Er is steeds vaker protest van burgers tegen voorgenomen hervormingen: “Er is genoeg hervormd, dit volstaat”. In mijn meesterproef onderzoek ik of burgers moe worden van herhaalde hervormingen van en door hun lokale overheid. Op basis van data over Duitse lokale overheden stellen we vast dat deze minder geneigd zijn hervormingen of veranderingen door te voeren, onder druk van burgers die hervormingsmoe zijn.

Een interviewstudie waaraan aan vrouwelijke studenten aan de KU Leuven werd gevraagd hoe zij sexual consent beleven en dit in hun eigen leven communiceren.

Dit proefschrift is een onderzoeksproject over de socialezekerheidsrechten van de europese extracomunitaria-immigranten.

In onze samenleving is het dragen van een hoofddoek op veel secundaire scholen niet toegestaan. Dit onderzoek geeft een beeld van de invloeden van dit hoofddoekenverbod op psychologische en professionele facetten in het leven van hoofddoek-dragende meisjes in het secundair onderwijs in Vlaanderen. Deze bachelorproef is een stem van de hoofddoekdragende scholieren en de psychologische analyse die erachter zit.

Hoe zorg je ervoor dat zelflerende algorithems ook echt slimmer worden en efficienter functioneren. Deze master-thesis beschrijft een theoretisch en praktisch onderzoek hoe je dit zou kunnen doen en waar je op moet letten zodat algorithmes kunnen leren van eerdere ervaringen.

Deze narratieve studie onderzoekt de betekenis van online rouwen van nabestaanden van zelfdoding in een besloten Facebook groep. Middels verhalen en schriftelijke interacties op Facebook met lotgenoten krijgen innerlijk beleefde rouwgevoelens ruimte. Het collectief online delen van verhalen kan als rouwritueel gezien worden, dat bestaande ideeën over hoe rouw eruit behoort te zien naar de achtergrond doet verdwijnen.

Nowadays, performing multitasking activities on the move has become more and more popular. Such propensity has increasingly attracted lots of attentions from scholars. In this streamline, the thesis is to explore how multitasking activities are performed in different modes of public transport (PT) in Brussels city, and whether they are affected by the demographics, distance and level of crowdedness factors. In addition, it looks into the way and how PT passengers interact with their information and communication technology (ICT) devices. Structured observation is used to conduct the survey of 1216 PT passengers (on bus, tram and metro) in May 2016. The result shows, on the one hand, that the length of the journey and demographics have significant impact on passengers’ decision to multitask. On the other hand, it proves that the frequency of using ICTs not only being influenced by demographics, but its relationship with the transport types is also moderated by crowdedness level. On top of that, a comparison with a previous study which adopted a different methodology but in the same context is conducted both to confirm the reliability and validity of this paper and to give an insight about Brussels public transport and its users’ multitasking tendency.

Several controversy concerning the management of MSW (Municipal Solid Waste) and their environmental issues. To reduce the volume of waste about 70-90% the process used is the incineration. However, the material resulting from the plant are produced by an uncontrolled process, therefore they have hazardous chemical composition. To replace MSWI as the raw material in concrete, they should be treated with different process. In this research the ashes (from INDAVER) were treated with water, NaOH and Carbonate and after submitted to the compress strength test, TGA (Termogravimetric Analysis) and ASR (Alkali-Silica Reaction, with glasses aggregate) to evaluate the quality. Relevant the role of the Elemental Al, for this analysis new set up was realize. Results conduced that the MSWI was appropriate to replace raw materials in concrete after treatments.

The Cofán people of Zábalo, a community in the Ecuadorian Amazon, have always engaged pragmatically on an everyday basis with their forest-based lifestyle and relations with the government, corporations and outsiders (fuesu a’i). However, in recent years the community has been dealing with growing uncertainty, internal economic inequality, high unemployment, and an Ecuadorian state that extends governmental control, while also neglecting the needs of people in this region. A myriad of factors discussed in this paper, including the increased integration of outside commodities into the Cofáns’ daily life, have led me to believe that unless the Cofán gain access to a steady source of financial income to purchase basic supplies and commodities (such as bullets, gasoline and salt), many people will have to look for work outside the community or allow oil companies to exploit their resources. The growing accumulation of wealth by just two families in the community, increasing dependence on money, lack of access to jobs, and internal political divisions have increased distrust and bad talk (ega afa’cho). Through a two-month stay with the community, where I interviewed 25 individuals (collecting 67 hours of semi-structured interviews) and produced 7 short films , I mainly sought to answer the following three questions: What political and economic changes have these people encountered in recent years? What is the community’s relationship with money, commodities and other sources of value? Can the Cofán maintain an ideal tranquil (opatssi) life and take care of the forest (tsampima coiraye), while simultaneously engaging with external influences, including restrictive laws, expansion of the capitalist frontier, commodities, the Socio Bosque environmental conservation government scheme, populist local politicians, and the potential of oil exploitation?

I conclude that Zábalo is currently a frontier of ‘negligent hegemonic control’ and is becoming more assimilated into the global economic market, creating a greater dependence on money and commodities, which is both changing people’s relationship to the concepts of opatssi and tsampima coiraye and also making them more likely find a pragmatic solution to their economic problems, such as allowing oil exploitation. Finally, this paper advocates for an engaged, activist anthropology in the context of a neoliberal world with increasing inequality, marginalized indigenous peoples, and increasing environmental degradation.