Sustainability-focused research networks and communities of practice have emerged as a key response and strategy to build capacity and knowledge to support transformation towards more sustainable,... Show moreSustainability-focused research networks and communities of practice have emerged as a key response and strategy to build capacity and knowledge to support transformation towards more sustainable, just and equitable futures. This paper synthesises insights from the development of a community of practice on social-ecological systems (SES) research in southern Africa over the past decade, linked to the international Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS). This community consists of a network of researchers who carry out place-based SES research in the southern African region. They interact through various cross-cutting working groups and also host a variety of public colloquia and student and practitioner training events. Known as the Southern African Program on Ecosystem Change and Society (SAPECS), its core objectives are to: (1) derive new approaches and empirical insights on SES dynamics in the southern African context; (2) have a tangible impact by mainstreaming knowledge into policy and practice; and (3) grow the community of practice engaged in SES research and governance, including researchers, students and practitioners. This paper reflects on experiences in building the SAPECS community, with the aim of supporting the development of similar networks elsewhere in the world, particularly in the Global South. Show less
Sustainability-focused research networks and communities of practice have emerged as a key response and strategy to build capacity and knowledge to support transformation towards more sustainable,... Show moreSustainability-focused research networks and communities of practice have emerged as a key response and strategy to build capacity and knowledge to support transformation towards more sustainable, just and equitable futures. This paper synthesises insights from the development of a community of practice on social-ecological systems (SES) research in southern Africa over the past decade, linked to the international Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS). This community consists of a network of researchers who carry out place-based SES research in the southern African region. They interact through various cross-cutting working groups and also host a variety of public colloquia and student and practitioner training events. Known as the Southern African Program on Ecosystem Change and Society (SAPECS), its core objectives are to: (1) derive new approaches and empirical insights on SES dynamics in the southern African context; (2) have a tangible impact by mainstreaming knowledge into policy and practice; and (3) grow the community of practice engaged in SES research and governance, including researchers, students and practitioners. This paper reflects on experiences in building the SAPECS community, with the aim of supporting the development of similar networks elsewhere in the world, particularly in the Global South. Show less
Decarbonisation in moderate and cold climates is reliant on the replacement of existing heating technologies with electric heat pumps. Heat pumps work differently from incumbent technologies,... Show moreDecarbonisation in moderate and cold climates is reliant on the replacement of existing heating technologies with electric heat pumps. Heat pumps work differently from incumbent technologies, including in how they are controlled, their distribution of heat around the home and their space requirements. Despite evidence that domestic practices and interests associated with women played an important role in previous heating transitions, policy and research have not yet considered how heat pumps might interact with traditionally gendered needs and concerns. This could have significant implications for the success of the heat pump transition. This synthesis uses a framework of evidenced heating needs, incorporating wellbeing, resources, ease of use and relational dynamics, to structure a narrative literature review on how experiences of heat pumps may be gendered. Indicative evidence suggests that heat pumps have the potential to improve female thermal comfort, but that other possibly gendered heating needs such as minimising perceived waste and easy controllability are not always addressed. Amidst a lack of empirical studies exploring women’s needs, and whether they are met by heat pumps, a series of recommendations is provided for multidisciplinary research on the topic and to enhance consideration of gendered needs and experiences in policy development. Show less
This article examines court cases brought by clients against private health insurance companies and against Brazil’s public health system. When clients take private health insurers to court, they... Show moreThis article examines court cases brought by clients against private health insurance companies and against Brazil’s public health system. When clients take private health insurers to court, they successfully claim that the insurer violated their dignity, which entitles them to a moral damage payment. Similar cases against the state did not include moral damage claims. In relation to public healthcare, it is somehow not possible to equate dignity with economic value. One might conclude that the dignity of consumers in the market is worth more than that of citizens vis-à-vis the state. Instead, I argue for a more subtle approach by concentrating on the ethics of incommensurability. What legal and ethical considerations lead to such a fundamental incommensurability between personhood and economic value? How do the actors involved in court proceedings (claimants, prosecutors, judges, and insurers) perceive the differences between cases against insurance companies and against public health authorities? What can we make of the differences between the legal and everyday understandings of dignity and morality? Show less
The anthropology of citizenship has sought to understand citizenship beyond formal-legal definitions, including a focus on how those who are legally without citizenship rights also engage in... Show moreThe anthropology of citizenship has sought to understand citizenship beyond formal-legal definitions, including a focus on how those who are legally without citizenship rights also engage in everyday acts of political claims-making. While this emphasis on the enactment of citizenship has expanded our understanding of who counts as a political being, it has also been obviously human centered. Might we also understand animals’ acts, their presence and movements, as having the potential to constitute political constituents? This article develops a more-than-human perspective on political claims-making by connecting insights from human-animal studies to the anthropology of citizenship. We draw on research on rats in Amsterdam to propose an understanding of these animals’ interventions in the urban built environment as more-than-human “acts of denizenship.” Focusing on different forms of rat behavior, we analyze rats’ mundane interactions and relations with the city's residents, infrastructure, and other animals as forms of claims-making. We see the behavior as efforts that are partially recognized by humans and that, as such, can be understood as enacting a relation of denizenship. Such attention to how rats act in and on urban space, we suggest, can help us conceptualize political agency and the formation of political belonging in ways that extend beyond the human. Show less
In this article, we pursue a route for understanding the decentralisation of wastewater treatment that moves away from thinking in terms of individual responsibility and technical determinism and... Show moreIn this article, we pursue a route for understanding the decentralisation of wastewater treatment that moves away from thinking in terms of individual responsibility and technical determinism and mobilises the analytical lens of care to articulate more-than-human relationality as an organising principle of governing environmental infrastructures. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the Dutch Flevopolder, we focus on the mundane practices of handling wastewater. We show how households are entangled in a multispecies infrastructure: they engage with wastewater as users of toilets, guardians of bacteria and reed beds, and technology-assisted monitors of pollution. We argue that these infrastructural relations are variously cared for in practice, but remain neglected as part of formalised wastewater management. Finally, we advocate a form of environmental governance that recognises and engages with the waste work undertaken by all stakeholders, as they configure an infrastructure in which unruly processes unfold, in a caring, rather than controlling, mode. Show less
Global demand for timber is projected to grow and much of this timber will continue to be sourced from natural forests. As these forests, particularly in the tropics, tend to be inhabited by the... Show moreGlobal demand for timber is projected to grow and much of this timber will continue to be sourced from natural forests. As these forests, particularly in the tropics, tend to be inhabited by the world's most marginalized communities, the social impacts of logging require more attention within policy, practice and research. This Introduction to the Special Issue of International Forestry Review on The Social Impacts of Logging compiles evidence that the overwhelmingly negative social impacts of logging are systemic. As logging companies fail to fulfill their social obligations, and elite capture is common, the extent to which local communities benefit from logging operations is minimal, while long-term, harmful effects on livelihoods, social fabric and safety are severe. Logging operations reinforce and often exacerbate pre-existing inequities, particularly for women and Indigenous people. Weak governance, a lack of transparency and poor participation procedures partially explain this unfavourable situation. However, logging will only achieve better social outcomes if underlying power-imbalances are tackled. Show less
