Browsing by Subject "knowledge"

This work stems from the various debates of the definition, authenticity and plurality of yoga traditions both among yoga practitioners and scholars. The work has two aims: to move away from these debates by constructing a new theoretical perspective, and to study yoga as a lived, non-ascetic practice in India because based on ethnography, because such ethnographic study has not been done properly. The material of this work is based on official field work in the city of Bangalore, in Karnātaka state, India, from the end of October 2005 towards the end of February 2006. This thesis then seeks to map the social reality of yoga as it existed in the mid 2000’s among the of middle-aged, middle-class Hindu practitioners. In this work, it is analyzed how they narrate yoga. Overview of yoga history is presented as a frame that both provides an intertextual library and guides interpretation as an authoritative voice of “past in the present”. Similarly, the traditional sources of authoritative knowledge in India, the Sanskritic textual canon and the institution of the guru are discussed. The yoga narratives gathered in Bangalore essentially informs the re-theorizing of yoga, shifting focus from tradition to knowledge. Knowledge is taken as the main analytical category of the discussion. The dialogic relationship of theory and practice is at the core this work which then translates into exploring yoga knowledge as two interconnected categories: objectified knowledge, that is theory and philosophy of yoga, and embodied knowledge, meaning not only the practiced techniques of yoga but essentially all yoga knowledge that is performed. Yoga classes and narratives are observed as knowledge performances. Lastly, practitioner narratives are analyzed by using the concepts of objectified and embodied knowledge, hierarchies of knowledge and participant roles in addition to exploring the narratives in their ethnographic context. As a result, the work concludes: each performance has the potential to integrate the theory and practice, and despite all the differences, all yoga is yoga.

Food literacy is a noteworthy topic to be studied due to food’s considerable environmental and health effects. When food literacy and its characteristics are known, food literacy can be used as a tool to improve people’s health and the condition of the environment. Thus, this thesis aims to reveal the extent of food literacy among Finnish upper secondary school students. In this context, food literacy emphasises food-related environmental and health knowledge. Environmental knowledge is understanding of the global environmental impact of food. Health knowledge, on the other hand, is the familiarity with the relationship between excessive meat consumption and Finnish common diseases along with beliefs regarding diets and food products as a source of protein. This thesis also aims to identify to what extent does the food literacy differ based on gender, study year and living area. This study was performed as a quantitative sample survey and the data was collected using an online Typeform -questionnaire. The questionnaire reached respondents from many different Finnish localities, mainly from cities. The final data consisted of 1320 individuals and it was analysed using IMB SPSS Statistics 24 software. The following methods were used to analyse data: frequency analysis, an Independent Samples t Test, a One-way ANOVA, and a Post-hoc LSD test. Gender, study year and living area were used as grouping variables to examine the differences between groups. The results show that the students named school as the main source of food literacy. Moreover, the results indicate that awareness regarding food production, dietary health and proteins increase significantly from the first to the third study year. The students acknowledged food production causing environmental problems and that the share of food in the consumer’s climatic impact is considerable. Nevertheless, the students underestimated the climatic impact of cheese and they were unaware of the more specific characteristics of food’s environmental impacts. They also had food-related environmental misconceptions considering packaging, transportation and meat consumption. Moreover, approximately half or more of the students were aware of the connection between excessive meat consumption and the increased risk of distinct common diseases. Most of the students acknowledged a versatile vegetarian diet as being a healthy choice. The study also reveals that female students had notably higher dietary health knowledge than male students. This Master’s thesis study mainly supports the findings of previous studies on food-related knowledge. The results elucidate the extent, characteristics, gaps and misconceptions of students’ food literacy. These findings may be utilized to improve school education on food literacy, alter misconceptions and fill the gaps of knowledge in pursuit of improving the health of people and the condition of the environment.

Tutkin tutkielmassani Robert Brandomin ja John McDowellin tieto-oppeja metaepistemologisesta näkökulmasta ”syvän erimielisyyden” (deep disagreement) käsitettä hyödyntäen. Selvitän, voiko Brandomin ja McDowellin erimielisyyttä pitää niin sanottuna ”syvänä erimielisyytenä”, toisin sanoen järjestelmällisenä kiistana, jonka osapuolten on poikkeuksellisen vaikeaa löytää yhteisymmärrystä. Lisäksi harkitsen mitä hyötyjä syvän erimielisyyden tutkimisesta voi olla itse tietoteoreettiselle keskustelulle. Tutkielman alkupuolella esittelen Brandomin ja McDowellin edustaman Pittsburghin koulukunnan tietoteoreettisen perustan eli annetun myytin (Myth of the Given) ja sen esittämät haasteet tietoteorialle. Brandomilla ja McDowellilla on omat tapansa oikeuttaa uskomukset ilman annetun käsitettä, mikä on johtanut eripuraan koulukunnan sisällä. Tutkielman loppupuolella selvitän millä perustein Brandomin ja McDowellin erimielisyyttä voisi pitää niin sanottuna syvänä erimielisyytenä. Nostan analyysissäni esiin erityisesti Brandomin ja McDowellin erimielisyydet kokemuksen käsitteen merkityksestä sekä heidän näkemyksensä siitä, mikä on filosofian tehtävä ylipäänsä. Johtopäätökseni on, että Brandomin ja McDowellin erimielisyyttä voi hyvinkin pitää syvänä, mutta että sen pohjaaminen tiettyyn episteemiseen lähtökohtaan saattaa olla harhaanjohtavaa ja keskustelun kehityksen kannalta haitallista.

The competitiveness in global competition is increasingly more dependent on the ability to create unique products and services. This is achieved through innovation. Innovation is a highly knowledge intensive activity, which requires combining different types of knowledge. Firms require many types of specialized knowledge that they cannot produce themselves. Moreover, knowledge often has a tacit element, which reduces its supply in the market. This calls for collaborative links among firms and between firms and institutions. Knowledge is exchanged, transferred and shared through non-market based knowledge networks. Those organizations which exploit networks as a source of knowledge gain competitive advantage over those which do not. Organizations often underinvest in forming and sustaining network relations. This justifies the public support of networking as part of innovation policy. The current study examines the microstructure of knowledge diffusion and innovation processes and aims to find guidelines for innovation policy design from this perspective. Its goals are to find out (1) what role do knowledge sharing networks play in innovation, (2) how does the micro-level structure of knowledge transfer interactions affect the overall performance of an economic system and (3) what are the implications of the analysis of knowledge sharing networks on innovation policy design? The current study is a theoretical examination on these subjects. Knowledge networks are found to function as extensions to the innovation resources and capabilities of economic agents. The availability of knowledge positively influences innovation in all stages: invention, innovation and diffusion. The benefits from networks include e.g. overcoming path dependency in the direction of technological development, learning about market needs and influencing customer preferences. Agent-based models of the diffusion of knowledge in networks suggest that the structure of a knowledge sharing network and the capabilities of economic agents have an effect on the performance of the network. The best performance is achieved in 'small-world' networks which consist of tightly interrelated groups of agents which have some contacts with other groups. Limitations on the learning capabilities of the agents may prevent knowledge sharing. If the agents require a shared knowledge base to be able to communicate with each other, providing all agents with some basic level of knowledge will ease communication and facilitate the diffusion of knowledge. Innovation policy based on the knowledge network analysis can be divided into promoting the creation of small-world networks and removing barriers to communication between agents. Small-world networks can be understood as local networks such as business clusters or non-local networks such as research networks or professional networks. Barriers to communication can be removed by improving the learning abilities of agents (means to learn) and promoting investments in collaboration (incentives to learn). The policy measures associated with the issues are various. Much attention is paid to providing a suitable institutional set-up which eases networking and knowledge transfer. Many of the relevant policy measures are complementary and should be adopted as packages. Changing one policy variable might have no effect if other variables are not changed at the same time. Furthermore, the knowledge networks are often technology or industry specific and technology neutral policies may overlook their needs. Thus the technology neutral policy measures should be supplemented by technology-specific measures. The identification of bottlenecks in technology-specific networks is needed in order to choose the best policy measure(s). According to a technological innovation system framework, technology fields should be evaluated on functionality: how a technological innovation system fulfils certain common criteria that are considered necessary for the development of innovations in a field. This evaluation helps choose which policy measures should be implemented.

In the study the present is mirrored to the past in the Russian economy with focus on similarities in the fields of investment/capital, knowledge/technology and entrepreneurship. The periods were 1894 to 1914 and 2000 to 2020. The fields appeared as central factors in programs for economic modernization in 1890s and the 2000s. It was assumed, that there would be major similarities in the studied areas in the two periods. The hypothesis was tested by applying roughly the hypothetico-deductive method while utilizing freely the theories of Anthony Giddens. The material consisted primarily of secondary sources. Major similarities in investments were the primacy of defence and the transport sector, pipelines in the 2000s and before 1914 railways. Both served the export of raw materials, grain respective hydrocarbons. The incomes from these main export products were largely invested into the transport sector and the defence of the huge territory. The state remained the main actor steering largely investments in a way that increased the defence capability of the country, the railways having a military function. In both periods a strict monetary policy was conducted. In the field of knowledge, the structures favoured creation of theoretical knowledge but not of innovations. While private entrepreneurship remained important, the state became the main actor in the economy promoting modernization. In the earlier period it implemented an economic program whose main factors were the building of railways, attracting foreign investments and maintaining high custom barriers. In the 2000s the lack of one single program was compensated by the generally greater role of the state, state companies and the huge state-owned defence industry. The custom barriers were initially lowered, but in the 2010s the policy of import substitution and devaluation of the rouble brought similarities to the former system. In both periods the wealth and military power of the country grew from the initial level. Yet the results were far from the ambitious goals set. The systems remained monopolistic, relatively inefficient and disinterested of inventions, with corruption, bribery and dishonest business practices. The border between state and private sectors was blurred. Subsidies provided mainly by the export of raw materials bolstered the systems. These features could be seen as obstacles for economic modernization. To verify whether they all are would require including more theory of economic modernization. Both in good and bad, the structures of the two periods seem so much alike even on a detailed level, that one could suspect partial imitation of the past in the 2000s. The similarities could as well be due to long-term structures of Russia, be they cultural, institutional, geographical or geopolitical. They could result either from direct continuities from earlier periods or features that re-emerge due to a change of conditions. Mentions of similar traits in other periods of the Russian history might indicate the predominance of structural causes, making quick changes difficult. A more plausible explanation would require the widening of the study to include more countries and time periods.