Broader Ecology Research Articles

Agri-Food System Governance in Bangladesh’s Coastal Regions: Why the Socio-Ecological Systems Approach Needs to be Politicized

While Bangladesh is reported as doing well in food production, there is increasing concern that this essentially deltaic and highly climate-vulnerable country will face steep challenges in food governance and productivity. Anthropogenic drivers shaped by narrow economic goals and sectoral policies have deeply altered Bangladesh’s food systems since the early 1960s and partly led to adverse outcomes. By combining policy and institutional analysis and primary research in Shyamnagar Upazila in Satkhira district in the southern coastal deltas, we revisit two key transitions, poldering and commercial shrimp farming, to reveal how diverse economic, social, and political factors have reshaped the efficiency, inclusivity, and sustainability of agri-food systems. These complex interactions between agrifood systems, the broader ecology, and heterogeneity in poverty, gender, and other social identities are poorly understood and accounted for in policies and program interventions. This has resulted in unequal conflicts and contestations around critical resources, which impact most marginalized groups, also because policy incoherence encourages collusions between local elites and local decision-makers (all men) for resource appropriation and control. Conceptually, a social-ecological systems (SES) framework would identify these complexities. However, SES approaches tend to be technocratic and overlook the overtly economic framing of natural resources governance, diversity amongst local communities, and the politics of resource appropriation. This gap can be remedied by merging SES thinking with a critical political ecology lens to trace the historical, scalar, and deeply intersectional nature of socio-ecological relations.

Bridging Ecologies through Contemplative Technologies: Existential Relevance of Huatou 話頭 and the Huayan sanmei men 華嚴三昧門 for Oxytocin and Environmentally Sustainable Behavior

Contemplative technologies in the form of Buddhist practices that challenge the sense of self and thereby enhance the experience of interrelationality are viable strategies for addressing existential concerns such as the environmental crisis. Much of the existing research on Buddhism and ecology neglects to measure environmentally sustainable behavior or engage with empirical research. Likewise, experiments measuring the effects of contemplative practice on oxytocin, a neuropeptide hormone often implicated in interrelational contexts, are scarce. This study explores the existential relevance of Chan and Huayan practices for oxytocin and environmentally sustainable behavior. Using empirical methods, it reports on an experimental fieldwork study among international participants in a one-month retreat at a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. Salivary oxytocin, recycling, and food waste were measured, while phenomenological reports of experiences during contemplative practice were also obtained. Results of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay indicate a marginal increase in oxytocin following Chan practice of the huatou “Who recites the Buddha’s name?” which targets the sense of self, consistent with phenomenological reports reflecting an interrelational, ecological sense of self through huatou. Results also indicate increased recycling and decreased food waste by mass as a function of time on retreat. While the precise mechanisms explaining why participants exhibited more environmentally sustainable behaviors are currently unclear, the discussion proposes an empirically testable framework for bridging ecologies that links emotion, sense of self, and behavior. Contemplative practices may contribute to changes in oxytocin and environmentally sustainable behavior through activation of existential, aesthetic emotions such as doubt and awe, thereby inducing changes in the practitioner’s sense of self, which they may then experience as interrelated with broader ecologies, a possibility awaiting further research. The huatou fieldwork and proposed follow-up study on the Huayan sanmei men thus shed light on the relevance of contemplative technologies from Chinese Buddhism for bridging ecologies in the existentially relational sense.

Social media use in the context of the Personal Social Media Ecosystem Framework

Abstract The rapid proliferation and maturation of social media platforms have led to numerous challenges in understanding the correlates of social media use among users. To advance this research, the present article proposes a new way to think about social media with the Personal Social Media Ecosystem Framework (PSMEF). This perspective defines social media as a user-centric digital environment made up of a central set of individual, yet interrelated digital spaces (e.g., in-app pages) that are themselves embedded within a broader ecology (e.g., operating system, the Internet, offline contexts). By leveraging the PSMEF and data from focus groups involving adolescent participants (N = 59), we identify a core subset of salient environmental contexts within participants’ PSMEs that can generalize across platforms, which are differentially associated with popular social media platforms. The theoretical and practical implications of this work are discussed.

Of Force? Plasticity, Annihilation and Change

Catherine Malabou’s conception of plasticity as potentially having a creative or destructive form provides both philosophy and the neurosciences with a dynamic and generative concept for describing the workings and transformations of psychological, social, and material phenomena. Exploring the dynamism of Malabou’s plasticity, I question: how is plasticity, whether as a giving or receiving form, constituted to be so dynamic? Drawing somewhat from Heidegger’s account of change, I propose thinking of form as existing within a world of forces, to be a force, and be composed of force(s). The problem being, though somewhat presupposed and even alluded to in her elaborations of form and destructive plasticity, Malabou doesn’t conceptualize force nor advance it as a necessity for conceptualizing plasticity. Nevertheless, developing upon Christopher Watkin’s idea for engaging Malabou’s plasticity relationally within a broader ecology, we come to see how, whether ontically or ontologically, force(s) appear to be what makes plasticity dynamic. As a result, in order to address the figure of force as being integral to form, I argue that Malabou will need to somehow transfigure her conception of plasticity. Ultimately, in my estimation, such elaboration may lead to plasticity’s conceptual re-birth in the form of a mediating force.

Ecological Ruptures and Strain: Girls, Juvenile Justice, and Phone Removal

Girls in the juvenile justice system routinely have their cell phones and internet access removed as a part of court orders. Building on feminist criminology and ecological systems theory, this paper will demonstrate that phone removal causes a rupture of girls’ digital ecology. This rupture exacerbates strains conducive to crime and victimization. Findings are generated from an ethnographic study that took place in a Northeastern United States city. Forty-two girls took part in focus groups and a series of interviews, and 22 practitioners took part in semi-structured interviews. This research shows that phones act as a positive and protective force supporting girls through feelings of safety, helping them cope with challenging events at home and on the street. Understanding the phone as a part of a broader ecology contextualizes why girls would subsequently commit crimes to restore their digital ecology.

Mouldy Matriarchs and Dangerous Daughters

Mouldy Matriarchs and Dangerous Daughters

Making Inferences from Index Numbers (1860–1914)

Index numbers are indirect measurements as well as composite quantities that present particular inferential challenges to the measurer and their intended audiences. The early history of the use of index numbers in British economics (ca. 1860–1914) shows that making inferences using this measuring instrument was rife with problems. Economists grappled with multiple “inferential gaps” in order to make inferences from index numbers. The extent to which these gaps could be bridged depended on the theoretical frameworks and measurement strategies used. However, it is also evident that some inferential issues confronting economists were ideological or political in nature. Two case studies are examined, Stanley Jevons’s price index and the Board of Trade’s cost-of-living index, that sharpen the focus on the accuracy of index numbers. What did index numbers really capture about the deterioration of the monetary standard or standard of living of the working classes? By situating the index numbers within the broader ecology in which they were constructed, the article shows that making inferences was not just a heuristic process (one that eliminated gaps by getting the estimations right) but a cognitive one as well (one that people could accept as being “fit for purpose”).

The future is always-already now: Instituent praxis and the activist university

In this paper, we place the issue of university activism in the context of constituent and constituted power. By this we mean the ever-present danger that activists’ demands will be co-opted and concurrently deactivated. To mitigate this risk, we develop a set of conceptual tools that enables thinking about the activist university in terms of instituent praxis; that is, an open process of co-becoming of an institution and its actors through the continuous co-production of rules that drive their actions. Contrary to the view of the university as something instituted, the activist university that we propose emphasises the possibility of sustaining the process of acting and its underlying rules, rather than the result of the act. The activist university is understood here as a crack that leaves the instituted university open every time the self-production of its subject emerges by the self-transformation of the actors in the very course of their activities. We observe a chance for grounding instituent praxis in the ontological shift in thinking the activist university from being to co-becoming, as this will allow for reclaiming the future for the university and its broader ecology.

‘…Darn Thing Just Kind of Fell Together by Itself after a While’: Exploring the Role of Official and Tactical Communication in Siting a Rural Wind Farm

The growth of wind energy in the United States has created widespread access to renewable energy for citizens in many parts of the country. But while wind holds promise for meeting 21st-century energy demands, the question of how and where to locate wind farms poses significant technical and rhetorical challenges for wind energy companies seeking access to wind resources. Securing such access typically requires companies to work closely with municipalities and private landowners through a blizzard of “official genres”—e.g., letters, contracts, emails, maps—that are developed and authorized by wind power companies in order to inform and persuade. However, the construction of a wind farm presents the possibility of significant disruption of local values and identities, economies and aesthetics. Citing research from rhetorical genre studies and interviews with landowners and stakeholders in a rural Midwestern rural community, this chapter outlines a sampling of the official discourse utilized by wind energy companies to secure wind farm siting agreements and explores the pressures this rhetoric places upon local stakeholders. I then use interview data to illustrate how these official forms of documentation exist within a broader ecology of unofficial communication that includes citizen-curated sites of what Miles Kimball has called “tactical technical communication.” These sites, including informal meetings, citizen-initiated research, and local leadership activity, accommodate official wind energy discourse into the local rhetorical ecology, highlighting, in part, the scope of rhetorical activity needed to integrate wind into a local economy of values and beliefs.

Opportunities for Neurodevelopmental Plasticity From Infancy Through Early Adulthood.

Multiple and rapid changes in brain development occur in infancy and early childhood that undergird behavioral development in core domains. The period of adolescence also carries a second influx of growth and change in the brain to support the unique developmental tasks of adolescence. This special section documents two core conclusions from multiple studies. First, evidence for change in brain-based metrics that underlie cognitive and behavioral functions are not limited to narrow windows in development, but are evident from infancy into early adulthood. Second, the specific evident changes are unique to challenges and goals that are salient for a respective developmental period. These brain-based changes interface with environmental inputs, whether from the child's broader ecology or at an individual level.

The Marrakesh Declaration on Rights of Religious Minorities: Opportunity or Dead End?

ABSTRACTThe article examines critically the Marrakesh Declaration on Rights of Religious Minorities, issued by 250 Islamic scholars and leaders in January 2016, and hailed as an important step towards Islamic recognition of rights for minorities in the Middle East. Although the declaration falls short of the ideals of the international liberal human rights discourse, it may move Islamic theological discourse towards greater recognition of equal rights for all through the promotion of the concept of citizenship. The author situates the declaration within a broader ecology of declarations and conferences through which Islamic theologians have sought to reduce tensions between religious groups, all of which has been met with expectations, and most of which have fizzled out with few tangible fruits. The article suggests that despite the absence of concrete results in the fields of law and politics, such initiatives may have a positive impact on how differences are represented discursively and therefore on implementation of rights on the ground. However, such results, too, come with certain costs, not least that of potentially entrenching traditional Islamic modes of theologising and stifling other voices. In addition, declaration fatigue may undermine a message that otherwise could strengthen the freedom of religion or belief.

Rethinking Human-Nonhuman Primate Contact and Pathogenic Disease Spillover.

Zoonotic transmissions are a major global health risk, and human-animal contact is frequently raised as an important driver of transmission. A literature examining zooanthroponosis largely agrees that more human-animal contact leads to more risk. Yet the basis of this proposition, the term contact, has not been rigorously analyzed. To understand how contact is used to explain cross-species spillovers, we conducted a multi-disciplinary review of studies addressing human-nonhuman primate (NHP) engagements and pathogenic transmissions and employing the term contact. We find that although contact is frequently invoked, it is employed inconsistently and imprecisely across these studies, overlooking the range of pathogens and their transmission routes and directions. We also examine a related but more expansive approach focusing on human and NHP habitats and their spatial overlap, which can potentially facilitate pathogenic transmission. Contact and spatial overlap investigations cannot, however, explain the processes that bring together people, animals and pathogens. We therefore examine another approach that enhances our understanding of zoonotic spillovers: anthropological studies identifying such historical, social, environmental processes. Comparable to a One Health approach, our ongoing research in Cameroon draws contact, spatial overlap and anthropological-historical approaches into dialog to suggest where, when and how pathogenic transmissions between people and NHPs may occur. In conclusion, we call for zoonotic disease researchers to specify more precisely the human-animal contacts they investigate and to attend to how broader ecologies, societies and histories shape pathogen-human-animal interactions.

Moments that matter: educational entanglements and ecologies of action

ABSTRACTIn this article, I argue that “the freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves” is intimately entangled with processes of education.1 To understand this relationship, we need to articulate more fully the role and state of teaching and learning both within and outside of academe. I argue that education allows for a negotiation of one’s relationship within broader ecologies of action, which comprise constellations of power (and their correlate ideologies), discourses, bodies, material sites, and practices. More specifically, I elucidate three primary ways that education might serve as a powerful mode of tactical resistance to the deleterious effects of neoliberalist regimes and their exclusionary agendas: (1) research and rejuvenated public intellectualism; (2) understanding teaching as the nurturing of capacities rather than as a conduit for information transfer; and (3) centering education on the cultivation of a learning mode.2

Review of the firefly visual system (Coleoptera: Lampyridae) and evolution of the opsin genes underlying color vision

Among insects, opsin copy number variation has been shown to be quite diverse. However, within the beetles, very little work on opsins has been conducted. Here, we look at the visual system of fireflies (Coleoptera: Lampyridae), which offer an elegant system in which to study visual evolution as it relates to their behavior and broader ecology. They are the best-known case of a terrestrial organism that communicates through the use bioluminescence. The molecular basis for this communication is relatively simple: one gene family (opsins) controls the detection of the signal, and one gene family (luciferase) controls the production of the signal. We use a transcriptomic approach to sample for and investigate opsin evolution in fireflies. We also use a phylogenetic estimate of Lampyridae to examine the evolution and ancestral modality of adult courtship communication. We find evidence for only two expressed opsin classes in each of the nine firefly species studied, one in the ultraviolet-sensitive and one in the long-wavelength-sensitive areas of the visible spectrum. Bioluminescent communication in adults is not optimized to be present ancestrally, and was gained two times with six subsequent losses. Despite the need for most adult fireflies to respond to a clearly sexual and colorful visual signal (bioluminescence) to maximize fitness, their visual system is relatively simple, and does not match the trend for opsin duplication found in other insect groups.

Adapting and Implementing Evidence-Based Interventions for Trauma-Exposed Refugee Youth and Families

Refugee youth routinely encounter difficult challenges related to past trauma, loss, and resettlement stressors. The recent surge in refugees resettling in the United States has made it increasingly likely that mental health service providers will receive referrals to work with refugee youth. It is thus essential to prepare the national mental health workforce to provide the best care possible. Although the current evidence base regarding the use of empirically-supported treatments with refugee youth living in Western countries is insufficiently developed to provide authoritative standards for evidence-based practice (EBP), sufficient advances have nevertheless been made to offer evidence-informed suggestions and guidance to practitioners who work with this unique population. We thus focus on three primary considerations for adapting and implementing evidence-based interventions with refugee youth by drawing on the American Psychological Association’s (Am Psychol 61:271–285, 2006) framework for EBP, which integrates (1) the best research available, (2) client characteristics, culture, and preferences; and (3) clinical expertise. We use this framework as a lens to selectively review research pertaining to the refugee youth experience and identify sound therapeutic practices. We recommend key factors to consider when seeking to provide culturally sensitive, developmentally appropriate trauma interventions to this at-risk yet underserved population in real-world settings. We discuss the promise of modularized interventions that integrate both common elements of evidence-based trauma interventions and common therapeutic factors, while also underscoring the importance of addressing extra-therapeutic factors within the broader ecology that can powerfully influence the well-being and functioning of refugee youth and their families.

Community Research: A Renewed Focus to Encompass a Broader Ecology

Community Research: A Renewed Focus to Encompass a Broader Ecology

Karyotype evolution in progress: A new diploid number in Belostoma candidulum (Heteroptera: Belostomatidae) from Argentina leading to new insights into its ecology and evolution

A novel chromosome complement (2n = 14 = 12 + XY/XX; male/female sex chromosomes), male meiosis behaviour, het­ erochromatin characterization, and frequency and distribution of chiasmata are described for the first time in specimens from a natural population of the giant water bug, Belostoma candidulum Montandon, 1903 (Heteroptera: Belostomatidae) from Argentina. To date, specimens of B. candidulum have been reported by other authors in a sample from a natural population from Brazil. Our results dem­ onstrate that Argentinean and Brazilian populations have different diploid numbers and chromosomal features. During male meiosis, autosomal bivalents generally show a single chiasma, behave as telokinetic chromosomes (i.e. kinetic activity is restricted to terminal regions), and divide reductionally at anaphase I; in contrast, the sex chromosomes are achiasmatic, behave as univalents and segregate equationally at anaphase I. Among autosomal bivalents of B. candidulum, one is remarkably larger and may present one or two termi­ nal chiasmata, showing rod, V-shaped and ring configurations. Here we propose a new mode of segregation for ring bivalents, since it is not essential that one of the chiasmata is released during anaphase I because alternative sites for microtubule attachment become functional for the normal chromosome segregation to the poles. Heterochromatin content is very scarce in specimens from Argentinean B. candidulum populations, revealing C ­ positive interstitial and terminal dots in three pairs of autosomes and C ­ blocks at both ends of X chromosome, whereas the Y chromosome is mainly C ­ positive. One of the C ­ positive bands from X and Y chromosomes is DAPI ­ dull/CMA-bright, which could represent the nucleolus organizing region (NOR) detected by fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH). The location of the NORs in both sex chromosomes allowed us to use them as a cytological marker to describe their behaviour during meiosis. Despite the fact that specimens from the Argentinean and Brazilian populations have been classified as a single species due to their morphological similarity, our results suggest that both populations are chromosomal races or even morphologically ­ identical cryptic species. The results obtained support the hypothesis that karyotype of B. candidulum originated through autosomal fusions and the fusion of the X and Y chromosomes with the ancestral NOR ­ autosomal pair. Lastly, the genus Belostoma represents an excellent model for assessing the main mechanisms involved in the karyotype evolution in organisms with holokinetic chromosomes, from which inferences may be made concerning its broader ecology and evolution.

Children’s attachment to both parents from toddler age to middle childhood: links to adaptive and maladaptive outcomes

We examined children’s attachment security with their mothers and fathers in a community sample (N = 100). At 25 months, mothers, fathers, and trained observers completed Attachment Q-Set (AQS). At 100 months, children completed Kerns Security Scale (KSS) for each parent. Children’s adaptation (behavior problems and competence in broader ecologies of school and peer group, child- and parent-reported) was assessed at 100 months. Generally, the child’s security with the mother and father was modestly to robustly concordant across both relationships, depending on the assessment method. Observers’ AQS security scores predicted children’s self-reported security six years later. For children with low AQS security scores with mothers, variations in security with fathers had significant implications for adaptation. Those whose security with fathers was also low reported the most behavior problems and were seen as least competent in broader ecologies, but those whose security with fathers was high reported few problems and were seen as competent. Observer-rated security with fathers predicted children’s higher competence in broader ecologies, both self- and parent-reported. A cumulative index of the history of security from toddler age to middle childhood, integrating measures across both relationships and diverse methodologies, was significantly associated with positive adaptation at 100 months.

Child care and cortisol across early childhood: Context matters.

A considerable body of literature suggests that children's child-care experiences may impact adrenocortical functioning in early childhood. Yet emerging findings also suggest that the magnitude and sometimes the direction of child-care effects on development may be markedly different for children from higher risk contexts. Using data from a large population-based sample of families from predominantly low-income backgrounds in rural communities, we tested the degree to which links between children's child-care experiences (at 7-36 months) and their subsequent cortisol levels (at 48 months) were moderated by their level of cumulative environmental risk. Our results provided evidence of a crossover interaction between cumulative risk and child-care quantity. For children from low-risk contexts, greater weekly hours in child care were predictive of higher cortisol levels. In contrast, for children facing several cumulative risk factors, greater hours in child care per week were predictive of lower cortisol levels. These effects were robust after adjusting for several controls, including children's cortisol levels in early infancy. Child-care quality and type were not predictive of children's cortisol levels, and neither mitigated the conditional effect of child-care quantity on cortisol. These findings suggest that links between child care and children's development may differ as a function of children's broader ecologies.

From Egypt to Wisconsin: tactical innovation with digital media

In 2011, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker introduced a budget repair bill that removed the rights of public sector unions to collectively bargain and inspired mass protests at the Wisconsin State Capitol and beyond. This article provides a first-hand account of these struggles from the perspective of online activists who designed DefendWisconsin.org, a digital organizing tool used widely during the protests. Although only one of several such sites, DefendWisconsin.org was essential for organizing graduate students in the Teaching Assistants' Association, a union that played a critical role in grassroots mobilizations. Squire and Gaydos detail the context for DefendWisconsin's design, launching, and evolution, with particular emphasis on its role in the broader ecology of online communities, activists, and resources. They situate this effort in a framework of nonviolent resistance and the broader peace movement highlighted by Ivan Marovic, a Serbian organizer who visited Madison during the protests. Squire and Gaydos conclude by contrasting the protests that occurred (particularly online), with the characteristics of broader social movements, suggesting lessons that grassroots organizers might learn from Wisconsin and revealing where there may be digital infrastructure for future organizers to leverage in their work.