National Reconstruction Research Articles

Handling of the Grievances in the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) after the 2015 Earthquake in Nepal

An algorithm to handle the grievances from the earthquake victims after the first processing of the data collected from them have been proposed and implemented. Suggestions to improve the performances in data collection, processing and handling have been proposed

Valorising University Education in Ghana

There has been a neoliberal re-ordering of the political intent behind education in Ghana. Prior to the said re-ordering, education was a means by which the government facilitated the citizen's acquisition of the social capital required to enable the individual to contribute to the positive development of the state. The state intervened to create a common sense of nationhood and destiny among the citizenry in the quest for national reconstruction. However, the neoliberal “commodification” of education—in the form of a philosophical readjustment of the need for education, from being a “right” to a “privilege”—and its attendant shifting of the cost onto the citizen, have led to the creation of segregation based on income. The poor have thus been permanently locked out of education as a means of upward social mobility. The result of this is socio- economic disharmony, with the educational system as a political filter which separates those who can afford education and those who cannot. This has negative implications for the process of democratic deepening: the educationally empowered will lord it over the educationally disempowered. Stretched to its logical conclusion, the state, even though liberal, becomes an oppressive democratic state, with structurally limited options for the poor.

냉전과 탈냉전 시기 한국 민족주의의 역사적 전개와 성격: 전쟁과 평화, 통일 문제를 중심으로

냉전과 탈냉전 시기 한국 민족주의의 역사적 전개와 성격: 전쟁과 평화, 통일 문제를 중심으로

Gorkha Earthquake: A Study of the Published Literature and Findings of Missing Links in Livelihood Management

After devastated effect of the Earth quake of 2015; restoring livelihood would have been one of the most important priority, but it did not happen in Nepal. During the crisis, the youth suppose to live in the country, here the scenario became different 354533 (Department of Foreign Employment, 2017), after recovered from preliminary shock, youth migrated in search of jobs in foreign countries. Financial need could not be sidelined since it is a reality. Very hard hit was found agriculture sector and 1/3 of the farm land was cultivated during the year of earthquake. Housing construction accelerated in good pace and 95% completed to the date. The study carried out as qualitative analysis with the review of published articles and program and publication of the National reconstruction authority. And other research articles, particularly livelihood restoration and damages occurred. Very negligible effort made in planning for economic recovery, livelihood restoration and creation, mass mobilization, formation of integrated resettlement. These are the major missing links in livelihood management, training and human resource mobilization as for income generation during the time of crisis. The study found out that the people were more government dependent, international donor mobilization was also not effective. Many countries have given priority for economic recovery; including Bhuj earthquake of India but in Nepal it has sidelined. These identified missing links will add on knowledge management in the planning in such devastating disaster situation. Nepal is in seismic zone and prone to earthquake; people need to be prepared all the time to tackle if arises such situation to minimize the casualties and protecting from trauma.

National Deliverance through Culture or of Culture? T. C. Chao on Christianity and Chinese Culture

This article traces the theological evolution in the thought of T. C. Chao regarding national deliverance as it related to Chinese culture. Although Chao never wavered on the significance of Christianity in national reconstruction, his position on the relationship between Chinese culture and Christianity shows significant theological reorientation. In his earlier works Chao tried to clothe Christianity with a Chinese fabric, emphasizing the immanence of the faith by making it culturally relevant to his compatriots. Later, “caught by truth” in a Japanese prison, Chao instead turned to Christian transcendence as the necessary corrective for the challenges and crises in Chinese culture and society.

“Creative Reconstruction” and the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games: How Does the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games Influence Japan's Neoliberal Social Reform?

This article critically examines the vision of Japanese society expressed in the idea of a legacy for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games primarily for an internal, domestic audience. This legacy is consistent with the national reconstruction policy adopted after the Great East Japan earthquake of 11 March 2011. The specific issue I focus on here is the centrality of the term “creative reconstruction” to the legacy discourse on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. By interweaving discussions about three places—the Tohoku disaster area, the Tokyo Olympic venue, and Japanese society—this discourse creates an apparently mutual interdependence between the three. Here I assess the idea of this ideological Olympic legacy where these relationships of interdependence are represented as a blueprint for restructuring the system of capital accumulation in Japan. The structure of the article is as follows. First, I provide an overview of creative reconstruction in Japan in comparison with other terms recently used to assess sports mega‐events such as the Olympics. Next, I briefly outline the political transformation of the social integration system from the mid‐1990s, when the phrase creative reconstruction was first used to the present. In the following three sections I discuss the way that each of the key terms in the discourse—Tohoku, Tokyo, and Japan—has been deployed. This article concludes with reflections on the social and political implications of this discourse for Japanese society in the build up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

Ekstraksi Faktor Kompleksitas Game Menggunakan Metode Function Points

After the President of the Republic of Indonesia established a Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf) by Presidential Regulation (Perpres) No. 6 the Year 2015, Bekraf initiated to push the creative business actors to collaborate with government to improve the nation's reconstruction of this entertainment business. The game today has become a means of education that can be accepted by all circles of communities. Therefore, the researcher aims to assist the business of digital creative field to estimate computer game development effort based on Function Points (FP) method which is better known as cost calculation of application software development project. The results of this study are the need to modify the understanding of computer game parameters ranging from the input, output, inquiry, logic file intern, and logic file extern. After that, the complexity factor needs to be redefined and synchronized with eight items of LeBlanc taxonomies. Then, it collaboration namely Game Complexity Factors (GCF). GCF has 22 items of complex factors that consist of 8 LeBlanc taxonomies for environment difficulties and 14 items of technical complexity.

Post Disaster Reconstruction in Sindhupalchok after Earthquake 2015: Problem and Prospects

This research has been carried out amidst of delay accomplishment of Post Disaster Reconstruction (PDR) to find out the problem and prospect of PDR in Sindhupalchowk. All data has been collected from primary and secondary source. Data from secondary source, National Reconstruction Authority, field visit and FGD has been incorporated as par requirement. Qualitative and quantitative data analysis was the main instrument for this study. The frequency, intensity, severity and ramification of disaster are increasing day by day. The number of dead, injured, displaced and damage is also increasing. Disaster is becoming a great threat for human, social, economic and environmental sustainability and for development. PDR is a program of recovery and rehabilitation phase of disaster management where actions taken to restore and improve pre-disaster living condition of affected communities. PDR is usually slow, expensive, complex and controversial issue which gives positive result only if it is carried out in well managed, transparent and participatory approach. Build back better and linking reconstruction with development and economic activities are the fundamental and essential element of successful reconstruction. Socioeconomic condition of people can be enhanced by adopting appropriate measure in PDR.
 After earthquake 2015, NRA has been established and is working all over the affected area of Nepal. Sindhupalchok is one of the most affected districts by earthquake 2015, where NRA has launched its reconstruction program which is in progress but is not as successful as expected before. Political instability, bureaucratic inefficiency, lack of sufficient finance, trained human resource and construction material, poverty and noncompliance of people are major reason behind the delay accomplishment of PDR. Government has to execute its policy strictly and people also have to be cooperative towards the government policy and should reconstruct their house according to the guidelines of NRA within given timeframe.

Education for Nation Building: The Vision of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah for University Education in the Early Stages of Self-Government and Independence in Ghana

The Gold Coast was renamed Ghana by the political leadership on the attainment of Independence. But before 1957, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah had become Prime Minister of the Gold Coast in 1952, and by this arrangement ruled alongside the British Colonial Governor. Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah set out to rebuild the new nation, and by doing so, Education, especially University Education, became a significant tool for the realization of such an objective. He, and the Convention People’s Party (CPP) Government saw education as “the keystone of people’s life and happiness.’’1 Thus, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah wanted the University Colleges in the Gold Coast to train intellectuals capable of combining both theory and practice as well as use their energies to assist in the task of national reconstruction.2 This explains why Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah clearly spelt out the visions of University Education in Ghana. This paper, which is multi-sourced, uses archival documents, newspapers, interviews and scholarly secondary works such as articles, book chapters and books to examine the visions of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah for University Education in the early stages of self-government and independence in Ghana. The paper particularly focuses on measures adopted by the first Prime Minister of Ghana such as establishment of an International Commission on University Education (ICUE), making the existing University Colleges independent, the rationale for setting up the University College of Cape Coast (UCCC), the Africanization of the University staff, establishment of the Institute of African Studies and the formation of the National Council for Higher Education to transform the University Colleges to reflect the needs and aspirations of Ghanaians.
 
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 1 H. O. A. McWilliam, & M. A. Kwamena-Poh, The Development of Education in Ghana. (London: Longman Group Ltd., 1975), 83.
 2 Samuel Obeng, Selected Speeches of Kwame Nkrumah, Vol. 1 (Accra: Aframs Publication Ltd., 1997), 74.

‘Gettin’ on with these furriners’: silent Western epics and American identity

Although film critics were declaring the end of the Western in the early 1920s, the transition of the genre into epic modes in The Covered Wagon (Robert Cruze, 1923) and The Iron Horse (John Ford, 1924) reinvigorated the Western with a focus on large-scale entertainment and grand narratives about nation building. Both films debuted during an extreme period of US nativism, when politicians like Albert Johnson ushered in new legislation to the stop the ‘foreign-born flood’ that threatened to undermine ‘the institutions which have made and preserved American liberties’. In this essay I argue that these Westerns – produced as the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924 was being debated and, ultimately, passed – respond to nativist, anti-immigrant ideology in radically different ways. In so doing, each of these two films works to mould the Western genre itself around new epic forms, layering melodramatic individual narratives over broader national history. The oscillation between narrative foreground and background is mirrored by a system of visual information that reinforces the films’ notion of American history and identity. In both cases, contemporary reviewers and audiences latched onto the complex politics of these pioneering Western epics. While The Covered Wagon emphasized a homogeneous Anglo-Saxon ‘blood of the pioneers’, The Iron Horse presented a multiethnic vision of American labour in service of national reconstruction. Rooted in contemporaneous 1920s debates about American identity, American labour, nativist politics, and immigration, these competing perspectives demonstrate both the flexibility of the Western genre and its ability to offer forms of cultural resistance.

Re-imagineering Belgrade and Skopje: urban megaprojects between politics and struggle

ABSTRACTThis comparative study on the urban re-imagineering performed through large-scale urban refurbishment focuses on the specific post-socialist and post-conflict contexts of former Yugoslavia. Through the analysis of legislative and planning documents, expert interviews, reports, and media coverage, this study shows how initiatives for the implementation of grandiloquent urban megaprojects (UMP) in the capital cities of Serbia and Macedonia became extreme examples of national image reconstruction, carried out through autocratic state-led interventions that disregarded public input. The two main insights that the study provides classify these cases as rather particular in the European framework. First, the national governments have played a decisive role in conceiving entrepreneurial strategies for national rebranding through urban re-imagineering of its capital cities. Second, this politically orchestrated processes advanced through non-transparent decision-making, in spite of the rising opposition by the civic alliances. In conclusion, autocratic implementation of UMPs in the urban contexts of the Yugoslavian successor states played out much more forcefully, overriding the imperative to satisfy genuine public interest.

Altyerre NOW: Arrernte dreams for national reconstruction in the 21st century

This paper provides a case study of research interactions between an Arrernte researcher and non-Aboriginal institutional repositories that hold significant collections of Arrernte material culture and cultural knowledge. This paper, although exploratory in nature, is designed to both document and give voice to Aboriginal people who are compelled to engage in research as a means to rediscovering their Aboriginal identities through private efforts to gain knowledge of their kin relationships, language, cultural practice and protocols, and rights to place.

Employee benefits, migration and social struggles: an Indian coalfield, 1895–1970

ABSTRACTDuring 1895–1970, in the Indian coalfield of Jharia, circular migration of the mineworker coexisted along with the fact that workers became regular over time. This article suggests that the development of employee benefits influenced the patterns of migration and settlement of workers. Employers, guided by a new industrial sensibility, came up with specific employee benefits, with an objective of continuous production from a group of settled workers. The workers’ approach to social security and the pressure exerted by them shaped the expansion of employee benefits. My finding takes an issue with the thesis of cheap migrant labour. The latter argument has insufficiently revealed the actual preferences of employees. My work critiques another thesis which suggests that workers maintained a preference for investment in rural homesteads; therefore choosing to remain oscillating migrants. My study suggests that workers developed a notion of the civilised and human form of life from the 1920s onwards. The self-respect campaign amongst the unprivileged caste groups, the movement for industrial democracy and national reconstruction and the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO’s) advocacy of civilised and human life for workers, gave a spur to new reproduction preferences. Now, they sought employee benefits regarded as necessary for a dignified living.

Křesťané před volbou: stát se muslimem, nebo zemřít? K otázce konverzí k islámu během arménské genocidy

This article focuses on the issue of Christian conversions (forced or voluntary) to Islam during the Armenian genocide. The essay examines the ideology of turkification that was behind these efforts, including Ottoman government- sponsored orphanages as a direct means of assimilating Armenian children. It pays particular attention to the process of ‘rebuilding’ the Armenian nation in the immediate aftermath of World War I sometimes called ‘national reconstruction’. In the final part the paper deals with the phenomenon of the ‘Hidden Armenians’ in contemporary Turkey.

Understanding patient choices regarding breast reconstruction after mastectomy for breast cancer

In Australia, about 40% of patients undergo mastectomy to treat breast cancer, with negative impacts on body image, sexual function and quality of life. Whilst breast reconstruction is associated with increased patient self-esteem and a greater sense of wholeness and well-being, the national reconstruction rate is low at 18%. This study aimed to compare demographics, treatment factors and information provision about breast reconstruction in women who had and did not have breast reconstruction following mastectomy treatment and identify goals and concerns underpinning women's reconstruction decisions. Female patients who had a mastectomy to treat breast cancer between 2010 and 2014 in a culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) and socially disadvantaged region participated in a cross-sectional study, completing a questionnaire in their language of choice (English, Vietnamese, Chinese or Arabic). Completed surveys were returned by 168 women (42% response rate; 77% English-speaking), of whom only 19.0% (n = 32) reported having had breast reconstruction. Reconstruction rates were significantly lower in women who reported speaking a language other than English at home versus only English (37.5% vs 62.5%, p = 0.03). However, all women expressed a desire for more information about breast reconstruction and more support to make their decision about breast reconstruction. Patients identified a need for greater information provision on breast reconstruction, highlighting an urgent need for resources specifically about breast reconstruction, particularly for non-English-speaking patients. Greater provision of information prior to mastectomy is critical to underpin breast cancer patients' decisions about breast reconstruction, especially for non-English speaking patients.

Meteorisations

This article reads Amílcar Cabral’s much under-studied early soil science as a body of work not dissociable from his project of liberation struggle against Portuguese colonialism in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. Drawing on research situated within an artistic practice, the article explores the definitions of soil and erosion that Cabral developed as an agronomist, as well as his reports on colonial land exploitation and analysis of the trade economy, to unearth his double agency as a state soil scientist and as a ‘seeder’ of African liberation. Cabral understood agronomy not merely as a discipline combining geology, soil science, agriculture, biology and economics but as a means to gain materialist and situated knowledge about peoples’ lived conditions under colonialism. The scientific data he generated during his work as an agronomist were critical to his theoretical arguments in which he denounced the injustices perpetrated on colonised land, and it later informed his warfare strategies. Cabral used his role as an agronomist for the Portuguese colonial government subversively to further anti-colonial struggle. I argue that the results of Cabral’s agronomic work – his care for the soil and attention to its processes and transformations – not only informed the organisation of the liberation struggle, but were crucial to the process of decolonisation, understood as a project of reclamation and national reconstruction in the postcolony.

Pantheon on a tablecloth: Yugoslav dictatorship and the confrontation of national symbols in Croatia (1929-1935)

This paper questions the effects of the state- and nation-building that occurred in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia during the 6 January Dictatorship (1929–1935) and points to the importance of symbols during this process. By using an ethno-symbolist approach and extending it to “banal nationalism,” the article analyzes some of the most prominent and influential symbols from within an everyday environment. Using the Croatian ethnic space as a framework, the article traces the population's attitudes toward the Yugoslav national flag and representations of King Alexander – two of the most forced symbols in the centralized Yugoslavone state and one nationconcept of nation-building. The regime possessed all the mechanisms of power necessary to impose these symbols, though most Croats clearly felt no connection to them. Despite severe penalties, they opposed the regime's plans for national reconstruction of the country by displaying Croatian flags and various symbolic representations of Stjepan Radić – as a martyr of the Croatian nation. By linking this problem to specific studies that deal with the development of nationalism, this paper outlines the struggle between Yugoslavism and Croatianism through acceptance and resistance toward the Yugoslav symbolism.

Rehabilitating Botany in the Postwar Moment: National Promise and the Encyclopedism of Eduardo Quisumbing’s Medicinal Plants of the Philippines (1951)

Abstract In 1951, plant taxonomist Eduardo Quisumbing published Medicinal Plants of the Philippines, a 1,234–page volume on the palliative and curative applications of Philippine flora. Considered the standard contemporary reference on medical botany, Quisumbing’s work has informed generations of human scientists, botanists, and chemists from the archipelago. This paper, however, poses the question: What did Quisumbing, a trained orchidist, have to do with such a wide-ranging postwar publication—one quite distant from his scientific specialization—that would be (mistakenly) remembered as his magnum opus? Through a close reading of the text informed by the work’s intertextuality and Quisumbing’s personal archive, I argue that Medicinal Plants of the Philippines captures a type of encyclopedism undertaken in order to recuperate Manila’s Bureau of Science following World War ii. This encyclopedism speaks to the book’s curious character: strictly speaking, it is neither a pharmacopoeia nor a flora. Instead, it is a compendium of principally invasive species and their medicinal uses around the world that draws from over 630 academic publications. Caught within the tangle of postwar national reconstruction efforts, Quisumbing’s book evidences a considerable investment in intellectual knowledge production to assert the country’s newfound independence while shoring up public support for Philippine botanic and scientific research.

Pashtun Jirgas, Their Potential in Pak-Afghan Reconciliation and National Reconstruction

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have mostly been hostile since 1947. The animosity has grown in complexity from various territorial disputes to frequent allegations of cross-border terrorism in the post-9/11 era. This article first makes a case for involving Jirgas, a traditional dispute resolution mechanism among Pashtuns, for improving peace dialogues between both countries. It presents evidence of the traditional acceptability of Jirgas by Pashtuns on both sides of the border and assesses previous official bilateral attempts of using Jirgas. It then proceeds to propose some new policy recommendations focused on national reconstruction of Afghanistan, which include involvement of the Taliban as an important local stakeholder. The dual key argument then becomes, first, that since Jirgas have long-standing local legitimacy and acceptability both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, using the strength of their social recognition would allow higher-level bilateral negotiations between the neighbours, enhancing the effectiveness of new and locally more credible forms of multi-track diplomacy. Second, reinvigorating the Jirga system would allow the Afghan people themselves to engage in fuller multi-dimensional debates on sustainable modalities for their own future, on terms to be set by them, not outsiders.

Exploring the Relationship Between Tourism Development, Energy Consumption and Carbon Emissions

Tourism is viewed increasingly as an essential sector to local, regional and national reconstruction and development for economies at various scales. However, its contribution on environmental quality degradation is more important. Indeed, any increase in the number of tourism requires amounts of growing energy, which increases CO2 emissions. The objective of this article is to empirically investigate the relationship between tourism development, energy consumption and carbon emissions in Tunisia over the period of 1974-2014.To recognize this relationship, a bonds test of co-integration, ARDL model and Granger Causality Tests have been employed. After having confirmed that the existence of co-integration relationship between energy consumption tourism demand and CO2 emission, the results indicate that tourism has a direct impact and statistically significant effect on the consumption of energy for the future of the Tunisian economy. The short-term results indicate bidirectional causality between energy consumption and emissions of CO2 and also between the consumption of energy and tourism, meanwhile the absence of any causal relationship between the emissions of CO2 and tourism. Tourism affects the quality of the environment indirectly through the consumption of energy. So, the protection measures in the tourism sector should be laid down in Tunisia. Sustainability in the tourism sector is one of the major axis of debate on tourism development integrated in the environment.