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The Potential Of Ethiopian Medicinal Plants To Treat Emergent Viral Diseases, Mekbib Fekadu, Ermias Lulekal, Solomon Tesfaye, Morgan Ruelle, Nigist Asfaw, Tesfaye Awas, Kebu Balemie, Kaleab Asres, Sebastian Guenther, Zemede Asfaw, Sebsebe Demissew Feb 2024

The Potential Of Ethiopian Medicinal Plants To Treat Emergent Viral Diseases, Mekbib Fekadu, Ermias Lulekal, Solomon Tesfaye, Morgan Ruelle, Nigist Asfaw, Tesfaye Awas, Kebu Balemie, Kaleab Asres, Sebastian Guenther, Zemede Asfaw, Sebsebe Demissew

Sustainability and Social Justice

Ethiopians have deep-rooted traditions of using plants to treat ailments affecting humans and domesticated animals. Approximately 80% of the population continues to rely on traditional medicine, including for the prevention and treatment of viral diseases. Many antiviral plants are available to and widely used by communities in areas where access to conventional healthcare systems is limited. In some cases, pharmacological studies also confirm the potent antiviral properties of Ethiopian plants. Building on traditional knowledge of medicinal plants and testing their antiviral properties may help to expand options to address the global pandemic of COVID-19 including its recently isolated virulent variants …


Manganese In Residential Drinking Water From A Community-Initiated Case Study In Massachusetts, Alexa Friedman, Elena Boselli, Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger, Wendy Heiger-Bernays, Paige Brochu, Mayah Burgess, Samantha Schildroth, Allegra Denehy, Timothy Downs, Ian Papautsky, Birgit Clauss Henn Jan 2024

Manganese In Residential Drinking Water From A Community-Initiated Case Study In Massachusetts, Alexa Friedman, Elena Boselli, Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger, Wendy Heiger-Bernays, Paige Brochu, Mayah Burgess, Samantha Schildroth, Allegra Denehy, Timothy Downs, Ian Papautsky, Birgit Clauss Henn

Sustainability and Social Justice

Background: Manganese (Mn) is a metal commonly found in drinking water, but the level that is safe for consumption is unknown. In the United States (U.S.), Mn is not regulated in drinking water and data on water Mn concentrations are temporally and spatially sparse. Objective: Examine temporal and spatial variability of Mn concentrations in repeated tap water samples in a case study of Holliston, Massachusetts (MA), U.S., where drinking water is pumped from shallow aquifers that are vulnerable to Mn contamination. Methods: We collected 79 residential tap water samples from 21 households between September 2018 and December 2019. Mn concentrations …


Nonprofit Political Engagement: The Roles Of 501(C)(4) Social Welfare Organizations In Elections And Policymaking, Margaret A. Post, Elizabeth T. Boris Apr 2023

Nonprofit Political Engagement: The Roles Of 501(C)(4) Social Welfare Organizations In Elections And Policymaking, Margaret A. Post, Elizabeth T. Boris

Sustainability and Social Justice

This paper provides a framework for understanding the role of member-based, politically active 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations in U.S. civil society. Tax-exempt social welfare (501(c)(4)) organizations make up the second largest group of nonprofit organizations in the United States. Among them are a mix of membership organizations, social clubs, professional associations, and advocates that are permitted to lobby and engage in partisan political activities. Informed by the literature, case study research, and a dataset of politically active 501(c)(4) organizations, we identify categories of politically active (c)(4) organizations involved in electoral and policy change actions including national advocacy organizations, local and …


Rhythms Of The Earth—Editorial Introduction, Karim-Aly S. Kassam, Morgan Ruelle, Christopher P. Dunn, Raj Pandya, Felice Wyndham Apr 2023

Rhythms Of The Earth—Editorial Introduction, Karim-Aly S. Kassam, Morgan Ruelle, Christopher P. Dunn, Raj Pandya, Felice Wyndham

Sustainability and Social Justice

This special issue of GeoHealth, entitled Rhythms of the Earth: Ecological Calendars and Anticipating the Anthropogenic Climate Crisis, is a transdisciplinary articulation of a methodology of hope to confront the multiple injustices of the Anthropocene. One of the greatest challenges of the climate crisis is the lack of predictability at the scale of communities where impacts are most immediate. Indigenous and rural societies face an ever shifting “new normal” through increasing inconsistency in the seasonality of temperature and precipitation, as well as greater frequency of extreme weather events. With global food systems dependent on local and small producers, climatic variability …


Climate Services And Transformational Adaptation, Edward Carr Jan 2023

Climate Services And Transformational Adaptation, Edward Carr

Sustainability and Social Justice

The Working Group II contribution to the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report states that effective adaptation to the changing climate will require transformational changes in how people live. This article explores the potential for climate services to catalyze and foster transformational adaptation. I argue that weather and climate information are not, in and of themselves, tools for transformation. When designed and delivered without careful identification of the intended users of the service and the needs that service addresses, they can fail to catalyze change amongst the users of that information. At worst, they can reinforce the status quo and drive maladaptive …


At Home In The Field, In The Field At Home? Reflections On Power And Fieldwork In Familiar Settings, Arda Bilgen, Anita Fabos Jan 2023

At Home In The Field, In The Field At Home? Reflections On Power And Fieldwork In Familiar Settings, Arda Bilgen, Anita Fabos

Sustainability and Social Justice

Critical epistemologies and methodologies have over time challenged the static and mono-dimensional approaches to fieldwork, allowing researchers to contemplate and conduct their research in spaces of in-betweenness. Despite this important shift, the essentialist idea that both ‘the field’ and ‘home’ in a fieldwork setting must be actual places persists. In this article, we challenge the conceptualization and operationalization of ‘home’ not only as the juxtaposition to ‘the field’, but also as the embodiment of a place in a specific temporality. We argue that the postulation of ‘home’ as a constant disregards the non-predetermined and unpredictable nature of fieldwork relationships that …


Vaccines And The Social Amplification Of Risk, Heidi Larson, Leesa Lin, Rob Goble Jul 2022

Vaccines And The Social Amplification Of Risk, Heidi Larson, Leesa Lin, Rob Goble

Sustainability and Social Justice

In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) named “Vaccine Hesitancy” one of the top 10 threats to global health. Shortly afterward, the COVID-19 pandemic emerged as the world's predominant health concern. COVID-19 vaccines of several types have been developed, tested, and partially deployed with remarkable speed; vaccines are now the primary control measure and hope for a return to normalcy. However, hesitancy concerning these vaccines, along with resistance to masking and other control measures, remains a substantial obstacle. The previous waves of vaccine hesitancy that led to the WHO threat designation, together with recent COVID-19 experience, provide a window for …


Narrating Agricultural Resilience After Hurricane María: How Smallholder Farmers In Puerto Rico Leverage Self-Sufficiency And Collaborative Agency In A Climate-Vulnerable Food System, Abrania Marrero, Andrea Lόpez-Cepero, Ramón Borges-Méndez, Josiemer Mattei Jun 2022

Narrating Agricultural Resilience After Hurricane María: How Smallholder Farmers In Puerto Rico Leverage Self-Sufficiency And Collaborative Agency In A Climate-Vulnerable Food System, Abrania Marrero, Andrea Lόpez-Cepero, Ramón Borges-Méndez, Josiemer Mattei

Sustainability and Social Justice

Climate change is a threat to food system stability, with small islands particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events. In Puerto Rico, a diminished agricultural sector and resulting food import dependence have been implicated in reduced diet quality, rural impoverishment, and periodic food insecurity during natural disasters. In contrast, smallholder farmers in Puerto Rico serve as cultural emblems of self-sufficient food production, providing fresh foods to local communities in an informal economy and leveraging traditional knowledge systems to manage varying ecological and climatic constraints. The current mixed methods study sought to document this expertise and employed a questionnaire and narrative interviewing …


Showing Up “More As My True Self”: Gender And Mushing In The United States, Cynthia Caron, Victoria Beyer Feb 2022

Showing Up “More As My True Self”: Gender And Mushing In The United States, Cynthia Caron, Victoria Beyer

Sustainability and Social Justice

Mushing exists in several forms: short and long-distance races, adventure tourism, recreation, and sport. While some scholars assert that gender does not influence a musher’s experience, this research, based on interviews with mushers, broadens understanding of how gender influences mushing and a musher’s sense of self. Nearly all research participants initially stated that gender is irrelevant in mushing; for example, in competitions, people of all genders compete directly against one another. As interviews unfolded, participants spoke about how gender norms and stereotypes complicated their experiences and how non-mushers perceive them. Despite depictions of mushing as masculine, participants stated that mushing …


Field Pea Diversity And Its Contribution To Farmers' Livelihoods In Northern Ethiopia, Yirga Gufi, Alemtsehay Tsegay, Morgan Ruelle, Kassa Teka, Sarah Tewolde-Berhan, Alison Power Feb 2022

Field Pea Diversity And Its Contribution To Farmers' Livelihoods In Northern Ethiopia, Yirga Gufi, Alemtsehay Tsegay, Morgan Ruelle, Kassa Teka, Sarah Tewolde-Berhan, Alison Power

Sustainability and Social Justice

Field pea is grown by smallholder farmers in Ethiopia as a source of food, fodder, income, and soil fertility. This study explores intraspecific diversity of field pea and its contribution to farmers' livelihoods in two agroecological zones of South Tigray and South Wollo, northeastern Ethiopia. Interviews were conducted with 168 farming households. The number of varieties and the Shannon Diversity Index (SDI) were higher in South Tigray (seven varieties, 0.35 SDI) than South Wollo (two varieties, 0.025 SDI). Farmers in South Tigray plant field pea during two growing seasons, allowing for integration of multiple varieties into their farming systems. The …


Guest Editorial: Power In Engaged Scholarship: Dimensions And Dynamics Of Knowledge Co-Creation, Margaret Post, Morgan Ruelle Dec 2021

Guest Editorial: Power In Engaged Scholarship: Dimensions And Dynamics Of Knowledge Co-Creation, Margaret Post, Morgan Ruelle

Sustainability and Social Justice

Collaboratively engaged research is shaped by dynamic power relationships among individuals, institutions and communities. Where some disciplines have explored the theoretical and methodological implications of power relations, the engagement movement writ large has suffered from a lack of explicit conceptual models and in-depth analyses of the role of power in the process of knowledge co-creation. Over the last 30 years, considerable attention has been paid to how resources and expertise within academic institutions can be brought to bear on the intractable social and economic problems of local communities. A necessary, yet under-theorised aspect of these dynamics is the extent to …


Caricom Caribbean’S Hrd 2030 Strategy: Inscribing The Neoliberal Imaginary Through Social Planning?, Nigel O.M. Brissett Dec 2021

Caricom Caribbean’S Hrd 2030 Strategy: Inscribing The Neoliberal Imaginary Through Social Planning?, Nigel O.M. Brissett

Sustainability and Social Justice

The globalisation’s ‘knowledge economy’ has created a new set of human capital requirements. The guiding policy and planning document, The CARICOM Human Resource Development 2030 Strategy: Unlocking Caribbean Human Potential document, ‘serves as a roadmap for the CARICOM Caribbean’s responses to these human capital demands. I conduct a critical analysis of this document’s policy discourses to ascertain their core values and strategies, as well as their implications for the education and development of the CARICOM Caribbean. I find that the emergent discourses and ideas–neoliberal education reform and state-led social planning–provide a cautionary tale of the potential impact of educational change …


Femininity And The Paradox Of Trust Building In Patriarchies During Covid-19, Cynthia Enloe Sep 2021

Femininity And The Paradox Of Trust Building In Patriarchies During Covid-19, Cynthia Enloe

Sustainability and Social Justice

Sustainable trust building is a crucial yet underanalyzed process, both in its successes and its more common failures. Because the politics of masculinization and feminization play salient roles in so many sustained and unsustained trust-building efforts, it is valuable during any public health crisis anywhere to pay close attention to women as trust builders and to nurses as feminized actors.


Women’S Insights On Bargaining For Land In Customary Tenure Systems: Land Access As An Individual And Collective Issue, Cynthia Caron Jan 2021

Women’S Insights On Bargaining For Land In Customary Tenure Systems: Land Access As An Individual And Collective Issue, Cynthia Caron

Sustainability and Social Justice

No abstract provided.


From Digital Divide To Digital Literacies And Mother-Child Pedagogies: The Case Of Latina Mothers, Jie Y. Park, Laurie Ross, Deisy Rodriguez Ledezma Jan 2021

From Digital Divide To Digital Literacies And Mother-Child Pedagogies: The Case Of Latina Mothers, Jie Y. Park, Laurie Ross, Deisy Rodriguez Ledezma

Sustainability and Social Justice

This article reports on a qualitative study of 22 Latina mothers and their experiences supporting their children’s remote education during COVID-19. Drawing on digital literacies and mujerista theory, the authors analyzed focus group data to find the following: Latina mothers’ struggles involved not just understanding online learning platforms but an educational system that was not responsive to the economic constraints and stressors faced by families; Latina mothers perceived the school district’s response to COVID-19 as performative and inadequate; Latina mothers developed mother-child pedagogies or pedagogies in which the mother and child are involved in teaching to and learning from each …


Gender And Trait Preferences For Banana Cultivation And Use In Sub-Saharan Africa: A Literature Review1, Pricilla Marimo, Cynthia Caron, Inge Van Den Bergh, Rhiannon Crichton, Eva Weltzien, Rodomiro Ortiz, Robooni Tumuhimbise Jun 2020

Gender And Trait Preferences For Banana Cultivation And Use In Sub-Saharan Africa: A Literature Review1, Pricilla Marimo, Cynthia Caron, Inge Van Den Bergh, Rhiannon Crichton, Eva Weltzien, Rodomiro Ortiz, Robooni Tumuhimbise

Sustainability and Social Justice

Understanding trait preferences of different actors in the banana value chain may facilitate the selection and adoption of new cultivars. We systematically reviewed the scholarly and gray literature on banana trait preferences, with specific attention to studies that document gender-differentiated traits. Of 44 publications reviewed, only four reported gender-specific trait preferences, indicating a significant gap in the literature. The review found that banana farmers, irrespective of gender, value similar characteristics that are related to production constraints, income enhancement, consumption, and cultural or ritual uses. Farmers (as producers, processors, and consumers) often prefer traditional cultivars because of their superior consumption attributes, …


From The Virocene To The Lovecene Epoch: Multispecies Justice As Critical Praxis For Virocene Disruptions And Vulnerabilities, Jude Fernando Jan 2020

From The Virocene To The Lovecene Epoch: Multispecies Justice As Critical Praxis For Virocene Disruptions And Vulnerabilities, Jude Fernando

Sustainability and Social Justice

In the Virocene epoch, global pandemics such as COVID-19 disrupt the world order organized by capitalism and racial privilege, making clear the unsustainability of ‘normal’ ways of organizing both society and nature. Despite its failure to address these disruptions, the existing capitalist-racist system attempts to reproduce itself, posing greater risks of disease, inequalities, and injustice to the most vulnerable human and nonhuman populations. The Virocene epoch makes these workings visible, and challenges both hegemonic and counterhegemonic ways of organizing human-nature relations. Political ecology requires new emancipatory theoretical-political strategies firmly grounded in a theory of justice that embodies social and ecological …


The Virocene Epoch: The Vulnerability Nexus Of Viruses, Capitalism And Racism, Jude Fernando Jan 2020

The Virocene Epoch: The Vulnerability Nexus Of Viruses, Capitalism And Racism, Jude Fernando

Sustainability and Social Justice

COVID-19 has ushered in a new planetary epoch—the Virocene. In doing so, it has laid bare the limits of humanity’s power over nature, exposing the vulnerability of ‘normal’ ways of living and their moral and pragmatic bankruptcy in coping with those vulnerabilities. ‘Normal’ is powerless against the virus and has not worked for a majority of the world’s human and non-human population. Whatever new normal humanity fashions depends on the socio-ecological change set in motion by mutations between human and non-human species. The outcomes of society’s responses to the pandemic depend on how human agency, as an embodiment of social, …


Spatial Patterns Of Adverse Birth Outcomes Among Black And White Women In Massachusetts – The Role Of Population-Level And Individual-Level Factors, Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger, Madeline Haynes Jan 2020

Spatial Patterns Of Adverse Birth Outcomes Among Black And White Women In Massachusetts – The Role Of Population-Level And Individual-Level Factors, Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger, Madeline Haynes

Sustainability and Social Justice

This study explores spatial distribution of adverse birth outcomes (ABO), defined as low birth weight (<=2500 g) and preterm deliveries (gestational age <37 weeks), in black and white mothers in the state of Massachusetts, USA. It uses 817877 individual birth records from 2000-2014 aggregated to census tracts (census enumeration unit with population of approximately 4500 people). To account for small numbers of births in some tracts, an Empirical Bayes smoother algorithm is used to calculate ABO rates. The study applies ordinary least squares (OLS) and spatial regression to examine the relationship between ABO rates, seven individual-level factors from birth certificates and nine population-level factors (income level, education level, race) from census data. Explanatory power of these factors varies between the two races. In models based only on individual-level factors, all seven factors were significant (p<0.05) in the black mothers’ model while only three were significant in the white mothers’ model. Models based only on population-level variables produced better results for the white mothers than for black mothers. Models that included both individual and population-level variables explained 40% and 29% of ABO variance for black and white women respectively. The findings from this study give health-care providers and health-care policy-makers important information regarding ABO rates and the contributing factors at a local level, thus enabling them to isolate specific areas with the highest need for targeted interventions.


Analyzing The Relationship Between Perception Of Safety And Reported Crime In N Urban Neighborhood Using Gis And Sketch Maps, Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger, Laurie Ross, Thomas Caywood, Marina Khananayev, Casey Starr Nov 2019

Analyzing The Relationship Between Perception Of Safety And Reported Crime In N Urban Neighborhood Using Gis And Sketch Maps, Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger, Laurie Ross, Thomas Caywood, Marina Khananayev, Casey Starr

Sustainability and Social Justice

This study analyzes the perception of safety among residents of Main South neighborhood in Worcester, MA, USA and compares it to reported crimes. This neighborhood is the focus of a community-based crime reduction project funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the policy development arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. We collected social disorder and violent crime data from the Worcester Police Department and conducted 129 household surveys to understand residents’ perception of safety in the neighborhood and trust in community institutions. The surveys included a map on which residents indicated where they felt unsafe. The goal of this …


Evaluating Agricultural Weather And Climate Services In Africa: Evidence, Methods, And A Learning Agenda, Catherine Vaughan, James Hansen, Philippe Roudier, Paul Watkiss, Edward Carr Jul 2019

Evaluating Agricultural Weather And Climate Services In Africa: Evidence, Methods, And A Learning Agenda, Catherine Vaughan, James Hansen, Philippe Roudier, Paul Watkiss, Edward Carr

Sustainability and Social Justice

Weather and climate services (WCS) are expected to improve the capacity of Africa's agricultural sector to manage the risks of climate variability and change. Despite this, a lack of evidence prevents a realistic analysis of whether such services are delivering on their potential. This paper reviews 66 studies that have evaluated outcomes and/or impacts of agricultural WCS in Africa, highlighting areas that have received relatively more attention as well as persistent gaps. While the evaluation of WCS outcomes is relatively straightforward, estimates of the number of people who access and use these services are uneven (covering a small number of …


Climate Services Can Support African Farmers' Context-Specific Adaptation Needs At Scale, James Hansen, Catherine Vaughan, Desire Kagabo, Tufa Dinku, Edward Carr, Jana Körner, Robert Zougmoré Apr 2019

Climate Services Can Support African Farmers' Context-Specific Adaptation Needs At Scale, James Hansen, Catherine Vaughan, Desire Kagabo, Tufa Dinku, Edward Carr, Jana Körner, Robert Zougmoré

Sustainability and Social Justice

We consider the question of what is needed for climate services to support sub-Saharan African farmers' adaptation needs at the scale of the climate challenge. Consistent with an earlier assessment that mutually reinforcing supply-side and demand-side capacity constraints impede the development of effective climate services in Africa, our discussion of strategies for scaling up practices that meet farmers' needs, and opportunities to address long-standing obstacles, is organized around: (a) meeting farmers' climate information needs; (b) supporting access, understanding and use; and (c) co-production of services. A widespread gap between available information and farmers' needs is associated with entrenched seasonal forecast …


Hosting As Shelter During Displacement: Considerations For Research And Practice, Cynthia Caron Mar 2019

Hosting As Shelter During Displacement: Considerations For Research And Practice, Cynthia Caron

Sustainability and Social Justice

Hosting or local families taking in displaced families is an important way to shelter persons displaced during war or by natural disaster. While field-level evidence of hosting is on the rise, academic and policy-related scholarship on hosting is scant. Based on an extensive literature review and supplemented by the author’s own work experience in the humanitarian sector, this paper identifies and summarizes ten aspects that shape the hosting environment and its associated support programs. These aspects provide insight to humanitarian actors that support hosting situations rather than allowing them to play out on their own. These aspects potentially serve (1) …


Ask A Feminist: Gender And The Rise Of The Global Right, Cynthia Enloe, Agnieszka Graff, Ratna Kapur, Suzanna Danuta Walters Mar 2019

Ask A Feminist: Gender And The Rise Of The Global Right, Cynthia Enloe, Agnieszka Graff, Ratna Kapur, Suzanna Danuta Walters

Sustainability and Social Justice

For this edition of “Ask a Feminist,” Cynthia Enloe-feminist, activist, writer, scholar, and research professor at Clark University-speaks with special issue editors Suzanna Danuta Walters, Ratna Kapur, and Agnieszka Graff about the relations between gender and militarism and imperialism, in particular about the role of gender in the rise of the imperialist, fascist (or neofascist), populist (or neopopulist) social movements that seem to be spanning the globe.


Education For Social Transformation (Est) In The Caribbean: A Postcolonial Perspective, Nigel O.M. Brissett Nov 2018

Education For Social Transformation (Est) In The Caribbean: A Postcolonial Perspective, Nigel O.M. Brissett

Sustainability and Social Justice

This paper critically examines the possibilities of education for social transformation (EST) in the context of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). This is a region with a history of colonialism and embodies some of the central dilemmas of globalization, such as inequality and environmental precarity. Thus, conceptually, EST holds great promise for social justice and environmental sustainability. The paper argues, however, that EST can be relevant to the region only if it takes account of the enduring deep-seated legacy of asymmetries of power, exploitation and inequality in the broader society and within the education system resulting from colonialism and now exacerbated …


Anticipating Climatic Variability: The Potential Of Ecological Calendars, Karim Aly Kassam, Morgan Ruelle, Cyrus Samimi, Antonio Trabucco, Jianchu Xu Apr 2018

Anticipating Climatic Variability: The Potential Of Ecological Calendars, Karim Aly Kassam, Morgan Ruelle, Cyrus Samimi, Antonio Trabucco, Jianchu Xu

Sustainability and Social Justice

No abstract provided.


Why Achieving The Paris Agreement Requires Reduced Overall Consumption And Production, Eva Alfredsson, Magnus Bengtsson, Halina Szejnwald Brown, Cindy Isenhour, Sylvia Lorek, Dimitris Stevis, Philip Vergragt Jan 2018

Why Achieving The Paris Agreement Requires Reduced Overall Consumption And Production, Eva Alfredsson, Magnus Bengtsson, Halina Szejnwald Brown, Cindy Isenhour, Sylvia Lorek, Dimitris Stevis, Philip Vergragt

Sustainability and Social Justice

Technological solutions to the challenge of dangerous climate change are urgent and necessary but to be effective they need to be accompanied by reductions in the total level of consumption and production of goods and services. This is for three reasons. First, private consumption and its associated production are among the key drivers of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, especially among highly emitting industrialized economies. There is no evidence that decoupling of the economy from GHG emissions is possible at the scale and speed needed. Second, investments in more sustainable infrastructure, including renewable energy, needed in coming decades will require extensive amounts …


Integrated Assessment Of Shallow-Aquifer Vulnerability To Multiple Contaminants And Drinking-Water Exposure Pathways In Holliston, Massachusetts, Birgit Claus Henn, Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger, Allegra Denehy, Marcie Randall, Nichole Cordon, Bilin Basu, Brian Caccavale, Stefanie Covino, Ravi Hanumantha, Kevin Longo, Ariel Maiorano, Spring Pillsbury, Gabrielle Rigutto, Kelsey Shields, Marianne Sarkis, Timothy Downs Dec 2017

Integrated Assessment Of Shallow-Aquifer Vulnerability To Multiple Contaminants And Drinking-Water Exposure Pathways In Holliston, Massachusetts, Birgit Claus Henn, Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger, Allegra Denehy, Marcie Randall, Nichole Cordon, Bilin Basu, Brian Caccavale, Stefanie Covino, Ravi Hanumantha, Kevin Longo, Ariel Maiorano, Spring Pillsbury, Gabrielle Rigutto, Kelsey Shields, Marianne Sarkis, Timothy Downs

Sustainability and Social Justice

Half of U.S. drinking water comes from aquifers, and very shallow ones (table) are especially vulnerable to anthropogenic contamination. We present the case of Holliston, a Boston, Massachusetts suburb that draws its drinking water from very shallow aquifers, and where metals and solvents have been reported in groundwater. Community concerns focus on water discolored by naturally occurring manganese (Mn), despite reports stating regulatory aesthetic compliance. Epidemiologic studies suggest Mn is a potentially toxic element (PTE) for children exposed by the drinking-water pathway at levels near the regulatory aesthetic level. We designed an integrated, community-based project: five sites were profiled for …


Toward A Socio-Territorial Approach To Health: Health Equity In West Africa, Lucie Vialard, Clara Squiban, Florence Fournet, Gérard Salem, Ellen Foley Jan 2017

Toward A Socio-Territorial Approach To Health: Health Equity In West Africa, Lucie Vialard, Clara Squiban, Florence Fournet, Gérard Salem, Ellen Foley

Sustainability and Social Justice

This study contributes to the literature about the effects of space and place on health by introducing a socio-territorial approach to urban health disparities in West Africa. It explores how urban spaces, specifically neighbourhoods, are shaped by social and economic relations and strategies of territorial control. We examine the potential influence of socio-territorial processes on vulnerability to disease, access to medical care, healthscapes, and illness experiences. Our research was conducted in Senegal and relied on a mixed methods design. We identified four neighbourhoods that represent the socio-spatial heterogeneity of the city of Saint-Louis and utilized the following methods: geographic and …


Twenty-Five Years Of Bananas, Beaches And Bases: A Conversation With Cynthia Enloe, Cynthia Enloe, Anita Lacey, Thomas Gregory Sep 2016

Twenty-Five Years Of Bananas, Beaches And Bases: A Conversation With Cynthia Enloe, Cynthia Enloe, Anita Lacey, Thomas Gregory

Sustainability and Social Justice

Cynthia Enloe’s book Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics brought a new approach to the study of war, conflict and political economy, an approach informed by and starting from a feminist curiosity. Such a starting point allows for recognition of the diverse, often disregarded gendered dynamics of militarization. A feminist curiosity facilitates making visible the politicization of everyday life via what Enloe calls a bottom-up approach to research and investigation. This account of a conversation between feminist scholars draws attention to the means by which researchers exercise the sociological imagination in their work on labour, militarism …