JENNIFER E. TELESCA Planetary stewardship, I hope, is mindful of “it.” How we write about, talk about, teach about, scientifically render, develop policy for, and advocate on behalf of sea creatures matters at a time of mass extinction. Surely a living being cannot be “it.” Mere semantics this is not. Simple in approach, trim in … More Cultivating care for one of the ocean’s most majestic creatures
BY ALISON KENNER, PhDDrexel University When Cheryl Lansing discovered her asthma care app had disappeared from her smartphone, she was unsettled to say the least. Recommended by her health insurance company, Cheryl had used the care app several times a week for about three months before it faded into the sea of apps that had … More Can apps care for healthcare?
BY MATTHEW HAYESSt. Thomas University, New Brunswick What happens when North American retirement ideals of adventure and personal growth collide with the material realities of a Latin American city, going through a process of rapid urban growth spurred by rural-to-urban migration? This is a question I tried to answer in Gringolandia: Lifestyle Migration under Late … More Migration and global justice: North American economic migrants in Latin America
JOSHUA SBICCAAssistant professor of sociology at Colorado State University Congress is in the midst of reconciling the House and Senate versions of the 2018 Farm Bill. Time is short. On September 30, the current law expires. No matter what transpires it will still not be enough to fully regulate the food system. The public debate … More You cannot have a just farm bill and eat it too.
BY KATE VIEIRAUniversity of Wisconsin, Madison I am not an expert on the effects of the forcible separation of children from their parents. I believe the experts. I believe the American Association of Pediatrics president who says that the policy, in that it affects children’s brain chemistry, causes irreparable harm. I believe the scholars of … More ¿Cómo Ubico Mis Hijos? (How do I locate my children?)
BY THOMAS BIOLSIUniversity of California, Berkeley How should we make sense of “red states” and “blue states,” and in a way that does not fall victim to the political polarization that seems to have reached a crescendo in the present? My new book, Power and Progress on the Prairie, seeks to uncover the history of … More Governing the countryside: On modernity and progress in rural South Dakota.
BY DAMIEN SOJOYNERAssistant professor of anthropology, University of California, Irvine At the July 2014 Compton Unified School District (CUSD) board meeting, an ordinance was passed that paved the way for CUSD police officers to carry AR-15 semi-automatic rifles on school campuses. For those unfamiliar with the AR-15, it is a military-grade assault weapon that produces … More Enclosure-based rhetoric and fundamentals behind the school-to-prison pipeline
BY NICOLE NGUYENAssistant professor of social foundations of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago In 2015, the FBI launched the controversial website Don’t Be a Puppet: Pull Back the Curtain on Violent Extremism. Through interactive games, the playful website intends to prevent young people from embracing extremist beliefs. Don’t Be a Puppet also offers resources … More When Homeland Security goes to school
BY DEBBIE LISLESchool of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy at Queen’s University Belfast After the emergence of organized mass tourism in the mid-19th century, billions of people have indulged their desires to visit cultures, landscapes, and experiences different from their own. No place on the planet is immune to the tourist gaze: alongside familiar visits … More How tourism is deeply implicated in the antagonistic global structures that lead to war.
Photo courtesy of the author. BY ALEX V. BARNARDFood justice activist and doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley Whole Foods felt the wrath of the Twitter-sphere this month. The episode started with consumers questioning the company’s ethical bona-fides but, in the end, cast into doubt the effectiveness of “ethical consumerism” itself. … More On freegans, pre-peeled oranges, and ethical consumer ‘Whack-A-Mole’
