Pastoral seems a fairly accessible literary concept; most critics and readers seem to know what they mean by it, and they often seem to have certain works in mind that count as pastorals. But when we look at what has been written about pastoral in the last decades -- when it has become one of the flourishing light industries of academic criticism -- we find nothing like a coherent account of either its nature or its history. We are (...) told that pastoral "is a double longing after innocence and happiness"; that its universal idea is the Golden Age; that it is based on the antithesis of Art and Nature; that its fundamental motive is hostility to urban life; that its "central tenet" is "the pathetic fallacy"; that it expresses the ideal of otium; that it is "the poetic expression par excellence of the cult of aesthetic Platonism" in the Renaissance or of Epicureanism in the Hellenistic world; that it is "that mode of viewing common experience through the medium of the rural world."1 It sometimes seems as if there are as many versions of pastoral as there are critics who write about it.[…]A definition of pastoral must first give a coherent account of its various features—formal, expressive, and thematic—and second, provide for historical continuity or change within the form. The basis of such a definition is provided by what Kenneth Burke calls a "representative anecdote":Men seek for vocabularies that will be faithful reflections of reality. To this end, they must develop vocabularies that are selections of reality. And any selection of reality must, in certain circumstances, function as a deflection of reality. Insofar as the vocabulary meets the needs of reflection, we can say that it has the necessary scope. In its selectivity, it is a reduction. Its scope and reduction become a deflection when the given terminology, or calculus, is not suited to the subject matter which it is designated to calculate.Dramatism suggests a procedure to be followed in the development of a given calculus, or terminology. It involves the search for a "representative anecdote," to be used as a form in conformity with which the vocabulary is constructed.6Burke uses "anecdote" and not a more philosophically respectable term in order to emphasize the contingencies inherent in all such intellectual choices. Anecdote implies that they are inseparable from the stuff of reality with which they deal and that of their selection does not escape the conditions of ordinary accounts of our lives. "Representative," as Burke uses it here, has a double meaning. An anecdote is representative in that it is a typical instance of an aspect of reality and by being typical it serves to generate specific depictions or representations of that reality.1. The allusions are to the following: "double longing" ; Golden Age ; Art and Nature ; hostility to urban life ; "pathetic fallacy" ; otium , "aesthetic Platonism" ; Epicureanism .6. Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives , p. 59. This is the beginning of the section entitled "Scope and Reduction."Paul Alpers is professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of The Poetry of "The Faerie Queene" and The Singer of the Eclogues: A Study of Virgilian Pastoral. The present essay is part of a larger study entitled "Pastoral Poetics.". (shrink)

O presente trabalho analisa o programaético de santo Antônio no que se refere aomodo de vida do clero regular. O texto básico é odos 'Sermones dominicales' e dos 'Sermonesfestivi'. Neles percebe-se que, para o santo.oclero secular, o clero regular, os leigos e a 'SocietasChristiana' precisavam de uma reforma doscostumes, de acordo com a reforma pastoral,moral e religiosa proposta pelo N Concilio deLatrão para toda a Cristandade, e implementadapelos papas Honório III e Gregório IX,tendo como agentes pastorais os (...) dominicanos eos franciscanos. (shrink)

Studies of local knowledge and farmer participatory research tend to focus on raising crops and livestock. Little attention is given to processing and marketing farm products, an important source of income for rural households, particularly women.This article presents the case of an investigation into processing and marketing of milk products by agropastoral Fulani women, which revealed how the women under stand local market forces and recognize important social and even local political functions of their marketing activities. However, it also (...) revealed the limits of their knowledge about how the local economy interlinks with national and international economies.Reasons are examined why the study did not lead to local technical and institutional development in dairying. Differentiation is made between two types of research: “extractive” research to provide information for development planners and academics; and participatory or “enriching” research, in which data collection, analysis, and reporting are done with rural people, to use in their own problem-solving. It is argued that “enriching” research should be aimed at increasing rural people's present knowledge, so that they can better understand and cope with external influences on their activities. They could then better defend their own interests against the macroplanning State.Finally, the ethics of documenting the research results are questioned. Documentation of conventional research is primarily for empowerment and enrichment of the extractive economic and academic systems. But there is also a danger that wider dissemination of results of participatory research and local knowledge will not benefit the rural participants but rather strengthen the information base of planners, so that they can better manipulate local economies. (shrink)

La determinación de la identidad de los presbíteros en los documentos del Concilio Vaticano II no es clara. La recepción de la enseñanza conciliar, en consecuencia, ha sido compleja, en especial en la formación del clero. En términos generales, los aportes de Optatam totius y Presbyterorum ordinis deben interpretarse a la luz de Lumen gentium 10, 2, pues este texto constituiría el principio de armonización teológica de la enseñanza conciliar. En esta investigación se da cuenta de la doctrina de (...) dichos textos conciliares, de Pastores dabo vobis, de las normas vaticanas para la formación del clero (rationes) y de la recepción de estos documentos en el magisterio y las directrices correspondientes de la Iglesia en América Latina y el Caribe. El resultado, en pocas palabras, es preocupante. En las rationes nationales se reconoce una involución respecto de las innovaciones más importantes del Concilio. (shrink)

Después de la celebración del Concilio de Trento, muchos obispos intentaron poner en práctica tanto los decretos doctrinales como los disciplinares para llevar a cabo una reforma de la Iglesia "in capite et in membris". El obispo de Ginebra, Francisco de Sales, aplica los diferentes decretos, no sólo con firmeza y frialdad, sino también con la dulzura del buen pastor y la dulzura salesiana. Su reforma alcanza tanto al clero secular como al religioso, así como a las instituciones eclesiásticas (...) y a los laicos. Los sínodos diocesanos, su acción pastoral y su doctrina, tanto teológica como espiritual, hicieron posible la reforma de la diócesis, que había sufrido la decadencia típica de su época y que había estado dominada por la doctrina calvinista en gran parte. (shrink)

Livestock systems across the world are transformed by capitalist forces. Understanding these social, economic, and cultural transformations is important because it has major implications for rural populations across the world. Traditionally, the study of livestock systems has been organized along the conceptual classification of ranching in North America and Australia and pastoralism in Africa and Asia, but this intellectual division has limited our understanding because of a priori assumptions about the extent to which these systems have been shaped by (...) capitalism. The goal of our paper is to outline a conceptual framework to come to a better understanding of the different ways that livestock systems across the globe have become more and less capitalist. We use a comparative approach that considers a wide range of livestock systems in different parts of the world, ranging from pastoralism in open access and communally held grasslands to ranching in privately owned and fenced rangelands, and industrial agriculture, to examine the diversity, complexity, and dynamics of these systems at the intersection with capitalism. We describe how livestock keepers across the world adopt, adapt to, and challenge capitalist logics and offer new ways to raise livestock in the twenty-first century. One of the emergent themes of our review is the persistence of pastoral values and identities across livestock systems. (shrink)

Resumen Este trabajo determina algunas percepciones y usos de las redes sociales por parte del clero de la Iglesia católica española en su tarea ministerial. Partiendo de una muestra representativa se plantea un estudio cuantitativo en el que queda en evidencia que los clérigos están presentes mayoritariamente en redes cada vez menos frecuentadas por los jóvenes adolescentes, pero el uso que se hace de las mismas para acciones pastorales es limitado, cuando no insuficiente.This work determines some perceptions and uses (...) that the clergy of the Spanish Catholic Church make of social networks in their ministerial work. Based on a representative sample, a quantitative study is proposed in which it is evident that the clergy are present mainly in networks less and less frequented by young adolescents, but the use made of them for pastoral actions is limited, when not insufficient. (shrink)

There is, at present, little precise understanding of the relative contributions of the various income streams used by impoverished rural households in southern Africa. The impact of household profiles on overall income also is not well understood. There is, therefore, little consideration of these factors in national economic accounting. This paper is an attempt to reduce this gap in knowledge by reflecting on the relative contribution of agro-pastoralism, secondary woodland resources, and formal and informal cash income streams to households (...) in the semi-arid rural village of Thorndale, Limpopo Province, South Africa. In the absence of jobs and confronted with high migrant labor, households with open access to natural resources derived more benefits from land-based livelihoods than cash income streams (i.e., 57.5 % vs. 42.5 %). Total livelihood income was valued at US$2887 per household per annum. A significant correlation between monetary values derived from crops and formal wages was established, and it was found that households with high cash incomes tended to invest more in crop production. Over 80 of households were male-headed. Of these heads of household, more than 60 were long-term migrants to urban areas, leaving household decision-making to the women. The low literacy rates of women have deprived them of paid jobs outside the area and, therefore, have increased their dependence on crops (62%) and secondary woodlands resources (60%). This was further reflected in the proportion of households in which females were the main contributors of cash income (9.7%), or joint contributors with men (24.4%). Various positive correlations were established between the number of women per household and the three land-based livelihoods. This implied that women’s total control over such activities was mostly a result of the absence of men and not a typical phenomenon. In spite of this control, it was not positively reflected in the lives of majority of the women. Households differed in their participation in livelihood activities. Household size influenced the level of production and was positively correlated with the value of secondary woodland resources and crops. The study shows the interdependence of land-based livelihood sources and the impact of household features on production and consumption. Policies that focus on livelihood options need to recognize and accommodate associated household dynamics. (shrink)

A dinamicidade do mundo atual chama a atenção. A rotatividade confronta-se com o permanente. Pensar ações pastorais no mundo atual supõe clara compreensão da realidade. Nesse sentido, a arquidiocese de Belo Horizonte encomendou uma pesquisa realizada em 2012 intitulada “Valores e religião na Região Metropolitana de Belo Horizonte”. Essa reflexão pretende apresentar os dados dessa pesquisa e apontar desafios no âmbito teológico-pastoral. A pesquisa atesta a presença do pluralismo e da mobilidade religiosa e critica a falta de diálogo inter-religioso. (...) Valoriza a moral social e questiona a moral sexual da Igreja Católica. Apresenta satisfação em face as celebrações e sugere maior formação das lideranças religiosas. O grande desafio é pensar uma igreja toda ministerial. O diálogo entre clero e leigos deve ser uma constante, rompendo as centralizações. Revisitar a identidade eclesial, repensando os traços de sua especificidade e estando aberta à criatividade e ao espírito novo que deve conduzir o ser cristão é um desafio itinerante. Palavras-chave: Religião. Igreja Católica de Belo Horizonte. Identidade. Teologia. Pastoral.The dynamics of today´s world calls our attention. Changes are confronted by permanence. To reflect on pastoral actions nowadays you need a clear understanding of reality. For this purpose, the Archdiocese of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, commissioned in 2012, a survey called “Values and religion in the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte”. This article presents data from this survey and points out challenges in theological and pastoral sphere. This research confirms the presence of pluralism and religious mobility and criticizes the lack of inter-religious dialogue. It values the social morality and question the sexual morality of the Catholic Church. It also shows satisfaction concerning religious celebrations and suggests more training of religious leaders. The major challenges are to think of a whole ministerial church. The dialogue between clergy and laity should happen steadily, thus breaking the centralizations. The main challenge is to revisit the ecclesial identity, to rethink the traces of its specificity and open up to creativity and new demands that should drive all Christians. Key-words : Religion. Catholic Church of Belo Horizonte. Identity. Theology. Pastoral. (shrink)

The called Middle Ages was a time marked by the outbreak of resistance movements which had as main and common characteristic the opposition to the stance adopted by the Roman Catholic Church during this period of history. The target of this research is to identify the main features of the clergy in this period, as well as identify what were these resistance movements and their theological basis. The method adopted here is to search for bibliographical material, establishing as the main (...) base, notably the writings of the theologian José Comblin, who produced vast material on this issue. As result of this work, it could be detected that these movements occurred in a profuse way. Over that, it was also evident in this search result that power centralization, enrichment and inattention to the reality of the poor, all these outstanding features in the behavior of the Catholic Church in the period were elements that constituted the main cause of the outbreak of such movements. (shrink)

The congregation is challenged by modern times that require various life adjustments, including priestly pastoral ministry. Therefore, this study examined the pastoral ministry style for the parishioner’s rural community of St. Petrus Paulus Ampah Diocese in Palangka Raya. A descriptive qualitative approach was used with data collected using participatory observations, in-depth interviews and document studies. Furthermore, the data analysis involved reducing, displaying and process verification. The participants included parish priests, catechists and station council administrators. The results showed (...) that the congregations did not participate in church activities because the pastoral ministry style did not fulfil their needs, economic factors and lack of Catholic faith knowledge. Therefore, the church authorities in pastoral ministry should create a holistic and transformative congregation based on their needs. The current pastoral ministry practice is based on ecclesiastical organisation building and worship (liturgy) focused service. The church should simultaneously conduct catechism practices and charitable diaconia such as social, economic and spiritual activities. This was an interdisciplinary study that focused on practical and pastoral theology, catechesis and social sciences on Catholics’ pastoral ministry style for rural communities.Contribution: Importantly, it contributes to the literature on pastoral style reforms focusing on the congregation’s socio-economic life. Therefore, it can improve the congregation’s interests, ecclesiastical activities and independence. (shrink)

Large tracts of European rural land, mostly in the less favored areas (LFA), are devoted to low-inputs and large scale grazing systems (LSGS) with potential environmental and social functions. Although these LSGS may provide harbor for a good part of European nature values, their continuity is facing contrasting threats of intensification and abandonment. These areas, however, may be characterized by particular grazing structures and social dynamics of change that should be unveiled prior to attempts to devise rural development (...) strategies or to adapt policy frameworks in general. To wit, stakeholder interactions and legal and institutional processes are described and analyzed for the cereal-sheep system of Castile-La Mancha (CLM) in the central Iberian plain. Farmers and pastoralists still share the use of the land, but their roles and interests have changed over time, and particularly in the last 50 years. Arable farming, mainly cereal cropping, has followed an intensification path, partially tempered by the environmental constraints of the Castilian plain. Extensive pastoralism is still a secondary option of land use; in the main, sheep farmers depend on, and look to, the management practices of arable farmers. A mixed cereal and sheep operation may deliver environmental and economic benefits, but successful implementation of this strategy is only possible when the system serves the needs of both types of stakeholders. Paradoxically, the main drivers of change in the countryside overall are arrayed against this sensible and traditional agricultural system. We argue that the recent legal and institutional frameworks do not favor social cohesion and that policy-support schemes of the European Union (EU) have been, and continue to be, devised without taking into account the particular structures and social dynamic of the farming system. (shrink)

Neste trabalho procuramos compreender as ideias que nortearam a ação de Frei Manuel do Cenáculo, enquanto reformador de estudos para diferentes níveis e bispo empenhado na formação do clero e dos fiéis da sua diocese. Tomamos como ponto de partida os anteriores trabalhos sobre a atuação política e pastoral de Cenáculo, para sistematizar a ação em defesa do ensino e o seu pensamento pedagógico. Como textos fundamentais para esta análise, salientamos os Cuidados Literários (1791), os documentos relativos ao (...) plano de estudos para a Terceira Ordem de S. Francisco e algumas das cartas pastorais, quer as que o bispo dirigiu para o clero, quer as dirigidas a todos os diocesanos. (shrink)

Este trabalho tem o objetivo de analisar a representação da mulher e da família no discurso de Dom Antônio Mazzarotto, primeiro bispo de Ponta Grossa-PR (1930-1965). Dom Antônio Mazzarotto representou o esforço normatizador da instituição católica na diocese que tomou posse em três de Maio de 1930. Nesta desenvolveu em trinta e cinco anos um intenso trabalho pastoral. Uma das estratégias de seu bispado foi à publicação de cartas pastorais para se comunicar com o clero e os fiéis. (...) Durante sua atuação na Diocese de Ponta Grossa o bispo escreveu trinta e seis cartas pastorais, uma a cada ano. Nestas cartas Dom Antônio se posicionou de forma conservadora acerca do casamento e do papel da mulher na família, algo que não fugia à norma da Igreja Católica de então. A normatização feminina perpassa pelos escritos de Dom Antônio, mais especificamente na Carta Pastoral “O Matrimônio Christão- 1934”, documento que aponta a Virgem Maria como modelo ideal de mulher esposa e mãe. Palavras Chave: Casamento, Catolicismo, Mulher.This study aims to analyze the representation of women and family in the speech of Dom Antônio Mazzarotto, first bishop of Ponta Grossa, Paraná (1930-1965). Dom Antônio Mazzarotto represented the effort of normalizing Catholic institution in the diocese in which took office on May 3, 1930. At that institution he developed an intense pastoral work in thirty-five years. One of the strategies of his bishopric was the publication of pastoral letters to communicate with the clergy and the faithful. During his tenure at Ponta Grossa Diocese the bishop wrote thirty-six pastoral letters, one every year. In these letters Dom Antônio stood conservatively about marriage and the role of women in the family, something that did not escape the rule of the Catholic Church then. The normative feminine permeates the writings of Dom Antônio, more specifically in Pastoral Letter “O Matrimônio Christão-1934”, document that shows the Virgin Mary as a model of ideal woman wife and mother. Keywords: Marriage, Catholicism, Woman. (shrink)

The Song of Songs, a lyric cycle of love scenes without a narrative plot, has often been considered as the Bible’s most beautiful and enigmatic book. The present study questions the still dominant exegetical convention that merges all of the Song’s voices into the dialogue of a single couple, its composite heroine Shulamit being a projection screen for norms of womanhood. An alternative socio-spatial reading, starting with the Hebrew text’s strophic patterns and its references to historical realia, explores the poem’s (...) artful alternation between courtly, urban, rural, and pastoral scenes with their distinct characters. The literary construction of social difference juxtaposes class-specific patterns of consumption, mobility, emotion, power structures, and gender relations. This new image of the cycle as a detailed poetic frieze of ancient society eventually leads to a precise hypothesis concerning its literary and religious context in the Hellenistic age, as well as its geographical origins in the multiethnic borderland east of the Jordan. In a Jewish echo of anthropological skepticism, the poem emphasizes the plurality and relativity of the human condition while praising the communicative powers of pleasure, fantasy, and multifarious Eros. (shrink)

Background: Confidentiality lies at the core of medical ethics and is the cornerstone for developing and keeping a trusting relationship between nurses and patients. In the wake of the HIV epidemic, there has been a heightened focus on confidentiality in healthcare contexts. Nurses’ follow-up of HIV-positive women and their susceptible HIV-exposed children has proved to be challenging in this regard, but the ethical dilemmas concerning confidentiality that emerge in the process of ensuring HIV-free survival of the third party – the (...) child – have attracted limited attention. Objective: The study explores challenges of confidentiality linked to a third party in nurse–patient relationships in a rural Tanzanian HIV/AIDS context. Study context: The study was carried out in rural and semi-urban settings of Tanzania where the population is largely agro-pastoral, the formal educational level is low and poverty is rife. The HIV prevalence of 1.5% is low compared to the national prevalence of 5.1%. Methods: Data were collected during 9 months of ethnographic fieldwork and consisted of participant observation in clinical settings and during home visits combined with in-depth interviews. The main categories of informants were nurses employed in prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV programmes and HIV-positive women enrolled in these programmes. Ethical considerations: Based on information about the study aims, all informants consented to participate. Ethical approval was granted by ethics review boards in Tanzania and Norway. Findings and discussion: The material indicates a delicate balance between the nurses’ attempt to secure the HIV-free survival of the babies and the mothers’ desire to preserve confidentiality. Profound confidentiality-related dilemmas emerged in actual practice, and indications of a lack of thorough consideration of the implication of a patient’s restricted disclosure came to light during follow-up of the HIV-positive women and the third party – the child who is at risk of HIV infection through mother’s milk. World Health Organization’s substantial focus on infant survival (Millennium Development Goal-4) and the strong calls for disclosure among the HIV-positive are reflected on in the discussion. (shrink)

This lavishly illustrated book establishes the towering influence of the scientist Victor Regnault in the earliest decades of photography, a period of experimentation ripe with artistic, commercial, and scientific possibility. Regnault has a double significance to the early history of photography, as the first leader of the Société Française de Photographie and as the maker of more than two hundred calotype portraits and landscapes. His photographic and scientific careers intersected a third field with his appointment in 1852 as director of (...) the Sèvres porcelain works. Readers are treated to Regnault's own beguiling pastoral, garden, and forest scenes; striking portraits of the scientists and artists in his circle of friends; quirky images of acoustic experiments; and an insider's view of the Sèvres porcelain works. Regnault's richly varied photographs also encompass perhaps the most extensive group of family portraits in early photography, and his romanticized landscapes reflect a moment when the rural outskirts of Paris were being aggressively suburbanized and industrialized. Occupying a unique and powerful position in the overlapping spheres of photography, science, industry, and art, Regnault was elected president of the newly formed S.F.P. in 1855. By examining his intertwined activities against the backdrop of French photography's nascent pursuit of institutional legitimacy, this book illuminates an important and overlooked body of images and the irregular cultural terrain of early photography. (shrink)

Gregory Conniff's large-scale black and white pastoral images evoke the sensuality of nineteenth century photographic materials. In his affectionate and intelligent work, there is a visible connection to the history of landscape art, reaching back as far as Claude Lorrain and seventeenth-century Dutch drawing. Conniff is also a leading practitioner of a new pastoralism that is casting a contemporary eye on the current state of America's open land. Postmodern in the best sense, Conniff's pictures address the timeless human need (...) to see beauty in the world that shapes our lives. A resident of Wisconsin for more than thirty years, Conniff has focused much of his artistic energy on the rural Midwest, exploring the interdependent relationship between land and people. For the past fifteen years, Conniff has also been making pictures of rural Mississippi, again focusing on elements of the landscape that resonate with a universal sense of aesthetic familiarity. As he explains, "I am interested in work that defines and protects the vanishing, commonplace beauties that let us know we're home.". (shrink)

Remarkable stories of resilience and forgiveness have been reported in the wake of the internationally recognised peace process in Colombia. From the perspective of Christian spirituality, this study seeks to understand the individual and communal values, beliefs and practices that made the reconciliation and restoration of a community possible after severe dislocation and violence, some of it of neighbour against neighbour. Interviews conducted in the field and transcribed by the author were used as texts. Transcripts were studied taking into account (...) cultural, geographic and historical contexts. I found that a deeply rooted family- and community-based Catholic culture, brought by the Spanish in the 16th century and continuing to influence this rural area, offered values, beliefs and devotional practices that gave meaning, strength and empowered the ability to forgive. Also, psychological and pastoral tools for grieving, together with sociological and political values about reconciliation and the rebuilding of a community’s fabric, intertwined with the religious values to deepen the capacity for reconciliation and community rebuilding. The experiences of these interviewees reveal a form of Christian spirituality lived through family and community ties that was augmented and empowered by values and practices of non-religious institutions, making possible significant personal and communal journeys of transformation and the concomitant remarkable resilience. (shrink)

Resumo: No início do século XX, várias congregações religiosas vieram ao Rio Grande do Sul para atender às necessidades da Igreja Católica, evidenciando, também, o zelo pastoral do clero gaúcho. Particularmente, na década de 1920, em meio a uma retomada da italianidade no estado, capitaneada pelos cônsules, observa-se a opção das autoridades pelas corporações religiosas de origem italiana, na medida em que promoviam as escolas étnicas e a manutenção de cursos de italiano. Os documentos analisados informam que tanto (...) o cônsul Luigi Arduini como o cônsul Manfredo Chiostri acompanhavam as ações das congregações religiosas e zelavam pela sua permanência nas colônias de imigrantes. O trabalho apresenta, ainda, elementos da tratativa da vinda da Congregação de São José, demonstrando a preocupação das lideranças com o esvaecimento da ideia de pertencimento à pátria de origem. Palavras-chave: Italianidade. Congregações religiosas. Escolas étnicas. (shrink)

Niger is regularly affected by food insecurity, mainly due to the high sensitivity of its agricultural sector to climate variability. Despite the support from multiple development institutions and households’ willingness to address food security, hunger and malnutrition continue to challenge many vulnerable households. This study aims to analyze household livelihood strategies toward food security and assess factors determining their resilience. To address the issue, cluster analysis and the principal component analysis were used to identify the different livelihood strategies and to (...) construct a resilience index, respectively. Regression analysis was used to identify the most significant factors determining households’ resilience. The results indicate there were six different household types—pastoralist-extensive agriculturalists, farmers, agro-pastoralists, public service employees, entrepreneurs and wage employees—however, the majority of households obtained their livelihood from both agriculture and livestock (agro-pastoral systems). The principal component analysis highlighted that the pastoralist-extensive agriculturalists are the most resilient followed by public service employees, while households focused on wage labor are the least resilient, followed by entrepreneurs. In terms of gender, the study reveals that households headed by men are more resilient than those headed by women. However, the resilience components including income and food access, assets and adaptive capacity are the most correlated with the households’ resilience to food insecurity. Furthermore, the regression analysis results reveal that the household size, crop production, farming experience, livestock size and number of coping strategies are the most significant factors determining household resilience to food insecurity. Consequently, to face the challenges of climate change and food security, rational investments in agriculture are necessary to transit rural household land-use practices to climate-smart agriculture. (shrink)

Chris Stewart’s account of his experiences after purchasing a farm in Andalusia, in an isolated farmhouse in the mountains adjacent to Granada, are far from the traditionally bucolic depictions of a pastoral landscape, in which the drawbacks of agricultural life become unquestionably compensated by the bliss of life in nature. Even though, as the title indicates, he seems to be a born romantic and optimist, undefeated by the inconveniences of a life without the everyday commodities of a First-World country (...) in the twenty-first century, his memoir narrative is soon balanced by his own testimony, which provides a realistic counterbalance to Stewart’s initial idealistic portrayal of life in rustic Alpujarras. Nonetheless, as this article intends to demonstrate, it is precisely this necessary demystification of the rural setting prevailing in certain areas in Andalusia that becomes crucial for the establishment of an essential complicity with the audience, thereby trained to appreciate—and even become enthralled by—the reality of the rural surroundings which the contemporary reader can no longer envision as merely a place of “vales and hills” softly covered by “a host of golden daffodils”. El relato que lleva a cabo Chris Stewart acerca de sus experiencias tras adquirir una finca en Andalucía, en un lugar apartado de la sierra lindante con Granada, se aleja de las descripciones bucólicas de paisajes pastorales en los que las desventajas de la vida agrícola quedaban incuestionablemente compensadas por el gozo de la vida en mitad de la naturaleza. Incluso pese a que, tal y como el título de su novela indica, Chris Stewart parece ser un romántico y un optimista de nacimiento, que no se deja vencer por los inconvenientes de una vida sin las comodidades cotidianas de un país del primer mundo en el siglo xxi, su memoria-narrativa se ve inmediatamente equilibrada por su propio testimonio, que proporciona un contrapunto realista al idealizado retrato inicial de la vida en las rústicas Alpujarras. No obstante, como el presente artículo pretende demostrar, es precisamente esta necesaria desmitificación del entorno rural de ciertas zonas de Andalucía lo que resulta crucial para poder establecer una esencial complicidad con el lector, que llega, de este modo, a valorar, e incluso, a sentirse fascinado, por la realidad del contexto agrario, el cual deja ya de percibir meramente como un lugar de «valles y colinas» delicadamente cubierto por «una cohorte de dorados narcisos». (shrink)

Esse artigo espera contribuir para a compreensão da relação entre a religião e a política. Por meio da análise tipológica e do recurso metodológico da história oral temática elaboramos o seu ambiente teórico. Estudamos os jovens inseridos na Pastoral da Juventude do Meio Popular entre meados das décadas de 1980 e 1990, na região industrial de Belo Horizonte – Brasil. Estes jovens são representantes do grande movimento religioso conhecido como cristianismo da libertação de larga e profunda repercussão na história (...) política e religiosa da república brasileira da segunda metade do século XX. Nossa compreensão situa-se na passagem do catolicismo tradicional para o catolicismo internalizado experimentado por esses jovens e suas famílias no processo de migração das áreas rurais para a jovem área urbana. Vale dizer que os fragmentos de entrevistas citadas foram realizadas por nós para a pesquisa que deu vaga a esse artigo. Palavras-chaves : Juventude. Religião e política. Esquerda católica brasileira. CatolicismoThis article aims to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between religion and politics. The theoretical environment of this research has been prepared by analyzing typological and methodological resource of oral history. For this purpose, we studied the young participants of the Youth Ministry of the "lower middle class" between the mid 1980s and 1990 in the industrial region of Belo Horizonte - Brazil. These young people represent a religious movement known as liberation Christianity, with profound repercussions in the political and religious history of the Brazilian republic of the second half of the twentieth century. The scope of this study lies in the transition from traditional Catholicism to the form of Catholicism internalized and experienced by these young people and their families in the process of migration from rural to urban areas. The fragments of interviews cited were conducted for research that allowed this article. Keywords : Youth. Religion and politics. Brazilian Catholic left. Catholicism. (shrink)

This article explores aspects of the textual relationship between women and early modern London by examining three verbal ‘snapshots’ of the city in works either written by women or focusing on women in their urban environment. The first text, Isabella Whitney's ‘Wyll and Testament’ (1573), addresses London from a rural perspective, treating the city as a fickle male to whom she wants to hand back all his treasures. The poem constructs a vivid and ironic social topography, giving a glimpse (...) of the roles of men and women in the Tudor city. The second text is by Mary Carleton, the roguish Restoration figure who defended her apparently ‘counterfeit’ life in the prose of The Case of Madam Mary Carleton (1663). Carleton's London is a place of unwanted seduction and sexual intimidation, highlighting a gendered moral geography even while the memoir itself titillates the reader with the account of her bizarre experiences. Finally, in a coda to the discussions of Whitney and Carleton, early eighteenth-century London is viewed through Jonathan Swift's satirical mock-pastorals of squalid urban life, in which female identity, like the city itself, is a site of violence, disgust and deception. Together, these textual representations of women and early modern London indicate the complex interactions of gender, literature and the early modern city. The analysis of the texts also suggests the significance of the ironic voice as a quintessentially urban literary mode, the prevalence of the idea of woman as a commodified topographical site, and the function of metaphors of courtship or marriage as indicators of the paradoxical attractions of the city. (shrink)

Rutilio Grande, S.J. was the first priest assassinated in El Salvador on March 12, 1977. He was targeted for his work with the poor as he applied Vatican II and the Medellín conference to his own reality in El Salvador. Grande’s progressive, creative and ultimately transformative ministry with the rural poor was aided by the UCA Jesuits with whom he partnered. Through his pastoral strategy of listening to communities, using the social sciences to understand their reality and embracing (...) a pedagogy of conscientization, Grande challenged traditional pastoral strategies in El Salvador by collaborating with the UCA Jesuits. Ultimately, these commitments to helping Grande organize and educate rural agricultural workers contributed to government persecution and their eventual death at the hands of the Salvadoran military. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.1 (2000) 115-132 [Access article in PDF] Schiller's Theory of Landscape Depiction Jason Gaiger This paper offers a critical discussion of the theory of landscape depiction which Friedrich Schiller developed in an important but neglected article on the work of Friedrich Matthisson, published in 1794. 1 The question of the value and status of landscape painting and poetry was far from settled at (...) the end of the eighteenth century, and Schiller's essay should be seen as making an important contribution to an ongoing debate. 2 The second half of the eighteenth century is marked by a profound ambivalence towards the natural world. On the one hand there is a remarkable "rediscovery" of nature, evidenced in such diverse but related phenomena as the vogue for English gardens and the appreciation of wild and "untamed places," such as the Alps and the Herz mountains. It is also the age of "sentiment," embracing a heightened sensitivity to all aspects of the physical world. And yet when we turn to the visual arts, we find landscape painting ranked far below history painting and portraiture. Precedence is given to the representation of human actions and emotions, and the depiction of the human figure remains the highest goal of ambitious art.The modern hierarchy of the genres was first established on a firm theoretical and practical basis with the founding of the French Royal Academy in the seventeenth century. The painter of living animals is ranked higher than the [End Page 115] painter of inanimate nature who depicts "choses mortes et sans mouvement." 3 The painter of human subjects, who imitates "the most perfect work of God," stands higher still. The highest achievement to which the artist can aspire, however, is history painting, the depiction of groups of figures in themes derived from biblical and mythical sources. To achieve this, the artist cannot depict what he sees but must employ both knowledge and imagination. The fundamental opposition here is between painting as a merely imitative or mechanical art, which is addressed to the eye alone, and painting as a work of "invention" or "imagination," which is addressed to the mind. Only the latter constitutes a properly liberal art, entitling the painter to stand alongside the poet as "un auteur ingénieux et savant" over and above the mere artisan or skilled laborer.The great popularity enjoyed by landscape painting in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was not met by any comparable elevation in its status as a fine art. Addressing students of the Royal Academy in London in 1770, Joshua Reynolds could continue to dismiss landscape and still-life as the "meaner walks of painting" which require only "mechanical" expertise. 4 For Reynolds the status of painting as a fine art is established through its treatment of the great subjects of history painting, that is, the depiction of human passions and the intellect. Only in tackling such themes does the artist succeed in addressing the imagination, which Reynolds describes as the "great end of art." 5 Although of comparatively recent origin, the genre of "landscape poetry" remained equally problematic and could not easily be reconciled with classicist ideals. New categories seemed to be required to comprehend the work of poets such as Albrecht von Haller and James Thomson, in which the varied and ever-changing aspects of the natural landscape were made the central protagonists of the poetic drama. While traditional forms such as the bucolic, the Arcadian, and the pastoral allowed the depiction of rural existence, the new "descriptive poetry" sought to celebrate the life of nature independently of man's intervening presence: it is nature itself rather than man's relation to nature which is made the poet's primary concern.Schiller's review of the third, expanded edition of Matthisson's poetry appeared in two parts in the Jenaer Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, 11-12 September 1794. While the second half of the review is given over to a detailed discussion of Matthisson's poetry, the first part is reserved for an extended theoretical discussion in which Schiller... (shrink)

Descrito por Frei Agostinho de Santa Maria no Santuário Mariano, o culto de Nossa Senhora das Brotas, padroeira dos animais doentes, tem como origem um suposto milagre ocorrido na localidade de Brotas no Alto Alentejo, no início do século XV. Culto rural, com base numa história simples entre um pastor e a sua vaca, a lenda de Nossa Senhora de Brotas é um curioso exemplo de regionalismo na iconografia mariana.

One might say that Clare is almost by virtue of that label alone a political poet. “Peasant poet” is a contradiction in terms from the perspective of English literary history, or of the longer history of the literary pastoral. The phrase must refer to two different social locations, and as such makes social place an explicit, problematic concern for the middle-class readers of that poet’s work. To Clare’s publisher and patrons in the 1820s, as to his editors in the (...) 1980s, the language, the forms, the sentiments, and even the punctuation of his poetry are further markers of class difference for an audience invited to read him as a peasant poet. In recent collections concerned to recover the politics of English poetry these signs of difference are highly valued.2 They seem to mark Clare’s work as what Fredric Jameson terms “strong” political art, that is, “authentic cultural creation … dependent for its existence on authentic collective life, on the vitality of the ‘organic’ social group.”3At the time his poems were published class difference in English rural life was a political issue sufficiently charged to make publisher and patrons wish to minimize its marks in Clare’s poetry. On the one hand, a clearly understood hierarchy was the form of social stability that rural scenes staged for their urban middle-class audiences. Evidence of class difference confirmed the survival of this hierarchy and the reader’s position in it. Clare’s poetry of place affirmed a system of social as well as geographical differences felt as a traditional—and essential—aspect of English national identity. On the other hand, however, the countryside was precisely where the erosion of the hierarchical relations of deference and responsibility was particularly noticeable, and disturbing, in the years after 1815. Sporadic outbreaks of protest against low wages and unemployment in 1816, 1822, and 1830 realized dramatically for the middle and upper classes what one might call a rural version of the process Marx was later to term alienation: the known and familiar inhabitants of the rural scene—laborers, village artisans—were suddenly made strange to their middle- and upper-class neighbors, so much so that many observers were convinced that they must be strangers, intruders from another pace .4 The elements of difference, or strangeness, in Clare’s poetry—the marks of his identity as rural laborer—thus also risked awaking specific anxieties among his early readers. Clare’s editor and publisher, John Taylor, punctuated, regularized meter, and replaced some of Clare’s unfamiliar local vocabulary. Nonetheless, his two most important early patrons, the evangelical aristocrat Lord Radstock and the middle-class Mrs. Emmerson, objected to some lines as “radical slang” and others as “vulgar.” The language of class risked rejection as politically subversive. Especially in an already politicized rural scene, the peasant poet could not be a neutral figure. 2. Both A Book of English Pastoral Verse, ed. John Barrell and John Bull and The Faber Book of Political Verse, ed. Tom Paulin restore Clare’s original orthography and lack of punctuation to support the label “peasant poet.”3. Fredric Jameson, “Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture,” Social Text 1 : 140. Elizabeth Helsinger is associate professor of English and general studies at the University of Chicago and a coeditor of Critical Inquiry. Her Ruskin and the Art of the Beholder was published in 1982. The present essay is part of a book in progress on representations of the rural scene in Victorian England. (shrink)

“I dare to guarantee [the reader] that from this book he will acquire a clarity about and a deft drilling in individual dogmatic concepts that usually are perhaps not so easily obtained”, writes Kierkegaard at the beginning of this fascinating inquiry into the character of Adolph Peter Adler, a rural pastor and advocate of Hegelian philosophy who asserted in 1843 that he had received a special revelation from Christ but later contradicted himself in a flurry of intellectual prevarication. As (...) Kierkegaard notes, the supposed revelation looks suspiciously like Hegelian metaphysics confusedly combined with half-understood Christian concepts, and the “clarifications” Adler later sent to an ecclesiastical investigator are “evasions”, a way of changing essentially what he had earlier reported. Adler’s ever-changing story about who or what he is, his comical back-and-forth between the incompatible roles of apostle and man of letters, reveals a rootless soul that does not know itself: “he is a private, confused lyrical genius who casually exegetes incidental Bible verses ‘accordingly as these appeal to him’”. Having laid claim to a revelation, however, Adler must be called to account: either he must return to this revelation-fact with the simplicity and fervor of faith, or he must renounce his pretensions and revoke his original statement. For many years Kierkegaard labored over different versions of the book before he abandoned plans for its publication. One can understand his hesitancy. The finished product demolishes Adler’s position with the fury of a worked-up pugilist who keeps hitting his opponent after the knock-out bell has rung. Kierkegaard felt sorry for Adler and feared that his withering critique would “have too strong an effect on him”. (shrink)

On a souvent rendu hommage à Foucault parce qu’il avait vu que le pouvoir ne s’exerçait pas seulement à la façon verticale de la souveraineté politique, mais qu’il s’appliquait aussi horizontalement, en pénétrant tous les domaines de la société civile. En supposant qu’il s’agisse, quand elle concerne le pouvoir, d’une découverte, la même remarque, appliquée à l’autorité,..

Parmi d’autres, cet ouvrage témoigne que nous sommes dans une époque de collaboration active entre la communauté médicale, notamment hospitalière, et la communauté philosophique. Son auteur, J.-P. Cléro, s’appuie en effet sur un travail mené dans le cadre de divers espaces éthiques ou écoles de soin médical et sur des échanges nourris avec plusieurs médecins. Comme il l’indique lui-même, ce contexte l’a incité à revenir à la philosophie morale et à proposer en son sein un parcours orienté par..

Ayant rencontre tant de contradictions et de difficultes dans tous les systemes concernant les objets exterieurs et dans l'idee de matiere, que nous envisageons si claire et si determinee, nous nous appretons naturellement a affronter des difficultes et des contradictions encore plus grandes dans toutes les hypotheses sur nos perceptions internes et sur la nature de l'esprit, que nous imaginons tellement plus obscures et plus incertaines. Mais c'est en quoi nous ferions erreur. Le monde intellectuel peut etre enveloppe d'obscurites infinies, (...) il n'est pas pour autant embarrasse de contradictions semblables a celles que nous avons decouvertes dans le monde naturel. (Traite de la nature humaine, Livre I, partie IV, section V). (shrink)

Si Hobbes est très peu cité explicitement par Bentham, l’œuvre du premier accompagne pourtant constamment l’œuvre du second. Sans doute Bentham n’est-il pas contractualiste et l’idée qu’il se fait de la république deviendra, au fil de sa réflexion, plus démocratique que celle que s’en fait Hobbes. Toutefois, on trouve, chez l’un comme chez l’autre, une conception de la loi qui, si elle est l’expression de la souveraineté, n’exclut pas la diversité des appartenances des citoyens à la société civile. Ce point (...) est visible dans la définition même de la loi que nous donnent les deux auteurs en des moments stratégiques de leur œuvre. Mais l’un comme l’autre dira que la souveraineté ne saurait, sans encourir un immense danger, se laisser dépasser par une loi qui se voudrait naturelle ou qui se donnerait comme une émanation de Dieu ; quand bien même le souverain croirait pouvoir se renforcer par là. Nous le montrons sur deux points cruciaux : d’une part, l’analyse de la promesse et du serment ; d’autre part, la question de la punition, qui est un moment que les deux auteurs estiment dangereux, pour le condamné certes, mais aussi pour l’État qui le condamne. La proximité des deux auteurs est très étroite sur ces deux points, encore que Bentham ne dise rien de Hobbes en leur endroit. (shrink)

Tandis que j’écrivais mon article sous le titre ‘L’utilitarisme est-il une éthique acceptable?’paru dans ce numéro de la Revue d’Etudes benthamiennes, j’ai eu la chance d’avoir accès, dans le cadre de mon travail au CHU de Rouen, à un ensemble d’entretiens avec des médecins au sujet de la connaissance qu’ils avaient de la loi Léonetti. Les entretiens ont été numérotés de I à XXVI; ils ne sont pas tous cités ici, d’autant que quelques-uns, prévus, n’ont pas eu lieu. Le propos (...) qui suit se trouve à la confluence de trois apports: celui de la thèse soutenue dans le n° 9 de la REB, celui de mon enseignement d’éthique à l’hôpital auprès de soignants et de philosophes, celui enfin de l’existence de ce précieux dossier réuni par les soins du Docteur Clémence Joly. Je livre ici des réflexions que j’ai assemblées et articulées. Il convient de préciser, pour la compréhension du texte suivant, que les entretiens ont eu cours auprès de médecins qui répondaient, au cours des derniers mois, aux mêmes questions liées à leur connaissance de la loi Léonetti de 2005. Quand ils ne la connaissaient pas –ce qui fut l’aveu du plus grand nombre-, l’entretien ne cessait pas pour autant et il était alors possible aux interviewés de découvrir cette loi; ainsi, article par article, ils donnaient, guidés par les questions de l’interrogatrice, leur avis de praticiens sur le détail d’une loi qu’ils connaissaient beaucoup mieuxqu’ilsle croyaient au départ. (shrink)