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Ethics of care, emotional work, and collective action of solidarity: the Patronas in Mexico
Get PDFIn this paper, we examine the mobilization of the Patronas, a group of Mexican women who have fed thousands of Central American migrants over the past two decades. We argue that the Patronas’ work of feeding and caring for migrants goes beyond essentializing these women’s work as just housewives, mothers, and caregivers. Furthermore, we assert that through these care activities, the Patronas exert a feminist ethic of care that is understood as a set of practices based on trust, reciprocity, and solidarity. The Patronas’ praxis of caring for the migrants resonates with people and attracts hundreds of volunteers to join these women’s emotional and nurturing work leading these women and volunteers to participate in a political practice of solidarity. In this paper, we articulate three key findings: (1) the interplay between the Patronas’ emotional work and the ethics of care, (2) the emergence of a collective act of solidarity around the Patronas’ caring work that leads hundreds of volunteers to visit these women and join them, and (3) the kitchen as a place where the collective act of solidarity begins and where the Patronas experience their personal transformation. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, this study contributes to further our understanding of the interplay between Latin American women’s participation in social movements, emotional work in these movements, and the ethics of care
Democratic Theory When Democracy Is Fugitive
Get PDFUrgent alarms now warn of the erosion of democratic norms and the decline of democratic institutions. These antidemocratic trends have prompted some democratic theorists to reject the seeming inevitability of democratic forms of government and instead to consider democracy as a fugitive phenomenon. Fugitive democracy, as we argue below, is a theory composed of two parts. First, it includes a robust, normative ideal of democracy and, second, a clear-eyed vision of the historical defeats and generic difficulties attendant to that ideal. This article considers how democratic theorists might respond to the challenges posed by fugitive democracy and the implications of such an understanding for future research in democratic theory
When Cold Radial Migration is Hot: Constraints from Resonant Overlap
No full textIt is widely accepted that stars in a spiral disk, like the Milky Way\u27s, can radially migrate on the order of a scale length over the disk\u27s lifetime. With the exception of cold torquing, also known as churning, processes that contribute to the radial migration of stars are necessarily associated with kinematic heating. Additionally, it is an open question as to whether or not an episode of cold torquing is kinematically cold over long radial distances. This study uses a suite of analytically based simulations to investigate the dynamical response when stars are subject to cold torquing and are also resonant with an ultraharmonic. Model results demonstrate that these populations are kinematically heated and have rms changes in orbital angular momentum around corotation that can exceed those of populations that do not experience resonant overlap. Thus, kinematic heating can occur during episodes of cold torquing. In a case study of a Milky Way-like disk with an exponential surface density profile and flat rotation curve, up to 40% of cold torqued stars in the solar cylinder experience resonant overlap. This fraction increases toward the galactic center. To first approximation, the maximum radial excursions from cold torquing depend only on the strength of the spiral pattern and the underlying rotation curve. This work places an upper limit to these excursions to be the distance between the ultraharmonics, otherwise radial migration near corotation can kinematically heat. The diffusion rate for kinematically cold radial migration is thus constrained by limiting the step size in the random walk approximation
Nitrogen enrichment alters carbon fluxes in a New England salt marsh
No full textIntroduction: Nitrogen enrichment of coastal salt marshes can induce feedbacks that alter ecosystem-level processes including primary production and carbon sequestration. Despite the rising interest in coastal blue carbon, the effects of chronic nutrient enrichment on blue carbon processes have rarely been measured in the context of experimental fertilization. Here, we examined the ecosystem-level effects of nitrate (NO3−) enrichment on the greenhouse gas dynamics of a Spartina alterniflora-dominated salt marsh. We measured CO2 and CH4 fluxes using static chambers through two growing seasons in a salt marsh that was nitrogen-enriched for 13 years and compared fluxes to those from a reference marsh.
Outcomes: We found that nitrogen enrichment increased gross primary productivity (GPP) by 7.7% and increased ecosystem respiration (Reco) by 20.8%. However, nitrogen enrichment had no discernible effect on net ecosystem exchange (NEE). Taken together, these results suggest that nitrogen-induced stimulation of Reco could transform this salt marsh from a carbon sink into a source of carbon to the atmosphere.
Conclusion: Our results complement prior findings of nitrogen enrichment weakening soil structure and organic matter stability in tidal salt marshes, suggesting that increased nutrient inputs have the potential to alter the carbon storage function of these ecosystems through enhanced microbial respiration of previously sequestered carbon
Developmental trends in sleep during adolescents\u27 transition to young adulthood
Get PDFObjective: Poor sleep poses negative health consequences for youth, yet few longitudinal actigraphy studies have examined basic developmental trends in sleep across adolescents’ transition to young adulthood. In this longitudinal actigraphy study, stability of individual differences and trajectories of sleep during and after high school were examined. The degree to which sleep trajectories differed by college attendance status was also studied.
Methods: A total of 343 youth with Asian, Latino, and European American backgrounds completed eight days of wrist actigraphy at two-year intervals in Wave 1(n= 295, Mage= 16.39), Wave 2 (n= 211 including 34 new participants to refresh the sample, Mage= 18.31), and Wave 3 (n= 144, Mage= 20.29). Sleep duration, efficiency, and latency were estimated for weekdays and weekends. Intra-individual variability in duration across nights was also obtained.
Results: Sleep parameters were correlated modestly between Wave 1 and Wave 2, but not correlated between Wave 1 and Wave 3, indicating modest shorter-term and little longer-term stability of individual differences. Multilevel growth models demonstrated declines in weekday sleep duration and efficiency across high school and post-high school years. Intra-individual variability in duration increased over the years. Latency trajectories changed more for non-college attendees compared with college attendees.
Conclusions: Overall the findings suggest developmental trends of worsening sleep during adolescents’ transition to young adulthood. Interventions to improve sleep may need to target specific issues faced by youth at that particular period in their lives
