Review Essay: Diplomatic Material: Affect, Assemblage, and Foreign Policy by Jason Dittmer, and The Microbial State: Global Thriving and the Body Politics by Stefanie R. Fishel

No abstract available

Pre-inspection Mauritania Bivalve Mollusks Food Safety April 20-24th 2008

Mauritania is working on the completion of a Food Safety Program for Bivalve Mollusks, in order to be obtain an export approval by the Europe Union for the last 4 years (and before). For the second semester 2008 the FVO has programmed a veterinary inspection for the on bivalve mollusks. In order to prepare themselves for the veterinary inspection the competent authority of Mauritania (ONISPA) has requested Wageningen IMARES for a pre-inspection of the Mauritanian system. The pre-inspection was performed during the period of 20-24 April in Mauritania (Nouakchott and Nouadhibou)

Assessing Adult Perceptions of Sexual Behavior in the Early Childhood Setting

In recent years, there has been an increase in challenging behavior in early childhood settings because of “sexual behavior”, making an understanding of healthy development in children crucial to the work of the early childhood educator. This study explores information gathered from early childhood educators throughout the state of Maine to assess adult perceptions, opinions, and attitudes about the concept of sexual behavior in early childhood settings, as well as needs for support. Utilizing an online survey tool, the study gathered feedback from 633 respondents throughout the state of Maine. The study revealed that while 72% of educators are comfortable talking to children and parents about these issues, 61% are seeking training and resources on the topic. Minimal research on the issue exists, making the need for current information crucial to the task of determining how best to support early childhood educators in their roles

the Israeli case

Various studies have pointed to urgency in decision-making as a major catalyst for policy change. Urgency evokes a crisis frame in which emotions and cognitive and institutional biases are more likely to be mobilised in support of the policy preferences of powerful actors. As a result, decision-makers tend to be driven by emotions and opportunity, often with detrimental results for the quality of the planning process. Although urgency has such a profound influence on the quality of decision-making, little is known about how, when, and by whom urgency is constructed in the planning process of public infrastructure. By means of a discourse analysis, this study traces the timing, motives and ways actors discursively construct a sense of urgency in decisionmaking on the building of terminals for the reception and treatment of the natural gas that was recently found off the coast of Israel. The results of this study indicate that mostly government regulators, but also private sector actors, deliberately constructed an urgency discourse at critical moments during the planning process. By framing the planning process as urgent, regulators manipulatively presented the policy issue as a crisis, during which unorthodox planning practices were legitimised while the consideration of alternative planning solutions was precluded. Thus, urgency framing is a means of controlling both the discourse and the agenda - and therefore an exercise in power-maintenance - by entrenched interest groups

The right to the city in informal settlements:: two case studies of post-disaster adaptation in Latin America

Today small-towns in western Uruguay are facing challenges related to informal settlements development, intensification of industrial agriculture, and climate change. In the last decade, different strategic plans and policies carried out by governments at multiple levels have attempted to regularize and/or resettle informal settlements in different towns and cities. Despite governmental efforts, informal settlements continue to grow in areas that are at high environmental risk, and where social-spatial fragmentation has increased between the formal and informal fabric. Lefebvre's concept "right to the city” is a response to social-spatial inequalities and it emphasizes the idea that disenfranchised communities have the right to occupy and transform urban space. Using Lefebvre's "right to the city” and "the production of space”, this paper studies informal housing and informal settlements in two neighborhoods in a small-town in western Uruguay and how they adapt to climate change consequences. It reveals how local residents occupy and transform space in two informal neighborhoods to solve their housing needs and to access to resources and infrastructure after an extreme weather event. Based on two case studies, this article reveals spatial patterns of informal settlements, the relationship between formal and informal fabric, and the ways post-disaster informal settlements and environments are represented. Field- work was conducted in 2018 and methods included spatial mapping analysis, semi-structured interviews with key actors, participant observation, and analyses of secondary data. Findings suggest that top-down bureaucratic decision-making process during post-disaster reconstruction limited residents' agency and their right to participate and transform the urbanization process and the places they inhabit. This decision-making process was guided by restricted representations of space determining whether or not residents would qualify for subsidized housing programs. This study aims to encourage communities to develop community-based initiatives that could allow them not only to anticipate and react to environmental stresses but to thrive in the long-term future