693 research outputs found
Navigating the health frontiers of Africa's climate challenge
No full textFortunate Machingura heads CeSHHAR Zimbabwe’s Climate, Environment, and Health Department and is also a lecturer at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. She describes her pivot from HIV research to another crucial challenge facing Africa: climate change.</p
Environmental science investigations of folk taxonomy and other forms of indigenous knowledge
Full text linkThe strides made in standardising English and Afrikaans frog names created a gap to achieve the same for the other South African languages spoken by the majority of the country's population. This gap hints at an exclusion of indigenous languages and associated cultures from wildlife-related matters. Frog names in indigenous languages are part of mostly undocumented cultural/indigenous knowledge systems and they are subject to indigenous naming and classification guidelines. Indigenous names often have localised use due to cultural specificity. Indigenous taxonomy is part of a pre-scientific knowledge system which is often considered a pseudoscience. However, a recent study was able to show that indigenous amphibian taxonomy from the Zululand region of South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal Province has scientific merit. 1 Furthermore, the investigated indigenous naming and classification guidelines have similarities to those used when formulating Afrikaans, English and scientific names. A comparison with other indigenous taxonomy research shows that similarities also exist between Zululand's taxonomy and indigenous taxonomies of other parts of the world. Researchers also found indigenous names to be condensed forms of knowledge rather than abstract words. 2 Information about species' behaviour and ecology is often contained within indigenous names. 3 Linnaean taxonomy's basic structure is inspired by indigenous taxonomy's fundamental organising principles. 4Phaka, FM (reprint author), North West Univ, African Amphibian Conservat Res Grp, Unit Environm Sci & Management, Potchefstroom, South Africa; Hasselt Univ, Ctr Environm Sci, Diepenbeek, Belgium.
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Wildlife in Vernacular as a Means for an Inclusive Environmental Sector and Community Engagement in South Africa
No full textSouth Africa has contrasts between integrative environmental law and pre-democratic social exclusion in the environmental sector. Communicating wildlife in vernacular, sharing wildlife knowledge in vernacular languages and consideration of wildlife according to vernacular contexts, contributes to inclusive environmental management. This wildlife in vernacular approach is based on seven years of mixed methods research which culminates in this paper on reflections of the possibilities attendant to communicating wildlife in vernacular languages. Firstly, community-level research and knowledge-sharing sessions resulted in the creation of an IsiZulu language field guide for frogs compiled specifically for the Zululand community. Subsequently, online surveys, conversational interviews, literature reviews, and DNA barcoding were used to expand on the studies of Indigenous cultural perspectives on herptiles (frogs and reptiles). Through this work, perspectives that are generally excluded from environmental decision making are revealed and capacity building for environmental management becomes linguistically accessible. This article discusses the untapped potential of often overlooked wildlife (frogs and reptiles) in marginalized vernacular languages and ways to achieve the largely unrealized environmental policy ambitions of being inclusive of all forms of knowledge, considerate of all perceptions of wildlife and affording everyone an opportunity to participate in environmental management regardless of their socioeconomic background.KEY POLICY HIGHLIGHTS Marginalized Indigenous cultural perspectives have conservation value.South African legislation provides for inclusion of cultural practices in environmental management.Communicating wildlife in vernacular increases social inclusion and community engagement in environmental management.While conducting the research discussed here, the author was supported by a bilateral scientific cooperation betweenNorth-West University and Hasselt University, financed by the Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR-UOS) GlobalMinds program (Contract Number: R-9363), the National Research Foundation (UID: 114663), and North-WestUniversity. Additional support was obtained from Youth 4 African Wildlife NPO and the South African Institutefor Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB)
Allowable Death and the Valuation of Human life: A study of People Living with HIV and AIDS in Zimbabwe
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Improving measures of context in process evaluations: development and use of the Context Tracker tool
Full text linkAbstract Background Process evaluations are increasingly integrated into randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of complex interventions to document their delivery and interactions with local systems and dynamics, helping understand observed health outcomes. Yet process evaluations often struggle to assess relevant contextual determinants, leaving much of the important role of “context” in shaping an intervention’s mechanisms opaque in many studies. A lack of easily adapted data collection methods to help define and operationalise indicators of context likely contributes to this. Methods We present a method to help structure measures of context in process evaluations and describe its use in two very different settings. The “Context Tracker” is an innovative tool for use within trials and quasi-experiments to more systematically capture and understand key dimensions of context. It was developed in Zimbabwe as part of a cluster randomised controlled trial and then adapted for a quasi-experimental evaluation in the UK. Both studies provided harm reduction and health services for marginalised and hard-to-reach populations. Results We developed the Context Tracker to be both standardised (i.e. formatted and applied in the same way across study sites) and flexible enough to allow unique features to be explored in greater detail. Drawing on the Context and Implementation of Complex Interventions (CICI) and Risk Environments frameworks, we mapped 5 domains across micro, meso and macro levels in a simple table and used existing evidence and experience to predict factors likely to affect delivery of and participation in intervention components. We tracked these over time across study sites using routine programme statistics, observation and qualitative methods. The Context Tracker enables identification and comparison of facilitators and barriers to implementation, variations in engagement with interventions, and how mechanisms of action are (or are not) triggered in different settings. Conclusions The Context Tracker is one example of how evidence-based contextual determinants can be used to guide data collection and analysis within process evaluations. It is relevant in low- and high-income settings and applicable to both qualitative and quantitative analyses. While perhaps most useful to process evaluations of complex interventions targeting marginalised communities, the broader approach would benefit a more general research audience
A Fortunate Man: The Photographs of Jean Mohr
No full textThe 1967 book A Fortunate is a detailed exploration of the role of the general medical practitioner, and specifically the position and psychology of one doctor within a rural community. The book was created collaboratively by its author John Berger and documentary photographer Jean Mohr, yet critical, scholarly and popular focus has tended towards the text and its writer Berger. This was also largely the case with Reading the Forest’s 2018 public history project A Fortunate Man Remembered…50 Years On. This exhibition A Fortunate Man: The Photographs of Jean Mohr, sought to address this by focusing primarily on the photographs and their photographer Mohr. Working with the holders of the Jean Mohr collection, the Musee de l’Elysee in Lausanne, 18 original artists prints that appear in the book were loaned to the University for exhibition at the Hardwick Gallery, and as a prompt to new work in the Forest of Dean by University photography students; followed by a weekend exhibition at St Briavels, the community at the centre of the book, along with the new works by students. The project saw students working with Five Acres High School in the Forest of Dean, whose pupils attended the private view, and several other Forest-based community groups. Jason Griffiths and Roger Deeks of Reading the Forest worked closely with the Forest community, and with Dr Julia Peck of UoG, and Hardwick Gallery curator Sarah Bowden. Opening the exhibition in St Briavels Dame Janet Trotter remarked on the power of Mohr’s pictures, and reflected on her own career journey working in both the health service and academia, and on the changes in the NHS since Eskell’s time. Also at the opening were Ivy Gunter and Brychan Gretton whose portraits featured in the book. Over the next two days people from near and far visited to see Mohr’s photographs and those taken by the students
Fortunate Sailor
Full text linkSong concerning the power of moneyhttps://egrove.olemiss.edu/kgbsides_uk/1507/thumbnail.jp
A series of (un)fortunate events: The Elgin Marbles
No full textThe Elgin Marbles, nowadays known as the Parthenon Sculptures, are arguably the most controversial art collection in the world. It was exactly 200 years ago, in 1816, that the British Museum acquired the Elgin Marbles from lord Elgin, former ambassador to the Sublime Porte in Constantinople. The story behind Elgin's acquisition of the “Elgin Marbles” and the collection’s path to England were paved with a series of (un)fortunate events. It vividly depicts the response from the contemporary public and the question of the legality of Elgin’s actions. The Greek repatriation request for the Elgin Marbles is discussed within a larger context, as the author puts a spotlight on the so-called universal museums and the patronizing attempts of the large museums to avoid any sincere discussion about the repatriation requests
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