Livelihood improvement and smallholder beekeeping in Kenya: the unrealised potential

This article examines the potential of beekeeping, as an appropriate livelihood strategy for smallholder farm households using the sustainable livelihoods framework. A study undertaken over a six-year period (2004–9) with over 300 small-scale farmers in Kenya's Rift Valley Province found that despite excellent revenue earning potential, honey yields and returns remain comparatively low. Compared to maize, the staple crop of most Kenyan farmers, it was found that a typical ten-hive enterprise generated earnings equivalent to 0.86ha of maize. The article emphasises the need to build human capital for beekeeping rather than just promoting modern beehives.

L'amélioration des moyens d'existence pour les petits apiculteurs au Kenya

Cet article examine le potentiel de l'apiculture comme une stratégie adaptée à l'amélioration des sources de revenu pour les ménages de petits agriculteurs en se servant du cadre moyens d'existence renouvelable. Une étude d'une durée de six ans (2004-09) entrepris parmi plus de 300 petits agriculteurs dans le Rift Valley Province du Kenya a trouvé que, malgré le potentiel excellent pour faire des bénéfices, la récolte du miel et les revenus restent relativement faibles. Une comparaison avec le maïs, la culture de base de la plupart de fermiers kényans, a trouvé qu'une entreprise typique de dix ruches génère un revenu qui est l'équivalent de celui produit par 0.86ha de maïs. L'article souligne l'importance de développer le capital humain pour l'apiculture plutôt que de se limiter à la promotion de ruches modernes.

Mejoras en los medios de vida y los pequeños apicultores de Kenia: el potencial no realizado

El presente artículo analiza el potencial que tiene la apicultura como estrategia de sustento para los pequeños productores que utilizan el marco de medios de vida sustentables. Durante seis años, de 2004 a 2009, se llevó a cabo un estudio entre 300 pequeños productores de la provincia del Valle Rift en Kenia, el cual evidenció que, a pesar de su excelente potencial para generar ingresos, los rendimientos de miel y las ganancias se mantienen relativamente bajos. Asimismo, se halló que, en comparación con el maíz, cultivo básico de la mayoría de los campesinos kenianos, el conjunto típico de 10 colmenas generó ganancias equivalentes a 0.86 ha de maíz. El artículo concluye afirmando que, además de promover la apicultura moderna, es necesario construir el capital humano para la apicultura.

Melhoria dos meios de subsistência e pequenos produtores de abelhas no Quênia: o potencial não-percebido

Esse artigo examina o potencial da apicultura como estratégia adequada para meios de subsistência de famílias de pequenos produtores rurais utilizando a estrutura de meios de subsistência sustentáveis. Um estudo realizado durante um período de seis anos (2004–9) com mais de 300 pequenos produtores rurais da Província de Rift Valley, no Quênia, constatou que apesar do excelente potencial para gerar renda, a produtividade e rendimento da apicultura permanecem comparativamente baixos. Em comparação com o milho, plantação básica da maioria dos produtores rurais quenianos, constatou-se que um empreendimento típico com dez colméias gerou ganhos equivalentes a 0.86ha de milho. O artigo enfatiza a necessidade de se desenvolver capital humano para apicultura em vez de apenas promover instalações modernas para a produção de abelhas.     

Cracking Hegemony in Thailand: Gramsci,Bourdieu and the Dialectics of Rebellion

Gramsci's notion of “hegemony,” like Bourdieu's concept of “habitus,” seems designed to explain accommodation to existing social structures, rather than resistance. In this paper, however, I draw from the Prison Notebooks some arguments that contribute to a Gramscian understanding of how hegemony may break apart under the weight of the same uneven development processes central to hegemony. Drawing also from Bourdieu, I argue that the conceptions of “hegemony” and “habitus” inscribe the possibility of resistance within the embodied experience of accommodation to class rule. I then elaborate a dialectical, Gramscian-Bourdieusian account of the Red Shirt movement in Thailand, showing that the seeds for the destruction of royalist hegemony in Thailand have been sown in the embodied processes of accommodation to ruling class hegemony. The breadth and depth of challenges to this hegemony, moreover, are evident not only from the activities of the Red Shirt movement and regional discontent in Northern and Northeast Thailand but from the resistance of working class women to attempts to police their sexuality and limit their consumerism. The refusal of Thai elites to accept the breadth and depth of Thailand's dispositional transformation has legitimised – in their eyes – the brutal crackdown on Red Shirt protestors that resulted in the April-May 2010 massacres. Yet repression can only kill off political leaders and specific parties; it will not likely derail the growing resentment of ordinary Thais over elitist class rule.     

Using self- and peer assessment at honours level: bridging the gap between law school and the workplace

Growing awareness and interest in pedagogical issues permit greater experimentation with the design and delivery of law teaching. While employability skills are now commonplace within the law curriculum, the development of graduate attributes can also be enhanced through assessment methods requiring students to apply clearly understood criteria to their own performance. Where students are allocated work-related tasks, moderated self- and peer assessment can also help replicate the sense of “real” situations and act as an even more powerful stimulus to learning. The article considers staff and student perceptions of group-based learning in which assessment is considered both a means to “deep learning” and an end in itself insofar as students are allocated the task of formally recommending grades for coursework. Recognising that student-led learning and student-driven assessment are still relatively unorthodox in law teaching, the article concludes that this form of assessment method can clearly assist learning and the enhancement of graduate attributes and moreover can be justified objectively by reference to standard assumptions of validity, reliability, convenience and integrity.     

Full employment

The recent civic revival has been largely carried out in the register of contemporary political philosophy, with its characteristic division between liberal and communitarian visions of a transcendental moral subject. This article argues that such an approach, with its affiliations to Rousseau's pathbreaking recuperation of the classical civic tradition, tends to bypass the question of what concrete attributes have been required of citizens, and how citizens have historically acquired the attributes to function as responsible civic-minded individuals. As a result its demaraction of ‘progressive’ and ‘conservative’ models of historical citizenship is unworldly and unhelpful. I conclude by sketching in a tentative outline of a history of modern citizen self-discipline in the early modern period, when citizen status expanded from the city environment to the populations of the territorial states. And I suggest, following Foucault, that these techniques still form the foundations of modern citize-formation.     

Marin: a Pascalian diversion

Discussion of industrial democracy in Britain has been notably untheoretical, especially with respect to economic theory. There is economic literature on the issue, but it is very much dominated by neoclassical theories of the firm. This essay attempts to assess the arguments of that neo-classicism. Part of this involves some discussion of the basis of the hegemony of that type of economics within theories of the firm, which requires some discussion of the history of the theory of the firm. The conclusion is that whilst neo-classicism is not to be dismissed, an adequate theorisation of the economics of industrial democracy cannot be based on neo-classical premises about the structure and conduct of firms.     

Minimal Y-chromosome haplotypes plus DYS287 in Jewish populations

POPULATION: A total of 71 Jewish individuals obtained from the collection of The National Laboratory for the Genetics of Israeli Populations at Tel-Aviv University: 14 Ashkenazi, 21 Sephardic (from Turkey), 23 North African (from Morocco, Libya and Tunicia) and 13 Oriental (from Iraq and Iran).     

Alligator attacks in southwest Florida

The American alligator inhabits bodies of fresh water in Florida and other southeastern states. Although attacks on pets are frequent, alligator attacks on humans are relatively rare because of the animal's natural fear of man. Because of the rarity of attacks on humans, the pathologic findings and pathophysiology of death in such cases have not been well characterized in the literature. We report three cases of fatal alligator attacks that occurred in southwest Florida, each with different pathologic findings and mechanisms of death. Although the cause of death in each case was attributed to the alligator attack, the mechanisms of death differed and included exsanguination because of amputation of an extremity, overwhelming sepsis, and drowning. These cases illustrate the varied pathophysiologies associated with deaths due to alligator attacks on humans and the features that distinguish alligator bites from those of other aquatic predators.