Project acronym CEAD
Project Contextualizing Evidence for Action on Diabetes in low-resource Settings: A mixed-methods case study in Quito and Esmeraldas, Ecuador.
Researcher (PI) Lucy Anne Parker
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD MIGUEL HERNANDEZ DE ELCHE
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH3, ERC-2018-STG
Summary The relentless rise in diabetes is one of the greatest global health emergencies of the 21st century. The increase is most pronounced in low and middle income countries where today three quarters of people with diabetes live and over 80% of the deaths attributed to non-communicable diseases occur. In light of the wealth of knowledge already available about how to tackle the problem, most major international organizations call for the adoption healthy public policies and initiatives to strengthening health systems. However, implementation of recommended action remains limited in many settings. Most evidence comes from high-income settings and may generate recommendations that cannot be successfully implemented in other settings without careful consideration and contextualization. I propose here that this “know-do” gap can be reduced by revealing the barriers to implementing evidence-based recommendations, engaging local stakeholders in developing context-led innovations and developing a tool-kit for contextualizing and implementing diabetes recommendations in low-resource settings. I plan the research in two carefully selected settings in Ecuador, with mixed-methods combining quantitative epidemiological research and qualitative methodology to generate the rich and varied knowledge that is required to trigger policy action and/or changes in care models. Furthermore, I will engage patients, community members, health workers and decision makers in the process of knowledge generation, interpretation and use. The overarching objective is hence, to explore the process by which global recommendations can be translated into context-specific, evidence-informed action for diabetes prevention in low-resource settings. The findings will support the global endeavour to bridge the global “know-do” gap, one of the most important public health challenges this century and a great opportunity for strengthening health systems and achieving health equity.
Summary
The relentless rise in diabetes is one of the greatest global health emergencies of the 21st century. The increase is most pronounced in low and middle income countries where today three quarters of people with diabetes live and over 80% of the deaths attributed to non-communicable diseases occur. In light of the wealth of knowledge already available about how to tackle the problem, most major international organizations call for the adoption healthy public policies and initiatives to strengthening health systems. However, implementation of recommended action remains limited in many settings. Most evidence comes from high-income settings and may generate recommendations that cannot be successfully implemented in other settings without careful consideration and contextualization. I propose here that this “know-do” gap can be reduced by revealing the barriers to implementing evidence-based recommendations, engaging local stakeholders in developing context-led innovations and developing a tool-kit for contextualizing and implementing diabetes recommendations in low-resource settings. I plan the research in two carefully selected settings in Ecuador, with mixed-methods combining quantitative epidemiological research and qualitative methodology to generate the rich and varied knowledge that is required to trigger policy action and/or changes in care models. Furthermore, I will engage patients, community members, health workers and decision makers in the process of knowledge generation, interpretation and use. The overarching objective is hence, to explore the process by which global recommendations can be translated into context-specific, evidence-informed action for diabetes prevention in low-resource settings. The findings will support the global endeavour to bridge the global “know-do” gap, one of the most important public health challenges this century and a great opportunity for strengthening health systems and achieving health equity.
Max ERC Funding
1 475 334 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
Project acronym DYMOLAMO
Project Dynamic Modeling of Labor Market Mobility and Human Capital Accumulation
Researcher (PI) Joan LLULL CABRER
Host Institution (HI) FUNDACIÓ MARKETS, ORGANIZATIONS AND VOTES IN ECONOMICS
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH1, ERC-2018-STG
Summary In today’s globalized world, labor mobility is at the core of the political debate and a centerpiece for economic policy. The design of migration policies, such as selective, skill-biased, immigration policies, policies to encourage the integration of immigrants, or ones that facilitate geographical mobility to increase labor market opportunities of disadvantaged workers, requires a good understanding of a more fundamental issue: understanding the role of internal migration and immigration in shaping the career paths and human capital accumulation of workers. This project aims at providing a coherent analysis that allows us to understand the interactions between labor mobility and human capital accumulation, and their implications for economic policy design.
This project focuses on three main issues: labor mobility, labor market effects of immigration, and the interaction between the two. Our questions are: (a) What are the role of temporary and permanent contracts in shaping career paths and geographic mobility of workers? (b) Does the forgone human capital accumulation during a recession produce a lost generation? Is this alleviated by geographical mobility? (c) What is the role of geographical and occupational mobility in spreading or containing the effects of technological progress on wage inequality? (d) To what extent selective immigration policies maximize native workers’ prospects and wellbeing? (e) How can we increase degree of assimilation of immigrants?
To address these questions, we will develop dynamic equilibrium models that explicitly characterize human capital accumulation decisions of workers and how these decisions interact with migration. Our proposed models will introduce rich labor market structures and a variety of economic shocks. They will require the implementation of novel estimation methods, which we will also develop. The estimated models will be used to evaluate and design key economic policies for the labor market.
Summary
In today’s globalized world, labor mobility is at the core of the political debate and a centerpiece for economic policy. The design of migration policies, such as selective, skill-biased, immigration policies, policies to encourage the integration of immigrants, or ones that facilitate geographical mobility to increase labor market opportunities of disadvantaged workers, requires a good understanding of a more fundamental issue: understanding the role of internal migration and immigration in shaping the career paths and human capital accumulation of workers. This project aims at providing a coherent analysis that allows us to understand the interactions between labor mobility and human capital accumulation, and their implications for economic policy design.
This project focuses on three main issues: labor mobility, labor market effects of immigration, and the interaction between the two. Our questions are: (a) What are the role of temporary and permanent contracts in shaping career paths and geographic mobility of workers? (b) Does the forgone human capital accumulation during a recession produce a lost generation? Is this alleviated by geographical mobility? (c) What is the role of geographical and occupational mobility in spreading or containing the effects of technological progress on wage inequality? (d) To what extent selective immigration policies maximize native workers’ prospects and wellbeing? (e) How can we increase degree of assimilation of immigrants?
To address these questions, we will develop dynamic equilibrium models that explicitly characterize human capital accumulation decisions of workers and how these decisions interact with migration. Our proposed models will introduce rich labor market structures and a variety of economic shocks. They will require the implementation of novel estimation methods, which we will also develop. The estimated models will be used to evaluate and design key economic policies for the labor market.
Max ERC Funding
1 400 250 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-11-01, End date: 2023-10-31
Project acronym EXTREME
Project The Rise and Fall of Populism and Extremism
Researcher (PI) Maria PETROVA
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD POMPEU FABRA
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH1, ERC-2018-STG
Summary In the recent years in advanced democracies there has been a wave of electoral successes of populist politicians supporting extreme messages. Is populism caused by negative economic shocks? If so, what are the mechanisms? What explains heterogeneity in responses to such shocks? In this project, I will test empirically if personal experiences, information environment, and their interaction with aggregate economic shocks shape people’s political decisions. The project consists of three parts.
First, I will study how personal employment histories, potentially affected by globalization and technological shocks, individual predispositions, and information environment influenced voting for Trump. I will use a unique database of more than 40 million resumes for the period 2010-2016, the largest available repository of resumes of job-seekers in the US, which was not previously used in academic research, and match it with zipcode-level economic and voting variables.
Second, I will study how negative social experiences during the formative years affect subsequent labor market outcomes, antisocial behavior, and the support of populist agenda. I will examine how corporal punishment in schools in UK affected subsequent educational attainment, employment, antisocial behavior, and voting for UKIP and Brexit. I will digitize archival records on regulations and practice of corporal punishment in different educational authorities in the UK during 1970-80s, combining it with contemporary outcomes.
Third, I will examine what makes people actively resist extremist regimes even when it is associated with high personal costs. I will study a historical example of resistance to Nazi regime in Germany during the WWII, which provides unique methodological opportunity to study determinants of resistance to extremism in a high stake environment. I will use a self-collected dataset on treason cases to measure resistance, combining it with data on bombing and exposure to foreign propaganda.
Summary
In the recent years in advanced democracies there has been a wave of electoral successes of populist politicians supporting extreme messages. Is populism caused by negative economic shocks? If so, what are the mechanisms? What explains heterogeneity in responses to such shocks? In this project, I will test empirically if personal experiences, information environment, and their interaction with aggregate economic shocks shape people’s political decisions. The project consists of three parts.
First, I will study how personal employment histories, potentially affected by globalization and technological shocks, individual predispositions, and information environment influenced voting for Trump. I will use a unique database of more than 40 million resumes for the period 2010-2016, the largest available repository of resumes of job-seekers in the US, which was not previously used in academic research, and match it with zipcode-level economic and voting variables.
Second, I will study how negative social experiences during the formative years affect subsequent labor market outcomes, antisocial behavior, and the support of populist agenda. I will examine how corporal punishment in schools in UK affected subsequent educational attainment, employment, antisocial behavior, and voting for UKIP and Brexit. I will digitize archival records on regulations and practice of corporal punishment in different educational authorities in the UK during 1970-80s, combining it with contemporary outcomes.
Third, I will examine what makes people actively resist extremist regimes even when it is associated with high personal costs. I will study a historical example of resistance to Nazi regime in Germany during the WWII, which provides unique methodological opportunity to study determinants of resistance to extremism in a high stake environment. I will use a self-collected dataset on treason cases to measure resistance, combining it with data on bombing and exposure to foreign propaganda.
Max ERC Funding
1 467 736 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
Project acronym GEoREST
Project predictinG EaRthquakES induced by fluid injecTion
Researcher (PI) Victor VILARRASA
Host Institution (HI) AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DEINVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE8, ERC-2018-STG
Summary Fluid injection related to underground resources has become widespread, causing numerous cases of induced seismicity. If felt, induced seismicity has a negative effect on public perception and may jeopardise wellbore stability, which has led to the cancellation of several projects. Forecasting injection-induced earthquakes is a big challenge that must be overcome to deploy geo-energies to significantly reduce CO2 emissions and thus mitigate climate change and reduce related health issues. The basic conjecture is that, while initial (micro)seisms are caused by well-known mechanisms that could be predicted, subsequent activity is caused by harder to understand and, at present, unpredictable coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical-seismic (THMS) processes, which is the reason why available models fail to forecast induced seismicity. The objective of this project is to develop a novel methodology to predict and mitigate induced seismicity. We propose an interdisciplinary approach that integrates the THMS processes that occur in the subsurface as a result of fluid injection. The methodology, based on new analytical and numerical solutions, will concentrate on (1) understanding the processes that lead to induced seismicity by model testing of specific conjectures, (2) improving and extending subsurface characterization by using industrial fluid injection operations as a long-term continuous characterization methodology, so as to reduce prediction uncertainty, and (3) using the resulting understanding and site specific knowledge to predict and mitigate induced seismicity. Project developments will be tested and verified against fluid-induced seismicity at field sites that present diverse characteristics. Arguably, the successful development of this project will provide operators with concepts and tools to perform pressure management to reduce the risk of inducing seismicity to acceptable levels and thus, improve safety and reverse public perception on fluid injection activities.
Summary
Fluid injection related to underground resources has become widespread, causing numerous cases of induced seismicity. If felt, induced seismicity has a negative effect on public perception and may jeopardise wellbore stability, which has led to the cancellation of several projects. Forecasting injection-induced earthquakes is a big challenge that must be overcome to deploy geo-energies to significantly reduce CO2 emissions and thus mitigate climate change and reduce related health issues. The basic conjecture is that, while initial (micro)seisms are caused by well-known mechanisms that could be predicted, subsequent activity is caused by harder to understand and, at present, unpredictable coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical-seismic (THMS) processes, which is the reason why available models fail to forecast induced seismicity. The objective of this project is to develop a novel methodology to predict and mitigate induced seismicity. We propose an interdisciplinary approach that integrates the THMS processes that occur in the subsurface as a result of fluid injection. The methodology, based on new analytical and numerical solutions, will concentrate on (1) understanding the processes that lead to induced seismicity by model testing of specific conjectures, (2) improving and extending subsurface characterization by using industrial fluid injection operations as a long-term continuous characterization methodology, so as to reduce prediction uncertainty, and (3) using the resulting understanding and site specific knowledge to predict and mitigate induced seismicity. Project developments will be tested and verified against fluid-induced seismicity at field sites that present diverse characteristics. Arguably, the successful development of this project will provide operators with concepts and tools to perform pressure management to reduce the risk of inducing seismicity to acceptable levels and thus, improve safety and reverse public perception on fluid injection activities.
Max ERC Funding
1 438 201 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-02-01, End date: 2024-01-31
Project acronym MapModern
Project Social Networks of the Past: Mapping Hispanic and Lusophone Literary Modernity, 1898-1959
Researcher (PI) Diana Roig Sanz
Host Institution (HI) FUNDACIO PER A LA UNIVERSITAT OBERTA DE CATALUNYA
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2018-STG
Summary Data mining and big data approaches are changing the ways in which we create knowledge, access information and preserve our cultural heritage. This research applies cutting-edge technology to analyse a neglected aspect of European and non-European social and cultural life of the 20th century: the impact of Hispanic and Lusophone literary networks and cultural mediators in international modernity between 1898 and 1959. The project pursues three central goals: 1) to retrieve the lost history of Iberoamerican mediators in modernist intercultural and multilingual networks and reappraise their role; 2) to narrow the knowledge divide in terms of access and production in the Iberoamerican field by generating and making freely available new and reliable data that addresses the lack of documented cultural heritage, and 3) to offer an innovative and reproducible model that can be applied across periods, languages, and disciplines to analyse cross-border phenomena, under-examined mediators and networks and overshadowed geographical scales in their relations to the wider world. These goals will be achieved by a twofold methodology: i) an open and collaborative research tool providing a data source for quantitative and qualitative analysis on Iberoamerican mediators, and ii) four subprojects on key cultural transformation processes distinctive of modern societies (the institutionalization of Iberoamerican cultures, the rise of translated literature in key Iberoamerican modernist journals, the position of Iberoamerican women in the cultural field, and the role of Iberoamerican mediators in new forms of mass media). By combining computational methods, cultural, literary history, translation, sociology, gender and media studies, I will lead an interdisciplinary team of 6 researchers that will fill the gap in modernist studies and will offer an original, reproducible and empirically tested method for studying social human interaction within a global, cultural and decentred approach
Summary
Data mining and big data approaches are changing the ways in which we create knowledge, access information and preserve our cultural heritage. This research applies cutting-edge technology to analyse a neglected aspect of European and non-European social and cultural life of the 20th century: the impact of Hispanic and Lusophone literary networks and cultural mediators in international modernity between 1898 and 1959. The project pursues three central goals: 1) to retrieve the lost history of Iberoamerican mediators in modernist intercultural and multilingual networks and reappraise their role; 2) to narrow the knowledge divide in terms of access and production in the Iberoamerican field by generating and making freely available new and reliable data that addresses the lack of documented cultural heritage, and 3) to offer an innovative and reproducible model that can be applied across periods, languages, and disciplines to analyse cross-border phenomena, under-examined mediators and networks and overshadowed geographical scales in their relations to the wider world. These goals will be achieved by a twofold methodology: i) an open and collaborative research tool providing a data source for quantitative and qualitative analysis on Iberoamerican mediators, and ii) four subprojects on key cultural transformation processes distinctive of modern societies (the institutionalization of Iberoamerican cultures, the rise of translated literature in key Iberoamerican modernist journals, the position of Iberoamerican women in the cultural field, and the role of Iberoamerican mediators in new forms of mass media). By combining computational methods, cultural, literary history, translation, sociology, gender and media studies, I will lead an interdisciplinary team of 6 researchers that will fill the gap in modernist studies and will offer an original, reproducible and empirically tested method for studying social human interaction within a global, cultural and decentred approach
Max ERC Funding
1 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-12-01, End date: 2023-11-30
Project acronym MULTIPALEOIBERIA
Project Population dynamics and cultural adaptations of the last Neandertals and first Modern humans in inland Iberia: a multi-proxy investigation
Researcher (PI) Manuel ALCARAZ-CASTAnO
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD DE ALCALA
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2018-STG
Summary The relations between cultural developments and environmental change among hunter-gatherers are crucial for studying population dynamics during the last glaciation (110,000–11,700 years ago). However, proposing solid interpretations on how climate and environment variability affected the social and techno-economic organisation of hominins, requires robust geoarchaeological, chronological, and palaeoecological evidence. In the Iberian Peninsula, a key area for this period due to its geographic position and ecological variability, models on these topics are biased by the poor quality of available evidence for its interior lands. The Iberian interior has been traditionally depicted as a marginal and few populated region due to its harsh ecological conditions compared to the coastal areas. Based on preliminary data suggesting that this picture could be wrong, I hypothesize (1) that the human settlement of interior Iberia during this period was more stable than previously thought and (2) that his has relevant implications at the European scale for problems such as the replacement of Neandertals by modern humans, the first modern human peopling of Europe, and the patterns of land use and mobility during the coldest stages of the last glacial. To test these hypotheses, this project will investigate population dynamics and human-environment interactions of the last Neandertals and first modern humans in interior Iberia based on completely unprecedented evidence gathered by means of a macro-regional and interdisciplinary research project. This involves the participation of a wide team of scholars coordinated by the PI, and a network of methods including field surveys, geoarchaeological excavations and chronometric, paleoecological, zooarchaeological, techno-economic and symbolic studies. The results will significantly change our views on key biocultural and ecological processes of the European prehistory, and the way human societies have dealt with challenging environments.
Summary
The relations between cultural developments and environmental change among hunter-gatherers are crucial for studying population dynamics during the last glaciation (110,000–11,700 years ago). However, proposing solid interpretations on how climate and environment variability affected the social and techno-economic organisation of hominins, requires robust geoarchaeological, chronological, and palaeoecological evidence. In the Iberian Peninsula, a key area for this period due to its geographic position and ecological variability, models on these topics are biased by the poor quality of available evidence for its interior lands. The Iberian interior has been traditionally depicted as a marginal and few populated region due to its harsh ecological conditions compared to the coastal areas. Based on preliminary data suggesting that this picture could be wrong, I hypothesize (1) that the human settlement of interior Iberia during this period was more stable than previously thought and (2) that his has relevant implications at the European scale for problems such as the replacement of Neandertals by modern humans, the first modern human peopling of Europe, and the patterns of land use and mobility during the coldest stages of the last glacial. To test these hypotheses, this project will investigate population dynamics and human-environment interactions of the last Neandertals and first modern humans in interior Iberia based on completely unprecedented evidence gathered by means of a macro-regional and interdisciplinary research project. This involves the participation of a wide team of scholars coordinated by the PI, and a network of methods including field surveys, geoarchaeological excavations and chronometric, paleoecological, zooarchaeological, techno-economic and symbolic studies. The results will significantly change our views on key biocultural and ecological processes of the European prehistory, and the way human societies have dealt with challenging environments.
Max ERC Funding
1 387 515 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
Project acronym OPTNETSPACE
Project Optimal Transport Networks in Spatial Equilibrium
Researcher (PI) Edouard SCHAAL
Host Institution (HI) Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI)
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH1, ERC-2018-STG
Summary Every year, the world economy invests a large amount of resources to improve or develop transport infrastructure. How should these investments be allocated to maximize social welfare? In this proposal, I propose to develop and apply new methods to study optimal transport networks in general-equilibrium models of international trade, urban economics and economic geography. The methodology will build on recent work (Fajgelbaum and Schaal, 2017), in which my coauthor and I studied the network design problem in a general neoclassical trade framework.
In the first project, I develop a new framework to analyze optimal infrastructure investment in an urban setting. The model features people commuting between residential areas and business districts as well as a choice over the mode of transportation. We plan to evaluate the framework to historical data about specific cities.
In the second project, I propose and implement an new algorithm to compute optimal transport networks in the presence of increasing returns to transport, a likely prominent feature of real-world networks. The algorithm applies a branch-and-bound method in a series of geometric programming relaxations of the problem.
In the third project, I study the dynamic evolution of actual transport networks using satellite data from the US, India and Mexico. In the spirit of Hsieh and Klenow (2007), I use the model to measure distortions in the placement of roads between rich and poor countries.
In the fourth project, I study the inefficiencies and welfare losses associated with political economy frictions among governments and planning agencies. I use the model to identify inefficiencies and relate them to measures of institutions and political outcomes.
In the final project, I propose a new explanation behind the Zipf’s law distribution of city sizes. I show that Zipf’s law may result from particular topological properties of optimal transport networks that allocate resources efficiently in space.
Summary
Every year, the world economy invests a large amount of resources to improve or develop transport infrastructure. How should these investments be allocated to maximize social welfare? In this proposal, I propose to develop and apply new methods to study optimal transport networks in general-equilibrium models of international trade, urban economics and economic geography. The methodology will build on recent work (Fajgelbaum and Schaal, 2017), in which my coauthor and I studied the network design problem in a general neoclassical trade framework.
In the first project, I develop a new framework to analyze optimal infrastructure investment in an urban setting. The model features people commuting between residential areas and business districts as well as a choice over the mode of transportation. We plan to evaluate the framework to historical data about specific cities.
In the second project, I propose and implement an new algorithm to compute optimal transport networks in the presence of increasing returns to transport, a likely prominent feature of real-world networks. The algorithm applies a branch-and-bound method in a series of geometric programming relaxations of the problem.
In the third project, I study the dynamic evolution of actual transport networks using satellite data from the US, India and Mexico. In the spirit of Hsieh and Klenow (2007), I use the model to measure distortions in the placement of roads between rich and poor countries.
In the fourth project, I study the inefficiencies and welfare losses associated with political economy frictions among governments and planning agencies. I use the model to identify inefficiencies and relate them to measures of institutions and political outcomes.
In the final project, I propose a new explanation behind the Zipf’s law distribution of city sizes. I show that Zipf’s law may result from particular topological properties of optimal transport networks that allocate resources efficiently in space.
Max ERC Funding
887 500 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
Project acronym RIVERS
Project Water/human rights beyond the human? Indigenous water ontologies, plurilegal encounters and interlegal translation
Researcher (PI) Lieselotte VIAENE
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III DE MADRID
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2018-STG
Summary RIVERS’s main challenge is to produce ground-breaking knowledge, from an empirical, interdisciplinary and dialoguing perspective, about the contentions and challenges intrinsic to reconceptualising human rights with different ways of understanding and relating to water. Worldwide, indigenous peoples are mobilising against the neoliberalisation of nature, demonstrating radically different ways of knowing, being and living. At the same time, in 2010 the UN acknowledged water as a human right, while in 2017 New Zealand, India and Colombia established ground-breaking legal precedents by granting rivers human rights. RIVERS’s overarching research question is: To what extent can international human rights law come to grips with plurilegal water realities? This project engages with one of the most pressing questions of this century: the relationship between humans and nature. RIVERS tackles two intertwined core objectives: 1) analysing different ways of knowing and relating to water and life among indigenous peoples and their understanding of its (potential) violation by extractive projects; 2) discussing the contributions, challenges and pitfalls of interlegal translation of differing water natures in plurilegal encounters at domestic and international levels. RIVERS will develop a multi-sited analysis and empirical case-studies in three contexts: Colombia, Nepal and the UN human rights protection system. Through the lens of legal pluralism, this will foreground competing political and legal water realities that interrogate dominant understandings of the modern world. RIVERS will address two interrelated research challenges: 1) indigenous visions/practices: beyond water as a natural resource and human right; 2) the UN human rights system: towards counter-hegemonic water knowledge production. This project will pioneer new ways of thinking about water beyond the modern divides of nature/culture, providing clues about future paths towards reconceptualising human rights.
Summary
RIVERS’s main challenge is to produce ground-breaking knowledge, from an empirical, interdisciplinary and dialoguing perspective, about the contentions and challenges intrinsic to reconceptualising human rights with different ways of understanding and relating to water. Worldwide, indigenous peoples are mobilising against the neoliberalisation of nature, demonstrating radically different ways of knowing, being and living. At the same time, in 2010 the UN acknowledged water as a human right, while in 2017 New Zealand, India and Colombia established ground-breaking legal precedents by granting rivers human rights. RIVERS’s overarching research question is: To what extent can international human rights law come to grips with plurilegal water realities? This project engages with one of the most pressing questions of this century: the relationship between humans and nature. RIVERS tackles two intertwined core objectives: 1) analysing different ways of knowing and relating to water and life among indigenous peoples and their understanding of its (potential) violation by extractive projects; 2) discussing the contributions, challenges and pitfalls of interlegal translation of differing water natures in plurilegal encounters at domestic and international levels. RIVERS will develop a multi-sited analysis and empirical case-studies in three contexts: Colombia, Nepal and the UN human rights protection system. Through the lens of legal pluralism, this will foreground competing political and legal water realities that interrogate dominant understandings of the modern world. RIVERS will address two interrelated research challenges: 1) indigenous visions/practices: beyond water as a natural resource and human right; 2) the UN human rights system: towards counter-hegemonic water knowledge production. This project will pioneer new ways of thinking about water beyond the modern divides of nature/culture, providing clues about future paths towards reconceptualising human rights.
Max ERC Funding
1 498 446 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-05-01, End date: 2024-04-30
Project acronym WINK
Project Women's Invisible Ink: Trans-Genre Writing and the Gendering of Intellectual Value in Early Modernity
Researcher (PI) Carmen FONT PAZ
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2018-STG
Summary Literature scholars have succeeded in recovering texts by early modern women from different languages, genres, and sociopolitical contexts. Still, compared to their male counterparts, few women writers feature in national canons, or they compose a separate set of ‘early modern women writers’. A nuanced qualitative approach to their textual production reveals forms of self-taught, intellectually-minded trans-genre discourse (traversing poetry, drama, prose, novels) traditionally deemed irrelevant as it did not conform to a practice of scholarly male-dominated discourse. Thus, much original thinking by women has remained intact even if their texts are available to us.
The proposed research locates, identifies and examines the invisible written production of women in early European modernity in order to modify the single-gender paradigm of intellectual value. It surveys sources in six languages through a methodology based on trans-genre writing rather than on close genre types, allowing patterns of persuasive argumentation to emerge as intellectual input, while exposing the rhetorical models that have impinged on the social and cognitive processes identifying intellectual value as being androcentric.
The main research unfolds in three strands: 1) Synergies, examining religious and life-writing themes that shaped into ethical discourses on the common good. 2) Cloud intertextualities, tracing fragmented chains of intuitive argument in discursive narrative. 3) Textual porosity, understanding patterns of knowledge transference and authorial attribution in the management of sources.
The research outcomes will render co-authored articles, a virtual space environment as the reservoir and task field for comparative textual analysis, and a four-volume collection on the cultural history of textual misogyny. WINK approaches intellectual value as a category of gender analysis, bringing to light transformative thinking from understudied and underrepresented women authors.
Summary
Literature scholars have succeeded in recovering texts by early modern women from different languages, genres, and sociopolitical contexts. Still, compared to their male counterparts, few women writers feature in national canons, or they compose a separate set of ‘early modern women writers’. A nuanced qualitative approach to their textual production reveals forms of self-taught, intellectually-minded trans-genre discourse (traversing poetry, drama, prose, novels) traditionally deemed irrelevant as it did not conform to a practice of scholarly male-dominated discourse. Thus, much original thinking by women has remained intact even if their texts are available to us.
The proposed research locates, identifies and examines the invisible written production of women in early European modernity in order to modify the single-gender paradigm of intellectual value. It surveys sources in six languages through a methodology based on trans-genre writing rather than on close genre types, allowing patterns of persuasive argumentation to emerge as intellectual input, while exposing the rhetorical models that have impinged on the social and cognitive processes identifying intellectual value as being androcentric.
The main research unfolds in three strands: 1) Synergies, examining religious and life-writing themes that shaped into ethical discourses on the common good. 2) Cloud intertextualities, tracing fragmented chains of intuitive argument in discursive narrative. 3) Textual porosity, understanding patterns of knowledge transference and authorial attribution in the management of sources.
The research outcomes will render co-authored articles, a virtual space environment as the reservoir and task field for comparative textual analysis, and a four-volume collection on the cultural history of textual misogyny. WINK approaches intellectual value as a category of gender analysis, bringing to light transformative thinking from understudied and underrepresented women authors.
Max ERC Funding
1 489 550 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-03-01, End date: 2024-02-29
