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Copyright of Nouvelles Pratiques Sociales is the property of Revue Nouvelles Pratiques Sociales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Gazette des Beaux Arts is the property of Societe Les Beaux Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

I engage with two recent articles published in the Journal of Political Ecology, both of which critique political ecology engagements with ontological and epistemological complexities. These complexities might be distilled into the idea that how 'the world' is socially known also shapes how the world is known to be. I explore three key issues worked through in these papers, partly with reference to work of mine, namely: 1) conservation struggles around biodiversity offsetting; 2) debates regarding plural and relational ontologies, particularly representations of 'flatness' and 'depth' in ontological considerations; and 3) critical realism, specifically distinctions between perspectives on transitive and intransitive dimensions in qualifying understandings of reality. I highlight a pernicious problem of dismissive approaches towards analysts trying to ask difficult and subtle questions about 'onto-epistemology.' This situation seems surprising given the effort in political ecology towards recognising and respecting plural knowledges, particularly knowledges often overridden by discourses emboldened by structures of power. My overall aim is towards clarity in ongoing political ecology debate on these issues, alongside the pursuit of respectful praxis in this burgeoning area of engagement.

Assessment policy and practice is a key cornerstone of education and a significant influence on teaching and learning, and on learner outcomes. This paper provides insights into recent assessment reforms in Ireland which have sought to reposition assessment in both primary and lower secondary education as part of broader curriculum change. It provides an overview of the prevailing assessment landscape prior to these reforms and explores the associated assessment culture that has evolved over time thereby providing a rich picture of the context for these reforms. Taking the two core policy documents at the heart of the reforms, the Primary Curriculum Framework (2023) and the Framework for Junior Cycle (2015), it identifies four common facets that underpin assessment, before then providing insights into the process of developing education policy advice and how this is shaped not only by research but also by the key education stakeholders. Based on the lived experience of these recent reforms, this paper identifies some key factors that have been identified as contributing towards and conspiring against the successful implementation of a new vision for assessment. The paper concludes with a reflection on assessment policy as a driver of education reform.

The steel industry contributes to almost seven percent of the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and about one-third of the worldwide industrial carbon dioxide emissions. Extremely high-temperature industrial processes are challenging when it comes to decarbonization as reaching the needed temperature is dependent on a limited number of fuels. Several critical issues need attention, including the scaling-up process, the quality of iron ore and scrap, the accessibility of green electricity and hydrogen, and the establishing of markets for green steel. Coke and natural gas replacement and shifting towards green hydrogen as a reducing agent and as a temperature controller is a promising solution, as the cost of hydrogen production is expected to decrease drastically since the overall efficiency of generation is continuously improving. This work investigates a real case study in Europe for an industrial site that targets a 35% hydrogen penetration to replace natural gas in the electric arc furnace (EAF) auxiliary burners of a melt shop through a water electrolysis process supplied by a Photovoltaic (PV) plant. The model is integrated into an optimization equation to determine optimal system component sizes and operating schedules. The target is to minimize the average cost of hydrogen and reduce the carbon footprint. The results showed an economic challenge for the model as an 18.33 MW PV plant and a 12.38 MW electrolyzer were needed to drive the transition, and the resulting cost of hydrogen is 6.7 €/kgH2, which is more than four times the average price of natural gas. Nevertheless, incentive policymakers may play a crucial role in green steel manufacturing. The system reduces the CO₂ emissions by up to 6902 tons per year.

Copyright of Canadian Family Physician / Médecin de Famille Canadien is the property of College of Family Physicians of Canada and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract Background The genetic mechanisms that underlie phenotypic differentiation in breeding animals have important implications in evolutionary biology and agriculture. However, the contribution of cis-regulatory variants to pig phenotypes is poorly understood. Therefore, our aim was to elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which non-coding variants cause phenotypic differences in pigs by combining evolutionary biology analyses and functional genomics. Results We obtained a high-resolution phased chromosome-scale reference genome with a contig N50 of 18.03 Mb for the Luchuan pig breed (a representative eastern breed) and profiled potential selective sweeps in eastern and western pigs by resequencing the genomes of 234 pigs. Multi-tissue transcriptome and chromatin accessibility analyses of these regions suggest that tissue-specific selection pressure is mediated by promoters and distal cis-regulatory elements. Promoter variants that are associated with increased expression of the lysozyme (LYZ) gene in the small intestine might enhance the immunity of the gastrointestinal tract and roughage tolerance in pigs. In skeletal muscle, an enhancer-modulating single-nucleotide polymorphism that is associated with up-regulation of the expression of the troponin C1, slow skeletal and cardiac type (TNNC1) gene might increase the proportion of slow muscle fibers and affect meat quality. Conclusions Our work sheds light on the molecular mechanisms by which non-coding variants shape phenotypic differences in pigs and provides valuable resources and novel perspectives to dissect the role of gene regulatory evolution in animal domestication and breeding.

Snow is an important driver of ecosystem processes in cold biomes. Snow accumulation determines ground temperature, light conditions, and moisture availability during winter. It also affects the growing season’s start and end, and plant access to moisture and nutrients. Here, we review the current knowledge of the snow cover’s role for vegetation, plant-animal interactions, permafrost conditions, microbial processes, and biogeochemical cycling. We also compare studies of natural snow gradients with snow experimental manipulation studies to assess time scale difference of these approaches. The number of tundra snow studies has increased considerably in recent years, yet we still lack a comprehensive overview of how altered snow conditions will affect these ecosystems. Specifically, we found a mismatch in the timing of snowmelt when comparing studies of natural snow gradients with snow manipulations. We found that snowmelt timing achieved by snow addition and snow removal manipulations (average 7.9 days advance and 5.5 days delay, respectively) were substantially lower than the temporal variation over natural spatial gradients within a given year (mean range 56 days) or among years (mean range 32 days). Differences between snow study approaches need to be accounted for when projecting snow dynamics and their impact on ecosystems in future climates.

In the post-Cold War neoliberal moment of the mid-1990s, Safari Club International's (SCI) nascent but now defunct 'African Chapter' published a Strategic Plan for Africa. Its aim was to secure the "greatest hunting grounds in the world" for access by SCI's hunting membership, the core of which is based in the United States. In advocating private sector-led trophy hunting under the umbrella of the SCI "market place", the plan supported an archetypal mode of 'green extractivism': killing indigenous African mammals and exporting body parts as hunting trophies was justified as 'green' by claiming this elite and arguably 'neocolonial' extraction of animals is essential for wildlife conservation. Already in 1996 SCI deflected scrutiny of this form of 'green extractivism' through promoting a view that any critique of this putative 'green hunting' should itself be dismissed as 'neocolonial.' This discursive twist remains evident in a moment in which trophy hunting is receiving renewed attention as countries such as the UK attempt to write trophy import bans into legislation. I engage with these politicized claims and counter-claims to foreground the lack of neutrality permeating trophy hunting discourse. I work with recent political ecology engagements with 'post-truth politics' to unpack SCI-supported advocacy for using accusations of 'neocolonialism' to counter critique of the neocolonial dimensions of trophy-hunting; showing how elite and greened extractivism through recreational access to land and African fauna is thereby consolidated. I draw on case material from Namibia – a country exhibiting stark inequalities of land and income distribution alongside a thriving trophy hunting industry – to explore how extracted 'green value' from 'conservation hunting' may shore up, rather than refract, neocolonial inequalities.

Mapping new administrative domains for integrating conservation and development, and defining rights in terms of both new policy and the citizenry governed thereby, have been central to postcolonial neoliberal environmental governance programmes known as Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM). Examples now abound of the complex, ambiguous and sometimes contested outcomes of CBNRM initiatives and processes. In this paper I draw on archival, oral history and ethnographic material for north-west Namibia, particularly in relation to indigenous Khoekhoegowab-speaking Damara / ǂNūkhoen and ǁUbun peoples, to explore two issues. First, I highlight the significance of historical colonial and apartheid contexts generating mapped reorganisations of land and human populations for memories of access and use that exceed these reorganisations. Second, I foreground a nexus of conceptual, constitutive and affective relationships with lands now bounded as CBNRM administrative units or ‘conservancies’ that have tended to be disrupted through both past events and as economising neoliberal governance approaches have taken hold in this context. Acknowledging disjunctions in conceptions and experiences of people-land relationships may assist with understanding who and what is amplified or diminished in contemporary globalising trajectories in neoliberal environmental governance. In particular, oral histories recording individual experiences in-depth, especially those of elderly people prompted by return to remembered places of past dwelling, can historicise and deepen recognition of complex cultural landscapes that today carry high conservation value.

This introductory paper outlines the conceptual framework and case studies comprising the research project Disrupted Histories, Recovered Pasts. Our project proposes a cross-disciplinary analysis and cross-case synthesis of experience and memory in post-conflict and postcolonial contexts. In the post- conflict and colonial contexts of our cases, we see “disruption” as present in three senses: as the productive ways in which multiple experiences retrieved through oral histories may refract and revise historical analysis; as the happening histories of objectively disruptive events break the flow of individual and collective experience; and as a strategy for cross-disciplinary research to disrupt and democratise conventional understanding by drawing attention to occluded experiences. We also articulate “recovery” as polysemic: invoking retrieval of past experiences and the possibility for enhanced well-being through voicing memories that may have been suppressed, as well as attending to mismatches with public discourses about displaced groups and individual experience. Following an introduction to our conceptual approach, we summarise our case-research. We have conducted oral history and archival research in multiple contexts, from disciplinary bases in anthropology and history. Our aim has been to interrogate relationships between oral histories and amateur histories with more formal written archives and historiography in a series of disrupted settings: evictions in colonial and apartheid west Namibia (SULLIVAN); memories and historical interpretations of the Egyptian Jewish diaspora (BAUSSANT); the evacuation of children in Second World War France (DODD); recent maritime exodus of migrants from Africa (OTELE); and rupture from a hegemonic imperial-nostalgic narrative in Portugal (DOS SANTOS). Our case research is complemented in the concluding paper of this Special Issue by systematic cross-case engagement, synthesis and theorisation of our case-study research.

This introductory paper outlines the conceptual framework and case studies comprising the research project Disrupted Histories, Recovered Pasts. Our project proposes a cross-disciplinary analysis and cross-case synthesis of experience and memory in post-conflict and postcolonial contexts. In the post- conflict and colonial contexts of our cases, we see “disruption” as present in three senses: as the productive ways in which multiple experiences retrieved through oral histories may refract and revise historical analysis; as the happening histories of objectively disruptive events break the flow of individual and collective experience; and as a strategy for cross-disciplinary research to disrupt and democratise conventional understanding by drawing attention to occluded experiences. We also articulate “recovery” as polysemic: invoking retrieval of past experiences and the possibility for enhanced well-being through voicing memories that may have been suppressed, as well as attending to mismatches with public discourses about displaced groups and individual experience. Following an introduction to our conceptual approach, we summarise our case-research. We have conducted oral history and archival research in multiple contexts, from disciplinary bases in anthropology and history. Our aim has been to interrogate relationships between oral histories and amateur histories with more formal written archives and historiography in a series of disrupted settings: evictions in colonial and apartheid west Namibia (SULLIVAN); memories and historical interpretations of the Egyptian Jewish diaspora (BAUSSANT); the evacuation of children in Second World War France (DODD); recent maritime exodus of migrants from Africa (OTELE); and rupture from a hegemonic imperial-nostalgic narrative in Portugal (DOS SANTOS). Our case research is complemented in the concluding paper of this Special Issue by systematic cross-case engagement, synthesis and theorisation of our case-study research.

The project ‘Disrupted Histories, Recovered Pasts’ forming the focus of this Special Issue has researched biographical experiences that have undergone a rupture as a result of brutal political, social and/or economic changes, linked especially with war, colonization/decolonization, migration and exile. These personal biographical experiences have tended to find themselves on the margins of national and/or academic historical narratives. In this final paper of our Special Issue we share the open-ended process of co-production, cross-case learning, and synthesis that accompanied case research, focusing especially on our systematic cross-case engagement, which involved sharing and theorising content and experiences across our case-studies, and the commonalities and differences we identified across our case-studies through this process. We outline the steps we took in this process to sharing what we know, find ‘points of articulation’ across our case-studies and to identify themes emerging across our research.

Mapping new administrative domains for integrating conservation and development, and defining rights in terms of both new policy and the citizenry governed thereby, have been central to postcolonial neoliberal environmental governance programmes known as Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM). Examples now abound of the complex, ambiguous and sometimes contested outcomes of CBNRM initiatives and processes. In this paper I draw on archival, oral history and ethnographic material for north-west Namibia, particularly in relation to indigenous Khoekhoegowab-speaking Damara / ǂNūkhoe and ǁUbu peoples, to explore two issues. First, I highlight the significance of historical colonial and apartheid contexts generating mapped reorganisations of land and human populations for memories of access and use that exceed these reorganisations. Second, I foreground a nexus of conceptual, constitutive and affective relationships with lands now bounded as CBNRM administrative units or ‘conservancies’ that have tended to be disrupted through both past events and as economising neoliberal governance approaches have taken hold in this context. Acknowledging disjunctions in conceptions and experiences of people-land relationships may assist with understanding who and what is amplified or diminished in contemporary globalising trajectories in neoliberal environmental governance. In particular, oral histories recording individual experiences in-depth, especially those of elderly people prompted by return to remembered places of past dwelling, can historicise and deepen recognition of complex cultural landscapes that today carry high conservation value.

The project ‘Disrupted Histories, Recovered Pasts’ forming the focus of this Special Issue has researched biographical experiences that have undergone a rupture as a result of brutal political, social and/or economic changes, linked especially with war, colonization/decolonization, migration and exile. These personal biographical experiences have tended to find themselves on the margins of national and/or academic historical narratives. In this final paper of our Special Issue we share the open-ended process of co-production, cross-case learning, and synthesis that accompanied case research, focusing especially on our systematic cross-case engagement, which involved sharing and theorising content and experiences across our case-studies, and the commonalities and differences we identified across our case-studies through this process. We outline the steps we took in this process to sharing what we know, find ‘points of articulation’ across our case-studies and to identify themes emerging across our research.

Background: The Tracks survey of people who inject drugs (PWID) collected data in 14 sentinel sites across Canada (2017–2019). These findings describe the prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis C and associated risk behaviours among Indigenous participants. Methods: Information regarding socio-demographics, social determinants of health, use of prevention services and testing, drug use, risk behaviours, and HIV and hepatitis C testing, care and treatment was collected through interviewer-administered questionnaires. Biological samples were tested for HIV, hepatitis C antibodies and hepatitis C ribonucleic acid (RNA). Descriptive statistics were calculated and reviewed by an Indigenous-led advisory group using the Two-Eyed Seeing approach. Results: Of the 2,383 participants, 997 were Indigenous (82.9% First Nations, 14.9% Métis, 2.2% Inuit). Over half (54.5%) were cisgender male and the average age was 38.9 years. A large proportion (84.0%) reported their mental health as “fair to excellent”. High proportions experienced stigma and discrimination (90.2%) and physical, sexual and/or emotional abuse in childhood (87.5%) or with a sexual partner (78.6%). Use of a needle/syringe distribution program (90.5%) and testing for HIV (87.9%) and hepatitis C (87.8%) were high. Prevalence of HIV was 15.4% (78.2% were aware of infection status) and 36.4% were hepatitis C RNA-positive (49.4% were aware of infection status). Conclusion: High rates of HIV and hepatitis C were identified. Challenges in access to and maintenance of HIV and hepatitis C care and treatment were noted. This information informs harm reduction strategies, including the need to scale-up awareness of prophylaxis in a culturally relevant manner.

Contexte : L’enquête Track auprès des utilisateurs de drogues injectables a permis de recueillir des données dans quatorze sites sentinelles au Canada (2017 à 2019). Ces résultats décrivent la prévalence du virus de l’immunodéficience humaine (VIH), de l’hépatite C et des comportements à risque associés à ceux-ci chez les participants autochtones. Méthodes : Des informations sur les caractéristiques sociodémographiques, les déterminants sociaux de la santé, le recours aux services de prévention et au dépistage, la consommation de drogues, les comportements à risque, ainsi que le dépistage, les soins et le traitement du VIH et de l’hépatite C ont été recueillies par l’entremise de questionnaires administrés par un intervieweur. Les échantillons biologiques ont été analysés pour y détecter la présence d’anticorps anti-VIH et anti-hépatite C et l’acide ribonucléique (ARN) de l’hépatite C. Les statistiques descriptives ont été calculées et examinées par un groupe consultatif dirigé par des autochtones, selon l’approche à double perspective (Two-Eyed Seeing). Résultats : Parmi les 2 383 participants, 997 étaient des autochtones (82,9 % étaient des membres des Premières Nations, 14,9 % étaient des Métis et 2,2 % étaient des Inuits). Plus de la moitié (54,5 %) étaient des hommes cisgenres et l’âge moyen était de 38,9 ans. Une grande proportion (84,0 %) des participants ont déclaré que leur santé mentale était de « passable excellente ». Une forte proportion d’entre eux ont été victimes de stigmatisation et de discrimination (90,2 %) ainsi que de violences physiques, sexuelles et/ou psychologiques durant l’enfance (87,5 %) ou de la part d’un partenaire sexuel (78,6 %). Un pourcentage élevé d’entre eux ont déclaré utiliser un programme de distribution de seringues (90,5 %) et avoir été dépisté pour le VIH (87,9 %) et l’hépatite C (87,8 %). La prévalence du VIH était de 15,4 % (78,2 % d’entre eux avaient connaissance de leur statut infectieux) et 36,4 % d’entre eux étaient séropositifs pour l’ARN de l’hépatite C (49,4 % d’entre eux avaient connaissance de leur statut infectieux). Conclusion : L’enquête a révélé des taux élevés de VIH et d’hépatite C. Elle a également révélé des défis liés à l’accès et au maintien des soins et des traitements liés au VIH et à l’hépatite C. Ces renseignements éclairent les stratégies de réduction des méfaits, y compris la nécessité d’accroître la sensibilisation à la prophylaxie d’une manière culturellement pertinente.

This empirical study examines intensive interview data collected from eight (N=8) former members of white supremacist organizations in order to understand the meanings of exit – that is, disengagement and deradicalization – from the extremist’s perspective. Using a thematic analysis approach, our findings build on the distinction in the existing exit literature between push and pull factors and the process of role exit identified by Ebaugh (1988). These push and pull factors as well as social identity, we argue, are subsumed within a complex exit process, which includes disengagement, identity deconstruction, and transgressive and transitional relationships. For some, this process culminated in an accomplished identity reconstruction and deradicalization. Most importantly, our findings suggest that exit is linked to entry by a developmental drive that we call the participant’s core need. The core need was the background motivator of entry, disengagement, exit, and ultimately deradicalization. We think that this identity reconfiguration and core needs framework may help make heterogenous exit trajectories that have remained puzzling for researchers more understandable.

Abstract: This article examines the range of religious embroideries produced in Moldavia during the fifteenth century, and especially in the decades after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. These church embroideries offer iconographies, styles, and techniques that both continued and adapted Byzantine artistic traditions and image types. The objects under consideration consist of liturgical vestments and veils, as well as tomb covers that reveal through their iconography, style, and execution the sophistication of late medieval Moldavian workshops and the aspirations and concerns of the royal patrons who commissioned them. Through visual and technical analyses of select Moldavian religious embroideries from the fifteenth century, this study exposes some of the ways in which Byzantine artistic and iconographic traditions of church embroidery were perpetuated and transformed at the Moldavian court in the crucible of the post‑1453 world.

This is the video of the talk that was given by Kari Sullivan on Monday, December 14, 2020

Namibia's internationally acclaimed CBNRM program depends to a large extent on revenues generated from the trophy hunting of wild animals. The model is an important example of an increasingly 'neoliberal' global policy framework as applied to biodiversity conservation, its market-based approach and attendant socio-ecological effects having received in-depth engagement and critique from a political ecology perspective.Yet there remains a lack of detailed research concerning how these programs and their value frames are operationalized in practice. The article attempts to advance this literature through an empirical exploration of practices undertaken by diverse actors that work to produce and extract value from 'wild' natures, specifically elephants for 'conservation hunting' in Namibian communal-area conservancies. Conceptually, the article also contributes to an emerging body of work seeking to 'ecologise' political ecology, exploring the co-optation of lively elephants and other beyond-human entities in the production of economic value. 'Following' the elephant's interactions with other living entities, the article reveals the (non)human work and social practices that together 'labor' to produce commodified elephants that can be killed as trophies. We argue that 'undesirable encounters' such as crop raiding by elephants are both indicative of unequal power relations amongst CBNRM stakeholders and central to (re)producing dominant (neoliberal) value frames. The animal's spontaneous activities are co-opted into technocratic governance practices that legitimize the killing of elephants on environmental and economic grounds. In opening up the contested,contingent, and more-than-human nature of these social-ecological relations we also hope to contribute to possibilities for imagining more equitable and ecologically resilient conservation futures.

O presente artigo estuda o problema proposto no âmbito da Ação Direta de Inconstitucionalidade nº 4439, de autoria da Procuradoria Geral da República. Versa a demanda a respeito do polêmico acordo entre o Estado brasileiro e a Santa Sé, que consiste na expressão categórica pela via do Decreto Legislativo que o ensino religioso católico constitui disciplina regular de matrícula facultativa no ensino fundamental das escolas públicas. O parquet argumenta que tal situação vai de encontro ao ditame constitucional da laicidade estatal e aponta descompasso frente a configuração plural do direito à educação constitucionalmente delineada. Após considerações doutrinárias, foi possível concluir que a laicidade aparece como limite à interferência estatal no âmbito da intimidade-autonomia da pessoa, daí a necessidade de um ensino religioso não-confessional. Na ausência de um plano pedagógico que comporte um ensino plural, não há o que falar na possibilidade de oferta da disciplina.

Abstract Contemporary market-based (i.e. neoliberal) 'green economy' approaches to environmental degradation emphasise exchanges whereby quantified units of environmental harm are traded or 'offset' for compensating units of environmental health. Also encouraged is a view that economic growth can be 'greened' through 'decoupling' economic value from material ecological realities. Such approaches tend to frame biophysical natures in terms of aggregates, such as an 'aggregate natural capital rule' and 'net zero carbon.' Naturesbeyond-the-human are thereby understood and enacted as calculable, exchangeable, substitutable and commensurable between different spatial and temporal sites, making up an 'aggregate' or 'net' value overall. This article uses a comparative cross-cultural engagement to problematize ontological assumptions regarding the nature of nature underscoring the rationality of these aggregating and offsetting 'solutions.' Drawing on literatures from environmental anthropology and environmental ethics, combined with ethnographic material from long-term field research in north-west Namibia, the article considers elements of alternative cultural ontologies and the ways these may give rise to a different array of practices with value for conceiving and generating 'sustainability.' It adheres to a critical political ecology perspective in understanding the ways that power structures the ontologies that become both privileged and occluded in neoliberal strategies for green economy governance. In doing so, the article argues that sensitivity to the ontological politics through which spaces and entities are defined and known and which thereby shape environmental conflicts, may be key to recognising with more depth the sometimes significantly different 'natures' being struggled over in such conflicts. Key words: ontology; green economy; offsetting; decoupling; sustainability; value; natures-beyond-thehuman; neoliberalism; political ecology

Dans cet article, nous étudions la figure de la sorcière dans Moi, Tituba sorcière… de Maryse Condé afin de voir comment elle dialogue avec les discours postcoloniaux et féministes de l’époque. Nous analysons d’abord l’intertextualité construit dans le roman avec la pièce d’Arthur Miller Les sorcières de Salem en regardant comment Condé transforme les événements qui ont eu lieu à Salem en 1692 et comment elle réhabilite le personnage de Tituba. Nous nous penchons ensuite sur la figure de la sorcière et des marginaux dans le texte en vue de comprendre sa construction protéiforme et ses points de contact avec les discours ambiants.

Alkalinity and groundwater CO2 have increased linearly from 1991–2017 at the Konza Prairie Biological Station (KPBS), a tallgrass prairie research site in northeastern Kansas. The projected increase in groundwater alkalinity (as HCO3-) and CO2 based on an earlier trend was confirmed in 2016, with predictions nearly equal to recent values (e.g., 408 ppm vs 410 ppm as HCO3-, respectively). Both the water balance and groundwater CO2 trends within the study watershed could be impacted by long-term changes in land use and climate: 1) encroachment of woody vegetation (1983–2012) as a result of the 4-year fire return interval, 2) re-introduction of bison (phased in, 1994–2006), 3) increases in air temperature, and 4) changes in precipitation patterns. If only linear processes are driving the observed water chemistry changes, then the linear increase in air temperature (1983–2017) that stimulates soil respiration may be the most likely factor enhancing groundwater HCO3- and CO2, as air temperature has risen ~1 to 1.4°C over 34 years. If groundwater chemistry is driven by more threshold behaviour, woody encroachment, which was linear but in three distinct phases, may drive groundwater chemistry. The ~2 to 3‰ decrease in the discontinuous δ13C data in the groundwater-dominated stream suggests enhanced inputs of microbially-respired labile carbon, CO2 sourced from C3 (woody vegetation), or a combination of the two.

Technology transfer is recognised as playing a central and critical role in the global response to climate change, as embodied in the Unite Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). However, technology transfer is a complex process, and despite numerous attempts to prescribe approaches to optimisation, there remain serious obstacles to its effective operation. The breadth of technologies and range of would-be recipient territories under the climate change regime serve to complicate things even further. Against this background, the Expert Group on Technology Transfer have produced a robust Strategy, which it will now fall to the Technology Mechanism announced in Cancun to implement. However, despite the rigour with which the technology transfer strategy was produced, it is never possible to cover all possible eventualities. It is on this basis that this article presents a number of tactical and strategic issues which may merit further consideration as the implementation process moves forward. At the operational level, such issues include a possible role for a centralised or regional technology procurement effort, the need for greater emphasis on sectoral specific approaches to technology transfer, and a pragmatic approach to reducing the impact of some barriers to transactions by the expedient use of insurance to reduce risk, as opposed to the longer term approach of international standardisation. At the strategic level, there are major issues with regard to prioritisation of resources applied to technology transfer, and in particular the resolution of the tensions existing between achieving sustainable development and the time critical need to achieve climate stabilisation.

Ecocriticism emphasizes how our bodily and ecological boundaries are just as porous,inter-penetrable, and open as are our cultural and linguistic realms. As individual bodiesand communities, we are fully immersed in our material environment and participating inconstant exchanges of matter and energy. In this essay, I nevertheless advocate for acautious approach to the ecocritical question of contested boundaries. After all, someboundaries and membranes are necessary to maintain living organisms. RegardingTimothy Morton’s assertion that we are “radically open,” I note the need for stable andhealthy membranes to sustain life, such as our porous yet enclosed intestines. I proposea multi-pronged perspective using the literary model of Goethe’s famously sentimentalWerther, who longs to merge with nature and become an insect, in juxtaposition with hisdeeply ironic Triumph of Sentimentality, which satirizes the Werther-like figure, PrinceOronaro, who wants to keep nature safely in a box. From the relationship of these twotexts emerges an “ironic Werther,” a model for ecocriticism. Werther’s and Morton’s“openness” are juxtaposed with Oronaro’s boxes, allowing for an open/closedperspective that resonates with “unbalanced nature” more broadly. Ecologicallyspeaking, all boundaries fade in the long-term, cosmic view; yet short-term boundariesallow a steady-state existence far from equilibrium, that is, they allow life to exist.Nature’s long term unbalance brings change and evolution, even as short-term bodieslive, reproduce, die, and continue the process. This essay rejects the notion ofharmonious nature and proposes instead a dynamic, multi-pronged view both ironic andserious, both literary and scientific, both open and closed; above all, it suggests thatthinking “nature in a box” might remind us that we, too, are nature and need some limitsas we hubristically alter our world.

A short introductory essay

Current market-based approaches to environmental governance for conservation and sustainability tend to disaggregate non-human natures into discrete units to which ‘value’ can attach, and release these new units into markets of circulating commodities so that through market circulation they can accrue more ‘value’. As Bram Büscher and Jim Igoe describe and theorise in Nature on the Move I and II, new techno-configurations of nature permit its agitated financialised circulation in emerging environmental markets, and the gathering of more monetised value through proliferating product exchanges. The new ‘value entities’ with which these circulations are associated require abstractions of nature’s immanent aliveness so as to manufacture and make commensurable tradable products deemed representative of nature health and harm. Through these de- and re-territorialisations of nature, ‘value’ may be created for some but arguably pathology is enhanced for all. These abstractions proliferate a nature that is distant and transcendent, at the same time as tuning out the communiqués of other(ed) sustainability practices and socionature experiences. My contribution in this third panel of our ‘Nature on the Move’ triptych, then, is an experiment in bringing into the frame, conceptually at least, connective and ecological possibilities associated with animist ‘amodern’ ontologies. I develop ethnographic and theoretical explorations of what might be implicated ecologically and politically by a milieu of immanent embodied ecologies, enfolded in an epistemological and ontological project of ‘becoming-animist’. ‘Becoming-animist’ is a normative move for the refraction of our current disconnective and virtualising impasse in both the theory and practice of socio-ecological relationships, and as such is worthy of serious intellectual, political and ethical engagement.

When Monsanto attempted to release transgenic wheat in the upper Midwest of the U.S., localization efforts to accommodate stakeholders were unsuccessful. This paper explores this break down, focusing on the rhetoric of a group of people who attempted to establish protocols that would make co-existence between transgenic and organic producers possible. Their goal was to document best management practices that would satisfy both parties. The case points to the need for co-existence groups of this kind, but also indicates that there is still much we need to learn about negotiating controversial technology.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the degree to which psychosocial risk factor reduction was associated with the return to work. This study was carried out in the context of a rehabilitation program for workers who had suffered a back injury. The participants were 116 Nova Scotia WCB claimants (68 men, 48 women) who had made a claim for an industrial accident. The participants were oriented towards a cognitive behavioral intervention whose purpose was to reduce psychological obstacles to rehabilitation. The psychosocial risk factors targeted by the program included pain catastrophizing, fear of movement, beliefs about disability, and depression. In this sample, 56 % of the participants returned to work within four weeks of treatment termination. Pre- to post-treatment comparisons revealed significant reductions in pain, depression, catastrophizing, perceived disability, and fear of movement. Univariate analyses revealed that reductions in all risk factors were associated with a higher probability of a return to work. Logistic regression revealed that only the duration of work disability and the reduction in pain catastrophizing contributed solely to the prediction of a return to work. The results of the present study provide preliminary evidence that the reduction of psychosocial risk factors related to chronicity may have a positive impact on the probability of returning to work.