Journals at the University of Arizona
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Colonizing the atmosphere: a common concern without climate justice law?
No full textIn the new 'Age of the Anthropocene', the Earth's atmosphere, like other elements of Nature, is rapidly being colonized by a minority of the world's population, at no cost, threatening the security of all humanity and the stability of the planet. The development processes of the great emitters of greenhouse gases have transferred social and environmental costs to all the world population, especially the most impoverished ones. This article is a critical analysis of how the legal climate change regime continues to legitimize the onslaught on the atmosphere. It reflects on the need to move to a new "climate justice law", characterized by responsibilities and obligations centered on the prevention, repair, restoration and treatment of damage and related risks linked to climate change, while protecting human rights and the atmosphere, as a common interest of humanity and the Earth.Keywords: Atmosphere, climate change, common concern of humankind, climate justice la
Securing the blue: political ecologies of the blue economy in Africa
No full textThe Blue Economy concept is being embraced enthusiastically in Africa, both internally and externally. However, this new framing creates and calls for new understandings of how actors and places relate to one another, control, and create meaning and value. Thus, understanding the ocean - and its conceptual and material fabric - in this context, is a matter of political ecology, raising a number of questions that extend across geographies, spatio-temporalities, and political actors, both human and more-than-human. In this article, we flesh out these questions. An understanding of historical efforts to legally secure oceanic space can help contextualize the emergent African blue economy, one which we propose rests predominantly on the notion of 'security.' We demonstrate how resources are economically, environmentally, and politically 'secured' as they are first constructed as economic objects of accumulation, then militarized as matters of geopolitical security, and finally controlled through technologies of monitoring, surveillance, and resistance. The 'security' of the blue growth agenda and its effects operates across different temporal and spatial dimensions and are realized in different ways across the continent as explored in the six articles in this Special Section.Keywords: blue economy, deep sea mining, political ecology, oceanic space, security
The mismeasure of nature: the political ecology of economic valuation of Tiger Reserves in India
No full textThe Indian state has conserved tigers by establishing reserves that are governed as a form of fortress conservation. Residence and local uses in these tiger reserves are often criminalized. It is in this context that we critique recent neoliberal attempts to estimate the economic value of ecosystem services from tiger reserves. Proponents of valuation argue that it will not only provide a justification for the reserves, but also recognize the importance of ecosystem services for human well-being. We use a political ecology approach to argue that economic valuation is never a benign tool, but is situated in wider institutional contexts that favor certain actors over others. In India, protected areas are being valued even as people living within them are being evicted and their use of the forest restricted. We draw from fieldwork in the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Hills of Karnataka and conversations with Soligas. We ask how nature is made legible and who benefits from such legibility? We suggest that economic valuation can hide complex human-nature relationships and undermine different ways of knowing and 'valuing' landscapes.Key Words: tiger reserves, Karnataka, economic valuatio
Los humedales como expresión de conflictos espaciales: el Cementerio y Ciénaga Mateo, Bugalagrande, Colombia
No full textSe analizan los conflictos espaciales de dos humedales del departamento del Valle del Cauca entre mediados del siglo XX y principios del siglo XXI, bajo un contexto de transformación producido por: 1) agentes sociales vinculados al agronegocio de la caña de azúcar, 2) el Estado y sus políticas neoliberales y, por último, 3) las comunidades locales que soportan el poder ejercido por los dos primeros. Se parte de la teoría de la producción social del espacio de Lefebvre para descubrir asimetrías en las relaciones de poder entre estos tres agentes. Los resultados muestran injusticias espaciales producto de ellas. De este modo, se aportan argumentos teóricos y empíricos como base de reflexión para las comunidades locales y la comunidad científica respecto a los estudios ambientales y conservación de humedales.Palabras clave: conflictos espaciales, relaciones de poder, producción social del espacio, humedales y agronegocio de la caña de azúcarWe analyze spatial conflicts in two wetlands in the Department of Valle del Cauca between the mid-20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. These conflicts developed within a context of transformation produced by: 1) social agents linked to sugarcane agribusiness; 2) the State and its neoliberal policies and 3) the local communities that resist the power exercised by the first two. We use Lefebvre's theory of social production of space to reveal asymmetries in the power relations between these three agents, and show spatial injustices produced by these asymmetries. Theoretical and empirical arguments are provided as a basis for critical reflection by local communities and the scientific community regarding environmental studies and wetland conservation.Keywords: social production of space, power, spatial conflicts, wetlands, sugar
Victims of "adaptation": climate change, sacred mountains, and perverse resilience
No full textResiliency and adaptation are increasingly prevalent in climate change policy as well as scholarship, yet scholars have brought forward several critiques of these concepts along analytical as well as political lines. Pressing questions include: who resiliency is for, what it takes to maintain it, and the scale at which it takes place. The concept of "perverse resilience", for example, proposes that resiliency for one sub-system may threaten the well-being of the overall system. In this article, I propose the related concept of "perverse adaptation", where one actor or institution's adaptation to climate change in fact produces aftershocks and secondary impacts upon other groups. Drawing on ethnographic and sociolinguistic research in northern Arizona regarding artificial snowmaking at a ski resort on a sacred mountain, I elucidate resort supporters' and others' attempts to frame snowmaking as a sustainable adaptation to drought (and, implicitly, climate change). I counterpoise these framings with narratives from local activists as well as Diné (Navajo) individuals regarding the significant impacts of snowmaking on water supply and quality, sacred lands and ceremony, public health, and, ironically, carbon emissions. In so doing, I argue that we must interrogate resilience policies for their unexpected "victims of adaptation."Key words: climate change policy, adaptation, perverse resilience, sacred sites, Diné (Navajo
BRAIN LYMPHATIC DRAINAGE SYSTEM IN FETUS AND NEWBORN: BIRTH OF A NEW ERA OF EXPLORATION
No full textA peculiar brain lymphatic drainage system has been recently fully recognized in animals and humans. It comprises different draining pathways, including the lymphatic system, the perivascular drainage pathway, and the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) drainage routes. Although scant data are available about its function during the neonatal period, it may play a role in neonatal brain diseases. In this review, we focus on the actual knowledge of brain lymphatic drainage system, and we hypothesize potential implications of its impairment and dysfunction in major neonatal neurological diseases
DOES INITIAL ROUTINE USE OF A COMPRESSION GARMENT REDUCE THE RISK OF LOWER LIMB LYMPHEDEMA AFTER GYNECOLOGICAL CANCER TREATMENT? A RANDOMIZED PILOT STUDY IN AN ASIAN INSTITUTION AND REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
No full textThis is a randomized pilot study evaluating the effectiveness of customized compression garments (CG) in reducing the risk of lower limb lymphedema (LLL) in gynecological cancer patients. Patients who completed pelvic node dissection or radiation were routinely educated on reducing the risk of LLL by good skin care and manual lymphatic massage. After baseline lower limb volume perometry and clinical assessment, they were randomized to customized compression garment (CG) for 6 weeks (26 patients) or observation (30 patients). Both groups were followed up for 2 years and the primary outcome was the development of LLL. LLL incidence in the control group was 13.3% (4 of 30 patients) compared to 7.7% (2 of 26 patients) in the CG group. However the difference was not statistically significant (P=0.496). In the control group, 10.7% (3/28) who underwent node dissection developed LLL vs 7.7% (2/26) in the CG group. Among patients with node dissection plus radiation, LLL incidence was 14.3% (1/7) in the control group vs 12.5% (1/8) in the CG group. The mean onset of LLL was 12 months; compliance to CG wearing was high and QOL scores were similar in both groups. Customized low-compression CG worn for 6 weeks may have a possible benefit in reducing the risk of LLL when added to patient education on risk reduction although statistic significance was not achieved in this small pilot study. A larger multi-center study would be justified to expand these findings