Month: June 2024

What is culturally appropriate food consumption? A systematic literature review exploring six conceptual themes and their implications for sustainable food system transformation

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Abstract

There is increasing recognition that sustainable diets need to be ‘culturally appropriate’. In relation to food consumption, however, it is often unclear what cultural appropriateness–or related terms, such as cultural or social acceptability–actually means. Often these terms go undefined, and where definitions are present, they vary widely. Based on a systematic literature review this paper explores how cultural appropriateness of food consumption is conceptualised across different research literatures, identifying six main themes in how cultural appropriateness is understood and applied. The paper then critically analyses these themes in relation to sustainable food system transformation. We explore how the themes conceptualise change, finding that cultural appropriateness is viewed in two main ways: either as a relatively static obstacle to be overcome, or as a dynamic and negotiated process. Both perspectives, we argue, entail different scientific, practical and political effects. Each perspective offers particular affordances for understanding and governing sustainable food system transition, although between perspectives there is likely to be a trade-off between theoretical sophistication and practical operationalizability. Based on this analysis we argue that researchers, policymakers and practitioners should be explicit about their commitment to a particular understanding of cultural appropriateness, as this will have implications for scientific and societal applications of their work. This is particularly the case, we suggest, in relation to the transdisciplinary collaborations necessary to effectively address the ‘wicked problem’ of food system sustainability. We conclude by offering a tentative general definition of cultural appropriateness as it relates to food consumption.

Constructing a sustainable ‘tomorrow’: iconic architecture and progressive neoliberal place-making in Rio de Janeiro’s ‘Little Africa’

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Abstract

Rio de Janeiro’s long-marginalised, majority Afro-descendant old port area, home to the remains of the Americas’ largest slave disembarkation wharf and Brazil’s first favela, has been subjected to recurring elite-led ‘revitalisation’ projects. A contemporary plan, Porto Maravilha (Marvelous Port), seeks to address the region’s decline through a culture-led, public-private development scheme that refashions this space as a tourist and residential hub. Based on participant-observation, interviews with protagonists, and discursive analysis of official texts, this article analyses the most spectacular addition to Rio’s previously derelict waterfront—the grandiosely titled Museu do Amanhã (Museum of Tomorrow)—to demonstrate how efforts to neoliberalise space, within this postcolonial and settler-colonial urban context and beyond, are increasingly given a progressive twist. Drawing from Leslie Sklair’s pathbreaking analysis of the political economy of architectural ‘iconicity’, I interrogate the socio-spatial dimensions of the Museum as a starchitect-designed and utopian site that promotes sustainability and community empowerment, but simultaneously cultivates a market-friendly ethos. Invoking Nancy Fraser, I argue that the Museum represents an emblematic case of ‘progressive neoliberal place-making.’ Through analysing global city-making processes in Rio’s ‘Little Africa’, this article addresses longstanding lacunae in IPE and IR related to the centrality of race and colonialism in global capitalism.

Agroecology’s moral vision

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Abstract

What is agroecology’s moral vision, and what are the larger metaphysical, even theological, implications of it? Even though agroecology as a field now gathers collaborators from across the natural and social sciences, as well as members of farming communities and international movements, there remains relatively little explicit and sustained reflection upon this question. My main contention is that expanding agroecology’s dialogue of wisdoms (diálogo de saberes) to include theological traditions can address this lacuna. To show how, I explore the contribution of one particular theological tradition—Catholic social teaching—and how its account of integral ecology enables agroecologists to deepen their engagement with fundamental questions raised by their own normative commitments.

Exploring diverse food system actor perspectives on gene editing: a systematic review of socio-cultural factors influencing acceptability

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Abstract

Despite the promise of new gene editing technologies (GETs) (e.g., CRISPR) in accelerating sustainable agri-food production, the social acceptability of these technologies remains unclear. Prior literature has primarily addressed the regulatory and economic issues impacting GETs ongoing acceptability, while little work has examined socio-cultural impacts despite evolving food policies and product commercialisation demanding input from various actors in the food system. Our systematic review across four databases addresses this gap by synthesising recent research on food system actors’ perspectives to identify the key socio-cultural factors influencing GET acceptability. This review extends prior literature by including views from a more diverse range of actors (e.g., farmers and NGOs) and provides a better understanding of their perceived social benefits and concerns. We find food system actors perceive positive and negative impacts of using GETs in agriculture. These perspectives are often entangled in broader debates regarding sustainability and food systems issues (e.g., social justice). We discuss practical recommendations for policymakers, agri-food industry managers, and scientists to better align gene edited foods (GEFs) with food system actors’ values. GEF policy, development, and commercialisation must reflect social values such as collective wellbeing and transparency to improve actors’ acceptability. More research is required among marginalised food actors such as Indigenous and smallholder farmers.

The new achikumbe elite: food systems transformation in the context of digital platforms use in agriculture in Malawi

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Abstract

The Malabo Declaration places the transformation of agriculture and food systems at the centre of regional and national policy priorities across Africa. Transformative change in the way that food is produced, processed and consumed is seen as not only necessary for addressing the complex challenges of food security and poverty alleviation, but also as a driver of new employment opportunities and economic development. As pointed out within the recent UN Food Systems Summit, essential elements of food system transformations include digital transitions and the empowerment of women and youth. However, there are few empirical examples demonstrating how these agendas come together to affect food system change. Here we focus on an enterprising group of young farmers referred to as Malawi’s new achikumbe elite, who are urban based, educated and engaging in agriculture on a commercial basis. The aim is to characterise this emergent group of agriculturalists and to understand the role that they have within the transformation of Malawi-s agricultural sector. We explore how digital platforms are supporting the emergence of this new category of farmer and positioning young people as agents of change in food systems transformation. Based on interviews and ethnographic research with 32 young farmers between 2018 and 2022 combined with interviews with representatives of service providers and agricultural organisations, we argue that this group is characterised by a higher level of education, self-dependency and use of digital platforms, enabling them to adapt their context to sourcing production resources and engaging in commercial agriculture. We present evidence that digital platforms are supporting the new achikumbe elite (NAE) to engage flexibly with new commercial markets, contracts and access a wider range of training and advice. However, while digital platforms can offer more equitable access to information and market opportunities, they also represent potential avenues for food system transformations that are inequitable. As such, we argue that there is need for digital technologies to mitigate against potential inequalities.

Racial Disparities in Family Income, Assets, and Liabilities: A Century After the 1921 Tulsa Massacre

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Abstract

This paper examines the financial health of racial-ethnic groups in Tulsa, Oklahoma, nearly a century after the 1921 Tulsa Massacre. We use data from the Tulsa National Asset Scorecard for Communities of Color (NASCC) survey to assess the financial health of two demographic groups that were historically the victims of racial violence - Native Americans and Black Americans. Specifically, we investigate financial outcomes a century after these groups made significant economic gains during the Tulsa oil boom in the early 1900 s and were subsequently victimized by racial violence. We find that Black households have statistically significantly less wealth and income than Whites in Tulsa. Our decomposition analysis shows household demographic differences between Blacks and Whites largely do not explain these wealth and income gaps, suggestive of historical discrimination. While in the case of the Native American tribes and Whites, the findings generally show no statistical significance. Compared to other NASCC-surveyed cities that did not experience destruction to the level of the Tulsa Massacre, the Black-White wealth and income gaps and the unexplained portion of the decompositions are the largest in Tulsa. Our results provisionally suggest that past exposure to racial violence can have long-term effects on the economic outcomes of the affected groups decades later.

Secondary mathematics preservice teachers’ perceptions of program (in)coherence

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Abstract

Teacher educators globally have argued that developing coherent programs can combat the fragmentation that often characterizes teacher education and better support teacher learning. Yet, there is little research on coherence in mathematics teacher education, especially from the perspectives of preservice teachers. To that end, in this article, we report how 13 secondary mathematics preservice teachers (PSTs) from one teacher education program perceived their program as coherent, specifically attending to the ideas and practices PSTs engaged with and the settings in which they engaged with those ideas/practices. Based on participatory diagramming interviews and network analysis, we found that PSTs experienced two main sources of incoherence. First, although PSTs had opportunities to learn about equity from multiple settings, they did not perceive that equity and other aspects of mathematics instruction together were coherently organized. Second, PSTs reported learning about two opposing instructional approaches—direct instruction and inquiry-based instruction. PSTs reported that opportunities to learn about inquiry-based instruction were primarily isolated to courses taught by the mathematics education program and were contradicted by learning and experiencing direct instruction in their special education courses, mathematics courses, and field and student teaching experiences. Findings highlight a need to attend to issues of equity, as well as connections among university coursework and between coursework and field. Based on our findings, we conclude with implications for how teacher education programs might respond to and engage with incoherence to support PST learning.

A passion fruit counting method based on the lightweight YOLOv5s and improved DeepSORT

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Abstract

Accurate yield estimation of passion fruits is essential for planning acreage and harvest timing. However, due to the complexity of the natural environment and tracking instability, the existing yield estimation methods suffer from excessively large models that are difficult to deploy or repetitive counting of fruit. Therefore, an improved approach for efficient passion fruit yield estimation was proposed using the lightweight YOLOv5s and improved DeepSORT. First, the video is fed into the proposed lightweight YOLOv5s called YOLOv5s-little to obtain coordinates and confidence information about the fruits within each frame. Then, the information obtained from the detection model is input into improved DeepSORT for continuous frame tracking of passion fruit. Considering the frequent error IDs (ID switching), two improvements based on DeepSORT are proposed: delaying the creation of tracks and adding a second round of IoU matching. Finally, to overcome the problem of repetitive counting, a specific tracking counting method based on the track information and state is used for accurate passion fruit counting. Our method achieved a competitive result in tests. YOLOv5s-little detector achieved precision of 98.9%, 98.3% recall, 99.5% mAP, and only 0.9MB model size. The improved DeepSORT algorithm achieved higher order tracking accuracy (HOTA) of 79.6%, multi-object tracking accuracy (MOTA) of 92.58%, identification F1 (IDF1) of 95.02%, and ID switch (IDSW) of 11 respectively. Compared with DeepSORT, it improved by 4.66%, 1.8%, and 9.16% in HOTA, MOTA and IDF1, respectively, and IDSW improved the most with 85%. Compared with FairMOT and TransTrack, the HOTA of YOLOv5s-little + improved DeepSORT achieved improvements of 11.56% and 25.24%, respectively. The statistical average counting accuracy of our proposed counting method reaches 95.1%, which is a 7.09% improvement over the maximum ID value counting method. The counting results from test videos are highly correlated with the manual counting results ( \({\text{R}}^{2}\)  = 0.96), indicating that the counting method has high accuracy and effectiveness. These results show that YOLOv5s-little + improved DeepSORT can meet the practical needs of passion fruit yield estimation in real scenarios.

Religious Belief and Workplace Safety Behavior Among the Informal Automobile Workers in Nigeria

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Abstract

It is well known that informal workers in developing countries are exposed to occupational health problems (OHPs), and they work unsafely. However, little is known about how their religious beliefs influence their safety behavior at the workplace. This study explores the interaction between the automobile artisans’ religious beliefs and their workplace safety behavior. Forty three male artisans (either Christian: n = 17; or Muslim: n = 26) were purposively interviewed. Even though their religious teachings are against risk-taking, the artisans took risks at their workplace. Specific programs like seminars and various outreaches for workers in religious settings influence their perception of OHP prevention. Religious organizations have a role to play in OHP prevention.

Identity Matters: Religious Experiences of US based Transgender Young People

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Abstract

Research centered on the socioemotional benefits of religion and religious congregations for young people has highlighted largely positive outcomes for both young people and religious congregations. However, fewer studies have explored whether transgender young people receive those same socioemotional benefits from being religiously affiliated. Using secondary quantitative data from the 2015 US Transgender Survey, this study examined the religious experiences of transgender young people (aged 18–24). The data indicate that individual demographics (e.g., race, gender identity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation) affected the religious experiences of transgender young people, including leaving their congregations due to the fear of being rejected. More research is needed on the socioemotional benefits of religious affiliation for transgender young people.