This article provides an alternative and novel theoretical approach to the conceptualization and analysis of payments for environmental services (PES). We devote special emphasis to institutional and ...political economy issues, which have been somewhat neglected in the literature on PES. We argue that the Coasean and pure market approach dominating the conceptualization of PES in the literature cannot be easily generalized and implemented in practice. By contrast, taking into account complexities related to uncertainty, distributional issues, social embeddedness, and power relations permits acknowledging the variety of contexts and institutional settings in which PES operate. The alternative approach presented in this introductory article to the special section may be more appealing to PES practitioners, since while avoiding restrictive and prescriptive standpoints, it allows some key sources of complexities they usually deal with on the ground to be more easily understood.
High rates of violence among street-level sex workers have been described across the globe, while in cities across Canada the disappearance and victimization of drug-using women in survival sex work ...is ongoing. Given the pervasive levels of violence faced by sex workers over the last decades, and extensive harm reduction and HIV prevention efforts operating in Vancouver, Canada, this research aimed to explore the role of social and structural violence and power relations in shaping the HIV risk environment and prevention practices of women in survival sex work. Through a participatory-action research project, a series of focus group discussions were conceptualized and co-facilitated by sex workers, community and research partners with a total of 46 women in early 2006. Based on thematic, content and theoretical analysis, the following key factors were seen to both directly and indirectly mediate women's agency and access to resources, and ability to practice HIV prevention and harm reduction: at the micro-level, boyfriends as pimps and the ‘everyday violence’ of bad dates; at the meso-level, a lack of safe places to take dates, and adverse impacts of local policing; and at the macro-level, dopesickness and the need to sell sex for drugs. Analysis of the narratives and daily lived experiences of women sex workers highlight the urgent need for a renewed HIV prevention strategy that moves beyond a solely individual-level focus to structural and environmental interventions, including legal reforms, that facilitate ‘enabling environments’ for HIV prevention.
This volume brings together prominent international scholars involved in both Western and indigenous social work across the globe - including James Midgley, Linda Briskman, Alean Al-Krenawi and John ...R. Graham - to discuss some of the most significant global trends and issues relating to indigenous and cross-cultural social work.
Nuclear technology, in its civil or military forms, with benefits and drawbacks, is both controversial and closely associated with strong emotional responses. In France, where nuclear energy ...production is the primary source of electricity, key stakeholders with varying interests oppose, support, or monitor the nuclear industry. Interactions between groups highlight the organization of power hierarchies in the debate. While normative stakeholders govern the development of the civil nuclear program, oppositional and monitoring stakeholders are limited in their actions and responses, shaping the energy production landscape. Stakeholders' emotional experiences illustrate these unequal interactions. Our research highlights the understudied role of shared emotions and power relations in the context of energy production. Drawing from interviews with key stakeholders, we discuss emotions in the French nuclear debate as they pertain to the operation of power. We argue that shared emotions are illustrative of a remote form of governance that may limit collective organized action and forms of resistance, both of which are central elements of just energy transitions, while maintaining and justifying existing, yet contested, energy production and practices.
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•Explores how co-production processes can enable sustainability transformations.•Four archetypes can hinder transformation: hero, host, woodpecker, genie.•Co-productive agility opens ...up multiple pathways to transformation.•Introduces a framework to enable agility in sustainability transformations.•Challenges the tendency to close down rather than open up agendas for change.
Co-production, the collaborative weaving of research and practice by diverse societal actors, is argued to play an important role in sustainability transformations. Yet, there is still poor understanding of how to navigate the tensions that emerge in these processes. Through analyzing 32 initiatives worldwide that co-produced knowledge and action to foster sustainable social-ecological relations, we conceptualize ‘co-productive agility’ as an emergent feature vital for turning tensions into transformations. Co-productive agility refers to the willingness and ability of diverse actors to iteratively engage in reflexive dialogues to grow shared ideas and actions that would not have been possible from the outset. It relies on embedding knowledge production within processes of change to constantly recognize, reposition, and navigate tensions and opportunities. Co-productive agility opens up multiple pathways to transformation through: (1) elevating marginalized agendas in ways that maintain their integrity and broaden struggles for justice; (2) questioning dominant agendas by engaging with power in ways that challenge assumptions, (3) navigating conflicting agendas to actively transform interlinked paradigms, practices, and structures; (4) exploring diverse agendas to foster learning and mutual respect for a plurality of perspectives. We explore six process considerations that vary by these four pathways and provide a framework to enable agility in sustainability transformations. We argue that research and practice spend too much time closing down debate over different agendas for change – thereby avoiding, suppressing, or polarizing tensions, and call for more efforts to facilitate better interactions among different agendas.
Access to ecosystem services and influence on their management are structured by social relations among actors, which often occur across spatial scales. Such cross-scale social relations can be ...analysed through a telecoupling framework as decisions taken at local scales are often shaped by actors at larger scales. Analyzing these cross-scale relations is critical to create effective and equitable strategies to manage ecosystem services. Here, we develop an analytical framework –i.e. the ‘cross-scale influence-dependence framework’- to facilitate the analysis of power asymmetries and the distribution of ecosystem services among the beneficiaries. We illustrate the suitability of this framework through its retrospective application across four case studies, in which we characterize the level of dependence of multiple actors on a particular set of ecosystem services, and their influence on decision-making regarding these services across three spatial scales. The ‘cross-scale influence-dependence framework’ can improve our understanding of distributional and procedural equity and thus support the development of policies for sustainable management of ecosystem services.
•We propose a framework to disentangle cross-scale relations among actors regarding ecosystem services.•Cross-scale relations among actors shape access and supply of ecosystem services.•Analyzing cross-scale relations among actors reveals inequalities and power asymmetries.
Helen Hardacre provides new insights into the spiritual and
cultural dimensions of abortion debates around the world in this
careful examination of mizuko kuyo -a Japanese religious
ritual for ...aborted fetuses. Popularized during the 1970s, when
religious entrepreneurs published frightening accounts of fetal
wrath and spirit attacks, mizuko kuyo offers ritual
atonement for women who, sometimes decades previously, chose to
have abortions. As she explores the complex issues that surround
this practice, Hardacre takes into account the history of Japanese
attitudes toward abortion, the development of abortion rituals, the
marketing of religion, and the nature of power relations in
intercourse, contraception, and abortion. Although abortion in
Japan is accepted and legal and was commonly used as birth control
in the early postwar period, entrepreneurs used images from fetal
photography to mount a surprisingly successful tabloid campaign to
promote mizuko kuyo . Enthusiastically adopted by some
religionists as an economic strategy, it was soundly rejected by
others on doctrinal, humanistic, and feminist grounds. In four
field studies in different parts of the country, Helen Hardacre
observed contemporary examples of mizuko kuyo as it is
practiced in Buddhism, Shinto, and the new religions. She also
analyzed historical texts and contemporary personal accounts of
abortion by women and their male partners and conducted interviews
with practitioners to explore how a commercialized ritual form like
mizuko kuyo can be marketed through popular culture and
manipulated by the same forces at work in the selling of any
commodity. Her conclusions reflect upon the deep current of
misogyny and sexism running through these rites and through
feto-centric discourse in general.
Symbolism is a powerful tool employed by authors to convey ideas and thoughts through the use of symbols and signs, imbuing everyday objects with deeper meanings in their works of literature. In ...addition, symbolism can have political implications, as it can represent political institutions, hierarchies, movements, beliefs, or ideologies, through objects, people, words, performances, or gestures. Through a content analysis approach, this research examines the symbolism used in The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses and how everyday objects are utilized to depict power relations. The symbols analyzed in this research are glasses, fertilizer, and tobacco. Glasses were found to represent Brille’s vulnerability/intellect. Fertilizer symbolizes Warder Hannetjie’s weakness, and tobacco symbolizes authority. By analyzing the symbols portrayed in literary works, especially writings that have a political connotation to them, it goes to show that sometimes the objects portrayed in literature are not just depicted for creative intentions, but also for critical depth.
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