bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Proposing a model for assessing green hotels based on ecological indicators
Authors: Bagheri Moslem , Shojaei Payam , Jahromi Samaneh Asghari , Kiani Mehrdad
Published: February 2020

The hospitality industry has undergone significant developments as new modes of environment-friendly tourism and hotels have emerged (including ecotourism, eco-hotels, ecolodges, and green hotels). These new features, however, have not been specifically investigated, especially in a considerably potential tourist destination like Iran. This study sought to develop a model for identifying and prioritizing the indicators that could determine the ecological features of hotels. Following a systematic review, exploratory factor analysis and analytic network process were used to construct a hybrid model and its elements were then prioritized in five-star hotels in the Fars province, Iran. The model consisted of five dimensions (totally including 19 indicators), namely “energy,” “ecological adaptation,” “materials and equipment,” “foods and drinks,” and “cultural-economic activities.” The findings revealed that the “energy” dimension was significantly important, while indicators such as “effective use of water,” “supply and efficient use of energy,” and “use of renewable energies” were the most important indicators, respectively. The results of this study can encourage managers/practitioners in hotel accommodation to concentrate on the indicators that could promote the ecological level of hotels. In doing so, they can consider energy, foods, and beverage indicators in developing green hotels and implement appropriate accommodation with ecotourism standards to attract (inter)national tourists.
The work–family interface in a gendered cultural context: Cross-national analysis of work stress
Authors: Davis Shannon N
Published: February 2020

Work stress is one key health outcome that is responsive to the work–family interface, particularly to the extent to which work and family life lead to conflict outside of their respective spheres. Previous scholarship examining work stress cross-nationally has highlighted the culturally specific work expectations that shape worker experiences in the workplace. However, those work expectations are shaped by cultural opportunities for women and men. This article adds to the literature on cross-national understandings of work using 2010 European Social Survey data ( N = 4,278 women and 3,712 men) to examine the extent to which country-level differences in gender equality shape the experiences of worker stress in 26 countries. After controlling for individual-level demands and resources (in the home and workplace), the analysis yields two key findings. First, there is an association between work-to-family conflict and worker stress for both women and men, but the association between family-to-work conflict and worker stress was evident only among women. Second, the gendered cultural context shapes women’s experience of workplace stress both directly and through moderating the negative influences of work-to-family and family-to-work conflict. The findings have specific significance for understanding how cultural context shapes whether workplace policies can be used as mechanisms to reduce worker stress.
Sexual Abuse in the Orthodox Jewish Community: A Literature Review
Authors: Lusky-Weisrose Efrat , Marmor Amitai , Tener Dafna
Published: February 2020

Sexual abuse is a cross-cultural phenomenon related to multiple cultural contexts including religious affiliation. The Haredi, or Orthodox Jewish community (OJC), constitutes a significant minority group of the worldwide Jewish population, characterized by cultural conservatism, steadfast loyalty to the community, and strict religious behavioral codes. To date, only few empirical studies (as opposed to multiple media reports) have dealt with the issue of sexual abuse within the OJC. Using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, we conducted a systematic review of the literature on sexual abuse within the OJC and its subgroups that addresses experiences and reports of victims, perpetrators, the Jewish and general community, and professionals in the North America, Israel, and Australia. Articles were collected from peer-reviewed databases and bibliographies; 13 quantitative and qualitative articles were included in the final sample. Three themes emerged: disclosure of sexual abuse, perceptions and attitudes toward the abuse, and its implications. Results indicated that alongside several findings that were specifically grounded in the context of closed collective or religious societies and the OJC in particular, most essentially reflected universal aspects of sexual abuse. The results suggest promoting context-informed interventions based on community knowledge and resilience, together with appropriate training in order to better understand the needs of the OJC and of closed communities in general.
Sound absorption of warp knitted spacer fabrics based on knit structure and nanofiber enhancement
Authors: Davoudabadi Farahani M , Jamshidi Avanaki M , Jeddi Ali AA
Published: February 2020

In this work, the sound absorption properties of warp knitted spacer fabrics enhanced with nanofiber were studied. The angle of connecting yarns at two different spacing was considered as knit structure variable. Also, the effect of layering on the sound absorption performance was studied. Besides that, the effect of polyacrylonitrile nanofiber enhancement on sound absorption coefficient of such structures were considered. The polyacrylonitrile nanofibers were manufactured by a single-nozzle electrospinning device using a rotating cylindrical collector. The main variable for the nanofiber enhancement was its deposition amount on the front surface of spacer fabrics. The sound absorption coefficient was measured by using the method of impedance tube. For this purpose, the samples were prepared according to the requirements, and the tests were performed at the frequency range of 500–6000 Hz on single-layer and multi-layer samples. The results showed that increasing the spacing and the angle of connecting yarns will enhance the sound absorption coefficients of samples through increasing their areal mass, thickness and porosity. Moreover, layering will significantly affect the sound absorption performance of samples. Furthermore, nanofiber enhancement increased the absorption of sound at all frequencies.
An investigation on the flammability and dynamic mechanical behavior of coir fibers reinforced polymer composites
Authors: Khuntia Tanmayee , Biswas Sandhyarani
Published: February 2020

Recently, the natural fibers replaced the synthetic fibers to a great extent as reinforcement to the polymer composites. Among the natural fibers, coir fibers has the potential to be used in various applications because of its abundancy, non-toxicity, low cost, and resilient properties. Generally, the polymeric materials are very sensitive to the flame. That is why it is inevitable to measure the performance of the polymer composites prior to the applications such as construction, automotive parts, etc. Coir fibers have high lignin content that makes it a preferable reinforcement in the development of polymer composites to enhance the fire resistant properties. The aim of this work is to study the flammability properties of coir fibers reinforced polypropylene composites along with the thermal stability and mechanical properties. Composites were fabricated by melt compounding with micro-compounder followed by compression molding. The dynamic mechanical properties were analyzed. The storage modulus of coir/polypropylene composites was found to be increased than the neat polypropylene but the damping properties of the composites were decreased. The flammability properties have been studied using horizontal burning test by UL-94. It is observed from the study that the composites with 30 wt% of coir fibers content achieved V-0 rating. The flame propagation speed increased for composites up to 20 wt% of coir fibers content and after that it was decreased. The thermal stability of the composites was found to be increased with the increase in fiber loading.
Use of Integra Dermal Regeneration Template for Limb Salvage in Diabetic Patients With No-Option Critical Limb Ischemia
Authors: Dalla Paola Luca , Cimaglia Paolo , Carone Anna , Boscarino Giulio , Scavone Giuseppe
Published: February 2020

We have analyzed in a retrospective study of consecutive diabetic patients affected by no-option critical limb ischemia (CLI) the efficacy of the dermal substitute Integra Dermal Regeneration Template for treatment of complicated foot lesions. The primary end point was limb salvage and 1-year amputation-free survival. The secondary end point was healing time of surgical site. Between October 2014 and October 2017, 1024 patients with diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) and CLI were admitted. In 84 patients (8.2%), there was a failure in distal revascularization with a persistent CLI after the procedure. Despite the persistent CLI, a group of 26 patients of this cohort obtained complete wound healing. Among them, 13 patients were treated with surgical debridement or open amputations and application of dermal substitute Integra Dermal Regeneration Template and the other 13 patients were treated without any dermal substitute. The Integra group healed within a mean time of 83.5 days, and the control group healed within a mean of 139 days ( P = .028). No major amputation was carried out at 1-year follow-up in the Integra group versus 15% in the control group. A conservative foot surgery or an approach with minor amputation in diabetic patients with no-option CLI may achieve limb salvage. The use of Integra Dermal Regeneration Template in patients with DFU and no-option CLI may be a useful option in a limb salvage program.
Senescent Colon and Breast Cancer Cells Induced by Doxorubicin Exhibit Enhanced Sensitivity to Curcumin, Caffeine, and Thymoquinone
Authors: El-Far Ali H. , Darwish Noureldien H. E. , Mousa Shaker A.
Published: February 2020

Cellular senescence is a process of physiological growth arrest that can be induced by intrinsic or extrinsic stress signals. Some cancer therapies are associated with senescence of cancer cells with a typical cell cycle arrest. Doxorubicin (Dox) induces senescence by a p53-dependent pathway and telomere dysfunction of numerous cancers. However, cellular senescence induces suppression in proliferation activity, and these cells will remain metabolically active and play an important role in tumor relapse and development of drug resistance. In the current study, we investigated the apoptotic effect of curcumin (Cur), caffeine (Caff), and thymoquinone (TQ) on senescent colon cancer HCT116 and breast cancer MCF7 cell lines treated with Dox. Results showed typical senescence markers including decreased bromodeoxyuridine incorporation, increased accumulation of senescence-associated β-galactosidase (SA-β-gal), cell cycle arrest, and upregulation of p53, P-p53, and p21 proteins. Annexin-V analysis by flow cytometry revealed 2- to 6-fold increases in annexin-V–positive cells in Dox-treated MCF7 and HCT116 cells by Cur (15 µM), Caff (10 mM), and TQ (50 µM; P < .001). In comparison between proliferative and senescent of either HCT116 or MCF7 cells, Caff at 15 mM and TQ at 25 µM induced significant increases in apoptosis of Dox-treated cells compared with proliferative cells ( P < .001). Data revealed that Cur, Caff, and TQ potentially induced apoptosis of both proliferative and senescent HCT116 and MCF7 cells. In vivo and clinical trials are of great importance to validate this result.
Design of optimal quantity discounts for multi-period bilevel production planning under uncertain demands
Authors: Yoshida Okihiro , Nishi Tatsushi , Zhang Guoqing , Wu Jun
Published: February 2020

The analysis of the quantity discount of the decentralized supply chain has been studied only for single-period planning models. This article presents the design of an optimal quantity discounts for multi-period bilevel production planning for two-echelon supply chains under demand uncertainty. In order to derive an optimal contract for multi-period production planning, the cumulative order quantity and production quantity are introduced. From our proposed model, a Stackelberg equilibrium is analytically derived for the supply chain when the supplier is the leader and the retailer is the follower. An optimal discount contract is analytically designed through the optimal solution of the centralized problem. Computational results show the effectiveness of the proposed discount contract under demand uncertainty.
Influence of the unified strength theory parameters on the failure characteristics and bearing capacity of sand foundation acted by a shallow strip footing
Authors: Deng Longsheng , Fan Wen , Yu Bo , Wang Yong
Published: February 2020

The unified strength theory can account for the influence of intermediate principal stress using a specified parameter b, with which the determination of the values and influences of b is significant. In this research, a physical model test was carried out in combination with the numerical simulations to explore the effect of b on a sand foundation loaded by a shallow strip footing. Variation of parameter b would produce significant effect on the deformation characteristics, stress response, failure model, as well as bearing capacity of the sand foundation. In general, a larger b could be adopted to yield smaller magnitudes of stress. The calculated ultimate bearing capacity Pult increases linearly with increase in b, and an increment of 470% can be obtained using b = 1.0 relative to b = 0.0. The comparison of the bearing capacities of physical model test and numerical simulation suggests that b = 0.89–0.99 is the appropriate value for the experimental sand foundation, that ultimately results in a capacity increase in 420%–465% relative to the result of Mohr–Coulomb failure law.
The dangers of interpretation: C.A.W. Manning and the “going concern” of international society
Authors: Jackson Patrick Thaddeus
Published: February 2020

C. A. W. Manning was an important figure in the early days of what became known as the English School, and was one of the most philosophically explicit articulators of the interpretivist approach that informed that branch of scholarship. He was also a defender of the apartheid system of his native South Africa. A close examination of his work reveals both the promises and the pitfalls of a methodologically interpretive approach to explanation. An interpretive explanation involves developing the capacity in the listener to “go on” appropriately, and this makes criticizing the rules of the game somewhat difficult, but not impossible. A clearer understanding of what an interpretive explanation is may very well help us to avoid the pitfalls illustrated by Manning’s advocacy, which I argue is made possible by a category confusion that remains very much with us: a confusion between delineating the rules of a given domain, and actively advocating or defending those principles.
Common breastfeeding problems
Authors: Anipindi Shailaja , Field Alexander , Neville Corinne , Field Elizabeth
Published: February 2020

The health benefits of breastfeeding are well known; the majority of women in the UK express a desire to breastfeed. However, by 8 weeks of age, only 40% of babies are receiving any breastmilk. Many reasons are given for discontinuing, but GPs, as a primary contact for women concerned about breastfeeding, are often able to identify problems. The aim of this article is to explore what constitutes successful breastfeeding, common concerns expressed by mothers, the pathologies with which they present to GPs and how breastfeeding fits into a holistic picture of postnatal health.
Corruption Scandals and Anti-Corruption Policies in Argentina
Authors: Pereyra Sebastián
Published: February 2020

The 1990s witnessed the spread of anti-corruption scandals in Latin American countries as well as a decade in which international transparency standards were developed. These two processes were closely related but they followed different local and global political dynamics. Transparency policies were perceived everywhere as a good response to the growing of corruption scandals. But, at the end of the day, the effectiveness of these policies was far from optimal. This article discusses the link between these two main aspects of the corruption as a public problem in Argentina. It reconstructs the dynamics of corruption scandals and state responses in Argentina during the 1990s, and asks how effective and efficient those responses were given the type of accusations and corruption cases exposed to the public through scandals. The hypothesis is that scandals, on the one hand, and public policy responses, on the other, refer to different aspects of the same problem and that the latter have failed to deal effectively with the demands and claims expressed through the scandals.
Between Product and Cuisine: The Moral Economies of Food among Young Chinese People in Japan
Authors: Coates Jamie
Published: February 2020

Trade and consumption of food in the Sino-Japanese context connects the two countries’ tense political relationship to the everyday lives of its citizens. Previous research has shown how food-related incidents have imbued Sino-Japanese relations with political and moral discourse that connects security concerns to everyday fears. This article explores how young Chinese people in Japan navigate multiple moral economies related to food. Through analysis of “products” ( chanpin/shipin) and “cuisine” ( cai/liaoli), this article shows the differing meanings of Chinese moral economies of food from the perspective of young Chinese people living in Japan. In the Sino-Japanese context, products embody more metonymic and nationalised values associated with modernity, whereas the metaphoric possibilities of cuisine afford young Chinese people to negotiate dominant moral economies of food in Japan. Using this example, I argue that greater semiotic attention needs to be paid to the multiple meanings of food and its moral economies.
Diabetes Management According to Health Status in Older Adults with Type 2 Diabetes Staying in Geriatric Care Facilities
Authors: Libiseller Angela , Lichtenegger Katharina M. , de Campo Antonella , Wiesinger Tatjana , Cuder Gerald , Donsa Klaus , Höll Bernhard , Beck Peter , Plank Johannes , Schippinger Walter , Pieber Thomas R.
Published: February 2020

Background:

About 25% of adults >70 years suffer from type 2 diabetes. Due to the heterogeneity of the geriatric population, guidelines emphasize the need to individualize glycemic goals and simplify treatment strategies with the main focus of avoiding hypoglycemia. The aim of this study was to assess glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes in geriatric care facilities based on their individual health status.

Methods:

170 medical records of older adults with type 2 diabetes in geriatric care facilities were retrospectively assessed (64.7% female, age 80 ± 9 years; glycated hemoglobin 6.8% ± 3.6% [51 ± 16 mmol/mol]; body mass index 27.9 ± 5.8 kg/m2). Based on the individual health status, patients were allocated to three groups (healthy n = 27, complex n = 86, and poor n = 57).

Results:

The overall blood glucose (BG) value was highest in the poor health group with 188 ± 47 mg/dL (poor) vs 167 ± 42 mg/dL (complex) vs 150 ± 34 mg/dL (healthy). BG values of 1.6% (poor) vs 2.8% (complex) vs 1.5% (healthy) of patients were below 90 mg/dL. 36.8% (poor) vs 23.4% (complex) vs 18.5% (healthy) of patients received insulin as the main diabetes therapy, but of these only 14.3% (poor) vs 20% (complex) vs 40% (healthy) were treated with basal insulin.

Conclusions:

Overall, BG values were higher in the poor and complex health group. There were a few low BG values in all groups. Although recommended by international guidelines, basal insulin therapy with its low complexity and low hypoglycemic risk is still underused, especially in the poor health group. Therefore, simplification of diabetes therapy should be considered further.
The Biopolitics of Baghdad: Counterinsurgency and the counter-city
Authors: Gregory Derek
Published: February 2020

Soon after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US military began to explore culture-centric warfare as a means of finding the terms for both occupation and counterinsurgency. The power of the new doctrine is supposed to have been proved by the success of the surge in US combat troops that started in February 2007, which incorporated the new emphases on protecting the civilian population and on ‘non-kinetic’ (non-violent operations), and which has been credited with bringing about a dramatic reduction in ethno-sectarian deaths in Baghdad. This argument ignores the intensification of kinetic operations in and around the capital and the consequent spike in deaths caused by military violence, and it minimizes the role of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in eventually reducing ethno-sectarian deaths as Baghdad rapidly turned from a predominantly Sunni to an overwhelmingly Shia city. These erasures are not accidental: they are directly connected to carefully calculated political effects that result from presenting culture-centric warfare in general and the Surge in particular as intrinsically therapeutic interventions. Such a strategy obscures crucial ways in which the Baghdad Security Plan was complicit in and capitalized on the ethno-sectarian restructuring of the capital. Conversely, disclosure of these connections reveals that political-military and paramilitary operations in Baghdad have frozen rather than resolved the conflict, and that they exemplify a late modern security apparatus that is not only geopolitical but also profoundly biopolitical.
Contradiction of space, centralization of capital, and the hybrid state oil company: The case of Russia
Authors: Labban Mazen
Published: February 2020

A new species of capital has emerged from the development of inter-capitalist competition in the oil industry. Oil-producing states have fused with financial and productive/extractive capital, foreign and domestic, into hybrid state oil companies. These are centralized monopolies that transcend the historical geographical opposition between private transnational oil companies and national oil companies. As partially nationalized state monopolies, they allow oil-producing states access to global capital markets, while retaining the control of the state over the flow of foreign capital into the domestic oil industry. They thus mediate the contradiction between the integration of capital at the transnational level and its territorial fragmentation at the national scale, only to internalize it in the process. I examine this process in the case of the ongoing consolidation of the Russian oil industry under state control, focusing on two inter-related contradictions: an attempt by the Russian state to liberalize the oil industry, yet shield it against the expansion and control of foreign oil companies; and the dependence of the state on foreign financial capital in the very process of consolidating control over the oil industry.
“Live Monster”: Black Friday and the All-Consuming City
Authors: Rosati Clayton , Mitchell Don
Published: February 2020

This [the “Holiday Season”] is a very special time of year for us, a time for family reunions and for celebrating together the blessings of God and the promises He has given us… [T]his is a season of hope and of love.

Certainly one of the greatest blessings for people everywhere is the family itself. … It's in the family where we learn to think for ourselves, care for others, and acquire the values of self-reliance, integrity, responsibility, and compassion.

—Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the American Family (12/1/1983)

Ok, Cabbage Patch dolls…

…The ironic thing, of course, that the very party with the money—you—is the very one who has lost control. The kids, who have no money, have been wired by the manufacturer who wants your money. You're the monkey in the middle, frantically running through plate glass windows to satisfy a craving of your kid's, afraid to say no because that means breaking a promise and disappointing a kid—a crime punishable by guilt and, later, therapy fees.

So look at things the way the manufacturers do. See how there is a new item on the market, each a little bit different but all programmed the same. You can have one just by looking into the mirror. There it is, you and me: Sucker Doll. Wind it up and it will buy anything a kid wants.

—Richard Cohen, “Dollemma,” The Washington Post (12/1/1983)

Commodities are now all there are to see; the world we see is the world of the commodity.

Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle
Ten Pages that Changed the World: Deconstructing Ricardo∗
Authors: Peet Richard
Published: February 2020

Powerful ideas that shape the world become taken-for-granted verities, in two senses of the term: as the only world that is known; and as the only world that can be imagined. When hegemony controls the imagination, fundamental criticism becomes difficult, and perhaps, impossible. Yet what if there were flaws in the original idea, from which new worlds were constructed, that have materialized in a political-economic geography beset with seemingly unsolvable problems? For example, what if there have always been fundamental flaws in the free trade, open market, competitive, global system that dominates both the world as we know it and the conventional political-economic-geographical thought we know it through? This article speculates that a psycho-discursive act of deconstruction might unravel the entire, subsequent discourse. It aims deconstruction at a founding statement in the free trade, global ideal, by looking critically at David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage. Ricardo's argument that specialization and free trade are universally beneficial, became a founding premise of conventional economic theory and a basic prescription of liberal and neoliberal development policy. The article looks critically: at the logical consistency and representational accuracy of Ricardo's theory, especially the claim that all participants benefit from participation in a free trading scheme, so that trade brings about a far better world. The article reaches two main, critical conclusions: free trade theory based in comparative advantage has, from the beginning, been an ideology for creating economic spaces open to domination by powerful, leading countries; economics and economic geography have, since their classical beginnings, been biased in that their founding statements reverse the reality they pretend accurately to represent.
Super-Sizing America: Geography, Income, Fast Food, and Whole Food
Authors: Massad Susan J.
Published: February 2020

The rate of obesity in the United States has increased to an alarming degree. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides data on the state-by-state and nationwide obesity rates. Over the last 20 years, the rates have steadily risen. The nationwide obesity rate is approximately 23.6% (all categories combined - age, sex, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status). This study was undertaken to examine the relationships between obesity rates, per capita income, number of the popular fast-food (McDonald's) restaurants, and number of whole foods grocery stores per capita. Data from previous studies regarding the causes of obesity, socioeconomic trends and food selection, state-by state obesity rates, use of federal food assistance programs, and the number of McDonald's restaurants worldwide and nationwide and “Whole Foods” markets is reviewed. Correlation coefficients were computed to determine relationships between 1) state-by-state obesity rates and per capita income, 2) state-by-state obesity rates and McDonald's per capita, 3) state-by-state per capita income and McDonald's per capita, and 4) state-by-state per capita income Whole Foods grocery stores per capita. There was a statistically significant relationship between the obesity rates and number of McDonalds per capita; the 2 were positively correlated (r=0.27; p < 0.05), meaning that there were more McDonald's in the states with higher obesity rates. There was a statistically significant (negative correlation between per capita income and obesity rates(r = -0.49, p < 0.05). There was no significant correlation between McDonald's restaurants per capita and per capita income (r= -01213, p=0.40). There was a significant, positive correlation between the number of “Whole Foods” grocery stores (r = 0.576, p< 0.01) and per capita income. Results of this study indicate that income, and access to fast food restaurants and whole foods markets have some influence over obesity rates.
Natural Science Pedagogy and Anarchist Communism: Developing a Radical Curriculum for Physical Geography in the US
Authors: Mauro Salvatore Engel-Di
Published: February 2020

Natural sciences typically enjoy generous institutional support and are regarded as authoritative knowledge. At the point of institutionalised knowledge distribution, as with university classrooms, few challenges have been mounted to the uncritical, if not reactionary, approaches typifying the natural sciences. Recent feminist work provides the only example of systematic and sustained effort at overcoming this, but it scarcely questions the power relations in which the sciences, and the making of scientists, are embedded. An alternative curriculum should therefore be developed and diffused that encourages socially critical and contextualising understandings of natural science and that promotes egalitarian principles, in ways similar to Marxist-inspired radical pedagogy. Through physical geography, geographers are well situated to radicalise natural science education. Kropotkins anarchist communist perspective already provides a precedent. Its integration with feminist and radical pedagogy provides one way that the content of physical geography teaching curricula can be radicalised, at least for college-level coursework in the US. To illustrate how to accomplish this, I discuss the development and application of a radical curriculum for an introductory physical geography course.
Exporting Imperial Democracy: Critical Reflections on the US Case
Authors: Slater David
Published: February 2020

My argument in this paper is that the US-led export of democracy can only be fully understood and challenged when situated in the context of the dynamics of imperial power. After outlining the main components of the imperial relation, namely, invasiveness, imposition and a lack of socio-cultural and political recognition of the imperialised society, I suggest that democracy is used as a mode of legitimization for the spreading of US power. This leads me into a discussion of the limits of Westocentric perspectives on democratic politics, set in the framework of international relations. The paper is concluded with some observations on alternative ways of doing democracy – on the need for ‘demo-diversity’ and a greater pluralization of our discussions of the democratic.
Narrow Trails of Permanent Subversion Beyond the Spectacle of Solitude
Authors: Merrifield Andy
Published: February 2020

Few people would think of Guy Debord, the prophet of spectacular capitalism, as a magical realist, just as fewer again would see Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the prophet of magical realism, as a theorist of the society of the spectacle. In this article, I want to bring The Society of the Spectacle and One Hundred Years of Solitude together in a strange dialogue centering on two fundamental themes: (1) the nature of reality, and (2) the possibility for transformative politics. The four-decades unfolding since the publication of these two books (in 1967) has been marked by a spectacular solitude, and in saying this it's true that each book remains darkly pessimistic. In a way, both pinpoint the ‘68-generation's shortcomings as much as embody its utopian desires. On the other hand, with their almost-supernatural lucidity, their dazzling erudition and phantasmal and mystical ideas, each book also transmits a strange sort of optimism, a backdoor sense of hope, and offers another take on what our lives might be. Each shows us how reality can be represented differently, how more acute (and astute) forms of subjectivity can create a more advanced sense of realism, and a different type of objectivity—a more radical and active one. Each text, in a nutshell, equips progressives with the imaginative tools for staking out new narrow trails of permanent subversion.
Bringing the Everyday into the Culture/ Creativity Discourse
Authors: Ettlinger Nancy
Published: February 2020

This article critiques and offers an alternative conceptualization of ‘culture’ and ‘creativity’ using an actor-based and relational epistemology. ‘Culture’ and ‘creativity’ have been socially constructed in scale-specific terms that overlook everyday practices that can diverge from dominant patterns and suggest hopeful possibilities, which ironically are lost in many Left-leaning narratives. Hopeful possibilities are traceable analytically to circuits of material and discursive value, which are inextricably related but can entail different trajectories across scales. Tracing these trajectories requires analytical attention to microscale activity, that is, to individual actors’ material practices, which produce mutable, discursive and material value at multiple scales.
Alternatives for Sustained Disaster Risk Reduction
Authors: Gaillard J. C. , Wisner Ben , Benouar Djillali , Cannon Terry , Creton-Cazanave Laurence , Dekens Julie , Fordham Maureen , Gilbert Claude , Hewitt Kenneth , Kelman Ilan , Lavell Allan , Morin Julie , N'Diaye Abdoulaye , O'Keefe Phil , Oliver-Smith Anthony , Quesada Cecile , Revet Sandrine , Sudmeier-Rieux Karen , Texier Pauline , Vallette Cloé
Published: February 2020

The daily media is filled with images of catastrophic events which seem increasingly frequent and violent. In parallel there are a large range of scientific studies, debates in the policy arena, and a growing number of international institutions focused on disaster reduction. But a paradox remains that despite advances in technology, disasters continue to increase, affecting many individuals in rich as well as poor countries.
What are we Doing about Climate Change?
Authors: Cox Helen M.
Published: February 2020

Climate change is the most important contemporary environmental problem that the world faces, yet it is the subject of many misconceptions. Climate science has been used for political ends and distorted in the press, both intentionally and through ignorance. This article presents an overview of what is known about global warming and what is controversial, about future climate projections and their impacts, and about the emissions responsible for climate change and policies to limit them.
Climate Justice Politics across Space and Scale
Authors: Bond Patrick
Published: February 2020

After roughly two decades of growing activist interest in the climate problem, the deadlocked politics of formal climate change negotiations generated such divisions that a formal global network of radical proponents of ‘climate justice’ emerged. In December 2007, Climate Justice Now! was formed to transcend earlier technicist, market-oriented, insider strategies by environmental NGOs. South Africa is one place where climate justice politics reflected the top-down lack of political will and growing bottom-up anger. The spatial and scalar visions of climate justice activists at both global and local levels are worth considering in detail, given the importance of this work for planetary sustainability and the living conditions of future generations, as well as for transnational activism more generally. Using David Harvey's insights on crisis and displacement, the article suggests routes of analysis, strategies, tactics and alliances that can be compared between global and local levels, with South Africa as a case study.
Sustainabl e Development: From Fallacy to Fraud
Authors: Poli Corrado
Published: February 2020

Until early 90s, scholars and western public opinion were making progress in developing an environmental ethic fitting for an active environmentalist political platform. The 1987 U.N. Sustainable Development compromise has inhibited this process by transforming the environmental problem from a political and ethical issue into a technical, economic and scientific one. Sustainable Development discourse has become a pseudo-ideology that has defused the possible revolutionary potential of a radical ‘green’ thinking. To contest the currently triumphant neoliberal order it is necessary to advance a new dialectical alternative which substitutes an environmentalist radical strategy for the defeated Communist project.
Hacking Away at Sustainability: Science, Ideology and Cynical Blockage
Authors: Davidson Mark
Published: February 2020

In 2009 sustainability took some major hits. At the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, no agreement was reached over reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Nor was there any discussion about reductions that would keep climate change within “safe limits”. Add to this “climategate” where the hacked emails of climate scientists in the UK revealed problematic data showing declining global temperatures had been deleted to avoid fuelling skepticism, and sustainability appears a stalled project. However, this position has to be reconciled with sustainability being perhaps the most prominent key word of policy initiatives both sides of the Atlantic. We therefore have the paradox of growing emissions levels and a deadlock over agreements to control them, standing alongside the widespread adoption and support of sustainability initiatives. This paper seeks to explain this situation by arguing sustainability is necessarily an ideological project; something we must believe in doing, even in the context of events like “climategate”. By positioning sustainability as ideological, it is therefore necessary to confront the relationship between climate science and ideology, examine the status of ideology in today's post-ideological times and consider the politics of climate change's universal threat to human civilization. As the paper proceeds through these issues, it is suggested that stemming ecological crisis will likely require (re)discovering a mode of politics not currently evident in sustainability debates.
A Sorry State: Apology Excepted
Authors: Waterstone Marv , de Leeuw Sarah
Published: February 2020

Hegemony is a preferred mode of governance. Because it relies more heavily on consent than on coercion, it tends to produce a more willing, and less resistant, citizenry. By its nature, hegemony depends crucially upon a widely shared, common-sensical view that elites are acting in the interests of those being governed, and this common sense underpins the legitimacy and authority of those in power. Failure to maintain such legitimacy can produce moments of severe crisis in governance, and such threats must be avoided or ameliorated. Typically, this kind of boundary work takes place “behind the scenes.” There are moments, however, when these efforts at state maintenance become visible, and might be investigated to reveal mechanisms that could be turned to progressive ends. We contend that official, state apologies offer one such avenue for investigation, and we offer our substantiation for this claim in the paper below.
Interrogating Klein's Shock Doctrine
Authors: Giri Saroj
Published: February 2020

In The Shock Doctrine Naomi Klein rightly critiques capitalism in its repressive ‘market fundamentalist’ avatar. But she does not problematise ‘democratic capitalism’ or the very form of capitalist democracy. Instead she advocates the latter. Thus for her the role of social movements is limited to the extension of democracy, from the political sphere, to the economic. No problem as such there – until we find that her advocacy for social movements derives from the need to make sure “disillusioned citizens would not go looking once again for a more appealing ideology, whether fascism or Communism” (p. 54). It is hard to overlook her liberal rationale. Neoliberalism must be challenged, since it is a bad candidate to keep the ‘hard left’ in check. Klein functions within the paradigm of the ‘end of ideology’ and the ‘end of history’: anything beyond liberal capitalist democracy takes us to ‘totalitarianism’, where fascism and communism merge. Social movements and people's subjectivity that tend towards the ‘hard left’ (for example, those on the left of Allende's democratic socialism in Chile who were fighting the coup), finds mention in her analysis, if at all, only to be repudiated as a danger.

En su La Doctrina del Shock, Naomi Klein critica correctamente al capitalismo en su versión represiva, de ‘fundamentalismo de mercado’, pero no problema-tiza sobre ‘el capitalismo democrático’, o sobre la forma de la democracia capitalista misma. De lo contrario, la apoya. Es decir que para ella el rol de los movimientos sociales se limita a extender la democracia desde la esfera de la política hacia la de la economía. Hasta ahí no hay problema, hasta que nos encontramos con que su apoyo a los movimientos sociales es un resultado de la necesidad de asegurar que “ciudadanxs desilusinadxs no se [metan] en la búsqueda de una ideología más cercana a sus intereses, sea el facismo o el comunismo” (p. 54). Resulta difícil dejar de lado su racionalidad liberal: hay que desafiar al neoliberalismo porque no es buen candidato a mantener a la ‘izquierda dura’ bajo control. Klein funciona claramente dentro del paradigma del ‘fin de las ideologías’ y del ‘fin de la historia’: todo lo que existe más allá de la democracia liberal capitalista es el ‘totalitarismo’, adonde !facismo y comunismo se fusionan! Los movimientos sociales y la subjetividad de quienes tienden hacia la ‘izquierda dura’ (por ejemplo, aquellxs a la izquierda del socialismo democrático de Allende en Chile que lucharon contra el golpe) son mencionados en su análisis (si es que son mencionados) sólo para ser repudiados por ser considerados como un peligro.
Unplug and Play: Manufacturing Collapse in Gaza
Authors: Salamanca Omar Jabary
Published: February 2020

This article examines how colonial violence has been recast in light of Israel's disengagement from Gaza during the summer 2005. By looking at infrastructural networks —the systems that distribute water, electricity, sewage, fuel etc—it explores how far from ending the occupation, disengagement provided a distinct spatial scale from which to experiment new methods of control and repression. In particular, it seeks to expose how these life support systems function as geopolitical sites of spatial control and as biopolitical tools to regulate and suppress life. Specially, it illustrates how the mobilization of discourses, strategies and doctrines, criminalize these critical systems turning them into ‘legitimate’ and ‘pre-emptive’ targets. Drawing on the destruction of Gaza's only power plant and the subsequent sanctions on electricity and fuel, it argues that the destruction and manipulation of infrastructural networks has severe consequences, particularly in public health. In exploring these claims with respect to Gaza, the article draws attention to the ways in which infrastructures play a crucial role in regulating the elastic Gaza's humanitarian collapse. The article closes introducing the concept of infrastructural violence as way to further explore this discussion.
Shooting Gaza: Israel'S Visual War
Authors: Jones Craig
Published: February 2020

In this paper I show how the imaging and representation of war is becoming ever more central to its conduct: warfare is being fought through what I call ‘image-fare’. I focus on the 23-day war on Gaza that began on the 27th December 2008, and make four interconnected claims about the relationship between visuality, law and violence. First, the strategic use of images by the Israeli military in Gaza served a legitimizing function that positions Israel as always and already the lawful victim, scripting Hamas as terroristic perpetrators, belonging to a resolutely “hostile” space (i.e. Gaza). Second, these visualities ‘work’ via the appeal to the immediacy of images; Israel insists on the factual, and thus legal, veracity of its own visual forms while rendering their – Palestinian – visual forms voyeuristic and intrinsically biased. Third, contesting these visualities and exposing the inconsistencies of the Israeli framing is difficult when taking into account the ways in which the visual fields of war are structured by ‘visual economies’ which regulate and mediate global media, and which construct new publics in the process of doing so. Wary of overstating the power of Israeli framings, while understating the possibilities of challenging those framings, I finish by considering what role the circulation of the visual archive might have in challenging Israeli visualities.
Fatah: Mythific Ation of A Non-state: Critique of the Idea of State
Authors: Rizk Philip
Published: February 2020

Founded in 1964, the PLO created a space for Palestinians on the world map of liberation struggles. This initially liminal project went through a period of institutionalization during which its vision became one of nation-statist liberation. The PLO thus engaged in a project with a prescribed outcome, entailing a Euro-centric-inspired vocabulary, employing required terminological elements of territoriality and private property, and instituting norms regarding the utility of violence. I argue that this, in turn, placed the Palestinians in a position of submission and weakness. My thesis is that the resulting trajectory of resistance prevented the PLO from carrying out its battle outside the rubric provided by the very hegemonic powers it initially sought to oppose. To these ends, I use the discursive spatial entity of the Gaza Strip as a case study through which to critique the idea of the nation-state. I assess the re-fashioning of the constructed geographic entity's political and social landscape under the governance of the Fatah -dominated Palestinian Authority. My argument is that the transformation of Fatah, from liberation struggle to governing body ostensibly deemed “legitimate,” has prevented the movement from thinking and acting in the framework of liberation. Instead, it led to the submission of the Palestinians to globally-sanctioned paradigms of nation-statism, which deeply undermine their struggle.
The Double-occupation of Palestine
Authors: Marshall Sandy
Published: February 2020

This article argues that the recent calm the West Bank is currently experiencing results from the US-Israeli strategy of outsourcing the disciplinary power of the occupation to the Palestinian Authority (PA). It discusses recent security commitments that the US has made to the PA, and popular Palestinian perception of PA police and soldiers. In addition, the article considers how the US/Israel/PA governing strategy manifests itself in new spatial formations in the West Bank, from new roads and shopping festivals, to new prisons and Palestinian-maintained checkpoints. Finally considered is whether a new resistant politics can possibly emerge from the present status quo, whether yet another generation of Palestinians can be expected to struggle and sacrifice, or whether the post-political malaise currently pervasive in Palestine (and elsewhere) will be perpetuated with the creation of a new generation of apolitical young consumers in the West Bank?