Genome-wide association study of lifetime cannabis use based on a large meta-analytic sample of 32330 subjects from the International Cannabis Consortium

Cannabis is the most widely produced and consumed illicit psychoactive substance worldwide. Occasional cannabis use can progress to frequent use, abuse and dependence with all known adverse physical, psychological and social consequences. Individual differences in cannabis initiation are heritable (40-48%). The International Cannabis Consortium was established with the aim to identify genetic risk variants of cannabis use. We conducted a meta-analysis of genome-wide association data of 13 cohorts (N=32 330) and four replication samples (N=5627). In addition, we performed a gene-based test of association, estimated single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based heritability and explored the genetic correlation between lifetime cannabis use and cigarette use using LD score regression. No individual SNPs reached genome-wide significance. Nonetheless, gene-based tests identified four genes significantly associated with lifetime cannabis use: NCAM1, CADM2, SCOC and KCNT2. Previous studies reported associations of NCAM1 with cigarette smoking and other substance use, and those of CADM2 with body mass index, processing speed and autism disorders, which are phenotypes previously reported to be associated with cannabis use. Furthermore, we showed that, combined across the genome, all common SNPs explained 13-20% (P&lt;0.001) of the liability of lifetime cannabis use. Finally, there was a strong genetic correlation (rg=0.83; P=1.85 × 10(-8)) between lifetime cannabis use and lifetime cigarette smoking implying that the SNP effect sizes of the two traits are highly correlated. This is the largest meta-analysis of cannabis GWA studies to date, revealing important new insights into the genetic pathways of lifetime cannabis use. Future functional studies should explore the impact of the identified genes on the biological mechanisms of cannabis use.</p

Entrepreneurial Aspiration: Money and Social Life among Rural Migrants in Shanghai

Since de-collectivization and economic liberalisation in the early 1980s, people from villages and small towns have been flowing into cities in China. The rural-urban migration has arisen along with the great socio-economic restructuring in contemporary China. Excluded by the state’s household registration system and capitalist market, rural migrants are often seen as the symptom of China’s pathological transformation. However, based on an ethnography of rural migrants in Shanghai, my dissertation suggests that these migrants understand the great socio-economic transformation as an opportunity for entrepreneurship. My dissertation argues that rural migrants’ entrepreneurial aspirations should not be understood as the power effects of neoliberalism on subject-making; rather they are related to their understanding of the emerging society and their position within it with reference to the money economy. My dissertation presents an analysis of rural migrants’ own understandings of the great socio-economic transformations that have taken place in contemporary China. With labour migration and the expanding money economy, an ambivalent “society” emerges from family, community and state. The economy---the operation of the market, the circulation of money, the organization of labour---overlaps with family and state, and destabilizes the moral unity and power hierarchy of them respectively. My ethnographic analysis demonstrates that money mediates my informants’ understandings of the emerging society. Money here is not the specific medium of the economic sphere but enables the emergent society to develop its own contingency. The emergent society promises inclusion through entrepreneurship but also involves dangerous frauds. The relationship between the economy and society should not be understood in terms of moral embeddedness and the control of power but in terms of contingency. The person is included in the emergent society not through moral solidarity and political action but through entrepreneurial aspiration. Entrepreneurial aspirations are not personal dreams, nor the specific cultural practices of particular groups, but a structural feature of the great transformation of society in contemporary China

Land, kennis, moed en eenheid: conflicterende discoursen binnen samenleving en gezin over landbouw en droogte in Noordoost Brazilië

This dissertation examines the survival strategies of family farmers in Conceição do Coité, Bahia, in semi-arid Brazil in 1997 and 2008 by using the livelihood framework. It analyses natural capital (land), human capital (work ethic and knowledge), and social capital (mutual aid). Greater access to these capitals is essential to reduce the vulnerability of family farmers. Land as a starting capital is the key to the household’s progress. Water is less important than social capital to obtain a good harvest. The combination of this observer-oriented livelihood approach with actor-oriented local models provides insight into the motives of family farmers. Conflicts are avoided as much as possible in a moral peasant economy that sustains needy community members. Work ethic is not only a prerequisite for peasant life but also for economic progress and the maintenance of an existence ethos. Two main changes occurred between 1997 and 2008. The first one was the occupation of a sisal plantation. The reasons were societal changes and discursive conflicts. The latter occurred because the landowner did no longer fulfil his obligations of patronage to his workers. The inalienability of land became disputed. This challenge to property rights was inconceivable in 1997, given the importance of natural capital (land). The local model of unity explains why the labour union, and not the more radical MST, initiated the land occupation. Furthermore, the dissertation describes discursive conflicts about the importance of education for peasant children, mutual aid and the appreciation of country life. The second major change was a general improvement of living conditions. The livelihood framework explains this change better than the local models. The vulnerability of the research population decreased between 1997 and 2008 because of improved access to income, drinking water, land, education and healthcare. In order to secure the future of family farming in North-eastern Brazil, a thorough rethinking of currant believes about rural livelihood strategies will be important. Family farms are struggling with a negative image. Yet, farmers are ingenious and their ecological knowledge is remarkably accurate. Moreover, the productivity of family farming is relatively high. The vulnerability of family farmers in the semi-arid area must be reduced by fine-tuning policy measures not of water and technology, but by focussing them on the poor. This has to include improved access to land, financial support, appropriate education and gender-inclusive mechanization. It is time for a new debate on climate change and family farming because present climate models are very negative about the semi-arid region. This dissertation proposes a locally specific 'climate anthropology' to secure Brazilian family agriculture and food supply