bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Value of Exclusion: Chasing Scarcity through Social Exclusion in Early Twentieth Century Atlanta
Authors: Rhodes Jason
Published: February 2020

In recent decades, a powerful narrative has taken shape which explores the impact of federal housing policies in shaping the highly racialized geography of poverty and privilege which forms the landscape of today's American city. Called the “New Suburban History,” it documents the racial discrimination written into the subsidized home loan policies of the federal government after WWII, based upon the assumption that property values depended upon the maintenance of neighborhood homogeneity on the basis of race and class. The discussion launched by the New Suburban History has focused almost exclusively on the effects of such policies: by lavishing neighborhoods comprised exclusively of white homeowners with federal subsidies, while targeting the neighborhoods of non-whites and renters for red-lining, these programs, it is argued, became self-fulfilling prophecies of neighborhood growth and decline. Neglected in this discussion, however, is a rigorous examination of the roots of the assumption that the value of the single-family residential home depended upon practices of social exclusion designed to “protect” it from physical proximity to non-whites and renters. The guiding assumption, occasionally made explicit, is that racism precluded a more rational approach to the assessment of property values. This paper argues that there was nothing irrational about the regulations developed to protect urban property values in the first decades of the twentieth century. These regulations explicitly sought to boost and maintain real estate values by means of artificial limitations placed on the supply of urban land, an approach which ensured that segments of the population would benefit from the scarcity-induced rise in prices, while others faced exclusion in the process of effecting it. The development of these regulations, and the crisis narratives employed to justify them, is traced here from the municipal zoning framework developed at the National Conference on City Planning to its implementation in New York City in 1916 and Atlanta in 1922. The paper concludes with an analysis of the 1938 Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) “residential security map” of Atlanta, which assigned grades to the city's neighborhoods on the basis of their place in the 1922 zoning scheme, which essentially knew two categories, “exclusive” and “excluded.” Against the standard narrative, which holds that racism distorted conceptions of property values in the twentieth century American city, what is argued here is that the institution of value, and the social categories of privilege and exclusion which it requires, has fundamentally shaped our categories of race.
Narrating Europe's Migration and Refugee ‘Crisis’
Authors: Collyer Michael , King Russell
Published: February 2020

It is very clear – as many journalists covering the unfolding migration and refugee crisis have pointed out – that geography lies at the heart of the events taking place in Europe and the Mediterranean. It is a story of borders and routes, of distance and proximity, and of location and accessibility. The role of (re-) bordering has been fundamental in states’ attempts to ‘manage’ and ‘control’ the refugee and migrant flows and, in this respect, we observe a return to the more traditional practices of bordering – physical barriers and personnel-heavy security controls – rather than the previous processes of ‘externalizing’ and ‘internalizing’ border management. In the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans the external border of the European ‘fortress’ has been prised open, whilst the free-movement ethos of the Schengen area has been compromized by EU states’ reactions to the large-scale movement of migrants and refugees and recent acts of terrorism. In this introductory paper we bring a critical geopolitical lens into play in order to understand the European, regional and global power geometries at work, and we critically examine the political and media rhetoric around the various discursive constructions of the migrant/refugee ‘crisis’, including both the negative and the Islamophobic utterances of some European leaders and the game-changing iconicity of certain media images.
‘My Uncle Cannot Say “NO” if i Reach Libya’: Unpacking the Social Dynamics of Border-Crossing among Eritreans Heading to Europe
Authors: Belloni Milena
Published: February 2020

This article investigates the role of transnational family networks in facilitating undocumented migration, by analyzing the case of Eritrean refugees on the move towards Europe. Based on the consideration that irregular border-crossing usually involves not only migrants and smugglers but also family members financing these journeys from abroad, I illustrate that their economic support is rarely voluntary. This is mainly due to the moral dilemmas of funding potentially fatal border-crossings. The economic assistance of kin instead results from tough negotiations between them and the migrants in transit. Safety, responsibility, membership of the community and money are at stake in these negotiations. Based on my fieldwork and ongoing contacts with Eritrean refugees on their way to Europe, I show that migrants play an active role in the smuggling process, especially when they move to Libya without their relatives’ permission. In so doing, migrants gamble that kinship and emotional solidarity on the one hand, and the fear of smugglers’ retaliations on the other, will lead their relatives to pay despite their initial refusal. The analysis of these negotiations and of the socio-cultural context in which they are embedded highlights the importance of emic moral rules to a better understanding of mobility and immobility in current refugee scenarios. Specifically, I argue that movers, among prospective high-risk migrants, are those who are more effective in mobilizing economic resources from their transnational networks, exploiting shared moralities and emotional bonds with left-behind kin and relatives abroad.
‘Leaving Afghanistan! Are you Sure?’ European Efforts to Deter Potential Migrants through Information Campaigns
Authors: Oeppen Ceri
Published: February 2020

Policymakers in Europe are currently under pressure to both lessen the number of incoming asylum-seekers and ‘irregular migrants’ and address the humanitarian crises occurring at Europe's border crossings. Increasingly, we see an externalization of Europe's border controls, as migration management policies try to stop migrants before they even arrive in Europe. One form of externalized control is information campaigns, discouraging would-be migrants and asylum-seekers from leaving their countries of origin. Such campaigns intend to inform potential migrants about the difficulties of settling in Europe and the dangers of being smuggled. As such, these campaigns aim to both discourage migration and present that discouragement as a means of protecting people from financial and bodily risk. I examine the use of information campaigns in Afghanistan, and ask why they are continued, when ethnographic work with Afghans suggests that the campaigns are unlikely to be believed. I argue that these information campaigns are symbolic, fulfilling the need of policymakers to be seen to be doing something, and also – and more ominously – serve a role of shifting responsibility for the risks of the journey onto Afghans themselves, rather than the restrictive border regimes of the EU.
Meanings of Independence and Manifestations of Neoliberal Nationalism during the ‘Refugee Crisis’ in Central and Eastern Europe
Authors: Lulle Aija
Published: February 2020

The Eastern European political and para-political responses to the ‘refugee crisis’ demonstrate a schism between the ‘old’ and the ‘new Europe’. Hostile attitudes reveal how unresolved post-imperial pasts currently manifest themselves in a seeming inability to show solidarity and empathy for the human suffering of others. To address this question critically, I utilize the notion of ‘independence’ to disentangle the specific neoliberal political mentality that has developed in the Central and Eastern European region, along with a variety of ethno-nationalisms which relive their own past wounds. In countries which have wiped away almost all reminders of their socialist past, solidarity and collectivity are not widely subscribed-to values. Apart from the immediate need to act alongside other European countries and help to accommodate current refugee flows, the Eastern Bloc has a long and necessary journey ahead. This is to negotiate and address their own social and cultural pluralities, which have been deliberately ignored in the rush to join the club of the worlds’ wealthiest democracies in the EU. During this formally accelerated political process, insufficient attention has been paid to social transformations in these new EU countries, including their reluctance to take in and accommodate new migrants and refugees.
Geographies, Critical and Marxist, and Lessons from South Africa
Authors: Cox Kevin R.
Published: February 2020

Analysis in human geography has shown persistent tendencies of a pluralistic sort: a view of the world as the product of numerous independent and interacting forces. The advent of Marxist geography in the 1970s promised a path in a more totalizing direction. This emphasized the contradictory unity of the world, while placing production as the point both of departure and of return. The social process was conceived as a unity and its different moments as production relations. Society and space represented a further move in a pluralizing direction. Since then critical impulses in human geography have tended to be subordinated to that view. Critical human geography is a product of this. Engaging in research from the standpoint of one particular social moment – the institutional, the cultural and the discursive, among others – is emblematic. It is not enough, however, to criticize this by invoking the generalities of Marx's method. More convincing are actual empirical studies. In this paper I explore the case of South Africa prior to 1990 as a way of demonstrating how constructions of race, space, and gender, along with institutions must per necesita be interpreted as production relations and how this can shed light on particular geographies; a light, I will maintain, that is necessarily beyond the reach of critical human geography.
Class Politics in the (Re) Making of Space: Displacing the Urban Poor in Kolkata, India
Authors: Roy Anurupa
Published: February 2020

In the wake of the neoliberal turn in India, the focus on urban areas has gained importance in the planning process at various geographical scales. Urban space making and restructuring processes are evident in the form of various physical infrastructural undertakings and developmental projects such as bridges, flyovers and other lines of transportation, also upscale shopping malls, plush residential buildings devoted to residential and recreational uses. The (re)making of urban spaces is subject to intense conflicts both from above and below, since it is a contradictory socio-economic process based on conflicting class interests. However, in the current literature inspired primarily by post-structuralism that examines urban space, the emphasis is unduly on the politics of urban subalterns. This literature prioritizes a plethora of everyday practices on the part of the disenfranchised population in response to the top-down developmental politics. Such an approach is undialectical: it ignores the fact that the (re)creation of urban space is a combined result of the struggles from above reflecting the interests of the ruling classes and its state in accumulation, and the struggles from below represented by the subordinate classes, reflecting their interests in their own reproduction. Urban space (re)making must be studied in its totality. Through an analysis of empirical materials based on a study of the poorer (low-income) segments of the urban working class in India, I assert that a Marxist approach provides a better analytical framework to understand the politics of the urban subordinate class, in which the emphasis is on class struggle that complexly intertwines with other socio-spatial schisms in the society.
Accumulation by Dispossession or Accumulation without Dispossession: The Case of Contract Farming in India
Authors: Shrimali Ritika
Published: February 2020

According to David Harvey, Accumulation by Dispossession (ABD) has become the dominant form of accumulation under the mantra of neoliberalism backed by the State policies, whether in developed or in developing economies. Using empirical evidence on contract farming in India, I argue that capitalist accumulation can indeed occur without dispossession. I show how a class of petty capitalist farmers (petty, in comparison to corporate capital) is encouraged to maintain its private property (land) and to enter into commercial contracts with big industrial (multinational) companies to deliver certain farm products at a pre-determined price. These companies have no intention to dispossess the farmers, and they do not have to. As a structure of multiple class actors (big business; capitalist farmers; rural labour), contract farming is a process that represents centralisation (and concentration) of capital and points to the ways in which agrarian and industrial capitals are intertwined. Contract farming as a form of accumulation is based on appalling working conditions of labour, including vulnerable women workers and migrants, on contract farms, and it exhibits much geographical variation in its occurrence.
The State, Civil Society, and the Canadian Agricultural Biotechnology Industry
Authors: Bridi Robert
Published: February 2020

There are complex ways in which agricultural production, biotechnology, and the interventions by the state and civil society are interconnected. Advanced capitalism is characterized by a general (albeit temporally and spatially uneven) tendency towards technological change in its various forms. In contemporary times, biotechnology is one such form. As with all forms of technology, its emergence is a contradictory process. As an industrial phenomenon, biotechnology may be seen as an opportunity for individual segments of the capitalist class for accumulation of exchange value as well as a capitalist growth strategy at the sectoral level. Its emergence is indicative of an instantiated counter-struggle on the part of specific capitals against impinging price competition in the agricultural industry and, at a macro-scale, of the intensifying decline in the rate of profit in advanced industrial economies. The emergence and utilization of biotechnology both as a means of production and as a means of increasing (monopolistic) profit is part of a wider process of market-oriented reforms in the agrarian sector occurring at national and international scales. However, interventions on the part of the state which generally tends to play an enabling role, and of civil society whose aim is to at least partly resist the expansion of the market for biotechnology, have not ceased, so the outcomes of market-based restructuring in general and the use and consequences of biotechnology in particular are anything but automatic. The argument is illustrated with empirical evidence from the development, adoption, and production of agricultural biotechnology in Canada.
Demystifying Money: Fictions of Capital and Credit
Authors: Funke Jayson J.
Published: February 2020

The 2007 global financial crisis fueled critical scholarship on the geographies of finance, money, credit and debt. This research led to calls for clarifying and demystifying modern money and credit to better understand the proliferation of debt, austerity, and inequality within the contemporary nexus of capitalist class relations, and the broader imperative of managing global economic growth and crises under financialization. This article contributes to demystifying modern money by outlining two prominent historical-theoretical narratives of money: commodity-money and credit-money. These monetary narratives in turn reflect the dialectical imperatives of capitalist social relations, especially capital/labor conflicts, but also the congealing relations between finance capital and the state. Critical analysis demonstrates that both these contradictory monetary narratives are manifest within the institutional design and policies of the U.S. monetary system. This monetary framework is institutionalized through a monetary geography of power that operates through the hegemonic networks of the U.S. Federal Reserve System. This is demonstrated by incorporating the credit-money account into a Marxian framework, which is employed at the national scale to analyze the functional contradictions, history and institutional structure of the U.S. monetary system. The competing money narratives, explicit within the functional design of the Fed System itself, reflect the capitalist state's attempt to reconcile competing social agendas between capital and labor. The mystified monetary fictions underlying monetary authority obscure the political power of commodity-money and the bond/financial markets and class interests they serve, as well as mask the reality and progressive fiscal possibilities of the U.S. Federal Reserve credit-money system.
Climate Change and People Change: Dancing the Dialectic
Authors: O'Keefe Paul
Published: February 2020

The fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2014) says that accelerated climate change is occurring because of enhanced release of greenhouse gases. It is projected that temperatures will increase in East Africa but there is no agreement on how precipitation will change. There is acceptance that the climate system will throw up more frequent extreme conditions, including drought. We can begin to understand how this will materialize in people's livelihood strategies and adaptive choices. This paper identifies theoretical problems in the dominant discourses surrounding human-environment relations and climate change, and argues for a dialectical approach to the subject. It concludes with a brief vignette focused on a dialectical study of climate change.
Why Cuban Solidarity Was Ebola's Antidote: How Cuban Medical Internationalism is Radically Changing Health Geographies in the Global South
Authors: Huish Robert
Published: February 2020

When the world responded to the 2014 Ebola outbreak a lot went wrong. Vaccines were promised but never delivered. Health workers were called for, but never arrived. Patients needed urgent care, but were forced into quarantine. Amid repeated calls for urgent action and increased care to the Ebola stricken countries in West Africa many nations acquiesced. Yet economically hobbled Cuba offered more health care workers, established more hospital space, and trained more people in the fight against Ebola than any other country in the world. It is a seemingly exceptional effort considering the lacking response of many nations. As this paper argues, Cuba's Ebola effort is a normative response within its broader commitment to solidarity. This paper demonstrates that Cuba employs a solidarity approach to global health that meets the health needs of some of the world's most marginalized populations, while contributing to its own economic and political goals. What is more, this approach works to further Cuba's own political interests by facilitating cooperation through health care provision. The paper explores the program design, logistical operations, and broader conceptualization of Cuba's Ebola efforts based on testimony from Cuban health workers in the field, and health officials in Havana. Cuba's solidarity approach to global health outreach stands in stark contrast to many global health efforts, and, if expanded upon, it could drastically improve global health efforts.
A Taste of Capitalism? Competing Notions of Cuban Entrepreneurship in Havana's Paladares
Authors: Henken Ted A. , Vignoli Gabriel
Published: February 2020

This essay examines the meaning, function, and possible future(s) of entrepreneurship in Cuba. Within the larger process of Raúl Castro's unprecedented economic reforms and in the midst of an ongoing “normalization” of relations between Cuba and the United States, we ask: How is entrepreneurship being reconfigured both from above and from within? What effects will that reconfiguration have in shaping the popular response to the simplistic either-or model of a mere “updating” of socialism, on the one hand, versus an implicit “transition” to capitalism on the other? What was—and is—the meaning of entrepreneurship in the Cuban context, especially from the perspective of entrepreneurs themselves? To address these questions, we focus on a particular site: Havana's private, home-based restaurants, known popularly as paladares in Cuba 1 . Paladares are the most widespread, dynamic, and profitable mode of entrepreneurship in today's Cuba and—we argue—the quintessential experimental space for the articulation of different, competing notions of entrepreneurship. In other words, how do private restaurateurs balance state supervision and regulation with their need for innovation and flexibility especially since the enactment of major entrepreneurial reforms in late-2010? Our focus on entrepreneurship acquires more urgency (and demands deeper analysis) in the rapidly changing context of U.S.-Cuba bilateral relations following the historic thaw initiated on December 17, 2014, culminating in the establishment of diplomatic relations and the opening of embassies on July 20, 2015. Indeed, President Barack Obama's new “empowerment through engagement” policy explicitly targets Cuba's emerging entrepreneurial class as agents of change following Raúl Castro's 2010 liberalizations. Thus, we conclude by addressing how new state policies on each side are impacting Cuban entrepreneurs and how entrepreneurs themselves are strategically taking advantage of their role as economic protagonists in a new Cuba.

1 Except in cases where we discuss paladares whose travails have been covered in the media— “El Hurón Azul” and “El Cabildo”—all other names have been altered. Translations from the Spanish are our own. Henken carried out ethnographic interviews with nearly two-dozen paladar proprietors on multiple visits to Cuba between July 2000 and April 2011. Henken's ethnographic work was augmented by that done between 2010 and 2014 by Vignoli.
Having Faith in the Party Again: The Two-Line Party Struggle in the Chinese Communist Party
Authors: Chambers Collin L.
Published: February 2020

At the present time, the Communist Party is not looked upon as an agent for revolutionary change. It is seen as an archaic artifact that needs to be left in the dustbin of 20th century history. Some in the “New Left” argue for a “post-party politics” – because contemporary party politics are so “closely bound up with structures of power, the possibility that political parties will transform themselves and formulate a new politics is extremely low” (Wang 2016, 169). In sum, we should not have faith in the Party in radically changing social formations. However, this view abstracts from the political and social dynamics of communist parties. Communist parties provide the “affective infrastructure” for activists (Dean 2016) and create the flexible, disciplined organizational form necessary for maneuvering through the complexities of a revolutionary moment. An investigation of the historical and contemporary “line struggles” within the Chinese Communist Party gives insight into how communist parties can foster change in a social formation. This paper seeks to install hope that the Party, particularly the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), can once again create revolutionary change.
Surveillance, Bureaucracy, and the Politics of Anonymity in Democratic Kampuchea
Authors: Tyner James A.
Published: February 2020

Between 1975 and 1979 upwards of two million men, women, and children died from exposure, exhaustion, disease, starvation, and murder under the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK). Pervasive to the widespread forms of structural and physical violence was a complex security apparatus. In this paper, my direct concern lies not in the legalities of surveillance and control but instead with the violence that emanates from the material practices of bureaucratic surveillance and the politics of anonymity. Drawing on the organizational structure and activities of the CPK I critically interrogate the dialectics of anonymity that preconfigured the Cambodian genocide. More precisely, I call attention to the dialectics of self- and state-anonymity, of the violent contradictions of men, women, and children who wanted to remain unknown yet became known and a governmental structure that drew power from its being simultaneously known but unknown. In so doing, I draw on several fields of study, including insights from the literature on surveillance and space; the scholarly study of bureaucracies; and studies on the geopolitics of anonymity. In so doing I demonstrate the salience of a political economic perspective for the study of bureaucratic state surveillance.
East-West/North-South – or Imperial-Subimperial? The BRICS, Global Governance and Capital Accumulation
Authors: Bond Patrick
Published: February 2020

Two leading critics of imperialism — John Smith and David Harvey — have engaged in a bitter dispute over how to interpret geographically-shifting processes of super-exploitation and power. Missing, though, is consideration of ‘subimperialism,’ a category drawn from Ruy Mauro Marini's 1960s-70s dependency theory, with its focus on Brazil's relationship with the West: a fusion of imperial and semi-peripheral agendas of power and accumulation with internal processes of super-exploitation. The risk is that by splitting hairs on geographically-generalized categories, Smith and Harvey obscure crucial features of their joint wrath, which is the unjust accumulation processes and geopolitics that enrich the wealthy and despoil the world environment. The concept of subimperialism can resolve some of the Smith-Harvey disputes, but only if read through Marini and Harvey in a more generous way than does Smith. One of the best examples of the phenomenon is the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) bloc, which for a decade from 2009–18 has increasingly asserted an ‘alternative’ strategy to key features of Western imperialism, while in reality fitting tightly within it. This fit works through amplified neoliberal multilateralism serving both the BRICS and the West, the regional displacement of overaccumulated capital, financialization, and persistent super-exploitative social relations: the spatio-temporal fixes and accumulation by dispossession that amplify global crisis tendencies.
Revisiting Empowerment: Rising Female Unemployment in the Bangladesh Garment Sector
Authors: Rahman Shahidur
Published: February 2020

Economic exploitation faced by workers in Bangladesh's ready-made garment (RMG) industry, in recent decades has provided millions of Bangladeshi women with opportunities for improved social status and reduced dependence on structures of patriarchy. In recent years, there has been a marked decline in both overall employment in Bangladesh's RMG sector, as well as the rate of female participation in it. This paper examines the reasons for this recent contraction in the sector, and raises the issue of its present and future impact on the status of women in Bangladesh.
Searching for “Solutions” to Crisis: A Critique of Urban Austerity and Keynesianism
Authors: Holgersen Ståle
Published: February 2020

Based on reflections on how economic crises under capitalism have been typically “solved”, particularly by examining processes of creative destruction and spatial fixes, this paper argues for the need to rethink the duality between austerity, and Keynesian crisis management, given the nature of the current economic crisis. Austerity is a key policy instrument of neoliberalism. Keynesianism is regarded as neoliberalism's antithesis. Conventionally understood, continued austerity would mean more post-Fordist and neoliberal geographies, while a Keynesian approach would mean more demand management. This paper argues that such a conclusion is over-simplistic, indeed incorrect. Crisis management inspired by Keynes is less concerned with the destructive parts of crises and seldom challenges the power of capital. Therefore, Keynesian crisis management risks reproducing neoliberal spaces and neoliberal urban and regional policies. This paper questions whether Keynesian crisis management — i.e. boosting aggregate demand during slumps — is a “solution” to the current crisis. The paper questions Keynesianism in its belief, for example, that climate change can be stopped within a framework that still perpetuates, and advocates for, compound economic growth. The paper concludes by arguing for the need to see beyond Keynesianism, and explores what a Marxist approach to spatial fix and creative destruction might mean.
Verkehr, or Subversive Mobility: Recovering Radical Transportation Geographies from Language
Authors: Shell Jacob
Published: February 2020

This article theorizes subversive mobility by looking at the layers of meaning connoted by a set of etymologically complex words in several languages. I examine at how the semantics of words like Verkehr (German), “filibuster” (English), Yangjingbang (Shanghainese vernacular), and others, convey human experiences of physical mobility and political subversion as interconnected. This discussion is both philological and historical-geographic in orientation, using etymological inquiry to recover transportation geographies and worlds of social meaning which have become marginalized or hidden. The discussion also provides context for an analysis of the importance of not only subversive mobility but also enduring, “archaic” forms of social energy in Karl Marx's dialectical conception of history, especially towards the end of his life.
Between Ferality and Resilience: Global (South) Urbanization as a Counterinsurgency Research Object
Authors: Filippidis Christos
Published: February 2020

Today, urbanization is described as one of the major global challenges. The rapid demographic transformations taking place in certain regions of the Global South — especially in countries of Africa and Southeast Asia — bring a sense of urgency to the discussion on cities. Rapid and uncontrolled urbanization in Global South, combined with social inequalities, poverty and environmental degradation, renders many urban populations vulnerable and precarious. With an emphasis on the urban expansion of the Global South, an international agenda is formed nowadays, focusing on the structural functions of the cities and their shielding against the negative effects of the current global crisis; a crisis taking today the form of an economic, environmental, and migration crisis. Thus, sustainability and resilience of the cities, and especially of those in the Global South, are turned into the key questions of urban planning and urban governance policies. Yet, they are also gradually turned into an object of military problematizations, as Western armed forces are strongly interested today in the urban phenomena and the functions of the cities, perceiving urban environment not only as a potential field of military operations but as a source of irregular threats; describing, in other words, the cities of the Global South not only as sites that host potential enemies but as enemies per se. More specifically, from the end of the 20th century U.S. military focuses on urban informality and its security implications, imposing a new understanding of the urban world. This is today more evident, as rapid demographic changes render urban systems and informal urban settlements in particular more vulnerable, and this vulnerability is directly problematized in public security terms. Through the relevant anti-urban theoretical frameworks, the cities of the Global South are conceived as feral systems that have to be tamed; and this taming calls for direct intervention. Military imposes, in this way, its presence in the field of urban problematizations, and building on the deception of contemporary neoliberal narratives calls today for urban resilience. As the world urbanizes rapidly and the notions of crisis and emergency are shaping the dominant social imaginary and the modern governmental agenda, urban sustainability, adaptability, and resilience are turned into an overall public security issue and eventually into an object of military interest. Hence, when the military theorists wonder how to make contemporary “fragile” urban systems more “resilient”, they actually wonder how to build forcibly resilient subjectivities and impose, after all, resilience and patience against an inescapable oppression.
The Eclipse of Environmental Discourse
Authors: Mulvihill Peter R. , Bruzzone Victor
Published: February 2020

In recent years, sustainability discourse has largely eclipsed e nvironmental discourse. We trace the evolution of this shift, discuss its problematic implications and analyze it in Lacanian and other theoretical terms. We discuss the respective tendencies of environmental and sustainability discourse and argue that the latter, among many other flaws, is more prone to a social fantasy of reconciling ecological, economic, and social problems, and as a consequence, disavows the threat of ecological catastrophe. Since environmental discourse also sometimes slips into social fantasy, one predicated on balance and harmony, we make the case for a revival of an environmental discourse more grounded in concrete ecological problems — an ecological realism inspired by psychoanalytic theory.
Discourses, bodies, and the production of space: Challenging the (re)production of more-than-human deathscapes
Authors: Pitas John-Henry , Shcheglovitova Mariya
Published: February 2020

This paper explores the production of urban spaces as deathscapes, or spaces that are defined by death. We probe the ways in which these spaces are produced by the material content of the spaces themselves, and the discursive representations of those spaces found in popular media. We take as our empirical starting point personal encounters with dead animal bodies in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies, we juxtapose personal experiences with death in the city with popular representations of Baltimore, as well as a spatial analysis of the geographies of non-human death. Using mixed methodologies, we tease out and highlight the ways in which death, dying, bodies, and violence are used to produce urban deathscapes. Our analysis shows how the production of death and deathscapes are inherently uneven spatial processes, which work in tandem to (re)produce certain spaces as deadly. Furthermore, we illustrate how these spaces are produced in part by discourse, politics, representation, and the material presence of non-human death, challenging what we might think of as being capable of producing space, and broadening the concept of deathscapes. Ultimately we conclude that producing urban spaces as deadly is a means by which capital seeks to reproduce itself, and, through harnessing the power of the non-human dead to produce space, utilize nature to produce new forms of urban capital.
Book Review: Limits to Decolonization: Indigeneity, Territory, and Hydrocarbon Politics in the Bolivian Chaco
Authors: Correia Joel E. , McEwan Cheryl , Bryan Joe , Anthias Penelope
Published: February 2020

This book review symposium critically evaluates Penelope Anthias’ recent text Limits to Decolonization: Indigeneity, Territory, and Hydrocarbon Politics in the Bolivian Chaco (Cornell University Press 2018). Through deep ethnographic attention, Anthias’ text evaluates Indigenous struggles for territory in the context of “post-neoliberal” Bolivia under the Evo Morales administration, showing the variegated and nuanced politics of autonomy in an era of hydrocarbon extraction and increasingly contradictory state-Indigenous relations. The text examines the “limits” of rights and state-led territorial titling processes to radically challenge the racialized extractive geographies that shape the Bolivian Chaco region. In so doing, Anthias’ ethnography provides a rich analysis of how Guaraní Indigenous peoples are reshaping their relations with non-Indigenous landowners and the hydrocarbon industry to advance new forms of territorial autonomy and self-determination with significant ramifications on Indigenous studies in Latin America. This book review symposium draws from a session at the 2019 American Association of Geographers Conference, featuring two leading geographers who share their critical readings of Limits to Decolonization with a conclusion by Anthias that responds to the written reviews.
The Politics of Transgender Asylum and Detention
Authors: DasGupta Debanuj
Published: February 2020

Immigration procedures related to asylum and detention are based on sex/gender binaries. Such binaries frame the bodies of undocumented transgender asylum seekers as unintelligible to immigration law and subject them to intense trauma. The experiences of trauma and death of transgender detainees within detention centers is a spatialized experience. The assignment of detention cells based on birth gender, denial of hormones and live saving treatments constitute a racialized and gendered torture upon the body of the transgender detainee. The article attends to the narratives of transgender detainees within detention cell by analyzing the script of “ Tara's Crossing,” a play based on the narratives of transgender detainees and asylum seekers. The play was produced by LGBTQ immigrant right activists soon after the attacks on 9/11 and the intensification of detention and deportation as a part of national security procedures. Drawing upon the script of Tara's Crossing, along with activist archives such as flyers, newsletter articles, and radio interviews of Balmitra Vimal Prasad, the protagonist of the play, the article analyzes the ways in which the sex/gender binary is reiterated within the detention cell, as well as asylum procedures. I turn to the activism around Tara's Crossing and the present-day activism of transgender immigrants in order to show how trauma experienced by transgender detainees holds potential for creating coalitional oppositional politics.
Decolonizing Development Education and the Pursuit of Social Justice
Authors: Sultana Farhana
Published: February 2020

Decolonization has become a popular discourse in academia recently and there are many debates on what it could mean within various disciplines as well as more broadly across academia itself. The field of international development has seen sustained gestures towards decolonization for several years in theory and practice, but hegemonic notions of development continue to dominate. Development is a contested set of ideas and practices that are under critique in and outside of academia, yet the reproduction of colonial power structures and Eurocentric logics continues whereby the realities of the global majority are determined by few powerful institutions and a global elite. To decolonize development's material and discursive powers, scholars have argued for decolonizing development education towards one that is ideologically and epistemologically different from dominant narratives of development. I add to these conversations and posit that decolonized ideologies and epistemologies have to be accompanied by decolonized pedagogies and considerations of decolonization of institutions of higher education. I discuss the institutional and critical pedagogical dilemmas and challenges that exist, since epistemological, methodological, and pedagogical decolonizations are influenced by institutional politics of higher education that are simultaneously local and global. The paper engages with the concept of critical hope in the pursuit of social justice to explore possibilities of decolonizing development praxis and offers suggestions on possible pathways forward.
Sulodexide improves pain-free walking distance in patients with lower extremity peripheral arterial disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Authors: Gaddi Antonio Vittorino , Capello Fabio , Gheorghe-Fronea Oana Florentina , Fadda Simone , Darabont Roxana Oana
Published: February 2020

Peripheral arterial disease is associated with very high cardiovascular risk. The main symptom is intermittent claudication, which strongly affects the quality of life. Therefore, treatment goals in peripheral arterial disease consist of the reduction of cardiovascular events and the relief of symptoms. An increase in pain-free walking distance, evaluated based on the Initial Claudication Distance, was also a strong positive prognostic factor in patients with peripheral arterial disease. Our objective was to reassess whether sulodexide is effective in improving Initial Claudication Distance. For this, we searched the literature according to the PRISMA checklist for double blind clinical trials assessing the improvement in the Initial Claudication Distance after 90 days of standard therapeutic regimen with sulodexide in adult patients with peripheral arterial disease. We found and assessed for bias in 11 studies eligible for review and meta-analysis. Data extracted from those studies favoured the sulodexide group, showing an overall difference in Initial Claudication Distance of +68.9 (CI 95%; ± 11.9 m) at the end of treatment (p < 0.001). According to this review, sulodexide is effective in improving Initial Claudication Distance and consequently the quality of life in patients with peripheral arterial disease. Further studies are needed to assess the effects of this drug on disease progression in asymptomatic patients with peripheral arterial disease.
First case report of cutaneous sporotrichosis (Sporothrix species) in a cat in the UK
Authors: Makri Nikoleta , Paterson Gavin K , Gregge Fiona , Urquhart Catriona , Nuttall Tim
Published: February 2020

Case summary

A 12-year-old female neutered indoor–outdoor domestic longhair cat presented with frequent sneezing and a nodular, suppurative lesion on its dorsal nose. Histopathological examination revealed a fungal granuloma. PCR and sequencing of the ribosomal internal transcribed spacers (ITS) regions (ITS-F and ITS-R) confirmed an infection with a Sporothrix species. Further sequencing of the beta-tubulin and calmodulin genes confirmed Sporothrix humicola, which lies within the Sporothrix pallida complex. The cat had concurrent diabetes mellitus, which responded to insulin therapy and diet. Oral itraconazole at 10 mg/kg PO q24h resulted in resolution of the lesions after 12 months. Treatment was well tolerated.

Relevance and novel information

This is the first report of sporotrichosis in a cat in the UK and only the fifth worldwide involving the S pallida complex. Clinicians, pathologists and microbiologists need to be aware of the potential of Sporothrix infections in the UK and the ability of S pallida complex to cause opportunistic infections. Molecular techniques can achieve rapid and accurate identification of rare fungal organisms. A precise diagnosis with molecular testing can provide information regarding prognosis, treatment and zoonotic implications.
Management of Restless Legs Syndrome in Pregnancy and Lactation
Authors: Jahani Kondori Marjan , Kolla Bhanu Prakash , Moore Katherine M. , Mansukhani Meghna P.
Published: February 2020

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) affects about 20% of all pregnant women. RLS symptoms are usually moderate to severe in intensity during pregnancy and can result in insomnia, depression, and other adverse outcomes. Although iron deficiency has been implicated as a potential etiological factor, other mechanisms can also play a role. Nonpharmacologic methods are the primary recommended form of treatment for RLS in pregnancy and lactation. Iron supplementation may be considered when the serum ferritin is low; however, several patients are unable to tolerate iron or have severe symptoms despite oral iron replacement. Here, we describe a case of severe RLS in pregnancy and illustrate the dilemmas in diagnosis and management. We review the literature on the prevalence, diagnosis, course, possible underlying pathophysiologic mechanisms and complications of RLS in pregnancy. We describe current best evidence on the efficacy, and safety of nonpharmacologic therapies, oral and intravenous iron supplementation, as well as other medication treatments for RLS in pregnancy and lactation. We highlight gaps in the literature and provide a practical guide for the clinical management of RLS in pregnancy and during breastfeeding.
Perioperative Optimization of Patients With Neuromuscular Disorders Undergoing Scoliosis Corrective Surgery: A Multidisciplinary Team Approach
Authors: Sedra Fady , Shafafy Roozbeh , Sadek Ahmed-Ramadan , Aftab Syed , Montgomery Alexander , Nadarajah Ramesh
Published: February 2020

Study Design:

Narrative review.

Objective:

The high rate of complications associated with the surgical management of neuromuscular spinal deformities is well documented in the literature. This is attributed to attenuated protective physiological responses in multiple organ systems.

Methods:

Review and synthesis of the literature pertaining to optimization of patients with neuromuscular scoliosis undergoing surgery. Our institutional practice in the perioperative assessment and management of neuromuscular scoliosis is also described along with a clinical vignette.

Results:

Respiratory complications are the most common to occur following surgery for neuromuscular disorders. Other categories include gastrointestinal, cardiac, genitourinary, blood loss, and wound complications. A multidisciplinary approach is required for perioperative optimization of these patients and numerous strategies are described, including respiratory management.

Conclusion:

Perioperative optimization for patients with neuromuscular disorders undergoing corrective surgery for spinal deformity is multifaceted and complex. It requires a multidisciplinary evidence-based approach. Preadmission of patients in advance of surgery for assessment and optimization may be required in certain instances to identify key concerns and formulate a tailored treatment plan.
An Empirical Study on Power Evacuation Projects’ Performance: A Strategic Layout in the Indian Context
Authors: Garg Adarsh , Ghatak Achintya
Published: February 2020

In a competitive business environment, project management aligned with the business strategy caters to the organisation goals. Researchers and practitioners are constantly probing into the possible enhancement of the existing approaches to manage projects. Though the relevant literature recommends numerous methodologies to enhance the achievement of project performance, yet the importance of power evacuation projects is still unnoticed and little has been done in this area. This research aims to develop a strategic layout using critical influence factors (CIFs) of power evacuation projects. A survey is carried out in 47 companies which are working on power evacuation projects. The results of the statistical analysis revealed that there is a significant direct and indirect impact of the strategy, risk, contract, information technology (IT) and stakeholders on the project performance with respect to power evacuation projects.