Unlocking from Community Stakeholders,Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects for effective Company–Community relationship

Abstract

Conflicts in mining fields that revolve around the type and perceived impact of CSR projects seem to be daunting to solve. Such conflicts emerge from misconceptions among community stakeholders’ that lead to a failed company–community relationship. This inimical situation threatens peace, security, lives, and properties at the community level. To resolve the company–community conflicts, it is important to minimize the misconception among community stakeholders’ by identifying their preferences of CSR projects. However, the challenge of identifying these projects in mining fields is yet to be fully explored and understood. The aim of this paper is to identify community stakeholders’ topmost preferences of CSR projects for an effective company–community relationship and propose a path for community engagement. A sample of 604 respondents comprising community leaders’ and local residents’ from three regions which host Gold Mining Firms with level ‘A’ membership from the Ghana Chamber of Mines were drawn for this study. Using a questionnaire made up of close and open ended questions, a survey was conducted. With SPSS 16.0, the data on the close ended questions were analyzed with ranking and factor analyses while the open ended were drawn into teams to support the former. The results of the ranking analysis show that different group of stakeholders’ had a different preference for CSR projects. The factor analysis revealed that for effective company–community relationship both stakeholders’ preferred a Streamline Social Intervention and Improve Stakeholder Economic related CSR projects. Base on these findings, the study recommends that Mining firms’ should give maximum consideration to projects that seek the welfare of both stakeholders’ and have equal engagement with all stakeholders’. Also, managing expectations before, during and after mining should be a shared responsibility of all the stakeholders’.     

社会保障权的宪法思考

社会保障权是公民在年老、疾病或者丧失劳动能力的情况下,国家和社会给予物质帮助的权利.社会保障权既是社会权利、经济权利,更是宪法权利、基本权利.确立社会保障权的宪法地位对于发挥其保障作用尤为关键.     

Non-racialism and the African National Congress: views from the branch

South Africa's ruling party is well known as an organisation that supports the ideal of non-racialism. However, the extent to which the African National Congress (ANC) has defined and instrumentalised the concept of non-racialism is contested. This article looks at the history of non-racialism in the party and more recent interpretations by ANC leadership, before examining how non-racialism is understood, 19 years into democracy, by members of the party. Based on interviews with over 45 ANC branch members, the article describes how members, broadly speaking, have deep-seated concerns with non-racialism in the ANC and in society more generally. There is recognition from ANC branch members that race relations have significantly improved since the ANC moved into government; however, they feel not enough change has taken place and that racial tensions are impeding social cohesion and concomitant growth and progress in the country. There is division among members in regards to the efficacy and impact of the party's racially based policies such as affirmative action as well as the manner in which race potentially influences leadership opportunities within the party. Furthermore, the article shows that there is lack of definition and direction on the part of the ANC in regards to the instrumentalisation of non-racialism, and this deficiency has negative consequences for racial cohesion in the party. The article concludes by discussing how investigations into party branches through the lens of non-racialism, highlights more deep-seated concerns about local-level party democracy and a party fractured at the grassroots.     

The Positioning of Economic Rationality in Colombia

This article explains how economic rationality in Colombia came to play a growing role in the management of economic policy and social analysis, as a case study of a process that is observed in various parts of the world. In addition to the rise of a technocratic elite, this involved the positioning of economic rationality in managing strategic state institutions and the creation of knowledge about society. We explain the mechanisms that enabled economists to occupy these positions, displacing other social scientists and sociologists.     

The Campesino-to-Campesino agroecology movement of ANAP in Cuba: social process methodology in the construction of sustainable peasant agriculture and food sovereignty

Agroecology has played a key role in helping Cuba survive the crisis caused by the collapse of the socialist bloc in Europe and the tightening of the US trade embargo. Cuban peasants have been able to boost food production without scarce and expensive imported agricultural chemicals by first substituting more ecological inputs for the no longer available imports, and then by making a transition to more agroecologically integrated and diverse farming systems. This was possible not so much because appropriate alternatives were made available, but rather because of the Campesino-a-Campesino (CAC) social process methodology that the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) used to build a grassroots agroecology movement. This paper was produced in a ‘self-study’ process spearheaded by ANAP and La Via Campesina, the international agrarian movement of which ANAP is a member. In it we document and analyze the history of the Campesino-to-Campesino Agroecology Movement (MACAC), and the significantly increased contribution of peasants to national food production in Cuba that was brought about, at least in part, due to this movement. Our key findings are (i) the spread of agroecology was rapid and successful largely due to the social process methodology and social movement dynamics, (ii) farming practices evolved over time and contributed to significantly increased relative and absolute production by the peasant sector, and (iii) those practices resulted in additional benefits including resilience to climate change.     

Creating an Extrafamilial Living Environment

Abstract

As human actors, the staff members and children who inhabit a residential center do not just react to their physical and social environment. In many ways they can be said to enact or create it.     

Power and property: commercialization,enclosures, and the transformation of agrarian relations in Ethiopia

The transnational agrarian social movement Vía Campesina is campaigning to have the United Nations negotiate and implement a Declaration, and eventually an International Convention, on Peasants' Rights. This article analyzes the origins and demands of the campaign and the place of the claimed rights in international law. Peasant organizations hope to follow in the footsteps of indigenous peoples' movements that participated in the negotiations preceding the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The peasants' rights campaign has succeeded in linking its demands to discussions of the right to food in the United Nations, where concern is growing over the approach of the 2015 target for realizing the Millennium Development Goals, in particular the halving of the numbers of people suffering from hunger. The campaign is likely to face stiff resistance from powerful UN member states, but could achieve substantial advances even if the path to a convention is difficult or never completed.     

Guidelines in Child and Youth Care Family Work

SUMMARY

There are many paths that can be taken with the families we encounter in our work. It is this richness in options that can make the child and youth care approach so powerful. However, amongst each potential path there are a number of common guideposts that serve as markers for our interactions with families. These guiding principles are described through the use of examples from a family in a program for teens who are parenting.     

Social Movements and the Construction of Crisis Actors: Collective Responsibility,Identity, and Governance

This article examines the Europeanization of social movements following the European sovereign debt crisis. It develops a theoretical framework to measure degrees of social movement Europeanization, incorporating targets, participants, and issue frame dimensions of mobilization. Europeanization of social movements occurs when they collaborate with similar movements in other countries, claim a European identity, invoke Europe-wide solidarity, contest authorities beyond the state and ascribe responsibility for solving the crisis to European Union (EU). By targeting EU authorities, social movements may contribute to the construction of the EU as a crisis actor and through deliberative processes define the roles and identities of such actors.     

Encounters With Irregular Migrants in Social Work—“Collateral Damage” and Reframing of Recognizability in Swedish Public Social Services

The aim is to explore experiences and considerations of social workers regarding irregular migrants, understood as being prone to be “collateral damage.” It is revealed that some social workers approve assistance exceeding that which can find support in the national legislation. They are hereby addressing the normative conditions for recognition and installing new frames for apprehending irregular migrants. This process is referred to as a reframing of recognizability. By exceeding the limits of “belonging,” social workers question their profession's national link as well as the inability of a nationally anchored understanding of social work to deal with irregular migrants.