Equitable World Research Articles

Multisectoral action coalitions for road safety in Brazil: An organizational social network analysis in São Paulo and Fortaleza

Objective This research was conducted to explore the nature of multisectoral action for road safety in Brazil. In an effort to improve the implementation of complex interventions, we sought to characterize the relationships and exchange patterns within a network tied to the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS) in Fortaleza and São Paulo, Brazil. Methods We conducted an organizational social network analysis based on in-person surveys and key informant interviews with 57 individuals across the two cities from August to October 2019. Survey data included network dimensions such as the frequency of interaction, perceived value of interaction, resource sharing, coordination, data/research sharing, practical guidance, and access to decision makers. We coded and analyzed interview transcripts according to network properties of structure, governance, development, and outcomes, as well as in situ codes that emerged from the data. Results We found differences in all network properties between road safety networks in Fortaleza and São Paulo. Fortaleza was characterized by a centralized, dense, and relatively new network, whereas São Paulo was larger, diffuse, diverse, and established. Government agencies were central in both networks, but an international nongovernmental organization (NGO) was highly central in Fortaleza and a local NGO was highly central in São Paulo. Few actors on the periphery of both networks were connected to one another or decision makers, which revealed sectors to engage for enhancing network connectivity. Finally, politics were understood to be key in facilitating network activity, data (especially their integration and transparency) were considered to be influential for decision making, and strategic planning was acknowledged as a central concern for network expansion and fluidity. Conclusions Multisectoral action for road safety can be reinforced by carefully disentangling the social dynamics of implementation. Organizational social network analysis, supplemented with interview data, can provide a deeper explanation for how members behave and understand their work. In this way, research can help build a collective identity and impetus to action on road safety, contributing to a healthier and more equitable world.

Efforts to establish indigenous technology for healthcare in a low resource country – Bangladesh experience

The astounding developments in healthcare technology is not available to about 84% of the global population in the low-medium income countries (LMIC). Good meaning medical equipment donation programmes from the high income countries (HIC) have made very little impact, most devices failing to give the desired service and increasing e-waste. The author, with his four decade-long experience feels that people in the LMICs with higher education in science and technology should be motivated and trained in the design and manufacture of medical devices, and they should also take the responsibility for commercial manufacture and distribution of the developed products. With this realisation early in life, he initiated similar efforts in his home country Bangladesh about four decades back against many challenges and obstacles. This produced some success stories and this paper lists some of the devices developed and distributed by groups under his leadership. The author argues that the existing industries in the LMICs are based on fully foreign technology, and do not have the capability or preparedness to take up commercial manufacture of indigenously developed technology based products. He has come up with the design of a ‘Micro-eco-system’ for the LMICs which involve the leadership of a single technology innovator or a single group of innovators to organise R&D and commercial manufacture, both. An LMIC may have hundreds or thousands of the above ‘Micro-eco-system’ to create an overall eco-system, which may be the solution eventually leading to a more equitable world, with each and every person of the globe having access to developments in science and technology in healthcare.
 Bangladesh Journal of Medical Physics Vol.14 No.1 2021 P 1-15

Counterpublic Goods in Interesting Times: Transitional Subjectivities Onstage at Highways Performance Space, 1989–1993

A raging global pandemic handled inadequately and indifferently by the Republican-led US federal government, with Dr. Anthony Fauci in a featured role; an antiracist uprising in response to police brutality; a resurgent political Right fomenting and stoking culture wars; activists’ demands for a diverse and equitable art world; increasing fiscal precarity for small, innovative live art spaces; a looming recession; and an escalating housing crisis fueled by accelerating income inequality: welcome to Los Angeles between 1989 and 1993. In this period, AIDS became the leading cause of death for US men ages 25–44; ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power)/LA called public health infrastructure to account and successfully fought for an AIDS ward at Los Angeles County Hospital. A widely circulated video of Los Angeles Police Department officers viciously beating Black motorist Rodney King, and their subsequent acquittal of criminal charges by a suburban jury, ignited five days of antiracist rebellion. The rising number of unhoused people in Los Angeles was becoming difficult to ignore, though not for the city's, state's, or federal government's lack of trying. “Multiculturalism” became a widely embraced—if sometimes cynically deployed—aesthetic and programming imperative.

COVID‐19 Vaccine Inequity: High time to calibrate the global moral compass

COVID‐19 Vaccine Inequity: High time to calibrate the global moral compass

Fighting For Justice in Education: How Schools Can Lead the Change Towards a More Equitable World

“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine the world anew. This one is no different” (Roy, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic has had tremendous implications for every aspect of life. School, work, celebrations and everyday social interactions have all felt the repercussions of the pandemic. While the shutdown called for an immediate pivot from our everyday ways of being, it has also provided opportunities for stillness and deep reflection. This moment of pause has provided an opportunity to think, speak and act differently. As a parent my hope is that educators will lead the change.

Leisure Studies Association Annual Conference 2021. Leisure identities, health and wellbeing: conference review

ABSTRACT The Leisure Studies Association Annual Conference 2021 brought together scholars and practitioners from several disciplines to discuss leisure, health, and wellness, and the significance of leisure in creating a more equitable world. Alongside these main themes, oral presentations related to other areas of leisure were also included. Across the three-day online conference, there were 70 presentations from delegates across sixteen countries. These presentations, plus the panel session and keynotes, made a significant contribution to the leisure studies field. The conference was successful in terms of sharing research and expertise, generating discussion, dialogue, and debate, and considering future research collaborations.

Love and peace across generations: Biobehavioral systems and global partnerships

Children's environments - especially relationships with caregivers - sculpt not only developing brains but also multiple bio-behavioral systems that influence long-term cognitive and socioemotional outcomes, including the ability to empathize with others and interact in prosocial and peaceful ways. This speaks to the importance of investing resources in effective and timely programs that work to enhance early childhood development (ECD) and, by extension, reach communities at-scale. Given the limited resources currently devoted to ECD services, and the devastating impact of COVID-19 on children and communities, there is a clear need to spur government leaders and policymakers to further invest in ECD and related issues including gender and racial equity. This essay offers concrete examples of scholarly paradigms and leadership efforts that focus on child development to build a peaceful, equitable, just, and sustainable world. As scholars and practitioners, we need to continue to design, implement, assess, and revise high-quality child development programs that generate much-needed evidence for policy and programmatic changes. We must also invest in global partnerships to foster the next generation of scholars, practitioners, and advocates dedicated to advance our understanding of the bio-behavioral systems that underlie love, sociality, and peace across generations. Especially where supported by structural interventions, ECD programs can help create more peaceful, just, and socially equitable societies.

Connecticut State Library Spotlight

Connecticut State Library Spotlight

News, Events, Publications, and Awards

News, Events, Publications, and Awards

Archaeology of everiday racism

This paper examines the role of material culture in replicating everyday racism in Katherine, Northern Territory, Australia. We argue that inclusivity is determined by inclusive design supported by inclusive behaviours and that archaeologists can inform the creation of a more equitable world by identifying how material culture acts to exclude certain groups and replicate inequalities that might otherwise go unnoticed. This paper is part of the social justice movement in archaeology that analyses material remains in both the past and the present to reveal relationships between racism, racial discrimination, and racial inequality.

Work and Play During Covid-19

The global pandemic and resultant lockdowns are challenging our traditional assumptions about the times and spaces of labour and leisure - but how were these norms established and why have they had such an enduring appeal? In this paper, we take a long view to investigate the philosophical and historical roots of the binary distinction between work and play and outline ways in which these long-held ideas are being increasingly challenged. As lockdown measures are relaxed, we urgently need to develop more nuanced conceptions of the spatial and temporal conditions of work and leisure to ensure a more equitable and compassionate post-lockdown world.

Reflection for a More Equitable World Post-Pandemic

Reflective thinking [1] , [2] allows humans to examine the past with intentionality, learn from what happened, and adapt accordingly. We explore thoughts, feelings, and actions, mine out insights, and enhance awareness. Our community incorporated reflective thinking to learn from a unique year in which our world was significantly disrupted due to COVID-19.

Россия – Китай: непростой путь к стратегическому партнерству (к 70-летию установления дипломатических отношений)

Introduction. The article is devoted to the features and historical evolution of the SovietChinese (later Russian-Chinese) relations from the moment of the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 to the present. The analysis of the complex of factors that determined the complex dynamics of the relations between the two countries was carried out by the author of the article. It is shown that the SovietChinese (later – Russian-Chinese) relations developed from close alliance to alienation and confrontation – with reaching a level of strategic partnership in the second decade of the 21st century. Methods and materials. The authors seek a combination of general theoretical and special methods, focusing on the historical, sociocultural and political analysis. They are based on the analysis of periodicals, as well as using books, articles and materials of researchers on the problems of the political development of China and the USSR (Russia) and on the transformation of the nature of their bilateral relations. The author analyzes the current situation in the relations between the two countries, according to which the nature of the development of the general situation in international relations and the objective foreign policy interests of China and Russia encourage them to build and deepen bilateral partnership. Results. According to the author, many of the reasons that gave rise to a conflict of interests and confrontation between the two countries in previous years are exhausted today. At the same time, the joint participation of China and Russia in the formation and adoption of a new, more equitable and sustainable world order, in the settlement of conflicts and crises, in the arrangement of the Greater Eurasia space seems to the author justified and promising. Among the factors defining the nature of the Sino-Soviet relations the author identifies the relationship between the leaders of the two countries, the difference of geopolitical concepts and approaches, ideological disputes and differences in the views on strategy and prospects of the communist movement, the logic of the socio-political and socio-economic development in the context of modernization. The changing and contradictory correlation of these factors determined the development of the Soviet-Chinese (later Russian-Chinese) relations from a close alliance to mutual distancing and confrontation – with the subsequent entry into strategic partnership.

Artificial Intelligence for a Fair, Just, and Equitable World

From the 1970s onward, we started to dream of the leisure society in which, thanks to technological progress and consequent increase in productivity, working hours would be minimized and we would all live in abundance. We all could devote our time almost exclusively to personal relationships, contact with nature, sciences, the arts, playful activities, and so on. Today, this utopia seems more unattainable than it did then. Since the 21st century, we have seen inequalities increasingly accentuated: of the increase in wealth in the United States between 2006 and 2018, adjusted for inflation and population growth, more than 87% went to the richest 10% of the population, and the poorest 50% lost wealth [1] . Following the crisis of 2008, social inequalities, rights violations, planetary degradation, and the climate emergency worsened and increased (see [2] ). In 2019, the world’s 2153 billionaires had more wealth than 4.6 billion people [3] . The World Bank estimates that COVID-19 will push up to 150 million people into extreme poverty [4] .

Pandemic disruptions: The subversion of neoliberalism.

The implications of the COVID 19 pandemic signal both tragedy and possibility. This reflective paper considers the amplification of the concurrent pandemics of violence against women and children and anti-black racism during the responses to COVID 19 and renewed calls to action. The enforced ‘pause’ as a result of social isolation or distancing measures in response to COVID-19, has led many people to re-imagine a different world and ignited social movements across the globe. Education must inspire a vision of what our world could be and define what action is needed and the steps required to implement change. The critical reflection that characterizes most social work educational programs can provide opportunities to harness such imaginings in redefining ‘the possible’ in the quest for a more equitable and safer world. This article describes the potential of the pandemic to subvert the pervasive influence of neoliberalism by promoting collective notions of care.

Systemic Modeling of the Peace–Development Nexus

As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, the value proposition of promoting sustainability and peace in the world has become more imperative than ever. It is an appropriate time to pause and reflect on what a post-pandemic COVID-19 world will look like and what constitutes a new mindset toward a more sustainable, stable, peaceful, and equitable world where all humans live with dignity and at peace. As emphasized in this paper, the new mindset must acknowledge that sustainability and peace are two entangled states of dynamic equilibrium. It is hard to envision a sustainable world that is not peaceful and a peaceful world that has not endorsed sustainable practices. This paper looks more specifically at the value proposition of adopting a systems approach to capture the linkages between selected development sectors (e.g., SDGs) and peace sectors (e.g., positive, negative, and cultural). Basic system dynamics (SD) models are presented to illustrate the peace–development nexus dynamics. The models are general enough to be used for different contexts and scales.

Gender and ethnic equity: what can we learn from ancestral and indigenous peoples to deal with socio-environmental issues?

The socio-environmental crisis that we are currently experiencing requires integrative research approaches and actions. Ethnobiology has important potential in this regard, both for its interdisciplinary nature and for recording the relationship between humans and the environment at different times and places. In this way, this opinion essay aims to discuss what we can learn from ancestral societies and Indigenous peoples for the establishment of a more equitable and sustainable world, considering the intersection between gender and ethnic groups. We will begin by examining the history of societies in Old Europe and how domineering and patriarchal societies have been established. We will discuss a few findings about pre-Columbian peoples in America that reinforces the the existence of more equitable societies. We add discussions related to gender, in the context of Indigenous peoples, and reflecting on the importance of the feminine and of the complementarity in social relationships. Finally, we discuss the role of ethnobiological research in this context and the ways of collaborating to support values that favor the establishment of equitable societies, which are fundamental to address the challenges of this era of change.

A call to technologists to ensure that responsible outcomes arise from their innovations

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to encourage technologists, those who design and manage technology systems, to collectivize and get closely involved in defining the priorities of their organizations, their countries, and the world, so that responsible outcomes can arise from their labour. Design/methodology/approach The author examines this problem from three viewpoints: From a design perspective about what is missing in most design practices to build information systems that undesirable outcomes still happen; from an ethics perspective about how to incorporate values in building and managing information systems; and from a political economy perspective about why ensuring responsible outcomes from technology is not easy. The author describes several limitations faced by technologists in achieving this, ranging from gaps in the design methods in use currently, a piecemeal approach to following ethical principles in the design and management of technologies, influence of the organizational culture and structure and the wider political economy of technology itself. Findings The author suggests several measures to address these challenges and conclude with a call to technologists to collectivize and engage politically to influence their organizations and governments to invest in meaningful objectives for a just and equitable world, and design and manage the solutions in ethically consistent ways. Research limitations/implications It is argued that a new paradigm of information systems is needed for digital platforms, which is grounded in ethics-based guidelines that should be followed by the designers and managers of these platforms to help ensure responsible outcomes. Practical implications Having such a paradigm is especially important in today’s winner-takes-all digital platform era because these platforms are governed by only a few people; therefore, it is imperative to build guardrails to responsibly manage these platforms, and to have technologists who design and manage these platforms to play a role in their governance. Social implications Information systems have the potential to alter power relationships in society, and it is suggested that they should be designed to empower the weak. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is a unique perspective that draws from his personal experience as a researcher and practitioner designing technologies for social good, and examines the problem from many different viewpoints.

Alternatives

Internationally known economist Dr. John Loxley passed away suddenly on July 28, 2020. In this article, we pay tribute to him, a proud heterodox economist and a rare scholar who believed in the importance of sharing his knowledge and talents with people working on the ground to build a more equitable world. John, a faculty member in the University of Manitoba Department of Economics for 43 years, was the recipient of many awards and is known for building a bridge between academia and community.

Better Tomorrows

183 BOOKS IN REVIEW sources, reveals a real ideological myopia. No listing for John Rieder’s Science Fiction and the Mass Cultural Genre System (2017)? SFRA award winners Sherryl Vint or Steven Shaviro? Not even something as “canonical” as Fredric Jameson’s Archaeologies of the Future? Such blinkered perspective limits the usefulness of the Bibliography for serious scholars. To conclude, while there are many excellent pieces in Science Fiction and the Dismal Science, on the titular subject of economics in sf this volume represents, at best, a conversation at the periphery of the field. To claim that economic issues are underrepresented and undertheorized in science fiction scholarship, one must ignore the last ten years of conferences of the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts and of the Science Fiction Research Association, dismiss many fine articles published in SFS and elsewhere, and pretend that scholars like Rieder, Vint, Shaviro, Gerry Canavan, Rebekah Sheldon, David Higgins, etc., are not leaders in the field today, both theoretically and organizationally. Those interested in moving scholarship on economics in sf forward should look elsewhere.—Joshua Pearson, California State University, LA Better Tomorrows. Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer. Theory for the World to Come: Speculative Fiction and Apocalyptic Anthropology. U of Minnesota P, 2019. 106 pages. $7.95 pbk. $4.95 ebk. Matthew Wolf-Meyer is a cultural anthropologist who also reads a lot of science fiction. This short book (published in Minnesota’s FORERUNNERS series, which endeavors to present scholarship in more compact forms and for an extra-academic audience) is devoted to the parallels between anthropology and science fiction: “social theory and speculative fiction are two sides of the same coin” (5). Wolf-Meyer’s starting point is the awareness that most white middle-class educated professionals (including himself, together with a large percentage of his readers) tend to be stuck in “suburban provincialisms” (17) beyond which they (or we) find it difficult to think. Anthropology and science fiction are both products of white, Western, middle-class “complacency” (a word that appears a number of times in the text); but they both, at their best, represent efforts to overcome these constraints and to help to move us to “choose a different future” (12). We desperately need to “try to find something that disrupts the futures we have been given” (15). Beyond this general need to imagine a more “sustainable, equitable world” (18) than the one to which our current social arrangements seem to be leading us, both social theory and science fiction can work as forms of modelbuilding . They both endeavor to “imagine the rules that undergird a society and its human and more-than-human relationships” (5). This effort is sometimes problematic; whenever we encounter something genuinely new, the danger is that “its alienness, its unexpected potentials and actions will be translated into models, theories, and language that adhere in disciplines as they already exist” (11). But at their best, social theory and science fiction can model novel possibilities in ways that do not just reproduce and extend the present. It is hard to imagine the end of the world, for “the apocalypse is 184 SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES, VOLUME 48 (2021) never singular; it is always multiple. In its multiplicity, the apocalypse is unimaginable” (4). But we can approach disaster by breaking it down into its components: “to imagine the apocalypse in its singular forms,” one at a time, might still help to “make plain possible ways forward—and how they build upon the past” (5). Theory for the World to Come exhorts its readers to “choose your future: throw in with what has been or try to find something that disrupts the futures we have been given” (15). Wolf-Meyer also reminds us that “history lingers” (90); we cannot simply negate the influence of what has already happened. The United States today still bears the scars of slavery, upon which it was built. But the other side of this inheritance is our awareness that “history is suffused with contingency” (90). Nothing had to happen the way it actually did and the future is still open. We do not have to perpetuate the bad old ways that we have inherited, even if...