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The Nam Theun 2 dam is an influential case of applying safeguards to mitigate social and environmental impacts from hydropower, being used as a model for large dams globally. However, these safeguards have produced mixed results. We examine the role of safeguards in hydropower, and how stakeholders have discussed its use. Based on a literature review and stakeholder interviews, we conduct a discourse analysis of narratives used to frame hydropower. We find four discourses being used for different purposes: Green Neoliberalism to legitimize, Ecological Modernization to operationalize, Green Radicalism to criticize, and Radical Incrementalism to repurpose hydropower. Whereas green radicalism in high-income countries challenges over-consumption, we find that green radicalism in low-income countries highlights environmental justice and shortcomings of conventional development models. We argue for a broader understanding of discourses to include Radical Incrementalism as one strategy for change of careful and considered actions over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to critical policy analysis scholarship from a post-structuralism perspective. Employing the 'What's the problem represented to be' (WPR) framework, a Foucault-influenced post-structural approach, we investigate what is the problem of Gender Inequality (GI) represented to be in development in Burkina Faso. Based on systematic analysis of selected (inter)national development policy documents and in-depth stakeholder interviews, our results show two main categories of problem representations: a) local culture/ informal structures that strengthen and are strengthened by patriarchy, and b) women's weak agency that undermine their effective participation. These problem representations are framed from two different but overlapping standpoints: rights and development. Furthermore, the informal structures are presented as the source of the problem of GI while formal structures are portrayed as the solution. The underlying assumptions ignore the gendered impacts of history, colonial legacies, the interconnectedness and often-conflicting state policies and globalisation. Consequently, the problem of GI is depoliticised, rendered local, technical, and static. This deflects responsibility in solving the problem, limits local agency and the exploration of effective cultural and bottom-up policy responses. Alternatively, GI could be represented as a problem of structural unequal power relations – rather than a simplistic blame of local culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often said that poor rural households in developing countries remain inadequately insured against shocks. Using panel data from Tawahka Amerindians in the Honduran rainforest, a horticultural/foraging society, we estimate the consumption-smoothing ability and vulnerability to risks of 32 households in two villages with varying degrees of market openness. The information was collected using cultural anthropology methods, and key variables were estimated through direct observations and physical measures to reduce measurement errors. Results suggest that household consumption is directly affected by income shocks, despite the practice of partial insurance and risk-sharing within communities. In a comparison between the villages, we find evidence that households practice distinctly different consumption-smoothing behaviors, partly driven by their gap in economic development. Key words--informal insurance, safety nets, consumption smoothing, rainforest, Latin-America, Honduras, Tawahka

Themes of inclusion, empowerment, and participation are recurrent in development discourse and interventions, implying enablement of agency on the part of communities and individuals to inform and influence how policies that affect them are enacted. This article aims to contribute to debates on participation in rural development and environmental conservation, by applying a structure-agency lens to examine experiences of marginal farm households in three distinct systems of resource allocation in Lao PDR's northern uplands--in other words, three institutional or (in)formal structures. These comprise livelihood development and poverty reduction projects, maize contract farming, and a national protected area. Drawing on qualitative data from focus group discussions and household surveys, the article explores the degree to which farmers may shape their engagement with the different systems, and ways in which agency may be enabled or disabled by this engagement. Our findings show that although some development interventions provide consultative channels for expressing needs, these are often within limited options set from afar. The market-based maize system, while in some ways agency-enabling, also entailed narrow choices and heavy dependence on external actors. The direct regulation of the protected area system meanwhile risked separating policy decisions from existing local knowledge. Our analytical approach moves beyond notions of agency commonly focused on decision-making and/or resistance, and instead revisits the structure-agency dichotomy to build a nuanced understanding of people's lived experiences of interventions. This allows for fresh perspectives on the everyday enablement or disablement of agency, aiming to support policy that is better grounded in local realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We extend the Actor-Centred Power framework to consider dimensions beyond the life of community natural resource management partnership initiatives by examining social forestry partnership projects in Indonesia. We do this by examining how power constellations realign across the temporal phases that operationalize project partnerships. We propose a sequential power analysis framework that examines power in three parts. The framework first proposes a method for historicizing actors into their power background. Second, we present mode for examining the arrival of a partnership scheme, which we call the power delivery phase. Third, we highlight approaches for examining the way power relations are adjusted, whether reinforced or reconfigured, by introducing an approach for examining programmatic outcomes of social forestry partnership schemes. This article thus provides broadly applicable but targeted guide for the researchers collecting data and seeking to make sense of power relations on community forest partnership schemes in various contexts. This framework is particularly useful for analysing equity and justice dimensions by highlighting who benefits and who loses.•Sequential Power Analysis (SPA) methodology is rooted in interest based and historical power framework.•SPA is consisted of three parts: power background, power delivery, and power adjustment•SPA framing provides a protocol for researchers to collect data., (© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Objective: To examine the role of fetal size in neonatal clavicular fracture., Study Design: A retrospective, case-control study was performed on infants diagnosed with neonatal clavicular fractures and born vaginally between July 1997 and June 2000. For each index case, a control matched for gestational age (within one week) and birth weight (within 250 g) and delivered within the same 24-hour period was selected at random from the delivery suite registry. The maternal and intrapartum factors were compared and the results analyzed according to whether the infants were large for gestational age (LGA) or not., Results: Among 9,540 neonates delivered vaginally during this period, 151 (1.6%) had a fractured clavicle. Multivariate analysis indicated that the independent risk factors were shoulder dystocia and vacuum extraction. When analyzed according to fetal size, shoulder dystocia was significant only for LGA infants, while vacuum extraction was significant only for non-LGA infants., Conclusion: Independent risk factors for neonatal clavicular fracture are related to fetal size.