Tropos: a knowledge map
[EN] I’m launching today the tropos project; on tropos you can see the relationships between scholars, organised into a map.
The beta version includes only Brazilian o Brazil- related anthropologists.
The Greek word tropos means “direction”, and by this project I would like to help to understand the knowledge flow between people (and between people and institution).
The project page is http://www.lucafanelli.net/tropos.
[PT] Estou lançando hoje o projeto tropos; graças à tropos, você pode ver as relações entre pesquisadores, organizadas em um mapa.
A versão beta inclui somente antropólogos brasileiros, ou relacionados ao Brasil.
A palavra grega tropos significa “rumo”, e com este projeto quero ajudar no entendimento do fluxo de conhecimento entre pessoas (e entre pessoas e instituições).
A página do projeto é http://www.lucafanelli.net/tropos.
[IT] Lancio oggi il progetto tropos; con tropos, si possono vedere le relazioni tra ricercatori, organizzati in una mappa.
La versione beta comprende solo antropologi brasiliani o che hanno qualche relazione con il Brasile.
La parola greca tropos significa “direzione” e con questo progetto vorrei aiutare a comprendere il flusso di sapere tra persone (e tra persone e istituzioni).
La pagina del progetto è http://www.lucafanelli.net/tropos.
Campagna italiana
Morphological thoughts II
«Morphological correspondences form the basis of phylogenetic reconstruction» (Norman MacLeod, Peter L. Forey (orgs.), Morphology, shape and phylogeny, Taylor & Francis, London – New York 2002, p. 1).
See the course at the EHESS “Morphologie : des sciences sociales aux sciences du vivant et à l’architecture“.
Patchwork above, generated by Google Image, by a self-incremental series of pictures.
Debate about poverty in the global South and North
June the 24th ActionAid organized in Turin the debate “Una Mole di lavoro: prospettive e interrogativi sulla lotta alla povertà tra Nord e Sud del mondo” (A lot of work: perspectives and questions about the fight against poverty in the global North and global South). Tiziana Ciampolini (responsible person of the Caritas’ Study center about Poverty and Resources) and Marco De Ponte (ActionAid’s Italian Secretary general) discussed with the participants what poverty in a country of the global South and in Italy have in common; whether promoting human rights in Africa, Asia and Latin America could suggest sound strategies and best practices to resist social exclusion and inequalities in a city as Turin, or not.
This debate inaugurated the activities of ActionAid’s territorial presence in Torino. I participated to the organization of this meeting, as a part of my new job at ActionAid in Italy. Some analysis brought me back to Italy: the fading of the dichotomy between the North and the South, new and widespread kinds of poverty in Italy, the depression of the social and relation capital in Europe, the opportunity to use in the North practices and methodologies I adopted during my work promoting sustainable development in Brazil.
Disclaimer: the organization cited do not necessarily endorse the contents of this post.
Lybia, feb-may 2011
Egypt, jan-may 2011
More about the I S. Paulo state landrace fair
The I Landraces fair in S. Paulo took place in November, 2010. Right now, the director Adolfo Borges finished a excellent documentary about the Fair (in Portuguese).
To know more about the fair, please see here.
Participatory planning to reconstruct riparian forest
Detail of a map, with the current use of the riverbank, done by the geoprocessing laboratory of the Instituto Socioambiental in 2011
The Instituto Socioambiental is right now implementing a project, called “Plano diretor para recomposição florestal visando à conservação de recursos hídricos da bacia hidrográfica do rio Ribeira de Iguape e Litoral sul” [Planning scheme for the forest reconstruction, aiming at the conservation of the water resources of the basin of the Ribeira river and the southern coast].
The project will define priority riverbank areas, to be reconstructed as riparian forest. The project involves representative of public bodies, farmers, trade unions, associations, among others, from about 20 municipalities of the Ribeira valley region, in the S. Paulo state. The project uses sound mapping tools, combined with participatory methodologies.
I’ve contributed as animator in two regional workshop, in Registro and Juquiá.
Research and decision making in NGOs: some hypothesis and research agenda
A very interesting field where test the relationship between research and decision making are the local sustainable development project (LSDPs). In order to clarify the subsequent argument, I characterise in the following table the LSDPs, against the politics and industry fields.
| local sustainable development project | politics | industry | |
| actors | NGO, governmental agency, target group | legislative, or executive or judiciary body | shareholders, directors, employees |
| target group | target group and final beneficiaries | whole population, or a part of it | clients |
| final result | trained people, empowerment, gain for the participants, etc. | law, policy, enforcement, etc. | products, gain, etc. |
In the same simple manner, I divide the kind of research, from one end (theoretic, wide scope) to another (aimed at specific product, practical).
| type A | type A-B | type B |
| .theoretic
.wide scope |
.aimed at a specific product
.practical |
|
| basic research (done by university or other research centres) | applied research (done by university or other research centres) | applied research (done by organizations’ R&D sectors) |
The hypothesis, elsewhere supported (cf. www.lucafanelli.net/en/content.php?pagid=18), is that, in a general way, in the LSDPs sector, few NGOs and governmental agency do type B research, fewer (when they do it) use it; fewer, too, use type A or A-B research. On the other side, the universities or other research centres do type A or A-B research, based on the needs and constraint of the NGOs and governmental agencies, despite of dealing with the same objects and/or peoples.
Of course, the matter is much more complicated and here I try to do the “devil’s advocate” against my own hypothesis, touching upon some interesting cases. In order to understand this cases, I want to present another conceptual scheme, based on tree indicators (related to the relationship between research and LDSPs):
- how much the research affects the decision making;
- how much the research arguments are used in order to justify the actions that take or will take place;
- how much the NGOs, government agencies, target groups and final beneficiaries needs and constraint affect the research agenda.
There are many NGOs that accumulated a great research body. Among the Brazilian ones, tree examples are: the Instituto Socioambiental – ISA [Socioenvironmental Institute], the Instituto de Pesquisas da Amazônia – IPAM [Amazonian Research Institute] and the Instituto Sociedade, População e Natureza – ISPN [Society, Population and Nature Institute]. We chose in purpose NGOs that, while doing or promoting research, are implementing relevant projects aimed at sustainable development, human right advocacy or environmental and cultural conservation. In a first outlook of the researches of each one of these organization, published or announced in their website, we can say that ISA favours type A and A-B researches, while IPAM and ISPN type A-B and B. More in-depth research is needed in order to understand:
- who did the research (an external consultant, some of the internal team or others);
- whether the research is inserted in a project or not;
- if the NGO has stable relationships with universities and of what kind. And, above all:
- how much the research agenda is influenced by the need and constraint of the project beneficiaries, and, vice-versa,
- how much the research is used by the project team or by the beneficiaries themselves?
Another facet that would be fruitful to investigate is how indicators are used in the project document submitted to founding agencies, or in texts presenting the NGO. Most founding agencies ask the NGOs a filled form, and one of the form field is, usually, about the relevance of the action (see, for example, the form for the EuropeAid/129492/C/ACT/TPS call for proposal). It is common, among project makers, to base this section on indicators, mainly of large agencies, as UNCTAD, FAO, WHO, and so on. But,
- in what extent are these indicator used?
- which are the most used indicators, and from which source/ agency?
- how much are used also fresh research indicators? And, most important:
- the overall analysis of the source/ agency is kept, or somehow distorted in order to promote the project, and
- are these indicators used only to justify something, or they really oriented the NGOs’ strategic choices?
Finally, a light on this matter may be shed by an issue that gained the stage in recent times: climate change. Without doubt, the relationship between research and decision making is in this field more deep than in many other: it is not accident that the criticism to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change findings reached the mass media, a not-so-common thing for the research world. My feeling is that it is the case also within the NGO mean: probably, here, many much project makers are looking for university researchers, in order to collect arguments to build some climate change related programme. Is that a driving force, promoting a new and wider co-operation of the two worlds?
Agroforestry and sustainable grassroots business
February the 15th two training courses started: Agroforestry management plan (agroecology production) and Business plan of agroforestry products. They are part of a set of training courses that integrate the component of the project Ecoturismo na Mata Atlântica [Ecotourism in the Atlantic Forest] aimed at smallholders of the Ribeira and Alto do Paranapanema basins; the Instituto Socioambiental is implementing this component. The Secretária do Meio Ambiente do Estado de S. Paulo [Environment Secretary of the S. Paulo state] commissioned this project, with resources of the Interamerican Bank of Development.
I’m organising the Agroforestry management plan course, while I’m organising and give the Business plan one. The objective of the first one is: “strengthen the agroecological and agroforestry experiences, widespread them, in order to provide environmental services, as well as agroecological products”; of the second one: “qualify the participants to plan and monitor, in a critical and systemic form, sustainable business with agroforestry products”.