Obtaining Linguistic Data A Many procedures are available for obtaining data about a language. They range from a carefully planned, intensive field investigation in a foreign country to a casual introspection about one’s mother tongue carried out in an armchair at home. B In all cases, someone has to act as a source of language …
The Problem of Scarce Resources Section A The problem of how health-care resources should be allocated or apportioned, so that they are distributed in both, the most just and most efficient way, is not a new one. Every health system in an economically developed society is faced with the need to decide (either formally or …
Environmental Management Section A The role of governments in environmental management is difficult but inescapable. Sometimes, the state tries to manage the resources it owns, and does so badly. Often, however, governments act in an even more harmful way. They actually subsidise the exploitation and consumption of natural resources. A whole range of policies, from …
A Remarkable Beetle More than 4,000 species of these remarkable creatures have evolved and adapted to the world’s different climates and the dung of its many animals. Australia’s native dung beetles are scrub and woodland dwellers, specialising in coarse marsupial droppings and avoiding the soft cattle dung in which bush flies and buffalo flies breed.Some …
Change in business organisations A The forces that operate to bring about change in organisations can be thought of as winds which are many and varied – from small summer breezes that merely disturb a few papers, to mighty howling gales which cause devastation to structures and operations, causing consequent reorientation of purpose and rebuilding. Sometimes, …
The Week’s Best AWild Rose(Tuesday 19.00)This TV drama is about a young private detective employed by a team of New York businessmen who send her to Brazil to look into a series of hotel robberies. When she gets there, she discovers that the hotels, which are owned by the businessmen, have been empty for the …
The Development of Museums A The conviction that historical relics provide infallible testimony about the past is rooted in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when science was regarded as objective and value free. As one writer observes: ‘Although it is now evident that artefacts are as easily altered as chronicles, public faith in their veracity endures: …
Foot Pedal Irrigation A Until now, governments and development agencies have tried to tackle the problem through large-scale projects: gigantic dams, sprawling, irrigation canals and vast new fields of high-yield crops introduced during the Green Revolution, the famous campaign to increase grain harvests in developing nations. Traditional irrigation, however, has degraded the soil in …
A Theory of Shopping For a one-year period I attempted to conduct an ethnography of shopping on and around a street in North London. This was carried out in association with Alison Clarke. I say ‘attempted’ because, given the absence of community and the intensely private nature of London households, this could not be an …
Honey bees in trouble Can native pollinators fill the gap? A Recently, ominous headlines have described a mysterious ailment, colony collapse disorder(CCD)，that is wiping out the honeybees that pollinate many crops. Without honeybees, the story goes, fields will be sterile, economies will collapse, and food will be scarce. B But what few accounts acknowledge is that what’s …
