Renewed Engagement Research Articles

The Region in Review: International Issues and Events, 2019

The Region in Review: International Issues and Events, 2019 Nic Maclellan (bio) Melanesia in Review: Issues and Events, 2019 volker boege, rebecca bogiri, mathias chauchat, joseph daniel foukona, budi hernawan, michael leach, james stiefvater, jope tarai [End Page 523] The Region in Review: International Issues and Events, 2019 Around the Pacific, advertising agencies had a boom year in 2019 as governments rebranded their support for the Pacific Islands. Australia is “stepping up” and New Zealand “resetting” their Pacific policies. The United States launched its “Pacific pledge,” while Indonesia announced a “Pacific elevation.” China and Taiwan jousted for diplomatic support, offering “South-South” solidarity. Despite this renewed engagement, Pacific Island citizens are grappling with a challenging international context. With the slowdown of the global economy in late 2018, many Island governments geared up for tough economic times. The adverse effects of climate change and the ongoing failure of global climate negotiations generated economic as well as environmental costs. With an increasingly hostile tone, Australia and the United States ramped up efforts to blunt Chinese influence in a region now dubbed the “Indo-Pacific.” The policy of strategic denial in the Islands promoted by the anzus alliance of Australia, New Zealand, and the United States is designed to reinforce Western power in the wider Asia-Pacific region. This agenda is supported by external powers like France, India, and Japan, which all have their own regional agendas. In response, Pacific Island government and community leaders are outlining their vision of a unified, sustainable region. Recognizing that “the world wants Oceania like never before,” the Reclaiming Oceania Collective at the University of the South Pacific highlighted the resistance of Pacific communities: “Pacific islanders—stewards of the ocean for thousands of years—are organizing at unprecedented scales. New social movements aim to reassert an ‘oceanic’ identity, and are confronting forces that would usurp their sovereignty and heritage. Pacific islanders are also leveraging their ‘oceanic presence’ in processes of multi lateral oceans diplomacy” (Reclaiming Oceania Collective 2018). There is a growing body of research that seeks to redefine notions of regional security and development, which stress the importance of collective diplomacy, civil society engagement, and Indigenous perspectives (Fry and Tarte 2015; Salesa 2017; Fry 2019; Ratuva 2019; Morgan 2019). In August, the annual Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Tuvalu reaffirmed the “Blue Pacific” as its key policy framework. Dame Meg Taylor, secretary-general of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, noted: “The Blue Pacific represents our recognition that as a region, we are large, connected and strategically important” (Taylor 2019b). The year was marked by significant engagement with the United Nations (UN), including an unprecedented regional visit by UN Secretary-General António Guterres in May, with stops in Fiji, New Zealand, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. Guterres sees the UN Pacific Small Island Developing States (psids) [End Page 524] group as an ally in his global advocacy on climate change. Seeking to drive momentum toward his UN Climate Action Summit in September and global climate negotiations in November, the secretary-general said that Pacific Island leaders have a unique moral authority to speak out on the climate crisis. In May, the Forum hosted a summit with Guterres in Nadi, where he highlighted two fundamental challenges for the Pacific region: “First, the increasingly severe impacts of climate change, and second, the deepening threats to the world’s oceans and seas” (Maclellan 2019e). Following the summit, Pacific leaders issued the “Blue Pacific’s Call for Urgent Global Climate Change Action,” stressing the importance of higher ambition at the Climate Action Summit in New York (pifs 2019a). In line with the Boe Declaration issued at the 2018 Nauru Forum, Island leaders called on the UN secretary-general to appoint a Special Adviser on Climate Change and Security (pifs 2018). Despite this visit, officials from the Council of Regional Organizations of the Pacific are concerned that increased UN activity in the Pacific may draw resources away from existing regional organizations. Outgoing Director-General of the Pacific Community (spc) Dr Colin Tukuitonga noted: “We compete with UN agencies for the same pot of money and the UN has the advantage over us because of their size and global reach” (Magick 2019). After six...

Whose Elimination? Frontline Workers' Perspectives on the Elimination of the Human African Trypanosomiasis and Its Anticipated Consequences.

While academic literature has paid careful attention to the technological efforts―drugs, tests, and tools for vector control―deployed to eliminate Gambiense Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT), the human resources and health systems dimensions of elimination are less documented. This paper analyses the perspectives and experiences of frontline nurses, technicians, and coordinators who work for the HAT programme in the former province of Bandundu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, at the epidemic’s very heart. The research is based on 21 semi-structured interviews conducted with frontline workers in February 2018. The results highlight distinctive HAT careers as well as social elevation through specialised work. Frontline workers are concerned about changes in active screening strategies and the continued existence of the vector, which lead them to question the possibility of imminent elimination. Managers seem to anticipate a post-HAT situation and prepare for the employment of their staff; most workers see their future relatively confidently, as re-allocated to non-vertical units. The findings suggest concrete pathways for improving the effectiveness of elimination efforts: improving active screening through renewed engagements with local leaders, conceptualising horizontal integration in terms of human resources mobility, and investing more in detection and treatment activities (besides innovation).

‘Brothers at Peace’: People-to-People Reconciliation in the Ethiopian–Eritrean Borderlands

The coming to power of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Ethiopia in 2018 opened up a renewed peace engagement with Eritrea and diplomatic relations were restored. Before the political rapprochement, grassroots processes of people-to-people reconciliation in the borderlands between the two countries had been underway for years, gradually eroding officially-produced enemy stereotypes. This article explores how physical borders and boundaries of identity at a local level may be conceived differently from that at state borders or expressions of formal nationalism at an inter-state level. The local level border between the northern regional state of Tigray in Ethiopia and Eritrea has become increasingly porous over the last years, whilst the inter-state border was rigidly defended. The political rapprochement is however disconnected from the people-to-people reconciliation, as the local government in Tigray is at odds with both Ethiopia’s federal government in Addis Ababa and the Eritrean government. The formalised peace processes are elite driven, leaving no voice for the people affected in the borderlands.

Knowing nature and community through mosquitoes: reframing pest management through lay vector ecologies

ABSTRACTThis paper argues that mosquitoes help shape urban residents’ perspectives on and interactions with their human neighbours and the larger physical environment. A total of twenty-two residents of six Washington, D.C.-area neighbourhoods participated in interviews about mosquito management and community environmental issues. Participants came from households enrolled in a larger study about mosquito ecology and management. This and other studies have found that conventional mosquito-prevention education has mixed and sometimes counterproductive or unexpected impacts on resident attitudes and practices towards mosquito management. We found that residents constructed lay ecological knowledge to explain the place of mosquitoes in shifting urban socio-natures. Participants’ relational understanding of mosquitoes indicates that management interventions focusing on individual education and private space are insufficient. Overall, residents expressed concern about changing numbers, species, and vector potential of mosquitoes. They reported altering their own use of outdoor spaces due in part to concerns about mosquitoes but also expressed longing for renewed social and environmental engagement. Many participants also suspected their neighbours of practices that worsened infestations. To reshape traditional public health strategies, this paper proposes that health educators pursue community-based strategies that build upon residents’ lay knowledge and concerns, which may inspire engagement with urban socio-natures beyond their own backyards.

There should be a World Health Assembly resolution for malaria eradication

Several efforts are being made now for malaria elimination with a goal for eradication. New tools and strategies are being developed and there is currently renewed political engagement and interest. Several technical groups have produced a guide on elimination for policymakers and indicated different research questions to be addressed. The World Health Assembly resolution and the United Nations General Assembly convened a high-level roundtable “From High Burden to High Impact: Getting back on track to end Malaria”. In Africa, the Head of states pronounced a vision for an Africa free of malaria and launched the slogan “Zero malaria starts with me”. Massive efforts to sustain research capacity in the endemic countries will be critical. It will be important to both increase domestic financing, and advocate to sustain and increase funding from major donor countries. It is unethical to continue to observe deaths of so many children in malaria endemic countries, the most vulnerable populations. Considering malaria eradication as a vision and working with all the opportunities we now have could accelerate the process. Eliminating malaria with a country regional approach and progressing step by step will give us consistent information on our way towards eradication.

Politics in the Conflicts of Modernity: Aristotelian and Marxist

ABSTRACTAlasdair MacIntyre's latest book, Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity, confirms his interest in Marxism as a form of critique. MacIntyre's debt to Marx has been central to recent scholarship, strengthening his reception as a radical thinker. This article examines the relationship between politics and ethics in MacIntyre and Marx. Following Aristotle, MacIntyre sees ethics as part of political inquiry. Marx features in Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity to help confront the “ethics-of-the-market” and the “ethics-of-the-state.” This renewed engagement demands a reassessment of his critique of Marx. MacIntyre argues Marx lacks a sufficient account of the human good. However, MacIntyre fails to consider the implications of his own characterisation of Marx's Aristotelianism. Marx develops an ethical understanding derived from an Aristotelian social ontology, elaborated first in the “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts,” with the concept of “species-being,” and, then, in the value-form theory in Capital. Marx's teleological concept of labour supplies his social theory with an ethical structure. I argue MacIntyre's critique of Marx, and in turn C. L. R. James, underplays the importance of this concept of labour in founding a collective politics of resistance, and instead, retreats to the politics of the local community.

Sustainable financing mechanisms for strengthening mental health systems in Nigeria

Background and aimsCurrent coverage of mental health care in low- and middle-income countries is limited, not only in terms of access to services but also in terms of financial protection of persons in need of care and treatment. This is especially pertinent considering the established relationship between mental illness and poverty and the need to ensure the financial risk protection of persons with mental disorders and their families as part of country’s efforts to attain universal health coverage. This study set out to review the health and socio-economic contexts of Nigeria as well as to generate strategies for sustainable mental health financing that will be feasible, within the specific context of the country.MethodsA multi-methods approach was developed and applied, consisting of three steps: a situational analysis of Nigeria’s health system, macro-fiscal economic profile, and socio-political status, including a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis of the Nigerian socio-economic, general and mental health context; key informant interviews with 12 expert stakeholders drawn from state and non-state actors in the health and financial sectors; and a policy analysis of sustainable financing options.ResultsKey challenges identified were: poor funding; reduced access to care, resulting in a huge treatment gap; and out of pocket payment for services—leading to impoverishment. Comprehensive coverage of mental health conditions within the ongoing health insurance reforms was identified as a key strategy for moving towards sustainable mental health financing in Nigeria. Other identified strategies include enhanced integration of mental health into primary care; incorporation of mental health into other strategic and currently funded programmes; adoption of performance-based financing measures; and renewed engagement with stakeholders, including external donor institutions.ConclusionsA suite of feasible and actionable measures can be implemented to increase mental health service financing, reduce health-related financial burden on households, increase help-seeking and access to quality mental health care and, ultimately, reduce the large treatment and financing gap for mental disorders in Nigeria.

‘Outsourced pregnancy’: Surrogate narratives from Hyderabad

Surrogacy has always been contested and much debated in India since its legalisation in 2002, and the recent Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016, has led to a renewed engagement with it. The advent of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) provided an opportunity for the medical establishment, market and infertile couples to come together in a mutually beneficial arrangement, which is made possible by a surrogate. ART, while medicalising the reproductive capacity of women, also calls for a redefining of the concepts of ‘motherhood’, family and reproductive choice. This article primarily documents the experiences of surrogates through their narratives about the continuous struggle with themselves, their families and the medical establishment. In this matrix of unequal power relations that surrogacy epitomises, the surrogate has a precarious voice. The article argues that while surrogacy extracts a physiological and emotional price that the surrogates pay, it is empowering in a limited way. It offers women economic opportunities of a scale otherwise denied to them, enabling them to fight a life of poverty.

Applying the Geohumanities

In recent years, geography has taken up a renewed engagement with humanities approaches to place, space, and environment. These approaches offer new possibilities for relevant, publicly engaged research and teaching; applying the geohumanities expands the techniques that geographers can employ to do engaged work in the face of great social and environmental challenges. This article describes two examples of applied geohumanities projects: a community course on climate change and poetry and a creative approach to a citizen science bioblitz. Building on these examples, four questions for future work in applied geohumanities are posed.

‘Peace through strength’: Europe and NATO deterrence beyond the US Nuclear Posture Review

Abstract With its 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, the Trump administration expanded the scope of US nuclear deterrence, re-emphasizing the importance of non-strategic nuclear weapons, perceptively lowering the threshold for nuclear use and casting doubt on the future of arms control. The authors argue that these changes are consistent with the administration's wider ‘peace through strength’ approach that draws on traditional Republican thinking on security policy. While designed to demonstrate credibility and resolve to both allies and adversaries, however, this assertive approach to security policy and specifically nuclear policy as a necessary precursor to renewed engagement in strategic negotiations may have unintended consequences. This article focuses on European reactions to the strategy and argues that the Trump administration's nuclear posture challenges common European understandings in three principal areas. First, changes to US declaratory policy contest European assumptions on the role of nuclear weapons in defending NATO. Second, US modernization plans and their implications for intra-alliance relations risk accentuating controversial debates about the US commitment to Europe. Third, the apparent US rejection of arms control widens the scope for discord with European leaders. If European leaders assert a clear and credible alternative vision advocating nuclear restraint, risk reduction and arms control they could rebuild trust and confidence between the United States, NATO and Russia, demonstrating real strength and ultimately leading to more genuine opportunities for peace and sustainable European security.

The rise of the Latin American far-right explained: dependency theory meets uneven and combined development

ABSTRACTLatin America is once again passing through a crisis. The so-called ‘pink tide’ of progressive governments gave place to a brown wave of peripheral-fascism. Short-range explanations for the ‘ebbing’ of the pink tide abound in the literature. They focus on the shortcomings of moderate-left administrations, failing to account for the cyclical nature of capitalist crises and for the authoritarian character of the administrations now coming to power. In search of a comprehensive, long-range explanation, this paper goes back to the core question posed by dependency theory half a century ago: is capitalist development even possible in Latin America? The key to answer this question – a concept of development that captures non-converging transformation – was not available to seminal dependency writers such as Frank, Marini, Bambirra and Dos Santos. In this paper, I suggest that the concept of uneven and combined development (UCD) allows for a renewed engagement with dependency's core problem. Conversely, the dependency literature can enrich the analysis of UCD with valuable mid-range concepts, such as ‘super-exploitation’, ‘dominated-dominant’ classes and ‘peripheral fascism’. After establishing the theoretical basis for a political economy of UCD, the paper illustrates the potentialities of this comprehensive theoretical perspective by providing and alternative narrative of the end of the pink tide and the rise of the brown wave in Latin America.

India BIMSTEC Economic Cooperation: Potential and Prospects

The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) was established in 1997 is a unique sub-regional initiative in Asia. It combines the south and South-Eas tAsia with five countries of SAARC and two countries of ASEAN. BIMSTEC is a sector-driven cooperative organisation with key areas of economic cooperation include trade, investment, regional value chains, energy, connectivity, technology, management and capacity building, people to people contact, among others. Even after two decades of existence, BIMSTEC achieved limited progress as India the largest member of the group showed little interest in it. But the failure of SAARC as an effective sub-regional economic integration in Asia and the incorrigible differences between India and Pakistan, the two largest economies of SAARC led to the rethinking and resurrection of BIMSTEC in the recent past. India's strategic interests in the Himalayan, Bay of Bengal and Mekong sub-regions have grown over the years and the expansionist tendencies of China in these regions led to India's renewed engagements with BIMSTEC. In this context, the paper looks into the trade relation between India and BIMSTEC countries and identified the unexplored trade potential and possible areas of cooperation between India and BIMSTEC countries. The trade impact of the likely India BIMSTEC Regional TradeAgreement (RTA) is ascertained using partial equilibrium simulation model. Indicators such as Trade Intensity Index (TII) and Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) showed that there is trade complementary existing between India and BIMSTEC countries and the possibility of enhanced economic cooperation between them. The SMART simulation showed that there is trade creation from a potential India BIMSTEC FTA for the participating countries. The simulation analysis also revealed that the total trade effect of India BIMSTEC RTA was 2.369 billion US dollars, total welfare was 267.044 million dollars and the trade creation was 412.2 thousand US dollars.

Pedagogic affect and its politics: learning to affect and be affected in education

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the critical contribution that affects as bodily capacities to act, engage and connect can make to children’s learning in museums and schools. Drawing chiefly on empirical material collected over the course of visits by school children to Museums Victoria, Australia, and bringing a sociomaterial sensibility to bear, I trace the movements of these children through exhibition spaces and show pedagogic affect at work. I argue that children’s learning can usefully be understood in ways that go beyond social constructivism which underwrites museum learning and school education yet tends to neglect the role of affectivity and material agency in learning, as well as relations of power. As the empirical material shows, the politics of affective practice involve the co-constitution of bodies, spaces and objects in ways that actively intervene in established relations of power. I conclude by calling for a renewed engagement with the affective in education.

Professional Virtue and its Habitual Underpinnings

Habits ought to be celebrated: they not only make us who we are, they also make us capable of wondrous feats, whether they be of a professional nature or not. Yet there are times when we wish we (or others) weren’t such creatures of habit. When a doctor or bleary eyed legal official insists on following patently inadequate, routine proceedings in spite of significant clues calling for critical, renewed engagement on their part, they fall prey to what I have called the ‘compromising’ aspect of habituation. The latter is concomitant with a degradation in the type of automaticity underlying the relevant habits: this degradation can be the result of a lack of aspiration, as shown by Annas, but it need not be. In a morally loaded, professional context, this degradation can also stem from what I refer to as a lack of ‘teleological plasticity’. The latter is not just a matter of adapting to changing circumstances, as is the case with a skill such a tennis (weather or type of play). It is also a matter of retaining a willingness to question the pertinence of the goals one associates with one’s professional practice (and its underlying habits). These goals are never settled in advance, hinging as they do upon the specificities of each lay-professional encounter.

Empire, Colonial Enterprise, and Speculation: Cape Breton’s Coal Boom of the 1860s

ABSTRACTDuring the 1860s Cape Breton Island’s Sydney coalfield, at the northeastern tip of Nova Scotia, experienced dramatic economic expansion. Historical interpretation of this understudied coal boom has emphasised the transition towards a liberal era of competition and growing dependence upon American capital and markets. This article presents a revised interpretation, and reflects a renewed engagement with empire in the writing of the history of Canadian capitalism. Drawing upon the work of James Belich and John Darwin, it locates this coal boom in an evolving and expanding ‘Angloworld’ and ‘British world-system,’ and demonstrates how the Sydney coalfield was shaped by the social and economic configurations that developed in the region under the British Empire. During this period, established colonial elites captured coal property and sought to integrate Cape Breton coal into the Atlantic economy in which their region had historically operated. They treated coal as a new commodity to trade and profit from, but coal mining required the mobilisation of credit and infrastructure expenditures that exceeded what was typically required to participate in the region’s traditional staples trades. Large fixed investments engendered economic and political commitments that spurred growth even under highly volatile circumstances, as promotion and speculation drove growth from the supply side and attracted London capital. Overcapacity, ruinous competition, and social crisis eventually resulted, as the Atlantic economy that gave rise to the boom fell apart. This episode reveals the operation of colonial networks and an ‘empire effect’ that produced a distinctive pattern of development on the Sydney coalfield whose legacy would be lasting.

The Abbott government and the Islamic State: a securitised and elitist foreign policy discourse

ABSTRACTThis article analyses the foreign policy discourse that surrounded the Abbott government’s 2014 decision to fight the Islamic State (IS). An analysis of parliamentary Hansard reveals that the debate featured three prominent axes: the legacy of the 2003 Iraq War; the strategies and objectives of the 2014 mission; and Australia’s domestic terror threat level. Throughout, the Abbott government not only marginalised dissenting views, but also justified its renewed engagement in the Middle East via a highly securitised and elitist foreign policy discourse. This finding has consequences beyond the battle against the IS. It reveals a deep-seated tension between the ideals of democratic pluralism and the reality that securitised and elitist foreign policy discourses protect governments from serious scrutiny.

Revisiting the Trelleborg House: A Discussion of House Types and Assemblages

The use of house types and typologies has played a central role in settlement archaeology in South Scandinavia since the earliest finds of longhouses, but the methods, use and concepts of the approach are rarely discussed within the field. An increasing critique of types and typologies calls for a renewed engagement with the approach. In the article, an investigation of the use of the Trelleborg house type serves as a case for identifying and discussing more general problems with house types and typologies. The investigation demonstrates how house types are, often unreflectively, closely integrated with the documentation of the archaeological houses. It is argued that the use of house types in the primary documentation of archaeological houses causes serious limitations in the possibilities for complex interpretations and understandings. The house type is better suited for specific and targeted studies with an explicit purpose. As an alternative to the typological approach, it is argued that assemblage theory is a fruitful way to rethink description of the archaeological record which provides possibilities for a more complex understanding and interpretation of the development and meaning of the archaeological house, and in this case more specifically of the Trelleborg house.

Towards a manifesto for a critical digital humanities: critiquing the extractive capitalism of digital society

This article proceeds in two distinct parts. The first section engages with a deliberately small number of popular texts written by discriminating and interrogative consumers and producers of digital culture and society. While these may be dismissed as journalistic texts and sources by those of a more focused academic intent, here these texts are used because they are the connection between academic engagement and wider public readership. As such, they frame what can be termed the critical public engagement with digital capitalism. These texts are read in tandem with my thesis of immaterial capitalism and Marazzi’s’ The Violence of Financial Capitalism. The paper then concludes with what can be described as the ‘manifesto turn’ by raising some questions for a renewed engagement with digital society, to be undertaken from what is termed, an emergent critical digital humanities, as the site of critique and resistance. This is an exercise in what can be labelled Mongrel methodology and ideology, a neo-logism deliberately provocative in intent to signal a post-academic approach, chosen over such traditional descriptors as mixed-methods or assemblage and the like. As such, it may draw on Marxist thought but is not Marxist in ideology or final intent; it is critical of capitalism but acknowledges our on-going existence and possibilities within it; it is written by an academic seeking to act as intermediary between academic and non-academic readings and responses. It is a deliberate act of provocation as a manifesto call for change.

Conflict ecologies: Connecting political ecology and peace and conflict studies

Conflict is at the core of many political ecology studies. Yet there has been limited engagement between political ecology and the field of peace and conflict studies. This lack of connection reflects in part the broader disciplinary context of these two fields. Whereas political ecology research mostly comes from disciplines that eschewed environmental determinism, such as human geography, much of peace and conflict studies is associated with political science using positivist approaches to determine the causal effects of environmental factors on conflicts. Yet greater connections are possible, notably in light of political ecology's renewed engagement with 'materialism', and peace and conflict studies’ increasingly nuanced mixed-methods research on environment-related conflicts. Furthermore, political ecology's emphasis on uneven power relations and pursuit of environmental justice resonates with the structural violence approaches and social justice agenda of peace and conflict studies. This paper provides an overview of the differing conceptualizations and analyses of environmental conflict under the labels of political ecology and peace and conflict studies, and points at opportunities for closer connections.

Indigenous Resurgence: The Drive for Renewed Engagement and Reciprocity in the Turn Away from the State

Abstract“Indigenous resurgence” centres on three contentions: (1) that colonialism is an active structure of domination premised, at base, on Indigenous elimination; (2) that the prevailing normative-discursive environment continues to reflect this imperative; and (3) that Indigenous peoples must therefore turn away from this hostile environment and pursue independent programmes of social and cultural rejuvenation. The principal movement advocated under the resurgence paradigm thus appears as one of disengagement with the settler order. I also argue, however, that there is an important secondary drive within the movement that presses in the opposite direction. It figures further engagement both as a longer term goal (in the form of renewed dialogue on decolonization) and as an immediate imperative (in order to expose and remove obstacles to reciprocal dialogue). I aim, here, to excavate this secondary drive and consider what it connotes in terms of settler engagement.