Intangible Ways Research Articles

Mentorship of New(er) School-Based Speech-Language Pathologists Beyond the Clinical Fellowship: A Pilot Study

Purpose: The purpose of this pilot study was to explore the perspectives of school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) with varying levels of experience to identify the components of a postclinical fellow (CF) school-based speech-language pathology mentorship program, barriers to implementation, and potential solutions. Method: After seeking feedback from school-based SLPs, a survey was created and distributed via e-mail and national social media sites. Topics included gathering perspectives about experiences with school-based speech-language pathology mentorship, components of a possible post-CF mentorship program, barriers to implementation, and potential solutions. Results: Sixty-five school-based SLPs with varying years of experience responded to the survey. Results suggested that respondents felt a setting-specific post-CF school-based speech-language pathology mentorship program may be valuable. Time, compensation, and filling knowledge gaps were identified as both important components of a mentor program but also potential challenges to implementation. Conclusions: A post-CF school-based speech-language pathology mentorship program has the potential to be beneficial to both parties in tangible and intangible ways. SLPs appear to be interested in mentorship not only as a way to support future generations of SLPs but also for a sense of self-fulfillment and professional development. A formal mentorship program may operationalize support related to decision making, advocacy, paperwork, scheduling, and working through challenging cases.

Forest Fire Detection using Deep Learning

Abstract: The threat posed by forest fires to humanity has increased. In addition to giving a lot of living things a place to live and protection, they have also been a significant source of food, wood, and a lot of other goods. Throughout the dawn of time, woods have been integral to social, economic, and religious endeavors and have improved human life in numerous tangible and intangible ways. We must exercise sufficient caution when making decisions that could ultimately result in a tragic outcome if we want to safeguard our environment from these forest fires that are spreading quickly. Thus, we suggest an image identification technique based on convolutional neural networks for the early detection of forest fires (CNN).

Breathing Room: Working Principles of Independent Art Spaces in African Cities

Breathing Room: Working Principles of Independent Art Spaces in African Cities

The value of the urban field in technology-driven knowledge economies: The role of the state

This article shows how the market valuation of start-up companies and the corporate-designed creation of human capital reveal some of the material and more intangible ways in which the economisation of the urban field plays out in the contemporary knowledge economy. The proposed analysis seeks to make visible how both direct and indirect state action enables the different dimensions of the urban field to come together, become valuable and jointly constitute what Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri have called the ‘metropolis’. In so doing, the article underlines that the different dimensions of the urban field figure prominently albeit differently partake in processes of extraction of knowledge value in monetised or sociocultural form. At the conceptual level, we critically engage with the existing literature on emergent forms of state capitalism by putting forward a governmental analytic on state power in contemporary urbanised knowledge capitalism. Empirically, we develop our arguments through two case studies. First, we examine the start-up unicorn Wolt, often considered as one of the national champion start-ups in Finland (together with a handful of mobile game developers). Second, we scrutinise the arrival of the Apple software developer Academy in Naples, a widely celebrated state-capital interaction in an economically struggling urban context in southern Italy. These cases are among the many that motivate one to re-think the entanglement of urban space, state governmentality and value extraction as it unfolds today in urbanised knowledge economies.

Amicus Brief.

Amicus Brief Martha C. Nussbaum ii. summary of the argument This brief argues that the law requires reformation to protect our modern scientific and philosophical understanding that many animals can live their own meaningful lives and that the Court should reform the law in this case.1 Modern science demonstrates that elephants are complex beings that can form a conception of the self, as observed by Judge Fahey, form strong social and emotional bonds among themselves and others, and that the Zoo's conduct harms Happy in both physical and intangible ways. Furthermore, this brief argues that the lower courts in Lavery I and II applied the wrong philosophical framework to the question of whether certain non-human animals should be considered legal persons. Instead of animal rights being based on the capacity to engage in a social contract and to bear legal duties, the proper framework for animal rights is the capabilities approach, which asks how the law can help animals like Happy not only live but thrive. Accordingly, this brief explains the importance of this appeal, the Court's opportunity to reform [End Page 15] the field of animal law, and the potential to release Happy from a life of captivity, ensuring she lives the rest of her life in a manner that respects her capabilities. iii. argument 1. This Case Matters Because It Is Time to Reform the Law to Protect Our Modern Scientific and Philosophical Understanding That Many Animals Are Capable of Living Their Own Meaningful Lives Modern science now recognizes a very important fact about many animals, including elephants. They are not merely biological units that simply need food and a suitable environment to survive and maintain a viable population. Today, scientists view many animals as beings capable of living their own meaningful lives. Early Indian and Roman cultures understood the complexity of animal lives and the implications of this complexity surrounding the humane treatment of animals; public awareness of this fact is widespread today. Almost all ancient Greek and Roman philosophical schools attributed complex forms of cognition and numerous emotions to animals,2 a precursor to our current laws against cruel practices to animals. What philosophy and, more recently, science have understood but the law has not, is that elephants are sentient beings who can feel emotion, foster relationships, create communities, and form a conception of the self. Our current legal system fails to respect species-specific, central capabilities. Although each of the fifty states has animal cruelty laws,3 these laws protect only a small number of animals and fail to constrain, to any meaningful extent, the widespread infliction of suffering. They ban only the intentional, purposeful suffering of some animals, and fail to recognize the impact that captivity, lack of relationships, and solitude cause a creature like Happy. This Court has the opportunity to create legal precedent that provides these living creatures the legal right to thrive and survive in ways that coincide with their specific capabilities, and prevent not only the infliction of physical pain, but emotional and psychological injury as well. 2. The Magical Lives of Elephants Elephants are cognitive, complex creatures with distinct societies, emotions, and lives. They form societies that foster the wellbeing of each member, in which their emotions and development from childhood through adulthood are readily apparent.4 A combat staged between humans and elephants in 55 B.C. by the Roman leader Pompey paints a prime example of these complex emotions and connections with other animals, namely humans. Surrounded in the arena, the elephants perceived that they had no hope of escape. According to Pliny, the elephants then "entreated the crowd, trying to win its compassion with indescribable [End Page 16] gestures, bewailing their plight with a sort of lamentation."5 The audience, moved to pity and anger by their plight, rose to curse Pompey—feeling, wrote Cicero, that the elephants had a relation of commonality (societas) with humans.6 However, this connection with humans cannot be substituted for true, similar companionship from other elephants, which Happy has lacked for almost two decades. Elephants' ability to connect with other elephants and animals may be attributable to their long life spans; they are the most...

독일의 전후 배상 실행에 관한 최신 연구: 나미비아 등 구 식민지 지역을 중심으로

Even as of 2022, nearly 8 decades after the establishment of the United Nations(UN), there have been stark differences and contrasts in Korean historical and political perceptions regarding Germany and Japan, which once had been represented as Axis powers. As a whole, the German practice on the postwar liquidation and compensation has been perceived positively in each field of the Korean society as a model case of genuine reflection in contrast to Japan. This is due to the fact that Japanese colonial rule had damaged the Korean Peninsula seriously in both tangible and intangible way. Added to that, even after the liberation and the establishment of the Republic of Korea, people has so far witnessed the issue of colonial liquidation still pending. At least, Japanese practice and orientation thereof has been quite far from the postwar human rights discourse, which has sparked widespread resentment in Korea, As a reaction, the German model has become evaluated positively. However, it is also necessary to monitor whether the repeatedly recalled German model is truly a model for genuine reflection and adequate postwar liquidation of the past. Additionally, the uni -versality and fairness of the German practice also need to be subject to check. Against the Czech Republic and then Namibia in recent years, Germany has acknowledged its historical atrocities and state responsibility under international law, but tends to strictly demand a kind of ‘bothsidesism’ mistake model also from the victim Germany has also quoted several domestic and international legal norms meticulously in relation to specific compensation issues in pursuit of non-legal reparation model. the recent Namibian off -spring’s lawsuit against Germany based on the FSIA exception within the US court was not successful, but the implication is certainly not in vain. Rather, it stimulated the final solution for the Namibian Herero and Nama massacres committed by the German Empire. Paradoxically, in spite of favorable judgment for Germany, it will serve as an opportunity to show the passiveness and ambivalence regarding the reparation issue of the historical per -petrator. In this context, there is a significant similarity with German revisionist view of the Central and Eastern European precedents. By drawing considerable clues from the Czech and Namibian precedents and recent development mentioned above, Korea will be able to construct the more delicate and ardent legal reasoning. In the future, the comparative view into the foreign practice will be the more evaluated.

Identity and transnationalism: Narrating the Haitian - American home in selected works by Edwidge Danticat

In contemporary discourses, the lives of migrants are often marginalised and silenced. For this reason, bringing the theme of migrants’ identities to the foreground in literary research appears to be increasingly important. This article discusses the experiences of Haitian immigrants to the US as nar-rated by the Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat. I explore the theme of making a transnational home in her novel Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994) and short stories from the collection Everything Inside(2019). The analysis is based on a combination of two theories: Steven Vertovec’s theory of transnation-alism and Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy of narrative identity, which enable interpreting intergenerational identity changes, certain methods of cultural reproduction, and “little” cultural cross-connectedness of “family and household” (Vertovec 2009: 3-18) in the context of personal identity understood as formed through narratives. This article focuses on the transition from a Haitian home to an American one as an important part of identity-formation processes. It also views a migrant’s journey as still incomplete after coming to the US and requiring “emplotting” (De Fina 2003: 17) its fragmented events into stories. The article attempts to demonstrate intangible ways of creating a transnational home and domestic methods of narrating and negotiating one’s cultural identity in Danticat’s fiction. I claim that Danticat’s works narrate personal experiences to generate a “refigured” understanding of time and transnational ties within the family sphere.

Platform Economy and Internet Platform Monopoly

With the development of computer technology and network technology, the era of digital economy has arrived, the Internet platform economy has flourished, and a number of Internet enterprises with certain influence have emerged at home and abroad. Among them, the large Internet enterprises use their own platform's advantageous position in data, traffic and algorithms to interdepend on and influence each other, thus leading to the price of commodities not only determined by market supply and demand but more influenced by the oligarchs through some tangible or intangible ways of price leadership. Internet platform vendors take a cut from both the supply and demand side, capturing excess profits in the hands of the platform to the detriment of the majority. Internet platforms are not a place outside the law and the platform economy should operate under good market rules and market competition, while the state should also amend its anti-monopoly laws in due course to meet the needs of the market at this stage.

Using Research to Support Transformative Impacts on Complex, “Wicked Problems” With Pastoral Peoples in Rangelands

Pastoralists and researchers (and others) are finding new ways of working together worldwide, attempting to sustain pastoral livelihoods and rangelands in the face of rapid and profound changes driven by globalization, growing consumption, land-use change, and climate change. They are doing this partly because of a greater need to address increasing complex or “wicked” problems, but also because local pastoral voices (and sometimes science) still have little impact on decision-making in the governmental and private sectors. We describe here, using six worldwide cases, how collaborative rangelands partnerships are transforming how we learn about rangelands and pastoralists, whose knowledge gets considered, how science can support societal action, and even our fundamental model of how science gets done. Over the long-term, collaborative partnerships are transforming social-ecological systems by implementing processes like building collaborative relationships, co-production/co-generation of knowledge, integration of knowledges, social learning, capacity building, networking and implementing action. These processes are changing mental models and paradigms, creating strong and effective leaders, changing power relations, providing more robust understanding of rangeland systems, reducing polarization and supporting the implementation of new practices and policies. Collaborative partnerships have recurring challenges and much work is yet to be done. These challenges rest on the enduring complexity of social-ecological problems in rangelands. At a practical level, partnerships struggle with listening, amplifying and partnering with diverse (and sometimes marginalized) voices, the time commitment needed to make partnerships work, the bias and naivete of scientists, the recognition that partnerships can promote negative transformations, management of power relations within the partnership, and the need to attribute impacts to partnership activities. We think that the future of this work will have more focus on systems transformations, morals and ethics, intangible and long-term impacts, critical self-assessment, paradigm shifts and mental models, and power. Overall, we conclude that these partnerships are transformative in unexpected and sometimes intangible ways. Key transformations include changing mental models and building the next generation of transformative leaders. Just as important is serendipity, where participants in partnerships take advantage of new windows of opportunity to change policy or create new governance institutions. We also conclude that collaborative partnerships are changing how we do science, creating new and transformative ways that science and society interact that could be called “transformative science with society.”

АДМІНІСТРУВАННЯ СИСТЕМИ МОТИВУВАННЯ ПЕРСОНАЛУ НА ПІДПРИЄМСТВІ

The topicality of the article is due to the need to improve the motivation system of employees, increase staff productivity and profit. The system of motivation of personnel at the enterprise plays one of the most important roles for achievement of the purposes and increase of profit of the enterprise. The ability to develop an effective system of personnel motivation will increase productivity and improve the financial and economic condition of the enterprise. The goal of the article is to research and improve the administration of the personnel motivation system of the enterprise. In the article was considered and analyzed the literature sources related to the system of personnel motivation. The experience of countries and leading corporations around the world in the field of encouraging employees to improve their efficiency are analyzed. An alternative causal relationship between the increase in employees' salaries and the financial results of the enterprise is highlighted. The scope of motivation directly depends on the financial condition of the enterprise, its place in the market, management structure, strategy, goals and the relationship between departments. In the article were considered some alternatives to improve the system of staff motivation: transfer of office workers to remote work; introduction of a flexible work schedule; creating conditions for communication with the management of the enterprise; introduction of a grading system. In modern society, one of the most popular types of motivation is the ability to work remotely. In terms of COVID-19, it is one of the most effective motivators in the company, the essence of which is to perform their duties outside the office. Another intangible way to motivate staff, which shows its effectiveness in modern conditions, is the introduction of a flexible work schedule. The ability to independently set the start and end time of work is a strong motivating factor, as the employee can adjust the work to their biological rhythm, distribute the time between rest and work according to their needs, etc. With the help of communication of employees with the management of the company you can prevent professional burnout. The general symptoms of burnout were also analyzed. An innovative method such as grading also helps to effectively solve the problem of employee motivation, the essence of which is the hierarchical ranking of positions based on their value and impact on the company's performance to ensure transparency of the remuneration system, the size of which depends on the value of the position.

КРЕАТИВНІСТЬ ЛЮДСЬКОГО КАПІТАЛУ В ГОТЕЛЬНІЙ ІНДУСТРІЇ

The article considers the essence of human capital from the standpoint of its creativity in the hotel industry. Groups of creative assets that form the creativity of human capital are presented. The Strategy of Sustainable Development of Ukraine until 2030 is studied, in particular in the direction of "Creative Industries and Hospitality Industry", and on the basis of which strategic measures to create a competitive creative economy are identified. It is noted that material motivation in labor activity is considered from the standpoint of the complex action of a number of macro- and microeconomic factors, including: the level of wages and its dynamics; the presence of a direct dependence of the level wages from quantity, quality and results of work; wage differentiation in the enterprise and in society as a whole; personal income structure; material support of available cash income, etc. Methods of personnel motivation at hotel business enterprises and features of motivation system on the basis of factor factors are presented. The components of intangible incentives in the hotel business to increase the creativity of human capital are described. It was found that the motivation of human capital in the hotel industry is an important factor in the successful operation of enterprises in this area, as well as a significant means of increasing the creativity of human resources. It is also emphasized that motivation methods should be based on an individual approach. The creative abilities and competencies that a modern employee of the hotel industry should have are proposed, namely: the ability to generate new ideas and solutions; tendency to be critical of one's own ideas and the ideas of others; the ability to identify new opportunities, publicly present their ideas and experiences, coordinate their activities and acquire new knowledge. Intangible ways of motivation will make it possible to increase the level of creativity of human capital in the hotel industry, as employees will also not be willing to change jobs and will be very enthusiastic and energetic to work. In the hotel business, the method of motivating employees by departments is widely used. Programs are being developed for individual departments in order to increase the desire of staff to perform their work better and better.

Modeling of Motivation of Top Managers in Regional Management Structures Using a Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm

The purpose of this research is to create a model for evaluating financial and non-financial motivation of top managers in regional and district management structures. For this purpose, the efficiency of inter-cluster interaction within one federal district is evaluated using a system of factors of socio-economic development of Russian regions, which directly affect the natural population growth in the district's regions. Since people's priorities are more important, the effectiveness of their implementation should be financially motivated. It is proposed to motivate the implementation of objectives affecting the State as a whole in an intangible way. To solve this problem, the multi-objective genetic algorithm method is used, which makes it possible to obtain the Pareto frontier for the dual-objective function of natural population growth, all the solutions of which are equally optimal. Choosing any point of the Pareto frontier, you can find in it fractions of financial and non-financial motivation of top managers. They are determined by the proximity to the extreme points of the Pareto frontier, where only one of the two regressions (motivations) is maximum.

Incentive mechanism design for promoting high-level green buildings

Green building (GB) incentives help address the barriers in GB development. After years of practice, the GB market is becoming mature; thus, these incentives should be adjusted to adapt to the market transformation. However, adjusting incentives can affect stakeholders' motives and concerns, which in turn influence stakeholders' attitudes towards green buildings. Therefore, going back to the basics and understanding how an incentive scheme works before implementing any adjustment are important for policymakers. This study aims to reveal how incentive mechanism design affects stakeholders’ choices of GB levels in tangible and intangible ways. The Gross Floor Area Concession Scheme implemented in Hong Kong is selected as a case study. Cost–benefit analysis, particularly transaction cost, and the analytical hierarchy process method are used to evaluate the costs and benefits in terms of monetary value and importance. Then, a causal loop diagram is constructed to explain the incentive mechanism. Results show that although actual costs and benefits are more important than hidden ones, transaction cost can be a decisive factor for selecting GB levels. Cost–benefit analysis with transaction cost considerations should be conducted to improve GB incentives. In addition, fast sales of high levels of GB can be a critical compensation for extra costs. Alternatives for improving incentives are also provided based on the findings. This study helps enrich the incentive mechanism for promoting high levels of GB. It provides empirical evidence on the magnitude of transaction cost and proves the soundness of conducting a holistic cost–benefit analysis by incorporating transaction cost.

Polite exclusion: high-performing immigrant students experience of peer exclusion

ABSTRACT Integration problems are often explained in terms of segregation. Students with immigrant backgrounds are frequently associated with so-called ethnically segregated residential areas and stigmatized, low-performing, suburban schools. In contrast, this study investigates high-performing students attending a well-reputed school. While formally valued and included, they are subtly socially excluded by their peers. This exclusion is expressed in a subtle, almost intangible ways. It is, above all, polite, and expressed in tiny, everyday interactions. The fact that this exclusion is polite and intangible makes it hard to resist. There is little concrete action to object to, the risks of social stigma are too high, and the possibility of change too low. Thus the exclusion can continue unchallenged. The results show that formal, structural inclusion does not automatically lead to everyday, social inclusion. The research method consisted of participant observation, including audio recordings of interviews with students, their teachers and school leaders.

The Spectral Presence of Business in India’s 2019 Election

Shifts in the balance of India’s economy towards private production have re-opened a debate over the role of the business in its polity. Business interests have found new ways to influence the state at different levels and through multiple institutions. This article concentrates on the composition of the 17th Lok Sabha and its porosity towards business (around 28.4% of these MPs have self-reported business careers). A growing of number of ‘industrialists’ and entrepreneurs have branched out into a legislative career; they complement a fast-emerging group of entrepreneurial politicians, who already use their legislative and institutional location to develop business interests for themselves and their families. We find that the influence and power of business has become diffuse and central at the same time; it seeped into every aspect of the election campaign and voting process: political recruitment, finance, issues, and policies—in tangible and intangible ways. This spectral presence of business is shaping Indian elections, parties, and democracy and in turn consolidating India’s economic reforms and pro-business polity.

Chat Room.

Chat Room helps you dig deeper into JCN content, offering ideas for personal or group reflection with other nurses—great for Nurses Christian Fellowship student chapters on campus or nurse fellowship groups! Conquering the Craving: Treatment to Curb Alcohol Use Disorder Read Umhau, 148-156.Figure Why does the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5®) refer to Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) rather than alcohol abuse or alcoholism? What is emphasized? What factors influence susceptibility to AUD? Describe alcohol deprivation effect. How does this impact brain function? What are the CAGE questions used for assessment of AUD? Have you used the CAGE tool in your practice? As two or more positive responses indicate AUD, what might you say to the patient to move him/her toward help? Ask yourself these questions. Do your answers indicate the need for assistance? Describe various ways medication works to reduce alcohol consumption. How does The Sinclair Method (TSM) incorporate medication? In the context of AUD, ponder the stories of these biblical people: Noah (Genesis 9:21); Lot (Genesis 19:30-36); Elah (1Kings 16:9-10). How did each person's alcohol use influence his life and the lives of others? Life, God, and Help: Resources for Women Who Are Working and Poor Read Lucas, Bischof, & Resick, 166-171. Describe the patchwork approach to living. What are contributing factors? Women who are working and poor tend to lack other resources beyond money. According to the authors, what are some of those resources? How does this lack impact health? Three themes emerged from the research: life, God, and help. The authors state, “Christian nurses will find these themes applicable with the theme of God, and to nursing with the themes of life and help.” Discuss how you can promote these resources in tangible or intangible ways. Read Psalm 68:5, 82:3; Isaiah 40:11. What do you recognize about God in these passages? How does he want us to relate to the poor or fatherless? Tangibly, how can you assist the working poor in your community? FigureA New Nurse with a Firm Foundation Read Bahemuka, 198.Figure Recall your days as a new nurse. What feelings or thoughts does this article elicit about that time in your life and career? Have you stood your ground with a patient or patient's family member, informing him/her that inappropriate treatment—verbal or otherwise—will not be tolerated? If so, how did the individual respond? How did you, in a Christ-like manner, inform this person of his/her unacceptable behavior? The author states, “I realized I was a Christian nurse, not a nurse who happened to be a Christian.” Differentiate between the two. How does this perspective inform daily practice? Reflect on Ephesians 4:29-32. When foul language comes your way, how are you tempted to respond? What is God's desire regarding the words that come from our mouths? Based on the final sentence in this passage, could silence fulfill the instruction to be compassionate and kind? How would you forgive another—whether patient, colleague, family member, or friend—who did not apologize for unleashing unedifying speech toward you? Support your ideas using examples of Jesus' responses in the gospels.

Tangible or Intangible Ways to Happiness? Consumption Related Values Among Adolescents

In recent years a large number of consumer studies focused on happiness, subjective well-being and satisfaction with life in relationship with material or experimental consumption. Most of the studies applied statistically reliable validated scales and measurements involving large numbers of respondents. There are only a few study that aimed to answer the meaning of happiness or satisfaction and their reflections in adolescents’ consumer behaviour at the present time. Due to the less represented academic literature in that area and the controversial results of our previous quantitative research on materialism we decided to conduct a qualitative research to investigate the meaning of happiness among adolescents in Hungary. Our non-representative sample consisted of students from 5 different high schools in 3 cities including Budapest. Respondents took part in in-depth interviews, peer interviews and worked in groups in associative experiments. According to our findings physical goods and material consumption contribute less to the individuals’ sense of happiness and interpersonal relationships are more appreciated. The teenagers of our sample showed signs of material emptiness, since possessing things were unimportant for them Family, stable personal relationships and safety were very significant among their values. Their consumer behaviour was influenced mostly by the need for gaining experiences rather than need for acquisition and possession of tangible goods.

Depósito Legal en línea: desafíos para su desarrollo en España Legal

The study aims to show the challenges facing by conservative institutions and the strategies that must be proposed to carry out the preservation of the cultural heritage that is produced in an intangible way in the Spanish territory. The need to preserve the documents currently produced in an intangible way has caused a change in the process of management of the Legal Deposit so that custody institutions have to face new challenges in order to carry out the necessary development in Spain regarding legislation from the Royal Decree 635/2015 of 10 July that comes to develop Law 23/2011 of Legal Deposit.

Candlelight Protests in South Korea:The Legacies of Authoritarianism and Democratization

The recent candlelight protests in the fall and winter of 2016 and 2017 marked a critical moment in the maturation of South Korean democracy. Through complex connections between contributing actors involving the protesting public, the National Assembly, and the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Korea, President Park Geun-hye became the first South Korea president to be impeached through democratic procedures. While acknowledging the significant differences that distinguish this most recent protest wave with contentious politics of the past, this article highlights the foundational legacies of South Korea’s authoritarian history. In addition, I reflect on how the contemporary candlelight protest industry draws on organizational and cultural resources first established in past democracy movements. In short, the political contest that brought down Park Geun-hye in 2016-2017 was in some tangible and intangible ways a reenactment of the authoritarian and democratization legacies that dominated much of South Korea’s modern history.

Juniper: From Medicine to Poison and Back Again in 17th-Century Muscovy

JuniperFrom Medicine to Poison and Back Again in 17th-Century Muscovy Rachel Koroloff (bio) Early modern Russians were well aware of the natural world that surrounded them. They knew that plants, minerals, and animals had value, were abundant in their own realm, and could be traded domestically and exported internationally to generate profit. Imports like tobacco, exports like fur, and transport goods like rhubarb were all natural resources that early modern Russians sought to control. But how did Russians in the 17th and 18th centuries go about doing this? How did they come to know the natural world, and what ultimately did they make of it? This article attempts to answer these questions by focusing on the tree known as juniper, an evergreen that grows widely throughout the northern hemisphere. In the 17th and 18th centuries juniper was so abundant it was hardly worth cultivating or exporting, but so valuable a medicine was it that an entire state apparatus, that of the juniper obligation (mozhzhevel´ovaia povinnost´) sprang up to secure great quantities of it for Moscow’s medical community. This essay traces the collection, processing, distribution, and use of common juniper or Juniperus communis to illustrate the infrastructures that gave Muscovite officials and their Western doctors a steady supply of the important plant. The comparison in the second half of the essay between common juniper and its close relative, savin or Juniperus sabina, suggests one of the more intangible ways in which those infrastructures influenced Muscovite knowledge of the plant world. Ultimately a somewhat liminal object, juniper was one of many plants that comfortably inhabited both sides of the boundaries that Muscovites routinely drew between magic, [End Page 697] medicine, and poison. From collection, processing, and distribution to use and belief, juniper in its many forms helps uncover some of the ways that Russians came to know the natural world in the 17th and 18th centuries. The focus in recent years on the natural world in early modern Russian history has resulted in new work looking at nature across the Muscovite and imperial periods using a largely top-down, market-centered approach. The most prominent among these works demonstrate just how thoroughly Muscovites understood the natural world in distinctly mercantilistic terms, an attitude exemplified by state monopolies on such natural resources as potash, caviar, and rhubarb and quasi-monopolistic state control over the fur and tobacco trades.1 From the 17th century on, it was becoming increasingly clear to some that the products of the forest and the field constituted a deep well of resources that if properly tapped could free the Muscovite state from specie-draining imports. Domestic production if suitably robust would result in an increasingly favorable balance of trade and ultimately the greater integration of Russia into the wider global economy.2 It was in this spirit that Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, for instance, explored establishing domestic silk manufacture along the southern Volga River—importing mulberry trees, silk worms, and silk “masters” from across the Caspian Sea.3 Medicinal plants were also considered valuable resources, and as Matthew Romaniello has demonstrated with rhubarb, doctors and naturalists in Russian employ were sent to investigate medicines as fair afield as China in what was “not a disinterested pursuit but rather Russian ‘bioprospecting,’ a search for materia medica that could become valuable commodities.”4 In addition to this literature putting “nature” into a mostly economic framework, another recent body of literature sheds a great deal of light on [End Page 698] Muscovy and the natural world by detailing instead how various aspects of nature served as symbols of divine order and acted as repositories for popular belief and folk traditions. Valerie Kivelson’s studies of maps, religious imagery, and witchcraft trials are perhaps the best example of this approach.5 Equally important, however, is the recent work of Russian- and German-speaking historians who, using a combination of techniques from linguistics, folklore, and anthropology reanimate the dynamic and meaningful associations early modern Russians derived from the natural world that surrounded them.6 All these studies have opened and enriched the discussion of the natural world in early modern Russia by starting with the economic and the cultural systems that...