the court had to decide whether a state can invoke its domestic laws to avoid arbitral jurisdiction. “Benteler v. Belgium provides further authority for the proposition that a commercial arbitration between a [s]tate and a private party cannot be avoided simply by the [s]tate’s invoking a prohibition in its own law against arbitration by the [s]tate.”¹⁹ After this ad hoc decision, Belgium chose to use its rights provided in Article 2 (2) of the European Convention.

Declarations

Article 2 (2) of the European Convention stipulates, “On signing, ratifying or acceding to this Convention any State shall be entitled to declare that it limits the above faculty to such conditions as may be stated in its declaration.” “The content of Article II met strong opposition from Civil Law countries where public entities are, generally, prohibited from resorting to arbitration. To accommodate these States, which otherwise would have not ratified the Convention, a second paragraph providing for the possibility of a reservation was added to Art. II.”²⁰

One may say that to some extent the European Convention has reached the objective set out in its Preamble,²¹ because at the present time only Belgium has such a declaration, as provided for in Article 2 (2). After the Benteler v. Belgium case, Belgium stated that “in accordance with article II, paragraph 2, of the [European] Convention, the Belgian Government declares that in Belgium only the State has . . . the faculty to conclude arbitration agreements” ²²to avoid similar cases in the future.

When Latvia ratified the European Convention, it also made a declaration in accordance with Article 2 (2). It stated that Latvian state and local government authorities have no right to conclude arbitration agreements. At a time when there were discussions and debates about the withdrawal of the declaration, one of the draft laws stipulated that “local government authorities before concluding the arbitration agreement shall transmit a draft to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development to obtain opinion from the State Chancellery that the arbitration agreement is in conformity with the state interest.”²³ Accordingly, if such a law were to be adopted, the State Chancellery would need to assess whether the arbitration clause included in international commercial contracts (between a local authority and a private party) is consistent with the public interest. The questions this gave rise to were, what is the state interest (common good), how to determine it, and is it possible only from the content of the arbitration agreement to determine whether the state interest will be protected?

On December 23, 2013, Latvia notified the Secretary General of the United Nations of its full withdrawal of the declaration under Article II (2), made upon accession in 2003. Accordingly, these fundamental changes can be considered a new page for Latvian state and local government authorities and practitioners to record their experiences in the history of international commercial arbitration and for scientific researchers to document new ideas and findings in the field of arbitration.

¹A.S. Hornby & Ruse, Oxford ESL Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 30.
²Peter Fenn, Commercial Conflict Management and Dispute Resolution, Spon Press, 2012, p. 12.
³Ibid, p. 89.
⁴Sameer Sattar, “National Courts and International Arbitration: A Double-edged Sword?” Journal of International Arbitration, 27 (1), Kluwer Law International, 2010, pp. 51-52.
⁵What is mediation? Detailed information available at http://adr.findlaw.com/mediation/what-is-mediation-.html.
⁶State participation in international arbitration can be analyzed from various aspects, for example, whether arbitration as a dispute resolution mechanism is suitable for state contracts in general, is it possible to properly protect state interests in arbitration, and whether an arbitration clause in a state contract automatically implies a waiver of state immunity from jurisdiction and enforcement, etc.
⁷European Convention on International Commercial Arbitration, available at https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=XXII-2&chapter=22&lang=en.
⁸Full list of contracting states available at https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=XXII-2&chapter=22&lang=en.
⁹Article 1 (2) of the European Convention gives the following definitions: (a) the term “arbitration agreement” shall mean either an arbitral clause in a contract or an arbitration agreement being signed by the parties, or contained in an exchange of letters, telegrams, or in a communication by teleprinter and, in relations between States whose laws do not require that an arbitration agreement be made in writing, any arbitration agreement concluded in the form authorized by these laws; (b) as the term “arbitration” shall mean not only settlement by arbitrators appointed for each case (ad hoc arbitration) but also by permanent arbitral institutions; (c) the term “seat” shall mean the place of the situation of the establishment that has made the arbitration agreement.
¹⁰Alice Fremuth-Wolf, “Issues Specific to Arbitration in Europe: The European Convention on International Arbitration as a Tool to Remedy Pathological Arbitration Agreements—There’s Still Life in the Old Dog Yet!” in Chapter 1 of C. Klausegger, P. Klein, et.al. (eds.), Austrian Yearbook on International Arbitration 2013, pp. 60–61.
¹¹Stefan Michael Kroll, “Issues Specific to Arbitration in Europe: The European Convention on International Commercial Arbitration—The Tale of a Sleeping Beauty,” in Chapter 1 of C. Klausegger, P.Klein, et al. (eds.), Austrian Yearbook on International Arbitration 2013, p. 3.
¹²Nikolaus Pitkowitz, “Issues Specific to Arbitration in Europe: Is There Still a Scope of Application of the European Convention on International Commercial Arbitration?” In Chapter 1 of C. Klausegger, P. Klein, et.al. (eds.), Austrian Yearbook on International Arbitration 2013, p. 106.
¹³Article 2060 of the Civil Code of France, Title XVI of Arbitration Agreements, states, “One may not enter into arbitration agreements in matters of status and capacity of the persons, in those relating to divorce and judicial separation or on controversies concerning public bodies and institutions and more generally in all matters in which public policy is concerned, (Act no 75-596 of 9 July 1975), however, categories of public institutions of an industrial or commercial character may be authorized by decree to enter into arbitration agreements,” available at http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/Traductions/en-English/Legifrance-translations.
¹⁴Latvian Civil Procedure Law, Civilprocesa likums. 14th edition. Rīga: TNA, 2010.
¹⁵Gabor Bardos, “The Award and the Courts, Hungary: New Rules on Arbitration Related to National Assets” in Chapter 4 of C.Klausegger, P.Klein, et al. (eds), Austrian Yearbook on International Arbitration 2013, p. 181.
¹⁶Swiss Private International Law Act available at https://www.swissarbitration.org/sa/en/rules.php.
¹⁷See Article 1676.2 of Belgium Code Judiciaire, May 19, 1998, available at http://www.jus.uio.no/lm/belgium.code.judicature.1998/1676.2.html.
¹⁸Ad Hoc Award of November 18, 1983, Benteler v. Belgian State, Journal of International Arbitration, 1984, pp.184–90.
¹⁹Jan Paulsson, “May a State Invoke Its Internal Law to Repudiate Consent to International Commercial Arbitration? Reflections On the Benteler v. Belgium Preliminary Award,” Arbitration International, Vol. 2, No. 2 (1986), p. 95.
²⁰Albert Jan Van Den Berg (general ed.), Yearbook Commercial Arbitration, Volume XX, 1995, Kluwer, p. 1017.
²¹The Preamble of the European Convention states as follows: “. . . desirous of promoting the development of European trade by, as far as possible, removing certain difficulties that may impede the organization and operation of international commercial arbitration in relations between physical or legal persons of different European countries, have agreed on the following provisions.”
²²Declarations and reservations are available at https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=XXII-2&chapter=22&lang=en
²³Draft law available in Latvian, “Grozījums likumā ‘Par Eiropas konvenciju par Starptautisko komercšķīrējtiesu,’” available at http://titania.saeima.lv/LIVS11/saeimalivs11.nsf/0/ED4CEB6E5CF3B1A5C22579A00044FB8C?.

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How the Leopard Got Its Spots: Gender Dimensions of Land Reform in Cambodia

October 10, 2014
By 19590

Large-scale land acquisitions by agribusinesses have negative social and environmental side effects, and many governments are exploring ways to balance commercial interests with those of individual residents. Alice Beban, a Sylff fellowship recipient at Massey University, conducted research in Cambodia, where the national government is advancing bold land reforms to attract agribusiness investments, using an SRA grant. In this article, she examines the socioeconomic implications of the land reforms for the country’s smallholder farmers.

* * *

Forest Patrol Walking:
A group of 16 rural villagers and representatives from the Forestry Administration patrol an area that was designated as a community forest in the land reform to check for illegal land clearing.

Land and food production has returned to the center of global development concerns in recent years, spurred by a dramatic rise in large-scale farmland investment for agribusiness and speculation (White et al., 2012). The Southeast Asian nation of Cambodia is a key site for farmland investment, with around 50% of the country’s arable land reportedly awarded as “economic land concessions” (ELC) to agribusiness companies in recent years (Bickell & Lohr, 2011; Borras & Franco, 2011).

Now, with mounting concern over food security, public unrest, and the documented negative social and environmental consequences of large-scale land acquisitions (also known as “land grabbing” by some academics and activists), many governments are asking what can be done to balance a desire for agribusiness investment with environmental and social concerns.¹

One response is smallholder land reform. This was the approach taken by Cambodia in 2012, when the Cambodian government announced a bold new initiative to expand post-conflict land registration to households living on the ELCs. Thousands of student volunteers from Cambodia’s capital began knocking on doors in remote areas of the country to survey land for redistribution to smallholders. This policy—dubbed the “leopard skin policy” by Prime Minister Hun Sen—envisages large scale agribusinesses and smallholders coexisting like animal spots on the landscape, with the plantations gaining a labor force and smallholders gaining secure title to the land on which they live (Naren & Woods, 2012).

Mountain spirit meeting:
Rural people who had lost land to an agribusiness company meet to ask spirits to help them recover their land.

I was in Cambodia when this land reform was carried out, and I was fascinated with the scope and speed of the initiative and the potential it holds for shifting the trajectory of “land grabbing” across the country and offering lessons to many other countries struggling to develop a socially just agrarian policy.

It also challenges gender norms by promoting joint husband/wife land titling. My PhD research examines this land reform and the roles it plays in contemporary Cambodian politics, society, and ecology. I had the opportunity to explore this issue with my SRA award, with mentoring and support from my Cambodian SRA host, Professor Pou Sovachana of Pannyasastra University, who is now research director at the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP).

I was a senior research fellow at CICP for six months during my SRA award. While at CICP, I was able to attend many conferences and seminars, meet researchers from around Cambodia and the world with similar interests to my own, and also give a lecture to Cambodian students and assist in CICP’s research projects.

Alice interviewing family:
I am talking with a family and looking at the land title certificate they just received.

Most of my SRA award tenure was spent at a research site within Cambodia’s largest agribusiness concession, one of the first sites where the new land reform was implemented. I interviewed 18 government officials at both the central government and local government levels and conducted over 60 semi-structured interviews to gain a variety of perspectives from people in communities where land titles were given out, as well as the views of the student volunteers and organizations working on land rights. I also attended land title award ceremonies, agricultural training sessions, and forest patrols in communities that had received titles under the land reform.

I investigated the politics of the land titling reform’s implementation and the implications of the reform for people’s perceptions of security, agricultural production, and relationships within the household. My initial findings suggest that the benefits women and men in farming communities received from the land reform policy were highly dependent upon local authorities’ implementation.

Given Cambodia’s “neo-patrimonial” political system, where political power works through networks connecting elite politicians and businesspeople with their supporters at all levels of government (Un & So, 2009), it is perhaps not a surprise that, in some cases, local authorities and powerful players were able to use the land reform to their advantage (for example, by titling common forest areas and selling land to outsiders for personal financial gain). This meant that poorer families, including female-headed households, often benefitted less than wealthier families, as they did not have the political connections necessary to take advantage of the reform.

Receiving land titles:
Officials from the Ministry of Land hand out land titles to rural villagers at the local village temple.

My SRA grant enabled me to spend time in areas where this kind of elite capture was widespread and also areas where it was far less apparent. I found that even in areas with similar conditions, differences in the land reform process were apparent, in part due to the presence of supportive individuals in positions of authority and to strong community networks that were able to inform community members about correct process in the land reform and hold authorities more accountable.

My research also shows that assumptions of a simple causal relationship between a policy promoting joint title and women’s land rights overlooks deeper, gendered power relations. During the policy implementation process, I found that local officials’ understanding of gender roles had a large part to play in how joint land titles were awarded.

For example, there was confusion among officials and community members as to how people’s land should be titled when one partner was not present. This meant that some women I interviewed who had been abandoned by spouses were awarded joint title to their land with the spouse who had abandoned them. Flexibility in the law for local authorities to resolve specific cases can be a strength, as it recognizes that policies produced in the capital can never account fully for on-the-ground realities. But it can also mean that people with power and resources can use this flexibility for their own gain and that enduring gender constructs that view women as less capable of controlling household assets can guide the decisions of local authorities.

I expected that the award of property rights might reduce insecurity and enable farmers to increase production efficiency, but many people in my study with legal tenure security did not necessarily perceive their land to be secure. While land title recipients were usually happy to receive title and some people certainly felt more secure, a common theme that arose in interviews was people’s ongoing fear that their land would be taken even after receiving land title. The main reasons given for this was that the court system is expensive and incomprehensible to many rural people, and it is difficult for people to accept that the new paper titles will carry much weight in a system that for years has been dominated by money and power.

I am now continuing to investigate this aspect of the land reform in my ongoing PhD research, through examining the cultural bases of men’s and women’s sense of security, including the various type of evidence people use to support their claims to land and the ways people settle disputes locally.

The SRA experience was extremely enriching for me as I continue with my PhD. It not only provided me the resources to undertake an extended period of research but also connected me with a whole new network of wonderful Cambodian and international scholars whom I am continuing to work with on several collaborative research projects.

References

Bickel, M., & D. Lohr. (2011). “Pro-Poor Land Distribution in Cambodia.” Rural 21, 3, 33-35.
Borras, S., & J. Franco. (2011). Political Dynamics of Land Grabbing in Southeast Asia. Amsterdam: Transnational Institute.
Naren, K., & B. Woods. (2012, ). “Hun Sen Says Land Program Proving a Success.” Cambodia Daily, August 9, 2012.
White, B., J. Borras, R. Hall, I. Scoones, & W. Wolford. (2012). “The New Enclosures: Critical Perspectives on Corporate Land Deals.” Journal of Peasant Studies, 39(3-4).
Un, K., & S. So. (2009). “Politics of Natural Resource Use in Cambodia.” Asian Affairs: An American Review, 36(3), 123-138.

¹See for example the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure” and the country debate around this (http://www.fao.org/nr/tenure/voluntary-guidelines/en/).

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A Disaster-Resilient, “Frugal” Information System

September 26, 2014
By 19642

In March 2011, the Tohoku region of Japan suffered the worst earthquake and tsunami disaster to ever hit the country. Hampering rescue and relief activities in the immediate aftermath of the quake was the serious damage to the communications infrastructure. How can an information system be built that is more resilient to major disasters? Mihoko Sakurai, a Sylff fellow at Keio University, believes that the key to such a system is “frugality.”

* * *

The Arch, the university’s academic symbol.

My current research on disaster-resilient information systems (IS) was prompted by the March 11, 2011, earthquake in northern Japan—the largest quake the country ever experienced. The Great East Japan Earthquake measured 9.0 on the Richter scale, making it one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history. The tsunami caused by the quake reached 40 meters in height and hit Tohoku’s eastern coastline, severely damaging a very wide area and triggering great confusion. Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency reports that 18,958 people died, 6,219 were injured, and 2,655 are missing as of March 2014; 127,291 houses were totally lost, and more than 1,000,000 were partially destroyed.

Field Survey in Japan

The earthquake and tsunami exposed the vulnerability of Japan’s information communications technology (ICT) infrastructure, as the loss of communication greatly hampered rescue and relief efforts and more than likely increased the death toll.

From November 2011 to February 2012, eight months after the earthquake, I and other members of our research team conducted structured interviews with 13 municipal governments in the areas hardest hit by the earthquake. The objective of the survey was to ascertain how ICT systems inside municipal offices were affected by the earthquake. We visited Miyako, Otsuchi, Kamaishi, Rikuzentakata, Kesennuma, Minamisanriku, Ishinomaki, Higashimatsushima, Sendai, Minamisoma, and Iwaki, as well as evacuation centers in Namie and Futaba.

These municipalities are located in the prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima. Under the administrative structure of the Japanese government, municipalities occupy the third rung. At the top of the ladder is the national government; this is followed by the 47 prefectural governments and 1,742 municipal governments (as of May 1, 2013) at the local level. The size of municipal governments varies enormously; while big cities like Osaka and Yokohama have a few million residents, some small villages have a population of less than 1,000.

There are several types of municipalities in Japan, namely, shi (cities with a population of over 50,000), cho or machi (towns variously defined by each prefecture), son or mura (villages), and tokubetu-ku (the 23 special wards of Tokyo). The populations of the municipalities we visited varied from 2,000 to 70,000. Almost all of them were small cities. Legally speaking, the role of municipal governments is to provide public services to citizens and, perhaps most importantly, to maintain a registry of all residents—the data that serves as the foundation of government. Prefectures are defined more loosely as wide-area governments.

Our survey included questions on preparedness, the level of damage, and the recovery process of ICT equipment, including power supply, network connectivity, information systems, and related facilities.

Need for Disaster-Resilient Systems

Analyses of these cases led us to conclude that building a robust system that never fails is impossible and to recognize that creative field responses are of crucial importance. The immediate problem after the March 2011 earthquake was the failure of the supporting infrastructure needed to run the information systems. The physical destruction of servers also meant that residential records were lost in some areas. The survey also revealed that a uniform plan across all municipalities would not have been appropriate, since the situation in various towns and cities—and the necessary responses—were continually changing. Government buildings were generally sturdy, and most survived the tsunami. But this did not mean that the ICT system survived intact. Some municipal offices did not recover their information systems for four months.

This should prompt a rethinking of ICT system design to ensure that communication can be maintained, especially in the immediate aftermath of a major disaster. Resilient systems are needed that can maintain or recover their core functions flexibly and quickly. Flexibility is required to enable creative responses in a disaster situation using minimal resources. Such systems are particularly important for municipal governments, which need to embark on rescue and life-saving activities immediately after a disaster.

This is a totally different approach from that required during normal times. The national government has tried to create robust and special systems for disaster situations, but they have not always had the required resilience in the face of actual severe situations. Once they are destroyed, moreover, they cannot be restored quickly.

“Frugality” as an Essential Concept

The “frugal information system” concept can be useful in building such a resilient system. This is an information system that is “developed and deployed with minimal resources to meet the preeminent goal of the client.” Such a system would be important under disaster situations, when people have limited access to resources. A frugal system is characterized by the four U’s: “universality,” the drive to overcome the friction of information systems’ incompatibilities; “ubiquity,” the drive to access information unconstrained by time and space; “uniqueness,” the drive to know precisely the characteristics and location of a person or entity; and “unison,” the drive for information consistency.

Mobile devices can serve as a standard platform to meet these “4U” requirements.

They were indeed the most widely used means of communication by individuals in the wake of the 3.11 disaster. The mobile infrastructure was restored with greater ease than other systems (ubiquitous network). They have open interfaces (universality). The phone number or SIM ID can be used for the identification of individuals (uniqueness). And as soon as the networks are restored, data can be backed up on cloud data storage (unison). There is the additional benefit that power can be easily supplied to the handsets.

Smartphones can be particularly useful devices in a disaster situation. People are gaining familiarity with these phones through daily use, which is very important under panic situations. Following a disaster, people are unlikely to use tools with which they are unfamiliar.

Future Research

I am currently working on a project to build a prototype smartphone application that employs the principles of resilient design. A test will be conducted in October 2014 at Tome, Miyagi, which was one of the cities heavily affected by the disaster. The initial test will involve the use of smartphones as part of an evacuation center’s operations during the first week. Three key functions will be tested, namely, (1) the identification and registration of people at the center using their phone numbers or SIM IDs, (2) recording people’s arrival and departure, and (3) creating an evacuee database. Using the smartphone’s number, the application can enable the transmission of information on such required items as medicine and milk for infants.

Smartphone applications designed to support disaster victims already exist. But none are suitable for municipal disaster relief operations. If municipal officials use the same applications as residents, the sharing of information can be greatly facilitated, enabling a smoother delivery of relief supplies. What we need to do is to make sure such applications are operational and widely used before they are needed and are quickly made available after a disaster.

The Great East Japan Earthquake posed what might have been the biggest possible challenge to an information society, making us acutely aware that our daily life—as well as government operations to help people in need—rely heavily on the ICT infrastructure. The performance of nearly all activities in advanced economies has become dependent on ICT, and disasters illustrate the fragility of this dependence. The earthquake shook our confidence in technology, and a study of its effects indicates the importance of designing systems with a recovery model in mind.

The University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business.

Massive disasters are likely to become more common around the world in the years to come ¹, as suggested by the fact that there were three times as many natural disasters between 2000 and 2009 as between 1980 and 1989². I believe that a correct understanding of resilience and the development of information systems designed to withstand severe conditions can make the world a safer plain which to live. This research is certainly not over.

In closing, I would like to express my gratitude to the Tokyo Foundation for supporting my research abroad. Thanks to an SRA award, I was able to conduct research at the University of Georgia, where my ideas were greatly enhanced under the supervision Dr. Richard Watson—regents professor and J. Rex Fuqua distinguished chair for Internet strategy in the Department of Management Information Systems at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business—who advocates the notion of a frugal information system.

¹http://www.emdat.be/natural-disasters-trends, last accessed June 8 2014.
²http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/climatechange/steady-increase-in-climate-rel/19974069, last accessed June 8 2014.

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Music and Social Edification in Peru

August 6, 2014
By 19673

Having gained a “keen appreciation for the uplifting power of music” through his participation in the charity workshops and concerts for areas affected by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Paris Conservatoire Sylff fellow Carl-Emmanuel Fisbach launched a Sylff Leadership Initiatives project to utilize music as a potent tool for social cohesion in disadvantaged districts of Peru. Below, the saxophonist details the discoveries made during the initial seminar—held in collaboration with both Europe-based and local musicians—of a five-part SLI project.

* * *

My involvement with the “Together in Tohoku” Sylff project in August 2012 marked a turning point in my conception of the musician’s role in society.

Through that experience, when I was among a group of Sylff musicians who participated in charity workshops and concert in support of areas affected by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, I gained a keen appreciation for the uplifting power of music and decided to apply that inspiration to other parts of the world. Little did I know that my path from Japan would eventually lead me to Peru.

A Socio-Musical Intercultural Project

After a string of concerts in Latin Amerca in 2012 and 2013 with the Lima Conservatory and the nongovernmental organization ErArt, which promotes cultural events in less developed areas of Peru, I helped formulate a socio-musical intercultural project titled “Participative Music-Making in Disadvantaged Areas and Pedagogical Training for Saxophonists” that took place in February 2014 with generous assistance from Sylff Leadership Initiatives, ErArt, and the National Conservatory of Music in Lima. The project team included the musicians who accompanied me in Lima during my first tour of the region.

With a poverty rate of 30%; Peru seemed perfectly suited for our planned project of social uplift and edification. From the start of the program, we sought to artistically engage with the local population through concerts and hands-on teaching sessions. Music is a potent tool for social cohesion—one that can transcend social, cultural and linguistic differences while promoting intellectual and spiritual development. Studies demonstrate that participation in cultural events enhances citizens’ sense of belonging within a community. Peruvian saxophonists were instrumental in imaging the project.

The initial 10-day SLI seminar held in Peru in February 2014 was the result of extensive deliberations and was the first in a series of five that will be held every six months through February 2016.

Each seminar has two components: (1) musical workshops in disadvantaged neighborhoods of Lima and its environs to help audiences discover various instruments and contemporary music in partnership with ErArt and (2) professional-level training of saxophone teachers from the principal Peruvian conservatories in partnership with the National Conservatory of Music in Lima.

The long-term objective is for the two Peruvian institutions—ErArt and the Conservatory—to organize more joint activities to sustain the energy generated by the seminars. In many respects, the project was similar to the 2012 Sylff-organized trip to Japan, featuring workshops in Sendai and a concert with middle- and high-school wind musicians at Suntory Hall in Tokyo.

Confronting Reality

The purpose of the Peru project was clear, but preparations were arduous. I had never coordinated such an ambitious project involving partners in such far flung countries as Japan, Spain, France, Peru, and the United States. In February 2014, I travelled to Lima with the cellist Marie Ythier, with whom I perform in the cello-saxophone Denisov Duo. After a taxing flight filled with delays and missed connections, Marie and I arrived in Lima, where everything all at once became real.

On our first day, we traveled to a municipal school to work with local residents of all ages. It was a joy to share our passion for music with such a receptive, open-minded, and motivated group. Everyone was curious, from small children who imitated the cellist’s use of the bow to the institutional directors who would spontaneously come to the microphone to sing a traditional melody while we improvised an accompaniment.

There were some, though, who questioned our motives for coming to their country to perform as professional musicians—a clear indication that our work would not be easy.

Our program included visits to two schools: the Republica de Brasil not far from the center of town and the Fe y Alegría 33 in the suburbs of Ventanilla to the north of Lima. The bus rides, made with our Peruvian counterparts, were profoundly disturbing. Entire neighborhoods consisted of half-built houses with bare earth as sidewalks. Though we had prepared ourselves for such scenes, the poverty was unrelenting and deeply affecting.

Nevertheless, we came to realize that the schools were protected and much cared for—not only physically but also by the respect they evoked from the local people. It was not rare to see advertising campaigns for these schools or to hear slogans on the radio, such as “Our Education Is Our Future,” including mention of specific schools like Fe y Alegría.

According to the music and other teachers we met, Peru lacks teacher training for music instructors, especially in the public schools. This was the main reason we were invited by ErArt to share our European approaches with members of the Education Faculty at the PUCP (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú)—encounters which proved to be highly successful. The same enthusiasm marked our sessions with the saxophonists at the Conservatory and led to our endlessly pleasurable exchanging of musical knowledge.

Our various concerts were well received, even when they focused on so-called “serious” classical music. It appears that this genre is in fact much sought after in South America. A workshop-concert organized by ErArt gave us a chance to provide the audience with key insights into each work, thus creating an intimate, convivial relationship with listeners.

ErArt wishes to strengthen its links with music education institutions in Peru. The initial workshops and concerts I helped develop in disadvantaged areas will be subsequently enlarged by ErArt through joint projects led by the saxophone professors who participated in the project.

Pursuing this work in the months and years ahead constitutes a wonderful opportunity, one that may be particularly useful for Peruvian saxophone players, as courses via the Internet are put in place.

I would once again like to thank the generosity of the Tokyo Foundation, the Paris Conservatoire, and the Juilliard School for their support and assistance in structuring the project so as to strengthen the links between music and society. Without them, this project would not have been possible. I am already eager to begin the second seminar in October!

Schedule of Upcoming Seminars:
—October 2014, with pianist Wenjiao Wang
—February 2015, with Wenjiao Wang and saxophonist Rodrigo Vila
—October 2015, with Marie Ythier
—February 2016 (last session), with saxophonist Claude Delangle and Rodrigo Vila

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Cars and Capitalism in Contemporary Hanoi

May 1, 2014
By 19597

Streets clogged with motorbikes in Hanoi have become familiar sights, as images are frequently featured in posters and magazines. Is there any room in this city now for automobiles, whose numbers are on the rise? Arve Hansen, a Sylff fellow at the University of Oslo in Norway, explores the socioeconomic transformation taking place in Vietnam through the lens of the nascent transition in the prevailing mode of personal transport from motorbikes to cars.

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Vietnam has undergone a radical socioeconomic transformation during the last three decades under a program of economic reforms known as Doi Moi (“renovation”), officially adopted in 1986. Vietnam has grown from being one of the poorest countries in the world into to a middle-income, emerging economy, and the country is now frequently cited as a success story in economic development. Vietnam has moved from a planned to a market economy under a model described by the Vietnamese government as a “market economy with a socialist orientation.”

These changes make Vietnam an extremely interesting case in the study of both development and consumption. My PhD research into this topic in Vietnam focuses on what appears to be an ongoing transition away from motorbikes as the principal form of transport toward four-wheel automobiles in Hanoi. (It was thanks to Sylff Research Abroad that I was able to conduct long-term fieldwork in Hanoi, something absolutely vital to my project.)

My research approaches the trend as seen from the perspective, respectively, of the government, industry, car dealerships, and consumers. I have particularly emphasized the view of the consumer, using the car both to illustrate the ongoing changes in Hanoi as well as to analyze consumption trends more generally.

“Land of the Honda”

Motorbikes in downtown Hanoi (photo by Huong Nguyen)

Vietnam used to be a country of bicycles but quickly became the “land of the Honda” during the 1990s following the start of the Doi Moi reforms. Today, in a country of 88 million people, there are around 35 million motorbikes. The sea of motorbikes in Vietnamese cities is now an iconic image of the country and one of the most popular motives for photographs by tourists. It has also created a highly individual transport situation, in contrast to the collective ideals of socialism.

Now, the passenger car is increasingly making its way into the streets, in the process clogging up traffic and making the motorbike more dangerous. My interest in Vietnamese automobility started several years ago while riding around the narrow streets of Hanoi on a motorbike and seeing how automobiles, struggling to make their way through traffic, were unfit for those streets. I asked myself why anyone would choose to drive a car there.

The answer is, of course, quite complex. It can also be very interesting as a starting point for understanding the socioeconomic changes and development challenges Vietnam is facing. The automobile is still a very expensive luxury; in fact, Vietnam is one of the most expensive places to buy a car due to high taxes. This, at the same time, makes the car a powerful expression of the inequalities embedded in the new economic system. The limited availability of the car also strengthens its position as a potent status symbol. A striking sight in the narrow streets of Hanoi is the frequency of very big luxury cars. This is a sharp break with the country’s socialist past, when displays of personal wealth were frowned upon and could lead to serious trouble.

In post–Doi Moi Vietnam, the automobile is one of the most obvious symbols of the new reality, in which getting rich is considered glorious and displaying personal wealth has become normal. In contemporary Hanoi, expensive cars are used actively to display wealth—sometimes strategically to show business partners that you are successful.

Advantages and Drawbacks

The new traffic in Hanoi (photo by Huong Nguyen)

Although the car is very much a status symbol, this is not the only reason that people buy them. Most of the purchasers with whom I talked report they were motivated more by safety and family reasons, as transporting one’s family on a small motorbike can be dangerous. The car also allows you to stay cool (and white!) under the scorching sun and dry during the frequent periods of heavy rain. There is also a paradoxical relationship between air pollution and car consumption: riding in a car allows you to temporarily escape the dangerously deteriorating urban air quality. The car is thus both a powerful agent in causing air pollution and a means of escaping from it.

The private car has had a central place in capitalist (and sometimes socialist) development and industrialization around the world. In Vietnam, the car in many ways represents a development dilemma. The car industry is targeted to play a leading role in scaling up Vietnam’s industrialization, with foreign investment (particularly from Japan) leading to positive linkages with, and technological diffusion to, the rest of the Vietnamese economy.

Among many other things, this requires a larger domestic market for cars. Studies have shown, however, that the streets of Vietnam’s cities cannot accommodate a transition to private cars as a predominant means of transportation. In Hanoi, the growing number of cars is already significantly increasing the frequency of traffic jams and further deteriorating the toxic air quality. Greener cars, though, are part of neither the transportation nor industrial plans of Vietnam.

In global discourse, the automobile is frequently (and deservingly) attacked as being one of the most environmentally destructive aspects of private consumption. In Hanoi I spoke with foreign environmentalists who argued that Vietnam needs to realize that the car belongs to the past.

The Car as the Future

Traffic and street vendor in Hanoi (photo by Arve Hansen)

Moving beyond private car consumption may be a worthy ideal, but the argument that the car is history fundamentally fails to understand the position of the car in an emerging economy like Vietnam. In this context, the car represents the future. From the government side, moreover, the car industry and private car ownership are symbols of economic success. And for the growing ranks of the middle class, replacing the motorbike with a car is emerging as one of their main aspirations.

The motorbike is still king in the streets of Hanoi, although it is increasingly being forced into an interesting coexistence with four-wheel vehicles. Most car owners keep their motorbikes as well and choose their mode of transport in a flexible manner, with motorbikes being used for shorter distances and to go downtown, while the car is used for travelling with the family, attending important meetings, or leaving the city. In this way the car also supports the creation of new practices among the middle class, such as travelling outside the city for a weekend holiday.

While people often heap blame on the motorbike for all traffic problems in Hanoi, in a city with very limited public transport options and lack of infrastructure, the motorbike is the main reason why mobility is still fairly good. The government has decided that it will limit the number of motorbikes in the future. Given the lack of alternatives, this may pave the way for the car. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for the two-wheeled icon of contemporary Hanoi.