Luxury and Rubble is the tale of two cities in Ho Chi Minh City. It is the story of two planned, mixed-use residential and commercial developments that are changing the face of Vietnam’s largest ...city. Since the early 1990s, such developments have been steadily reorganizing urban landscapes across the country. For many Vietnamese, they are a symbol of the country’s emergence into global modernity and of post-socialist economic reforms. However, they are also sites of great contestation, sparking land disputes and controversies over how to compensate evicted residents. In this penetrating ethnography, Erik Harms vividly portrays the human costs of urban reorganization as he explores the complex and sometimes contradictory experiences of individuals grappling with the forces of privatization in a socialist country.
Photographic images from Ho Chi Minh City’s Thủ Thiêm Peninsula draw attention to now-vanished trees and pathways from a place that has been demolished for the sake of urban expansion. The trees and ...pathways in these photographs evoke an aspect of sociality often overlooked in the logocentric anthropological and geographical literature on development-induced evictions. Attention to images draws attention to the history of non-human nature and to lost pathways of urban development, which in turn emphasizes their uses and the practices which maintained them, revealing the interconnection between human sociality and the non-human world. Unlike the "tragedy of the commons," which describes common resources extinguished or depleted by unregulated use, these elements appear as a collective resource, produced and cared for by their users. Reflecting on photographic images taken before and during a period of mass eviction inspires a rethinking of the idea of the commons, crafted through a cultural approach that attends to the material landscape, the role of the non-human in social relationships, and the social production of landscapes.
Figures of Southeast Asian Modernity Joshua Barker, Erik Harms, Johan A. Lindquist / Joshua Barker, Erik Harms, Johan A. Lindquist
2013, 20130331
eBook, Book
We live in a world populated not just by individuals but by figures, those larger-than-life people who in some way express and challenge our conventional understandings of social types. This ...innovative and collaborative work takes up the wide range of figures that populate the social and cultural imaginaries of contemporary Southeast Asia-some familiar only in specific places, others recognizable across the region and even globally. It puts forward a series of ethnographic portraits of figures that represent and give voice to something larger than themselves, offering a view into social life that is at once highly particular and general. They include the Muslim Television Preacher in Indonesia, Miss Beer Lao, the Rural DJ in Thailand, the Korean Soap Opera Junkie in Burma, the Filipino Seaman, and the Photo Retoucher in Vietnam.Figures of Southeast Asian Modernitybrings together the fieldwork of over eighty scholars and covers the nine major countries of the region: Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. An introduction outlines important social transformations in Southeast Asia and key theoretical and methodological innovations that result from ethnographic attention to the study of key figures. Each section begins with an introduction by a country editor followed by short essays offering vivid and intimate portraits set against the background of contemporary Southeast Asia. The result is a volume that combines scholarly rigor with a meaningful, up-to-date portrayal of a region of the world undergoing rapid change. A reference bibliography offers suggestions for further reading.Figures of Southeast Asia Modernityis an ideal teaching tool for introductory classes to Southeast Asia studies, anthropology, and geography.3 illus.
Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is the most common neurodegenerative disease in childhood. Since motor neuron injury is usually not reversible, early diagnosis and treatment are essential to prevent ...major disability. Our objective was to assess the impact of genetic newborn screening for SMA on outcome.
We provided clinical data from 43 SMA patients, identified via polymerase chain reaction of the SMN1 gene from dried blood spots between January 2018 and January 2020 in Germany. Follow-up included neurophysiological examinations and standardized physiotherapeutic testing.
Detection of SMA with newborn screening was consistent with known incidence in Germany. Birth prevalence was 1:6910; 39.5% had 2 SMN2 copies, 23% had 3 SMN2 copies, 32.5% had 4 copies, and 4.5% had 5 copies of the SMN2 gene. Treatment with SMA-specific medication could be started at the age of 14-39 days in 21 patients. Pre-symptomatically treated patients remained throughout asymptomatic within the observation period. 47% of patients with 2 SMN2 copies showed early, presumably intrauterine onset of disease. These patients reached motor milestones with delay; none of them developed respiratory symptoms. Untreated children with 2 SMN2 copies died. Untreated children with 3 SMN2 copies developed proximal weakness in their first year. In patients with ≥ 4 SMN2 copies, a follow-up strategy of "watchful waiting" was applied despite the fact that one of them was treated from the age of 6 months. Two infant siblings with 4 SMN2 copies were identified with a missed diagnosis of SMA type 3.
Identification of newborns with infantile SMA and prompt SMA-specific treatment substantially improves neurodevelopmental outcome, and we recommend implementation in the public newborn screening in countries where therapy is available. Electrophysiology is a relevant parameter to support the urgency of therapy. There has to be a short time interval between a positive screening result and referral to a therapy-ready specialized treatment center.
Luxury and Rubble is the tale of two cities in Ho Chi Minh City. It is the story of two planned, mixed-use residential and commercial developments that are changing the face of Vietnam’s largest ...city. Since the early 1990s, such developments have been steadily reorganizing urban landscapes across the country. For many Vietnamese, they are a symbol of the country’s emergence into global modernity and of post-socialist economic reforms. However, they are also sites of great contestation, sparking land disputes and controversies over how to compensate evicted residents. In this penetrating ethnography, Erik Harms vividly portrays the human costs of urban reorganization as he explores the complex and sometimes contradictory experiences of individuals grappling with the forces of privatization in a socialist country. “With captivating ethnography and trenchant analysis, Erik Harms delves deeply into two communities created and destroyed by redevelopment in contemporary Ho Chi Minh City. He poignantly shows how master plans defining personhood in terms of property rights empower some to live in luxury, while leaving others in the rubble of dispossession.” -ANN MARIE LESHKOWICH, author of Essential Trade: Vietnamese Women in a Changing Marketplace “Beautifully written... A remarkable achievement in urban studies and a must-read for anyone interested in changing spatial form, sociality, rights consciousness, and class dynamics in neoliberal times.” -LI ZHANG, author of In Search of Paradise: Middle-Class Living in a Chinese Metropolis “Once in a while, a book comes along and makes us rethink how cities and capitalism work. Luxury and Rubble is one of those, giving us new conceptual insights into urbanism and doing so through an intensely lived and beautifully narrated ethnography.” -ANANYA ROY, editor of Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments and the Art of Being Global ERIK HARMS is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Southeast Asia Studies at Yale University and the author of Saigon’s Edge: On the Margins of Ho Chi Minh City.
Nephropathic cystinosis is a rare and severe metabolic disease leading to an accumulation of cystine in lysosomes which especially harms kidney function. A lifelong therapy with the aminothiol ...cysteamine can delay the development of end-stage renal disease and the necessity of kidney transplantation. The purpose of our study was to compare the effectiveness of immediate-release and delayed-release cysteamine on cystine and cysteamine levels as well as assessing the onset of adverse effects. We retrospectively analysed cystine and cysteamine levels of 17 patients after a single dose of immediate-release cysteamine (CystagonR, Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Canonsburg, PA and Recordati Pharma GmbH) as well as a single dose of delayed-release cysteamine (ProcysbiR; Horizon Pharma USA and Chiesi Farmaceutici S.p.A., Parma, Italy) respectively. Data were collected during a period of three years in the context of optimizing the individual treatment regimens. The dose of DR-cysteamine was reduced to 70% of the equivalent dose of IR-cysteamine. The efficacy of both formulas in depleting white blood cells' cystine levels and their side effects were compared. Immediate (IR)- and delayed-release (DR) cysteamine effectively decreased intracellular cystine levels under the target value of 0.5 nmol cystine/mg protein, while fewer side effects occurred under DR-cysteamine. Mean maximum levels of cysteamine were reached after 60 min with IR-cysteamine and after 180 min with DR-cysteamine. A therapy with DR-cysteamine is as effective as IR-cysteamine while less side effects were reported. Our data show that DR-cysteamine should be dosed higher than 70% of the equivalent dose of IR-cysteamine in order to decrease cystine levels over an extended period of time. Moreover, our data suggest increasing the dosing scheme of ProcysbiR to three times daily, to prevent a rapid decrease and achieve a steadier decline in cystine levels. Due to the more convenient dosing scheme, DR-cysteamine might ameliorate therapy adherence and improve patients' quality of life.
Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is the most common neurodegenerative disease in childhood. The study was conducted to assess the impact of early detection of SMA by newborn screening (NBS) on the ...clinical course of the disease.
Screening was performed in two federal states of Germany, Bavaria and North Rhine Westphalia, between January 2018 and February 2019. The incidence in the screening population was calculated as number of detected patients with a homozygous deletion in the SMN1-gene per number of screened patients. To get an idea about the incidence of newly diagnosed SMA in the year prior to screening a survey covering all neuropediatric centers in the state of Bavaria was conducted, identifying all SMA-cases in 2017 and 2018. Following positive NBS and confirmatory diagnostic test, treatment was advised according to the recommendations of the "American SMA NBS Multidisciplinary Working Group". Immediate treatment with Nusinersen was recommended in children with 2 and 3 SMN2 copies and a conservative strict follow-up strategy in children with ≥4 copies. All children underwent regular standardized neuropediatric examination, CHOP INTEND and HINE-2 testing as well as electrophysiological exams every 2-3 months.
165,525 children were screened. 22 cases of SMA were identified, meaning an incidence rate of 1:7524. SMN2 copy number analysis showed 2 SMN2 copies in 45% of patients, 3 SMN2 copies in 19 % and 4 SMN2 copies in 36%. These findings are confirmed in the most recent statistical data-cut from 31st August 2019 (incidence 1:7089, 2 SMN2 copies in 44%, 3 in 15% and 4 in 38%). Comparison with up-to-date German data on SMA incidence and the Bavarian survey give evidence that NBS did not lead to a relevant increase in incidence. 10 patients with 2 or 3 SMN2 copies were treated with Nusinersen, starting between 15- 39 days after birth, in 7/10 patients before onset of symptoms. Presymptomatically treated patients (age at last examination: 1- 12 months, median 8 months) showed no muscle weakness by the age of one month to one year. One child with 4 SMN2 copies became symptomatic at the age of 8 months.
Newborn screening, resulting in presymptomatic treatment, improves outcome in children with genetically proven SMA. Newborn screening for SMA should be introduced in all countries where therapy is available. An immediate therapy in cases with 4 SMN2 copies should be considered.
The eviction of residents to make way for a "new urban zone" in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, is legitimized by notions of building a beautiful, breathable, and orderly city. Although angry about their ...unfair treatment in the eviction process, residents ultimately support this discourse of beauty. They challenge eviction through individual squabbles over compensation rates, land measurements, and resettlement sites. In the process, dissent becomes atomized and residents reproduce a mode of valuing land based primarily on monetary value. In this context, notions of beauty, despite having counterhegemonic potential, reproduce rather than challenge core ideals legitimizing the project.
There is no such thing as a neighbourhood. But neighbourhoods are everywhere. Neighbourhoods are regularly described as things, but we cannot touch them. We typically understand neighbourhoods as ...places, but we can neither see them nor find their edges. The more one stares at a neighbourhood, the more it seems impossible to see it. Nevertheless, there is something—an often intangible and indescribably social something—compelling us not only to imagine but to experience the neighbourhood being stared at as a real thing. In social science analysis, one important thing that we stare at but cannot see is ‘the social’. To more properly understand the neighbourhood, then, this paper takes the social seriously. It places people and their relationships at the centre of a project to develop a working understanding of the neighbourhood. Instead of asking, ‘What is a neighbourhood?’ the paper suggests that we must always begin by asking, ‘Who is a neighbourhood?’ The empirical basis for the paper's conceptual reflections on the neighbourhood emerge out of a collaborative research project conducted under the auspices of a multicity research project called the Southeast Asia Neighbourhoods Network.
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