Diaspora connections and discontinuities: the photography of Chester Higgins

Abstract

Renowned photographer, Chester Higgins, has captured in the sensitivities of people, interesting places, and fleeting moments in his art; and his creative canvas spans the world; it challenges and provokes but also offers solace in time of need. His work, when viewed by different people and different societal groupings, delivers new and often unexpected meanings. Although his photographs are difficult to categorize because absolute distinctions are constantly undermined by the viewer's horizons of expectations and values that are brought to the viewing situation, Higgins has slotted some of his photographic images into sections described as ‘politics’, ‘writers’, ‘religion’, and ‘social life’. In this short essay an attempt is made to view some selected pieces and come up with innovative meanings. Since the unifying theme in the photography is that of Africans in the diaspora, a few pieces are sampled from each section.     

Chester I. Barnard and other antecedents of the present managerial order

The interwar decades of the 1920s and 1930s were arguably the most important in management history. Not only did America finally achieve a national identity as a managed society, management itself evolved a paradigm that has remained in place until the present day. Chester I. Barnard's work is the quintessential expression of the modernist spirit.     

Chester I. Barnard: president of the uso, 1942-1945

This article focuses on a relatively unheralded dimension of Chester I. Barnard, author of the classic 1938 management text The Functions of the Executive. Barnard was President of the United Services Organization, Inc. (USO), a morale-enhancing volunteer organization for allied servicemen and women during World War II. The article's purpose is to describe and analyze Barnard's activities and accomplishments at the USO from 1942 to 1945, Barnard used the general management principles that he espoused through his writings in this volunteer management environment.     

The privilege and responsibility of suicide prevention

Each year about a million people worldwide take their lives, and a further unknown number, but probably no less than 20 million, attempt suicide. In addition, for every person who engages in suicidal behavior, another five or six will be associated with them in some way, making a conservative total of 100 million people worldwide who are affected each year--and to whom we have some degree of responsibility. There is no one approach to suicide prevention, and probably more so than for any other human condition, we are privileged to be able to collaborate with many different disciplines in our endeavors. However, there is a considerable responsibility to ensure that whatever our own area of expertise and interest may be, we should apply universal principals of objective analysis to these diverse contributions. This is addressed by examining research from four broad areas. First, there are studies that irrevocably bring together the sociological and biological approaches to suicide. Second, there are reports that support the notion of the universality of suicide. Third, despite considerable attention paid to the media, its influence on suicide is very limited. And finally, although there have been pessimistic reviews, there are persuasive data from innovative research designs that have documented that we can prevent suicide.     

Chester I. Barnard's reflections on his nine weeks in the United States treasury department

This essay seeks to identify relevant issues regarding the relationship between organizational change strategies aimed at improving the delivery of public services to low income clientale in human service agencies. ^{* *}A human service is defined as a form of assistance given to a client by a public agency; such assistance i s ameliorative in nature and is intended to provide for a social welfare need that cannot otherwise be met. ^*A human service is defined as a form of assistance given to a client by a public agency; such assistance i s ameliorative in nature and is intended to provide for a social welfare need that cannot otherwise be met.$ef: The strategies discussed in this

essay are: organizational development (OD), transorganizational development, reorganization and decentralization. The discussion is mainly theoretical, derived only in part from the literature and from actual experiences. The focus i s on detemining (logically, not empirically) the consequences of applying different types of organization change strategies as means for improving the delivery of human services. A major assumption i s that each of the strategies would incur somewhat different costs and produce different benefits with varying operational constraints.     

Ministerial responsibility and the Scottish Qualifications Agency

The Scottish Qualifications Agency (SQA) is charged with the task of overseeing school–based qualifications in Scotland. However, for the 2000 exam diet the SQA failed to produce either timely or accurate exam results. The events surrounding this failure, accompanied by the responsible minister's explanation of his own actions and inactions, brought to the fore issues of responsibility and accountability. The unresolved nature of accountability and responsibility within government, particularly in relation to non–departmental public bodies (NDPBs), became apparent as the inquiries into the SQA took evidence. Utilizing the SQA as a powerful example, this article explores the problematic structures of accountability and responsibility that exist between NDPBs and ministers.     

Against the concept of ethnic conflict

Despite a boom in studies of ethnic conflict, the empirical and conceptual justification for this field remains weak. Not only are claims of surging ethnic conflict unsubstantiated, but the concept itself is problematic. The concept tends to homogenise quite distinct political phenomena. Making valid causal inferences about ‘ethnic conflict’ is nearly impossible as a result, a shortcoming reflected in the un‐robust nature of the literature on the subject. For both practical and normative reasons there is a good argument for abandoning the field of ethnic conflict studies.     

中国外交的世纪理念

冷战结束以后,中国领导人面对变化了的国际局势,以及中国的发展,适时提出了新的外交理念.人类跨入21世纪,中国和平崛起,加快推进社会主义现代化建设的新阶段.国际局势正在发生深刻的变化.世界多极化和经济全球化在曲折中发展.中国外交顺时达变,与时俱进,提出了新世纪的外交理念.     

White Collar Crime: Re-examination of a concept

Originally presented at a plenary session of the Eastern Sociology Association, Philadelphia, April, 1973.     

The slow violence of corporate social responsibility: the case of mining in Peru

Drawing on fieldwork in three Andean regions of Peru, this article analyses the capacity of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to reduce mining-related violence in rural communities in developing countries. Within Peru, to some extent CSR has stabilised short-term relationships between mining corporations and nearby communities, although tensions remain high in others. While effects are varied and locally-contingent, the findings support a theoretical understanding of CSR as deeply embedded in legitimising the violence of capitalism, including the slow violence from degrading local environments.     

德国新时期的国家安全观与安全战略

二战后,德国虽迅速成为世界经济强国,但很长时间内,有"政治侏儒"之虞.随着国家的重新统一亦即新时期的开始,德国作为享有完全主权的国家,立即开始重新思考和全面构造自己的国家安全观和安全战略.社民党自上世纪末执政以来,在这方面态度更为鲜明,坚持不渝地精心策划,使德国新时期的国家安全观与安全战略有了清晰的构想与蓝图.     

Public service as a calling: An exploration of a concept

Several years ago, the public administration faculty of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University issued their famous “Blacksburg Manifesto” the public Administration and the Governance Process: Refocusing the American Dialogue. In this document they call for a substantive change in the American Dialogue regarding the role of the public administrator. Nothing that the founding fathers viewed public service as a “calling”, as did the populists, Progressives, and New Dealers, they suggest that today’s government officials should percive themselves as “trustees” with a sense of a calling in serving for a cause. This call for a renewed convenant stimulated this researcher to speculate on the nature of the calling, its origins, definitions, applications, and its applicability as a psychological motivator for effective. productive performance in the public sector.

Our exploration for understanding starts with an examination of Western society’s earliest written record of man’s behaviour, the Bible, which is replete with stories of divine calls, first from God to the individual, and then to a group or society. We also review subsequent religious and secular calls, noting their universality and the reciprocal phenomena of “good” and “evil” which such calls exemplify. Thus, God’s call to Moses to lead the Jews out of Egypt is balanced by the fombat-driven calling of the city-state of Sparta.

We also not that the calling is subject to a hierarchy process. Plato writes about the natural endowments of individuals which creates three social classes that are called upon to serve the state; artisans, warriors, and philosopher-kings. Later on Eusebius defines a difference in the intensity and degree of suffering suffering between those professing a “high calling” and those following their“calling”.

This study also considers the meaning of the word “calling”. The researcher proposes a modification of its meaning which is less sacred and more secular in context. “Klesis Diakonis”, two separate Greek words, in combination, can be defined as a “call to joyous service”. This secular interpretation of the calling, frees it from its classic, religious association, and provides for its application to non-religious endeavor.

In conclusion, it is suggested that upon further research and study, the concept of a calling can be a vital and significant motivator, indded, part of the critical psychological and emotional makeup for those individuals in our society who are not fulfilled by material rewards. It is hypothesized here that the public-minded individual can find his or her calling through the medium of public service, can help restore the sacredness of public service as a public as a public trust, and can satisfy his or her search for self-fulfillment through the redefined concept of the calling.     

Mutual insurance as an elusive concept in traditional rural communities

During the last two decades, economists have paid increasing attention to the role of informal risk‐sharing arrangements as a privileged way through which traditional rural communities can achieve a significant degree of protection against income fluctuations and other hazards beyond their control. This article however argues that when they enter into such arrangements members of these communities are guided by a principle of balanced reciprocity (they expect a return from any contribution or payment they make) rather than by a true logic of mutual insurance. More precisely, they do not conceive of insurance as a game where there are winners and losers and where income is redistributed between lucky and unlucky individuals. None the less, traditional agrarian societies have proven able to develop a restricted range of sustainable forms of mutual insurance that avoid the aforementioned problem.     

相互的责任共同的责任——正析"中国责任论"

中国实行改革开放以来,国民经济实现了长期的持续稳定增长.中国特色社会主义事业更加坚固,中国的国际地位和国际影响力不断提升.西方世界观察中国的心态也是千变万化,时下"威胁论"、"机遇论"、"责任论"并存.