This research took place in South Sulawesi in order to investigate the implementation of jatropha projects in the period of 2006-2011. This research aims to understand the key factors that were... Show moreThis research took place in South Sulawesi in order to investigate the implementation of jatropha projects in the period of 2006-2011. This research aims to understand the key factors that were influential in the rise and fall of jatropha projects. The analysis was focused on jatropha actors’ motivations, strategies and experiences to understand what opportunities and benefits that were pursued by the involved actors and how the achievements of the opportunities and benefits redefine the failure of the projects. The findings were synthesized to draw a lesson learnt on what we can learn from the observed jatropha stories for the other miracle crops. Show less
At the most general level, this dissertation is about postsocialist change. It is about how people living in a remote part of Northern Mongolia have experienced the recent changes to have... Show moreAt the most general level, this dissertation is about postsocialist change. It is about how people living in a remote part of Northern Mongolia have experienced the recent changes to have occurred over the last ten to fifteen years since the postsocialist transition. My main argument is that while Mongolia’s postsocialist transition occurred over twenty years ago it is not clear what has come after socialism, or how we as anthropologists might conceptualise the contradictory, fuzzy, and often reversible experiences of people during the so-called postsocialist period. To this end I develop in this dissertation a new hermeneutic framework for elucidating the polydirectional experience of postsocialist change grounded in skilled practice. This approach envisions the transmission of skills as not only being reproduced between the generations, but also new skills learnt in articulation with change, as well as skills that are lost, forgotten, transformed, adapted, and transposed in relation to transforming social, economic, and political contexts. By observing transformations in skilled practice I argue we are afforded better insight into the polydirectional experiences characteristic of the late postsocialist context, and which can better reveal a more diverse range of processes as they are experienced by people in their everyday lives. Show less
