The future of indigenous values: cultural relativism in the face of economic development

The outlook for the persistence of indigenous cultural values looks dim, based on historical trends, but recent revitalization efforts point to a more complicated future than a steady decline of diversity. The most powerful obstacle to the viability of indigenous values is the promotion of Western-style economic development initiatives that seldom acknowledge the legitimacy of values outside the materialist-rational paradigm. The evolution of more socially and environmentally oriented ‘progressive’ development policies renders Western values even more beguiling. A future in which indigenous values can survive and perhaps thrive will depend on pro-active efforts among indigenous groups to define their own development futures reflecting their own cultural values.     

Technologies for the people: a future in the making

India’s post-independence policy of using science and technology for national development, and investment in research and development infrastructure resulted in success in space, atomic energy, missile development and supercomputing. Use of space technology has impacted directly or indirectly the vast majority of India’s billion plus population. Developments in a number of emerging technologies in recent years hold the promise of impacting the future of ordinary Indians in significant ways, if a proper policy and enabling environment are provided. New telecom technologies—a digital rural exchange and a wireless access system—are beginning to touch the lives of common people. Development of a low-cost handheld computing device, use of hybrid telemedicine systems to extend modern healthcare to the unreached, and other innovative uses of IT at the grassroots also hold promise for the future. Biotechnology too has the potential to deliver cost-effective vaccines and drugs, but the future of GM crops is uncertain due to growing opposition. Some of these emerging technologies hold promise for future, provided a positive policy and enabling environment.     

One last chance: tapping indigenous knowledge to produce sustainable conservation policies

Sustainable development projects that were supposed to insure the future of the earth’s biological inheritance are currently being criticized for compromising biodiversity. Drawing on sixteen months of fieldwork with one of Papua New Guinea’s most remote societies, this paper argues that more productive conservation policies will emerge when indigenous activities are viewed as disturbance and not as vehicles for establishing equilibrium with the environment. This research demonstrates that although the Hewa play a significant role in shaping this environment, their traditions are not always compatible with biodiversity conservation. Finally, policy recommendations based on indigenous knowledge research are offered.     

Managing the landscapes of the Australian Northern Territory for sustainability: Visions, issues and strategies for successful planning

The Northern Territory in Australia is a unique place. The region covers one sixth of the land mass of Australia with a population of only 200 000 people. One third of this population is indigenous and just over half of the land is under Aboriginal land title (mostly communal ownership). The landscapes in this region are still in a relatively good condition yet a large proportion of the indigenous population that reside within them are seen to be living with major social and health problems. The governance of the region is a complex mixture of Federal, Territory, and local Government, as well as indigenous and non-indigenous land ownership. To date, planning has largely been ad hoc and influenced by external factors, with little regard for Aboriginal aspirations for the future. Currently there is growing interest in developing the region which would appear to be associated with a drought that is adversely affecting the agricultural potential of southern States of Australia. This paper discusses some of the issues associated with the lack of a shared vision for the future of the NT. It recommends the use of an integrated holistic approach to planning, as defined by a Leitbild, as a strategy for creating a shared vision and working towards successful sustainable landscape planning. Other strategies put forward include placing an economic value on the ecological and cultural significance of the region, in particular providing real jobs on remote Aboriginal communities through developing enterprises based on sustainable use of wildlife and payment for the ecosystem services that Aboriginal land management provides, and applying more empowering methods of participation in scenario modelling for the future using Geographic Information Systems and other visualisation technology.     

Forecasting our environmental future

This series now comes to an appropriate end with the most menacing set of question marks ever raised about the future of the human race. During the past two decades—from the inauguration of the Club of Rome in 1967 to Margaret Thatcher's famous ‘green’ speech to the Royal Society in 1988—an ever growing volume of research has erased the old-time notion that we live out our lives in a steady-state world. As the bad news has spread—environmental pollution, acid rain, the warming of the oceans—a consensus of anxieties has found expression in a global fear for the future. Is there anyone who would gainsay the possibility that, as Mrs Thatcher put it, ‘with all these enormous changes—population, agriculture, use of fossil fuels—concentrated into such a short period of time, we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of the planet itself’? The scale of these changes and the measure of the dangers they bring—these provide the range of cause and effect in Dr Woodell's reflections on the great harm we have done to the human environment. This is the one occasion when an editor can truly say: Read on for the survival of our species.     

Quantifying Financing Needs in the Belt and Road Countries

ABSTRACT

This paper provides a thorough analysis to quantify the financing needs in the Belt and Road countries during 2009 and 2014. By examining financial constraints using financial data of firms in the Belt and Road countries, this study constructs a Financing Needs Index for Belt and Road countries and highlights the characteristics of financing needs across 36 countries and 6 years. By further incorporating information from World Bank Enterprise Surveys, this paper builds an Augmented Financing Needs Index for 56 Belt and Road countries. The findings of this paper provide important policy implications by showing that countries can improve their financial liberalization and institutional environment to address the financing needs of their indigenous firms and thus achieve economic growth.     

Futures research from the yam patch

Subsistence gardening continues to provide a meaningful way of life on the land for many peoples around the world. Those who seek to ‘help’ indigenous peoples, however, regardless of their motives, techniques, technologies, beliefs, or good intent, invariably interfere with and often destroy traditional ways of life. The interveners reduce the future prospects for those who do have skills and knowledge necessary to wrest a living from working the soil. The Nvhaal speaking people in Southwest Tanna, Vanuatu represent a case in point, for they have been subjected to so-called ‘improvements’ deriving from geological exploration, agricultural innovation, enhanced economic trade, exploitation of an export crop such as kava, improved health care, tourism, politicians, education, and Christian religions. As a result, lifestyles, skills and specialized knowledge bases are eroded, thereby endangering the long-term survival of these and by generalization, other indigenous people.     

Health care : Planning, policies, and incentives

In theory, health planning is a detailed and rational corporate attempt to handle broad social problems. But in practice it tends to be incremental—an institutionalised bargaining system which too often neglects the larger issues in favour of marginal adjustments. Mixed scanning, the detailed examination of selected, feasible proposals, combines the best features from theory and practice. Implementation still depends on the recognition of powerful interest groups (eg doctors, managers) and the inclusion of incentives to redirect their activities. Better planning does not guarantee better health—the influence of lifestyle and environment must not be neglected.     

The future quantified

The results reported in this paper demonstrate that the qualitative (group) research and quantitative (individual) survey techniques that have been developed now offer a viable means for mapping current expectations and the possible future directions these will take. Sensible use of these should provide governments, and large organisations in general, with a powerful new set of tools for positively managing the future. In terms of the issues themselves, the group which emerged most strongly from the quantified responses of the individuals are those which might be seen as relating to the ‘green' environment. On the other hand, our qualitative groups looked upon these key issues as representing matters of survival for humanity as a whole. Such a focus on survival may seem selfish, but it can also be seen as altruistic not concerned with personal survival. It also represents a sound, rational approach to long-term planning, where the respondents focused instead on how governments might positively, and safely, manage all the long-term issues threatening the future of humankind. If we move away from ‘green' issues, it is also clear that even individuals recognize the globalisation of issues in particular the globalisation of business, the possibility of a global financial crash and the (threat of) domination by Pacific Rim countries. At the opposite end of the spectrum are worries about the significant problems faced by the underclasses—and, in turn, the significant threat these present to society as a whole. In general though, apart from technological issues, the emphasis was—across almost all areas—on survival in the face of events ranging down from catastrophes to mere crises and stresses!     

Beyond medicine : Health challenges and strategies in the 21st century

The future of health involves much more than the future of medical care since the major factors affecting health are environmental, social and economic ones. Health has generally improved in the past century, but the continuation of this trend is threatened by population growth, urbanization environmental change, poverty, inequity, war, existing communicable and chronic diseases, and possible new ones. New policies and strategies emerging to deal with these challenges include the formulation of healthy public policy, investing in health, and the development of new structures and processes of governance. Integrated national studies focused on human well-being and environmental health are one means through which the futures field could contribute to the improvement of health in 21st century. Visioning workshops and other participatory futures activities are equally important, since they enable people and communities to take part in the definition and achievement of their preferred health futures.     

Forecasting Japanese health futures with the BFT : A demand-side approach

In response to the problems associated with supply-side health-care planning, the Institute of Health Systems Development has created a demand-side approach which has been named BFT (Bioforecasting Technology). The system involves integration of data regarding the population, the natural and social environment, and the health/medical/social services with projections on factors that will influence the future population's demand for different kinds of health services. BFT forecasts have proved highly accurate. The system has been used throughout Japan and internationally, and much wider applications beyond standard hospital and health planning are possible.     

老年人心理健康的潜在类别与影响因素

本文基于2014年北京大学中国老年人健康长寿影响因素调查(CLHLS)数据,采用潜类别分析模型(LCM)与多项Logit回归模型,探索了老年人心理健康的潜在类别与差异,以及“丧失”因素对于老年人心理健康的影响。研究发现:老年人心理健康类型可分为积极型、矛盾型、消极型三类,矛盾型占比达50%以上;“丧失”因素是影响老年人心理健康的直接因素,日常活动能力不受限、认知功能完好、睡眠质量较好的老年人出现积极型的可能性高;“丧失”因素对老年人心理健康的影响在不同户籍、社会经济地位方面存在差异,日常活动能力因素对农村、社会经济地位较低的老年人影响更大,睡眠质量对城市、社会经济地位较高的老年人影响更大。基于此,本文提出以下建议:要重视矛盾型老年人的识别与干预;要健全老年人健康支持体系,完善养老服务设施规划布局及配置,促进老年宜居环境建设;要精准施策,分类施策。     

The city: heaven-on-earth or the hell-to-come?

Polis is the Greek for city; and, like so many things in our civilization, the never-ending debate about the ideal human environment began with the Greeks. To think about the ideal city, as Plato knew, is to think about the desirable, about the not-yet-achieved, about the future. There has been no end to the building of cities—from the Athens of Pericles to the Chandigarh of Le Corbusier. As I.F. Clarke shows, there is no end to the fiction of future cities for the reason that the applied sciences come like the Greeks bearing gifts; and these gifts can so affect the condition of human existence that the citizens have to plan their cities to meet growing populations, new means of communication, and ever-rising expectations. Before 1914 heaven was the organized, industrial metropolis. Since then the city of the future has moved through a history of hell-on-earth, first displayed in the dazzling images of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1926), to the most recent space cities of the galactic age.     

Accounting education for professionals in Germany — current state and new challenges

In comparison to other countries, the requirements on the education of professional auditors in Germany have been considered to be the toughest in the world. However, German professionals risk losing this position since there are countries which seem to adapt more quickly and appropriately to changes in the accounting environment.The first part of the paper provides a review of the current state of the education for qualified auditors in Germany with special reference to the according EU-Directives and IFAC-Rules. It is shown that there are various issues which have to be accounted for in order to meet the challenges of the future.The remainder of the paper focuses on challenges due to changes in the accounting and auditing environment, on challenges due to an enlargement of the scope of statutory audit and — finally — on challenges due to the need for diversification from auditing to assurance services.     

Gylany: the balanced future

Futurist projections indicate that androcracy is rapidly taking us to an evolutionary dead-end. But the two projected androcratic futures—a totalitarian future or no future at all—are not our only alternatives. There is the third alternative, the humanistic future to which the concept of gylany, both the balanced core and the logical requirement of our cultural evolution, provides the key.     

Futures dreaming outside and on the margins of the western world

In this article, we challenge the hegemony of western science fiction, arguing that western science fiction is particular even as it claims universality. Its view remains based on ideas of the future as forward time. In contrast, in non-western science fiction the future is seen outside linear terms: as cyclical or spiral, or in terms of ancestors. In addition, western science fiction has focused on the good society as created by technological progress, while non-western science fiction and futures thinking has focused on the fantastic, on the spiritual, on the realization of eupsychia—the perfect self.However, most theorists assert that the non-west has no science fiction, ignoring Asian and Chinese science fiction history, and western science fiction continues to ‘other’ the non-west as well as those on the margins of the west (African–American woman, for example).Nonetheless, while most western science fiction remains trapped in binary opposites—alien/non-alien; masculine/feminine; insider/outsider—writers from the west’s margins are creating texts that contradict tradition and modernity, seeking new ways to transcend difference. Given that the imagination of the future creates the reality of tomorrow, creating new science fictions is not just an issue of textual critique but of opening up possibilities for all our futures.

Science fiction has always been nearly all white, just as until recently, it’s been nearly all male

(Butler as quoted in [1]).

Science fiction has long treated people who might or might not exist—extra-terrestrials. Unfortunately, however, many of the same science fiction writers who started us thinking about the possibility of extra-terrestrial life did nothing to make us think about here-at home variation—women, blacks, Indians, Asians, Hispanics, etc [1].

Is all science fiction western? Is there non-western science fiction? If so, what is its nature? Does it follow the form and content of western science fiction, or is it rendered different by its own local civilizational historical processes and considerations? Has western science fiction moulded the development of the science fiction of the ‘other’, including feminist science fiction, in such a way that anything coming from outside the west is a mere imitation of the real thing? Perhaps non-western science fiction is a contradiction in terms. Or is there authentic non-western fiction which offers alternative visions of the future, of the ‘other’?     

Marketing of banking services in Nigeria

This paper (which was originally presented at the 2001 World Services Congress in Hong Kong, 19–21 September) traces the origins of marketing in Nigerian banking and shows how different economic, social and political environments have influenced the marketing of financial services in Nigeria. It argues that the future of the banking market in Nigeria will, in the main, depend on the ongoing integration of the country into the global market. With the return of the international banks, multinational and foreign companies and missions are likely to favour such banks for their banking transactions. The implication of this is that banks with little or no foreign ownership structures will gradually be forced to concentrate on the indigenous market. Unless the government can put its house in order quickly and ensure a stable macroeconomic environment for economic development, it is likely that market forces will cause several of these indigenous banks to merge their activities or be absorbed by the big international banks.     

Does the Stock Market Fully Appreciate the Implications of Leading Indicators for Future Earnings? Evidence from Order Backlog

Although leading indicators are becoming increasingly important for equity valuation, disclosures of such indicators suffer from the absence of GAAP related guidance on content and presentation. We explicitly examine (i) whether one leading indicator—order backlog—predicts future earnings, and (ii) whether market participants correctly incorporate such predictive ability in determining share prices. We find that the stock market overweights the contribution of order backlog in predicting future earnings, and a hedge strategy that exploits such overweighting generates significant future abnormal returns. However, such mispricing is not due to analysts' inability to incorporate order backlog into their earnings forecasts.     

Bug planet: Frontier myth in Starship Troopers

This paper examines Paul Verhoeven's 1997 film Starship Troopers against Robert A. Heinlein's eponymous 1959 novel, arguing that both productions reinscribe the ideologies of America's mythic frontier history in their fictional futures. The paper shows that despite the conspicuous postmodernisation of narrative in Verhoeven's adaptation, components of the frontier mythology codified in Heinlein's novel— expansionism, Social Darwinism and a violent relationship with the indigenous Other—remain at the film's thematic centre.