Best practices for the management of knowledge for conflict resolution: Lessons learned from the Great Lakes region of Africa

Abstract

This article deals with the management of knowledge for conflict resolution and innovation in Africa. After a brief discussion of the research methodology followed, a feedback is provided on the field study conducted from 2006 to 2008 in northern Uganda and Rwanda and at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania, and in the DRC. As a result of the field study, certain principles and practices were identified whereby the challenges facing Africa could be examined. The author found five ‘realms’ in which knowledge management can take place and that traditional knowledge practices, if merged with more modern knowledge management practices, provide a valuable framework for using knowledge management for conflict resolution and innovation in Africa. Best practices that were identified include an intra-connected and collective knowledge production system and the production of tacit knowledge, especially among the new generation or youth. Furthermore, the importance of intellectual capital (in the form of value-driven leadership, competent managers and expert knowledge workers) and the activation of an intervention into the continuous spiral of violent conflict which will ultimately lead to the innovative transformation of African society are discussed. Finally, some recommendations are offered as possible solutions for conflict resolution and innovation in Africa.     

Foreign minister's budget vote address

This article examines the evolution of the responsibility to protect (R2P) norm through the institutional frameworks of the African Union and the United Nations. The investigation aligns itself with recent constructivist thinking around norm evolution and contestation which holds that diverging interpretations around norms facilitate not only norm contestation, but ultimately norm acceptance. In this case different ‘meanings-in-use’ of R2P within and across both organisations reinforce the contested nature of R2P. This becomes most apparent in the prevailing confusion around the affiliated concept of the protection of civilians, which is not effectively delineated from R2P. Nevertheless R2P is found to be widely acknowledged within both organisations.     

Irigwe and Rukuba Marriage: A Comparison

According to South Africa's new constitution, access to health care is a fundamental right. Equitable provision of maternal health care is important in redressing past legacies and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. We analyse the utilisation of antenatal care (ANC) services under South Africa's public health system to inform policy concerned with equity of access.

We conceptualise access to care as covering three distinct but interacting dimensions: availability, affordability and acceptability. We explain variations in the number of ANC visits among women giving birth in four selected communities, two urban and two rural.

Results indicate that more-marginalised women were significantly less likely to have the minimum recommended number of ANC visits whereas being older, in a stable or married relationship and more highly educated and having no previous deliveries were positive influences. Further analysis revealed variations between facilities in the determinants of sufficient ANC visits. These results are discussed using insights based on qualitative patient interviews. Our findings show inequalities in utilisation which may indicate remaining inequities in access.     

Terrorism and the media

The linguistic turn in political science is an important step toward more sophisticated political knowledge. Greater awareness of political language implies attention to words such as reason. Reason is central to modern political discourse because of its historical and cultural importance and because of the contemporary dominance of the rational choice paradigm. Reason the concept therefore justifies closer scrutiny of reason the word. The meaning of reason is constructed as a variable. Standing by itself, reason seems relatively shapeless and empty; dictionary definitions are circular and tautological, although some subtle nuances derive from the network of reason's root words. Most of the variance in the meaning of reason is determined by other words that surround it, with a significant portion of reason's meaning being defined by its context. Anterior meaning shifters, nominal referents, spatiotemporal modifiers, and textual narrative all surround reason and fix it in a large lattice. The meaning of reason in use varies continuously. From this perspective, it becomes clear how reason functions as an important rhetorical trope in political discourse. Its plasticity and flexibility help reason stimulate and evoke variable mental images and responses in different settings and situations, all the more important because these go largely unnoticed. The example of reason of state shows reason's rhetorical power and privilege, its normative dimension, its persuasiveness, and its consequences. Seen in this light, a weak version of reason of state is preferable to a strong one. Pluralistic reason opens new paths for democratic thought and political action.     

The Influence of Swabbing Solutions on DNA Recovery from Touch Samples,

There has been minimal research into how to best obtain DNA from touch samples. Many forensic laboratories simply moisten a swab with water and use it for collecting cells/DNA from evidentiary samples. However, this and other methods have not been objectively studied in order to maximize DNA yields. In this study, fingerprints were collected using swabs moistened with water or laboratory or commercially available detergents, including sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), Triton X‐100, Tween 20, Formula 409^®, and Simple Green^®. Prints were swabbed, DNA isolated using an organic extraction, yields quantified, and relative yields compared. In all cases, the detergent‐based swabbing solutions outperformed water, with SDS and Triton X‐100 producing significant increases in yield. Short tandem repeat profiles were consistent with the individuals that placed them. Subsequent analysis of SDS concentrations for collecting touch DNA demonstrated an increase in DNA yield with increasing SDS concentration, with an optimal concentration of approximately 2%.     

Counter-terrorism and alien justice: the case of security certificates in Canada

This article examines the security certificate process that has been in effect in Canada since 1978 and the 2008 amendment (Bill C-3) of the Immigration and Refugees Protection Act. It highlights how democratic means can be used to subvert meaningful policy changes, and underscores the antinomy inherent in a nation-state's zeal to protect its citizens and appeals by a group of Arab Muslim men held under security certificates for suspected terrorist activities for their human rights to be recognised and respected by a state in which they are non-citizens. The problematic immanent in nation-states serving as guarantors of human rights and its concomitant misconstruing of human rights for citizenship rights are used to demonstrate that an ‘internal Other’ has been created in Canada. The security certificate, it is argued, in stipulating that detainees may request to be deported to countries where they regularly reside or hold nationality, makes them akin to Hannah Arendt's notion of the ‘rightless’ – people who have not only lost their home (i.e., polity) or ‘distinct place in the world’, but also their legal status. Consequently, even in an advanced democracy with grandiose claims to, and assurances of, individual liberty and fundamental freedoms, ‘rightless’ people face a great danger by the fact of being nothing beyond ‘human’.     

Terrorists,scholars and ordinary people: confronting terrorism studies with field experiences

Fieldwork in the study of terrorism remains the exception, allowing for scores of publications to be produced each year with little or no contact with the perpetrators of terrorist violence and scarce direct observation of the social realities in which it occurs. While examining some of the serious drawbacks and pitfalls such research can entail, this article makes a case for more fieldwork in terrorism studies, arguing that it can bring greater depth to our understanding of terrorist violence. The discussion focuses on a common assumption – the existence of the ‘terrorist’ as subject – and a common practice of terrorism studies – the concentration on extraordinary events at the expense of ‘ordinary life’ and ‘ordinary people’ – and how they are called into question by the material gathered during field research conducted in the Southern Philippine region of Mindanao. The article concludes with a reflection on some of the challenges facing researchers in danger zones, from their dependence on local knowledge for security to the need for methodological flexibility when faced with the complexity of research in conflict areas.     

Deaths Involving Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) in Upper East Tennessee

Two deaths involving 3, 4‐methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) are reported. MDPV is a synthetic cathinone stimulant found in “bath salts” with neurological and cardiovascular toxicity. Biological specimens were analyzed for MDPV by GC/MS and LC/MS. A White man was found dead with signs of nausea and vomiting after repeatedly abusing bath salts during a weekend binge. Femoral venous blood and urine had MDPV concentrations of 39 ng/mL and 760 ng/mL. The second fatality was a White man with a history of drug and bath salt abuse found dead at a scene in total disarray after exhibiting fits of anger and psychotic behavior. Femoral venous blood and urine had MDPV concentrations of 130 ng/mL and 3800 ng/mL. The blood and urine MDPV concentrations are within the reported recreational concentration ranges (blood 24–241 ng/mL and urine 34–3900 ng/mL). Both decedents’ deaths were attributed to relevant natural causes in a setting of MDPV abuse.     

The Trafficking in Persons Report: a game of risk

The State Department ranks countries on adherence to minimum standards set forth by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act 2000. The Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP) is updated annually and failure to enact changes to combat trafficking results in higher tier rankings. This paper evaluates the TIP by situating this tool in light of special features of the modern era, such as globalization and risk. Through a survey of the theoretical literature on risk and on trafficking risk factors, we devise six preliminary risk clusters and discuss how the TIP could incorporate governments’ response to trafficking risk factors into the ranking system. Our intentions are to spark debate about how risk factors could be incorporated in the TIP, to provide a preliminary model and to encourage further research in this area.     

青壮年猝死综合征SCN2B、SCN4B基因检测

目的寻找SCN2B、SCN4B基因的变异位点,探讨其与青壮年不明原因夜间睡眠中猝死(SMDS)的关系。方法提取SMDS病例组及健康对照组的基因组DNA,采用聚合酶链式反应(PCR)方法扩增SCN2B、SCN4B基因编码区外显子、外显子-内含子交界区以及3'侧翼区序列,直接行DNA测序以明确遗传变异类型。结果在病例组中共检测到4个变异位点,c.237+27AG,c.*38CT,c.174CT(p.C58C)和c.*7CT。结论本研究首次对中国人SMDS病例进行了SCN2B、SCN4B基因的检测,上述基因是否为中国人SMDS的易感基因尚有待进一步研究证实。