bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Using Community-Based Participatory Research to Explore Backyard Gardening Practices and Soil Lead Concentrations in Urban Neighborhoods
Authors: Johnson Sheri , Cardona Dalila , Davis Jeremy , Gramling Benjamin , Hamilton Chelsea , Hoffmann Ray , Ruis Sabrina , Soldat Doug , Ventura Steve , Yan Ke
Published: March 2016

Background : Lead exposure is a serious health threat for children. Soil is an important exposure pathway, primarily through ingestion and inhalation. Urban agriculture is increasing. Potential environmental health risks associated with residential gardening may not be well known to community residents. Objectives : A community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach was implemented to explore the relationship between urban residential vegetable gardening and lead exposure in children. The primary objectives were to characterize local backyard vegetable gardening practices, measure residential and commercial soil lead concentrations and spatial distributions, and identify priorities for individual and collective action. Methods : Participants were recruited in two stages. In phase 1, adult gardeners participated in structured interviews. In phase 2, a multistage representative sampling approach was implemented to recruit adult gardeners for interviews and soil testing. Results : Twenty adults participated in gardening practice interviews. Adults perceive many benefits from backyard gardening and initially expressed few concerns about lead exposure risk. Results indicate that children are actively involved in backyard gardening. Total soil lead concentrations from 17 residential properties ranged from 7 to 3,234 mg kg –1 (median, 187; mean, 432). Commercial soils had lead concentrations that ranged from 6 to 13 mg kg –1 (median, 6.5; mean, 7.6). Nonparametric Mann–Whitney comparisons indicated a significant difference in lead concentration between commercial soil and residential soil ( p < 0.0001). Conclusions : Advocacy for resources needed to eliminate dangerous levels of lead from the environment, especially in communities where divestment has occurred, is enhanced through CBPR. Increasing access to soil testing is an important action step.
Increasing Awareness on Health Care Access in Florida: A Community-Based Medical-Legal Practicum Project
Authors: Martinez Iveris L. , Castellanos Natalie , Carr Casey , Plescia Christopher J. , Rodriguez Andres L. , Thommi Sairah , Zaremski Lynn , Weithorn David , Maisel Peggy , Wells Alan L.
Published: March 2016

Problem : Service learning and experiential coursework has become a requirement for medical students and law students. Advocacy for the underinsured and uninsured is of ethical importance to both the practice of law and medicine, however engaging professional students in meaningful advocacy work with community partners can be challenging. Purpose : The article describes a partnership between medical and law students in a community-based service learning project to promote health care access. Key Points : Law and medical students at Florida International University partnered with community members and Florida Legal Services to collect patient narratives, disseminate information on Medicaid expansion to community members, and present patient stories to state lawmakers. Conclusions : The medical and law students learned about each other’s professional roles and gained skills in interviewing, and legislative and policy advocacy through this service learning project by providing legislative testimony to key stakeholders and community education on Medicaid expansion.
Community Involvement in Development of Evidence-Informed Recommendations for Rehabilitation for Older Adults Living With HIV
Authors: Solomon Patricia , O’Brien Kelly K. , Baxter Larry , MacLachlan Duncan , Robinson Greg
Published: March 2016

Background : Involving community in development of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) can decrease the gap between patient preferences and research evidence. Objective : To incorporate meaningful participation of people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV; people living with HIV [PHAs]) in the development of evidence informed recommendations for rehabilitation practice. Methods : PHAs were involved in a process to develop practice recommendations internally as members of a project team and externally through formal endorsement of the recommendations. Lessons Learned : Lessons learned include 1) providing time to develop as a team and understand the roles, biases, and expertise of each member, 2) engaging community in initial discussions to determine the most meaningful involvement, 3) realizing that participation in research may trigger anxiety and stress in community members, 4) developing terms of reference to clarify roles and expectations, 5) providing opportunities for skill development, and 6) conducting formal evaluation of the process and satisfaction of community. Conclusion : Meaningful inclusion of community can improve the quality of practice guidelines.
Improving Immunization Rates Through Community-Based Participatory Research: Community Health Improvement for Milwaukee’s Children Program
Authors: Willis Earnestine , Sabnis Svapna , Hamilton Chelsea , Xiong Fue , Coleman Keli , Dellinger Matt , Watts Michelle , Cox Richard , Harrell Janice , Smith Dorothy , Nugent Melodee , Simpson Pippa
Published: March 2016

Background : Nationally, immunization coverage for the DTaP/3HPV/1MMR/3HepB/3Hib/1VZV antigen series in children ages 19–35 months are near or above the Healthy People 2020 target (80%). However, children in lower socioeconomic families experience lower coverage rates. Objective : Using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach, Community Health Improvement for Milwaukee Children (CHIMC) intervened to reduce disparities in childhood immunizations. Methods : The CHIMC adopted a self-assessment to examine the effectiveness of adhering to CBPR principles. Using behavior change models, CHIMC implemented education, social marketing campaign, and theory of planned behavior interventions. Community residents and organizational representatives vetted all processes, messages, and data collection tools. Results : Adherence to the principles of CBPR was consistently positive over the 8-year period. CHIMC enrolled 565 parents/caregivers with 1,533 children into educational and planned behavior change (PBC) interventions, and enrolled another 406 surveyed for the social marketing campaign. Retention rate was high (80%) with participants being predominately Black females (90%) and the unemployed (64%); children’s median age was 6.2 years. Increased knowledge about immunizations was consistently observed among parents/caregivers. Social marketing data revealed high recognition (85%) of the community-developed message (“Take Control: Protect Your Child with Immunizations”). Barriers and facilitators to immunize children revealed protective factors positively correlated with up-to-date (UTD) status ( p < 0.007). Ultimately, children between the ages of 19 and 35 months whose parents/caregivers completed education sessions and benefitted from a community-wide social marketing message increased their immunization status from 45% baseline to 82% over 4 years. Conclusions : Using multilayered interventions, CHIMC contributed to the elimination of immunization disparities in children. A culturally tailored CBPR approach is effective to eliminate immunization disparities.
A Community Engagement Symposium to Prevent and Improve Stroke Outcomes in Diverse Communities
Authors: Bharmal Nazleen , Lucas-Wright Anna “Aziza” , Vassar Stefanie D. , Jones Felica , Jones Loretta , Wells Rebekah , Cienega Jason , Brown Arleen F.
Published: March 2016

Background : Racial/ethnic minorities have a higher burden of stroke, but lower awareness and understanding of stroke and its risk factors. Our community–academic collaborative hosted a symposium in South Los Angeles to increase awareness about stroke, provide information on the Los Angeles Stroke Intervention and Research Program (SPIRP), and facilitate bidirectional communication between researchers and community stakeholders. Objectives : We discuss our partnered approach to increase stroke awareness, elicit community perspectives and perceptions about stroke prevention and research participation, and increase community involvement in research using a community engagement symposium (CES). Methods : We used a community-partnered participatory research (CPPR) conference framework to guide symposium planning, implementation and analysis. The morning session included clinical lectures, a panel of researchers describing LA SPIRP, and a panel presentation by stroke caregivers and survivors. In afternoon breakout sessions, attendees identified 1) community-based strategies to prevent stroke and 2) methods to increase recruitment of diverse populations in stroke research studies. Attendees were surveyed about stroke knowledge before and after the morning session. Data from breakout sessions were analyzed using content analysis and pile sorting to identify themes. Conclusions : We found that the CES based on CPPR principles was effective method to increase short-term stroke awareness and stimulate discussion about stroke research among community members and community stakeholders who serve racial/ethnic minorities.
A Community Health Initiative: Evaluation and Early Lessons Learned
Authors: Gibbons Michael C. , Illangasekare Samantha L. , Smith Earnest , Kub Joan
Published: March 2016

Background : Community-based participatory research (CBPR) has been shown to enhance trust and engagement among community academic partners. However, the value of CBPR among hyper-researched, inner-city communities has not been evaluated adequately. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of a CBPR based engagement process in an inner-city, hyper-researched, underserved community. Methods : A qualitative process evaluation was conducted using focus groups, key informant in-depth interviews, and a brief survey to evaluate the attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, impact of, and satisfaction with the CBPR engagement process used to plan and conduct a community asset mapping project. Results : Three focus groups, eight in-depth interviews, and survey responses from 31 individuals were obtained and analyzed. Findings include a sense of accomplishment and value with the engagement process, as well as a sense of tangible benefits of the process perceived by community members and academic research partners. Conclusions : CBPR may represent an effective approach to enhancing trust and community–academic collaboration even among cynical, resistant, hyper-researched, underserved communities.
Community Veterans’ Decision to Use VA Services: A Multimethod Veteran Health Partnership Study
Authors: Franco Zeno E. , Logan Clinton , Flower Mark , Curry Bob , Ruffalo Leslie , Brazauskas Ruta , Whittle Jeff
Published: March 2016

Background : Ensuring veterans’ access to healthcare is a national priority. Prior studies of veterans’ use of Veterans Health Administration (VA) healthcare have had limited success in evaluating barriers to access for certain vulnerable veteran subpopulations. Objectives : Our coalition of researchers and veteran community members sought to understand factors affecting use of VA, particularly for those less likely to participate in traditional survey studies. Methods : We recruited 858 veterans to complete a collaboratively designed survey at community events or via social media. We compared our results regarding VA use with the 2010 National Survey of Veterans (NSV) using chi-square tests, multiple logistic regression to identify predictors of VA use, and content analysis for open-ended descriptions of barriers to VA use. Results : Veterans in our study were more likely than NSV respondents to report using VA healthcare ever (76% vs. 28%; p < 0.0001). Within this group, more veterans in our sample were current VA users (83% vs. 68%; p < 0.0001). In multivariable analysis, VA use was predicted by self-reported physical problems (comparing “a lot” vs. “none” for each variable, adjusted odds ratio [OR], 8.35), thinking problems (OR, 1.14), need for smoking cessation (OR, 1.54), need for pain management (OR, 1.65), and need for other mental health services (OR, 3.04). We identified 15 themes summarizing veterans’ perceived barriers to VA use. Conclusion : Persistent actual and perceived barriers prevent some veterans from using VA services. The VA can better understand and address these issues through community–academic partnerships with veterans’ organizations.
Community-Guided Focus Group Analysis to Examine Cancer Disparities
Authors: Schaal Jennifer C. , Lightfoot Alexandra F. , Black Kristin Z. , Stein Kathryn , White Stephanie Baker , Cothern Carol , Gilbert Keon , Hardy Christina Yongue , Jeon Janet Y. , Mann Lilli , Mouw Mary Sherwyn , Robertson Lyn , Waters Emily M. , Yonas Michael A. , Eng Eugenia
Published: March 2016

Background : Accountability for Cancer Care through Undoing Racism™ and Equity (ACCURE) is a systems-change intervention addressing disparities in treatment initiation and completion and outcomes for early stage Black and White breast and lung cancer patients. Using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach, ACCURE is guided by a diverse partnership involving academic researchers, a nonprofit community-based organization, its affiliated broader based community coalition, and providers and staff from two cancer centers. Objectives : This paper describes the collaborative process our partnership used to conduct focus groups and to code and analyze the data to inform two components of the ACCURE intervention: 1) a “power analysis” of the cancer care system and 2) the development of the intervention’s training component, Healthcare Equity Education and Training (HEET), for cancer center providers and staff. Methods : Using active involvement of community and academic partners at every stage in the process, we engaged Black and White breast and lung cancer survivors at two partner cancer centers in eight focus group discussions organized by race and cancer type. Participants were asked to describe “pressure point encounters” or critical incidents during their journey through the cancer system that facilitated or hindered their willingness to continue treatment. Community and academic members collaborated to plan and develop materials, conduct focus groups, and code and analyze data. Conclusions : A collaborative qualitative data analysis process strengthened the capacity of our community–medical–academic partnership, enriched our research moving forward, and enhanced the transparency and accountability of our research approach.
Improving Rigor in a Door-to-Door Health Survey: A Participatory Approach in a Low-Income Latino Neighborhood
Authors: Webber Whitney , Stoddard Pamela , Rodriguez Maritza , Gudiño Pam , Chagoya Teresa , Jauregui Diana , Shah Roshni , Garcia Analilia P.
Published: March 2016

Background : Engaging community partners in research has the potential to make findings higher quality, more actionable, and more meaningful. Less rigorous approaches, often used by community-engaged partnerships, may diminish data quality. Objective : This study highlights the key guiding principles of a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach, particularly in regards to improving rigor, for a door-to-door health survey conducted by promotoras in a low-income, Latino neighborhood in San Jose, California. Methods : We describe the partnership formed to conduct the study and the participatory process used throughout the study in questionnaire and sample design, training, and survey administration that adheres to key CBPR principles. Lessons Learned : Our participatory approach required building the capacity of partners, having all partners weigh in on issues that arose in the field, enlisting outside expertise, being responsive to partner concerns while adhering to validated survey methods, simplifying sample design, incorporating expectations for data quality into training, and dedicating sufficient staffing to survey administration. Conclusion : The procedures, materials, and tools used by the community-engaged partnership in this study can be replicated by other community partnerships seeking to improve the quality of data used for decision making, program planning, and resource allocation.
Improving the Health of Cambodian Americans: Grassroots Approaches and Root Causes
Authors: Lee Juliet P. , Kirkpatrick Sean , Rojas-Cheatham Ann , Sin Talaya , Moore Roland S. , Tan Sotheavy , Godoy Shadia , Ercia Angelo
Published: March 2016

Background : Cambodian Americans experience great disparities in health compared to other Americans, yet may be underserved by conventional healthcare systems. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is a means to engage underserved communities in health research and programming. We describe results of our efforts to engage the Cambodian grassroots members as well as formal leaders in Oakland, California. Objectives : In addition to a community advisory group, we convened a Community Work Group (CWG), composed of 10 grassroots community women of varying ages and backgrounds. The project aimed to leverage the lived experiences of these women and their understandings of health and wellness in identifying specific health issues and developing culturally resonant strategies. Methods : The CWG met weekly with staff facilitators using methods for collective analysis including theater, body mapping, and other expressive arts. Results : The approach proved logistically challenging, but resulted in novel analyses and strategies. The group identified trauma, along with poor access to education, unemployment and underemployment, social isolation, and generation gap, together with community violence, as root causes of key behavioral health issues, namely, alcohol abuse, gambling, prescription drug misuse, and domestic violence. Strategies proposed and implemented by the group and project staff were a community garden, Cambodian New Year’s celebrations, and a museum exhibit on the Cambodian refugee experiences. Conclusions : Grassroots community engagement can support projects in identifying social determinants of health and developing the capacities of community members to conduct research and actions to improve health.
Opening the Black Box: Conceptualizing Community Engagement From 109 Community–Academic Partnership Programs
Authors: Ahmed Syed M. , Maurana Cheryl , Nelson David , Meister Tim , Young Sharon Neu , Lucey Paula
Published: March 2016

Abstract: Background: This research effort includes a large scale study of 109 community–academic partnership projects funded by the Healthier Wisconsin Partnership Program (HWPP), a component of the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin endowment at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The study provides an analysis unlike other studies, which have been smaller, and/or more narrowly focused in the type of community–academic partnership projects analyzed. Objectives: To extract themes and insights for the benefit of future community–academic partnerships and the field of community-engaged research (CEnR). Methods: Content analysis of the final reports submitted by 109 community–academic partnership projects awards within the time frame of March 2005 to August 2011. Results: Thirteen themes emerged from the report analysis: community involvement, health accomplishments, capacity building, sustainability, collaboration, communication, best practices, administration, relationship building, clarity, adjustment of plan, strategic planning, and time. Data supported previous studies in the importance of some themes, and provided insights regarding how these themes are impactful. Conclusion: The case analysis revealed new insights into the characteristics of these themes, which the authors then grouped into three categories: foundational attributes of successful community–academic partnership, potential challenges of community–academic partnerships, and outcomes of community–academic partnerships. The insights gained from these reports further supports previous research extolling the benefits of community–academic partnerships and provides valuable direction for future partners, funders and evaluators in how to deal with challenges and what they can anticipate and plan for in developing and managing community–academic partnership projects.
Support for Redistribution in an Age of Rising Inequality: New Stylized Facts and Some Tentative Explanations
Authors: Ashok Vivekinan , Kuziemko Ilyana , Washington Ebonya
Published: March 2016

Despite the large increases in economic inequality since 1970, American survey respondents exhibit no increase in support for redistribution, contrary to the predictions from standard theories of redistributive preferences. We replicate these results but further demonstrate substantial heterogeneity by demographic group. In particular, the two groups that have most moved against income redistribution are the elderly and African Americans. We find little evidence that these subgroup trends are explained by relative economic gains or growing cultural conservatism, two common explanations. We further show that the trend among the elderly is uniquely American, at least relative to other developed countries with comparable survey data. While we are unable to provide definitive evidence on the cause of these two groups’ declining redistributive support, we provide additional correlations that may offer fruitful directions for future research on the topic. One story consistent with the data on elderly trends is that older Americans worry that redistribution will come at their expense, in particular through cuts to Medicare. We find that the elderly have grown increasingly opposed to government provision of health insurance and that controlling for this tendency explains about 40 percent of their declining support for redistribution. For blacks, controlling for their declining support for race-targeted aid explains nearly 45 percent of their differential decline in redistributive preferences, which raises a further question: Why has support for race-targeted aid fallen during a period when black economic catch-up to whites has stalled?
Welfare and Distributional Implications of Shale Gas
Authors: Hausman Catherine , Kellogg Ryan
Published: March 2016

Technological innovations in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing have enabled tremendous amounts of natural gas to be extracted profitably from underground shale formations that were long thought to be uneconomical. In this paper, we provide the first estimates of broad-scale welfare and distributional implications of this supply boom. We provide new estimates of supply and demand elasticities, which we use to estimate the drop in natural gas prices that is attributable to the supply expansion. We find large, positive welfare impacts for four broad sectors of gas consumption (residential, commercial, industrial, and electric power) and a negative impact for producers, with variation across regions. We then examine the evidence for a gas-led “manufacturing renaissance” and for pass-through to prices of products such as retail natural gas, retail electricity, and commodity chemicals. We conclude with a discussion of environmental externalities from unconventional natural gas, including limitations of the current regulatory environment. Overall, we find that between 2007 and 2013 the shale gas revolution led to an increase in welfare for natural gas consumers and producers of $48 billion per year, but more data are needed on the extent and valuation of the environmental impacts of shale gas production.
Deciphering the Fall and Rise in the Net Capital Share: Accumulation or Scarcity?
Authors: Rognlie Matthew
Published: March 2016

In the postwar era, developed economies have experienced two substantial trends in the net capital share of aggregate income: a rise during the last several decades, which is well known, and a fall of comparable magnitude that continued until the 1970s, which is less well known. Overall, the net capital share has increased since 1948, but once disaggregated this increase turns out to come entirely from the housing sector: the contribution to net capital income from all other sectors has been zero or slightly negative, as the fall and rise have offset each other. Several influential accounts of the recent rise emphasize the role of increased capital accumulation, but this view is at odds with theory and evidence: it requires empirically improbable elasticities of substitution, and it presumes a correlation between the capital-income ratio and capital share that is not visible in the data. A more limited narrative that stresses scarcity and the increased cost of housing better fits the data. These results are clarified using a new, multisector model of factor shares.
Risk Management for Monetary Policy Near the Zero Lower Bound
Authors: Evans Charles , Fisher Jonas , Gourio François , Krane Spencer
Published: March 2016

With projections showing inflation heading back toward target and the labor market continuing to improve, the Federal Reserve has begun to contemplate an increase in the federal funds rate. There is, however, substantial uncertainty around these projections. How should this uncertainty affect monetary policy? In many standard models uncertainty has no effect. In this paper, we demonstrate that the zero lower bound (ZLB) on nominal interest rates implies that the central bank should adopt a looser policy when there is uncertainty. In the current context this result implies that a delayed liftoff is optimal. We demonstrate this result theoretically through two canonical macroeconomic models. Using numerical simulations of our models calibrated to the current environment, we find that optimal policy calls for a delay in liftoff of two to three quarters relative to a policy that does not take into account uncertainty about policy being constrained by the ZLB. We then use a narrative study of Federal Reserve communications and estimated policy reaction functions to show that risk management is a long-standing practice in the conduct of monetary policy.
Economic Analysis and Statistical Disclosure Limitation
Authors: Abowd John M. , Schmutte Ian M.
Published: March 2016

This paper explores the consequences for economic research of methods used by data publishers to protect the privacy of their respondents. We review the concept of statistical disclosure limitation for an audience of economists who may be unfamiliar with these methods. We characterize what it means for statistical disclosure limitation to be ignorable . When it is not ignorable, we consider the effects of statistical disclosure limitation for a variety of research designs common in applied economic research. Because statistical agencies do not always report the methods they use to protect confidentiality, we also characterize settings in which statistical disclosure limitation methods are discoverable ; that is, they can be learned from the released data. We conclude with advice for researchers, journal editors, and statistical agencies.
Grasp the Large, Let Go of the Small: The Transformation of the State Sector in China
Authors: Hsieh Chang-Tai , Song Zheng (Michael)
Published: March 2016

In the late 1990s, China’s industrial sector was dominated by state-owned firms. We document how this changed after 1998. More than 80 percent of the state-owned firms in 1998 were shut down or privatized by 2007. Among firms we classify as state-controlled in 2007, many were restructured and registered as private firms with a controlling share held by a state-owned conglomerate or were new firms established after 1998. In 2007, almost half of the state-controlled firms were registered as private firms, and about 40 percent were new firms established after 1998. The privatization and convergence in labor productivity decelerated after 2007, but the establishment of new state-owned firms continued at roughly the same rate. When we interpret these facts through the lens of an equilibrium model of heterogeneous firms, we find that the transformation of firms that remained under state control and the creation of new state-controlled firms together account for 21 percent of China’s growth from 1998 to 2007 and 18 percent of its growth from 2007 to 2012. However, the exit and privatization of state-owned firms had a negligible effect on aggregate growth.
“Between the Human and Brutal Creation”: Posthuman Agency and the Samuel Frost Corpus
Authors: Forbes Erin E.
Published: March 2016

This essay examines the print culture surrounding Samuel Frost, an unpropertied young white man with a possible neurodevelopmental disorder, who murdered his father in 1783 and his employer in 1793. Described in three New England broadsides as “the connecting grade between the human and brutal creation,” Frost is precisely the sort of marginal figure often brought to the fore in recent studies of the eighteenth century Atlantic world. Questioning recuperative methodologies that have tended to reinforce liberal assumptions about the sovereign agency of the knowing individual actor, this study of Frost as a man-media “corpus” identifies a networked, posthuman agency that forges connections across time and space.
The Ends of Pleasure
Authors: Schey Taylor
Published: March 2016

A review of Rowan Boyson’s book, Wordsworth and the Enlightenment Idea of Pleasure (Cambridge, 2012).
Embodying the Invisible: Materiality and Subjectivity in Cavendish, Manley, and Haywood
Authors: Rigilano Matthew J.
Published: March 2016

This article tracks the development of the invisible character over the long eighteenth century. Invisible characters, I argue, are rarely simply immaterial. The minimal materiality of the invisible character marks a specific mode of subjectivity that recent work on literary matter often neglects. Through an analysis of Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World (1666), Delarivier Manley’s The New Atalantis (1709), and Eliza Haywood’s The Invisible Spy (1750), I demonstrate how the minimal materiality of the invisible character is reflected in the fascinating textual materiality that emerges in the margins of these narratives. Ultimately, the invisible character articulates a key aspect of early modern and eighteenth-century feminine subjectivity that remains unseen when invisibility is unreflectively interpreted as social allegory
Extreme Empiricism: John Howard, Poetry, and the Thermometrics of Reform
Authors: Cervantes Gabriel , Porter Dahlia
Published: March 2016

This essay examines an outpouring of printed poems and biographical publications in the 1780s and 1790s that sought to shape the public image of the celebrated prison reformer John Howard. These materials, we argue, reveal the ways in which reform, empiricism, and Christian charity reinforced each other in late eighteenth-century popular imagination, and how this conjunction provoked a new vision of Britain’s empire and a backlash against mixing the scientific and the miraculous. As we show, Howard used the language of temperature to turn empirical data into evidence for the necessity of prison reform. This same thermometric language underwrote panegyric poems that represented Howard as global emissary of British benevolence—the icon of a new kind of empire whose power was symbolized by nearly miraculous capacity to temper inhospitable climates. This body of exuberant poetry transmuted data-based reform and technological advances in ventilation into proselytical triumph, a conjunction that was met, after Howard’s dramatic, self-inflicted death, with charges of overheated religious enthusiasm. As a result, Howard’s medical acquaintance and collaborators posthumously defended the temperateness of Howard’s empirical methods while also labeling him an amateur data collector, the lowly helpmeet of the professional man of science. By tracing Howard’s appearance in printed poetry and periodical writing, this essay illuminates the uneasy yet potent imbrication of reform culture, colonialism, medicine, and discipline formation in the final decades of the eighteenth century.
“What we want in Elegance , we gain in Copiousness ”: Eighteenth-Century English and Its Empire of Tongues
Authors: DeWispelare Daniel
Published: March 2016

Recognizing the simultaneous rise of the English standardization movement and the British Empire, this article addresses how eighteenth-century attempts at “correcting, improving, and ascertaining the English tongue” can be read as political and social allegories offering insight into the expanding empire’s emerging self-image. With close readings of Daniel Defoe, Samuel Johnson, and Hugh Blair, this article focuses in particular on the many contentious resonances of English as a “copious” language, one whose hybridity seemed capable at times of both worsening and alleviating the empire’s fissures. By using language theory to locate the original articulation of copiousness as problem and solution, this article continues with a reading of a poem by Sir William Jones, a writer who saw a specific form of cultural and linguistic syncretism as a way to advance both literature and empire.
Gothic Portraits
Authors: Haggerty George E.
Published: March 2016

A review of Gothic Fiction and Picture Identification: The Rise of Picture Identification, 1764–1835 (JHUP, 2012), in which Kamilla Elliott asks how Gothic Portraits help shape the history of picture identification
Is Charity for Schmucks?: The Legitimacy of Bienfaisance ca. 1760–82 and ca. 2013–15
Authors: Douthwaite Julia V.
Published: March 2016

This essay is about books that produce moral discomfort in the reader and seem to demand a response. The three French texts are famous for their irony, humor, and psychological depth: Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre-Ambroise-François Choderlos de Laclos (1782), Denis Diderot’s Jacques the Fatalist and his Master (written 1760–76; pub. posthum.1796), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Reveries of the Solitary Walker (pub. posthum. 1782). To drive home the dialectic between the flawed people who read and write books and the moral models put on display, I analyze scenes that poke fun at the moralizing through the strategies of irony, comedy, and psychological analysis. These readings form a counterpart to recent work by philosopher Jonathan Lear (A Case for Irony) and contemporary reflections on doing good as a business strategy.
History, the Novel, and the French Revolution
Authors: Packham Catherine
Published: March 2016

A review of Morgan Rooney’s book, The French Revolution Debate and the British Novel, 1790–1814: The Struggle for History’s Authority (2012).
The Natural History of the Houyhnhnms: Noble Horses in Gulliver’s Travels
Authors: Alkemeyer Bryan
Published: March 2016

What does it mean that Swift models the rational non-humans of Gulliver’s Travels on horses, instead of other animals? Taking up this question, I argue that part 4 confronts readers with the incongruity between traditional admiration of horses as the noblest animals and their systematic exploitation as beasts of burden. To set Swift’s perspective in relief, I compare his satire with representations of horses in natural histories by Topsell, Jonstonus, and Buffon, as well as an equestrian manual by William Cavendish. While the exploitation of noble horses does not disturb Topsell or Jonstonus, Buffon’s text betrays signs of anxiety, which it nevertheless attempts to suppress. Cavendish, meanwhile, asserts that the human/horse hierarchy must be enforced with continual vigilance precisely because of the horse’s signal nobility. In contrast, Swift exposes attitudes toward horses as intolerably contradictory. Crucially, Gulliver and the Houyhnhnm master’s conversation about the treatment of horses emphasizes the disparity between their admiration and abasement. Swift offers an example of more logically consistent justifications for exploitation in characterizations of the Yahoos, but it is unclear whether the text advocates better treatment for horses (to accord with their status as the noblest animals) or debunks idealizations of horses (to produce a more compelling rationalization for exploitation). Although I distinguish Swift’s perspective on horses from modern arguments for the ethical treatment of animals, I conclude by suggesting that Gulliver’s Travels, in its resistance to modern paradigms, provides a vantage point from which we might undertake a radical re-evaluation of the human/animal relationship.
“Happy the Man”: The Eighteenth-Century Novel and the Pursuit of Happiness
Authors: Kraft Elizabeth
Published: March 2016

A review of Brian Michael Norton’s Fiction and the Philosophy of Happiness: Ethical Inquiries in the Age of Enlightenment (2012).
Suame Magazine
Authors: Yeebo Yepoka
Published: March 2016

This photo essays depicts life in Suame Magazine, a 20-mile informal industrial area in Kumasi, Ghana. Over 200,000 skilled workers fill the open-air production lines, wooden stalls, and concrete factories. Around a million dollars passes through the hands of the 12,000 small businesses based at Suame Magazine daily. The district emerged in the 1930s, around a colonial-era armory. When Ghana’s economy faltered and a series of economic reforms in the 1970s cut the stream of imported spare parts, skilled mechanics started to work for themselves, learning to make and refurbish spare parts to replace the dwindling supply of imports.
Reflections on Ghana’s Informal Economy at Fifty Years
Authors: Hart Keith
Published: March 2016

In this essay, the author juxtaposes his own fieldwork in Accra 50 years ago to a photographic essay on metal-workers in Kumasi today. Suame Magazine was a colonial armory, subsequently a corporate enterprise, and now home to 200,000 informal workers facing the contemporary challenges posed by the world economy to Ghana today. The two situations are strikingly different, being half a century and two major cities apart, but they share a resilient informal economy.
Humanitarian Dispossession: Celebrity Activism and the Fragment-Nation of the Sudan
Authors: Fadlalla Amal Hassan
Published: March 2016

This paper examines U.S. actor George Clooney’s activism on the Sudan to show how the intersection of human rights and humanitarian politics constructs a grand narrative of rescue and salvation that is both potentially positive and problematic. In the case of Africa in general, and the Sudan in particular, celebrity activism produces subaltern actors whose voices are submerged in the fragmented stories of suffering and salvation presented by humanitarian outsiders. I show how this master narrative overshadows the post-Cold War politics and confrontation among different national and transnational actors. To highlight this point, I demonstrate how Clooney’s activism counters the rescue vision of the Sudanese Islamist regime, with both narratives celebrating transnationality on different moral grounds. While Clooney’s activism employs a salvation narrative rooted in human rights and humanitarian practices, the Islamist state’s narrative envisions regional alliances based on pan-Islamism. The two narratives however work through the assimilation and/or exclusion of other political visions and strategies of struggle. I take Clooney’s celebrity activism as an entry point to examine these complex dynamics: to explore the historical and neoliberal contexts that produce the clashing narratives of Islamism and humanitarianism, the limited effects of humanitarian visibilities, and the counter-narratives of Sudanese activists.
Writing the History of Development (Part 2: Longer, Deeper, Wider)
Authors: Hodge Joseph Morgan
Published: March 2016

In Part 2 of this extended essay on writing the history of development, I examine the most important historiographical trends of recent years. If the demise of the Cold War and the “crisis” of development first led historians and other social scientists in the 1990s to study development as history , then the events of September 11, 2001 set the stage for the newer literature on development. Since 9/11, scholars have moved beyond the binary and homogenous depictions that marked the “first wave” of historical writing, offering instead more contextualized, complex, and ambiguous narratives of development’s past. The Cold War timeframe has been jettisoned in favor of the longue durée , pivoting more to the earlier origins and colonial precedents of the postwar project. The earlier importance of metropolitan-centered ideas and discursive frameworks has been replaced by concern for actual development practices and impacts on the people who inhabit the territories of the global south. The most significant realignment, I argue, and one that has only just begun, is towards conceptualizing development as a global and transnational enterprise, one that encompassed more than the American and Western European experiences and included a diversity of historical actors and trajectories.
Celebritizing Conflict: How Ben Affleck Sells the Congo to Americans
Authors: Richey Lisa Ann , Budabin Alexandra Cosima
Published: March 2016

From serving as UN ambassadors to appearing as spokespersons for major NGO campaigns, global celebrities have become increasingly important actors in promoting humanitarian causes in Africa. Yet the growing visibility and proliferation of celebrity humanitarianism has been critiqued for legitimating and promoting neoliberal capitalism and global inequality. This article, using emerging literature on celebrities in north-south relations, analyzes the celebrity discourses and practices of professional entertainer Ben Affleck and his engagement in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in order to understand how celebrities intersect with and popularize representations of poverty, conflict, and development in Africa. We conclude that the celebritization of African conflicts in the DRC—as understood from the interventions of Affleck—remain linked to the needs of marketing causes, celebrities, and products, and considerably removed from the voices of Congolese on whose stories these interventions rely. As a result, the constraints of celebrity humanitarianism in an age of media saturation limit the possibilities that individual celebrities might have in engaging in alternative, more complex, and less sound-bite friendly discourses.
When Rights Come Home: The Intimate Politics of Women’s Rights in Urban Uganda
Authors: Wyrod Robert
Published: March 2016

Discussions of human rights in Africa often turn on a clash between western assumptions about the sovereign individual and African kin-based identities sustained through ties of reciprocity. While this framing has proved useful in troubling notions of universal rights, it has also obscured complex African engagements with contemporary rights discourse. An important step in mapping these more nuanced dynamics is examining the intimate politics of rights in everyday social interaction. Drawing on ethnographic research of long-term, intimate relationships in urban Uganda, this article shows that intricate negotiations over men’s authority and women’s agency occur in these relationships as women’s rights are remade within the local context. This article, therefore, provides much needed attention to the intimate politics of women’s rights, both in terms of how intimate relationships shape the meaning of rights as well as how rights shape intimacy in urban Africa.
The Cry for Human Rights: Violence, Transition, and the Egyptian Revolution
Authors: Naber Nadine , Said Atef
Published: March 2016

This paper interrogates moments in which American corporate media, the U.S. government, and U.S. academic discourses have relied upon what we call a liberal-Orientalist “cry for human rights” to represent the Egyptian revolution. We focus on U.S. public discussions regarding: 1) the process of transition following the Egyptian revolution, and 2) violence—specifically, gendered sexual violence and torture in Egypt. We are particularly concerned with how this framing of human rights both relies upon and reinforces global neoliberalism and its attendant forms of violence. We argue that analyses framed as a “cry for human rights” fail to account for the complex and dynamic historical and political contexts in which violence and transition take place, and the multiple, interconnected structures of power that impact revolutionary change. Far from questioning the value of protecting women’s rights or human rights, our goals are to examine the limitations inherent to liberal-Orientalist epistemological frameworks and highlight the connections between interpersonal violence, Egyptian state violence, and U.S.-led imperial practices in Egypt.
Conservation, Neoliberalism, and Human Rights in Kenya’s Arid Lands
Authors: Butt Bilal
Published: March 2016

Prior efforts to conserve biodiversity in sub-Saharan Africa have resulted in numerous human rights failures. In an attempt to move beyond this troublesome past, new initiatives increasingly consider the participation of local peoples in the conservation and development process. Part of this movement has resulted in the creation of “new” conservation areas carved out of former communal areas, which ostensibly provide better social and economic benefits of wildlife to local people who reside around protected areas. A concurrent shift from communal to individual land tenure has attracted the attention of investors who seek to create private conservation spaces (i.e. conservancies) outside neighboring state management protected areas. These investors invoke neoliberal tenets where privatization and market exchange are presumed to hold the key to the sustainability of people, wildlife, and livestock in a fragile ecosystem. By drawing on a case study from southern Kenya, I demonstrate that such initiatives dispossess people by: 1) relying on coercive tactics on land leasing, and 2) discounting the geographies of indigenous resource use, access, and control. In particular, I highlight how the resource managers fail to adequately consider the varied spatiality and temporality of local livelihood production systems and how the land leasing process is fraught with difficulties. I argue that dispossession leads to the further displacement and marginalization of local people, and hampers the sustainability of people, livestock, and wildlife in dry lands.
Revisiting Ecclesiastical Adultery Cases in Eighteenth-Century England
Authors: Akamatsu Junko
Published: March 2016

This article explores how wives contested ecclesiastical adultery cases in eighteenth-century Doctors’ Commons, an institution that comprised the Court of Arches and London Consistory Court. Doctors’ Commons played the central role in matrimonial jurisdiction in eighteenth-century England, hearing cases from both the landed gentry and the wealthy middling sort. By examining manuscripts written by advocates and the records produced by both courts in Doctors’ Commons, this article discusses the significance of a litigation system in which defendant wives were authorized to submit counter-allegations to defend their honor. It was a system in which obtaining a separation was difficult even for husbands. This analysis also reveals how female litigants used the accusation of cruelty on the part of their husbands as a means of demonstrating their husbands’ faults and thereby obtaining a separation. This article, therefore, looks at what lawyers’ tactical instructions to their clients reveal about the power relationship between wives and husbands in the patriarchal legal system.