•German far-right groups are increasingly aligning themselves with ecological ideas.•Völkisch settlers combine care for nature with xenophobic nationalism.•The (racial) future is a key terrain of ...struggle for this political ideology.•Far-right future-making takes place through an anticipatory and immunological register.•The utopian dimensions of far-right ecological praxis need to be better understood.
Focusing on the resurgence of so-called völkisch (ethno-nationalist) settlements in northern Germany over the past three decades, this paper explores the emergent socio-spatial forms through which nativist and xenophobic responses to the ecological crisis are being expressed. It argues that political ecologies of the future cannot be understood, in the present conjuncture, without taking into account those actors which are working to manifest the future in explicitly racialised and immunitary forms. After providing an overview of the development of völkisch movements and ideologies since the 19th century, I introduce contemporary actors and organisations which are attempting to reconfigure the climate crisis as a matter of right-wing concern. These strategies position Nature as a signifier that stitches together far-right concerns about the infiltration of the German Volk and landscape by racialised threats, facilitating a form of ecological praxis through rural settlement projects that is heavily centred around a homogenous and naturalised notion of German identity. Rather than an outright denial of the impending urgency of the climate crisis, I argue that völkisch discourses represent a different, and arguably more dangerous response to the spectre of ecological disorder, and one which works in an immunological and anticipatory register. The affective intensity of these imaginaries and strategies also demonstrate that the terrains of hope, possibility, and even utopia increasingly hold the potential to be claimed by the violent and exclusivist ideologies of the far-right. No mere harbinger of ‘things to come’, völkisch strategies represent a mode of responding to the climate crisis in the present, and of prefiguring an ethno-nationalist ‘solution’ which must be taken seriously by activists and scholars.
Purpose of Review
Climate change is causing warming over most parts of the USA and more extreme weather events. The health impacts of these changes are not experienced equally. We synthesize the ...recent evidence that climatic changes linked to global warming are having a disparate impact on the health of people of color, including children.
Recent Findings
Multiple studies of heat, extreme cold, hurricanes, flooding, and wildfires find evidence that people of color, including Black, Latinx, Native American, Pacific Islander, and Asian communities are at higher risk of climate-related health impacts than Whites, although this is not always the case. Studies of adults have found evidence of racial disparities related to climatic changes with respect to mortality, respiratory and cardiovascular disease, mental health, and heat-related illness. Children are particularly vulnerable to the health impacts of climate change, and infants and children of color have experienced adverse perinatal outcomes, occupational heat stress, and increases in emergency department visits associated with extreme weather.
Summary
The evidence strongly suggests climate change is an environmental injustice that is likely to exacerbate existing racial disparities across a broad range of health outcomes.
Originally published in 1969. The proverb vox populi, vox Dei first appeared in a work by Alcuin (ca. 798), who wrote that "the people are to be led, not followed. Nor are those to be listened to ...who are accustomed to say, 'The voice of the people is the voice of God.'" Tracing the changing meaning of the saying through European history, George Boas finds that "the people" are not an easily identifiable group. For many centuries the butt of jokes and the substance of comic relief in serious drama, the people became in time an object of pity and, later, of aesthetic appeal. Popular opinion, despised in ancient Rome, was something sought, after the French Revolution. The first essay documents the use of the titular proverb through the eighteenth century. In the next six essays, Boas attempts to determine who the people were and how writers and philosophers have regarded them throughout history. He also examines the people as the creators of literature, art, and music, and as the subject of others' artistic representations. In a final essay, he discusses egalitarianism, which has given a voice to the common person. Animating Boas's account is his own belief in the importance of the individual's voice—as opposed to the voice of the masses, which is by no means necessarily that of God or reason.
Purpose: The aim of this study was to improve yield, and characteristics of pistachio nuts of three cultivars by foliar application of volk oil and potassium nitrate. Research method: The study was ...carried out during the bud swelling stage using a factorial design, following a randomized complete block design with four replications. The experimental factors consisted of three cultivars, namely 'Fandoghi', 'Hasan-Abbasi', and 'Haj-Abdollahi', and three treatments: volk oil (1% and 2%), potassium nitrate (KNO3) (0.3% and 0.5%), and a mixture of volk oil and KNO3 (1% volk oil + 0.3% KNO3, and 1% volk oil + 0.5% KNO3). A control treatment was also included in the study. Findings: The results of this study showed that the highest percentage of open shell nuts (52.17%) was observed in ‘Hasan-Abbasi’ cultivar, and the highest fresh weight of 100 nuts in ‘Haj-Abdollahi’ (202.2 g). The lowest ounce (29.07), the highest dry weight of 100 nuts and 10 kernels weight were obtained 76.26 and 26.56 g in ‘Fandoghi’ cultivar, respectively. The use of 2% volk oil treatment was effective in budbreaking, as well as increasing the percentage of open shell nuts and reducing the percentage of balk nuts. Research limitations: There was no limitation. Originality/Value: 0.5 % KNO3 increased the fresh and dry weight of 100 nuts and decreased ounce of pistachio in all cultivars. Therefore, the use of volk oil and KNO3 treatments can be effective in pistachio orchards, and increase the quantity and quality of the yield.
Purpose of Review
Endocrine-disrupting chemical (EDC) exposure during pregnancy is linked to adverse maternal and child health outcomes that are racially/ethnically disparate. Personal care products ...(PCP) are one source of EDCs where differences in racial/ethnic patterns of use exist. We assessed the literature for racial/ethnic disparities in pregnancy and prenatal PCP chemical exposures.
Recent Findings
Only 3 studies explicitly examined racial/ethnic disparities in pregnancy and prenatal exposure to PCP-associated EDCs. Fifty-three articles from 12 cohorts presented EDC concentrations stratified by race/ethnicity or among homogenous US minority populations. Studies reported on phthalates and phenols. Higher phthalate metabolites and paraben concentrations were observed for pregnant non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic women. Higher concentrations of benzophenone-3 were observed in non-Hispanic White women; results were inconsistent for triclosan.
Summary
This review highlights need for future research examining pregnancy and prenatal PCP-associated EDCs disparities to understand and reduce racial/ethnic disparities in maternal and child health.
The Routledge Handbook of Indigenous Wellbeing consists of five themes, namely, physical, social and emotional, economic, cultural and spiritual, and subjective wellbeing. It fills a substantial gap ...in the current literature on the wellbeing of Indigenous people and communities around the world.
This handbook sheds new light on understanding Indigenous wellbeing and its determinants, and aids in the development and implementation of more appropriate policies, as better evidence-informed policymaking will lead to better outcomes for Indigenous populations.
This book provides a reliable and convenient source of information for policymakers, academics and students, and allows readers to make informed decisions regarding the wellbeing of Indigenous populations. It is also a useful resource for non-government organizations to gain insight into relevant global factors for the development of stronger and more effective international policies to improve the lives of Indigenous communities.
Vital Enemies Santos-Granero, Fernando
2009, 20090101
eBook
Analyzing slavery and other forms of servitude in six non-state indigenous societies of tropical America at the time of European contact, Vital Enemies offers a fascinating new approach to the study ...of slavery based on the notion of “political economy of life.” Fernando Santos-Granero draws on the earliest available historical sources to provide novel information on Amerindian regimes of servitude, sociologies of submission, and ideologies of capture. Estimating that captive slaves represented up to 20 percent of the total population and up to 40 percent when combined with other forms of servitude, Santos-Granero argues that native forms of servitude fulfill the modern understandings of slavery, though Amerindian contexts provide crucial distinctions with slavery as it developed in the American South. The Amerindian understanding of life forces as being finite, scarce, unequally distributed, and in constant circulation yields a concept of all living beings as competing for vital energy. The capture of human beings is an extreme manifestation of this understanding, but it marks an important element in the ways Amerindian “captive slavery” was misconstrued by European conquistadors. Illuminating a cultural facet that has been widely overlooked or miscast for centuries, Vital Enemies makes possible new dialogues regarding hierarchies in the field of native studies, as well as a provocative re-framing of pre- and post-contact America.
Although Volk may be considered as a central concept in the work of Carl Schmitt, and one to which the German jurist dedicated a sizable amount of writing, a remarkably limited number of publications ...have so far provided an analytical study of how Schmitt conceptualised Volk, particularly in English-language secondary literature. This article intends to address this gap by systematically reviewing how the concept of Volk appears in the Schmitt's theoretical effort, with a particular focus on his publications from the late 1920s to 1945, and how it relates to his main legal-theoretical and political claims, both in his constitutional doctrine (Staatsrechtslehre) as well as in international law. It sketches some interpretive pathways to locate Volk in a broader historical and theoretical context, and it offers a conceptualisation of the relation between Schmitt and existentialist nationalism.
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