Activism Research Articles

Exploring the impact of climate change on respiratory health in Nigeria: a scoping review of current research, government policies and programs

Climate change significantly impacts health globally, especially in densely populated, rapidly industrialising and ecologically diverse countries like Nigeria. We analysed climate change policies, studies, programs, and events at the national and subnational levels in Nigeria and explored their effects on public and respiratory health. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMAScR) checklist, we searched PubMed, African Journals Online (AJoL), Google Scholar and government data repositories on January 10, 2024. We synthesised results using an adapted sector-level framework based on the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. Our searches returned 262 items, of which 32, including research studies, reports and grey documents, were retained for synthesis. Although some policies and programmes, like the Climate Change Act and Nigerian Climate and Health Observatory, exist, implementation is limited across many settings. Key reported respiratory pollutants in Nigeria include particulate matter (PM2.5, PM10), gaseous emissions (CO, SO₂, NOx), agricultural by-products (NH₃, H₂S), greenhouse gases (CH₄, CO₂), and microbial contaminants, which collectively increase the risk of respiratory inflammation, infections, and exacerbations of chronic respiratory symptoms and diseases. Our findings underscore a clear link between climate change and worsening respiratory health in many Nigerian settings. The current policies and programmes’ have limited impact, calling for comprehensive reforms, including improved enforcement and targeted action against major pollution sources, recognition of environmental rights, and stronger public health initiatives and community action.

Frame Overlapping in Moral Markets: The Case of an ‘Open, Free, and Neutral’ Telecommunications Network

AbstractThis study explores how social movement activists, engaged in constructing and expanding moral markets, sustain the integrity of their initial moral values, avoiding dilution or cooptation by conventional market practices. Through a qualitative case study of a telecommunications network, we show that activists can expand a moral market by a process of frame overlapping, which involves the mechanisms of frame amplification with plural moral values, frame bridging with a resonant economic frame and frame extension adapting cultural templates. This process stands in contrast to previously identified dynamics in moral markets literature, such as ‘mutual cooptation’ between movements and firms, de‐coupling and re‐coupling the initial values, and ‘frame divergence’. We also underline different contextual factors that shape frame overlapping. Finally, the article examines the nature of moral markets and proposes a dynamic view of what makes a moral market ‘moral’.

Obituary

We are deeply saddened by news of the death of Professor Richard Ennals, a distinguished social scientist and activist. Richard's contributions to the fields of workplace innovation, action research, and education have left an indelible mark on those who encountered his work, and especially on those who knew him.

Taking the bull by the horns: creating and maintaining LGBT inclusivity at a local group of companies in Sri Lanka

The aim of this paper is to explore what purposeful and practical actions a local conglomerate in Sri Lanka engages in to create and maintain LGBT inclusivity within the organization, contravening the social, religious and legal strictures related to homosexuality in the country. Conceptualizing LGBT inclusivity as a product of institutional work, we adopt an institutional work lens to achieve the aim of the paper. Under the interpretivist paradigm, qualitative case study approach was employed. Data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews with key informants of the organization and two categories of archival data. Findings illustrate a series and forms of institutional work that the selected company has engaged in to insitutionalize LGBT inclusivity within the company. In creating the institution of LGBT inclusivity, the company had engaged first, in explicitly including sexual orientation and gender identity into the existing policies. Then over time, the company has introduced a specific Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) policy with LGBT inclusivity, normalized non-heterosexualities through training, obtaining top management advocacy, and creating and publicizing a visual identity related to D&I including LGBT inclusivity. Once the institution was created, the company has engaged in maintaining the institution through creating authorizing roles and committees, continuous training and education, collaborating with LGBT activist groups, and integrating LGBT inclusivity into HR policies. All in all, these findings indicate a way forward for companies and the need for macro social and legal changes related to LGBT inclusivity.

Rethinking ethics in policymaking: Dharma, reversibility and the imperatives of environmental policymaking

Since the age of Enlightenment, some philosophical traditions have assumed that human actions are ethically neutral, based on the belief that the non-human world is self-regulating and capable of maintaining balance regardless of human impact. However, with increasing human interference in the climate system and the accelerating rate of species extinction driven by human activity, this assumption appears to be flawed. Given the current environmental realities, the consequences of these actions are becoming increasingly difficult to manage, which demonstrates the need to challenge these frameworks. This paper outlines a framework for analysing political action by shifting the focus away from a solely human-centred perspective in ethics and decision-making, drawing on the concepts of reversibility and dharma. Reversibility integrates normative theory, political practice and policymaking, offering a way to address contemporary political challenges in a complex and pluralistic world. It emphasises that the human and non-human worlds are deeply interconnected and cannot be treated as separate. This perspective aligns with the principles of dharma, which advocate for the maintenance and preservation of cosmic order. Both reversibility and dharma highlight the responsibility humans have towards both the human and non-human realms, emphasising our interconnectedness. By bringing these approaches together, this paper proposes a novel framework for critically assessing the ethical dimensions of policies in today's uncertain and contingent world.

Somewhere I belong: the field of new climate activists and the Czech environmental movement

ABSTRACT Although the environmental movement has been around for a long time, it is going through a visible transformation right now. This is mostly due to the mobilization of newly established political actors, such as Fridays for Future (FFF) and Extinction Rebellion (XR), which focus on the issue of climate change. Using a relational perspective to analyze the strategies of established and new actors we ask: given the importance and characteristics of new actors in the field, is environmental activism heading towards higher integration or fragmentation? Reflecting on the field of environmental and climate justice activism in Czechia, we demonstrate its development towards a centralized and hierarchical structure, although we also identify elements of fragmentation. Importantly, our data demonstrate that the two modes of activism do not necessarily form exclusive patterns but can exist in a mutual symbiosis, which enriches the extant understanding of how different forms of activism operate.

Engaging the Youth: Strategies for Involving Young People in Combating Neglected Tropical Diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa

vThis research explores the critical role of youth engagement in addressing neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) through innovative strategies and collaborative efforts. The study highlights how young people can serve as effective advocates for NTD awareness, leveraging technology and social media to disseminate information and mobilize community action. By examining successful youth-led health initiatives in various public health domains, the research underscores the potential of youth to drive change and foster sustainable health interventions. Additionally, the study identifies the challenges young advocates face, including systemic barriers and societal perceptions that may hinder their participation in public health advocacy. Key recommendations for governments, NGOs, and communities are provided, emphasizing the importance of creating inclusive policies, offering mentorship and funding, and encouraging volunteerism among youth. This research article calls for prioritizing youth as critical stakeholders in the fight against NTDs, advocating for their empowerment and active involvement in shaping health policies and interventions. By harnessing the energy and creativity of young people, stakeholders can foster a more effective and equitable approach to tackling NTDs and improving health outcomes in affected communities. Keywords: Neglected tropical diseases, youth, advocacy, health.

Instagram As A Political Communication Strategy In The PKS Regional Management Council (DPD) In Pontianak City

Pontianak City is the capital of West Kalimantan Province. According to data from the General Elections Commission (KPU), it is known that in 2019, Pontianak City had a 24% abstention rate (abstentions) and 30% of the voters were first-time voters (KPU, 2022). Through a pre-research study, it was found that a significant number of young people in Pontianak City were apathetic and not interested in practical political activities, which became the main obstacle faced by the PKS of Pontianak City in implementing its communication strategies to the young sympathizers. It is known that the PKS Public Relations Team of Pontianak City uses Instagram as a communication tool to engage young sympathizers through social media. One way to shape aspirations and engage the young audience in Pontianak City to become sympathizers is through the implementation of effective political communication strategies to establish relationships with the general public, especially the younger generation (public relations). The Uses and Gratification theory, which explains the active nature of the audience in consuming media, can address this issue with five assumptions related to audience activity, audience satisfaction, media competence, audience motives, and media content evaluation. In terms of audience activity, media competence, and media content evaluation, it is considered quite good because young sympathizers have the goal of following the Instagram account @pkspontianak, which can offer activities directly involving young people and provide input and suggestions that can be implemented on the @pkspontianak Instagram account. However, in terms of audience satisfaction and motives, it is still considered less satisfactory. Further research can also gather data from the perspective of the external media environment of the institution in the development of communication strategies. This will lead to formulating strategies that enhance media competitiveness with other similar competitors

The Knowledge Economy and Its Relationship to Politics

The formation of the knowledge economy has become an inevitable trend in the modern world economy. Based on the four main pillars, the knowledge economy significantly affects the political activities of each country. This article analyzes the effects of the knowledge economy on politics, focusing on aspects such as: the democratization process; management and administration methods of the state apparatus; new requirements in protecting independence, sovereignty and maintaining peace; as well as negative impacts that deepen the contradictions in capitalism and create practical conditions for socialism. In addition, the article also mentions the connection between the study of the impact of the knowledge economy and innovation in Vietnam, especially in the field of politics.

Directive adult education by political actors

Directive adult education by political actors

State and Islamic Holidays in Kabardino-Balkaria: Past and Present

This article presents a historical analysis of the Russian government’s policies regarding Islamic holidays over the past century, focusing on the case of Kabardino-Balkaria. Drawing on archival and published data, the author highlights the influence of historical legacies established during the Soviet era. It is noted that in the 1920s, Islamic holidays in Kabardino-Balkaria were officially recognized as non-working days for the first time. The study pays particular attention to the activities of the Council for Religious Affairs and the Council for Religious Cults during the 1940s to 1980s. Utilizing reporting documents, it introduces data on governmental tactics, as well as information regarding the number of participants, venues, and the gender composition of Muslims who observed fasting and engaged in communal celebrations. The article argues that for Muslims in Soviet Kabardino-Balkaria, the holidays of Uraza-Bayram and Kurban-Bayram became institutions for preserving religious practices amidst stringent secularism. Additionally, it examines the period of Islamic revival in the post-Soviet era, during which these holidays regained their status as regional non-working days. The findings demonstrate that government authorities and local self-governance bodies, along with political actors, actively participate in organizing these celebrations within the framework of identity politics and the regulation of public events.

Geographies and counter-geographies of global circulation in port cities – the case of Piraeus

ABSTRACT At a time of global logistical restructuring and a rising concentration of corporate power over ports, the local territories of port cities are increasingly experiencing contested geographical reconfigurations. This article interrogates the politics of circulation and these resulting contested geographies in port cities through an examination of the paradigmatic case of Piraeus, Greece. Drawing on qualitative research and perspectives from inhabitants engaged in contestation, this article analyzes how power, social and ecological relations are reconfigured by the privatizations and expansion of the port of Piraeus. It engages with the broader paradigm of supply-chain urbanism, showing how the circulation of goods and related speculative investments are refashioning local urban geography. The city’s structural reshaping has been met by social mobilizations that reveal the promise of environmental justice approaches that bridge community differences across Piraeus’ fragmented territory. Grassroots environmental monitoring is producing the conditions for new relationships, expanding the terrain of political action and knowledge for charting shared imaginaries across port cities’ counter-geographies.

Caring toward end of life through acute hospital and community partnerships: A scoping review.

Global health systems are currently socially and economically burdened. Public health palliative care is an approach to caring toward end of life that can create the innovative change needed to address this inequity. Guided by the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (1986), public health palliative care promotes collaboration among palliative care services, civic institutions, and communities to build capacity in all aspects of death, dying, caregiving, and bereavement. Despite growing evidence for the public health approach to palliative care, little is known about how acute hospitals and communities can work together to provide care toward end of life. To explore how acute hospitals and communities work together to provide care toward end of life. Scoping review guided by Arskey and O'Malley framework. Scopus, Pubmed, CINAHL, and Informit as well as gray literature were searched. Citations were independently assessed against inclusion and exclusion criteria. Of the six included studies and reports, a priori themes of creating supportive environments; strengthening community action; reorienting health services; developing personal skills and building healthy public policy from the Charter were well represented. Additional themes of communication and language, culture and risk were also identified. Educational, arts health, community engagement initiatives were explored as well as clinical tools, psychosocial interventions, and the No One Dies Alone (NODA) program. This review offers policymakers, hospitals, and practitioners a framework for implementing hospital-community partnerships toward end-of-life. Despite challenges in acute settings, these initiatives can enhance end-of-life experiences for patients and families.

Peer(ing) pressure: maintenance, care, and infrastructural capital in a cybersecurity intervention at Internet scale

ABSTRACT We discuss a successful intervention in the management of Internet infrastructure – a campaign which has achieved genuine traction against a cybercrime issue that has dogged the network engineering community for more than thirty years. Internet infrastructure is often characterised as beset by perverse incentives which frustrate the achievement of common goods – establishing fixes to deep design issues with Internet architecture involves communal action at scale which is hard to manage in a decentralised, competitive, and marketized ecosystem of providers. While much scholarship has sought to establish the incentives frustrating action against cybercrime and identify possible ways to alter these, in this case we observe a community acting to short-circuit them entirely. We develop the concept of infrastructural capital to explain how key actors were able to relocate the issue of spoofing away from the commercial incentive structures of a decentralised ecosystem of competing providers with little motivation to solve the issue and into the incentive structures of a far more densely networked and centralised professional community of network engineers. This extends previous work applying theory from infrastructure studies to cybercrime economies, developing a new account of how power can be asserted within infrastructure to achieve change, apparently against the grain of other long-standing incentives.

“You need to put on your own oxygen mask first”: considering extinction rebellion’s regenerative culture as a mode of constructive resistance

ABSTRACT Extinction Rebellion (XR) protests and campaigns have played a significant role in raising awareness about the climate emergency. Direct political action has been accompanied by the building of ‘regenerative culture’, geared towards prefiguring a desired future world in the present and catalysing transformation. Drawing on documentary analysis and data from interviews conducted with XR members, we examine the extent to which regenerative culture can be construed as a form of constructive resistance. In our discussion, we explore the resistant and transformative potential of regenerative culture and assess both its potential and limits as a progressive mode of environmental activism.

Black Marxism and the English working class

This article engages with the theoretical contributions of Cedric Robinson’s book Black Marxism by arguing that racialised differentiation played an important role in capitalism’s emergence in England. Drawing on the methodologies of critical historiography used by Robinson in Black Marxism, the author discusses how the medieval social order in England was marked by both colonialism and racialism, and the dynamics of these fundamentally influenced the development of agrarian capitalism. She argues that in the context of developments in English historical knowledge since Black Marxism was published, fresh applications of Robinson’s theoretical and methodological approach to English historiography give important new insights into the emergence of capitalist social relations. For, as Robinson points out, the destruction of the past and the rewriting of history is a fundamental part of the creation of the other, and the endeavour of racial capitalism. Rescuing history from national myth is an important political and emancipatory act, which Robinson’s approach empowers us to undertake.

Claims to universal norms and the forging of transnational networks: Struggles over the meaning of gender-based and sexual violence in conflicts

Abstract The article analyzes the ways in which claims to universal norms promote, or complicate, collaboration in the context of transnational activism. It emphasizes the potential of a constructivist understanding of universality, i.e. not as something intrinsic to certain norms, but rather as an empirically powerful assumption and a strategic tool. The argumentation is based on two case studies. The first looks at how networks of transnational solidarity were formed and conflicts between activist groups emerged in response to conflict-related sexual violence committed during the Bosnian War. The second example looks at responses to the crimes committed by ISIS in Iraq in 2014 and beyond, demonstrating how shifts within the field of transitional justice, and in particular the emergence of norms centered on the concerns and participation of survivors, have shaped the building of networks around the right to reparation.

The Sea Wall and the Kampung

We propose that architectural responses to planetary environmental challenges are a crucial domain for cosmotechnical action. We explore the possibilities of cosmotechnical design by analysing two contrasting responses to the effects of anthropogenic climate change in Jakarta: defensive sea-wall construction and adaptive community action. Jakarta is an essential case for exploring cosmotechnics: a world city at the forefront of planetary environmental challenges, and a capital with a conflicted urban history, deeply shaped by colonisation and by its immersion in global circuits of capital and trade.

Theatre displeasure touching society’s raw nerves: Castellucci and Frljić

The essay analyses the political tactics of two innovative European theatre directors, Romeo Castellucci and Oliver Frljić, and their use of displeasure as a theatrical tool. It shows how they decentre the spectator’s vision of the world and shape theatre as a specific producer of truth as defined by Alain Badiou in Handbook of Inaesthetics: thinking about art is not extrinsic; it is art itself. Exploring their work and audience reactions to the performances of On the Concept of Face in Paris and Vilnius, The Curse in Warsaw, Our Violence and Your Violence in Vienna and Sarajevo, this essay shows how they transform theatre into a weapon of political action using the displeasure and offence of the audience as artistic tools. The actors provoke the audience in order to generate a response and their involvement. Their performances thus generate discomfort and sometimes violent responses from the audience within various theatrical, cultural, and political contexts. To achieve their goal, Castellucci and Frljić use radical means: religiously motivated image-making inciting extreme reactions, insulting the audience in a specific version of parabasis, and resurrections producing defamiliarization. They deliberately blur the line between reality and fiction, convinced that the performance is the result of interaction between the performers and the audience. Thus, they destabilize the social distribution of power reflected in the theatre.

Development Under the Shadow of Guns: An Empirical Analysis of Security-Development Nexus in Afghanistan.

Foreign and national militaries around the world have been increasingly involved in post-conflict reconstruction and development practices. In post 9/11, the trend of militarization of aid has been observed in many conflict-ridden countries but it is perhaps most visible in Afghanistan. Several studies highlighted the various reasons for the intangible achievements between 2001 and 2021 in Afghanistan; however, literature covering the anomalies of the security-development nexus remains scarce. The main aim of the paper is to critically analyse the security-development nexus by answering the questions: Why did development aid couldn’t achieve positive results in Afghanistan? Whose security and interests were served with the development aid programs? The security-development nexus poses a confounding paradox: which one should come first? Over six months (November 2021–April 2022), 26 semi-structured interviews were conducted with key respondents using purposive and snowball sampling. The paper argues that development under the US military authority brought military and civilian actors under one umbrella yet the existing cooperative framework was heavily influenced, in design and operation, by military actors.