-----Original Message----- From: Jeannie Ash de Pou [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, April 12, 2002 7:01 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: FW: [development-gender] Query: Changing Notions of the 'Public' -- Gender Dimensions -----Original Message----- From: d241 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of d241 Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 12:34 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [development-gender] Query: Changing Notions of the 'Public' -- Gender Dimensions From: "nath_vikas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Dear Colleagues, Greetings. I am doing a small research to assess the changing notion of "Publicness" over the centuries. Specifically, I am trying to understand how the definition of "what constitutes a public property or a public resource" is changing. And it would be interesting to see this from the gender dimension too. For instance in the Roman era, "flowing water was considered a public good" which meant that rivers and their branches could not be commercialised. Even for the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates civilizations, we have records pertaining to water use and regulations so that everyone could benefit from it. "Sacred Groves and Relegious forest" have existed for centuries in several countries in Asia and Africa, and these forests were not be harvested for private gains since they were taken as a communal property or the property of God. Even in the Third century in Japan, roads were considered to be "public property of the state" and not belonging to a particular individual. I wish to document how certain goods, resources or services were deemed as "Public" even centuries back, and how some of them are moving from being a public good to a private good, or it could be a case of goods earlier being deemed private but now being transformed into public goods. I would appreciate any anecdotal evidences, references to literature, or quotes from ancient texts and scripts, or interesting links which talk about certain goods being deemed public. I am looking for evidence from all regions and cultures, including gender dimensions of this issue. All answers received will be personally acknowledged. Thanking you. Vikas Nath Policy Analyst, UNDP, New York Inlaks Fellow, LSE, UK Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website : http://www.vikasnath.org Telephone +1.212.906.3689 Fax. +1.212.906.5657 ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Stock for $4 and no minimums. FREE Money 2002. http://us.click.yahoo.com/k6cvND/n97DAA/ySSFAA/9rHolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ =========================================================================== This is GainsNet, the mailing list of the UN-INSTRAW-GAINS Network Members. To reply to the GainsNet group, click on "reply all" To reply to an individual, click on "reply" To unsubscribe from GainsNet, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line