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"Diamonds Social aspects."
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Clarity, cut, and culture : the many meanings of diamonds
\"Images of diamonds appear everywhere in American culture. And everyone who has a diamond has a story to tell about it. Our stories about diamonds not only reveal what we do with these tiny stones, but also suggest how we create value, meaning, and identity through our interactions with material culture in general.Things become meaningful through our interactions with them, but how do people go about making meaning? What can we learn from an ethnography about the production of identity, creation of kinship, and use of diamonds in understanding selves and social relationships? By what means do people positioned within a globalized political-economy and a compelling universe of advertising interact locally with these tiny polished rocks?This book draws on 12 months of fieldwork with diamond consumers in New York City as well as an analysis of the iconic De Beers campaign that promised romance, status, and glamour to anyone who bought a diamond to show that this thematic pool is just one resource among many that diamond owners draw upon to engage with their own stones. The volume highlights the important roles that memory, context, and circumstance also play in shaping how people interpret and then use objects in making personal worlds. It shows that besides operating as subjects in an ad-burdened universe, consumers are highly creative, idiosyncratic, and theatrical agents\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
From Blood Diamonds to the Kimberley Process
In the late 1990s, several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) focused world attention on the issue of conflict diamonds which funded wars, massive death, and refugee crises across Central and West Africa. Several governments, NGOs, and key industry players engaged in negotiations under the so-called Kimberley Process (KP). A voluntary global agreement came into effect leading to a substantial decline in illicit diamond trade. Despite its importance in international affairs, the KP remains understudied in academia. Franziska Bieri's book provides the first comprehensive account of the KP and is the first to reveal how NGOs have become critical actors in their own right, possessing the ability to directly influence policies and to participate in the decision making and the implementation of global agreements. In developing this argument, Bieri explains: why the NGO campaign to raise awareness was successful; why a rapid and comprehensive resolution on such a complex global problem was possible; how the tripartite negotiations between states, NGOs, and industry developed during the implementation of the agreement, which is an on-going process. Based on extensive personal interviews with prominent campaigners, leading bureaucrats, and industry officials, hundreds of KP publications, official UN documents, industry news, and NGO reports, this timely book allows for a much needed engagement in contemporary debates about the campaign against conflict diamonds, the Kimberley Process, and the themes defining today's global governance arena.
eBook
Blood diamonds : tracing the deadly path of the world's most precious stones
First discovered in 1930, the diamonds of Sierra Leone have funded one of the most savage rebel campaigns in modern history. These \"blood diamonds\" are smuggled out of West Africa and sold to legitimate diamond merchants in London, Antwerp, and New York, often with the complicity of the international diamond industry. Eventually, these very diamonds find their way into the rings and necklaces of brides and spouses the world over. Blood Diamonds is the gripping tale of how the diamond smuggling works, how the rebel war has effectively destroyed Sierra Leone and its people, and how the policies of the diamond industry - institutionalized in the 1880s by the De Beers cartel - have allowed it to happen. Award-winning journalist Greg Campbell traces the deadly trail of these diamonds, many of which are brought to the world market by fanatical enemies. These repercussions of diamond smuggling are felt far beyond the borders of the poor and war-ridden country of Sierra Leone, and the consequences of overlooking this African tragedy are both shockingly deadly and unquestionably global. Updated with a new epilogue.
eBook
Blood Diamonds, Revised Edition
Journalist Greg Campbell leads the reader down the international diamond trail of brutality, horror, and profit - providing an on-the-ground and in-the-mines story of global consequence.
eBook
The Lion that Didn't Roar
In 2017 it will be Australia’s turn to chair the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KP), an international organisation set up to regulate the trade in diamonds. Diamonds are a symbol of love, purchased to celebrate marriage, and it is therefore deeply ironic that the diamond trade has become linked with warfare and human rights violations committed in African producer countries such as Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo and, more recently, Zimbabwe and Angola. In their quest for diamonds, or by using diamonds to purchase weapons, armed groups in these countries have engaged in recruiting child soldiers, amputating limbs, and committing rape and murder. In response to the problem, the international community, non-governmental organisations and key industry players such as De Beers combined forces to create the Kimberley Process in 2002. The KP uses an export certificate system to distinguish the legitimate rough diamond trade from so-called ‘blood diamonds’, which are also known as ‘conflict diamonds’. This book considers the extent to which the KP, supported by other agencies at the international and national levels, has been effective in achieving its mandate. In so doing, it presents an original model derived from the domain of regulatory theory, the Dual Networked Pyramid, as a means of describing the operation of the system and suggesting possible improvements that might be made to it.
eBook
Facets of Power
The diamond fields of Chiadzwa, among the world s largest sources of rough diamonds have been at the centre of struggles for power in Zimbabwe since their discovery in 2006. Against the backdrop of a turbulent political economy, control of Chiadzwa s diamonds was hotly contested. By 2007 a new case of blood diamonds had emerged, in which the country s security forces engaged with informal miners and black market dealers in the exploitation of rough diamonds, violently disrupting local communities and looting a key national resource. The formalisation of diamond mining in 2010 introduced new forms of large-scale theft, displacement and rights abuses. Facets of Power is the first comprehensive account of the emergence, meaning and profound impact of Chiadzwa s diamonds. Drawing on new fieldwork and published sources, the contributors present a graphic and accessibly written narrative of corruption and greed, as well as resistance by those who have suffered at the hands of the mineral s secretive and violent beneficiaries. If the lessons of resistance have been mostly disheartening ones, they also point towards more effective strategies for managing public resources, and mounting democratic challenges to elites whose power is sustained by preying on them.
eBook
Urban Growth and Spatial Transition in Nepal
Nepal: Urban Growth and Spatial Transition carries out an initial assessment of Nepal's urban growth and spatial transformation, with a focus on spatial demographic and economic trends, economic growth drivers and infrastructure requirements of Nepal's urban regions. The book notes that Nepal is the fastest urbanizing country in South Asia. The spatial transformation is characterized by fast growing population density in the Kathmandu Valley - Nepal's largest urban conurbation -, along the main highways and close to the border with India, and clustering of economic production in the Kathmandu Valley and in the Eastern and Western Tarai. Yet, urbanization has been less correlated with economic growth in Nepal than in other countries in South Asia. In spite of its remarkable progress in alleviating poverty, Nepal is caught up in a cycle of political instability and economic stagnation, with economic growth below 4 percent per annum over the last decade. Urban areas have distinct comparative advantage in cultural tourism services, crafts, and agro-processing, but they have not been able to turn them into competitive advantages. Lack of effective planning, and inadequate infrastructure are a major constraint for urban growth and competitiveness. Nepal needs to foster the sustainable growth of its urban regions, promote the development and regeneration of the Kathmandu Valley Metropolitan Region and enhance the competitiveness of strategic urban clusters - first and foremost tourism, agro-processing and handicraft - to unlock urban-based growth and ensure the sustainability of the spatial transformation.The study aims to stimulate evidence-based policy dialogue on Nepal's urban transition, and assist those working in the critical area for Nepal's economic development - the Government, the private sector, civil society and the development partners - in
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