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82-510: Land rights are such a basic form of law that they develop even where there is no state to enforce them; for example, the claim clubs of the American West were institutions that arose organically to enforce the system of rules appurtenant to mining. Squatting , the occupation of land without ownership, is a globally ubiquitous phenomenon. Indigenous land rights is also a perennial related issue. Sovereignty , in common law jurisdictions,

164-495: A community. Legal empowerment is about grass root justice, about ensuring that law is not confined to books or courtrooms, but rather is available and meaningful to ordinary people. Lorenzo Cotula in his book ' Legal Empowerment for Local Resource Control ' outlines the fact that legal tools for securing local resource rights are enshrined in legal system, does not necessarily mean that local resource users are in position to use them and benefit from them. The state legal system

246-445: A company. The implementation of the concept of empowerment in management has also been criticized for failing to live up to its claims. Empowerment in the study of artificial intelligence is an information-theoretic quantity that measures the perceived capacity of an agent to influence its environment. Empowerment is an approach to modelling intrinsic motivation where advantageous actions are chosen by agent with just knowledge of

328-529: A concept, and model of practice, empowerment is also used in health promotion research and practice. The key principle is for individuals to gain increased control over factors that influence their health status. To empower individuals and to obtain more equity in health, it is also important to address health-related behaviors. Studies suggest that health promotion interventions aiming at empowering adolescents should enable active learning activities, use visualizing tools to facilitate self-reflection, and allow

410-452: A country must be in agreement. Globally, there has been an increased focus on land rights, as they are so pertinent to various aspects of development. According to Wickeri and Kalhan, land ownership can be a critical source of capital, financial security, food, water, shelter, and resources. The UN Global Land Tool organisation has found that rural landlessness is a strong predictor of poverty and hunger, and negatively impacts Empowerment and

492-550: A culture of trust in the organization and an appropriate information and communication system. The aim of these activities is to save control costs, that become redundant when employees act independently and in a self-motivated fashion. In the book Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute , the authors illustrate three keys that organizations can use to open the knowledge, experience, and motivation power that people already have. The three keys that managers must use to empower their employees are: According to Stewart, in order to guarantee

574-433: A deficit diagnosis usually carried out by experts assessing the problems of this group. The fundamental asymmetry of the relationship between experts and clients is usually not questioned by empowerment processes. It also needs to be regarded critically, in how far the empowerment approach is really applicable to all patients/clients. It is particularly questionable whether [mentally ill] people in acute crisis situations are in

656-454: A female "...sounds as though we are dismissing or ignoring males, but the truth is, both genders desperately need to be equally empowered." Empowerment occurs through improvement of conditions, standards, events, and a global perspective of life. Before there can be the finding that a particular group requires empowerment and that therefore their self-esteem needs to be consolidated on the basis of awareness of their strengths, there needs to be

738-437: A guiding principle, for example through the creation of communities of practice . However, it is important to ensure that the individual employee has the skills to meet their allocated responsibilities and that the company's structure sets up the right incentives for employees to reward their taking responsibilities. Otherwise there is a danger of being overwhelmed or even becoming lethargic. Empowerment of employees requires

820-538: A hallmark in contract law cases. In the 1854 the Bellevue (Nebraska) Claim Club was organized. The original aim of the club was "to secure the peaceful adjustment of all cases in which claims in this then un- surveyed country overlapped each other." The club was renowned for visiting " claim jumpers " with beatings to convince them to leave their claims. Its last act, reportedly in 1858, was to attempt to tar and feather an old man and his three sons reportedly squatting in

902-521: A higher status within the household, allowing more equality and bargaining power. In addition, owning property separately from their husbands allowed women an opportunity of escape from abusive relationships . Agarwal concluded that the prospect of a safe shelter outside of the main household decreases the longevity of domestic violence. Land rights are critical for women in India due to the heavily patriarchal society in which they live. Cultural perspectives play

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984-517: A key role in the acceptance of equality within land ownership. Women owning land ultimately benefits the household and society as a whole. The most recent advance towards equality in land rights in India was the Hindu Succession Act of 2005 . This act aimed to remove the gender discrimination which was present in the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 . In the new amendment, daughters and sons have equal rights to obtain land from their parents. This act

1066-465: A necessary step if a country is to overcome the obstacles associated with poverty and development. The UN Sustainable Development Goals ( SDG 5 ) targets gender equality and women's empowerment for the global development agenda. According to Thomas A. Potterfield, many organizational theorists and practitioners regard employee empowerment Archived 2021-06-20 at the Wayback Machine as one of

1148-540: A number of claim clubs until the federal land surveyors arrived. In 1835 settlers in Elkhorn Creek, Wisconsin formed a claim club. Other settlers did the same, including the town of Yankton, South Dakota . There is also a report of a claim club in Alabama in the 1850s. In the latter part of the 1850s claim clubs came under pressure from the federal government, and lost public support in many communities. In an 1858 ruling,

1230-407: A place of dependence on their husbands, brothers, or fathers for their livelihood and shelter. Should there be an illness, domestic violence, or death in the family, women would be left landless and unable to either grow crops for food, or rent land for profit. Land ownership for women is a crucial form of security and income, increasing Empowerment and decreasing Poverty . Kanakalatha Mukund makes

1312-402: A position to make their own decisions. According to Albert Lenz, people behave primarily regressive in acute crisis situations and tend to leave the responsibility to professionals. It must be assumed, therefore, that the implementation of the empowerment concept requires a minimum level of communication and reflectivity of the persons involved. Another criticism is that empowerment implies that

1394-434: A responsible and self-determined way, acting on their own authority. It is the process of becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling one's life and claiming one's rights . Empowerment as action refers both to the process of self-empowerment and to professional support of people, which enables them to overcome their sense of powerlessness and lack of influence, and to recognize and use their resources . As

1476-471: A successful work environment, managers need to exercise the "right kind of authority " (p. 6). To summarize, "empowerment is simply the effective use of a manager’s authority", and subsequently, it is a productive way to maximize all-around work efficiency . These keys are hard to put into place and it is a journey to achieve empowerment in the workplace. It is important to train employees and makes sure they have trust in what empowerment will bring to

1558-411: A term, empowerment originates from American community psychology and is associated with the social scientist Julian Rappaport (1981). In social work , empowerment forms a practical approach of resource-oriented intervention. In the field of citizenship education and democratic education , empowerment is seen as a tool to increase the responsibility of the citizen. Empowerment is a key concept in

1640-603: Is a significant topic of discussion in regards to development and economics nowadays. It also points to approaches regarding other marginalized genders in a particular political or social context. This approach to empowerment is partly informed by feminism and employed legal empowerment by building on international human rights . Empowerment is one of the main procedural concerns when addressing human rights and development . The Human Development and Capabilities Approach , The Millennium Development Goals , and other credible approaches/goals point to empowerment and participation as

1722-430: Is constrained by a range of different factors – from lack of resources to cultural issues. Among these factors economic, geographic, linguistic and other constraints on access to courts, lack of legal awareness as well as legal assistance tend to be recurrent problems. In many context, marginalised groups do not trust the legal system owing to the widespread manipulation that it has historically been subjected to by

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1804-399: Is evident in the fact that consumers generally prefer the former. When customers have the authority to choose which products are brought to market , they exhibit increased demand for the chosen products, even when they are objectively of the same quality . This apparently irrational phenomenon can be explained by the heightened sense of psychological ownership that consumers develop for

1886-406: Is not giving people power, people already have plenty of power, in the wealth of their knowledge and motivation, to do their jobs magnificently. We define empowerment as letting this power out." It encourages people to gain the skills and knowledge that will allow them to overcome obstacles in life or work environment and ultimately, help them develop within themselves or in the society. To empower

1968-408: Is often referred to as absolute title , radical title , or allodial title . Nearly all of these jurisdictions have a system of land registration , to record fee simple interests, and a land claim process to resolve disputes. Indigenous land rights are recognized by international law , as well as the national legal systems of common law and civil law countries. In common law jurisdictions,

2050-441: Is the process of obtaining basic opportunities for marginalized people, either directly by those people, or through the help of non-marginalized others who share their own access to these opportunities. It also includes actively thwarting attempts to deny those opportunities. Empowerment also includes encouraging, and developing the skills for, self-sufficiency , with a focus on eliminating the future need for charity or welfare in

2132-660: The United States Department of the Interior addressed claim clubs directly, stating that, "A member of a claim club, organized for the purpose of illegally appropriating and selling public lands, will be held to the strictest proof of honest intent, when asserting an individual claim." The violent actions of the Omaha Claim Club may have brought about the demise of claim clubs across the country. In 1860, in Baker v. Morton ,

2214-500: The hierarchical structures that underpin central governments, large corporation, academia and, more generally, rigid, “ linear-Cartesian” forms of social organization. From that perspective, new, “electronic forms of awareness” driven by information technology would empower citizen, employees and students by disseminating in near-real-time vast amounts of information once reserved to a small number of experts and specialists. Citizens would be bound to ask for substantially more say in

2296-480: The legal mobilisation i.e., law, legal systems and justice mechanisms to improve or transform their social, political or economic situations. Legal empowerment approaches are interested in understanding how they can use the law to advance interests and priorities of the marginalised. According to 'Open society foundations' (an NGO) "Legal empowerment is about strengthening the capacity of all people to exercise their rights , either as individuals or as members of

2378-556: The Supreme Court ordered that city's club to disband. Other sources say that with the arrival of several United States Land Offices across the West, the claim clubs simply were not needed. The Omaha Claim Club, along with many claim clubs around Nebraska, disbanded by 1860. Empowerment Empowerment is the degree of autonomy and self-determination in people and in communities. This enables them to represent their interests in

2460-504: The US and the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher built on these theories. 'At the same time, the mutual aid aspects of the concept of self-help retained some currency with socialists and democrats.' In economic development , the empowerment approach focuses on mobilizing the self-help efforts of the poor, rather than providing them with social welfare . Economic empowerment is also

2542-515: The United States government intervened. One early claim club in the United States was established by settlers around Burlington, Iowa , where claims were formed before the Sac and Fox people ceded the area in 1832. These clubs were established in direct violation of federal law, in what J. Sterling Morton described as a claim meeting . According to one report, "Such clubs sprang up 'as readily as did

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2624-555: The adolescents to influence intervention activities. According to Robert Adams, there is a long tradition in the UK and the USA respectively to advance forms of self-help that have developed and contributed to more recent concepts of empowerment. For example, the free enterprise economic theories of Milton Friedman embraced self-help as a respectable contributor to the economy. Both the Republicans in

2706-548: The area. The Platte Valley Claim Club was established in Fremont in August, 1856 to settle land disputes, and folded by late 1857. Fort Saint Vrain , Nebraska Territory also had a claim club in the late 1850s that was designed to keep the town from failing. It did not succeed. One story of claim club "justice" comes from Montgomery County , Kansas town in 1867. An early settler had tilled his land and improved on it, according to

2788-453: The authority to take initiatives, make their own decisions, find and execute solutions. Data from survey research using confirmatory factor analysis , empowerment can be captures through four dimensions, namely meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact; whereas some exploratory factor analysis identifies only three dimensions, namely meaning, competence, and influence (a conflation of self-determination and impact). One account of

2870-404: The best choices for their circumstances and needs". Activities promoted by the strategy included the midata programme under the direction of Professor Nigel Shadbolt , annual credit card usage statements, collective purchasing schemes, and presentational work on Energy Performance Certificates , motor vehicle sales literature and food hygiene ratings, so that consumers can make better use of

2952-558: The capacity for self-help of their clients. For example, this allows clients not to be seen as passive, helpless 'victims' to be rescued but instead as a self-empowered person fighting abuse/ oppression; a fight, in which the social worker takes the position of a facilitator, instead of the position of a 'rescuer'. Marginalized people who lack self-sufficiency become, at a minimum, dependent on charity, or welfare. They lose their self-confidence because they cannot be fully self-supporting. The opportunities that denied them also deprive them of

3034-413: The community, for example, can disempower the community by entrenching a dependence charity or welfare. A nonprofit organization can target strategies that cause structural changes, reducing the need for ongoing dependence. Red Cross , for example, can focus on improving the health of indigenous people, but does not have authority in its charter to install water-delivery and purification systems, even though

3116-641: The development of quality circles to improve the organizational culture, strengthening the motivation and the skills of employees. The target of subjective job satisfaction of employees is pursued through flat hierarchies, participation in decisions, opening of creative effort, a positive, appreciative team culture, self-evaluation, taking responsibility (for results), more self-determination and constant further learning. The optimal use of existing potential and abilities can supposedly be better reached by satisfied and active workers. Here, knowledge management contributes significantly to implement employee participation as

3198-454: The discourse on promoting civic engagement . Empowerment as a concept, which is characterized by a move away from a deficit -oriented towards a more strength-oriented perception, can increasingly be found in management concepts, as well as in the areas of continuing education and self-help . Robert Adams points to the limitations of any single definition of 'empowerment', and the danger that academic or specialist definitions might take away

3280-721: The drive for change comes from an external person. For example, in healthcare, a patient being encouraged by their doctor to track their symptoms and adjust their medication accordingly would be empowerment, where as a patient deciding on their own that they wanted to improve their medication regimen and thus started tracking would be an example of self-empowerment . A recently coined term, self-empowerment "describes patients’ and informal caregivers’ power to perform activities that are not mandated by health care and to take control over their own lives and self-management with increased self-efficacy and confidence". In social work , empowerment offers an approach that allows social workers to increase

3362-723: The empowering of previously disadvantaged sections of the population, for example, in many previously colonized African countries. A consumer empowerment strategy was put in place in the United Kingdom by the 2010-2015 coalition government . The strategy, produced by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Behavioural Insights Team at the UK Cabinet Office , sought to introduce voluntary measures and "nudges" which could help consumers "find and adopt

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3444-569: The frozen Missouri River , running off legitimate settlers, and other forms of vigilantism . The club imposed their will on the Nebraska Territorial Legislature as well, and with the passage of a territorial law granting 320 acres (1.3 km ) per settler, they doubled the federally imposed limit of 160 acres (0.6 km ). The club ran Omaha until the Supreme Court ruled against their violent measures in Baker v. Morton ,

3526-414: The higher the status of the woman, the less likely she is to have any developed skills that would be useful in finding work. These women are forced to beg for food and shelter once their husbands die because they have not been allowed to gain work experience. Bina Agarwal argues that land ownership significantly decreases the chance of domestic violence against Indian women. Owning property elevates women to

3608-492: The history of workplace empowerment in the United States recalls the clash of management styles in railroad construction in the American West in the mid-19th century, where "traditional" hierarchical East-Coast models of control encountered individualistic pioneer workers, strongly supplemented by methods of efficiency -oriented "worker responsibility " brought to the scene by Chinese laborers . In this case, empowerment at

3690-467: The household, women lack the voice to advocate for their own rights. Another issue with land rights in India is that they leave women completely dependent on the lives of their husbands. A study by Bina Agarwal found that in West Bengal , prosperous families turn destitute when the male head of the household dies, as women are not permitted to take over their husband's land. Also, due to cultural tradition,

3772-473: The important point that although women in India have the legal right to own land, very few actually do as a result of the patriarchal practices which dominate the nation. Up until recently, Indian women have been left out of laws regarding the distribution of public land and were forced to rely on the small possibility of obtaining private land from their families. Inheritance laws which cater towards men are one of

3854-464: The individuals of the group. This process can be difficult to start and to implement effectively. One empowerment strategy is to assist marginalized people to create their own nonprofit organization , using the rationale that only the marginalized people, themselves, can know what their own people need most, and that control of the organization by outsiders can actually help to further entrench marginalization. Charitable organizations lead from outside of

3936-482: The information they contain. Companies that empower their customers have the potential to create superior products at reduced costs and risks, provided that customers are willing and able to contribute valuable input in the new product development process. Businesses that involve and empower customers in the process of creating new products can sometimes have a competitive edge over traditional firms that do not give their customers such involvement. This advantage

4018-415: The key issues behind inequality in land rights. According to Bina Agarwal , land ownership defines social status and political power in the household and in the village, shaping relationships and creating family dynamics. Therefore, inheritance of land automatically puts men above women both in the household, and in the community. Without political pull in the village, and with limited bargaining powers within

4100-662: The lack of such a system profoundly, directly and negatively impacts health. A nonprofit composed of the indigenous people, however, could ensure their own organization does have such authority and could set their own agendas, make their own plans, seek the needed resources, do as much of the work as they can, and take responsibility – and credit – for the success of their projects (or the consequences, should they fail). The process of which enables individuals/groups to fully access personal or collective power, authority and influence, and to employ that strength when engaging with other people, institutions or society. In other words, "Empowerment

4182-583: The land do not impede on other individuals' rights. This is not to be confused with access to land, which allows individuals the use of land in an economic sense (i.e. farming). Instead, land rights address the ownership of land which provides security and increases human capabilities . When a person only has access to land, they are in constant threat of expulsion depending on the choices of the land owner, which limits financial stability. Land rights are an integral part of Land Laws, as they socially enforce groups of individuals' rights to own land in concurrence with

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4264-412: The land is signed in their husband's name, while women sign as the witness. Inheritance practices are a particular obstacle which reduces women empowerment , as well. Land is passed down through male lineage which reinforces women's exclusion from land ownership. Another detriment to equality, pointed out by Women's Land Link Africa, is that women lack sufficient knowledge about the rights they have under

4346-521: The land laws of a nation. Land Law addresses the legal mandates set forth by a country in regards to land ownership, while land rights refer to the social acceptance of land ownership. Landesa takes the stance that although the law may advocate for equal access to land, land rights in certain countries and cultures may hinder a group's right to actually own land. Laws are important, but they must be backed up by cultural tradition and social acceptance. Therefore, laws concerning land ownership and land rights of

4428-432: The land rights of indigenous peoples are referred to as aboriginal title . In customary law jurisdictions, customary land is the predominant form of land ownership. Land reform refers to government policies that take and/or redistribute land, such as a land grant . Land rights refer to the inalienable ability of individuals to freely obtain, use, and possess land at their discretion, as long as their activities on

4510-422: The land, including roads and schoolhouses, and assign the heavy costs of development as a tax burden on the land held by absentees. This became the regular policy of some claim clubs, designed to force the sale by absentee owners to actual residents, or at least to local speculators. Claim clubs did not always protect the honest settler against the scheming speculator. Although claim club law sometimes shielded of

4592-516: The larger community, as well. With land ownership, women can develop an income and allocate this income more fairly within the household. Tim Hanstad claims that providing sufficient land rights for women is beneficial because, once women can exercise those rights the following will be promoted: In many parts of the world, women have access to land in order to farm and cultivate the land; however, there are traditions and cultural norms which bar women from inheriting or purchasing land. This puts women in

4674-414: The law itself can address the rights of widows and divorcees in addition to the rights of married women. Claim club Claim clubs , also called actual settlers' associations or squatters' clubs , were a nineteenth-century phenomenon in the American West . Usually operating within a confined local jurisdiction, these pseudo-governmental entities sought to regulate land sales in places where there

4756-465: The law of the Supreme Court of the United States." East Coast land speculators were prone to roam the recently opened Western United States and select the most desirable spots with the intent to outbid the settler and real claimant when the lands were offered for sale at the Land Office. Claim jumpers were also a problem. Generally they sought to be present at a land sale when the first claimant

4838-454: The law to own land. Rural, illiterate women do not even have access to the new constitution which guarantees them land rights. Although the 1995 Constitution provides for equality between men and women, there are still gaps in the law which affect women's rights to land. The law protects the rights to land of wives in marriage; however, it does not address the needs of widows or divorcees. Consequentially, these women are left landless and without

4920-613: The level of work teams or brigades achieved a notable (but short-lived) demonstrated superiority. See the views of Robert L. Webb. Since the 1980s and 1990s, empowerment has become a point of interest in management concepts and business administration. In this context, empowerment involves approaches that promise greater participation and integration to the employee in order to cope with their tasks as independently as possible and responsibly can. A strength-based approach known as "empowerment circle" has become an instrument of organizational development. Multidisciplinary empowerment teams aim for

5002-416: The mechanism by which people, organizations, and communities gain mastery over their lives." Sociological empowerment often addresses members of groups that social discrimination processes have excluded from decision-making processes through – for example – discrimination based on disability, race , ethnicity, religion, or gender. Empowerment as a methodology is also associated with feminism . Empowerment

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5084-607: The more powerful. 'To what extent one knows the law , and make it work for themselves with 'para legal tools', is legal empowerment; assisted utilizing innovative approaches like legal literacy and awareness training, broadcasting legal information , conducting participatory legal discourses , supporting local resource user in negotiating with other agencies and stake holders and to strategies combining use of legal processes with advocacy along with media engagement, and socio legal mobilisation . Sometimes groups are marginalized by society at large, with governments participating in

5166-451: The most important and popular management concepts of our time. Ciulla discusses an inverse case: that of bogus empowerment. In the sphere of management and organizational theory, "empowerment" often refers loosely to processes for giving subordinates (or workers generally) greater discretion and resources: distributing control in order to better serve both customers and the interests of employing organizations. It also giving employees

5248-474: The original settler was never seen again. Claim clubs also secured members' stakes on land they speculated to become important to the federal government, for the purpose of selling it back to the government at a later date. Members of one Iowa claim club purchased 15,000 acres (61 km ) in central Iowa, which eventually was sold in order to develop both the state capitol in Des Moines and Iowa City , where

5330-415: The pride of accomplishment which others, who have those opportunities, can develop for themselves. This in turn can lead to psychological, social and even mental health problems. " Marginalized " here refers to the overt or covert trends within societies whereby those perceived as lacking desirable traits or deviating from the group norms tend to be excluded by wider society and ostracized as undesirables. As

5412-670: The process of adding and replacing corporate directors – as they are themselves steered to do so by their own board members (pension trustees). This could eventually put more pressure on the CEOs of publicly listed companies , as “more than ever before, many [North American], UK and European Union pension trustees speak enthusiastically about flexing their fiduciary muscles for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals ”, and other ESG-centric investment practices Legal empowerment happens when marginalised people or groups use

5494-410: The process of marginalization. Equal opportunity laws which actively oppose such marginalization, are supposed to allow empowerment to occur. These laws made it illegal to restrict access to schools and public places based on race. They can also be seen as a symptom of minorities' and women's empowerment through lobbying. Gender empowerment conventionally refers to the empowerment of women , which

5576-603: The protection land offers. Also, women have a difficult time taking cases to court due to corruption and expensive trials. The trials concerning land take so long to process that many women do not even attempt to seek legal assistance. Women's Land Link Africa provides suggestions to alleviate inequality in land ownership. Rural women can be educated about their rights through radio campaigns, community discussions, educational outreach programs, and public forums. The cultural nuances must be addressed in policies and community leaders can be educated about inclusion of minority groups. Also,

5658-533: The provisions of the Homestead Act . However, he had not lived on it for five years. After he sold it to another man, this same settler reportedly went to the United States Land Office to preempt the man to whom he sold the land. After doing so this settler attempted to displace the man he sold the land to and claim it as his own. When the local claim club ordered the town sheriff to "put the man away",

5740-404: The quality of their lives.' One definition for the term is "an intentional, ongoing process centered in the local community, involving mutual respect, critical reflection, caring, and group participation, through which people lacking an equal share of resources gain greater access to and control over those resources". Rappaport's (1984) definition includes: "Empowerment is viewed as a process:

5822-850: The realisation of Human rights . In order to home in on this critical problem of inadequate land rights, The Millennium Development Goal 7D strives to improve the lives of 100 million slum dwellers. This includes increased land rights for impoverished people, which will ultimately lead to a higher quality of life. Although land rights are fundamental in achieving higher standards of living, certain groups of individuals are consistently left out of land ownership provisions. The law may provide access to land, however, cultural barriers and poverty traps limit minority groups' ability to own land. In order to reach equality, these groups must obtain adequate land rights that are both socially and legally recognised. Several scholars argue that women's lack of sufficient land rights negatively affects their immediate families and

5904-411: The selected products. Two conditions limit this effect: (1) it diminishes when the joint decision-making outcome does not align with consumers' preferences and (2) when consumers lack confidence in their ability to make informed decisions. The World Pensions Council (WPC) has argued that large institutional investors such as pension funds and endowments are exercising a greater influence on

5986-495: The simple homesteader, it was also a tool and a weapon of the speculator. Claim clubs acted not only to protect a squatter's title to land he lived on and was cultivating, but also to help the same squatter defend unoccupied second and third tracts against the claim of later arrivals. The institution of the claim club is said to have "reached perfection" in Iowa , where more than a hundred such groups carefully regulated land commerce until

6068-453: The state university is today. Iowa had several other claim clubs, as well. In Fort Des Moines , Fort Dodge, Iowa and Iowa City active clubs abounded. In Iowa City the club's mission was to "...protect all persons who do or may hold claims, against the interference of any person who shall attempt to deprive such claim holders of their claims and improvements, by preemption or otherwise." From 1832 to 1843, Dupage County, Illinois created

6150-458: The structure of the environment, rather than satisfying an externally imposed need as in homeostasis. Experiments have shown that artificial agents acting to maximise their empowerment, in the absence of a defined goal, exhibit advantageous exploratory behaviour that, in a range of simulated environments, resembles intelligent behaviour in living things. Marshall McLuhan insisted that the development of electronic media would eventually weaken

6232-836: The sunflowers wherever the prairie sod was broken' in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska..." Other reports corroborate the spread of claim clubs, with their presence felt in the aforementioned states, as well as New Mexico , North Dakota , Wyoming , Montana , Colorado and Washington . In Old Colorado City, Colorado , the El Paso Claim Club was formed by members of the Colorado City Town Company in 1859. The Club reportedly "settled land disputes and recorded real property transactions until federal government regulations provided for an official land office in 1862." The Cañon City (Colorado) Claim Club first platted

6314-435: The town of Cañon City in 1860. The club had six members, each of whom mined coal, iron, gypsum, marble and granite mining in the area, and Denver also had a claim club. The Omaha Claim Club was founded in 1854, the year the city was founded. Initially designed to protect the interests of 20 men, it grew to include almost two hundred settlers. The group used violent means to impose "frontier justice", including dunking in

6396-408: The word and the connected practices from the very people they are supposed to belong to. Still, he offers a minimal definition of the term: 'Empowerment: the capacity of individuals, groups and/or communities to take control of their circumstances, exercise power and achieve their own goals, and the process by which, individually and collectively, they are able to help themselves and others to maximize

6478-521: Was both a legally and socially important move for women's rights to land. Not only did it legally mandate equality in land succession, it also validated women's roles as equals in society. Uganda's 1995 Constitution enforces equality between men and women, including the acquisition and ownership of land. However, research from Women's Land Link Africa reveals that women remain excluded from land ownership due to customs and deeply ingrained cultural habits. Even when women save up enough money to purchase land,

6560-528: Was little or no legal apparatus to deal with land-related quarrels of any size. Some claim clubs sought to protect squatters , while others defended early land owners. In the twentieth century, sociologists suggested that claim clubs were a pioneer adaptation of democratic bodies on the East Coast , including town halls . Claim clubs were essentially designed to "do what politicians refused to do: make land available to needy settlers." Their general purpose

6642-423: Was not there. In many cases, when people who claimed land and then did not live on it and had not developed it with a shelter, fencing or other structures, "claim jumpers" would move in. This was one scenario where claim clubs would enter. The absentee-owned land would be exploited directly and indirectly, or just simply seized with the title held "by claim club." Members might vote expensive local improvements for

6724-465: Was to protect the first settlers to arrive on unclaimed lands, particularly in their rights to speculate and cultivate . With the continuous availability of frontier lands from the 1830s through the 1890s, settlers kept moving west. Each claim club established its own rules of governance and enforcement ; however, these were almost always vigilante actions. Period accounts report that in some areas, claim clubs were regarded with "the same majesty of

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