Barometer Of Change Research Articles

Trends in substance references in Australian top 20 songs between 1990 and 2015.

This study examined references to alcohol and other drugs in top 20 songs over the last quarter of a century to explore the potential for popular music to constitute a barometer for changes occurring in youth consumption of alcohol and other substances. The online Australian Recording Industry Association charts resource was accessed to identify the top 20 songs for the period 1990 to 2015 inclusive. The lyrics of the identified songs were imported into NVivo11 for coding and analysis. Two coders analysed each song by line unit and a third coder assisted in resolving any coding discrepancies. Of the 508 discrete songs, 74 (15%) featured references to alcohol, tobacco and/or illicit drugs. Substance mentions increased over time such that the second half of the study period accounted for three-quarters of all references. The peak period for mentions was 2008-2012, with 2010 exhibiting an especially high prevalence rate for alcohol references. There was a marked decline in alcohol mentions between 2010 and 2013. The rate at which female artists referred to alcohol increased sharply until 2010 and then decreased. Patterns in substance mentions in top 20 songs in more recent years may reflect broader social trends that influence youth substance use. As such, monitoring music lyrics may assist researchers to better understand forces underlying patterns of youth substance use.

Unwritten Verities: The Making of England’s Vernacular Legal Culture, 1463–1549 by Sebastian Sobecki

Reviewed by: Unwritten Verities: The Making of England’s Vernacular Legal Culture, 1463–1549 by Sebastian Sobecki Peter Marshall Unwritten Verities: The Making of England’s Vernacular Legal Culture, 1463–1549. By Sebastian Sobecki. [ReFormations Medieval and Early Modern.] (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 2015. Pp. x, 257. $38.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-268-04145-8) The title of Sebastian Sobecki’s thoughtful and ambitiously interdisciplinary study is designed to pinpoint a paradox in English legal and political culture after the turn of the sixteenth century. Unwritten Verities was the disparaging—indeed, sarcastic—term employed by Protestants to refer to beliefs and practices of traditional religion that lacked grounding in scripture, practices that were at best unnecessary and at worst damnable. A reliance on authorized text was a wellspring of the cultural transformations effected by the Protestant Reformation, as it was of the humanist movement that preceded and—perhaps—inspired it. Yet the English common-law tradition, which, in the political dimension of the Reformation struggle, triumphed over its canon law rival, was itself stubbornly reliant on unwritten custom and remembered precedent, rather than on any kind of textual positivism. The problem of its nonvulnerability to Protestant critique, and eventual apotheosis as an icon of insular Protestant tradition, is an intriguing one, which has not properly been framed as a problem before. Sobecki’s account of how English common-law culture evolved to surmount the challenge of the Reformation is one in which vernacularity (encompassing Law French) plays a crucial transitional role. A central actor is the common-law theorist, Christopher St. German, often regarded as an intellectual architect of the Henrician Reformation, whose influential textbook, Doctor and Student (1528–30), stressed the textual witness of statutes, yearbooks, and law reports, and who invoked reason as a kind of “inner book” validating the antiquity of the law. Another key player is the printer and polemicist John Rastell, who produced a number of legal texts, including editions of statutes and a law dictionary. These endeavors were not only commercially motivated but also consciously sought, Sobecki argues, to reach out to a “horizontal readership” and to widen social participation in legal thought. Here Sobecki detaches Rastell and other early Tudor common law advocates from the mainstream of humanist thinking (exemplified by Rastell’s brother-in-law, Thomas More), which was much more socially elitist in its prescriptions for the improved health of the common weal. A longer trajectory connects them to the much-discussed Lancastrian theorist Sir John Fortescue, whom Sobecki seeks to rescue from Whiggish lionizing but nonetheless regards as a powerful advocate of wider political participation. The proof of the [End Page 608] pudding is in the rebellions of 1549, which Sobecki, drawing on recent historical scholarship, convincingly portrays as characterized by popular legal awareness to a quite remarkable extent. None of this makes for particularly easy reading. Sobecki has a fondness for modish literary-critical jargon, and the structure of the book is at times unhelpfully labyrinthine. Nevertheless, he is to be lauded for encouraging both cultural and literary historians to think harder about the law as a barometer of change and for challenging the still entrenched periodization either side of the arbitrary date of 1500. Peter Marshall University of Warwick Copyright © 2016 The Catholic University of America Press

Does Happiness Converge?

Using the Phillips and Sul (Econometrica 75:1771–1855, 2007) club convergence and clustering procedure, we examine happiness convergence dynamics across Europe. Although we reject the hypothesis of full convergence, we find evidence of distinct happiness convergence clubs. Against the background of a weak link between income and happiness in the existing literature, we advocate that happiness convergence is a legitimate policy goal on its own right as well as a useful barometer of changes in the political landscape, societal values, and citizens’ sentiments about developments in the European Union.

Living in two worlds: the development and transition of Mormon education in American society

Religious organisations have long relied on education to transmit cherished values, working within society to preserve their worldview. Therefore, when a religious education system is restructured, it can act as a barometer of change, revealing societal values and reflecting negotiated roles. Like other faiths, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Latter-day Saint or Mormon) has used education to shape its society. In its early history, the faith adopted an isolationist paradigm. Threatened by a Protestant-led common school crusade, Church leaders established a private school system, attempting to augment or even compete with public schools. However, during the early decades of the twentieth century, the programme was folded into the very public school system it was designed to replace. Teachers trained in the faith’s worldview replaced students nurtured in a Church-controlled environment. Accommodation and cooperation supplanted isolation and separation as Mormonism learned to live in two worlds – one with a particularistic religious view and another characterised by a pluralistic society.

Voluntarism as a mediator of the experience of growing old in evolving rural spaces and changing rural places

This paper examines voluntarism as a response to the challenges faced by people growing old in rural communities that are themselves being transformed in fundamental ways, both socially and demographically. Informed by evolving theorisations within the rural aging and geographies of voluntarism literatures, we outline the key processes in space and consequent impacts in place that have affected the experience of growing old in rural communities. We identify the changes in service systems that have led to concerns about ‘vulnerable people in vulnerable places’ and explore this idea in regional contexts ranging from the agricultural heartland to the resource hinterland of Canada. We argue that a distinction needs to be made between the impacts of long and short cycles of change flowing across rural space and attention paid to voluntarism as a critical process at the intersection of broad shifts in service and settlement systems and particular changes in rural communities. Specifically, we suggest that the ‘local dynamics of voluntarism’ involving the activities of voluntary organisations, community groups and individual volunteers in particular communities can be understood, at once, as a ‘barometer of change’, a ‘mechanism of adjustment’ and a ‘space of resistance’, and we draw on recent case studies of rural voluntarism to illustrate this three-part distinction. In considering the transformative potential of voluntarism for the experience of aging in place, our findings suggest that public discourse, as reflected in media coverage, tends to romanticise voluntarism at the expense of a more nuanced and critical appreciation of its importance to the future of aging rural communities and their elderly residents. The research raises timely questions about academic-versus-popular conceptions of aging in evolving rural spaces and changing rural places.

Approach to Pruritus in the Adult HIV-Positive Patient

Pruritus will affect a majority of HIV-infected adults in the course of their disease, impacting their quality of life. Itchy skin conditions in the HIV-infected patient may be atypical in appearance and pose diagnostic and treatment challenges. Skin changes because of chronic scratching or the absence of skin findings despite ongoing pruritus should prompt investigations for underlying causes. The presence of pruritus or pruritic skin conditions and their response to therapy may be a barometer for changes in systemic inflammation, immune activation, and dysregulation because of infection with HIV and treatment with antiretroviral therapy.

“To (un)dress: Clothes, Women and Feminist Ideology in Modern Art”

Clothes carry inherent implications and can be used for examining sociological, psychological and even philosophical questions. They serve as a barometer of change in society and are related to issues of gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. Starting with the end of 19th century, during which the modern feminist movement was first established in the West, seminal art works done by women artists will be discussed. From the First wave feminism to the Third wave feminism, feminist theory, politics and activism have fundamentally changed, giving rise to many various voices and formulations, such as multiculturalism and gender fluidity. The paper will demonstrate the ways in which women artists made use of the theme of clothes in order to raise questions regarding gender and social status of women in society.

'Order, Discipline and Exigency': Cuba's VIth Party Congress, the Lineamientos (Guidelines) and Structural Change in Education, Sport and Culture?

The Lineamientos de la politica economica y social del partido y la Revolucion approved April 2011 has the potential to significantly alter the social, economic and political organization of the Cuban state. Though they remain true to the fundamentals of the Marxist-Leninist State-Party system, the Lineamientos conceive anew the normative basis of state operation. This essay examines the Social Politics (Politica Social) provisions of the Lineamientos. These target the great cultural-political achievements of the Revolution — medical care, education, culture, sport, social security, employment policy and state subsidies. In effect, these serve as the ideological heart, as well as the barometer of changes in the fundamental Party line and its effectuation. The essay starts with a consideration of the Linemamientos provisions of Politica Social as they relate to education, health, sport and culture. It will consider these Guidelines in light of those initially proposed and explore the extent of the changes within the framework of the Lineamientoset as a whole. The second part of the essay examines what these changes suggest in terms of the place and character of education, sport and culture within evolving Cuban state policy and suggest what the changes may mean for the future course of the development of Cuban State-Party system. First, the Lineamientos themselves were developed in response to the recognition that the current economic model was both tied to the economic development needs of the State (as represented in the economic provisions of the Lineamientos themselves) and, like the current economic model, unsustainable in its present form. Second, Second, it is not clear how effective the State will be in bending education to the needs of Cuban industry. Third, it suggests that the earlier expenditure on brick and mortar projects — large school buildings and other substantial infrastructure, now has become something of a drag on the ability of the state to deliver education efficiently. Fourth, Cuba is now wrestling with the consequences of globalization and the technological revolution that made globalization possible. Fifth, the public focus on family involvement as a critical component of education, and education reform, cannot be exaggerated. Sixth, the Lineamientos reaffirms and continues the long tradition of centralized control of education and the importance of the political education of Cuban citizens in socialism. And lastly, the emphasis on the connection between education, culture, and sport and revenue generation can have a potentially significant effect on the delivery of these services to the population. More generally I will suggest that the education, sport and culture Lineamientos parallel similar issues facing developed states, including the United States.

Evolving perspectives on genetic discrimination in health insurance among health care providers

Previous studies have documented that concerns about genetic discrimination (GD) may influence access to and participation in medically necessary care. We sought to characterize how GD issues influence current cancer genetics professional (CGP) practice, determine if their attitudes regarding GD have changed over time, and compare their knowledge and attitudes regarding laws prohibiting GD to a contemporary cohort of non-genetics clinicians. Members of the National Society of Genetic Counselors Familial Cancer Special Interest Group were invited to complete a 39 item online survey, adapted from previously published instruments. The resulting data were compared to a survey of CGPs published in 2000 and to a contemporary cohort of non-genetics clinicians (n = 1,181). There were 153 qualified respondents. Compared to the historical CGP cohort (n = 163), a significantly greater proportion said they would bill insurance for the cost of genetic testing for themselves (P < 0.0001). Most CGPs (94%) considered the risk of GD to be low to theoretical, concordant with 64% who expressed confidence in existing federal laws prohibiting GD. The mean knowledge score of CGPs regarding GD protective laws was significantly greater than that of non-genetics clinicians (P < 0.001). As barometers of change, CGPs show a migration in opinion over the past 8 years, with decreased fear of GD and greater knowledge of laws prohibiting GD compared to non-genetics clinicians. Better knowledge of GD and protective legislation, may facilitate non-genetics clinician utilization of genetics and personalized medicine.

Front and Back Covers, Volume 23, Number 4. August 2007

Front and back cover caption, volume 23 issue 4COMMEMORATING THE ‘POLISH POPE’The cover of this issue illustrates Ewa Klekot's article about how Pope John Paul II (Karol Jósef Wojtyla, 1920–2005) was popularly commemorated in Poland during the ‘Week of Vigil’, 1–8 April 2005. One of the longest‐serving pontiffs of modern times, and the only non‐Italian to have been elected since the Dutch Adrian VI in the 1520s, Pope John Paul II died on 2 April and was buried on 8 April in the grottoes under St Peter's Basilica in Rome, the Tomb of the Popes. During this week unprecedented expressions of grief and mourning were displayed in Polish cities. Whole streets and squares were converted into temporary shrines, decorated with burning candles, flowers, papal portraits, letters to the departed Pope and both papal and Polish flags.The front cover shows a mother and daughter paying homage by lighting and placing candles along John Paul II Avenue, one of the biggest streets in central west Warsaw. The back cover shows a spontaneous memorial in the form of a large cross in Pilsudski Square, Warsaw, where John Paul II had celebrated mass during his first visit to Poland in 1979, the year after he was elected Pope. The memorial incorporates lanterns, flower offerings and a commemoration board made by primary school children.In constructing unofficial, vernacular and temporary commemorative sites from candles and flowers, Polish citizens re‐enacted both the rituals of All Saints Day and the tradition of arranging flowers and candles in public places. The latter is, in the Polish context, more than an expression of grief provoked by deaths of important Polish personalities: it is also historically a way of expressing popularly shared feelings and values, and of asserting a degree of autonomy from the government of the day.Until 1990, Pope John Paul II symbolized powerful nationalist‐Catholic sentiments that had helped Polish citizens stand up to communism. However, the slogan ‘I didn't mourn the pope’ which appeared on T‐shirts made by a young Polish artists' group suggests that this new alliance between religion and official politics is being contested.Mourning rituals surrounding public figures frequently have a multivocal quality, and are barometers of change. As part of its ongoing engagement with public events, ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY invites debate on how collective memories are punctuated and shaped by historical moments such as these.

The evolving role of voluntarism in ageing rural communities

Abstract: This paper conceptualizes voluntarism as a critical process at the intersection of changes underway in rural communities, and in health and social care systems. Three aspects of the evolving role of the voluntary sector are identified and set within a descriptive model of rural change. Initially, voluntarism is cast as a ‘barometer of change’ in health and social services, and in rural communities, then considered as a ‘mechanism of adjustment’ and, ultimately, as an emerging ‘space of resistance’ to these same changes. The nature and significance of each of the three dimensions of voluntarism is illustrated using results from suites of case studies of ageing in Ontario and the Waikato. The efficacy of the descriptive model and its tripartite view of voluntarism is discussed in light of the under‐theorized and under‐researched rural dimensions of ageing, voluntarism, and health and social care.

Mortality Gradients within and among Dominant Plant Populations as Barometers of Ecosystem Change During Extreme Drought

Understanding patterns of plant population mortality during extreme weather events is important to conservation planners because the frequency of such events is expected to increase, creating the need to integrate climatic uncertainty into management. Dominant plants provide habitat and ecosystem structure, so changes in their distribution can be expected to have cascading effects on entire communities. Observing areas that respond quickly to climate fluctuations provides foresight into future ecological changes and will help prioritize conservation efforts. We investigated patterns of mortality in six dominant plant species during a drought in the southwestern United States. We quantified population mortality for each species across its regional distribution and tested hypotheses to identify ecological stress gradients for each species. Our results revealed three major patterns: (1) dominant species from diverse habitat types (i.e., riparian, chaparral, and low- to high-elevation forests) exhibited significant mortality, indicating that the effects of drought were widespread; (2) average mortality differed among dominant species (one-seed juniper[Juniperus monosperma (Engelm.) Sarg.] 3.3%; manzanita[Arctostaphylos pungens Kunth], 14.6%; quaking aspen[Populus tremuloides Michx.], 15.4%; ponderosa pine[Pinus ponderosa P. & C. Lawson], 15.9%; Fremont cottonwood[Populus fremontii S. Wats.], 20.7%; and pinyon pine[Pinus edulis Engelm.], 41.4%); (3) all dominant species showed localized patterns of very high mortality (24-100%) consistent with water stress gradients. Land managers should plan for climatic uncertainty by promoting tree recruitment in rare habitat types, alleviating unnatural levels of competition on dominant plants, and conserving sites across water stress gradients. High-stress sites, such as those we examined, have conservation value as barometers of change and because they may harbor genotypes that are adapted to climatic extremes.

Barometers of Change: Presidents Hugh Eayrs and John Gray of the Macmillan Company of Canada

This essay examines the deliberate role undertaken by the Macmillan Company of Canada to develop a contemporary Canadian literature. It focusses on the period from 1921 to 1973, when first Hugh Eayrs and later John Gray were presidents of the company. Under the direction of Eayrs, Macmillan established itself as a publisher with a culture and interest separate from its parent and affiliate houses in London and New York. Eayrs built a roster of important writers, including Stephen Leacock, Mazo de la Roche, Frederick Philip Grove, E.J. Pratt, Grey Owl and Morley Callaghan, and helped establish an audience for Canadian novels and poetry. After Eayrs’s death, Gray continued to publish Canadian writers, among them novelists Hugh MacLennan, Robertson Davies, W.O. Mitchell and Adele Wiseman. Both Eayrs and Gray were visionaries who shared a deep commitment to fostering the literature of Canada, which they often published in difficult circumstances and at considerable financial risk.

National Culture and the First-Year English Curriculum: A Historical Study of “Composition” in Canadian Universities

The most frequently required course in American higher education is Although sometimes referred to as dumbbell English or bonehead English by Americans, the ubiquitous first-year course, according to composition historian Sharon Crowley, is sentimental favorite in America, like big bands and Colin Powell (1998, 228). Because the course is so prominent in American higher education, American academics from all disciplines are frequently surprised to learn that Canadian universities typically do not require first-year Literature courses--survey courses or ABC courses (American, British, and Canadian literature)--are sometimes compulsory, and specific degree-programs within a university may require students to take either a literature or writing-intensive class. Some similarities notwithstanding, the nature of the first-year curriculum in Canada is significantly different than the typical composition requirement in American colleges and universities. The relevance of these curricular differences for a multidisciplinary audience interested in Canadian studies is both historical and future-directed. The primary goal of this essay is not to argue for or against composition in Canadian universities and colleges, but to tell the history of the powerful impact of on an activity as apparently mundane as the teaching of first-year university English. The secondary goal is to speculate on the usefulness of first-year as a barometer of change in the relationship between higher education and cultures. While the focus is on Canada's culture and curriculum, the parallel American history must be presented in order to give the Canadian story shape and significance. The different cultures--which in this essay will mean the dominant attitudes and biases of each country, particularly towards education (American pragmatism, Canadian philosophical idealism)--have had similarly deep impacts, but with very different results. handful of books and articles have elucidated these traditions and attitudes for scholars of in Canada (Harris 1976; Hubert 1994 Harmonius, 1994 A History, 1995; Graves 1994; Johnson 1988; 1991); this essay builds on this work, updates it, and stresses a broad cultural relevance in this history for a largely American, multidisciplinary audience. This history is undertaken in the context of widespread concern about the future of higher education in North America. Bill Readings argues in his influential The University in Ruins, that national cultures are no longer a guiding factor in shaping curriculums and he employs the dramatic imagery of contemporary scholars dwelling in the ruins of an institution that has lost its mission (1996, 16; 166-79). But late in his book he says: I will cheerfully admit that in all probability far less will have changed in the daily life of professors and students [in the twenty-first century] than one might expect. Significant shifts, though, are taking place in the way in which everyday practices are organized and ascribed (166). Underneath the two distinct but stable curriculums is a rich history of economic, cultural, and disciplinary motives for shifting (Or attempting to shift) the meaning of the term composition. This analysis draws heavily on the ways composition has been represented by scholars in Canada to one another and to the public, placing it within the changing economic and social environments that have influenced higher education in Canada over the past fifty years. The meanings of composition established in Canada and the United States during the first half of the twentieth century will be briefly treated, then the focus shifts to the ways in which a highly developed sense of Canadian culture was instrumental in keeping American composition located in a discursive field of practicality and popular culture and outside of Canadian higher education between 1957 and 1976. …

Reflections on community psychology in Australia: An introduction

AbstractSarason (2000) argued that we are often surprised by events because of the failure to appreciate ongoing change around us. He called for the need for community psychology to develop “barometers of change,” or ways of recognizing change and its likely impact. Extreme examples of this are the events of September 11th, 2001, and subsequent reactions. This highlighted the need for a nation to be aware of its impacts on other nations and peoples, and also be conscious of the perceptions of foreigners. On a less dramatic and painful level, we would argue that a scientific discipline needs the reflections of outsiders to maintain its sense of purposeful development. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Application of image analysis for mapping of sedimentary facies in a shallow lagoon: Case study, south sound, Grand Cayman, British West Indies

Facies are areas on the seafloor that are characterized by the same sediment and biota. They are key elements of any sedimentological assessment of shallow coastal lagoons. They are also natural barometers of change. Thus, changes in facies distribution over time may signal changes in the environment that are driven by natural or anthropogenic causes. Monitoring shallow coastal lagoons is a time consuming and expensive process. The accuracy of conventional facies maps, which are difficult to produce, is a function of the skill of the mapper and the time that is spent compiling the map. Image analysis of black and white or colour air photographs, however, offers an easier and more economical method of producing such maps. Image analysis techniques are generally applied to remote sensing space-borne data sets, and were used to produce facies maps of South Sound, a shallow water lagoon on Grand Cayman. Ground truthing showed that the implemented techniques are capable of producing thematic maps of facies changes with high accuracy. Analysis of air photographs taken in different years allows the assessment of changes in the total area covered by each facies as well as changes in their spatial characteristics (sea floor landscape changes). Image analysis of South Sound, for example, showed that the Thalassia (sea-grass) banks expanded in area by 17% between 1971 and 1992 whereas the area covered by the Sand Facies was substantially reduced. This information provides added insights into the dynamic sedimentological behaviour of the lagoon and opens new venues for further expanding the use of conventional aerial photography as a tool for regular mapping of shallow coastal lagoons.

Barometers of change: individual, educational, and social transformation

Barometers of change: individual, educational, and social transformation

Monitoring of girls undergoing medical therapy for isosexual precocious puberty.

We evaluated the use of sonography in monitoring the efficacy of suppressive therapy with a gonadotropin releasing hormone analogue in girls being treated for isosexual precocious puberty. Ten girls 5 to 9 years of age underwent serial sonography and hormonal stimulation tests on the same day. Sonographic trends of decreasing ovarian volume and uterine length indicated early suppression even when absolute values were above threshold. Changes in ovarian volume were the most sensitive predictor of pituitary-gonadal suppression. Sonography is a sensitive and accurate method of monitoring medical therapy; ovarian volume and analysis of interval change are the most sensitive barometers of change.

Employment trends in the US non-profit sector

Until pioneering research on non-profit employment was performed under the auspices of the Filer Commission in the mid-1970s and shortly thereafter at Yale, there had been little public recognition of the non-profit sector's use of human resources. Victor Fuchs and others had earlier brought to public attention the rapid growth of the service economy in the United States, but it was the Filer and Yale work that revealed the importance of the non-profit segment of the service economy by demonstrating that the growth of the non-profit labour force during the 1970s had substantially outstripped the growth of the for-profit labour force in the service economy. I begin with this historical finding to emphasise the importance of the size and trend data on non-profit employment in the Almanac. As has been often confirmed, employment and its trend is by inference a barometer of change in production and economic development. Because of the heterogeneity of the economy's products and services, it is difficult to measure real output in physical terms. Therefore, economists and statisticians have resorted to production indexes to summarise real output, and to employment data to track economic development. No doubt it is the importance of employment data in the Almanac which accounts for the extensive and excellent discussion of employment data sources and methodology (see Hodgkinson and Weitzman in this volume). I will not repeat that information but simply refer you to it. This provides me with the opportunity to focus on pointing out a serious gap in the employment data and to comment on related editorial policy that the Almanac might have followed in this respect, as well as generally throughout the publication. In the Almanac, concentration has been placed on size and trend of non-profit labour force by industry. Data on wages and salaries and other compensation are also presented by industry. A major effort is made to estimate volunteer hours, annual full-time equivalent employees, and dollar values for volunteer hours a Herculean task. But the Almanac, however, provides rather limited data on non-profit labour force

Agroecology in context

Agriculture and medicine palpably manifest a culture's world view. Correspondingly, changes in agriculture and medicine may be barometers of change in a culture's overall outlook. “Conventional” industrial agriculture and “modern” surgical/chemical medicine clearly express the Newtonian mechanical model of nature. The modern classical world view represents nature to be an externally related, atomic, reductive, material, and mechanical aggregate. Modern medicine, correspondingly, treats the body as an elaborate mechanism and industrial agriculture regards soil as a substratum for monocultures assembled from fossil fuels, synthetic fertilizers, and chemical pesticides. The nascent agroecology and wellness movements each express and reflect the new paradigm variously emerging from ecology and quantum physics. Ecology and the new physics, each in its own way, represent nature to be an internally related, systemic, integrated, organic whole. Agroecology translates this abstract new vision into a concrete agricultural vocabulary: The farmstead is regarded as an artificial ecosystem with a multiplicity of diverse plant and animal constituents interacting with one another and with environing natural ecosystems in complex and mutually supporting ways.