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We Can Be Heroes: Identification, Superheroes, and the Visual Communication of Agency in Online Children’s Books about COVID-19
No full textChildren, as a result of age, social status, and developmental stage, depend upon caregivers and medical professionals to interpret health discourse. However, children have largely gone unexamined in research on visual health communication. Because children are a vulnerable audience, rhetoricians should more closely attend to texts addressing them. This article analyzes 147 children’s picture books about COVID-19. These texts draw on the rhetorical concept of identification to encourage readers to take up particular health behaviors. These texts illuminate three specific risks of using identification to instantiate health behaviors in children: failing to acknowledge material limitations on children’s agency, glossing over the risks of infection, and distorting scientific discourse. Ultimately, while the majority of the texts in our corpus articulate the need for a community-centered approach, only a handful acknowledge directly that children’s agency and power are limited. These texts, therefore, also highlight a larger issue beyond the coronavirus: the difficulty of relying on an individual health imperative in communicating public health—an inherently communal enterprise
Book Review: Why Wellness Sells: Natural Health in a Pharmaceutical Culture by Colleen Derkatch
No full textReview of Why Wellness Sells: Natural Health in a Pharmaceutical Culture. Colleen Derkatch. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022. 272 pages, 50.00 e-book. Publisher webpage: https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12718/why-wellness-sells
The Geopolitics of Renewable Energy in Eastern Africa
No full textThis paper focuses on the nexus between geopolitics and renewable energy in the Eastern Africa. The article sets out to explore the potential geopolitical implications of the transition to renewable energy in the region. The authors observe that there is an increasing attention to renewable energy sources (wind, solar, hydro, geothermal etc.) in the region with potential socio - political and economic impact. Existing literature on the region have focused on the relationship between energy and conflict as well as challenges in accessing energy. However, there is a gap in literature, theory and systematic framework with regard to the implication of renewable energy transition on the geopolitics in the region. The authors adopt an extensive analysis of existing academic publications, government reports and other relevant publications to draw the relationship between geopolitics and renewable energy in the Eastern African region. The study concludes that the geopolitical benefits of renewable energy in the region far out - weight the risks and recommends increased adoption of renewable energy given the merits of the region’s vast resources that can support more renewable energy in the region overcoming energy deficiencies and contribute to the fight against climate change
Marshall, Jonathan. Dark Quadrant: Organized Crime, Big Business, and the Corruption of American Democracy from Truman to Trump.
No full textEthiopia: Federalism's Failure?
No full textEthiopia adopted a federal system in 1995 as a means to manage its complex diversity. The system promises substantial political autonomy to ethnonational and regional groups and fair representation in federal institutions as a means to address age-old demands for inclusion and self-government. Given that Ethiopia is a deeply divided country of minorities where none of the ethnonational groups taken alone constitute a “50 plus 1” majority, this institutional arrangement was meant to address Ethiopia’s main source of conflict. Yet, despite three decades of federal practice, the country continues to face a series of devastating wars. How does one explain this paradox? Why has the federation failed to ensure stability and peace? The article aims to address this central question based on the comparative literature on managing cleavages in deeply divided societies and the analysis and interpretation of recent developments. The findings show there is a mismatch between the demand and supply side of the country’s political system. Six decades of political mobilization for self-government and inclusion by ethnonational groups confront an authoritarian and imperial center that, despite change of regimes and actors, continues to recycle marginalization and centralization. By doing so, Ethiopia has betrayed the core norms of federalism and institutionalized fragility. Contestations between the center and subunits have resulted in devastating wars as centrifugal forces push for inclusion, resource sharing, and self-government. Federalism’s potential to manage and balance unity and diversity has been constrained by the authoritarian imperial center and the regime’s excessive use of violence to crush political demands. Federalism has not failed but has been betrayed in both the past and the present from serving as a venue for intergovernmental bargaining and negotiated reform
Ethiopia: A Genocidal State on the Brink of Collapse
No full textAn ancient mainly Christian polity underwent immense expansion during the scramble for Africa to become modern Ethiopia, which has since been an incoherent and fragile state, prone to communal wars. Designed to address identity-related grievances, its 1994 constitution has become a battleground between unitarians and federalists. The unitarians (mostly the Amhara ethnic group), in alliance with foreign forces (Eritrea, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Somalia, and others), have committed genocide against the federalists (Tigrayans). With deeply polarized views, the specter of breaking up haunts Ethiopia
Bonilla, Yarimar, Greg Becket, and Mayanthi L. Fernando, eds. Trouillot Remixed: The Michel-Rolph Trouillot Reader.
No full textReview of: Bonilla, Yarimar, Greg Becket, and Mayanthi L. Fernando, eds. Trouillot Remixed: The Michel-Rolph Trouillot Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2021