New spaces for water justice?:Groundwater extraction and changing gendered subjectivities in Morocco's Saïss region

Over the last few decades, changing tenure relations and modernizing agricultural policies have intensified groundwater use and altered cropping patterns in Morocco's Saïss region. Water-intensive crops are sold on regional, national and international markets, producing new material and cultural linkages between hitherto unconnected life worlds, re-shaping socio-natural relations, opening up new possibilities of living and being but also closing off old ones. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork the chapter describes and analyzes these changes and interrogates them from a feminist-justice perspective in order to tease out how prevailing gendered ways of being, working and relating shape and are shaped by new agricultural and groundwater dynamics, in ways that are not always straightforward. This chapter argues that groundwater abstraction and gender relations co-constitute each other: one cannot be comprehended without the other. Complex intersections of class, generation and gender mingle with existing ways of doing agriculture, while new policy directions and market opportunities contingently produce a range of possible farming and water-use configurations. Each configuration comes with different gender arrangements - different options for relating and performing as men or as women. The chapter presents some of these configurations and arrangements, based on people's everyday experiences and engagements with changing groundwater dynamics.</p

A postcolonial museum?:Legacies of colonial histories in museum exhibitions in Europe, Africa, North America, and the Caribbean

This study explores museum exhibitions of colonial histories through a tripartite approach by examining the relationship between the institution of the museum, the displayed objects, and the visitors’ experiences and perspectives. My main research question is: how are colonial histories represented in museum exhibitions in Europe, Africa, North America, and the Caribbean? In this study, I attempt to answer this question through a comparative analysis of different case studies of museum exhibitions across several colonial geographies within the trans-Atlantic trading route: The Netherlands (The Rijksmuseum and the Tropenmuseum), Curaçao (the Kura Hulanda Museum), England (the International Slavery Museum and the Museum of London), Ghana (Cape Coast Castle), and the United States of America (the National Museum of African American History and Culture). My analysis of these case studies focuses on concepts pertinent to museum exhibitions such as ‘representation’, ‘meaning-making’, and ‘visitor experience’ connected to several issues around inclusiveness, identity formation, trauma, and diasporic memory. This study yields extensive insights and understandings of museum exhibitions in relation to new museological values, a maximisation of multiple meaning-making or a construction of meaning from a local perspective, and a consideration of suitable museum pedagogy and experience in distinctive colonial geographies. It argues that a better connection between museums and contemporary debates of colonialism can be found through the imagination of the (im-)possibility of the construction of a postcolonial museum, the development of people-oriented and narrative-based exhibitions, and through a bottom-up system of representation that allows communities and visitors to co-create exhibitions

How matters:End-of-life communication with family members of critically ill neonates, children, and adults

End-of-life decisions, more specifically decisions about whether to continue or discontinue the patient’s life-sustaining treatment, are among the most difficult decisions to make. Decision-making is emotionally overwhelming and complex for all involved in the communication- and decision-making process, especially when it concerns life and death decisions for another human being. These situations confront healthcare providers and family members of critically ill patients with the limitations of medical possibilities and human knowledge. In these situations, there is no way out but rather only a way through. As such, how matters.How physicians and family members of critically ill patients together make end-of-life decisions, how they communicate about these decisions, and how physicians learn to conduct such complex end-of-life conversations, can significantly impact the experiences and outcomes for patients, family members, and healthcare providers. In this thesis, we therefore obtained in-depth insights into end-of-life communication- and decision-making practices in intensive care units. We aimed to increase knowledge and awareness of how physicians actually communicate with the family members of critically ill neonates, children, and adults during real-life end-of-life conversations. Additionally, we explored how physicians perceive their own communication and how they (wish to) learn to communicate with family members of critically ill patients in end-of-life conversations. Based on our overall conclusions, we propose three ‘shifts’ in communication. We also propose corresponding learning methods, to not only move toward effective end-of-life communication with families but also to move toward a valuing communication culture in intensive care medicine

Ecowijze kinderen in de bres voor sociaal-politieke stabiliteit. De verwevenheid van het natuurlijke en het gecreëerde in achttiende-eeuwse kinderboeken

From a Dutch as well as an international perspective, eighteenth-century children’s books have received little attention from ecocritically inspired scholars so far, despite of the fact that these books structurally reflect relationships between human beings and their natural environment. I argue that these relationships are often depicted as ambiguous: human beings are connected to their environment because of both their resemblances and vital differences. Specifically focusing on two Dutch children’s books – Willem Emmery de Perponcher’s (1741-1819) Onderwijs voor kinderen (1782) and Johan Hendrik Swildens’ (1746-1809) Vaderlandsch A-B Boek voor de Nederlandsche Jeugd (1781) – I demonstrate that this ambivalent discourse fits into the didactical ambition to nurture citizens who were able to reflect on their social and political conditions and could actively contribute to socio-political improvement. De Perponcher and Swildens helped young readers to reflect on their position in a wider ecosystem, in which human beings, animals and nature exist in an equilibrium. As this equilibrium was implied to be a crucial precondition for the political social and economic harmony in Dutch society, the future stability of the ‘fatherland’ was imagined to be dependent on the ‘ecoliteracy’ of new generations: the skills to ‘read’ and understand the world as an organic whole in which everything is interconnected

Introduction to Travelling Islam

At the core of this special issue, Travelling Islam: The Circulation of Ideas in Africa, lies the editors’ fascination with the circulation of ideas by means of African languages, texts and people in and from Islamic Africa. It draws inspiration from a previous work on “Travelling Texts Beyond the West,” co-edited by Clarissa Vierke and Annachiara Raia. Further input has been provided by a workshop organised in 2020 with the generous support of lucis (Leiden University Centre of Islam in Society) and in cooperation with colleagues from the African Studies Centre Leiden, its collaborative research group ‘Africa in the World: Rethinking Africa’s Global Connections,’ and the neh Ajami Project

Blood biomarkers and cardiac surveillance in childhood cancer survivors

Children who have had cancer and were treated with anthracyclines or radiotherapy on the heart are at an increased risk of developing heart failure. Currently, survivors of childhood cancer at higher risk undergo periodic surveillance with an echocardiogram to detect and treat early signs of heart failure. In this thesis, Jan Leerink has utilized data from the national LATER2 cohort to investigate blood biomarkers that could improve the surveillance for heart failure. Additionally, in collaboration with international colleagues, Leerink has developed a revised guideline for cardiomyopathy surveillance in survivors of childhood cancer. The thesis offers new perspectives for the long-term follow-up after childhood cancer

Neutrophils in the spotlight:In dendritic cell-driven adaptive immunity

The daily challenge of dodging pathogenic infections is carried out by the two arms of our immune system: the innate and the adaptive immune system. Innate immune cells, like neutrophils and dendritic cells (DCs), form the first line of defense against invading pathogens. Neutrophils are the most abundant cell type of the innate immune system and they can directly kill invading pathogens, a non-specific and rapid response. DCs are important orchestrators of adaptive immune responses, by adequately activating them, while maintaining immune tolerance against autoantigens and harmless antigens, e.g., dietary nutrients. The induction of peripheral tolerance by DCs and how neutrophils are able to shape DC-driven T cell development is explained. The current knowledge on the effects of tolerogenic adjuvants vitamin D3 (VD3), vitamin A-derivative retinoic acid (RA) and corticosteroid dexamethasone (DEX) on both DCs and neutrophils is described. In this thesis, we investigated the effects of these adjuvants on neutrophils and on DC-driven T cell development. We demonstrate that tolerogenic adjuvants VD3 and RA that could be used in DC-targeting therapies inhibit T helper 17 cell development, while they can also directly affect neutrophils. While DEX shows inhibitory effects on the function of stimulated neutrophils, RA increases neutrophil function. Therefore, we envision that combining a tolerogenic adjuvant-loaded DC-targeting nanoparticle with DEX treatment could be a valuable treatment strategy for patients with chronic inflammatory diseases. This treatment would promote a tolerogenic adaptive immune response while reducing the harmful effects of neutrophils as seen in some autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis

New mechanisms of gene regulation in inherited cardiac disease:Balance and circles

The non-coding part of the genome accounts for the majority of our DNA. In inherited cardiac diseases, where a pathogenic variant is often found in a particular gene, the high variability in disease expression and reduced penetrance points at other players besides the gene with the pathogenic variant. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have revealed that the majority of common variants associated with disease traits lay in non-coding regions of the genome, which indicates that non-coding DNA functionality could explain part of the disease variability. In this thesis, we aimed to uncover new mechanisms of gene regulation in inherited cardiac diseases focusing on the non-coding part of the genome.The first part of this thesis focuses on LQT1 and how the fine-tuned regulation of KCNQ1 expression in the presence of a heterozygous pathogenic variant determines disease severity. We identified a regulatory region in intron 1 of KCNQ1 that regulates KCNQ1 expression in an allele-specific manner and contains common variants that affect QTc duration in an allele and sex-dependent manner in LQT1 patients. Furthermore, we use synthetic non-coding RNAs to suppress the mutant KCNQ1 allele by targeting common variants in KCNQ1 as a versatile strategy to treat LQT1. In the second part of this thesis, we investigate the role of a new class of non-coding RNAs, circular RNAs (circRNAs), in cardiac homeostasis and disease. We focus on circRNAs derived from TTN, which is the most commonly mutated gene in inherited cardiac diseases. We revealed the importance of TTN-derived circRNAs in regulating the proper expression and splicing of key cardiac genes in vitro and in vivo. This thesis contributes to broadening our knowledge of the functions of the non-coding genome in inherited cardiac diseases

The human cost of development:Situating development-induced displacement in international human rights law

Development-induced displacement (DID)—a phenomenon where people are involuntarily moved from their homes or residences to make room for development projects—is one of the prominent causes of internal displacement affecting millions of people every year. DID can be caused by a range of small and large-scale development projects, such as the construction of dams, urban (re)development projects, and extraction of natural resources. While these development projects have significant economic potential, the involuntary displacement they often cause comes with a plethora of risks and consequences including, inter alia, loss of land, a decrease of income sources, lack of access to public services, and disruption of culture and way of life. These adverse consequences further interfere with and potentially violate a range of human rights, such as the right to housing, the right to property, the right to work, and the right to education. Moreover, DID and its adverse consequences often hit the hardest vulnerable and marginalized groups potentially perpetuating existing vulnerabilities and inequalities. Against this background, the current study seeks to situate DID and its adverse consequences in international human rights law. Using the human rights-based approach as a theoretical framework, it seeks to (re)frame the adverse consequences of DID as human rights issues and explore rights-based solutions to address these issues. The study will identify the pertinent human rights norms and assess their application in the context of DID. In doing so, it seeks to explore the human rights safeguards that need to be provided for people(s) affected by DID and the corresponding obligations of states. Overall, the objectives of this research are twofold, i.e. map out the existing international human rights law norms that apply to DID and assess the adequacy of these norms in addressing the adverse consequences and the salient features of DID

The mechanisms of cholestasis-associated itch

Itch is, next to fatigue, the most frequent symptom in patients with chronic cholestatic disorders and has serious impact on their lives. Cholestasis is the term for diminished or impaired bile flow. The molecular mechanisms leading to cholestasis-associated itch (pruritus) are still unresolved and the involved pruritogens are indecisive.Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) is a possible pruritogen in patients with cholestasis. LPA is produced out of lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) by the enzyme autotaxin (ATX). A significant correlation is present between ATX activity and itch intensity. During cholestasis, not only serum ATX levels are increased, but also serum bile salts and bile salt-like (cholephilic) compounds. The ATX protein contains a hydrophobic tunnel structure, which can bind different hormone-like structures and specific bile salts, leading to (partial) inhibition of the protein. The negative feedback regulation in the expression of the Atx gene is relieved by this inhibition, which can contribute to increased serum ATX activity in patients with cholestasis.In order to study cholestasis-associated itch, we measured scratch activity in different cholestatic mouse models. After induction of cholestasis and increasing serum ATX activity, no increase in scratch activity was observed.We screened diverted bile of patients with cholestasis-associated itch for specific compounds that are able to activate the (itch-) sensor TRPA1. HPODE, a metabolite of linoleic acid, is a TRPA1-specific pruritogen, but did not show a significant correlation with the itch score in cholestatic patients, indicating that a combination of pruritogens is needed to induce cholestasis-associated itch