Anthropology report essays

Anthropology report essays Progress undermines African culture I read an article on how tourist and Christians are changing the African culture. According to Mr Opondo, tourism is effecting huge changes in the lives of people in the Kigezi highlands. He said, "The tourists who come to enjoy the mountains trigger change among the inhabitants, leading to assimilation of cultures and the diffusion of new lifestyles. The prevailing attitude of using Western culture as the mirror of what is good has modified cultural norms. They copy European accents, hairstyles and dress. The perception is that Western culture is superior and dominant." According to this article, the Africans are being exposed to new technologies and the Western culture, as never before by tourists and Christians who try to convert the Africans. Although this is not all bad, this may lead to the disruption of African culture. The traditional ways of African culture that were perceived to them as righteously superior are now being undermined by the new culture that the westerners are bringing into Africa. In Ethiopia, a farmer AHI knows was recently told by the church to get rid of his second wife, who was pregnant. Polygamy is well accepted in Africa, but Christians are enforcing their religion and culture to the lives of these peaceful Africans. This may well disrupt the harmony of African society and culture, and cause problems. This article is related to cultural anthropology because it relates on the culture of Africa, which is a main country that anthropologists emphasize on. It is related to anthropology because this article explains the process of the assimilation of culture of Africa. The process that Africa is going through because of the westerners. The article also states how polygamy is common tradition as it is also explained in chapter 9 marriage cultural anthropology book. This article is also correlated to many videos ...

Landscape in Bessie Heads Collector of Treasures Essays

Landscape in Bessie Heads Collector of Treasures Essays Landscape in Bessie Heads Collector of Treasures Paper Landscape in Bessie Heads Collector of Treasures Paper Essay Topic: In Love and Trouble Stories of Black Women In this essay I will explore the construction of spatial discourses as they inform endured, racial and other ideologically policed senses of cultural identity. The prescribed statement; The questions of home, land, language and cultural expression are central to the constitution of identity, much as awareness of issues of gender, race, class and national identity are integral to the creative construction of liberating postcolonial subjects will be investigated through four stories from her short story collection, The Collector of Treasures (1992). The stories that will be looked at are The Deep River: A Story of Ancient Tribal Migration, Jacob: The Story of a Faith-Healing Priest, Life and The Wind and a Boy. Each story will be looked at in terms of societal changes; character displacement and exile themes; the clash between encroaching modernism and capitalism (brought about by colonialism and arguably neocolonialism) and tribal traditionalism; and dualities which reveal this clash of value as well as centers relating to control and gender. Because of the nature of her personal life and the themes with which she deals, each story will also be looked at in terms of borders: symbolic, topographic and temporal. Borders, by definition, keep things in as ell as keep things out, and so these raise the questions of space, place and belonging. For this reason, it becomes a postcolonial concern to envisage Heads fictional stories as textual landscapes by which she and the reader are allowed to navigate the potholes of gender, society, and the construction of identity. Bessie Head had a much-varied life while living in South Africa. She lived as a foster child until she was thirteen years old, studied at a mission school, trained as a teacher, and after a few years teaching, worked as a journalist for a DRIED publication, Golden City post. Head left South Africa and moved to Botswana, where she lived as a refugee for fifteen years (Head 1992:I). The Botswana government refused to grant her citizenship, fearing South African intervention should the exile community expand, and so she was forced to report weekly to the police (Nixon 1996:244). Ender Apartheid she had been the product of an illegal union between a black man and a white woman, and so her sense of cultural identity was pushed to the periphery. Her move to Botswana was not simply promoted by the search for freedom from racial oppression, but for a search of belonging. She had been rootless in South Africa, and unlike other African writers in exile, did not pursue the literary roots to the Northern Hemisphere, but moved to Botswana, one door away from South Africa (Head, cited in Nixon 1996: 243). And so, Heads move to neighboring Botswana reveals in her a belief which permeates her writing, that in being African there exists some essential connection across borders. It was a search as an African for a sense Of historical continuity, a sense of roots (Head cited in Sample 1991: 312). Head gained citizenship in 1 979, only two years after The Collector of Treasures was published. At the time of writing, Head was located firmly in an ambiguous space: not really a citizen of either country, and not really belonging to any particular (or at least recognized) racial grouping. Her concerns are visible in the readings of the short stories to be discussed hereafter. They tell the tales of movement, of a search for identity in the self and in the community. The characters in the stories take space and color for themselves an ideal place using the various modes through which a person knows and constructs a reality (Tuna cited in Sample 1991: 311). Her belief in the continuity of people is revealed, as she says: The least I can say for myself is that I forcefully created for myself under extremely hostile conditions, my ideal life. I took an obscure and almost unknown village in the Southern African bush and made it my own hallowed ground. Here, in the steadiness and peace of my own world, I could dream a little ahead of the somewhat vicious clamor of revolution and the horrible stench of social systems. My work was always tentative because it was always so completely new: it created a new world out of nothing; it brought all minds of people, both literate and semi-literate together, and it did not really qualify who was who everyone had a place in my world (Head cited in Sample 1991:312). Fittingly, the first short story I will deal with is also the first in the collection, and, interestingly, seems to offer some foreshadowing insights into some of the problems that would become a part of later society in post-Nine-/colonial rule and are dealt with in the stories later in the collection. The Deep River: A Story of Ancient Tribal Migration tells the story of a tribe, the people of Monoplane, whose kingdom was somewhere in the central part of Africa Head 1977:1 The ambiguous centrality of the tribe?s location lends itself to the idea that the problems faced by the tribe belonged to or would belong to, in this analysis all the people of Africa, and not simply those of a particular nation or region whose existence was delimited by external and constructed powers of control; borders which, in all reality, created different nations out of the same people. There are a number of themes at play in this story; the ideal community whose subjects really lived identity-less lives under the unquestionable rule of dictated authority, the corruptive power of authority, gender determinism, and finally, the search for home in new lands. Long ago, when the land was only cattle tracks and footpaths, the people lived together like a deep river (1). In the very first sentence, two motifs are introduced: movement and water. The footpaths might refer to a pre- industrial era, one of relative simplicity and free of capitalist influences, but it also might speak to the pattern of migrant and migrant labor forced upon the African people during the period of colonialism, a pattern which would remain one of the most central paradigms of socio-economic living even long after the continent was decolonize. But for now, it could make reference to the central theme of all the stories in this collection and Heads own state of traditionalism: the search for a home in which identity might manifest itself, individually and communally. Water is also an important motif in Heads stories. It comes to represent healing and well-being. In The Deep River the depth and nourishing power of the river is synonymous with the peace and calm of the people, who live together unruffled by conflict or movement forward (1 The tribe is, like the river, a wealth of tradition that returns a kind of stagnation. The river is deep, and not fast, and, like the people, unruffled by Movement forward. Immediately this allows the tribe to be imagined as stuck in its specific ways. This notion is confirmed when the manner in which they live is examined. The people lived without faces, except for their chief, whose face was the face of all the people (1). The people were community orientated, but also without individual identities. The people accepted this regimental leveling down of their individual souls (2) and followed the laws of the land, which were really Monoplanes laws. They could not plough, harvest, pound, boil or ferment the corn without permission, and so their own chief rigidly policed the peoples relationship with the land. This community was in actual fact, less than ideal, a top down power structure that quieted the popular democratic. This dynamic would be one that would become a corrosive and pervasive issue later in history, as colonial forces policed the people and their relationship with the land even more unjustly. The people of Monoplane are citizens who do not assert their democratic rights, are not allowed to assert their democratic rights. This is an important understanding to come to when read against Heads own experiences as a racial outlier in South Africa and a refugee in Botswana. This atmosphere of inertia in their own home is heightened when considering the topographic, symbolic and temporal borders as outlined by Johan Shamanism (2007). As a topographic element the river separates the tribe of Monoplane from other hostile tribes or great dangers, and so removes the possibility of harm. Because the location of the tribe is undisclosed (as this story is an entirely fictionally account of the Bootlace tribes history, as explained by Head (6)) it takes on a generalized quality of nation state borderlines. It becomes a symbolic border when considering the fact that without external contact there is no possibility of progression; the only things that could possibly be pictured outside of their own village is the great possibility of danger. Fear becomes an monopolizing factor and prevents any purport unity for development. The calm of the river and of the people is upset when Subleases right to chieftain comes into question. He admits to having conceived a son with Ranking, his late fathers wife, and takes her and the child as his own. His brothers, Animate and Moslems, are terrified that Subleases child would displace them in seniority and thus get to rule as chief before them, and they urge their brother to renounce both son and wife. When Seeable refuses to do so, they keep on him, and tacitly force him to leave the village. And so from this the corruptive power of authority can be read. Greedily, the brothers would rather force their own brother from his home than be outranked by a baby. Like its spatial positioning in this textual landscape, its temporarily becomes an intrinsic property. It outlines the passage from then into now, from the mime of unquestioning subjectivity under Monoplane to Subleases splinter groups experience later in the land of the Bandwagon people. It is important to note that the only time territory is reckon sized by name and location is here, when the splinter group have relocated and have come into contact with many other tribes like the Phalange, Bake and Boatswains (6). The reader is then allowed to attribute this very fable-like history to a particular people in a particular place and thus understand the power of landscape mapping; our eyes follow the footprints in the text until something s made familiar. The temporal borders in this story convey something about the erosive ability of time, as well as the static and discriminatory notions with regards to gender. The old men there keep on giving confused and contradictory accounts of their origins, but they say they lost their place of birth over a woman (6). The people cannot even remember their own history, and remain resentful that they lost their home, even though the splinter group who decided to leave did so voluntarily. The splinter group, before deciding to join Seeable had already decided that Animate and Moslems [were] at the OTTOMH of all this trouble (5), and yet to this day (6), the men maintain that it was a woman who had done it. This unequivocally shows that women remain the scapegoats of history; that the universal she had somehow poisoned the well from which the would-be mighty ruler had drunk. In a world where women were of no account (3), Seeable is admonished for taking his relationship with his new wife, Ranking, seriously. Ranking, the only female in the story to be mentioned by name, is compared to a child, and, if taken advice from, would negate the legitimacy of Seibel?s rule. Even Rawnesss father tries to convince her that her feelings are simply a passing fancy, that women never know their own minds (4). This is problematic for it implies that women operate on a lower consciousness level than men, if any at all. She responds by asserting other women may not know their minds (5), showing strength of character and will, but is interrupted by her fathers impersonal hand, pointing towards a new husband for her. Ranking, however, decides to leave her new partner and join Seeable on his journey to new lands. Head gives Ranking a voice where there women are denied it, and creates a metaphoric landscape in which women might be able to make themselves heard and exercise control over their own lives (Sample 1992: 311). In my opinion, Ranking becomes the predicate upon which the intrepid women figures later in the collection are drawn from. Much later in their history, the tribe has relocated to the land of the Bandwagon, and the name Teetotal was all they were to retain of their identity as the people of the kingdom of Monoplane (Head 1992: 6). In the language spoken by the tribe of Monoplane, Teetotal meant, all right, you an go (6). The language of their tribe became an integral part of their identity as a community in their new land. The new tribe literally referred to themselves as a dismissal, the notion of the journey a congenital layer in their new make-up. The people have become transnational themselves, with a historical sense of continuity. They are at once still the people of Monoplane, as well as the new people of the Teetotal. The next story in the collection is Jacob: The Story of a Faith-Healing Priest. In this story the reader becomes very aware of Heads preoccupation with the elites of human nature, of a split between good and bad. This duality manifests itself in the landscape and in the characters and is a representation of the clash of values between encroaching modernism and traditional life. As Head says in The Collector of Treasures there were really only two kinds of men in society (87). Believe this refers literally to her pattern of juxtaposing good and bad men where here, Jacob is set up against Lebanon. Also believe that it may refer to a more universal tendency to refer to society as mankind, where people contain within themselves a fundamental split. In Jacob, Jacob is beautiful and simple and deeply sincere (25) and engages in a life of meagerness. He lives in a simple hut, provides spiritual counsel to the people, takes no donations and places his trust and faith into his children followers, associating him with innocence and child-like goodness. In stark contrast to this, Lebanon is a selfish, greedy man who exploits his followers, lives in a mansion and is believed to indulge in witchcraft, or black magic. This juxtaposition is represented in the landscape where each man lives on a different side of Mangle, Jacob on the sunrise side, and Lebanon on the unset side. Clear images of good and bad, light and dark are set up, and so the split in the town illustrates the split between characters both external and internal. It is the topographic and symbolic border of the text. This binary also characterizes the temporal border of the text; Jacobs passage from a man as Prophet Lebanon (21) into his final and biblical form of goodness. Jacob had owned a beer brewing business, had a beautiful but materialistic wife and two attractive daughters. One night he is robbed and left with only a few hundred rand, when he hears the voice of God, bidding him to do his DOD work. Jacob had heard this voice before, on the night of his parents death. His father was a German man and had married a Montanan woman, and here it is clear that Head inserts some of her ova,JNI ambiguity into Jacob, rendering the split in him as intrinsic. Heads water motif comes into play here again, and its dualities are evident. She spends a page and a half describing the lush landscape of the village, and makes it clear that for Head, Botswana was a place of restorative powers and healing possibilities. The village of Mangle received its yearly quota of twenty-two inches of rain List the rest of the country was smitten by drought (19). A river also borders Mangle, marking the village as a fountain of good fortune and spiritual well-being it is home to two prophets. Drought in Heads stories comes to represent a spiritual barrenness, but this will be discussed later. However, water is also what killed Jacobs parents their car skidded into the river during a heavy downpour. It is als o believed that Lebanon could even make rain (36), tainting the spirituality of Mangles supposed good fortune with the evil of Lebanons black magic. Though it may notation both good and bad properties, it could be argued that if it were not for the death of Jacobs parents, he may never have heard the voice of God, and therefore would not have been pushed into the spiritual journey that resulted in him becoming the good and faithful man he did. This temporal border, Jacobs spiritual journey into selflessness, is also represented by his transition between two kinds of women. His first wife is selfish, greedy and materialistic and leaves him when he invites her to join in Gods work with him. Johanna, his second wife, is a single mother with children and presents the important conventions of traditional life. Just as Ranking is the only woman mentioned by name, so too is Johanna. She is strong willed, driven, and recognized as a real woman (30). And so, on a basic level, Jacobs first wife represents a capitalist society, whilst Johanna represents a traditional one. These values clash and cannot live together inside Jacob, just as Jacob and Lebanon cannot both live in the village. Lebanon becomes a victim of his own villainy and is caught performing a ritual murder. He is sentenced to death and [p]people say the OLL of Lebanon returned from the grave To tell the people whom he awoke at night his fellow ritual murderers to desist from taking the lives of people because of the agony he was suffering now (36). This may serve as a warning against the consequences of a lifestyle of capitalist greed and selfish indulgence. In her characterization and landscape, Head sets up dualities and borders across which people must travel. Though there is minimal physical movement in the story (Jacob travels into Mangle, as do his followers from other villages, including Johanna), the journeys undertaken by the characters come spiritual ones. They are the quests to find meaning and happiness in a traditional society ravaged by exploited capitalist economic infrastructures. This is the search for a cultural identity that is pursued by reconstructing reality through modes Of knowing; a search projected onto the landscape Of the text as characters attempt to cross external and personal borders and thus become actively involved in shaping their own worlds. In Life, an ironic title as the story culminates in the protagonists death, the clash of values between modern and traditional lifestyles are explored, as ell as the gender specific roles and expectations assigned to women. The story opens up with a socio-historical account of the relationship between South Africa and Botswana the borders were first set up between the two countries in 1963 and forced all Botswana citizens back to their country of birth. Head goes on to summarize a heavy flow of foot-traffic between the two countries, as migrant labor was a booming industry. From the first page, Head turns her personal traditionalism into a literary vision to convey a powerful sense of the endless border crossings, of continuation and linkages twine people (Nixon 1996: 244). In the story, Life is one of these people. Having left her village of birth at ten years old, she returns from Johannesburg seventeen years later (Head 1 992: 37). She is therefore a dislocated woman, having lived in the village but having been formed as an individual in the big city. Hers is the story and history of the continent; of forced displacement and the struggle to remained identity. The landscape of this story is not so much a physical one; descriptions of the physical terrain (as in the previous two) hold less symbolic importance than o the landscape of personal spheres of existence and clashing centers. Upon her return to the village, Life is shown to her family yard in the center of the village. With her vitality, extravagance and penchant for a luxurious and free lifestyle, people flock to Lifes center like moths to a flame; %She is going to bring us a little light, the women said among themselves (38). Life picked up her old profession of prostitution and soon the din and riot of a Johannesburg township was duplicated A transistor radio blared the day long. Men and women reeled around drunk (40). Life conceptualizes her new laity through the reconstructive modes of familiarity; by transporting the center of Johannesburg (that which she knows) into the heart of the village she creates in herself and her surrounds a sense of belonging. Lifes identity and life is intimately linked to the preservation of this center of vitality. SEG, the wealthy cattleman, occupies another center of village life, one that represents a new kind of male in the colonial era. He is simultaneously emblematic of the cultural mores and values of traditional village life as well a willing and opportunistic recipient of all things brought to African life by alongside, and enforced by neo-colonialism. As Life acknowledges in him (after he walks into the same bar that she conducts her business of selling herself) ; [h]e was the nearest thing she had seen for a long time to the Johannesburg gangsters she had associated with He same power and control (41). With a silent command he orders Life to his end of the bar, she adheres, and so their spheres come into contact. Sample (1991) suggests that Lifes downfall was due to the fact that Life moved her center into Lessees sphere. I don think that this rings completely true. Lifes center of existence had always revolved around power, money and extravagance, and just like the gangsters she had associated with in Johannesburg Lessee represented these values He was invited into her sphere so that they might control the center together. Life did not have to go home with Lessee that night, but she did so voluntarily. And had Lessee not in fact been at the same time, two kinds of men both traditional and modern Lifes fate may have been different. Lifes movement from her end of the bar to Lessees that night (41 ) delineates the temporal and symbolic borders of the landscape in this story. It suggests the moving of people into different spheres of life (symbolic), as well as Lifes passage into destruction (temporal). When Lessee arrived that night, death walked quietly into the bar (41 ). Lifes center thus becomes one of male control and dominance; He took control of all the money. She had to ask him for it and state what it was to be used for. Then he didnt like the transistor radio blaring the whole day long (41 In Life we see the emergence of a new kind of woman as well, equally influenced by the economic and power opportunities brought about by modernity. The beer-brewing women are a prime example of this. Surrounded but not ruled by the village ethos of simplicity and domestic obedience, they refuse to subscribe to these ideologies; Boyfriends, yes. Husbands, uh, uh, no. Do this! Do that! We want to rule ourselves (39). They are able to differentiate between romantic relationships and self- empowerment, stating that [l]eve is love and money is money (40). For this reason, Life becomes their queen. Michael Faculty writes about space being linked to power, and one can see this in these brave women, who flex the boundaries Of traditional life and create for themselves a world in which they re in control. Life, for a brief time, lives by her husbands rules, but becomes bored by the banality and repetition of daily life. Her vivacious spirit cannot be quieted, and in an act of final rebellion, she coordinates the event that will ultimately result in her death. [A] wild anger was driving her to break out of a way of life that was like death to her (44), and so she makes an appointment with a man at six oclock, even though she knows her husband is at home. She knows the consequences of her action as Lessee warned her at the beginning of their marriage that [I]f oh [Life] go with those men again Ill [Lessee] kill you (43). It seems as though Life wants to be caught, as though she would rather be killed physically than slowly die the spiritual death of a village wife. Alerted to Lifes actions in the yard Of a neighbor, and true to his word, Lessee kills Life with a large knife that he used for slaughtering cattle (45). In this sentence alone the value of women as a commodity to be consumed or destroyed is highlighted. She is no better than a cow, one that might earlier have been the prize of his herd, but now must be destroyed and swallowed whole without a thought. Speaking to Lessees position as a new colonial male and the unfair gender balance is Lessees sentence. The judge was a white man, and therefore not involved in Tsarina custom and its debates (46), and reacted sympathetically to Lessee who remained calm and diplomatic during his trial. Undoubtedly the judge was able to identify with these characteristics, which must have marked Lessee as a man of a new era. Lessee received only five years imprisonment. Heads comment on the gender imbalance is elucidated when compared to Diesels situation in The Collector of Treasures; she received a life sentence for committing the same crime. Once again Heads tacit monomania for dualities and the split self becomes clear. Contrasts are drawn between Life and the other village women. Even the beer-brewers, who admire her, remain somewhat removed, as they hadnt fallen that low yet (40). These clashes of values can be seen in a light similar to the clash between Jacob and Lebanon. Just as the two men could not both live in the village, neither could Life nor Lessee. He is a man split by down the middle by traditional village predicates and the greed of modern life, while she is a fire that eventually burns herself out rather than be tamed. The space Head creates in the textual landscape of this narrative is one of contested places of power, belonging and identity. Life and Lessee want to, at the same time, inhabit their individual spheres as well as share one together. Fee compromises while Lessee does not. Although physically they share the same space, they have each ascribed to it a different notion of life, happiness and identity. Their centers fight for control, and, as commented by Lessees friend at the end of the story, rivers never cross here (46). If we take into account Heads motif of water as life and healing, then both Life and Lessee re their own rivers, determining the health and direction of their own lives. They can never meet and remain individual rivers, because the current of one will always be stronger than the other. Heads experience as a transnational, attempting to create an ideal life in new spaces is illuminated in this tale of migration and of crossed borders.

Urban enterpreneurialism has become the adopted post-modern system of Essay

Urban enterpreneurialism has become the adopted post-modern system of governance in cities such as Birmingham. Do new developments benefit inner city areas and - Essay Example We want affordable, quality housing. We want our children to have no need to worry about tomorrow; their biggest concern should be striving to do well at school. We want to know that if the need arises there is quality, affordable healthcare available. We want to give our children a better life than what we have. We want to be able to live comfortably in our old age. Lastly, we want to proud of our communities. However, given the unique problems faced by centre cities, such as Aston, can this attempt at urban entrepreneurialism be effective at combating the extreme poverty and unemployment areas like Aston face? Urban Renewal, Urban entrepreneurialism, Urban Revitalisation or Urban Renaissance – by whatever name called, the concept behind it, no matter where one resides, holds fundamental desires every person strives for. We want to feel safe in our homes and on our streets; we want to make a decent living that will sustain our families. We want affordable, quality housing. We want our children to have no need to worry about tomorrow; their biggest concern should be striving to do well at school. We want to know that if the need arises there is quality, affordable healthcare available. We want to give our children a better life than what we have. We want to be able to live comfortably in our old age. Lastly, we want to proud of our communities. In the mid 1990’s the government saw the need to revitalize our major cities after the industrial decline in the 1980’s and the economic instability that proceeded it. People were flowing out of centre city for the suburbs, industry was leaving, crime was on the rise, and a host of the economic and social problems were happening in our major cities. In an initiative to revitalize urban England, the government implemented a plan to â€Å"create sustainable communities, improve the quality of life

Are Sweatshops an Inhumane Business Practice Essay

Are Sweatshops an Inhumane Business Practice - Essay Example The no side claims that they believe coercion exists in these types of workplaces, but working overtime is not a form of intimidation disproving Arnold and Bowie’s claim that it is (Sollars & Englander, 2007, p. 317). For each claim Arnold and Bowie makes towards sweatshops being inhumane, Sollars and Englander present valid counterarguments for minimum health and safety standards and upholding local labor laws. The claim these men make comes down to the right of the individual companies to set their own standards based on their companies mission rather than forcing all companies to uphold an unattainable standard. 2. This issue receives a lot of debate for a reason; there is no clear answer as to the manner of removing the negative characteristics, which make the workplace a sweatshop. Sollars and Englander make that point often in their response, there are many complex issues involved in these workplaces. In fact, the argument of Arnold and Bowie appears naive at times with its basis on respect and dignity without considerations to all the factors that hinder the changes from occurring. There are many issues to address in setting wages in another country that require consideration and not all of them deal with trying to purposely pay too little for too much work. Placing respect as the main reason for setting higher wages is not something possible in all cases and placing an imperative order on all MNE to pay more out of respect fails to address these issues. The first and most important factor is the costs the consumers are willing to pay for the products from the sweatshops. Yes, there are companies such as NIKE where the costs the consumers pay, considered... This issue receives a lot of debate for a reason; there is no clear answer as to the manner of removing the negative characteristics, which make the workplace a sweatshop. Sollars and Englander make that point often in their response, there are many complex issues involved in these workplaces. In fact, the argument of Arnold and Bowie appears naà ¯ve at times with its basis on respect and dignity without considerations to all the factors that hinder the changes from occurring. There are many issues to address in setting wages in another country that require consideration and not all of them deal with trying to purposely pay too little for too much work. Placing respect as the main reason for setting higher wages is not something possible in all cases and placing an imperative order on all MNE to pay more out of respect fails to address these issues. The first and most important factor is the costs the consumers are willing to pay for the products from the sweatshops. Yes, there are companies such as NIKE where the costs the consumers pay, considered very high compared to another brand found in a local discount store. Customers are willing to pay for the name recognition. However, NIKE addressed this issue of sweatshops but not out of respect or a desire to give their workers in these sweatshops a sense of dignity. The public outcry was enough to force them to adjust their manner of doing business.

Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporation Acquisition

Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporation Acquisition Meredith Sigmon Based on my understanding of negotiation strategy and planning, I think Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporation has prepared quite well for the acquisition negotiation. In my understanding of the reading, Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporation had covered a broad range of information in order to enter negotiations. They had information about the parent companies, how they came to be, the stockholders, profiles of the stockholders, and several other tidbits. If they did overlook or left anything out, I wouldnt be aware as I have no idea how any of this works. I think Corporate Transfer Services will huddle and come back with amendments to the offer. I think they want to sell but dont want to seem to anxious to settle and will try and get a little more out of Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporation. Corporate Transfer Services responded by saying they wanted five million, not an estimated $420,000. Their response was not as I expected. I thought they would go closer to one million asking price but they went well above that. I, personally, think Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporation should not laugh and then start to present how they got to the numbers they got to. They did their share of research and know that five million absurd. I am sure Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporation had prepared for a little wiggle room to make a second offer but not to accommodate what Corporate Transfer Services is asking for. Corporate Transfer Services based their selling price off what another employee relocation company had sold for. They did not take into consideration their own personal business and just based their selling price off what another company had sold for not looking into if they had any similarities to the other company. I dont think Corporate Transfer Services went into this with nearly anywhere close to the amount of information and studying that Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporation had. Corporate Transfer Services took the easy way out hoping they would just put a number on the table and it would work. They didnt look at their actually numbers and what they were worth to make an educated counter offer. I think Randall and Dolan should lay out exact what they found and how they came to the offering number they did. I think by showing Corporate Transfer Services how they came to the number they did, it would show Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporation how they dont really have the power to ask for the outrageous amount that they did. I think Corporate Transfer Services will get scared. They see their only opportunity to sell walking out the door because they were not prepared. I think they will get the fourth owner back in and have an emergency meeting to come up with a solution. It is clear Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporation isnt going to waste their time arguing with someone who has no idea about their own company and I think that will scare Corporate Transfer Services into actually looking at what they have to offer. I think this could go in Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporation favor drastically now because Corporate Transfer Services was just schooled on their own MetroNet. That would make me double think what I actually knew about my company and maybe how badly I needed to take this offer because they might not get another offer of this magnitude, if ever getting one again. I think Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporation should sit back and wait. I feel like they put a little scare into Corporate Transfer Services and they now have the advantage in the bargaining field. They had the information they needed and did their homework so when Corporate Transfer Services tried to make an uneducated statement Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporation schooled them on their own company. If Corporate Transfer Services doesnt come back with a solution within the next 12 hours, or when Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporation leaves then trash the deal. If Corporate Transfer Services really wants to sell they will have to cater to Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporation now. I like Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporations negotiating strategy. I think they are doing what they need to do at this point. It was clear Corporate Transfer Services didnt think this threw and Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporation isnt having it. They know that the advantage is now theirs. I dont think it will backfire because Corporate Transfer Services wants to sell, desperately. Each of the members had a reason to want to sell and it was a collective decision. I dont think they have another offer to even consider and if they dont sell now they may not ever. I think Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporation should take the new offer back to Philadelphia and wait. They should counter offer with a little lower than their ceiling of $600,000 to still leave a little wiggle room.   I would go back with $500,000 over and make it the final offer. I feel like the most important aspect of Capital Mortgage Insurance Corporations negotiating strategy was the research and knowledge that they prepared themselves with. They didnt leave any stone unturned in their research and went into negotiations with as much knowledge that could handle. I think this is what, eventually, lead to them getting exactly what they wanted and still staying within their range of bargaining they originally set.

hunter gatherers Essay -- essays research papers fc

Our species have been hunter-gatherers for most of the time we have existed on the Earth. The people of the Paleolithic period adapted themselves to the environment of the time, taking food as and when it was available and hunted game which resulted in a high percentage of their food being meat. Evidence suggests that before the end of the Paleolithic period, hunters would have noted the migratory patterns of the herds they hunted and learned which plants were nutritious and not poisonous. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, and berries where gathered when in season and, being nomadic, they followed the sources of food rather than growing crops. Learning to control fire helped them adapt to their environment, both by providing a source of warmth and safety (extending the temperate range in which they could survive) and by making food more palatable and appetising. (I. Kuijt, pp. 103-107) Approximately Twelve thousand years ago the most recent Ice Age retreated. The herds of large cold-climate animals moved north and our ancestors had to change their habits in order to survive. As the more southern locations warmed, some hunter-gatherers found enough food to support the group short distances from their camps. These food plants attracted a wide variety of smaller game such as horse and rabbit. Conditions around the major river systems in warm climates were favourable to settlements, since these areas had sufficient food available for survival year round. Evidence suggests that at this time settled life and the deliberate cultivation of food plants began in five different parts of the world; Euphrates, and the Nile rivers; the Indus River in the northern Indian subcontinent; in China along the Yellow River; the Fertile Crescent area in West Asia along the Tigris; in sub-Saharan Africa and the Niger River system; and in Central America. (http://ragz-international.com/anc ient_civilization.htm) The change to settlement from nomadic living marked the beginning of the Neolithic period. The people now produced food, rather than procuring it, they no longer adapted themselves to their environment, but adapted their environment to them. This involved actions as simple as weeding around food plants, bringing water to the plants during dry periods, and planting seeds so that food grew in a more convenient location. Settled life meant food could be stored as a reserve for times... ...This early farming resulted in the extended kinship networks and economic trade systems that existed as late as the industrial revolution. It affected our culture and changed our drives making us territorial and materialistic, but it also created the hierarchical systems that allowed cooperation within our species beyond that normal in the anima kingdom. It was this cooperation that allowed us to change the world our species lived in, giving us the abilities needed to dominate the planet. Bibliography (1959) R. Redfield The Primitive World and its Transformations Great Seal Books, New York (1991) R. L. Bettinger Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeological and Evolutionary Theory Plenum Press, New York (1995) Hansen international world history project http://ragz-international.com/ancient_civilization.htm Accessed On: 30102003 (2000) I. Kuijt Life in Neolithic Farming Communities: Social Organization, Identity and Differentiation Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Publishers, New York (Sept 2001) R H Steckel et al A History of Health in Europe from the Late Paleolithic to the Present: a Research Proposal (online- http://global.sbs.ohio-state.edu/docs/Proposal-09-03-01.pdf accessed on: 30102003)

Ethical Framework

What does it mean to be ethical? What does it mean to be ethical? Ethics is derived from the Greek word ethos. Ethics to me can be defined as always doing the right thing all the time. Everyone has their own moral principles that decide his/her behavior. Everyone is completely different in how they were raised and taught in what was right and wrong. As stated by Santa Clara University, â€Å"ethics refers to standards of behavior that tell us how human beings ought to act in the many situations in which they find themselves-as friends, parents, children, citizens, businesspeople, teachers, professionals, and so on† (Santa Clara University, 2010).A lot of people will get ethics confused with it being the same as their feelings. In fact, it is totally opposite. It is that way because when people generally get angry with something or someone and then they will typically follow that up with doing something bad. There are certain ethics people should follow in their everyday lives. Whether you know it or not but if you drive every day and you choose to drive the speed limit, not to commit murder or even not to rob a bank you are following the rules and regulations that were implemented by our government.I know from a personal level about doing the right thing and being ethical when one of my friends was working a bakery. My friend left that job and took the recipe and started making her own cookies and went out on the street and sold them cookies to the bakery’s current customers and future customers. Not to mention this was the bakery’s best cookie that was voted on by its customers. Pretty soon the owner realized his sales were going down and quickly realized that it was his former employee selling his product without the benefit.He eventually filed a lawsuit against my friend. Now what my friend did was not only fair and right but was also considered unethical. My friend had pay a fee back to her former boss and had to give up the recipe and not do that again. In my everyday life I choose to be ethical in everything I do. I choose to do the right things when it comes to doing something that I know I shouldn’t be doing. One thing that comes to mind of me not being ethical was when I was not of the legal age to drink alcohol. I know that I would drink every now and then when I was in high school.I thought it was the cool thing to do and hang out with my friends while I did it. Then when I came to Brevard it got worse being around a lot of my friends that would peer pressure me. Growing up I had two great parents that taught me to always do the right thing. While doing it I knew it would be ethical to not pick a beer up and drink it seeing how the law stated that you had to be at least twenty one years of age to consume it. My parents have always told me, â€Å"Would you still do what you’re doing if I was sitting right behind you? But also on the other hand I do not consider it being unethical if I were to do something that didn’t really have that much harm, like for example lying to a friend. According to Cornell University, â€Å"Many acts that would be widely condemned as unethical are not prohibited by law† (Legal Information Institute, 1992). When deciding on what would be considered ethical and non-ethical, you would have to use your judgment of how you were raised to determine the certain actions. I know for a fact that when and if I have kids I will definitely raise them the way my grandparents and my parents have raised me.If I can do that then I will know for a fact that I will be proud of my kids and they will be properly raised. REFERENCES Legal Information Institute. (1992). Retrieved September 9, 2012, from Cornell University Law School: http://www. law. cornell. edu/wex/ethics Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2005, December 20). Retrieved September 9, 2012, from Personal Identity and Ethics: http://plato. stanford. edu/entries/identity-ethics/ Santa C lara University. (2010). A Framework for Thinking Critically. Retrieved September 8, 2012, from http://www. scu. edu/ethics/practicing/decision/framework. html