tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/global-north-23292/articles
Global North – The Conversation
2024-02-13T13:21:01Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220270
2024-02-13T13:21:01Z
2024-02-13T13:21:01Z
Global health research suffers from a power imbalance − decolonizing mentorship can help level the playing field
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572897/original/file-20240201-21-gnk9sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2119%2C1414&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Effective collaboration requires addressing hierarchical mindsets.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/hand-in-a-medical-glove-holds-a-glass-globe-royalty-free-image/1223254880">Maryna Terletska/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mentorship is a cornerstone of the infrastructure supporting global health. Transferring knowledge, developing skills and cultivating a supportive professional environment among researchers and clinicians around the world are key to achieving health equity on a global scale. </p>
<p>For example, most people in Africa would have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by now if the <a href="https://theconversation.com/pharmas-expensive-gaming-of-the-drug-patent-system-is-successfully-countered-by-the-medicines-patent-pool-which-increases-global-access-and-rewards-innovation-189868">patented knowledge</a> about the vaccine technology were shared with African scholars and local pharmaceutical companies to produce a generic version. As of October 2023, although over 95% of available doses have been used, <a href="https://africacdc.org/covid-19-vaccination/">less than 52% of the population</a> is fully vaccinated.</p>
<p>However, researchers from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-global-south-is-on-the-rise-but-what-exactly-is-the-global-south-207959">Global South</a> – countries in the regions of Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Oceania with limited resources and a lower standard of living – face challenges that impede effective mentorship.</p>
<p>One reason is that mentorship is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2023-013751">often hierarchical</a>. Mentors, typically from the Global North, or high-income countries, are often seen as more credible than mentees who are mostly from the Global South. Mentees are often described as inexperienced, requiring training and guidance. While mentorships are by definition hierarchical, researchers from the Global South are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2023-013751">assumed to lack the skills</a> to adequately implement health programs or conduct research and would benefit from greater experience of scholars from the Global North.</p>
<p>Hierarchical relationships, especially those between people from the Global North and Global South, are not mutually beneficial or fair. Based on our personal experiences and research as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7RB_bZUAAAAJ&hl=en">public health researchers</a>, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yankam-Brenda">statisticians</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.nl/citations?user=weevnFsAAAAJ&hl=en">social scientists</a>, we believe that cultural humility and equitable partnerships are key to effective global health projects. </p>
<p>Scholars from the Global North and Global South can learn from each other. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2023-013751">Decolonizing mentorship</a> in global health, or addressing the historical power imbalances between researchers from the Global North and Global South, can help advance global health for all. </p>
<h2>Challenges in global health research</h2>
<p>Some scholars have defined <a href="https://doi.org/10.3402/gha.v3i0.5142">global health</a> as “collaborate transnational research and action for promoting health for all.” Historically, however, the concept of global health is rooted in Western ideas of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002947">who is considered human</a>. Europeans are depicted as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/racist-and-sexist-depictions-of-human-evolution-still-permeate-science-education-and-popular-culture-today-202011">norm or standard</a>, while non-Europeans are depicted as strange or inferior.</p>
<p>This hierarchy is omnipresent in knowledge exchange and health resource allocation between the Global North and Global South. For example, the European Union rejected proposals that would have allowed African countries, mostly former European colonies, to manufacture generic COVID-19 vaccines when the <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/eu-set-bin-25-million-more-vaccine-doses-it-has-donated-africa-year">55 million doses</a> the West donated expired in February 2022. </p>
<p>Scholarly collaborations between the Global North and Global South are also unequal in power. Notably, most of the major <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1168505">global health institutes</a> are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/acm.0000000000003473">located in the Global North</a>, although the greatest burden of diseases such as HIV and malaria is centered in the Global South. Conferences where researchers gather to learn about new innovations in their field and to network are typically located in high-income countries. Few Global South scholars are able to attend because of travel restrictions and financial constraints, leaving them without guidance on how to navigate and significantly contribute to the field. </p>
<p>For example, several scholars from the Global South have noted how <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/opinion-visa-hurdles-hurt-global-health-discourse-but-can-be-overcome-105491">visa restrictions and fees</a> affected their ability to attend global health conferences in high-income countries. But even having a visa does not guarantee easy entry. Winifred Byanyima, executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, who is originally from Uganda, was traveling to Montreal, Canada, to attend the world’s largest AIDS conference in 2022. She was almost denied boarding a plane, however, despite her high-level position. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XA5ip6raULg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated ongoing inequities in global health.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Moreover, a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2023-013751">lack of healthy mentorship cultures</a> and supportive networks among institutions in low- and middle-income countries impedes the professional development of Global South scholars. Furthermore, some current mentorship frameworks and best practices are mostly <a href="https://doi.org/10.1503/cjs.012214">designed for high-income countries</a>, where there is more <a href="https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.18-0556">institutional support</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.18-0556">Language and cultural barriers</a> are often significant obstacles for scholars in the Global South, hindering effective communication and collaboration. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/j.ccc.1923670020120803.1189">Colonialism</a>, or the domination and exploitation of certain groups and individuals, has also influenced how education and research is conducted in the Global South, such that researchers are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-017-0962-8">discouraged from questioning</a> their seniors. This may limit a scholar’s critical thinking and create <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.297.19.2134">communication barriers</a> between mentees and mentors. </p>
<p>These hierarchical power dynamics also limit the full potential of cross-cultural learning and knowledge exchange between the Global North and Global South.</p>
<h2>Decolonizing global health</h2>
<p>A crucial strategy to empower Global South scholars is to <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-decolonisation-131455">decolonize</a> mentorship. This means recognizing that people have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2015.1057091">different levels</a> of skills and expertise in different contexts.</p>
<p>Mentorship environments characterized by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2023-013751">humility and co-learning</a> can help researchers break free from historical power imbalances. This includes acknowledging and valuing the unique perspectives and experiences of scholars from local regions. For example, a researcher from the Global North may be more knowledgeable about a new technology, but a researcher from the Global South may know how best to adapt the technology locally. Tailoring mentorship programs to address the specific needs of scholars in the Global South will also help cultivate a sense of inclusivity and belonging.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572581/original/file-20240131-17-wui1t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Medical provider wearing a hijab smiling at other medical providers sitting at a table wearing scrubs and white coats." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572581/original/file-20240131-17-wui1t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572581/original/file-20240131-17-wui1t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572581/original/file-20240131-17-wui1t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572581/original/file-20240131-17-wui1t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572581/original/file-20240131-17-wui1t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572581/original/file-20240131-17-wui1t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572581/original/file-20240131-17-wui1t7.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">More even power dynamics between researchers can improve the field.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/mediacl-team-training-royalty-free-image/1441989301">FatCamera/E+ via Getty Imges</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Recognizing and valuing linguistic diversity can help address language barriers. Establishing communication channels that accommodate various languages would allow scholars to be able to fully participate in the global health dialogue.</p>
<p>Finally, breaking the chains of the colonial mindset can help foster more egalitarian relationships in research. Mentors become facilitators of learning instead of dispensers of knowledge. Mentees become active contributors instead of consumers of knowledge. Challenging hierarchical relationships and power imbalances can enable a more collaborative and reciprocal dynamic where both parties benefit.</p>
<p>Decolonizing mentorship in global health is not a theoretical concept but an actionable strategy. Addressing the unique challenges that researchers in the Global South face can help bridge the global health divide, allowing local scholars to actively shape the future of the field and their communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220270/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oluwafemi Atanda Adeagbo receives funding from National Institutes of Health and University of Iowa</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brenda Yankam and Engelbert Bain Luchuo 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>
Though the Global South tends to experience higher disease burdens, most public health decisions and knowledge generation are centered in the Global North.
Oluwafemi Atanda Adeagbo, Assistant Professor of Public Health, University of Iowa
Brenda Yankam, Research Associate in Statistics, University of Nigeria
Engelbert Bain Luchuo, Senior Research Associate, University of Johannesburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218092
2023-11-26T19:58:11Z
2023-11-26T19:58:11Z
Responsible ESG investing in the Global South requires overcoming the Global North’s saviour complex
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561682/original/file-20231126-15-kmvdhe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2683%2C1510&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Socially responsible investing in the Global South should respond to local needs rather than investors' egos.</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/responsible-esg-investing-in-the-global-south-requires-overcoming-the-global-norths-saviour-complex" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>ESG standards (Environment, Social and Governance) are metrics designed to guide responsible investing. The “S” in ESG has evolved into the financial innovation of social impact investing (SII), which promotes social benefits such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2327-0">environmental protection, gender equality and human development</a>, and also generates profits for beneficiaries and investors.</p>
<p>As rosy as this seems, how to get it done is far from settled. SII in the Global South is difficult, resulting in a paradox where — despite the best of altruistic intentions — the egos and <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-white-mans-burden-9780199226115?lang=3n&cc=jo">saviour complexes</a> of investors benefit more than intended beneficiaries. Recent research offers some ways to mitigate this paradox.</p>
<h2>ESG culture wars</h2>
<p>ESG was co-opted into the culture wars when conservative politicians became concerned that <a href="https://hbr.org/2023/02/rescuing-esg-from-the-culture-wars">businesses had become too focused on progressive social issues</a>. </p>
<p>On one side, there are those who believe ESG <a href="https://www.irmagazine.com/esg/esg-transition-can-sustainability-still-save-world">promotes sustainability</a> and <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/%7E/media/McKinsey/Business%20Functions/Strategy%20and%20Corporate%20Finance/Our%20Insights/Five%20ways%20that%20ESG%20creates%20value/Five-ways-that-ESG-creates-value.ashx">value creation</a> for firms. On the other side of the debate, it is maintained that ESG will <a href="https://hbr.org/2022/08/esg-investing-isnt-designed-to-save-the-planet">not save the planet</a> and that it amounts to <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/vivek-ramaswamy/woke-inc/9781546090786/">empty virtue signalling</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2023/06/21/how-esg-became-part-of-americas-culture-wars">ESG culture war</a> exposes the paradox of <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1977714">ego versus altruism</a>.</p>
<p>SII promoters cast themselves as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X17738253">saviours with the moral vision to solve worldwide suffering</a>, but this does not always translate into promised results in the postcolonial Global South. </p>
<p>Ironically, SII investors often <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1977714">bask in the glory of a victory lap, whether they deliver social impact or not</a>. What is so difficult about the Global South that authentic, altruistic motivations can go so woefully wrong?</p>
<h2>Why the Global South is so challenging</h2>
<p>Even if ESG and SII can succeed within the Global North, it is different when investing from the Global North to the Global South. Given the sums involved, it is important to understand the Global South contexts. SII is worth <a href="https://thegiin.org/assets/2022-Market%20Sizing%20Report-Final.pdf">US$1 trillion with 92 per cent of the investors based in the Global North</a> and <a href="https://thegiin.org/assets/GIIN%20Annual%20Impact%20Investor%20Survey%202020.pdf">59 per cent of the investments made in the Global South</a>.</p>
<p>Doing business in the Global South involves having to account for cultural biases and historical context, for example, in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/cpoib-03-2020-0016">postcolonial behaviours of former colonizers and their subjects</a>. Failing to do so fully results in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11575-011-0113-0">strategies based on imagined rather than actual contexts</a>, reflecting an incomplete understanding of how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ijfe.2554">advanced standards are adopted in developing contexts</a>. We are often left with the ill-fitting propagation of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/cpoib-05-2015-0017">neoliberal assumptions on what success means</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561406/original/file-20231123-15-lr10ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a village market scene" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561406/original/file-20231123-15-lr10ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561406/original/file-20231123-15-lr10ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561406/original/file-20231123-15-lr10ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561406/original/file-20231123-15-lr10ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561406/original/file-20231123-15-lr10ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561406/original/file-20231123-15-lr10ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561406/original/file-20231123-15-lr10ai.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">Conducting business in the Global South requires an understanding of cultural and historical contexts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Max Brown/Unsplash)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is important to get SII right in the Global South. We already know that decades of crusading development and aid programs under the banner of the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2486.2007.00705.x">white man’s burden</a>” did not work. Handouts failed to alleviate long-term poverty. </p>
<p>Taking over from the failed development initiatives, what can be done to make SII better? Maybe we can start by straightening out the ego versus altruism paradox. </p>
<h2>Mitigating the ego versus altruism paradox</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/cpoib-05-2020-0036">My recent research on SII ventures in the Global South</a> recommends three solutions for mitigating the ego versus altruism paradox: </p>
<p>• Investment narratives should be more self-aware in balancing ego with altruism. Third-party scrutiny of results should ensure that marketing of SII does not overstate or misrepresent social impact. One’s pride in their efforts to alleviate social challenges should not eclipse the results delivered.</p>
<p>• Ensure that the money is going where you want it to. Ownership structures based on local and Indigenous sensibilities is more effective at getting investment into the right hands. The SII process usually follows the neoliberal, accounting-based conventions of Global North capital markets which continue a <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315142876-7/financialization-socio-technical-process-eve-chiapello">“process of colonisation and value capture”</a>. Alternatively, unique structures <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781351276245/measuring-improving-social-impacts-marc-epstein-kristi-yuthas">aligning qualitative or quantitative measures to constructs</a> can be created based on active discussions with beneficiaries.</p>
<p>• Take postcolonial power imbalances into consideration. Making people less poor is not a win by itself, as they remain very poor. Financial metrics should be complemented with other indications of human dignity and flourishing. This requires SII investors to make the extra effort to build direct relationships with beneficiaries, and avoid outsourcing impact activities through local intermediaries who may be exerting power over the beneficiaries.</p>
<p>SII investors should reflect on and declare their invisible power and neoliberal privilege to create a space where issues of equality and power-sharing can be discussed with beneficiaries. Engage with beneficiaries not just as business partners, but as equal human beings to avoid an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2737-7">inadvertent, but dehumanizing colonial gaze</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561403/original/file-20231123-15-24qirl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a digital image of a globe showing the African continent resting on a mossy surface" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561403/original/file-20231123-15-24qirl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561403/original/file-20231123-15-24qirl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561403/original/file-20231123-15-24qirl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561403/original/file-20231123-15-24qirl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561403/original/file-20231123-15-24qirl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561403/original/file-20231123-15-24qirl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561403/original/file-20231123-15-24qirl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">With a commitment to equitable collaboration and partnership, social impact investing can produce positive change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Optimism for the way forward</h2>
<p>There continue to be real opportunities for SII directed to the Global South. It is still possible to contribute to the “<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/02/the-poor-mans-burden/">revolution from the bottom</a>” imagined over a decade ago. </p>
<p>Witnessed by <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-global-business-could-be-the-unexpected-cop26-solution-to-climate-change-172133">proposals during COP26</a>, business plays an important role in redressing imbalances between the Global North and Global South and finding whole-planet solutions for whole-planet problems, including climate change. </p>
<p>Rather than giving in to the cynicism around ESG, we can improve our toolkit. SII remains a well-intentioned and important initiative. We do not have many other options and time is of the essence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218092/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>F. Haider Alvi 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>
Ensuring that ego and prestige of the Global North does not get in the way of on-the-ground results in the Global South will be the key to effective social impact investing in the years to come.
F. Haider Alvi, Associate Professor of Innovation Finance, Faculty of Business, Athabasca University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/212715
2023-09-07T13:28:04Z
2023-09-07T13:28:04Z
Why mothers and babies will suffer more as Africa grows hotter
<p><em>As Africa gets hotter, mothers and babies are most at risk. Why is this and what can be done about it? Matthew Chersich, a specialist in climate change and maternal health, explains the reasons to health editor Nadine Dreyer.</em></p>
<h2>What makes pregnant women particularly vulnerable to extreme heat?</h2>
<p>Many women in Africa have little or no protection against extreme heat events, with pregnancy being an particularly vulnerable period. High ambient temperatures may overwhelm the capacity of the maternal thermoregulatory mechanisms to dissipate heat in pregnancy.</p>
<p>Foetal metabolism generates considerable heat in the mother’s body. Then there is the strain from additional weight gain in pregnancy, fat deposits that retain heat, and the major exertion of labour and childbirth. </p>
<p>The foetus remains around 0.5°C warmer than the mother and thus if a mother has heat stress or a fever, the foetal temperature quickly reaches dangerous levels. </p>
<p>The most dangerous period is likely during <a href="https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ijgo.14381#:%7E:text=Extreme%20heat%20can%20overwhelm%20thermoregulatory,%2C%20preterm%20birth%2C%20and%20stillbirth.">childbirth</a>, when women generate remarkable levels of heat from the labour process. If this occurs during a heatwave it can increase complications, such as prolonged labour, increased emergency caesarean sections and maternal haemorrhage.</p>
<h2>What makes babies particularly vulnerable?</h2>
<p>Infants are dependent on their carers for protecting them against heat exposure. Some practices, such as over-swaddling, pose considerable risks as global temperatures rise. </p>
<p>Dehydration is also a major concern for young children, due to water loss through sweating or from gastroenteritis, which increases as food- and water-borne pathogens replicate more frequently and survive longer during warm weather.</p>
<p>Mothers may also supplement breastfeeding with water. In many areas, water is unsafe because of poor infrastructure. </p>
<p>Infants may breastfeed for shorter periods during hot weather as feeding can be uncomfortable for baby and mother in the heat. </p>
<p>In one of our studies in <a href="https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/10/e061297">Burkina Faso</a>, breastfeeding duration was about 25 minutes shorter on hot days compared to cold days.</p>
<h2>It is possible to quantify the effect of climate change on pregnant women and newborn babies?</h2>
<p>We are able to calculate the relative risk of adverse birth outcomes, such as preterm birth, which increases about <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10087975/">1.15 fold during heatwaves</a>. The key gap in the field is quantifying the absolute number of additional adverse outcomes that are occurring because of climate change. </p>
<p>Those figures would help people to appreciate the implications of climate change for maternal and child health. There are real concerns that extreme heat may reverse the previous gains made in maternal and child health, from childhood vaccines, for example.</p>
<p>In some of our work we estimated how many additional child deaths occurred in Africa from heat exposure. We showed that there were between 7,000 and 11,000 deaths from heat exposure in children in Africa annually that could be attributed to climate change. Unless we curb carbon emissions dramatically, <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac7ac5">heat-related child mortality</a> in Africa may reach over 38,000 a year in 2049. </p>
<p>A study of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935122009239">pregnant women in Johannesburg</a> showed that rates of severe hypertensive disorders in pregnancy increase by as much as 80% when temperatures exceed 23°C in early pregnancy. </p>
<h2>Do different health issues affect mothers and children?</h2>
<p>While the harms of exposure to extreme heat in pregnancy are well known, we do not yet have easy ways of calculating how much of that additional burden of disease is due to climate change, as opposed to natural variations in temperature. The methods for doing so are improving rapidly, however. </p>
<p>What is clear is that if South Africa experiences the kinds of temperatures that were seen in Europe and North America in 2023, there will be many thousands of additional pregnancy complications, all of which will be directly attributable to climate change.</p>
<h2>What are some practical solutions?</h2>
<p>There are a number of relatively simple, low cost <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/full/10.18772/26180197.2022.v4n3a7#:%7E:text=Then%2C%20during%20actual%20heatwaves%2C%20interventions,also%20may%20have%20high%20e%EF%AC%83cacy.">“cooling” interventions</a> which could be implemented at scale if countries in the global north kept to their funding commitments. </p>
<p>Each year high-income countries make major promises about climate financing, but have yet to deliver. They committed US$100 billion a year in the 2015 Paris Agreement and have delivered only a <a href="https://www.greenclimate.fund/about/resource-mobilisation/irm">tiny fraction</a> of that amount. </p>
<p>Low-cost interventions include painting roofs of houses or health facilities with white reflective paint, fans with evaporative cooling, providing cool water for women during labour and making “cooling centres” where women could go during a heatwave.</p>
<h2>What can pregnant women and communities do to reduce risks?</h2>
<p>On a local level there are behavioural changes that can benefit maternal health. Many pregnant women continue physical work even late in pregnancy, including walking long distances to collect water and firewood. A <a href="https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/abs/10.1289/isee.2021.O-SY-049">project</a> in Burkina Faso and Kenya tested a community-mobilisation intervention that aimed to reduce heavy workloads during pregnancy and early motherhood. Results of the project are promising.</p>
<p>Major changes must be made to built environments. The temperatures in many informal settlements are <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32832385/">higher indoors</a> than they are outdoors, which can be devastating for expectant mothers. Higher night-time temperatures are especially concerning. Many healthcare facilities are similarly ill-equipped to provide pregnant women with cooler environments. </p>
<p>All the interventions mentioned above can provide some degree of protection against the current level of heat exposure women face, but will be poorly effective against the kinds of temperatures that we will experience in five to 10 years’ time. </p>
<p>We know almost nothing about what could be done to prevent mass mortality events at temperatures around 50-55°C in settings where air conditioning is not feasible and the population is not accustomed to those temperatures.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212715/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Chersich receives funding from the Wellcome Trust, US National Institutes of Health and the European Union </span></em></p>
Africa has made good progress towards reducing maternal mortality and newborn deaths over the past decade. But climate change is reversing the gains.
Matthew Cherisch, Associate Professor at the Wits Reproductive Health & HIV Institute, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/206264
2023-08-31T12:20:49Z
2023-08-31T12:20:49Z
Peruvian writers tell of a future rooted in the past and contemporary societal issues
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535111/original/file-20230701-24873-qrswzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C10%2C3405%2C1395&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An artist's vision of a future underwater Lima, Peru, graces the cover of the short story collection 'Llaqtamasi.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/pandemoniumeditorial/">Art by Juan Diego León via Pandemonium Editorial</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Aymara people of the Andean Highlands speak of <a href="https://ndsmcobserver.com/2023/05/the-future-is-behind-us/#:%7E:text=The%20word%20qhipa%20means%20%E2%80%9Cback,%E2%80%9D%20%E2%80%94%20denotes%20a%20future%20time.">“qhipa pacha,”</a> a phrase that refers to the future as a direction one walks to backward. They believe in looking to the past as a way to understand what may come next.</p>
<p>Last year, 13 Peruvian writers launched the <a href="https://qhipapacha2022.blogspot.com/2022/02/manifesto.html">Qhipa Pacha Collective</a>, a literary initiative which “aims to recover the <a href="https://qhipapacha2022.blogspot.com/2022/02/manifesto.html">memory of our original peoples</a> to build possible worlds.” These writers imagine futures that reflect Peruvian ideas and concerns about their past and present. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534657/original/file-20230628-25-x7uxmc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Portraits of 13 Peruvian writers of speculative fiction appear on a promotional poster" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534657/original/file-20230628-25-x7uxmc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534657/original/file-20230628-25-x7uxmc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534657/original/file-20230628-25-x7uxmc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534657/original/file-20230628-25-x7uxmc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534657/original/file-20230628-25-x7uxmc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534657/original/file-20230628-25-x7uxmc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534657/original/file-20230628-25-x7uxmc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peruvian speculative fiction writers and members of Qhipa Pacha.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rocío Quispe Agnoli</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fHNZ_N4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">teaching and writing</a> focuses primarily on Peruvian literary history and realism, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8YEpvFbvRw">a style that has been predominant</a> since the 19th century. Recently, I’ve grown interested in Latin American writers who explore an imagined future through speculative fiction.</p>
<p>This approach isn’t simply science fiction written in Spanish and set in Peru. It’s a genre rooted in respect for both Peru’s ancestral memory and attention to present-day societal issues. </p>
<h2>Writing to mirror society</h2>
<p>In Spanish, the verb “especular” relates to optics, such as a reflection in a mirror. As in English, it also means to speculate – or observe the world attentively and think about it inquisitively. Both meanings inform the term “speculative fiction.” </p>
<p>Speculative fiction is a broad field that encompasses works of fantasy such as “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/LOR/the-lord-of-the-rings">The Lord of the Rings</a>”, horror like “<a href="https://www.harperacademic.com/book/9780062125897/the-exorcist/">The Exorcist</a>,” the supernatural as in “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4574334/">Stranger Things</a>,” dystopia such as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392170/">The Hunger Games</a>” and science fiction like “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/325356/2001-a-space-odyssey-by-arthur-c-clarke/">2001: A Space Odyssey</a>.” Often, speculative genres have been considered <a href="https://overland.org.au/2016/06/what-does-everyone-have-against-speculative-fiction/">escapist or not serious</a>. Yet, when addressing social, political, economic and climate conflicts and projecting them into the future, speculative literature offers a new way to understand the consequences of the past and the concerns of the present.</p>
<p>Futurism is also a type of speculative fiction. At the center of Peruvian futurism are characters of Spanish, Indigenous and African descent. The stories feature Native technologies like <a href="https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/snapshot/quipu">quipus or “talking knots”</a>, an ancient system for recording and transmitting information, and <a href="https://www.forest-trends.org/blog/andenes-y-terrazas-ingenieria-andina-al-servicio-del-agua-y-los-suelos/">“andenes,” or agriculture terraces</a>. They highlight <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Inca-religion">Inca beliefs about the natural world</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-dark-constellations-of-the-incas">astronomy</a>.</p>
<p>In such works, fantasy ceases to be an evasion of reality and becomes a critical reflection of our relationship with the world and ourselves, writes <a href="https://www.luccacomicsandgames.com/it/2022/ospiti/dettaglio/santivanez-cesar/">César Santivañez</a>, the editor of <a href="http://isbn.bnp.gob.pe/catalogo.php?mode=detalle&nt=119864">a collection of Peruvian speculative fiction</a>, in the prologue of the book. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534654/original/file-20230628-21915-4aexya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Five book covers of Peruvian speculative fiction published by Pandemonium Editorial" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534654/original/file-20230628-21915-4aexya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534654/original/file-20230628-21915-4aexya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534654/original/file-20230628-21915-4aexya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534654/original/file-20230628-21915-4aexya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534654/original/file-20230628-21915-4aexya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534654/original/file-20230628-21915-4aexya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534654/original/file-20230628-21915-4aexya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Titles of several Peruvian speculative fiction books.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rocío Quispe Agnoli</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fiction grounded in Peru’s history</h2>
<p>In 1843, Julian del Portillo published two <a href="https://www.casadelaliteratura.gob.pe/la-primera-novela-peruana-retorna-171-anos-despues/">serial novels</a> that imagined the cities of Lima and Cuzco 100 years into the future. But modern Peruvian futurism stories offer more than science fiction starring Peruvian characters or places.</p>
<p>Sarko Medina’s <a href="https://isbn.cloud/9786124783357/el-ekeko-y-los-deseos-imposibles/">“Microleyenda”</a> tells of a golden condor suspended in flight in outer space while it holds a sphere of gold in its claws. The sphere contains our universe. The condor is one of many animals floating in space, each safeguarding one sphere containing one universe – until the day thieves appear to steal and replace the spheres with replicas. </p>
<p>Medina’s story was inspired by the golden garden in <a href="https://www.cuscoperu.com/en/travel/cusco/archaeological-centers/qoricancha/">Coricancha, the Temple of the Sun</a> in Cuzco, which was looted by Spanish conquistadors in the 1530s. “Microleyenda” fiercely criticizes the boundless ambition of the conquistadors who looted the Incan empire. </p>
<p>In Daniel Salvo’s story “<a href="https://tenebrisoficial.wordpress.com/2017/07/05/el-primer-peruano-en-el-espacio-de-daniel-salvo/">El primer peruano en el espacio</a>,” a brilliant Andean engineer confronts his captain aboard a space base orbiting Earth, questioning the intentions of those he calls “whites” who, like his captain, intend to dominate his race. Salvo’s work reads as a story of class struggle and ethnic and racial discrimination that mirrors the tension between the white residents of Peru’s dominant urban centers and the Indigenous people of the countryside. This story reflects a social problem of Peruvian society that begins in the colonial era and reaches all the way to the present and on into space.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534460/original/file-20230627-21-ievjpf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Portrait of a native Peruvian man dressed as an astronaut" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534460/original/file-20230627-21-ievjpf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534460/original/file-20230627-21-ievjpf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534460/original/file-20230627-21-ievjpf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534460/original/file-20230627-21-ievjpf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534460/original/file-20230627-21-ievjpf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534460/original/file-20230627-21-ievjpf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534460/original/file-20230627-21-ievjpf.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">Anatolio Pomahuanca, a fictional astronaut who wrestles with the truth while orbiting a troubled Earth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rocío Quispe-Agnoli</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Medina’s and Salvo’s stories are part of a collection that includes <a href="http://isbn.bnp.gob.pe/catalogo.php?mode=detalle&nt=119864">other Peruvian authors</a> who write about a dystopian future in Peru. Also included are Daniel Collazos’ “Dependencia Programada,” Tanya Tynjälä’s “Miraflores,” Luis Apolín’s “Ledva,” and stories by Tania Huerta and Sophie Canal, among others.</p>
<p>These authors side-step the traditional science fiction focus on the technological progress of human society to explore the consequences of limitless dependence on digital tools. How does the human race and the natural world survive when racism and discrimination continue despite technological and scientific advances? </p>
<h2>The future arrives for everyone</h2>
<p>Peruvian futurism is rooted in <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-global-south-is-on-the-rise-but-what-exactly-is-the-global-south-207959">the Global South</a>. Much classic science fiction from the United States, in contrast, imagines a future mostly starring Caucasian heroes and Western technologies. The <a href="https://qhipapacha2022.blogspot.com/2022/11/qhipa-pacha-en-la-boskone-59-boston-usa.html">Collective</a> is committed to writing Peruvian literature that does not imitate or replicate these norms. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535679/original/file-20230705-29-21kvjn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Dark Peruvian mountains in the background and massive Incan steps carved into the highlands carpeted with green plant material." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535679/original/file-20230705-29-21kvjn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535679/original/file-20230705-29-21kvjn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535679/original/file-20230705-29-21kvjn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535679/original/file-20230705-29-21kvjn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535679/original/file-20230705-29-21kvjn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535679/original/file-20230705-29-21kvjn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535679/original/file-20230705-29-21kvjn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andean terraces near Cuzco, Peru.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Rocío Quispe Agnoli</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the website <a href="https://www.futurefiction.org/?lang=en">Future Fiction</a>, an editorial project to explore the diversity of the future, Italian science fiction writer <a href="https://www.futurefiction.org/category/francesco-verso-stories/?lang=en">Francesco Verso</a> reminds readers that “we all tell ‘tomorrow stories’” and that the future arrives everywhere and for everyone, not only for those living in developed societies. </p>
<p>Peruvian futurism writers are putting those words into practice and helping broaden our view of what the future could be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206264/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rocio Quispe Agnoli 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>
In the Global South, a group of writers are rejecting the norms of science fiction and commenting on the future in a way that embraces Indigenous culture.
Rocio Quispe Agnoli, William J. Beal Distinguished Professor, Michigan State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/211108
2023-08-15T06:03:17Z
2023-08-15T06:03:17Z
Research reveals who’s been hit hardest by global warming in their lifetime - and the answer may surprise you
<p>Earth is warming and the signs of climate change are everywhere. We’ve seen it in the past few weeks as temperatures hit record highs around the world – both in the Northern Hemisphere and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-australia-having-such-a-warm-winter-a-climate-expert-explains-210693">warm Australian winter</a>.</p>
<p>Global warming is caused by humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions, which continue at <a href="https://theconversation.com/global-carbon-emissions-at-record-levels-with-no-signs-of-shrinking-new-data-shows-humanity-has-a-monumental-task-ahead-193108">near-record pace</a>. These emissions are predominantly generated by people in the world’s wealthiest regions.</p>
<p>Our world-first analysis, <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2752-5295/aceff2">published today</a>, examines the experience of global warming over the lifetimes of people around the world: young and old, rich and poor. We sought to identify who has perceived warmer temperatures most keenly.</p>
<p>We found middle-aged people in equatorial regions have lived through the most perceptible warming in their lifetimes. But many young people in lower-income countries could experience unrecognisable changes in their local climate later in life, unless the world rapidly tackles climate change.</p>
<h2>Measuring the climate change experience</h2>
<p>We examined temperature data and population demographics information from around the world.</p>
<p>Key to our analysis was the fact that not all warming is due to human activity. Some of it is caused by natural, year-to-year variations in Earth’s climate. </p>
<p>These natural ups and downs are due to a number of factors. They include variations in the energy Earth receives from the sun, the effects of volcanic eruptions, and transfers of heat between the atmosphere and the ocean.</p>
<p>This variability is stronger in mid-to-high-latitude parts of the world (those further from the equator) than in low-latitude areas (in equatorial regions). That’s because the weather systems further away from the equator draw in hot or cold air from neighbouring areas, but equatorial areas don’t receive cold air at all.</p>
<p>That’s why, for example, the annual average temperature in New York is naturally more variable than in the city of Kinshasa (in the Democratic Republic of Congo). </p>
<p>To account for this, we applied what’s known as the “<a href="https://archive.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/346.htm#:%7E:text=The%20%EF%BF%BDsignal%20to%20noise,to%20this%20natural%20variability%20noise.">signal-to-noise ratio</a>” at each location we studied. That allowed us to separate the strength of the climate change “signal” from the “noise” of natural variability. </p>
<p>Making this distinction is important. The less naturally variable the temperature, the clearer the effects of warming. So warming in Kinshasa over the past 50 years has been much more perceptible than in New York.</p>
<p>Our study examined two central questions. First, we wanted to know, for every location in the world, how clearly global warming could be perceived, relative to natural temperature variability.</p>
<p>Second, we wanted to know where this perceived change was most clear over human lifetimes. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541474/original/file-20230807-17-ogjdti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Annual-average temperatures at four major cities with signal-to-noise ratios shown for 20, 50 and 80 years up to 2021." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541474/original/file-20230807-17-ogjdti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541474/original/file-20230807-17-ogjdti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541474/original/file-20230807-17-ogjdti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541474/original/file-20230807-17-ogjdti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541474/original/file-20230807-17-ogjdti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541474/original/file-20230807-17-ogjdti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541474/original/file-20230807-17-ogjdti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Annual-average temperatures at four major cities with signal-to-noise ratios shown for 20, 50 and 80 years up to 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Our results</h2>
<p>So what did we find? As expected, the most perceptible warming is found in tropical regions – those near the equator. This includes developing parts of the world that constitute the Global South – such as Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia.</p>
<p>Household incomes in the Global South are typically lower than in industrialised nations (known as the Global North). We might, then, conclude people in the poorest parts of the world have experienced the most perceptible global warming over their lifetimes. But that’s not always the case.</p>
<p>Why? Because most parts of the Global South have younger populations than wealthier regions. And some people under the age of 20, including in northern India and parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, haven’t experienced warming over their lifetimes.</p>
<p>In these places, the lack of recent warming is likely down to a few factors: natural climate variability, and the local cooling effect of particles released into the atmosphere from <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac3b7a">pollution</a> and changes in land use.</p>
<p>There’s another complication. Some populated regions of the world also experienced slight cooling in the mid-20th century, primarily driven by human-caused <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10946">aerosol emissions</a>.</p>
<p>So, many people born earlier than the 1950s have experienced less perceptible warming in their local area than those born in the 1960s and 1970s. This may seem counter-intuitive. But a cooling trend in the first few decades of one’s life means the warming experienced over an entire lifespan (from birth until today) is smaller and less detectable.</p>
<p>So what does all this mean? People in equatorial areas born in the 1960s and 1970s – now aged between about 45 and 65 – have experienced more perceptible warming than anyone else on Earth.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tourists-flock-to-the-mediterranean-as-if-the-climate-crisis-isnt-happening-this-years-heat-and-fire-will-force-change-210282">Tourists flock to the Mediterranean as if the climate crisis isn't happening. This year's heat and fire will force change</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Rich countries must act</h2>
<p>Our findings are important, for several reasons.</p>
<p>Identifying who has experienced significant global warming in their lives may help explain <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2660">attitudes to tackling climate change</a>.</p>
<p>Our findings also raise significant issues of fairness and equity.</p>
<p>Humanity will continue to warm the planet until we reach global net-zero emissions. This means many young people in lower-income countries may, later in life, experience a local climate that is unrecognisable to that of their youth. </p>
<p>Of course, warming temperatures are not the only way people experience climate change. Others include sea-level rise, more intense drought and rainfall extremes. We know many of these impacts are felt most acutely by <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/5/11/climate-change-is-devastating-the-global-south">the most vulnerable populations</a>.</p>
<p>Cumulative greenhouse gas emissions are much higher in the Global North, due to economic development. To address this inequality, rich industrialised nations must take a leading role in reducing emissions to net-zero, and helping vulnerable countries adapt to climate change.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-australia-having-such-a-warm-winter-a-climate-expert-explains-210693">Why is Australia having such a warm winter? A climate expert explains</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211108/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew King receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ed Hawkins receives funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hunter Douglas receives funding from New Zealand's Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment (MBIE). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luke Harrington receives funding from New Zealand's Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment (MBIE) and Health Research Council. </span></em></p>
Middle-aged people in equatorial regions have lived through the most perceptible warming in their lifetimes. But many others may experience unrecognisable changes in their local climate later in life.
Andrew King, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science, The University of Melbourne
Ed Hawkins, Professor of Climate Science, University of Reading
Hunter Douglas, PhD Candidate, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
Luke Harrington, Senior Lecturer in Climate Change, University of Waikato
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/208204
2023-07-05T13:26:30Z
2023-07-05T13:26:30Z
Africa’s linguistic diversity goes largely unnoticed in research on multilingualism
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533665/original/file-20230623-19-z0z2nh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The African continent is home to some of the world's most multilingual societies.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roxane 134/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Language is a uniquely human skill. That’s why studying how people learn and use language is crucial to understanding what it means to be human. Given that most people in the world – an estimated 60% – <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/life-bilingual/201011/bilingualisms-best-kept-secret">are multilingual</a>, meaning that they know and use more than one language, a researcher who aims to understand language must also grasp how individuals acquire and use multiple languages. </p>
<p>The ubiquity of multilingualism also has practical consequences. For example, in the early schooling years, children <a href="https://theconversation.com/lessons-from-africa-prove-the-incredible-value-of-mother-tongue-learning-73307">learn more effectively</a> when they are taught in their mother tongue rather than a second or third language. Research also shows that <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661316301218">people make different decisions</a> depending on whether they are thinking in their first or second language.</p>
<p>The problem is that much of the published research about multilingualism is not conducted in the world’s most multilingual societies. For example, the African continent is home to some of the most multilingual countries in the world. <a href="https://www.ethnologue.com/country/CM/">Cameroon</a> has a population of around 27 million people; over 250 different languages are spoken as first languages, often alongside English and French or both. </p>
<p>Studies of African multilingual contexts are almost non-existent in high-impact scientific journals, however. This matters because it is research published in these journals that receives the most attention globally and is therefore most likely to shape people’s understanding of multilingualism.</p>
<p><a href="https://academic.oup.com/applij/advance-article/doi/10.1093/applin/amad022/7179911">Our recent study</a> provides new empirical evidence of the geographic bias in multilingualism research published in high-impact scientific journals. We show that the regions most commonly studied are not particularly multilingual. The reverse is also true: the most multilingual regions are massively understudied in research on multilingualism.</p>
<h2>A glaring mismatch</h2>
<p>The mismatch that emerged in our research is neatly illustrated in this map.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533660/original/file-20230623-29-xdyrbe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533660/original/file-20230623-29-xdyrbe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533660/original/file-20230623-29-xdyrbe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533660/original/file-20230623-29-xdyrbe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533660/original/file-20230623-29-xdyrbe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533660/original/file-20230623-29-xdyrbe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533660/original/file-20230623-29-xdyrbe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533660/original/file-20230623-29-xdyrbe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two maps showing the disconnect between where multilingual researchers conduct their work (top) and where the world’s most multilingual societies are located.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Authors supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The top panel presents a world map of the most common sites of multilingualism research; regions that are more commonly studied appear in darker colours. The map shows that North America and Western Europe are the primary locations of research on multilingualism. China and Australia are also fairly well represented. </p>
<p>This is a stark contrast to the bottom panel, which represents the extent of societal multilingualism in different countries. In this map, the shading represents a country’s score on the Linguistic Diversity Index – a measure of the likelihood that two randomly selected individuals from a country will have different first languages. The index ranges from 0 to 1, with largely monolingual societies receiving low scores and largely multilingual societies receiving high scores. </p>
<p>The top and bottom panels are near mirror images of each other: for example, the African continent is almost entirely blank in the top panel and intensely shaded in the bottom panel.</p>
<p>Other highly linguistically diverse regions such as the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia are also underrepresented in the sample as sites of multilingualism research.</p>
<h2>Geographic bias is detrimental</h2>
<p>This geographic bias is not unique to multilingualism research. It <a href="https://theconversation.com/global-south-scholars-are-missing-from-european-and-us-journals-what-can-be-done-about-it-99570">echoes concerns</a> raised in many other scientific fields about the lack of representation of scholars and research locations in the <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2021/09/28/what-or-where-is-the-global-south-a-social-science-perspective/">so-called</a> “global south” (Africa, Latin America, and most countries in Asia and Oceania). </p>
<p>In this case, however, the underrepresentation is particularly detrimental. It is precisely in the global south that multilingualism is most common. The predominance of global north research locations, then, means that much of the knowledge of multilingualism stems from regions that are comparatively monolingual.</p>
<p>This is not to say that no research is being carried out in highly multilingual regions. We ourselves are currently conducting <a href="https://www.psytoolkit.org/c/3.4.4/survey?s=YMxJQ">a large-scale study on multilingualism in South Africa</a>, and we know of several (South) African scientific journals that regularly <a href="https://www.multimargins.ac.za/index.php/mm">publish</a> <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rlms20">studies</a> <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rall20/current">conducted</a> in African countries and other linguistically diverse areas. However, studies published in smaller journals may be less likely to shape the field of multilingualism research. </p>
<p>The reduced visibility of research conducted in the global south has a complex web of causes. These include the unequal distribution of resources (like research infrastructure and research funding), as well as bias in the academic publishing system, which is <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2119373119">dominated</a> by global north institutions and publishing houses. </p>
<p>As a consequence of this imbalance, the global north is often seen as the “default” site for research, while global south settings are <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-023-01999-w">perceived</a> as specific and a source of knowledge that is not generalisable to other contexts. This is simply untrue.</p>
<h2>Tackling the problem</h2>
<p>To address the geographic bias that we have identified, the systemic inequalities in academia will need to be targeted. In the meantime, we are pleased to see the smaller steps that are already being taken.</p>
<p>One is increasing the visibility of the research that is being conducted in the global south. An example of an attempt to do this is the 2023 edition of the International Symposium on Bilingualism, which has as its theme “<a href="https://www.isb14.com/">Diversity Now</a>”. Furthermore, several high-impact journals have issued <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annual-review-of-applied-linguistics/article/sampling-bias-and-the-problem-of-generalizability-in-applied-linguistics/5218D7603611D668EFF7B9FC1581E7DC">calls for studies</a> conducted outside of the typical North American and western European settings. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00150-2">Big team science</a>, in which many scientists spread across institutions and locations work together, and collaboration between north and south will also help. With these and similar efforts, the field ought to diversify in the years to come and thus increase the validity of our knowledge of the human capacity for language.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208204/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 organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Studies of African multilingual contexts are almost non-existent in high-impact scientific journals.
Robyn Berghoff, Lecturer in General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University
Emanuel Bylund, Professor of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/203922
2023-05-09T05:05:29Z
2023-05-09T05:05:29Z
‘Regenerative agriculture’ is all the rage – but it’s not going to fix our food system
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525041/original/file-20230509-23-89ksn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4947%2C2791&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>Decades of <a href="https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/75659">industrial agriculture</a> have caused environmental and social damage across the globe. Soils have deteriorated and plant and animal species are disappearing. Landscapes are degraded and small-scale farmers are struggling. It’s little wonder we’re looking for more sustainable and just ways of growing food and fibre.</p>
<p>Regenerative agriculture is one alternative <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0030727021998063">creating</a> a lot of buzz, especially in rich, industrially developed countries. </p>
<p>The term “regenerative agriculture” was coined in the 1970s. It’s generally understood to mean farming that improves, rather than degrades, landscape and ecological processes such as water, nutrient and carbon cycles. </p>
<p>Today, regenerative agriculture is promoted strongly by multinational food companies, advocacy groups and some parts of the farming community. And the Netflix documentary <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81321999">Kiss the Ground</a> features celebrity activists <a href="https://kisstheground.com">promoting</a> the regenerative agriculture movement.</p>
<p>But as <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10460-023-10444-4">our new research</a> shows, regenerative agriculture may not be the transformation our global food system needs.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="machines harvest soybean crop" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525013/original/file-20230509-23-1xqv9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525013/original/file-20230509-23-1xqv9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525013/original/file-20230509-23-1xqv9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525013/original/file-20230509-23-1xqv9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525013/original/file-20230509-23-1xqv9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525013/original/file-20230509-23-1xqv9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525013/original/file-20230509-23-1xqv9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Industrial farming has left vast swathes of land degraded.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Farming must change</h2>
<p>About <a href="https://www.unccd.int/sites/default/files/2022-04/UNCCD_GLO2_low-res_2.pdf">20-40%</a> of the global land area is degraded. Agriculture caused 80% of global deforestation in recent decades and comprises 70% of freshwater use. It is the biggest driver of biodiversity loss on land and contributes <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2019/08/4.-SPM_Approved_Microsite_FINAL.pdf">significantly</a> to greenhouse gas emissions. </p>
<p>Global corporations such as Nestlé, PepsiCo, Cargill and Bayer <a href="https://www.etcgroup.org/sites/www.etcgroup.org/files/files/blockingthechain_english_web.pdf">dominate</a> the food system. Some 70% of the global agrochemicals market is owned by just four companies and 90% of global grain trade is dominated by four businesses. This gives these corporations immense power.</p>
<p>Many small-scale farmers struggle to compete in global markets – especially those in poorer, less developed countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In an effort to keep up, these farmers also often go into debt to buy chemicals and expensive machinery to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00297-7">boost production</a>.</p>
<h2>What’s regenerative agriculture?</h2>
<p>Regenerative agriculture is proposed as a more sustainable alternative to industrial agriculture. It can include practices such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>integrating livestock into cropping systems to replenish soil and reduce the cost of animal feed and fertiliser</li>
<li>leaving soil undisturbed and covered with plants to retain carbon, moisture and nutrients and reduce erosion</li>
<li>regularly moving livestock between paddocks to give pasture a chance to recover </li>
<li>using less synthetic chemicals in farming.</li>
</ul>
<p>But can regenerative agriculture transform the global food system? Our research examined this question.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="cows grazing in field" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525018/original/file-20230509-29-uslr52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525018/original/file-20230509-29-uslr52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525018/original/file-20230509-29-uslr52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525018/original/file-20230509-29-uslr52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525018/original/file-20230509-29-uslr52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525018/original/file-20230509-29-uslr52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525018/original/file-20230509-29-uslr52.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">Regenerative agriculture can involve rotating livestock between pastures to increase soil health.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Our research findings</h2>
<p>We explored the origins and current status of regenerative agriculture. We then compared this to other sustainable farming approaches: organic agriculture, conservation agriculture, sustainable intensification, and agroecology.</p>
<p>We found regenerative agriculture shares many similarities with the first three movements listed above. Most importantly, it originated in the rich, industrially developed <a href="https://ipes-food.org/_img/upload/files/SmokeAndMirrors.pdf">Global North</a>, primarily North America, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/land-of-opportunity-more-sustainable-australian-farming-would-protect-our-lucrative-exports-and-the-planet-166177">Land of opportunity: more sustainable Australian farming would protect our lucrative exports (and the planet)</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This means the movement often fails to credit Indigenous practices it draws from. It also tends to overlook the needs of farmers in the Global South and broader power inequality in the food system. </p>
<p>Like some other movements, regenerative agriculture is increasingly being embraced by corporations. <a href="https://www.nestle.com/csv/regeneration/regenerative-agriculture">Nestlé</a>, for instance, aims to source 50% of its key ingredients through regenerative agriculture by 2030. </p>
<p>There are concerns companies may be using regenerative agriculture to “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/can-regenerative-agriculture-reverse-climate-change-big-food-banking-it-n1072941">greenwash</a>” their image. For example, experts <a href="http://www.ipes-food.org/pages/smokeandmirrors">warn</a> corporations could be using the term to repackage existing commitments, rather than substantially improving their systems.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1359766620411842564"}"></div></p>
<h2>Agroecology: a different path</h2>
<p>We also found that regenerative agriculture is threatening to marginalise another promising sustainable farming movement: agroecology.</p>
<p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/agro/2009004">Agroecology</a> combines agronomy (agricultural science) and ecology, and also seeks to address injustice and inequity in food systems.</p>
<p>The movement is associated with the world’s largest smallholder farmer organisation, <a href="https://viacampesina.org/en/">La Via Campesina</a>, and has been endorsed by the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2020.1808705">United Nations</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="people march in protest holding sign in Spanish" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525022/original/file-20230509-25-fiq7oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525022/original/file-20230509-25-fiq7oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525022/original/file-20230509-25-fiq7oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525022/original/file-20230509-25-fiq7oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525022/original/file-20230509-25-fiq7oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525022/original/file-20230509-25-fiq7oo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525022/original/file-20230509-25-fiq7oo.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">Agroecology is a global movement endorsed by the UN.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Agroecology advocates for Indigenous knowledge and land rights, and support for small-scale farmers. It seeks to <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/19/5272">challenge</a> neoliberalism, corporate dominance, and globalisation of food systems.</p>
<p>Some researchers <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305693875_How_to_feed_the_world_sustainably_an_overview_of_the_discourse_on_agroecology_and_sustainable_intensification">question</a> if agroecology alone can produce enough food for a growing global population. But <a href="https://www.unccd.int/sites/default/files/2022-04/UNCCD_GLO2_low-res_2.pdf">80% of the world’s food</a>, in value terms, is produced by small family farms. And globally, we already grow enough food to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10440046.2012.695331">feed ten billion people</a>. The problem is how that food is distributed and wasted, and how much is made into <a href="https://gh.bmj.com/content/7/3/e008269">ultra-processed foods</a> and other products such as bio-fuels.</p>
<p>Agroecology brings many benefits to farmers and communities. An agroecology project in <a href="https://www.ipes-food.org/_img/upload/files/CS2_web.pdf">Chololo village</a> in Tanzania, for example, saw the number of households eating three meals per day rise from 29% to 62%. Average household income increased by 18%. The average period of food shortage shortened by 62% and agricultural yields increased by up to 70%.</p>
<p>But the <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1051/agro/2009004">origins of the agroecology movement</a> in the Global South, and its resistance to corporatisation, mean it is often marginalised. At events such as the UN Food Systems Summit, for example, corporate stakeholders guide policy decisions while vulnerable farmers can <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/23/small-producers-boycott-un-food-summit-corporate-interests">feel sidelined</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="two men prepare soil" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525040/original/file-20230509-28-5qvg2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525040/original/file-20230509-28-5qvg2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525040/original/file-20230509-28-5qvg2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525040/original/file-20230509-28-5qvg2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525040/original/file-20230509-28-5qvg2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525040/original/file-20230509-28-5qvg2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525040/original/file-20230509-28-5qvg2s.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">Agroecology focuses on both ecological and social principles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Transforming our food systems</h2>
<p>Despite regenerative agriculture’s popularity and its focus on sustainable food production, it fails to tackle systemic social and political issues. As a result, the movement may perpetuate business-as-usual in the food system, rather than transform it.</p>
<p>But our food system includes many landscapes and cultures. That means regenerative agriculture could still support more sustainable farming in some settings – though it’s not a catch-all solution.</p>
<p>And voices in regenerative agriculture have <a href="https://www.greenamerica.org/native-growers-decolonize-regenerative-agriculture?fbclid=IwAR1zwXhFddjPALOCrCed0yPyGmgPsoG_CUMhsVRDMg64DqQ4l8ba27BirPU">called for</a> a shift in the movement’s agenda, putting more emphasis on equity, justice and diversity. So there is hope yet that the movement may help turn the tide against industrial agriculture. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cotton-on-one-of-australias-most-lucrative-farming-industries-is-in-the-firing-line-as-climate-change-worsens-191864">Cotton on: one of Australia's most lucrative farming industries is in the firing line as climate change worsens</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203922/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anja Bless receives funding from the Australian Government research training program. </span></em></p>
We know industrial farming needs to change. But regenerative agriculture may not be the transformation our global food system needs.
Anja Bless, PhD Candidate, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198436
2023-01-26T11:33:35Z
2023-01-26T11:33:35Z
Tanzania: opposition rallies are finally unbanned – but this doesn’t mean democratic reform is coming
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506142/original/file-20230124-12-e1tmt0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters of Tanzania's main opposition party Chadema wave during a rally in Mwanza. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Jamson/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Tanzania, the political rally is back. Chadema, Tanzania’s leading opposition party, <a href="https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/news/national/chadema-paint-mwanza-blue-red-and-white-on-first-rally-since-ban-lifted-4093998">held mass rallies</a> outside the official election campaign for the first time in six and a half years on 21 January 2023. </p>
<p>It could do so because three weeks earlier, President Samia Suluhu Hassan <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/tanzania-president-lifts-ban-on-opposition-political-rallies-4074510">lifted the ban</a> on public rallies. Assassination-attempt survivor and opposition politician <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54484609">Tundu Lissu</a> returned to Tanzania on 25 January to take part in them.</p>
<p>The ban on rallies was introduced in June 2016 by the late President John Magufuli. It became a central plank of an <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/tanzania-the-authoritarian-landslide/">authoritarian turn</a> initiated by the ruling party, Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM), but ultimately propelled by Magufuli. The ban, however, appeared to affect only the opposition – CCM continued to convene rallies with impunity throughout. </p>
<p>Magufuli’s death on 17 March 2021 raised the dual possibilities that the CCM regime might loosen its iron grip, and that in such a context, the opposition might rebuild. The end of the ban on rallies has implications for both these possibilities.</p>
<p>I have spent 10 years researching <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/ady061">Chadema’s grassroots organising</a> and what it calls <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2022.2150759">the struggle for democracy</a>. I am writing a book on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161219847952">rallies in Tanzania</a>.</p>
<p>In my view, the unbanning of rallies will tremendously alter the space in which the opposition has to operate. However, this doesn’t set Tanzania on any path of democratic reform. The timing and wider context still leaves the opposition with a big task ahead. </p>
<p>The very real possibility remains that Hassan has unbanned rallies to <em>signal</em> that she plans future democratic reforms – without actually enacting any.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tanzanias-hassan-has-put-out-positive-signals-deeper-change-is-yet-to-come-180704">Tanzania's Hassan has put out positive signals: deeper change is yet to come</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A culture of rallies</h2>
<p>It’s easy to underestimate the importance of the rally in Tanzania. In much of the global north, political rallies are things seen on TV and attended by ultra-partisans. But not in Tanzania.</p>
<p>In 2015, I oversaw the collection of a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161219847952">nationally representative survey in Tanzania</a>. It showed that in the last month of the country’s election campaign, 69% of all people attended rallies. This figure dwarfs its equivalents in the global north. In the 2016 US campaign, just <a href="https://electionstudies.org/data-center/">7% of people</a> attended public meetings.</p>
<p>Not only did a large proportion of Tanzanians attend rallies. They also attended them frequently. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161219847952">same survey data</a> showed that the average person attended seven such rallies in the last month of the campaign, or just under one every four days. </p>
<p>In Tanzania, the rally is, or in political campaigning becomes, a medium of mass communication, just as it does across <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161219847952">much of the global south</a>. Indefinitely banning rallies does to public communication in Tanzania what indefinitely banning television, or the internet, would do in the global north. </p>
<p>Tanzania’s <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/magufuli-criticised-as-tanzania-bans-rallies--1351138">ban on rallies</a> was doubly painful for the opposition. First, it was a ban, in effect, only on opposition rallies. </p>
<p>Second, the opposition needs rallies in a way that the ruling party does not. In the shadow of state coercion, media outlets offer the opposition scarce and hostile coverage. The rally offers the opposition a way to reach the <a href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/publication/summary-results-afrobarometer-round-8-survey-tanzania-2021/">73% of Tanzanians</a> who say they don’t (directly) get news via social media. </p>
<h2>Rallies and grassroots organising</h2>
<p>The ban on rallies was lifted for the election campaign in 2020, but the opposition needs rallies between elections too – this is when they organise.</p>
<p>Chadema leaders and activists <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13540688211041034">told me</a> that between 2007 and 2015, they founded party branches across much of Tanzania. Their work paid off. The <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/118/473/692/5250960">survey data I collected</a> showed that in the 2015 campaign, Chadema’s ground campaign was so strong that it made at least as many house-to-house visits as the ruling party, perhaps more.</p>
<p>They achieved this party-building feat in large part through rallies. Teams of party leaders toured the country convening rallies. They imparted their messages and recruited attendees. Follow-up teams organised these new recruits into branches.</p>
<p>In parallel, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688211041034">lone organisers</a> ran their own solo party-building initiatives. These local leaders, among them the 2020 presidential candidate <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54484609">Tundu Lissu</a>, held public meetings in villages. Incrementally, they recruited local activists who became the leaders of new branches. </p>
<p>Today, though, it’s hard to know how well these structures have endured. Opposition activists were subjected to everyday oppression. It peaked during <a href="https://democracyinafrica.org/remembering-not-to-forget-tanzanias-2020-general-elections/">the violence of the 2020 election</a>, and was designed to <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/tanzania-the-authoritarian-landslide/">demoralise and demobilise them</a>.</p>
<p>This means that opposition parties have their work cut out. They have to re-join public debates after years of censorship, and reorganise and remotivate their supporters all at once.</p>
<p>This makes the timing of the end of the ban important. </p>
<p>Chadema’s grassroots organising for the 2015 election began just months after the 2010 election. Revoking the ban now, just over two and a half years before the October 2025 election, leaves opposition parties with a greater task than they have faced before – and less time in which to do it.</p>
<h2>President Hassan: reforming or gaslighting?</h2>
<p>Unbanning the rally is perhaps the most concrete opening of political space that <a href="https://theconversation.com/tanzanias-hassan-has-put-out-positive-signals-deeper-change-is-yet-to-come-180704">Hassan has introduced</a> since she was sworn in as president.</p>
<p>Some will be tempted to read the unbanning of the rally as a sign of things to come. But that would be unduly optimistic.</p>
<p>It <em>may</em> be that Hassan plans to enact a wider programme of democratic reforms. Or it may be that she lifted the ban precisely so that it <em>looks</em> like that’s her plan.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tanzanias-hassan-faces-her-first-political-test-constitutional-reform-165088">Tanzania's Hassan faces her first political test: constitutional reform</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Ultimately, either reading could turn out to be right. Interpreting the intentions of the often inscrutable Hassan is a matter of guesswork. But there are reasons to be sceptical. </p>
<p>First, the rally ban was part of an authoritarian architecture. The ban is gone, but the architecture remains. This leaves the regime with means aplenty to preserve its dominance. </p>
<p>Second, with the exception of the Magufuli years, the regime has long maintained the appearance of being the sort that would oversee democratic reforms – while implementing few of them.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/oped/of-political-rallies-and-a-new-constitution-4087284">significance</a> of the rally’s return may not be in what the regime will grant. Instead, it may be in what the opposition can demand. Chadema used its first rally to call again for a new constitution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198436/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dan Paget 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>
After years of censorship, opposition parties have to – all at once – rejoin public debates, reorganise and remotivate demoralised supporters.
Dan Paget, Lecturer in Politics, University of Aberdeen
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/190407
2022-11-21T17:57:47Z
2022-11-21T17:57:47Z
Why it’s time to end child sponsorship
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491444/original/file-20221024-8945-cyleto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C18%2C3995%2C2329&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Charities often promote the benefits of child sponsorship. However, the practice perpetuates damaging patterns of thinking. </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/why-it-s-time-to-end-child-sponsorship" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Language about the <a href="https://www.worldvision.ca/stronger-together/home">benefits of child sponsorship</a> is common in the charity sector. The narrative we are given is that sponsoring a child in the Global South is a way to make a positive difference in their lives. </p>
<p>However, this narrative inaccurately frames children and their families as lacking, backward, inferior, and longing for the standards of the Global North. It does not speak to the greater injustices and inequities impacting these children’s lives, or the role the Global North has played in producing them.</p>
<p>Millions of children are sponsored worldwide <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-22472455">raising billions of dollars per year</a>. Yet, the more things change, the more they stay the same: the misguided motivations for sponsors becoming involved, lack of public education around issues of poverty and inequity and the level of denial for the role played by the Global North in reproducing problematic patterns of thinking and relationships all remain unchanged. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491962/original/file-20221026-18530-fqnmkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Words on a smartphone screen read: Making a better world." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491962/original/file-20221026-18530-fqnmkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491962/original/file-20221026-18530-fqnmkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491962/original/file-20221026-18530-fqnmkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491962/original/file-20221026-18530-fqnmkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491962/original/file-20221026-18530-fqnmkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491962/original/file-20221026-18530-fqnmkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491962/original/file-20221026-18530-fqnmkd.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">Child sponsorship raises billions of dollars a year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://newint.org/features/2022/04/04/feature-please-continue-not-sponsor-child">I have been researching child sponsorship since 2018</a>. My advice not to participate is typically met with blank stares or a retort that it is “better than nothing.” </p>
<p>Unfortunately, it’s not. Child sponsorship is highly successful at escaping questioning and reproach because it is viewed as a well-intentioned and benevolent act on the part of good people who want to help. Failure to ask sponsors to think and act differently and to challenge their comfortable roles as well-intentioned, good people, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-103-the-afternoon-edition-sask/clip/15916615-u-r-prof-says-homework-opening-wallet-sponsor">is a problematic pattern of thinking</a>.</p>
<h2>Why people sponsor children</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.33448/rsd-v9i8.5574">Motivations for becoming a child sponsor are numerous</a>, including the sponsor’s guilt over their own privilege, the need for a personal connection, the desire to support development or even the belief that sponsoring a child is apolitical. </p>
<p>People are also drawn to child sponsorship for altruistic reasons. But, as geographer <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2012.04.006">Frances Rabbitts</a> observes: “Despite the common association of charity with altruism…charitable gifts are shown to be inextricably bound up in webs of reciprocity and relations of power.” </p>
<p>Take the standard practice of letter writing between sponsor and child. As writer Peter Stalker explains, “<a href="https://newint.org/features/1982/05/01/keynote">there’s nothing like writing a regular thank-you letter to keep you in your place</a>.”</p>
<p>For some, motivation is tied up in those glossy photos of children living in poverty — images designed to tug at a donor’s heartstrings. International development consultant <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/opinion/2021/4/20/time-to-end-aid-agency-child-sponsorship-schemes">Carol Sherman</a> describes the persuasive marketing techniques used for child sponsorship as “much like those found on online shopping sites or dating apps.” </p>
<p>Other motivations are based in a belief that child sponsorship is an apolitical way to advance the project of “development” by helping innocent victims of chronic poverty. But that belief is framed primarily by and for the Global North to make the Global South feel the need to catch up. Post-development theorist Arturo Escobar calls for a shift away from the concept of development, calling instead for “complex conversations” which will “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691150451/encountering-development">provide alternative understandings of the world.</a>”</p>
<p>As sociology professor <a href="https://camosun.ca/peter-ove">Peter Ove</a> says, “<a href="https://www.beyondchildsponsorship.ca/why-not-child-sponsorship/">child sponsorship is never going to be the solution to the problem. And I think the faster we realize that, and change our core assumptions, the better off we’ll be</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491452/original/file-20221024-6143-nwfk3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A hand placing a coin into a wooden box." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491452/original/file-20221024-6143-nwfk3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491452/original/file-20221024-6143-nwfk3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491452/original/file-20221024-6143-nwfk3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491452/original/file-20221024-6143-nwfk3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491452/original/file-20221024-6143-nwfk3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491452/original/file-20221024-6143-nwfk3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491452/original/file-20221024-6143-nwfk3e.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">Child sponsorship avoids complex conversations and is framed primarily by and for the Global North.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Sponsorship lets people off the hook</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, society tends to discuss global poverty as simply a case of being fortunate or unfortunate. But that utterly disregards the role played by the Global North in producing and sustaining the conditions of the South through, for example, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/structural-adjustment-9781842773895/">structural adjustment programs</a>, <a href="https://blendedfinancecritique.ca/">foreign policies</a> and <a href="https://newint.org/features/2019/01/07/just-open-and-green-action-trade">global trade regimes</a>. </p>
<p>Viewing the global poverty discourse through a fortunate/unfortunate lens takes people in wealthier countries out of the power relationship and <a href="https://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue/issue-19/critical-literacy-theories-and-practices-development-education">reproduces problematic historical perspectives and relationships</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.beyondchildsponsorship.ca/how-do-charity-justice-and-solidarity-relate-to-cs/">“Charity lets people off the hook by not requiring them to recognize their position within a relationship based on power,</a>” says international development scholar <a href="https://www.uregina.ca/arts/politics-international-studies/faculty-staff/faculty/granovsky-larsen-simon.html">Simon Granovsky-Larsen</a>. Agencies do not encourage sponsors to examine their role in global injustice nor do they attempt to reverse or undo the structural conditions that have produced it.</p>
<p>But, as Granovsky-Larsen says, actions based on justice “require a difficult look at who you are, what your role is in imbalanced relationships of power, and how you can act — sometimes at a cost to yourself — to undo the structural conditions that have produced that injustice.”</p>
<h2>Education and engagement instead</h2>
<p>Instead of sponsorship, we need to engage with and support education and advocacy work being done in the Global South. For example, <a href="https://www.devp.org/en/">Development and Peace Caritas Canada (DPCC)</a> works on ecological justice, democracy, citizen participation and peace and reconciliation with their Global South partner organizations. </p>
<p>DPCC also educates Canadians on the root causes of global poverty. We need to understand that poverty in the Global South is intimately <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-ways-the-monarchy-has-benefited-from-colonialism-and-slavery-179911">linked to the wealth of those in the industrialized Global North</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491741/original/file-20221025-18-nsh8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People on a small boat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491741/original/file-20221025-18-nsh8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491741/original/file-20221025-18-nsh8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491741/original/file-20221025-18-nsh8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491741/original/file-20221025-18-nsh8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491741/original/file-20221025-18-nsh8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491741/original/file-20221025-18-nsh8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491741/original/file-20221025-18-nsh8t.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">Villagers cross a flooded area in Sindh province, Pakistan. Climate change was blamed for the ferocity of this year’s floods. While the richest countries produce the majority of the world’s pollution, poorer countries like Pakistan often suffer the consequences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Fareed Khan)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We can support and act in solidarity with grassroots groups and campaigns for change around the world, while also putting pressure on our governments to shape policies and laws. </p>
<p>This can take a number of forms: exercising one’s right to vote with a global citizenship lens; supporting NGOs that promote a change in foreign aid conditions; participating in civil engagement and divestment actions to hold companies accountable when they are linked to violence and harm in communities in the Global South.</p>
<p><a href="https://newint.org/features/1982/05/01/keynote">In the words of Stalker</a>, who warned people off child sponsorship forty years ago: “Alleviating the problems of the poor is one thing. But solving them involves much more difficult choices.” It’s time to make difficult choices and move beyond child sponsorship.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190407/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathleen Nolan 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>
Child sponsorship is often billed as a significant way of improving children’s lives. However, sponsorship is based on narratives that fail to address the role of rich countries in global poverty.
Kathleen Nolan, Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Regina
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/192469
2022-11-09T15:06:39Z
2022-11-09T15:06:39Z
The unfairness of the climate crisis — Podcast
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493637/original/file-20221105-27172-i10fuq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=172%2C206%2C5578%2C3483&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Millions have lost their homes in flooding caused by unusually heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan this year that many experts have blamed on climate change. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Fareed Khan)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Join us <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/the-unfairness-of-the-climate-crisis">on this episode of <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em></a> as we speak with researcher and migration expert Yvonne Su about climate-induced migration, the ways in which the climate crisis should factor into refugee claims and the burden of care that is owed to displaced people. </p>
<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/411550b5-dc14-4ca7-9469-5e35e4393a93?dark=true"></iframe>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-572" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/572/661898416fdc21fc4fdef6a5379efd7cac19d9d5/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Recently, there have been some troubling images coming out of Pakistan, where <a href="https://theconversation.com/pakistans-floods-are-a-disaster-but-they-didnt-have-to-be-190027">devastating floods have taken the lives of more than 1,500 people and displaced close to 8 million</a>. The floods have also submerged farmlands and spread waterborne illnesses. In total, it is estimated that the floods have so far impacted over 33 million people. </p>
<p>So the picture is bleak. </p>
<p>And a lot of this suffering can be linked to human-induced climate change. </p>
<p>In other words, the global climate crisis has been driven by the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation by western states. Meanwhile, some populations continue to bear the brunt of the impact. Given this, <a href="https://theconversation.com/loss-and-damage-who-is-responsible-when-climate-change-harms-the-worlds-poorest-countries-and-what-does-compensation-look-like-192070">do the United Nations and those states who have contributed most to the problem have the moral responsibility to protect and compensate those most harmed by climate change?</a></p>
<p>This month, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/cop27-climate-change-summit.html">leaders from over 190 countries gather in Egypt for COP27, the United Nations Climate Change Conference</a>. Previous UN climate change summits have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/16/indigenous-climate-activists-cop26-endangers-native-communities">criticized by Indigenous and environmental activists who say the so-called solutions coming out of them have done more harm than good. </a></p>
<p>Will this year be different? Will leaders be paying attention to real solutions for people in Pakistan that are being displaced right now?</p>
<p>Join us as we speak with Yvonne Su, Assistant Professor in the Department of Equity Studies at York University. Yvonne specializes in migration, including climate change-induced displacement <a href="https://theconversation.com/wildfire-and-flood-disasters-are-causing-climate-migration-within-canada-167730">both globally and in Canada</a>. She has a PhD in Political Science and International Development from the University of Guelph and a Masters in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies from the University of Oxford.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492398/original/file-20221029-38660-skfves.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492398/original/file-20221029-38660-skfves.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492398/original/file-20221029-38660-skfves.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492398/original/file-20221029-38660-skfves.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492398/original/file-20221029-38660-skfves.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492398/original/file-20221029-38660-skfves.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492398/original/file-20221029-38660-skfves.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Residents navigate the Solimoes River with difficulty due to the current severe drought, in Tefe, Amazonas state, Brazil, Oct. 20, 2022. Months after enduring floods that destroyed crops, thousands of families in the Brazilian Amazon are now dealing with severe drought. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Listen and Follow</h2>
<p>You can listen to or follow <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em> on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dont-call-me-resilient/id1549798876">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9qZFg0Ql9DOA">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/37tK4zmjWvq2Sh6jLIpzp7">Spotify</a> or <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com">wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts</a>. <a href="mailto:theculturedesk@theconversation.com">We’d love to hear from you</a>, including any ideas for future episodes. Join The Conversation on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationCA">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheConversationCanada">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@theconversation">TikTok</a> and use #DontCallMeResilient.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mCusEDZ62fY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">the Season 4 Trailer for Don’t Call Me Resilient.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Also in The Conversation</h2>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pakistan-floods-will-rich-nations-ever-pay-for-climate-loss-and-damage-190127">Pakistan floods: will rich nations ever pay for climate loss and damage?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/loss-and-damage-who-is-responsible-when-climate-change-harms-the-worlds-poorest-countries-192070">Loss and damage: Who is responsible when climate change harms the world's poorest countries?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cop27-which-countries-will-push-to-end-fossil-fuel-production-and-which-wont-193471">COP27: Which countries will push to end fossil fuel production? And which won't?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/wildfire-and-flood-disasters-are-causing-climate-migration-within-canada-167730">Wildfire and flood disasters are causing 'climate migration' within Canada</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/un-ruling-could-be-a-game-changer-for-climate-refugees-and-climate-action-130532">UN ruling could be a game-changer for climate refugees and climate action</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-canadian-senator-aims-to-end-the-widespread-financial-backing-of-fossil-fuels-192827">A Canadian senator aims to end the widespread financial backing of fossil fuels</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Sources</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102638">The unbearable heaviness of climate coloniality by Farhana Sultana</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.academia.edu/26646243/Should_We_Bring_Back_Climate_Refugees_">Should we bring back climate refugees? By Yvonne Su</a></p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.411">Climate change communication and Indigenous publics</a> by
Candis Callison</p>
<h2>Transcript</h2>
<p>For an unedited transcript of this episode, go <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/the-unfairness-of-the-climate-crisis">here</a>. </p>
<p><em>Don’t Call Me Resilient was produced in partnership with the Journalism Innovation Lab at UBC and with a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192469/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Does the Global North have a moral responsibility to protect and compensate those in the Global South that disproportionately bear the brunt of climate change devastation?
Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient
Ollie Nicholas, Assistant Producer/Journalism Student, Don't Call Me Resilient
Dannielle Piper, Associate Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient, The Conversation
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/188206
2022-08-11T16:21:42Z
2022-08-11T16:21:42Z
Enduring colonialism has made it harder to end the COVID-19 pandemic
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478138/original/file-20220808-8055-ox4drg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C640%2C4795%2C2382&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">COVID-19 patients receive oxygen as they lie in their beds in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Machakos, Kenya, in August 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Brian Inganga)</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/enduring-colonialism-has-made-it-harder-to-end-the-covid-19-pandemic" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Rich countries are <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-warns-against-vaccine-hoarding-poor-countries-go-without-2021-12-09/">hoarding vaccine doses</a> while poor countries become <a href="https://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-11-29/low-vaccination-rate-in-poor-countries-creates-breeding-ground-for-coronavirus-mutations.html">breeding grounds</a> for new COVID-19 variants. </p>
<p>The World Health Organization’s <a href="https://www.who.int/initiatives/act-accelerator/covax">COVAX</a> — an abbreviation for COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access — warned that “no one is safe, until everyone is safe,” yet colonial attitudes are an obstacle to reining in the global pandemic.</p>
<p>COVID-19 has shown that global equity and inclusion are necessary to manage global crises. A major lesson from this pandemic is the need to decolonize transnational governance so that the world is better able to handle both future and current global crises and issues.</p>
<h2>COVAX’s naïve failure</h2>
<p>COVAX <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/22/covax-problems-coronavirus-vaccines-next-pandemic/">has failed</a>.</p>
<p>It was supposed to provide vaccinations globally and equitably as well as serve as a mechanism through which both rich and poor countries would access vaccines. More than 80 per cent of the population in rich countries <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations#what-share-of-the-population-has-completed-the-initial-vaccination-protocol">is fully vaccinated</a>, compared to less than 10 per cent of the population in poor countries.</p>
<p>Credible reports say that poor countries have been affected the most by the global pandemic both in terms of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01767-z">how deadly it has been</a>, <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/pandemic-greed">as well as economically</a>. </p>
<p>This summer, we’re seeing new pandemic waves <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-16/europe-can-t-shake-covid-as-ba-5-variant-fuels-summer-wave-of-cases">in Europe</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/fresh-covid-wave-sweeps-asia-nz-warns-pressure-hospitals-2022-07-14/">and Asia</a> driven by new SARS-CoV-2 variants first spotted in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01730-y">South Africa</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A health-care worker in blue protective garb listens to the breathing of a woman wearing a mask and a pink shirt." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478135/original/file-20220808-8307-ph0zqz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5760%2C3837&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478135/original/file-20220808-8307-ph0zqz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478135/original/file-20220808-8307-ph0zqz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478135/original/file-20220808-8307-ph0zqz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478135/original/file-20220808-8307-ph0zqz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478135/original/file-20220808-8307-ph0zqz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478135/original/file-20220808-8307-ph0zqz.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">A woman is screened for COVID-19 at a testing centre in Soweto, South Africa, in May 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Denis Farrell)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>COVAX is based on lofty ideals of equity and social justice. The initiative has <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20220609.695589">been necessary</a> to moderately balance the gap between rich and poor countries that would have fared worse had it not been launched. </p>
<p>But COVAX <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2021/10/08/how-covax-failed-on-its-promise-to-vaccinate-the-world/">has been called naïve</a> for relying upon the good will of rich countries for funding and on their willingness to wait patiently in line for their own populations’ doses.</p>
<p>COVAX’s good intentions have had to co-exist with “might is right” politics. Rich countries made their own deals and bought large amounts of vaccine supplies before they were even available. </p>
<p><a href="https://hbr.org/2020/05/the-danger-of-vaccine-nationalism">Vaccine nationalism</a> turned COVAX into a broker of charity. The colonial mentality believes it’s OK to cut deals with Big Pharma for vaccine doses ahead of populous poor countries, and to charitably donate to them their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-022-00801-z">soon-to-expire leftovers</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19-vaccine-inequity-allowed-omicron-to-emerge-173361">COVID-19 vaccine inequity allowed Omicron to emerge</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Colonial mentality</h2>
<p>Global capitalism as we know it emerged from a colonial world order set up for exploitation of people and lands. European countries kidnapped people from Africa and enslaved them as they dispossessed Indigenous Peoples. This created the extractive economy of today. </p>
<p>Racial classifications and racism have remained an enduring aspect of the modern world. <a href="https://www.connectedsociologies.org/curriculum/mmw/">Colonialism produced the initial and current gap between the rich and the poor world</a>, and racialized the latter. When the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/mercantilism">mercantilist order of the colonial day</a> morphed into capitalism in the 1800s, the colonial mentality that simply assumes European superiority remained.</p>
<p>This has been the basis for the colonial upper hand of the West and the United States in the type of transnational governance that emerged after the Second World War (the United Nations and <a href="https://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/2019/01/art-320747/">Bretton Woods organizations</a>, including the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank). This has also been the basis for the colonial mentality of today. </p>
<p>COVAX was conceived during the rich <a href="https://time.com/6096172/covax-vaccines-what-went-wrong/">World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2020</a>. As news of the virus emerged from China, two professional white men <a href="https://qz.com/2071543/why-the-covax-vaccine-program-failed/">sipped whisky and envisioned COVAX in a Swiss ski resort bar.</a></p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478134/original/file-20220808-18-zuzklf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man with curly brown hair gestures as he speaks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478134/original/file-20220808-18-zuzklf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478134/original/file-20220808-18-zuzklf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478134/original/file-20220808-18-zuzklf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478134/original/file-20220808-18-zuzklf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478134/original/file-20220808-18-zuzklf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478134/original/file-20220808-18-zuzklf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478134/original/file-20220808-18-zuzklf.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">Seth Berkley, CEO of the vaccine alliance Gavi, gestures as he speaks during a media interview in Switzerland in December 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Salvatore Di Nolfi, Keystone via AP)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Seth Berkley (CEO of the <a href="https://www.gavi.org/">Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, or Gavi</a>) and Richard Hatchett (CEO of <a href="https://cepi.net/">the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI</a>), heads of global vaccination networks, discussed pandemic scenarios. They knew the world would need a funding and distribution strategy for shots, so they started thinking about a global solution.</p>
<p><a href="https://cepi.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Proposal-to-establish-a-globally-fair-allocation-system_March-25_2020.pdf">Hatchett wrote a white paper in March 2020</a> and those ideas were the basis for the creation of COVAX in April that year. All this sounds great, but colonial mentality ultimately prevented the success of their initiative. It stopped COVAX from emerging as the co-ordinator of sorely needed 21st-century solidarity. </p>
<h2>Decolonizing crisis governance</h2>
<p>People rarely hear the names of Berkley and Hatchett in the global public sphere. Berkley’s Gavi is a global vaccine alliance that brings together the <a href="https://www.gavi.org/our-alliance">public and private sectors</a>. Hatchett’s CEPI describes itself as a “<a href="https://cepi.net/about/whoweare/">global partnership</a> between public, private, philanthropic, and civil society organizations.” </p>
<p>Today, these two global organizations — supported by the World Health Organization — are dealing with the enduring pandemic. But their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2021.1987502">transparency and accountability</a> have been questionable.</p>
<p>Gavi designed COVAX without oversight and “with a small group of like-minded advisors, primarily Global North philanthropists, academics, and consultants,” according to a <a href="https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/covax-broken-promise-vaccine-equity">Doctors Without Borders report</a>. The perspectives of low- and middle-income countries, civil society organizations or regional disease control groups weren’t considered in a meaningful way. </p>
<p>At the same time, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01378-7">pharmaceutical industry</a> representatives have had a seat at the table of major decision-making discussions, and this has helped maintain the status quo of their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01242-1">intellectual property rights</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/perus-covid-19-vaccine-scandal-shows-the-shady-deals-made-with-pharma-companies-155623">Peru's COVID-19 vaccine scandal shows the shady deals made with pharma companies</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The world needs to move beyond myopic national self-interest. It has become apparent that in order to control the COVID-19 pandemic, equity and inclusion are urgently required. </p>
<p>Scientists anticipate <a href="https://www.idrc.ca/en/perspectives/no-one-safe-until-everyone-safe-global-research-global-crises">there will be new pandemics along with climate change crises</a>. This will hardly be the last global public-health emergency. </p>
<p>Out of self-interest, transnational governance needs to embrace true solidarity. World leaders must use <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/Assets/PubMaterials/978-1-4780-0149-2_601.pdf">a decolonialized</a> imagination to face these coming global challenges.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188206/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monica Sanchez-Flores 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>
A major lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic is the need to decolonize transnational governance so that the world is better able to handle both future and current global crises.
Monica Sanchez-Flores, Associate Professor of Sociology, Thompson Rivers University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/183142
2022-05-25T13:23:25Z
2022-05-25T13:23:25Z
Rwandan researchers are finally being centred in scholarship about their own country
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463570/original/file-20220517-12-v215pz.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">Aegis Trust/Flickr/All rights reserved©</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is widely known that African researchers are <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-it-is-crucial-to-locate-the-african-in-african-studies-60807">dramatically underrepresented</a> in academic journals. But it’s still astonishing to see this reality starkly represented in numbers.</p>
<p>For the past eight years we have run the <a href="https://www.aegistrust.org/aegis-launches-research-policy-higher-education-programme-in-kigali/">Research, Policy and Higher Education</a> (RPHE) programme, a research and peer-support scheme with Rwandan scholars, through the Aegis Trust. As part of our work, we’ve analysed 12 leading journals in disciplines relevant to our researcher cohort. We found that from 1994 until 2019, of the 398 articles focusing on Rwanda that appeared in these journals, only 13 were authored or co-authored by Rwandan scholars. That’s just 3.3%. This amounts to 25 years of post-genocide literature almost entirely devoid of Rwandan voices.</p>
<p>In 2019, the flagship area studies journal <em>African Affairs</em> published its <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Ideology-and-interests-in-the-Rwandan-patriotic-front-singing-the-struggle-in-pre-genocide-Rwanda.pdf">first-ever article</a> by a Rwandan. The author, Assumpta Mugiraneza (writing with Benjamin Chemouni) is supported by the RPHE programme. Four of the journals we examined – <em>Journal of Modern African Studies, Journal of Conflict and Security Law, Journal of Peace Research, and Conflict, Security and Development</em> – regularly publish articles on Rwanda. But they are yet to publish a single Rwandan writing on their country.</p>
<p>What explains this level of exclusion? One factor is prejudice on the part of journal editors and peer reviewers, which Rwandan colleagues have encountered for years. It was the need to overcome systemic biases and to amplify the voices of Rwandan scholars in global academic and policy debates that led us to establish the RPHE programme in 2014. </p>
<p>Since we launched, experienced Rwandan and non-Rwandan researchers have worked closely with 44 Rwandan authors selected through four competitive calls that generated more than 400 research proposals. The programme has also organised regular theory, methods, writing and publishing workshops for hundreds of participants in Kigali, supporting the wider Rwandan research community.</p>
<p>It is starting to bear fruit.</p>
<h2>A body of scholarly work</h2>
<p>Our website, the Genocide Research Hub, has just posted the <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/published_journal/">21 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters</a> that have so far emerged from the programme. It is a rigorous process to reach this point. The authors first produced <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/research/aegis-working-papers/?fwp_document_categories=aegis-working-papers">working papers</a> and <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/research/aegis-policy-briefs/?fwp_document_categories=aegis-policy-briefs">policy briefs</a>. These were honed through discussions with their programme colleagues and at <a href="https://www.soas.ac.uk/news/newsitem132711.html">public events in Kigali and London</a>. Only then were they submitted to peer-reviewed journals. Over the next year, these working papers will generate a further tranche of academic publications.</p>
<p>Collectively, these pieces represent an important body of scholarly work on various themes. These include ethnicity, indigeneity, migration, citizenship, gender relations and language politics. Authors also delve into debates over younger generations’ inherited responsibility for the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. </p>
<p>The publications highlight the impressive research being conducted by Rwandan authors, who for too long have been sidelined in debates about Rwanda and other conflict-affected societies.</p>
<h2>Numerous barriers</h2>
<p>Rwandan authors face numerous barriers. Some are domestic and widely acknowledged. The country aims to become a regional high-tech hub. So, the Rwandan government <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/featured-govt-invests-heavily-stem-education-rwandan-schools">emphasises</a> science, technology, engineering and maths subjects. This has led to the chronic <a href="https://www.chronicles.rw/2019/07/25/would-be-a-mistake-for-govt-to-stop-funding-social-science-university-courses/">under-funding</a> of the social sciences. </p>
<p>Like their colleagues across East Africa, Rwandan academics’ <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/industry/poor-quality-of-varsity-education-slows-eac-growth-1972372">enormous teaching and administrative loads</a> leave little space for research and writing. </p>
<p>Less recognised, however, are the power dynamics in global academic and policy circles. International journal editors, peer reviewers and research funders routinely exclude Rwandan voices. This is driven by a pervasive view that Rwandan authors based in Rwanda cannot produce independent and rigorous research in such a repressive political environment. </p>
<p>These structural biases need to be systematically addressed if institutions and publications based in the global north are serious about the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/9/6/africas-next-decolonisation-battle-should-be-about-knowledge">“decolonising knowledge” agenda</a>.</p>
<p>The significance of the academic publications produced through the RPHE programme, though, is not simply that they were written by Rwandans. Crucially, these authors have begun to reorient the substance of scholarly debates about Rwanda and broader peace and conflict issues. </p>
<p>Our calls for proposals asked Rwandan researchers to independently determine the themes and methods of their research, reflecting their deep knowledge of the political, social, cultural, historical and linguistic context. By doing so, they’ve introduced new themes, angles and insights that greatly enrich the academic literature.</p>
<h2>New insights</h2>
<p>To take one example, two <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Becoming-Historically-Marginalized-Peoples-examining-Twa-perceptions-of-boundary-shifting-and-re-categorization-in-post-genocide-Rwanda.pdf">journal</a> <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/One-Rwanda-For-All-Rwandans-Uncovering-the-Twa-in-Post-Genocide-Rwanda.pdf">articles</a> by Richard Ntakirutimana – a member of the Rwandan Batwa community – highlight the challenges the Batwa have faced since the Rwandan government placed them under its “Historically Marginalised Peoples” banner in 2007. This category includes guaranteed parliamentary representation for women, people with disabilities, Muslims and the Batwa. But it conflates Batwa concerns with those of other marginalised communities in Rwanda. </p>
<p>Many Batwa are highly wary of researchers. But Ntakirutimana was able to conduct extensive interviews with members of the community near the forests bordering Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. His respondents roundly criticised the “Historically Marginalised Peoples” framework. They demanded government policies tailored more specifically to the plight of the Batwa.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers explore perspectives beyond the capital city, Kigali, giving voice to various Rwandan communities’ experiences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Phil Clark</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Ntakirutimana presented his research <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/202165">at an RPHE conference in Kigali</a>, his findings generated vociferous push-back from Rwandan policymakers. His work, and that of other authors from the programme who have presented at public events, challenges a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ssqu.12346">widespread perception of Rwanda</a> as a closed political system in which independent research and public debate on politically sensitive topics are almost impossible.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?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">The RPHE’s conferences bring together scholars, journalists and policymakers to discuss research and scholarship about Rwanda.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aegis Trust/Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, across a wide range of topics and disciplines, <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/published_journal/">the articles published by other RPHE researchers</a> explore an overarching theme largely ignored by non-Rwandan authors: the prevalence of intra-family and inter-generational conflicts since 1994. </p>
<p>These researchers focus on genocidal legacies and the impact of post-genocide social transformation in intimate family spaces, which are difficult for non-Rwandan researchers to access. Their work thus provides vital perspectives on less visible features of Rwandan society.</p>
<h2>A gradual shift</h2>
<p>The highly talented Rwandan social science research community is beginning to gain the global platform it deserves. This shift is vital for Rwandan researchers. It benefits others, too, by producing fresh insights and challenging the structures that for years stymied these critical voices. More initiatives of this kind are essential if calls to decolonise knowledge are to become more than comforting blandishments.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183142/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicola Palmer receives funding from the British Academy and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felix Mukwiza Ndahinda, Jason Mosley, Phil Clark, and Sandra Shenge 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>
Rwandan authors have long been sidelined in debates about Rwanda and other conflict-affected societies.
Felix Mukwiza Ndahinda, Honorary Associate Professor, College of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Rwanda
Jason Mosley, Research Associate, African Studies Centre, University of Oxford
Nicola Palmer, Reader in Law, King's College London
Phil Clark, Professor of International Politics, SOAS, University of London
Sandra Shenge, Director of Programs, Aegis Trust
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/162807
2021-07-06T12:10:32Z
2021-07-06T12:10:32Z
Why reparations are always about more than money
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408012/original/file-20210623-27-16s0rs3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C13%2C1005%2C663&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Consulting with the communities that have suffered the most harm from past acts of mass violence is a key part of a successful reparations process. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RacialInjusticeReparationsColleges/c9fd2db8c55f4af6a080806e6cfc78db">Steven Senne/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Between 1904 and 1908, German soldiers and settler colonists killed about half of all Nama people and over 80% of the Herero ethnic group. On May 28, 2021, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/28/africa/germany-recognizes-colonial-genocide-namibia-intl/index.html">acknowledged that Germany committed genocide in what is today Namibia</a>. Maas’ statement was Germany’s first official description of these events as “genocide.” Maas also announced that Germany would pay Namibia roughly US$1.3 billion to answer for these crimes. Many refer to this gesture as reparations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409531/original/file-20210702-25-1fkfwzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A photo from 1904/5 showing Herero captives in chains." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409531/original/file-20210702-25-1fkfwzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409531/original/file-20210702-25-1fkfwzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409531/original/file-20210702-25-1fkfwzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409531/original/file-20210702-25-1fkfwzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409531/original/file-20210702-25-1fkfwzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409531/original/file-20210702-25-1fkfwzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409531/original/file-20210702-25-1fkfwzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Germany recently acknowledged that it committed genocide in what is today Namibia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/german-south-west-africa-herero-rebellion-captives-in-news-photo/545722415?adppopup=true">ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, in the United States, <a href="https://theconversation.com/revisiting-reparations-is-it-time-for-the-us-to-pay-its-debt-for-the-legacy-of-slavery-151972">reparations to Black Americans</a> for slavery are gaining traction. A growing number of universities, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/us/georgetown-slavery-reparations.html">including Georgetown</a> and <a href="https://vts.edu/mission/multicultural-ministries/reparations/">Virginia Theological Seminary</a>, along with a few cities such as <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article244688107.html">Asheville, North Carolina</a>, have started reparations programs. In April, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/14/us/house-reparations-bill.html">U.S. House of Representatives voted</a> to <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/40">advance a bill</a> exploring reparations at the national level.</p>
<p>As a scholar who <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/i-gmap/index.html">researches</a> how societies deal with histories of mass atrocities and also <a href="http://www.auschwitzinstitute.org/">works with governments</a> on policies to protect those at risk, I argue that past atrocities do not end when the physical violence comes to an end. The violence <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/resonant-violence/9781978825550">continues to affect</a> the social, cultural and economic lives of those targeted far into the future – making societies sometimes turn to reparations.</p>
<h2>What are reparations?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.ictj.org/our-work/transitional-justice-issues/reparations">Reparations are</a> part of a set of tools that societies use to respond to past mass violence. Often called <a href="https://www.ictj.org/about/transitional-justice">transitional justice</a>, these tools also include things like <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Unspeakable-Truths-Transitional-Justice-and-the-Challenge-of-Truth-Commissions/Hayner/p/book/9780415806350">truth commissions</a>, <a href="https://www.ictj.org/our-work/transitional-justice-issues/criminal-justice">criminal trials</a> and <a href="https://www.ssrc.org/publications/view/57EFEC93-284A-DE11-AFAC-001CC477EC70/">institutional reform</a>. </p>
<p>Transitional justice has emerged from international human rights laws requiring United Nations member states to <a href="https://www.kairoscanada.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/UN-Joinet-Orentlicher-Principles.pdf">bring perpetrators of mass atrocities to justice and redress survivors</a>. But many victims never receive reparations, while initiatives that do occur often fall short. </p>
<p>The first major reparations program began in 1952, when 23 Jewish organizations formed the <a href="https://www.claimscon.org/">Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany</a> to seek redress for Holocaust victims and their families. The Claims Conference has gone on to distribute over $80 billion dollars in reparations.</p>
<p>In the 1980s and 1990s, governments themselves began implementing reparations programs. Such Latin American countries as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/ipp0000041">Argentina</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/0199291926.001.0001">Chile</a> offered reparations to victims of the right-wing military dictatorships that engulfed the region during the Cold War. During this period, hundreds of thousands of people in the region suffered disappearance, torture and death because they were deemed to be political subversives. In the 1990s, Central and Eastern European countries like <a href="https://doi.org/10.5840/symposion20163212">Romania</a> and <a href="https://ruj.uj.edu.pl/xmlui/handle/item/238519">Poland</a> began reparations programs to restore property to those who lost it during the Communist era. </p>
<h2>How do reparations work?</h2>
<p>In the United States, when people hear the term “reparations,” they often think of direct payments of money. But there are many forms that reparations can take. “Compensation” is the direct payment of money. “Restitution” is the return of rights and property. “Rehabilitation” includes things like giving victims mental and physical health care. </p>
<p>There are also “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijaa001">symbolic reparations</a>,” such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19962126.2008.11864943">official apologies</a>, <a href="http://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.11.2.1447">public memorials</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137265173_6">holidays or commemorations</a>. </p>
<p>Purely symbolic initiatives may feel empty to victims. Material reparations without public and visible symbolic gestures may feel insufficient. So typically, a successful reparations program includes both. </p>
<p>But so far the Germany-Namibia program, as well as many U.S. efforts, seem to be focusing on material compensation alone. In doing so, they ignore two other important principles of transitional justice: “complementarity,” or the idea that transitional justice works best when multiple tools are used at once, and “consultation.”</p>
<h2>Money is just one part of reparations</h2>
<p>Mass atrocities arise from complex social and political processes that target certain identity groups. So addressing all of their legacies successfully requires many different policy initiatives working hand in hand, or complementarity.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.desaparecidos.org/nuncamas/web/english/library/nevagain/nevagain_282.htm">Argentina</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2019.1668360">Peru</a>, for instance, national truth commissions investigated and brought to light the abuses that victims suffered. The commissions then recommended several forms of material and symbolic reparations to respond to those harms, including payments to victims, official acknowledgments and public memorials. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004377196_020">Cambodia</a>, on the other hand, reparations were ordered by the justices in the <a href="https://www.eccc.gov.kh/en/node/39457">Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia</a>. This is a special court set up to try members of the Khmer Rouge regime, which controlled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 and was the responsible for the murder of as many at 1.5 million people.</p>
<p>In Germany’s case, the offer of reparations to Namibia is not being complemented by other measures to deal with the past. In fact, the government <a href="https://globalvoices.org/2021/06/10/germany-recognizes-colonial-era-genocide-in-namibia-but-survivors-say-its-not-enough/">refuses to call the payments “reparations” at all</a> and prefers to call it “development aid.” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/28/germany-agrees-to-pay-namibia-11bn-over-historical-herero-nama-genocide">According to an article in The Guardian</a>, calling the payment “reparations” could open the door for further civil claims against Germany.</p>
<p>When reparations measures aren’t met with initiatives responding to the structural causes of violence, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2997871">they can be perceived as “blood money,</a>” as victims believe accepting the payment means giving up their right to justice. It may also <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/ipp0000041">cause victims to question their own right to redress</a>. But when accompanied by efforts to seek justice and reform the institutions that violated victims’ rights, I argue, reparations can be a starting point for rebuilding trust and community.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A poster for the exhibition 'German Colonialism' with a historic German spiked helmet displayed outside the German Historic Museum in Berlin, Friday, Jan. 6, 2017." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408016/original/file-20210623-13-1h0y53x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408016/original/file-20210623-13-1h0y53x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408016/original/file-20210623-13-1h0y53x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408016/original/file-20210623-13-1h0y53x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408016/original/file-20210623-13-1h0y53x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408016/original/file-20210623-13-1h0y53x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408016/original/file-20210623-13-1h0y53x.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">The German and Namibian governments have yet to include many Herero and Nama leaders in the reparations process for Germany’s genocide of the two tribes’ ancestors in the early 20th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/GermanyNamibia/e2bc33945ee94c238c7001ea8601eca8">Markus Schreiber/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Putting survivors at the center</h2>
<p>If a reparations package is determined by political elites behind closed doors, it may fail to restore the trust that has been decimated by past wrongs. So, as argued by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/NationalConsultationsTJ_EN.pdf">consultation with the communities that have suffered the most harm</a> must be at the center of determining what reparations look like.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/0199291926.001.0001">In Chile</a>, tens of thousands of victims were tortured during the 1973-1990 military dictatorship for being “political subversives.” Additionally, thousands were disappeared. When victims and their families sought reparations after the dictatorship ended, the government began a thorough consultation process that led to creative solutions. </p>
<p>Based on these consultations, <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/NationalConsultationsTJ_EN.pdf">reparations were paid in the form of monthly pensions</a> instead of lump sums. Additionally, reparations included <a href="https://static.pmg.org.za/docs/110331ictj.pdf">funding for the higher education of the children of victims</a>. These solutions may not have been discovered without consulting with victims.</p>
<p>The German package, by contrast, has been primarily negotiated with the Namibian government, which contains few <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/germany-colonial-era-genocide-reparations-offer-not-enough-namibia-vice-2021-06-04/">members of the Herero and Nama ethnic groups</a>. Herero and Nama leaders have responded by calling the German proposal a “<a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-officially-recognizes-colonial-era-namibia-genocide/a-57671070">PR stunt</a>.” </p>
<p>In the U.S., Georgetown and the Jesuit priests who run it have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/15/us/jesuits-georgetown-reparations-slavery.html">pledged $100 million</a> as reparations to the descendants of the enslaved people sold to finance the university. But some descendants have criticized Georgetown’s consultation process. One descendant told the news outlet Quartz that <a href="https://qz.com/2010943/georgetown-and-the-jesuits-slavery-reparations-plan-falls-short/">only around 50 of the thousands of descendants</a> were actually involved in the consultation process.</p>
<p>The modern history of reparations is only a few decades old, but it already demonstrates that reparations are always about more than the money. If the process includes compensation, but ignores complementarity and consultation, the effort may fail to truly answer for the past.</p>
<p>But when all three principles are central, reparations can mean far more than money in someone’s pocket. They can contribute to repairing the social fabric that has been torn apart by mass violence. </p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162807/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kerry Whigham is affiliated with the Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities. </span></em></p>
From Germany to Georgetown, the Global North has a lot to learn about reckoning successfully with past human rights wrongs.
Kerry Whigham, Assistant Professor of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/161614
2021-06-15T14:54:35Z
2021-06-15T14:54:35Z
Reuters’ 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>
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</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-Natal
Andrew Emmanuel Okem, Science Officer in the Durban office of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group II Technical Support Unit, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Catherine Sutherland, Associate Professor in Development Studies , University of KwaZulu-Natal
Debra 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-Natal
Marlies H Craig, Biologist with a PhD in Epidemiology, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Michelle A. North, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Rob Slotow, Professor, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/147517
2020-10-12T14:34:59Z
2020-10-12T14:34:59Z
Anxiety in Johannesburg: new views on a global south city
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362431/original/file-20201008-20-16a7azi.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">iStock/Getty Images Plus</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Within the media and popular culture of the global north, cities like Johannesburg, South Africa, are often presented as a site of trouble. They’re the source of the immigrants, drugs, violence, poverty, disease and environmental crisis that worry nervous citizens of more “developed” cities. </p>
<p>Even when they take centre stage in international media production, global south cities like Johannesburg are laden with fear or fantasy. Think of the films <a href="http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/18121?show=full"><em>District 9</em></a> with its slavering Nigerian gangsters, the homeless genius of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436591003701117"><em>Slumdog Millionaire</em></a> or <a href="https://online.ucpress.edu/fq/article-abstract/72/4/46/42347"><em>Roma</em></a>’s contentedly familial domestic worker. In so many instances, these urban spaces – vibrant, changeable, challenging, new – appear as nothing more than locations for the fluffy imaginaries or collective fears of the north.</p>
<p>In his book <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Liquid+Times%3A+Living+in+an+Age+of+Uncertainty-p-9780745639864"><em>Liquid Times</em></a>, the philosopher Zygmunt Bauman calls fear “arguably the most sinister of the demons nesting in the open societies of our time”. He writes of fear as a palpable monster that stalks the lives of late modern subjects in a world where the centres of power are diffuse and remote. </p>
<p>Fear is, indeed, one way of describing this condition. But anxiety is perhaps more useful, suggesting a feeling that is persistent, low-level and even, in psychologist <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10130950.2001.9675996">Kopano Ratele</a>’s term, “objectless”. Anxiety is ever-present. It does not depend on particular triggers. It is easily spread and shared, passed around on the wind, like a rumour, like a virus.</p>
<h2>The elusive metropolis</h2>
<p>Anxiety in Johannesburg is nothing new. Despite its intermittent glamour, the city has always felt unstable for those who live in it. South Africa’s largest and wealthiest urban centre, it is also deeply unequal and striated by the spatial markers of apartheid. According to urban planning professor <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/city-of-extremes/">Martin J. Murray</a>, it </p>
<blockquote>
<p>leads a double life. The city is a paradigmatic exemplar of first world glamour and excess and third world improvement and degradation. It is simultaneously a global marketplace of speculative investment integrally linked to the world economy via globalising space of flows. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Black migrants who were once forced into urban labour by law now face the same conditions because of poverty, unemployment and rural underdevelopment. Fears of hunger and violence mesh with a neoliberal fear of failure, of being left behind in a rapidly changing world, painfully symbolised by the city’s “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00020184.2017.1285670">branded skyline</a>”. White suburbanites who once quailed from imaginary communists now invest enthusiastically in <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/pa7nek/smart-cctv-networks-are-driving-an-ai-powered-apartheid-in-south-africa">security technologies</a> and report passers-by to <a href="https://suburbanfear.tumblr.com/">armed private guards</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DyLUwOcR5pk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">District 9 (2009) presents a fearful image of Johannesburg and of Nigerians.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In all parts of the city, from malls to taxi ranks to alleys, <a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/pdf/Gender%20Based%20Violence%20in%20South%20Africa%20-%20A%20Brief%20Review.pdf">women</a> worry whether they will make it home safely – or if at <a href="https://connect.springerpub.com/content/sgrvv/24/4/546">home</a>, whether they will make it through the night. From <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02723638.2014.988057?casa_token=s9QI3p_pcWwAAAAA%3A6j18Fc0kHj5niV8BTfT1tQ-OmMIzjk5Ge9eURk5g1ADairxvlI_AfHT_C1a7JhPwfcZ1pe2IJktwSg">hawkers</a> in the central business district to <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org.za/site/wp-content/uploads/Final-ReportOpenSecrets_Bankers_Reduced.pdf">grifters</a> in the banking malls, nothing seems entirely fixed or reliable in this elusive metropolis. And yet conditions of anxiety <em>within</em> Johannesburg are seldom discussed by scholars. </p>
<h2>Anxious Joburg</h2>
<p>Like any other city of the south, life in Johannesburg is fraught with the feelings that are central to modernity. What then does it mean that a city like Johannesburg so casually connotes anxiety to the north? And more importantly, if fearful emotion is the base layer of the modern age, as Bauman argues, what does it mean that we think more of anxiety <em>about</em> southern cities than <em>in</em> them? </p>
<p>In order to properly understand city life we need to account for its emotional landscapes. We must ask what it means to be an anxious modern citizen, subject to the same epistemological insecurities as people elsewhere, in a location that is often represented as inherently unstable.</p>
<p>These are some of the question that we asked of contributors to our new book <em><a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/anxious-joburg/">Anxious Joburg</a></em>, a set of essays and reflections that consider the intimate inner lives of Johannesburg. Rather than classifying it as a list of developmental and economic problems to be solved, these scholars, artists and storytellers consider what it <em>feels like</em> to live in this complicated city. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-covid-19-inspire-a-new-way-of-planning-african-cities-145933">Can COVID-19 inspire a new way of planning African cities?</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<p>A broad range of people and experiences are explored, among them inner-city religious communities, young women who navigate perilous taxi mobility, nervous white middle classes, transgender migrants coping with South Africa’s aggressive border regime and people scraping a precarious living on the city’s outskirts. </p>
<p>From the gated community of Dainfern in the north to the township of Soweto in the south, from the liminal suburbs of Melville and Yeoville to the back rooms of Cyrildene and the apartment buildings of Hillbrow and the central business district, <em>Anxious Joburg</em> investigates the city’s complex affects from multiple positions. It invokes a range of theoretical approaches – among them visual art, cultural studies, psychology and anthropology – to argue for the central role of emotion in understanding urban life in the global south.</p>
<h2>Emotion and urban life</h2>
<p>When city forms are lumped together as merely the source of dangers that worry the north, it becomes difficult to grasp the current shape of the urban, which is likely to reach its ultimate expression in the expanding mega-cities of the south. As academics Sarah Nuttall and Achille Mbembe <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/johannesburg-the-elusive-metropolis/">argue</a>, we must develop ways of reading African cities that are no longer “dominated by the metanarrative of urbanisation, modernisation and crisis”. </p>
<p>Part of this work requires us to consider intimate experiences of daily life. After all, as cultural theorist <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Cultural-Politics-of-Emotion/Ahmed/p/book/9781138805033">Sara Ahmed</a> explains, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Emotions should not be regarded as psychological states, but as social and cultural practices. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In southern cities, as elsewhere, emotions are performative and collective and have social and political consequences.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362443/original/file-20201008-14-1k1g6p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362443/original/file-20201008-14-1k1g6p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362443/original/file-20201008-14-1k1g6p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362443/original/file-20201008-14-1k1g6p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362443/original/file-20201008-14-1k1g6p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362443/original/file-20201008-14-1k1g6p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362443/original/file-20201008-14-1k1g6p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362443/original/file-20201008-14-1k1g6p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&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">Wits University Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Johannesburg is not the most anxious or the most dangerous city in the world. It is not unique or uniquely terrifying. However its global reputation, spectacular racist history and propensity for siege architecture make it a hugely valuable site for thinking about how anxiety structures contemporary life for denizens of the southern city. </p>
<p><em>The new book <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/anxious-joburg/">Anxious Joburg</a>: The Inner Lives of a Global South City is available from <a href="http://witspress.co.za">Wits University Press</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147517/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicky Falkof receives funding from the Mellon Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cobus van Staden is affiliated with the non-profit China-Africa Project and a think tank, the South African Institute of International Affairs.</span></em></p>
Johannesburg is not the most anxious or dangerous city in the world, but its global reputation, history and architecture make it a valuable site for thinking about how anxiety structures our lives.
Nicky Falkof, Associate professor, University of the Witwatersrand
Cobus van Staden, Senior Researcher: China-Africa: South African Institute of International Affairs, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/146673
2020-10-05T15:13:10Z
2020-10-05T15:13:10Z
From COVID-19 to the climate emergency: Lessons from this global crisis for the next one
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360216/original/file-20200928-22-iigpc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=110%2C0%2C5156%2C3056&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Erosion damage caused by Hurricane Hanna is seen along the Fisher border wall, a privately funded border fence, along the Rio Grande River near Mission, Texas, on July 30, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Eric Gay)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The COVID-19 pandemic can teach us many things about how climate change emergencies manifest themselves, and how humanitarian organizations can think and do things differently.</p>
<p>COVID-19 is itself linked to some of the same issues as human-influenced climate change. <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-covid19-pandemic-cause-prediction-prevention.html">The outbreak in humans of any zoonotic virus</a>, as SARS-CoV-2 is, goes immediately to <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/">the poisonous way in which humans interact with the natural world</a> — habitat loss <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/publications/covid19-urgent-call-to-protect-people-and-nature">pushing wild animals closer to human settlement</a>, remote mining and road-building putting more people into what were once wilderness areas, industrialized meat production introducing viruses into the food supply, <a href="https://dighr.yorku.ca/resource/the-lancet-countdown-on-health-and-climate-change-2019-policy-brief-on-humanitarian-impacts/">and so on</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-is-a-wake-up-call-our-war-with-the-environment-is-leading-to-pandemics-135023">Coronavirus is a wake-up call: our war with the environment is leading to pandemics</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Some of the worst peaks of the pandemic have reportedly not been in the Global South but in the north, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/10/24/none-these-countries-us-included-is-fully-prepared-pandemic-report-says/">in rich societies that were ostensibly better prepared for a pandemic</a> but that have become unused to facing crises and so struggle to cope with them. Likewise, <a href="https://media.ifrc.org/ifrc/the-cost-of-doing-nothing/">the humanitarian consequences of climate change will dominate the lives of all countries, in all parts of the world</a>.</p>
<h2>We’re not all in it together</h2>
<p>Despite the pandemic’s global impact, any illusion that facing a common viral enemy might bring us together lasted a short second. As with all crises, COVID-19’s case numbers and mortality rates have tracked the fissures of racism, class and gender. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.apmresearchlab.org/covid/deaths-by-race">Black Americans are dying of COVID-19 at more than twice the rate of white Americans</a>, as <a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/why-are-there-so-many-isolated-indigenous-peoples-infected-covid-19">reportedly</a> are <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/06/disaster-looms-indigenous-amazon-tribes-covid-19-cases-multiply/">Indigenous peoples in Brazil</a>. Climate change impacts <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/burkina-faso/beyond-any-drought-root-causes-chronic-vulnerability-sahel%22%22">show a similar inequality</a> in which emerging crises disproportionately affect communities made vulnerable by longstanding, unaddressed disadvantages.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360094/original/file-20200926-16-1rm4508.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two health-care workers completely covered by white protective suits and face masks tend to patients on gurneys." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360094/original/file-20200926-16-1rm4508.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360094/original/file-20200926-16-1rm4508.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360094/original/file-20200926-16-1rm4508.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360094/original/file-20200926-16-1rm4508.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360094/original/file-20200926-16-1rm4508.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360094/original/file-20200926-16-1rm4508.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360094/original/file-20200926-16-1rm4508.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">Medical staff tend to patients at the intensive care unit of the Casalpalocco COVID-19 Clinic on the outskirts of Rome on March 25, 2020. Italy was hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, putting pressure on its intensive care units.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>COVID-19 has found multilateralism incapable of delivering on its promise of co-operation between states to overcome global-level threats beyond the capacity of any one nation-state to handle. Three examples from many: the <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31527-0/fulltext">Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization</a>, the <a href="https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=8a011de1-8206-4ebd-9ee1-26e670f9210e">scramble for personal protective equipment</a> including export restrictions and even charges of state piracy, and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/06/03/coronavirus-vaccine-global-race/">political race to secure COVID-19 vaccines</a>. </p>
<p>Comparable points apply to international co-operation on climate change. In the short term, the <a href="https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/06/25/covid-19-impacts-climate-change/">next-stage climate negotiations (COP26) have been delayed a year, as have international negotiations</a> such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the High Seas Treaty. In the longer term, the accommodations granted to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/17/polluter-bailouts-and-lobbying-during-covid-19-pandemic">polluting-industry lobbies</a> and allied states will only add to the challenges of international negotiations. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-global-ocean-treaty-could-protect-biodiversity-in-the-high-seas-139552">How a global ocean treaty could protect biodiversity in the high seas</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The instinctive response by states to the pandemic has been the opposite of co-operation: the hardening of bordering regimes. In early July 2020, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/01/more-than-nine-in-ten-people-worldwide-live-in-countries-with-travel-restrictions-amid-covid-19/">91 per cent of the world’s population</a> lived in <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/01/more-than-nine-in-ten-people-worldwide-live-in-countries-with-travel-restrictions-amid-covid-19/">countries with heightened border restrictions</a>. And refugees, migrants and asylum seekers have been stigmatized and targeted, <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2168">including in Greece</a>, <a href="https://www.refugeesinternational.org/reports/2020/7/6/locked-down-and-left-behind-the-impact-of-covid-19-on-refugees-economic-inclusion">Malaysia</a>, <a href="https://blog.fluchtforschung.net/covid-19-and-refugees-and-asylum-seekers-in-south-africa/">South Africa</a>, <a href="https://www.animalpolitico.com/2020/04/migrantes-frente-covid-19-abandonados-mexico-fronteras-cerradas/">Mexico</a> and many other countries. A similarly repressive instinct, even the closure of external borders altogether, is reality for people <a href="https://environmentalmigration.iom.int/blogs/covid-19-climate-change-and-migration-constructing-crises-reinforcing-borders">fleeing the effects of climate change</a>.</p>
<h2>Extractivism — the only thing immune?</h2>
<p>One industry that seemingly is unaffected by the shutdowns is mining. <a href="https://www.gaiafoundation.org/mining-the-covid-19-pandemic/">Extractive industries have turned the pandemic into a boom time</a>, continuing operations by gaining “essential” status, lobbying successfully for weakened environmental regulations and allying with police and armed actors to repress environmental and Indigenous protests to this. </p>
<p>Canada has systematically <a href="https://theconversation.com/rolling-back-canadian-environmental-regulations-during-coronavirus-is-short-sighted-139636">used the COVID-19 crisis to curb environmental protections for communities and ecosystems</a> in Canada and beyond. It is not a coincidence that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2018.1559834">extractive industries and supporting governments are the key antagonists</a> in preventing action against climate change and in trampling on the rights of Indigenous peoples and other marginalized communities.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A large crowd on people walking." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360220/original/file-20200928-14-1h0xjut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360220/original/file-20200928-14-1h0xjut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360220/original/file-20200928-14-1h0xjut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360220/original/file-20200928-14-1h0xjut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360220/original/file-20200928-14-1h0xjut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360220/original/file-20200928-14-1h0xjut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360220/original/file-20200928-14-1h0xjut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Honduran migrants walking toward the United States arrive at Chiquimula, Guatemala, on Oct. 16, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Moises Castillo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Trust, denial, elite panic and lifeboats</h2>
<p>Some of the worst outbreaks have occurred in countries where political leaders have sought to downplay and deny the COVID-19 pandemic — most obviously in Brazil and the United States, but also in others, such as <a href="https://cpj.org/2020/04/alvaro-navarro-on-covering-covid-19-in-nicaragua-c/">Nicaragua</a>, <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/death-and-denial-in-turkmenistan/">Turkmenistan</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/world/africa/tanzanias-coronavirus-president.html">Tanzania</a>. </p>
<p>COVID-19 denialism is grounded in the <a href="https://skepticalscience.com/history-FLICC-5-techniques-science-denial.html">same techniques</a>, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/25/climate-science-deniers-downplaying-coronavirus-pandemic">same amplifiers</a> and <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/03/16/climate-science-deniers-downplayed-covid-19-cato-acsh-aei">funders</a>, and the same intent as climate-change denialism. <a href="https://katz.substack.com/p/disarm-the-lifeboats">Rather than save the whole sinking ship, a panicked elite</a> seeks to <a href="http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_lifeboat_ethics_case_against_helping_poor.html">jettison those it does not value</a>. This is “<a href="https://www.academia.edu/9945562/Tropic_of_Chaos_Climate_Change_and_the_New_Geography_of_Violence">the politics of the armed lifeboat</a>”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is a real risk that strong states with developed economies will succumb to a politics of xenophobia, racism, police repression, surveillance and militarism and thus transform themselves into fortress societies while the rest of the world slips into collapse. By that course, developed economies would turn into neofascist islands of relative stability in a sea of chaos. … [But] A world in climatological collapse — marked by hunger, disease, criminality, fanaticism and violent social breakdown — will overwhelm the armed lifeboat. Eventually, all will sink in the same morass.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Dismantling the ‘armed lifeboat’</h2>
<p>The act of providing life-saving assistance and protection to the victims and survivors of emergencies and crises has its own value. But humanitarians need to do much more than simply bandaging the violence embedded in pandemics and in climate change.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360095/original/file-20200926-20-1v44vgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman with blue hair carries a paper bag and a pair of shoes as she steps among hundreds of pairs of shoes laid out in a grid in the public square." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360095/original/file-20200926-20-1v44vgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360095/original/file-20200926-20-1v44vgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360095/original/file-20200926-20-1v44vgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360095/original/file-20200926-20-1v44vgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360095/original/file-20200926-20-1v44vgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360095/original/file-20200926-20-1v44vgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360095/original/file-20200926-20-1v44vgs.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">During the performance ‘Covid today, climate crisis tomorrow’ at Sol square in downtown Madrid, Spain, a member of the Extinction Rebellion group walks among shoes representing people unable to attend due to COVID-19 on May 29, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The act of moving across borders to escape the effects of an emergency should be understood as more than a mere act of survival — but rather as <a href="https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/print/article/migration-as-decolonization/">an important step in decolonization</a>. The same with the protest actions of people who oppose discriminatory, exclusionary and violent policies.</p>
<p>COVID-19 and the health impacts of climate change are closely intertwined with centuries of colonialism, extractive capitalism and racism. And so, a humanitarian response will only hold meaning as truly human, when and if the related histories of harm and acts of contestation are listened to, learned from and are leading the way.</p>
<p>It requires doing things radically differently. Doing otherwise.</p>
<p><em>This article was co-authored by Sean Healy, head of reflection and analysis at Médecins Sans Frontières - Operational Centre, Amsterdam.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146673/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linn Biörklund 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>
As a zoonotic virus, COVID-19 is itself a symptom of human-influenced climate change. It is also indicative of the humanitarian impact of future environmental crises.
Linn Biörklund, PhD Student Critical Human Geography and Research Fellow at Dahadaleh Institute for Global Health Research, York University, Canada
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/131843
2020-02-19T13:10:21Z
2020-02-19T13:10:21Z
Contextual bias can play out in management studies in both North and South
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315499/original/file-20200214-11000-11lrurh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>African scholarship is woefully underrepresented in prestigious global academic journals based in the US or Europe. This is particularly true in the field of management, which studies managers and organisations. </p>
<p>As a result, global management knowledge hardly considers African contexts. But this knowledge affects the continent in terms of what is taught in classrooms and how managers make decisions.</p>
<p>So, you may think that we, as management scholars based in Africa (and other Southern contexts), appreciate invitations from elite journals. Here is an example of one such invitation that was distributed in 2016: “It is time <a href="https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amj.2016.4002">to bring Africa in</a> to our mainstream research and theories.” </p>
<p>In part, we do appreciate invitations like this. But we are also vexed by their somewhat one-sided nature, when they insist that in order to participate in this Northern mainstream, we need to “learn [its] language and <a href="https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/amj.2012.4005">rules of the game</a>”.</p>
<p>Our unease connects with a growing body of scholarship that is critical of the Northern mainstream. These critics warn against the globalisation of management education and research as an expression of “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1350508406065851">epistemic colonialism</a>”. It is seen as imposing</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a discussion of Western managerial theories which may not apply in the <a href="https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amle.2016.0086">African context</a> </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The critics also argue that we should rather focus on “<a href="https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amle.2016.0086">indigenous management practices</a>,” shaped by local values and practices. One example is the notion of Ubuntu in southern Africa, which emphasises the importance of “communal or harmonious <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-archbishop-tutus-ubuntu-credo-teaches-the-world-about-justice-and-harmony-84730">relationships</a>” with other people.</p>
<p>This is a worthwhile scholarly ambition. But we worry about taking such an inward focus too far and thereby creating isolated enclaves of scholarship.</p>
<p>We thus face two contrasting options: either we become a colony of the Northern mainstream or we retreat into a Southern “indigenous” enclave. But we resist both options, because they both may allow assumptions about context to give rise to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2631787719879705">systematic biases</a>. </p>
<h2>Biases of the Northern mainstream: erasing and imposing</h2>
<p>The Northern mainstream tends to trivialise Southern contexts, giving rise to what we call erasing and imposing biases. For example, strategy scholars have been writing about “institutional voids” in developing countries. This refers to the absence of institutions, such as property rights, that enable efficient business transactions. These authors summarise this as the</p>
<blockquote>
<p>absence in emerging markets of things we take for granted in our <a href="https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=37467">backyard in Boston</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is the erasing bias: a tendency to emphasise absences in Southern contexts relative to assumptions and concepts originating in and premised on Northern contexts. The notion of “institutional voids” thus erases what institutions actually do exist in Southern contexts.</p>
<p>Erasing creates a vacuum that is then filled through the imposing bias, using home assumptions “in our backyard in Boston” to falsely or superficially interpret Southern contexts. In the case of institutional voids, for instance, the erasing bias creates the empty space that is then filled by imposing analyses and prescriptions focused on formal, market-friendly institutions. These ignore indigenous values and practices, perpetuate an “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1350508406065851">instrumental rationality</a>,” and may further the exploitation of people and resources in the Global South. </p>
<h2>Southern biases: scapegoating and valourising</h2>
<p>In reaction to the biases of the Northern mainstream, Southern critics may too easily revert to the opposite. Scapegoating emphasises colonial history or external factors to explain Southern contexts at the expense of also considering other dimensions or causes. For instance Zimbabwe’s former president, Robert Mugabe, routinely blamed colonial history to explain his country’s misfortunes. This was at least in part to distract from the serious abuses by his government. </p>
<p>A second risk of systematic bias lies in Southern researchers valourising their contexts. For example, we agree that it is important to better understand the relevance of indigenous beliefs and values, such as Ubuntu, in management studies. But this should not be done uncritically. </p>
<p>Saying that an adherence to Ubuntu “considers kinship ties within the organisation <a href="https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/ame.2001.5229453">to be a plus</a>” is a welcome challenge to orthodox management theory. But it should not shy away from an analysis of how such emphasis on kinship ties may also be linked to negative impacts of <a href="https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amp.2012.0033">tribalism and nepotism</a>. These impacts have worsened South Africa’s political and economic fortunes in the <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/shadow-state">last decade</a>.</p>
<h2>Opportunities for dialogue</h2>
<p>Recognising the systematic biases that arise due to our contextual assumptions creates important opportunities for challenging specific forms of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326196101_Contextual_Entrepreneurship_An_Interdisciplinary_Perspective">intellectual complacency</a>. </p>
<p>Yet there are constraints to scholars overcoming contextual biases by challenging each other. Such challenges can reinforce, rather than break down, the boundaries around scholarly communities.</p>
<p>Building on the work of Brazilian writer <a href="http://www.theeducationist.info/paulo-freires-pedagogy-oppressed-book-summary/">Paolo Freire</a> and others, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2631787719879705">we thus call</a> for better dialogue between scholars from different contexts. This should bring to the surface – and allow us to question – our contextual assumptions. It should also recognise the personal, sometimes painful, experiences associated with colonial legacies and ongoing exclusion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131843/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ralph Hamann receives funding from the University of Cape Town. He has previously received funding from the UCT African Climate and Development Institute and the National Research Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Xolisa Dhlamini was a recipient of the SASIE fellowship grant and a Bertha Scholarship. None of these institutions are related to the article submitted. I am a member of the IRF (Institute of Retirement Funds in South Africa) and a non-executive director at Just Share, an investment activism NGO. None of these institutions are related to the article submitted</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Farzad R. Khan, John Luiz, Kutlwano Ramaboa, and Warren Nilsson 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>
Academics face the choice of becoming a colony of the Northern mainstream or retreating into a Southern “indigenous” enclave. Both should be resisted.
Ralph Hamann, Professor, University of Cape Town
Farzad R. Khan, Associate Professor, Prince Mohammad Bin Salman College (MBSC) of Business & Entrepreneurship
John Luiz, Professor of International Business Strategy & Emerging Markets at Sussex University and University of Cape Town, University of Cape Town
Kutlwano Ramaboa, Senior Lecturer in Research Methodology, Director of International Relations, University of Cape Town
Warren Nilsson, Associate Professor of Social Innovation, University of Cape Town
Xolisa Dhlamini, Lecturer and PhD Candidate UCT Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/127956
2019-11-29T13:42:03Z
2019-11-29T13:42:03Z
Colombia: being an environmental activist in some countries is much more dangerous than in others
<p>Climate change, plastic pollution, rising sea levels – environmentalists in developed countries are calling for action on the planetary emergency. But when environmentalists are brave enough to speak out in places like Barrancabermeja, Colombia, they’re often protesting against very local problems. Lack of sanitation, contaminated water, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/26/colombia-palm-oil-industry-conflict-farc">deforestation for palm oil</a> – degradation of the local environment and the direct threat to human health are closely linked and clear to people here. </p>
<p>Barrancabermeja hosts Colombia’s largest petroleum refinery, which has been operating for just over 100 years. Over that time, local industries have <a href="http://www.journalnano.org/?p=975">contaminated natural water courses with heavy metals</a>, which has been absorbed by the soil and the surrounding vegetation that local cattle eat, which have also showed high levels of heavy metals. The plumbing that is supposed to supply the city with fresh water doesn’t reach all areas, meaning that some places lack running water and sewage treatment. This situation has motivated passionate environmental protests.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/environmental-stress-is-already-causing-death-this-chaos-map-shows-where-123796">Environmental stress is already causing death – this chaos map shows where</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>But these are nothing new. In the general city strike of 1963, pollution and access to water were two of the main issues. Safe drinking water was also a recurrent theme throughout the city strikes of the 1970s. Even during the worst of the Colombian conflict from the 1980s to the early 2000s, the people of Barrancabermeja were brave enough to continue protesting for the right to clean water, and they still do today.</p>
<p>Here in the heavy industry heartland of Colombia, environmentalism has old roots and has endured through decades of violence and intimidation. In order to understand how street movements can prosper, it’s worth asking how people here have maintained popular concern for the environment over so many years and under so much pressure.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304441/original/file-20191129-95272-1i2pnqb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304441/original/file-20191129-95272-1i2pnqb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304441/original/file-20191129-95272-1i2pnqb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304441/original/file-20191129-95272-1i2pnqb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304441/original/file-20191129-95272-1i2pnqb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304441/original/file-20191129-95272-1i2pnqb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304441/original/file-20191129-95272-1i2pnqb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A protest for safe drinking water in Barrancabermeja, January 2018. The sign reads: ‘Out of love for your mother, we want potable water’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fatima Garcia Elena</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Local danger, global solidarity</h2>
<p>Environmental protests in developing countries in Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Caribbeann can be dangerous. These regions are often collectively called the Global South. <a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en-gb/">Of the 20 countries</a> with the most murders of environmental activists in 2018, 19 are considered to be part of the Global South. The only exception is Ukraine, which ranks 10th with three deaths. Philippines has more registered murders than any other, with 30 killed in 2018. But it’s closely followed by Colombia, with 24. </p>
<p>These are only official numbers that don’t account for disappearances or unregistered assassinations. They also do not accurately capture the atmosphere of persecution and abuse that torments activists. In Barrancabermeja, environmental leaders are slandered, bullied and threatened. Many have had to abandon their home and seek political asylum abroad.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/defending-the-environment-now-more-lethal-than-soldiering-in-some-war-zones-and-indigenous-peoples-are-suffering-most-118098">Defending the environment now more lethal than soldiering in some war zones – and indigenous peoples are suffering most</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The environmental movement gained the support of millions of people in 2019. Extinction Rebellion and the climate strikes have mobilised people who are concerned about climate change but live lives of relative affluence, far from the front lines of battles over fresh water and clean air. This doesn’t diminish their role or invalidate their cause. Standing in solidarity with people less fortunate and calling for coordinated, global action is essential, and it’s great to see the media covering it. But the experiences of people protesting in Barrancabermeja need to be heard too.</p>
<p>It’s important to acknowledge the differences between environmental struggles around the world to address the diverse challenges of failing ecosystems and value the contributions of all towards finding solutions. Raising awareness of rising temperatures and shifting coastlines is important – the climate crisis is after all a global problem. But the risks aren’t evenly distributed, and the effects are more localised and pressing for some. Media scrutiny of the powerful in places like Barrancabermeja could raise pressure to protect the brave work of activists there. </p>
<p>Let’s show that environmentalism is both global and local, and responding to threats both present and future. Let’s show solidarity with the people in Barrancabermeja.</p>
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<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&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>
</figure>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/imagine-newsletter-researchers-think-of-a-world-with-climate-action-113443?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=Imagineheader1127956">Click here to subscribe to our climate action newsletter. Climate change is inevitable. Our response to it isn’t.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127956/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fatima Garcia Elena 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>
While celebrating the millions on streets in London and Vancouver, we must not forget the sacrifices of people in the Global South.
Fatima Garcia Elena, Associate Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/113943
2019-03-25T13:57:32Z
2019-03-25T13:57:32Z
The global South is changing how knowledge is made, shared and used
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264888/original/file-20190320-93051-1usb14d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A process of making knowledge in the South is underway</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">klerik78/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Globalisation and new technology have changed the ways that knowledge is made, disseminated and consumed. At the push of a button, one can find articles or sources from all over the world. Yet the global knowledge economy is still marked by its history. </p>
<p>The former colonial nations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – the rich countries of Europe and North America which are collectively called the global North (normally considered to include the West and the first world, the North contains a quarter of the world’s population but <a href="http://www.worldcentric.org/conscious-living/social-and-economic-injustice">controls 80% of income earned</a>) – are still central in the knowledge economy. But the story is not one simply of Northern dominance. A process of making knowledge in the South is underway.</p>
<p>European colonisers encountered many sophisticated and complex knowledge systems among the colonised. These had their own intellectual workforces, their own environmental, geographical, historical and medical sciences. They also had their own means of developing knowledge. Sometimes the colonisers tried to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24805692?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">obliterate these knowledges</a>.</p>
<p>In other instances colonisers appropriated local knowledge, for instance in agriculture, fisheries and mining. Sometimes they recognised and even honoured other knowledge systems and intellectuals. This was the case among some of the British in India, and was the early form of “<a href="https://www.rarebooksocietyofindia.org/book_archive/196174216674_10154888789381675.pdf">Orientalism</a>”, the study of people and cultures from the East.</p>
<p>In the past few decades, there’s been more critique of global knowledge inequalities and the global North’s dominance. There have also been shifts in knowledge production patterns; some newer disciplines have stepped away from old patterns of inequality.</p>
<p>These issues are examined in a new book, <em><a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/knowledge-and-global-power/">Knowledge and Global Power: Making new sciences in the South</a></em> (published by Wits University Press), which I co-authored with Fran Collyer, Raewyn Connell and Joao Maia. The focus is especially on those areas where old patterns are not being replicated, so the study chooses climate change, gender and HIV and AIDS as three new areas of knowledge production in which new voices from the South might be prominent.</p>
<h2>Local knowledge for local purposes</h2>
<p>The critique levelled against inequalities in global knowledge production takes several forms. One is “post-colonial theory” – theories inspired from India and the Arab world that analyse unequal power relations in the period after the formal end of colonialism, focusing on the subordination or marginalisation of populations formerly living in colonial contexts. </p>
<p>The “de-colonial” movement is another example. It explores ways of exposing modernist assumptions and developing new ways of thinking that cut loose from knowledge inequalities. It draws its lessons from the colonisation of Latin America. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264886/original/file-20190320-93036-1mtcawj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264886/original/file-20190320-93036-1mtcawj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264886/original/file-20190320-93036-1mtcawj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264886/original/file-20190320-93036-1mtcawj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264886/original/file-20190320-93036-1mtcawj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264886/original/file-20190320-93036-1mtcawj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264886/original/file-20190320-93036-1mtcawj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264886/original/file-20190320-93036-1mtcawj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&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="source">Wits University Press</span></span>
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<p>There has also been a call from some for a return to indigenous knowledge. But here the consequences have not always been happy, as seen in South Africa’s attempt to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic by using local healing practices. Former president Thabo Mbeki saw traditional medicine as <a href="http://archive.sajs.co.za/index.php/SAJS/article/view/631">the antithesis</a> of an exploitative Western pharmaceutical industry. He rejected the use of antiretroviral drugs rather than making these approaches mutually supporting. It was a devastating mistake that cost as many as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19186354">330 000 people</a> their lives. </p>
<p>Scholars like Paulin Hountondji from Benin <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=RXGElQF_TxoC&pg=PR4&lpg=PR4&dq=%5BPaulin+J+Hountondji+(2002)+The+Struggle+for+Meaning.+Reflections+on+Philosophy,+Culture+and+Democracy+in+Africa.+(Athens,+Ohio:+Ohio+University+Press).%5D&source=bl&ots=35AvfYYQiy&sig=ACfU3U0csPu1Ze6xTAnba7BmdrNzICfYoA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiS_-eKpZXhAhWJUxUIHVGeC-gQ6AEwCnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=%5BPaulin%20J%20Hountondji%20(2002)%20The%20Struggle%20for%20Meaning.%20Reflections%20on%20Philosophy%2C%20Culture%20and%20Democracy%20in%20Africa.%20(Athens%2C%20Ohio%3A%20Ohio%20University%20Press).%5D&f=false">emphasise</a> the active processes of knowledge production that arise in colonised societies and which have a capacity to speak beyond them. The emphasis in this concept is on communication between and within knowledge systems, rather than on separation.</p>
<p>Producing knowledge for local purposes, rather than for export into a global knowledge economy, has long been part of the work of intellectuals in colonial and post-colonial societies. This may be for activist purposes, such as the <a href="https://archive.org/stream/inserviceofrache0000mars_p4k5/inserviceofrache0000mars_p4k5_djvu.txt">nationalist histories</a> written to support the struggles for independence. Or it may <a href="https://www.africancentreforcities.net/rogue-urbanism-emergent-african-cities-2/">respond to problems</a> that hardly exist in the global North, such as the social issues in post-colonial mega-cities. Recognising local agendas for knowledge formation is important even in the mainstream knowledge economy.</p>
<p>And yet, arguably, the authority of Northern-centred knowledge formations is growing. </p>
<h2>Knowledge production</h2>
<p>This is where the idea of <a href="http://www.raewynconnell.net/p/theory.html">Southern theory</a> emerges. Coined by one of the book’s authors, Professor Raewyn Connell, this refers to social thought from the societies of the global South.</p>
<p>Alternative approaches to knowledge exist and are being produced. A wealth of new knowledge has emerged from colonised peoples, from settler populations, and from post-colonial societies grappling with dependence, violence and new forms of exploitation. </p>
<p>The demonstrated existence of Northern dominance and influence does not imply Southern passivity, nor uncontested domination. Knowledge production is now negotiated, and creative ways of participating are devised. </p>
<p>Southern knowledge workers still have to work within a global knowledge labour system which endorses, for example, the power of publishing houses, top-ranked universities and highly cited researchers. But they are also able to exercise control over their own labours. They do this by creating local research programmes, founding research centres, and linking research to public policy that addresses local problems in distinctive ways.</p>
<p>Among knowledge workers in the South, Southern Tier work forces, there is evidence of change and contestation, the development of local knowledges, and complex interweaving of Northern paradigms and Southern Tier experiences. The global North’s share of scientific publications has declined recently, and the Southern Tier has participated in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0011392116680020">the changing balance</a>. These changes show that the structure of the global economy of knowledge is not static.</p>
<h2>The value of connection</h2>
<p>The research for this book found that many of respondents value connections around the global periphery. Brazilians seek links with researchers across Latin America and in Africa; South Africans connect across their continent; Australians develop links in the Asia-Pacific region. </p>
<p>The connections that have already been made show a practical basis for the logic of connecting knowledge projects between North and South and between South and South. In a neoliberal context marked by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/science-funding-crisis">increasing cutbacks in research funding</a>, it will have to be intellectual workers themselves, and social movements in the global South, who push for new forms of solidarity in global knowledge production that contribute to development and freedom, peace and democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113943/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Morrell received funding from the Global Arenas of Knowledge project led by Raewyn Connell and Fran Collyer and funded by the Australian Research Council (DP130103487).</span></em></p>
In the past few decades, there’s been more critique of global knowledge inequalities and the global North’s dominance.
Robert Morrell, Director: Next Generation Professoriate, Office of the Vice-Chancellor, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/102217
2019-01-28T13:33:47Z
2019-01-28T13:33:47Z
How a partnership is closing the door on “parachute” research in Africa
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234623/original/file-20180903-41723-1erdmr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When the wheels of partnership turn smoothly, Africa can benefit enormously.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EtiAmmos/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(18)30239-0">growing condemnation</a> of “parachute research” among the global scientific community. This refers to the practice of scientists and research groups from the global north conducting research and collecting data in poorer parts of the world, publishing their findings in prestigious journals – and giving little or no credit to their local collaborators.</p>
<p>The respected journal Lancet Global Health recently published <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(18)30239-0">an editorial</a> damning the approach. It drew immediate reactions from all over the world. James Smith from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine acknowledged the problem. But, he <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(18)30315-2">cautioned</a>, researchers from developed countries have a role in shaping health discussions through high impact publications.</p>
<p>A group of malnutrition researchers based at the University of Malawi’s College of Medicine, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(18)30324-3">weighed in</a> to share their experience. They’ve established a body, the <a href="http://chainnetwork.org/">Childhood Acute Illness and Nutrition Network</a>. It emphasises north-south collaboration and works to avoid “parachute” research. </p>
<p>More recently, Professor Jimmy Volmink and colleagues <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673618323456?via%3Dihub">expressed concern</a> about equity in collaborations between global health researchers in low-income and middle-income countries and academics in high-income countries. They noted that these partnerships often result in disproportionate benefits for the northern partners who assume more prominent authorship positions in joint publications. </p>
<p>For the past 15 years my colleagues and I have been <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(18)30342-5">doing work</a> that we believe is important in this debate. We are involved in <a href="http://www.edctp.org/">an organisation</a> that focuses on partnerships. We believe that our model of global health partnership and international collaboration is closing the door to parachute researchers and those who pursue a parasitic rather than symbiotic approach to research in and about Africa.</p>
<p>We are not suggesting that researchers from the global north ought to stay out of Africa. Their contributions and the reach they enjoy into high impact journals can help the continent enormously. The problem arises when local researchers are sidelined and when no capacity building or skills development occurs. It’s also problematic when data is not shared with local researchers to further their work in communities.</p>
<p>These are some of the lessons we’ve learned in the 15 years since the <a href="http://www.edctp.org/">European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership</a> (EDCTP) was established by the European Union. </p>
<h2>Setting up a partnership</h2>
<p>The partnership was a response to the global health crisis caused by three major poverty-related diseases: HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Our scope has increased significantly to include neglected infectious diseases, emerging infections, diarrhoeal diseases and lower respiratory tract infections. </p>
<p>Today there are 30 participating states, 16 of which are in Africa. These include Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. </p>
<p>With a significant investment of €683 million from the European Union, matched by our participating states, this partnership model represents one of equality and inclusiveness. Each participating state is represented in the General Assembly, which governs the organisation.</p>
<p>The partnership is in its second phase. Over the past five years EDCTP has invested €447.6 m in 193 grants related broadly to clinical trials and career development have been funded. What’s important is that 62% of the funding has been allocated to 226 institutions in Africa. This is valuable because more resources are needed to strengthen Africa’s generally weak research infrastructure and technical capacity.</p>
<p>On the career development front, our fellowship recipients must be a resident of, or be willing to relocate to, a sub-Saharan African country. And when it comes to clinical trials, collaboration is not just expected: it’s a rule. A minimum of three independent research institutions – two in European partner states and one in Africa – must be involved in any project that’s considered for funding.</p>
<p>This eligibility criteria encourages European institutions to establish collaborations with those in Africa. </p>
<h2>Positive shifts</h2>
<p>There have been really encouraging shifts over the past 15 years that suggest genuine collaboration is happening. When we first started, more than 70% of the African institutions involved in successful applications were from countries with well-established health research institutions. These included South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. And the principal investigators from Africa were mostly men.</p>
<p>However, the situation is changing. More recent successful grant applications have been more inclusive. Central and West African institutions are featuring more frequently. And a greater proportion of principal investigators from the continent are women. </p>
<p>The collaboration our partnership demands has produced great results in the real world. In 2017, we funded two large consortia to conduct research about emerging and re-emerging epidemics. They also provided capacity development to prepare African researchers to respond effectively to disease outbreaks.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.alerrt.global/">Both</a> <a href="http://regist2.virology-education.com/presentations/2018/ICREID/19_pandora.pdf">consortia</a> involve more African than European organisations. One is led by a woman researcher from the Republic of Congo.</p>
<h2>Benefits for all</h2>
<p>Of course, not all research collaboration can be identical. But our experiences suggest that a few things are necessary to ensure everyone benefits genuinely from the results of collaborative research. </p>
<p>These include good data collection and data sharing infrastructure. Proper training for researchers from the global south in data collection and analysis is also crucial. So too, is fair representation of research partners from various research sites in both publications and subsequent meetings where the results and implications of the research are discussed.</p>
<p><em>Shingai Machingaidze, EDCTP Project Officer and a PhD student at the University of Cape Town, contributed to this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102217/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Moses John Bockarie works for EDCTP. He previously received funding from the UK Department for International Development. He is hosted by the SAMRC.</span></em></p>
It’s all too common for local scholars to be sidelined in what are supposed to be genuine research partnerships.
Moses John Bockarie, Adjunct professor, Njala University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/104963
2018-10-17T11:43:03Z
2018-10-17T11:43:03Z
Why the World Bank’s optimism about global poverty misses the point
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240995/original/file-20181017-41153-1bv35dq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A different measure of poverty shows 70% of the world's poor live in what the World Bank considers middle-income countries. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Onome Oghene</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The World Bank’s latest annual report on <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/poverty-and-shared-prosperity?cid=EXT_WBSocialShare_EXT&ogImage=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.worldbank.org%2Fcontent%2Fdam%2Fphotos%2F780x439%2F2018%2Foct-1%2FEPD2.png">poverty and shared prosperity</a> has an unsurprisingly positive message that only 10% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty in 2015, which is the most recent year that available data allows for global poverty estimates to be made. </p>
<p>As World Bank President Jim Yong Kim points out in the foreword to the report, this is “the lowest poverty rate in recorded history”. </p>
<p>This is a story that we have become accustomed to hearing from the Bank, and other significant participants in the debate about poverty and development in the global South (Asia, Africa, and Latin America). But does the story actually hold true? For example, the World Bank measures extreme poverty in terms of the number of people who live on less than USD$1.90 a day. But is this in fact a meaningful measurement of poverty? </p>
<p>World Bank poverty estimates have come in for a lot of criticism. For example, Jason Hickel, an anthropologist at the London School of Economics, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/111/1113531/the-divide/9781786090034.html">has pointed out</a> that there’s often a large gap between national poverty lines and the international poverty line stipulated by the bank. </p>
<p>For example, more than 55% of South Africa’s population lives below the country’s upper poverty line, of R1,138 (USD$80) a month. But, according to the World Bank, only 18.85% of the South African population lives in poverty. This suggests that the international poverty lined touted by the World Bank systematically underestimates the extent of global poverty.</p>
<p>This point is partially acknowledged in this year’s report. Accordingly, the World Bank proposes new and higher poverty lines - USD$3.20 and USD$5.50 a day, respectively. According to the report, almost half the world’s population lives below the USD $5.50 a day poverty line. However, we need to go further than this – indeed, the World Bank’s widely touted story of historically low poverty levels must be rejected.</p>
<p>If we are to have a serious debate about world poverty on <a href="http://www.un.org/en/events/povertyday/">End Poverty Day</a>, we have to start by acknowledging that the global problem of poverty is far more extensive than World Bank rhetoric would have us believe. Two big factors need to be confronted. The first is that the majority of the world’s poor live in countries that have experienced strong economic growth. The second is that the growth strategies these countries have practised create and reproduce poverty. </p>
<h2>Unequal distribution</h2>
<p>The World Bank attributes the supposed historical decline in poverty in large part to the rising wealth of several Asian countries. But, this is a problematic argument. In his recent book <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/global-poverty-9780198703525?cc=za&lang=en&">Global Poverty</a>, development economist Andy Sumner shows how a new geography of poverty has emerged in the global South.</p>
<p>Whether we use monetary estimates – Sumner uses a poverty line of $2.50 a day – or estimates of multidimensional poverty; that is, poverty measured according to health indicators, education levels, and economic standards of living – as many as 70% of the world’s poor currently live in what the World Bank refers to as middle-income countries. </p>
<p>As Sumner points out, poverty in middle-income countries cannot be attributed to an absolute lack of resources. These are countries that have experienced strong economic growth since the 1990s. What it boils down to in middle-income countries like <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/26/africa/nigeria-overtakes-india-extreme-poverty-intl/index.html">India</a>,<a href="https://theconversation.com/beating-poverty-needs-partnerships-and-collaboration-not-just-money-101145">Nigeria</a>, and <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/the-illusion-of-brazils-incomeequality/article37536515/">Brazil</a> is the issue of distribution. </p>
<p>The economic growth that has lifted countries from low-income status to middle-income status is profoundly unequally distributed. As a result, large parts of the populations in these countries are excluded from the benefits that accrue from this growth.</p>
<p>This in turn has implications for how we think about growth strategies and poverty reduction in the global South.</p>
<h2>Global growth and development</h2>
<p>Much of the economic growth that has lifted countries from low-income status to middle-income status has resulted from the emergence of global production networks and global value chains since the late 1970s. Poorer countries have been integrated into these networks in large part due to their large reservoirs of cheap labour. It is this process of industrialisation that has turned low-income countries into middle-income countries. </p>
<p>But if global production networks come with so many developmental benefits, why is it that world poverty is concentrated in countries that have experienced economic growth precisely because they are integrated in these networks? To understand this paradox, it is important to remember that global production networks are comprised of different value tiers, and that different countries and different groups capture different amounts of the value that is created in these networks.</p>
<p>This obviously leads to a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/review-of-international-studies/article/poverty-reduction-through-liberalisation-neoliberalism-and-the-myth-of-global-convergence/FAC3F9EDA9C6B87938804D260B795412">reproduction of inequality</a> – countries in the global South tend to be integrated in lower value tiers. </p>
<p>This is evident in the fact that the distribution of national incomes and wealth at a world scale is still characterised by a pronounced North-South hierarchy. But it is more important still to be aware that countries in the global South that have witnessed strong economic growth have also experienced marked escalations in national levels of inequality. In India in 2016, for example, the richest 10% of the population received 55% of all income. This is an increase of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/india-wealth-inequality-growing-rapidly-180125084201143.html">more than 20% since 1980</a>.</p>
<p>This pattern of development clearly shows how poverty is a matter of distribution that is related to the kind of employment opportunities that are created when southern countries are embedded in global value chains. The factory jobs that are established when transnational corporations set up shop in countries like Mexico or Vietnam are fundamentally precarious. And it is precarious workers who capture the least of the value that is created in global production networks. This is why <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745335995/southern-insurgency/">precarious workers live in poverty</a> in middle-income countries in the global South.</p>
<p>What’s clear from this is that we have to ask ourselves what a development policy based on redistribution in favour of the working classes in the global South might look like – because that, ultimately, is the key to ending poverty in an unequal world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104963/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alf Gunvald Nilsen receives funding from the Research Council of Norway. </span></em></p>
The global poverty plot is thicker than what the World Bank would have us believe.
Alf Gunvald Nilsen, Associate Professor of Development Studies, University of Agder
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/99570
2018-07-29T08:28:49Z
2018-07-29T08:28:49Z
Global South scholars are missing from European and US journals. What can be done about it
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228380/original/file-20180719-142432-15euskm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Global South-based scholars are often not part of major debates and conversations.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Studies have shown that scholars in the global South are under represented in top international peer-reviewed <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41287-016-0002-2">social</a> and <a href="https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6939-5-5">medical</a> sciences journals. </p>
<p>The global South refers to African, Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries who are also members of the <a href="http://www.g77.org/doc/index.html">Group of 77</a>. The intergovernmental organisation of mainly developing countries is used to identify countries in the South. The global North includes the <a href="http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/">Group of 8</a> and the five permanent members of the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/sc/members/">UN Security Council</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bup/ejpg/2018/00000001/f0020001/art00003;jsessionid=bgeeaie53s7a0.x-ic-live-03#">Our own analysis</a> of gender and politics journals shows scholars in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East are missing from leading journals published in the US and Europe. We found that between 2008 and 2017 less than 3% of 947 full length articles in four gender and politics journals published in the global North were written by scholars based in the global South.</p>
<p>Researchers based in the global North have a wider global reach and are generally judged to be at the forefront of <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/430311a">knowledge production and dissemination</a>. Meanwhile, South-based scholars are often not part of major debates and conversations in their field. This points to a severe imbalance in the production of new knowledge.</p>
<p>But all countries in the South are not alike. We found that scholars at three universities in South Africa (Rhodes University, University of Cape Town, and the University of the Witwatersrand) published the most articles followed by researchers at four universities in India. Surprisingly, scholars from large countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Nigeria have not published articles in these journals.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2016/10/academic-debate-african-universities/">causes</a> of this under-representation are many. In Africa, where we both conduct research, it has been attributed to factors such as poor funding for universities, heavy teaching loads, and the incentives faculty face; many universities do not adequately reward research.</p>
<p>But it’s more than institutional constraints that contribute to the under-representation of scholars based in Africa and in other regions in the South. Even when South-based scholars publish in journals based in the North, they still remain on the periphery. Editorial board members continue to be <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/115/460/466/2195242">overwhelmingly based in the North</a> and articles published by Africa-based scholars are <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/academic-standards-or-academic-imperialism-zimbabwean-perceptions-of-hegemonic-power-in-the-global-construction-of-knowledge/78F25A9DAE76942732A8813941592FEA">less likely to be cited</a> and thus, generally don’t have a major influence on the literature. </p>
<p>We argue that the exclusion of scholars based in the global South undermines the quality of scholarship and sends a negative message to students. But we also argue that there are solutions to the problem.</p>
<h2>Undermining scholarship</h2>
<p>An academy in which large groups are absent is one in which fewer research questions are asked and less diverse research tools used. For <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bup/ejpg/2018/00000001/f0020001/art00003;jsessionid=bgeeaie53s7a0.x-ic-live-03#">example</a>, in the study of gender and politics, scholars based in the South have emphasised the importance of studying the effects of the global political and economic order on women’s lives in the South. But this attention to the global order is often missing from studies of gender and politics in the global South. </p>
<p>Second, it signals to students, including students in the global South, that South-based scholars do not have a central role to play in knowledge production. This has implications for how students generally perceive and engage with scholarship that is produced in the global South.</p>
<h2>Solutions</h2>
<p>Myriad solutions have been proposed to address the under representation of scholars based in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. </p>
<p>In Africa, these include the need for institutions to remove barriers such as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/24486132.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A3953f1ef3f372f942bf97f9632f681ce">heavy teaching loads</a>, <a href="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/197617b777471837e4d40a2ab/files/April_2016_FINAL.pdf?mc_cid=9eee9e4eaa&mc_eid=7581f5f85b">poor infrastructure</a>, and <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/education/feature/higher-education-africa-who-pays.html">inadequate research funding</a>, that make research and publishing a challenge for many scholars. African governments have to <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/article/rethinking-knowledge-production-in-africa/3477BB4AC39ECFD1622809452C8817FE">invest</a> in African universities and to implement policies that facilitate research. </p>
<p>The global academic community also has a role to play. Editors should invite contributions from scholars who might not normally submit papers to these journals. And journal editors can invite scholars based in the global South to join editorial boards and to edit journals.</p>
<p>Among other things, the presence of editors and editorial board members in the global South will make it easier to identify promising research. </p>
<p>Another intervention is that research organisations should provide funding to scholars in the South to help give them space to develop their ideas and receive feedback from their peers. Organisations such as the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and the American Political Science Association (APSA) have made some progress in this area. CODESRIA has provided research funding and <a href="http://web.apsanet.org/africa/">APSA-Africa Workshops</a> have been forums where African scholars gathered to share and receive feedback on their research from their peers. </p>
<p>While, in general, financial support is limited and may be on the decline, public agencies and private foundations still have the choice in where and how to allocate their funds.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99570/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 organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The exclusion of scholars based in the global South undermines their work.
Peace A. Medie, Research Fellow, Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy, University of Ghana
Alice J. Kang, Associate Professor, Political Science and Ethnic Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/95262
2018-07-23T10:24:20Z
2018-07-23T10:24:20Z
As emerging economies bring their citizens online, global trust in internet media is changing
<p>Digital technology was dreamed of as the ultimate connector and leveler, the ideal <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/magazine/its-a-flat-world-after-all.html">destroyer of borders and boundaries</a>. The <a href="https://digiday.com/marketing/media-trends-defining-world-cup-5-charts/">digital community that assembled itself</a> around this summer’s FIFA World Cup shows one example of a true global village, in which people share the same obsessions on the digital planet. That’s a significant contrast to the online communities leaning toward <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/science.358.6361.317-g">nativism and anti-globalization</a>.</p>
<p>But that’s not the only split in what was imagined as a link to a true global community. In our multi-year study of digital evolution around the world, “<a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/digitalplanet/">The Digital Planet</a>,” my collaborators and I identified <a href="https://hbr.org/2017/07/60-countries-digital-competitiveness-indexed">divisions among internet users</a> in different countries – largely mirroring differences in economic development. More digitally evolved nations, like those in Western Europe, North America, Japan, Singapore or New Zealand, are in what we called the “Digital North.” Russia, China, India and others in South East Asia, Africa and the Middle East or Latin America are in what we called the “Digital South.” We found that the Digital South, broadly speaking, not only has greater momentum, in terms of embrace of digital technologies, but also greater trust in these technologies.</p>
<p>Some recent studies of users point to three emerging trends driving a deeper wedge between the North and the South.</p>
<h2>Privacy concerns are rising</h2>
<p>Around the world, <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/27/americans-complicated-feelings-about-social-media-in-an-era-of-privacy-concerns/">people are more worried about privacy</a> – which isn’t surprising, given the stream of revelations relating to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/timeline-facebook-s-privacy-issues-its-responses-n859651">Facebook users’ data</a> and commercial security breaches. More than half of global internet users are <a href="https://www.cigionline.org/internet-survey-2018">more concerned about their online privacy</a> this year than they were a year ago – including threats from cybercriminals, governments and social media companies.</p>
<p>Yet <a href="https://www.cigionline.org/internet-survey-2018">privacy concerns climbed much higher in Digital South</a> countries than they did in the Digital North. For example, 58 percent of internet users in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa were more concerned now than a year ago; in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, only 43 percent were more concerned in 2018 than they had been in 2017. Part of this is because the Digital North already had a higher level of concern about privacy – the South is clearly catching up.</p>
<h2>Trading data for services</h2>
<p>Perhaps related, a recent Asia-focused survey found a clear divergence on the issue of <a href="http://www.experian.com.hk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Digital-Consumer-View-2018.pdf">users giving up their personal data in exchange for convenience</a> and free digital services. People in China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand – all part of the Digital South – tend to be more willing to let companies collect and aggregate their data as part of using online services. In the Digital Northern countries of Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and Australia, however, people are less willing to make that trade-off.</p>
<p>In fact, 94 percent of Chinese customers said they would agree to let businesses share or reuse their personal data. But only 60 percent of New Zealanders agreed. Of course, many of those who say they wouldn’t share their data in exchange for online services are doing so – just less willingly.</p>
<h2>Shifting attitudes toward news on social media</h2>
<p>Beyond concerns about their own data are worries about truth and accuracy in online information. People in wealthy countries tend to get <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2018/01/11/people-in-poorer-countries-just-as-likely-to-use-social-media-for-news-as-those-in-wealthier-countries/pg_2018-01-11_global-media-habits_4-00/">more of their news online</a> more frequently than people in poorer nations. And <a href="http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2018/overview-key-findings-2018/">more than half of all people agree or strongly agree</a> that they are concerned about what is real and what is fake online.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2018/01/11/people-in-poorer-countries-just-as-likely-to-use-social-media-for-news-as-those-in-wealthier-countries/pg_2018-01-11_global-media-habits_3-01/"><img width="417" height="845" src="http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/01/09111608/PG_2018.01.11_Global-Media-Habits_3-01.png" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="Chart showing that people in emerging, developing economies are as likely to use social media for news as those in advanced ones"></a></p><a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2018/01/11/people-in-poorer-countries-just-as-likely-to-use-social-media-for-news-as-those-in-wealthier-countries/pg_2018-01-11_global-media-habits_3-01/">
</a><p><a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2018/01/11/people-in-poorer-countries-just-as-likely-to-use-social-media-for-news-as-those-in-wealthier-countries/pg_2018-01-11_global-media-habits_3-01/">Yet </a><a href="http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2018/overview-key-findings-2018/">only 23 percent of those surveyed</a> say they trust news they get from social media. And people in both the Digital North and the Digital South are <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2018/01/11/people-in-poorer-countries-just-as-likely-to-use-social-media-for-news-as-those-in-wealthier-countries/">equally likely to get news from social media</a>. That’s partly a result of <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2018/01/11/people-in-poorer-countries-just-as-likely-to-use-social-media-for-news-as-those-in-wealthier-countries/">decreasing social media use for news</a> in the Digital North, as well <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2018/01/11/people-in-poorer-countries-just-as-likely-to-use-social-media-for-news-as-those-in-wealthier-countries/">as a rise in news on social platforms like WhatsApp</a> and Instagram in many parts of the developing world.</p>
<p>The emergence of these new platforms is creating a host of new problems – which, in many ways, are more devastating than the problems created in the Digital North. For example, in India, rumors carried over WhatsApp have given rise to a <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/a-lynching-in-digital-south-whatsapp-rumours-facebook-5262350/">spate of lynchings</a>. Users in the Digital South are new to such media and have not yet had the opportunity to make distinctions between what is real and what is false. Because <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44709103">WhatsApp messages are encrypted</a>, it is harder to track and control how these malicious forms of fake news spread. That comes with a real human cost: At least 25 people <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/india-engineer-latest-victim-of-mob-lynchings-fueled-by-whatsapp-rumors/a-44679902">have reportedly been killed</a> across India since May by mobs encouraged by rumors over WhatsApp.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228075/original/file-20180717-44097-1mkm0nx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228075/original/file-20180717-44097-1mkm0nx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228075/original/file-20180717-44097-1mkm0nx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228075/original/file-20180717-44097-1mkm0nx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228075/original/file-20180717-44097-1mkm0nx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228075/original/file-20180717-44097-1mkm0nx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228075/original/file-20180717-44097-1mkm0nx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228075/original/file-20180717-44097-1mkm0nx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peru’s national soccer team had more Facebook engagement than any other World Cup team.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/federacionperuanadefutbol/">Screenshot by The Conversation</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Collectively, these emerging trends suggest the Digital South’s online use is developing and evolving very differently from the path the Digital North has taken. The digital fervor around the recently concluded World Cup reflects this: The national soccer team of Peru, a part of the Digital South, had <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2018/06/15/world-cup-2018-who-are-social-media-winners.html">more Facebook profile</a> likes, comments and shares per post than any other World Cup team. And the Facebook and Twitter profiles of Digital Southerner <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2018/06/15/world-cup-2018-who-are-social-media-winners.html">Mohamed Salah of Egypt</a> had the most fan engagement among all the players. And neither Peru nor Egypt is a top-ranked team on the soccer pitch. </p>
<p>Then consider China and India, neither of which had a team in the World Cup. A <a href="https://digiday.com/marketing/media-trends-defining-world-cup-5-charts/">quarter of active internet users</a> around the world planned to watch the World Cup online – but that number was <a href="https://digiday.com/marketing/media-trends-defining-world-cup-5-charts/">nearly twice as high among internet users in China and India</a>. That’s the scale of change coming as the Digital South continues to come online.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95262/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bhaskar Chakravorti has founded and directs the Institute for Business in the Global Context at Fletcher/Tufts that receives funding from Mastercard, Microsoft and the Gates Foundation. He is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Brookings India and a Senior Advisor on Digital Inclusion at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth.</span></em></p>
Three trends suggest people in less developed nations – who are coming online in greater numbers – use and trust the internet very differently those in more developed economies.
Bhaskar Chakravorti, Dean of Global Business, The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/95406
2018-04-24T18:40:52Z
2018-04-24T18:40:52Z
Globalization may actually be better for the environment
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216124/original/file-20180424-57617-1xppu8q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">While some argue globalization has been bad for the environment, the move towards deglobalization could spell serious trouble for climate. This photo from 2014 shows smoke streams from the chimneys of a coal-fired power station in Germany. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The increasing pace of globalization and how it affects the environment has been a major global concern. Although <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/agricultural-and-resource-economics-review/article/metaanalysis-of-environmental-kuznets-curve-studies/A6CCAB64CF5F52C27D19D54EA982D178">the research</a> has been fraught with contrasting results, there are many who <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/the-dark-side-of-globalization-why-seattles-1999-protesters-were-right/282831/">strongly believe</a> that increased globalization has been harmful to the environment.</p>
<p>A large number of environmentalists who support this view base <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/archive-international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/globalisation-dark-side/blog/57141/">their arguments</a> on the premise that globalization leads to an increase in global demand, resulting in increased production. This indirectly contributes to the exploitation of the environment and the depletion of natural resources.</p>
<p>Amid rising environmental concerns, an important question is whether <em>deglobalization</em> would have the opposite impact on the environment. Put differently, if globalization is harmful, then should we expect that the current deglobalization trend will be less harmful for the environment?</p>
<p>It’s an important question to ask right now considering the mounting anti-globalization sentiments that have engulfed the Global North. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216030/original/file-20180423-94157-1ax35i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216030/original/file-20180423-94157-1ax35i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216030/original/file-20180423-94157-1ax35i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216030/original/file-20180423-94157-1ax35i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216030/original/file-20180423-94157-1ax35i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216030/original/file-20180423-94157-1ax35i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216030/original/file-20180423-94157-1ax35i.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">A demonstrator takes pictures during a protest against the so-called CETA trade deal between Canada and the European Union outside the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, in February 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We have not only witnessed <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/politics/eu_referendum/results">Brexit</a>, the election of <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-victory-1.3842225">Donald Trump</a>, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/24/eu-trade-deal-with-canada-collapses-as-belgium-refuses-to-sign">Belgian opposition</a> to the trade agreement between the European Union and Canada in the recent past, but more recently, we have seen anti-globalization sentiments heating up even in the United States, once the strongest architect and proponent of globalization in the world.</p>
<p>This is resulting in uncertainty and a near stalemate for NAFTA, steel and aluminium tariff hikes and the potential trade war with China.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"969525362580484098"}"></div></p>
<h2>Is globalization bad for the environment?</h2>
<p>The adverse effect of globalization on the environment is supported by what’s known as <a href="https://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/11/labour-standards">the race-to-the-bottom hypothesis.</a> This school of thought argues that increased gains from globalization are achieved at the expense of the environment because more open economies adopt looser environmental standards. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216005/original/file-20180423-94157-16h6afs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216005/original/file-20180423-94157-16h6afs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216005/original/file-20180423-94157-16h6afs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216005/original/file-20180423-94157-16h6afs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216005/original/file-20180423-94157-16h6afs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216005/original/file-20180423-94157-16h6afs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216005/original/file-20180423-94157-16h6afs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cows stand by the side of a road as a truck drives through smog near New Delhi, India, in November 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/R S Iyer)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Those who support this bleak view of globalization argue it creates global competition, resulting in a boost in economic activities that deplete the environment and its natural resources. </p>
<p>The increased economic activity leads to greater emissions of industrial pollutants and more environmental degradation. The pressure on international firms to remain competitive forces them to adopt cost-saving production techniques that can be environmentally harmful.</p>
<h2>Deglobalization may worsen emissions</h2>
<p>But in fact, deglobalization may not necessarily translate into reduced emissions of harmful gases such as CO₂, SO₂, NO₂, but could actually worsen it. Through what’s known as the technique effect, we know globalization can trigger environmentally friendly technological innovations that can be transferred from countries with strict environmental regulations to pollution havens. </p>
<p>Globalization doesn’t just entail the movement of manufactured goods, but also the transfer of intermediate, capital goods and technologies. That means multinational corporations with clean state-of-the-art technologies can transfer their green know-how to countries with low environmental standards. </p>
<p>It’s <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304387802000846">widely recognized</a> that multinational firms use cleaner types of energy than local firms, and therefore have more energy-efficient production processes. Deglobalization could mean these environmentally friendly technologies aren’t passed on to countries that are trying to go green.</p>
<p>The rise of anti-globalization forces also means less specialization in sectors in which countries have comparative advantages. </p>
<p>This can create an inefficient allocation of resources that leads to the dissipation of scarce economic and natural resources. If every country has to produce to meet its domestic demand, in other words, it could result in duplication in production processes and therefore an increase in local emissions. </p>
<h2>Iran sanctions backfire for the environment</h2>
<p>Since some countries have weaker environmental standards than others, this could possibly worsen global emissions. </p>
<p>A good example of this is Iran, which has been slapped with economic sanctions, making the country less integrated in the world economy. The result has been domestic production that’s wreaked immense havoc on the environment. As result of import bans of crude oil, for example, Iran started refining its own crude oil that contains 10 times the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2014/nov/21/iran-environmental-consequences-of-sanctions">level of pollutants of the oil it used to import</a>.</p>
<p>Globalization has another benefit — it’s been at the forefront of creating public awareness about labour and environmental standards through the platforms of international activities such as fair trade and eco labels.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-world-needs-more-global-citizens-84680">Why the world needs more global citizens</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The success of this environmental public awareness has resulted in consumer preferences evolving. Producers are therefore able to build their customer base by producing eco-friendly products. </p>
<p>Without international trade, consumers would have limited choices, and could be forced to purchase only domestic goods that may have been produced under lax environmental standards.</p>
<h2>WTO and RTAs help protect the environment</h2>
<p>Globalization achieved through multilateral negotiations via the World Trade Organization has also demonstrated that although environmental protection is not part of the WTO’s core mandate, it has spurred enthusiasm within its member countries for sustainable development and environmentally friendly trade policies.</p>
<p>There are several WTO trade-related measures that are compatible with environmental protection and sustainable use of natural resources. For instance, the <a href="https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/envir_e/issu3_e.htm">green provisions</a> of the WTO direct countries to protect human, animal or plant life and conserve their exhaustible natural resources.</p>
<p>Apart from the WTO, regional trade agreements, known as RTAs, are another feature of globalization that promote environmentally sustainable policies. As countries seek to join RTAs, they are also made to simultaneously embrace environmental cooperation agreements. </p>
<p>Many countries, including Canada and those in the European Union, have developed national policies that stipulate that prior to signing any trade agreement, environmental impact assessments must be carried out. That means that any country that signs trade agreements with those countries must also automatically sign environmental cooperation deals.</p>
<h2>China leading while the U.S. lagging?</h2>
<p>We’ve seen over the years how countries like China, once pollution havens, are <a href="http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2017/12/11/chinas-pollution-crackdown-business-impacts.html">making tremendous gains in reducing their emissions</a>, especially after becoming more integrated into the world economy. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216125/original/file-20180424-57591-8obzc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216125/original/file-20180424-57591-8obzc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216125/original/file-20180424-57591-8obzc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216125/original/file-20180424-57591-8obzc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216125/original/file-20180424-57591-8obzc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216125/original/file-20180424-57591-8obzc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216125/original/file-20180424-57591-8obzc1.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">Solar panels are seen near the power grid in northwestern China’s Ningxia Hui autonomous region in October 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Because of the incentives to increase global market access for its products, China has moved from the position of one of the world’s top polluters into a global leader spearheading the fight against climate change and pollution.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/china-in-climate-drivers-seat-after-trump-rejects-paris-78661">China in climate driver's seat after Trump rejects Paris</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In 2017, <a href="http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2017/12/11/chinas-pollution-crackdown-business-impacts.html">China closed down tens of thousands of factories</a> that were not complying with its environmental standards.</p>
<p>In contrast, we have seen a country like the U.S. slowly drifting away from the climate change fight in part because of the anti-globalization inclinations of Donald Trump. He pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement on climate change in keeping with his anti-globalization rhetoric during the 2016 U.S. election campaign.</p>
<p>Through its <a href="https://www.heartland.org/publications-resources/publications/an-america-first-energy-plan">America First Energy Plan</a>, the Trump administration has outlined its preference for polluting industries, the use of fossil fuels and the revival of the coal industry. This signals that deglobalizing countries may drift away from sustainable development practices towards industrial policies that are devastating to the environment.</p>
<p>As countries restrict international trade, the environment is likely at risk.</p>
<p>Deglobalization isolates countries, making them less likely to be responsible for the environment. The gains associated with globalization, on the other hand, can be used as effective bargaining strategies or an incentive to demand environmental accountability from countries hoping to benefit from global trading systems.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95406/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 organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Some experts argue globalization has been bad for the environment. But moving away from globalization could have other consequences that could be even more devastating for the environment.
Sylvanus Kwaku Afesorgbor, Assistant Professor, Agri-Food Trade and Policy, University of Guelph
Binyam Afewerk Demena, Teaching and research fellow, International Institute of Social Studies
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/88499
2017-12-12T22:55:31Z
2017-12-12T22:55:31Z
Outlining the global fault lines of the ‘slum’ narrative
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197319/original/file-20171201-17371-svywr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Slum in Paris, by the Pont des Poissonniers.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Bidonville_%C3%A0_Paris%2C_Pont_des_Poissonniers.jpg">André Feigeles/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article was published with the <a href="http://rfiea.fr/">Réseau français des instituts des études avancées</a> (RFIEA) in issue 31 of the bimonthly journal <a href="http://fellows.rfiea.fr/">Fellows</a> under the title <a href="http://fellows.rfiea.fr/dossier/megalopoles-villes-musees-bidonvilles-la-ville-au-xxie-siecle">“Mégalopoles, villes-musées, bidonvilles : la ville au XXIᵉ siècle”</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The French daily <em>Le Monde</em> recently ran an article with the headline <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2017/10/19/la-france-compte-plus-de-500-bidonvilles_5203014_3224.html">“The 570 slums that France doesn’t want you to see”</a>, drawing attention to the hundreds of informal settlements in France (113 in the Paris region alone) where 16,000 inhabitants live a marginal and precarious life.</p>
<p>In France, <a href="https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/actualites/A12128">evictions are legally prohibited</a> during the winter, from November to March. One of the unintended consequences of the law is that there is often a rush to remove squatter settlements just before the suspension comes into play, unleashing an even greater level of exclusion.</p>
<p>While the <em>Le Monde</em> article is instructive and can be deeply troubling for their readers, who as a majority would not associate anything so bleak with French urban reality, it also unwittingly plays into the narrative of the French state, which, as the French political scientist Thomas Aguilera observes, has consistently <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Migration-Squatting-and-Radical-Autonomy/Mudu-Chattopadhyay/p/book/9781138942127">invoked race and migration </a>to defamiliarise the poverty question. While the article interchangeably refers to slums and “illicit camps”, the former has been carefully avoided by the French authorities, who instead use “camps” or “squats” to disengage the slum as a political object.</p>
<p>The point here is not so much about our continued preoccupation with the term “slum”, a pejorative and debatable term that obliterates a wide range of settlements and meanings across the globe. Instead, it’s the fact that a major French media considers the emerging issue of poverty in France significant enough to merit a deeper analysis – that it’s not just a temporary manifestation but a broader structural change.</p>
<p>Even though academic debates are nuanced as to the extent to which slums can be seen as a constitutive dimension of urbanization, it cannot be denied that they – in whatever variegated forms they might appear – are an increasingly shared phenomenon across the global North and global South.</p>
<h2>The squat gone global</h2>
<p>What is being experienced as dispossession and displacement in the global North could well be closer to the American sociologist Saskia Sassen’s <a href="http://saskiasassen.com/PDFs/ASA%20Expul%20Trajectories%20Spring%202016.pdf">new logics of expulsions</a> – it’s happening at the edges of the system and may not be anywhere near the scale of what is seen in cities of the global South. However, the chronic vulnerability associated with urban poverty on both sides of the binary divide requires some honest examination. Thus, Alex Vasudevan, a geographer based at Oxford University, finds that there is an <a href="http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3197/1/VasudevanPIHG2015b.pdf">emerging geography of squats around the world</a>. While the distribution is uneven, understanding the phenomenon requires being aware of the political-theoretical constructs in the North and the South.</p>
<p>In this context, we need a relational rather than an absolute approach to our study of such settlements, of which slums are just one part, and whose frames of reference stretch across the global North and global South. Identifying points of overlap can provide a renewed reconceptualization of these precarious urban worlds. Such efforts must be able to not only accommodate the wide variety of informal settlements but also generate a deeper cross-referenced historiography, outlining the contemporary characterisations of this phenomenon.</p>
<p>As asserted by urban studies scholar Jane Jacobs, the kind of co-production of knowledge that we anticipate needs to be able to place side-by-side radically different and <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.891.1682&rep=rep1&type=pdf">even incompatible urban geographies</a>. Thus, while looking at the genealogy of informal settlements in European cities might be a useful project, what would be more radical is to bring them face to face with the phenomenon of squats in, say, North Africa and the Middle East, establishing connections across these putatively separate worlds and providing a global measure of poverty and inequality.</p>
<p>We see here an opportunity to resist producing another prosaic study of slums, and instead rethink some of the common biases against them, including the fact that while a considerable number of urban poor live in the slums, not all slum dwellers are poor, and more importantly, a significant proportion of the urban poor do not reside in the slums.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197316/original/file-20171201-17366-ww0w3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197316/original/file-20171201-17366-ww0w3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197316/original/file-20171201-17366-ww0w3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197316/original/file-20171201-17366-ww0w3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197316/original/file-20171201-17366-ww0w3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197316/original/file-20171201-17366-ww0w3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197316/original/file-20171201-17366-ww0w3g.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">Dharavi, an infamous ‘slum’ in Mumbai, is also one of its most prosperous economic zones, formal or informal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/imtfi/21655524715">Deepti KC and Mudita Tiwari/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<h2>Global cities or megacities ?</h2>
<p>Despite the postcolonial turn in urban studies, there is still a persistent developmentalist binary entrenched in a project of modernity, unfavourably contrasting the “megacities” of the global South – implicitly underdeveloped – with the superlative normativity of the “global city” in the North.</p>
<p>More recently, the emergence of a discourse emphasising the dispersed nature of global urbanism in both the North and South renders “megacities” and “global cities” strangely familiar to each other. What they share is a sense of planetary transformations, without the trappings of modernization if not globalization.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9l6zgy822DU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Artist Sudhir Patwardhan, known for his work on the social fabric of Indian cities (notably Mumbai) speaks at the Lalit Kala Academi, Chandigarh, 2013.</span></figcaption>
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<p>We can easily argue that Mumbai is a “global city” of the South and not just a city in the global South, including it in the roster of cities such as Istanbul, Mexico City and Sao Paolo, undermining the conventional list of European and American cities. This offers a better understanding of the scope of possibilities and invites us to embrace new challenges, in parallel with the dominant global urbanism agenda developed by international policymakers. However, these two ways of approaching the urban problem are yet to confront each other comfortably and risk contradicting each other.</p>
<p>In October 2016, UN-HABITAT launched its ambitious New Urban Agenda at the <a href="http://habitat3.org/">Habitat III conference</a> amid much promise of a post-development era where, as South African academic Susan Parnell has discussed, there is a real possibility of overcoming the very different epistemologies of <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956247815621473">urban and development studies</a>) which has resulted so far in a restricted understanding of slums and poverty.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197317/original/file-20171201-17354-fwvj24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197317/original/file-20171201-17354-fwvj24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197317/original/file-20171201-17354-fwvj24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197317/original/file-20171201-17354-fwvj24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197317/original/file-20171201-17354-fwvj24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197317/original/file-20171201-17354-fwvj24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197317/original/file-20171201-17354-fwvj24.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">A ‘slum’ in Soweto, South Africa, 2006.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanty_town#/media/File:Soweto_township.jpg">Matt-80/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By seeking to reconcile these two epistemologies, urban issues could emerge by and for themselves instead of being conceived as development objectives limited by sectoral boundaries. While initial reactions to these aspirations and endorsements have been cautious, if we aspire toward a productive outcome from this effort, especially in terms of rethinking important <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13604813.2011.609002">urban challenges</a> such as slums and megacities, there needs to be a clear resonance between global urbanism within urban studies and a policy-level <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X15002508">global urban agenda</a> (led by UN, World Bank and other international organizations), without compromising the heterodoxy of these emergent arguments. This task might seem like a tall order but nevertheless needs to be undertaken.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197835/original/file-20171205-23002-14t5ja7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197835/original/file-20171205-23002-14t5ja7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197835/original/file-20171205-23002-14t5ja7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197835/original/file-20171205-23002-14t5ja7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197835/original/file-20171205-23002-14t5ja7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197835/original/file-20171205-23002-14t5ja7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197835/original/file-20171205-23002-14t5ja7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>The network of the four institutes of RFIEA has welcomed more than 500 researchers from around the world since 2007. Discover their work on the site <a href="http://fellows.rfiea.fr/">Fellows</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88499/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pushpa Arabindoo ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>
Slums are an increasing common phenomenon across the global North and global South. To what extent could they be seen as an inherent part of the urbanisation process?
Pushpa Arabindoo, Senior Lecturer in Geography and Urban Design, UCL, Fellow 2017 - IEA de Paris, Institut d'études avancées de Paris (IEA) – RFIEA
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.