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Arefin MR, Prouse C. Counter-collaborations towards alternative bio-securitizations. DIALOGUES IN HUMAN GEOGRAPHY 2024; 14:243-248. [PMID: 39131080 PMCID: PMC11309914 DOI: 10.1177/20438206231168886] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/13/2024]
Abstract
In this commentary, we argue that geographical thought and praxis must engage with repressive biosecurity and biosurveillance systems and fight for alternatives. In doing so, geographers can contribute to an emerging anti-colonial and anti-racist interdisciplinary science. We suggest two counter-collaborations towards alternative bio-securitizations: working with those who have been cast out of biopolitical worlds and have long been fostering life for their communities; and working with practitioners of hegemonic science to re-direct biomedical efforts. Building these collaborations would orient biosecurity praxis to those biosecuritizations that already exist at the margins of violent security programs and foster communal and just care relations as the foundation for a liberatory and interdisciplinary science.
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Calkin S, Freeman C, Moore F. The geography of abortion: Discourse, spatiality and mobility. PROGRESS IN HUMAN GEOGRAPHY 2022; 46:1413-1430. [PMID: 36310819 PMCID: PMC9597139 DOI: 10.1177/03091325221128885] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
Abortion has historically been ignored in geography. Although bodies and pregnancy have been increasingly studied since the 1990s, a reticence around abortion remains. In recent years, however, this has begun to change. This article critically reviews how geographers and other scholars are now considering abortion and uses three conceptual lenses of discourse, spatiality and mobility to argue that abortion should be a mainstream topic of critical concern for geographers. Through these themes we show that geographical attention to abortion makes questions of space, power, and citizenship visible in new ways and, furthermore, in ways that are only recently possible.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sydney Calkin
- School of Geography, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK
| | | | - Francesca Moore
- Homerton College and Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK
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Jokela-Pansini M. Beyond "toxic bodies": Multiplied rationalities of women's reproductive health in a high-risk environmental area (Taranto, Italy). Health Place 2022; 77:102900. [PMID: 36044813 DOI: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2022.102900] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2021] [Revised: 06/06/2022] [Accepted: 08/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
This study investigates women's reproductive health concerns in Taranto, a steel town and a "high-risk environmental area" in Italy. It draws on participatory ethnographic research (body mapping, interviews and fieldnotes) and analyses political and social aspects of women's reproductive health in relation to pollution. I argue that in highly polluted environments, both political rationalities and women's health concerns over their bodies are multiplied, extending beyond a focus on their bodies as shaped by toxic exposure. Women make sense of knowledge about their reproductive health and questions of responsibility in relation not only to societal norms, but also through reference to the wider polluted environment and the political-economic structures they inhabit. By focusing on women's own experiences, the study contributes to our understanding of women's agency over their environment-health relations and seeks to complicate women's role as environmental subjects beyond "toxic bodies".
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Affiliation(s)
- Maaret Jokela-Pansini
- School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, United Kingdom.
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Abstract
Veganism is the subject of an increasingly diverse body of social scientific research, yet it remains relatively understudied in geography. Meanwhile, contemporary cultural commentaries note how veganism has gone mainstream, with critics warning of veganism's corporate nature - expressed in the rise of what we term 'Big Veganism'. We argue that food geographers are well placed to examine these trends. We first review vegan studies work beyond geography that examines and critiques the mainstreaming of veganism. We focus on literature that explores multiple contested modes of veganism, veganism as praxis in place and the rise of corporate veganism as useful foundations for geographers to build on, particularly in light of currently unfolding developments in vegan cultures and practice. Taking this work forward, we identify four conceptual traditions from research in food geographies - following foodways, alternative food networks and the cultural and material politics of eating - to develop a 'vegan food geographies' programme that aims to advance critical geographic work on veganism and the emerging implications of its contemporary mainstreaming.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexandra E Sexton
- Alexandra E Sexton, Department of Geography,
University of Sheffield, Winter Street, Sheffield S3 7ND, UK.
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Cleary BM, Romano ME, Chen CY, Heiger-Bernays W, Crawford KA. Comparison of Recreational Fish Consumption Advisories Across the USA. Curr Environ Health Rep 2021; 8:71-88. [PMID: 33934293 PMCID: PMC8208921 DOI: 10.1007/s40572-021-00312-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 04/05/2021] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
PURPOSE OF REVIEW Our comparative analysis sought to understand the factors which drive differences in fish consumption advisories across the USA - including exposure scenarios (acute and chronic health risk, non-cancer and cancer health endpoints), toxicity values (reference dose, cancer slope factor, acute tolerance level), and meal size and bodyweight assumptions. RECENT FINDINGS Fish consumption provides essential nutrients but also results in exposure to contaminants such as PCBs and methylmercury. To protect consumers from the risks of fish contaminants, fish consumption advisories are established, most often by state jurisdictions, to estimate the amount of a certain fish species a person could consume throughout their lifetime without harm. However, inconsistencies in advisories across the USA confuse consumers and undermine the public health goals of fish advisory programs. To date, no rigorous comparison of state and national fish consumption advisories has been reported. Our work identifies discrepancies in key assumptions used to derive risk-based advisories between US states, reflecting differences in the interpretation of toxicity science. We also address the implications for these differences by reviewing advisories issued by contiguous states bordering two waterbodies: Lake Michigan and the Lower Mississippi River. Our findings highlight the importance of regional collaboration when issuing advisories, so that consumers of self-caught fish are equipped with clear knowledge to make decisions to protect their health.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Megan E. Romano
- Department of Epidemiology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Lebanon, NH USA
| | - Celia Y. Chen
- Department of Biological Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH USA
| | - Wendy Heiger-Bernays
- Department of Environmental Health, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA USA
| | - Kathryn A. Crawford
- Department of Epidemiology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Lebanon, NH USA
- Program in Environmental Studies, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT USA
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Abstract
While critics cast the Trump administration as anti-science, requiring in response vigorous defense of science, analysis of the Trump EPA reveals instead a strategy to develop deregulatory science. In its first 3 years, the Trump EPA introduced and started to implement a variety of new frameworks to remake scientific risk analysis, changing how it assesses exposures, hazards and costs of chemical harms. The article focuses on EPA frameworks associated with the Clean Air Act, Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science rule and Toxic Substances Control Act. The new approaches compel the agency to ignore many pathways of exposure and pivotal studies of hazards, include dose-response models that treat pollution as healthful and change how costs and benefits are calculated. Yet it justifies these frameworks in terms of evidence-based decision-making, transparency and the separation of science from politics. According to its political appointees, the Trump EPA stands for scientific integrity, because it is promulgating evidence-based approaches in risk analysis that show regulation to be neither necessary nor appropriate. This is not just rhetoric but represents an effort to engage science to delegitimize environmental regulation. There is continuity between the Trump EPA and past efforts to use science to justify regulatory rollbacks: defending science by demarcating it from non-science is just as much a strategy for deregulation as it is for regulation. A key lesson is that contesting deregulation by declaring it anti-science reflects an impasse, as deregulatory approaches then also seek to take the mantle of science. The alternative to engaging in debate over demarcation is to make explicit the values and interests shaping practices of regulatory science.
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MacKendrick N, Cairns K. The Polluted Child and Maternal Responsibility in the US Environmental Health Movement. SIGNS 2019. [DOI: 10.1086/699340] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
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Global health from the outside: The promise of place-based research. Health Place 2017; 45:55-63. [DOI: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2017.03.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/21/2016] [Revised: 02/28/2017] [Accepted: 03/05/2017] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
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Sparke M. Austerity and the embodiment of neoliberalism as ill-health: Towards a theory of biological sub-citizenship. Soc Sci Med 2016; 187:287-295. [PMID: 28057384 DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.12.027] [Citation(s) in RCA: 51] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/06/2016] [Revised: 12/15/2016] [Accepted: 12/19/2016] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
This article charts the diverse pathways through which austerity and other policy shifts associated with neoliberalism have come to be embodied globally in ill-health. It combines a review of research on these processes of embodiment with the development of a theory of the resulting forms of biological sub-citizenship. This theory builds on other studies that have already sought to complement and complicate the concept of biological citizenship with attention to the globally uneven experience and embodiment of bioinequalities. Focused on the unevenly embodied sequelae of austerity, the proceeding theorization of biological sub-citizenship is developed in three stages of review and conceptualization: 1) Biological sub-citizenship through exclusion and conditionalization; 2) Biological sub-citizenship through extraction and exploitation; and 3) Biological sub-citizenship through financialized experimentation. In conclusion the paper argues that the analysis of biological sub-citizenship needs to remain open-ended and relational in order to contribute to socially-searching work on the social determinants of health.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matthew Sparke
- University of Washington, Box 353550, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
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Stevens LM. Environmental Contaminants and Reproductive Bodies: Provider Perspectives on Risk, Gender, and Responsibility. JOURNAL OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 2016; 57:471-485. [PMID: 27803265 DOI: 10.1177/0022146516671569] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
Increasingly, leading health organizations recommend that women who are pregnant or considering pregnancy avoid certain toxic chemicals found in our products, homes, and communities in order to protect fetuses from developmental and future harm. In the contemporary United States, women's maternal bodies have been treated as sites of exceptional risk and individual responsibility. Many studies have examined this phenomenon through the lens of lifestyle behaviors like smoking, drinking, and exercise. However, we know little about how environmental hazards fit into the dominant framework of gendered, individual responsibility for risk regulation. I draw on in-depth interviews with 19 reproductive healthcare providers in the United States to explore how they think about their patients' exposure to environmental contaminants and sometimes subvert this gendered, individualized responsibility and adopt more collective frames for understanding risk.
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Atkinson S, Evans B, Woods A, Kearns R. 'The medical' and 'health' in a critical medical humanities. THE JOURNAL OF MEDICAL HUMANITIES 2015; 36:71-81. [PMID: 25502919 PMCID: PMC4352602 DOI: 10.1007/s10912-014-9314-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/22/2023]
Abstract
As befits an emerging field of enquiry, there is on-going discussion about the scope, role and future of the medical humanities. One relatively recent contribution to this debate proposes a differentiation of the field into two distinct terrains, 'medical humanities' and 'health humanities,' and calls for a supersession of the former by the latter. In this paper, we revisit the conceptual underpinnings for a distinction between 'the medical' and 'health' by looking at the history of an analogous debate between 'medical geography' and 'the geographies of health' that has, over the last few years, witnessed a re-blurring of the distinction. Highlighting the value of this debate within the social sciences for the future development of the medical humanities, we call for scholars to take seriously the challenges of critical and cultural theory, community-based arts and health, and the counter-cultural creative practices and strategies of activist movements in order to meet the new research challenges and fulfill the radical potential of a critical medical humanities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Atkinson
- Department of Geography and the Centre for Medical Humanities, Durham University, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK,
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Washburn R. Measuring personal chemical exposures through biomonitoring: the experiences of research participants. QUALITATIVE HEALTH RESEARCH 2014; 24:329-344. [PMID: 24549408 DOI: 10.1177/1049732314521899] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/03/2023]
Abstract
Using a technique called human biomonitoring, scientists can now measure hundreds of environmental chemicals and/or their metabolites in human body fluids and tissues. In this article, I examine the experiences of 28 women who participated in two different types of biomonitoring studies and received personal exposure results. I show that although the women's experiences of biomonitoring differed and were shaped by the contexts in which biomonitoring occurred, there were also remarkable similarities across contexts. Most notably, through the receipt of personal biomonitoring data, all of the women came to view themselves as partially, if not entirely, responsible for their chemical exposures (past, present, and future). These are novel findings, which suggest that as scientists increasingly measure individuals' exposures to environmental chemicals found in common consumer products and food, the distinctions between environmental and lifestyle risks are being blurred; that is, environmental risks are increasingly experienced as lifestyle risks.
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