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Reception, performance and creation : musical activism for cultural heritage as a Tanzanian popular musician
No full textYo!
This ain't just theory, it's practice in play,
Where beats meet books and the rhymes light the way.
Popular music, Bongo Fleva in the zone,
Turnin' heritage to lyrics, so the message hits home.
Academia? It’s dope, but it stays in the clouds,
While the people in the streets never hear it out loud.
So, I bridge that gap with a rhythm and rhyme,
Translatin’ deep knowledge through the pulse of our time.
I asked three questions to spark this sound:
(One) How can music keep traditions around?
(Two) How do we break borders, both stage and mind?
And (Three) how can workshops leave no one behind?
A creative practice, that’s my lens to the scene,
From Kilwa to the cyphers where the crowds convene.
Old songs meet new, like Your Story Your vibe,
Where songwriting and stories keep cultures alive.
Kilwa Yetu ain’t a track - it’s a movement, a wave,
Boostin’ tourism, clean’ beaches, ancestors praised.
More than melodies, it’s action on the ground,
Where communities create the most powerful sound.
So, music ain't universal, not a language, per se,
But a bridge we can build, if we frame it the right way.
From Instagram lives to the stage where I stand,
The mic in my grip and the world in my hand.
This PhD’s the proof, expression and fight,
A convo with the past, while I rap for what's right.
Between yesterday and tomorrow, I’m holdin' it strong,
A scholar, an activist, and my life’s work in song."I am thankful for the generous financial support from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) through the ODA Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) PhD Studentship, and the EDI Fund at the University of St Andrews, which made much of this research and its creative dimensions possible."--Fundin
The moral harms of homelessness
Get PDFIt is well-established that those facing homelessness suffer severe harms and deprivations. Homeless persons are among the worst-off people in any given society. And yet homelessness is a relatively undertheorized issue in ethics and social and political philosophy, and it remains an enduring feature of many affluent, liberal democratic societies. This paper aims to provide an account of the underacknowledged moral harms of homelessness that can ground and motivate adequate durable solutions and public policy reform to alleviate homelessness. The paper argues that the few existing philosophical accounts of the moral harms of homelessness—the freedom-based, privacy-based and care-based accounts—reveal important insights but suffer limitations. The paper then advances a novel status-based account that foregrounds the social and moral status poverty of homeless persons. This account reveals an underacknowledged but fundamental moral harm of homelessness, addresses the limitations of existing accounts, and grounds adequate durable solutions. This more complete account can then help challenge the unsettling tacit acceptance of homelessness in contemporary societies and provide a normative framework for urgent reform.Peer reviewe
Multi-modal, interrelated navigation in migratory birds : a data mining study
Get PDFFunding: This paper is part of a PhD project that is funded by the St Andrews Postgraduate Research Widening Access Scholarship, at the School of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom. Data collection has been funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection and the “ICARUS” grant from the German Aerospace Center.Understanding how long-distance migratory birds navigate remains challenging, particularly in how they integrate multiple environmental cues. Traditional studies, primarily based on laboratory experiments and displacement studies, may not capture the complexity of navigation in the wild. In this study, we applied a data mining approach to investigate the navigational strategies of greater white-fronted geese (Anser albifrons) during their annual migrations between the Arctic and central Europe. We integrated a decade of tracking data from 117 individuals with high-resolution geomagnetic data (including solar-wind–induced variations), wind conditions, and a potential visual cue. Hierarchical cluster analysis revealed multi-modal and interrelated navigation strategies that flexibly adapted to environmental conditions such as wind, diurnal cycles, and flock-specific dynamics. Under favourable tailwinds, geese maintained stable headings with minimal changes in geomagnetic heading and apparent angle of geomagnetic inclination, consistent with both geomagnetic loxodrome and magnetoclinic routes, enabling efficient flights towards stopovers or simultaneously towards stopovers and final destinations. Geese also appeared to combine visual landmarks with geomagnetic information, adjusting their reliance on landmarks between day and night. Our findings highlight the complexity and adaptability of avian navigation and emphasise the role of multi-modal sensory integration and environmental context in shaping migratory decisions.Peer reviewe
Epistemic democracy and political reconciliation
Get PDFFunding: This research was funded by Colombia Científica, Pasaporte a la Ciencia 2018, Foco Sociedad “Construcción de una paz estable y duradera”.Epistemic democrats argue that democracy, given the right conditions, is more likely to produce better results than a single person or a group of experts. While epistocrats mobilise knowledge against democracy, epistemic democrats seek to mobilise knowledge for democracy. The Condorcet Jury Theorem, with its emphasis on questions about the competence, independence, and sincerity of voters, has been the most emblematic approach to democratic pathologies from an epistemic perspective. This article extrapolates such epistemic arguments and explores their theoretical potential for the analysis of political reconciliation, particularly in post-war contexts, transitions from political repression, and settler colonial societies. The argument is that although epistemic theories can shed some light on democratic dimensions of political reconciliation, they are ultimately limited when dealing with post-war debates, transitional justice dilemmas, and the predicaments of settler colonial societies. There are two main limitations: 1. Reconciliation primarily deals with political questions rather than misconceptions of facts or values in epistemic terms. 2. Reconciliation entails a political rupture and renegotiation of the established order, whereas epistemic theories typically work with the enhancement of existing institutions. These limitations are symptomatic of the fact that epistemic democracy tends to operate at the everyday level of “politics” and political reconciliation at the foundational level of “the political”.Peer reviewe
Ferroelectric polarization in 2D halide hybrid perovskites : influence on bulk crystals, thin films, and applications
Get PDFFunding: LKJ acknowledges funding from UKRI-FLF through MR/T022094/1.Ferroelectric materials undergo spontaneous polarization that can be reversed by applying an external electric field. This property plays the most important role in applications such as logic gates, microwave communications, piezo energy harvesting, memory storage such as ferroelectric random-access memory (FeRAM), and ferroelectric sensors and actuators. Recently, hybrid halide perovskites (HHPs) have started demonstrating impressive ferroelectric properties in addition to their excellent photovoltaic performance. Compared to traditional oxide perovskites and organic ferroelectric materials, HHPs have the advantage that they can be simple solution-processed yet with immaculate crystal quality which is suitable for realizing next-generation thin film flexible electronics and FeRAM in neuromorphic computing. This review focuses on the current status of ferroelectric properties of two-dimensional (2D) halide perovskite single crystals and covers the limited reports available on thin film HHPs. Furthermore, we explain the challenges in the ferroelectric characterization of thin film HHPs and compare them with those of single crystals.Peer reviewe
Co-production in community-based substance use disorder treatment services : a scoping review
Get PDFPurpose of review The personal and social harms from unmanaged substance use disorders (SUD) are substantial. Too few people with SUD are engaged in treatment, partly due to the acceptability and accessibility of services. Co-production – sharing power and decision-making between professionals and people with lived experience (PWLE) – could address barriers to improve uptake and outcomes of SUD treatment. This scoping review examined recent (18 months) literature on co-production in community SUD treatment services. Recent findings Co-production has been used to address barriers to care and co-design new interventions and services, especially for marginalised populations and groups with complex needs. Methods, processes, and the degree of meaningful involvement of PWLE varied across projects. Most work occurred in higher income countries and the impacts on PWLE were rarely explored. Summary Co-production is feasible and can inform the development of more patient-centred SUD treatment services. Projects should be grounded in theory and power differentials in decision-making addressed to ensure equitable and meaningful participation throughout the process. There is a need to explore co-production in the design and evaluation of general SUD treatment, sustainability, impacts on participants, and evaluation of long-term outcomes.Peer reviewe
In situ single-crystal x-ray diffraction studies of an anomalous nitric oxide adsorption in a partially activated metal–organic framework
Get PDFFunding: The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Diamond Light Source for access to beamline I19-2 under proposals CY32865-1 and CY35900. The authors are also grateful for financial assistance from the ERC under advanced grant 787073, the EPSRC (EP/X014436/1 and EP/V008498/1), and the Slovenian Research and Innovation agency (Research programs P1-0021).Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), with their high porosities and surface areas, show great utility in the field of gas adsorption. To unlock this porosity, MOFs are generally fully activated by removing all adsorbed guests using high temperatures and low pressures. However, this is energy intensive and can be unfeasible if the MOF is part of a composite, where the maximum temperature of the composite is below the activation temperature. To investigate the effect of activation temperature on adsorption, a series of in situ single-crystal X-ray diffraction (scXRD) studies were performed on Ni-MOF-74 loaded with the gas nitric oxide (NO) under different conditions. These experiments uncovered anomalous adsorption results where partially activated samples adsorb ∼14% more NO per framework material than did the fully activated sample. The scXRD experiments revealed a new NO binding site that is only present if the open metal sites are partially occupied by water molecules. To shed more light on the respective binding of the two different NO sites in Ni-MOF-74, these were studied in situ under different treatment conditions, such as the exposure to vacuum at different temperatures. This study yields insights into the nature of binding sites in MOFs, how these are affected by activation, and helps to pave the way for the improved design of processing conditions.Peer reviewe
'To participate or not participate, that's the question' : the role of moral obligation and different risk perceptions on collective action
Get PDFThe current research investigates whether moral obligation and perceived close vs. distant risks of high vs. moderate risk collective actions are associated with willingness to participate in collective action in the case of Turkey. Two studies were conducted: one with re-placed university students after the July 15, 2016 coup d'état attempt (high-risk context; N₁ = 258) and one with climate strikes (moderate risk context; N₂ = 162). The findings showed that moral obligation predicts collective action in both studies, however, the strength of this relationship is contingent on the level of subjective likelihood of protest risk in the high-risk collective action (Study 1), but not in the moderate-risk collective action (Study 2). Study 2 extended the findings of Study 1 by showing that higher perceived climate crisis risks (e.g., extinction of many species, destroying the vast majority of vital resources; distant risk), but not risks of protest (e.g., being arrested, blacklisted; close risk) predicts higher willingness to participate in collective action. We discussed the role of moral obligation and different risk perceptions (e.g., distant, close, moderate, high) on climate movements and collective action of marginalized groups in repressive political contexts.Peer reviewe
Microstructures reveal mechanical compaction and volatile-rich liquid migration in the layered alkaline Ilímaussaq complex, South Greenland
Get PDFFunding: This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council via an IAPETUS2 PhD studentship held by E.J. (grant number NE/S007431/1). W.H. is funded by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (grant number MR/S033505/1).Crystal–melt separation is a fundamental process in magmatic differentiation that has implications for volcanic eruptions and ore deposit formation. However, the mechanical processes governing how crystals and melt separate, which are important for the timescales of melt segregation, are debated. Geochemical and theoretical studies commonly cite viscous compaction, i.e. gravitationally or intrinsic stress-driven deformation of the crystal pile, as a key mechanism of crystal–melt separation. Critically, viscous compaction should produce a microstructural record of internal crystal deformation and crystal alignment that allows us to diagnose its role, if any, in crystal–melt separation. Here, we provide novel textural and microstructural data from the Ilímaussaq complex, a layered alkaline intrusion in South Greenland, and explore whether, and if so through what processes, crystal–melt separation within the crystal pile. Stratigraphically variable disequilibrium and nucleation microstructures within our samples record the vertical migration of interstitial volatile-rich liquid through igneous layers. We observe some mineral bending associated with asymmetrical crystal growth, but no evidence of extensive viscous grain deformation, indicating that viscous compaction was not a significant mechanism in crystal–melt separation for Ilímaussaq. Instead, we suggest that mechanical compaction via crystal rearrangement, accompanied by volatile-rich liquid migration, primarily facilitates crystal–melt separation in intrusions with chemically evolved compositions. Our study shows that post-cumulus crystal repacking and volatile-rich liquid movement impact primary igneous layering in terms of microstructures, modal abundances of main and minor phases as well as phase compositions, therefore potentially controlling the distribution and concentration of rare earth element deposits within layered alkaline intrusions.Peer reviewe
Footprints of worldwide adaptation in structured populations of Drosophila melanogaster through the expanded DEST 2.0 genomic resource
Get PDFFunding: M.Kap. was supported by the Horizon Europe project FAIRiCUBE (grant #101059238). S.S. was supported by the Horizon Europe project FAIRiCUBE (grant #101059238). D.O. was supported by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) grant BB/T007516/1. M.G.R. was supported by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), UK award NE/V001566/1.Large-scale genomic resources can place genetic variation into an ecologically informed context. To advance our understanding of the population genetics of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, we present an expanded release of the community-generated population genomics resource Drosophila Evolution over Space and Time (DEST 2.0; https://dest.bio/). This release includes 530 high-quality pooled libraries from flies collected across six continents over more than a decade (2009 to 2021), most at multiple time points per year; 211 of these libraries are sequenced and shared here for the first time. We used this enhanced resource to elucidate several aspects of the species' demographic history and identify novel signs of adaptation across spatial and temporal dimensions. For example, we showed that the spatial genetic structure of populations is stable over time, but that drift due to seasonal contractions of population size causes populations to diverge over time. We identified signals of adaptation that vary between continents in genomic regions associated with xenobiotic resistance, consistent with independent adaptation to common pesticides. Moreover, by analyzing samples collected during spring and fall across Europe, we provide new evidence for seasonal adaptation related to loci associated with pathogen response. Furthermore, we have also released an updated version of the DEST genome browser. This is a useful tool for studying spatiotemporal patterns of genetic variation in this classic model system.Peer reviewe
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