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Self-Referentiality of Cognition and (De)Formation of Ethnic Boundaries: A Comparative Study on Korean Diaspora in Russia, China, the United States and Japan
by Oleg PakhomovThis book develops a new approach towards the formation of the ethnic boundary as a complex interrelation between cognitive operations and ethnic/national boundaries formation process. Korean diaspora in China, Russia, the United States, and Japan illustrate how this process correlates with the nationalism of the host societies, highlighting the differences and similarities. It covers a wide range of topics, from politics and economics to arts, mass culture and psychology, from comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives, at the same time avoiding eclectic combinations of different spheres of knowledge.This book challenges interactionist and post-modernist paradigms that dominate today’s social science and facilitates dialogue between social and natural scientists, especially cognitive studies to promote more complex and still systematic approach towards society. It combines in-depth research, comparative perspectives and theoretical thoroughness. It appeals to anyone interested in history, culture, economic and other aspects of Korean migration; the general theory and practice of migration; East Asian studies, Asian American studies, Russian studies and studies on social complexity and cognition.
Sustainable Development of Rice and Water Resources in Mainland Southeast Asia and Mekong River Basin
by Tuyet L. Cosslett Patrick D. CosslettThis book highlights rice and water resources security in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam – countries that share the international Mekong River, which is a source of both regional cooperation and conflict. It discusses the topography, population, economy, rice production and rice trade of these four riparian countries, and analyses the impacts of climate change, El Nino and La Nina, and the construction of Mekong mainstream dams on water resources and rice productivity. Further, this publication assesses the role of the Mekong River Commission, a river basin organization responsible for the sustainable development and water resource management of the Mekong, and examines regional cooperation frameworks such as the Lower Mekong Initiative, and the Mekong-Japan Summit. The book then explores the emerging role of China in promoting the Lancang-Mekong cooperation between China and Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam in developing the Mekong River Basin, which could determine the future water and rice security of the region.
China’s Rural Development Road (Research Series on the Chinese Dream and China’s Development Path)
by Xiaoshan Zhang Zhou LiThis book systematically reviews the experiences and problems encountered in the development of China’s rural areas over the past three decades since the start of the country’s economic reform. As such, it addresses the most important aspects in terms of China’s rural communities, farmers and agriculture from the perspective of development, such as the agricultural management system, rural land tenure system, rural fiscal and taxation system, financial system, science and technology system, rural governance structure, poverty alleviation, environmental protection, etc. The approach employed combines essential theories, laws, and policy strategies with rural development practice in order to analyze the success stories and lingering problems, to explore the causes of both, and to offer an outlook on the future of rural development.
Selected Topics on Archaeology, History and Culture in the Malay World
by Mohd Rohaizat Abdul Wahab Ros Mahwati Ahmad Zakaria Muhlis Hadrawi Zuliskandar RamliThis book presents selected academic papers addressing five key research areas – archaeology, history, language, culture and arts – related to the Malay Civilisation. It outlines new findings, interpretations, policies, methodologies and theories that were presented at the International Seminar on Archaeology, History, and Language in the Malay Civilisation (ASBAM5) in 2016. Further, it provides new perspectives and serves as a vital point of reference for all researchers, students, policymakers and legislators who have an interest in the Malay Civilisation.
Mainstreaming Climate Co-Benefits in Indian Cities: Post-Habitat III Innovations and Reforms (Exploring Urban Change in South Asia)
by Mahendra Sethi Jose A. Puppim de OliveiraThis volume presents a novel framework to understand urban climate co-benefits in India, that is, tackling climate change and achieving sustainable development goals in cities. It utilizes methods and tools from several assessment frameworks to scientifically evaluate sector co-benefits for informed decision making. The co-benefits approach can lead to significant improvements in the way societies use environmental resources and distribute their outputs. The volume discusses four main themes: (1) Concepts and theories on cities and climate co-benefits; (2) Contextualizing co-benefit issues across spatial scales and sectors; (3) Sectoral analyses of co-benefits in energy, transport, buildings, waste, and biodiversity, and (4) Innovations and reforms needed to promote co-benefits in cities. The discussions are based on empirical research conducted in Indian cities and aligned with the international discourse on the 2030 UN Development Agenda and New Urban Agenda created at the UN-Habitat III in 2016. The analyses and recommendations in this volume are of considerable interest to policy experts, scholars and researchers of urban and regional studies, geography, public policy, international development/law, economics, development planning, environmental planning, climate change, energy studies, and so on.
Film Tourism in Asia: Evolution, Transformation, and Trajectory (Perspectives on Asian Tourism)
by Sangkyun Kim Stijn ReijndersThis book focuses on film tourism: the phenomenon of people visiting locations from popular film or TV series. It is based on a unique, Asian perspective, encompassing case studies from around the pan-Asian region, including China, Taiwan, India, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Singapore. By focusing emphatically on film tourism in the non-West, this book offers a timely and crucial contribution to a more comprehensive understanding of the relation between film, culture and place, particularly in light of the increased volume of media production and consumption across Asia, and the consequent film tourism destinations that are currently popping up across the Asian continent.
Intelligent City Evaluation System (Strategic Research on Construction and Promotion of China's Intelligent Cities)
by Zhiqiang WuThis book assesses various intelligent-city evaluation systems around the globe, and subsequently combines that assessment with local-government and enterprise practices to create an evaluation index system for quantifying the Intelligent City concept. In addition, the book provides the results of the CityIQ indicator ranking of intelligent cities in China and worldwide, a system that focuses on three of the most crucial aspects of urban development: the development environment, future trends, and construction and operation. After data sorting, calculation and dimensionless treatment, a score system ranging from 0 to 100 is created for ranking and analyzing cities. Providing unique strategies for promoting an intelligent city evaluation system, the book offers a valuable reference guide for intelligent-city decision-makers, as well as leaders in public urban economy, social welfare and environmental authorities.
Women in the Indian Diaspora: Historical Narratives and Contemporary Challenges
by Amba PandeThis volume brings into focus a range of emergent issues related to women in the Indian diaspora. The conditions propelling women’s migration and their experiences during the process of migration and settlement have always been different and very specific to them. Standing ‘in-between’ the two worlds of origin and adoption, women tend to experience dialectic tensions between freedom and subjugation, but they often use this space to assert independence, and to redefine their roles and perceptions of self. The central idea in this volume is to understand women’s agency in addressing and redressing the complex issues faced by them; in restructuring the cultural formats of patriarchy and gender relations; managing the emerging conflicts over what is to be transmitted to the following generations,; renegotiating their domestic roles and embracing new professional and educational successes; and adjusting to the institutional structures of the host state. The essays included in the volume discuss women in the Indian diaspora from multidisciplinary perspectives involving social, economic, cultural, and political aspects. Such an effort privileges diasporic women’s experiences and perspectives in the academia and among policy makers.
Schopenhauer on Self, World and Morality: Vedantic and Non-Vedantic Perspectives
by Arati BaruaThis volume is a unique collection of philosophical essays on various aspects of Schopenhauer's understanding of the nature and character of the world through the classical philosophies of the Vedanta and Buddhism and classical and modern thinkers like Bhartṛhari, Tagore, and Wittgenstein. It includes reflective insights about Schopenhauer and the metaphysics of the world, the self, and morality from scholars who have pioneered the philosophical study of the relation between Schopenhauer and Indian schools of thoughts and intellectual history. This insightful volume is a good academic resource for further research in comparative philosophy of Schopenhauer and the Indian tradition.
Governance and Governed: Multi-Country Perspectives on State, Society and Development
by Madhushree Sekher S. Parasuraman Ruth KattumuriBuilding, largely, on insights from India, and case studies in Brazil, China, and South Africa, this book provides insights into the contested topic of ‘governance and governed’ from a state–society inter-relationship perspective. It argues that the centrality of an understanding of state-governance today is rooted in concerns regarding diversities and contingencies of concrete political reality to address inequalities, exclusion and vulnerabilities. These countries are part of the BRICSs consortium, and have been recognised for their growth potential in the world economy. But their economic progress alone may not necessarily translate into a better quality of life. The approach here is not to focus on a particular understanding of governance, but to utilise a wider lens to understand the nature and extent of incremental processes in the different case-study contexts in order to offer a broader framework for procedural and substantive understanding of governance, rather than a prescription of a government and its activity of governing. The focus is on deriving practical lessons about governance process that are of interest to the wider development community.
Re-visioning the Public in Post-reform Urban China: Poetics and Politics in Guangzhou
by Junxi QianThis book offers a theoretical intervention into the normative ideals of public space that are deeply rooted in Western urbanism. It disrupts the binaries of presence/absence, inclusion/exclusion by presenting a series of case studies that vividly convey the complexity and vicissitude of grassroots spatial practices. It engages powerfully with the question of what constitutes the “urban public” in our everyday cities. Moreover, it provides a fresh perspective on the proliferating scholarship on Chinese urbanism in the reform era by seriously considering the ways in which ordinary urban inhabitants respond to and negotiate the impacts of rapid social change and the reshuffling of the systems of values and ideologies. The urban public, therefore, is analyzed as an important field in which identities and cultural differences are formed and performed. This book is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in theories of urban public space in general or urban transformation of post-reform China in particular.
School Belonging in Adolescents: Theory, Research and Practice (SpringerBriefs in Psychology)
by Kelly-Ann Allen Margaret L. KernThis book explores the concept of school belonging in adolescents from a socio-ecological perspective, acknowledging that young people are uniquely connected to a broad network of groups and systems within a school system. Using a socio-ecological framework, it positions belonging as an essential aspect of psychological functioning for which schools offer unique opportunities to improve. It also offers insights into the factors that influence school belonging at the student level during adolescence in educational settings. Taking a socio-ecological perspective and drawing from innovative research methods, the book encourages researchers interested in school leadership to foster students’ sense of belonging by developing their qualities and by changing school systems and processes
The Social Determinants of Health in India: Concepts, Processes, and Indicators
by Devaki Nambiar Arundati MuralidharanDrawing from the work of academics and practitioners from ten states across the country, this edited volume showcases and synthesises the diversity and richness of efforts to understand and act on the social determinants of health in India, the conditions in which we are born, grow, live work and age. Such an effort is salient in the current era of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which have foregrounded the issue of equity and the need for a comprehensive, multi-sectoral agenda for health and development. In India, particularly in the last decade, there have been myriad efforts to more critically theorise and intervene in areas with bearing on health, like conflict, nutrition or urbanisation, or to address the concerns of vulnerable groups like women, children and the elderly. From these efforts emerge lessons of convergence for academic and policymaking institutions in India who are looking to operationalise and bring life to the SDG agenda in India and other Low and Middle Income Country settings. The book comprises eleven chapters and six short commentaries that appear in conversation with each other, as well as an annexure of validated, ready-to-use indicators for monitoring of social determinants of health.
Quantifying Resistance: Political Crime and the People’s Court in Nazi Germany (Studies in Economic History)
by Wayne Geerling Gary MageeThis book presents and uses a major, new database of the most serious forms of internal resistance to the Nazi state to study empirically the whole phenomenon of resistance to an authoritarian regime. By studying serious political resistance from a quantitative historical perspective, the book opens up a new avenue of research for economic history.The database underpinning the book was painstakingly compiled from official state records of treason and/or high treason tried before the German People’s Court (Volksgerichtshof) between 1933 and 1945. It brings together material on resistance groups stored in the archives of the Federal Republic of Germany and Austria with previously inaccessible files from the former German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia and Soviet Union. Through searching these records, the authors have been able to reconstruct in hitherto unattainable detail the economic, social, political, ethnic and familial profiles, backgrounds, and influences of all 4,378 civilians of the Third Reich active in Germany, Austria and the outside territories for whom there are complete records.The findings of their research afford fresh, new interdisciplinary insights and perspectives, not only on the configuration, timing, impact and profile of resistance to the Nazi state, but also on a range of real-world behaviours common within authoritarian states, such as defection, reward and punishment, and commitment to group identities. The book’s statistical analysis reveals precisely the who, how, where and when of serious resistance. In so doing, it advances significantly our understanding of the overall pattern and nature of serious resistance within Nazi Germany.
Changing Contours of Indian Agriculture: Investment, Income and Non-farm Employment
by Seema Bathla Amaresh DubeyThis book presents an extensive study on India’s agricultural and nonfarm sectors, examining prices, investments and policies, and suggesting various essential technological changes. It offers appropriate financial, institutional, and policy frameworks that can help to sustain agricultural growth and augment farmers’ incomes across geographical locations. Further, it addresses agricultural growth and rural poverty reduction through multiple pathways that also tackle varied geographical locations, making it a highly useful guide to understanding the changing contours in agriculture and rural areas across the country and among rural households with various social and economic backgrounds.
International Labor Mobility to and from Taiwan (SpringerBriefs in Economics)
by Yumiko NakaharaThis book is the first to cover the research of whole aspects of international mobility to and from Taiwan of both skilled and unskilled workers. The migration of skilled workers is a field that has not been well researched, although it is becoming very important for the economic growth of newly developing countries. The “brain circulation” through which workers who return to their home country bring back technology and the business style of a developed country contributed greatly to Taiwan in the 1980s and1990s. However, according to the author’s research, there is a little expectation that returnees now will contribute as in the past, as the proportion of students leaving Taiwan to study abroad is decreasing. Taiwanese companies therefore are seeking skilled human resources from developed countries in other ways. The author also found that some Taiwanese have been to China, Singapore or Japan in response to companies and universities’ recruiting by offering high monetary compensation. This book clarifies those aspects of international skilled labor mobility to and from Taiwan and also analyzes the various issues regarding unskilled foreign laborers in Taiwan. There has been a gradual increase in unskilled foreign laborers, working both in industry and in domestic care in Taiwan. This book elucidates the various controversial issues arising from the increased presence of foreign laborers—for instance, the costs of employing foreign laborers, or problems related to the foreign workforce.
International Migration of China: Status, Policy and Social Responses to the Globalization of Migration
by Lu Miao Huiyao WangThis book provides a systemic and detailed monographic study of Chinese outbound migration. It not only breaks down the basic trends of this migration with respect to destinations and the like, but also analyzes its unique features, which include the largely middle- and upper-class makeup of emigrants and their investment activities overseas, particularly when it comes to buying property. The Chinese are the largest foreign buyers of real estate in the US, Canada and Australia. By explaining this and other special aspects of Chinese emigration and their impact on China and receiving countries, this book provides a fresh and interesting look at this important phenomenon.
Issues on Health and Healthcare in India: Focus on the North Eastern Region (India Studies in Business and Economics)
by Utpal Kumar De Manoranjan Pal Premananda BharatiThis book addresses health and healthcare issues in India with a special focus on the Northeast region. Pursuing a multidisciplinary approach, it highlights key issues in health and healthcare and outlines the actions needed to achieve the desired results in these areas as laid out in the UN Millennium Development Goals. In addition to introducing some new questions on health and healthcare development, it presents cross-country analyses, and examines the convergence of healthcare across Indian states, as well as mortality and morbidity in the Northeast. The book also explores the regional complexities involved in the discussion of these topics. It presents a number of specific techniques, such as two-level logistic regression, analysis of mental health, probabilistic and predictive analysis of nutritional deficit, and generalized linear mixed models, that can be used to analyze mortality and morbidity and factors affecting out-of-pocket expenses in the healthcare context. Lastly, it presents concrete case studies substantiating the theoretical models discussed. As such, the book offers a valuable resource for health researchers, professionals and policymakers alike.
Crossing Borders: Governing Environmental Disasters in a Global Urban Age in Asia and the Pacific
by Michelle Ann Miller Michael Douglass Matthias GarschagenThis multidisciplinary book examines the diverse ways in which environmental disasters with compounding impacts are being governed as they traverse sovereign territories across rapidly urbanising societies in Asia and the Pacific. Combining theoretical advances with contextually rich studies, the book examines efforts to tackle the complexities of cross-border environmental governance. In an urban age in which disasters are not easily contained within neatly delineated jurisdictions, both in terms of their interconnected causalities and their cascading effects, governance structures and mechanisms are faced with major challenges related to cooperation, collaboration and information sharing. This book helps bridge the gap between theory and practice by offering fresh insights and contrasting explanations for variations in transboundary disaster governance regimes among urbanising populations in the Asia-Pacific.
Reconstruction of the Public Sphere in the Socially Mediated Age
by Kaoru Endo Satoshi Kurihara Takashi Kamihigashi Fujio ToriumiThe aim of this book is to establish a basis for resolving the various issues facing modern society by exploring the field of Computational Social Science, which fuses the social and natural sciences. Today, society is threatened by problems concerning the environment, population growth, hunger and epidemics, all of which could lead to the extinction of humankind. However, attempting to resolve these issues is extremely difficult, because of the complex, intertwined factors involved, and because these issues are not just matters related to nature and the environment but also to society. In this book, we investigate this aporia of the social sciences with the help of big data (which has gained considerable attention in recent years) and techniques such as agent-based simulation. Our aim is to resolve the complex system problems characteristic of the present age. In this regard, the book focuses on specific issues such as the reconstruction of public character in our social-media-saturated modern lifestyle, the current state of social capital, and the resultant social changes.
Psychoactive Drug Abuse in Hong Kong: Life Satisfaction and Drug Use (Quality of Life in Asia #11)
by Yuet Wah Cheung Nicole Wai-ting CheungThis book studies young people’s use of psychoactive drugs and its social and psychological correlates in Hong Kong. Specifically, it focuses on how life satisfaction may affect drug use among a sample of psychoactive drug users in Hong Kong. The book addresses the dearth of research on the role of young people’s life satisfaction in their drug abuse and engagement in other risk behaviors in Hong Kong. It also examines how changes in the drug scene from heroin addiction to psychoactive party drug use since the late 1990s has necessitated a deeper exploration of the subculture of young people, which shapes their attitudes and behaviors regarding how they structure their lives and how they perceive the risks of drug use, in the context of the global trend of normalization of recreational drug use. Readers will benefit from the results of a rigorous analysis of a unique set of longitudinal data that reveals the factors influencing drug use among young psychoactive drug users, academic implications of the findings for social science theory and research on young people’s drug use, and practical implications of the findings for prevention and intervention services for young people in Hong Kong and other Asian societies.
Domestic Violence and Health Care in India: Policy and Practice
by Meerambika MahapatroThis book discusses health care issues related to domestic violence, using extensive case studies from India. By discussing the global literature, legal systems, methodological challenges of gathering information on domestic violence, and health systems issues, along with learnings from case studies, it fills a significant gap in the literature between health care policy and practice vis-à-vis victims of domestic violence. It therefore enables a systemic and systematic response to incidents of domestic violence. Policy instructions, court verdicts, government interventions, community-based direct interventions and related case discussions in the book help in the understanding and management of cases. Though the book uses case studies from India, it addresses globally relevant issues for health care professionals. In view of the paucity of application of systematic evidence-based knowledge, the holistic perspective presented in the book is important to prevent domestic violence, protect women’s rights, and promote healthcare and wellbeing of women and children facing domestic violence. Medical professionals are expected to intervene in instances of injuries related to domestic violence---a responsibility that they are currently unable to fulfil due to lack of training in recognizing abuse and lack of tools for intervention. This book improves hands-on-knowledge by providing information on where to refer victims for assistance and timely intervention. Comprehensive yet lucid, this book is useful for academics, policy makers, non-government organizations and women’s rights groups in helping victims during and after a violent episode and also in improving reporting and referral services.
Redevelopment of Western China (Research Series on the Chinese Dream and China’s Development Path)
by Huiqin Yao Zhangyong XuThe book provides a systematic review of research results on regional economic competitiveness, and constructs an evaluation index system based on nine key aspects: the development of a micro-economy; industrial development; enterprise strength; the sciences; education; innovation; environment governance and protection; financial development; and the degree of opening to the outside world. The book subsequently provides policy suggestions on how to enhance the economic and social development of the West of China based on a comprehensive evaluation and analysis. In addition to comparing the recent social development of the provinces in the West, the book also calls upon the central government to play the leading role, encourage mass participation and promote the opening up of the West of China.
China-ASEAN Environment Outlook 1 (CAEO-1): Towards Green Development
by China-ASEAN Environmental CooperationThis book presents a comprehensive analysis of the status and progress of China-ASEAN green development and examines the common development issues in China and ASEAN Member States (AMSs). It also explores development trends within the framework of global and regional environmental governance and discusses the approaches towards green development in China and AMSs, offering its own definition of green development and using a “pressure-state-response” (PSR) model to build a framework for assessing green development. The book includes typical policy measures and numerous practices for green development in China and AMSs in the form of tables, figures and boxes. Based on detailed analysis, it argues that the global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development brings significant opportunities to China and AMSs, that the ongoing pragmatic cooperation should be further advanced, and that a connection between the Belt and Road Initiative and green ASEAN Community should be established to achieve regional sustainable development. As such it furthers readers’ understanding of environment and development and practical policy advice for promoting China-ASEAN cooperation on environment and green development. Intended for decision makers from the government, business sector, and civil societies who are working to boost green development and China-ASEAN cooperation, it is also a valuable resource for government officials, researchers and non-experts interested in creating a balanced relationship between the environment and development.
Inequality, Poverty and Development in India: Focus on the North Eastern Region (India Studies in Business and Economics)
by Utpal Kumar De Manoranjan Pal Premananda BharatiThis book reviews the fulfillment of two Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), namely poverty and inequality, in the Indian subcontinent. It examines the complex interplay among development, inequality and poverty in relation to corruption, environmental resource management, agricultural adjustment to climate change and institutional arrangements, with a special focus on the Northeastern region of the country. The topics covered offer a blend of theoretical arguments and empirical data with regard to the three main themes of the book, while also providing agricultural and environmental perspectives. The book also provides guidelines for policy initiatives for harnessing the region’s potential in the areas of industry, trade, sustainable use of mineral, forest and other natural resources, nature-based tourism through proper infrastructure development, and resolving land issues to achieve inclusive development.In addition to introducing some new questions on the development-ethnic conflict interface, it uses sophisticated tools such as the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition method in consumption expenditure to show the endowment, and return to endowment effects; and techniques like spatial correlation-regression to analyze regional variation, co-integration, vector autoregression, the panel data technique and the adaptation index to climate change, to understand socio-economic complexities and the effect of the concerned variables on entrepreneurship and human development.The book offers a timely contribution to our understanding of major MDGs and highlights their successes and failures. It also includes analytical frameworks that are key to future policy initiatives. Further, it disseminates approaches and methods that improve livelihoods and standards of living through poverty reduction and promoting inclusive development along with sustainable utilization of available natural resources. Putting forward various ideas for creating a more sustainable future, it inspires and encourages readers to pursue further studies to address the gaps that still remain.