Journals at the University of Arizona
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People and urban nature: the environmentalization of social movements in Bogotá
No full textUsing research conducted in Bogotá, Colombia, I discuss in this article how urban nature has been used as a vehicle by social movements to contest urban commons. The article explores the "environmentalization" of strategies and repertoires of social movements in urban struggles dating back to the 1980s, which developed in parallel with public urban planning debates. In recent years these were nurtured in turn by environmental discourse in a quest to change the city's growth paradigm. I suggest that the legitimacy of knowledge and law about urban nature advocacy is co-created by communities confronting institutions that are supposed to represent state power. This case study analyses conceptualizations of urban nature in and from Latin America, and shows that urban politics and environmental issues are part of a process in which political mobilization is a key element to overcome socio-ecological inequalities.Key words: urban social movements; political ecology of urbanization; situated knowledge; socio-ecological inequalities; Latin America
Group compositions: the politics of technology implemented in smallholder farming
No full textThis article investigates the connection between performance, group, and society. The argument is that group formation around particular farm operations and the details of the activities they engage in are an expression of the preferred way of technology implementation. The argument is developed using Paul Richards' notion of agriculture as performance. Two cases are presented. The first is the composition of a spraying team for weed control in smallholder oil palm production in Sumatra, connected to a global agreement on sustainable oil palm production, known as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). The second case is about a team of women transplanting young rice seedlings on prepared paddy fields in a village in Uttarakhand, India. A new way of rice transplanting was introduced by a local non-governmental organization, known as the System of Rice Intensification (SRI). The analysis shows that group performances provide essential information about how introduced plans, regulations and material designs are reworked and turned into meaningful and effective changes to agricultural practices. The article concludes that these activities are not merely technical adjustments but in themselves express arguments about the preferred way of organising farming, farm labor, and payments. Performing groups thus exert a form of bargaining power against development actors.Keywords: Group performance, smallholder farming, technology transfer, political act
Sbicca, Joshua. 2018. Food justice now! Deepening the roots of social struggle. Reviewed by Sarah Rachelle Renkert
No full textDevelopment roles: contingency and performance in alternative agriculture in Telangana, India
No full textPaul Richards invokes the metaphor of performance in agriculture to highlight the ways in which farmers improvise and draw on repertory knowledge to address new and unexpected problems in the field. This skillset helps farmers respond to shifting weather patterns or changing pest cycles, but it also helps farmers take advantage of new markets, technologies, and development interventions – a question of planning and context as much as improvisation in the moment. This article discusses two intervention failures and one success in Telangana cotton agriculture, arguing that such agricultural interventions succeed when farmers can align development performances with their own visions of development and agricultural success. In doing so, it offers a political ecology of farmer performance on two levels. First, it brings attention to the ecological and socioeconomic factors that inspire performances and structure farmer improvisations. Second, it argues that development initiatives must recognize their efforts as embedded within local agricultural planning and contingent on local calculations of social capital. In two ultimately unsuccessful interventions, farmers withdrew from programs that required investments of time and agricultural methods but did not underwrite important social and agricultural vulnerabilities identified by participants. In one successful intervention, farmers found that an NGO's willingness to respond to their agricultural needs and provide a stage for the cultivation of a local celebrity more than compensated for the new demands of non-certified organic agriculture. In a rural Indian context, where farming is a moral as well as agricultural process, the performance of a development identity is an integral part of performances and plans that guide farmer decision-making. Because these performances create a knowledge that cannot be separated from actors, roles, and stages present, these contingent performances ultimately have lasting impacts on the agrarian landscape.Key Words: India, alternative agriculture, performance, knowledg
PRIMARY VERSUS TRAUMA-INDUCED GORHAM-STOUT DISEASE
No full textGorham-Stout disease – also known as “disappearing bone disease” is currently considered a single entity with varying clinical manifestations. We reviewed the existent literature from the earliest historic description (Jackson in 1838) and Gorham and Stout’s original series of patients, multiple case reports and series since. After analyzing 212 reported cases, we identified 76 cases with details that recorded either a history of multifocal disease or an identifiable history of preceding trauma. From this review, we have defined two distinct Gorham-Stout entities – those characteristically associated with lymphangiomatosis [a form of GLA (generalized lymphangiomatosis) questionably distinguishable by bone biopsy and radiologic appearance] with multifocal distributed bone lesions, and those others, usually self-limited, first appearing after a traumatic event and always confined to a single bone or closely adjacent one. Multifocal disease is more likely to have chylothorax as a complication. These two Gorham-Stout entities differ in their demographic distribution, clinical history and manifestations, and they follow divergent clinical courses. The prognosis differs, and so should approaches to monitoring as well as acute and long-term treatment. Further research should seek to identify and define the differences in pathology and molecular mechanisms
FROM CHILDHOOD ONSET LYMPHEDEMA TO FATAL FETAL HYDROPS: POSSIBLE MODIFYING GENES FOR A FOXC2 MUTATION
No full textWe performed whole exome sequencing in a family with FOXC2 mutation where the phenotype in one generation was strikingly more severe. Although there were 3 mutations shared by 2 fatal fetal hydrops cases and not the mildly affected mother, none of them were likely to be the cause of the marked phenotypic change
LEFT VENTRICULAR ROTATIONAL MECHANICS DIFFER BETWEEN LIPEDEMA AND LYMPHEDEMA: INSIGHTS FROM THE THREE-DIMESIONAL SPECKLE TRACKING ECHOCARDIOGRAPHIC MAGYAR-PATH STUDY
No full textThe present study aimed to assess LV rotational mechanics by three-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography (3DSTE) in lipedema (n=25), lymphedema (n=26) patient groups with age- and gender-matched healthy controls (n=54). 3 lipedema and 4 lymphedema patients were excluded due to insufficient image quality for 3DSTE analysis. LV apical rotation (9.61 ± 4.25 degree vs. 6.40 ± 2.63 degree, p 0.05) and LV twist (13.83 ± 4.89 degree vs. 10.04 ± 3.56 degree, p 0.05) are impaired in lipedema patients as compared to matched controls; similar alterations in lymphedema were not found. Moreover, in some lipedema and lymphedema patients severe LV rotational abnormalities could be detected. Our results suggest that lipedema-associated impaired LV apical rotation and twist assessed by 3DSTE could be a novel differential diagnostic point between lipedema and lymphedema
Game mechanics and why they are employed: What we know about gamification so far
No full textThis literature review addresses the research surrounding gamification in online learning, focusing on the game mechanics studied in conjunction with the pedagogical aspirations they were employed to support. Findings include frequencies of game mechanics studied, showing a continuum from most studied, badges closely followed by leaderboards, to the least studied, storylines. Pedagogical aspirations fell into five thematic groups, where frequencies ranged from the most often targeted numerical learning outcomes, to the least often targeted, playfulness. A frequency continuum of tools used to gamify instructional designs is included. We conclude that the strategic selection of game mechanics is possible, but the research trajectory surrounding the implementation of gamified designs is haphazard. DOI:10.2458/azu_itet_v6i1_bevin
Standard Language Ideologies, World Englishes, and English Language Teaching: An Overview
No full textThis paper presents an overview of terms and issues related to Standard Language Ideologies, World Englishes, and English Education. First, I present a discussion of the concept of language ideologies and their connection to constantly problematized issues in ELT (e.g., the native/non-native dichotomy). Then, a detailed description of pro language variation approaches is provided, a term coined by the author. I also argue that these approaches represent an option to counteract the negative effects of standard language ideologies in language teaching. Their strengths and weaknesses are also discussed, with supporting evidence from scholarly research. This paper ends with pedagogical implications resulting from these paradigms with an emphasis on classroom practice applicability, and changes needed in teacher education programs