Urespa, meaning “to grow together” in the Ainu language, is a social venture founded at Sapporo University in 2010. The Urespa club brings Indigenous Ainu and Wajin (i.e. non-Ainu) students together in a curriculum-based environment to co-learn the Ainu language and Ainu cultural practices. The initiative’s aim is to restory the conventional narrative of Otherness in Japan by creating a transformative ...

This article explores the religious association <i>mahbär</i>, also called <i>tsïwwa</i>, in Ethiopia. Data from lay practitioners as well as priests show that religious mahbär has many religious as well as social functions. It is a ritual with long traditions in the Ethiopian Orthodox <i>Täwahedo</i> Church. The authors show that what characterizes mahbär as a ritual is its unusual richness, ...

Paper proposes the method of evaluating costs for bioenergy supply in Russia based on energy analysis. The main deterrent factor is not as much limited resources as the marginal cost of production biofuels and the possibility of using cost-effective ways reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including capturing and carbon storage, alternative forms of renewable energy and energy efficiency and energy ...

Innovations are needed to meet increasing challenges in public healthcare, and type of motivation has been identified as a pivotal factor for the success of an innovation. New public management crowd out the intrinsic motivation of employees which has resulted in a quest for more self-reliant service providers. This paper takes the opposite point of departure asking if intrinsic motivation can be ...

Å gi barn og unge mulighet til deltakelse i forskning om temaer som angår deres liv og levekår er viktig. Samtidig innebærer forskning med mindreårige deltakere særskilte forskningsetiske og metodiske utfordringer. De har rett til beskyttelse, og deres integritet må ivaretas. Det kan oppstå et spenningsforhold mellom barns og unges deltakelse og deres rett til beskyttelse, særlig i forskning om ...

In the Nordic countries, we are witnessing a proliferation of novel and more experimental ways of citizen and authority interaction within the field of urban planning and governance. These formats are seen in urban regeneration projects and planning experiments that endorse more inclusive interactions between public authorities and local actors than in the traditional formal hearings. The intention ...

The purpose of the article is to assess the impact of concentrations of state employees on local growth and development. Local multiplier effect theory suggests that the increased local demand for state employees, especially highly skilled employees, would stimulate the local supply of goods and services, and hence local development. However, other theories of regional development have shown that ...

This article addresses the relation between gender and social change in the context of east-west migration. Using a feminist phenomenologist and interpretative approach, the analysis shows that Russian female migrants in Northern Norway, although well-educated and generally well-integrated in the local labor market, often felt that they were on display and judged through their bodies. Their bodily ...