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Peacekeepers are seen as a UN tool for promoting domestic changes in host countries, but little is known about the political consequences when officers return home. During the last 10 years, Brazilian presidents appointed a significant number of former peacekeepers to key political functions. How and why do former peacekeepers end up so involved in government affairs? To answer this question, this paper focuses on the array of skills acquired by peacekeepers in domestic missions and reinforced abroad. Drawing on a set of semi-structured interviews and questionnaires to military, former political decision-makers, and researchers, as well as other primary and secondary sources, this paper details how political articulation, experience in conflict management, and prestige empowered Brazilian military officers to resume their tradition of intervention in politics. This paper also shows that peace operations can produce deleterious outcomes for troop-contributing countries in the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent pandemic negatively affected the career development of women scientists drawing attention to the need for urgent actions to ensure that gains in gender equality in science are retained. In Brazil, women scientists contributed much to the fight against COVID-19 by supplying valuable information to the media, combating misinformation and looking for ways to reduce the impacts of the pandemic in homes and workplaces. This paper diagnoses inequalities of opportunities in science and emphasizes science communication as an important tool for increasing the visibility and empowerment of women scientists in Brazil. Science communication can strengthen the visibility, presence and voice of women in society and promote equitable practices in terms of gender and race. It can also enable women scientists to work as role models for the younger generations. This paper goes beyond a brief discussion on the impacts of science communication on increasing diversity and makes recommendations to accelerate gender and ethnic–racial equity within science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to present a comprehensive knowledge mapping of plastic pollution on coastal/marine tourism research. To achieve this objective, the present study employed a two-tier analysis, including a systematic review of literature and bibliometric analysis of 164 scholarly articles spanning 1999 to 2022. The results underline the multidisciplinary nature of this research domain, characterized by a significant upswing in publications. The dominant countries in this field are identified as Brazil, Australia, and the USA. A noteworthy collaboration dynamic between the Chinese Academy of Sciences, East China Normal University, and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences has emerged, signaling opportunities for enhanced cross-border cooperation. Jambeck, who provided data support for this research field, is found as the most cited author. Marine Pollution Bulletin, Environmental Pollution, and Science of the Total Environment are the most prolific journals discussing such topics. The primary research clusters in this field include seasonal comparison, Qinghai Lake, and small plastic debris. Additionally, scholars have recently focused on new topics such as seasonal comparison, case study, spatial pattern, and the Southern Baltic Sea in the last 3 years. This research also reports 10 articles with the highest citations and 10 highly cited papers. Not only this, the present study presents the inaugural bibliometric analysis on plastic pollution in coastal and marine tourism. To the authors' knowledge, it stands as a pioneering investigation of its nature, offering a comprehensive view on the research domain by evaluating a time span exceeding two decades, with a specific emphasis on the literature pertaining to marine tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article advocates the transgression of incumbent theoretical divisions between rural and urban abodes of production and draws on new analyses of contemporary spaces of capital and labour antagonisms in Brazil. It does so to articulate a broadening of the definition of class and class struggle towards an emancipatory praxis that does not necessarily prioritise industrialised workers. The study has a particular focus on the reconfiguration of socio-spatial arrangements linked to 21st century commodity cultivation, extraction and trade and subsequent class tensions on the material and epistemological frontier between (hydro, agro and mineral) mega projects and the autonomous territories of rural subjects. The renewed degradation of conditions for a labour force that has always been precarious, the dissolving dichotomy between proletarianised and peasant labour, and the ongoing resistance to corporate capture by communities is evoked to contrast distinct metabolic relations within rural territories with the objectification of labour and nature under capitalism. The analysis reveals new configurations of class domination, tension and counter movements. Many critical scholars, particularly those in the Global South, have been attentive to alternate readings of the world by indigenous, African descendent, peasant and agro-extractivist communities that may be unfamiliar yet underpin vociferous, and often fatal, resistance to capital accumulation. The task to effectively situate these struggles within a theory of broader, heterogeneous class struggle and integrate this 'wealth' of collective struggle and knowledge towards societal transformation remains important work in progress. In this spirit, the paper offers some possibilities for making new conceptual and material connections between rural and urban productive spaces and across currently fragmented class formations and identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of how to generate development while preserving the environment is central to the history of the Brazilian Amazon. Many decades of top-down state interventions conceived and executed under a developmentalist framework have resulted in a socioenvironmental crisis. In response, the Sustainable Oil Palm Production Program (SPOPP) was launched in 2010. It promised to break with developmentalist visions and articulate environmental and sustainability concerns. This paper uses assemblage thinking to examine how these contrasting, often impossible-to-balance, views manifest within SPOPP implementation. We describe how non-human actors (trees, diseases, previous policies and agroecological zoning technologies) interact with human actors. However, powerful actors, in the state and beyond, continue to garner support for their developmentalist interests and thwart or depoliticize environmental and social concerns, thus limiting change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]