The Elimination of Export Subsidies and the Future of Net-Food Importing Developing Countries in the WTO

Before providing an overview of the current situation, Section I of this Essay examines past trends in the world agricultural trade in order to demonstrate how the share of the world\u27s agricultural trade from developing and least-developed countries has stagnated compared to those of the industrialized countries. Section II discusses the factors which have led to this stagnation, including one of the most significant factors — the use of export subsidies, as exemplified by CAP. Section III analyzes the implications of eliminating such protectionism for NFIDCs, which form the main focus of this Essay. Section IV briefly addresses the implementation of the Uruguay Round mandate for removal of export subsidies in industrialized countries. Finally, this Essay concludes by recapitulating the main arguments and analysis within this Essay and offers policy recommendations based on these conclusions

The Positive Impact on Gomchen Tradition on Achieving and Maintaining Gross National Happiness

The essay deals with the role of Gomchen, Buddhist lay priests, in achieve and maintain Gross National Happiness

Disciples of a crazy saint: The Buchen of Spiti

The Buchen are specialist religious performers from Spiti, a culturally Tibetan valley in North India. They are widely known for performing an elaborate exorcism ritual that culminates in a slab of stone, marked with images of demons, being smashed on a man’s belly. In winter groups of Buchen perform their religious theatre, a localised form of Ache Lhamo, the Tibetan Opera. This book, published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford is the result of a research project and substantial fieldtrip funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, with project partnership from the Pitt Rivers Museum. Patrick Sutherland has been photographing in Spiti for nearly two decades and working with the Buchen for several years. The book consists of a self-reflexive essay by Patrick Sutherland illustrated with historical photographs and his own photographs, followed by four sections of photographs and captions by Patrick Sutherland. It concludes with a substantial essay, placing the Buchen into a wider cultural and historical context, by Tashi Tsering, founding Director of the Amnye Machen Institute (Tibetan Centre for Advanced Studies) in Dharamsala. This essay is also illustrated with historical photographs

Development Discourses on the Tibetan Plateau: Urbanization and Expropriation of Farmland in Dartsedo

The term ‘development’ defines the Chinese official discourse on Tibet and Tibetans. The ideology of development has been articulated in relation to what development symbolically means, and how it should be practiced within the frame of representation and implementation of development projects and programs. The aim of this paper is thus to investigate what development come to mean for the grassroots community of development subjects in light of the official versus counter-official development discourses. Specifically, I examine how the relocated villagers in Kangding (Tib. Dartsedo) experience, and respond to, one official development project, namely \u27New Kangding Town\u27 construction (kangding xincheng) project. I discuss, first of all, how the project has affected the lives of local villagers in Kangding, and the ‘coping’ strategies the villagers have adopted as the process of urbanization unfolds. Then, I argue that in contrast to the conventional representation of village life as ‘backward’ and ‘poor’, the immediate economic conditions and livelihood in general has, ironically, deteriorated compare to the \u27subsistent\u27 economy prior to the development. Despite invocation of the glittering language of ‘people first’ and ‘scientific’ development, implementation of this development project in reality stands in sharp contrast with what has been otherwise portrayed in public discourse. In other words, the notion of development has been by and large taken for granted in the discourses of development. On the other hand, when deployed, whether officially or unofficially, the concept of development has come to carry multiple meanings depending on the context within which it is being constructed. One of the contentions of the new town plan has been its ‘inability’ to address the villagers’ livelihoods in the post-relocation period. In fact, there seems to have been an underlying assumption that the construction of a new town would automatically create opportunities and prosperity for the villagers in the future, but without much concrete proposal at present to achieve such an objective. I further argue that the official development discourse tends to construct the villagers as “backward” and “passive”, and in need of state intervention in order to develop them. In the process, it thus fails to take into account of the dynamic agency and proactive participation of the villagers in the construction of their own counter-discourse of development. Finally, I will discuss the interface between the development officials and the villagers in the light of the Fergusonian ‘side effects’ of the project. One notable implication has been, in addition to, an immediate decline of household income, loss of economic freedom or income stability. In other words, the production of ‘economic dependency\u27 on state institutions, in spite of lack of sustained livelihood support or compensation, has been the major ‘unintended’ outcome due to the dispossession and the displacement of their farmland and home, respectively. Furthermore, as the village has transformed into a new town, the administrative apparatus of the state mechanism has also expanded into rural social spaces, infringing on traditional institutions