The Applecart Project: Bi-cultural action research collaboration focused on dietary change and social capital within a Māori community

<p>Na to rourou, Na taku rourou, Ka ora ai Te iwi. …with your food basket, and my food basket, the people will thrive… The AppleCART Project was an action research project which evolved through a bi-cultural research relationship. The pairing of a Maori community organisation focused on wellbeing, with a Pākehā masters student, created a project that weaved together academic findings regarding barriers to dietary change, Māori health models and identity constructs and social capital indicators, and combined it with the organisation‟s experiential knowledge of a „hard to reach‟ Māori community. The development of The AppleCART Project therefore occurred at an intersection of four approaches: Māori, Pākehā, community, and academia. The 12-week project included weekly delivery of ingredients to prepare a healthy meal supported by social cooking workshops. Ten participants were interviewed; workshop observations and a post-project discussion group enriched the data, along with the author‟s personal action research diary. Ethnographic data describes a community that has a health consciousness but experiences of poverty hinder ability to improve dietary behaviour. Social capital indicators are present within the community, mainly located within whānau networks. Participants with less robust whānau networks particularly lacking in expressive support relied on CART for social support. It is suggested that CART functions as an urban marae providing space, place and security for its community, engendering the development of adaptive and fluid contemporary Māori identities. Contrasts between Māori relational and Pākehā instrumental approaches are discussed.</p>

The Applecart Project: Bi-cultural action research collaboration focused on dietary change and social capital within a Māori community

<p>Na to rourou, Na taku rourou, Ka ora ai Te iwi. …with your food basket, and my food basket, the people will thrive… The AppleCART Project was an action research project which evolved through a bi-cultural research relationship. The pairing of a Maori community organisation focused on wellbeing, with a Pākehā masters student, created a project that weaved together academic findings regarding barriers to dietary change, Māori health models and identity constructs and social capital indicators, and combined it with the organisation‟s experiential knowledge of a „hard to reach‟ Māori community. The development of The AppleCART Project therefore occurred at an intersection of four approaches: Māori, Pākehā, community, and academia. The 12-week project included weekly delivery of ingredients to prepare a healthy meal supported by social cooking workshops. Ten participants were interviewed; workshop observations and a post-project discussion group enriched the data, along with the author‟s personal action research diary. Ethnographic data describes a community that has a health consciousness but experiences of poverty hinder ability to improve dietary behaviour. Social capital indicators are present within the community, mainly located within whānau networks. Participants with less robust whānau networks particularly lacking in expressive support relied on CART for social support. It is suggested that CART functions as an urban marae providing space, place and security for its community, engendering the development of adaptive and fluid contemporary Māori identities. Contrasts between Māori relational and Pākehā instrumental approaches are discussed.</p>

The Circulation of Youth Policies and Adaptation of Youth Work Practices Organised by Young People at Local Level in France

This article is focused on two local participation initiatives in North America and Europe. The Youth Services Cooperatives, summer organizations created by teenagers in Quebec, have been adopted in France since 2013, with the support of local institutions responsible for organising youth policies in the Brittany region (France). The other initiative, youth dialogue exchanges organised by young people, was established in Italy, the United Kingdom, and France. This European scheme aimed to create new ways of thinking about cultural policies for young people at local level. Conceptually, this work is based on actor-network theory (Akrich, Callon, and Latour, 2006) and the transnationalisation of public policies (Hassenteufel, 2005) applied to youth policies (Loncle, 2011), with a view to understanding how organisations working across different countries adapt certain international initiatives between different local contexts. The research is based on fieldwork. Interviews were conducted with young people, youth workers, and decision makers in France and Quebec. In Italy and in the UK, informal discussions and interviews with decision makers were carried out, and observations were made during activities led by young people. The analysis demonstrates that the circulation of participation initiatives is strongly dependent on the original context, especially with regard to the organisation of youth policies. Some characteristics of the initiative, for example the model of community organisation, are difficult to transfer to a country where public policies are centred around public institutions. Because of the absence of international actors who would be able to facilitate links between the organizations involved in these projects, local youth workers have taken on the role of international mediators between the original project and the new initiative in the destination context. These experiences are of interest for understanding how young people can have a fundamental role in implementing new participation initiatives, and have an impact on the definition and implementation of youth policies.

Chicanx histories of the present: a praxis against gang injunctions in Orange County, California, 2008–2016

Chicanxs Unidxs de Orange County (CU) is a community organisation in Southern California. Founded in 2006, CU is small, multigenerational and multi-ethnic. Its organising has focused predominantly on building community power by focusing on local politics, abusive policing and the gentrification of Chicanx neighbourhoods. This article presents an evidence-based narrative of several CU campaigns (primarily between 2008 and 2016). CU’s tactical aggressiveness and strategic pragmatism forced significant changes to ‘civil gang injunctions’ in California. For decades, California law enforcement has used such injunctions to suppress a generation of young people of colour as ‘gang members’. Minors and adults have been prohibited indefinitely from engaging in otherwise legal activities without due process. CU’s emphasis on the longevity of institutionalised and societal racism, rooted in the colonial conquest, resembles arguments associated with critical race theory (CRT) – though CU was not inspired by CRT. CU’s praxis resembles practices of critical pedagogy – though it was not directly modelled on it either. Rather, we argue that CU’s praxis is embedded in the members’ lived experience and study of the local history of racism, community and social movements. All five of this article’s authors were members of CU and were involved in the organising described in this article. The authors wrote this at the request of the CU membership, and it has been discussed and revised by the full membership.

Khaps in Haryana, Gender and Honour: A Field Study

In the past, harmonious relations existed between villages and neighbouring localities largely because of the regulatory function of khaps, a community organisation representing a clan or a group of related clans, found mostly in northern India, especially in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. The members of these khaps have always wielded enormous economic, social and political power. Made up of comparatively rich and elderly men, their orthodox views have found place in their regressive diktats. Day-to-day issues and problems are referred to these elected bodies which give their rulings. The present study looks at why progressive and modern ideologies are still being successfully resisted by communities despite an effort being made in this direction. The study also explores elements of continuity and changes seen within khaps. Based on extensive fieldwork, which includes in-depth interviews along with focussed group discussions conducted in 20 villages in the so-called khap belt of Haryana, the article seeks to understand the mindset of the members of khaps and the society they represent and how patriarchal thinking still is accepted and is relevant in twenty-first century India.

Telework in a pandemic context: protocol of a participatory study on the effects of teleworking conditions on the well-being and social participation of workers

IntroductionAlthough several authors have been interested in the well-being and social participation of teleworkers in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, it appears that most of the recommendations issued are based on literature reviews or expert opinions; yet few authors have documented the perspectives of the workers. The aim of this study is to explore workers’ perspectives of teleworking in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic regarding the effects on their well-being and social participation.Methods and AnalysisUsing a participatory study protocol involving the collaboration of a community organisation defending workers’ rights, the first step will be to conduct focus groups to qualitatively describe workers’ perspectives of their teleworking conditions. Then, an online questionnaire will be administered to a large pool or workers to quantitatively explore the influence of individual, organisational and environmental variables on the well-being and social participation of workers. The thematic and statistical analyses of the data collected will indicate successful practices to be adopted by workers and organisations. These successful practices will be validated by workers through a Technique for Research of Information by Animation of a Group of Experts group and will serve as concrete tools to better support workers’ participation in teleworking.Ethics and disseminationThe approval of the research ethics board of the Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux de la Capitale Nationale has been obtained. Findings will be shared with various stakeholders including workers, employers, insurers and unions. Findings will be disseminated in webinars, peer-reviewed journals and lectures.

Patterns of morphological diversification in the Ramphastoidea reveal the dramatic divergence of toucans from a conserved morphotype

Morphological traits offer insights into an organism s ecological niche, species interactions, and patterns of community organisation. Pantropical lineages - animals and plants distributed across the three tropical continental regions of Asia, Africa, and America - provide a way to test how different environments and communities influence morphological diversification. Here, we examined a monophyletic group of frugivorous birds, the barbets and toucans (Ramphastoidea), which diversified independently on three continents, to investigate whether clades in each region exhibit similar (phylogenetically constrained) or distinct (ecologically influenced) patterns of morphological diversification. Our results show that despite differences in community dynamics in these regions, lineage accumulation patterns through time on all three continents are broadly similar, putatively due to phylogenetic niche conservatism. We quantified morphological variation in light of phylogenetic relatedness to further reveal that all barbet lineages across continents occupy a conserved region of morphospace after correcting for variation in size. However, in the Neotropics, one lineage, the toucans, have diverged dramatically from typical barbet space and converged toward (yet are distinct from) the trait space occupied by the distantly related hornbills in Asia and Africa. Additionally, we found no link between climatic variables and morphological traits. We conclude that barbets exhibit a conserved morphotype across continents and have diversified by scaling mainly in body size. However, the absence of other large frugivorous birds may have allowed toucans to diversify into a different region of morphospace of increased bill/wing to tail/wing ratios. By examining different continental lineages of a single monophyletic bird group, we shed light on the contrasting effects of regional ecological factors and phylogenetic constraints on morphological diversification.

Mainstreaming Institutional Resilience and Systems Strengthening in Donor Policies and Programming

This rapid review synthesises evidence on key aspects of mainstreaming institutional resilience and systems strengthening in donor policies and programming in FCAS (Fragile and Conflict-affect States) contexts, particularly in nutrition (food security), health, WASH and the economic sector. Institutional resilience is the ability of a social system (society, community, organisation) to absorb and recover from external shocks, while positively adapting and transforming to address long-term changes and uncertainty. Investing in strong, well-functioning and adaptable social systems, such as health, education and social protection systems, can build resilience, as this help to cushion the negative economic and social effects of crises. While development actors have established guidance on how institutions can be made more effective, inclusive and accountable, there is much less literature on institutional resilience and how development actors can help to foster it. Much of the literature notes a lack of systematic evidence on applying the concept of resilience. These gaps extend to a dearth of guidance on how development actors can mainstream institutional resilience and systems strengthening into their policies and programmes. This rapid review draws on common factors discussed in the literature that are considered important to the strengthening of resilience and particular systems. These may, in turn, provide an indication of ways in which to mainstream institutional resilience and systems strengthening into development policy and programming