tag:theconversation.com,2011:/institutions/university-of-north-carolina-wilmington-1079/articlesThe University of North Carolina Wilmington2023-03-24T13:11:46Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2017902023-03-24T13:11:46Z2023-03-24T13:11:46Z‘A toxic policy with little returns’ – lessons for the UK-Rwanda deal from Australia and the US<p>One afternoon in mid-June, I sat with Ethan*, a local islander, at Nauru’s boat harbour. He was speaking about how life had changed in the country since the asylum deal with Australia was agreed. Just a few years before my arrival in 2016, the small Pacific island had once again been financed to process the asylum claims of migrants attempting to reach Australia. If successful, refugees would be resettled locally around the island. Successive Australian governments had taken a tough zero-tolerance approach, making sure that anyone making their way by boat without documentation would <a href="https://osb.homeaffairs.gov.au/">“never settle in Australia”</a>.</p>
<p>Not far from where we sat, placards covered the fence of a refugee resettlement compound, reading: “We’re refugees not criminals,” and “Freedom is a Right Not a Crime, We Want Justice.”</p>
<p>“The thing is none of them want to be here,” Ethan explained, “and we don’t know who these people are, they could be dangerous. Why else does Australia not want them?” These fears were echoed to me numerous times in Nauru. “I’m so worried about having the refugee children in our school,” Sandra, a teacher at Nauru’s only secondary school, said on another occasion. “We don’t want to touch or go too close in case they say we hit refugees. And natural things like kids pushing each other on the playground. The next day it’s in the Australian news”. This teacher’s fears were confirmed several months later, with <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-09/nauru-govt-denies-abuse-of-refugee-school-children/7234772">headlines</a> like: “Nauru Government Denies Refugee Children Are Abused in Schools.”</p>
<p>Such accusations of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/10/the-nauru-files-2000-leaked-reports-reveal-scale-of-abuse-of-children-in-australian-offshore-detention">savagery against refugees</a> draw on colonial tropes of Pacific islanders as cannibals. Major global media outlets alleged that Nauru was a veritable heart of darkness, an <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa12/4934/2016/en/">“island of despair”</a>, where refugees are <a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/08/11/489584342/claims-probed-of-brutal-conditions-for-refugees-on-island-of-nauru">“hacked with machetes”</a> by the local population.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A video released by the Australian government explaining its “zero chance” asylum and immigration policy.</span></figcaption>
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<p>These sorts of representations created a fractious context locally: one produced by sending asylum seekers, many with devastating pasts, to a vastly different region of the world from their intended destination.</p>
<h2>The UK Rwanda policy</h2>
<p>In January 2023, the UK’s High Court <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64024461">ruled on</a> the lawfulness of the British government’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda. Under this £140 million agreement, undocumented migrants could find themselves sent to the East African country – 4,000 miles south-east of where they lodged their asylum applications. Once in Rwanda, they will have their asylum claims processed, and will be eligible for residency, not in the UK – their original destination – but in Rwanda.</p>
<p>The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/jun/15/what-is-the-echr-and-how-did-it-intervene-in-uk-rwanda-flight-plans">expected to rule</a> on the controversial policy by the end of the year. This proposed “outsourced” asylum policy directly mimics Australia’s so-called “Pacific Solution”, the impacts of which I have examined in <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501765841/asylum-and-extraction-in-the-republic-of-nauru/#bookTabs=1">my research</a>. Since Australia’s Liberal prime minister, John Howard, at the turn of the century, boat arrivals have been the basis for copious media attention and resultant public anxiety in Australia. Controversial offshore policies in small Pacific islands like Nauru, combined with high-profile military and naval operations, are intended to reduce the number of people crossing the Indian Ocean.</p>
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<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em></p>
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<p>Now, like successive Australian politicians, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is promoting the UK-Rwanda policy as a means of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/08/stop-the-boats-sunaks-anti-asylum-slogan-echoes-australia-harsh-policy?mc_cid=045ba1c77c&mc_eid=7906bcbf06">“stopping the boats”</a>, but this time those crossing the English Channel from northern France. Just as Australian politicians stoked public anxiety, pursuing media attention and electoral gains, Suella Braverman, the UK home secretary, has called migrant boats from Calais <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEt8FVXIgvQ">“an invasion on our southern coast”</a>. She also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/19/rwanda-dream-could-still-become-a-nightmare-for-suella-braverman">said</a>: “I would love to have a front page of the Telegraph with a plane taking off to Rwanda, that’s my dream, it’s my obsession.”</p>
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<p>I conducted <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501765841/asylum-and-extraction-in-the-republic-of-nauru/">long-term fieldwork</a> in Nauru into the effects of the Australian government’s near <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/operation-sovereign-borders-offshore-detention-statistics/6/">AU$10 billion</a> (about £5 billion) arrangement. I have also led anthropological fieldwork projects into similar outsourced asylum measures in regions as diverse as Guatemala, Jordan and Lebanon. What falls outside the global media headlines, from all sides of the political spectrum, is how these policies are realised in practice and whether or not they actually work.</p>
<p>I have interviewed migrants claiming asylum, as well as local residents, private security contractors and government officials. I found that these outsourcing schemes create a refugee industry economy that local populations become dependant on. For the asylum seekers and refugees, most with devastating pasts and equally hazy futures, being castigated to far off places not of their choosing <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/NauruandManusRPCs/Report">all too often</a> led to tragic instances of self-harm and suicide. In Nauru, the friction between different populations were apparent on a daily basis.</p>
<h2>Australia’s ‘Nauru experiment’</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515326/original/file-20230314-16-if4urd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515326/original/file-20230314-16-if4urd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515326/original/file-20230314-16-if4urd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515326/original/file-20230314-16-if4urd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515326/original/file-20230314-16-if4urd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515326/original/file-20230314-16-if4urd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515326/original/file-20230314-16-if4urd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Republic of Nauru.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julia Morris, 2016.</span></span>
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<p>The boat harbour is a popular spot for Nauruans and refugees alike. It is one of the few places where you can swim safely without the threats of currents or the jagged limestone pinnacles that pierce through the island’s coastal waters. It is also a place where I have long conversations with asylum seekers down from the island’s Regional Processing Centres (RPCs). The RPCs are tucked deep in the heart of coral atoll’s jungle. Many asylum seekers take advantage of the afternoon open centre hours at the RPCs to catch a bus down to the boat harbour.</p>
<p>“No, I can’t swim, but I just like to come here because it’s cooler than at the centres. The heat sticks to you up there,” Khadija, an Iranian asylum seeker says to me. “In Iran, we never have this kind of heat.”</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515327/original/file-20230314-20-m7jw3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515327/original/file-20230314-20-m7jw3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515327/original/file-20230314-20-m7jw3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515327/original/file-20230314-20-m7jw3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515327/original/file-20230314-20-m7jw3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515327/original/file-20230314-20-m7jw3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515327/original/file-20230314-20-m7jw3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Refugees in Nauru.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julia Morris, 2016.</span></span>
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<p>Like the majority of Nauru’s new refugee population, Khadija stands out. She’s 20 and most of her life has been spent in Tehran then Jakarta: cosmopolitan, urban hubs at odds with small Pacific island climes. She, as with so many other asylum seekers I speak with in Nauru, took a boat from Indonesia in the hopes of reaching Australia to claim asylum. The financial cost and possible dangers were enormous. It cost AU$10,000 (just over £5,000) for the boat alone, she tells me. But she and her sister were escaping extreme domestic abuse.</p>
<p>Not far from us, on the concrete walls of the boat harbour, sit a group of Nauruan Community Liaison Officers, also dressed in distinctive fluorescent vests. They are tasked with dealing with conflicts that arise between refugees and locals now that refugees are being resettled on Nauruan visas around the island. Our conversation moves to some of these conflicts. Khadija tells me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have Nauruan friends, but no, I don’t want to be here. I’d never heard of Nauru before I came here. I was scared, I didn’t know where they were taking me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Abdul, a friend of hers, catches wind of our conversation as he dries himself off with a towel nearby. “I don’t think anyone had heard of this place! I mean, why would we want to come here? It’s a dump!”</p>
<p>“Well, a lot of Nauruans have been kind, but there are no jobs here for us here. How can we set up lives? No one wants to be here,” Khadija says, worry lines coursing her face.</p>
<p>We speak about the latest Guardian Australia <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/19/even-god-cant-help-you-here-nauru-refugees-describe-a-life-devoid-of-hope">media report</a> of Nauruans beating up a refugee. Abdul has a lot to say on the matter: “You never know. Sometimes it’s true, there are fights that happen. Sometimes it’s desperation. Refugees trying to bring media attention to their situation. This is all expected. Send people to a very different part of the world where they don’t want to be and see what happens.”</p>
<p>Khadija interjects: “And refugees here will also do anything to get to Australia. You can’t send people somewhere so different and not expect them to protest. It’s not nice for the Nauruans, but a lot of refugees don’t care about that.”</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515328/original/file-20230314-3609-5owco.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515328/original/file-20230314-3609-5owco.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515328/original/file-20230314-3609-5owco.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515328/original/file-20230314-3609-5owco.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515328/original/file-20230314-3609-5owco.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515328/original/file-20230314-3609-5owco.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515328/original/file-20230314-3609-5owco.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Community Liaison Officers in Nauru.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julia Morris, 2016.</span></span>
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<p>I think of the placards covering the fence of a nearby refugee resettlement compound and the doors of the Australian-funded refugee businesses (largely beauty salons and takeaways) that are all firmly closed in protest. I had been in conversation earlier that week with a group of Nauruans working at the RPCs, who had told me of “shit smeared on the walls” and “taps left on” from asylum seekers in desperate protest. Only a few years before I arrived in Nauru, one of the RPC buildings had been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/20/nauru-detention-centre-burns-down">burned to the ground</a>.</p>
<p>“It’s not just between locals and refugees,” points out Khadija. “It’s also between refugees, of course. I’m Shia. My sister and I were put together with someone who’s Sunni. They made life difficult for us. They had to move us to a different section.” Abdul nods, adding: “There was one guy who had to be moved to separate hotel accommodation because it got so bad.”</p>
<h2>Secrecy, violence and segregation</h2>
<p>The kind of secrecy, violence and segregation that Khadija and Abdul speak of underpins daily life in Nauru. Around the island, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214790X19300784">the destructive realities</a> of outsourcing asylum are palpable.</p>
<p>Aziz, an Iraqi refugee, living in resettlement accommodation, tells me of the cries when he goes to sleep at night:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I hear my neighbour through the walls, I don’t know what he saw before he came to Nauru.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Marie, an Australian torture and trauma counsellor, told me “you can’t begin to help people work through trauma when it’s exacerbated by being in Nauru”. She says Nauru has never had the capacity or the infrastructure to effectively support asylum seekers and refugees.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515329/original/file-20230314-3872-o0riwe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515329/original/file-20230314-3872-o0riwe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515329/original/file-20230314-3872-o0riwe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515329/original/file-20230314-3872-o0riwe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515329/original/file-20230314-3872-o0riwe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515329/original/file-20230314-3872-o0riwe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515329/original/file-20230314-3872-o0riwe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Protests outside a refugee resettlement compound.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julia Morris, 2016.</span></span>
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<p>Marie’s latter point is one I’ve heard several times. Prior to the Australian arrangement, Nauru had no history of refugee processing or resettlement. To make this outsourced arrangement a reality, the Australian government funded fly-in-fly-out Australian counsellors in addition to asylum legal support, interpreters, refugee adjudication and appeals tribunals, education and medics. However, counsellors like Marie were largely ineffective – palliative at best. Asylum seekers I spoke with described experiencing overwhelming powerlessness, depression, and identity crises because of the offshore arrangement.</p>
<p>Industry contractors I spoke with recounted similar stories of human suffering. Sarah, a facility manager from the Australian corporate management firm, told me of her recurring nightmares, having witnessed asylum seekers sewing their lips together in her work at the RPCs. </p>
<p>Vivian, a mental health counsellor to the Australian Immigration Department, made the damaging toll of working in Nauru explicit in our interview. She said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The compromises that people are in, and every day going to work to do bad things to others is making them feel ill. I had a client who had breast cancer who said to me, ‘I believe that I will be punished for what I’m doing by getting my breast cancer back.’ It’s a toxic environment and it sends people mad.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Trevor, a security guard at the RPCs, described the hunger strikes he tried to resolve: “But it’s not just hunger strikes,” he added, visibly upset.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Self-immolation, self-harm, riots, arson, suicide, jumps from roofs, sewing lips. Asylum seekers are desperate not to be here and so many of them have been through all kinds of traumatic experiences I can’t even imagine before being sent here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sarah and Trevor are just some of the many industry contractors I spoke with who bear the scars of witnessing these devastating situations. In fact, lawsuits from past contracted Australian workers to Nauru <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/immigration-department-pays-1-million-compensation-to-save-the-children-workers-fired-from-nauru-20170131-gu27nm.html">still plague</a> the Australian government. </p>
<p>Many locals were initially sympathetic to the plight of refugees. However, over the years, this sympathy turned to anger as Nauruans contended being represented as savages and human rights abusers in parts of the media and by certain refugee solidarity activists. “Look at this stuff they write … They haven’t even been here,” says Oliana, a Nauruan government worker. </p>
<h2>A growing trend</h2>
<p>The kind of outsourcing arrangement between Australia and Nauru seems outlandish, but it is not unique. It is part of a model of wealthier western countries funding poorer countries to carry out border enforcement. Australia is often cited as a case study of outsourcing asylum, but this system has historical precedents.</p>
<p>Asylum as a formal international legal procedure was <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jrs/article/34/3/2676/6084556?guestAccessKey=54f5325e-c578-4470-a950-b6ce80728611&login=false">institutionalised</a> across the early 20th century. European governments sought increased control over the demographic makeup and political structure of their nation states. Some feared disproportionate numbers of undocumented migrant arrivals. It was in this climate that the international refugee agencies pioneered systems of so-called burden-sharing. </p>
<p>In the early 20th century, the Nansen Office and Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees spearheaded moving refugees (largely Russians, Armenians, and Greeks) between countries. Just a few decades later, huge numbers of Jewish refugees sought to escape the atrocities of the second world war. Many European countries refused to provide sanctuary to Jewish refugees, referring to the <a href="https://www-jstor-org.liblink.uncw.edu/stable/pdf/3020054.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3A1c89ab334e4c9c5715f1ccc22e816413&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&origin=&initiator=search-results">“Jewish problem”</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, countries as far flung as the Dominican Republic and Ecuador promoted themselves as destinations for Jewish refugees to attract political and economic support. The International Refugee Organization - a precursor to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) active between 1946-1952 - took this system of burden-sharing to new heights, relocating more than <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jrs/article-abstract/34/3/2676/6084556">a million refugees</a> from Europe to the Americas, Israel, South Africa and Oceania between 1947 and 1951.</p>
<p>As asylum seekers changed from eastern Europeans to Africans and Asians from the 1970s, the term “asylum seeker” attracted <a href="https://canvas.harvard.edu/files/4148518/download?download_frd=1">negative connotations</a> in western political and media discourse. It became shorthand for economic opportunism, mass movements and threats to security. Tough measures on asylum, including intercepting migrants before arrival, soon become a touchstone for left and right-leaning governments alike. </p>
<p>Outsourced <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/external-processing-asylum?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=cff1d97f-cca0-47f3-9dda-69235156f741">asylum models</a> have since been adopted across the EU. There are agreements with eastern Europe, Turkey, north and East Africa, and Central Asia. The US has experimented with several of what are termed extra-territorial asylum processing schemes, including processing Haitian asylum seekers in <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520255401/guantanamo">Guantanamo</a> in the 1990s, establishing facilities to assess asylum claims across Central America, funding local advertisements to dissuade migrants, as well as financing border enforcement and national asylum systems across Mexico and Central America.</p>
<p>Many Asian countries, including China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have implemented restrictive detention and temporary visa practices for African migrants, in particular. So-called transit regions, such as South Asia, eastern Europe and North Africa have also seen significant levels of funding and resources going into policing, detention, and other forms of immigration control.</p>
<p>The UK has toyed with different externalised border enforcement measures over the years. The Rwanda deal is one such arrangement. Sunak <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/rishi-sunak-tory-rwanda-migrants-b2150863.html">has said</a> that he will do “whatever it takes to make the Rwanda plan work”, describing “illegal migration” as an “emergency”. In June 2022, the first flight of four asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda was blocked after an injunction from the ECHR alleged it was a violation of civil and political rights. </p>
<p>Others question the efficacy of the £140 million <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-rwanda-strengthen-agreement-to-deal-with-global-migration-issues">Illegal Migration Bill</a> that is designed for only a small number of asylum seekers: the Rwandan government has agreed to receive 200 asylum seekers a year across a five-year trial period. Meanwhile, Braverman has <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2022-12-19/debates/B5009C67-E69A-4248-8F16-77439DE48472/MigrationAndEconomicDevelopment">declared</a> that relocating people to Rwanda is a “ground-breaking migration and economic development partnership” and “an innovative way of addressing a major problem” of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/suella-braverman-small-boats-b2298187.html">“billions of”</a> people coming [to the UK].</p>
<p><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/knowsley-asylum-seeker-hotel-riot-b2281367.html">Anti-migrant protests</a> outside asylum seeker housing in Knowsley and Dover in the UK have also led to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/13/attack-migrants-knowsley-ministers-violence-asylum-seekers">concerns</a> that the Conservative government is capitalising on xenophobic sentiments. As legal debates continue around the legitimacy of the arrangement, Sunak has put together legislation that would disallow anyone reaching the UK to claim asylum without prior clearance. </p>
<p>The legislation would extend the government’s ability to detain them beyond the current permissible 28 days. It would also enable their deportation to a third country, such as Rwanda – the only country that has agreed to such a strategy. The former home secretary, Priti Patel, <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/168415/ghana-government-denies-uks-operation-dead-meat-scheme/">attempted deals</a> with countries including Ghana and Kenya, which were rejected locally.</p>
<p>But Rwanda has yet to experience the implications of the deal. Rwanda does have a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-61882542">recent failed history</a> of taking asylum seekers through a similar arrangement. In agreement with Israel’s Netanyahu government, Rwanda received some 4,000 Eritreans and Sudanese between 2014 and 2017. At the time, Netanyahu marshalled a similar narrative steeped in racial bias around the country’s mistanenim or <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/09/middleeast/israel-african-migrants-intl/index.html">“infiltrators”</a>. Israel paid the Rwandan government US$5,000 for every asylum seeker, each of whom received US$3,500 and their airfare. Almost all are thought to have left the country immediately. Yet, unlike the proposed UK-Rwanda deal, this coerced voluntary deportation scheme did not involve a long-term asylum processing and resettlement arrangement. Such a proposition presents far greater concerns: ones raised not just in Nauru but also across my other fieldwork sites.</p>
<h2>US and Guatemala: conflicting refugee histories</h2>
<p>Flores is a picturesque island village in Guatemala’s northernmost Petén region. Located deep in the jungle in Lake Peten Itza, it is a place where the concept of claiming asylum to – not from – was little heard of prior to 2010. I am sitting in Flores’ main church square for World Refugee Day in June 2022. It is a new event for the island, put together by UNHCR’s new Petén field office, to socialise Guatemalan residents in refugee protection. Under the slogan “Reborn in Guate”, UNHCR has devised a day-long programme of art, folklore, dance, music and poetry.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515330/original/file-20230314-18-w6375t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515330/original/file-20230314-18-w6375t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515330/original/file-20230314-18-w6375t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515330/original/file-20230314-18-w6375t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515330/original/file-20230314-18-w6375t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515330/original/file-20230314-18-w6375t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515330/original/file-20230314-18-w6375t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">World Refugee Day in the Petén.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julia Morris, 2022.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“We have to be careful with using the word refugees,” whispers Alessandra, a UNHCR official, as a group of young Honduran rappers take the stage. “Many people, particularly Indigenous Maya, still have such vivid memories of when they were refugees. We don’t want it to seem like anyone’s getting preferential treatment or that they accuse our new refugee arrivals of gaming the system”.</p>
<p>This goes back to Guatemala’s four decade-long civil war. From the 1950s to the 1990s, genocidal policies <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-blood-of-guatemala">claimed the lives</a> of hundreds of thousands of Indigenous Maya, or Maya Q’eqchi’. During this period, the US provided counter-insurgency training and military supplies to Guatemalan military and police, which heightened the escalation of violence.</p>
<p>In Santa Elena, just across the causeway from Flores, I have a long conversation with a local fruit market vendor, Estella, about this time. She was a young girl when the civil war broke out. Caught in the gunfire between guerrilla forces, she and her family, like so many Maya Q’eqchi’, eventually crossed the border to Mexico in the 1980s in hopes of survival. After nearly a decade living in different refugee camps in southern Mexico, she eventually returned to the Petén as a middle-aged woman in 1995, not long after the peace process negotiations.</p>
<p>“Most of my life, I was in fear of the military finding my family,” she says. “We moved between refugee camps in Mexico, almost every year it felt like. Chiapas, Campeche, Quintana Roo,” she slowly counts the different states on her fingers, adding:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We never knew if the Mexican government was on our side or if we might be handed over to the Guatemalan army. The Guatemalan army was always coming into Mexico, looking for guerrilla soldiers in the camps. We knew that if they found us, we would be killed without any mercy, we’d seen this happen to others.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>All those years spent living in exile in refugee camps before returning to the Petén, gives Estella pause when discussing the new refugee programmes. “It confuses me. These people aren’t refugees. They haven’t been through the kind of suffering we have,” she says. “Many Maya never got their land back and still live as refugees in Guatemala. They have all these programmes for the new refugees, and make such a big deal about them, they even get a month of accommodation, but we Maya experience so much inequality that has never been resolved.”</p>
<p>Guatemala still has one of the most unequal systems of land tenure in the world. The violence of the civil war resulted in the loss of livelihoods for many Maya, including huge unemployment that lingers to this day. Oil palm plantations, taking over great swaths of north-eastern Guatemala that are home to Q’eqchi’ communities, are continuing to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/2/6/palm-oil-industry-expansion-spurs-guatemala-indigenous-migration">fuel displacement</a>. Substantial numbers of Guatemalans are also deported back from the US and Mexico each year (almost <a href="https://www.laprensalatina.com/last-guatemalan-deportees-from-us-in-2022-arrive-home-amid-broken-dreams/">100,000 migrants</a> in 2022 alone), compounding these tensions. </p>
<p>It is for this reason that the Guatemalan government avoids calling resettled regional migrants refugees. Officials I speak with at Guatemala City’s Migration Institute emphasise avoiding the term. Not only does it evoke traumatic memories for many, but the government fears public perceptions of preferential treatment of US-funded, regional refugees.</p>
<p>Yet, Guatemala is visibly promoting itself as an asylum destination, as the World Refugee Day celebrations make clear. In our conversation, Estella references the posters that cover Santa Elena’s central bus station. At her recommendation, I go to look at the almost tourist-style advertisements that stretch dramatically across the façade of the arrivals hall. One is fringed with stick figures of people running for safety and the logos of UNHCR and El Refugio de la Niñez, Guatemala’s national refugee support agency. At its centre, it features a family holding hands as they clamber over train tracks. In large blue font, with the words “danger”, “protection”, and “refugee” highlighted, it reads:</p>
<p>“If your life is in danger, and you cannot return to your country, you can ask for protection as a refugee in Guatemala. We can help you!”</p>
<p>Around another corner in the terminal, signs point towards a small office, the Attention Centre for Migrants and Refugees. Inside, I see a small team of Guatemalan social workers with leaflets explaining the process of claiming asylum in Guatemala.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515331/original/file-20230314-3889-40c215.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515331/original/file-20230314-3889-40c215.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515331/original/file-20230314-3889-40c215.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515331/original/file-20230314-3889-40c215.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515331/original/file-20230314-3889-40c215.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515331/original/file-20230314-3889-40c215.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515331/original/file-20230314-3889-40c215.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Promoting Asylum in the Petén.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julia Morris, 2022.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These efforts constitute the US’ latest outsourced asylum strategy. As part of a regional approach begun in 2017, known as the Regional Comprehensive Protection and Solutions Framework (or its Spanish acronym <a href="https://mirps-platform.org/en/">MIRPS</a>). Guatemala, together with Mexico and other Central American countries (Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama) is steadily developing the capacity to receive and support asylum claims in the country. Santa Elena is a way station for Honduran migrants making the long journey up to the US. Heightened US-funded border enforcement further south along Guatemala’s main land borders has also pushed more people to pass through the northern Petén border, where I conducted my research. </p>
<p>Migrants are encouraged to claim asylum for Mexico or Central America, rather than making their claims to the US. Limitations at the US-Mexico border, combined with the exorbitant costs and danger of making the crossing undocumented, are pushing more migrants to applying for asylum regionally.
Claiming asylum in Guatemala or other third countries might soon be a legal requirement. In 2023, the US Supreme Court issued a <a href="https://www.aila.org/advo-media/aila-policy-briefs/practice-alert-the-proposed-asylum-transit-ban">hotly contested</a> proposed rule known as the <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/02/23/2023-03718/circumvention-of-lawful-pathways">“transit ban”</a> – asylum seekers who pass through a third country en route to the US-Mexico border must claim asylum there first.</p>
<p>But very few migrants are interested in claiming asylum locally. Like the UK-Rwanda deal, the US plan also functions largely as spectacle. Although the numbers of asylum claims filed to Guatemala’s new National Commission for Refugees is increasing, only 634 refugee visa holders and 1,410 asylum-seekers <a href="https://reporting.unhcr.org/guatemala">reside in Guatemala</a>.</p>
<h2>Memories of exile</h2>
<p>Estella’s confusion at the visible effects of outsourcing asylum in Guatemala foreshadows additional dynamics that the UK-Rwanda deal might produce. Like Guatemala, Rwanda is also a country with a tragic history of producing refugees. The 1994 Rwandan genocide led to the massacre of next to a million people. Horrific numbers of women were sexually assaulted. Over two million Rwandans fled to neighbouring countries in Africa’s Great Lakes region including Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Following the end of the civil war, an estimated <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2003/1/3e15a6397/eight-year-rwandan-refugee-saga-tanzania-comes-end.html#:%7E:text=An%20estimated%201.3%20million%20Rwandans,in%20the%20summer%20of%201994.">1.3 million Rwandan refugees</a> returned after over two years in exile. As with Guatemala, memories of exile and return are ever-present in Rwanda. Outsourcing asylum to regions with pre-existing local refugee populations can incite the tensions voiced by Estella and others I spoke with.</p>
<p>Unlike Guatemala, Rwanda does have a history of formal refugee protection outside of the return of its own citizens. Almost <a href="https://reporting.unhcr.org/rwanda">164,000 refugees</a> live in refugee camps or urban areas in Rwanda. However, these refugees are from surrounding East African regions, such as the DRC and Burundi. Those asylum seekers who have received notices of intent from the UK Home Office (making them at risk of being sent to Rwanda) are largely from the same countries as those I met in Nauru: Afghanistan, Iran and Syria. These are countries that are ethnically and linguistically distinct to Rwanda.</p>
<p>Even in the US asylum arrangement with Guatemala, most refugees given residency there are from surrounding Spanish-speaking countries. Here, the emphasis is on developing a viable regional resettlement framework. That the UK is considering sending asylum seekers from far different regions to a country still raw from its own refugee dynamics does not bode well. It was the cultivation of ethnic hierarchies between Tutsis and Hutus under Belgian colonial rule that resulted in the 1994 Rwandan genocide in the first place. </p>
<h2>A toxic policy with little returns</h2>
<p>My fieldwork findings from Nauru and Guatemala paint a bleak picture of the impacts of outsourcing asylum, relevant to the UK-Rwanda arrangement. The British government is setting up for similar entrapment in a costly operation, totals that in Australia financially spiralled to an <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/operation-sovereign-borders-offshore-detention-statistics/6/">estimated</a> AU$9.65 billion (over £5 billion) since July 2013.</p>
<p>Rwanda is a country that, unlike the UK, does not have a substantial Middle Eastern diaspora. The Rwandan government will require enormous investment to support new populations from well outside the East African region. The British government – and ultimately taxpayer – will end up shouldering these costs. Sustaining the operations in the face of ongoing activism and High Court pushbacks will require evermore Rwandan investments to ensure its international legal compliance. Rwanda, like Nauru, will have major challenges to contend with too, including education, social integration, housing capacity, and mental health and trauma-related concerns. </p>
<p>As a migration governance strategy, the UK-Rwanda deal makes little sense. It will cost the British taxpayer <a href="https://www.rescue.org/uk/article/why-uk-government-should-rethink-its-plan-send-asylum-seekers-uk-rwanda">far more</a> than the economic and social benefits of integrating the small number of migrants into the British workforce.</p>
<p>Since the post-war era, international migration worldwide has remained stable, as a percentage of the global population it stands at <a href="https://worldmigrationreport.iom.int/wmr-2022-interactive/">3.6%</a>. This is a fraction of the world’s population, meaning that most people migrate within countries, rather than across borders. The majority of irregular migrants to the UK are <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-home-office-is-now-publishing-stats-on-irregular-migration-heres-what-they-do-and-dont-tell-us-177955">visa over-stayers</a> and not those who take a boat across the English Channel. Typically, it is also not the poorest people who migrate. Taking a boat is an expensive endeavour and migrants require considerable resources to migrate, particularly across international borders. </p>
<h2>‘A laboratory experiment gone wrong’</h2>
<p>A new deal was finally struck for Nauru after almost a decade of indecision as to how to end the arrangement. It came amid a backdrop of deepening civil unrest, a series of tragic self-immolations, and a Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2016/aug/10/the-nauru-files-the-lives-of-asylum-seekers-in-detention-detailed-in-a-unique-database-interactive">Nauru Files</a> campaign that made global headlines. The Australian government arranged with the Obama administration a deal in which 1,250 refugees from Nauru and Manus Island would be resettled in the US.</p>
<p>These resettlement places were still honoured when Donald Trump entered office in 2016, as part of what Trump notoriously described as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/02/trump-told-turnbull-refugee-agreement-was-the-worst-deal-ever-report">“dumb, dumb deal”</a>. Hamid, an Afghani refugee acquaintance in Nauru, sent me an email at the time. He expressed his excitement about his upcoming move to the US, but also his fear at the racism he might encounter. Like Hamid, most refugees have since been resettled across the US, Canada, and eventually through the long-standing <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/479403/first-nauru-refugees-arrive-in-new-zealand-under-resettlement-deal">New Zealand offer</a>. But 60 refugees remain in Nauru, with the country still marred in refugee protests locally.</p>
<p>Heated debates continue in Australia. In March, the Albanese Labor government, the Liberal Party and the One Nation Party voted against the Green Party’s <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=s1362">Migration Amendment Evacuation to Safety Bill 2023</a>. This bill called for those refugees held in Nauru to be moved to Australia, while the Australian government pursued further resettlement options. </p>
<p>Nauru remains funded by the Australian government with the possibility that these operations might be restarted in the future. In October 2022, the Australian government <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8064165/obscene-amount-for-nauru-contract/">awarded</a> an AU$422 million (roughly £230 million) contract with the US-based private prison contractor, Management and Training Corporation, until September 2025 to hold refugees in Nauru.</p>
<p>Instead of debating the legitimacy of asylum, countries could benefit from providing work rights to migrant populations. The UK is well prepared for meeting these integration needs. Because of centuries of migration (much wrought through colonialism) the UK has already invested significant resources into supporting newcomers keen to integrate into the labour market. The Oxford Migration Observatory <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-fiscal-impact-of-immigration-in-the-uk/">recently found</a> that higher net migration reduces pressure on government debt over time. Incoming migrants are generally younger and of working age than the wider population. This means that they are more likely to work and contribute to public finances. </p>
<p>Not only is this <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-labour-market-effects-of-immigration/">shown to</a> support migrant livelihoods, but it can also benefit the economies of sending and receiving countries in the long-term. These kinds of boosts to the economy and the labour market are much-needed in the post-<a href="https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/covid-19-and-key-workers-what-role-do-migrants-play-in-your-region-42847cb9/">COVID-19</a> and <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/reports/how-is-the-end-of-free-movement-affecting-the-low-wage-labour-force-in-the-uk/">post-Brexit labour environment</a>.</p>
<p>Back to 2016 and I am sitting in a senior Australian bureaucrat’s office in Canberra, discussing the standstill underway with the Nauru arrangement. I ask what the future holds for the offshoring policy. “Most politicians want it to end, but they’re unsure how to do it without losing face,” he replies. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Protests, many refugees on suicide watch, hunger strike, people sewing their lips together, no one interested in integrating locally in Nauru, it frankly just isn’t sustainable. It was never meant to be.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He pauses, adding: “Not to mention, ethically. It’s a laboratory experiment gone wrong.”</p>
<hr>
<p><em>All names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved.</em></p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Morris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Anthropological fieldwork into ‘outsourced’ asylum measures in Nauru and Guatemala reveal how they actually work - and don’t work - in practice.Julia Morris, Assistant Professor of International Studies, University of North Carolina WilmingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1906022022-10-06T13:43:48Z2022-10-06T13:43:48ZZulu monarchy: how royal women have asserted their agency and power throughout history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484899/original/file-20220915-37506-jywf4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Phill Magakoe/AFP Pool</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The passing away of South Africa’s Zulu king <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/witness/news/eidos-news/obituary-zulu-king-goodwill-zwelithini-72-died-on-friday-20210312/">Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu</a> in March 2021 refocused attention on the role of royal women in Zulu leadership. After the official mourning period, and to the surprise of many observers, the late king’s will <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/witness/news/kzn/update-queen-mantfombi-madlamini-zulu-to-reign-as-regent-until-installation-of-next-king-20210322/">appointed</a> his senior wife Queen Mantfombi Dlamini Zulu to hold the throne for his successor. </p>
<p>Queen Mantfombi <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/witness/news/kzn/queen-mantfombi-dlamini-zulus-obituary-20210430/?fbclid=IwAR10PkNlTJf5_L6e37tk2NM8BNwk0tD3dRS2HsnwsHWT6iezFvpHK7cpFpI">died</a> six weeks later. Her will named her son <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/witness/news/kzn/new-zulu-king-aims-to-unite-the-royal-family-20210603/">Misuzulu kaZwelithini</a> as the heir.</p>
<p>In response, Zwelithini’s first wife Queen Sibongile Dlamini Zulu and her daughters, Ntombizosuthu kaZwelithini and Ntandokayise kaZwelithini, <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-01-13-legal-tussle-over-zulu-royal-family-succession-could-take-years-to-resolve/">challenged the late king’s will in court</a>. They tried to prevent Misuzulu’s installation.</p>
<p>These contestations are only the latest episodes in a long history of royal women’s agency in the affairs of the Zulu kingdom. </p>
<p>Since 2010, the South African government has formally recognised seven kingdoms in the country. Of these, the Zulu royal house is the best financially supported. As a result of secret <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-08-07-secret-details-of-the-land-deal-that-brought-the-ifp-into-the-94-poll/">negotiations</a> in the last days of apartheid, the Zulu king is the largest landowner in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. He is the sole trustee of nearly 30% of KwaZulu-Natal’s land. South African taxpayers <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2021/04/the-king-is-dead">support the royal family</a> to the tune of R75 million (over US$4 million) each year.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-zulu-kingship-judgment-tells-us-about-the-future-of-south-african-customary-law-178786">What the Zulu kingship judgment tells us about the future of South African customary law</a>
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<p>As scholars of traditional authority in the region that is now KwaZulu-Natal, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02582473.2021.1937300?scroll=top&needAccess=true">we convened</a> a roundtable after Zwelithini’s passing with historian Jabulani Sithole to reflect on how historians have written about the king. As we noted in the roundtable, this necessary attention to Zwelithini and his forefathers has obscured the agency exerted by royal Zulu women in state-building. Historians still have much to explore on this topic. The isiZulu language, <em>izibongo</em> (praises) and place names are among the sources still to be mined in depth. But Zwelithini’s passing provides a starting point for reflection on the role of senior royal women in Zulu history.</p>
<h2>Gender, status and access to power</h2>
<p>In the historical polities of southeastern Africa, gender and generation shaped a person’s status and access to power. Respect for elders was encouraged. Women carried many responsibilities in showing respect for men. Men, too, were required to show deference for senior women – including mothers, mothers-in-law and royal women.</p>
<p>As the historian <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sifiso-Ndlovu">Sifiso Ndlovu</a> has argued, among royals,</p>
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<p>the primary principles of social organisation were seniority, defined by lineage and relative age.</p>
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<p>This does not mean gender did not come into play. As Ndlovu points out, some of the praises of royal women masculinise them. The <em>izibongo</em> of Queen okaMsweli, who was the mother of King <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/king-dinuzulu">Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo</a>, describe her as “uSomakoyisa”. This praise positions her as “the tough and uncompromising one”. The prefix “so” depicts a male figure (versus “no” to refer to a female). </p>
<h2>Reinforcing customs, fighting succession battles</h2>
<p>Perhaps most famous of the powerful Zulu women are Regent Queen Mkabayi kaJama, regent for Senzangakhona kaJama, and the Queen Mother Nandi. </p>
<p>Regent Queen Mkabayi operated as a senior member of the Zulu kingdom during its height in the early 19th century. She was responsible for enforcing custom and advising kings <a href="https://sahistory.org.za/people/shaka-zulu">Shaka kaSenzangakhona</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/king-dingane-ka-senzangakhona">Dingane kaSenzangakhona</a> as part of a military council. The <em>izibongo</em> of Queen Nandi present her as a strong-willed and protective mother who advocated for her son Shaka’s ascendancy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-has-a-new-traditional-courts-bill-but-it-doesnt-protect-indigenous-practices-190938">South Africa has a new traditional courts bill. But it doesn't protect indigenous practices</a>
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<p>Royal women defended the Zulu monarchy during times of assault and civil war. For example, Novimbi okaMsweli advised her son Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo in the wake of the Zulu civil war that followed the British annexation of Zululand. While he was exiled to Saint Helena, she kept him updated and cooperated with the prime minister of the Zulu, Mankulumana kaSophunga.</p>
<p>Royal women also defended King Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo during his trial after <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/bambatha-rebellion-1906"><em>impi yamakhanda</em></a> (the war of the heads, or Bambatha’s Rebellion) in 1906, collaborating with Anglican missionary <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/harriette-emily-colenso">Harriette Colenso</a> to position the leader as protecting Zulu autonomy. </p>
<p>These royal women played important roles in succession disputes. <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Zulu_Woman.html?id=5ZTelqdJKgQC&redir_esc=y">Christina Sibiya</a>, the wife of King Solomon kaDinuzulu, provided her son <a href="https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/23611">Cyprian Nyangayezinzwe Bhekuzulu kaSolomon</a> with the impetus to claim the throne. She also testified in 1945 to the government commission that found her son to be the rightful heir.</p>
<p>In 1969, King Cyprian’s widows and Princess Greta <a href="https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/44558d306?locale=en">manoeuvred</a> to have Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu installed. Princess Nonhlanhla shaped the official account of Zwelithini’s ascendancy and rule through her contribution to his <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/King_of_Goodwill.html?id=ufAwAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">authorised biography</a>.</p>
<p>During King Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu’s long reign, royal women played key roles in sustaining and reestablishing cultural inheritances. The late king’s fourth wife, Queen Buhle kaMathe, revitalised uMkhosi woMhlanga (the <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/sights-and-sounds-from-umkhosi-womhlanga-2022/">Reed Dance</a>), a long-standing ceremony to celebrate Zulu womanhood, and held major cultural events at her palace.</p>
<p>Princess Ntandoyenkosi was granted the title of “head of the maidens” in 2005. Mukelile kaThandekile Jane Ndlovu Zulu and Nqobangothando kaNophumelelo MaMchiza Zulu promoted <em>izintombi zomhlanga</em> (virginity testing) revivals and a controversial <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-06-16-virginity-testing-gender-equality-commission-bans-maiden-bursaries/">bursary for “maidens”</a> proposed in 2016.</p>
<p>The claim by Queen Sibongile that she is entitled to half of the <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/witness/news/kzn/zulu-royals-standoff-not-about-throne-but-about-who-gets-what-in-the-will-20210624/">royal estate</a> as Zwelithini’s only legal wife shows new forms of agency for the women of the royal family. It remains to be seen what role King Misuzulu’s new wife, Queen <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/witness/news/kzn/meet-zulu-kings-wife-to-be-ntokozo-mayisela-20210515/">Ntokozo Mayisela</a>, will take in the public sphere.</p>
<h2>Sustaining chiefdoms</h2>
<p>Beyond the inner circle of the Zulu kingdom, there are instances of women sustaining chiefdoms in the early decades of colonial rule in Natal. The scholar Felix Jackson <a href="https://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10413/12460/Jackson_Eva_Aletta_2014.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">shows women members of chiefly elites</a> attempting to reestablish polities in these difficult years.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-goodwill-zwelithini-the-zulu-king-without-a-kingdom-156965">South Africa's Goodwill Zwelithini: the Zulu king without a kingdom</a>
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<p>Zulu women don’t have a single, homogeneous status. Not all women enjoyed access to political power. But there were those who actively engaged in politics and governance. Their influence is yet to get full attention and understanding.</p>
<p>The intrigues of the succession dispute remind us that much more historical research is needed on women’s access to power.</p>
<p><em>Jabulani Sithole, a commissioner in the KwaZulu-Natal Commission for Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims, contributed to the research.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190602/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jill E. Kelly's research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies and Fulbright.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liz Timbs has received funding from Fulbright </span></em></p>Royal women play important roles in succession disputes, such as the naming of King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu’s heir.Jill E. Kelly, Associate Professor of History, Southern Methodist UniversityLiz Timbs, Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina WilmingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1850422022-06-19T23:36:41Z2022-06-19T23:36:41Z« Je suis accro au travail, mais je me soigne ! » : la pleine conscience au secours des « workaholics »<p>Connaissez-vous la « boulomanie » ? Il s’agit de l’addiction au travail, un terme issu de l’anglicisme <a href="https://www.scirp.org/(S(351jmbntvnsjt1aadkposzje))/reference/ReferencesPapers.aspx ?ReferenceID=1567306">« workaholism »</a> pour décrire le besoin incontrôlable de travailler sans cesse, inventé par le psychologue et éducateur religieux américain Wayne Oates en 1971. Ce phénomène addictif n’est pas lié à la consommation de substance comme l’alcool ou la drogue, mais décrit une addiction comportementale, au même titre que l’addiction aux jeux d’argent et de hasard par exemple.</p>
<p>Les accrocs au travail sont des personnes qui ressentent un besoin de travailler si fort qu’ils n’hésitent pas à mettre en danger leur santé physique et mentale, ainsi que leurs relations interpersonnelles. Une étude récente indique que <a href="https://www.drogues.gouv.fr/lessentiel-addictions-milieu-professionnel">37 % des actifs utilisent des outils numériques professionnels hors temps de travail</a>. Sur le plan légal, l’addiction au travail a été ajoutée à la liste des risques psychosociaux.</p>
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À lire aussi :
<a href="https://theconversation.com/quest-ce-qui-nous-pousse-a-devenir-accro-au-travail-172889">Qu’est-ce qui nous pousse à devenir « accro » au travail ?</a>
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<p>L’addiction au travail ne qualifie pas l’augmentation ponctuelle du temps de travail, liée à un gros dossier à traiter par exemple. Pour parler d’addiction au travail, il faut que ce comportement devienne compulsif et qu’il perdure pendant plusieurs semaines. Comme pour d’autres addictions, cette dépendance s’installe petit à petit, souvent à l’insu de ses victimes. Le besoin compulsif de travailler s’installe sournoisement. Il empiète toujours un peu plus sur la vie de famille, les loisirs ou les vacances, au point de devenir source de conflit, voire de rupture.</p>
<h2>Le rôle protecteur de la pleine conscience</h2>
<p>La science a déjà démontré le <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001879111000510">rôle clé de la personnalité</a> dans le phénomène addictif. À travers l’échelle développée par les chercheurs américains Kirk W. Brown et Richard M. Ryan, il est possible d’évaluer le <a href="https://www.scirp.org/(S(vtj3fa45qm1ean45vvffcz55))/reference/ReferencesPapers.aspx ?ReferenceID=1321905">trait de personnalité lié à la pleine conscience</a>, qui consiste à déployer une attention soutenue et une conscience de ce qui se produit à l’instant présent. La capacité d’autorégulation qui sous-tend la pleine conscience a déjà démontré ses effets bénéfiques sur des addictions comportementales, telles que l’addiction aux jeux d’argent et de hasard ou au smartphone.</p>
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<p>
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<strong>
À lire aussi :
<a href="https://theconversation.com/et-si-la-meditation-vous-aidait-a-lacher-votre-telephone-167389">Et si la méditation vous aidait à lâcher votre téléphone ?</a>
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<p>Néanmoins, aucune étude jusqu’à présent n’avait exploré le rôle protecteur de la pleine conscience sur l’addiction au travail.</p>
<p>Est-il possible de se préserver de cette addiction et de ses effets délétères sur l’équilibre entre vie professionnelle et vie privée avec l’aide de la pleine conscience ? Pour répondre à cette question, nous avons mené une <a href="https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1fDv5-CmUvr8L">étude</a> auprès d’un échantillon total de 1022 salariés, publiée dans la revue scientifique <em>Social Science</em> &<em>Medicine</em>. Notre recherche repose plus précisément sur deux études distinctes, visant à étudier le rôle protecteur de la pleine conscience en tant que trait de personnalité (étude 1) et en tant que pratique (étude 2).</p>
<p>La première partie de notre étude nous a permis de démontrer que ce rôle protecteur de la personnalité <em>mindful</em> s’étendait aussi à l’addiction au travail. En effet, sur 307 salariés français, les personnes ayant les plus hauts niveaux de pleine conscience étaient aussi celles dont la tendance à l’addiction au travail impactait le moins l’équilibre vie professionnelle – vie personnelle.</p>
<p>Face aux risques psychosociaux tels que l’addiction au travail, les entreprises et les administrations se doivent d’agir. Parmi les solutions figurent notamment le <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/fef538e3ed2210c1201ef2a946faed43/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=29080">programme MBSR</a> (mindfulness-based stress reduction) de formation à la pleine conscience, reconnu pour la rigueur de son protocole et qui a fait l’objet de la deuxième partie de notre étude.</p>
<p>Ce programme MBSR constitue une approche éducative qui guide les participants dans leur pratique de méditation de pleine conscience et les encourage – par un apprentissage expérientiel – à développer une aptitude à répondre plus efficacement au stress. Combinant des temps de pratique et de théorie, ce programme se déroule sur huit semaines.</p>
<p>Nous avons envoyé un questionnaire à 715 personnes et constitué trois groupes de salariés : un groupe de salariés n’ayant jamais pratiqué la méditation de pleine conscience (groupe 1), un groupe de salariés pratiquant la méditation de pleine conscience, mais n’ayant jamais suivi de programme de formation de type MBSR (groupe 2), et un dernier groupe de salariés pratiquant la méditation de pleine conscience et ayant suivi un programme MBSR (groupe 3).</p>
<p>Nos résultats montrent que la pratique de la pleine conscience joue le même rôle protecteur que le trait de personnalité qui caractérise la pleine conscience, dans la mesure où les salariés pratiquant la méditation de pleine conscience (groupe 3) parviennent mieux à contenir les effets nocifs de leurs tendances addictives au travail sur leur équilibre vie privée-vie professionnelle que les salariés non pratiquants (en comparant les groupes 1 et 2). Cet effet protecteur est amplifié par la formation à la pleine conscience (effet démontré par la comparaison entre les groupes 2 et 3).</p>
<h2>Développer les savoirs</h2>
<p>Lorsque l’on sait que le burn-out et les addictions touchent de plus en plus de travailleurs (<a href="https://culture-rh.com/detresse-travail-burn-out-2022/">34 % de salariés touchés par le burn-out en 2021</a>), dans des proportions encore plus alarmantes en situation de télétravail (selon 41 % des salariés et 47 % des managers qui estiment que les <a href="https://culture-rh.com/detresse-travail-burn-out-2022/">addictions sont plus fréquentes en télétravail</a>), il est important de se pencher sur les moyens de prévenir tant l’émergence de ce phénomène que ses conséquences sur la santé et le bien-être.</p>
<p>Au-delà des nombreux effets bénéfiques connus de la pleine conscience, tels que la réduction du stress et de l’anxiété, de nouvelles voies de recherche s’ouvrent sur son rôle clé dans la prévention des addictions. Il est essentiel de continuer les expériences terrain et de développer l’état des savoirs autour de la pleine conscience afin qu’une juste évaluation de ses effets puisse enfin prendre le pas sur les croyances et les peurs.</p>
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<p><em>Nous tenons à remercier chaleureusement Emmanuel Faure et Sophie Faure pour leur aide précieuse dans la collecte des données (<a href="https://www.lahuitiemesemaine.fr">lahuitiemesemaine.fr</a>)</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185042/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Un travail de recherche montre que la pratique de la méditation constitue un outil efficace de réduction du stress et de préservation de l’équilibre entre vie privée et vie professionnelle.Carole Daniel, Professeure Associée - Académie Digitalisation, SKEMA Business SchoolElodie Gentina, Associate professor, marketing, IÉSEG School of ManagementJessica Mesmer-Magnus, Professor of Management , University of North Carolina WilmingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1353832020-04-03T12:43:57Z2020-04-03T12:43:57ZSocial distancing works – just ask lobsters, ants and vampire bats<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324766/original/file-20200401-23109-1oryhqe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C0%2C6000%2C3988&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Caribbean spiny lobsters normally live in groups, but healthy lobsters avoid members of their own species if they are infected with a deadly virus.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/caribbean-spiny-lobsters-royalty-free-image/921347248?adppopup=true">Humberto Ramirez/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Social distancing to combat COVID-19 is profoundly impacting society, leaving many people wondering whether it will actually work. As disease ecologists, we know that nature has an answer. </p>
<p>Animals as diverse as <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1601721">monkeys</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/441421a">lobsters</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/insects3030789">insects</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2012.0856">birds</a> can detect and avoid sick members of their species. Why have so many types of animals evolved such sophisticated behaviors in response to disease? Because social distancing helps them survive. </p>
<p>In evolutionary terms, animals that effectively socially distance during an outbreak improve their chances of staying healthy and going on to produce more offspring, which also will socially distance when confronted with disease.</p>
<p>We study the diverse ways in which animals <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4h59toMAAAAJ&hl=en">use behaviors to avoid infection</a>, and why <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=23PgnnIAAAAJ&hl=en">behaviors matter for disease spread</a>. While animals have evolved a variety of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2018.05.001">behaviors that limit infection</a>, the ubiquity of social distancing in group-living animals tells us that this strategy has been favored again and again in animals faced with high risk of contagious disease. </p>
<p>What can we learn about social distancing from other animals, and how are their actions like and unlike what humans are doing now?</p>
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<h2>Feed the sick, but protect the queen</h2>
<p>Social insects are some of the most extreme practitioners of social distancing in nature. Many types of ants live in tight quarters with hundreds or even thousands of close relatives. Much like our day care centers, college dormitories and nursing homes, these colonies can create optimal conditions for spreading contagious diseases. </p>
<p>In response to this risk, ants have evolved the ability to socially distance. When a contagious disease sweeps through their society, both sick and healthy ants <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aat4793">rapidly change their behavior</a> in ways that slow disease transmission. Sick ants self-isolate, and healthy ants reduce their interaction with other ants when disease is present in the colony. </p>
<p>Healthy ants even “close rank” around the most vulnerable colony members – the queens and nurses – by keeping them isolated from the foragers that are most likely to introduce germs from outside. Overall, these measures are highly effective at limiting disease spread and keeping colony members alive.</p>
<p>Many other types of animals also choose exactly who to socially distance from, and conversely, when to put themselves at risk. For example, mandrills – a type of monkey – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2019.0869">continue to care for sick family members</a> even as they actively avoid sick individuals to whom they are not related. In an evolutionary sense, caring for a sick family member may allow an animal to pass on its genes through that family member’s offspring. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324714/original/file-20200401-23121-1frpcd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324714/original/file-20200401-23121-1frpcd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324714/original/file-20200401-23121-1frpcd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324714/original/file-20200401-23121-1frpcd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324714/original/file-20200401-23121-1frpcd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324714/original/file-20200401-23121-1frpcd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324714/original/file-20200401-23121-1frpcd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324714/original/file-20200401-23121-1frpcd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mandrills live in large groups in the rainforests of equatorial Africa. They will often groom other group members, but actively avoid sick mandrills unless they are close family members.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Mandrill_Family_Portrait_%2819830987756%29.jpg">Eric Kilby/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Further, some animals maintain essential social interactions in the face of sickness while foregoing less critical ones. For example, vampire bats continue to provide food for their sick groupmates, but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13193">avoid grooming them</a>. This minimizes contagion risk while still preserving forms of social support that are most essential to keeping sick family members alive, such as food sharing. </p>
<p>These nuanced forms of social distancing minimize costs of disease while maintaining the benefits of social living. It should come as no surprise that evolution favors them in many types of animals.</p>
<h2>Altruism makes us human</h2>
<p>Human behavior in the presence of disease also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721411402596">bears the signature of evolution</a>. This indicates that our hominid ancestors faced many of the same pressures from contagious disease that we are facing today. </p>
<p>Like social ants, we are protecting the most vulnerable members of our society from COVID-19 infection by ensuring that older individuals and those with pre-existing conditions stay away from potentially contagious people. Like monkeys and bats, we also practice nuanced social distancing, reducing non-essential social contacts while still providing essential care for sick family members.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324720/original/file-20200401-23151-6yygi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324720/original/file-20200401-23151-6yygi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324720/original/file-20200401-23151-6yygi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324720/original/file-20200401-23151-6yygi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324720/original/file-20200401-23151-6yygi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324720/original/file-20200401-23151-6yygi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324720/original/file-20200401-23151-6yygi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324720/original/file-20200401-23151-6yygi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A black garden ant queen (upper left), surrounded by adult ants, larvae (left), eggs (middle) and a cocoon (right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hurtnica_pospolita.jpg">Pan weterynarz/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There also are important differences. For example, in addition to caring for sick family members, humans sometimes increase their own risk by caring for unrelated individuals, such as friends and neighbors. And health care workers go further, actively seeking out and helping precisely those who many of us carefully avoid. </p>
<p>Altruism isn’t the only behavior that distinguishes human response to disease outbreaks. Other animals must rely on subtle cues to detect illness among group members, but we have cutting-edge technologies that make it possible to detect pathogens rapidly and then isolate and treat sick individuals. And humans can communicate health threats globally in an instant, which allows us to proactively institute behaviors that mitigate disease. That’s a huge evolutionary advantage. </p>
<p>Finally, thanks to virtual platforms, humans can maintain social connections without direct physical contact. This means that unlike other animals, we can practice physical rather than social distancing, which lets us preserve some of the important benefits of group living while minimizing disease risk.</p>
<h2>Worth the disruption</h2>
<p>The evidence from nature is clear: Social distancing is an effective tool for reducing disease spread. It is also a tool that can be implemented more rapidly and more universally than almost any other. Unlike vaccination and medication, behavioral changes don’t require development or testing. </p>
<p>However, social distancing can also incur significant and sometimes unsustainable costs. Some highly social animals, like <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-014-1849-x">banded mongooses</a>, do not avoid group members even when they are visibly sick; the evolutionary costs of social distancing from their relatives may simply be too high. As we are currently experiencing, social distancing also imposes severe costs of many kinds in human societies, and these costs are often borne disproportionately by the most vulnerable people.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1238078322921345024"}"></div></p>
<p>Given that social distancing can be costly, why do so many animals do it? In short, because behaviors that protect us from disease ultimately allow us to enjoy social living – a lifestyle that offers myriad benefits, but also carries risks. By implementing social distancing when it’s necessary, humans and other animals can continue to reap the diverse benefits of social living in the long term, while minimizing the costs of potentially deadly diseases when they arise.</p>
<p>Social distancing can be profoundly disruptive to our society, but it can also stop a disease outbreak in its tracks. Just ask ants.</p>
<p>[<em>You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-help">Read The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135383/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Using distance to avoid getting sick has deep evolutionary roots for humans and many other species.Dana Hawley, Professor of Biological Sciences, Virginia TechJulia Buck, Assistant Professor of Biology, University of North Carolina WilmingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1248592019-10-30T12:56:18Z2019-10-30T12:56:18ZMeditation apps might calm you – but miss the point of Buddhist mindfulness<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298770/original/file-20191025-173524-b19frz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The market has been flooded with apps related to Buddhism and most of them claim to teach meditation.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.needpix.com/photo/992824/yoga-app-iphone-mobile-phone-application-heart-relaxation-cardio-life">akiragiulia (pixabay.com)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In today’s stressful world, mindfulness – a type of <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780203494875">popular spirituality</a> that strives to focus on the present moment – promises to soothe away the anxiety and stress of modern life. The Internet is full of <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199827817.001.0001/acprof-9780199827817">popular cure-all mindfulness apps</a> targeting everyone from <a href="https://buddhify.com">busy urban professionals</a> to <a href="https://naturallysavvy.com/eat/5-mindfulness-eating-apps/">dieters</a>, those suffering from <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/healthy-sleep/top-insomnia-iphone-android-apps">insomnia</a> and even <a href="https://parentingchaos.com/anxiety-apps-kids/">children</a>. </p>
<p>We are <a href="https://rel.uncg.edu/faculty/grieve/">scholars of Buddhism</a> who <a href="https://uncw.edu/par/faculty/faculty-mcguire.html">specialize</a> in <a href="https://uncw.academia.edu/BeverleyFoulksMcGuire">social media</a> <a href="https://gscnc.academia.edu/GregoryGrieve">research</a>. In August of 2019, we searched on <a href="https://www.apple.com/ios/app-store/">Apple’s App Store</a> and <a href="https://play.google.com">Google Play</a> and found over 500 apps associated with Buddhism. The majority of the apps centered on the practice of mindfulness. </p>
<p>Do these apps truly promote Buddhist ideals or are they a product of a lucrative consumer industry?</p>
<h2>Health benefits</h2>
<p>As it is practiced in the U.S. today, mindfulness meditation focuses on being intensely aware, without any sort of judgment, of what one is sensing and feeling in the given moment. Mindfulness practice has been <a href="https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-mindfulness-how-mindfulness-helps-you-live-in-the-moment/">shown to counter</a> the tendency in many of us to spend too much time planning and problem solving, which can be stressful. </p>
<p>Mindfulness practices, as pursued by the Buddhist apps, involve guided meditation, breathing exercises and other forms of relaxation. <a href="https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-mindfulness-tackle-stress-anxiety-and-depression-to-benefit-your-heart-2/">Clinical tests</a> show that mindfulness relieves stress, anxiety, pain, depression, insomnia and hypertension. However, there have been few <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000118">studies of mindfulness apps</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Meditative-Way-Readings-in-the-Theory-and-Practice-of-Buddhist-Meditation/Bucknell-Kang/p/book/9780700706785">current popular understanding</a> of mindfulness is derived from the Buddhist concept of <a href="https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.141.than.html">sati</a>, which describes being aware of one’s body, feelings and other mental states. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190495794.001.0001/oso-9780190495794">In early Buddhist texts</a> mindfulness meant not only paying attention but also remembering what the Buddha taught, so that one could discern between skillful and unskillful thoughts, feelings and actions. This would ultimately lead to liberation from the cycle of birth and death. </p>
<p>For example, the Buddhist text “<a href="https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN10.html">Satipatthana Sutta</a>” describes not only being mindful of breath and body, but also comparing one’s body to a corpse in a cemetery to appreciate the arising and ceasing of the body. </p>
<p>“One is mindful that the body exists, just to the extent necessary for knowledge and awareness. And one remains detached, grasping at nothing in the world,” the sutra reads.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298773/original/file-20191025-173558-1nb8xew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298773/original/file-20191025-173558-1nb8xew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298773/original/file-20191025-173558-1nb8xew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298773/original/file-20191025-173558-1nb8xew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298773/original/file-20191025-173558-1nb8xew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298773/original/file-20191025-173558-1nb8xew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298773/original/file-20191025-173558-1nb8xew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Buddhism <strong>encourages practitioners</strong> to move away from attachment to material things.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chitrapat/9546082023/in/photolist-fxyaB6-25dyUGU-jAoeC3-jCVAAd-6VJTy2-4nQHsN-TxL9c3-9mG4EQ-6DZ4PK-8FGHv5-Pcvfh-8DGm7h-qvf8Sv-jAksxt-iGzy9w-EqTEuR-5EiTUQ-dtCktw-21kMhmz-dsbKkd-xVENjR-jApdxq-doWfa4-VTnvmo-dquYpf-62nvtw-dtmBtt-jAkHfe-7wwGq2-owD5pD-3oK9KW-S6xHpY-dh1oNi-71WLDC-meTvA-jdZbvH-4fk39U-jAnWEV-8hvSpa-a2JKzK-9RraXd-8eN8zq-noT2ea-dbA8jQ-S6L2mL-QSGMgm-aMWGhB-je2XD7-ADpZZu-4fEAQo">Deepak Rao</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Here mindfulness enables one to appreciate impermanence, not become attached to material things and strive to attain greater awareness so that one can ultimately become enlightened.</p>
<p>Early Buddhist mindfulness practitioners were those who criticized mainstream societal values and cultural norms such as bodily beauty, family ties and material wealth.</p>
<p>Mindfulness apps, on the other hand, encourage people to cope with and accommodate to society. They overlook the surrounding causes and conditions of suffering and stress, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/7xgmay/mindfulness-is-the-capitalist-spirituality-ronald-purser-interview">which may be political, social or economic</a>. </p>
<h2>Lucrative industry</h2>
<p>Mindfulness apps are part of a <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/07/08/1879529/0/en/Mindfulness-Meditation-Application-Market-Continues-on-an-Uphill-Ride-as-Self-Care-Trend-Pushes-its-Way-into-Consumer-Priorities-Finds-Fact-MR.html">massive and lucrative industry</a> valued at roughly US$130 million. </p>
<p>Two apps, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/05/calm-raises-88-million-valuing-the-meditation-app-at-1-billion.html">Calm and Headspace</a>, claim nearly 70% of the overall market share. These apps cater to a wide audience, which includes religious consumers as well as the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/topics/religiously-unaffiliated/">growing number of Americans who consider themselves</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-changing-nature-of-americas-irreligious-explained-71066">spiritual but not religious</a>.</p>
<p>Americans spend over <a href="https://www.flurry.com/blog/post/157921590345/us-consumers-time-spent-on-mobile-crosses-5">five hours each day</a> glued to their mobile devices. Nearly <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/hooked-how-to-build-habit-forming-products/oclc/881418283">80% of Americans</a> check their smartphones within fifteen minutes of waking up. The apps provide a way to do meditation while on the go.</p>
<p>The fact that Buddhist apps exist is not surprising, as Buddhism has always been <a href="https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/product/from-indras-net-to-internet-communication-technology-and-the-evolution-of-buddhist-ideas/">skillful at using new media technologies to spread its message</a>. The oldest known printed book, for example, is a <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/Five-things-to-know-about-diamond-sutra-worlds-oldest-dated-printed-book-180959052/">Chinese copy of the Diamond Sutra</a>, a Sanskrit Buddhist text that dates to the ninth century. </p>
<p>Are these apps merely <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520291461/religion-and-popular-culture-in-america-third-edition">repackaging of ancient Buddhism in new digital wrappers</a>?</p>
<h2>Is this Buddhist?</h2>
<p>There is no doubt that Buddhist apps are a reflection of real social distress. But, <a href="https://www.crcpress.com/Buddhism-the-Internet-and-Digital-Media-The-Pixel-in-the-Lotus/Grieve-Veidlinger/p/book/9781138549166">in our assessment</a>, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=V3rYtmCZEIEC&q=42-43#v=onepage&q=42-43&f=false">mindfulness</a>, when stripped of all its religious elements, may distort understandings of Buddhism. </p>
<p>A core aspect of Buddhism is the concept of no-self: the belief that there is no unchanging, permanent self, soul or other essence. In <a href="https://www.crcpress.com/Buddhism-the-Internet-and-Digital-Media-The-Pixel-in-the-Lotus/Grieve-Veidlinger/p/book/9781138549166">promoting an individualistic approach to religion</a>, then, Buddhist apps may well rub against the very grain of Buddhist practice. </p>
<p>Indeed, our findings show that Buddhist meditation apps are not a cure that relieves suffering in the world, but more like an opiate that hides the real symptoms of the precarious and stressful state in which many people find themselves today. </p>
<p>In that case, Buddhist apps, rather than curing the anxiety created by our smartphones, just make us more addicted to them and, in the end, even more stressed.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124859/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Buddhist meditation apps are an increasingly popular stress-reliever for people on the go. But do these apps really work? Or are they products of a lucrative industry contributing to a tech addiction?Gregory Grieve, Head and Professor, Religious Studies Department, University of North Carolina – GreensboroBeverley McGuire, Professor of East Asian Religions, University of North Carolina WilmingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1257852019-10-25T12:33:02Z2019-10-25T12:33:02ZWeWork debacle exposes why investing in a charismatic founder can be dangerous<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298579/original/file-20191024-170484-6foi43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">WeWork wanted to be a lot more than a shared workspace. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/new-york-nyusamay-10-2018-wework-1278091729?src=9xiaJ5BmEePlhpkb52WWiA-1-12">rblfmr/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>WeWork went from <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fall-of-wework-how-a-startup-darling-came-unglued-11571946003">unicorn darling</a> with a nearly US$50 billion valuation to a cautionary tale for gullible investors <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/softbank-to-take-control-of-wework-11571746483?mod=hp_lead_pos2">worth just $8 billion</a> in a matter of months. It did so in part by wrapping its real estate sublet business in the cloak of a tech startup destined to “change the world.”</p>
<p>Were investors like SoftBank and JPMorgan duped by the hype of a charismatic founder, as happened with <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/20/hbos-the-inventor-how-elizabeth-holmes-fooled-people-about-theranos.html">Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos</a>? </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://csbapp.uncw.edu/data/fs/vita.aspx?id=25472">lecturer in finance</a> and someone who managed investments for 20 years, I believe that there was some of that, coupled with <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/050813/4-behavioral-biases-and-how-avoid-them.asp">behavioral biases</a> that lead people to make bad decisions. But I also think something else was going on that should give investors pause the next time they stumble across a visionary founder promoting a “change the world” branding strategy. </p>
<h2>‘We’ will change the world</h2>
<p>WeWork was founded in 2011 as a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-founding-story-of-wework-2015-10">co-working venture</a>. </p>
<p>But Adam Neumann crafted and pitched a vision for his company that went well beyond office sharing and real estate. He said the “we” culture he was building would change the world.</p>
<p>“The influence and impact that we are going to have on this Earth is going to be so big,” <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-is-not-the-way-everybody-behaves-how-adam-neumanns-over-the-top-style-built-wework-11568823827?shareToken=st3fcd4c5c55d94ffc80b5721a8aa6ffa2">he told staff</a> during a music festival-like retreat, where he suggested the company could “solve the problem of children without parents” and even eradicate world hunger. </p>
<p>Such statements weren’t uncommon from him. But moreover, they fit neatly in the messianic-like Silicon Valley tech world, where companies believe their inventions can actually <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/the-most-bullshit-motivational-slogans-in-silicon-valley">“free the world.”</a> </p>
<p>Neumann’s ambitious plans hit reality recently as <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-22/neumann-clings-to-billionaire-status-after-wework-gets-a-bailout">investors soured on the company</a> in the runup to a planned initial public offering. On Oct. 23, existing investor SoftBank agreed to rescue the embattled company with <a href="https://group.softbank/en/corp/set/data/news/press/sb/2019/20191023_01/pdf/20191023_01.pdf">billions in additional capital</a> in exchange for increasing its ownership stake to 80%. The deal pushed out Neumann, who will get US$1.7 billion despite burning through earlier investments. </p>
<p>Neumann’s “exit” package may be unusual in its scale, but otherwise similar fates have befallen numerous other founders, such as Theranos’ Holmes and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/30/inside-new-uber-weak-coffee-vanishing-perks-fast-deflating-morale/">Uber’s Travis Kalanick</a>. Even Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and founder of SpaceX, often seems to be <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-shocking-quotes-tweets-2018-10">one outrageous tweet</a> away from his own ignominious end. </p>
<p>Each of these leaders embodied varying traits that <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/05/20/silicon-valleys-ceo-worship-problem/">inspired almost cult-like followings</a> among investors who forked over billions to be a part of their rise. In cases like Tesla and Uber, the companies have managed to become successful despite their CEOs’ shortcomings. Theranos and WeWork are examples of what can go wrong when the founder is both owner and executive in a venture capital-backed startup.</p>
<h2>Principals and agents</h2>
<p>Finance scholars like myself think about this in terms of the <a href="https://www.cfainstitute.org/en/research/foundation/2014/the-principalagent-problem-in-finance">principal-agent relationship</a>, an issue that is crucial to the management of almost every business and organization. </p>
<p>The principal is a party or group that enlists the agent to manage some asset or process in their best interest.</p>
<p>In a healthy corporate structure, the alignment of principal and agent is accomplished through governance and executive compensation policies that provide management incentives to act in the best interest of owners. For example, the CEO’s compensation might include stock in the company that vests over some period of years and is dependent upon specific performance targets. </p>
<p>In the case of WeWork, Neumann was acting in both roles: He was principal as the investor with the controlling stake and agent as the executive tasked with running the company. Even the <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1533523/000119312519220499/d781982ds1.htm#toc781982_1">prospectus</a> for the company’s ill-fated IPO included language that would have given him <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-08-19/we-looks-out-for-our-selves">control for life</a>.</p>
<h2>Why it’s a problem</h2>
<p>You might wonder what the problem is with this arrangement given that it’s common for managers to be owners, as is the case with small businesses and family-owned companies. </p>
<p>When it’s their own money at stake, surely they’ll be looking out for their own best interests, right? In those situations, yes, and the downside risk is assumed by the owner-managers. </p>
<p>The difference between those types of companies and the likes of WeWork and Theranos is that startups typically have significant outside investment capital. SoftBank, for one, was also a principal in WeWork. In such situations, the interest of a founder like Neumann may not necessarily align with those of the company itself and its other investors. </p>
<p>During WeWork’s buildup, for example, Neumann borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/softbank-to-take-control-of-wework-11571746483?mod=hp_lead_pos2%20%22%22">against his stock in the company</a>, leaving himself and WeWork exposed depending on the shares’ future valuation. He also charged his own company $5.9 million for trademark rights to the word “we” – <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wework-ceo-gives-back-millions-from-we-trademark-after-criticism-2019-9">a sum he gave back</a> after intense criticism.</p>
<p>Even in leaving the company, he was able to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-10-23/how-do-you-like-we-now">negotiate a generous go-away package</a>, including the ability to cash out almost $1 billion in stock and receive a $185 million consulting fee. This at the same time that the company’s future is uncertain and it’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/15/wework-sack-staff-workers-adam-neumann">laying off 2,000 workers</a> – which it delayed doing because <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/softbank-offers-to-put-6-5b-into-wework-including-5b-loan-11571687872">it couldn’t afford their severance</a>. </p>
<p>Unemployed workers and wasted capital are the collateral damage when investors fall prey to the principal-agent problem. And unfortunately, I don’t think this will be the last time.</p>
<p>[ <em>You respect facts and expertise. So do The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=yourespect">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125785/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Greg Putnam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Adam Neumann both controlled and managed the co-working company he founded in 2011. A finance scholar explains why that can be a serious problem in venture capital-backed startups.Greg Putnam, Lecturer in Finance, University of North Carolina WilmingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1204012019-07-31T11:42:18Z2019-07-31T11:42:18ZAll public universities get private money, but some get much more than the rest<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286083/original/file-20190729-43153-1vpn7bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=274%2C448%2C4194%2C2264&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has more than $3 billion in its endowment.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Outtakes-AP-A-NC-USA-OTKGB115-JPG-UNC-Chapel-H-/3bf90d2032d542f7a6d9be5cd6178b8d/1/0">AP Photo/Gerry Broome</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>U.S. <a href="https://www.case.org/trending/2018-vse-survey-results">universities raised nearly US$47 billion</a> in the academic fiscal year that ended in mid-2018. This new record haul marked a 7% increase from the prior year.</p>
<p>As usual, <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-20-colleges-took-in-28-of-donations-to-universities-last-year-they-educate-16-of-undergrads-2019-02-11">private universities</a> generally led the way. But public universities are hardly on the sidelines. </p>
<p>Some of the most prestigious public universities, such as the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Washington, have <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/02/15/146900650/wealthy-colleges-see-spike-in-fundraising">since 2011</a> begun to join schools like Stanford and Johns Hopkins universities in the top 10. Meanwhile, the universities that <a href="https://ticas.org/sites/default/files/pub_files/inequitable_funding_inequitable_results.pdf">get less funding</a> are <a href="https://www-chronicle-com.liblink.uncw.edu/article/In-the-Drive-for-Donors/244523">struggling to compete for the donations</a> that can help make up for the steep reductions in state spending on higher education that began <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/state-colleges-receive-the-same-amount-of-funding-from-tuition-as-from-state-governments-2017-03-24">more than 30 years ago</a>.</p>
<p>As a professor of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2vnyevwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">higher education management and finance</a> conducting research about the private donations that help fund public universities, I’m increasingly concerned that this practice is making the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2019/03/28/college-endowment-universities-receive-most-gifts-funds/39230729/">richest public universities</a> richer. The rest face fewer choices as many of these schools are being forced to stretch their budgets thin and <a href="https://www.wpr.org/uw-stevens-point-scraps-plans-drop-6-majors">cut academic programs</a> and, in extreme cases, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alaska-defunds-scholarships-thousands-university-students-ahead-fall-semester-n1035231">scholarships</a>. </p>
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<h2>Donations</h2>
<p>Educational fundraising is as old as U.S. universities. Harvard, for example, is named after its first donor. <a href="https://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance/history">John Harvard</a> was a minister who left the newly established college half his estate and a large number of books in his will, <a href="https://harvardmagazine.com/2000/01/john-harvard.html">back in 1638</a>.</p>
<p>Public universities <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1353/rhe.1996.0002">did little fundraising until the mid-1970s</a> because they received ample government money. </p>
<p>Billions of dollars still flow to these schools, overall, from the <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2015/06/federal-and-state-funding-of-higher-education">taxpayers in their states as well as federal money</a>. But states have cut their average per-student <a href="https://www.educationnext.org/higher-ed-lower-spending-as-states-cut-back-where-has-money-gone/">funding for their public universities by 25%</a> over the last three decades. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/university-of-michigan-raises-5-billion-others-close-behind-1538658001">Since the 1990s</a>, most public universities have treated fundraising as an increasingly significant source of revenue, on top of taxpayer dollars and tuition payments. Typically, public universities raise money through campus-based fundraising offices and <a href="https://agb.org/trusteeship-article/partners-in-advancement/">affiliated foundations</a>. The latter are technically independent but exist for the sole purpose of raising and managing money for a specific school.</p>
<h2>Funding</h2>
<p>Some donations pay for specific grants and scholarships. For example, funding scholarships is the top priority of the <a href="https://www.apnews.com/48b92f812312499c98477095a5c7daca">University of Kentucky’s campaign to raise $2 billion</a>. In this way, donations can help to make college more affordable, at least for the students who get scholarships.</p>
<p>But the price of going to college keeps rising. The official average total tab for tuition, fees, room and board for students attending public universities in their own states <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76">increased by 34%</a> between 2005 and 2015, from $14,499 to $19,189.</p>
<p>The net price of public university college tuition, what in-state students pay after applying grants and scholarships, also grew 27%, from an average of $11,430 to an <a href="https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/average-net-price-over-time-full-time-students-public-four-year-institution">average of $14,330</a> in that time frame. <a href="https://ticas.org/sites/default/files/pub_files/student_debt_and_the_class_of_2017_nr.pdf">Two-thirds of graduates leave college with debt</a>, which nationally <a href="https://trends.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/2018-trends-in-student-aid.pdf">averages about $27,000</a> for the alumni of public universities with bachelor’s degrees.</p>
<p>One reason for the failure of fundraising campaigns to restrain tuition hikes is how donors give. <a href="https://theconversation.com/disappointed-donors-cant-count-on-getting-their-charitable-money-back-93635">Many of the biggest gifts</a> are reserved for specific uses. For example, <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/Hillsdale-College-Sues-U-of/246656">one donor to the University of Missouri stipulated</a> that the school spend his money to hire faculty who are “disciples” of the free-market economy.</p>
<p>Another is that <a href="https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/philanthropy-magazine/article/the-passion-and-pitfalls-of-giving-to-college-sports">many big gifts</a> fund things unrelated to academic instruction, such as new <a href="https://www.upressonline.com/2019/06/fau-receives-3-million-donation-from-the-rocco-and-mary-abessinio-foundation-to-renovate-rename-basketball-arena/">sports arenas</a> and <a href="https://terrapinclub.com/sports/2018/9/16/endowments.aspx">coach salaries</a>.</p>
<h2>Endowments</h2>
<p>Charitable gifts from alumni, companies and other donors also fund <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/how-do-university-endowments-work/">endowments</a>, pools of money that universities and their foundations created to collect and invest donor dollars in assets like stocks and bonds. Endowment funds and income, such as interest and dividends, fund student aid programs, professors’ salaries and additional expenses. </p>
<p>All told, U.S. higher ed endowments have more than <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=73">half a trillion dollars</a> in capital and generate <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/01/31/college-endowments-returned-82-percent-2018-annual-survey-adds-some-insight-how">millions in investment income</a> every year. They are growing at private and <a href="https://www.nacubo.org/Research/2019/Public-NTSE-Tables">public universities</a> alike, with two of the top 10 in Texas, which derives money from <a href="https://www.utsystem.edu/puf">the state’s petroleum revenue</a>, and the University of Michigan. </p>
<p>But huge endowments are not the norm at public universities. The endowments of about 50 of the most prestigious public universities in most states are much larger than the rest. For example, the endowment of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the biggest in my own state, stood at around <a href="https://uncmc.unc.edu/files/2017/09/CHIF-FY2017-AnnualReport.pdf">$3 billion</a> at the end of its 2017 fiscal year. </p>
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<p>Chapel Hill’s endowment is bigger than those of the state’s other 16 public universities combined. Elizabeth City State University, a historically black university in North Carolina, has the smallest one. It totaled about <a href="http://www.ncauditor.net/EPSWeb/Reports/Financial/FIN-2017-6086.pdf">$11 million</a> at the end of the 2017 fiscal year. </p>
<p>Endowments are designed to grow so that they can benefit universities in perpetuity. So university <a href="https://www.case.org/system/files/media/file/Endowments_Facts_Jan2017.pdf">governing boards limit spending</a> to an <a href="https://www.nacubo.org/Press-Releases/2019/US-Educational-Endowments-Report-8-2-Percent-Return-in-FY18">average of around 5% or less</a> of the endowment’s total assets per year.</p>
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<h2>Disparity</h2>
<p>Prestigious public universities, which are often referred to as the state’s “<a href="https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/tuition-fees-flagship-universities-over-time">flagship university</a>,” typically raise the most money. <a href="https://news.umich.edu/u-michigan-raises-5b-shattering-records-for-public-universities/">The University of Michigan</a> is among the most successful. It set a new record in 2018 for fundraising at public universities when its comprehensive campaign hauled in over $5 billion in gifts and pledges.</p>
<p>These campaigns are possible, in part, due to <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/Major-Private-Gifts-to-Higher/128264">an increasing number of gifts in excess of $100 million</a> from wealthy donors, such as <a href="http://as.virginia.edu/ampersand/uva-plans-new-school-data-science-120-million-gift-largest-university-history">the $120 million</a> hedge fund CEO Jaffray Woodriff gave the University of Virginia to establish a data science school.</p>
<p><a href="http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/index.php">Researchers split</a> the nation’s 600 or so public universities into three main groups. The roughly 200 “doctoral universities,” which includes the 49 state flagships, spend the most on research and offer 20 or more doctoral degrees. Examples of nonflagships in this category are <a href="https://msu.edu">Michigan State University</a> and the <a href="https://louisville.edu">University of Louisville</a>.</p>
<p>These schools <a href="https://www.case.org/trending/2018-vse-survey-results">raised an average of $74 million</a> in 2018.</p>
<p>That’s about 10 times the $7.1 million amassed by the group designated as “master’s universities.” Around 275 of these schools offer few doctoral programs but award at least 50 master’s degrees. Examples include <a href="https://www.adams.edu">Adams State University</a> in Alamosa, Colorado, and <a href="https://www.ewu.edu">Eastern Washington University</a> in Cheney, Washington.</p>
<p>The roughly 130 “baccalaureate colleges” mainly offer bachelor’s degrees and have the few graduate programs. Example include <a href="https://www.iuk.edu/index.html">Indiana University-Kokomo</a> and <a href="https://www.cobleskill.edu">SUNY Cobleskill</a>. They garnered an average of $4.2 million in donations in 2018.</p>
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<h2>Causes</h2>
<p>While studying the causes of these disparities, I’ve interviewed a total of 30 people who are either presidents of public universities or leading fundraising efforts on behalf of these schools.</p>
<p>One reason for the differences, I’ve found, is structural. Big, prominent public universities are more likely than smaller higher ed institutions to have medical and law schools. The doctors and lawyers who graduate from them, in turn, earn large incomes and are more able to make big donations to their alma maters. </p>
<p>The public universities lacking law and medical schools often educate <a href="https://scholars.org/brief/why-regional-comprehensive-universities-are-vital-parts-us-higher-education">high numbers of low-income students</a>, including many people who are the first in their families to go to college. This means that there is less wealth to tap among students, parents and alumni.</p>
<p>“A lot of our alums are artists, teachers, professional people,” one of the leaders I interviewed whom I’ll call Roger told me. “But we don’t have the lawyers and the doctors that some of the bigger schools do.” </p>
<p>Another explanation is historic. The public universities with the biggest endowments typically began fundraising earlier on. This head start has given them an edge for years and today is making it easier for them to employ more fundraising staff to spot and cultivate potential big donors.</p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120401/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin McClure received research funding from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. </span></em></p>Overall, the growth in giving to public higher ed institutions isn’t compensating for a reduction in funding by the states.Kevin McClure, Associate Professor of Higher Education, University of North Carolina WilmingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/965032018-08-27T10:46:46Z2018-08-27T10:46:46ZFar-sighted adaptation to rising seas is blocked by just fixing eroded beaches<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232530/original/file-20180817-165937-hbppl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Beach erosion in Nags Head, North Carolina, photographed May 15, 2005.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/8Kw1EN">Soil Science</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Coastal communities around the world are struggling to adapt to rising sea levels and increasingly severe coastal storms. In the United States, local governments are making investments to reduce those risks, such as protecting shorelines with seawalls, “nourishing” eroded beaches by adding sand and rerouting or redesigning roads and bridges. </p>
<p>In the short run, spending public money this way is economically rational. But in the long run, many people who live near coastlines will probably have to relocate as seas <a href="https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2018/04/24/climate-impacts-coastlines-rising-tides-increasing-risks/">continue to rise</a>. </p>
<p>We have studied this problem by combining insights from our work in <a href="https://www.coastalstudiesinstitute.org/about/faculty-and-staff/andy-keeler/">economics</a>, <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-68086-6_12">coastal geomorphology</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sWGqncEAAAAJ&hl=en">engineering</a>. As we have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/2018EF000828">explained elsewhere</a>, short-term actions to adapt to coastal flooding can actually increase risks to lives and property. By raising the value of coastal properties, these steps encourage people to stay in place and delay decisions about more drastic solutions, such as moving inland. </p>
<h2>Keeping millions in harm’s way</h2>
<p>According to recent estimates, a 1-foot increase in sea levels will put <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2961">about 1 million people in the United States at risk</a>, and 3 feet will threaten about 4 million people. Global sea levels currently are <a href="https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/12/">projected to rise</a> 0.5 to 2.1 feet by 2050 and 1.0 to 8.2 feet by 2100.</p>
<p>As we see it, market forces and public risk reduction policies interact in unexpected ways, reducing incentives for communities to make long-term plans for retreating from the shore. Nourishing beaches and building seawalls signal to individuals and businesses that their risks are lower. This makes them more likely to build long-lasting structures in risky areas and renovate and maintain existing structures. As a result, their property values increase, which reinforces economic and political arguments for more risk-reduction engineering. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232524/original/file-20180817-165949-1eb2lib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232524/original/file-20180817-165949-1eb2lib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232524/original/file-20180817-165949-1eb2lib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232524/original/file-20180817-165949-1eb2lib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232524/original/file-20180817-165949-1eb2lib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232524/original/file-20180817-165949-1eb2lib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232524/original/file-20180817-165949-1eb2lib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232524/original/file-20180817-165949-1eb2lib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wind pushes water over Highway 64 as Hurricane Arthur passes through Nags Head, North Carolina, July 4, 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Storm-Shortage/e1c4ef8296294189a5d4195b4b2561f2/10/0">AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To illustrate this pattern, we compared a sample of houses in Nags Head and Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, two popular beach towns less than 10 miles apart on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. When we consulted county tax appraisal values, Nags Head beaches had routinely received sand from beach nourishment, whereas Kitty Hawk beaches had not. On average, homes in our Nags Head sample were worth over US$1 million, while homes in the Kitty Hawk sample were worth about $200,000. </p>
<p>Other researchers have found that in some locations, the threat of rising seas is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/sea-level-rise-is-eroding-home-value-and-owners-might-not-even-know-it/2018/08/20/ff63fa8c-a0d5-11e8-93e3-24d1703d2a7a_story.html?utm_term=.faefacaed95e">eroding coastal property values</a>. But this tends to be true for properties that are viewed as highly vulnerable – for example, homes that have already flooded. In contrast, homes that are elevated or have other flood-proofing features tend to have much higher values, so they are perceived as assets.</p>
<h2>Subsidizing risky choices</h2>
<p>Some amount of risk reduction makes sense. If people who benefited paid its full cost, and everyone involved understood how imminent the risk was and how much engineering solutions would cost, then market forces would likely produce reasonably efficient solutions. </p>
<p>As an example, flood-prone Norfolk, Virginia recently <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/03/01/589634980/norfolk-requires-developers-to-do-more-against-flooding">adopted an ordinance</a> requiring almost all new homes and many major renovations to be elevated and include other flood-proofing features. This approach will help to price flood protection into the cost of homes and will tend to reduce demands to directly subsidize protective engineering, flood insurance and post-disaster assistance. </p>
<p>In our view, such solutions are a move in the right direction. But they will not break the positive feedback loop we describe as long as other public policies continue to skew perceptions of the long-term viability of coastal communities. </p>
<p>Engineering projects to slow shoreline retreat and reduce flooding generally receive <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0121278">smaller subsidies now than in past decades</a>, but many communities still benefit. For example, beach nourishment in Ocean City, Maryland is cost-shared between the federal government, which pays about half, and <a href="https://oceancitymd.gov/oc/departments/engineering/beach-replenishment/">state and local agencies</a>. The Federal Emergency Management Agency helps pay to <a href="https://www.fema.gov/sandy-5-year">rebuild homes and public buildings damaged in major disasters</a>. And allowing people to deduct local taxes on their federal tax forms partly subsidizes local tax financing for risk reduction.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Beach nourishment started at New York’s Coney Island a century ago. But with the sheer volume of sand needed to keep up with sea level rise, its costs could outweigh its benefits within a few decades.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Inaccurate perceptions of risk</h2>
<p>Information and uncertainty are larger problems. Many coastal residents <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-harvey-many-texans-will-think-differently-about-hurricane-risks-83262">do not perceive medium- and long-term climate risk</a> to be as serious as the scientific consensus suggests. Moreover, scientists are still analyzing how fast sea levels are likely to rise. Future storm frequency is uncertain, and could be affected by changes in global greenhouse gas emission trends. </p>
<p>On the positive side, engineering innovations such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/build-disaster-proof-homes-before-storms-strike-not-afterward-61947">designing storm-resistant homes</a> could become more effective. But existing approaches like beach nourishment are likely to become more expensive as <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-world-is-facing-a-global-sand-crisis-83557">sand resources diminish</a> and more communities compete for them. And growing uncertainty is likely to increase near-term demand for risk reduction engineering.</p>
<p>The most critical time for adaptation decisions is immediately after a storm or flood. Faced with expensive repairs or rebuilding, property owners face higher costs to return to the status quo. But if homeowners expect that public resources will be spent to protect them against future disasters, they are less likely to consider making big changes. </p>
<p>Federal or state financial rebuilding assistance creates a similar bias. If that money were used to subsidize relocation or other drastic adaptive actions, rebuilding patterns would be different. So far, however, programs for <a href="https://www.fema.gov/faq-details/Buy-out-of-flooded-property-1370032125293">buying out flood-damaged properties</a> have been largely unsuccessful. Many factors, including residents’ level of experience with disaster recovery and financial concerns, can make people <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2015.06.008">unwilling to consider relocating</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BkfmwuRF6g9/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>Incentives to think long-term</h2>
<p>There is no perfect formula for balancing near-term climate-proofing against more drastic steps to move people away from the coasts. But we believe that when communities focus excessively on reducing near-term threats, they risk inhibiting the successful adaptation that they are trying to promote.</p>
<p>We have three suggestions for breaking this cycle. First, local land use policies could be designed to discourage rebuilding homes to similar or higher property values after damage from storms. Second, communities could put increasing emphasis on adaptive engineering and large-scale planning practices – for example, sunsetting beach nourishment projects when sea level rise reaches some preannounced level. </p>
<p>Finally, adaptation decisions could be planned and implemented at a multi-jurisdictional level, rather than town by town. This approach would help to avoid “rich towns get richer” dynamics that can develop when wealthier jurisdictions deploy sand resources and other protective measures in a way that reduces their own risk while ignoring or heightening threats to nearby locations.</p>
<p>Change is coming to coasts around the world. We believe that broader understanding of how markets and public policy interact is essential to minimize the social and economic costs of this change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96503/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew G Keeler receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dylan McNamara has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the North Carolina Sea Grant. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Irish receives or has received funding from the National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Sea Grant, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, National Commission on Energy Policy, South Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative, State of Texas Department of Public Safety, and Texas General Land Office. She is a Diplomate of Coastal Engineering and licensed Professional Engineer in New York and in Virginia. She is or has recently been affiliated with the American Society of Civil Engineers, American Geophysical Union, American Shore and Beach Preservation Association, PIANC, and Engineers Without Borders.</span></em></p>Many US coastal towns are building defenses to protect against rising seas and storms. This can encourage people to stay in place when they should be moving inland.Andrew G. Keeler, Professor of Economics and Program Head, Public Policy and Coastal Sustainability, UNC Coastal Studies Institute, East Carolina UniversityDylan McNamara, Professor of Physics and Physical Oceanography, University of North Carolina WilmingtonJennifer Irish, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia TechLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/823622017-08-16T01:40:18Z2017-08-16T01:40:18ZHow subversive artists made thrift shopping cool<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182124/original/file-20170815-29240-1t2h55e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Customers shop during at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation's Out of the Closet thrift store in Columbus, Ohio.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/AIDS-Healthcare-Foundation-Ribbon-Cutting-Colum-/2288bceb240943ec8e8df96cab68977e/78/0">Jay LaPrete/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>National Thrift Shop Day (August 17) exists alongside other quirky holidays like Play Your Ukulele Day (February 2) and Rice Crispy Treat Day (September 18). Though intended as a lighthearted celebration of an acceptable commercial habit, the process of making thrift stores hip involved unusual advocates.</p>
<p>As I describe in my book “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=08cLDgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=from+goodwill+to+grunge&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjPl9qXxtnVAhXq1IMKHSBYDF4Q6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=from%20goodwill%20to%20grunge&f=false">From Goodwill to Grunge</a>,” thrift stores emerged in the late 19th century when Christian-run organizations adopted new models of philanthropy (and helped rehab the image of secondhand stores by dubbing their junk shops “thrift stores”).</p>
<p>There are <a href="https://www.narts.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3285">more than 25,000 resale stores</a> in America. Celebrities <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/celebrities-who-shop-at-thrift-stores/celebrity-lists?var=8&utm_expid=16418821-321.JB5yr2hCTp2WeaBHXzLclg.1&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F">often boast of their secondhand scores</a>, while <a href="https://uncpressblog.com/2017/04/24/jennifer-le-zotte-poppin-tags/">musicians have praised used goods</a> in songs like Fanny Brice’s 1923 hit “Second-Hand Rose” and Macklemore and Ryan’s 2013 chart-topper “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK8mJJJvaes">Thrift Shop.</a>”</p>
<p>Yet over the past 100 years, visual artists probably deserve the most credit for thrift shopping’s place in the cultural milieu.</p>
<p>From sculptor Marcel Duchamp’s <a href="https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/98.291">1917 ready-made urinal</a> to “pope of trash” film director <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Waters">John Waters</a>’ popularization of a trash aesthetic, visual artists have long sought out secondhand goods for creative inspiration, while also using them to critique capitalist ideas.</p>
<h2>Glory in the discarded</h2>
<p>During World War I, avant-garde artists started using discarded objects – stolen or gleaned, or purchased at flea markets and thrift stores – to push back against the growing commercialization of art. André Breton, Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst were among the first to transform cast-aside objects directly into works of art know as “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_object#/media/File:Duchamp_Fountaine.jpg">readymades</a>” or “found objects,” or to channel inspiration from such goods into their <a href="http://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/carringtons_self_portrait_c.1937_8">paintings</a> and writings.</p>
<p>Coinciding with (and emerging from) the anti-art art movement <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=nrC5oQEACAAJ&dq=Dada+movement&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiLro--xtnVAhUJw4MKHd5-DVYQ6AEIOzAE">Dada</a>, which fiercely rejected the logic and aestheticism of capitalism, the movement surrounding that elevation of pre-owned items would soon have a name: Surrealism. </p>
<p>In his 1928 semi-autobiographical work “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=GUP9PswhdKQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=nadja&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwimxo_QvtfVAhVG5oMKHbBWD7YQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=nadja&f=false">Nadja</a>,” Breton, the “father of Surrealism,” describes secondhand shopping as a transcendent experience. Discarded objects, he wrote, were capable of revealing “flashes of light that would make you see, really see.” Exiled by the France’s Vichy government in the 1940s, Breton settled in New York City, where he sought to inspire other artists and writers by taking them to Lower Manhattan thrift stores and flea markets.</p>
<p>While Duchamp’s “Fountain” is perhaps the most well-known piece of sculptural art derived from a found object, his ready-made “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_Wheel">Bicycle Wheel</a>” (1913) appears even earlier. Man Ray’s “<a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/art-between-wars/surrealism1/a/man-ray-the-gift">Gift</a>” (1921) featured an everyday flatiron with a row of brass tacks secured to its surface. While men did seem to dominate Surrealism, recent sources highlight the importance of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsa_von_Freytag-Loringhoven">Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven</a>, whom scholars suggest <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/was-marcel-duchamps-fountain-actually-created-by-a-long-forgotten-pioneering-feminist-10491953.html">may have gifted</a> Duchamp his famed urinal, making the “Fountain” collaboration. The eccentric and talented baroness created “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_(sculpture)">God</a>” (1917), a cast-iron metal plumbing trap turned upside down, the same year Duchamp displayed “Fountain.”</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182120/original/file-20170815-28964-xd27xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182120/original/file-20170815-28964-xd27xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182120/original/file-20170815-28964-xd27xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182120/original/file-20170815-28964-xd27xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182120/original/file-20170815-28964-xd27xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182120/original/file-20170815-28964-xd27xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182120/original/file-20170815-28964-xd27xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 work ‘Fountain.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kulor/4088303823">James Broad</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<h2>An aesthetic of imperfection</h2>
<p>Surrealism enjoyed its greatest renown throughout the 1920s and 1930s, with its precepts covering everything from poetry to <a href="http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/65327.html">fashion</a>.
Then, in the 1950s and 1960s, New York City witnessed the rise of an avant-garde trash aesthetic, which included discarded goods and the resurrection of bygone themes and characters from from the “golden age” of Hollywood film. The style became known as “camp.” </p>
<p>In the early 1960s, the <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/221342/playing_underground">Theatre of the Ridiculous</a>, an underground, avant-garde genre of theater production, flourished in New York. Largely inspired by Surrealism, Ridiculous broke with dominant trends of naturalistic acting and realistic settings. Prominent elements included gender-bending parodies of classic themes and proudly gaudy stylization. </p>
<p>The genre notably relied on secondhand materials for costumes and sets. Actor, artist, photographer and underground filmmaker <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=qt_GBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT154&dq=%22jack+smith%22+theatre&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjgv-TsxNnVAhVH1oMKHQdpCaQQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=%22jack%20smith%22%20theatre&f=false">Jack Smith</a> is seen as the “father of the style.” His work created and typified the Ridiculous sensibility, and he had a near-obsessive reliance on secondhand materials. As Smith <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=08cLDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA185&lpg=PA185&dq=jack+smith+%22art+is+one+big+thrift+shop%22&source=bl&ots=mRA-BmFZUQ&sig=d7zxK25fA1PrWu1nu6C1FZkV3wQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiao82BxdnVAhUC04MKHeciCksQ6AEIKzAB#v=onepage&q=jack%20smith%20%22art%20is%20one%20big%20thrift%20shop%22&f=false">once said</a>, “Art is one big thrift shop.”</p>
<p>He’s probably best known for his sexually graphic 1963 film “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054880/">Flaming Creatures</a>.” Shocking censors with close-ups of flaccid penises and jiggling breasts, the film became ground zero in the anti-porn battles. Its surrealist displays of odd sexual interactions between men, women, transvestites and a hermaphrodite culminated in a drug-fueled orgy. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A scene from ‘Flaming Creatures.’</span></figcaption>
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<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CgpLAQAAIAAJ&q=Jack+Smith,+Flaming+Creature:+His+Amazing+Life+and+Times&dq=Jack+Smith,+Flaming+Creature:+His+Amazing+Life+and+Times&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW5fSYxdnVAhUl94MKHedOBlIQ6AEIKDAA">According to Smith</a>, “Flaming Creatures” was met with disapproval not because of its sex acts, but because of its aesthetic of imperfection, including the use of old clothes. To Smith, the choice of torn, outdated clothing was a greater form of subversion than the absence of clothing.</p>
<p>As Susan Sontag points out in <a href="http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Sontag-NotesOnCamp-1964.html">her famous assessment of camp</a>, the genre isn’t merely a light, mocking sensibility. Rather, it’s a critique of what’s accepted and what isn’t. Smith’s work rebutted the reflexive habit of artists to strive for newness and novelty, and helped popularize a queer aesthetic that continued in bands like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Dolls">The New York Dolls</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana">Nirvana</a>. A long list of artists <a href="https://mubi.com/films/jack-smith-and-the-destruction-of-atlantis">cite Smith</a> as an inspiration, from Andy Warhol and Patti Smith to Lou Reed and David Lynch.</p>
<h2>Beglittered and begowned</h2>
<p>In 1969, items from Smith’s enormous cache of secondhand items, including gowns from the 1920s and piles of boas, found their ways into the wardrobes of a San Francisco psychedelic drag troupe, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TQPXAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA654&dq=the+cockettes&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiKv4q6xdnVAhUW24MKHehcDKQQ6AEIQjAF#v=onepage&q=the%20cockettes&f=false">the Cockettes</a>. The group enjoyed a year of wild popularity – even scoring a much-anticipated New York City showing – as much for their thrifted costuming as for their quirky satirical productions. The term “genderfuck” came to signify the group’s aesthetic of bearded men, beglittered and begowned, a style encapsulated by the Cockettes’ storied leader, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/magazine/karma-chameleon.html">Hibiscus</a>.</p>
<p>The Cockettes split the next year over a dispute about charging admission, but members continued to influence American culture and style. Former Cockettes member <a href="http://www.oocities.org/westhollywood/heights/2493/syl3.jpg">Sylvester</a> would become a disco star, and one of the first openly gay top-billing musicians. A later Cockettes member, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_(performer)">Divine</a>, became John Waters’ acclaimed muse, starring in a string of “trash films” – including “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095270/">Hairspray</a>,” which grossed US$8 million domestically – that very nearly took Ridiculous theater mainstream. By then, a queer, trash aesthetic that relied on secondhand goods became a symbol of rebellion and an expression of creativity for countless middle-class kids.</p>
<p>For many today, thrift shopping is a hobby. For some, it’s a vehicle <a href="https://uncpressblog.com/2017/03/30/jennifer-le-zotte-target-thrift-stores/">to disrupt oppressive ideas about gender and sexuality</a>. And for others, thrifting is a way to reuse and recycle, a way to subtly subvert mainstream capitalism (though some mammoth thrift chains with <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/07/30/does-goodwill-industries-exploit-disabled-workers/">controversial labor practices</a> tend to reap the greatest monetary benefits). </p>
<p>Leading the charge, artists have connected secondhand wares with individual creativity and commercial disdain. What started with the surrealists continues today with the hipsters, vintage lovers and grad students who celebrate the outré options and cost-saving potential of discarded goods.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82362/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Le Zotte does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Over the past 100 years, discarded and secondhand goods have been used by artists to reject mainstream aesthetics.Jennifer Le Zotte, Assistant Professor of Material Culture and History, University of North Carolina WilmingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/665032016-10-10T13:18:45Z2016-10-10T13:18:45ZSeagrass is a marine powerhouse, so why isn’t it on the world’s conservation agenda?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140383/original/image-20161004-20235-e5pohk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Seagrass meadows are often overlooked by the public but vital to the ocean ecosystem.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ben Jones</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Seagrass has been around <a href="http://www.seagrasswatch.org/seagrass.html">since dinosaurs roamed the earth</a>, it is responsible for keeping the world’s coastlines clean and healthy, and supports many different species of animal, including humans. And yet, it is often overlooked, regarded as merely an innocuous feature of the ocean.</p>
<p>But the fact is that this plant is vital – and it is for that reason that the <a href="http://wsa.seagrassonline.org">World Seagrass Association</a> has issued a <a href="http://wsa.seagrassonline.org/securing-a-future-for-seagrass/">consensus statement</a>, signed by <a href="http://wsa.seagrassonline.org/securing-a-future-for-seagrass-signatories/">115 scientists</a> from 25 countries, stating that these important ecosystems can no longer be ignored on the conservation agenda. Seagrass is part of a marginalised ecosystem that must be increasingly managed, protected and monitored – and needs urgent attention now.</p>
<p>Seagrass meadows are of <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-the-love-of-cod-lets-save-our-disappearing-seagrass-33196">fundamental importance to human life</a>. They exist on the coastal fringes of almost every continent on earth, where seagrass and its associated biodiversity supports fisheries’ productivity. These flowering plants are the powerhouses of the sea, creating life in otherwise unproductive muddy environments. The meadows they form stabilise sediments, filter vast quantities of nutrients and provide one of the planet’s most efficient <a href="https://theconversation.com/seagrass-is-a-huge-carbon-store-but-will-government-value-it-17878">oceanic stores of carbon</a>.</p>
<p>But the habitat seagrasses create is suffering due to the impact of humans: poor water quality, coastal development, boating and destructive fishing are all resulting in seagrass loss and degradation. This leads in turn to the loss of most of the fish and invertebrate populations that the meadows support. The green turtle, dugong and species of seahorse, for example, all rely on seagrass for food and shelter, and loss endangers their viability. The plants are important fish nurseries and key fishing grounds. Losing them puts the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people at risk too, and exposes them to increasing levels of poverty. </p>
<h2>Rapid loss</h2>
<p>There is <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/106/30/12377.full.pdf">clear, extensive evidence</a> of the rapid loss of seagrass. Growing historic, recent and current records show degradation and fragmentation of the plant around the world. In Biscayne Bay, Florida, for example, 2.6km² of seagrass disappeared <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/maec.12259">between 1938 and 2009</a>. Up to <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272771415001663">38% of the seagrass in a lagoon</a> in the south of France may have been lost since the 1920s. The nearshore waters of Singapore has lost some <a href="https://research.jcu.edu.au/tropwater/publications/Courageunderfireseagrasspersistence.pdf">45% over the past 50 years</a>. Similar examples have been <a href="http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v548/p31-45/">reported in Canada</a>, the <a href="http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royopensci/3/1/150596.full.pdf">British Isles</a> and <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj7hpScscbPAhVsB8AKHXmPBX0QFggeMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.plos.org%2Fplosone%2Farticle%3Fid%3D10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0090600&usg=AFQjCNFoVj2V7_yKAuJm1uzanGTyRz-4Ng">the Caribbean</a> too. </p>
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<p>Even the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park has suffered <a href="http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/21743/VA-Seagrass-31-7-12.pdf">periods of widespread decline</a> and loss of seagrass over the past decade, particularly along its central and southern developed coasts; a consequence of multiple years of above average rainfall, poor water quality, and climate-related impacts followed by extreme weather events. The most recent <a href="http://elibrary.gbrmpa.gov.au/jspui/handle/11017/2976">published monitoring surveys</a> show that the majority of inshore seagrass meadows across the reef – which cover some 3,063 km² – remain in a vulnerable state, with weak resistance, low abundance and a low capacity to recover.</p>
<h2>Human impact</h2>
<p>As the human population grows and the world economy expands, there will be increasing pressure on our coastal zone. And it must be ensured that this doesn’t negatively influence seagrass meadows. It is already recognised that poor water quality, specifically elevated nutrients, is the <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/7/2/024006/meta">biggest threat to seagrasses</a>; these problems are particularly acute in many developing nations with rapidly growing economies, such as Indonesia, where municipal infrastructure is often limited and environmental legislation is largely weak. </p>
<p>Coastal development is a competition for finite space: boating, tourism, aquaculture, ports, energy projects and housing are all placing pressures on seagrass survival. These threats exist with a backdrop of the impacts of environmental change and sea level rise too. Humans must reduce their local-scale impact on seagrass so that it can remain resilient to longer term environmental stressors.</p>
<p>There can be a bright future for this oceanic plant, however. Across the world, communities, NGOs and governments are beginning to embrace the monitoring of meadows. As knowledge of the plants’ ecology improves, conservationists are learning more about how to successfully restore seagrass meadows: <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/water/tampa-bay-seagrass-beds-expand-show-water-is-now-as-clean-as-it-was-in-1950/2229442">Tampa Bay</a> in Florida and <a href="http://www.vims.edu/research/topics/sav/ts_list/eelgrass_restoration.php">Virginia’s bays</a>, for example, have seen genuine large scale recovery. We also now have greater appreciation for the value of seagrass in the global carbon cycle, and governments are more willing to include its conservation in ways to mitigate carbon emissions. Though commendable, these are just the first steps on a course of targeted strategic action.</p>
<p>As the <a href="http://wsa.seagrassonline.org/securing-a-future-for-seagrass/">WSA statement calls</a>, seagrass meadows must be put at the forefront of marine conservation today. We need to <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.12637/abstract">increase its resilience</a> by improving coastal water quality, prevent damage from destructive fishing practices and boating, include seagrasses in Marine Protected Areas and ensure that fisheries aren’t over exploited. Seagrasses also need to be managed effectively during coastal developments, and steps taken to ensure recovery and restoration in areas where losses have occurred.</p>
<p>The scientific community must be more united, not only in its work, but in engaging more actively with the general public, coastal managers and conservation agencies too. Seagrass ecosystems must fully pervade policy around the globe too, as well as the consciousness of our global coastal communities. For the sake of future generations we need to work together to ensure the survival of the world’s seagrass meadows now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66503/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard K.F. Unsworth is a director of Project Seagrass and President of the World Seagrass Association.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessie Jarvis is affiliated with the World Seagrass Association Inc (Treasurer) and the Atlantic Estuarine Research Society (Treasurer). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Len McKenzie receives funding from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. He is affiliated with the World Seagrass Association (Secretary) and Seagrass-Watch (Director) </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike van Keulen is affiliated with the World Seagrass Association (Vice President). He receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation. </span></em></p>Seagrass is more than just a bit of sea greenery.Richard K.F. Unsworth, Research Officer (Marine Ecology), Swansea UniversityJessie Jarvis, Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina WilmingtonLen McKenzie, Principal Researcher, James Cook UniversityMike van Keulen, Senior Lecturer in Plant Sciences and Marine Biology, Murdoch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/652672016-09-22T17:11:53Z2016-09-22T17:11:53ZAssessing the risk from Africa as Libya loses its chemical weapons<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138483/original/image-20160920-12483-hu9bm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The threat of chemical weapon attacks is on the rise globally.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Ueslei Marcelino</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Libya’s remaining chemical weapons left over from the Gaddafi regime are now being safely <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37308753">disposed</a> of in a German facility. This eliminates the risk of them falling into the wrong hands. But can these same hands acquire weapons of mass destruction from the rest of Africa?</p>
<p>Weapons of mass destruction are commonly broken into four categories: chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.opcw.org/about-chemical-weapons/what-is-a-chemical-weapon">Chemical agents</a> include choking agents (chlorine), blister agents (mustard), blood agents (hydrogen cyanide and nerve agents as well as sarin or VX). Biological weapons involve a microorganism such as bacteria (anthrax is an example), fungi or a virus (such as smallpox) and <a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/bio_tox.htm">toxins</a>. <a href="http://www.nti.org/learn/radiological/">Radiological attack</a> material is usually combined with radioactive material in conventional explosives while a full nuclear detention involves fission. </p>
<p>There is limited open source information on African countries’ current biological and chemical weapons programmes. And all African countries, with just two exceptions- Egypt and South Sudan - have signed the <a href="https://www.opcw.org/chemical-weapons-convention/">Chemical Weapons Convention</a> which commits countries to destroy all stockpiles. No African state <a href="http://nwp.ilpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Africa-nuclear-weapons.pdf">at the moment</a> possesses nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>State-owned stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction on the continent are therefore not the biggest threat. Rather there is growing <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2015/01/dual-use-traders-the-real-wmd-threat-in-southeast-asia/">concern</a> about dual-use goods. These are materials that are primarily produced for peaceful purposes but can also be used for deadly purposes. </p>
<p>Examples include chemical products used by industry such as herbicides or pesticides that can be turned into weapons or biological agents created using your typical research lab equipment. For example, Australian <a href="https://www.amacad.org/content/publications/pubContent.aspx?d=22233">researchers</a> exploring ways to control the mouse population unexpectedly produced a lethal mousepox virus.</p>
<p>Governments often have limited knowledge of chemical production since it is the preserve of the private sector. Often these facilities are not as well secured as government facilities.</p>
<p>Kenya, with the help of the US, has just taken steps to prevent terrorists laying their hands on biomedical toxins that could be used to make <a href="http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Research-labs-set-for-Sh1-7bn-upgrade-to-avert-terror-attack/539546-3381412-135ih62/">biological weapons</a>. The country has been the target of deadly attacks by al-Shabaab terrorists in <a href="https://theconversation.com/making-sense-of-horrific-violence-in-kenya-39746">recent times</a>. </p>
<h2>What is known</h2>
<p>Egypt <a href="http://fas.org/nuke/guide/egypt/nuke/">decided</a> to concentrate on increasing conventional forces, and chemical and biological weapons, rather than nuclear weapons. It is also one of the few states to <a href="http://www.nti.org/learn/countries/egypt/">have used</a> chemical weapons in wartime in the 1960s. In the 1980s Egypt <a href="http://www.idsa.in/cbwmagazine/CBWinEgyptandLibya_DanyShoham">intensified</a> its biological activity, working closely with Iraq. Information on its current programmes is limited. </p>
<p>The country has been very vocal on the subject of the Chemical Weapons <a href="https://www.opcw.org/chemical-weapons-convention/">Convention</a>. It justifies the fact that it has not signed the convention <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-ratifying-the-chemical-weapons-convention-is-in-israels-best-interest-63889">on the grounds that</a> Israel has also not ratified it. </p>
<p>South Sudan is the only other remaining African country that’s not party to the convention. The newly established country was believed to be on the receiving end of chemical weapons attacks in early 2016. The <a href="http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article57879">accusation</a> was that the Sudanese Army used such weapons during fighting in the Lanyi and Mundri areas. The UN Mission in South Sudan <a href="https://radiotamazuj.org/en/article/unmiss-says-no-evidence-chemical-weapons-use-mundri">investigated</a> and declared no signs of chemical weapons and that smoke inhaled by children may have come from either conventional weapons or teargas. </p>
<p>Sudan was believed at one point to be <a href="http://bio-defencewarfareanalyst.blogspot.com/2014/05/up-comingsudans-pursuit-of-biological.html">pursuing</a> biological weapons and to <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2001/10/were_the_sudanese_making_chemical_weapons.html">possess</a> VX nerve gas. But open source evidence is inconclusive. </p>
<h2>The case of Libya</h2>
<p>Unlike its chemical weapons programme, Libya’s biological weapons never really came to life.</p>
<p>It <a href="http://www.idsa.in/cbwmagazine/CBWinEgyptandLibya_DanyShoham#footnoteref23_o6dongg">allegedly</a> sought assistance for the programme from countries like Cuba and Pakistan, and tried to recruit apartheid era South African scientists. American and British specialists invited to Libya in 2003 <a href="http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/78338.pdf">found</a> no concrete evidence of an ongoing biological effort. </p>
<p>Libya was more successful in its nuclear programme, which Gaddafi gave up in 2003. The last of Libya’s highly enriched uranium left the country on a Russian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-cables-libya-enriched-uranium">chartered plane</a> on December 21 2009. </p>
<p>The country retains a stockpile of natural uranium ore concentrate, also known as yellow cake, which is stored in a former military facility near Sebha in the south of the country. According to the <a href="http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2015/257522.htm">US State Department</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>(the risk of trafficking and proliferation of this material is low, due to) the bulk and weight of the storage containers and the need for extensive additional processing before the material would be suitable for weapons purposes. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Nuclear on the continent</h2>
<p>Today, highly enriched uranium is an extremely rare commodity in Africa. Since Libya’s clean out in 2009, only Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa <a href="http://www.fmwg.org/fmwg_wg_2015/HEU_Free_Zone_Report_FINAL.pdf">still have</a> stocks. Ghana and Nigeria each possess less than 1 kilogram.</p>
<p>During the apartheid era in South Africa the government’s <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/inside-dr-deaths-laboratory">Project Coast</a> focused on the development of chemical weapons and various drugs like mandrax. South Africa developed <a href="https://www.issafrica.org/about-us/press-releases/understanding-south-africas-past-nuclear-weapons-programme">six and a half nuclear bombs</a> that were eventually dismantled. South Africa’s Pelindaba research centre still houses large quantities of weapons grade material. </p>
<p>Other nuclear facilities in Africa do exist. Of the world’s <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/non-power-nuclear-applications/radioisotopes-research/research-reactors.aspx">243 operational</a> research reactors, only 10 are in Africa. This includes research reactors typically found at universities. Their lower enriched nuclear material can be used to make a dirty radiological bomb.</p>
<h2>Non-state actors and less secure spaces</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.fmwg.org/2015-_Nuclear_and_WMD_proliferation__A_View_from_Algeria__Arslan_Chikhaoui-8_August_2015_.pdf">Intelligence reports</a> have indicated that groups such as Al Qaeda in the Maghreb have made multiple attempts to manufacture materials for weapons of mass destruction.</p>
<p>Analysts also envision militants known as <a href="http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2014/10/05/ebola-as-isis-bio-weapon/&refURL=&referrer=#1775c9f01c7b">suicide infectors</a> visiting an area with an infectious disease outbreak like Ebola to purposely infect themselves and then using air travel to carry out the attack. Reports from 2009 <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/algeria/4287469/Black-Death-kills-al-Qaeda-operatives-in-Algeria.html">show</a> 40 al-Qaeda linked militants being killed by the plague at a training camp in Algeria. There were claims that they were developing the disease as a weapon. </p>
<p>Islamic State has already <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/315025-islamic-state-chemical-weapons/">produced</a> and used toxic chemicals such as mustard and chlorine gas. In Africa, an Islamic State cell in Morocco was <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/isis-cell-had-been-preparing-chemical-attack-in-morocco-a6886121.html">planning</a> an attack involving six jars of sulphur-containing chemical fertiliser which when heated can release a fatally toxic gas and possibly the tetanus toxin. According to Iraqi and US intelligence officials, Islamic State is aggressively <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/officials-islamic-state-seeking-chemical-weapons/">pursuing</a> further development of chemical weapons and has set up a branch dedicated to research and experiments using scientists from throughout the Middle East. </p>
<p>The disposal of Libya’s chemical weapons has lowered the risk of weapons of mass destruction in Africa. But we have seen how far non-state actors are willing to go to either produce or steal such weapons. </p>
<p>The threat they pose cannot be ignored. African countries, with help from bilateral partners and the international community, has <a href="http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/1540/ISSAfricanpespectivesof1540.pdf">broadened</a> its nonproliferation focus. It will need to keep doing so if the goal is to effectively counter this threat.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65267/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Firsing does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Governments often have limited knowledge of chemical production as it is the preserve of the private sector. Often these facilities are not as well secured as government facilities.Scott Firsing, Adjunct professor, University of North Carolina WilmingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/619302016-08-16T04:38:34Z2016-08-16T04:38:34ZComment des scientifiques trop pressés ont fait croire à une invasion de méduses<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133234/original/image-20160805-501-ihbg4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Méduses bleues.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_jellyfish.jpg">ProjectManhattan/Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Quand est-ce qu’une invasion de méduses n’est pas (nécessairement) une invasion de méduses ? Lorsque des scientifiques, faute de temps, citent des textes de façon sélective pour faire croire que les océans sont noyés de méduses – même si le fait est loin d’être clair.</p>
<p>Pourquoi des scientifiques débordés se préoccupent-ils de population de méduses ? Commençons par le commencement.</p>
<p>L’identification de modèles et de tendances existant dans la nature se réalise en accumulant les observations pertinentes, publiées dans des rapports scientifiques. Les modèles qui émergent, une fois mis à jour, sont en général décrits dans des articles de revues, ce qui provoque souvent une intense activité de recherche dans le domaine en question. Finalement, on teste lesdits modèles grâce à des « méta-analyses » de textes publiés : ainsi, soit on confirme le modèle et on l’érige en théorie, soit on le réfute.</p>
<p>Ce cheminement, qui va des observations premières à la théorie, on peut le suivre à travers tout un réseau de citations. Cependant, la science est faite par les humains et la pratique des citations <a href="http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v408/p299-303/">est sujette</a>) à des erreurs dues à des biais et à des inexactitudes. Les citations employées qui sont biaisées dans une direction donnée risquent de conduire à de faux modèles et à une théorie défectueuse.</p>
<h2>Et voilà les méduses</h2>
<p>Dans les années 1990 et 2000, des communications ont commencé à apparaître dans la littérature scientifique, concernant des populations accrues de méduses dans certaines parties des océans du globe. Selon <a href="https://faculty.washington.edu/cemills/jellyblooms2001.pdf">diverses publications</a>, la possibilité de l’éclosion de méduses pourrait avoir globalement augmenté. Au fil du temps, ces textes sont devenus de <a href="http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v350/p153-174/">plus en plus affirmatifs</a> en faveur de l’existence et de l’étendue du phénomène. Au point que des chercheurs se demandaient que faire face à l’<a href="http://www.swansea.ac.uk/bs/turtle/reprints/Richardson%20et%20al%202009%20TREE%20-%20The%20Jellyfish%20Joyride.pdf">état de plus en plus « gélatineux »</a> des océans de la planète.</p>
<p>Deux méta-analyses ont cherché à savoir si ce boom mondial des méduses était ou non réel et elles aboutirent à des conclusions opposées. Une <a href="http://www.everythingconnects.org/uploads/7/0/3/5/7035190/art3a10.10072fs10750-012-1039-71.pdf">étude de 2012</a> avait conclu que les populations de méduses augmentaient globalement car on avait trouvé des preuves de cette surpopulation dans 62 % des grands écosystèmes marins (mais les deux tiers de ces écosystèmes étaient sujets à caution). L’année suivante, une <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23277544">autre étude</a> estima que seules 30 % de ces populations de méduses étaient en augmentation. Elle concluait qu’au cours de plusieurs décennies, les groupes avaient crû et décru/
Ainsi, la communauté scientifique est toujours divisée quant à l’augmentation globale et durable du nombre de méduses.</p>
<h2>Des citations maltraitées</h2>
<p>Nous avons voulu savoir si la perception d’un accroissement global de la floraison de méduses était due, au moins en partie, à des pratiques médiocres en matière de citations dans la littérature scientifique.
Notre recherche, publiée dans <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/geb.12474/abstract"><em>Global Ecology and Biogeography</em></a>, indique qu’il s’agit bien de cela.</p>
<p>Les citations peuvent être défectueuses de plusieurs façons :</p>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>Certaines citations ne reposent sur rien</strong> quand les auteurs se réfèrent à des sources qui ne comportent aucune preuve à l’appui de leur point de vue.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Certaines citations sont sélectives</strong> : quand un article est cité, elles sont choisies juste pour aller dans le sens de la démonstration alors que, dans le même article, des preuves contraires sont ignorées. Ou alors, les auteurs appellent à la rescousse des articles antérieurs qui ont, depuis, été rejetés.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Certaines citations s’avèrent ambiguës</strong> quand la phrase de l’auteur contient de multiples expressions, mais quand celles utilisées à l’appui de chaque propos sont regroupées à la fin de la phrase, si bien qu’on ne sait plus quoi est quoi.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Certaines citations sont complètement vides</strong> quand les auteurs se réfèrent à un article qui lui-même cite un autre article comme preuve renforçant la thèse soutenue, au lieu de la source originale (ce qu’on appelle aussi le « syndrome de l’auteur paresseux »).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Bien évidemment, nous avons cherché dans la littérature scientifique des articles publiés avant les deux méta-analyses qui se prononçaient sur les mouvements de méduses. Nous avons classé chaque déclaration selon ses affirmations et ce à quoi elle tendait (c’est-à-dire les méduses sont « en augmentation », « peut-être en augmentation », « en diminution » ou « pas de certitude »). Dans le même temps, nous avons étudié ce qu’elle estimait être le périmètre géographique (global, dans de multiples régions ou dans une seule région).</p>
<p>Nous avons ensuite évalué les articles cités en tant que preuves de l’affirmation en question, pour voir si les citations se vérifiaient, ou si elles relevaient de l’une des catégories de textes biaisés examinés plus haut.</p>
<h2>Une fable suspecte qui nous laisse… médusés !</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133240/original/image-20160805-505-gjd68j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133240/original/image-20160805-505-gjd68j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133240/original/image-20160805-505-gjd68j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133240/original/image-20160805-505-gjd68j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133240/original/image-20160805-505-gjd68j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133240/original/image-20160805-505-gjd68j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133240/original/image-20160805-505-gjd68j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Quelle salade (ces articles discordant sur les méduses) ! Mais ça n’empêche pas de les manger.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jellyfish_as_food#/media/File:Nom_sua.JPG">Bình Giang/Wikipédia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sur les 159 articles qui se sont prononcés à propos des mouvements des méduses, 61 % affirmaient qu’ils étaient en croissance numérique (dont 27 % à une échelle globale et 34 % dans des régions multiples) ; alors que 25 % des articles affirmaient que ces populations étaient « peut-être » en augmentation. Seulement 10 % des textes estimaient ces données équivoques. Et un seul affirmait que les populations de méduses diminuaient (mais à une échelle locale).</p>
<p>Plus inquiétant : seulement 51 % des articles cités apportaient une preuve non ambiguë aux thèses émises par les auteurs. Presque toutes les déclarations à base de citations pas solides étaient celles qui se prononçaient en faveur d’une multiplication des méduses (en dépit du fait qu’il aurait été impossible de parler de tendances globales avant que la première méta-analyse globale ait été publiée en 2012). Et, dans tous les cas, des citations sélectives étaient manipulées afin d’aller dans le sens de cette augmentation quantitative de méduses.</p>
<p>La pression pour publier dans des revues prestigieuses et recueillir des fonds en faveur de leur recherche peut conduire certains scientifiques à des affirmations surpassant de beaucoup les preuves dont ils disposent. Néanmoins, dans la plupart des cas, les erreurs de citations ne relèvent pas de tentatives manifestes de déformer la vérité. Plus probablement, elles surviennent à cause d’une charge croissante de travail qui réduit le temps disponible nécessaire pour évaluer correctement les articles et se tenir au courant de l’<a href="http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v408/p299-303/">augmentation presque exponentielle</a> du volume de la littérature publiée.</p>
<p>En tant que scientifiques, nous devons nous assurer que nos affirmations s’appuient toujours sur des preuves irréfutables. Il est clair que, dans le domaine de la littérature, la mauvaise pratique des citations – et, en particulier, des citations sélectives – risque de fausser les perceptions à l’intérieur d’un domaine de recherche.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61930/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob Condon a reçu des financements du US National Science Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carlos M. Duarte, Cathy Lucas, Charles Novaes de Santana, Kylie Pitt et Marina Sanz-Martín ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur poste universitaire.</span></em></p>La « théorie de l’océan gluant » où les méduses envahiraient les mers du globe n’est pas très rigoureuse… Leçon de science.Kylie Pitt, Associate Professor, Griffith UniversityCarlos M. Duarte, Adjunct professor, King Abdullah University of Science and TechnologyCathy Lucas, Associate Professor, Marine Biology & Ecology Research Group (MBERG), University of SouthamptonCharles Novaes de Santana, Postdoctoral research associate, University of ZurichMarina Sanz-Martín, PhD Student, Department of Global Change Research, Mediterranean Institute of Advanced Studies, Universitat de BarcelonaRob Condon, Assistant Professor in Biological Oceanography, University of North Carolina WilmingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/615642016-06-27T05:02:35Z2016-06-27T05:02:35ZHow time-poor scientists inadvertently made it seem like the world was overrun with jellyfish<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127994/original/image-20160624-30263-1jknmgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A plague, or just an artefact?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jacob Gruythuysen</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When is a jellyfish plague not (necessarily) a jellyfish plague? When time-poor scientists selectively cite the literature to make it look like the oceans are flooded with jellies – even when it’s far from clear that they really are.</p>
<p>What does scientists being in a rush have to do with jellyfish populations? Let’s start from the beginning. </p>
<p>The identification of patterns and trends in nature happens through the accumulation of consistent observations, published in scientific reports. Once observed, the emerging patterns are usually reported in narrative reviews, which often stimulates a flurry of research activity in that field.</p>
<p>Eventually, the purported patterns are formally tested using “meta-analyses” of the published literature, to either confirm the pattern and establish it as theory, or refute it. </p>
<p>This path from the primary observations to theory can be traced through a network of citations.</p>
<p>Science, however, is done by humans and citation practices are subject to <a href="http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v408/p299-303/">errors of bias and accuracy</a>. Citation practices that are biased in a particular direction have the potential to lead to the identification of false patterns and flawed theory.</p>
<h2>Enter the jellies</h2>
<p>In the 1990s and 2000s, reports began to appear in the scientific literature of increased jellyfish populations in some parts of the world’s oceans. Various <a href="https://faculty.washington.edu/cemills/jellyblooms2001.pdf">reviews</a> reported the possibility that jellyfish blooms might be increasing globally. Over time, these became <a href="http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v350/p153-174/">increasingly assertive</a> about the existence and extent of the trend, until researchers were asking what to do about the increasingly “<a href="http://www.swansea.ac.uk/bs/turtle/reprints/Richardson%20et%20al%202009%20TREE%20-%20The%20Jellyfish%20Joyride.pdf">gelatinous state</a>” of the oceans worldwide. </p>
<p>The question of whether the global jellyfish boom was real or not was tested by two meta-analyses – which came to opposite conclusions. A <a href="http://www.everythingconnects.org/uploads/7/0/3/5/7035190/art3a10.10072fs10750-012-1039-71.pdf">2012 study</a> concluded that populations were increasing globally because they found evidence for increasing populations in 62% of large marine ecosystems tested (although low certainty was assigned to two-thirds of these). The following year, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23277544">another study</a> found that only 30% of populations were increasing. It concluded that jellyfish populations wax and wane over several decades. </p>
<p>So, in reality, the scientific community is still divided over whether there really has been a sustained global increase in jellyfish numbers.</p>
<h2>What about perception?</h2>
<p>We wanted to know whether the perception of a global increase in jellyfish blooms was at least partly due to poor citation practices in the scientific literature. Our research, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/geb.12474/abstract">published in Global Ecology and Biogeography</a>, suggests that it was.</p>
<p>Citation practices can be flawed in several ways:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>Unsupported citations</strong> are when authors cite sources that contain no evidence that could possibly support the author’s claim.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Selective citations</strong> happen when a paper is cited to support a claim but contrasting evidence provided in the same paper is ignored, or when authors choose to cite earlier papers that have since been refuted.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Ambiguous citations</strong> happen when an author’s sentence contains multiple phrases, but the citations used to support each phrase are clustered at the end of the sentence, preventing readers from telling which is which.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Empty citations</strong> are when authors cite a paper that cites another paper as evidence for the claim, rather than the original source (also called “lazy author syndrome”).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>We comprehensively searched the literature for papers, published before the two meta-analyses, that issued statements regarding trends in jellyfish populations. We classified each statement according to its affirmation and direction (that is, whether it said jellyfish are “increasing”, “may be increasing”, “decreasing”, or “not sure”), as well as their geographic extent (global, multiple regions, or one region). </p>
<p>We then assessed the papers cited as evidence of the statement, to see whether the citations were accurate or whether they fell into one of the categories of flawed citations outlined above.</p>
<h2>A (jelly)fishy tale?</h2>
<p>Of 159 papers that had issued statements about trends in jellyfish, 61% claimed that populations were increasing (27% at the global scale and 34% in multiple regions) and 25% asserted that populations <em>may</em> be increasing. Only 10% of papers said the data were equivocal. Just one reported that populations were decreasing (but at a local scale).</p>
<p>Most concerning was that only 51% of papers cited were considered to provide unambiguous support for the statements made by the authors. Almost all statements based on unsupportive citations were those claiming that jellyfish were increasing globally (despite the fact that it would have been impossible to make any claims about global trends before the first global meta-analysis was published in 2012). And in all cases, selective citations were biased towards claims that jellyfish populations were increasing.</p>
<p>Pressure to publish in prestigious journals and win research funds may lead some scientists to make claims that reach beyond the evidence available. In most cases, however, citation errors are not overt attempts to distort the evidence. Rather, they probably arise because increasing academic workloads reduce the time available to evaluate papers accurately and to keep abreast of the <a href="http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v408/p299-303/">almost exponential increase in the volume of literature being published</a>. </p>
<p>As scientists, we need to ensure that our claims are always supported by robust evidence because it is apparent that poor citation practices – and, in particular, selective citation of the literature – can distort perceptions within a research field.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61564/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob Condon receives funding from US National Science Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carlos M. Duarte, Cathy Lucas, Charles Novaes de Santana, Kylie Pitt, and Marina Sanz-Martín do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How flawed citation practices can perpetuate scientific ideas even before they’ve been fully established as true.Kylie Pitt, Associate Professor, Griffith UniversityCarlos M. Duarte, Adjunct professor, King Abdullah University of Science and TechnologyCathy Lucas, Associate Professor, Marine Biology & Ecology Research Group (MBERG), University of SouthamptonCharles Novaes de Santana, Postdoctoral research associate, University of ZurichMarina Sanz-Martín, Researcher, Department of Global Change Research, Universitat de BarcelonaRob Condon, Assistant Professor in Biological Oceanography, University of North Carolina WilmingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/534702016-01-22T05:56:49Z2016-01-22T05:56:49ZL’Afrique façonne son avenir nucléaire (avec Moscou et Pékin)<p>Nombre de pays africains entretiennent une <a href="http://venturesafrica.com/is-nuclear-the-latest-energy-fad-in-africa/">lubie nucléaire</a>. Les États possédant des programmes relatifs à cette énergie sont perçus comme prospères et technologiquement en pointe, jouissant ainsi d’un statut plus enviable que les autres pays en voie de développement. Le nucléaire n’est pas une nouveauté en Afrique. Il est apparu dès les années 1950 lorsque la République démocratique du Congo se dota du premier <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2007-04-18-drc-nuclear-reactor-seen-as-national-pride">réacteur nucléaire</a>. Aujourd’hui, de nombreux pays du continent prévoient de développer des programmes autour de cette énergie.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.iaea.org/OurWork/ST/NE/NEFW/Technical-Areas/RRS/documents/RR_in_Africa.pdf">On compte</a> à l’heure actuelle une douzaine de réacteurs nucléaires de recherche dans huit pays africains, l’<a href="http://www.nti.org/country-profiles/south-africa/nuclear/">Afrique du Sud</a> étant le seul à posséder une centrale en activité. Mais la liste des pays qui veulent y accéder est <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/can-africa-go-nuclear-energy-demands-battle-safety-concerns-across-continent-1359279">longue</a>. Les États subsahariens du <a href="http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/P1500_CD_Web/htm/pdf/topic2/2S03_B.J.B.%20Nyarko.pdf">Ghana</a>, du <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-16/niger-mulls-nuclear-power-plant-to-exploit-its-uranium-resources">Niger</a> et de l’<a href="http://www.dundee.ac.uk/cepmlp/gateway/index.php?news=32459">Ouganda</a> ont ainsi manifesté un intérêt pour la construction de telles centrales. En Afrique du Nord, l’<a href="http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Algeria-may-get-Russian-reactor-0409201401.html">Algérie</a>, le <a href="http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2015/10/170945/iaea-experts-to-study-potential-of-nuclear-power-in-morocco/">Maroc</a> et la <a href="http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Russia-and-Tunisia-sign-nuclear-MOU-02061503.html">Tunisie</a> ont des projets similaires.</p>
<h2>Pourquoi le nucléaire ?</h2>
<p>Le développement économique du continent africain dépend de multiples facteurs : la stabilité politique, la sécurité, l’éducation et l’électricité. La bonne nouvelle, c’est que l’Afrique a <a href="https://www.iaea.org/OurWork/ST/NE/Pess/assets/un-energy_africa_pub.pdf">des options</a> sur le plan énergétique, du très critiqué charbon aux plus fréquentables gaz naturel, énergie géothermique ou renouvelable. Plusieurs pays africains ont privilégié une approche diversifiée où le nucléaire occupe une position centrale.</p>
<p>Les <a href="http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2012/04/23/africa-brics-aka-kensa/">poids lourds</a> du continent, le Kenya, le Nigeria et l’Afrique du Sud, montrent le chemin. Ces pays ont mis sur pied des plans à long terme pour faire décoller leur croissance économique. Et même des pays très riches en hydrocarbures comme le Nigeria recherchent une stabilité et une sécurité énergétiques face à des prix du pétroles fluctuants. Une équipe d’experts de l’Agence internationale de l’énergie atomique (AIE) poursuit ses <a href="https://www.iaea.org/NuclearPower/Downloadable/News/2015-08-31-nids-gc/2015_08_31_GC_side_event_flyer_NIDS_2015_web.pdf">visites</a> entamées en 2015 au Kenya, au Maroc et au Nigeria pour identifier les problèmes et partager ses recommandations à l’heure où ces pays s’engagent dans le nucléaire.</p>
<h2>Risques multiples</h2>
<p>De <a href="http://www.africareview.com/Special-Reports/Is-Africa-ready-for-a-nuclear-revolution/-/979182/1691908/-/10yjkbu/-/index.html">nombreux experts</a> s’interrogent sur la capacité de l’Afrique à gérer le nucléaire au regard des problèmes éthiques, budgétaires, sanitaires et sécuritaires soulevés. Leurs inquiétudes majeures concernent la corruption, les accidents tels que ceux vécus à <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Safety-of-Plants/Fukushima-Accident/">Fukushima</a>, le coût, le manque d’expertise et la gestion des déchets.</p>
<p>Une des premières étapes concernant le développement de l’énergie nucléaire concerne l’accès à l’uranium : l’Afrique n’est pas en reste et contribue à hauteur de 20 % à la production mondiale d’uranium ; 34 pays du continent possèdent des <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Others/Uranium-in-Africa/">mines</a> d’uranium, dont la plupart se situent en Afrique du Sud, au Malawi, en Namibie et au Niger.</p>
<p>Il existe, bien sûr, une <a href="http://www.nti.org/media/pdfs/Securing_The_Bomb_2010.pdf?_=1317159794">réelle menace</a> sur le plan sécuritaire due à la présence sur le sol africain d’organisations extrémistes qui peuvent avoir accès aux installations nucléaires. Les <a href="http://www-ns.iaea.org/security/itdb.asp">bases de données</a> de l’AIEA fournissent à ce sujet des informations précieuses sur les événements impliquant des matériaux radioactifs.
De janvier 1993 à décembre 2013, 2477 incidents figurent dans les bases de données de l’AIEA, dont 424 concernent des détentions illégales de produits et autres activités criminelles reliées. La principale inquiétude concerne les tentatives de corruption de politiciens et d’experts de la part d’extrémistes, pouvant leur permettre d’attaquer ou de saboter des installations nucléaires.</p>
<p>Nous avons ainsi découvert – grâce aux documents rendus publics dans le cadre de <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/world/alqaeda-moving-world-towards-nuclear-911-20110202-1adqd">Wikileaks</a> –, qu’Al-Qaida avait des plans pour se procurer du matériel nucléaire et recruter des scientifiques sans scrupules pour mettre au point des « bombes sales ». Aujourd’hui, la collaboration entre différents groupes extrémistes renforce cette peur. L’<a href="http://insct.syr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Niger_Risk_Assessment_Final.pdf">attaque</a> en 2013 de la mine d’uranium de la Somaïr au Niger en est un exemple.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99451/original/image-20151023-27619-1i91im9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99451/original/image-20151023-27619-1i91im9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99451/original/image-20151023-27619-1i91im9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99451/original/image-20151023-27619-1i91im9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99451/original/image-20151023-27619-1i91im9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99451/original/image-20151023-27619-1i91im9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99451/original/image-20151023-27619-1i91im9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">La mine d’uranium à ciel ouvert de la Somaïr (filiale d’Areva) au Niger.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joe Penney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Il y a également le problème du devenir du <a href="https://www.iaea.org/safeguards/symposium/2010/Documents/PapersRepository/2012749789382198030766.pdf">réseau</a> global de prolifération nucléaire du scientifique pakistanais Abdul Qadeer Khan. Ce dernier, qui vit libre au Pakistan, fut un temps au centre d’un marché noir mondial du nucléaire. Il avait des connexions en <a href="http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/rdenever/PPA%20730-11/Albright%20and%20Hinderstein%20--%20Khan.pdf">Afrique du Sud</a> et s’était également engagé à fournir à la <a href="http://www.worlddialogue.org/content.php?id=373">Lybie</a> toutes les infrastructures et le savoir nécessaires à la fabrication de la bombe nucléaire.</p>
<p>Washington cherche par le biais de plusieurs organisations multilatérales à minimiser cette menace. De même, la <a href="http://www.gicnt.org/partners.html">Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism</a>, présidée par la Russie et les États-Unis, réunit 86 nations qui se sont engagées à respecter les principes de base de la gestion du nucléaire. À ce jour, l’Algérie, la Côte d’Ivoire, la Lybie, Madagascar, le Maroc, les Seychelles et la Zambie ont passé des accords avec cette organisation.</p>
<h2>Chine et Russie en première ligne</h2>
<p>L’expertise nucléaire de l’Afrique étant limitée, elle cherche à l’étranger le savoir qui lui permettra de faire aboutir ses ambitions nucléaires. Cela concerne certaines puissances occidentales, comme la France et les États-Unis, mais ce sont bien la Chine et la Russie qui se taillent la part du lion.</p>
<p>L’implication de la Russie dans le nucléaire africain ne date pas d’hier et affiche une santé éclatante. Le président Vladimir Poutine semble ainsi en bonne place pour <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-05/will-putin-pay-for-100-billion-south-africa-nuclear-power-plan-">accompagner</a> le développement nucléaire de l’Afrique du Sud. Il a été également <a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-signed-nuclear-deals-with-traditional-u-s-allies-in-middle-east/">annoncé</a>, après la visite du président russe au Caire en février 2015, que la Russie allait construire une centrale nucléaire pour l’Égypte, à Dabaa. Et l’entreprise russe Rosatom a aussi récemment signé un accord avec le Nigeria pour construire une centrale qui devrait être opérationnelle en <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/nigeria-signs-pact-russias-rosatom-build-4-nuclear-power-plants-1496292">2025</a>.</p>
<p>Quant à l’implication de la Chine en Afrique au cours de la dernière décennie, c’est tout simplement impressionnant. Pékin a surfé sur cet élan pour faire des incursions dans le domaine nucléaire. La Chine et le Kenya ont ainsi récemment signé un <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201509161340.html">accord</a> portant sur la construction de la première centrale nucléaire dans ce pays d’Afrique de l’Est pour être opérationnelle d’ici à 2025. Dans le même temps, la China General Nuclear Power Corporation débutera, en février prochain dans le centre-ouest de la Namibie, l’exploitation de l’uranium de la <a href="http://www.mining.com/chinese-firm-close-to-start-mining-uranium-in-namibia-84331/">mine d’Husab</a>.</p>
<p>L’intérêt de la Chine et la Russie en Afrique est bien sûr lié à la question de leur puissance stratégique et économique, mais elles cherchent aussi à garantir leur accès aux réserves d’uranium. C’est ainsi que Pékin et Moscou sont en première ligne dans la course à la sécurité énergétique mondiale, tout en renforçant leurs relations politiques et commerciales avec les gouvernements africains.</p>
<p>Malgré les défis et les inquiétudes relatifs au développement de l’énergie nucléaire, il faut s’attendre à ce que les centrales africaines, de l’Égypte au Nigeria, finissent par devenir opérationnelles.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53470/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Firsing ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>L’intérêt pour l’énergie nucléaire, soutenu par des entreprises russes et chinoises, va grandissant sur le continent africain malgré les inquiétudes des spécialistes concernant la sécurité.Scott Firsing, Adjunct professor, University of North Carolina WilmingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/429682015-08-03T17:54:06Z2015-08-03T17:54:06ZLoss of innocence: the experience of exonerated death row inmates<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87149/original/image-20150702-11311-1wfc3xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Juan Melendez – one of 150 innocent people who have been released from death row. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.witnesstoinnocence.org/media-kit.html">Witness to Innocence</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Juan Melendez spent 17 years, eight months, and one day on Florida’s death row for a crime he did not commit, before being exonerated in 2002 when the transcript of a confession by the real murderer came to light – evidence that had been withheld by the prosecutor. Juan received no assistance and no compensation from the state of Florida in the wake of his exoneration.</p>
<p>Sabrina Butler was a Mississippi teenager convicted of murder and child abuse in the death of her nine-month-old son, Walter Dean. She was later exonerated of all wrongdoing when it was shown that Walter had probably died of a kidney condition and that the bruises on his body were the result of her and a neighbour’s resuscitation attempts. Sabrina returned to her small town where everyone knew her as the “woman who had killed her son”. No one would give her a job. The local prosecutor still maintained her guilt.</p>
<p>Greg Wilhoit was convicted in 1985 of murdering his wife after his attorney appeared in court drunk, vomited in the judge’s chambers and presented no defence. He was convicted on the testimony of rookie dental “experts” who said bite marks on his wife’s arm matched his teeth. At a retrial in 1993, the top US forensic odontologists testified that the mark could not possibly have come from Wilhoit. He was exonerated. He died in 2014 having received no compensation or even an apology from the state of Oklahoma.</p>
<p>The reasons to abolish the death penalty in the US are numerous: it does not deter; it is racially biased in application; it is used almost exclusively on the poor; it is more costly than life in prison; it is torture; and it hypocritically attempts to punish homicide by killing. </p>
<p>That said, no argument against the death penalty resonates more with Americans than the risk of executing an innocent person.</p>
<h2>Discovery of innocence</h2>
<p>Not until the late 1990s and 2000s did Americans begin to recognise the extent to which innocent people are convicted, incarcerated, and sentenced to death by our courts. This “discovery of innocence” was prompted, in part, by a new network of <a href="http://innocencenetwork.org/">innocence projects</a>, the use of DNA to exonerate the innocent, and a growing number of <a href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Efbaum/Innocence/BaumgartnerWesterveltCookPolicyResponses-2013.pdf">more public exonerations every year</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87169/original/image-20150702-11318-14emvid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87169/original/image-20150702-11318-14emvid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87169/original/image-20150702-11318-14emvid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=667&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87169/original/image-20150702-11318-14emvid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=667&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87169/original/image-20150702-11318-14emvid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=667&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87169/original/image-20150702-11318-14emvid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87169/original/image-20150702-11318-14emvid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87169/original/image-20150702-11318-14emvid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sabrina Butler was until very recently the only woman to have been exonerated and released from death row.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Witness to Innocence</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a result, more than <a href="https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/about.aspx">1,600 wrongfully convicted</a> individuals have been released in the US since 1989; <a href="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-death-penalty">154 of those innocent individuals</a> have been released from America’s death rows.</p>
<p>As Americans have learned more about the innocent released from death row, they have become increasingly sceptical about the death penalty. <a href="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/public-opinion-about-death-penalty">Polls</a> document that since the early 2000s Americans have serious concerns about the risk of executing an innocent person. That risk, even more so than lack of deterrence or even racial bias, remains the most powerful reason why individuals oppose the death penalty. Thus, as the public has become more aware of the innocent on death row, support for the death penalty has declined, reaching a 40-year <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/16/decline-in-death-penalty-approval_n_7081800.html">low</a> most recently.</p>
<p>In early June, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/04/north-carolina-pardons-brothers-pardoned-1983-rape-murder-of-girl">Henry McCollum and Leon Brown received pardons</a> for innocence from the governor of North Carolina after their wrongful convictions for the rape and murder of a young girl. Brown spent 10 of his 30 years in prison on North Carolina’s death row while McCollum was on death row for all 30 years. </p>
<p>In a telling twist, Justice Antonin Scalia had used Henry McCollum as the <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/scalias-perfect-capital-punishment-case-falls-apart">exemplar case</a> to justify his pro-death penalty stance two decades earlier. Like Scalia’s argument, support for the death penalty appears to be unravelling.</p>
<p>Death row exonerees, including McCollum and Brown and Melendez, Butler, and Wilhoit, are living witnesses to the damaging effects of the death penalty and the huge risk we take when we give the state the power to punish with death. And while the flaws in our machinery of death are finally receiving overdue attention, the trauma experienced by the innocent who have suffered on America’s death rows is overlooked.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86400/original/image-20150625-13011-19bybxu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86400/original/image-20150625-13011-19bybxu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86400/original/image-20150625-13011-19bybxu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86400/original/image-20150625-13011-19bybxu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86400/original/image-20150625-13011-19bybxu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86400/original/image-20150625-13011-19bybxu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86400/original/image-20150625-13011-19bybxu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Henry Lee McCollum spent 30 years on death row in North Carolina before being cleared by DNA evidence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/fanega/14968391898/in/photolist-">Pedro</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p><a href="http://www.unc.edu/%7Efbaum/Innocence/BaumgartnerWesterveltCookPolicyResponses-2013.pdf">A commonly believed myth is that exonerees receive compensation for their years wrongly incarcerated and assistance with reintegration.</a> Yet, <a href="http://www.innocenceproject.org/">our research</a> shows that many – if not most – death row exonerees return to their communities with <a href="http://www.witnesstoinnocence.org/compensation-campaign.html">little to no assistance with re-entry</a>: no job training, no help finding housing, transportation, mental or physical healthcare, no compensation of any kind. </p>
<h2>Turning the tide</h2>
<p>The public often last see exonerees on the day of their exonerations – in the courtroom or outside the prison, embraced by family or friends with tears of joy flowing. We do not see them the day after exoneration when the next leg of their journey begins: the aftermath. They must work to rebuild a life taken from them while also confronting the pain and trauma caused by years of wrongful incarceration and the torment of facing execution.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/books-life-after-death-row-exonerees%E2%80%99-search-community-and-identity">Life after Death Row: Exonerees’ Search for Community and Identity</a>, we published the first systematic study of the aftermath experiences of death row exonerees in the US. </p>
<p>Using in-depth interviews with 18 death row exonerees around the US, we explore their experiences as they return to their communities and families. They emerge into a world quite different from the one they left with limited (if any) resources to find a place to live and limited (if any) job skills to find employment. </p>
<p>They battle with employers over their felony status as their wrongful capital convictions are not automatically expunged. They require, but often do not have access to, medical and mental healthcare to address years of physical and psychological damage. They grieve family and friends lost while they were on death row, relationships lost, time lost. They struggle to manage the lack of trust, anger and depression that has festered as they sat on death row for crimes they did not commit. </p>
<p>Because of these innocent individuals released from America’s death rows, public concern about wrongful capital convictions is growing, which is turning the tide on support for the death penalty in the US. But the plight of those innocent men and women remains a problem in need of attention and solutions to restore the lives taken from them by a system that is broken.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42968/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Saundra D Westervelt has received funding from the University of North Carolina Greensboro and the American Sociological Association for this research. She is a board member of Witness to Innocence, a non-profit comprised of death row exonerees around the US, and Healing Justice, a restorative justice program that aims to address the aftermath created by a wrongful conviction.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kimberly Cook is affiliated with the NAACP, LINC (Leading Into New Communities - prisoner reentry program), and Healing Justice Project (a restorative justice program). </span></em></p>More than 150 people have been released from death rows around the US after having their wrongful convictions overturned. Most continue to face social stigma and unemployment.Saundra D Westervelt, Associate Professor Sociology, University of North Carolina – GreensboroKimberly Cook, Professor of Sociology and Criminology, University of North Carolina WilmingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/192122013-10-23T05:37:41Z2013-10-23T05:37:41ZFamily doesn’t guarantee anything, if you are a sea creature<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33399/original/3yq7svrf-1382387682.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">O brother, where art thou?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">bensonkua</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The often remade song “He Ain’t Heavy… He’s My Brother” probably owes a good deal of its enduring popularity to its depiction of the loving familial bond between two siblings - one aiding the other despite great difficulty. While such self-sacrificing behaviour can and does occur, in humans and in other animals, familial bonds don’t guarantee anything, as the raw tale of sea creatures killing their siblings tell.</p>
<p>Such behaviour, like all traits, is shaped by genes. And genes that are good at making sure lots of copies of themselves come to dominate in a population through the reproduction of the organisms in which they are housed. One way this can happen is if a gene acts to increase the reproductive output of an organism. But another route is to help the reproduction or survival of relatives of the organism, since they are likely to carry copies of that gene. The closer the relative, the higher the chance of shared genes and the more helpful one should be.</p>
<p>This cornerstone of social evolution theory is named Hamilton’s Equation, after William Donald Hamilton. Which was simply explained by the evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane in a famous quip: “Would I lay down my life to save my brother? No, but I would to save two brothers or eight cousins.” </p>
<p>(Or mathematically speaking: Consider the relatedness between two players is “r”, so if the player is a sibling then relatedness is high. The Hamilton equation states that a behaviour costing “C” to its bearer, but of benefit “B” to a recipient will evolve when rB > C.)</p>
<p>But implicit in this line of reasoning is that kin can, and do, interact. Because of this, most of the empirical tests of social evolution theory come from social insects, like ants and bees, or vertebrate cooperative breeders, like naked mole rats and some bird species. In these animals, individuals are closely related, and helping behaviour is virtually guaranteed to be directed toward kin.</p>
<p>When it comes to ocean creatures, however, we know little. There, it is thought, most organisms have a sedentary adult phase preceded by a dispersive larval stage, where offspring swim in plankton for weeks or months on end, largely at the whim of wave actions and prevailing currents. In these animals, Hamilton’s idea holds little sway, as the chances of close relatives settling together is seemingly improbable (the exception being minimally dispersive colonial organisms, such as sponges and corals). </p>
<p>But it turns out that these organisms <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2013.0454">aren’t nearly as well mixed</a> by ocean currents as one might at first suspect. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0044953">Many</a> <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-294X.2006.03078.x">recent</a> <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/mec.12341">studies</a> indicate that even in species with wide-spread larval dispersal, from fish to barnacles to lobsters, siblings are likely to settle together. The reasons that make this possible - larval behaviour, habitat preferences and ocean circulation patterns - lead to the formation of dense “colonies”. </p>
<p>When ocean dwellers live close together, there is a chance they will evolve kinship behaviour. But the harsh environment of the ocean brings out a different side of this relationship.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33400/original/zcf63mpd-1382388644.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33400/original/zcf63mpd-1382388644.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33400/original/zcf63mpd-1382388644.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33400/original/zcf63mpd-1382388644.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33400/original/zcf63mpd-1382388644.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33400/original/zcf63mpd-1382388644.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33400/original/zcf63mpd-1382388644.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Brother now. Food later.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Novartis AG</span></span>
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<p>In organisms that brood, close relatives are often forced to interact because there isn’t much space to spread out. Such siblings not only compete for nutrients given by their parents, but also for key resources like oxygen. This form of brooding behaviour - in the form of egg masses, capsules and other forms of encapsulation - is common in marine organisms. It suggests that competition among siblings is common, too. More importantly, this competition can be surprisingly intense, quite often involving the killing of siblings. For example, in the marine snail <em>Solenosteira macrospira</em> sibling cannibalism results in the death of about 98% of the developing hatchlings.</p>
<p>The story emerging from work on kin interactions in marine systems provides some indication that, while family ties can be important, ecological setting can also play a role in shaping interactions among relatives. And while sometimes “He Ain’t Heavy … He’s My Brother” might accurately sum up the result of these interactions, an equally likely outcome is “He Ain’t Heavy … He’s Lunch”. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19212/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Kamel receives funding from the National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>The often remade song “He Ain’t Heavy… He’s My Brother” probably owes a good deal of its enduring popularity to its depiction of the loving familial bond between two siblings - one aiding the other despite…Stephanie Kamel, Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina WilmingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.