Author: Latest Results

Health equity is when every person can achieve their full potential for health and wellbeing. In this Viewpoint, global experts discuss the root causes and contributing factors to health inequity in endocrinology. Potential action points and research directions to help reduce health disparities are also discussed.

Abstract

The CONIAE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) continuously critiques the global capitalist neoliberal structure. Similarly, this Indigenous critique is embodied in the projects studying the past in the Ecuadorian territory, particularly in the research of the gendered/sexual relations of the Enchaquirados during the pre-Hispanic period. This article builds upon this ethnohistorical research to show how these noncapitalist forms of economic, political, and gendered/sexual relationships continued to develop and evolve alternative forms of agency, livelihood and resistance. In Engabao (one of Ecuador’s many rural coastal communities), like in the CONAIE’S discourse, these cultural alternatives to the capitalist system tie this historical past to an agent-filled resistant Indigenous political present.

Abstract

This article reflects on the spatial history of agrarian capitalism in the state of Veracruz, Mexico, through the lens of a French farming colony on the Nautla river. While, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this region’s rural landscapes were ostensibly redesigned at the hand of liberal state programs and capitalist desires, a closer look shows a more checkered reality. Using textual and geographic archives, my analysis examines the tensions and “cracks” that emerged in this process of economic “modernization,” with an eye for the fugitive histories fashioned by French colonists in the face of capitalist abstraction.

Abstract

This article charts the development of The Made in Migration Collective, a coalition of displaced people, academics, and creative professionals that was developed during a recently completed British Academy postdoctoral fellowship. Following discussion of how archaeology and heritage are under attack globally from far-right nationalism and specifically within the UK, I provide examples of how community archaeology can highlight fissures in capitalism. I follow others in interpreting anarchism as a potential form of care. Two public heritage exhibitions – one digital, one “live”—which were collaboratively produced by The Made in Migration Collective are reflected upon.

Abstract

In this paper, eight practicing psychologists, a dog (Oscar), white cockatoos, crimson rosellas, blue gums, plum blossoms, the words of theorists of eco-psychology and post-humanism joined together for two days with the mountains of the Darug and Gundungurra peoples, to explore questions about psychology and its capacity to respond to the climate crisis. We designed a series of psychoterratic exercises for this purpose: (1) a bio-graphical definitional ceremony, (2) a series of short lectures and readings set to the poetics of open dialogue, (3) a sympoietic vegetal-thinking exercise, (4) a bush-psychogeography and (5) a final reflection on praxis. We present our findings, written in bricolage, a compost of experiences and ideas both horizontal and vertical, written, drawn and photographic.

Abstract

This manuscript is part of a bigger study on inclusionary and exclusionary practices of children with disabilities in northern Ghana. In the past, because of attitudinal, structural and cultural barriers, children with disabilities were neglected and, in some cases, even excluded completely from the society. This paper argues that while Ghana has ratified many international conventions to protect persons with disabilities, the rights of children with certain disabilities are still in danger. Applying critical ethnographic methodological lens, Erving Goffman’s stigma theory, and cultural and moral disability models, this study explores twenty-six (26) participants’ views of exclusionary practices against children with disabilities in northern Ghana. The study finds that historical portrayal of disability in northern Ghana might have serious impact on the manner children with certain disabilities are treated; the actions of medicine men/spiritualist could lead to all forms of abuse. Finally, parents and families of children with certain disabilities might be pressured to resort to a range of exclusionary practices against their own children due to stigma and pressure from the communities. The study calls for comprehensive measures and effective community sensitization activities to stop all forms of exclusionary practices against children with disabilities, especially in the rural areas of Ghana.

Abstract

Many memory institutions hold heritage items belonging to Indigenous peoples. There are current efforts to share knowledge about these heritage items with their communities; one way this is done is through digital access. This paper examines The Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC), a network of researchers, museum professionals, and community members who maintain a digital platform that aggregates museum and archival research on Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Huron-Wendat cultures into a centralized database. The database, known as the GRASAC Knowledge Sharing System (GKS), is at a point of infrastructural growth, moving from a password protected system to one that is open to the public. Rooted in qualitative research from semi-structured interviews with the creators, maintainers, and users of the database, we examine the frictions in this expanding knowledge infrastructure (KI), and how they are eased over time. We find the friction within GRASAC resides in three main categories: collaborative friction, data friction, and our novel contribution: systemic friction.

Abstract

Judges wield enormous power in modern society and it is not surprising that scholars have long been interested in how judges think. The purpose of this article is to examine how US judges reason on language issues. To understand how courts decide on comprehension of constitutional rights by speakers with Limited English Proficiency (LEP), I analyzed 460 judicial opinions on appeals from LEP speakers, issued between 2000 and 2020. Two findings merit particular attention. Firstly, the analysis revealed that in 36% of the interrogations, LEP speakers were advised of their rights only in English. This means that two decades after the Executive Order 13166 (2000) Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency, law enforcement still doesn’t have adequate resources to advise LEP speakers of their constitutional rights in their primary languages. Secondly, the analysis revealed that some courts treat second language proficiency as an all-or-none phenomenon. This approach results in linguistic discrimination against LEP speakers who cannot comprehend legal language but are denied the services of an interpreter because they can answer basic questions in English. I end the discusson with recommendations for best practices in delivery of constitutional rights.