Archive for February, 2007
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Nancy Schepper-Huges’ graphic portrayal of hunger and violance in Brazil
Posted on February 25, 2007 | No CommentsDeath without weeping: The violence of everyday life in Brazil Rating: 4 out of 5 Author: Nancy Schepper-Huges Year: 1992 Category: Anthropology, hunger, violence, poverty Publisher: University of California Press Death without weeping is an ethnographic study of a town in North-Eastern Brazil. The theme of the book is hunger, child deaths and ‘every day violence’ in Brazil. The work is situated in a town she calls ‘Bom Jesus da mata’ in Pernambuco district of N.E. Brazil. The author visited the place first as a volunteer in 1964, and continued her association with the town ever since. After her training... -
Papers and Reports I was involved in
Posted on February 21, 2007 | No CommentsThe right to food has been my main academic preoccupation so far. The following are some of my pieces (many co-authored) on various themes surrounding the issue. Citizens’ Initiative for the Rights of Children Under Six. 2006. Focus on children under six. Delhi: Circus. This report looks at the status of children under six, and the status of India’s only major child care system – Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). The report is based on a six-state survey and numerous other materials. The focus report is a joint work by a large team. My contribution was on the Tamil Nadu... -
Comparing Google Scholar and specialised bibliographic search engines
Posted on February 17, 2007 | 1 CommentGoogle scholar and specialized bibliography services like Econlit and JSTOR seem to have different strengths and should be used in different ways I started using Google Scholar with a vengeance when it started. It has an ease that other providers do not: there is no need to log in, there is no need for subscription and it seems to pull out articles that other service providers just did not. In no time, Google Scholar also started providing links to my citation manager – Refworks. But soon I started realising various limitations of Google Scholar. Here’s a brief assessment of the... -
Bibliography of Institutional Economics (downloadable)
Posted on February 16, 2007 | No CommentsThis bibliography covers most of the recent and classic works in institutional economics. I’ve included some reviews in the book review section. My other bibliographies can be seen under the bibliography category. Abraham, Anita, and Jean-Philippe Platteau. 2004. Participatory development: Where culture creeps in. In . Acemoglu, Daron. 2005. Politics and economics in weak and strong states. Journal of Monetary Economics 52, (7) (October): 1199-1226. Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. 2006. Economic origins of dictatorship and democracy. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press. Alston, Lee J., Thráinn Eggertsson, and Douglass Cecil North. 1996. Empirical studies in institutional change.... -
Wordnet lexical database in Hindi
Posted on February 15, 2007 | No CommentsI had written a note about using wordnet lexical database that could be used in content analysis. I just stumbled on a lexical database in Hindi. I am yet to try it, but am excited that such a tool is available in an Indian language, specially when I am planing a media study with a friend. -
Using Wordnet lexical database with content analysis software
Posted on February 14, 2007 | 2 CommentsA tool to generate conceptually related set of words for content analysis Wordnet is a lexical database maintained by Princeton university. It is described as: “WordNet® is a large lexical database of English, developed under the direction of George A. Miller. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are grouped into sets of cognitive synonyms (synsets), each expressing a distinct concept. Synsets are interlinked by means of conceptual-semantic and lexical relations. The resulting network of meaningfully related words and concepts can be navigated with the browser” When we with to do autocoding with NVivo or other qualitative research (or content analysis) software,... -
NVivo: Useful content analysis tool
Posted on February 14, 2007 | 3 CommentsNVivo Rating: 4 out of 5 I started using NVivo – a qualitative research and content analysis software – last year when I worked on a content analysis project. NVivo’s purposes are simple – it allows us to assemble different documents (including pictures) and code them. The codes can be arranged in a hierarchy or individually. While most coding is manual, some of it can be automated (see below). The best part of NVivo is that it allows us to review contents carrying a particular code with ease. For example, I was looking at newspaper articles on contracting and wanted... -
Snow is beautiful & I hope no one in Syracuse reads this
Posted on February 14, 2007 | No CommentsIt has snowed a lot in Syracuse last night, and the forecast is that it will snow a lot more. My walk to the school was fun like never before – loads and loads of snow all around, submerged cars (no sadism here – but it was just incredible to see it all), and an entirely new look and feel to the whole city/town/village (not sure what Syracuse is). On top of all this fun, they’ve advanced the women’s basket ball game and have announced that there will be no entry fees! Having done my masters in Economics, I know... -
I have a dream – Video of Martin Luther King’s talk
Posted on February 14, 2007 | No CommentsI used to go to the library to listen to this talk earlier – till I discovered it in You Tube. A link is provided below to this great speech. Text of the talk Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic... -
Putting-off the writing work: Can this be helped
Posted on February 12, 2007 | No Comments“I put all my shoes in front of me and polished them”, “I cleaned my curtains”, “My house was never as clean as it was when I had to write my dissertation”. These were the most interesting revelations by a panel on surviving the dissertation that was organised as a part of a course I audited recently. The tendency to putt-off writing is just incredible. I never feel prepared enough, and when I do get to writing, I never quite feel as if I’ve done a job good enough. Every now and then I do a reasonable outline but never...
