tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/cultural-diversity-11582/articlesCultural diversity – The Conversation2023-12-13T22:00:39Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2184242023-12-13T22:00:39Z2023-12-13T22:00:39ZHow ‘benevolent sexism’ undermines Asian women with foreign accents in the workplace<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564585/original/file-20231208-31-f8j7mc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=286%2C24%2C5177%2C3612&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">To address barriers that racialized women with non-native accents experience in the Canadian workplace, we need to understand what kinds of bias they face.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/how-benevolent-sexism-undermines-asian-women-with-foreign-accents-in-the-workplace" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Immigrants are critical to the Canadian economy, but their talents are under-utilized due to language and accent discrimination, as immigrants often come from non-English or French speaking countries. </p>
<p>Workers with non-native or foreign accents <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/the-accent-effect-toronto-3-1.4409181">are often discriminated against at work</a>, yet our understanding of this phenomenon is limited because <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2591">research on this topic has predominantly focused on men</a>.</p>
<p>However, more than half of Canadian immigrants are women — a statistic that could rise because of <a href="https://smithstonewalters.com/2023/11/08/canada-publishes-immigration-targets-for-2024-2026/">Canada’s ambitious immigration target</a> of half a million permanent residents by 2025. </p>
<p><a href="https://uwaterloo.ca/women-work-and-the-economy/sites/default/files/uploads/files/ircc_knowledge_synthesis_august_23_2021.pdf">Critically, 84 per cent of women immigrants are racialized</a>. To address barriers that racialized women with non-native accents experience in the Canadian workplace, we need to understand what kinds of bias they face. This will help organizations support women immigrants in fully utilizing their talents.</p>
<h2>Accent bias at work</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/03616843231165475">Our recent research</a> examined whether the experiences of women with accents differ from men in the workplace. We did this by exploring how women with non-native English accents — specifically Mandarin — fare in the Canadian job market. </p>
<p>Speaking with a non-native accent involves maintaining speech sounds of one’s native language even after other aspects of speaking English are perfected. That is, speaking with a non-native accent is different from competency or fluency in English. </p>
<p>We used the stereotype content model to conduct our research. This model suggests that all people are judged on two traits: warmth and competence. Warmth is linked to co-operation, while competence is associated with higher status. </p>
<p>Individuals in high-status roles are seen as competent, while those in low-status roles are perceived as less competent. Women are traditionally stereotyped as warm, while men are seen as competent.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An Asian woman in business attire working on a laptop at a desk in a communal office space" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564586/original/file-20231208-21-qlp1dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564586/original/file-20231208-21-qlp1dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564586/original/file-20231208-21-qlp1dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564586/original/file-20231208-21-qlp1dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564586/original/file-20231208-21-qlp1dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564586/original/file-20231208-21-qlp1dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564586/original/file-20231208-21-qlp1dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eighty-four per cent of women immigrants are racialized in Canada.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In three separate studies, participants were asked to decide whether they would consider hiring potential candidates for a job opening within their own organization or another organization. Participants were given audio recordings of the candidates in which some of the speakers had accents, while others did not.</p>
<p>Our research revealed that Asian women with a Mandarin accent were seen as more friendly, trustworthy and sincere than Asian women applicants with no accent. We found this bias present in both a volunteer student position and a paid marketing co-ordinator position. These amplified warmth perceptions translated into higher ratings of hireability.</p>
<p>There were no differences in warmth perceptions between Asian men applicants with and without accents. This is because men are not usually expected to show high levels of warmth.</p>
<h2>‘Benevolent sexism’</h2>
<p>On the surface, warmth bias may appear advantageous for Asian women with accents. However, it’s crucial to understand that gendered warmth stereotypes, despite <em>appearing</em> positive, are problematic. </p>
<p>These stereotypes are rooted in “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/benevolent-sexism">benevolent sexism</a>.” These beliefs <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.70.3.491">pigeonhole women into socially acceptable roles</a> by offering women who conform to a sense of affection, idealization and protectiveness. Women who do not conform may face social costs that can negatively affect their career progression.</p>
<p>This kind of sexism is socially acceptable, endorsed by both men and women and rarely seen as problematic. Yet, past research consistently shows that such attitudes undermine women at work. For instance, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206310365902">managers with benevolent sexist tendencies do not assign challenging assignments to women</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/10422587231178865">investors with similar beliefs are more likely to fund pitches from men</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, we found these seemingly positive effects of amplified warmth evaluations are only observed in industries traditionally considered feminine, such as fashion and cosmetics. In contrast, there are no such positive effects in industries perceived as masculine, like oil and gas. </p>
<p>This warmth bias contributes to occupational gender segregation, funnelling women towards lower-paying and lower-prestige industries and jobs. At the same time, women are being steered away from industries where they are already severely under-represented.</p>
<h2>Addressing bias at work</h2>
<p>At the government level, non-native accents need to be explicitly recognized as a discriminatory factor affecting the job prospects and well-being of immigrants. Workers with accents are aware of and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886318800997">negatively affected by accent discrimination</a>. </p>
<p>Despite this awareness, accents are not an explicit protected category under the Canadian Human Rights Act, although they are related to the protected category of national or ethnic origin. This lack of protection undermines the legitimacy of accent discrimination. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An Asian woman giving a presentation to a group of people using a whiteboard" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564587/original/file-20231208-17-1pyf3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564587/original/file-20231208-17-1pyf3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564587/original/file-20231208-17-1pyf3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564587/original/file-20231208-17-1pyf3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564587/original/file-20231208-17-1pyf3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564587/original/file-20231208-17-1pyf3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564587/original/file-20231208-17-1pyf3c.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">To foster positive attitudes toward accents, racialized women with accents should be in visible and high-status roles in the workplace.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the corporate level, race and gender biases are commonly addressed in equity and diversity initiatives, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/pragyaagarwaleurope/2018/12/30/bias-is-your-accent-holding-you-back/">but accent bias is often overlooked</a>. To fight accent bias, more awareness needs to be raised about accents and how they affect racialized women in the workforce. Recruitment and hiring processes also need to be more objective by focusing on assessing job-relevant knowledge, skills and abilities.</p>
<p>Organizations and managers should foster positive employee attitudes toward accents by emphasizing the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2019/09/13/the-benefits-of-cultural-diversity-in-the-workplace/">benefits of a multicultural workforce</a>. Equally important is ensuring there are racialized women with accents in visible and high-status roles. </p>
<p>This stands in contrast to a popular solution of “accent reduction.” <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/31/accent-reduction-racist-or-empowering-a-look-at-the-controversy.html">Accent reduction programs stigmatize accents</a> by suggesting they need to be corrected. Instead of focusing on what workers with accents can do to “fit in,” organizations need to focus on removing systemic barriers that workers with accents face.</p>
<p>Our research serves as a reminder to not evaluate workers based on stereotypes. Even purportedly positive stereotypes can undermine the careers of racialized women.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218424/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ivona Hideg's research has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samantha Hancock's research has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Winny Shen's research has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). </span></em></p>Recent research explores how women with non-native English accents — specifically Mandarin — fare in the Canadian job market.Ivona Hideg, Associate Professor and Ann Brown Chair in Organization Studies, York University, CanadaSamantha Hancock, Assistant Professor, DAN Department of Management & Organizational Studies, Western UniversityWinny Shen, Associate Professor of Organization Studies, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2175632023-12-05T08:28:47Z2023-12-05T08:28:47ZNew genetic research uncovers the lives of Bornean hunter-gatherers<p>Borneo is one of the world’s most biodiversity-rich regions, home to ancient rainforests and an immense variety of wildlife. </p>
<p>Among its inhabitants are the Punan Batu, a group of contemporary nomadic hunter-gatherers with a unique genetic makeup and lifestyle that reflect the deep ancestry of the region. The Punan Batu people live in the forest surrounding Mount Batu Benau in Bulungan Regency, North Kalimantan Province.</p>
<p>Our recent study, published in the journal <a href="https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(23)01358-X">Cell Reports</a>, sheds light on their genetic history and cultural heritage, offering a rare glimpse into a way of life that was once widespread in the forests of Borneo.</p>
<h2>Our research</h2>
<p>We began our research with a community engagement program to get informed consent and support for our project from the Punan Batu community.</p>
<p>We then worked with phlebotomists, medical professionals trained to perform blood draws and health personnel from the local health centre to collect 30 blood samples from the community.</p>
<p>We also provided free health and blood biochemistry checks using point-of-care tests. We returned the results to the participants and the local health centre for any necessary follow-ups.</p>
<h2>Genetics trait</h2>
<p>The Punan Batu are part of a larger group of <a href="https://www.niaspress.dk/book/beyond-the-green-myth/">Punan/Penan</a>, the forest hunter-gatherer group, who was believed to have shifted mainly into a sedentary lifestyle. Living in harmony with nature, the Punan Batu still follows a nomadic lifestyle. </p>
<p>They travel in family groups, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/evolutionary-human-sciences/article/deep-ancestry-of-collapsing-networks-of-nomadic-huntergatherers-in-borneo/3E5BDE9823F6CD827E66DAF7C307273F">moving between network of rock shelters and forest camps</a>. They rely on the forest for their food, medicine and materials.</p>
<p>Our genetic analysis revealed that the Punan subgroups in our study are closely related, albeit in distant locations from neighbouring indigenous groups which rely on farming. So, Punan is not only a cultural identity but also a genetic identity.</p>
<p>Interestingly, unlike most people living in the archipelago of Southeast Asia comprising Indonesia and the Philippines, there is no gene flow from Austronesian-related ancestry to Punan Batu. </p>
<p>Austronesians are a linguistic and cultural group that originated in Taiwan and <a href="https://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297(14)00061-5">spread across the Pacific and Indian Oceans</a>, bringing with them farming, seafaring and pottery skills. </p>
<p>The lack of Austronesian-related ancestry in Punan Batu indicates that they have remained isolated from the significant waves of migration and cultural diffusion that have shaped the region. </p>
<p>This finding challenges <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314419058_1993_The_Punan_question_and_the_reconstruction_of_Borneo'%20s_culture_history">the idea </a>that they are the descendants of farmers who reverted to a hunting and gathering way of life. Instead, it suggests that they have preserved their genetic integrity over a long period, resisting the influence of other groups and retaining their unique genetic heritage.</p>
<h2>Language and lifestyle</h2>
<p>The Punan Batu are unique not just in their genetic makeup but also in their language and lifestyle. </p>
<p>As described in our <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/evolutionary-human-sciences/article/deep-ancestry-of-collapsing-networks-of-nomadic-huntergatherers-in-borneo/3E5BDE9823F6CD827E66DAF7C307273F">2022 research</a>, they preserve a song language, the <em>Latala</em> language, that is unrelated to other languages of Borneo, even to any other languages in Southeast Asia. </p>
<p>The Punan Batu people use <em>Latala</em> as a particular language for artistic expression, similar to how some poets use ancient languages such as Homeric Greek, Latin or Old Javanese. <em>Latala</em> is currently only used for poetry. This shows ancient cultural inheritance, further evidence of their distinct demographic history.</p>
<p>This language, passed down through generations, is a significant part of their cultural identity. It contains rich oral traditions, such as myths, legends and songs, which <a href="https://twitter.com/ykan_id/status/1678753213808357376">reflect their worldview</a> and values.</p>
<p>They also use <a href="https://www.kompas.id/baca/english/2023/01/23/messages-of-twigs-punan-batus-communication-method">message sticks</a> to stay in contact, cooperate and share resources. Message sticks are wooden sticks with symbols on top of the stick that convey information, such as the location, direction and purpose of travel. </p>
<p>It also serves as a mechanism to avoid diseases when indicating the direction of family members who are ill as a self-quarantine measure. </p>
<p>This method of communication was once widespread among nomadic Punan in Borneo, including the <a href="https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ahci/2016/4174795/">Penan in Sarawak, Malaysia</a>, but has largely disappeared in sedentary Punan villages.</p>
<h2>Challenges and threats</h2>
<p>The provincial government, assisted by an Indonesian NGO, proposed the area of Mount Batu Benau in Bulungan Regency, North Kalimantan Province, where The Punan Batu lives, as a <a href="https://www.ykan.or.id/en/publications/articles/press-release/kita-jaga-hutannya-kita-jaga-masyarakatnya/">geopark site</a>, an area that consists of several geological heritage sites with precious geological, biological and cultural values. </p>
<p>The forest’s biodiversity provides food and water for the Punan people.</p>
<p>However, the Punan Batu’s way of life is currently under threat. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/19/science/punan-borneo-nomadic-clan.html">Their forest home is shrinking</a> due to the expansion of logging and palm oil companies. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/evolutionary-human-sciences/article/deep-ancestry-of-collapsing-networks-of-nomadic-huntergatherers-in-borneo/3E5BDE9823F6CD827E66DAF7C307273F">Our research</a> finds that this affects their traditional hunting and gathering activities and threatens their cultural heritage.</p>
<p>Despite these challenges, the Punan Batu continue to hold on to their unique way of life. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI6q4wnVBl8">They have a strong sense of identity and pride in their culture</a>.</p>
<p>This year, the local government has recognised them as the <a href="https://www.kompas.id/baca/english/2023/06/04/en-punan-batu-pemburu-dan-peramu-terakhir-di-kalimantan-akhirnya-diakui-sebagai-masyarakat-hukum-adat">customary law community</a>, a group <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/05/11/adat-communities-want-their-own-special-law-why.html">whose members still live in a traditional community</a> and clear traditional boundaries. </p>
<p>This group has a prevailing system of laws that is followed by its members. The people still utilise forest areas to meet daily needs, to formally acknowledge their existence as an ethnic group in the region. It is an essential first step towards supporting their way of life. </p>
<p>But they need more robust protection in the future, such as Customary Forest status, a forest that is not burdened with land rights. Under this status, the management of the forest is delegated to Indigenous People to avoid further environmental and forest degradation and social conflicts.</p>
<p>The Punan Batu’s story reminds them of Borneo’s rich cultural diversity and deep ancestry. As we continue to learn more about them, preserving their cultural heritage and forest as their home is crucial. They are a living link to the past and a valuable source of knowledge and wisdom for the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217563/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pradiptajati Kusuma receives research grant from the Wellcome Trust (International Training Fellowship) and Pulitzer Center (Impact Seed Funding).</span></em></p>The Punan Batu is one of the most active nomadic hunter-gatherer groups still existing in the world. They have unique characteristics that are different from other groups in Borneo.Pradiptajati Kusuma, Postdoctoral research fellow, Mochtar Riady Institute for NanotechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1982472023-02-14T13:41:41Z2023-02-14T13:41:41ZWhat is Mondiacult? 6 take-aways from the world’s biggest cultural policy gathering<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508369/original/file-20230206-21-8bineg.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">hadynyah/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Culture’s status in global society got a major boost in 2022 when it was recommended to become its own sustainable development goal. This happened at the Unesco World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development – called <a href="https://www.unesco.org/en/mondiacult2022?TSPD_101_R0=080713870fab2000a09e1f590eee9236224b49b65b35b132c616cc394977b0a02ac2e62027c474a20861e610e0143000765baf2107ff32468755177504b7b9a252592c01e65570cbe751e36ef19eb1605e90d2f17ad9e80a512b2762ca6cb961">Mondiacult</a>. The world’s most important cultural policy gathering took place in Mexico City 40 years after its first edition in the same city. The 2022 meeting gathered 2,600 participants including 135 government ministers, 83 non-governmental organisations, 32 intergovernmental organisations and nine UN agencies. </p>
<p>Mondiacult is important because it’s a decision-making meeting that helps shape the world’s cultural policies and especially the relationship between culture and development. What was clear is that there is a shift in this relationship. Culture does not only contribute to sustainable development but is one of development’s components. </p>
<p>Culture aids <a href="https://sdgs.un.org/goals">sustainable development goals</a> in areas like health, education and environment. For example, local customs and traditional knowledge are relevant in promoting health programmes. Local and traditional products are useful for sustainable production. Indigenous knowledge helps develop environmental practices to fight climate change. </p>
<p><a href="https://sdgs.un.org/goals">Sustainable development goals</a> – like clean water and quality education – are the United Nations (UN) blueprint for a better future for all. At Mondiacult, culture was raised to the status of being its own sustainable development goal. A careful reading of the <a href="https://www.unesco.org/sites/default/files/medias/fichiers/2022/10/6.MONDIACULT_EN_DRAFT%20FINAL%20DECLARATION_FINAL_1.pdf">final declaration</a> offers several reasons why:</p>
<h2>1. Culture can fight climate change</h2>
<p>Culture can contribute to the reduction of climate change’s negative impact. Ecological organisations and other stakeholders are now interested in discovering the usefulness of cultural practices and other local know-how to preserve the environment. Ancient communities faced climate crises and developed their own resilient practices rooted in cultural heritage. That is why concepts like indigenous knowledge systems have emerged. </p>
<h2>2. Digital must be ethical</h2>
<p>The transition from analogue to digital has become an important aspect in the production, distribution and consumption of cultural and creative goods and services. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the value of digital and online spaces. Augmented reality, for example, enables exploring museum collections from a phone or computer. Virtual reality enables the visiting of historical monuments. Blockchain technology and artificial intelligence have grown hugely, but bring new ethical concerns. Which is why Unesco has adopted a set of <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000380455_fre.locale=fr">recommendations</a> on the ethics of artificial intelligence.</p>
<h2>3. Cultural diversity matters</h2>
<p>Our world is made of many different cultures. Acknowledging and accepting this cultural diversity is an ethical imperative, in Mondiacult 2022’s view. For the cultural ministers gathered in Mexico City, cultural diversity is the “founding principle of all of Unesco’s cultural conventions, recommendations and declarations. It cannot be separated from respect for human dignity and all fundamental human rights.” </p>
<h2>4. Cultural objects must be returned</h2>
<p>Another “ethical imperative” is the return of cultural assets to countries that they were looted from. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/benin-bronzes-what-is-the-significance-of-their-repatriation-to-nigeria-171444">Benin bronzes</a> case is a good example – ancient cultural objects stolen from Nigeria by colonial forces who are now slowly returning them. This restitution is crucial because it is supposed to “promote the right of peoples and communities to enjoy their cultural heritage … to strengthen social cohesion and the intergenerational transmission of cultural heritage”. It would be morally unfair to deny restitution, according to Mondiacult 2022. </p>
<h2>5. Culture is a global public good</h2>
<p>Culture is “our most powerful global public good”, <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000382082_eng">wrote</a> Unesco official Ernesto Ottone:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Today, more than ever, we need to find meaning, we need universality, we need culture in all its diversity. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Culture is reaffirmed as the “existential foundation” of humanity in this period of multiple crises on the planet. Now that a high-level meeting like Mondiacult has affirmed that culture is a public good, it must be preserved in the same way as the environment is.</p>
<h2>6. Culture is a development goal in itself</h2>
<p>Most significant is a new momentum to give culture a central place in the global development agenda. Before Mondiacult, Unesco’s aim was to convince the world’s policymakers that culture can <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000371557.locale=fr">contribute</a> significantly to achieving sustainable development goals. Now, Mondiacult 2022’s ambitious final <a href="https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/mondiacult-2022-states-adopt-historic-declaration-culture?TSPD_101_R0=080713870fab2000f74c4eb59493c567f3e18b1c8872e37ae64990e839cf3668f57e49286fb9f65f08249d61f71430003d79c69a210fba638ee45377843ff76e26f08becf03cf6dff247f25bfdb1b4b06649a8fba6fb9883fadb4106e6dc9543">declaration</a> affirms:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We call on the UN secretary general to firmly anchor culture as a global public good and to integrate it as a specific goal in its own right in the development agenda beyond 2030.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The cultural goal is to achieve “more harmony between peoples and communities”. This could involve the promotion of cultural diversity, the return of cultural assets, increased budgets for creative activities and other policies. </p>
<h2>Why this matters</h2>
<p>If the UN adopts this option of culture being a sustainable development goal, the post-2030 sustainable development agenda will have new content. This will change how development agencies deal with culture and how universities teach the relationship between culture and development. The result could be more funding for culture, which is increasingly underfunded by governments. </p>
<p>In addition, making cultural diversity an “ethical imperative” should play a role, if possible, in discussions about the commercialisation of cultural goods and services and the digital transition. </p>
<p>Next to come will be Mondiacult’s conditions of implementation. This is a follow-up action plan that should mobilise stakeholders to embrace Mondiacult’s outcomes ahead of the 2024 UN <a href="https://www.un.org/en/common-agenda/implementation">Summit of the Future</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198247/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ribio Nzeza Bunketi Buse 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>The huge gathering of policymakers focused on culture’s crucial role in sustainable development.Ribio Nzeza Bunketi Buse, Associate Professor, University of Kinshasa Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1809752022-11-30T22:34:21Z2022-11-30T22:34:21Z‘You have to beg for help’: how our welfare system pressures people to perform vulnerability<p>People who rely on welfare payments to survive are often required to repeatedly tell stories of their personal hardships.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/07/job-seekers-could-have-welfare-stopped-under-onerous-new-points-based-system-advocates-warn">conditional welfare system</a>, many must regularly attend compulsory appointments, job search training courses, and self-development and treatment programs simply to receive their payments.</p>
<p>People in extreme hardship often tell their stories even more frequently as they seek extra relief from non-government charities and community providers.</p>
<p>Those on income support payments below the relative poverty line feel the crunch of <a href="https://www.ncoss.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/NCOSS_CostOfLiving22_FINAL_DESIGNED.pdf">inflation and rising living costs</a> most severely. This means many will require extra support from welfare services to meet their basic needs.</p>
<p>Integral to this system is the idea of “performing vulnerability”.</p>
<p>“Performing vulnerability” – a term I borrow from UK-based researcher <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/vulnerability-and-young-people">Kate Brown</a> to update Australian academic <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/lowest-rung/FA159318C2D046EDD3C9347C8B8E4F2E">Mark Peel’s</a> idea of “performing poverty” – is not just about repeatedly describing personal hardship. </p>
<p>It points to the expectation to describe hardship in particular ways that are recognisable – and hence believable – to support providers.</p>
<p>My book, <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/making-a-life-on-mean-welfare">Making a Life on Mean Welfare: Voices from Multicultural Sydney</a> shows how the expectation to perform vulnerability to access support shapes experiences on both sides of the welfare frontline. </p>
<p>It can compound the cycle of disadvantage associated with receiving welfare in the long term. It does so by <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0038026119876775">fostering mistrust</a> between welfare users and providers, as well as tainting how people in need of support see themselves and their situation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-underclass-dont-like-work-our-research-shows-vulnerable-job-seekers-dont-get-the-help-they-need-169609">Australia's 'underclass' don't like work? Our research shows vulnerable job seekers don't get the help they need</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>‘Tell me your story’</h2>
<p>For my doctoral research, I spent 18 months speaking to welfare users and workers in culturally and linguistically diverse southwest Sydney. I also observed different aspects of service delivery while volunteering at a community welfare organisation. I interviewed 25 welfare users and 11 community welfare practitioners.</p>
<p>As a researcher of everyday experiences of welfare and poverty, I know all too well what it is like to ask people to tell their stories of hardship yet again.</p>
<p>I also grew up in an impoverished family reliant on welfare to get by. I know firsthand what the impact of retelling stories of hardship can be, particularly when the audience is, as Peel <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/lowest-rung/FA159318C2D046EDD3C9347C8B8E4F2E">puts</a> it, “someone who has the power to give or deny them something they need”.</p>
<p>One of the community welfare practitioners I interviewed summed it up by saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They’re coming again feeling ashamed. They’ve knocked on someone’s door, to tell yet again how shitty their situation is.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Her response was to chat and put them at ease before saying, “Can you tell me your story?” She would follow up by saying, “You’ve given me some insight, let’s formalise your story a little bit.”</p>
<p>Some welfare workers showed more scepticism, particularly when it came to giving out emergency relief. </p>
<p>When someone refused to share more than the minimum information required to be eligible for extra assistance, one welfare worker commented:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>That person doesn’t want to take responsibility. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another practitioner told me, “That woman dramatised her situation,” but quickly added, “That doesn’t mean she wasn’t genuine.”</p>
<p>The willingness of people seeking assistance to disclose personal hardships and do so convincingly impacts on how deserving they may come across to those delivering support. The pressure to perform can overshadow encounters between welfare users and workers even when it doesn’t determine the outcome.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458084/original/file-20220414-12-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="View of a hand filling out a paper form" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458084/original/file-20220414-12-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458084/original/file-20220414-12-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458084/original/file-20220414-12-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458084/original/file-20220414-12-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458084/original/file-20220414-12-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458084/original/file-20220414-12-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458084/original/file-20220414-12-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Repeatedly telling stories of hardship is part of the process of receiving welfare.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘It’s your dignity’</h2>
<p>Among the most marginal welfare recipients I spoke to, “performing vulnerability” was another toll of poverty.</p>
<p>Those experiencing the worst hardship frequently told me about having to explain “the ins and outs” and feeling “embarrassed”, “intimidated” or “uncomfortable” when they had to present to welfare agencies.</p>
<p>Two young people (whom I have given fictional names) powerfully conveyed the cost of telling all about their struggles:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kane: Often if you go to them sorts of people (welfare agencies) you’ve gotta put it all out there, that you’re homeless, that you got nothing, you got no friends, no family – and then they’re gonna go boom “alright” (you get the help you came for)…</p>
<p>Nessa: Yeah, that’s what I had to do to get a house and it’s embarrassing (talking over each other) I think it’s embarrassing.</p>
<p>Kane: You gotta go down to those levels you know – it’s wrong.</p>
<p>Nessa: When you gotta expose everything and don’t want to, it’s, like, your dignity.</p>
<p>Kane: Yeah, it’s everything.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Performing is not pretending</h2>
<p>The most marginal welfare users get a great deal of practice performing their hardship. But knowing how to tell their story a certain way is not the same as pretending.</p>
<p>Not only do people at the sharp end of the welfare system have to endure the hardships of poverty, but they must then recite it in a way that registers as genuine, pressing and beyond reprieve.</p>
<p>As a woman living on the disability support pension put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You don’t have the flexibility that a rich person has to respond to crisis, so you have to beg for help. That takes time! And you know you’ll be judged like it’s your fault.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A welfare system that demands disclosure of personal hardships – even when geared towards being <a href="https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/doi/full/10.1111/1468-4446.12740">supportive</a> rather than suspicious – can undermine dignity and hold back those unwilling or unable to tell their story convincingly or in enough detail.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/disability-and-single-parenthood-loom-large-in-inherited-poverty-123086">Disability and single parenthood loom large in inherited poverty</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180975/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article is part of The Conversation’s Breaking the Cycle series, which is supported by a philanthropic grant from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.</span></em></p>As a woman living on the disability support pension put it: ‘You don’t have the flexibility that a rich person has to respond to crisis, so you have to beg for help. And you know you’ll be judged’.Emma Mitchell, Postdoctoral research fellow, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1867002022-07-14T18:37:22Z2022-07-14T18:37:22ZResearch and patient services need to reflect that Canadians from diverse communities are living with dementia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473960/original/file-20220713-9415-h06cib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=171%2C50%2C6398%2C4275&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Communities that are underrepresented in research may also be at increased risk for dementia, or tend to experience dementia differently, often with poorer quality of care, later diagnoses and at possibly higher rates than the general population.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent data from <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/daily-quotidien/220427/dq220427a-eng.pdf?st=4UsRLXA6">Statistics Canada</a> on our country’s demographic shift to an aging population highlights Canada’s <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canada-2021-census-statscanada-aging-society/">evolving future</a>. How we respond to these changes will determine our long-term success as a nation, especially for future generations of older individuals.</p>
<p>As our population continues to age, more people will be affected by age-related health conditions, including dementia. More than 500,000 Canadians are <a href="https://alzheimer.ca/en/about-dementia/what-dementia/dementia-numbers-canada">living with dementia</a> and this number is forecast to <a href="https://www.cihi.ca/en/dementia-in-canada/dementia-in-canada-summary">at least double</a> over the next two decades. These figures do not include potential cases of <a href="https://alzheimer.ca/en/about-dementia/other-types-dementia/young-onset-dementia">young onset dementia</a>, which is not tracked for people who are diagnosed under the age of 65, an omission that should be rectified immediately.</p>
<h2>Unique research challenges</h2>
<p>Canada’s multicultural population, which has been fuelled by <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-630-x/11-630-x2016006-eng.htm">successive waves of immigrants since the 1960s</a>, means a much larger percentage of people living with dementia in the future will be those from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Recent <a href="https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-us/policy-and-influencing/what-we-think/demography">research from the United Kingdom</a> shows a sharp surge in the number of racialized people with dementia based on changing demographics.</p>
<p>This presents a unique challenge for those involved in dementia research. Much of this work has not included individuals from underrepresented groups, such as those from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trci.2019.09.018">ethnically diverse populations</a>. Studies that are used to make important policy, clinical and investment decisions in dementia lack the appropriate data representing a diverse Canadian population, leading to a one-size-fits-all approach that, in the end, serves no one well.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473961/original/file-20220713-20-a0lb0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young woman and an older woman pointing at a calendar" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473961/original/file-20220713-20-a0lb0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473961/original/file-20220713-20-a0lb0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473961/original/file-20220713-20-a0lb0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473961/original/file-20220713-20-a0lb0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473961/original/file-20220713-20-a0lb0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473961/original/file-20220713-20-a0lb0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473961/original/file-20220713-20-a0lb0l.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Canada’s multicultural population presents a unique challenge for those involved in dementia research.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This drawback has significant consequences in the future, as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/WAD.0b013e318211c6c9">research from other countries</a> has shown underrepresented groups are often at increased risk, tend to experience dementia differently, often with poorer quality of care, later diagnoses and at possibly higher rates than the general population. </p>
<p>We have already witnessed the challenge arising from the absence of this type of data during the COVID-19 pandemic as individuals from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.050539">underrepresented groups</a> who <a href="https://doi.org/10.7202/1077989ar">live with dementia are disproportionately</a> and <a href="https://alzheimer.ca/en/help-support/dementia-resources/managing-through-covid-19/covid-19-dementia-task-force">adversely affected by the pandemic</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A younger man smiling with his arm around an older man" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474150/original/file-20220714-33068-7799by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474150/original/file-20220714-33068-7799by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474150/original/file-20220714-33068-7799by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474150/original/file-20220714-33068-7799by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474150/original/file-20220714-33068-7799by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474150/original/file-20220714-33068-7799by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474150/original/file-20220714-33068-7799by.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">Canada’s national dementia strategy includes the key principle of respecting the diversity of those living with dementia to meet their distinct needs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Culturally sensitive care</h2>
<p>But it doesn’t have to be this way. <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications/diseases-conditions/dementia-strategy.html">Canada’s national dementia strategy</a> contains two key principles we must embrace: respecting the diversity of those living with dementia to meet their distinct needs, while also supporting their basic human right to autonomy and dignity.</p>
<p>Efforts to provide culturally sensitive and diverse educational materials on dementia and its effects on individuals of all ages and their families must be increased. This will support Canadians who are affected by dementia to make informed choices on care plans and treatment options, which in turn can encourage participation in research to transform care. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://alzheimer.ca/en/whats-happening/news/understanding-how-dementia-affecting-culturally-diverse-communities-across-Canada">Alzheimer Society of Canada</a> and its provincial partners have already begun to make materials available in various languages, such as Hindi, Spanish and Chinese that also take a <a href="https://alzheimer.ca/en/help-support/dementia-resources/other-languages">culture-first approach</a>. This important work should be supported, amplified and resourced by the federal and provincial governments.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473962/original/file-20220713-20-9akftr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young man pushing an older man's wheelchair between two trees in a grassy area" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473962/original/file-20220713-20-9akftr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473962/original/file-20220713-20-9akftr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473962/original/file-20220713-20-9akftr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473962/original/file-20220713-20-9akftr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473962/original/file-20220713-20-9akftr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473962/original/file-20220713-20-9akftr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473962/original/file-20220713-20-9akftr.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We must increase the efforts to provide culturally sensitive and diverse educational materials on dementia and its effects on individuals of all ages and their families.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Interventions and representation</h2>
<p>Community-based interventions are urgently needed. While many people with dementia can live long and fulfilling lives after their initial diagnosis, as the disease progresses, some will lose their grasp of English or French <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(18)30184-1">if those are not their first language</a>. For those people, the presence of experienced individuals living in the community who can address them in their native language or who are sensitive to their specific needs will help break cultural barriers and barriers to accessing services.</p>
<p>There also needs to be more dialogue with Canada’s underrepresented populations on how to best provide services and how to engage them in research. Recognizing the expertise within local communities and co-designing programs with and for people living with dementia will result in the best possible design, outcomes and buy-in.</p>
<p>We firmly believe that empathy, better representation and a broader set of data will help us care for all Canadians living with dementia. As our population ages, providing the best quality of life possible for all older adults living with dementia should be prioritized as an important national strategic goal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186700/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Roger Wong is a member of the Board of Directors of the Alzheimer Society of Canada. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Saskia Sivananthan works for the Alzheimer Society of Canada as Chief Research & KTE Officer.</span></em></p>Much dementia research does not reflect ethnically diverse communities. Studies used to make policy, clinical and investment decisions in dementia should reflect the diverse Canadian population.Roger Wong, Vice Dean, Education & Clinical Professor of Geriatric Medicine, University of British ColumbiaSaskia Sivananthan, Affiliate Professor, Department of Family Medicine, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1855752022-06-28T19:54:42Z2022-06-28T19:54:42ZCensus data shows we’re more culturally diverse than ever. Our institutions must reflect this<p>Initial data from the <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/AUS">2021 census</a> released this week shows Australia continues to become more culturally diverse. </p>
<p>Almost half of us have at least one parent born overseas (48.2%), and almost a quarter of us (24.8%) speak a language other than English at home. </p>
<p>Just over a quarter of us (27.6%) report being born overseas, and of those, India has risen to become the second-most common overseas country of birth after England.</p>
<p>The growing number of first-generation migrants means Australians’ ancestry will change significantly over the next decade. Australia will continue to change and look different, and we must ensure our institutions and policies reflect this.</p>
<p>That work, by governments and policymakers, should begin now so they can gain trust and maximise the belonging of these communities. Research shows <a href="https://www.ssi.org.au/images/Signature_Foundations_Report_withlink.pdf">feelings of belonging</a> lead to better socioeconomic outcomes. </p>
<p>It’s likely there would have been substantially more immigration were it not for the COVID pandemic and subsequent restrictions and lockdowns. Some <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/australianz/australias-migrant-population-grows-despite-border-closures">84%</a> of the one million new migrants arrived before the virus did.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1541595914418196480"}"></div></p>
<h2>Australia’s future</h2>
<p>Three bits of data stuck out to me from this initial census data release:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>India surpassed New Zealand and China in becoming the second-most common overseas country of birth</p></li>
<li><p>the number of people born in Nepal grew by 123.7% compared to 2016, the second largest increase in country of birth</p></li>
<li><p>the number of people who are either born overseas or have a parent born overseas is greater than half (51.5%).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These data show the changing face of Australia and our global links.</p>
<p>They also reveal suburban clusters in the major cities where ethnic groups have a critical mass, median incomes are higher than the state and national average, and tertiary education rates are on the rise (examples include <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/SAL11640">Girraween</a> and Castle Hill in NSW). </p>
<p>Such figures show social class is an important factor when looking at data on migrant populations. In areas with a higher percentage of working class migrants and resettled refugees, such as those mentioned towards the end of this article as more impacted by COVID, household incomes are lower and hence they require more consideration for future planning needs.</p>
<p>The top five sources of ancestry haven’t changed since the last census: English (33%), Australian (29.9%), Irish (9.5%), Scottish (8.6%) and Chinese (5.5%).</p>
<p>But given the big changes in country of birth data, Australians’ ancestry will look very different over the next decade.</p>
<p>This will have policy and planning implications across schooling, housing and local government services.</p>
<p>It will translate into the need for our diversity to be reflected in all aspects of society, including professions, media, decision-making roles and government.</p>
<iframe src="https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/10479772/embed" title="Interactive or visual content" class="flourish-embed-iframe" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="width:100%;height:600px;" sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-scripts allow-downloads allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
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<p>These data also show Australia is as multicultural, if not more, than countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.</p>
<p>Data from the 2016 census in Canada, which is known to be multicultural, shows <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/census-2016-immigration-1.4368970">21.9%</a> of people there are immigrants, with the largest share being from South Asia.</p>
<p>2018 data shows <a href="https://diversityuk.org/diversity-in-the-uk/">14%</a> of the UK population was from a minority ethnic background. In the city of London, this figure was <a href="https://diversityuk.org/diversity-in-the-uk/">40% in 2018</a>.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/new-census-data-shows-the-nation-is-diversifying-even-faster-than-predicted/">2020 data</a>, nearly four in ten Americans identify with an ethnic group other than white.</p>
<h2>COVID disproportionately affected migrant communities</h2>
<p>Australia would have received <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-is-missing-500-000-migrants-but-we-dont-need-visa-changes-to-lure-them-back-182322">more migrants</a> were it not for the COVID pandemic, which shut borders from early 2020.</p>
<p>We would have had more tourists, and more people arriving on work and student visas. Census data shows the pandemic led to an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/28/australias-millennial-generation-is-overtaking-baby-boomers-new-census-data-shows?CMP=soc_567&fbclid=IwAR1mKDX4AXdWP57drxJLv2PymFAFod4__1wuwV_PHkZNhLUXMrILGBJLKgk">80% decrease</a> in the number of overseas visitors. This affected the economy, particularly in sectors such as tourism, hospitality and higher education.</p>
<p>We also received less relatives of overseas-born Australians, for example on family-sponsored visas. This can have impacts on childcare, care of elderly relatives and mental health.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-2021-australian-census-in-8-charts-185950">The 2021 Australian census in 8 charts</a>
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<p>Some areas with a high percentage of migrants were heavily affected by COVID and pandemic restrictions. </p>
<p>Census data reveals, for example, 71.6% of people in the Western Sydney suburb of Merrylands have both parents born overseas. And in the nearby local government area of Liverpool, 65.5% of people have both parents born overseas.</p>
<p>Western Sydney was an area <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-26/nsw-delta-lockdown-one-year-on/101183272">disproportionately affected</a> by COVID infections and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/datablog/2021/oct/12/delta-deaths-expose-australias-great-disadvantage-divide">deaths</a> over the last two years. It was also subject to strict COVID restrictions and a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-58021718">heavy police</a> and even <a href="https://theconversation.com/using-military-language-and-presence-might-not-be-the-best-approach-to-covid-and-public-health-166019">military presence</a>.</p>
<p>In Flemington, Melbourne, the site of a <a href="https://www.ombudsman.vic.gov.au/our-impact/news/public-housing-tower-lockdown/">public housing tower lockdown in 2020</a>, 47.1% of people have both parents born overseas. Somalia and Ethiopia feature in the top five countries of birth. </p>
<p>In Dandenong, south-east of Melbourne, 75.4% of people have both parents born overseas. The area has also suffered disproportionately <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/25/disease-of-disadvantage-melbournes-lower-socioeconomic-areas-suffer-most-covid-deaths-amid-omicron">more COVID deaths</a>.</p>
<p>We don’t yet know the full extent of COVID impacts on these areas though. Further census data is due to be released in October featuring employment and work commute data for these areas which will be important to look at for COVID impacts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185575/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sukhmani Khorana has received funding from the Australia Research Council, the Australia-India Council, and conducts contracted research for migrant and refugee-focused organisations in Western Sydney.</span></em></p>More than half of us are either born overseas or have a parent who was born overseas.Sukhmani Khorana, Senior Research Fellow, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1840962022-06-12T09:05:35Z2022-06-12T09:05:35ZNigeria has failed to marry its rich cultural diversity and democracy. Can it be done?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467712/original/file-20220608-22-hzhpmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nigeria's cultural diversity can enhance democracy. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/okaiben-family-performs-ekassa-dance-during-the-coronation-news-photo/615873406?adppopup=true">Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Democracy in Nigeria has been characterised by <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/features-and-interviews/318339-10-ways-politicians-rig-elections-in-nigeria.html">election rigging</a>, rotation of the same set of candidates for various electoral positions and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321017220_A_Conceptual_Analysis_of_the_Rule_of_Law_in_Nigeria">subversion of the rule of law</a>. Thuggery, god-fatherism, imposition of candidates by political parties, internal party rivalry and general apathy by voters are other features. </p>
<p>Some have adopted the view that the British colonial administration in Nigeria interrupted the country’s cultural evolution through premature amalgamation. This resulted in the marriage of strange bed mates. In this vein scholars <a href="https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/3975454">mention</a> the divide-and-rule policy of the British colonial administration as the beginning of the animosity and divisions among different cultural groups in the country. </p>
<p>Other observers have <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/229607386.pdf">traced</a> the challenge of democracy to the eagerness of the minority political elites in Nigeria to exploit cultural differences to further their political agenda. To these scholars, the Nigerian elite often trumpets religion, for example, to discredit opponents and win elections. </p>
<p>The above notions are instructive.</p>
<p>But, in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/THB6WUBNQMGDDDHXIK9K/full?target=10.1080/14725843.2022.2075318">my view</a> the crisis facing democracy in Nigeria is not so much in the cultural plurality of the country as in the unwillingness of political elites to create the space capable of dealing with both social complexity and cultural pluralism. </p>
<p>In order words, the problem of Nigeria’s democratic experiment lies in the lack of a constitutional machinery. There have been repeated calls for reforms to the <a href="https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Nigeria_1999.pdf">1999 constitution</a>. Ideas include accommodating the interests of different cultural groups. Changes should also institute the space for public participation and debates. Both are encapsulated in the principle of popular rule.</p>
<h2>Cultural plurality</h2>
<p>Nigeria is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world. This heterogeneity rests on ethnic, religious, linguistic and historic differences.</p>
<p>Nigeria is made up of <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1122838/population-of-nigeria/#:%7E:text=As%20of%202022%2C%20Nigeria's%20population%20was%20estimated%20at%20around%20216.7%20million">over 200 million people</a>. It has <a href="http://rogerblench.info/Language/Africa/Nigeria/Atlas%20of%20Nigerian%20Languages%202020.pdf">300 ethnic groups</a>, over 520 languages, several dialects and religions. </p>
<p>This unique demographic composition has continued to create problems of cohabitation. An example is the Nigeria Civil War (1967-1970) which had its origin in ethnic and religious politics. The conflict <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170214103207/http:/www1.american.edu/ted/ice/biafra.htm">claimed</a> an estimated 100,000 military casualties while between 500,000 and two million Biafran civilians died of starvation.</p>
<p>The First Republic (1 October, 1960 to 15 January, 1966) was a watershed in Nigeria’s democratic practice. An attempt to unify the country failed. The result was election violence and eventually <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35312370">a military coup</a>. Both created a constitutional crisis and deep-seated hostility. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/coup-counter-coup-and-the-biafran-war/a-19437061">counter-coup of 28 July 1966</a> was spurred by what some military establishments from the North tagged a retaliation of the initial “Igbo coup”. It further tore the fabric of ethnic unity in Nigeria. </p>
<p>It was not surprising that the retaliatory coup and <a href="https://www.languageconflict.org/event/1966-anti-igbo-pogrom/">the anti-Igbo pogrom</a> that followed in the North, meant that the centre could no longer hold. This led to the bitter civil war, the consequences of which are still with Nigerians today. The nationalist agitations by a segment of the Igbo ethnic group represented by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-drives-the-indigenous-people-of-biafras-relentless-efforts-for-secession-163984">Indigenous People of Biafra</a> and the trial of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu are evidence. </p>
<p>In effect, the fear of domination of one ethnic group or section by another has persistently undermined efforts at democratic consolidation in Nigeria. </p>
<h2>Efforts to deal with the problem</h2>
<p>The country has made concerted efforts to address the challenges of nation building and democratic sustainability. These have included:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>constitutional reforms. The country has held numerous constitutional conferences all of which have failed.</p></li>
<li><p>zoning formula. This has involved political parties allocating their elective positions and offices to different sections of the country.</p></li>
<li><p>rotational presidency. There is an informal agreement between different nationalities that the presidential office will be occupied within specified periods and terms. </p></li>
<li><p>federal character principle: this is a quota system that accrues to each region of the country in terms of offices at federal establishments.</p></li>
<li><p>political restructuring. This refers to the effort being made to enable the federal government to shed some of its powers. It also represents devolution of powers from the centre to the regions. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>There is also local government reforms, state creation exercises, bureaucratic reforms and National Youth Service Corps Scheme.</p>
<p>But these institutional efforts to unify Nigeria’s multicultural dilemma have failed.</p>
<p>I think this is because none have attempted to address what I consider to be the biggest threat to democracy in the country – the mixture of ethnicity and religion.</p>
<h2>Ethnicity and religion</h2>
<p>Almost all social, political and economic relations in Nigeria revolve around two identity formations: the two dominant religious groups in the country – Islam and Christianity.</p>
<p>This unique composition has the Hausa-Fulani to the North who are predominantly Muslims, and the Igbo/Yoruba to the South, who are predominantly Christians. </p>
<p>The geographical arrangement keeps presenting itself in Nigeria’s democratic experiment. This is particularly true in relation to the presidential office which has been <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/THB6WUBNQMGDDDHXIK9K/full?target=10.1080/14725843.2022.2075318">occupied much longer</a> by the Hausa-Fulani Muslims to the North.</p>
<p>There is a heavy concentration of power embedded in the presidency. This has enabled the ethnic group occupying the position to allocate more resources to its regions. </p>
<p>Similarly, the ethnic militia agitations and the pressures for secession by some ethnic groups are all in relation to the dominance of the power at the centre by the North.</p>
<h2>Looking to the future</h2>
<p>It is clear that Nigeria has failed to harness the rich tapestry of its cultural varieties within a constitutional democracy. Consequently, the rich differences in the country’s cultural orientations, which ought to promote the principle of constitutional democracy, have had the opposite effect. </p>
<p>In my view democracy can work to the benefit of Nigeria. Ordinary people should demand that ways are created for them to participate in decisions that affect them, regardless of their ethnic or religious identity. This should be the case in spite of the intervening centrifugal forces of ethnic pluralism and cultural diversity. </p>
<p>For its part, the country’s leadership should minimise the politicisation of ethnicity and religion. And it should replace nepotism and sectionalism with meritocracy. </p>
<p>The excessive powers vested in the federal government should also be decentralised. This would enable different regions to regain autonomy, thus spreading the putative benefits of federalism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184096/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felix Chidozie 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>The fear of domination of one ethnic group or section by another has persistently undermined efforts at democratic consolidation in Nigeria.Felix Chidozie, Senior Lecturer, Covenant UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1836202022-05-24T02:22:57Z2022-05-24T02:22:57ZWe’re about to have Australia’s most diverse parliament yet – but there’s still a long way to go<p>The message from Saturday’s election result was clear: Australians want a political reset. And not just about issues such as government integrity and climate change. </p>
<p>While much attention has been directed at the teal wave of independents, another change is taking place to the composition of parliament.</p>
<p>This Australian parliament is shaping to be the most diverse yet in its ethnic and cultural background. Capital Hill is about to see a substantial injection of colour. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/did-australia-just-make-a-move-to-the-left-183611">Did Australia just make a move to the left?</a>
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<h2>A fitting result</h2>
<p>Newly elected members Sally Sitou, Michelle Ananda-Rajah, Sam Lim, Zaneta Mascarenhas, Cassandra Fernando and Dai Le will bolster the non-European representation of the House of Representatives. </p>
<p>The Indigenous ranks of parliament are also set to swell, with the additions of Marion Scrymgour and Gordon Reid in the House, and Jacinta Price in the Senate.</p>
<p>In many ways, it is a fitting result to an election that had its share of controversies about representation.</p>
<p>Labor caused consternation when it parachuted former Senator (and ex-NSW Premier) Kristina Keneally into its then safe southwest Sydney electorate of Fowler, cruelling the prospects of local Vietnamese-Australian lawyer Tu Le.</p>
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<p>A second <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/election-2022-albanese-confirms-charlton-as-his-captains-pick/news-story/0d59db3beedab048fcc5e0f6e34b8ac3">captain’s pick</a> from Anthony Albanese, millionaire former political adviser Andrew Charlton, ran in the western Sydney seat of Parramatta, to the chagrin of local aspirants from multicultural backgrounds. </p>
<p>Such picks left many asking, with good reason: if worthy candidates from non-European backgrounds can’t get preselected in multicultural electorates like Fowler and Parramatta, how can we get more diversity into parliament?</p>
<p>It’s a question that lingers, notwithstanding what this election has delivered. </p>
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<h2>Still a long way to go</h2>
<p>If it feels like a surge of diversity will flow through the parliament, it’s only because there was <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australias-new-parliament-is-no-more-multicultural-than-the-last-one/yxkpmy335">so little to begin with</a>. </p>
<p>While those from a non-European background make up an estimated <a href="https://www.diversityaustralia.com.au/leading-for-change-a-blueprint-for-cultural-diversity-and-inclusive-leadership-revisited/#:%7E:text=An%20estimated%2018%20per%20cent,Strait%20Islander%20(Indigenous)%20background.">21% of the Australian population</a>, they made up just a tiny fraction of the 46th parliament. </p>
<p>The 47th parliament could feature <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/watershed-moment-parliament-makes-important-diversity-gains-20220523-p5anon.html">up to 13</a> parliamentarians with a non-European, non-Indigenous background, along with <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/watershed-moment-parliament-makes-important-diversity-gains-20220523-p5anon.html">nine or ten</a> (depending on final results) parliamentarians of Indigenous background. </p>
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<p>That may sound like a strong result – it’s certainly an improvement, and better than how many other major institutions in Australian society perform – but we should put it in perspective.</p>
<p>It would still mean just <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/watershed-moment-parliament-makes-important-diversity-gains-20220523-p5anon.html">a tiny fraction</a> of the parliament (no more than 10%) having a non-European or Indigenous background – far less than what you’d see if the parliament actually reflected our society accurately. Australia lags significantly behind the US, UK and Canada and New Zealand. </p>
<p>It’s not all about numbers, of course. We can’t judge the calibre of our parliament solely on whether it’s proportionately representative.</p>
<p>Yet when sections of society can’t see themselves within our public institutions, it is a problem. The very legitimacy, and quality, of those institutions can suffer. </p>
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<h2>A new phase?</h2>
<p>For a long time, calls for greater multicultural diversity in politics have been typically greeted with indifference. It wasn’t an urgent problem. Gender diversity was a higher priority. Political parties didn’t feel the pressure from those supposedly excluded from the system. </p>
<p>That now has changed. Labor has been brutally punished for its Fowler move. A <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-22/kristina-keneally-concedes-defeat-to-dai-le-in-fowler/101088948">swing</a> of more than 16% saw the seat fall to independent (and former Liberal) Dai Le. </p>
<p>Clearly, being from a non-European background isn’t the electoral handicap political parties have sometimes feared. </p>
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<p>Something generational is at play. Australia may once have comfortably accepted that newer arrivals were expected to play the role of the grateful supplicant in their “host society”.</p>
<p>But the children and grandchildren of yesterday’s migrants don’t see themselves as guests in their own country. They aren’t happy refugees or cheerful migrants who are content to know their place. They’re taking their lead less from the Anh Dos of the world and more from the AOCs (Democrat politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) of US politics. </p>
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<p>Demands about access and equity for non-English speaking background people have been replaced with calls for the equal treatment of “people of colour” and for attention to “<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-intersectionality-mean-104937">intersectionality</a>”.</p>
<p>We could be seeing a new phase in the evolution of Australia’s multicultural project.</p>
<p>While a triumph in many respects, Australian multiculturalism has to date fallen short on several counts. A celebration of cultural diversity has never been accompanied by a sharing of Anglo-Celtic institutional power. Or, for that matter, by a full reckoning with racial inequality and injustice. </p>
<p>That’s why it will be interesting to observe this new parliament. The very presence of this new ethnic and cultural diversity will, in subtle and not so subtle ways, be felt in Canberra and beyond. </p>
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<p>Critical mass matters. It is hard, for example, to imagine a more diverse parliament trying to wind back racial hatred laws (as parliament has done on more than one occasion with respect to the Racial Discrimination Act). </p>
<p>Or to imagine a diverse parliament indulging other periodic bouts of race politics (think of the scaremongering over African gangs in Melbourne or the McCarthyist targeting of Chinese-Australians).</p>
<p>All such excesses become much harder when the people debating such matters have skin in the game. </p>
<p>So don’t mistake the wave of multicultural politicians for being a mere symbolic adornment in Canberra – like the political equivalent of having exotic foods and festivals. </p>
<p>It may feel like a subplot for now, but this could end up being just be as significant as the teal revolution. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-intersectionality-mean-104937">Explainer: what does 'intersectionality' mean?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183620/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Soutphommasane receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is affiliated with the Australian Labor Party.</span></em></p>It may feel like a subplot for now, but this could end up being just be as significant as the teal revolution.Tim Soutphommasane, Acting Director, Sydney Policy Lab & Professor of Practice (Sociology and Political Theory), University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1810852022-05-04T14:31:20Z2022-05-04T14:31:20ZFormer South African president predicts the end of the ruling party: history is on his side<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460278/original/file-20220428-26-t9u1nk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The African National Congress is steadily losing dominance. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Former South African president Kgalema Motlanthe, one of the saner voices in the ruling African National Congress (ANC), has recently given voice to heresy. He has said that the time of the ANC in power <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/politics/2022-04-06-no-dominant-role-for-anc-in-future-says-kgalema-motlanthe/">is coming to an end</a>. The party that has dominated South African politics since 1994, winning five successive general elections, is <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/ralph-mathekga-the-anc-s-last-decade/vjvm-7311-ga40">confronting a crisis of its own making</a>. This results from poor governance and rampant corruption. A steady decline in support raises the real prospect of gaining less than 50% in the next general election <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/south-africas-future-is-tied-to-anc-leadership-and-election-battles">in 2024</a>.</p>
<p>As Motlanthe <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/politics/2022-04-06-no-dominant-role-for-anc-in-future-says-kgalema-motlanthe/">points out</a>, South African politics is in a state of flux </p>
<blockquote>
<p>which must necessarily result in a realignment of political forces. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>No ANC figure of his stature has hitherto admitted that the ANC as such might cease to exist. South Africa without the ANC is considered unimaginable.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/former-president-kgalema-motlanthe">Motlanthe</a> served as president between the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-safrica-politics-mbeki-idUSWEA015020080920">ejection of Thabo Mbeki</a> in September 2008 and the <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">elevation to the post of Jacob Zuma</a> following the April 2009 general election.</p>
<p>The defeat of the ANC would be contrary to liberation movement ideology, which suggests that liberation from settler, colonial or apartheid rule constitutes the end of history. Because the ANC is projected as <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anc-insists-its-still-a-political-vanguard-this-is-what-ails-democracy-in-south-africa-141938">the party of the people</a>, it is assumed that ANC rule inaugurated the rule of the people and the oppressed. Liberation is thus conceived as an end-state. No other future can be imagined; no other future can be regarded as legitimate. </p>
<p>Yet South African history shows that political parties do not last forever. They fragment, they coalesce, and they change their identities as the political landscape changes.</p>
<p>Faced by the consequences of its poor governance, many in the ANC’s top ranks are worried about its declining popular support. If it loses its outright majority in the <a href="https://www.eisa.org/wep/southafrica.htm">2024 national elections</a>, the ANC will need to enter a coalition with another party. Yet history shows that South African parties that seek to govern by forging unity out of diversity tend to fragment when they are confronted by a fundamental political or economic crisis. Let’s recap.</p>
<h2>Fractious party politics in history</h2>
<p>At the establishment of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/union-south-africa-1910">Union of South Africa in 1910</a>, Louis Botha’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-Botha">Het Volk</a> of the old Transvaal combined with Prime Minister <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/james-barry-munnik-hertzog">Barry Hertzog’s</a> Orangia Unie of the Free State and the Cape’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Afrikaner-Bond">Afrikaner Bond</a> to form the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/South-African-Party">South African Party</a>. Subsequently, when South Africa entered the <a href="https://en.unesco.org/courier/news-views-online/first-world-war-and-its-consequences-africa">first world war</a> in 1914, an outraged Hertzog, who was bitterly opposed to siding with Britain, left the South African Party to form the first iteration of the Afrikaner-based National Party.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-africas-electoral-history-timeline-1910-2009">1920 election</a>, the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/national-party-np">National Party</a> won more seats than the South African Party, which was forced to absorb the Natal-based, jingoistic, pro-British <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv03445/04lv03446/05lv03514.htm">Unionist Party</a> to stay in office. However, having alienated the white working class by suppressing the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/rand-rebellion-1922">1922 Rand Revolt</a> – when white workers’ resistance to plans by mine-owners to replace them with cheaper black labour resulted in armed rebellion – the South African Party lost the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00358534808451522?journalCode=ctrt20">1924 election</a> to an alliance of the National Party and the <a href="https://open.uct.ac.za/handle/11427/9929">Labour Party</a>.</p>
<p>After being returned to power with an outright majority in 1929, the National Party ran into the headwinds of the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/20780389.1990.10417176">economic depression</a>. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jan-Smuts">Jan Smuts</a>, the leader of the South African Party and prime minister, came to its rescue in 1933, entering into a coalition with Hertzog. This led to the “fusion” of the South African Party and the National Party into the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-Party">United Party</a> in 1934.</p>
<p>This was treason to the ultra-British wing of the South African Party, which decamped into the Natal-based <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/dominion-party/m0kg3c8k?hl=en">Dominion Party</a>. More significantly, the formation of the United Party was also sacrilege to the extremist wing of the National Party, which under the leadership of DF Malan crossed the floor of the House of Assembly and formed the opposition, the Gesuiwerde Nasionale Party.</p>
<p>Subsequently, after Hertzog had lost a narrow vote to keep South Africa out of the second world war in 1939, he made way for Smuts as prime minister. Hertzog’s supporters either joined the Gesuiwerde Nasionale Party, which became the Herenigde Nasionale Party, or followed other “Hertzogites” into the small Afrikaner Party. An electoral agreement between the Herenigde Nasionale Party and the Afrikaner Party was subsequently to lead to the defeat of Smuts and the United Party government in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-south-africas-catastrophe-the-1948-poll-that-heralded-apartheid-96928">1948 election</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man makes an open palm gesture with his right had as he speaks into a microphone in his left hand." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460285/original/file-20220428-18-nomiim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460285/original/file-20220428-18-nomiim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460285/original/file-20220428-18-nomiim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460285/original/file-20220428-18-nomiim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460285/original/file-20220428-18-nomiim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460285/original/file-20220428-18-nomiim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460285/original/file-20220428-18-nomiim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leading ANC member and former South African President Kgalema Motlanthe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The National Party retained power for the best part of the next 40 years. Yet it found it necessary, for reasons both political and economic, to make adjustments to <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/hendrik-frensch-verwoerd">Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd</a>’s policies of apartheid. It suffered successive breakaways to the right. The first, led by <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/full/10.18820/24150509/SJCH46.v1.4">Albert Hertzog</a> (the former prime minister’s son) in 1969, saw the formation of the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv03445/04lv03446/05lv03472.htm">Herstigte Nasionale Party</a>, which had little impact.</p>
<p>A more serious challenge was presented by <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/andries-treurnicht">Andries Treurnicht</a>’s formation of the Conservative Party in 1982, which grew to become the official opposition in 1987. Its threat was such that it forced the National Party government, now headed by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/P-W-Botha">PW Botha</a>, to broaden its support base. It increasingly appealed to English-speakers alongside Afrikaners to retain its majority. </p>
<p>Botha was replaced as leader of the National Party in 1989 by <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/frederik-willem-de-klerk">FW de Klerk</a>, who led it through the transition that culminated in the country’s <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/frederick-willem-de-klerk">negotiated end of apartheid</a>. He retired in 1997. </p>
<p>Eventually, in 2000, most of the carcass of the National Party, which had lost power to the ANC in the first democratic election in 1994, was absorbed by the Democratic Party, which became the official opposition <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Democratic-Alliance-political-party-South-Africa">Democratic Alliance</a>.</p>
<h2>Post-apartheid political realignments</h2>
<p>Many observers of the current South African scene will query whether this dizzying detour into the history of white political parties is at all relevant to the present. The answer is that it is.</p>
<p>Successive breakaways from the ANC – by the <a href="https://udm.org.za/history/">United Democratic Movement</a> in 1997, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Congress-of-the-People-political-party-South-Africa">Congress of the People in 2008</a> and, most consequentially of all, the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/founding-economic-freedom-fighters-eff">Economic Freedom Fighters</a> in 2013 – reflect the inherently fractious nature of South African politics, whether it has been under white minority rule or, as now, under a democratic dispensation.</p>
<p>That’s why successive ANC governments have lent such strong support to the Zanu-PF government in Zimbabwe. The ANC fears Zanu-PF’s defeat in an election will collapse the myth of the inviolability of liberation movements in southern Africa.</p>
<p>It is still early to predict the decease of the ANC. Yet all the signs of terminal disease are there. It has become <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-10-07-anc-fails-to-stop-the-corruption-train-32-major-scandals-four-in-2021-alone/">thoroughly corrupt</a>; it <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2022/04/11/corruption-accused-zandile-gumede-elected-as-regional-chair-of-ethekwini-anc">appears unable to reform itself</a>; and it appears <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/sources/wsg-news/2022/parts-of-south-africa-have-now-collapsed-wsg-expert-.html">increasingly unable to govern the country</a>, whether that be at national, provincial or municipal level.</p>
<p>All its politicians are frightened to be the ones to <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/we-wont-allow-the-anc-to-split-ramaphosa">break the ANC apart</a>. Yet events – whether this be electoral defeat, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-have-south-africans-been-on-a-looting-rampage-research-offers-insights-164571">mass revolt</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-fiscal-squeeze-warning-signs-ignored-for-too-long-177188">economic failure</a> or whatever – are likely to force their hand. Potential partners will be reluctant to identify themselves with a failing party. They may well demand the formation of a completely new party, with a new name, a new programme and a new brand.</p>
<p>This is a reminder that South African parties have changed over time because the country is difficult to govern. It is a nation of very diverse regions, peoples, religions and ideologies. A ruling party has somehow to cobble all these elements together if it wants to stay in power.</p>
<p>It is no wonder that any ruling party in South Africa finds it difficult to maintain internal coherence and unity over an extended time span. The long and the short of this potted history is that no South African party has shown its capacity to last forever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181085/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall 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>Any ruling party in South Africa has found it hard to maintain internal coherence and unity over an extended time span amid wide national diversity.Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1809502022-04-19T00:48:36Z2022-04-19T00:48:36ZThe workforce in the child protection system needs urgent reform<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457852/original/file-20220413-26-wuvuix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C12%2C4104%2C2400&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The crisis in child welfare in Australia has, for too long, resulted in too many children taken into care, with many <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-28/child-protection-system-failing-vulnerable-kids-australia/100768482">not receiving</a> the timely assistance and care they and their families need.</p>
<p>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are <a href="https://theconversation.com/first-nations-children-are-still-being-removed-at-disproportionate-rates-cultural-assumptions-about-parenting-need-to-change-169090">11 times more likely</a> to be taken into care. Children from culturally diverse families, and children and parents with disability are also over-represented in the system. Children often enter child protection systems for many reasons, including neglect because of poverty. Families need support to care for their children safely, rather than having their children removed. </p>
<p>Our national <a href="https://www.acu.edu.au/-/media/feature/pagecontent/richtext/about-acu/institutes-academies-and-centres/icps/_docs/trends-and-needs-in-australian-child-welfare-workforces.pdf">study</a>, published by the <a href="https://www.acu.edu.au/-/media/feature/pagecontent/richtext/about-acu/institutes-academies-and-centres/icps/_docs/trends-and-needs-in-australian-child-welfare-workforces.pdf">Institute of Child Protection Studies</a>, found this problem is made worse by poor workforce planning. The need for child welfare services has gone up but the current workforce is ill-equipped and unable to respond. </p>
<p>Reform is urgently needed to reshape the system and its workforce towards more services that prevent problems emerging in the first place, rather than a system geared towards removal. Such reform would support children to remain safely with their families.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-faulty-child-welfare-system-is-the-real-issue-behind-our-youth-justice-crisis-72217">The faulty child welfare system is the real issue behind our youth justice crisis</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>A prevention approach</h2>
<p>Our study examined broad-ranging, publicly available data to investigate emerging trends, issues and needs in the child welfare workforce and the educational profile of the workforce. </p>
<p>We approached this research from a public health perspective, where the priority is prevention and early intervention.</p>
<p>We wanted to evaluate how ready this workforce is to implement principles outlined in the <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/our-responsibilities/families-and-children/programs-services/protecting-australias-children">National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children 2009-2020</a>, a guiding policy document agreed upon by state and federal governments at the 2009 Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting.</p>
<p>These principles envision a system where services and key stakeholders – such as teachers, health workers and community service workers – are funded to work together with children and families to reduce vulnerability and prevent child abuse and neglect. </p>
<p>Research has also identified ways we can invest in supporting <a href="https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s10578-021-01309-0?sharing_token=85NNTOc3CNC5kn-fajy7i_e4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY4Jlx2ius8ljlvrVOy52z-wmj_Wb5N___MA4OIwvlD96BmGxgVoxQ84eVaeLtRuDZuwXugqjjACjFJiNZEINYAPNOHyHwydOkqAjL3TILpXaxOyfO78uGKWeMiMRrW9ids%3D">parents</a> to address early issues that might otherwise become a child protection concern.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457860/original/file-20220413-15-9vrqt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457860/original/file-20220413-15-9vrqt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457860/original/file-20220413-15-9vrqt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457860/original/file-20220413-15-9vrqt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457860/original/file-20220413-15-9vrqt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457860/original/file-20220413-15-9vrqt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457860/original/file-20220413-15-9vrqt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457860/original/file-20220413-15-9vrqt0.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The workforce for the preventative and supportive services in the child protection system is poorly defined and resourced.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If early intervention approaches prove to be not enough, more intensive services exist to support more vulnerable families to reduce the risk of child abuse and neglect. Then, the formal state child protection response (sometimes known as the “tertiary tier” of the broader child welfare system) should only kick in if the supportive services are not able to manage or reduce the risk of child maltreatment.</p>
<p>Even when someone notifies a state child protection authority about a child’s safety, they and their family don’t always get the help they need. Safety concerns keep on being raised. Removal of children may be necessary in some instances. But removal often does not ensure the safety and well-being of children.</p>
<p>We need early, specialist support that is actually helpful for children and families, culturally appropriate, and meaningful. This is by far the most effective way to deal with child abuse and neglect and promote child safety and well-being, while minimising removals.</p>
<p>To achieve this goal, workforce reform is needed.</p>
<h2>A question of resourcing</h2>
<p>The workforce for the preventative and supportive services in the child protection system is poorly defined and resourced. </p>
<p>Many of these workers – teachers, early childhood educators, nurses, GPs – do not have the qualifications or skills needed to recognise and assess risk of harm and provide needed support. </p>
<p>These problems inherent with prevention and support increases the pressure on the child protection systems. </p>
<p>Most of the funding and resources are aimed towards the more severe end of the child protection systems, yet high levels of staff turnover continue, which negatively affect the quality and consistency of service. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458462/original/file-20220418-24-t3vqgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458462/original/file-20220418-24-t3vqgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458462/original/file-20220418-24-t3vqgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458462/original/file-20220418-24-t3vqgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458462/original/file-20220418-24-t3vqgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458462/original/file-20220418-24-t3vqgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458462/original/file-20220418-24-t3vqgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458462/original/file-20220418-24-t3vqgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Key findings from our report.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.acu.edu.au/-/media/feature/pagecontent/richtext/about-acu/institutes-academies-and-centres/icps/_docs/trends-and-needs-in-australian-child-welfare-workforces.pdf">Trends and needs in the Australian child welfare workforce: An exploratory study</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Diversifying the workforce</h2>
<p>Our analysis highlighted that workers in child protection systems are overloaded yet still must deal with complex situations. They often lack the training or skills and have limited experience to draw on.</p>
<p>The number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers, culturally diverse workers, and workers with disability does not align with the disproportionate representation of these groups within child protection systems. </p>
<p>Those that <em>are</em> in the child protection system tend not to be in leadership roles, and less likely to be making decisions.</p>
<p>Educational programs key to child welfare – such as social work, psychology and human services – are not meeting the increased demand for workers. </p>
<h2>What would make a difference?</h2>
<p>Investment priorities must shift. Funding needs to be aimed at preventative and supportive services for vulnerable children and their families, rather than at the part of the system that deals with removals. We must respond to people’s needs early and decrease the pressure on child protection systems.</p>
<p>The preventative child welfare workforce (including teachers, early childhood educators, nurses, GPs and other community service workers) needs to be better resourced and supported. These stakeholders must be able to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to identify and respond to the risk factors.</p>
<p>Better professional development for all workers in the child welfare sector is urgently needed.</p>
<p>The numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers, in support and child protection services needs to be increased in a way that recognises their knowledge, expertise and value in keeping children safe. More government funding and support for First-Nations led organisations like <a href="https://www.snaicc.org.au/">SNAICC</a> (Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care) could potentially assist with this.</p>
<p>There is also a need for more culturally diverse workers and those with a disability.</p>
<p>Higher education providers and child welfare sectors must work together to plan for the continuing demand and future needs in child welfare services. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-nations-children-are-still-being-removed-at-disproportionate-rates-cultural-assumptions-about-parenting-need-to-change-169090">First Nations children are still being removed at disproportionate rates. Cultural assumptions about parenting need to change</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180950/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erica Russ has prior experience working in child protection and have previously undertaken other state government funded research related to child protection. She is a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers. This story is part of The Conversation's Breaking the Cycle series, which is about escaping cycles of disadvantage. It is supported by a philanthropic grant from the Paul Ramsay Foundation. The researchers would like to acknowledge seed funding for this project provided by the University of New England, Faculty of Medicine and Health and New England Institute of Healthcare Research Collaborative Research Scheme.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bob Lonne is am a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daryl Higgins receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, a range of Australian, state, and territory governments, and non-government agencies. He is a member of the Australian Psychological Society.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Morley has previous experience working in the child protection field and has previously undertaken other state government funded research related to child protection. She is a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Harries and Mark Driver 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>Families need support to care for their children safely, rather than having their children removed.Erica Russ, Senior Lecturer, Southern Cross UniversityBob Lonne, Adjunct Professor, Queensland University of TechnologyDaryl Higgins, Professor & Director, Institute of Child Protection Studies, Australian Catholic UniversityLouise Morley, Lecturer, University of New EnglandMaria Harries, Senior Honorary Research Fellow, The University of Western AustraliaMark Driver, Research Assistant, University of New EnglandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1808492022-04-18T12:28:44Z2022-04-18T12:28:44ZIs Ukrainian a language or a dialect? That depends on whom you ask and how the war ends<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457165/original/file-20220408-11-s8qo6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=104%2C20%2C6884%2C2965&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Whether someone's speech is a language or a dialect is a matter of both linguistics and politics.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/ukrainian-and-russian-flags-in-the-shape-of-royalty-free-illustration/1384751297">illust-monster/iStock/Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the number of people studying <a href="https://www.duolingo.com/enroll/uk/en/Learn-Ukrainian">Ukrainian on Duolingo</a>, a language learning website and mobile app, has <a href="https://blog.duolingo.com/duolingo-statement-ukraine/">increased</a> by more than 500%. </p>
<p>Most of those who are taking up Ukrainian are probably unaware that there is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/long-before-shots-were-fired-a-linguistic-power-struggle-was-playing-out-in-ukraine-178247">long-running controversy</a> about this particular form of speech. One side views Russians and Ukrainians as “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/10/putin-likes-talk-about-russians-ukrainians-one-people-heres-deeper-history/">one people</a>,” and the opposing side does not. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putin-is-the-only-winner-of-ukraines-language-wars/">former</a> claim that Ukrainian is <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukrainian-and-russian-how-similar-are-the-two-languages-178456">just a dialect of Russian</a>, while the latter <a href="https://uatv.ua/en/debunking-russian-propaganda-ukrainian-language-dialect-russian/">argue</a> that it is a <a href="https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=51618">separate language</a>. Who’s correct?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there isn’t a clear answer. The difference between a language and a dialect depends upon whom you ask.</p>
<h2>The linguistics angle</h2>
<p>Many linguists base their determination of language-or-dialect on whether forms of speech are <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2014/02/16/how-a-dialect-differs-from-a-language">mutually understandable</a>. In simple terms, if two people are speaking different dialects of the same language, they can probably understand each other. However, if two people are speaking separate languages, they probably won’t be able to understand each other.</p>
<p>By this definition, <a href="https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/Marking-a-historic-split.451490">Czech and Slovak</a> could be viewed as dialects of the same language. The same goes for <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/learner-english/malayindonesian-speakers/FA89460A13BED87C0069AE8C0790885C">Indonesian and Malay</a>.</p>
<p>Some spoken forms look quite different when pen is put to paper. For instance, Serbian is written with a variation of the Cyrillic alphabet, like Russian, while Croatian uses a form of the Latin alphabet, like English. Nonetheless, many linguists would consider <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/04/10/is-serbo-croatian-a-language">Serbian and Croatian</a> to be dialects of the same language, because <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2014/02/16/how-a-dialect-differs-from-a-language">it’s the understandability of spoken forms</a> that generally counts. </p>
<p>Humans have been talking for a very long time, but we’ve only been writing things down for a few millennia. Plus, of the roughly 7,000 known living languages <a href="https://www.ethnologue.com/enterprise-faq/how-many-languages-world-are-unwritten-0">only about 4,000 have a writing system</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nOUhaOQSKic?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has addressed the Russian people in the Russian language, while delivering other speeches in Ukrainian and English.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Politics says something different</h2>
<p>For political scientists, the difference between a language and a dialect is not based on mutual understandability, but rather <a href="https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2018/08/23/classifying-languages-is-about-politics-as-much-as-linguistics">politics</a>. For example, <a href="http://www.oxirsoc.com/blog-articles/2017/2/22/yes-hindi-and-urdu-are-the-same-language">Hindi and Urdu</a> are separate languages because the governments of India and Pakistan say they are, even though the colloquially spoken forms of the two varieties are strikingly similar.</p>
<p>Max Weinreich, a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yiddish-language">Yiddish</a> scholar, popularized the idea that “<a href="https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/yugoslavian-language-dialect">a language is a dialect with an army and navy</a>.” In other words, a government can promote the view that a dialect is a separate language even if it isn’t in linguistic terms. </p>
<p>Moldova, for instance, argues that Moldovan is a separate language, even though it is <a href="https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/romanian-and-moldovian-language/">nearly identical</a> to Romanian. Although Romania has gotten upset about such linguistic rebranding, according to <a href="https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Moldova_2016?lang=en">Article 13 of the Moldovan Constitution</a>, the country’s official language is Moldovan, and not Romanian. Thus the two are separate languages – at least politically.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457743/original/file-20220412-18-p5v1cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three people in camouflage uniforms and helmets walk up a hill" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457743/original/file-20220412-18-p5v1cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457743/original/file-20220412-18-p5v1cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457743/original/file-20220412-18-p5v1cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457743/original/file-20220412-18-p5v1cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457743/original/file-20220412-18-p5v1cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457743/original/file-20220412-18-p5v1cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457743/original/file-20220412-18-p5v1cm.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ukrainian soldiers move through a combat zone in the Donbas region of Ukraine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ukrainian-soldiers-walk-through-a-ukrainian-frontline-in-news-photo/1239920664">Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bestowing <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/official-language">official</a> status on a particular spoken form not only encourages its use in government, including the courts, but it also usually means that a spoken form will be taught in schools, thereby ensuring that future generations share a common language – even if it was <a href="https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2019/09/05/languages-are-a-battleground-for-nationalists">invented for nationalistic purposes</a>.</p>
<p>Just as <a href="https://www.economist.com/johnson/2010/08/04/of-dialects-armies-and-navies">a dialect with an army and navy can be considered its own language</a>, a language with an army and a navy can call other languages mere dialects. For example, the official language of the People’s Republic of China is <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780887101076/spoken-standard-chinese-volume-one/">Standard Chinese</a>, which is often shortened to simply “Chinese” and is sometimes – <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/where-does-mandarin-come/579073/">contentiously</a> – referred to as <a href="https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/mandarin">Mandarin</a>. However, <a href="https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/what-language-is-spoken-in-china">this is not the only form of speech</a> that can be heard throughout the country. </p>
<p>Cantonese is widely spoken in and around Hong Kong, yet it is <a href="https://asiasociety.org/china-learning-initiatives/many-dialects-china">often treated as a dialect</a> of “Chinese.” However, spoken Mandarin and Cantonese are not mutually understandable. As such, in linguistic terms, these two forms of speech would not be considered dialects of a single language, but rather <a href="https://unravellingmag.com/articles/cantonese/">separate languages</a>. </p>
<p>In order to strengthen the power of the central government against separatist sentiment, the Chinese government has long promoted <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/a-billion-voices-chinas-search-for-a-common-language-penguin-specials-9780734399595">a language unification agenda</a>. The intent is both to create a common way of communicating for the country but also to minimize the linguistic and cultural differences that exist among different communities. To help spread the adoption of Standard Chinese, as <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130724204951/http://www.gov.cn/english/laws/2005-09/19/content_64906.htm">defined by the government</a>, television and radio professionals are subject to strict requirements and <a href="https://www.economist.com/asia/2016/10/13/let-not-a-billion-tongues-bloom">can even be fined for using incorrect pronunciation</a>. </p>
<p>Throughout China, local forms of speech are being <a href="https://www.economist.com/china/2021/01/30/assimilation-of-chinese-minorities-is-not-just-a-uyghur-thing">phased out as mediums of instruction</a> in schools in favor of Mandarin. Many of these forms are now <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/16/chinese-dialects-in-decline-as-government-enforces-mandarin">declining</a>, and some are at risk of <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/article/3121562/chinese-minority-languages-among-those-risk-dying-out-no-one">going extinct</a>. Such efforts do not necessarily mean that these types of speech aren’t “<a href="https://www.economist.com/culture/2022/02/12/a-language-without-a-flag-and-a-state-is-still-a-language">real</a> languages” in the linguistic sense. </p>
<p>But politically, the difference between a language and a dialect is whatever China says it is. This is even reflected at the international level, as many organizations, such as the <a href="https://unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo/ungegn/docs/4th-uncsgn-docs/e_conf_74_L48.pdf">United Nations</a>, recognize “Chinese” as being the form of speech standardized and promoted by the Chinese government.</p>
<h2>Resolving the conflict</h2>
<p>So, is Ukrainian a dialect of Russian or a separate language? Linguistically, <a href="https://slate.com/podcasts/spectacular-vernacular/2022/03/can-ukrainian-be-considered-a-dialect-of-russian">Ukrainian and Russian are about as different as French and Portuguese</a>. Although French and Portuguese both descend from Latin, they’ve now diverged enough to make mutual understanding difficult. Similarly, while both Ukrainian and Russian share a common ancestor, their present-day spoken forms are now different enough that there’s a strong linguistic case for them to be considered separate languages.</p>
<p>Politically, however, whether Ukrainian is a dialect or language will, in part, depend upon how the <a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-invades-ukraine-5-essential-reads-from-experts-177815">war</a> ends. If Ukraine remains an <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-putin-has-such-a-hard-time-accepting-ukrainian-sovereignty-174029">independent country</a> that considers Ukrainian a separate language – it is a separate language. </p>
<p>If, however, Russia ends up controlling the entirety of Ukraine, thereby finishing the process that it began in 2014 with its annexation of <a href="https://theconversation.com/crimea-the-polarised-peninsula-threatening-to-rip-ukraine-apart-23739">Crimea</a>, then Russia could promote the view that Ukrainian is but a mere dialect of Russian, to reinforce Ukraine’s diminished status as a part of Russia.</p>
<p>In short, not only is Ukraine’s territorial integrity at risk, but so is the independence of a unique and distinct cultural community.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180849/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Holzer 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>The difference between a language and dialect is just as much about politics as it is linguistics.Joshua Holzer, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Westminster CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1688812022-02-15T17:24:45Z2022-02-15T17:24:45ZWhat is biocultural diversity, and why does it matter?<p>What do the English concept of the countryside, the French <em>paysage</em>, the Spanish <em>dehesas</em> and Australian Aboriginal <em>country</em> have in common? All of these are unique landscapes which created through long-term management by people. All are underpinned by centuries, even millennia, of intangible knowledge, cultural heritage and practice.</p>
<p>Crucially, these landscapes also contain more biodiversity than the areas that surrounding them. It was this observation that created the term “biocultural diversity”, to encompass how crucial the knowledge, innovations, and practices of indigenous peoples and local communities are for conservation and sustainability.</p>
<p>Biocultural diversity first gained attention at the 1988 First International Congress of Ethnobiology in Belém, Brazil. That congress gathered Indigenous peoples, scientists, and environmentalists together to devise a strategy to halt the ongoing decline in the global diversity of both nature and culture.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ethnobiology.net/what-we-do/core-programs/global-coalition-2/declaration-of-belem/">The Congress declaration</a> stated: “There is an inextricable link between cultural and biological diversity.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="'Emerald Terraces of the Cordillera' surround Bangaan village near Banaue, Ifugao, Philippines" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441356/original/file-20220118-19-139fzi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441356/original/file-20220118-19-139fzi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441356/original/file-20220118-19-139fzi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441356/original/file-20220118-19-139fzi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441356/original/file-20220118-19-139fzi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441356/original/file-20220118-19-139fzi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441356/original/file-20220118-19-139fzi6.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">The rice terraces of the Cordillera in the Philippines are recognised by the UN as a ‘cultural landscape’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidstanleytravel/40879929533/in/photolist-25hqjPg-2g5SCAL-sHSruG-62xCHF-62BRwj-62xGqa-62BV41-62BXtq-62C1xj-62C3dJ-62BSgu-2g4ekVb-62xDhF-62xJLr-62xHXp-62BZG5-62xDTF-62BVMy-62xAte-6phK-62BwrU-29ZZYZw-NXNa3Y-6278ZF-2g688xR-4kA93z-njSTHV-8QYQtn-6274yg-6278hF-6275de-6273RD-62bgfh-4kA8NX-62bkHd-627736-62bjsS-62biR7-ni7HZq-62xgi4-62Btiw-5RjwbJ-62bfBS-62Bu8C-62xftB-5RjyzU-5Rfj42-6eLge-2b5B98f-vowh9D">David Stanley</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By 2016, the Convention on Biological Diversity had adopted the Mo’otz kuxtal (meaning “roots of life” in the Maya language) <a href="https://www.cbd.int/doc/publications/8j-cbd-mootz-kuxtal-en.pdf">guidelines</a> for fairly accessing and sharing the knowledge, innovations and practices of Indigenous peoples for conservation and sustainability.</p>
<h2>Language and biodiversity</h2>
<p>How does biocultural diversity manifest? One example can be found in language.</p>
<p>Language diversity hotspots frequently correlate with species diversity hotspots; similarly, endangered languages often correspond to areas where there are high numbers of <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/109/21/8032">endangered species</a>.</p>
<p>We can see the importance of language in conserving biodiversity in the management practices of Northern American First Nations in the <a href="https://ecotrust.org/wp-content/uploads/Rainforests_of_Home.pdf">temperate rainforest</a> of western Canada and the USA. Particular phrases in the native languages indicate, for example, times for harvesting wild plants and animals, and other biodiversity signals that allow sustainable harvesting.</p>
<p>Similarly, many Australian Aboriginal peoples define <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/research/natural-environment/land/about-the-calendars">seasons</a> through language based on biodiversity signals. They link those signals to fire management techniques, which are vital to protecting the Australian landscape from <a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-expertise-is-reducing-bushfires-in-northern-australia-its-time-to-consider-similar-approaches-for-other-disasters-155361">ever-more deadly wildfires</a>.</p>
<p>And on the Isle of Man, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPFuUsdpmRo">resurrection of the Manx language</a> has had positive effects on both local culture and the environment. Use of Manx language names for plants, animals and habitat management allow Civil society and tourists alike to better appreciate biodiversity, landscape and culture.</p>
<h2>Severing cultures</h2>
<p>If the interweaving of nature and culture can have a positive effect on biodiversity, its opposite, the separation of nature from human culture, known as <a href="https://www.rsb.org.uk/biologist-book-reviews/cultural-severance-and-the-environment">cultural severance</a>, is negative. Cultural severance is a serious problem for conserving both nature and culture.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441353/original/file-20220118-19-ztklns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A view of the Isle of Man from an aeroplane window" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441353/original/file-20220118-19-ztklns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441353/original/file-20220118-19-ztklns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441353/original/file-20220118-19-ztklns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441353/original/file-20220118-19-ztklns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441353/original/file-20220118-19-ztklns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441353/original/file-20220118-19-ztklns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441353/original/file-20220118-19-ztklns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Isle of Man has benefitted from the revival of the Manx language.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/39997856@N03/8073155752/in/photolist-dip2Wy-2jpcgHx-221um6p-Fp5bHo-pbML9M-2kZcupF-bLSfd-ZW46-5x4D3z-5x4EJZ-N2Eqo2-hYrTqe-mB9XB-2mmdbNV-Ps8rR4-MQMAqQ-i6yYro-di6LM3-i2N4WX-q2es9S-R21c2h-dhzcDB-GdG9T2-d8TrKh-Bmab6f-afZtkX-2h2hk74-ptgAch-2hKpmdg-hXNrgN-6QMyti-Db5vSu-274GhGT-5x965N-6Qrx6H-5wYKRd-5x91Ys-5wYGfw-pcCERp-5wYXNJ-5x4DpK-5x92mY-5x4C4a-2mbVjcM-5x8ZxW-5wUECH-5x4E28-QRexXW-5wYUD7-5x4DeK">Mariusz Kluzniak</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Creating deliberate cultural severance (even depopulation) is effectively “rewilding”, but without direction. Landscapes shaped by people that suffer depopulation may suddenly look “natural”, yet will have fewer drivers for ecosystem functions. This has potential negative consequences, despite the <a href="https://theconversation.com/rewilding-four-tips-to-let-nature-thrive-157441">increasing clamour for rewilding</a>.</p>
<p>Cultural severance has taken place all over the world. Examples include the conversion of upland moors and bogs to intensive grouse moor in the UK; the conversion of prairie land to intensive agriculture in the US Midwest; and the removal of Indigenous management of landscapes in Australia, Africa, and Latin America.</p>
<p>Cultural severance can result in dramatic declines in ecological diversity. Many of the species that have today reduced in numbers and distribution have declined because long-term human involvement in the landscape management has ended.</p>
<h2>New concepts</h2>
<p>Since 2018, a concept has been developed to describe our relationship with the environment, <a href="https://ipbes.net/glossary/natures-contributions-people">“nature’s contributions to people”</a>. It is an evolution of the idea of ecosystem services, which refers to the positive benefit the environment provides to people, and it is not without controversy.</p>
<p>It only refers to people’s contributions to nature in a very obscure way. To be a complete concept, it must explain the feedbacks and links between cultural and biological diversity. In diagrammatic form, these feedbacks and links look like this:</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446567/original/file-20220215-15-1vnzgb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446567/original/file-20220215-15-1vnzgb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446567/original/file-20220215-15-1vnzgb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446567/original/file-20220215-15-1vnzgb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446567/original/file-20220215-15-1vnzgb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446567/original/file-20220215-15-1vnzgb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446567/original/file-20220215-15-1vnzgb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Fourni par l'auteur</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>UNESCO recognises <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/culturallandscape/">cultural landscapes</a> in its World Heritage Convention. This constitutes a growing list of places significant for their biocultural diversity, from the Saloum Delta in Senegal to Norway’s Vega Archipelago, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park in Central Australia and the rice terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras.</p>
<p>The people who live in and around landscapes have cultivated the sharing of intergenerational knowledge on maintenance, management, and reshaping of the land they inhabit. This can be encapsulated simply as the “interaction between genes and memes”. We do not mean memes in the social media sense, but in the original meaning given by <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Selfish_Gene/ekonDAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=inauthor:%22Richard+Dawkins%22&printsec=frontcover">Richard Dawkins</a>, as inherited culture.</p>
<p>The Convention on Biological Diversity defines biocultural diversity as “biological diversity and cultural diversity and the links between them”. The convention also defines biocultural heritage as the holistic approach of many indigenous peoples and local communities. This collective conceptual approach recognises knowledge as “heritage”.</p>
<p>We suggest these definitions should be widely used, and encourage further work on the concepts, both academic and practical.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398230/original/file-20210502-19-2lk7b1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398230/original/file-20210502-19-2lk7b1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398230/original/file-20210502-19-2lk7b1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398230/original/file-20210502-19-2lk7b1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398230/original/file-20210502-19-2lk7b1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398230/original/file-20210502-19-2lk7b1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398230/original/file-20210502-19-2lk7b1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=419&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"></span>
</figcaption>
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<p><em>For 50 years, the UNESCO <a href="https://en.unesco.org/mab">Man and the Biosphere Program</a> (MAB) has combined exact, natural and social sciences to find solutions implemented in the 727 exceptional sites (131 countries) of biosphere reserves.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168881/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>Ecosystems thrive in places where human connections with nature go back generations.Peter Bridgewater, Adjunct Professor, University of CanberraSuraj Upadhaya, Postdoctoral research associate, Iowa State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1616142021-06-15T14:54:35Z2021-06-15T14:54:35ZReuters’ Hot List of climate scientists is geographically skewed: why this matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405887/original/file-20210611-21-xim81j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A section of Quarry Road informal settlement in Durban after severe flooding in April 2019 where research was undertaken by local scientists.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Catherine Sutherland</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/climate-change-scientists-list/">Hot List</a> of “the world’s top climate scientists” is causing a buzz in the climate change community. Reuters ranked these 1,000 scientists based on three criteria: the number of papers published on climate change topics; citations, relative to other papers in the same field; and references by the non-peer reviewed press (for example on social media). The list does not claim that they are the “best” scientists in the world. But the ranking enhances position and reputation, influencing the production, reproduction and dissemination of knowledge.</p>
<p>What matters to us, as global South researchers and practitioners working in the field of climate change, is that the geography of this “global” list reveals a striking imbalance. While over three quarters of the <a href="https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Standard/Population/">global population</a> live in Asia and Africa, over three quarters of the scientists on the list are located in Europe and North America. Only five are listed for Africa.</p>
<p>The list includes 130 of the 929 authors who are contributing to the current reports of the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a>, arguably the most influential source for climate change policy. Again, the imbalance is stark: 377 (41%) of panel authors are citizens of developing countries (95 from Africa) and only 16 of these are on the Reuters list (only two from Africa).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403372/original/file-20210528-23-eyqb8n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map showing uneven distribution of scientists." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403372/original/file-20210528-23-eyqb8n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403372/original/file-20210528-23-eyqb8n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403372/original/file-20210528-23-eyqb8n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403372/original/file-20210528-23-eyqb8n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403372/original/file-20210528-23-eyqb8n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403372/original/file-20210528-23-eyqb8n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403372/original/file-20210528-23-eyqb8n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Proportion of Hot List authors, IPCC authors and global population by continent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marlies Craig</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Climate change science dominated by knowledge produced in the global North cannot address the particular challenges faced by those living in the global South. It also misses significant lessons emerging from the global South, for example from the intersection of climate change with poverty, inequality and informality. </p>
<p>Reuters maps the 1,000 scientists, making it clear that their location is important, yet it does not reflect on what this portrays. While the list is presented as a neutral, data-driven assessment of the top climate scientists, it is silent on the questions of power, authority and inequality this map raises. Where are the global South scientists, and why are they not featuring in this analysis of influence?</p>
<p>We believe that this inequality in influence is a result of unequal access to knowledge production essentials and processes. It also reflects the unequal valuing of climate change scientists’ research focus, which for scientists in the global South is often context-specific, to improve human outcomes and achieve localised return on investment in knowledge.</p>
<p>The list elevates research that contributes to well-established bodies of knowledge on the processes of climate change, and its global and local impacts, much of which has been produced <a href="https://theconversation.com/global-south-scholars-are-missing-from-european-and-us-journals-what-can-be-done-about-it-99570">in the global North</a>. Research questions developed in and framed by the global North, for instance questions about environmental perceptions and values, often have limited application or meaning in the global South.</p>
<h2>Science from global South matters</h2>
<p>The science that is elevated by the list is not the only science that matters. Research from the global South tends to focus on solving challenges on the ground, drawing on multiple voices in local spaces and including practitioner knowledge, to co-produce solutions. </p>
<p>From our experience in Durban on South Africa’s east coast, local researchers, drawing on contextualised and decolonised global knowledge, influence the position of local policy makers and practitioners on climate change solutions. An example is research undertaken in informal settlements by university researchers with communities, which is shaping Durban’s <a href="https://oxfordre.com/naturalhazardscience/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389407.001.0001/acrefore-9780199389407-e-352">climate change action</a>.</p>
<p>To achieve a better global balance of important work on climate change, a list like the Reuters one could include a measure of the localised application and influence of research. What also matters is that the exclusion of ideas inhibits the production of knowledge for globally relevant innovation, transformation and action. Northern literature dominates global thinking and practice as shown through the spatiality of the list, but this science does not always provide globally relevant solutions, and often has limited application or meaning <a href="https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20200806084122205">in the global South</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/global-south-scholars-are-missing-from-european-and-us-journals-what-can-be-done-about-it-99570">Global South scholars are missing from European and US journals. What can be done about it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Addressing the global problem of climate change requires an engagement with the theories, knowledge and experiences from all parts of the world. Science from <a href="https://oxfordre.com/naturalhazardscience/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389407.001.0001/acrefore-9780199389407-e-352">the global South</a> may well provide innovative climate change solutions, but very little of this science makes it into the global conversation. The imbalance in influence, therefore, has implications for both global and local action.</p>
<h2>Global South vulnerable to worst impacts of climate change</h2>
<p>The global South is faced with the most severe consequences of climate change. Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and small island developing states are identified as key vulnerability hotpots. Sub-Saharan Africa already has a large share of the population living in multidimensional poverty. Across the continent there is a high dependence on agriculture which is predominantly rain-fed. Changing rainfall patterns and low irrigation rates are compromising these livelihoods. Rapidly growing coastal population centres are increasingly exposed and <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-environ-102017-025835">vulnerable to rising sea levels</a>.</p>
<h2>Global literature should support global fight against climate change</h2>
<p>Much of the global literature is blind to and silent on the lived experiences of the majority of the globe. This includes extreme and multidimensional poverty, inequality, informality, gender inequity, cultural and language diversity, rapid urbanisation and weak governance, and how these intersect with climate change. An incomplete literature will miss important solutions in the global fight against climate change. </p>
<p>The most compelling story in the Hot List publication is the unequal global distribution of knowledge and expertise. But this is not acknowledged, debated or highlighted as a cause for grave concern. It may not be the responsibility of an international news agency like <a href="https://www.reutersagency.com/en/about/about-us/">Reuters</a> to solve this issue, but an agency that claims to provide “trusted intelligence” and “freedom from bias” should at least point it out.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161614/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Sutherland receives funding from National Research Foundation South Africa, Water Research Commission, Wellcome Trust, EU</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob Slotow receives funding from Wellcome Trust Our Planet Our Health Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems project which is working in resource poor communities in Africa examining the agriculture-environment-food nexus. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Emmanuel Okem, Debra Roberts, Marlies H Craig, Michelle A. North, and Nina Hunter 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>Climate change science dominated by knowledge produced in the global North cannot address the particular challenges faced by those living in the global South.Nina Hunter, Post-Doctoral Researcher, University of KwaZulu-NatalAndrew Emmanuel Okem, Science Officer in the Durban office of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group II Technical Support Unit, University of KwaZulu-NatalCatherine Sutherland, Associate Professor in Development Studies , University of KwaZulu-NatalDebra Roberts, Head: Sustainable and Resilient City Initiatives Unit, EThekwini Municipality; Honorary Professor, University of KwaZulu Natal and Co-Chair of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, University of KwaZulu-NatalMarlies H Craig, Biologist with a PhD in Epidemiology, University of KwaZulu-NatalMichelle A. North, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of KwaZulu-NatalRob Slotow, Professor, University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1600882021-05-17T20:06:53Z2021-05-17T20:06:53ZWho are you? What the standard questions about birth and background don’t tell us<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400802/original/file-20210514-17-1uyw7d1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C71%2C1896%2C1078&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">chanpipat/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Have you ever had to fill out a form asking about your cultural background or ethnicity or race, only to be stumped because the question or the answer options don’t reflect how you see yourself?</p>
<p>Our research shows you are not alone. In fact, our findings suggest Australia has a serious problem in the way it collects and reports data on cultural diversity, with many organisations doing neither, and many more doing neither well.</p>
<p>Australia is extraordinarily rich in cultural diversity — nearly <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/media%20release3">half</a> of us were born overseas or had one or both parents born overseas. We speak more than 300 languages in our homes, and identify with more than 300 ancestries.</p>
<p>Yet there’s little understanding of how this looks within workplaces.</p>
<p>Often we are asked only about where we were born, or asked to fit into US and UK-based categories such as “African, Asian, Hispanic, Pacific Islander or White”.</p>
<h2>African, Asian, Hispanic, Islander or White?</h2>
<p>In Australia, such categories render invisible the lives of second and third generation Australians with strong bonds to other cultures. </p>
<p>To address this oversight we have developed a single <a href="https://fecca.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/CALD-DATA-ISSUES-PAPER-FINAL2.pdf?fbclid=IwAR35udYDMeODOXW1a-bkUU3J9tvAtDA8hdiTvxqnMSpAQbMqXqgHZW0AkJ">standardised</a> approach for defining, measuring, and reporting on workforce diversity.</p>
<p>Collecting more meaningful information is important not only for understanding ourselves, but is also for corporations, which have been found to benefit from diverse <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/%7E/media/McKinsey/Featured%20Insights/Diversity%20and%20Inclusion/Diversity%20wins%20How%20inclusion%20matters/Diversity-wins-How-inclusion-matters-vF.pdf">boards</a>, leadership and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726718812602">workforces</a>.</p>
<p>Doing it better means acknowledging cultural identity has many dimensions, among them cultural/ethnic background, language(s), national origin, race, colour, faith and global experience. </p>
<p>And recognising that what matters is evolving.</p>
<h2>Some want more focus on colour</h2>
<p>Many people we spoke with called for Australian organisations to turn away from the sanitised language of “cultural diversity” in preference for race-based language that acknowledges colour.</p>
<p>They valued terms used in the United States, such as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour), BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) used in the United Kingdom, or “Visible Minority”, used in Canada, as they make it clear skin colour (“whiteness”) is linked to privilege.</p>
<h2>But for others, colour is too limiting</h2>
<p>Strikingly, just as many other people thought terms such as “cultural diversity” were better and viewed race-based terms disparagingly. In particular, they noted</p>
<p>• there was no generally accepted definition or understanding of who was and was not a person of colour and/or black in Australia </p>
<p>• who is and is not a minority in Australia depends very much on the context – some people might be minority in one workplace but a majority in another</p>
<p>• terms such as “culturally diverse” and “culturally and linguistically diverse” recognise that race and colour are not the only cultural determinants of workplace exclusion. Other things, such as accent, name, dress and religious practices and length of time in the country, can matter as well.</p>
<h2>Practical ways to track Australia’s true diversity</h2>
<p>Over the past two years we have drawn on multiple sources, including an international document review, a survey of 300 human resource and diversity and inclusion practitioners, a pilot survey of 1200 employees, focus groups with 90 participants from 34 organisations and regular consultations with an expert panel immersed in the field of cultural diversity.</p>
<p>The result, <a href="https://www.dca.org.au/research/project/counting-culture-2021">unveiled today</a>, is an Australian first: a practical guide book for organisations on how to use five evidence-based measures to count culture in their workforce, leadership suite and customer base.</p>
<p>The five measures include three which we recommend as the minimum:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>cultural background</p></li>
<li><p>language</p></li>
<li><p>country of birth</p></li>
</ul>
<p>plus two additional measures that can be used to gain a deeper understanding of customers’ and employees backgrounds:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>religion</p></li>
<li><p>global experience</p></li>
</ul>
<p>We acknowledge that these five questions won’t suit everyone. But our hope is that by providing a nationally standardised approach, we will see more organisations mapping and benchmarking the breadth and depth of the cultural diversity in their workplace and gaining meaningful evidence. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-racism-and-a-lack-of-diversity-can-harm-our-workplaces-73119">How racism and a lack of diversity can harm our workplaces</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Such evidence will spark a conversation about how we can build more inclusive practices.</p>
<p>We also hope that the next time you’re asked about your background, you’ll find the questions more meaningful.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="https://www.dca.org.au/research/project/counting-culture-2021">Counting Culture: Towards A Standardised Approach To Measuring And Reporting On Workforce Cultural Diversity In Australia</a> is now available.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160088/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dimitria Groutsis serves on the research advisory board of the Diversity Council of Australia.
Rose D’Almada-Remedios, Annika Kaabel and Jane O’Leary from Diversity Council Australia contributed to this article.
</span></em></p>We’ve developed a new, practical guide for Australians organisations wanting to ask better questions about their diverse customers and employees.Dimitria Groutsis, Associate professor, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1205572019-08-27T12:49:15Z2019-08-27T12:49:15ZWhat’s private depends on who you are and where you live<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285201/original/file-20190722-11370-1olejlq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=252%2C0%2C3547%2C3581&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is privacy what you can't see, or where you don't look?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/picture-scared-woman-covering-her-eyes-173250299">Kamil Macniak/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Citizens and policymakers around the world are grappling with how to limit companies’ use of data about individuals – and how private various types of information should be. But anthropologists <a href="https://indiana.academia.edu/RichardWilk">like me</a> know that cultures vary widely in their views of what is private and who is responsible for protecting privacy. Just like online privacy, real-world privacy can vary from person to person and situation to situation.</p>
<p>Most concepts of privacy start with the physical body. Social scientists have found that <a href="http://cyborganthropology.com/Proxemics">every person has an intimate zone</a> very near their body, a wider personal zone and, beyond that, a social zone and then a public zone.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284582/original/file-20190717-147312-1pl5m6p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284582/original/file-20190717-147312-1pl5m6p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284582/original/file-20190717-147312-1pl5m6p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284582/original/file-20190717-147312-1pl5m6p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284582/original/file-20190717-147312-1pl5m6p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284582/original/file-20190717-147312-1pl5m6p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284582/original/file-20190717-147312-1pl5m6p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284582/original/file-20190717-147312-1pl5m6p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One scholar’s measurements of the different types of personal space.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Personal_Space.svg">WebHamster/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The size of those zones and the solidity of the boundaries between them <a href="https://www.communicationstudies.com/communication-theories/proxemics">vary across cultures</a>: Mexicans, for instance, have smaller intimate zones than Anglo-Americans, so when one person from each background is speaking, the Mexican will move closer, seeking to get the Anglo into his personal zone. The Anglo will perceive that as an invasion of intimate space and back away. The Mexican may perceive the retreat as being standoffish, and may seek to reengage by moving closer again. People can easily feel threatened in a crowded public space, where strangers are in their intimate zones.</p>
<p>Many cultures also define privacy in terms of zones of the body and the kinds of people who are allowed to make physical contact. For example, in many cultures, men who are friends hold hands and touch each other’s face and torso. In other cultures, though, that sort of contact is limited to romantic partners.</p>
<p>Bodily substances like saliva, urine, fingernails and hair are usually intensely private or secret. In many cultures, people believe that a person can use them to <a href="http://occult-world.com/magic/hair-and-nails/">curse or even kill a person</a>. Letting someone touch these substances means that you trust them intimately, which explains why in some parts of Africa, people spit in the palm of their hand before shaking hands. This was common in the U.S. in the past, as well.</p>
<h2>Who’s responsible?</h2>
<p>In 1979 and 1980 <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=d8efMHsAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I</a> lived in a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q%CA%BCeqchi%CA%BC">Kekchi</a> Maya village in southern Belize, where I learned a very different definition of privacy. Older women went topless, but nobody stared at their breasts. Large families lived together in a single room – which meant they got dressed and had sex alongside family members. Modesty was preserved because nobody looked.</p>
<p>Their houses were made of hand-hewn boards and sticks full of gaps and openings, so anyone could look inside if they got close, but they didn’t. Proper manners were to stand about 20 feet from the door and call out to ask if anyone was home. You could approach only if you were invited to. As an outsider, I was exempt from this protection, so I woke up every morning with a gaggle of schoolchildren peering through my walls hoping to see how the white man lived.</p>
<p>I noticed something similar when living in Amsterdam in 1985. I was shocked that most buildings had <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00988998">no blinds or coverings on their ground-floor windows</a>: Passersby could look right into someone’s living room or dining room. </p>
<p>People told me they didn’t feel like they were living in a fishbowl, because they expected nobody would look. Certainly no one would admit to peeping. You did not have to cover up and hide any normal behavior because you could assume nobody was watching. Even if someone was sneaking looks, they would never talk about it openly. </p>
<p>These examples show that even without walls, it is possible to feel that nobody is watching you, that your actions are confidential and even if someone sees you, they cannot mention it to you or report it to others – so long as a tight-knit community upholds standards of public behavior and imposes social consequences for any violations. </p>
<h2>Shifting standards</h2>
<p>North American and European rules about privacy and physical contact have changed dramatically in recent decades. In the 18th and 19th centuries, <a href="https://www.fatherly.com/health-science/sleep/bed-sharing-co-sleeping-different-cultures">families slept together</a> in one room, often with <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/communal-sleeping-history-sharing-bed">many people sharing a bed</a>. Travelers in Colonial America often <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/communal-sleeping-history-sharing-bed">shared beds with strangers</a> in inns.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until well after the start of the 20th century that the idea took hold in the U.S. <a href="http://doi.org/10.2307/3514233">that each child must have his or her own room</a>, and that boys and girls should be segregated. Many people couldn’t afford homes with enough space for those arrangements until the 1950s and 1960s, and many people <a href="https://www.nar.realtor/blogs/economists-outlook/how-many-children-per-bedroom-in-the-typical-american-home">still can’t afford it</a>. Other parents <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/sc-shared-rooms-family-0524-20160522-story.html">prefer to have their children sleep together</a>.</p>
<p>Ideals of privacy tend to change slowly. As American homes have grown larger, older children usually have their own private space, or even a separate apartment. Still, the degree to which children and teens (as well as the elderly) are <a href="https://www.empoweringparents.com/article/teens-parents-privacy/">allowed to have private lives</a> is in dispute, and <a href="https://yp.scmp.com/over-to-you/columns/article/96010/face-should-teenagers-have-privacy-rights">arguments are common</a> about parental authority and power in the family.</p>
<h2>Protecting the public</h2>
<p>At one time, Americans could depend on community rules and local laws to protect their privacy. Yet for the past 20 years, the U.S. government, led by administrations of both political parties, has worked to <a href="http://neoliberalismeducation.pbworks.com/w/page/50829895/Competitive%20Individualism">make each individual responsible</a> for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/152638001316881395">their own privacy, and safety</a> in general.</p>
<p>For instance, there are few rules governing how <a href="https://theconversation.com/fragmented-us-privacy-rules-leave-large-data-loopholes-for-facebook-and-others-94606">corporations can exploit users’ information</a>, so long as the companies tell the people in vague legal terms what they want to do – and so long as the users have a choice about it. But the choice is usually “accept” or “don’t use the software or website or service.”</p>
<p>This is the same regulatory spirit that allows ads to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/sunday-review/ask-your-doctor-if-this-ad-is-right-for-you.html">urge patients to ask doctors</a> if they need to start taking specific medications. Nobody actually has the time to <a href="http://lorrie.cranor.org/pubs/readingPolicyCost-authorDraft.pdf">read every single privacy notice</a>, block telemarketers, become an expert in nutrition, check medications for dangerous interactions and make sure <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/02/01/582214032/was-your-seafood-caught-with-slave-labor-new-database-helps-retailers-combat-abu">the people providing your food aren’t enslaved</a>.</p>
<p>Corporations have seen opportunities to make money between the limits of private responsibility and where the government is willing to act. These companies have invaded Americans’ intimate zones and are striving to become bedmates. Unless people individually, and collectively through the government, enforce practical limits, these data-driven companies will continue that effort, whether we like it or not.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120557/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Wilk 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>Privacy starts with the body and extends to digital data. There are few rules governing what companies can do – yet people can’t effectively protect their own privacy.Richard Wilk, Distinguished Professor and Provost's Professor of Anthropology; Director of the Open Anthropology Institute, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1165732019-08-15T11:14:55Z2019-08-15T11:14:55ZWhy are so many languages spoken in some places and so few in others?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287904/original/file-20190813-9404-1feepwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1357%2C339%2C4944%2C2738&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What factors contribute to some places having many, while other places have few?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/icons-people-speech-bubbles-chatting-vector-357391937">VLADGRIN/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>People across the world describe their thoughts and emotions, share experiences and spread ideas through the use of thousands of distinct languages. These languages form a fundamental part of our humanity. They determine whom we communicate with and how we express ourselves.</p>
<p>Despite continually mapping the distribution of languages across the world, scientists have few clear answers about what caused the emergence of thousands of languages. Collectively, <a href="https://glottolog.org/">human beings speak more than 7,000 distinct languages</a>, and these languages are not uniformly distributed across the planet. For example, far more languages are spoken <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0107623">in tropical regions than in temperate areas</a>.</p>
<p>But why are there so many languages spoken in some places and so few in others? </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287720/original/file-20190812-71917-1flrn2t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287720/original/file-20190812-71917-1flrn2t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287720/original/file-20190812-71917-1flrn2t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287720/original/file-20190812-71917-1flrn2t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287720/original/file-20190812-71917-1flrn2t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287720/original/file-20190812-71917-1flrn2t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287720/original/file-20190812-71917-1flrn2t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287720/original/file-20190812-71917-1flrn2t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=381&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 grid map of language ranges in North America prior to European contact.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.0242">Coelho et al. RSPB 2019</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our research team has been tackling this longstanding question by exploring <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.0242">language diversity patterns on the continent of North America</a>. Prior to European contact, North America was home to speakers of around 400 languages, unevenly spread across the landscape. Some places, such as the West Coast from present-day Vancouver to southern California, had far more languages; other areas, such as northern Canada and the Mississippi delta region, appear to have had fewer languages. We drew on methods from ecology originally developed to study <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0587.2012.07553.x">patterns of species diversity</a> to investigate these patterns of language diversity.</p>
<h2>Building boundaries</h2>
<p>Many theories have outlined <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2013.63.7.6">possible ways the world’s languages might have diversified</a>.</p>
<p>Fundamental to all of these theories is the idea that languages are markers of social boundaries between human groups. People who speak the same language share a common means of communication. And this fact is readily evident both to those who speak the language and those who do not. After just a few words, you can often surmise who is in your group and who is not.</p>
<p>So any factor that might create or weaken the social or physical barriers between groups may also influence the emergence or extinction of languages.</p>
<p>One idea is that physical barriers create boundaries between human groups. When people move to the other side of a large mountain range, for instance, or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2011.00744.x">the ocean</a>, it becomes increasingly hard to interact with previously neighboring groups. Over time, if the groups remain isolated, one might expect their languages to diverge. If physical isolation is a critical factor, then we should find a larger number of languages in locations that promote more isolation, such as mountainous regions. </p>
<p>Another possible way group boundaries might form involves how much groups must cooperate in order to survive. Some researchers suggest that more extreme or variable climatic conditions <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171897">can make food harder to obtain</a>. This uncertainty may lead people to build larger social networks in order to share resources in times of need. More frequent contact through the extended social networks could dissolve social boundaries and reduce language diversity. In this case, one would expect <a href="https://doi.org/10.1006/jaar.1996.0015">less language diversity</a> in locations with unstable or extreme climatic conditions.</p>
<p>Perhaps how many people can live in a given location also shapes language diversity. Some environmental and social conditions can support higher densities of people. These greater population densities might lead to increases in language diversity in a number of ways. For example, human groups do not increase infinitely. Maintaining social ties may come at a cost, such that when a group gets too big, it will tend to divide. Therefore, you might expect more distinct human groups to accumulate in locations that can support more people. And with more distinct groups, you’d also expect to see <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12563">more languages in these locations</a>.</p>
<h2>No single explanation</h2>
<p>Surprisingly, few of these theories, or many others that researchers have proposed, have been rigorously tested. And the tests that have been done <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2013.63.7.6">point to contradictory results</a>. For instance, some studies support the idea that less language diversity is found in locations with unstable and extreme climatic conditions, while others found little or no support for that idea.</p>
<p>The problem has been that researchers have tended to search for one silver bullet, a single factor that would explain patterns of language diversity everywhere. But why expect one factor to accurately summarize thousands of years of human history across the entire globe, or even across a continent? What if the story underlying language diversity in northern Canada is totally different from the story underlying language diversity in California? </p>
<p>Recently, our interdisciplinary research group tried to untangle which factors had the most influence on language diversity in different places. Combining ideas from linguists, ecologists, evolutionary biologists and geographers, we took a unique approach. We used statistical techniques to estimate how the effects of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.0242">environmental and sociocultural factors on language diversity</a> changed from one location to another. In our study, each location was represented by a 300 km² grid cell, as is visible in all our maps.</p>
<p>We found that the most important variables associated with language diversity varied from one part of North America to another.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287728/original/file-20190812-71905-v0f88j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287728/original/file-20190812-71905-v0f88j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287728/original/file-20190812-71905-v0f88j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287728/original/file-20190812-71905-v0f88j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287728/original/file-20190812-71905-v0f88j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287728/original/file-20190812-71905-v0f88j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287728/original/file-20190812-71905-v0f88j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287728/original/file-20190812-71905-v0f88j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Language diversification in different regions may have been driven by different factors. In some places, like the areas in pink, temperature variability might have been most important. Other possible factors include population density (gray), precipitation constancy (light blue), topographic complexity (dark blue), carrying capacity with group size limits (green) and climate change velocity (purple).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.0242">Modified from Coelho et al. RSPB 2019</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, on the West Coast, we found that variability in temperature over time is a key driver linked to language diversity. This result provides some support for the idea that in areas with more stable environmental conditions, human social networks can be smaller and more languages may exist. </p>
<p>However, in the eastern part of the continent, potential population density tends to be the factor most strongly linked to language diversity.</p>
<p>We also found that in some places, such as the high-language-diversity regions on the West Coast, our model could predict the number of languages present very accurately, whereas in other areas, such as the Gulf Coast of the U.S., we have limited understanding of what drove language diversification.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287731/original/file-20190812-71913-1abfudf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287731/original/file-20190812-71913-1abfudf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287731/original/file-20190812-71913-1abfudf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287731/original/file-20190812-71913-1abfudf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287731/original/file-20190812-71913-1abfudf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287731/original/file-20190812-71913-1abfudf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287731/original/file-20190812-71913-1abfudf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287731/original/file-20190812-71913-1abfudf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The model’s ability to predict the number of languages varied from excellent in some places (red) to poor in others (green).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.0242">Modified from Coelho et al. RSPB 2019</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our analytical tools were originally developed to study patterns of species diversity; these approaches are now starting to increase scientists’ understanding of what factors <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0158391">shaped human diversity</a>. But our results so far also underscore how much is still unknown about how cultural diversity originated and how it will change into the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116573/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marco Túlio Pacheco Coelho receives funding from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
(CAPES, finance code 001). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Gavin receives funding from the National Science Foundation (grant numbers: 1660465 and 1519987)</span></em></p>Linguists have a lot of largely untested theories. Borrowing a tool from ecology, researchers built a model that didn’t look for one worldwide explanation.Marco Túlio Pacheco Coelho, Ph.D. Student in Ecology, Universidade Federal de Goias (UFG)Michael Gavin, Associate Professor of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1142682019-05-16T10:43:03Z2019-05-16T10:43:03ZPopulist alliances of ‘cowboys and Indians’ are protecting rural lands<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274733/original/file-20190515-60541-1af83om.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A diverse coalition is resisting pipelines and other big projects.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Keystone-Pipeline-Protest/3ece94c4dd234b83b7102cc68018c7cd/10/0">AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://brilliantmaps.com/2016-county-election-map/">sea of red</a> on recent election maps make it look like rural areas are uniformly populated by Republicans. And conventional wisdom suggests that those Americans are largely conservative populists who question many government regulations and do not welcome cultural diversity.</p>
<p>But the growing influence of Native American nations in some rural areas is starting to change that picture. Empowered by their <a href="https://www.critfc.org/member_tribes_overview/treaty-q-a/">treaty rights</a>, they are beginning to shift the values of their white neighbors toward a populism that cuts across racial and cultural lines to challenge large corporations. </p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://sites.evergreen.edu/zoltan">geographer</a> who studies the relationships between tribes and rural white farmers, ranchers and fishers. In my book “<a href="https://sites.evergreen.edu/unlikelyalliances">Unlikely Alliances: Native Nations and White Communities Join to Defend Rural Lands</a>,” I relate what I learned through dozens of interviews with Native Americans and their non-Native allies who described how the tribes are fusing the power of their sovereignty with the populist grievances of the tribes’ historic enemies. </p>
<p>By teaming up to defend the place they all call home, they are protecting their lands and waters for all.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265966/original/file-20190326-36256-1skd1yz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265966/original/file-20190326-36256-1skd1yz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265966/original/file-20190326-36256-1skd1yz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265966/original/file-20190326-36256-1skd1yz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265966/original/file-20190326-36256-1skd1yz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265966/original/file-20190326-36256-1skd1yz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265966/original/file-20190326-36256-1skd1yz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265966/original/file-20190326-36256-1skd1yz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zoltán Grossman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Unlikely alliances</h2>
<p>Ever since Native Americans began to <a href="https://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/WILMES.html">reassert their treaty rights</a> to harvest fish, water and other natural resources, starting in the 1960s in the Pacific Northwest, a <a href="http://www.dickshovel.com/anti.html">far-right populist backlash</a> from some rural whites has sparked racial conflicts over those resources. </p>
<p>But starting in the late 1970s, some Native nations across the country joined with their rural white neighbors — including people who had been their adversaries in treaty conflicts — to block threats to rural lands and waters, such as mining, pipeline, dam, nuclear waste and military projects.</p>
<p>The alliances joined tribes and rural, mostly white, Americans to confront common enemies. They helped whites in these areas <a href="https://www.kearneyhub.com/news/local/poncas-nebraskans-hope-to-rescue-rare-native-corn/article_3d43c5d6-83f9-11e1-a229-001a4bcf887a.html">learn more about indigenous cultural traditions</a>, legal powers and ecological values. Tribal members also learned that their neighbors valued the local environment, and wanted to protect it from outside corporations.</p>
<p>In South Dakota and Nebraska, for example, a group called the <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/black-snake-in-the-heartland-spirituality-american-enviromentalism">Cowboy Indian Alliance</a> has, since 2013, brought together Lakota and other tribes with white ranchers and farmers to stop the <a href="https://www.apnews.com/d62e3aaa796c402cbe29bcece6cee009">Keystone XL oil pipeline</a>. The alliance drew from earlier coalitions that stopped <a href="https://bhcleanwateralliance.org/about/black-hills-alliance/">uranium and coal projects</a> and a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-08-30-mn-4978-story.html">bombing range</a> in the Black Hills of South Dakota. </p>
<p>Farmers and ranchers in these two deep-red states opposed the use of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/03/keystone-pipeline-protests-land-rights-south-dakota">eminent domain</a> to seize their private property for the pipeline. That land had originally belonged to the tribes. </p>
<p>As they worked together against the pipeline, the tribes influenced some white neighbors to protect sacred burial sites on their property. </p>
<p>“We come from two cultures that clashed over land,” Alliance spokeswoman Faith Spotted Eagle observed. “This is a healing for the generations.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274148/original/file-20190513-183086-hz30hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274148/original/file-20190513-183086-hz30hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274148/original/file-20190513-183086-hz30hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274148/original/file-20190513-183086-hz30hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274148/original/file-20190513-183086-hz30hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274148/original/file-20190513-183086-hz30hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274148/original/file-20190513-183086-hz30hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274148/original/file-20190513-183086-hz30hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&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 Bold Nebraska activist planting the Cowboy Indian Alliance flag in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Keystone-Pipeline-Nebraska/3d60f03e1dc94564a118b7a738d3326a/1/0">AP Photo/Nati Harnik</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fossil fuel and mining projects</h2>
<p>In Washington and Oregon, Native nations are using their <a href="https://nwifc.org/w/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2014/10/understanding-treaty-rights-final.pdf">treaty rights</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/companies-blocked-from-using-west-coast-ports-to-export-fossil-fuels-keep-seeking-workarounds-106300">stop plans</a> to build <a href="https://www.sightline.org/2018/04/23/how-northwest-communities-continue-to-stop-fossil-fuel-projects-before-they-start/">coal and oil export terminals</a>. The same largely white fishing groups in that region that used to aggressively protest treaty rights now back the tribes in protecting fisheries from <a href="https://www.sightline.org/2017/06/20/mapping-the-thin-green-line/">oil and coal shipping</a>, and in <a href="https://lltk.org/partnering-with-salish-sea-tribes-to-restore-salmon-populations/">restoring fish habitat</a> damaged by development.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/tribes-prevail-kill-proposed-coal-terminal-at-cherry-point/">Lummi Nation</a>, near Bellingham, Washington, led the fight that staved off a coal terminal in a sacred burial ground. The <a href="https://olywip.org/quinault-nation-builds-bridges-stop-grays-harbor-oil-terminal/">Quinault Nation</a> on the Pacific coast led an alliance that helped <a href="https://www.standuptooil.org/grays-harbor/">kill plans to build oil export infrastructure</a> that would have threatened salmon and shellfish.</p>
<p>The mostly white working-class residents of former logging towns in the area, who have strongly opposed timber industry regulations, have worked more easily with local tribes than with urban environmental groups to protect their local economy from fossil fuels. </p>
<p>“The relationships we have with our neighbors arose out of a relationship of much division, strife, and conflict,” Quinault President Fawn Sharp told me. Through that, she added, “they’ve come to know who we are.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265967/original/file-20190326-36283-r9pek3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265967/original/file-20190326-36283-r9pek3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265967/original/file-20190326-36283-r9pek3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265967/original/file-20190326-36283-r9pek3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265967/original/file-20190326-36283-r9pek3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265967/original/file-20190326-36283-r9pek3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265967/original/file-20190326-36283-r9pek3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265967/original/file-20190326-36283-r9pek3.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leaders of Washington tribes and fishing groups speak at Shared Waters, Shared Values Rally against Grays Harbor oil terminals in 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zoltán Grossman</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Wisconsin and Michigan, Ojibwe and Menominee tribes are fighting to prevent new mining projects, joined by their rural white neighbors, because those projects threaten fishing streams, wild rice beds and burial sites.</p>
<p>As recently as the early 1990s, many white anglers in northern Wisconsin were <a href="https://www.beechriverbooks.com/id17.html">violently protesting Ojibwe treaty rights</a> to spear fish, harassing and physically attacking Native Americans after anti-treaty groups led to them to believe that tribal fishing threatened the local tourism economy.</p>
<p>But the tribes presented their treaties as a legal obstacle to the mines that both groups viewed as a threat to the fishery. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://treaty.indigenousnative.org/content.html">Midwest Treaty Network</a> convinced many anglers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870701538927">to cooperate with tribes</a> and environmental groups to join in the effort to stymie plans to build a copper and zinc mine near <a href="https://ejatlas.org/conflict/proposed-crandon-mine-in-northeast-wisconsin-usa">Crandon, Wisconsin</a>. They won a protracted fight in 2003. The anglers had realized that if they kept arguing with the tribes over fishing rights, there might not be any fish left.</p>
<p>More recently, the <a href="https://www.badriver-nsn.gov/">Bad River Tribe</a> on the Wisconsin shore of Lake Superior led an alliance that stopped the <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/50-solutions/wisconsin-tribe-halts-15-billion-open-pit-mine-20161220">Penokees iron mine</a> in 2015, upstream from wild rice beds culturally valuable to the tribe. </p>
<p>And the <a href="http://www.noback40.org/">Menominee Nation and its allies</a> are trying to block the <a href="https://www.mining-journal.com/gold-and-silver-news/news/1362299/aquilas-back-forty-permit-upheld">Back Forty</a> zinc and gold mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274687/original/file-20190515-60545-194kgrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274687/original/file-20190515-60545-194kgrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274687/original/file-20190515-60545-194kgrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274687/original/file-20190515-60545-194kgrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274687/original/file-20190515-60545-194kgrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274687/original/file-20190515-60545-194kgrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274687/original/file-20190515-60545-194kgrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274687/original/file-20190515-60545-194kgrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&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 2014 protest against the Penokees mine near the Bad River Ojibwe Reservation in northern Wisconsin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/40969298@N05/12602947345/in/photostream/">Joe Brusky/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Unity through diversity</h2>
<p>One advantage that sovereign tribal nations have in these battles is that they can draw federal agencies and courts into the fray in a way that local and state governments cannot. </p>
<p>Tribes are in the fight for the long haul, because the survival of their cultures is at stake. They can’t simply move away from environmental hazards, because they have harvesting rights only within their treaty territory, and their identities and cultures are rooted in a particular place. </p>
<p>Some areas of the most intense treaty conflicts, where the tribes most strongly asserted their rights, developed the earliest and most successful tribal alliances with white farmers, ranchers and fishers. </p>
<p>In these areas, rural populists have begun to see the tribes as more effective guardians of their local economies from large corporations than their state, local or federal governments. Wisconsin fishing guide Wally Cooper had spoken at rallies against Ojibwe treaty rights. He told me he changed his mind “because Native Americans can stop” the Crandon mine that threatened the rivers that he loved. </p>
<p>The success of these unlikely alliances challenges political stereotypes. Some progressives tend to dismiss rural whites as <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/03/in-2017-fusing-identity-and-class-politics-in-trumpland/">recalcitrant and unwilling</a> to treat people who are different as equals. </p>
<p>Many conservatives – along with some liberals – presume that highlighting cultural differences through <a href="https://www.sas.upenn.edu/andrea-mitchell-center/francis-fukuyama-against-identity-politics">identity politics</a> gets in the way of unifying people who otherwise share economic or environmental goals. </p>
<p>But celebrating differences and unity can be compatible. Native sovereignty can protect land and water for all rural people, and help build an <a href="https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2018/12/american-politics-progressive-populism-ballot-measures/578977/">anti-corporate movement</a> that crosses cultural lines. If even cowboys and Indians can find common ground, maybe there is hope for what I call cross-cultural populism.</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.aag.org">Zoltan Grossman is a member of the American Association of Geographers</a></p>
<footer>The association is a funding partner of The Conversation US.</footer>
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</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114268/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zoltan Grossman is a member of the American Association of Geographers. Seventh Generation Fund, a charitable organization, gets all the royalties from Zoltan Grossman's book about these unlikely alliances.</span></em></p>By appealing to the hearts and minds of their white neighbors, Native Americans are carving out common ground. Together, these different groups are building unity through diversity.Zoltan Grossman, Professor of Geography and Native Studies, Evergreen State CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1151252019-05-12T20:13:37Z2019-05-12T20:13:37ZNearly 1 in 4 of us aren’t native English speakers. In a health-care setting, interpreters are essential<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273712/original/file-20190509-183109-2wqvok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Interpreters enable patients to be fully informed about their health condition and options for treatment.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">From shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is the third part in a series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/where-culture-meets-health-70226">Where culture meets health</a>.</em></p>
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<p>Almost <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/Media%20Release3">one quarter</a> of the Australian population speaks a language other than English at home. But health services in Australia are largely delivered in English only. </p>
<p>We know Australians from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/09638288.2015.1062925?casa_token=6DPh6EAnh08AAAAA:40VGPHoQ40YQVjGxeOhSDd8iBfRK1LaWzygGoCaW-65BYWmZiM9mfHXuqySS7QmSZmQBdvu17q3GmBk">less likely to access health services</a>, which leads to poorer health outcomes. One major reason for this is the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/09638288.2015.1062925?casa_token=6DPh6EAnh08AAAAA:40VGPHoQ40YQVjGxeOhSDd8iBfRK1LaWzygGoCaW-65BYWmZiM9mfHXuqySS7QmSZmQBdvu17q3GmBk">language barrier</a> between health-care providers and consumers.</p>
<p>Access to interpreters in health care should be seen as a basic human right.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/translation-technology-is-useful-but-should-not-replace-learning-languages-85384">Translation technology is useful, but should not replace learning languages</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Interpreters benefit both patients and practitioners</h2>
<p>Interpreters are a vital bridge between health services and consumers. Interpreters enable consumers to be fully informed about their health condition and options for treatment.</p>
<p>They also give consumers a voice to express themselves freely in their dominant language. This means people can share exactly what they need to say to health-care professionals and can ask the questions they want answered. </p>
<p>Research has found the use of professional interpreters <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1955368/">improves the experience</a> of medical care for patients with limited English proficiency.</p>
<p>The use of professional interpreters <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Flores/publication/221713079_Errors_of_Medical_Interpretation_and_Their_Potential_Clinical_Consequences_A_Comparison_of_Professional_Versus_Ad_Hoc_Versus_No_Interpreters/links/59ef2344aca2721ca5e7b949/Errors-of-Medical-Interpretation-and-Their-Potential-Clinical-Consequences-A-Comparison-of-Professional-Versus-Ad-Hoc-Versus-No-Interpreters.pdf">significantly reduces the risk</a> of communication errors that can lead to <a href="http://www.mighealth.net/eu/images/6/61/Flores1.pdf">negative clinical consequences</a>. Errors could include gaps in information about patient allergies, and instructions around the use of prescription medicines being misconstrued.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/missed-something-the-doctor-said-recording-your-appointments-gives-you-a-chance-to-go-back-112302">Missed something the doctor said? Recording your appointments gives you a chance to go back</a>
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<p>But failure to provide access to interpreters in health settings can <a href="http://fecca.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/FECCA-Mosaic-40_LR.pdf">literally be a matter of life or death</a>. </p>
<p>Particularly in an emergency, if a patient and their loved ones are unable to communicate details about the patient’s medical situation to the treating doctors, this may impact whether the patient receives appropriate and timely treatment. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://fecca.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/FECCA-Mosaic-40_LR.pdf">one case</a> in the United States, a hospital acted on advice provided by a Spanish-speaking family with limited English proficiency when admitting their son. A court found language confusion contributed to delayed diagnosis of a brain haemmorhage, which resulted in the patient becoming a paraplegic.</p>
<h2>But not everyone is given access to an interpreter</h2>
<p>Despite the benefits of using an interpreter, <a href="https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-018-3135-5">a recent study in a Sydney hospital</a> found although interpreters were required in 15.7% of admissions, just 3.7% of patients were actually provided with an interpreter.</p>
<p>A person who needs an interpreter <a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/PY/PY10075">may not get one</a> because they’re deemed not to require the service, because an interpreter can’t be sourced <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4284281/">within the required timeframe</a> (for example, in emergency situations), or because there’s no interpreter available in the language or dialect required by the patient.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273713/original/file-20190510-183083-t4704t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273713/original/file-20190510-183083-t4704t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273713/original/file-20190510-183083-t4704t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273713/original/file-20190510-183083-t4704t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273713/original/file-20190510-183083-t4704t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273713/original/file-20190510-183083-t4704t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273713/original/file-20190510-183083-t4704t.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">Patients who need interpreters aren’t always able to access them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">From shutterstock.com</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The use of interpreters in regional, rural and remote Australia may be even lower given the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1440-1584.2000.tb00354.x">lack of available interpreters in those areas</a>. </p>
<p>When health professionals and consumers don’t speak the same language, delivering health services without an interpreter raises a number of ethical issues. </p>
<p>For example, if a person is unable to understand what is being said to them by a health-care practitioner, <a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/PY/PY10075">they can’t give their informed consent</a>. Proceeding with any treatment without informed consent is in breach of the <a href="https://www.medicalboard.gov.au/documents/default.aspx?record=WD10%2F1277&dbid=AP&chksum=eNjZ0Z%2FajN7oxjvHXDRQnQ%3D%3D">code of conduct</a> of all health professions in Australia. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-cultural-assumptions-behind-western-medicine-7533">The cultural assumptions behind Western medicine</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Family members as interpreters</h2>
<p>The Australian government funds the provision of professional interpreters in health-care settings <a href="http://fecca.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/FECCA-Mosaic-40_LR.pdf">free of charge</a>. But professional interpreters are not always on hand when they are needed. This often results in the use of <a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/PY/pdf/PY10075">family members as interpreters</a>. </p>
<p>This practice is fraught with issues and in some instances this can do <a href="http://fecca.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/FECCA-Mosaic-40_LR.pdf">more harm than good</a> for both the interpreter and the patient. </p>
<p>Relatives don’t have <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/45d8/0d2e4a5c90165aa97c4fe44840e51ddd5b81.pdf">formal training as interpreters</a> and may not be familiar with the medical terminology being used or how to translate it. </p>
<p>Family members <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Janette_Vardy/publication/51216567_Interpretation_in_Consultations_With_Immigrant_Patients_With_Cancer_How_Accurate_Is_It/links/56e98c5708ae25ede8309847.pdf">may add their own interpretation or opinion</a> in the delivery of the message, thereby not delivering the message intended by the health-care practitioner or the patient.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273717/original/file-20190510-183080-1x0tnhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273717/original/file-20190510-183080-1x0tnhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273717/original/file-20190510-183080-1x0tnhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273717/original/file-20190510-183080-1x0tnhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273717/original/file-20190510-183080-1x0tnhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273717/original/file-20190510-183080-1x0tnhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273717/original/file-20190510-183080-1x0tnhm.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">Children and teenagers often act as translators for their older relatives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">From shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In many migrant families, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.1525/sp.2003.50.4.505.pdf?casa_token=NPy--uoOIcUAAAAA:Oftz7TOvwhskv81y3ttj4qVP7gno8cbSCX_F9hNS4Xvsel3FYCjEFv6sI4ZRRV3Lv57gNo_JIqwu20gNBhVYPw1Fkwhxsz30KOchRr5Hl9XrkugZJYqbNA&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">children or young adults</a> have the best knowledge of English in the family and so are often called upon to be the interpreter. The use of underage interpreters raises further ethical issues as they are tasked with interpreting sensitive health information about a loved one. </p>
<p>So caution is needed when using family members as interpreters.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-ethnic-face-is-changing-and-so-are-our-blood-types-113454">Australia’s ethnic face is changing, and so are our blood types</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How can the use of interpreters be increased and improved?</h2>
<p>There are some key actions that should be taken to improve health-care experiences and outcomes for people with limited English proficiency.</p>
<p>First, training for both interpreters and health-care professionals is essential to develop skills for effective collaboration.</p>
<p>Second, there should be <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1460-6984.12112">additional time allocated for appointments</a> where interpreters are used. This is because each sentence must be said twice during the exchange of information and time is needed for <a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/Collaborating-with-Interpreters-Translators-Henriette-W-Langdon/9781888222760?ref=grid-view">briefing and debriefing about the session</a>.</p>
<p>Third, health services need to collect accurate information to determine whether an interpreter <a href="https://www.ceh.org.au/assessing-the-an-interpreter/">is needed</a>. A person may present with functional English <a href="https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-018-3135-5">but still require an interpreter</a> for ease of communication given the complex terminology and the seriousness of medical conversations.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/between-health-and-faith-managing-type-2-diabetes-during-ramadan-115469">Between health and faith: managing type 2 diabetes during Ramadan</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>And finally, professionally trained interpreters must be available in the languages and dialects required. There are <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/Media%20Release3">more than 300 languages spoken in Australia</a> and many have multiple dialects.</p>
<p>Investment in interpreting services is essential to ensure the provision of equitable, high quality health care to all Australians. In a country where interpreters may improve care for one quarter of the population, we can’t afford not to.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115125/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Verdon 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>Interpreters are essential in providing ethical and high quality health care to Australia’s culturally and linguistically diverse population.Sarah Verdon, Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Speech and Language Pathology, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1134542019-05-08T20:01:51Z2019-05-08T20:01:51ZAustralia’s ethnic face is changing, and so are our blood types<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273249/original/file-20190508-183103-1jusqev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">About one in three people living in Australia were born overseas.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">From shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is the second part in a series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/where-culture-meets-health-70226">Where culture meets health</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>It’s often said that no matter who we are, “we all bleed red”. But although our blood may be the same colour, we’re as individual on the inside as we are on the surface. Just like our background determines the way we look, where we come from is <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3595629/">one of the major factors</a> that influences the make up of our blood.</p>
<p>About <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/Media%20Release3">half of people</a> living in Australia today were either born overseas, or have a parent born overseas. This increase in the diversity of our population leads to a corresponding diversity in the people who need medical treatment – and their blood types.</p>
<p>We need a broad mix of ethnicities in our donor pool to meet the needs of patients with rare blood types. Providing the right blood and blood products for an ethnically diverse population presents an evolving challenge for blood collection agencies around the world, including here in Australia.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/blood-groups-beyond-a-b-and-o-what-are-they-and-do-they-matter-75063">Blood groups beyond A, B and O: what are they and do they matter?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>People from diverse backgrounds <a href="http://diversityhealthcare.imedpub.com/missing-minorities--a-survey-based-descriptionof-the-current-state-of-minority-blood-donorrecruitment-across-23-countries.php?aid=8326">tend to be underrepresented</a> in donor populations. While Australians born overseas account for <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/Media%20Release3">roughly one-third</a> of the population, they account for only one in five blood donors.</p>
<p>This limited diversity in our pool of donors creates challenges in identifying blood matches for transfusion to patients with rare blood types. </p>
<h2>The link between your blood group and where you come from</h2>
<p>Blood types consist not only of the commonly recognised groups such as A, B and O, but <a href="https://www.donateblood.com.au/blog/research/blood-types-and-donuts">also include</a> more than 300 other variants. Each of these variants is a marker on the surface of our red blood cells, and is known as an “antigen”.</p>
<p>Our blood type is inherited from our parents. Like other inherited characteristics such as skin and hair colour, the frequency of blood types in a population <a href="http://www.bloodjournal.org/content/115/23/4635?sso-checked=true">shift in response</a> to stresses in the environment (known as “selection pressure”).</p>
<p>For example, in parts of the world where malaria thrives, the proportion of the population with various blood types <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-our-red-blood-cells-keep-evolving-to-fight-malaria-96117">has altered over time</a> to make people less prone to infection.</p>
<p>So this effect has more to do with where you and your ancestors lived than your ethnic group. One blood type, known as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2271/">Duffy null</a>, is much more frequent in Africans in Africa than in African-Americans, possibly because African Americans are no longer exposed to the malaria parasite.</p>
<p>In short, one reason we have different blood groups is to improve our chances of fighting disease.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-our-red-blood-cells-keep-evolving-to-fight-malaria-96117">How our red blood cells keep evolving to fight malaria</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Who needs specially matched blood?</h2>
<p>Most transfusions of red cells <a href="https://www.science.org.au/curious/people-medicine/why-are-some-blood-types-incompatible-others">are matched</a> for the commonly recognised ABO and Rh blood groups (the Rh group is the one that gives you the “positive” or “negative” in your blood type). </p>
<p>If someone receives a transfusion of blood that doesn’t match their own type, their body may recognise the transfused blood as foreign, and develop antibodies to try and destroy the “invader”. Their body will keep making these antibodies, which can then interfere with future transfusions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273254/original/file-20190508-183109-1r2rt4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273254/original/file-20190508-183109-1r2rt4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273254/original/file-20190508-183109-1r2rt4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273254/original/file-20190508-183109-1r2rt4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273254/original/file-20190508-183109-1r2rt4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273254/original/file-20190508-183109-1r2rt4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273254/original/file-20190508-183109-1r2rt4f.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most healthy people are eligible to donate blood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">From shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some patients need specially matched red cells for transfusion. This means on top of being matched by ABO and Rh type, the donor’s blood is matched to make sure it doesn’t contain blood group variants that aren’t present in the recipient’s blood. This is more difficult to achieve.</p>
<p>There are three groups of patients who need specially matched blood:</p>
<ol>
<li>patients who have already developed antibodies because they have had a transfusion of blood that is not fully matched in the past</li>
<li>patients who may have developed antibodies to blood group antigens, but other conditions or drug treatments make it hard for their doctors to test for antibodies </li>
<li>patients who need to have many transfusions throughout their life, so doctors want to avoid the development of blood group antibodies. </li>
</ol>
<p>Patients who may need to have multiple transfusions throughout their life include those with disorders affecting the blood such as sickle cell anaemia, thalassemia major and myelodysplasia. </p>
<p>Thalassemia is <a href="https://thalassemia.com/demographics.aspx#gsc.tab=0">most common</a> in people of African, Middle Eastern, Asian, Indian and Mediterranean descent. Sickle cell anaemia <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/sicklecell/data.html">affects these ethnic groups</a> and also people of Hispanic descent.</p>
<h2>Which groups are most in need in Australia at the moment?</h2>
<p>There are so many different blood group antigens, combinations of even the most common blood group types are found in only a small proportion of donors, making it difficult to provide blood fully matched for a particular patient. </p>
<p>In addition, as our patient population becomes more diverse, there is a greater need for blood types that are rare in a Caucasian population.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the distribution of blood groups that we collect from our donors should reflect the distribution of blood groups required by patients who need transfusion.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-whats-actually-in-our-blood-75066">Explainer: what's actually in our blood?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Blood centres in many countries have introduced a <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5ad0/1f8262f443562507c865323ebddd61d4b21c.pdf">variety of campaigns</a> to attract a broader donor group. </p>
<p>At the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, we are interviewing donors from diverse backgrounds to learn more about their experiences in donating blood. Our goal is to build a donor panel that represents the diversity of the broader Australian community. </p>
<p>The benefits are not only for the patients and the health system – research suggests participating in blood donation <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17319819">facilitates social inclusion among migrant communities</a>.</p>
<p><em>Dr Alison Gould, Scientific Communications Specialist for the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, co-authored this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113454/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tanya Davison is employed by the Australian Red Cross Blood Service as well as Swinburne University of Technology, and receives funding from NHMRC and ARC research grants. Australian governments fund the Australian Red Cross Blood Service for the provision of blood, blood products and services to the Australian community</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Daly is employed by the Australian Red Cross Blood Service and holds an Adjunct appointment with QUT Schooll of Biomedical Science. Australian Governments fund the Australian Red Cross Blood Service for the provision of blood, blood products and services to the Australian Community</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Flower is employed by the Australian Red Cross Blood Service as well an appointment at the University of Sydney. Australian governments fund the Australian Red Cross Blood Service for the provision of blood, blood products and services to the Australian community</span></em></p>Australia is a cultural melting pot, but our blood donors are less diverse. We need a broad mix of ethnicities in our donor pool to meet the needs of patients with rare blood types.Tanya Davison, Associate professor, Swinburne University of TechnologyJames Daly, Adjunct Associate Professor, Faculty of Health, School of Biomedical Sciences, Queensland University of TechnologyRobert Flower, Associate Professor, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1066702018-11-16T11:44:37Z2018-11-16T11:44:37ZYou can’t characterize human nature if studies overlook 85 percent of people on Earth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245812/original/file-20181115-194491-2pryc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">By only working in their own backyards, what do psychology researchers miss about human behavior?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/illustration-world-map-drawn-out-realistic-231214228">Arthimedes/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the last century, behavioral researchers have revealed the biases and prejudices that shape how people see the world and the carrots and sticks that influence our daily actions. Their discoveries have filled psychology textbooks and inspired generations of students. They’ve also informed how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/iop.2015.14">businesses manage their employees</a>, how <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X11428813">educators develop new curricula</a> and how <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/health/dream-team-of-behavioral-scientists-advised-obama-campaign.html">political campaigns persuade and motivate voters</a>. </p>
<p>But a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/466029a">growing body of research has raised concerns</a> that many of these discoveries suffer from severe biases of their own. Specifically, the vast majority of what we know about human psychology and behavior comes from studies conducted with a narrow slice of humanity – college students, middle-class respondents living near universities and highly educated residents of wealthy, industrialized and democratic nations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245589/original/file-20181114-194519-7mfpfv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245589/original/file-20181114-194519-7mfpfv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245589/original/file-20181114-194519-7mfpfv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245589/original/file-20181114-194519-7mfpfv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245589/original/file-20181114-194519-7mfpfv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245589/original/file-20181114-194519-7mfpfv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245589/original/file-20181114-194519-7mfpfv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245589/original/file-20181114-194519-7mfpfv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Blue countries represent the locations of 93 percent of studies published in Psychological Science in 2017. Dark blue is U.S., blue is Anglophone colonies with a European descent majority, light blue is western Europe. Regions sized by population.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Hruschka, based on data from Rad et al PNAS 2018</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To illustrate the extent of this bias, consider that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1721165115">more than 90 percent of studies</a> recently published in psychological science’s flagship journal come from countries representing less than 15 percent of the world’s population.</p>
<p>If people thought and behaved in basically the same ways worldwide, selective attention to these typical participants would not be a problem. Unfortunately, in those rare cases where researchers have reached out to a broader range of humanity, they frequently find that the “usual suspects” most often included as participants in psychology studies are actually outliers. They <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X10000725">stand apart from the vast majority of humanity</a> in things like how they divvy up windfalls with strangers, how they reason about moral dilemmas and how they perceive optical illusions.</p>
<p>Given that these typical participants are often outliers, many scholars now describe them and the findings associated with them <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/466029a">using the acronym WEIRD</a>, for Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic.</p>
<h2>WEIRD isn’t universal</h2>
<p>Because so little research has been conducted outside this narrow set of typical participants, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_zHqgvwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">anthropologists like me</a> cannot be sure how pervasive or consequential the problem is. A growing body of case studies suggests, though, that assuming such typical participants are the norm worldwide is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1720419115">not only scientifically suspect</a> but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1720325115">can also have</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1803526115">practical consequences</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245676/original/file-20181115-194513-jawetk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245676/original/file-20181115-194513-jawetk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245676/original/file-20181115-194513-jawetk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=213&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245676/original/file-20181115-194513-jawetk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=213&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245676/original/file-20181115-194513-jawetk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=213&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245676/original/file-20181115-194513-jawetk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245676/original/file-20181115-194513-jawetk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245676/original/file-20181115-194513-jawetk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An example of a sequence of shapes a child would be asked to complete.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Hruschka</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Consider an apparently simple pattern recognition test commonly used to assess the cognitive abilities of children. A standard item consists of a sequence of two-dimensional shapes – squares, circles and triangles – with a missing space. A child is asked to complete the sequence by choosing the appropriate shape for the missing space.</p>
<p>When 2,711 Zambian schoolchildren completed this task in one recent study, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022115624155">only 12.5 percent correctly filled in more than half</a> of shape sequences they were shown. But when the same task was given with familiar three-dimensional objects – things like toothpicks, stones, beans and beads – nearly three times as many children achieved this goal (34.9 percent). The task was aimed at recognizing patterns, not the ability to manipulate unfamiliar two-dimensional shapes. The use of a culturally foreign tool dramatically underestimated the abilities of these children. </p>
<p>Misplaced assumptions about what is “normal” might also affect the very methods scientists use to assess their theories. For example, one of the most commonly used tools in the behavioral sciences involves presenting a participant with a statement – something like “I generally trust people.” Then participants are asked to choose one point along a five- or seven-point line ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. This <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1933-01885-001">numbered line is named a “Likert item”</a> after its social psychologist originator, Rensis Likert.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245677/original/file-20181115-194506-1byk3dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245677/original/file-20181115-194506-1byk3dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245677/original/file-20181115-194506-1byk3dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245677/original/file-20181115-194506-1byk3dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245677/original/file-20181115-194506-1byk3dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245677/original/file-20181115-194506-1byk3dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245677/original/file-20181115-194506-1byk3dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245677/original/file-20181115-194506-1byk3dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Likert Scales are commonly used to collect opinions and reactions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Example_Likert_Scale.jpg">Nicholas Smith/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Most readers of this article have likely responded to many Likert items in their lifetime, but when this tool is taken to other settings <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1721166115">it encounters varying success</a>. Some people may refuse to answer. Others prefer to answer simply yes or no. Sometimes they respond with no difficulty.</p>
<p>If something as apparently simple and normal as a Likert item fails in different contexts (and not in others), it raises serious questions about our most basic models of how people should perceive and respond to stimuli. </p>
<h2>Aiming for a science of all humanity</h2>
<p>To address these potentially vast gaps in our understanding of human psychology and behavior, researchers have proposed a number of solutions. One is to reward researchers who take the time and effort to build long-term research relationships with diverse communities. Another is to recruit and retain behavioral scientists <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0088">from diverse backgrounds and perspectives</a>. Still another is to pay closer attention to the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1814733115">norms, values and beliefs of study communities</a>, whether they are WEIRD or not, when interpreting results. </p>
<p>A key part of these efforts will be to go <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X10000725">beyond theories of “universal humans”</a> and build theories that make predictions about how the local culture and environment can shape all aspects of human behavior and psychology. These include theories of how trading in markets can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1182238">make people treat strangers more fairly</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/d6qhu">how some societies became WEIRD</a> in recent centuries, and how the number of personality traits we find in a society – such as agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1720433115">depends on the complexity of a society’s organization</a>.</p>
<p>Proponents disagree on the best paths to moving beyond WEIRD science to building a science of all humanity. But hopefully some combination of these solutions will expand our understanding of both what makes us human and what creates such remarkable diversity in the human experience.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Hruschka's research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. </span></em></p>Ninety percent of psychology studies come from countries representing less than 15 percent of the world’s population. Researchers are realizing that universalizing those findings might not make sense.Daniel Hruschka, Professor and Associate Director of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change , Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/971762018-06-18T20:10:52Z2018-06-18T20:10:52ZHigher density and diversity: apartments are Australia at its most multicultural<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222136/original/file-20180607-137315-15akpbh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Areas with higher-density apartment living, such as Rhodes in Sydney, are home to many overseas-born residents.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rhodes-sydney-new-south-wales-australia-777624814?src=uN5wdUkgh_OfZT2o-JkC7g-1-16">Marcus Jaaske/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Increasing numbers of city dwellers live in apartments. This is particularly the case for migrants. And that makes apartment buildings important hubs of multiculturalism in our cities. </p>
<p>However, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1745-5871.12282">our recent research</a> shows that researchers and policymakers have largely overlooked the implications of this combination of increasing cultural diversity and increasing housing density.</p>
<p>We live in an environment of increasing cultural diversity. But we also see <a href="http://scanlonfoundation.org.au/research/surveys/">increasing racism</a> in Australian society, as well as a rise in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00049182.2017.1317050">racialised tension about Chinese property buyers</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/contested-spaces-living-next-door-to-alice-and-anh-and-abdullah-74172">Contested spaces: living next door to Alice (and Anh and Abdullah)</a>
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<p>These developments suggest we need to pay more attention to how to make apartment buildings work for residents from many different cultural backgrounds.</p>
<p>This is essential to support <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11205-005-2118-1">social cohesion</a>, or the positive social relationships that bond members of society. When social cohesion is weakened, we see a lack of trust and reductions in people’s sense of belonging and their willingness to participate and help others. This, in turn, can <a href="https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/p1063">damage people’s health and well-being</a>, as well as fuelling broader political instability.</p>
<h2>Increasing density</h2>
<p>In 2015, we passed an important, but largely unrecognised, milestone in Australia. It was the first year in the country’s history that dwelling starts for attached properties overtook those for detached houses. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221319/original/file-20180601-88530-rftpx6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221319/original/file-20180601-88530-rftpx6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221319/original/file-20180601-88530-rftpx6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221319/original/file-20180601-88530-rftpx6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221319/original/file-20180601-88530-rftpx6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221319/original/file-20180601-88530-rftpx6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221319/original/file-20180601-88530-rftpx6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221319/original/file-20180601-88530-rftpx6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>This should perhaps come as no surprise. State governments have for many years been pushing for <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/why-sydney-needs-more-apartments-20180319-p4z52d.html">more apartments to be built</a>. </p>
<p>Australia is not alone in this regard. <a href="http://www.oecd.org/greengrowth/compact-city-policies-9789264167865-en.htm">Countries around the world have been promoting “compact city” policies</a> that focus on building up rather than building out.</p>
<p>Around Australia, almost <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/2071.0%7E2016%7EMain%20Features%7EApartment%20Living%7E20">one in ten people now live in apartments</a>. However, the proportions are much higher in our major cities. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/becoming-more-urban-attitudes-to-medium-density-living-are-changing-in-sydney-and-melbourne-84693">Becoming more urban: attitudes to medium-density living are changing in Sydney and Melbourne</a>
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<p>Across the Greater Sydney metropolitan area, for example, 30% of residents live in apartments. In some inner-city suburbs, apartments are home to the vast majority of residents, including in Pyrmont, Zetland and Ultimo (see Table 1 below). Beachside locations such as Surfers Paradise, Queensland, and Glenelg, South Australia, also have high proportions of apartment residents.</p>
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<h2>Increasing diversity</h2>
<p>Apartment residents are very diverse culturally. Across Australia, more than half of apartment residents – 56%, compared to 33% of all Australian residents – are migrants. Of these, the biggest group (26% of apartment residents) are migrants born in Asia. </p>
<p>Nationwide, only 7% of Australian-born people live in apartments. For those born in northeast Asia (including China), the figure is 31%. And for those born in southern and central Asia (including India), it’s 26%.</p>
<p>Looking again at Greater Sydney, housing density and cultural diversity are clearly correlated. The Sydney suburbs where more than 90% of residents live in apartments also have high concentrations of overseas-born migrants.</p>
<h2>Challenges of apartment living</h2>
<p>While apartment living is unfamiliar to many Australian-born residents, Australian apartment lifestyles and norms can be even further from what migrants are used to. <a href="https://cityfutures.be.unsw.edu.au/research/projects/managing-diversity-strata-communities">Our research</a>, based on interviews with Sydney-based strata managers, shows that social and cultural differences can contribute to tensions within apartment buildings. These might be about shoes left in common areas, or washing hung on balconies, or “offensive” cooking smells wafting beyond kitchen walls.</p>
<p>Tensions between residents with different lifestyles are not limited to residents from different ethnic or cultural backgrounds. Tensions also arise between residents of different ages, different household types and with different working schedules. Cultural difference is but one of many factors that can contribute to tensions in apartment buildings.</p>
<p>However, strata managers also commented that sometimes new arrivals’ lack of English and lack of familiarity with Australian regulations had prevented them from fully participating in their building by, for example, joining strata committees or attending or speaking at meetings. Sometimes new arrivals were not even aware of basics such as the need to pay strata levies. Quite possibly that’s a result of strata rules and regulations not having been adequately explained to them. </p>
<p>Australian strata regulations and bylaws reflect a particular understanding of what it means to own or live in an apartment. Obligations and opportunities here – for example, the right to vote on motions at meetings – may look very different in other countries.</p>
<p>Apartment residents, strata committees and strata managers are finding that they need to adapt to the reality of their culturally diverse communities. After all, multiculturalism is about acknowledging and respecting difference.</p>
<h2>Fostering cohesion</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/contested-spaces-living-next-door-to-alice-and-anh-and-abdullah-74172">As we have previously discussed</a>, more inclusive practices – such as translating documents and meeting discussions, conducting audits and surveys of building residents, and providing a range of opportunities for participation – will benefit all residents and owners, regardless of their background.</p>
<p>While multicultural apartment blocks may pose challenges, they also offer opportunities for residents to enjoy the richness of a diverse and cosmopolitan environment. This is one of the enormous attractions of urban life. For many apartment residents, it’s available on an everyday level.</p>
<p>With growing numbers of urban residents living in apartment buildings that are also culturally diverse, more efforts to foster co-operation and understanding are vital for realising the potential of these urban spaces to become productive hubs of everyday multiculturalism in Australia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97176/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christina Ho has received funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edgar Liu has received funding from Strata Community Australia (NSW).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hazel Easthope has received funding from the Australian Research Council and Strata Community Association. </span></em></p>The combination of higher-density living and increasing cultural diversity means we need to think about how to build social cohesion and make the most of the opportunities of apartment living.Christina Ho, Senior Lecturer & Discipline Coordinator, Social & Political Sciences, University of Technology SydneyEdgar Liu, Research Fellow at City Futures Research Centre, UNSW SydneyHazel Easthope, Senior Research Fellow, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/912802018-02-06T11:36:45Z2018-02-06T11:36:45ZWhite men may be biggest winners when a city snags Amazon’s HQ2<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204957/original/file-20180205-14111-13a9553.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The tech sector has long had a diversity problem.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Elaine Thompson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Amazon may be hosting the biggest – and most economically important – reality show ever as city mayors compete to snag the retailer’s second headquarters. And just like TV, it has a <a href="http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/new-2017-18-tv-shows-no-diversity-1202436493/">diversity problem</a>.</p>
<p>More than 230 cities made the initial bid, and just recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/technology/amazon-finalists-headquarters.html">Amazon whittled</a> that list down to 20 that will go on to the next stage of the competition. Contestants have gone to great lengths to <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/10/the-12-most-desperate-stunts-cities-have-pulled-to-woo-amazons-new-hq">woo</a> the tech giant. Newark, New Jersey, for example, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-hq2-cities-developers-economic-tax-incentives-2017-10/#raleigh-north-carolina-well-over-50-million-1">promised over US$7 billion</a> in tax breaks over the next decade. </p>
<p>The winning community, to be announced later this year, will see billions of dollars in new investment and tens of thousands of high-paying jobs as an award. Such a long-term investment naturally would be welcome news for any city, particularly those like <a href="https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/05/gentrification-is-not-phillys-biggest-problem/483656/">Philadelphia</a> and <a href="https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2016/06/04/editorial-facts-indianas-economy-beyond-political-spin/85405390/">Indianapolis</a> that have seen decades of economic divestment. </p>
<p>However, <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2018/01/23/colorado-hickenlooper-amazon-hq2-denver/">there will</a> almost certainly be <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2017/10/19/winning-amazons-second-headquarters-has-pros-and-cons/772360001/">drawbacks</a> as well. </p>
<p>As scholars of gender studies and geography, we believe it’s worth taking a closer look in particular at who would fill the jobs Amazon’s new headquarters would create and how it would affect local quality of life.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204954/original/file-20180205-14078-cvfot2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204954/original/file-20180205-14078-cvfot2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204954/original/file-20180205-14078-cvfot2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204954/original/file-20180205-14078-cvfot2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204954/original/file-20180205-14078-cvfot2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204954/original/file-20180205-14078-cvfot2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204954/original/file-20180205-14078-cvfot2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&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">Newark, N.J., has offered Amazon over $7 billion in tax incentives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Seth Wenig</span></span>
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<h2>Workplace diversity</h2>
<p>In its search for “HQ2,” Amazon set out a few simple <a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/Anything/test/images/usa/RFP_3._V516043504_.pdf">criteria</a> for its city selection: a metropolitan area with more than 1 million people, a stable and business-friendly environment and the ability to attract and retain strong technical talent. </p>
<p>The company said it expects to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=17044620011">invest</a> over $5 billion dollars in construction and to generate 50,000 “high-paying jobs,” plus “tens of thousands of additional jobs and tens of billions of dollars in additional investment in the surrounding community.”</p>
<p>A mayor of a city like Atlanta or Chicago, hoping Amazon fills many of those jobs with a diverse selection of its skilled denizens, might be disappointed. That’s because Amazon – and <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/reports/2017/03/29/429424/supply-diverse-workers-tech-silicon-valley-lacking-diversity/">tech companies more broadly</a> – have long had a diversity problem. </p>
<p>The company’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/b/ref=tb_surl_diversity/?node=10080092011">latest diversity data show</a> that 66 percent of its managerial and professional employees are white. While that may seem normal in <a href="http://www.seattle.gov/opcd/population-and-demographics/about-seattle#raceethnicity">overwhelmingly white Seattle</a>, almost <a href="https://www.amazon.com/p/feature/qj2fb38w5m9h6z8">four-fifths of its employees</a> are based elsewhere. </p>
<p>While Amazon has sought to highlight its <a href="https://www.amazon.com/b?node=10080092011">diversity</a>, for instance, by noting that 21 percent of its total workforce is African-American, <a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/DiversityCampaign2016_Q3/EEO-1_2016_consolidated._V525968886_.pdf">most of them</a> are concentrated in nonprofessional “administrative, labor or helper” roles. In fact, African-Americans held only 3.7 percent of Amazon’s mid-level managerial, professional or technical jobs in 2016, and zero executive or senior management roles.</p>
<p>Given these hiring trends, it is not clear that Amazon will do much for high-skilled minority workers in heavily African-American candidate cities – let alone help their most <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/the-racial-wealth-gap-how-african-americans-have-been-shortchanged-out-of-the-materials-to-build-wealth/">economically disenfranchised</a> populations. </p>
<p><iframe id="qI438" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/qI438/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>A gender imbalance</h2>
<p>Even though it’s within <a href="https://anitab.org/news/press-release/new-abi-report-featuring-research-on-the-advantages-companies-gain-with-women-in-the-workforce/">Amazon’s best interest to invest in hiring more women</a>, the gender and pay equity numbers are bleak. </p>
<p>Sixty-one percent of Amazon’s global workforce are men, as are 75 percent of its managers. Though Amazon touts its gender pay equity (noting that <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-survey-shows-equal-gender-pay-among-its-workforce-1458761615">women make 99.7 cents to every dollar</a> that men make for similar positions), female employees are <a href="https://www.inc.com/huffington-post/big-problem-with-amazon-pay-gap-ratio-of-male-to-female-employees.html">concentrated in lower-tier jobs</a>.</p>
<p>This gender gap is reproduced across the technology industry. According to the <a href="https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/acs/acs-35.pdf">U.S. Census Bureau</a>, the share of women in information technology occupations has not only decreased since 1990 by nearly 5 percent, but women continue to cluster in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/14/google-women-promotions-lower-paying-jobs-lawsuit">less prestigious</a> “front-end” jobs and not in the highest paying occupations like network architects or software development. A 2017 study by the tech-heavy job board site <a href="https://hired.com/gender-wage-gap-2017">Hired</a> shows that even when men and women were offered the same position in the same company, women were offered lower salaries 63 percent of the time.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/07/silicon-valley-google-diversity-black-women-workers">Tech hiring trends</a> are even less favorable for women of color. For example, while Asian women are considered well-represented in the tech workforce overall, a revelatory 2017 report from the nonprofit <a href="http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.ascendleadership.org/resource/resmgr/research/TheIllusionofAsianSuccess.pdf">Ascend Leadership</a> revealed that they were the least likely to become managers and executives. Equally as troubling, the numbers of black women in tech actually declined by 13 percent from 2007 to 2015.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204955/original/file-20180205-14111-70rmku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204955/original/file-20180205-14111-70rmku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204955/original/file-20180205-14111-70rmku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204955/original/file-20180205-14111-70rmku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204955/original/file-20180205-14111-70rmku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204955/original/file-20180205-14111-70rmku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204955/original/file-20180205-14111-70rmku.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">Amazon continues to grow in its original hometown of Seattle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Elaine Thompson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Swallowing a city</h2>
<p>Beyond the jobs, however, cities are also <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/most-americans-want-amazon-hq2-poll-2018-2?r=UK&IR=T">hoping</a> for investment and an economic boost. But there are downsides to letting a giant take over your city. Just ask <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/19/amazon-headquarters-seattle-215725">Seattle</a>. </p>
<p>With the intention of supporting local economies, Amazon has established its <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/28/amazon-seattle-office-space-13-point-6-million-square-feet.html">growing headquarters</a> in downtown Seattle, even encouraging employees to spend money at local shops by limiting on-site dining options. </p>
<p>As a consequence, the city has been <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/thanks-to-amazon-seattle-is-now-americas-biggest-company-town/">swallowed</a> by the company’s offices, which occupy 19 percent of all office space in downtown Seattle, making it not only the city’s largest employer but also its largest user of land, roadways and public space. Traffic and congestion have outstripped the city’s existing infrastructure. Almost 57,000 residents <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattles-mega-commuters-we-are-spending-more-time-than-ever-traveling-to-work/">spent at least 90 minutes</a> on their daily commute. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/seattle-rent-hikes-slow-amid-apartment-boom-but-average-two-bedroom-tops-2000/">Rents</a> and <a href="https://www.spice-indices.com/idpfiles/spice-assets/resources/public/documents/589149_cshomeprice-release-0926.pdf?force_download=true">housing prices</a> have skyrocketed, <a href="https://www.geekwire.com/2017/zillow-data-seattle-3rd-largest-homeless-population-u-s-rising-rents-take-toll/">homelessness</a> is now the third-highest in the country, and the rapid growth of new office buildings and condos is replacing the older, smaller spaces needed for small business and entrepreneurship. Mahmoudi’s research has shown that <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01944363.2015.1135072">rapid changes like this</a> can uproot or displace existing residents, <a href="http://kuow.org/post/amazons-diversity-problem-seattle-neighborhood-problem">reducing</a> both diversity and equity.</p>
<p>To be sure, <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/thanks-to-amazon-seattle-is-now-americas-biggest-company-town/">Seattle has benefited</a> a lot from Amazon’s presence. Our point is that there are lots of costs too. </p>
<h2>Chasing smokestacks</h2>
<p>Cities have long been known for “<a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1993-04-18/opinion/op-24566_1_economic-development">smokestack chasing</a>,” or offering lucrative tax incentives and other subsidies to lure companies or factories from elsewhere. These policies <a href="http://www.industryweek.com/supply-chain/smokestack-chasing-bankruptcies-and-other-manufacturing-hypocrisies">often don’t work</a>.</p>
<p>You might call today’s race to get Amazon’s second headquarters a modern form of that phenomenon as municipalities compete in a zero-sum game for tech company outposts. </p>
<p>Yet all of the presumed economic benefits are problematically predicated on the companies’ <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/us/how-local-taxpayers-bankroll-corporations.html">continued growth</a>, which is never a sure thing. The negative <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/amazon-warehouses-poor-cities/552020/">impacts</a>, however, are much more certain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91280/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>Amazon, like the entire tech sector, has suffered from a lack of diversity in its workforce. This trend is likely to continue when it opens a second headquarters in one of 20 cities.Amy Bhatt, Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyDillon Mahmoudi, Assistant Professor of Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/837522017-11-20T02:25:59Z2017-11-20T02:25:59ZDiapers, potties and split pants: Understanding toilet training around the world may help parents relax<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195246/original/file-20171117-19245-1c14v0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chill: There's no one right way.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/david_martin_foto/24073729359">David D</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Are two-year-olds too young to start toilet training?</p>
<p>For many children, yes. Especially boys. At least, that’s what American pediatricians would likely say. Nowadays, only <a href="http://www.aafp.org/afp/2008/1101/p1059.html">around half of children in the U.S.</a> are fully toilet-trained by age three.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195240/original/file-20171117-19320-ipdm73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195240/original/file-20171117-19320-ipdm73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195240/original/file-20171117-19320-ipdm73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195240/original/file-20171117-19320-ipdm73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195240/original/file-20171117-19320-ipdm73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195240/original/file-20171117-19320-ipdm73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195240/original/file-20171117-19320-ipdm73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195240/original/file-20171117-19320-ipdm73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Split pants let a Chinese boy go when he needs to.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chinese_boy_with_open_rear_pants_closeup.jpg">Daniel Case</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Chinese grandmothers would be appalled. They’d likely point out that with “split pants,” most kids are trained by age two. This traditional wardrobe item features an opening along the crotch seam, allowing children to urinate and defecate freely without soiling their clothes. These garments remain the pants style of choice for toddlers living in the Chinese countryside.</p>
<p>Parenting advice about divergent toilet-training methods (not to mention plenty of other child-rearing questions) is typically dished out as if it were the only reasonable, reliable option. Nowadays, parents are confronted with guidance claimed to be scientifically founded, and presented as relevant to all children, even when different strategies are in direct conflict with each other. With over 2,000 parenting advice books in print in English – and, along with so many parenting blogs, there’s even a <a href="https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/great-parenting-blogs-through-the-ages">parody of the genre</a> – it’s easy to see why many modern parents feel confused about how to raise their children.</p>
<p>As an anthropologist, I’ve been studying child-rearing practices around the world for 25 years. Living with my husband (writer Philip Graham) in small villages in the rainforest of West Africa for extended periods convinced me that we humans are a resilient species, able to thrive in so many distinctive settings. Discovering the incredible diversity of ways to raise children inspired us to rethink and change some of our own family’s child-rearing practices (around bed-sharing, independence and household tasks, for instance).</p>
<p>There’s no one-size-fits-all model of child-rearing advice for all the world’s parents. To spread this message, my colleagues and I collaborated on the book “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316480625">A World of Babies: Imagined Childcare Guides for Eight Societies</a>,” based on our own and others’ long-term ethnographic fieldwork in places ranging from Israel and the Palestinian territories to China, Portugal, Peru, Denmark, Côte d'Ivoire and a Somali-American community in Minneapolis. By presenting multiple solutions to the commonest challenges facing parents, we hope to provide a bit of a tonic for parents, to assure them that there’s more than one path to raising a well-adjusted child.</p>
<h2>Toilet training from birth?</h2>
<p>So, why do parents choose a given child-rearing practice? Often, it comes down to money and availability. Let’s revisit that question about toilet training.</p>
<p>In Côte d'Ivoire, Beng mothers begin training their infants’ bowels a few days after birth. They administer enemas twice daily, beginning the day a newborn’s dried-out umbilical cord stump drops off. By the time the little one is a few months old, caregivers shouldn’t have to worry about him pooping during the day at all.</p>
<p>What could account for such a seemingly extreme practice? For one thing, disposable diapers are unavailable in Beng villages – and throughout much of the global south. Moreover, even if they were sold in local markets, few subsistence-farming families could afford them. (And the planet can’t afford them, either. Environmentalists calculate that “disposable” diapers constitute the <a href="http://realdiapers.org/diaper-facts">third-largest single consumer item in landfills</a>, and their <a href="http://www.peggyomara.com/2014/01/16/a-tale-of-two-diapers/">production requires some 7 billion gallons of oil each year</a>.)</p>
<p>But availability and affordability tell only part of the story. The structure of labor plus deep-seated values also shape parents’ choices.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195254/original/file-20171117-19320-u89aa5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195254/original/file-20171117-19320-u89aa5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195254/original/file-20171117-19320-u89aa5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195254/original/file-20171117-19320-u89aa5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195254/original/file-20171117-19320-u89aa5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195254/original/file-20171117-19320-u89aa5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195254/original/file-20171117-19320-u89aa5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195254/original/file-20171117-19320-u89aa5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&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 Beng babysitter carrying a young charge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alma Gottlieb</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Côte d'Ivoire (as elsewhere across sub-Saharan Africa), Beng babies spend most of their days attached to someone’s back. Often, that someone is not the mother – who is working in her fields, producing crops to feed her large family. Beng society (unlike traditional Chinese society) also rates all feces (including those of babies) as disgusting, and the thought of a baby pooping on someone’s back produces revulsion.</p>
<p>Given the local attitude toward feces, no potential babysitter would take care of a child likely to poop on her back while being carried. Hence, starting potty-training from birth aims to help a mother get her farmwork done. In that sense, early toilet-training promotes an adequate food supply for a mother’s family.</p>
<p>A Western observer might shrink in horror from this practice, imagining long-lasting emotional maladjustments from early trauma. But, discounting the ravages of poverty that challenge health and deny educational and economic opportunity, these very early toilet-trained babies appear to grow into just as happy and well-adjusted adults as diaper-wearing children might become.</p>
<h2>Context counts for what works</h2>
<p>In motivation, this practice may not even be as exotic as it might appear to a non-Beng reader. In the U.S., women’s labor needs may also dictate potty-training schedules, albeit with a later timeline. Many daycare centers accept only children who are fully potty-trained. If a working mother lacks both in-home daycare options and babysitting relatives, she may work frantically to potty-train her toddler as soon as possible, so she may return to full-time paid work.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195256/original/file-20171117-19305-3ohgzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195256/original/file-20171117-19305-3ohgzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195256/original/file-20171117-19305-3ohgzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195256/original/file-20171117-19305-3ohgzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195256/original/file-20171117-19305-3ohgzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195256/original/file-20171117-19305-3ohgzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195256/original/file-20171117-19305-3ohgzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195256/original/file-20171117-19305-3ohgzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This Palestinian girl cares for her baby brother as part of the extended ‘hamula’ family who raise children collectively whenever possible.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bree Akesson</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For stay-at-home moms, or working moms who have nearby relatives to care for their child, different life situations may dictate toilet-training decisions. In the Palestinian territories, for instance, many women start toilet-training around 14 or 15 months. They’re able to start early because they aren’t working outside the home, so they have the time. On the other hand, a Palestininan working woman may start toilet-training later, maybe around age two. In this case, women in the extended family (“hamula”) would care for the child while the mother worked, so no daycare rule compels early toilet-training.</p>
<p>Once we explore the local context of people’s daily lives, seemingly exotic or even abusive practices – split pants, infant enemas – suddenly seem far less so. Opening the minds of worried new parents to “other” ways of raising children may assuage fears that if they fail to “do the right thing,” their children will be doomed. Through exploring comparative commode customs, along with many other parenting practices, it’s clear there are many “right ways” to raise a child.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83752/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alma Gottlieb is a Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Visiting Scholar in Anthropology at Brown University. She is on the advisory boards for the following organizations: Cape Verdean-American Community Development (Pawtucket, RI); World Affairs Council of Rhode Island; Cape Verdean-Jewish Annual Seder (Boston); and IndivisibleRI. She is on the Editorial Board of the following scholarly journals: AnthropoChildren: Perspectives Ethnographiques sur les Enfants & l'Enfance/Ethnographic Perspectives in Children & Childhood; Anthropology and Education Quarterly; Anthropology Today; and Mande Studies. Since 1979, she has received funding from the following agencies: Jacobs Foundation (Zurich), European Commission/U.S. Department of Education, National Endowment for the Humanities, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, American Association of University Women, and Social Science Research Council. She is co-founder and co-director (with Philip Graham) of the Beng Community Fund, a non-profit, 501 (c) (3) organization to benefit the Beng community of Côte d’Ivoire.</span></em></p>Opening the minds of worried new parents to other ways of raising children may assuage fears that if they fail to ‘do the right thing,’ their children will be doomed.Alma Gottlieb, Professor Emerita of Anthropology, African Studies, and Gender and Women's Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/781152017-05-26T13:56:39Z2017-05-26T13:56:39ZFighting for your knife: law, religion and parmesan in multicultural Italy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170999/original/file-20170525-23232-zlgtep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/amritsar-india-april-30-sikh-pilgrims-55460392">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On May 15 2017, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Supreme-Court-of-Cassation">Italian Court of Cassation</a>, the highest court of appeal, issued a <a href="http://www.italgiure.giustizia.it/xway/application/nif/clean/hc.dll?verbo=attach&db=snpen&id=./20170515/snpen@s10@a2017@n24084@tS.clean.pdf">verdict</a> ruling that Sikh men in Italy cannot carry the <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/what-is-a-kirpan-1.1101486">kirpan</a>, the sacred dagger that represents one of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/sikhism/customs/fiveks.shtml">five holy customs</a> Sikhs must observe.</p>
<p>The appeal had been lodged by Jatinder Singh, a 32-year old Indian living and working in Goito, in the northern Italian province of Mantova. Singh – part of a Sikh community which is essential to Italy’s Parmesan industry –- was ordered to pay €2,000 when local police stopped him and confiscated his kirpan because of a <a href="http://www.gazzettaufficiale.it/eli/id/1990/03/31/090A1505/">law that prohibits</a> the carrying of knives and weapons outside one’s house without a legitimate reason. </p>
<p>But in their verdict, the judges did not just act on the basis of Italy’s legal system. Crucially, they also ventured into unchartered terrain by commenting on how Italian society should look and what its culture and values should be – something that must be a matter of political debate, not decided in strictly legal terms.</p>
<p>Today, more than <a href="https://www.allaboutsikhs.com/world-gurudwaras/gurudwaras-in-italy">60,000 Sikhs live in Italy</a>, the second-largest community in Europe after the UK. They are mainly concentrated in Italy’s northern provinces, where the hot humid climate and flat rural landscape <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Punjab,+India/@30.9988703,70.9162072,6z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x391964aa569e7355:0x8fbd263103a38861!8m2!3d31.1471305!4d75.3412179">resemble Punjab</a>, the Indian region which most of the Sikhs come from.</p>
<p>Farmers in India, these Sikhs also become farmers in Italy and are employed particularly in one of the country’s most famous cheese-making industries: <a href="http://www.cheese.com/parmesan/">Parmesan</a>. Once the produce of a solely Italian labour force, the industry now relies on immigrant workers, like many other European countries. In 2015, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33149580">BBC reported</a> local producers saying that if it were not for the hardworking Sikhs rising at 4am to milk cows twice a day, seven days a week, Italy’s Parmesan production would be at risk.</p>
<p>The verdict of the Court of Cassation shocked the Sikh community, which regards itself as peaceful and well integrated in Italy. So it’s not surprising that they are now contemplating <a href="http://milano.repubblica.it/cronaca/2017/05/17/news/migranti_cassazione_valori_coltello_sikh-165610991/?ref=RHPPLF-BH-I0-C4-P4-S1.4-F4&refresh_ce">various responses</a>, from an appeal to the <a href="https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/Jo2_6999/en/">European Court of Justice</a> to the most drastic one of all: leaving the country.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171008/original/file-20170525-23227-mn0m4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171008/original/file-20170525-23227-mn0m4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171008/original/file-20170525-23227-mn0m4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171008/original/file-20170525-23227-mn0m4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171008/original/file-20170525-23227-mn0m4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171008/original/file-20170525-23227-mn0m4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171008/original/file-20170525-23227-mn0m4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171008/original/file-20170525-23227-mn0m4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ceremonial swords and kirpan dagger are part of Sikh religious observance. The kirpan must be worn at all times.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hyderabadindiaapril-13-sikh-man-wait-weapons-624353372">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since the decision of the Court of Cassation, Sikh men in Italy now live in constant fear of being stopped and searched by the Italian police due to religious observance. So it is important to critically scrutinise the cultural reasons given by the judges in justifying their verdict. </p>
<h2>Common core</h2>
<p>Over the past few decades, as observed by political sociologist <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0010414001034004001">Christian Joppke</a>, courts of justice in various European countries and the USA have been instrumental in expanding immigrants’ rights with their verdicts, often against the restrictive measures put in place by national governments in relation to welfare programmes, civil service employment, professional licenses and scholarships. </p>
<p>Italy’s supreme court decision signals an important reversal of this trend. But it is not just a legal matter. And Italy is not the first country to forbid the wearing of the kirpan in Europe – Denmark already did so in <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/no-kirpan-for-sikhs-in-denmark/story-ADnqMMTcwA0rl6jQzNptbN.html">2006</a>. The most interesting aspect of the Italian verdict is the cultural justification the judges used to support their legal decision.</p>
<p>Shining a light on their arguments, the Court of Cassation starts with a fair appraisal of what at first sight might appear as the kind of statement that should characterise any culturally diverse society:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In a multi-ethnic society, the living together among subjects of different ethnicities necessarily requires the identification of a common core recognised by both the majority society and the immigrants.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Integration is a two-way process, which means the majority and minority communities experience a transformation and work together towards the shaping of the society of which they are all part.</p>
<h2>Western values</h2>
<p>But this was not exactly what the judges of the Court of Cassation had in mind. For them, integration struggles with an “insurmountable limit” in the “respect of human rights and of the legal framework of the hosting society”. In other words, immigrants must change and assimilate, Italy will not bend to accommodate all cultural or religious observances of immigrants.</p>
<p>Italy has its own law, which judges believe cannot be brought into question regardless of the demographic and cultural changes Italy has been experiencing for the past 30 years. So they maintain that “it is essential for the immigrant to conform his values to those of the Western world into which he has freely decided to incorporate himself”. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171002/original/file-20170525-23245-1rg2xi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171002/original/file-20170525-23245-1rg2xi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171002/original/file-20170525-23245-1rg2xi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171002/original/file-20170525-23245-1rg2xi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171002/original/file-20170525-23245-1rg2xi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171002/original/file-20170525-23245-1rg2xi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171002/original/file-20170525-23245-1rg2xi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Without SIkh dairy workers, Italy’s Parmesan industry would be at risk.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bra-italy-september-18-2015-cut-332644646">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Besides the gender-bias tone, this carries two problematic points. First, there is no general agreement on what “Western values” are (and the very notion of West/Western is also open to debate, particularly in relation to its colonial legacy). Should a forward-looking society not list cultural and religious <a href="http://pluralism.org/what-is-pluralism/">pluralism</a> among these values? </p>
<p>Yet, the Italian Court of Cassation seems to instil doubt here. In another passage of their verdict, the judges talk of “the uniqueness of the cultural and legal fabric of our country”. Not much notion of cultural pluralism in that statement. Italy has a unique culture – and anyone who arrives on its shores simply has to fit into the Italian way of life.</p>
<h2>New Italians</h2>
<p>But here comes the zinger: what shall we make of all those Sikh Italians who did not migrate to Italy, but were born and grew up there? Unlike their parents, these people, clearly, did not “freely decided to incorporate” themselves into the country. They are not immigrants, but “new Italians”, as <a href="http://newitalians.eu/en/">my research</a> has largely documented. Unfortunately, by putting all the “diverse” people into the same basket, the Court of Cassation seems blind to the country’s changing population.</p>
<p>It is interesting to note that the court’s verdict has generated little political debate, including among the centre-left parties such as the <a href="https://www.partitodemocratico.it/">Partito Democratico</a> – traditionally more sensitive to immigrant issues. This seems to suggest that these parties in Italy, like elsewhere in Europe, share a form of immigrant incorporation which scholars call “civic integration”, that is, integration demanded on the basis of legal principles, but which in reality stands for the defence of the existing culture of the majority of Italians.</p>
<p>If it were not so serious, perhaps we could joke that losing Italy’s most famous cheese to a quarrel over a knife is really not worth it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78115/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marco Antonsich receives funding from European Commission - FP7 People.</span></em></p>As Italy confirms its ban on Sikhs carrying holy daggers, should the judiciary be deciding what our societies look like or what defines our cultural values?Marco Antonsich, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/728742017-03-21T00:13:54Z2017-03-21T00:13:54ZInterculturalism: how diverse societies can do better than passive tolerance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158672/original/image-20170228-29924-2quqlu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Interculturalism emphasises interaction between members of diverse communities, rather than 'groupism'.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harmony_Day_(5475651018).jpg">Wikimedia/DIAC Images </a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Western liberal democracies are again embroiled in debates about the value of multicultural policies. In Australia, the federal government has <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-20/policy-statement-on-multiculturalism-calls-for-unity/8367844">just released</a> its own <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/settlement-and-multicultural-affairs/australian-governments-multicultural-statement">statement on multiculturalism</a>. The current debates are unfolding in the context of the election of Donald Trump, the Brexit vote and the rise of far-right parties like One Nation. </p>
<p>In Australia, such debates have historically conflated multiculturalism – a term that describes the <a href="https://www.mia.org.au/documents/item/232">policy framework</a> established in the 1970s and 1980s – with the idea of racial or ethnic diversity. </p>
<p>Four decades after the end of “White Australia”, however, diversity is simply an established – and irreversible – <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/face-facts-cultural-diversity">social fact</a>. When the debate on immigration is added to the mix, the result is a tangled mess of issues that can be <a href="https://theconversation.com/perspectives-on-migrants-distorted-by-politics-of-prejudice-65550">difficult to tease apart</a>.</p>
<p>One result of this conceptual confusion is that policy debates about <a href="https://theconversation.com/perspectives-on-migrants-distorted-by-politics-of-prejudice-65550">immigration</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/citizenship-discussion-paper-offers-a-misleading-take-on-this-right-42763">citizenship</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-multicultural-policy-looms-as-a-senate-bargaining-chip-62696">multiculturalism</a> often escalate into toxic arguments. At their most trenchant, they have turned into arguments for cultural supremacy – including the idea that certain groups of Australians should not have access to rights enjoyed by other citizens.</p>
<h2>Overcoming ‘us and them’ mindsets</h2>
<p>In Australia, most common strategies for countering “us and them” sentiments consist of public statements defending “multiculturalism” and <a href="https://theconversation.com/ideas-for-australia-bipartisanship-on-immigration-does-little-to-counter-racism-suspicion-and-division-56356">immigration</a>. But these strategies reinforce the conflation of multicultural policy and cultural diversity. This leaves little room to challenge the assumptions of multiculturalism without being seen as challenging diversity itself.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158671/original/image-20170228-29942-1qnbu6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158671/original/image-20170228-29942-1qnbu6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158671/original/image-20170228-29942-1qnbu6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158671/original/image-20170228-29942-1qnbu6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158671/original/image-20170228-29942-1qnbu6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158671/original/image-20170228-29942-1qnbu6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158671/original/image-20170228-29942-1qnbu6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158671/original/image-20170228-29942-1qnbu6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australia’s diversity of people is simply a fact, but has been politicised in debates about migration and refugees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lundyk/5449910217/in/photolist-9iAdrg-AUUHn-8vU5LF-jWeAVk-921Dh8-hNhFYL-8Peace-dCxUKD-C2oD9-924Kzf-rkX3LP-broUV6-broFmr-qHtmW-9srSuC-c29bzj-mkFYtp-brpMJP-dCxY3t-ptnZ5t-mkG4rD-oyDJJ5-mkFWhZ-mkLTUy-4sFDGa-mkFYHa-fbSvqe-mkHuxR-bvP2iU-mkH19W-9wFCJo-broFMn-oLmKSa-mkGVeA-8vU6vM-brSkDK-brSm6g-mkGnvW-gHQpx4-r4vVnW-qc3t5M-dgkQHq-qtszAB-jWghtN-sazGkM-ou9rVf-mkGpwu-qkNuAd-mkEZQV-oucHzY">Kate Lundy/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet, in the last ten years or so, an important new policy framework has emerged in the northern hemisphere. It’s one that might help Australians debate these issues without descending into rancour. </p>
<p>This approach attempts to steer policy debates past this difficult impasse by drawing on decades of humanities and social research. </p>
<p>Known as “<a href="http://tedcantle.co.uk/publications/about-interculturalism/">interculturalism</a>”, it prioritises active and equitable interaction between groups over passive tolerance. </p>
<p>Interculturalism has strong policy advocates in <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/quebec-group-pushes-interculturalism-in-place-of-multiculturalism/article569581/">Canada</a> and <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/ali-rattansi/from-multiculturalism-to-interculturalism-%E2%80%93-reply-to-british-political-elite">Britain</a>. Its strongest institutional base, however, is in continental Europe. The Council of Europe has supported the <a href="http://www.coe.int/en/web/interculturalcities/">Intercultural Cities Program</a> for more than a decade. </p>
<p>Bypassing the unproductive debates raging at the national level in many member states, this program tackles issues of cultural diversity and migrant settlement at the city level. More than 100 cities, mostly in Europe but also in Canada and Mexico, are adopting its pioneering approach. </p>
<p>Many of these cities operate in political environments that are even more obviously polarised than Australia’s. Strategies they have adopted include anti-rumour <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/interculturalcities/anti-rumours">campaigns</a>, participatory campaigns around urban cultural <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/interculturalcities/cultural-heritage-and-diversity">heritage</a>, and promotions of intercultural interaction in segregated urban <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/interculturalcities/housing-and-neighbourhoods">spaces</a>.</p>
<h2>The Australian experience</h2>
<p>In Australia, there has long been a disconnection between the national political discourse and the implementation of multicultural policies on the ground. </p>
<p>Implementation has often been the responsibility of local government authorities. On one side, support for the ideology of “multicultural Australia” in official versions of Australian identity has waxed and waned. On the other, local governments must look for answers to new tensions in their communities, such as growing protests <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-15/bendigo-mosque-high-court-challenge/7511690">against the building of mosques</a>.</p>
<p>The Intercultural Cities model offers important ideas and resources for councils looking to respond to these challenges in creative and positive ways. In December 2016, Ballarat became the <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/interculturalcities/-/ballarat-joins-the-council-of-europe-s-intercultural-cities-network">first Australian city</a> to join the Intercultural Cities Network. </p>
<p>Joining the network has opened up many new opportunities for Ballarat’s work in this area. As a member, the city has access to a wealth of best-practice intercultural programs and strategies. And with more than 100 cities sharing their experience, the network’s evidence base for making policy choices is growing. </p>
<p>At the same time, Australian cities can make an important contribution to continuing European efforts to develop and spread intercultural principles. The <a href="http://www.coe.int/en/web/interculturalcities/about-the-index">Intercultural Cities Index</a> – the program’s monitoring and evaluation tool – shows Ballarat is already doing very well compared to its European counterparts. The city ranks fourth among network members.</p>
<p>In an effort to further international cross-fertilisation around intercultural principles and practice, a group of academics and practitioners have collaborated to create an Australian affiliate of the Intercultural Cities Program. <a href="http://interculturalcities.com.au/">Intercultural Cities Australasia</a> has worked with the Council of Europe to reformulate its diagnostic index for the Australian context. </p>
<p>We have also authored a set of Australian intercultural standards and indicators to support local governments seeking to adopt an intercultural approach to respond to increasing levels of cultural diversity. </p>
<p>This approach could provide some practical means for responding to the federal government’s <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/03/20/government-release-statement-multiculturalism">policy statement</a> on multiculturalism. </p>
<h2>Reforming multicultural practices</h2>
<p>Interculturalism builds on key principles already present in Australian multicultural policy. These include public recognition of diversity and difference, protection from discrimination, and consultation across perceived cultural divides. But it also signals a shift from the way these principles have been institutionalised in Australia. </p>
<p>At the local level, interculturalism puts more emphasis on programs that bring minorities together and into direct engagement with the majority culture and mainstream organisations and institutions. </p>
<p>It also asks members of the majority culture to question their own assumptions and open channels of communication and interaction with minorities. It is therefore a “whole of society” framework, rather than a device for managing minorities. </p>
<p>Our aim in fostering this shift is to encourage all Australians to recognise the importance of intercultural competence. The aim is to re-orient our consultative structures so that we can engage directly with each other – in our policy settings as much as in our daily lives. </p>
<p>We need to equip all of us – and our political system – to navigate cultural difference. This might help to protect social cohesion as debates about immigration and multiculturalism pick up momentum. It should also improve our capacity to relate to our Asia-Pacific neighbours.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Further reading</strong>: <a href="http://theconversation.com/the-governments-multicultural-statement-is-bereft-of-new-ideas-or-policies-why-74838">The government’s multicultural statement is bereft of new ideas or policies – why?</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72874/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glenda Ballantyne teaches and researches at Swinburne University in the areas of migration, interculturalism and cultural diversity. Her current research projects include New Media, Aging and Migration, and Zooming In: Multiculturalism through the lens of the next generation, in conjunction with the Victorian Multicultural Commission. She is an author of the Australian Intercultural Standards and Index through Intercultural Cities Australasia, a policy initiative in collaboration with the Council of Europe.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Amrita Malhi is a Visiting Fellow in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at The Australian National University and in the School of Social Sciences at The University of Adelaide. She is an author of the Australian Intercultural Standards and Index through Intercultural Cities Australasia, a policy initiative in collaboration with the Council of Europe. In 2015, she received funding from the Department of Premier and Cabinet in the Government of South Australia for the policy co-design and action research project, InterculturAdelaide: Cultural Adaptivity for the Asian Century.</span></em></p>A relatively new approach to diversity prioritises active and equitable interaction between various groups within local communities.Glenda Ballantyne, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Swinburne University of TechnologyAmrita Malhi, Visiting Fellow, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.